Work on Willard St. buildings to begin this winter/spring

LIME SPRINGS - Council members were informed by City Clerk Jane Tibbals at the Dec. 7 meeting the lawyer was only waiting for the original signed deed to arrive in the mail. The deed will be recorded, and both buildings, former Gates Upholstery and Tienter’s antique shop, will belong to the City.

The next step will be to remove the asbestos. Site Services gave a bid of $68,656 for the removal. The representative indicated they work through the winter and could possibly start work soon.

A previous bid from Mehmert Tiling of $45,000 from May will be verified for removal of the remaining debris.

Tibbals said there are grants available for demolition on a no-more-than-50% amount. She will discuss grants with Jason Passmore of Howard County Business & Tourism. There are additional funds from the Local Option Sales Tax fund and some state money.

• In other business, Public Works Director Tyler Smith reported two loads of rock were put on Jackson St. “I asked Brent [Mehmert] about asphalt chips. The cost is similar to gravel. He suggested waiting until spring for the chips.”

Smith has had two inspections in the past month, including the sprinklers at Spring Ahead Learning Center (SALC) and boiler inspections at the library.

Two lights by CUSB Bank and CIA Insurance are not working. It is a broken wire and Perry Novak Electric will fix it in the spring. New parts for the flags in front of City Hall were also ordered.

“Brian [Malm, Bolton & Menk engineer] and Nick [Rissman, Howard County engineer] are waiting on the new council to talk about the Merrill St. bridge project. They will discuss different options.”

Smith noted the plows are ready for snow. Brian Johnson, who will take over as mayor in January, asked why the council had turned down the offer of Gavin Murphy, with help from his dad, Dan, to volunteer to check over the City’s plow truck. It was explained council made the decision not to use Gavin on advice from City Attorney Bart Seebach and CIA Insurance. After some discussion, council agreed to allow both Murphys to do preventative maintenance on the truck and only let Dan drive the truck.

“We are getting quite a pile of concrete at the dump, and our rock pile is dwindling. We probably need to crush the cement piles in the spring.”

• There was no report from the fire department. Chief Nate Schwickerath later told the Times Plain Dealer, “We are in the process of purchasing a gear extractor [gear washing machine] together with Chester FD.  Gear has  a tendency to collect many carcinogens from smoke, and hopefully this helps both reduce that risk and make our gear last longer.”

He added the annual dance and raffle will be Jan. 15 at KCDs from 8-11 p.m.

Three LSFD members attended a Haz-Mat training put on by the Waterloo Haz-Mat team on Nov. 30.

LSFD plans to pick up Christmas trees again.  The tentative date is Jan 8.

The LSFD is hosting an FFI class, with 22 attending. Jeff Wendel is the teacher.

• Eddie Miller gave the library report. Officers of the board include Miller as president; Becky Pahl as vice president; and Holly Andersen as secretary.

There were 149 country patrons and 169 from the city for a total of 318 for October.

Some activities for the month of December included Story Time for K-1, Cake Decorating Contest, a health and wellness event by Miriam Martin, book discussion and Bingo.

Council person Kris McNamara then told Smith he should clean out the public works items in the garage and basement by the end of January 2022. The library plans an expansion.

• It was announced the Community Center Board had $4,760 in raffle results at Christmas in Lime Springs.

• There was no Park & Pool report.

• Carolyn Nagele, SALC board member, reported the board has not been able to find the insurance asked for by Council. Some ideas were given on places to find answers. Tibbals was asked to talk with Elma about its daycare and the attorney to see if there could be a rewrite to the lease agreement to say the City is not responsible for SALC liabilities. The lease was extended on a month-to-month basis.

• A budget hearing was set for Feb. 1, to give the new council, coming into office in January, a month to review the budget.

• Council signed a formal 28E agreement with Northeast Iowa Community Action so the City could donate funds.

• Without a 28E agreement, Council voted to donate money to Helping Services of Northeast Iowa.

• The City received four laptops and webcams through the CARES program. It was decided to use one for a backup for the clerk and public works departments; one for the fire department; one for the Park & Pool board; and the last for public works, to be used for mapping water and sewer lines.

• Council person Jennifer DeVries Kalstabakken turned in her resignation as an independent contractor for the library. It was accepted by council.

The next meeting will be Tuesday, Jan. 4.