The American Falls City Council met on Wednesday, June 3, to discuss street projects, golf contracts, and resolutions.
Resolution #387, to utilize capital improvement funds from the street department for the Stebbins storm drain project, and resolution #388, to utilize golf capital improvement funds for the purchase of a used Jacobsen 3400 fairway mower, both passed with no discussion.
Dennis Ure just moved to American Falls and received a season golf pass as a gift. However, due to issues with the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, he can’t golf this summer. He asked the council if he could use the pass next year instead, and they unanimously voted yes and welcomed Ure to American Falls.
Lisa Krell asked the council for the use of the city parks for the school summer lunch program again this year. They will be cleaning up after themselves like they did last year, Krell said, and then she asked for more garbage containers at the Lee Street Park. The council unanimously voted for the school lunch program using the city parks. Ron Anderson, city street department superintendent, assured Krell that more garbage containers would be placed in the Lee Street Park.
Before the meeting, Cody Moldenhauer had told Mayor Amy Wynn about several businesses in town who were unhappy with the company in charge of the bench ads that are placed around the golf course. Benchmark, the Montana advertising company, has reportedly been rude and pushy with several people on more than one occasion. Moldenhauer would like to take bids from other companies.
Wynn spoke with city attorney Tippi Volyn about the contract the city has with Benchmark. The contract is up July 22, and since neither party in the contract, Benchmark or American Falls, exercised the renegotiation option, the contract should automatically terminate. American Falls may start a bidding process on July 23.
Discussion opened concerning discounted water and sewer rates for lower income households. The rates won’t start going up for several years, so the council feels that they have adequate time to research the issue and decide what criteria the discounts should be predicated upon and how the application and approval process should be handled.
The condition of a road, the amount of traffic on a road, and whether the road has curb and gutter on both sides are all variables to be considered when street paving and patching projects are being planned.
Bennett Street from Fillmore St. to Sunbeam is in desperate need of repaving, according to street superintendent Ron Anderson. The Bennett Street repaving project was started five years ago, and originally the project was to only go from Sunbeam to East Park, but water and wastewater superintendent Pete Cortez met with Anderson and Wynn and said that as long as the street was going to be dug up, they might as well dig up the entire four blocks so that the water and sewer lines could patch into the high-pressure lines on Fillmore. This would save the city money in the long run by preventing the water and wastewater department from having to tear up the new road in a year or two to fix leaks.
Councilman Dan Hammond objected to the cost of the project, saying that the money could instead be used to start the Spring Line project, since the city had just passed a bond to get that fixed. “$160,000 could go a long way to getting that going,” he said.
Wynn agreed with Hammond that it would be nice to be able to do that; however, the engineering hasn’t been done yet, so people wouldn’t know where to begin.
The order of operations for the Spring Line project is to first secure financing. With financing in place, the engineering can be done. Then the engineering plan needs approval from the Department of Environmental Quality; without that approval, nothing else can happen. After the DEQ signs off on the plan, the work can finally begin.
The Spring Line project probably won’t be able to start until next summer, and the city can’t put off fixing the streets until then.
“Keeping the streets and the infrastructure maintained is important,” Hammond said. “I just think that doing other projects right after the bonds pass doesn’t send out the right signals.
“Plus,” Hammond added, “there are a lot of people out of work right now that we could put to work on Spring Line.”
Councilman Norman Wright agreed that there are a lot of people who were hungry for work right now, but pointed out that transferring money between different funds was illegal. Street capital funds have to be used for street maintenance projects.
During the discussion of the proposed summer street projects, it was mentioned that a lot of streets were left off the repaving list because there is no curb and gutter on the sides of the streets. City policy states that without curb and gutter, repaving isn’t done. This is the reason some roads which desperately need to be repaved were left off the list. Repaving a street without curb and gutter is like trying to color between the lines when there are no lines.
“Ron is trustworthy; if he says it needs it, then I believe him,” said Councilman Dean Weaver.
The city street project list passed as-is with a council majority, five ayes and one nay.
Department supervisor budgets need to be in the mayor’s office by Monday, June 8, at 5 p.m. The revenue numbers will be crunched by Thursday, June 11, and a budget meeting was set for Tuesday, June 16, at 7 p.m.
City hall will be closed Friday, July 3.
Volyn said the conviction record for the prosecutor’s office has been very good for the past month, which means the police are doing a great job.
Councilperson Kristen Jensen reported the dump truck is being worked on. Also, the street department and parks and recreation department are working together and sharing equipment to get things done.
Anderson reported the street department has been busy working on the alleyways in the business district and patching potholes.
American Falls Police Chief Brandon Wilkinson reported 125 DARE graduates. The program didn’t have enough money for t-shirts, so were dependent on donations from Power County Public Defender Bob Eldredge, the Power County Drug Court, and the City of American Falls.
Bicycles were raffled off as part of the Safe Routes to School program, and a bike rodeo was held in the city park at 9 a.m. on Saturday, June 6.
Wynn wrapped up the meeting by announcing American Falls has won the appeal from the IRS, Todd Winters planted flowers around the flagpole, and as part of the second grade’s field trips, both city hall and the police department were swarmed with small people. The children’s favorite thing, she said, was playing with the microphones in the city council room.
One little boy belted out an entire song over the speakers.