LS Council ties up loose ends

LIME SPRINGS - With the first day of fall near, Lime Springs City Council finished up a few items left over from summer and looked toward winter, at its Sept. 6 regular meeting.

The 2022 pool season was reviewed and plans are underway for 2023. In addition, new equipment for the City maintenance department is being considered.

• Sharla Lieder gave the Park & Rec report. She noted two new volunteers joined the board — Bobby Frazer and Christina Gibbs, who were approved by council.

The biggest problem at the pool this year was a leak. Public Works Director Tyler Smith explained, “They are losing six, eight, 10,000 gallons of water a day. Some of that is evaporation, but not that much. We can’t see where the water is coming out.”

Lieder said the board is getting bids for a pool liner, which may help. Another option is sandblasting and painting the bottom. She received a quote of $68,000 for that, which is much higher than anyone wants to spend. The last time that was done was in 2010 with former resident Steve Timmerman helping.

Lieder was also given a suggestion on someone local who could possibly use a camera in the pipes to find the leak. The board will continue to look at options.

The board plans to add some landscaping to Brown Park this fall and get a pickleball court laid out on the tennis court.

For Sweet Corn Days, she said the food stand on Friday night on Main St. did not do very well, but the stand at the ball field made up for it.

Budgets for the department were also discussed.

• Smith gave some prices for different styles of snow plows that would fit the new truck the City is purchasing from H&S Motors. Costs were from $8,500-$9,700. The purchase was put on hold until next month.

Prices were also given for a dump trailer. Council leaned toward not purchasing the trailer until at least spring, when they could find a building to keep it in.

Council members authorized the purchase of an $1,800 used blade for snow removal.

“Tarzan has been doing some tree trimming,” Smith said. “The ash tree by (council person) Richard (Cottrell’s) place will likely be dead in 2-3 years.

Mehmert’s cleaned the dump. Staff also cleaned an inlet pipe at the sewer plant. Smith was told a fix to the continual problem of blockage would cost $1,000-2,000. 

“I was approached by the manager at Casey’s about traffic speeding through the parking lot/[Plaza Drive]. Vehicles use the roadway as a place to park.” He ordered bigger speed limit and no parking signs for Plaza Drive. Smith will see if lines can be painted to show the road when it is done on the A23 project.

A water main broke on Willard St. “It was isolated quickly. We had to replace the lead gooseneck service  to Kyle Sindelar’s house.”

• Scott Osmundson gave the Fire Dept. report. He said, “We went on one call last month . . . a mutual aid call to Tel-U-Wut [now Good Times] in Cresco. Everything went well. One fitting failed, but it is being replaced. They all came home safe.”

There was one application as volunteer fire fighter — Josh Praska. “He applied once before, but his job got in the way. Now he works at Johnson Farms. He trained as a FF1 in Elma.”

 • Eddie Miller updated the Council members on the library. The facility is looking forward to a special movie for kids, the outreach program to the daycares and Spring Ahead and a Halloween Magic Show on Oct. 16.

The Library had 302 patrons in July.

• Council approved the loan agreement of $750,000 water revenue bonds to CUSB Bank.

• No representative was available from Maguire Iron in regards to the water tower.

• City Clerk Jane Tibbals told council three individuals have approached her about the property where the two buildings were just taken down. Council will see if Howard County Economic Development Director Jason Passmore can attend the next meeting to give some advice.

• Changes of the dog and cat ordinance will be sent to the City attorney to be reviewed.

• Mayor Brian Johnson offered to talk to management at Upper Iowa Beef about sharing the cost of new software for water metering, which the company has requested.

• Tibbals gave council a copy of the Bouska Trust Grant for energy efficiency. Different entities will research what they need that would fit the application.

The next meeting will be Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Community Center.