April 11 council meeting

Well the biggie of the meeting was approving our 2011-12 budget. We were delayed with that due to the issues of having Deneen out of the office. So glad to get that to the county auditor, and the state, and published, so we are good to go.

A lot of issues in regards to streets as well. We will be getting some cold patch on the spots on the streets that didn't fare too well over the winter. That will happen soon on a good weather day.

We heard about Bryan Ave. It turns out a subcontractor of our street contractor did not get the subdrain in deep enough. So when we dug up the street, we had standing water in the pipe, which likely led to the cracking of the new pavement, due to not getting water in the subbase to drain properly. So we are expecting the cost of repair will not be borne by the city. The contractor is also in town to fix the issues on the new section of Arthur Drive. Can't wait...I wanna drive down that new street!

We also got a report on the surveys the citizens returned about flood issues in their homes. As a council, we need to decide whether to go forth with this. We will need to ask those who had issues if they could give us copies of their damage receipts. If we can get those, we can get a grant for flood mitigation issues.

The biggie the city council wants to do is get a new sewer main to the treatment plant. Pretty much the entire town passes by the pool, and down Samson Street to get to the plant. And it is the same pipe from years and years ago, when the city had 700 people. So when we have big rain, it can get backed up with water from people who have sump pumps illegally running into the sewer, and from inflow from bad sewer pipes around town.

However a new main is going to cost big bucks--possibly in the neighborhood of $300,000. However, we could get an 85% match of receipts for flood damage in the past few years. It looks like we have upwards of $100,000 of damage receipts possibly from the survey. If that is the case, that would be $85,000 towards this project that would hopefully cure most, if not all, sewer backup problems that people in the Logan and Samson area are having with sewer backups due to high flows.

From our conversations over the past year, that is the one project that would benefit the most people. It would help a lot of people with sewer backups, and it would help the whole town by just having a better sewer system. So more details to come with that.

It is not a done deal by any means tho. Just want to reiterate that. To get the money, we would have to get actual receipt copies from people who had issues. So we will be having a special meeting to determine if we think we can get those receipts from folks and how to go about that. But those receipts would not have to be those with sewer backups, it could be from flood damage elsewhere in the town.

In other sewer stuff, we are gathering prices for a sewer main repair at the end of Samson Street. A connection from the E/W part of Samson to the main is not designed very well, so that causes sewage to want to flow the wrong way, to the east down Samson instead of south to the treatment plant during high flow times.

The council also approved a grant of $49000 to the Roland Area Development Corp to pay off the existing loan for the purchase of the building that houses the Roland Community Center. Don't forget about the Sunday brunch at the Community Center, and that the building is available for rent for parties and such. I've got it rented for a confirmation party coming up.

The council also set the date for the sale of a parcel of land on the east side of the Britson Park area to the adjoining land owners. The land is an island from the park, and the money from the sale will be used for park improvements.

For actual minutes of the meeting, just a reminder that you can read them at the City's website http://www.cityofroland.org