Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Interested in umpiring

North Story Little League is always looking for new umpires to add to its stable of arbiters of the game. I used to do the scheduling of umpires, but have stepped aside from that role. But I will still umpire some, and am helping out the new schedulers this year. So we can get you on the list if interested. Games are in Roland, pay $25, take about an hour and half.

Contact me at my address as listed in the lower left of this blog.

If you aren't interested, you can always stop by and watch games for free at the Roland Middle School field. The season starts on April 14 and runs thru June.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

March 21 Council meeting

Knocked out a few items, and heard about some others at this meeting. Heard that CCS has been having a lot of trouble with internet service in Roland lately. Apparently they have some noise on the line, or something like that. Really playing havoc with those who have that service in Roland--City Hall does, so they have had some issues working as effectively as they could.

On Sunday Morning, April 1 (no foolin'!), the fire department will be burning down a building on the Co-Op property, starting at about 8AM. See my post below on that topic.

The council did final approval on a sewer rate increase effective July 1. The council also did an approval on employee raises of 2%, effective July 1.

As noted in the special meeting earlier in the week, the council is going forth with a sump pump inspection plan. All places with sewer service will be inspected to make sure sump water is not going into the sanitary sewer system-in an attempt to lighten the load the sewer plant has to deal with. All properties must be up to code by June 1, 2013. More details to come on that.

The council also gave the OK on moving forward on selling city owned land-the vacant lot just north of the car wash. A contractor is interested in constructing duplexes there. It is the same person who built the duplexes on the vacant lot on South Cottonwood, and the ones on South Main Street. There will have to be a zoning change tho. Currently it is commercial or industrial (I don't remember which one). It will need to be R-2 (Residential 2). Planning and Zoning gave an initial OK. Shouldn't be an issue with spot zoning, as the new will be the same as across the street, so we will still have a contiguous use. Still needs the formal process tho, if any citizens have a concern.

Roland Spring Training Run/Walk Route Marked

I, along with some helpers, went out and marked the 5K run/walk route today. It is marked with white arrows on the street. Still not too late to register, in fact you can walk up and register next Saturday morning. You might not get a T-Shirt tho. So far we have over 100 run/walkers, so this will be a pretty big event. Also a pancake feed, at the Legion, if you don't feel like running or walking.


HERE is the route. So you can see if you will have a large group of runners go by your house. Be on the lookout for run/walkers next Saturday starting at 8:30 AM.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Special Council Meeting March 19

We held a special council meeting on Monday to discuss issues regarding our sewer system. Various issues on that, so it was broken into 3 separate discussions.
1. Sump pumps inspections
2. New Trunk Line
3. Slip lining existing sewer lines.

As for #1, the council agreed to go forth with a sump pump inspection plan for all homes in the city. The reason for this is, we need to keep storm/ground water out of the sanitary sewer system. The DNR wants us to get it out, and if it does get in, we are obligated to treat it, which leads to more cost for larger sewer plants.

So while details are not final, this is the general guideline it will follow when the plan is implemented. Homeowners will have 6 months to arrange for an inspection, and if it fails, to become compliant. The inspection will come from a company hired by the city. A homeowner may choose to not allow an inspection, or to fix an out of compliance sump pump. In that case, there will be a $100 per month charge added to the sewer bill for having an unmetered water hookup to the sanitary sewer system.

Getting sump water out of our sewer system will cut down on flows, and hopefully reduce the possibility of backups in our sewer system. It will also make the DNR happy.

As for #2, as noted on this blog, and in various meetings, the main trunk line for most of the city is undersized and does not slope downhill perfectly in all spots, leading to inefficiencies in flow. This leads to increased backup potential, and limits the growth potential to the city. Parts of it are near 90 years old.

Currently two 12 inch pipes (one from west of the creek, and one from the east side of town, combine into the one 15 inch main, from the pool all the way to the sewer plant. A proposed plan is to replace the 15 inch main with a new 21 inch main--which can handle two 12 inch pipes feeding into it. The original pipe was put in when Roland had around 700 people, so it is doing more work than it was designed for.

There are two ways to get the main to the sewer plant. One is to follow the existing route under Samson Street. To get the right slope, it will need to be dug deep, and down the middle of the street, meaning the street will have to be dug up for a couple months, and then completely replaced. That will cost around 1.2 Million dollars.

Another choice is to take it along the creek bed. With the lower elevation, it does not need to be dug as deep. The problem is that is crosses the private property of 11 different homeowners. This route will cost about $600,000. Obviously we need to get the consent of the homeowners for this project.

The council talked about the need to do the right thing, and upgrade the city's sewer main, which probably should have been done 20 years ago. This will have a positive impact on the citizens along Samson, as this should eliminate the sewer backups they have suffered with over the years. The city also wants to save $600,000, and take the less expensive route.

So the council decided to pursue that option, and will be talking to the homeowners along Samson, and to get an exact and specific location of where the line would be buried, so they will know the plans. Previously any discussions have been more generic as to the route.

I think this will be good for the folks that live along Samson, to help prevent their basements from being temporary sewage holding facilities. I also think we should work with those folks to make sure any construction makes their yards better than prior to work being done, if we can make this project happen.

Part #3 was to discuss slip-lining sewer mains throughout the city. A lot of the sewer system was installed in the 1920s, and the clay tiles are leaky, allowing ground water into the system. Sealing them will help keep ground water out, and refurbish the lines some. We have videoed about 2/3 of the sewer lines in town, and are aware of the worst spots. None are horrible, but proper maintenance would involve starting to slip line the bad spots. It costs about $20,000 a block to slip line a sewer main.

In this case, the council decided to not immediately do any, but continue to budget for the maintenance of the lines, and have our sewer superintendent keep tabs on the bad spots, and fix them as money is available. For the upcoming fiscal year, we did set aside $60,000 for maintenance and upgrades.

Benefit for Jill Starrett

Got this passed along to me. Certainly a worthy thing to attend.

A medical benefit for Jill Starrett will be held Saturday, March 31, 2012 at the Roland-Story Middle School in Roland from 5:00-7:00 PM. Jill has recently been diagnosed with Stage 3b Hodgkin's Lymphoma and has been receiving chemo treatment at Mayo. Jill is the wife of Adam Starrett, pastor of Bergen Lutheran Church in Roland. They have 3 children, Xavier (8), Faith (5), and Trinity (3).

Supplemental funds will be provided by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, Story County.

A meal of smoked pork sandwiches, hot dogs, baked beans, chips, bars, and ice cream will be served. A themed gift basket auction is scheduled for 6:30 PM. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

April 1 building burn at Key Co-op

FYI, that assuming good weather, that on the morning of Sunday, April 1, the Roland Fire Department will be assisting in burning down the south building on the Key Co-op property.

Hopefully there are light south breezes. So if you want to go watch, or if you see a bunch of smoke that day, that is what is up.

The FD will be starting about 8AM, and expect that it will be mostly burned down by 9:30AM.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

March 7 Council meeting

Barely had a quorum, but with 3 council members there, we were able to have our meeting. About a 70 minute meeting.

We had final approval of our budget for 12-13.

We had input from a citizen interested in buying a city owned lot on North Cottonwood for duplex construction. The council was favorable to that concept. The land is currently zoned industrial, but would need rezoned to residential-2. That would have to go thru planning and zoning. Assuming the neighbors are good with it, it is next to other residential, so I don't see it as a big issue.

We heard about an issue with our sewer line at the intersection of Maple and Cottonwood. (not a good place, as I presume that is the busiest or 2nd busiest intersection in town). We have some issues with the main line that goes from North Cottonwood to West Maple (it is 19 feet deep) and how the main from South Cottonwood ties in (12 feet deep). So far it appears we can get it fixed without a major excavation, but still is going to cost us a couple thousand bucks.

Speaking of sewers, we passed the first reading of a proposed sewer rate increase effective July 1. Depending on how much water you use, it will be a couple bucks a month increase. This is all part of starting to get our sewer lines fixed around town.

The council approved my appointment of Jeremy Heaberlin to the Pool Board.

We had a little discussion about the public meeting regarding our sewers. The council is going to get a special meeting together to talk about how we are going to forth, based on the public input. We will also talk about the separate issue of sump pumps entering our sanitary sewer.

We had a little Ragbrai discussion. Not really going to do anything until after the meeting with the Register folks on March 31--until we know a little more and get some ideas from them. If you are interested in helping on Ragbrai organization, some co-chairs are already lined up. But they will be looking for more folks to help them. I will post more on this topic in a future blog post.