Sunday, August 26, 2012

The #1 thing I hate about Roland

For the past 2.5 years I have been Roland's Mayor. I have used this blog to pass along info on city stuff, and throw in some occasional commentary as to what is going on in town. I've tried to keep it positive, or at least fact based if the news isn't the greatest.

For the first time, I am going to bitch about something.

I HATE OUR STREET NAMES!

I curse our founding fathers and their Norwegian logic. Unfortunately I am just the mayor, and not benevolent dictator. If I were, we would rename most of the streets in town.

Here is what gets my goat. Maybe it is because I am a dunce, but I have lived here 15 years, and I still don't know half of the street names. And the big reason is, we have "tree" streets going north/south. We have "tree" streets going east/west. We have a "tree" street, then a "non-tree" street, then a "tree" street.

We have Walnut, Ash, Poplar, Maple, Elm, Birch, Locust,and Oak going one way, and Cottonwood, Linn, Vine(not really a tree) going the other way. At a minimum, I wish they were alphabetized.

Quick, where is Locust? Unless you live right next to it, I'm guessing most folks in Roland can't place it. I don't either. When I look at the map, do you know what I know it as? "The street with the first stop sign as you come up R77 from the south."

My ranting is coming forth because of the water main break the other day. I got a report that there was a water main break on Locust. My next question was--where the heck is Locust? I initially thought that was the north most east/west street. But no, that is Walnut.

This reminds me of when I was in high school, and had an "internship" with the local cable company. The cable guy was new to town, and he had some similar thoughts. "Nobody in this town uses addresses. It is all, "the house right next to Mr. Douma.' But I have no idea who Mr. Douma is."

Maybe that is one of the deals with living in a small town. Back to Roland, Linn Street to me is "that street on the east side of the school." For some reason, I have our circles down. Ryan, Britson, Duea, I'm good. And Samson, I have that one too, though there is still some question as to whether is is Samson or Sampson. And Norsemen Drive, that is just plain cool, so it can stay. Otherwise, you crazy Norwegians of yore, I curse you for your naming convention. Oh, and I forgot. Main is not the centering of the street numbering system. Cottonwood is. Which I'm sure we are the only town in Iowa with that. Main is actually the 100th block East in numbering. Duh.

But not one to just bitch, I come with solutions. Main and Maple you can stay. Everything west of the creek can stay because there are no blinkin' tree streets out there, and is not really in the grid of the rest of town.

Because I think of growth, we are not going to start on an end of town and work in. We will start at Maple. The first parallel street north, Poplar, becomes First Street. Depending if you are east or west of Main Street, you will be on NE or NW 1st Street. As an aside, typically streets run east/west and avenues go north/south.

Likewise, the first parallel street to Maple on the south is Elm. It will now become SW or SE 1st Street. Then we will climb to 2nd, 3rd and so on as we go south.

Now we could number the N/S streets going through town, but having 1st Street and 1st Avenue is worse than having a bunch of non-alphabetized tree names. So all N/S roads will become Avenues named for Steeler Hall of Famers from the great 70s teams. (Hey I'm playing king here)

As mentioned, Norsemen Ave can stay, just because that is cool. I'm going to break my alphabetization rule for one guy, to limit disruption to those residents. Green Street is the first to change. It becomes Greene Ave, just adding an "e" for Mean Joe. Cottonwood becomes Blount Ave, Linn becomes Bradshaw Ave, Vine becomes Ham Ave, Erickson becomes Harris Ave, Martha becomes Lambert Ave, Park is now Stallworth Ave, and Ryan Circle is now Swann Circle.

So let it be written.
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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Aye Carumba! Water, water

Lotta water issues lately. Glad everybody has been cool about it. When water mains break, not much you can do but fix 'em. We aren't really sure what is causing the issues. Might just be bad luck. It might be that because we are on rural water, in some parts of town, the water is flowing a different way, so that may be straining the pipes. (Normally water comes from the tower, and out and about. Our feed from rural water is coming up R77/Cottonwood, and feeding into the town that way)

Or it may be the dry conditions. Clay is drying up, and shifting, and that may strain the pipes. Really hope to get some rain, and soak up the ground. A problem for this winter would be dry ground, with cracks, allowing deeper freezes into the ground, which could break our mains. So we need rain just to make the soil more "normal".

I have been out walking, and often cross over Bear Creek on Maple. It is dried up, with just a few pools of water. In my 15 years here, I don't recall it ever being dried up, there has always been some kind of flow in it.

The water main issues have been a hot topic on Facebook. I run the "City of Roland" Facebook page. It has gotten a lot of new likes lately. We have been trying to keep the public up to date there, along with the city website, and the Twitter feed, and on the LED sign.

Story County Emergency Management helped us with press releases to get out to the media. I know our boil advisory was mentioned on WHO and KCCI TV, as well as WHO radio. I'm sure other places too. So I am appreciative of that agency.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

More water main break info

The water main break has now affected the entire city. When water is restored, all of Roland will be under a boil advisory. That means to assure safe water, any water used for drinking, or things like teeth brushing will need to be boiled first to protect against potential contaminants.

Water Main Break

There is a water main break on West Locust. Customers on the 100th block of West Locust and all of Green Street will be without water until the main is fixed. No estimate on repair time yet.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Aug 15 Council Meeting

We had a quick council meeting on Wednesday. All council members were there except Chad Proctor. The meeting took maybe 15 minutes. I can't find my notes of the meeting, really the only think I needed a note for was the bid came in for asphalting the north block or so of Logan Street. It was around $38,000.

We approved the closure of Main Street for this coming Saturday for a street dance at the Legion. It is for a fundraiser for some cancer thing. Not an individual, I don't think. We will have upwards of 300 motorcyclists in town on Saturday, concluding at the Legion for the event. They will be riding from Rhodes to Roland.

There was a brief discussion about the trunk line sewer project. Due to issues of not being able to do or hire what we say we are going to do as a city, (well, I presume that, because only one council member spoke to the topic), it was moved, and carried to suspend work on the trunk line sewer for now. I gather a revisiting of our processes will be done in the future, and if we can get our poop in a group, the project may again be brought up.

I think that is a good move, that we suspend our efforts for a while, because for various reasons, things did not proceed smoothly. If finger pointing were engaged, it may be like a circular firing squad. I still think it is a good idea for Roland as a whole. I hope it doesn't rain a lot, as the homes along Samson may get sewage in their basements again.

Why is Roland so...

I saw an article on the net somewhere about Google autofill regarding states. If you go to Google and type in "Why is Iowa so" and Google will autofill some potential completion of the phrase for you.

When you type "Why is Iowa so", the first things that pop up are humid, liberal, progressive, windy. I guess people like to talk about the weather and politics.

Minnesota is about the same liberal, windy, humid, awesome. Nebraska is boring, humid, low of unemployment.

I tried the same thing for Roland, and there was no autofill. So I just typed in Roland, Iowa to see what auto-filled. And the answer is...

Pool, Real Estate, Cemetery. So there ya go, that is what people are looking for in regards to Roland.

Story City was outlet mall, swimming pool, carousel. Nevada was schools, pool, Journal.

I will try to change Google for Roland, Iowa. Why is Roland, Iowa the home of such an awesome mayor? I'm guessing there won't be a lot of search hits for that.

Friday, August 10, 2012

We are hooked to rural water for 3 weeks

If you notice your water pressure is a little lower than normal, that is because the city is hooked to rural water while our water tower is being painted. They are currently doing the inside of the bowl. They still need it empty when they paint the outside, so the tank doesn't sweat. The painting, and our hookup to rural water will take about 3 weeks.

We have an emergency hookup to rural water which is nice. This isn't an emergency, but the hook up allows us to take our time in getting the tower painted. We use Central Iowa Rural Water out of Newton. The water tower that we are using now is the one in McCallsburg.

So the city just buys the water at bulk from Central Iowa Rural Water, they bill the city, and the city pays them. Then the city reads meters as normal, and bills everybody normally, so homeowners will not need to do anything different. Our bulk rate is pretty good, so no extra surcharge or anything like that is necessary.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Sump pump inspections of all homes and businesses to begin soon

The inspection process of home and business sump pumps is set to begin soon. This is a requirement for all homes and businesses in Roland. The goal is to not have any sump pumps or roof gutters draining into the sanitary sewer system. If it does, we are obligated to treat it at our sewer plant. And the DNR is not down with that.

So in an effort to prevent measures that are very expensive, we are making an effort to see that all sump pumps are discharging into yards, or storm sewers, and not into the sanitary sewer. Official notices will be arriving soon for all property owners. Here are some FAQs to get you started.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Aug 1 Council Meeting

Well we started with 3 council members, another got there 2 minutes late, and another one 25 minutes later. The first 6 items on the agenda went pretty quickly.

We heard that the water tower painting should begin sometime around the 8th. Work on replacing the concrete on Bryan Ave should be starting within a couple weeks. We will be installing better water drainage underneath. Also, we are getting quotes for asphalting the north part of Logan Street.

The installation of the diamonds has begun in Britson Park. Tile was installed under the diamonds. They are now being dug out to put gravel underneath, and then the field surface will go on top.

We had a discussion about the soil sampling that went on along the proposed path of the trunk sewer line. Frankly it was a cluster. Drillings did not go where they were supposed to. And the samplers ended up on people's yards that did not give permission to do so. I'm not pleased how this went down. We need to figure out how to prevent that in the future.

We also found out that one of our council members, Chad Proctor, will be leaving Roland for a new job in Missouri. Not really sure when that will happen. But if you have an interest in the city council, let me know. The city council will have to appoint a replacement when Chad officially resigns.

Chicken

Just wanted to say, that unlike the mayors of Philly, Nueva York, Chicago, the Mayor of Roland would love to have a Chick-Fil-A in Roland. Regular chicken sandwich, waffle fries and lemonade are awesome.

Even better, I'd love to have a Popeye's. Spicy dark 2 piece, biscuit, red beans and rice--there isn't a better fast food in America. Cajun rice is good too.

So if you wish to open here, the mayor will put it on the fast track.