Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Former City Clerk Deneen Frost passes away

Our former City Clerk Deneen Frost passed away last Friday after a 25 year fight with cancer. Yeah 25 years. She had a bout with cancer at around age 20, and they were able to get it in remission. It came back a bit in 2004 I think, and they were able to get it knocked down there too. But in late 2010, it came back with a vengeance. It got to be a big enough problem they she needed to retire from work in early 2011. And she fought it right up to the end, until she finally passed away at home, surrounded by her human family and her beloved 4 legged family too.

Deneen was City Clerk from 1995 to 2011. I first met her when I moved to town in 1997, and started working with her when I first got on the city council in 1999. It was quickly obvious she loved being City Clerk and took great pride in dotting all the "i"s and crossing all the "t"s that need to be done in running a city.

Even though she retired, she was a great help in the transition we needed to do to get our new clerk Jodi up to speed. She had her up and down days with the cancer, but if she was up, she always took a phone call to help out.

She leaves her husband Larry here in Roland. Deneen was buried in her home town of Rockwell City. She was 47 years old.

Here is a cached photo of Deneen from a few years ago that I found on the net.

Here is a link to the obituary on the funeral home's website.

December 19 Council meeting

Record time. This regularly scheduled meeting took 4 minutes and 47 seconds. We had 5 people there. 1 visitor, 3 council members (just enough for a quorum), and me.

City staff were missing due to returning from Rockwell City from the funeral for former City Clerk Deneen Frost. Council Members Sargent and Ford were absent, and CMs Balmer, Neely, and Canny were able to make it. At $15 a meeting, the council members earned their pay at $180 an hour. That might make more people run for council!

Typically we have cancelled the late December meeting, because there is not much going on. But we decided to have this to knock a couple things out. The two biggies were having the council authorize me to sign a contract with the DNR for asbestos checking in the Slagle building on Main Street. That is the one just north of the old library. It will cost $3200 for the inspection, but we will get that back in a grant. We have been offered the building for free, but the council would like to know what we are getting into. If we do take the building, it will be to tear it down. It is pretty much beyond repair.

We also set the Public Hearing for January 16 to renew our tax abatement for new construction. Abatements need to be renewed, so I would expect the council will do that. It is a great incentive to get people to build new houses, and do big upgrades of existing houses.

No other issues of note, other than I taught CM Canny how to use the voice feature to send text messages on his smartphone. That probably won't make the official minutes.

Snow ordinance in effect

Just a reminder that any time we receive more than 2 inches of snow, vehicles are not to be parked on the street until the street has been plowed to the curb. Vehicles are subject to ticketing and/or towing.

Will your vehicle be towed? Probably not. Will it be ticketed? Yeah, maybe.

I ask that you do your part and get your vehicle off the street so our plow drivers can have an easier time getting our streets cleaned.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Watch out for utility scams

Got this notice as Mayor. It appears Alliant customers, which is what we are in Roland were scammed. No reports of it in Roland, but always a good reminder. Same story for our city utilities of water and sewer. If you have any questions regarding your utilities, or if something is legit, feel free to call City Hall for confirmation.

This year, utility companies reported that several Iowans were victimized by different utility-related scams:

Last month, MidAmerican Energy reported a phone scam in the Des Moines area, where someone who claimed to represent MidAmerican contacted several customers claiming they needed to make an immediate payment to avoid disconnection.

Recently, Alliant Energy customers in Marshalltown and Perry lost several hundred dollars each when a caller convinced them that they owed back payments to the utility company. Neither customer owed money, but they responded to the threat of being disconnected by paying instantly through buying a “pre-paid credit card.”

Throughout the year, callers across the country reported receiving calls from people who claimed the federal government was providing credits or applying payments to utility bills, and customers could qualify by providing personal information, such as bank account information and Social Security numbers.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Dec 5 Council Meeting

Pretty quick meeting. Everybody was there but CM Canny. We had some comments from the public regarding our sump inspections.

Council approved the appointment of Mindi Balmer to the Park Board. We approved the Open Records policy. That basically sets the process and costs for someone requesting public records. Lacking a policy previously, the council approved the cost for the existing request we had going.

We approved the TIF report that must be filed with the state regarding our TIF district in the industrial park.

During the council comments, CM Ford reviewed the goals and plans from the 2008 planning session that the council set. Nice to see that many of the goals and plans have been done, or a good start. They were things like the library move, a new west Roland park, manhole rehab. I wasn't Mayor at the time, so I don't have the list on me, but it was nice to hear. Sometimes it seems like stuff moves really slow, but things do progress.

Again, a short meeting, so not much to report here from the meeting. Unlike years past, we will be having 2 council meetings in December--because we have switched to 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, instead of the previous 2nd and 4th Mondays.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

New Housing Start in Roland

I noticed we have another new house going up in Roland. The media focuses on business startups and jobs, and obviously those are good things. But a house is an investment in a community as well. So that is something to celebrate as well.

As a reminder, new houses in Roland are eligible for a 5 year, $75,000 tax abatement. That means for the first 5 years, houses get $75,000 knocked off their assessed valuation. That certainly is a nice reward for folks who decide to invest in Roland.