High water update

I will be putting "live" updates regarding rising water and/or other flooding issues on the City's Facebook page. Go there for the latest. City of Roland Facebook They will also auto update on our City's Twitter feed @cityofroland

Garage Sale Days on May 31-June 1

The garage sale days are in Roland next weekend. Just wanted to put a reminder here. I don't have the link yet to the maps and stuff for sale, but will do so as soon as they get forwarded to me.

Pools

Still a little fuzzy on when the pool will open. Theoretically the crack repair company is coming Wednesday. Hope that is the case. If so, we should be able to open about 5 days later.

Got a call from Story City about sharing pool services, as they have just discovered a big crack, and they might be looking at a 2 week delay in opening.

Pools drive me nuts. They always seem to have leaks and are breaking. In theory, we could just keep refilling, we have the wells. But what gets expensive is the chemicals needed to keep the pool at the right ph levels to meet state standards.

I would think someone would have invented some sealer to put on a pool's basin to keep it from leaking, but apparently not. I'm sure the changing seasons and temperatures just cause havoc on that stuff. Part of the deal too is our cold and wet weather. We needed warm days to fill the cracks, and we haven't had enough planned consecutive ones. The thing is today, as I type this at 1PM on May 27, it is 61 degrees out, and the pool wouldn't be open today anyway.

So hopefully the contractor shows up, and hopefully it warms up and dries out.

Property Tax changes from the Capitol

The Iowa House and Senate just finished their session and it included reforms on property tax. The thing is, property tax money does not go to the state, it goes to various local entities. So the legislators grandstand on this, but they never have to make the tough choices on spending. It falls on local officials, such as school boards and city councils. That kinda annoys me. They never talk about state income tax reform or cuts---stuff that would affect them.

But in any case, it got passed, and the cities will have to deal with it. Roland came out pretty well. Mostly because our main property tax base is residential housing. Not much changed there, other than limiting growth in valuation.

I think cities like Ames are going to take a big hit. Cities that have a lot of rental properties and commercial areas are really affected by this new law. Residential housing has had a rollback, where one is not assessed as much as the valuation. But rentals and commercial property paid full freight. Those properties are now going to start getting rolled back. That will shift more of the burden on residential properties. But here in Roland, for the most part, with very few commercial properties, and even fewer rental properties, home owners are paying the bill anyway, so it is not going to change what we do much here in Roland. But there are some other cities where the councils are going to have to make some tough choices.

Pool News

We are not having good luck with our pool vendor getting to the pool to do crack repairs. So we will not have the pool open for Memorial Day. We are still trying to work with the vendor to get here, and get those cracks taken care of. For now we are shooting for June 1.

May 15 Council Meeting

Had everybody in attendance for this council meeting. Not a lot of items on the agenda, but some good discussion.

We heard that the crack repair at the pool had not yet taken place. They were needing 4 straight days of always remaining above 40 degrees, and we have not had that yet. Which of course backs up the vendor on everybody else, so it is looking like we will not have a Memorial Day opening.

We still have 20 or so properties that have not set up an appointment for a sump inspection. Just a reminder that any property not passing a sump inspection by June 1 will have a $100 per month sump fee added to their sewer bill.

We had a couple procedural resolutions---we updated the budget, and we approved a 28E agreement with the Story County Emergency Management. For the last one there, we already had that, but due to some state law changes, we had to re approve our agreement with the agency.

Forrest Aldrich of Veenstra & Kimm came to the meeting to present 6 options regarding a sewer trunk line, or alternative to re-doing it. The city council wanted to get a 2nd opinion from a different engineering firm. I had to leave after presentation of the 2nd to go to my daughter's awards night at the high school. But I have read the report, and certainly some interesting findings. I will review them in a future post.

I wasn't there, but I know CM Balmer discussed some options regarding hiring a new vendor to update our city's website. I think a final proposal may be presented at the next meeting.

roland-story.com

I'm really excited to tune in to Roland and Story City's first "radio station". Roland-Story.com went live this morning. My buddy Paul Clark, who started norsemennetwork.com 5 years ago, which covered Roland-Story athletics, is starting the transition to a full service radio station. No over the air transmitter for now, but it is on the web, and soon to be on mobile phones as well.

So from 7-9 AM there will be a live morning show with local news, weather, and interviews. And indeed this morning, I heard local news about Roland and Story City and from our school.

Paul worked in small town radio before, and this sounds just like it. If you have listened to morning shows on KQWC from Webster City, and KWBG in Boone, this is very similar. Only it is for the Roland-Story community.

Then the remainder of the day, it is just music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. There is also two channels, so if there are two R-S events, like softball and baseball, or wrestling and basketball, each sporting event can be covered.

So while the studio is in Story City, this really is a business that is supporting Roland too, so this is a good thing for us as well. CLICK HERE to check out The Rocket: roland-story.com

May 1 Council Meeting

Pretty quick council meeting Wednesday night. It was our regularly scheduled meeting on the 14th Wednesday of February. Only 2 non-standard things on the agenda. One was the approval of a resolution accepting the donation of land and structures at 220 N Main. That is the building north of the old library. The city is planning on removing the asbestos, and tearing down that building and the old library. The old library is not in that bad of shape, but the 220 N Main building is in really rough shape. It is no great prize to receive the building, but at least we didn't have to pay to get it, and clean up Main Street.

The other agenda item was that I proclaimed May to be Poppy Month. The American Legion Auxiliary does the poppies each May, and accepts donations in support of our veterans. That is always a good thing to proclaim.

In other stuff, we discussed a big dog on the loose on Duea Circle, that we had to call animal control on. The deputy sheriff visiting our meeting reminded everybody to lock their vehicles. They see it every summer (uh, yeah summer, I've heard of that before, it is a time of year when it is warm), across the county, where someone just goes around stealing stuff out of unlocked vehicles. Hasn't happened in Roland for a while, but doesn't mean it can't.

It was reported that 40 houses still have not had their initial sump inspection. They don't have to, but they will be charged a $100 per month sump pump connection fee in July if they do not.

Just a reminder that the CCR, which is basically the report on our water system, was listed in the paper. You can also review that at City Hall if it interests you. It reports what is all in our water.

Lastly, a reminder that the pool is still scheduled to open on Memorial Day weekend. We still want to get some cracks repaired, but we need several days of north of 45 or so degree weather (including overnight). That is obviously been a bit problematic this winter/spring.

USAgain

Have you seen the white and green box at the Roland Service Center at the corner of Maple and Main? It is for USAgain, and they recycle old clothes and shoes and stuff like that. It is a business, so it is not a charitable donation, but it keeps stuff out of the landfill. Anyway, the city got this certificate from them, showing what they took out of that container in Roland in 2012.

I'm not Mr. Green by any means, but I thought that was interesting, and certainly appreciate the private sector doing recycling projects, and making some money out of the deal. So good job outta you if you dropped some stuff off in that box in 2012.

Click on the picture to see it in better detail, but 9202 pounds of clothes is a lot. Hope Roland isn't walking around naked in 2013. Or depending on who you are, maybe I do!

Moron cutting his grass in the snow

Well, I made a quick little video on Thursday morning, because I wanted to capture our May 2 snowfall. It is not supposed to snow in May right? Instead of getting mad, just decided to have a little fun. I've cut plenty of grass in early May. What happens when there is 3 inches of snow on top of it? Here is your answer.

Well it ended up going viral, and WOI, WHO, and KCCI all played it on their newscasts, and/or put it on their websites. KCCI thought enough of it to drive up and do a story. Certainly odd and "special" to get snow in May. I certainly didn't expect that kind of attention. Kind of fun tho.

Roland Days

Ya know, we haven't had a Roland Days for a couple years. Probably not going to happen in 2013 either. Mostly it comes down to the folks that did it before just needed to step away, and nobody picked up the ball with it going forward. So thought it would be a good time to ask around again.

Do you know, or do you know anyone who would want to be the lead for doing a Roland Days? It really takes someone good at delegating, and if they can do that, they really wouldn't need to work that hard.

I hear lots of people say, "I'd help out at Roland Days". With "help out" being the key words. So anyway, just thought I'd ask, and see if that interests anyone. If you are interested, we have plenty of time until 2014. Drop me a note, or call down to City Hall.