Chili Cookoff Fundraiser

Roland's Britson Park Committee will be hosting a Chili Cookoff fundraiser to support construction of a new concession stand/storage building at the new Britson Park. Winners will be awarded in the Spicy and Mild Chili categories, along with a Soup division. Celebrity judges will be all Roland-Story building Principals, Steve Schlatter, John Sheahan, and Kate Hartzler. It will be held at the Roland American Legion on Saturday, January 11, starting at 6PM. If you do not want to enter, you can also just come to eat! Details on how to enter at www.britsonpark.org As an aside, you can go next door to the bar and purchase an adult beverage to drink with your chili if you would like to do that. Otherwise there will be water and some other drink (like orange drink) available with your food if you simply want to do that.

December 11 Council Meeting

Had about a 40 minute meeting. Everyone there except CM Hill.

We opened the meeting with a public hearing. Kind of non-standard. But the public hearing is listed for a specific hour, so we have to do it then. So it was first, right at 6PM. No public there to comment on it. It was in regards to entering a loan agreement for the initial work on our new sewer project.

During public input we heard from the sheriff's department. They check in at our meetings to see if we have heard any issues, and to give us an update on law enforcement issues. They have a suspect for the vandalism that took place in Roland, Zearing and McCallsburg about a month ago. Some jackwagon threw rocks through various windows of houses and cars. I know a few citizens on the east side of town got hit.

We then had a housekeeping type thing raising the amount of money we can keep in a bank. With our sewer project coming up, we will have more money than normal after we get the loan. So it is upped to $2.5 million at First American Bank in Roland. Apparently there is a law that you can only keep so much in a bank to what a city council has approved.

We got an update on our sewer project. We approved payment for test drilling of 4 core samples along the proposed route of the sewer. That is just to make sure the soil can support the horizontal drilling that will take place. If all goes as planned, we should have our new sewer line by summer.

Lastly, it was the last city council meeting for Duane Canny. He chose not to run after serving 2 terms (8 years) on the council. Duane has always done a good job at watching out for the taxpayer dollar. So thanks Duane for your efforts!