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