Public Meeting on Feb 15

Been a busy guy lately, so hadn't had time to mention the public meeting regarding sewer upgrades in Roland. First off, wow! You are never really sure how big of a crowd you will get for something like that. We had about 75 people there, so that was nice to see.

I was one of the hosts/presenters, so I am not really sure how it went from an observer's viewpoint. But I thought it went really well from my view upfront. Hopefully we got the opportunity to answer a lot of questions, and get the buzz going in Roland to have folks talk about the problems we have.

As noted in the meeting, no decisions were being made. It was to offer information, answer questions, and help the city council get some feedback as to what the concerns are of the citizens of Roland.

As I see it, we have two problems. One is that our sewer main to the sewer plant is too small. In high rain events, that causes backups in basements.

Problem two is we have too much non-sanitary sewer water entering our sanitary sewer system. It comes from leaky sewer lines, letting ground water in. It also involves sump pumps dumping into the sanitary sewer system, instead of the storm sewers.

So we talked about those issues, and some of the costs. I liked the meeting, because for the most part, everybody was respectful, and limited sidebar conversations. When somebody "had the floor", everybody else kept quiet and listened to their neighbor. Meetings are not as useful, when there is a whole bunch of talking in the background and things like that.

So whether you were there or not, talk to your friends and neighbors about the costs, and benefits of various fixes, and let your opinion be known to the city council members. They have some tough decisions to make, that involve a lot of money. Obviously not everybody is going to agree on the course chosen, but the council wants to do what is best for Roland in the long term, and they are certainly receptive to various ideas.

So for those of you that came to the meeting, thanks for attending!