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.