1. CALL TO ORDER
Auburn Iowa Mayor, Linda Beidler, called the Auburn City council meeting to order at 6:00 PM on May 16, 2011 with two councilors missing.
Without comment the council approve the consent agenda consisting of the minutes of the April 11, 2011 council meeting, the treasurer’s report, the monthly financial report, claims and payroll, the sheriff’s reports, and a cigarette permit for Sparky’s One Stop.
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2. RENEWEL OF INSURANCE
Renee Stauter of Mid Iowa Insurance appeared before the council to review their insurance coverage. Following is an outline of the city’s insurance coverage.
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Without further discussion, the council approved renewal of the plan as outlined.
3. CONSIDERATION OF PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT STUDY
According to a record obtained from the City of Auburn Iowa through the Freedom of Information Act by TSN the City of Auburn Iowa is considering what to do with the West Pick Property.
The City of Auburn invited Myron Daringer of JEO to attend the May 16 city council meeting to review what options are before them.
Following is that proposal:
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Daringer reference the above document and told the Auburn City council the following:
(These are not quotes.)
This is basically a study for a proposed subdivision and what this basically is, is broken down into a few parts. The first one is the preliminary field survey were JEO would do there is come up and look at the site, pop manhole lids, and measure down to inlet depths. All very basic stuff. Just to see what work and what will not work. They will also look for visible utilities on the site and they would probably get some of the data collection before they come up to that so they know where they’re looking.
What JEO proposes is to bring survey crews up and shoot various spots around town to try to get an overall picture of what the drainage looks like as a whole. This will allow them to develop some kind of sense to see what will work and what will not work
The second part is data collection. For this part they would work with the city to find out all the details about the city utilities, zoning regulations, easements and they would also call One Call who Daringer claims would probably be in possession of maps that have a lot of this information on it. They would also contact the DOT and see if there was a possibility of getting access off of highway 71. They will also find out if there’s any site or setback requirements.
The next page concerns the environmental assessment. Daringer himself does not claim to be an expert at the environmental assessment side, but he claims the person who is which he did not name at JEO was surprised that the city did not get environmental clearance before purchasing the property. Typically an environmental assessment is required automatically when you purchase railroad property, which is what this property is.
This particular environmental assessment is called a phase one environmental assessment. What they do during a phase one environmental assessment is explore the history of the site. This involves looking back in the records, interviewing people who have been around for awhile and remember the property from way back, and trying to establish some kind of evidence that there might be the possibly of some kind of contamination on the site. This being an old railroad corridor that means that it is possible that there have been old oils and lubricants etc. dumped or spilled along that area, which is why did this kind of assessment is usually automatic. If it turns out that there is evidence of some sort of contamination then the EPA will usually require that the owners roll that into a phase two environmental assessment which involves doing boring so that the soil analysis can be done.
JEO wanted the city to be aware that if they go in and subdivide that land and then the new owners discover some kind of contaminant, the city could be on the vote for cleaning up the mess.
Daringer wasn’t recommending that the city run right out and do an environmental assessment today but he did indicate that they might want to do so at some point. One possibility is that the city might want to explore is whether putting a subdivision in it that site would even physically work. If it will not even physically work then there’s no point getting an environmental assessment.
The other aspect of this is, once the city start selling the lots, the people financing the purchasers my ask for environmental clearance. If the city were to do an environmental assessment before selling the property, that might ease buyers into the deal more quickly and make it easier for them to get funding.
Daringer reminded the council that he is not an expert and that if they wanted more detail he could send in the expert who could “razzle dazzle” them with figures.
The next section, “Concept preparation and opinion of probable construction costs” would see JEO preparing two conceptual site layouts and visiting the council to discuss them. Based on the comments from the council they would then prepare a final concept and be able to generate a probable construction cost. Three copies of the concept and estimate would be available to the city at no charge. Each additional copy would cost $75.00 apiece.
As Daringer completed his presentation and the council moved into the discussion phase, there was speculation that that property at one time did indeed have a train depot on it. Daringer remarked that if the council suspected there might be an environmental issue with it maybe they would not want to spend any money and all, but the city clerk countered with her opinion that it might be a good idea to have an environmental assessment if for nothing else than for future reference.
The council tabled further discussion until such time as all five councilors could be present.
4. ENERGY EFFICIENCY REBATE PROGRAM APPLICATION TABLED
The discussion about the energy efficiency rebate program was tabled due to the fact that there were only three councilors present and one of them was related to the person applying for the rebate. This would leave only two counselors vote which is less than a quorum. The clerk pointed out that there was otherwise no issue with the application.
5. ENERGY EFFICIENCY GRANT REQUIREMENTS DISCUSSED
The city clerk indicated that at some point the City of Auburn was going to have to do some sort of energy efficiency program giveaway. The last time they had one of these, they were able to get away with doing the “little kids thing”. To continue to be eligible for the grant under the energy efficiency program the City of Auburn is going to have to give away an item that will actually cause the citizens of Auburn to be more efficient in their energy use.
The council decided that they would give away one string of LED Christmas lights, and then make more available for sale.
6. NARROW BANDING REQUIREMENT MAY CAUSE MINOR FINANCIAL ISSUE WITH AUBURN FIRE DEPARTMENT
On June 2, 2011 at 2:00 PM in the Sac County Iowa law enforcement center there will be a meeting to discuss the new narrow banding requirements. This will affect the Auburn’s Fire Department directly as they are the ones with emergency communication equipment that may need to be replaced.
Following is the notice of that meeting:
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Both the city’s the fire department’s main concern at this point is the fact that the new narrow banding requirements seem to be coming into play a year earlier than they anticipated. What this means is that the pagers that the fire department have already ordered for next year that are not narrow banding compliant. This could lead to unanticipated costs to the department. Because nobody at the meeting actually knew what was going to be required, the issue was tabled until after the June 2 meeting.
7. ROAD MAINTNENCE AGREEMENT WITH DOT RENEWED
Following is the maintenance agreement between the City of Auburn Iowa and the Iowa Dept of Transportation:
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This agreement, which is merely a renewal, was approved without comment by the council.
8. NEW NOTIFICATION LAW REQUIRES PRECISE WORDING OF MOTION FOR MOSQUITO CONTROL AGREEMENT
According to the city clerk of Auburn there is a new Iowa in effect that states that citizens now have the right to be notified in advance if their property is going to be sprayed with mosquito spray. In order to fulfill this notification requirement Potthoff made the following motion:
“The city will hire Mosquito Control of Iowa to do the mosquito program for the summer 2011 season and people wanting to be notified can come to City Hall or signed a pre-notification no spray register prior to June 1 2011.”
Mosquito Control of Iowa is the same company that the City of Auburn has always used, at least in recent memory.
Councilor Potthoff shared with the rest of the council that last year when this company came through town they went 40 miles an hour down the streets and barely put out any chemical. According to the city clerk the nature of the chemical used to control mosquitoes has changed considerably and you can no longer “see” the chemical the way that you could in times past.
9. PUBLIC FORUM
Nobody spoke during the public forum.
10. PUBLIC WORKS REPORT
According to the public works director, his wife was spending the morning after the May 16 council meeting getting her toes “worked over”.
11. CITY CLERK REPORT
Currently the city of Auburn is part of a group of municipal utilities named IAM Wind that at one point was coordinating to build a wind farm. The city had invested a little bit of money towards the project along with all of the other municipalities. Because it is not financially feasible for this group to continue to develop this wind farm, they are hoping to sell it to another development group who can take it to completion. The IAM board has received a proposal.
The City of Auburn has received a solicitation from a company that sells used equipment from municipalities on the web site, bigiron.com. The web site is commission based, taking between 7% and 11% of all sales; the larger the sale the lower the commission percentage. If the city decided that It wanted to sell something, this company would take all the pictures and post it. After the close of the sale the company would then collect the money, take out its percentage, and then pay the city the remainder. The purchaser of equipment is responsible for picking the equipment up.
The city does have some equipment they might be interested in selling. The only drawback to selling on this web site is at the city cannot set a reserve price. No minimum.
12. 125TH CELEBRATION
Postcards have been sent out.
13. FIRE DEPARTMENT REPORT
The department went out and did a little refresher training on the pump on May 11, 2011.
14. ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION
- There was nothing new to report from the historical or recreation committees.
- The library board of trustees sent the council a letter thanking them for the money that the council gave them, and expressing the hope that they didn’t do anything to offend the council regarding the funding that they requested that did not receive.
15. AUBURN CITY COUNCIL APPARENTLY CONDUCTS AN UNANNOUNCED EXECUTIVE SESSION VIA EMAIL
The Mayor of Auburn solicited deliberative email from the five members of the Auburn City council regarding their concerns about the situation with the fire department. According to the Mayor all five members of the Auburn City council participated in this email exchange, which means that there was a quorum present for the discussion. There was no notice posted for this event and no minutes have been published at this time. A request for a comment from Mayor Beidler was made by TSN reporter, Curtis Bloes on May 21, 2011, but has not been returned.
16. COUNCIL/FIRE DEPARTMENT DISPUTE UPDATE
Following is a copy of a portion of the April 2011 Auburn City council minutes that relates to their most recent dispute between members of the fire department and the Auburn City council:
“At the request of the Mayor, Fire Chief Randy Buse addressed the Council regarding personal use of the fire station by members of the department. Chief Buse stated that he and his members donate a lot of time and personal expense to attend fires and meetings and that free use of the building for their families should be a “perk” for fire department personnel. Council discussed this issue with Chief Buse; with several members of the audience also giving comment. Council noted that there are many other volunteers in our community performing countless hours of work at personal expense such as the Rec. Committee, Library Board and Historical Committee and expressed their need to treat all volunteers equally. Mayor Beidler and Fire Chief Buse requested that the loud voice and offensive language cease. A request was made by the fire department that they be given special treatment again or that they should be paid for the service they perform if they could not have special privileges. It was also noted that section 721.2(5) of the IA Code prohibits use of public property for personal gain. Council re-iterated their position has having nothing against the fire department but rather a requirement to follow the law and treat all persons equally. Council took no action following this listening session but will continue work on this issue.”
Following is a transcript of the conversation.
1. Before each statement is the speaker’s name. This is rendered in all caps.
2. Anything contained within brackets, ”[]”, is inserted by the editor, and not a part of the transcript.
3. All stammering is removed for the sake of readability.
4. A statement with a dash, “-“, after it indicates that the statement was cut off by the statement that follows. In some cases, the statement that is cut off, is cut off by the same speaker.
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MAYOR BEIDLER
We had talked about everybody sending me reports on the firemen using the department and we have had- I have gone through everything. I have received responses from everyone and Nancy, did you have any handouts that you want to present regarding other agencies? 051611accdoc0006
[CITY CLERK HANDS OUT THE FOLLOWING REPORT]
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MAYOR BEIDLER
Thank you. Most of them as you can see, it’s varied. I have read all of your responses. Please read over this. We’re not making any decisions tonight. I do know that the fire department has not done their 90% of the fund raising according to what was expected of them but there has been discussion regarding the firemen not using it they did not use more than the building here but we’re still going over the facts. You have the facts here of other communities.
We are not trying to slant any public view on any of the city minutes or the newsletter about what is going on. We’re trying to state the facts for everybody using and being treated equal. We could put in the City Council views in our newsletter which would cost more but the city council views are all put in the minutes so I don’t see where we’d have to do any changing as to the City Council putting anything in the newsletter.
And there was no thank you addressed for the new equipment, but the city council was not acknowledge for being any part of the new firemen’s truck as well. It was just a fireman’s getting a grant. It was not stating that the city council had any part of it, but the city council is also a part of anything that the firemen do, and we are a team, and for the firemen not to think that we’re standing by you is not true, that we very much appreciate everything you’re doing, and we continue to appreciate everything you do, and we’re not trying to give you any special treatment. We’re not trying to make it a slanted view for you’re not getting your fair share because you are a part of the city as well as every other volunteer in this community.
And as to the comments made at the last city council meeting where there was no respect to other council members viewing their opinion, according to the code of ethics, we are all professionals and personal conduct of members must be above reproach and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Members shall refrain from abusive contact, personal charges, or verbal attacks upon the character or motives of the other members of this council, board and commissions, the staff, for the public and if you forget which part of the council you’re on and which had you’re wearing the you’re not doing what you were – you had sworn in to do your duties here as a city council member. So we have some issues here that we need to address, because you need to remember you’re on the City Council and not slash out at any one at this table because they have their opinions, you have your opinions and we’re a one team right here.
So I want you to consider those factors for the next meeting when we address these issues and remember why you were elected to be on this council and to remember who you’re here to represent and not to take your personal conflicts out on anyone here and at this table. Difficult questions, tough challenges to a particular point of view, in criticism of ideas and information are legitimate elements of a free democracy in action. This does not allow, however, council members to make belligerent, personal, impertinent, slanderous, threatening, abusive, or disparaging comments or faces at any other council member. No shouting or physical actions that could be construed as threatening will be tolerated. You’re entitled to your views but you’re also a member of this council, and your code of ethics must be taken very serious.
Does the council have any other comment?
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No one else in the room spoke.
The next council meeting was set for June 13, 2011 at 6:00 PM at City Hall.
Hey, don’t take my word for it, Watch it for yourself! ;) Curtis Bloes
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