| Cottonwood
City Council meets
The Cottonwood City Council held their May meeting Monday, May 10. Sheriff Larry Dasenbrock was in attendance and addressed some rumors and concerns stemming from the incident in town Saturday evening. He said the call logs showed that an officer responded to the scene within 15 minutes of the call and suspects were apprehended within about 20 minutes. He said the deputy had videotape running and he and the prosecuting attorney have both seen the tape and reviewed all the call logs. When the call came in the closest officer was in Grangeville as John Nida was not in town and the regular deputy who covers the Cottonwood area is injured and was off-duty. A Lewis County deputy also responded and arrived soon after the Idaho County deputy arrived at the scene. Dasenbrock said several exaggerations and some downright untruths have arisen from the incident. Another visitor to the meeting was Dan Danielson, who has been installing the telemetry system for the city. He said it took so long to get running because they had one piece of equipment that was working only intermittently and it took awhile to track it down and replace it. They can now monitor and control the wells and monitor the flows at the sewer lagoons from city hall. In the water report, Martin Fowler stated that pumping figures show they pumped 25% less water for March and April than they did 3 years ago, prior to the start of the pipe replacement project. They still have more leakage than they should and it will be an ongoing thing as they replace the lateral lines. With the telemetry system they can now schedule the well pumping. They currently run well #5 twice for every one time they run wells #2 and #4. This allows the aquifers under 2 and 4 to recover better. He said 5 is able to pump more than 2 and 4 did together when they were working their best. Max Nuxoll reported that the irrigation lines in the sewer system are showing deterioration and probably the aluminum pipes should be replaced with plastic. Mayor Denis Duman later reported there are also some bullet holes in some of the pipes and that needs to be addressed. Nuxoll also said they repaired the sewer line on Junction St. When they ran the camera on the line they found a constriction and had to fix it. In the street report Jack Duman reported the coalition sealcoating bids had come in and Poe Asphalt’s bid was accepted. The council passed a motion to formally accept the city’s portion. Jack said he feels they got a lot better price than they would have letting bids on their own. Jack also reported they are working on a road sign grant which would help pay for replacement of the stop and yield and other traffic signs in town. It entails putting a sign management plan in place. Jack said he would also like to do some dust oiling of the gravel streets in town but to do them all was way too expensive. He would like to offer a 50/50 split with citizens for up to 300 feet. Lyman Oil quoted him a cost of 75 cents per foot for a 20 foot wide swatch. Anyone interested is asked to contact either Jack or the city clerk by May 30. Jack said he would also like to do a hot mix patch on the hole on Junction St. left from the sewer line repair. If the repair works well there they’ll try doing the same on some of the other bad spots. In the land and buildings report Shelli Schumacher reported they have someone to clean the park and ballfield restrooms. She said the concession stand at the ballfields is up and running. Mayor Duman reported the Fire Dept. will be hosting some training June 4-5-6. They will have a “Flash-over” truck set up at the airport and will have 47 firefighters coming in from all over for training. This is a semi-trailer set up to recreate a flashover situation to teach firefighters how to deal with it. The lease agreement with USA Media was discussed. Apparently they are in the process of being sold and the buyer wants a transfer of the lease and franchise agreements. There were some concerns expressed over what they are wanting done and action was tabled until the city receives a response on those concerns. Several items the city owns but hasn’t used in years have been declared as surplus property and will be sold by bid. A legal notice listing these items and the deadline for submitting bids is elsewhere in this week’s Chronicle. Action on water/sewer exemptions was tabled to the review committee. They will get together to review the applications and make recommendations to the council. Nuxoll reported on his attendance at a meeting to look into setting up a Boys/Girls Club on the Camas Prairie and was impressed with the support for the idea at the meeting. Things are still in preliminary stages at this point. Angie Latimer from Cottonwood is spearheading the effort. There were reports of concerns about doing fill near the creek. The person expressing the concern will be referred to the DEQ. The same person expressed a concern about the sewer line from the Trestle Addition and how it gets past the creek and whether there might be a manhole there that gets influx. Mayor Duman said they will look into that. There was also some barking dog complaints but the complainants didn’t want to sign a complaint. It’s possible the dogs concerned aren’t licensed. The council adjourned to an executive session. The next council meeting will be Monday, June 14 at 8 p.m. |
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