| Cottonwood
City Council meets
Cottonwood Mayor Denis Duman presented a couple of Letters of Commendation prior to the February meeting of the Cottonwood City Council Monday, Feb. 9. One went to Councilor Jack Duman for going above and beyond in his efforts to improve the streets in Cottonwood without excessive cost to the taxpayers. The other went to City Maintenance supervisor Roy Uhlenkott for his efforts to find alternatives to the high cost of testing the city sewer lagoons, eventually saving the taxpayers thousands of dollars. Included with the certificate the council voted to give Uhlenkott a bonus check. 
Chinh Le and Katie Cooper of Prairie Horizons appeared with Rachel Stocking of CEDA about the hall renovation. Horizons recommended CEDA be the grant administrator. The council approved the recommendation by motion. They reported that the deadline to submit the request for the $150,000 block grant was March 6. A public meeting on the final architect’s plans will be Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. There will be another public hearing on the plans on Tuesday, March 3 at 5:30 p.m. Major items in the proposed renovation are a second handicapped accessible restroom on the main floor, renovation of the kitchen and handicapped access to the lower floor. Plans can be seen at the city clerk’s office. Warden Lynn Guyer of NICI also appeared before the council to answer any questions about the recent escapees. He also informed the council that the funding for the automated notification system is running out and at a cost of $64,000 per year they don’t have any other way of paying for it. He said they will be going back to the calling tree system of notifying those on the contact list. Donna Wassmuth and Laurine Nightingale of the Prairie Community Library also appeared. They said the library has pledged $20,000 from their building fund toward the hall renovation project. There was also some question about the phone service and Internet access for the library. Mayor Duman said once Verizon’s broadband service is available through their new tower that they have special rates for governmental entities. He doesn’t see why the city can’t share service with the library since they are in the same building.  In
reports Jay Hinterlong said they pumped just under 3 million gallons of
water in January. This is only 10,000 gallons different than January 2008.
They’re showing an excessive loss of 26% but much of this may be attributed
to the estimated meter readings for those water meters buried under snow
and ice.
Hinterlong also reported the clay valves, which help keep the water flowing smoothly rather than showing the pumping surges, are being rebuilt and will be reinstalled next week. Ron Grant didn’t have much to report in the sewer department other than they are looking into purchasing a video camera so they can scope the sewer lines themselves. Jack Duman reported they’ve plowed a lot of snow in the past 2 months. He said he is putting together a grant application for Lewiston St. that would be for $1.8 million. He said some grant funds have dried up but there may be others available. He said he didn’t really see us getting anything from the proposed stimulus moneys. Shelli Schumacher said most of her time lately has been with the hall renovation project. Mayor Duman said he will be meeting with the Fair Board on the RV area. He said the state is renovating some of their Salmon River sites and we may be able to get the old stuff. In the fire department report Grant said they had no fires last month. They met with the new undersheriff for Idaho County and discovered the extrication agreement needs to be redone. They are also putting in for a grant for air bags for extrication use. The sanitation contract was discussed but tabled for another month so that some of the language can be clarified so that they are both interpreting it the same way. In unfinished business City Clerk Carol Altman reported it would cost $400 to keyboard the remainder of the city code and $750 to put it only at the Sterling Codifiers website. It would then be $500 per year thereafter. The advantage is it makes the city code more accessible. City Attorney Joe Wright said it’s especially helpful in trial situations to be able to access the city code online. The council voted to have Sterling Codifiers put the city code online. An alcohol beverage license for Debeeann Boyd dba Busdastublup was approved after considerable discussion. It appears unlikely she would reopen the business but having current paid up licenses makes the business more salable. Along with the discussion it was decided to have the city attorney work on bringing the city’s alcohol beverage codes more in line with the state codes. The council adjourned to an executive session at 9:10 p.m. The next regular meeting of the council will be Monday, March 9 at 7 p.m. |
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