Cottonwood City Council meets
The Cottonwood City Council held their regular March meeting Monday, March 9.
They approved the dates for the annual Community Cleanup for April 1-June 30.
A contract with Fossil Coatings, LLC was approved for recoating reservoir tank No. 1. The work is expected to start in April and take 45-60 days.
The 48 blue chairs currently stored against the wall in the Community Hall basement were declared as surplus and will be donated to the City of Ferdinand.
Resolution 2026-01 Fair Housing Month Proclamation was adopted. This is something the city does annually and is usually required  for any block grant applications.
Resolution 2026-02 Personnel Policy Update was also adopted. This cleans up some language concerning when employees can get extra days of vacation time.
The JUB Contract Amendment on Phase II Wastewater Compliance Project was approved. In reviewing the contract Amy Uptmor of JUB said due to inflation, they may come up short on funding for the entire project. They are good through Phase II but may come up short on Phase III.
A request from Donn Clark to hay the pasture on city property near the baseball fields was tabled so they can review what the contract says is allowed.
In reports Terry Cochran, who was attending the meeting, reported that the suspect who had rammed one of the Primeland gas pumps as well as the city police vehicle had recently been sentenced.
Debby O’Neill reported the city pumped 2,194,500 gallons of water and sold 1,825,343 for a loss of 17.03%. Some of the loss can be accounted for from the water used to flush well #5 when it was brought back online after the pump was replaced. Well #5 is now up and running.
Brett Miller reported they replaced a section of sewer line behind the city shop.  Uptmor reported Phase II of the sewer project was advertised last week. They are seeing a lot of contractor interest with 15 requests for specs so far. They are looking at April 19 for substantial completion of Phase I. They have decided to go with stainless steel pipe as opposed to galvanized due to the longer life cycle of stainless steel pipe making it less expensive in the long run. Plus the warranty is about double the time.
In the street report Kristine Holthaus said they are getting ready for chip sealing and dust abatement projects. The NRCS project is ready for a programmatic review.
In Land & Buildings, Linda Nida reported the picnic tables and roofs at the park are pretty much done. She also reported Cottonwood Youth Sports had a request to do something with the top of the field house at the ballfields. Apparently there is an open area and they are seeing bird nests and insect nests showing up in there.
There was nothing new to report from the Airport.
Nida reported the fire department had one false alarm and one CO2 alarm during the past month. They are having signups for a fire academy in April. They are also looking at some training for the new volunteers and having them look at Ironwood and the schools and that they could run into in those areas.
Marietta Holman of Walco was present, She had heard the city may be looking at calling for bids on sanitation service and was asking if they had an issue with Walco’s service. Mayor Keith Holcomb said that wasn’t the issue and had city attorney Joe Wright explain the state law that requires calling for bids unless certain situations are met.
The meeting adjourned to an executive session to consider hiring a public officer at 8:39 p.m. The next regular meeting of the council will be Monday, April 13 at 7 p.m. They have a special meeting coming up Thursday, March 12 at 7 p.m. on the sewer project. They may also revisit the pasture request from Donn Clark at that special meeting.