Beloit City Council Meeting Tuesday August 1st

 

Beloit City Council

 

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

 

By Terry Bailey

 


 

The Beloit City Council conducted its regular bi-weekly meeting at City Hall on Tuesday evening, August 1. All Councilors were present as well as Mayor Tom Naasz, City Manager Jason Rabe, City Attorney Katie Schroeder, and City Clerk Amanda Lomax. In the time reserved for Councilor comments, a common theme was apparent. The Councilors unanimously extended thanks to the Mitchell County Fair Board for, once again, hosting a top notch County Fair. The Councilors were all in agreement that the soon to be opened East Main Street will be a very welcomed activity.

 

City Manager Rabe gave the Council an update on several ongoing projects in the City. The discussions concerning the water quality in ongoing with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

 

The FAA will soon be conducting a regularly scheduled on-site examination of the airport. According to Rabe, the FAA usually has a high need to find something to cite as being wrong in their examination. He expects them to find one or two things wrongs because that is how they operate.

 

Rabe said the East Main project gets closer to being completed every day. The angle of the driveways and sidewalks are problematic because to the lowered level of the street. This has caused a lot of extra work to get everything to work out right. He said that once the street is open, the clock begins to tick on final completion. The contractors will have 60 to complete all driveways and sidewalks before they enter into the penalty phase. According to Rabe, the City is on pace to save somewhere between $140,000 and $150,000 on the project if things end as expected.

 

Sales tax revenues at the time are running a little flat, according to Rabe. This is common in the post-harvest months in rural counties.

 

An independent contractor will be examining the heating and cooling system for the buildings at the North Campus. The system is very old and out of date and continues to be a very costly system to operate. The Evaluation might help give direction on what needs to be done with the system.

 

The Safe Routes to School sidewalk program is progressing through all the necessary engineering segments. Some fine tuning and tweaking has been necessary but things are pretty much on schedule.

 

The Kansas League of Municipalities state conference will be held in Wichita on August 16th - 18th.

 

The First Impressions program is nearing the unveiling of its results. The program, sponsored by K-State, pairs two similar sized communities and has groups from one town visit the other and record their first impressions. The other town does the same thing. The visiting teams take note of what catches their attention on a brief visit of the other town. They then share their first impressions, both good and bad, to give the town an unbiased look at their town. Next Thursday, August 10th, a public meeting will be held and the report from the visiting team from Clay Center will unveil their first impression.

 

Carol Torkelson from the Regional Planning Commission reported about the new demo/rehab program that will soon be operating in Beloit. This is similar to the one the City participated in last year. A total of $300,000 will be available for the demolishing of unfit structures and the rehabilitation of those that could benefit from a fix-up. Last year 14 structures were demolished and 14 were rehabilitated. Torkelson expects this year’s money to allow for 6 demolitions and 9 rehabs.

 

The Council approved Resolution 2017-8 approving the Housing Demo/Rehab program.

 

It was announced that the 2018 Budget Healing would be held on August 15 at 7:00 p.m.

 

The business meeting was adjourned and the work session was called to order.

 

City Manager Rabe led the Council through a discussion of the Kansas Modest Income Housing program. This involves the City overseeing a housing program to construct modest housing in the neighborhood of $250,000 per home. Rabe said this price range is on in which there is a void in Beloit. A possible location for these modest income houses might be at the North Campus. Should this program come into being, five homes in this price range would be built to fill the void. This program with be considered with future discussions.

 

The final topic for the night was the possible sale of two lots at the North Campus. The list price of these lots is $10,800 each. Rabe said he had been in discussions with a contractor who was interested in buying two lots and building a spec house on one of the lots with the hopes of selling that house and then building another house on the second lot. The contractor has offered a discounted buying price of $8,000 for each lot.

 

This led to a discussion of whether it was better to sell the lots at a discounted price which would stimulate building on the North Campus or to stand firm on the asking price. Eventually the Council voted to sell the two lots with the understanding that contractor must begin building within a certain time period.

 


 


 

Beloit City Council

 

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

 

By Terry Bailey

 


 

The Beloit City Council conducted its regular bi-weekly meeting at City Hall on Tuesday evening, August 1. All Councilors were present as well as Mayor Tom Naasz, City Manager Jason Rabe, City Attorney Katie Schroeder, and City Clerk Amanda Lomax. In the time reserved for Councilor comments, a common theme was apparent. The Councilors unanimously extended thanks to the Mitchell County Fair Board for, once again, hosting a top notch County Fair. The Councilors were all in agreement that the soon to be opened East Main Street will be a very welcomed activity.

 

City Manager Rabe gave the Council an update on several ongoing projects in the City. The discussions concerning the water quality in ongoing with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

 

The FAA will soon be conducting a regularly scheduled on-site examination of the airport. According to Rabe, the FAA usually has a high need to find something to cite as being wrong in their examination. He expects them to find one or two things wrongs because that is how they operate.

 

Rabe said the East Main project gets closer to being completed every day. The angle of the driveways and sidewalks are problematic because to the lowered level of the street. This has caused a lot of extra work to get everything to work out right. He said that once the street is open, the clock begins to tick on final completion. The contractors will have 60 to complete all driveways and sidewalks before they enter into the penalty phase. According to Rabe, the City is on pace to save somewhere between $140,000 and $150,000 on the project if things end as expected.

 

Sales tax revenues at the time are running a little flat, according to Rabe. This is common in the post-harvest months in rural counties.

 

An independent contractor will be examining the heating and cooling system for the buildings at the North Campus. The system is very old and out of date and continues to be a very costly system to operate. The Evaluation might help give direction on what needs to be done with the system.

 

The Safe Routes to School sidewalk program is progressing through all the necessary engineering segments. Some fine tuning and tweaking has been necessary but things are pretty much on schedule.

 

The Kansas League of Municipalities state conference will be held in Wichita on August 16th - 18th.

 

The First Impressions program is nearing the unveiling of its results. The program, sponsored by K-State, pairs two similar sized communities and has groups from one town visit the other and record their first impressions. The other town does the same thing. The visiting teams take note of what catches their attention on a brief visit of the other town. They then share their first impressions, both good and bad, to give the town an unbiased look at their town. Next Thursday, August 10th, a public meeting will be held and the report from the visiting team from Clay Center will unveil their first impression.

 

Carol Torkelson from the Regional Planning Commission reported about the new demo/rehab program that will soon be operating in Beloit. This is similar to the one the City participated in last year. A total of $300,000 will be available for the demolishing of unfit structures and the rehabilitation of those that could benefit from a fix-up. Last year 14 structures were demolished and 14 were rehabilitated. Torkelson expects this year’s money to allow for 6 demolitions and 9 rehabs.

 

The Council approved Resolution 2017-8 approving the Housing Demo/Rehab program.

 

It was announced that the 2018 Budget Healing would be held on August 15 at 7:00 p.m.

 

The business meeting was adjourned and the work session was called to order.

 

City Manager Rabe led the Council through a discussion of the Kansas Modest Income Housing program. This involves the City overseeing a housing program to construct modest housing in the neighborhood of $250,000 per home. Rabe said this price range is on in which there is a void in Beloit. A possible location for these modest income houses might be at the North Campus. Should this program come into being, five homes in this price range would be built to fill the void. This program with be considered with future discussions.

 

The final topic for the night was the possible sale of two lots at the North Campus. The list price of these lots is $10,800 each. Rabe said he had been in discussions with a contractor who was interested in buying two lots and building a spec house on one of the lots with the hopes of selling that house and then building another house on the second lot. The contractor has offered a discounted buying price of $8,000 for each lot.

 

This led to a discussion of whether it was better to sell the lots at a discounted price which would stimulate building on the North Campus or to stand firm on the asking price. Eventually the Council voted to sell the two lots with the understanding that contractor must begin building within a certain time period.