The City Council's Utilities Committee has held several meetings in the past couple of months regarding the issue of the radium in the water. The Committee sent out "Requests For Proposals" from engineering firms regarding this topic. John Cressey and Alvin Barten met with five different engineering firms to review proposals and discuss qualifications. In the end, the Committee recommended and the Council approved hiring Snyder and Associates as the engineering firm to deal with the radium in the water at a cost not-to-exceed $15,500. A representative from Snyder and Associates informed Council members that the group would start working on the project and have some recommendations within 3-4 months.

The City Council held a public hearing regarding the sale of approximately 21 acres of City property on Birch Drive to Gary Kleppe, d/b/a K & K Raceway. There were no comments made at the public hearing. The Council approved the resolution to sell this property pending the approval of a Special Use Permit from the City’s Zoning Board of Adjustment, which meets on January 21.

On January 6^th, the council held a public hearing regarding a proposed property maintenance ordinance that will designate the responsibilities of persons for maintenance of structures within the City. This ordinance will also define nuisances as a result of failure to perform maintenance. There were no comments made at the public hearing and the city council passed the first reading at the January 6^th meeting. A copy of this ordinance is available at City Hall for anyone interested in reviewing it. There will be two more readings of the ordinance before final approval.

The Council authorized City staff to pay contributions previously budgeted for various organizations. A total of $16,200.00 was budgeted in the FY 2002-2003 budget for five non-profit organizations.

Because of new State regulations, City staff is currently working on changing all of the budget and revenue account numbers for the City. This involves renumbering each individual account number and changing it in the computer software. This new regulations was passed to help with the submission of the budget to the State.

City staff is also currently working on the Fiscal Year 2003-2004 Budget and CIP. Department Heads will be submitting a proposed budget and CIP for their department and all of the figures will be input into the computer to see what the total revenues and expenses will be. There will then be several meetings to review each department budget and see if any cuts need to be made.