A Minute With the Mayor, Revised

Can you believe 2013 is almost at an end?  Where does the time go?  By the time you reading this article, I will be on track to have just about forty percent of my Christmas shopping accomplished!  I do my best work while under pressure you know!  Anyway I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a very blessed Christmas and holiday season.

I’ll try to recap what’s been happening with the city the last couple of months since I haven’t had an article for a while.  At the November council meeting, we just had a few things to discuss.  We changed the renewal date on the city’s health insurance plan so we could keep our old plan with a minimum rate increase for one more year.  Otherwise with a January renewal date our old plan was no longer being offered due to the new rules of the federal health care laws.  So basically we bought another year before we really have to look hard at our options.  We purchased a different snow truck in October to replace our old one that was no longer feasible to keep around.  It’s a 2003 International 4400 so it is a nice upgrade and much more reliable.  We sold the old truck through a sealed bid process for $2600.  We hired some new help for the Recycling plant.  So we are back to being fully staffed down there.  We purchased approximately 4000 gallons of fuel for the light plant emergency generators from NPPD.  We needed to keep the tanks full of fuel in case we needed to fire the generators up and since we no longer have a contract with NPPD we needed to buy the fuel that was in the tanks in order to keep reserves at appropriate levels.  We had our annual draw down at the sewer plant and had no issues this year with state compliance regulations.  We also finalized the contract for keno to be held at the Branding Iron.

December’s meeting agenda focused on some housekeeping issues for the council moving into 2014.  Steiny was again elected as city council president and each council member was appointed to oversee some aspect of the city’s operation.  Charlie was appointed as commissioner for utilities distribution and maintenance.  Roger was appointed as commissioner for sanitation, recycling, landfill and parks.  Lana was appointed commissioner of parks, pools, recreation and auditorium and Steiny was appointed commissioner of city streets.  Mike informed the council that the library has been awarded a Gold Accreditation from the Nebraska Library Commission.  We had been designated as silver accredited.  This is a fantastic honor for our little library.  The library team continues to work hard to bring the very best in library services to our community.  A big thank you to the dedicated library board and the team for exceeding expectations every day!  Here’s some more good news.  The automatic meter reading system is now completely installed through the entire town.  We started this project five years ago or so and we are excited about the outcome.  No longer do we have to pay someone to walk around town to read utility meters.  It is all read electronically and remotely now.  It is easier and much less labor consuming.  Finally we approved the purchase of a new police cruiser to replace the Dodge.  It developed some major engine issues a couple of weeks ago and the council decided it wasn’t worth sinking more money into it.  The new vehicle will be a 2013 model and similar to what Oakland’s police department drives.

You can see the progress going on down at the pool site.  Things have slowed significantly unfortunately because of the really cold temperatures but they continue to make progress where and when they can.  It is exciting to see the new pool house going up.  We have selected the colors schemes for the new slide and other accessories.  They are bright, fun and playful.  I can’t wait to see the finished product.  I hope you can’t either.  We are moving through the design phase of the auditorium remodel.  With every remodeling job there are always roadblocks.  This project is no exception.  It has been determined that there is no foundation underneath the large garage doors there for to enclose those openings with mortar, brick and glass would be a budget buster as new footings would need to be poured.  So plan B looks to be a new garage door design that is made up of glass panes that allow light to filter in but are not see through.  The glass panes can be tinted in various patterns to give the doors a contemporary look.  The interior roll-up will also remain a roll-up door to match the other doors because the opening would have had to be significantly reduced to accommodate regular doors.  We didn’t want to impede the flow of traffic between the two spaces so this became our best option.  It isn’t how I had originally envisioned the design to be but I’m excited about the new vision that has been laid out before us.  The architect and engineer are finishing up the final designs this month and the plan is to put the project out for bid in January.  We will make an architectural rendering available to see when the final design is submitted to the council for approval.  Unfortunately we still don’t have enough resources to complete the entire renovation even with the generous contributions we have received so far.  We are however applying for another grant in the sum of $250,000 to help our efforts.  I think we are supposed to find out about that in February.  Keep your fingers crossed.  However, if you are looking for a worthwhile project to contribute to financially, please keep the auditorium project in mind.  Every little bit helps.

I think that’s all I know for now.  Remember as the snow falls that you try to avoid parking on the street so the city crew can get the streets cleaned off as quickly as possible.  In the meantime, stay warm.  Talk to you soon and Merry Christmas!

Lyons Mayor, Andy Fuston