A Minute with the Mayor

A Minute with the Mayor by Lyons Mayor Andy Fuston

August 2016

The dog days of summer are upon us. School has started and football & volleyball season is about to begin. The fall and consistently cooler weather is just around the corner! I’m excited! The nice thing about the hot weather is that the pool has been really busy all summer.

There were forty kids who participated in swimming lessons this summer. The Schwan’s guy said Lyons has been his top seller of treats of all the pools in his territory this summer. It has been a great season overall. I can’t tell you the number of people who have told me how impressed visiting family members have been with the pool itself and the professionalism, graciousness of the lifeguarding team. We’ve had some equipment issues that have caused the pool to have to be closed on occasion but we continue to work through those. The pool closes for the season in just a couple of days so get out there and enjoy.

It’s budget time again. Mary Lou has plugged the numbers in and the council has reviewed the budget. Final city approval will occur at the September meeting with the state approval coming by October 1^st. The budget doesn’t get any easier. We continue to work diligently to balance the needs of the city with the burden of taxes and utility costs to the consumer. Working with the upfront costs of grant matching is probably the hardest. We can budget for it this years but the application process can take so long that the grant reimbursement won’t happen until the following year. It really plays havoc in the budget process when multiple years are involved.

Speaking of grants, we did not get the grant we were hoping for regarding the street lighting project. Bummer. We are working on other grant/funding avenues to assist us with this project. The problem is the infrastructure continues to age and deteriorate as we defer replacement due to financial constraints. We might have to do the project in phases instead of all at the same time. I’ll I know is that we have to try and keep moving forward. I would rather tackle these infrastructure projects proactively than deal with the increased cost of emergency replacement. We’ve done some seam coating work to the community center roof and have finally got someone to look at the mortar joints on the east side of the building where we have had some water leaking issues. We are still waiting to hear back from EAI on the water tower repairs.

The city crew has also done some street repair work along 5^th street. Lastly, we’re still trying to figure out the best course of action for the information sign that was next to the library. We really don’t want to put it back where it was because it would detract from the beauty of the Veterans’ Memorial Plaza but we still feel it is a nice community function to have. We continue to work on a solution. The August meeting was fairly short and to the point so not a lot more to talk about.

Let’s be sure to cheer on the new era of Wolverine sports. It will be different but truly exciting!

Take care and we’ll talk to you soon.

Mayor Andy Fuston