May 23, 2011
Meade, Kansas

City Council Minutes

The meeting was called to order in the Council Meeting Room by Mayor Richard Knott at 7:00 P.M. Council members present were: Lance DeLissa, Edward Dye, Roger Musgrove, Jim Ediger and Chris Hartnett. Also present were City Administrator Dean Cordes and City Clerk Tiffany Neel. Visitors were: Beverly Sumpter, LuraAnn Ohnick, Melissa Elliott, Beatrice Roberts, Stacey Woods, Kenneth Harshberger, Carol Meyer, Bud Doerflinger, Rodney Blehm, Tom Kuhns, Loren Borger, Pam & Rick Alexander, Rodger DeGarmo, Kim Stevens, Jim Woodruff and Brian Trazarre.

First on the agenda 6 people were given an extension on their utilities.

Police Chief Loren Borger presented the monthly police report. Knott said there have been some concerned citizens worried about the school kids crossing the highway on their way to the park and asked if an officer could stand by at the time of the crossings. Borger said Officer Eric Lynch is due for his 3 month raise and asked the council to approve it. DeLissa made a motion to give Eric Lynch a $1.00 an hour raise, seconded by Hartnett with all in favor.

Rodger DeGarmo and Carol Meyers presented information about the Kansas Revitalization Act. The revitalization act would help any new construction in the city receive a tax break for a certain amount of years. If you were to add on to your existing house or building or if you wanted to remodel you could fill out an application to be approved for a tax break. The school board, county commissioners, cemetery board, city council and hospital board will all have to agree and sign off on the project. Meyers left information for the council to look over. Knott and Cordes will get together and bring this up at a later date.

The May 9th, 2011 council minutes were approved as corrected.

Building permits #11015 and #11016 were approved on motion by Hartnett with the stipulation that #11016 will be allowed to build his fence in the same place that the existing fence was taken down, seconded by DeLissa with all in favor.

Cordes reported that the speed signs have been installed on Hwy 23.

Discussion was had on the airport hangars whether the city should let individuals lease the land and build their own hangar or if the city should build new hangars and lease them out. DeLissa said he is in favor of letting the individuals build their own hangar facilities. Cordes will talk to the FAA to get clearance on where the hangars can be placed.

Cordes presented 3 quotes for a new front end loader. The lowest bid was a John Deere for $121,236.40. Dye made a motion to accept the bid from John Deere in the amount of $121,236.40, purchase a blank for the loader for $720.00 and finance the loader through Meade State Bank at 3.25% for 4 years with the first payment up front for $31,777.95, seconded by Musgrove with all in favor.

The council discussed what to do about the downtown buildings and appearance. Dye said he has had a lot of people contact him and ask why we don’t enforce the ordinance we already have in place. Musgrove said we need to put some teeth into the ordinance that already exists. Dye asked who would pay for all of this. DeLissa said the land owner. The city attorney will look over all ordinances and see what can be done. Discussion was tabled.

New Business:

Cordes said the new siren is installed and working.

Cordes told the council that he has recently sent out 16 weed letters and 6 clean up letters but there are still more to send.

Neel read a thank you note from the Meade After Prom.

Neel passed out a few pictures and prices for new council chairs. The decision was to have Gary Preedy look at the chairs and see if they can be fixed.

Neel said she and Brad Foster talked to the county commissioners last week about the county taking over the billing for commercial dumpsters for the trash department. The city collects the billing for all trash but we have to make a new ordinance every time the county buys a different size dumpster. The consensus of the council was to have the county take over the commercial dumpster billing.

Neel said she had talked to the League of Kansas Municipalities about a council member being on the zoning and planning board. The LKM said it is not good practice to have a council member on a committee and on the council. She also asked about having both newspapers as the official newspaper. The LKM said it would be difficult and not cost effective to have both papers be the official paper. The consensus of the council was to wait until next year and discuss again.

Neel presented 2 quotes to get new codification books for the city. The council asked Neel to call the Fowler city clerk and see where she purchased her books from and get the cost.

Mayor’s Report:

Mayor said he had attended a clean line meeting for wind towers and they would like to build a transmission line from Dodge City to Chicago hopefully by 2015.

Dye wanted to know when the cement pile at the shooting range will be cleaned up. Cordes said they are in a second lawsuit so he is not for sure when anything will take place. Dye also asked if anything was going to be done with the house east of the Baptist Church. Cordes said he has contacted the owner and hopefully within the next 2 weeks something will be started.

Hartnett asked who maintains the sign at the airport with the school information on it. Cordes said the school takes care of it. Hartnett said the alley behind Dart In and Dollar General is very rough. He also wanted to thank all of the committee members that were reappointed at the last meeting for contributing their time.

Musgrove asked if we were going to do anything with the house on North Cedar. He has had many complaints on it. Cordes asked the council if they wanted to pursue it. Cordes will get more information for the council.

Hartnett made a motion to go into executive session for 10 minutes for land acquisition, seconded by DeLissa with all in favor. After executive session Hartnett made a motion to go back into executive session for 10 minutes for land acquisition, seconded by DeLissa with all in favor. After executive session DeLissa made a motion to authorize Cordes to attend the tax sale and use his judgment on purchasing property on the cities behalf, seconded by Musgrove with all in favor.

Hartnett made a motion to go into executive session for 5 minutes for personnel matters of non elected personnel, seconded by DeLissa with all in favor. After executive session Musgrove made a motion to give Jeanne Berghaus a $0.49 raise, seconded by Hartnett with all in favor.

With no further business to come before the council, DeLissa made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Ediger with all in favor.

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Richard Knott, Mayor

ATTEST:

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Tiffany Neel, City Clerk

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