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Council passes first fowl ordinance, approves grants, sale of bid items
    Fowl, 911 funding, Keno grants and the sale of two lots of City items served as the majority of the time-taking topics at the July City Council meeting last Tuesday evening.
    As reported last week, the City Council reviewed options for dealing with a request from the public that was heard at the June meeting to review permission for allowing fowl inside the City limits, specifically chickens.
    The Council reviewed a number of suggestions for ordinance changes from City Attorney Bruce Curtiss among them to have a total ban on fowl, create a distance ban from other residences, to allow fowl only by permission of neighbors or to take no action.
    City Administrator Michael Holton commented during the discussion of the four possibilities that perhaps the Council should consider that the emerging trend in larger cities is to allow and promote the resident use of chickens as not only pets, but sources for eggs as a eco-friendly project.
    Attorney Curtiss reminded the Board that this ordinance would not necessarily effect any fowl-keepers that currently or have had fowl on their property, but it would limit those that would introduce new fowl to the City limits.
    Council member Brian Schlote moved to accept the total ban saying that he liked that option the best and was seconded in his motion by Council member Larry Jensen. Council member Judy Wilson said that she favored the neighbor permission option saying “if the neighbors don’t care, what difference does it make.” Schlote and Jensen voted affirmatively for the motion of the total ban of fowl (chickens, turkeys, geese or other fowl) and Wilson voted against.
    Mayor Gale Retzlaff said that he “wouldn’t entertain a motion” to waive the second and third readings, and since the Council did not assume it could obtain the three-quarters majority necessary to do so (because of Joe Grof being absent) the issue moved forward on first reading to the August Council meeting on Tuesday, August 10.The public can be heard at the ordinance review of the second and third readings at that meeting. The ordinance amends Chapter 6, Section 201 of the City Code to read: “It shall be unlawful for any person to keep and maintain within the corporate limits any horse, mule, sheep, cow, goat, swine or other livestock and it shall also be unlawful to keep and maintain within the corporate limits any chickens, geese, turkeys or other fowl.”
E911 Funds discussed
    City Administrator Michael Holton told the Council that he had received a second notice from the Pierce County Commissioners that the E911 funds that had been accumulating for the last number of years would need to be turned over to that Board at the county level as soon as possible.
    The Council discussed the fund with City Attorney Bruce Curtiss and Holton and it was reported that the fund, after expenses as late as July 13, currently had $25,434 of the original $45,697 remaining.
    Curtiss said that once the 911 service was no longer in Plainview, which officially was designated as the County’s responsibility on June 8, no expenses should be drawn from the 911 funds as the Statute says that once 911 service is no longer being handled, the monies should go to the locations that receive the calls.
    Previous discussion had occurred about the funds being returned to those entities that collected them, and Holton reported that 68 percent of the remaining funds would return to the City of Plainview’s general fund and that the other 32 percent would fall back to the Rural Fire District, but it appeared at the meeting that the funds should go to those providing 911 service.
    Curtiss said he had reviewed the letter from the County and contacted the Public Service Commission, the State Auditor’s office and finally the Attorney General’s office to obtain an answer and was still waiting for a reply.
    Curtiss said that he felt the prudent thing to do would be to wait until an official answer had been received as it didn’t appear that the State had dealt with this type of an issue before.
Two Keno Grants approved
    The City Council then reviewed two Keno grant applications that had been received for the “summer quarter” review.
    The Plainview TeamMates program and the Social Center had turned in an application each and made presentations to the Council for those funds.
    Janyce Warneke requested $2,000 to assist the TeamMates program in what she said was considered a one-time request to build a reserve of funds for the graduating seniors’ scholarships. When a student remains in the TeamMates program through their senior year, the group awards a $500 scholarship to help continue the student’s education.
    Warneke said the group has done and will continue to do fund-raisers throughout the year to continue to build funds for their normal operating and fees costs as well as continue to build funds into this scholarship account.
    The Council approved the $2,000 request unanimously.
    Diane Elwood, manager of the Plainview Social Center, then presented her Board’s request for funding to help move the manager’s office to the east side (the front) of the Social Center instead of having the office in the back by the kitchen.
    Elwood said the Center’s managing government agency, the Area Agency on Aging, had been requesting that the office be moved for a number of years to help the manager secure the building and greet visitors as they entered the door.
    The office area will be eight feet by 12 feet and have windows toward the northeast corner of the center and the Board presented a estimate bid for $3,000 from a local contractor to construct the office. Holton reminded the Council that the Keno grant would only pay for the expense of the project, so if the actual work came in less than the $3,000, that’s what would be paid out.
    The Council approved the grant unanimously.
    In one other piece of grant business, the Council approved an adjustment to the Social Center’s previously awarded grant to allow for the $650 that was awarded to help replace a door at the back of the Center to be used to purchase a garbage disposal for the kitchen instead. Elwood said the doorway had been repaired by swapping doors with another door in the Center and that the disposal was the Center’s biggest current need.
Bids awarded for bricks/culverts
    Mayor Gale Retzlaff opened bids that were received for the City’s lots of two pallets of bricks that were extra from the downtown renovation project and four culverts that could be disposed of.
    There was one bid received for the bricks, which called for a “per-pallet” price to be bid and the Council approved the sale of the bricks to Bruce Curtiss for $141 for both pallets ($70.50 per pallet).
    There were three bids received for the four culverts, which had a minimum bid requirement for one to four of the culverts.
    Warren Renter bid $22 per foot, Dan Hoffman bid $23.50 per foot and Dave Volk bid $25 per foot. The Council awarded the bid to Volk, who took all four culverts at that per-foot price.
New Transfer employee hired
    City Administrator Michael Holton updated the Council on the resignation of Charles Gray who was serving as the transfer station driver.Holton said that the current City workers had been filling in by driving the transfer truck to Jackson to unload, but that a replacement driver would be needed for the regular hours.
    Holton reported having three applicants for the position, Dave Korth and Terry Baller of Plainview and John Hepner of Pierce.
    Holton said that with Baller’s recent experience as a dairy route driver with AMPI and his experience driving a semi-truck in bad weather, he and City Superintendent Tim Kudera were recommending Baller for the position.
    The Council agreed and unanimously voted to hire Baller.Holton then requested that the wage be set at what Gray had been making when he resigned, $11.06 per hour or $23,000 per year and then review the wage when the new budget year began.The Council also agreed to this suggestion and unanimously agreed to set the wage as such.
Administrator covers many topics
    Holton then discussed his administrator’s report with the Council, starting with his change in health insurance.
    When Holton was hired, it was decided that he would remain on his COBRA insurance package from his previous employer since the amount would be less and saved the City around $200 per month in insurance for an additional 18 months.
    Holton said that the COBRA package has since run out and when he signed onto the City’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage, the deductible he had just met, went back to zero (with him then owing another $2,000 in deductible.)
    Holton requested that the Council approve the same reimbursement program for his plan as the other City employees receive, the $2,000 deductible with a $1,000 “payback” of that total. (City employees have a $2,000 deductible and when it is met or the first $1,000 is paid, the City pays the second $1,000.)The Council agreed to allow the change
    .Holton then discussed an update he received from the Plainview Telephone company listing costs for an automated system if the dispatching center was closed by the Council. Cal Fluckey was present and said that he was still working with the City to see what alarms were necessary.
    Dilapidated housing was reviewed shortly with Holton announcing that he had placed a house on the 200 block of South 2nd street that was missing windows and that had a bad foundation. He had contacted the current owner from Tilden to seek action.
    Holton also reported on the sump pump program that the City began as part of the Department of Environmental Quality’s fine for non-compliance that was issued last year and progress on an updated electrical study ordered by the Council with JEO Consulting of Norfolk.
    Audit packets had also been received to which Holton reported “it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great” and the Council discussed going all electrical as the City sells electricity instead of using natural gas
    .At the end of the Administrator comments Council member Wilson asked for an update on the “investigation.” City Clerk Lori Wragge reported that a final audit had been prepared and once it had been completed it would be turned over to the City Police who are handling the investigation. Police Chief Bruce Yosten said that they are currently handling the investigation, but that it would be turned over to the State Patrol. 

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