KVSV

Beloit City cAouncil Meeting Tuesday January 6th

 

Beloit City Council Meeting

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

By Terry Bailey

 

Electric rates are going up in the City of Beloit. Action was taken at Tuesday night’s Beloit City Council meeting to raise electric rates three percent beginning with this month’s billing cycle. In January of two thousand sixteen the electrical rates will increase another three percent. By a vote of six in favor and two opposed, the Council passed Ordinance Twenty-One Fifty-Nine to make the increase in rates official. Councilors Lloyd Littrell and Tony Gengler cast the dissenting votes.

Two factors drove the rate increase. One was to build a reserve fund for the electrical department. Unforeseen breakdowns of equipment and storm damage often cause costly expenditures from a budget in which there are no funds. Second, it appears that over the next ten years significant and expensive repairs will be necessary in the City’s electrical system infrastructure. Councilor Bob Richards said, ‘Nobody likes increases in their bills but the Council is here to take care of the people of the City. We need to plan for what we know is coming.”

The Council unanimously passed Resolution Two Thousand Fifteen Dash One making official the electrical territory exchange with Rolling Hills Electrical Cooperative. By the terms of the agreement Rolling Hills will get twenty-two acres of land along Hiway Nine just east of Beloit. The City will gain fifty-five acres of land just east of Sunflower Manufacturing.

The Council approved the installation of two electronic door edges by Thyssen (Thigh-Sin) Krupp Elevator Company on the elevator at the Municipal Building. These door edges are mandated by new safety codes for elevators and escalators. The cost of these safety items is five thousand six hundred seventy-five dollars.

Property located at Four Oh Two South Mill owned by Charlie Mears was deemed an unfit structure. Code enforcement officer Chris Jones reported he and Mears had talked in the past but the issue became sidetracked. According to Jones, Mears indicated he would demolish the structure and take care of it. However the Council will initiate the process of officially notifying the property owner and scheduling a public hearing if necessary and then work through all the steps of the process. Councilor Kent Miller commented, “I’d like to be sure we are being fair and just to everyone in the City. I know there are other structures that need addressing.”

At Seven Twenty-Six p.m. the meeting was adjourned and a work session was convened.

The Council gave consideration to the Fee Schedule. It is near the end of a revision process and complete schedule will be presented to the Council at their next meeting for review.

Councilor Lloyd Littrell inquired of the City Manager, Glenn Rodden, “Weren’t a lot of these fees developed so that we would have a schedule of costs when we bill FEMA in the case of natural disasters?”

Rodden replied, “FEMA will pay what they want to pay regardless of anybody’s fee schedule. They have their own schedule and that is what they go by.”

Councilor Matt Otte had questions about the Swimming Pool which is included in the fee schedule. He directed his question to Lynn Miller, Director of Parks and Recreation. “According to the numbers here, in the year two thousand twelve the average daily attendance at the pool was two hundred and fifty and the pool made ninety thousand dollars. In two thousand thirteen the average daily attendance was one hundred sixty-four and the income was significantly less. Is there an optimum or ideal number of swimmers each day for maximum utilization of the pool?” Miller replied, “I don’t know how many would be an ideal number.”

Councilor Charlene Abell asked for clarification between hook-up fees and impact fees. It appears that sometimes one term is used and in other instances the other term is used.

To clarify the terminology, out-of-city hook-up fees for utilities provided are as follows – water hook-up fee is one thousand four hundred dollars, electrical hook-up-fee is one thousand four hundred dollars, and sewer hook-up-fee is one thousand four hundred dollars. Once again, these are fees charged to bring these utilities to a residence out of the city limits.

On the other hand, impact fees are charged depending on the volume of the service both inside and outside the city. A new structure with a larger volume of usage would have a greater impact on the utility service and would be charged a higher impact fee.

Ron Sporleader told the Council, “The last time we hired power plant operators we had good ones interview but we couldn’t hire them because of wages.”

Currently, beginning pay for power plant workers is twelve dollars and eighty-seven cents per hour. He would like to raise that to fourteen dollars and forty-eight cents per hour. The current pay for electrical linemen is thirteen dollars and ninety-one cents per hour and he would like to raise that to fifteen dollars and five cents per hour.

This initiated a wide-ranging discussion of wages, salary increases, pay incentives and so forth. The general consensus was that a comparative salary study needs to be conducted to determine where the City of Beloit stands in regard to wages and benefits.

 

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Beloit, KS 67420, USA