Beloit City Council Meeting Tuesday August 6th

 

Beloit City Council

 

Tuesday, August 6, 2010

 

By Terry Bailey

 


 

The Beloit City Council met Tuesday evening at City Hall to oversee the affairs of the City. All Councilors were present with the exception of Kent Miller. Also in attendance was Mayor Tom Naasz, City Administrator Jason Rabe, and City Clerk Amanda Lomax. City Attorney Katie Schroeder was absent.

 

Also in attendance were the three summer interns, Maci Hancock, Kollette Keeten, and Kelsie Dewitt. Tuesday was their last official day on duty and they stopped by the meeting to summarize their activities of the summer.

 

Maci Hancock was the first to speak. Hancock, a graduate of Rock Hills High School in Mankato and of Fort Hays State University, provided an overview of all the projects the interns worked on over the summer. One of the first activities of the summer was the Eight Man All Star game, the pep rally in the park and the Friday Night Lights activities at the Technical College. The interns assisted in various activities at the Little Red Schoolhouse. She said the Schoolhouse had almost 150 visitors over the summer. Hancock said that the interns participated in brainstorming session with a wide variety of groups and individuals. The concept of co-working was given a lot of their attention. They hosted a summer patio party for young professionals, traveled to see all of the outlying areas of Mitchell County, even set up an Instagram account for the Tourism Committee. Just recently they assisted with the Downtown Beloit Block Party and the dedication of the speaker system.

 

Kollette Keeten, a graduate of Phillipsburg High School and Fort Hays State University, put her graphic design expertise to work all summer long. Keeten devoted a great deal of her summer to creating wayfaring signs to direct visitors to downtown Beloit and then to various locations once they got there. She created four individual signs for the east, west, north and south entrances to the City. The Lakefest celebration kept her busy designing the event poster and other signs connected to the event. She designed a sample logo and brochure for the SVED program. She was also give the task of designing a sample design to be used as a possible replacement for the current city logo.

 

Kelsie DeWitt, a graduate of Thomas Moore Prep in Hays spoke of her work with the Sports Complex and improvements with the Chautauqua Park. When school starts DeWitt will return to K-State where she will participate in the fourth year of a five year Architectural Degree program.

 

DeWitt noted that a common criticism of the Chautauqua Park was that visitors have a very hard time finding it. While there a sign at the entrance, you have to get there before you see the sign. She has designed a wayfinding sign to help visitors locate the park. Some additional projects she has worked on this summer for the Park include: a walking trail, a splash park, a dog park, and a community building for festivals of all sorts. Her work with the Sports Complex include rearranging a some of the ball fields to increase the number of field from 5 to 7 and increasing public parking in the area. DeWitt emphasized that her design work contained many projects and that, undoubtedly, they would need to be completed one at a time over a period of years.

 

The Councilors thanked them for their work in helping make Beloit a better place to call home and wished them well in their future endeavors.

 

City Manager Jason Rabe said the South Street drainage project in nearing completion. Once they got the specially made drainage pipe the pace of the work improved dramatically.

 

Community Development director Heather Hartman reported that a summit meeting will be held at Hays on September 10 for employers to discuss remote or co working.

 

A public hearing was called to order to allow for comments about unfit structures located at 509 East South and 523 North Hersey Avenue. Nobody came forward to speak and the meeting was closed.

 

A special event license was approved for Kettle to host the Second annual Millapalooza.

 

Ordinance 2254 was approved giving a franchise to A T & T.

 

The Council then approved Resolution 2019-17 to award a contract for the Safe Routes to School sidewalk program.

 

Next, Resolution 2019-18 was passed declaring a structure located at 509 East South Street to be an unfit structure.

 

Resolution 2019-19 was then passed declaring an unfit structure at 523 North Hersey.

 

Tuesday, August 20th at 7 p.m. was chosen as the date for the 2020 budget hearing

 

The Council approved the 2020 Blue Cross Blue Shield renewal.

 

The Council approved the request from Narcotics Anonymous to use the Chautauqua Park for their regional conference on July 2-5, 2020.

 

The Council approve the purchase of a Quality Turf Renovator for the amount of $14,045. This machine will be used to maintain the baseball/softball fields and to keep them in blue ribbon condition.

 

The hiring of Jacob Reiling at the Fire Department was approved.

 

The business meeting was adjourned and the wok session was called to order.

 

City Manager Rabe then gave the Council an update on the new water treatment plant and pipeline project. Currently the price tag for this undertaking is $12,875,000. Rabe expects some of this total to be forgiven and the total amount should be lower.