The Clear Lake City Council passed resolutions authorizing a loan agreement to borrow $1.625 million to pay costs associated with various infrastructure improvements and the municipal bandshell project through the issuance of General Obligation Corporate Purpose Bonds. They also approved and adopted the Tax Compliance Procedures Relating to Tax-Exempt Bonds at their regular session meeting on March 18. The closing and delivery of funds to the city will be on April 11.
Chip Schultz, of Northland Securities, served as the Placement Agent for the issuance. On behalf of the City Schultz solicited competitive proposals from several community banks across Iowa and presented his recommendation to the Council. “The lowest rate lender proposal is 4 percent from Clear Lake Bank & Trust,” Schultz wrote. “Northland also surveyed other community banks throughout Iowa as part of this bidding process and no other lender could come close to this competitive interest rate.”
The issue is a 10-year note, with a call provision at June 1, 2030. Average annual debt service is approximately $200,000.
The City will include a debt service payment for the issuance in its FY ‘25 budget. As was discussed in the Council’s budget workshop it has been suggested that this would amount to roughly $0.20/$1,000 of taxable valuation increase to the City’s tax rate in order to amortize the debt over a 10-year period.
Other business
In other business the Council approved the contract and bonds from Dean Snyder Construction, who was the lowest bidder for the Surf District Streetscape Improvement Project in the amount of $4,284,533. Since that time Dean Snyder has been working with City Supervisor Scott Flory, City Engineer Matt Steding and Public Works Director Jason Petersburg, “…to identify areas and return to the project scope to see where we can scale back some things a little bit,” said Flory, who reminded everyone that the project bid came in significantly higher than the City’s projected cost of $3.8 million that the City had estimated.
A pre-construction conference has been set for March 22. “We hope to bring back for the meeting on April 1, a change order that will identify areas where we think we can retrench a bit on the streetscape project to better fit our fiscal goals for the project,” said Flory.
The Ludvig Wangberg Memorial Bandshell improvement project was also awarded to Dean Snyder Construction at the March 4 meeting. Snyder’s was the lowest bid at $754,000. The Council approved the companies contract and bond and a pre-construction conference was held March 13. Steding, who attended the meeting, said the park’s department is going to start removing chairs and the refrigerator in the Lakeview room on the 19th. The demo will begin by the end of the week. “They’re going to go strong here and get as much done as possible …prior to Memorial Day so they’re kind of done and out of that area as we ramp up for summer,” Steding said.
Finally, a bid letting was held on March 14 for the N. 20th Street Basketball and Pickleball Courts project. Only one bid was received from Heartland Asphalt of Mason City for the bid amount of $181,098. The City’s original cost estimate was $167,771, but that amount was revised to add a new 8- foot tall chain-link fence, with two gates, around the perimeter of the pickleball courts. The $25,000 fence, which was included into the bid, will provide screening and security, as well as accommodate windscreens for the courts. It is anticipated that work on the project will begin in April with a completion date of mid-June of this year.
