The Clear Lake city council held its second meeting of the month this past Monday to discuss 12 sections of new business.
City Administrator Scott Flory’s big talking point at this meeting was the Moody’s issuer rating. Clear Lake received a rating of Aa2, scoring Aaa on five of the eight categories that Moody’s evaluates.
“Can’t get any higher than that,” Flory said. “Very rare thing for a community of our size.”
According to Flory, the other factor on which they scored below an Aaa were things out of their control, like growth factor and operational spending for the city.
“That’s when you’re really, really looking for something,” Flory said. “You really have to look because there just were not any real weaknesses.”
Clear Lake is the second smallest city in the state of Iowa to achieve an Aa2; Polk City being the smaller.
“They are in the Des Moines Metro, so they’ll probably pass us in population next week,” Flory joked. “Incredible achievement there, but the fact of the matter remains we earned a Aa1. I think they were nervous about giving us the Aa1, my guess is we might have been the smaller city in the country to have that designation. It speaks solidly of all our financial practices over the years.”
Flory went on the give his thanks to the council and mayor for providing Clear Lake with a stability that most towns do not have.
Mayor Crabb and the council returned thanks to Flory for his hard work as city administrator.
In other business, City Engineer Matt Steding brought forward four of the 12 sections. His first order of business was the Alley Reconstruction Project update.
Steding said everything is moving along smoothly.
“There was a gas line that was encountered, that was a shallow gas line and Alliant came over and found out that it was undersized going into both of the two commercial buildings,” he said.
The contractor’s left out about a 16 foot section of alley and Alliant will “get in there” to fix the issue, though with the weather forecast, it is unlikely it will be done this week, but first thing next week to put in the new gas line main.
Steding updated the council regarding the current projects of the Bandshell & Lakeview Room (tentatively fully completed by end of October), South Shore Estates, Surf District Streetscape and the North 20th St. basketball and pickleball courts (nearing full completion). He also informed them on where the Music Enrichment & Immersive Center and City Hall remodeling projects stand. The Center is moving along, creating the first part of the tall building with the elevator shaft. City hall is waiting on casework to be able to put on the finishing touches.
A new entertainment venue was brought to the council with the hopes of acquiring the former Lake Lanes building. They presented a digital model of what they hope their bowling, arcade, and golf simulator building will look like. This was approved by the council.
Then followed the swearing in for new Clear Lake Police Officer Shane Grimm by Mayor Nelson Crabb.
