by Mary Loden
A resolution supporting the Landfill of North Iowa’s recycling examination process was approved unanimously by the Clear Lake City Council at their July 3 meeting.
Resolution 23-28 states that recent changes to recycling markets have caused disruptions to local efforts, leading to the need to consider the overall state of recycling in our region. The Landfill of North Iowa, a 28E intergovernmental solid waste agency, is taking leadership on the recycling issue with a committee established to examine options and develop cost effective, efficient and forward thinking solutions for the region.
Clear Lake wishes to support this initiative and all efforts to obtain outside grant funding for related initiatives.
In another recycling matter, “We did have a meeting with Absolute Waste Removal about curbside recycling,” City Administrator Scott Flory announced to the Council. “As you know, we do every two weeks, so we want to get a proposal from them and negotiate on the opportunity to increase that to weekly.”
Flory said he should have something to report to the Council at their next meeting. “We do not any longer have the drop boxes. So I think whatever we do, as far as additional curbside opportunities for our residents, is going to be a positive thing,” he said.
Unlike some surrounding cities currently experiencing recycling issues that leave them no choice but to send the waste to the Landfill, Flory said their curbside recycling is still taken to Absolute Waste’s Recycling Center for processing.
Other Business
Council members readdressed the proposed road closings for the upcoming Bash at the Lake. Approval of the event application was tabled at the June 27 Council meeting to give them time to discuss the road closure issues further.
After Councilman Dana Brant and Interim Police Chief Mike Colby met with the event planners, Colby said the plan wasn’t much different than the Fourth of July road closings. “Looking at the traffic flow patterns we’ve had this last week and over the weekend and with the expected number of patrons expected at the event, I would recommend we go ahead with the road closures submitted.”
Under new business, Jeff Bertz gave an update on the fundraising efforts for the new Pickleball courts. He announced that they have raised $211,325 so far, with another $24,000 in grants still pending.
Flory reminded the Council and audience that the current tennis courts will remain. “This is a project to construct new pickleball court facilities as well as a new dedicated basketball court,” he said.
Brad Peterson, co-owner of 173 Distillery, spoke on behalf of the business’s Special Event Application and Street Closure request, an application needed for the consideration of being included on Thursdays on Main.
Clear Lake City Clerk Jennifer Larsen introduced the agenda item. “They are requesting to close a portion of First Ave. N between North 3rd and and the north -south alleyways perpendicular to the street,” she explained She said that city staff representatives, business owners affected by the closure, and two members of the city council met at the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce last week to review the application request and voted to bring it forward to the Council for further consideration.
Peterson said 173 Distillery has only been in business a little over a year and he believes they have created “…an exciting destination within a destination, of course, Clear Lake,” he said. “Our goals are to be a very positive community partner and support our fellow businesses, sponsor local Chamber events and really just be a good steward to Clear Lake and represent it in a respectable and classy way that it deserves.”
He requested that 173 Distillery be included in Thursdays on Main by setting up more barricades that would allow pedestrian traffic to flow freely and safely from Main Street to their business. “ I also think this added area is much needed to the growth of Thursdays on Main. It potentially loosens up some bottleneck areas that exist and increases vendor space,” Peterson said.
Councilman Bennett Smith, one of the people present at the initial meeting, said he was concerned about the traffic flow in that area right now. “I know we discussed the idea of your business having a vendor tent on Thursdays on Main … so I guess my sense is, we might be better off this year if you would consider moving forward with that kind of concept. But I would be opposed to closing the street at this point this year.”
Gary Hugi, the second councilman at the Chamber meeting, also voted ‘no.’ “I too will vote to just have a tent or something on the street and consider it for next year,” he said. Mayor Nelson Crabb agreed.
There was no motion to approve the special event application, so the motion died.
Interim Chief of Police Mike Colby said he pulled the statistics for officer and dispatcher incident reports. From June 30 to 7 a.m on July 3, “We had 203 calls for service in 2021. In 2022 we had 286 and this year so far we had 320. So we’ve had a pretty significant increase in the calls for service that our officers have been dealing with, and the dispatch center, and I’ll just give them all some pretty good accolades,” Colby said.
“They’ve dealt with some pretty decent incidents for the last couple of weeks and days and they’ve gone without a hitch too. So kudos to the staff.”
Colby reported that the CLPD has an open position for a police officer. “We have an interview scheduled for next week. Hopefully that gets wrapped up soon and we have a name out of that candidate pool,” he said.
Mayor Crabb presented the motion to approve the appointment of Becky L. Schwab, of Clear Lake, to the North Iowa Corridor Economic Development Corporation Board representing Clear Lake. The appointment was unanimously approved.
Flory said that Schwab is an engineer, licensed in both Iowa and Minnesota, who has been very active on local projects. She succeeds City Councilman Mark Ebeling, who served as a liaison from the city to that board for six years.
This was followed by a Mayoral Proclamation declaring the week of July 3, 2023 as “50th Annual Evans United Shows Week” in Clear Lake. Members of the Evans family were in the audience to hear the proclamation and to have their pictures taken with members of the Clear Lake City Council.
City Administrator Scott Flory talked about the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant for the 4th Ave. South Multi-Model Corridor project. He said the city was notified by Senator Grassley that they had been approved for the grant. “There were only two cities in the state of Iowa that got their application funded,” Flory said.
Flory said he read an article that stated that only 5-7 percent of the applications get funded. Last year there were three Iowa cities funded: Davenport, Dubuque, and Waterloo. This year only Clear Lake and Cedar Falls received the grant.
