During the consent agenda portion of the City Council meeting, the council unanimously approved a renewal of the liquor license for the La Bonita restaurant.
Next the council set a public hearing for August 21st, to classify two police vehicles as surplus property and authorize the sale of the 2015 and 2019 Ford Explorers currently serving as police squads for the Eagle Grove PD, and consider bids on them. The purpose of the hearing is to give members of the public the opportunity to bid on the vehicles, in the proper process of disposing of public property, said City Administrator Bryce Davis. And the ultimate goal, Davis said, is simply to get the best return on the property for the city. Whether that comes from a local buyer, a company that refurbishes squad vehicles, or simply trading the vehicles in.
Next the council took on the issue of repairs to the aquatic center, as it prepares to close for the season. Before the council was a bid for repairs in the amount of $97,395.00 to clean and line 360 feet of underground PVC. The repair is intended to address the problem of the pool leaking, currently at a rate of thousands of gallons per day. The repair would have a ten year warranty, and a fifty year life expectancy.
"This year we did a little data collection," noted Davis, revealing that leakage had increased, and that tests turning the water features off showed that the leaking was "more on the supply side." After the pool is closed down, Davis added, the pumps will be pulled in order to enable lining to resolve the issue.
Councilman Vandewater asked if the lining bid was a firm bid, and Davis explained that it is not, due to the variables and the varying sizes of the PVC pipe already in use. "They may need to put in a bigger cleanout," Davis explained, which could entail potentially breaking out concrete and other expenses. "Basically this is just an estimation," Davis said, noting the math was done on the average of pipe widths, at six inches, and "it could go up, it could go down." After some discussion about seeking clarification of a few of the finer points of the relining project, and consideration of tabling the project until the next meeting, the council approved the project in the interest of getting the repairs started as soon as possible, as the pool is set to close and summer is near to giving way to fall.
The council then moved to set a public hearing for the 2024 street improvement project, on September 5, at 6:30 pm. "So this is just setting a public hearing to start the conversation of what next year's street improvement project's going to look like," Davis noted, adding "obviously budget is one of those things we'll need to take a peek at, so having that conversation, early, having a public hearing and getting feedback, that allows us to figure out the scope of the project and move forward." This would enable the council to calculate budgets and begin accepting bids in January or February of next year. "Obviously 2023 has started yet," Davis added, saying the council would be looking at bids in the August 21st meeting. "The sooner the better," Davis said, with respect to beginning the planning, noting that the engineers ultimately hired would need time to draw up their plans as well. The public hearing was unanimously approved.
Next the council moved on to discussion of authorizing a Record Retention Policy for the Eagle Grove Police Department. "With the amount of body camera footage we go through, the amount of photography, the amount of car camera footage, everything that we document on a daily basis," Davis noted, there is a limit to how much can be stored affordably. "If there's any requirements to provide that information through subpoenas, through court orders, through public information requests, this is a consistent policy that we will enact" with respect to digital evidence and documentation, Davis explained. The Council approved the creation of the policy unanimously.
