After many months of a vacant seat on The Madison City Council, the seat has officially been filled. The seat had been vacant for close to a year after Nick Cherry suddenly resigned shortly after taking the oath.
City Clerk Victoria Stewart swore in Bekah Selby-Leach Monday night. Selby-Leach recently moved to town and will bring with her a lot of grant writing experience which will no doubt be a huge asset to the city as it works to improve and revitalize homes and businesses in the community.
After approval of the Dec. 19 minutes, payroll, accounts payable and monthly water adjustments, the council approved to pay $1,000 for Kansas Gas to do a survey on city property where the new building sits at the park. They need the survey before they can dig and put new gas lines to the property so the building can be heated.
The city is still waiting on all the finished bids from companies to install heating in the building once the lines are run. There was some discrepancy in the bids they had received so wanted to make sure everyone’s bids were consistent across the board to best make a decision.
In an update about the generators the city had ordered months ago, the council was notified that Caterpillar was no longer making the generators they ordered so the order has been voided. Mayor Paul Dean has done some minimal research on Kohler and Generac but wants to do more research and start over with getting new quotes. The generators will be mostly funded by a grant.
Dean also briefed the council that there are still grants available from the state for housing, tourism, economic development and revitalization that are being allocated out. He indicated he thinks the city needs to apply and take advantage of anything that is available for citizens and businesses in town.
Dean gave an update on the desire to have an LED sign located in the island and do away with the current letter board. He indicated he has found one that would be around $7,000. He will ask for a couple of bids from other companies and would like to get something to look nicer in the island since the Veteran’s have worked so hard on improving the appearance there.
Council member Earl Murphy reported that APAC had been in town looking at streets and offering up some advice on how they can best repair them. No decisions were made on what streets will be prioritized or which route they will take in repairing.
The city also discussed the surveys that went out with water bills recently as far as homeowners identifying what kind of water lines they have coming into their homes. Stewart said if any homeowner’s have questions about how to determine what they have, to come in and they have some information that will help determining what type of lines they have.
The following annual appointments were made and approved unanimously before the meeting was adjourned: City Clerk — Victoria Stewart, City Treasurer — Michael Bartlow, City Attorney — Michael Helbert, City Judge — Ted Hollembeak, Official City Publication — The Madison News, Official City Bank — Citizens State Bank.
