During the April 21 Clear Lake City Council meeting, the members got to recognize a special local student.
Winward Nicol, a fifth grader from Clear Lake, won the “Mayor for a Day” recognition after submitting an essay about city waste management. Nicol said waste management could be improved in several ways, including creating an app to let waste management know when bins were full and ready to be picked up; a plan to stop overflowing bins from being a problem. Nichol was presented with a certificate and had the opportunity to sit in the mayor’s chair. The contest was held by the League of Minnesota Cities
April 10 and 14 Council Meetings
The first City Council meeting for the month took place April 10. It was rescheduled from the original April 7 due to a lack of quorum. During this meeting, the council approved the purchase of Chrome Books for council members to use for a price of $2,970. They also approved the sale of old items from the public works shop.
A special meeting was called for April 14. On April 3, City Clerk Lori Ollendieck resigned from her position. The special meeting was set to discuss options for her replacement. In the meantime, interim clerks Shirley Slater-Schulte and Sandy Borders will keep the city running. The personnel committee was directed to look for a replacement. At the April 21 meeting, it was noted there were two applicants for the position of accounting clerk.
Fire Training Program
Assistant Chief Matt Lunser of the Clear Lake Fire Department reported on the progress of the training program he is working to set up with some other members of the fire department. The program would be available to train other local departments. He wanted the council’s approval to spend some money to start the program, which would ultimately save the department money on paying for training themselves, and also will bring in some money as they offer services to other local departments. The council granted his request.
Public Works Report
Public Works Director Evan Johnson said he had been working with Mayor Tim Goenner regarding the new park. Johnson said the mayor asked him to look into a well for the park. He said he did not really recommend putting in a well, as it would cost $20,000 or more. The park is already connected to city water.
In other public works news, the council approved doing soil borings for the sanitary lift station project. The project is still expected to be mostly completed this calendar year, with the exception of the control panel, which may not be delivered until 2026.
April 21 Council Meeting
Johnson presented a proposal for improvements to the city’s Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) and telemetry, as well as a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) computer system. In short, this is the equipment that will monitor water usage and allow Johnson to check flows remotely instead of on site.
The improvement proposal will help a lot with the city systems. It will provide more detailed data on water usage (currently, the city can only look at their system’s run time). It will also allow the city to get rid of service contracts, once it is fully integrated.
Keith Yapp, the city’s engineer, said the equipment should last 20 years and he highly recommended making the changes.
The council approved entering into the agreement with In Control to start the work.
Brown Water
Some residents of the city have been experiencing brown water lately. This is due to the new housing development. The city doesn’t have a water treatment plant — that would be very expensive for a city of Clear Lake’s size — they only treat the water by putting in chemicals to make it safe for drinking and sending it out. Therefore, any built up metals inside the pipes can change the color of the water, especially when a lot of the water is first pumped out.
Recently, the developer working on the new development over by city hall needed to flush out a lot of water from fire hydrants. Johnson said he thought they only would flush out one or two hydrants for a few minutes, but it ended up being a lot more water than that, 112,000 gallons. The big flush stirred up settled metals in the pipes, resulting in brown water. It also depleted the water tower significantly.
Johnson said his predecessor had not been completing regular maintenance by flushing out the pipes every year, which did exacerbate the issue. Going forward, he plans to flush out hydrants twice per year, which should prevent the metals from building up as much.
Hunter Bluffs Park
Mayor Goenner asked for clarification from the last meeting regarding putting in a well at Hunter Bluffs. Goenner was not able to attend the last meeting, but the council had discussed the idea and decided it was too expensive. Johnson and Yapp confirmed that it wouldn’t be a good use of the city’s resources. However, if the area continues to be developed it might make sense to eventually put in a new city well.
The city had purchased a Rainbow play system for the park, but unfortunately they found out the equipment was not compliant with safety standards for public playgrounds. The city will have to purchase commercial grade equipment or else be vulnerable to lawsuits should anyone get hurt. Fortunately, the set can be re-sold for private use.
Council Member Sabrina Miller asked how quickly they could get a basketball hoop installed and concrete poured, as she had constituents asking about it. Johnson replied it would take some time due to the amount of debris, stumps, and concrete on the ground that needed to be cleaned up.
Miller presented her idea for the park layout and mentioned that she was working with a local company on a proposal for the playground. She noted that she was able to get a discount since the company was local (based in Buffalo). The company will have a design submitted by the end of the month. The park would be a “community build” to help further save money on the installation, where a group of volunteers would assemble the equipment under the guidance of one of the company’s supervisors. Miller said she hopes to have the playground installed by the fall.
Clerk Report
City Clerk Sandy Borders asked for clarification on the distribution of keys. She asked who should have keys. The council told her only direct employees of the city should. The confusion came because the building inspector, who is a contractor for the city, had previously been given a set of keys and was very upset when her keys didn’t work anymore, since the locks had recently been changed. Borders gave her a key to use but will ask for it back after the clarification.
