Rice council tackles non-stop traffic problem

by Dave DeMars

news@thenewsleaders.com

The Rice City Council dealt with three important issues at the April 18 meeting that lasted well past 9 p.m. The first issue occurred in the public input portion of Monday’s meeting, when members of the audience informed the council of the dangers at the corner near Rice Elementary School.

Audience members told of buses driving on the grass and nearly hitting children. Apparently, there are other careless drivers as well, including parents.

Council members raised questions about what kind of sight lines were in the area, perhaps thinking it was a problem of not being able to see clearly. Council members noted a yield sign was recently installed in the area and so drivers should be slowing and paying attention to their surroundings.

Audience members said on several occasions they tried calling the bus company to complain about the drivers but received no response.

Council asked Police Chief Ross Hamann to weigh in on the situation.

Hamann said he was aware of it, and his office had received other complaints but it was difficult to police the area effectively since the area was wide open and a squad car could easily be seen. With the high vantage point of the bus drivers, any squad would be easily detected.

“If it is going on, I think it would be very difficult to enforce without a stop sign,” Hamann said. “It would be pretty easy to add a couple of stop signs in that spot since it wouldn’t affect any houses (except) a couple that are next to (the intersection).”

Audience members wondered whether it might be possible to add some crosswalks to go with the stop signs since people don’t always give the right-of-way to pedestrians if there are no crosswalks.

“If that’s truly what’s happening, I think a stop sign would be the answer,” Hamann said.

The motion was made and carried to install stop signs and to leave the yield signs to encourage drivers to drive more carefully in the area.

Financial update

Jennifer Schwieters from Bremer Bank made a short presentation about the state of the city’s investments. The city has nearly $2 million invested entirely in fixed-income investments such as bonds and CDs. Schwieters broke out the investments into the various types with the amount invested in each and the returns they were producing. She said the city portfolio was fairly diversified and while not producing huge income dollars, it was stable and steady.

Should the city need additional funds for the short term, Schwieters laid out a possible solution to deal with the problem. The city could cash out one or more of the bonds and use the distribution of funds to satisfy that need. A second approach is to wait for the various accounts to mature and come due for renewal. At that time, the city could take the distribution without any penalty and use it to pay bills or for other needs. Non-renewal of a bond carries no penalty for early withdrawal.

Schwieters was asked to communicate with the council on at least a quarterly basis with presentations on an annual basis so the council has some idea as to how its investments are progressing.

Retiree honored

The Rice Fire Department and the city council took a moment to honor retiring firefighter Peter Kedrowski, who served for 18 years and retired as a captain in the department.

Personnel issues

Several items of business were routinely approved then the selection and contract with the building inspector, Nancy Scott of All Spec Services, drew some lengthy debate over the time needed to give notice to either terminate, change or continue the contract. Scott attended the meeting.

In the past, the contract was infinite, meaning there was no set time for the contract to expire. The city, in reviewing its contracts, wants to limit the contracts to three years. The issue is how to do that.

The present contract calls for a six-month notice on the part of either party to terminate the contract. It was set up that way so there would be adequate time for either side to react and plan and the city would be guaranteed service until a new inspector was in place.

If there are any changes to be proposed to the present contract, a six-month notice must be given so negotiations can ensue. The council finally accepted a proposal by Scott for the establishment of a new three-year contract to take the place of the present contract. There would be no break in service so the six-month issue was moot. Then the council established a specific end date three years out in the new contract. Both sides agreed and the issue was settled.

A second item that caused some amount of discussion was the agreement with park volunteer Ken Nodo. Nodo stood at the lectern to declare he was not particularly happy with the way things went last year. Nodo said a new park area that has been in the works needs to be seeded and it has been planned for in the past. He also said the seeding needs to be done in the next couple of weeks.

“Last year, because of the way your volunteer things were being handled, it wasn’t very nice to me, I don’t think, because nobody talked to me about why it was necessary,” Nodo said. “I just got complaints about anything I did to help with improvements over there so I decided I’m not going to volunteer anymore.”

But Nodo said he had a change of heart during the winter and wanted to see the new piece finished. If the city was not going to have time for it, then Nodo said he would do it himself using his own tools and gas.

The issue was whether Nodo would sign the volunteer agreement. Nodo said yes, he would sign but it was his understanding if he were to do any work, the city had to have someone there to watch him. If that was the way it had to be, then Nodo said he would not do it.

“I wasn’t treated very nice(ly) when this all took place last year,” Nodo said. “Nobody came and talked to me. I did a couple of things out there and every time I did something, I got criticized and told not to do anymore. I didn’t do anything without approval from somebody.”

Sometimes he said he did things with approval and still got criticized, and if that is how the city treats its volunteers, he won’t do it anymore. It’s a matter of respect, he said. But he added that he wanted to see it get done, so in the end, he said he would do the job.