Holton commission mulls what to do with capital improvement funds

Ideas for Holton city projects to be paid for with the city’s capi­tal improvement and equipment re­serve funds — such as replacing the city’s street sweeper, main­taining tornado sirens and the ex­tension of a road near Holton Community Hospital to the city’s industrial park — were discussed on Tuesday by the Holton City Commission.

Holton City Manager Bret Bauer updated commissioners on balances in the two funds both at the present time and also with amounts pro­posed to be added to each fund by the end of 2016. Bauer also gave commissioners a list of possible capital improvement projects and equipment purchases for this year.

Commissioners noted that the city’s capital improvement fund has become more of a growing fund in recent years because the city has, as Tim Morris put it, “been thrifty and paying more money on our debt,” rather than taking on more debt for capital improvement and equipment expenditures.

According to figures provided by Bauer, the capital improvement fund currently has a balance of $199,874.77 and should have an additional $920,000 added to it by the end of this year, totaling $1,119,874.77.

The equipment re­serve fund currently has $268,849.49 in it, and an addition of $232,500 is proposed by year’s end, for a total of $501,349.49.

What to do — if anything — with those funds generated discus­sion among commissioners, par­ticularly where the two items on the city’s equipment wish list were concerned. Those items were the city’s street sweeper and a backhoe for the city’s water and wastewater department, both items that Assis­tant City Manager Kerwin McKee said have cost the city a great deal in repairs made over the past few years.

Bauer estimated that the pur­chase of a good used street sweeper would cost the city “in the neigh­borhood of $125,000 to $150,000,” while a new one would likely cost more than $200,000. Whichever route the city would take if it pur­chased a new or used street sweeper, Morris said, would be preferable to maintaining the one the city has, which is maintained by Street Superintendent Rex Cam­eron and his department.

“We’re to the point where we need to stop spending money on it, whether we buy a used sweeper or not,” Morris said. “We’ve listened to (Cameron) for two years, and we as a commission encouraged him to keep patching it. But there’s a point where the patching is done.”

McKee said the wa­ter/wastewa­ter backhoe is “about the same way” and in need of re­placement, because “it’s another one of those things that’s starting to cost a lot of money.” City Clerk Teresa Riley agreed, saying that just as it is with the street sweeper, it is hard to find replacement parts for that backhoe, which was manufactured in the 1980s.

Commissioners then turned their focus to possible capital improve­ment projects for this year, includ­ing parking lot maintenance at the city’s three parks, the city’s swim­ming pool, the spillway at Prairie Lake and the water clarifier at the city’s water treatment plant. But one possible project on the list — tornado siren maintenance — drew close attention from the commis­sion.

Bauer said that while the city’s seven tornado sirens are currently in good working order, one of the sirens, made in the 1950s, has got­ten to the point where the city can­not find replacement parts for it. Replacing that particular siren, he added, “really depends on what kind of radius you want to have in terms of sending out the sound.”

After Mayor Robert Dieckmann suggested purchasing a backup motor for the old siren, Bauer re­plied that he would be more com­fortable with replacing it outright, since the cost of replacing it “wouldn’t be a big hit” on the capital improvement fund. McKee also suggested reducing the number of available sirens in the city if the sirens were louder and “covered more of an area.”

Morris said he would also like to see a connecting road built from the HCH parking lot to the recently-completed road that runs through Holton Industrial Park. A road as proposed by Morris would run from Gilliland Drive to the indus­trial park and maybe even play a part in reducing the number of acccidents at the intersection of Columbine Drive and U.S. High­way 75.

Commissioner Dan Brenner also updated commissioners on reduc­ing the speed limit along U.S. 75 near the industrial park, on the southbound approach into Holton from the north. Currently, the speed limit through that area is 65 miles per hour, but to have that speed limit reduced would require the thumbs-up from the Kansas De­partment of Transportation.

Not all of the projects on the list would need to be paid for through the city’s capital improvement fund, as Morris suggested. He en­couraged Bauer and McKee to continue to seek alternative options for funding, such as grants, as the city has sought — so far, he noted, unsuccessfully — for Prairie Lake spillway repairs.

In other business on Tuesday, commissioners:

• Held public hearings on three properties in the city declared pub­lic nuisances and set deadlines for the removal of each property. Pub­lic notices for each of the three properties appear elsewhere in the Feb. 22 edition of The Holton Re­corder; a full story on the proper­ties appeared in the Feb. 17 edition.

• Approved minutes from the commission’s Feb. 1 meeting and budget appropriations since that time.

• Heard a request from Holton resident Willy Wilson for the re­moval of a sign at the entrance to commission chambers requesting the removal of hats. Wilson said the sign has not been universally enforced, adding that the commis­sion meetings have been “the only place they ask you to take your hat off.” Commissioners said they would enforce the sign more dili­gently in the future.

• Approved a special event al­coholic beverage license for Holton Community Hospital, which is planning to have its annual “Un­corked” event on March 31. The special event license was approved pending the city’s receipt of a copy of a similar license from the State of Kansas.

• Approved the renewal of a drinking establishment license for El Milagro Mexican Restaurant.

• Heard a comment about the upcoming Polar Plunge, in which Brenner will serve as master of ceremonies and Dieckmann has stated his intent to participate.

• Heard a comment from Bren­ner about recent inquiries in the va­cant lots at Holton Industrial Park.

• Adjourned the meeting at 8:05 p.m. All commissioners were pre­sent.

The Holton City Commission regularly meets at 7 p.m. on the first and third Mondays of each month; this meeting was held on Tuesday due to the regular meeting date falling on the Presidents Day holiday.