At Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, City Manager Merl Page brought up an issue discussed at a previous meeting, and asked if the Commissioner’s had any recommendations for someone to serve on the County’s Solid Waste Committee. According to Page, County Public Works Director Lew Lowery has been representing the City, but doesn’t want to serve again. The Commissioner’s asked for more time to come up with someone, when Commissioner Cliff Baughman volunteered to be the City’s representative on the committee.
In other business, Deb Kiker was appointed to serve on the Housing Authority Board for a two-year term, and Kara Burns was appointed to serve on the Recreation Advisory Board for a 4-year term. Also, Page said since the City changed their insurance provider in April, the City now has the ability to get additional Fireworks coverage by forming a committee of all the volunteers involved in the event. The Commission unanimously approved the list presented. Mayor Bill Ditto praised all those listed for all their volunteer hours to the annual Fireworks display
City Manager Merl Page announced the need for rules and regulations on the new Columbarium recently built at the Wamego City Cemetery. He explained that a Columbarium is a structure with niches that accommodate burial urns. According to Page, the Vanderbilt Family donated the structure, and he would like full input from the Commission since this is the first time the City has dealt with anything like this. The issue was tabled for a future meeting, which will then be introduced by an ordinance and a resolution to follow.
It’s been dry in Wamego. At Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, City Manager Merl Page announced the pump on one of the City’s water wells needs to be rehabbed. He said the pump was sent to Hastings, Nebraska to determine what needs to be done, with a labor cost of over 4-thousand dollars. He estimated the overall cost to be between 10 to 15-thousand dollars, and the pump would be down for about a month.
Before the meeting, Director of Operations Mac Campbell was asked if there may be a water-rationing issue because of the dry conditions. He said at this time, there’s not much concern, but said all the pumps have been working overtime to maintain the levels in the water towers. He said he’s watching all the irrigation going on around the area, but can’t be sure what will happen in the near future if the drought continues
Several Wamego departments are getting some new equipment. At Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, City Manager Merl Page said the Police Department budgeted and requested the purchase of an ATV (All-terrain-vehicle). After all the bids were reviewed, a New Holland Rustler 1-25 will be part of the PD.
According to Page, the Street Department has a 19-88 Dump truck that either needs repair or replacing. He said the repairing the truck would cost over 14-thousand dollars, a new truck would cost over 60-thousand dollars, but the staff found a used 20-03 International for a net cost of over 34-thousand dollars. He recommended making the trade since the reserves have been budgeted. Approval was given on both purchases.
In other business, the sales tax numbers in May show a 1 percent increase in the County-wide, and a decrease of about the same amount in the City sales tax.
