Council Approves Contract For Library Phase II Design

By Kevin Gray

With only three unfinished business items on the agenda last Wednesday, it seemed the Osawatomie City Council meeting would be quickly over.

But this was not the case. The main discussion centered on approving the contract with SFS Architecture Inc. for Phase II addition to the Osawatomie Public Library.

Council members simply wanted to know what the contract covered, and so City Manager Bret Glendening took time to explain. “We are not building a building, yet; this is just the design phase. This has to be completed first before we know if we can receive grant funding,” Glendening said.

The contract, Glendening said, allows for a conceptual drawing. “Once this drawing is eventually approved, then we can go through the bidding process.” City attorney Richard Wetzler said, “This is a design contract to pick a final design.”

Council members chose to table approval of the contract until the May 26 council work session. Councilman Mike Moon made the motion to allow time to read the contract before further discussion takes place.

Invoices for the Pacific Avenue, 14th Street and Brown Avenue Project – Request No. 7 totaling $3,592.34 were approved. The council also approved the Storm Water Easements for the 2011 Street Project and the waiver of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

In council reports, members Tamara Maichel and John Klein said they had attended a recent Osawatomie City Planning Commission meeting. Maichel and Klein requested the council take time at the next work session to discuss a few codes. “There are some existing businesses wanting to make improvements but there are gray areas affecting their efforts,” Klein said.

Maichel also made a request for the city council to consider a U-shaped design of their meeting tables for future meetings. “This way, we can better see each other during discussions,” she said.

The Tourism committee, said Ted Hunter, has been preparing for the John Brown Jamboree. “We have a major concert you’ll hear more about. We’re hoping to get more people to attend both locally and from without the area. But we may have to charge a small fee.”

Hunter also said the Economic Development committee has been working on marketing the city. “They are talking about houses in need of repair and junk on porches. If all you see is the junk on porches and houses in need of repair, this makes it hard to see the houses nicely painted and with no junk on porches,” Hunter said.

Picking up on Hunter’s comments, Council member Moon, also chose to share his feelings about a need to make sure the city is cleaned up for upcoming events like alumni weekend and the John Brown Jamboree. “Tidiness is important, and we have company coming. There will be a large group of alumni coming,” Moon said.

Glendening said the city will have its part done, and in the past has been able to get the state to take care of its part of the mowing before the alumni arrive.

Mayor Phil Dudley said there are a few houses on the west end of the city in need of repairs, renovation and clean up. “We need to send the nuisance officer to get us a report,” Dudley said.

At the next work session, Moon asked to discuss fee schedules for the pool, park, recreation and other fees in the city. “We’re not always very good at selling anything,” Moon said. Both Moon and Mayor Dudley said, “If you’ve got something to sell, you’ve got to have a way to sell it.”

Moon thinks it a good idea to give the city manager language for promotional fees. “Why not promote the pool with free pool days? Or family day at the golf course. I want us to be in front of this to make things happen,” Moon said.

The Osawatomie Public Library Board is hosting a pancake feed Saturday morning of the alumni weekend, according to Karen LaDuex. They are selling tickets for that event.

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Posted by admin on May 18 2011. Filed under News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry