Abby secures loan for Linden Street project
The City of Abbotsford common council decided to go with Forward Bank for the city’s latest loan worth $739,000. The loan will be used to help fund the city’s Linden Street project which is currently underway.
The decision was made after the council opened sealed bids from six financial institutions. Forward Bank provided the city with the lowest interest rate on the promissory note, providing the city with a 4.24 percent interest rate.
Also in the running were AbbyBank, People’s State Bank, Bank of Alma, Northwestern Bank and Citizen’s State Bank.
Nearly half of the loan will be paid off immediately using funds from the Local Roads Improvement Program. The rest of the loan will be paid using funds from the city’s TIF District 5.
Josh Low, Associate Municipal Advisor from Ehlers Public Finance Advisors, said he thought the results were very good. He said Ehlers gave the city an estimate of 5.00% for an interest rate on the loan. The fact that the city was able to secure a rate that was lower than that was deemed a success by Low.
He also said it’s very rare to have that much competition for a loan like that. The city was able to secure bids from six financial entities which was higher than the usual three or four.
The loan will run through 2029 and will cost the city $82,242.57 in interest.
Department of Public Works Director Craig Stuttgen said the city needs to make improvements to its landfill within a year after a DNR inspection found some deficiencies.
Stuttgen said the fixes will be minor as a lot of it will involve bulldozing some areas to make the land drain better.
“We’ve got all of our wood chip piles and leaves that have accumulated throughout the years and they just need to get dozed off and leveled off so that it drains properly,” Stuttgen said.
He said the other items involve broken pipes and locks that will be easy to replace, but the city will need to set some money aside to make those repairs.
Stuttgen said he’d have someone go to the landfill and drum up an estimate on how much time would need to be put into the bulldozing part of the project. The item would then be brought back to the council for approval.
Other business
n The Linden Street project has hit some snags and a change order was required for extra work that needed to be completed. The council passed the change order which totaled $45,990.
n Alderman Jeremiah Zeiset told the council he would like to see bathrooms installed at the Red Arrow Park basketball courts. He said every once in awhile, he gets someone knocking on his door, asking to use the restroom. He said he didn’t mind, but it would be much easier for park-goers if they were able to use a bathroom on-site.
Stuttgen noted that after the boy scout cabin is razed, he could set up the plumbing hookups that are already there for a bathroom building in the future.
City Administrator Josh Soyk said members of the public used to be able to use the bathrooms in Red Arrow Park but vandalism concerns caused the city to lock the doors to the bathrooms.
The council decided to explore lock options so that the bathrooms could be open during the day but protected from vandalism at night.
