business to the locals. “The ….
business to the locals. “The problem is you are going to start losing bidders if you stay local.”
Bub compared it to the mayor’s push each Christmas season for people to buy local. He said the city doesn’t promote buying local in its own business dealings.
In the end, aldermen decided to table the street striping bid to get additional information about Seal it and Striping. Harris noted that about seven years ago, the city had an issue with their work.
Pool
While the city is taking a wait and see approach on setting the formal opening time and access to the pool this year, they did have a discussion on the pool fees charged for family passes.
The last time the city raised pool rates was about three years ago, and the current rates at $60 for a city resident family pass is less than half a similar pass in Thorp and $40 less than what is charged in Marshfield or Merrill.
Knight said it was important to keep fees up to cover additional costs for maintenance and lifeguard salaries. Weix agreed, noting the council had just increased the pay for returning lifeguards. Weix said she did not support a large increase, but felt they needed to keep pace with costs.
Bub said he felt the city needed to stick by the message given last summer when the city opened the pool a month later than normal and told people then that they would not be raising it this year.
Bub said the pool is operating within its budget and that the city’s finances were in good shape. He opposed the idea of raising the fees just because other municipalities charged more for their pool passes. He also noted the Medford pool does not have the large slides or equipment that some of the other pools have.
No decision was reached on if the pool rates should change for the coming year.
In other business, aldermen:
_ Recommended approval of a “comfort resolution” for Great Lakes Utilities (GLU) to continue with developing generation capacity to help with peak times or when other power supplies such as solar are not available. The city is a founding member of GLU, which is a consortium of power utilities. The organization works to collectively purchase power needs. GLU is looking at using Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines for power generation and is doing the engineering work to ensure it will be cost effective. The resolution does not bind the city to participating in the project in the future, but only shows the city is aware of it and supports the continued exploration of it as a power generating option.
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Harris noted that fellow GLU member Cornell is not participating in the project and was pushing for the “comfort resolution” to ensure all the utilities’ governing boards were aware of it and wanted to proceed.
_ Recommended awarding the capital construction bids for this summer’s projects. The work includes the reconstruction of Shattuck Street and repaving of Allman Street with a separate project of water main replacement on South Whelen Ave. The engineering estimate on the projects was $1.1 million for the first contract and $260,600 for the Whelen work. Francis Melvin, Inc. was the low bidder $919,441.56 for the Shattuck St. and Allman St. work and $239,343.50 for the Whelen Ave. work. There were seven firms that bid on the work with the highest bid coming from Merrill Construction at $1.2 million for the road project and $266,05.70 from A-1 Excavating at $317,079 for the water main work.
_ Recommended approving the materials and equipment bids. These are bid out to area vendors on an annual basis and the city routinely accepts all the labor and equipment bids giving the flexibility to hire crews as needed. Harris noted the city did not seek any bids for crack sealing this year, choosing to hold off on it for right now. “We would have been doing streets to just do them,” Harris said.
_ Recommended the annual pool rental agreement for Rib Lake School District to hold summer school classes at the city pool next summer. The rate was increased slightly over past years to reflect the increase in labor costs for the pool.
