Greenwood library project put on hold, council receives financial update

By Valorie Brecht The Greenwood Library Board is going back to the drawing board after bids for library remodel project came in higher than anticipated. The three bids were for $64,000, $109,000 and $119,000.

“The smallest bid was $24,000 more than the library board had allotted for money,” said Mayor Dave Hansen at the Jan. 17 city council meeting.

The library board building committee made the recommendation that the council reject all bids, which the council agreed to do.

“The background for this is, a local contractor came in and gave them a guesstimate on what they were wanting to do,” said Hansen. “And that’s how they came up with the amount of money they asked for. But when it came time to do the bidding, the local contractor couldn’t get the bids in, and so we got some from other places. Neillsville was the closest one.”

The city gave $40,000 of its COVID relief funding to the library, so that could potentially be used for the remodel. Funds may have to be shifted around, depending on what the requirements are for acceptable uses of the COVID money. The library also has received $25,000 in donations, but can’t use those funds for the remodel as they are earmarked specifically for expansion.

Council member Tracy Nelson asked about doing a partial remodel with the $40,000.

“There has been some discussion about potentially doing just one room instead of two, but then they would have to re-bid,” said city clerk Kayla Schar.

Hansen said the library was looking to apply for a matching funds grant, so they would need to re-bid anyway. No further action was taken on the library project.

Other business Schar shared a financial update. The city did not receive principal forgiveness for the Clean Water Fund and Safe Drinking Water Loan programs through the Wisconsin DNR. Because of this, the city will need to come up with $99,089.62.

“I’m going to be working with Britta Moline (community development specialist for MSA Professional Services) to figure out what portion is water and what portion is sewer, and if our rates can handle it,” said Schar.

One of the city officials questioned why the city was suddenly not receiving principal forgiveness.

“This is the first time in three years that we didn’t. They changed the requirements so now you can only get a certain amount of it… We got too much, is my understanding,” said Schar.

Most recently, the city received this funding for the river crossing project, the third time in the last five years the city got it.

“I think our sewer rates will be able to (make up the difference) and I’m hoping we can do that rate increase that we had talked about doing yearly, and I think that can handle a large portion of it,” said Schar.

She said the city would probably end up borrowing the money and paying it back over time through the rate increases, unless Moline had another suggestion.

Police Chief Bernie Bock said that Officer Henry Meyer had found a firearms training in Illinois he planned to attend. Meyer will pay for the training and travel costs on his own; however, once he completes the training and receives a certificate, those hours will be able to go toward his annual 24 hours of continuing education he is required to complete.

Meyer was planning on using paid time off to take the course. Bock asked if the council would be willing to reimburse the hours of paid time off that Meyer spent taking the class. He estimated it would be about 20 hours. It wouldn’t be a monetary payout, but those hours would be put back in Meyer’s PTO account. The council voted unanimously to reimburse Meyer for 20 hours of PTO, upon successful completion of the training.

The council also discussed what to do with the city hall’s copy machine from Bauernfeind. The machine is coming to the end of its contract, which Schar said was for three or four years. The city had the options of 1) buying the machine for $1, giving it to the police department, and leasing a new machine for about $149 per month; 2) returning the machine and leasing a new one; or 3) buying the machine for $1, keeping it for city hall use and seeing how long it would last. Schar recommended the last option because she said the machine was working fine and she never had an issue with it. Bock also said the police department was not in desperate need of a new machine and could easily buy a basic one from Office Max or a similar store in the future that would meet its needs.

The city has Seth Pinter from Computer TR in Abbotsford on a retainer fee, so he could come and troubleshoot if the city ran into issues with the current machine. If the problem was not something he could fix, the city could still have Bauernfeind come and fix the machine and it would be charged as a regular service call.

The council decided to go with option three. Utility Director Trent Johnson gave a report. He said the wastewater treatment plant went through a compliance check on Dec. 19. The check revealed four recommended actions. One is to add more floatation devices, which Johnson said the city had already ordered and received, and would be put in. The second action was the influent composite sampler door needed to be fixed to ensure the sample is maintained at 6 degrees Celsius or below.

“We ordered a new mini fridge for that, because it wasn’t the door,” said Johnson.

The third action was to work to decrease the amount of fat, oil and grease (FOG) going through the system.

“So we need to just be aware of contributors. I think it might be one of the local septic haulers. I think it’s animal fat,” said Johnson.

He said he had determined the excess FOG was not coming from Greenwood Milk Products. One of the council members asked if he would have to test samples from different haulers to determine where it was coming from. He said he wouldn’t have to test; a visual inspection would be sufficient. He planned to continue looking into the matter.

The fourth action was to use a checklist to fulfill the Capacity, Management, Operation and Maintenance (CMOM) program.

“We did a CMOM probably four or five years ago. It’s supposed to be updated every year… We’ve been doing all the work; we just didn’t update the CMOM. So it’s more of a paperwork issue,” said Johnson.

He planned to update the paperwork to meet the requirements. He submitted the city’s discharge permit renewal application at the end of December and expected to receive a new permit soon. The permit is good for five years.

The city approved the following election workers: Barb Ashbeck, Pat Klinke, Lisa Susa, David Andrewski, Paula Williams, Leanne Czarnecki, Cathy Langreck and Cherilyn Hare.

Also, Clark County Bowman’s Club plans to disband, and the city wanted to meet with the club to discuss future plans for the building. The tentative plan is for the club members to attend the council meeting on Feb. 21 at 6 p.m.

Schar also shared about the city’s garbage and recycling schedule. After Schar had issues with getting the correct schedule from the garbage company, and received multiple incorrect schedules, she said, she deferred to the garbage company to mail out the schedule. There are extra copies of the most updated schedule available for pickup at city hall, though. It is also posted on the city website and Facebook page.