Kris Miller
Hiawatha World
Four members of the city commission voted to approve a resolution finding a violation of a health and welfare code related to a vehicle situation at 200 Pawnee Street during Monday evening’s City Commission meeting.
The city commissioners discussed Resolution 2025-7, which included a vehicle situation violating the Health and Welfare Code, Article 3 at the Pawnee Street address. There was disagreement about the resolution being passed. City Administrator Brad Scott said that the resolution was to allow the city to abate the situation, or make the situation less tense; if the owner of the vehicle failed to comply with the code, then the vehicle would be towed. City Commissioner Brian Shefferd asked if the owner of the vehicle was notified and also said that the vehicle had expired tags. The vehicle was also not parked on the street. City Commissioner Laura Tollefson noted that the situation with the vehicle has been happening since December of last year, with City Commissioner Thomas Martin stating that a Failure to Appear notice was issued to the owner of the vehicle at Pawnee Street.
Mayor Becky Shamburg stated that every step was taken regarding the vehicle but Shefferd expressed uncertainty.
“I don’t know if us as a city needs to get involved with it, or this is was a municipal failure to appear,” Shefferd said.
Scott said that many steps could have been taken regarding the vehicle situation and the decision was made to place a resolution to tow the vehicle as opposed to sending someone to arrest the vehicle’s owner. Scott added that the resolution would allow the city to adhere to the code overall without going to extreme measures, with Mayor Shamburg agreeing that something needed to be done. With Commissioner Tollefson making a motion to approve the resolution and Commissioner David Middendorf seconding the motion, Tollefson, Middendorf, Shamburg and Martin voted to approve the resolution, with Shefferd voting against the measure.
“I just don’t feel like I have enough information on what’s going on,” Shefferd said.
Earlier during the meeting, all city commissioners voted to approve an amended owner-engineer agreement with Kansas City-based Olsson during Monday evening’s meeting. Approving the agreement would come at no cost to the city and authorizes the mayor to sign the agreement. This was an extension of an agreement with Olsson that was set up in April 2022.
The city commissioners discussed about a tractor bid–which bids for tractors were open on March 21–from Hiawatha Implement for Hiawatha Parks & Recreation. The discussion was to decide about approving the lease of the tractor at a yearly cost of $4,984.11. City Administrator Brad Scott said that the tractor would be used for ball park maintenance.
The commissioners discussed whether the tractor could be purchased after the lease ends. Due to the expense of the lease, the city commissioners voted to table the issue until the next meeting.
Below are other items of discussion during the meeting:
• The city commission approved appointing Kendra Oldridge to a vacant Library Trustee position, while re-appointing Leland Hansen to a full-term Library Trustee position as part of the consent agenda.
• All city commissioners voted to approve J&B Contractors to complete concrete work at the Hiawatha Aquatic Park in the amount of $46,830.
• All city commissioners voted to purchase wastewater parts from Ontario, Canada-based Trojan Technologies to rehabilitate Bank B of the UV system to better kill disease-borne pathogens keep E.coli at a non-detect level during monthly plant samples.
• Hiawatha Police Department Chief Mickey Gruber announced that HPD officer Lorenzo Mendez was promoted to the rank of sergeant and gave a summary of the HPD training at the high school that took place on Wednesday, March 19; this training also included active shooter training.
