Public Works director Monte Meiers told commissioners the city this year completed multiple large projects that had been scheduled for 2012 and 2013, thanks to the federal stimulus dollars the city received. Because of this, he said there are some options on what the city might consider programming into its schedule of road projects from 2012 and beyond.
"We have a lot of projects to choose from, so we might want to focus on putting some ideas at the end of the list of projects," said Meiers.
Meiers showed the commission a preliminary outline for a proposed downtown streetscape study of Main Street. He said the specific study area is between Front Street and Sixth Street West. Meiers said a study group would review a wide variety of things such as parking, sidewalks, traffic, buildings along the corridor and so on.
Meiers also said the corridor along Main Street is a great place to do some streetscaping or greenscaping to add to the look of downtown. With money having been put into Harmon Park and with the Railroad Park project to be completed next year, he said connecting the parks could improve and revitalize the whole stretch.
He added having area businesses involved is important to making it work.
"It would be nice to see a study committee be formed, with business owners and stakeholders along the corridor involved," said Meiers.
Meiers was asked about a timetable for putting together a plan for a Main Street project. He said the goal is to get ideas and public input gathered over the winter, do a study and submit it to the commission by the end of 2010 for programming on the schedule for "likely in 2013, maybe 2012."
Commissioner Brad Bekkedahl thought it was a good idea.
"We're getting to the point where we're going to need to do something with it the next five to 10 years. It makes a lot of sense to put together a planning study," said Bekkedahl.
In an unrelated matter, the commission approved a request by airport manager Rick Marburger to move forward with a project to lower a light pole at the end of the airport runway.
"Our traffic is starting to exceed our capacity, and we're looking at all ways to improve service," said Marburger.
Marburger said the airport is trying to remove obstructions at the end of the runway to improve the ability for planes to take off in windy or poor weather and eventually for larger planes to come and go. He said the recently approved project to bury the transmission lines at the end of the runway goes a long way in doing that. Lowering the light pole would help, too.
"If we can lower that one light 22 feet, we can add 750 pounds that can be added to a flight. That's four people, and that's about how many we have to bump in bad weather," said Marburger.
Marburger was asked about the cost of the project and said it was about $2,200.
In other business, the commission:
*Approved a motion to formalize the city's ambulance mutual aid agreements in writing. Williston fire chief Alan Hanson said Grenora is being audited by Medicare and needs to have such agreements in writing.
Hanson added the department was planning to do so in 2010, but since its audit came earlier, it wanted to do so now.
Approved a request by Public Works to purchase an additional server at a cost of $5,700.
*Unanimously approved a change to the city's monthly rate for drawing water from city-owned water dispensers. People getting water from city-owned water dispensers are now to be charged $5 per thousand gallons of water up to 50,000 gallons. Those drawing more than 50,000 gallons are to be charged $12 per additional thousand gallons.
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