The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
By: Michael Rodeffer, The Quill
The La Harpe City Council met for their first regular meeting of the year on January 11th at the La Harpe City Hall.
Present were Mayor Kat Hasten-Reed, Treasurer Monalisa Graves, City Attorney Chris Scholz, Clerk Lucretia McPeak, council members Dave Clover, Greg Wisslead, Brian Covert, Randy Shumaker and Kelly Harkey, city employees David Little, Trevor Finch, Tim Graves and Daniel Carpenter, IMEG Representative Megan Crook, ESDA Representative Max Owsley, newly hired police officer Alexis Landrum, and Michael Rodeffer.
Mayor Kat Hasten-Reed told the council the city was eligible for mapping grants to help with costs of demolishing some of the dilapidated buildings in town. Hasten-Reed said $99,999 was available per project if approved.
Hasten-Reed also said the city would have to have ownership of any properties and would also have to re-develop the properties or pay the grant money back. Also applications have to be in by February 26th.
Attorney Scholz said the only way to get ownership of the properties that quick would be if the owners would be willing to sign the properties over to the city. Scholz was going to look into the actual owners at this time since some of the properties had been sold for delinquent taxes. At this time they are looking into 116 and 118 north main properties.
The council also discussed the closing of the nursing home owned by Peterson Health Care.
Mayor Hasten-Reed and Dave Clover had even talked to a Peterson Health Care representative and were told they were going to try and sell the facility for $250,000. Hasten-Reed said they would sell it to the city for $200,000.
Clover said the representative said they would maintain the grounds and building for a time. (No specific time)
Tim Graves told the council degreaser was needed to maintain both lift stations. Graves also said that he had sent in 6 samples of water Monday which had 8 different tests run on each sample. Graves said sampling during the 1st year of the new Reverse-osmosis water plant would be more costly than in the past because of more tests run per sample.
Randy Shumaker said the lift station problem turned out to be a bad fuse and it was back in working order.
Brian Covert told the Council the Ford police vehicle had been taken to Macomb to have the cage installed in it. Trevor Finch told the council the transmission had been installed in his truck and was working good.
In other action the council approved:
The Council went into executive session about 8:15 p.m. to discuss employee issues. No action was taken after exiting the executive session.