The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
By: Shirley Linder, Executive Editor
Mayor Brendan Schaley opened the May 6th board meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, approving the April minutes, approval of payment of bills and a financial report of $59,580.42 in the red, before calling for a motion to adjourn temporarily.
Following the adjournment Clerk Brittany Smith swore in President Brendan Schaley and trustees, Mike Bohnenkamp, Janice Smith, and Amanda Van Arsdale for another four year term on the board.
The meeting reconvened and guests were given an opportunity to speak.
Randy Jarvis asked, “Is it possible or not possible you’ve looked into the Dallas Rural Water to see if they have space for us?”
Mayor Schaley answered, “The answer is no and we’ll put this to bed right here. Number 1 they don’t have the capacity to take us on. We have to be very careful when we take water out of their system to haul.
Number 2 the financial side, the facility gets money for taxes from multiple places and sells water.
And as soon as you quit selling water and you start buying it none of us would be sitting around here.”
Scott Ford asked, “Are you going to be able to support bringing in area water at all for the reunion?”
Schaley answered, “Depends on where we are, if we are where we were a week ago, no. If we are in a better position I think we can probably help them out, right Ronnie? We just don’t know right now, we will have a better grasp on it in a couple of weeks.”
Ronnie Gittings was asked if he had any idea how much water was used at the fair and he said he had no idea.
He had tracked the Foresman reunion and they had used 30,000 gallons. Mark Lefler stated the fair uses way more water than that.
Lefler said, “The Foresman reunion is the 16-22nd of June. The last couple of days there is usually 100 in attendance.
He went on to say most campers can haul 3 days worth of water. The family has been talking about setting up a system for the shower and stool with their own water supply.”
Schaley said, “We can use our own tanker now. Fill it up and set it out there.”
Dennis Day asked, “What are the options you are looking at to drill a new well?”
Schaley answered, “Yes but not here, it will be at a different location.”
Day continued to ask what capacity well do you need. Doug Erickson of Benson & Associates answered saying currently you are operating about 90 gallons per minute and that is not keeping up. Gittings said they need 130,000 gallon per day in the summer. The capacity they need is 200,000 gallon a day.
Gittings had talked to Dallas Rural Water and their rate for water is $6 per 1,000 gallon so he will figure up what they used in April and they will get that paid for. They were able to find leaks inside customers house and get them fixed which helps. They found one leak that .34 gallons per minute and that’s 189 gallons a day. Most are small leaks and a lot of time it is the stool. If you don’t hear well you put food coloring in the stool and you can tell you have a leak.
Gittings said, “It’s the toughest situation I have ever been involved in. This is the last thing we want to deal with.”
The board voted to raise the water rate to $25 for the first 2,000 gallons and $4 for each additional 1,000 gallons.
The board approved:
Erickson report: The solution as we see it is to drill a well down in the Mississippi River bottom and pipe the water to the existing treatment plant. They think it should provide a water supply for forseeable future. They looked at North of town and they looked at 700 County Road, South of town we liked the south of town better for dealing with IDOT questions and just how the road looks for right of way and ditches and terrain. Thinks this will be the easier.
They are looking at a cost of 2.5 million dollars for this project. The ‘Emergency Community Water Assistance Systems Grants’ could possibly give up to a million dollars which would be free money.
The rest could be covered by grants that will take approximately six months before we could close a loan.
After a discussion regarding the land to use for a test well Mike Swisher asked, “At what level do we need to secure the land to do the test well because if we find it is not viable at the end of the test we don’t want to go ahead and lease it and sign a contract.
Erickson replied, “What we physically need you will go to them and say we need to lease this for a year and in that we say you have the right to purchase it for a said amount.”
Erickson said you could build two wells on one acre if down the road you were to need it.
A motion was made to proceed with a well over the bluff and not here, which passed unanimously.
They approved Brotcke Well & Pump to dig the test well in the amount of $39,673.00.
They voted to have Zander stay as part time for the summer and begin looking for permanent help to learn Matt Hicks and Ronnie Gittings job. Janice Smith and Amanda Van Arsdale are on the personnel committee to write out the criteria to start advertising.
Those present were: Mayor Brendan Schaley; trustees, Mike Bohnenkamp; Janice Smith; Amanda Van Arsdale; Mike Swisher; Nathan Harden, (Paige Torrance absent); employees, Ronnie Gittings; Brittany Smith; guests, Emily Schaley, Randy Jarvis, Brian Randall, Scott Ford, David Knutstrom, Mark Lefler, Doug Erickson and Adam Fox of Benston & Associates, Dennis and Karen Day, Dillan Vancil, Shirley Linder
The next meeting will be on Monday, June 2nd, at 6:00 p.m.
Village Trustees, Janice Smith, Amanda Van Arsdale, Nathan Harden, Mike Bohnenkamp, Mike Swisher and Mayor Brendan Schaley; (Paige Torrance absent)