Friday, March 29, 2024

Rife, Kampling recognized at Chelan Council meeting

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CHELAN – Chelan Mayor Mike Cooney and all councilmembers held the second council meeting of the month at City Hall.

To begin, Cooney informed that citizen comments are now limited to three minutes and can only address items not listed in the agenda, with that being said, Evie Hirschberger expressed her concerns to the council.

Hirschberger addressed some of the differences between Idaho’s fire wise codes and some of Chelan’s codes.  One of the codes mentions having a five member board in place to “pass judgment on planning matters, this is what I want to bring to the council, I think somebody who has the training and has the experience and has wildland fire fighting should be involved in some of these decision makings … a code enforcement officer needs to have more feedback before he makes decisions … we have a fire wise community … please think about addressing those issues,” she said.

From there Cooney moved on and first recognized Dave Kampling, “Dave moved to Chelan about three years ago and there’s not one organization I can say he is not probably involved in. HDCA he plays a role, Chelan County Fire and Rescue, Thrive, the Food Bank, I see you over there lifting and packing and carrying out, you are into mentoring, you were in the Home Tour, I saw you opening the door down in the Sip & Stroll and there’s a couple more,” said Cooney.

Kampling was recognized for coming to Chelan and for his volunteering hours, “I want to say Thrive was my inspiration when I moved here, to get involved with mentoring and for volunteering and from there I went all directions, I just want to help out this community because I live here, I am part of it,” said Kampling.

Also recognized was Mike Rife, “Mike and his wife Valerie have lived in Chelan for quite a few years, Mike works in the Public Works, he is extremely knowledgeable about Public Works, you are being recognized for being a hard worker and a model staff person,” said Cooney.

Rife first started working in the Recycling Center in 1996 and now he is Assistant Sewer Director, “if you don’t know it, him and his wife Valerie also have a very good hot dog stand in front of Senor Frogs,” Conney added.

“We do want to recognize people from time to time and hopefully at every meeting from now on, that are behind the scenes and do work and never get any recognition,” Cooney explained.

The first motion consideration was addressed by Parks Director Karen Sargeant. After putting the RV Park electrical irrigation and potable water project  for bids, on Sept. 19 “we had one bid come in, I think it’s at a very good price,” said Sargeant.

For this project Parks budgeted, $1 million 60 thousand and the bid from KRCI Construction came under at $989,922, the council approved the bid award for the three RV projects.

City Administrator Mike Jackson handled the second motion for a professional services agreement with MMEC Architecture & Interiors of Spokane, to come in and do an assessment of City Hall and Public Works Building to determine their existing and future space need.

Councilwoman Kelly Allen asked Jackson if there are other options if City Hall doesn’t work for renovation.

He responded, “this is exactly what they will look at, the layout and all the options, an existing footprint, even go up or sideways, or utilizing other space from the building … they will talk to all employees and see who should work next to who. We will come back to council and have a conversation on what they recommend.”

MMEC will produce plan layouts and short term results, “moving and shifting things around to get better circulation and then long range plan,” said Jackson.

The agreement was approved by the council and in October MMEC will be visiting City Hall to analyze it.

Sargeant also have a Parks Maintenance Building Update for the council. Parks has incorporated 99 percent of the suggestions from the council for this project and has also addressed all of their concerns, the colors will be Earthy tones and will also include colors to help with energy efficiency.

“Right now we are at 95 percent completion documents on the design and layout, if I get a nod from ya’ll then we will have 100 percent completion documents … We want to go out for bids, advertise the bids the nine of October and 16 of October, we would like to have the bid opening occur on the 30th of October at 2 o’clock and then we want to come to council not only with the bid award but also with the contract to allow them to proceed, we want to do that on the 13 of November,” said Sargeant.

Sargeant wants this building to be done and be ready to moved in by next summer. “Thanks for your work on it and thank you for listening to some of the constructive criticism throughout the year,” said Mayor Cooney.

In preparation for the 2019 Budget, the Chelan City Council will hold several special sessions in October.

The dates and topics as follows:
Oct. 3 – Capital Requests
Oct. 4 – General Fund, Tourism and Debt Services Funds
Oct. 11 – Parks & Recreation, Street, Equipment Repair & Replacement Funds
Oct. 16 – Water, Sewer and Sanitation Funds
Oct. 25 – Capital Requests

The next regular City Council meeting is scheduled for Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. City Hall.

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