City to update water metering equipment
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By Jeff Snyder
MOUNT AYR, Iowa — The city will now have a newer more efficient tool to help read water meters across the community. As the Mount Ayr City Council voted to update metering equipment during its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday at City Hall.
The old meter reading system relied on two specific elevated repeaters situated on the tops of the two main water towers located in Mount Ayr. It was determined that these signal towers were consistently missing certain locations thereby providing incomplete metering data. The city received a quote from Ferguson Waterworks that would allow for the placement of as many as 60 end point cellular repeaters that would read all of the meters in town. The city had previously explored this type of system but opted not to pursue the technology due to only one cell provider was available at the time. Now the market has access to all the primary cell signal providers creating a much more reliable system to help with meter evaluations and subsequently billing to customers.
This update is important in light of the city’s upcoming switch over to Frey Systems for their administrative support moving on from the G Works provider currently installed in the city systems which has been problematic from the onset.
Additionally, there were nearly a dozen housekeeping items on the agenda including setting a hearing date for an upcoming budget amendment task. Amendments are fairly common to existing budgets as situations change from month to month. One of those changing situations is the disposition of a number of recent contributions made to the Airport Commission that will help with on going repairs to the facility. Even though these were private donations they still have to be reconciled through the city’s budgetary system. Additional discussion items for the public budget amendment meeting scheduled for October 12. Ongoing sewer and storm water projects previously planned for will be revisited during this meeting as well.
The council unanimously agreed to allow for the use of the Judge Lewis fields for the upcoming annual Halsie and Maddie Memorial Softball Tournament. This charity event is in honor of the unfortunate deaths of three classmates as a result of a traffic accident several years ago. Maddie and Halsie were from Mount Ayr and Ella Leonard who was from Lenox.
The Council also discussed the replacement of some of the city’s maintenance equipment. Two specific pieces, a skid loader and a dump bed truck are under consideration for replacement. As these are significant investments, the council agreed to move forward with replacing the dump truck as the body of this vehicle is badly rusted and would likely not pass a DOT inspection. The skid loader recently had significant repairs completed so the council decided to not replace it at this time. Expected delivery for the new dump bed truck is sometime in November.
In other council news, the members met in a closed session prior to the regularly scheduled start to discuss a personnel issue that resulted in the dismissal for cause of an individual from the Mount Ayr Volunteer Fire Department. No specific details were available at this time regarding this action.
In other issues, the council voted in the affirmative to add Chanelle Cole to the city’s Rental Housing Board. Cole is replacing Renda Smith who is stepping down. Coles’ appointment will run out the remainder of Smith’s role lasting through 2030.
The council also renewed the liquor licenses for Hy Vee, Trails End Saloon and the newly revised Lefty’s Tavern. The city is also considering adding a resolution to allow public drinking during designated street closures for organized events within the city. The council also settled on a vendor to handle the closure of the city pool for weatherization. Rounding out the busy agenda was the acceptance of EMC’s On Call Nurse which will help with claim filing for work related injuries sustained by city employees. This service gives round the clock access to report claims helping to streamline the filing process. The city also announced that it is discontinuing the use of a P.O. Box located at the Mount Ayr Post Office. The amount of use the box is getting does not justify the monthly service fee of $86.
The next regularly scheduled council meeting is set for Monday, September 22.
