KALONA

It’s a rare day when Kalona City Council members aren’t all on board with a project or expenditure, but the purchase of a new mower caused division Monday, March 3. City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh was looking for council approval to order a new Toro mower with 144” deck – twice the size of the city’s existing mowers – which had been budgeted for. But the $67,321 price tag – and that’s with the municipal discount – caused council member Craig Spitzer to blink.

“It’s going to be sticker shock to the community for a mower, even though it’s twice the size,” Spitzer said. “To me, that’s a small house.”

Schlabaugh justified the purchase.

“We mow a lot of acres. With those acres, we do have a lot of equipment,” he said. “It will be very, very efficient in what we need it to do.”

The new mower would be housed in the storage area at Vista Park in Southtown, thus minimizing the need to transport other mowers to the south side of town. It will be used to mow grass in the parks, cemeteries, and open spaces, and because it can do twice as much work in a single pass, it will reduce mowing time 50%.

The council approved the purchase 4:1, with Spitzer opposed.

Funds will be used from Local Option Sales Tax, cemetery savings, and road use accounts to pay for the giant mower.

Lagoon Alternative

It’s reasonable for council members to fret the finances, as the city is on the cusp of borrowing close to $10 million for water and wastewater system upgrades, $7 million of which will go toward reconfiguring the wastewater treatment lagoons in order to meet DNR requirements. Residents’ water and sewer rates will jump mid-year as a result.

A KCRG story this weekend profiled a UI professor whose research suggests a $250,000 specialized container could solve wastewater treatment issues for small towns at a much lower cost. Council member Greg Schmidt asked if that were a possibility for Kalona.

“I don’t think it’s of scale yet. I think they’re probably years away from scaling it to a size that we would need,” Schlabaugh said.

“I would like to investigate that,” Schmidt said.

Schlabaugh agreed to “get some more answers” on whether Kalona could avoid the costly lagoon transformation, although he remained doubtful.

Other Council Action

In other business, the council discussed the formation of a 20-30 member Trails Committee, which is already underway, and its goals and responsibilities. The guidance of such a committee is desired now that the city received a $1 million donation from Shiloh to build trails connecting City Park and Vista Park.

The council approved an agreement for part-time building inspection services with Terry Goerdt, a retired building inspector for Iowa City, who will be paid $45/hour all-inclusive.

“This is a really good start for us to be able to continue the positive momentum we had with Dave [Tornow], and do the building inspections very, very well,” Schlabaugh said, noting that Goerdt is also providing services to Riverside in the wake of Tornow’s passing.

The council approved a first reading of a special speed zones ordinance, which would place a 45-mph limit from 133rd Street to Nutmeg, and a 35-mph limit on Nutmeg for 650 feet both north and south of the intersection with Vista Drive.

The council approved the closure of 9th Street from D to E Avenue on Saturday, April 19 for the Easter Egg Hunt at the Kalona Historical Village.

Public Forum

During the Public Forum, a Richmond resident asked the council to pass a city ordinance protecting gender identity within the city.

“You guys probably saw the news that Governor Reynolds signed Senate File 418 a couple days ago, stripping gender identity out of the Civil Rights Act, which had been in there for 18 years,” he said. “It’s now legal in Iowa to, on the basis of somebody’s [gender] identity, kick them out of a restaurant, deny them a lease, deny them services at a school.”

“If you know anything about the history of the United States, it sounds awfully familiar,” he added. “There are a lot of reasons I think you ought to get kicked out of a restaurant, maybe for being a jerk, but certainly not because of your occupation or your sex or your race or your religion. I don’t think many people would want to see someone be kicked out because of what they say their gender is, regardless of what you think about that issue from a religious standpoint or moral standpoint.”

He asked the council to pass an ordinance granting more rights than the state by July 1, when the new law is set to take effect, adding that many Iowa communities have such human rights or civil rights ordinances.

The Kalona City Council will next meet on Monday, March 17 at 7 p.m. at City Hall.