News

Council holds first reading of budget

By Scott Wagar

09/10/2013

The first reading of the 2014 budget took place during the Bottineau City Council meeting on September 3 which saw a decrease in mills in the general fund and additional funding for the county sheriff’s office to provide more protection for the county.

During the first reading of the 2014 budget the city council approved the budget which went from 99.25 mills in 2013 to 75.08 mills for 2014, a decrease of just over 24.7 mills. The reduction in mills took place due to increased development in the city with a number of construction projects in the community, which increased the mill value from $5,100 to $5,300, adding to the taxable base and reducing mills overall. Fewer projects for 2014 also caused the mills to decrease from 2013.

In other city news, the Bottineau County Sheriff’s Department received additional funding in its 2014 budget between the city and county for an additional deputy for the county. Recruitment will begin immediately.

Dakota College at Bottineau requested the Foundation Office’s beer tasting event at the armory on Oct. 12 be held outside of the armory; however, city ordinance doesn’t allow for such events to be held outside in city limits and the request was declined.

Director Diane Olson of Bottineau’s EDC came before the council and spoke to the council members of sharing incentives with the EDC in hopes of assisting the current day care crisis in Bottineau, which is currently seeing 100 children (including Pre-school and Head Start students) that are currently underserved in the community. Although the council didn’t vote on the issue, they made a general verbal agreement to assist in the situation.

Matt Johnson of Wold Engineering stated the sewer expansion project will start on Sept. 16, if not sooner, but an additional 900 feet of sewer line was requested for the project. The council made the decision to discuss the additional footage in the October meeting.

The bidding process for the West Sewer Lift project received only one bid from Kemper Construction, which made a bid of $263,615, double the estimate for the project. Johnson recommended the bid be denied and that the project be re-bid in the spring of 2014.

The council asked that with the new Preserve Addition could the lift station do the job properly until the new lift was installed next summer. Johnson stated the lift could handle the number of people which currently live in the Preserve until the project was completed.

Propane bids were also opened for the city, which included Ferrell Gas at $1.339 and Northern Fuel Partners at $1.39 per gallon. Ferrell Gas received the bid on a vote to 6-0, with Alderman Jeff Hall abstaining because he is an employee of Ferrell Gas.  

During committee reports, councilman Fred Kainz of the city property committee stated that the drainage issue in the area of Ketterling’s Junk Yard to the west was being cared for with assistance from the county who is cleaning the culverts in the area and a berm north of Ketterling’s.

Kainz, who also sits on the planning commission made the motion to retain the same fee for building permits with the exception of structures over 10,000 square feet, which will be charged an additional 10 cents per square foot. The council passed the request.

Alderman Diane Lorenz, a member of the ordinance committee who has been working on the sidewalk ordinance, stated that she would like to see sidewalks installed in all the new developments and on both sides of the street.

Johnson explained to the council in the new development, especially in the area where the construction of a possible new school building could take place, streets should be wider because with snow removal and the current width of streets it causes difficulties in where to place snow. He added that a uniform policy should be worked on by the planning commission.

Lorenz, who is also on the street committee, stated the committee has been working on sidewalk replacement for current sidewalks in town that are damaged and need to be replaced. She had concern with the finance committee taking funding from the Sidewalk, Curb and Gutter Fund to another fund; however, the finance committee stated that the funding was being replaced with additional funding at the end of the year.

The October City Council meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 7 at the auditor’s office.