City postpones city wide clean-up
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By BETH ZUMWALT
The City of Pittsfield has postponed the annual city-wide clean-up until May 14 through 22.
“There were no dumpsters available for the week we wanted,” Gary Mendenhall, mayor of Pittsfield, said at the April 19 meeting.
The clean-up involves residents loading up junk and/or unwanted items and taking the items to the city maintenance building on North Monroe. City workers then haul the loads to the Pike County Landfill. Certain items are not acceptable, so residents are warned to check before dumping.
The city voted to accept a contract from Maguire Iron, headquartered in South Dakota, to provide maintenance on the city’s water towers.
Maguire Iron will provide inspections, engineering, paint and maintenance on the city water towers.
The contract costs approximately $2 million for eight years.
Some councilmen questioned the big expenditure, but, quickly changed their mind when Max Middendorf, the city engineer, pointed out that painting the west water tower had cost $300,000 and the estimate to paint the big, blue tower near King Park was $1 million three years ago. Middendorf estimated that a new estimate would be 25 percent higher.
The contract does not allow for increases, the price is locked in. All of the city’s towers are older and are likely to need more upkeep and maintenance in coming years.
The city is also struggling with a 39 percent increase in their premium for the upcoming year. Council decided to get bids from other companies which are likely to still be higher than what they are paying now, but, cheaper than the 39 percent increase. The possibility of higher employee contributions and deductibles was also discussed.
The council also approved making some violations within the city ordinance violations rather than criminal violations.
“If we can write them a ticket for speeding, for example,” Mike Starman, chief of police, said, “Then they pay the fine and it doesn’t go on their record with the state.”
More serious offenses such as DUIs would not be eligible for an ordinance violation.
In other police business, Starman announced that Sam Zaerr had graduated from the academy and would be starting with the city April 25.
Mike Gangloff was hired as a new police officer after a brief closed session. He had been with the city last year as school resource officer and now has rejoined the department.
