by Mari Radtke
The Marcus City Council met Monday September 9 in regular session. Following consent items, the council heard from Isaac Cruz of Cruz Electric. Cruz attended to present an opportunity to the Marcus Council for a benefit offered by MidAmerican Energy for qualifying projects. Cruz works with MidAmerican to conduct assessments of small business and community buildings for upgrading their lighting from flourescent or incandescent to LED. MidAmerican does have a rebate program to help offset the cost of changing lights. The assessment Cruz was offering was to tour Marcus properties with crews to evaluate, assess and cost changing the lights. LED lighting uses less energy, reducing the overall power cost to the property owner. There is no cost for the assessment. Council agreed to have city staff guide Cruz through city buildings for an assessment and cost estimate.
City Clerk Robin Harvey was selected to attend “Accelerated Siouxland Leadership Academy. The program is held in Sioux City the 2nd Thursday of each month for 8 months.
Police Chief Brian Flikead reported to Council that Marcus Police Officer Jackie Stephens and her dog Vulcan, attended the Police Canine Association’s Patrol Dog trials and certification. Vulcan performed exercises for obedience suspect search, evidence search, criminal apprehension, and crminal apprehension with gunfire. Stephens and Vulcan earned top score out of 49 teams from Iowa and Minnesota. They qualified for Nationals competition in Baton Rouge in October.
Flikead further reported to council the arrest of 2 individuals and participation in the Cherokee Suicide Prevention Coalition’s annual Awareness Walk following the MMCRU vs Cherokee Washington football game.
The new trail brought out a few questions regarding rules and enforcement. They also considered the street crossing, location and angel near the high school and cemetery. The was discussion about installing another stop sign at that location. Stop signs going the other direction were considered and backing up traffic. The consensus was a few minutes of inconvenience outweighed the safety of school children with the new and increased children walking and using that intersection. The ordinance will be amended to allow additional traffic control.
A storm siren to replace the one no longer working near the golf course was selected. Council could choose between a brand new siren that would require a lot of additional work to make functional. The siren alone carried a cost of $15,850 plus $5000 to keep it powered when power gets interrupted and $2000 for changing the VHF/UHF. A refurbished siren just like the existing siren carries a total cost of $6350. Council chose the refurbished model.
Ordinance 361 was passed. It simply reaffirms the procedure policy for the City of Marcus.