11/06/1996 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 11/6/96 city's engineers think they have the cure. The bad news is the cure will cost $9 million." ,: Mrs. Troyer said that the 1995 flood report listed 18 areas of the city where estimated storm water improvements would cost $9,795,000. Putting all that information together, Mrs. Troyer said that the city has a sewer storm problem which will cost almost $10 million to fix. But since our city administrators made sacrifices, they were able to finance the flood prevention program; therefore, in the same month, January, 1996, Mayor Boyle was able to make repairs to eliminate residential basement flooding. She and other residents in attendance from Allendale, Forest Ridge, Gardenia, Sandy Ridge and Pine Ridge would like the Mayor to explain what specifically has been done, not planned, to prove that their flooding worries have been eliminated. The residents request that the Mayor not refer to the fact that five to ten calls were received this fall when the city experienced 5 inches of rain in about 12 hours. Mrs. Troyer said that is not and never has been the kind of rain that floods her neighborhood. Mayor Boyle said that, if the newspapers quoted Mr. Bohlmann as saying the 5 inches was not a record, it is in fact a record and that was a misquote. Meteorology reports say that the September rain was in excess of any rainfall recorded for this area, and one meteorologist put it at 6 inches. So, if the quote was that it is not, then it is a misquote. Mr. Bohlmann is also quoted in several other articles saying it is in fact a record rainfall. It is a rainfall that has flooded this city throughout the 20 years that he has lived here. It is a fact that the city only received ten calls about the September rain, and five of the calls were bad sump pumps. That is a tremendous difference from five thousand calls in 1989. Those numbers alone prove that we have fixed it. He said that he believed Mrs. Troyer was taking the $9 million figure out of context. We have spent a tremendous amount of money on streets and sewers over the last seven years. He asked Mrs. Troyer what her question was. Mrs. Troyer said that a 5 or 6 inch rainfall over a 12 hour period is significantly different from a 4 inch rainfall in a two hour period. She said her question was how could the city put out a report saying $9 million of repairs need to be made when at the same time the Mayor is saying that flooding has been eliminated. People in her neighborhood are worried that they will flood at some time. In answer to a question by the Mayor, she admitted that she did not flood in September. However, she said that was not the kind of rainfall that causes flooding in her area. The area last flooded in July of 1995. Mayor Boyle commented that Mrs. Troyer's area, Forest Ridge, had commissioned the DeGroot study which had been taken under consideration by the City Engineer when planning improvements in that area. An engineering firm is now in the process of compiling a report about that area. The city is addressing the problems in the area, putting in retention and doing it more economically than the DeGroot study recommended. The Mayor commented that even if the city spent a hundred million dollars, there is still the possibility that one house may flood. However, when you go from 5,000 homes flooding to five, that is virtually eliminating flooding. Mrs. Troyer reiterated that the September rain was not the kind of rain that causes flooding in her neighborhood. Mayor Boyle said that the `90s are wetter than the `80s-- the wettest day and the wettest month have been in the `90s. Five inches of rain is a major rain. In 1.989, the city needed federal assistance because of flooding. That was not necessary this year. The city is working in the Forest Ridge area, and the work will be completed. It will cost us some money. We will complete flood abatement, sanitary and *~"~ storm, throughout the city. 8 ,~-.,,. - _ ,~ _ .~F,,.~., .. _