10/17/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 10/17/2000 were designated for another purpose toward street lighting. His feeling is that Council discussed the borrowing ordinances, had three readings and voted on them for specific purposes. The money was for specific purposes--Sharon Drive and the Clague and Lorain intersection. He believes that when Council passes an ordinance to borrow money, they should stick to the purpose as presented to the public and not spend it somewhere else. The plan was to spend $300,000 on street lighting this year, which is more than has ever been spent. He believes that the plan that is in place will tackle the problem. He commends the administration for proceeding to address the issue, and he is glad it is going to be handled in the future. • Mayor Musial said the matter of approaching Council on the aspect of additional street lighting was an effort to communicate to Council what he thought was an excellent proposal by the Service Director to find a way to put street lighting on all the streets that currently have the engineering completed. That total came to approximately $476,000, and that would discharge all the engineering drawings that we have in place and take care of street lighting for all those streets. That proposal was brought to Council, and he respects their position on it to deny that particular approach. We will hold true to spending what we have left, which is approximately $300,000. The Board of Control will make a determination of what streets will be covered by that money. • Mr. O'Grady said Mr. Gareau's points were well stated, but he disagrees on one point. Mr. Gareau stated that the information Council had at the beginning of the year when the appropriations were done is the same information that was available at the meeting on street lighting. That is not the case. The difference is the Clague Road project for $120,000 was delayed. That money is sitting in a fund that cannot be used this year and that will have to be used next year. With that money sitting there, the proposal came forward from the administration to take that money and do more for our residents now. And that is the good thing we could have done for the residents of our city. If you are given the opportunity to do something more and do something for your residents without any adverse financial effect on the city, then you should do it. • Mrs. Kasler said she disagreed that there would not be an adverse affect. She feels that the $120,000 set aside for Clague/Lorain and the $20,000 for Sharon Drive should remain where it is until those projects are completed as opposed to using it for something else that the public was not told about. We would have to re-borrow the money for those projects next year, which is an extra expenditure and a double borrowing. Regarding the Mayor's comments, she noted that at the meeting where the motion was made to spend approximately $338,000 on street lighting for this year, Council had designated the streets that would be done. The street names were part of the motion and those streets have been listed and mentioned this evening. • Finance Director Copfer said the issue of what information was available should be cleared up. When the amount was estimated, all the engineering was not completed. All the streets that the Service Director had on the list to be done were listed in the ordinance to be done. The best estimate at that point and time by CEI or engineering was $300,000. They anticipated to get those streets done. However, the contract was bid three times. The first time nobody bid, the second time one person bid and the third time there were three or four bidders who were more within reason. The 8 x.,t ..,~a ..,,_ ~ ~ _