City administrator Nicole Pilgrim received another new title at the regular council meeting held at city hall on February 19th. Pilgrim is now the Zoning Administrator as appointed by Mayor Al Haas, a job title that hasn’t been held in the City of Stanley since at least 2020.
Slowiak Masonry & Concrete was approved to make improvements and fix any items that are needed at Maves Memorial Pavilion at a cost of $12,500. The cost will be paid from Storm donations and the Park Improvement Fund.
The Council also voted to approve a change order to the new Soo Line Depot construction. Alderperson Mark Fitzsimmons said, “We changed the scope of the work to try to stay within our insurance budgetary process. We moved our scope into still having some masonry put in there but moving the scope down to a more manageable budgetary number.”
“It will still look nice, it’s just going to be a shorter scope of work and better fits the budget,” Fitzsimmons remarked and mentioned that it will still have depot characteristics.
The masonry work to be completed by Slowiak Masonry & Concrete will cost $18,000.00, a large decrease from the previous amount of $32,000.00
The council decided not to hire a new employee for the Water Department at the Monday evening meeting. Alderperson Mike Henke informed the council that the personnel committee met earlier to discuss the hiring of a new employee in the water department and shared that it would cost $93,000 for a new employee. With increased water department prices, they recommended not to hire someone new but to shuffle the employees around their positions internally. The council also voted not to hire summer help for the Water and Sewer Departments.
“What concerns me more than anything is where we are financially on the water side,” Henke said.
He stated that with Ace Ethanol installing new wells, bringing a decrease of $250,000 in revenue to the city, increased chemical costs of $30,000 over budget, approved engineering for Second Avenue, and other unexpected expenses, hiring a new employee wasn’t feasible.
He added that with Ace Ethanol drilling new wells, the cost of chemicals was expected to go down but it’s not the case.
“We thought that pump less water, the chemical cost would go down. Pump less water, chemical costs actually went up,” remarked Henke. Henke explained that a water rate study is currently being completed but the city won’t see a rate increase until middle to late 2025.
Henke also discussed that the extra money needed to cover the budget overage will come from the reserve funds.
The council unanimously approved the purchase of an oil free compressor at a cost of $72,420.00 from Pinnacle Ozone Solutions, LLC as required by the Department of Natural Resources.
Alderperson Jason Meyer stated, “So basically we’ve had an oil compressor with a chance of oil leaking into the drinking water.”
“That’s what the DNR is saying,” water operator Don Goettl answered. The new oil free compressor is 40 hp instead of 30 hp originally proposed, comes with a separate dryer, and will take eight to ten weeks to be delivered.
