Iola City Attorney Chuck Apt’s contract for the city will not be renewed past this month.
City Council members voted 5-3 against reappointing Apt for the next two years. Councilmen Donald Becker, Joel Wicoff, Jim Kilby, Nancy Ford and David Toland voted against Apt’s reappointment. Voting to keep Apt as city attorney through September 2014 were Beverly Franklin, Scott Stewart and Steve French.
The dismissal means Iola, for the first time in 50 years, will not have an Apt as city attorney. Charles Apt, Chuck Apt’s father, preceded his son in that capacity from 1962 to 1994.
The city’s other appointed positions were unanimously approved through September 2014: Municipal Judge Thomas Saxton, Police Chief Jared Warner, Fire Chief Donald Leapheart and City Clerk Roxanne Hutton. Councilmen also unanimously approved Debra Troxel’s appointment as city treasurer, effective next April, when her two-year term as an elected official ends.
The city treasurer for years had been appointed, but her position became an elected one when voters disbanded the three-member city commissionfor the current default eight-member city council.
A charter ordinance approved earlier this year by the council — and officially becoming law earlier this month — reverts the treasurer to an appointed position.
THE CITY received a $20,828.75 check from Shafer, Kline and Warren, a local engineering firm, as a settlement for the city’s efforts to retroactively improve drainage near Scott Street.
The city spent about $70,000 to improve water drainage along West Scott after it became evident construction of an auto parts store – with the engineering firm’s blessing — adversely affected drainage at the home of Jim and Martha Heffernon during rainy weather. The Heffernons’ yard would flood during moderate to heavy rains.
COUNCIL MEMBERS formally accepted a $10,000 option from housing developer Tom Carlson to reserve the right to purchase as many as 29 vacant lots near Cedarbrook Golf Course for potential housing development.
Carlson has applied for tax credits to free him up to build more affordable housing units to income-eligible residents, similar to the 30 rental houses he already has built there.
The current development has a waiting list for occupants.
THE COUNCIL also approved a boot block at the intersection of Washington and Madison avenues from 8 a.m. to noon Oct. 6 by organizers of an Alzheimer’s Walk.
Councilmen approved a one-year termination notice to Southern Star to end the city’s agreement for transportation of natural gas with the existing tariffs in place. A new agreement would allow the city to take advantage of a more beneficial tariff for the city, Slaugh explained. The maneuver will save the city an average of $20,000 a month.
