Iolans will not have to pay higher water rates for at least the next year.
Iola commissioners agreed Tuesday to forego any sort of rate increase, favoring instead a $300,000 transfer from the city’s sewer reserves.
The transfer will ensure the water fund has enough money to meet expenses in the coming year, while keeping enough in the sewer fund reserves, City Administrator Judy Brigham said.
“I don’t think this resolves the problem, but it does buy us some time,” Brigham said.
The crux of the problem lies in lower water sales, attributable in part to several years of abnormally wet weather, Brigham said. The city also has not been able to attract large-scale customers from other municipalities as was hoped when the water plant was built in 2005.
As a result, the water fund has slowly evaporated in recent years to the point that the city would not be able to afford day-to-day expenses as well as the city’s annual loan payments to the state to fund construction of the new plant.
“We’ve trimmed everything we know of from the budget,” Brigham said, including prolonging maintenance projects and eliminating other purchases.
With commissioners declaring previously that a water rate hike was out of the question, the city’s only option was a transfer, Brigham said.
“The reason we’re not selling any water is because of our rates,” Commissioner Craig Abbott replied. If Iola’s plant provides top-of-the-line water at a reasonable rate, the customers will follow, he said.
AS THE CITY begins a project to repair or replace dozens of manholes around the city, Brigham noted that city officials may have to deal with fences, decks and even storage sheds in some cases.
That’s because some property owners have improperly built atop some manholes, Brigham said.
In those cases, it’s the property owner’s responsibility to remove the impeding structures, she said.
THE OLD Iola Greenhouse building at 704 E. Lincoln St. will be demolished within the next few months, commissioners decided at the conclusion of a condemnation hearing.
All of the structures at the property, except for a Quonset hut, will be torn down, commissioners said. Owner Dennis Williams asked that the Quonset be spared so that it could be sold and removed from the property.
The hearing included, for the second time in two weeks, an admonishment from commissioners that city employees be more amenable with the public.
Williams told commissioners that he was given only 30 minutes’ notice that the Greenhouse was going to be closed before electricity was shut off to the facility in March.
“I’m not contesting anything, but I’m asking that in future cases, you contact the property owners, not the renters or the leasees,” Williams said.
Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Bauer said Williams wasn’t notified earlier because the complaint came from the property’s renters.
A natural gas odor prompted a call to the city in March. Bauer’s subsequent investigation revealed extensive water damage to the structure, broken glass panes in the greenhouse and deteriorating bricks and mortar as well as outlying buildings on the property.
“There was enough of a hazard that we determined the building was not safe for the public,” Bauer said.
Bauer ordered the building shuttered immediately. The greenhouse office relocated to a downtown store on Madison Avenue.
Bauer said he was hesitant to save the Quonset structure for a number of reasons, including its placement directly over a city sewer line.
“It’s only been there 100 years,” Williams replied.
“I’d like to focus on how we can help,” Abbott said.
Bauer responded that if the Quonset is removed soon, he would have no quarrel with saving it.
Commissioners also asked Bauer to notify property owners and not renters in similar situations in the future.
In a related matter, commissioners scheduled a June 22 public hearing to consider the fate of the old IGA building at 319 W. Garfield St.
