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City of Wyoming lands $500,000 DEED grant |
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Wednesday, 12 March 2008 |
Alice Pickering
Wyoming Reporter
Wyoming City Council on Tuesday, March 4 approved the acceptance of a grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development in the amount of $500,000.
The grant money comes from a section of the business development portion of the program specifically to develop public infrastructure. It will help the city extend its utilities to the Xccent site, up to 50 percent of the cost of these improvements.
Xccent is to provide the matching funds.
According to Mayor Sheldon Anderson, this will also allow building a road north of Heims Lake to a junction with Forest Blvd. (US-61). Anderson said he hoped a signal light at the intersection near Wyoming Elementary School would be part of the project.
However, City Engineer Mark Erichson told the council that the cost of a controlled intersection alone would run between $225,000 and $250,000. The feasibility study should make the cost estimate more precise.
Council member Joe Zerwas was in favor of the grant to extend the utilities that will help a business bring jobs to the city. Council members Tom LaBarre and Blake Tiedeman agreed.
But not Council member Gary Menne who thought that the grant was for business development, not to pay for utilities.
The final vote was 4-1 with Menne opposed because he believed it was taking money from smaller businesses.
Records storing
Soon city documents and records in Wyoming will be stored on a laser fiche system. City council approved the purchase of the document imaging system to store city documents.
City Administrator Craig Mattson explained that this would be better way of cataloguing information, save storage space and be a more efficient retrieval system.
Mattson estimated the system can image about 40 pages a minute and existing paper documents can be converted to the system. Key words will enable the staff to find any document stored in the system. Crabtree Companies, Inc. provides on-site training for staff. Continuous software updates are included in the package.
The technology creates images in ASCII and is universally understood by PCs. It allows easy data migration from one storage medium to another and guarantees the future readability of documents despite evolving technology, according to literature provided by the company.
Documents can be made available on the city website and people can make their own copies. LaBarre said he looks forward to a time when council members have laptop computers with which they can access ordinances, contracts, or other documents to help make decisions.
As a possible revenue stream, Tiedeman asked about the possibility of offering the same service to other small cities. Another possibility is creating images of historical documents so the contents are accessible, but the originals can be stored for preservation, he added.
The city budgeted $9200 for capital outlay, according to Mattson. Crabtree Companies, Inc. submitted a proposal of $8110 for the document imaging and laser fiche system.
Moratorium
Council acted to place moratorium on the city ordinance to restrict and prohibit sexually oriented businesses with Wyoming. The main reason is that Chisago County is reviewing its ordinance and the city is taking advantage of the action to review its ordinance to be sure it is adequate and in agreement with the county ordinance.
Chip Yeager asked about the status of city’s ordinance. Mattson explained it was not yet officially in the ordinance books and that this would a good time to review it. Attorney Dave Snyder also recommended the moratorium on enforcement until the review is completed. The vote was 5-0 in favor of the action.
Easement OK’d
Council adopted a resolution in which the city vacates a utility and drainage easement along the east property line of Lot one, Block one, part of out lot B, Fairview Lakes No. 3. This is the easement on the eastern border of Fairview Meadows.
At a public hearing in November Ebenezer Lakes Senior Housing asked the city to vacate this easement because of a proposed building expansion. Action taken by the council makes all this official. The vote was unanimous.
Other topics
Chisago Lakes Joint Sewer Commission is continuing to investigate an intermittent odor problem at one pumping station in the system. At least one theory is that volume moving through the system varies and may contribute to the problem.
Tiedeman, liaison to the park board, said the city and township plan to develop an inventory of the facilities in their parks in anticipation of the annexation. There is the possibility of a contest to develop a logo for the “new” city. Plans are underway for the city and township sponsored Easter egg hunt.
Other business
In other business, the city council:
•Placed a bill from McCombs Frank Roos Associates on the agenda for discussion at the next meeting. Payment of the rest of the bills was approved by a 5-0 vote.
•Learned that the Wyoming Elementary D.A.R.E. graduation was held Feb. 29.
•Accepted reports from the attorney, engineer, building inspector, police chief, public works and fire department.
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