City Council
During the first City Council meeting of March on Monday March 5, Pam Ice, the current Chamber of Commerce President read a press release regarding the future plans of the Chamber. According to the prepared statement Ice read the Chamber is shifting their focus to promoting and mentoring businesses in Cameron. As part of the new focus, they will be turning over the community events they have run to the City and Tim Wynes, Economic Development Director for the city will spearhead the events. The Chamber will support and assist the city in those events, but will not longer be in charge of them. Ice’s full statement is in this edition of the paper as the Chamber of Commerce press release.
Dr. Joel Denney of the Missouri National Guard Foundation and Lela Grubel of North Star Housing were before the Council to explain and request support for planned development of new senior housing for Veterans near the Missouri Veterans Home. This project is only in the planning stages currently, but according to Denney, there is such support in the Cameron community for the veterans, it is a perfect place to build the housing. Councilman Clark recussed himself from the vote later in the meeting, but the remaining Council members voted to on a Resolution in support of the project.
Part of the unfinished business before the Council was a liquor license for Anna Seba LLC. The liquor license had expired on December 17, 2017 and City Staff received information from a citizen stating Lucky’s Bar and Grill was continuing to operate without the license. On January 17 the establishment was closed until a liquor license could be obtained. City staff was informed by the State Liquor Control that the State had concerns about the LLC, specifically that there may be person(s) associated with the LLC that would disqualify it from obtaining a liquor license. The LLC has submitted all the documents and fees for the liquor license and staff recommended approving the licenses until the State investigation is complete. Should the State conclude the State liquor license is not valid or is revoked, the City license will no longer be valid. The Council voted to approve the license with three in favor and two opposed. Counilmembers Sloan and Feighert were opposed.
During the City Manager Mark Gaugh’s report he informed the Council the staff is working on a list of dilapidated houses for the demolition projects this year. Gaugh also reported Cameron will host the NW Regional Meeting on April 12 at the YMCA – which will bring municipal officials from around the area. Gaugh also reported the animal shelter working group will be meeting with city staff and an architect for one of the final meetings and to get some solid answers on costs for a new shelter. Before meeting with the architect the working group will meet with city staff to determine how much of the plans are feasible from the staff point of view to attempt to be certain the plans requested of the architect are in line with what staff can manage.
Terry Rumrey was before the Council to give the Economic Development report. According to Rumrey the acquisition of the land for the business park has resulted in a busy month for requests for information. Most of the requests were unable to be filled because there is no infrastructure to the business park yet and according to Rumrey, until there is water, sewer and electricity to the business park, there will not likely be as much interest in it, but that interest will become more once that infrastructure is in place.
Rumrey also reported progress is being made on the corner at 35 and 36 to the West across from Nelle’s restaurant, the owners of the property should be visiting soon to get a better idea of what needs to be done to move forward.
The first piece of new business before the Council was a three year agreement with the auditing firm of Hochschild, Bloom & Company, LLP. Gaugh said it may be a good practice to change auditing firms every ten years or so unless the costs becomes an issue. The current firm has been doing the audits for the past three years and submitted a three-year extension. The fees will be $20,450 for the year ending September 2018, $29,020 for 2019 and $29,600 for 2020. An additional fee for the TIF related procedures will be $2,280 each year. After a brief discussion the Council voted unanimously to approve the bill.
A bill was before the Council to write off the uncollected utility accounts for the city. The total amount to be written off this year was $20,491.59, a decrease from last year of $4,555.83. Last year 98 accounts were written off, this year 95 were. There was some discussion by the Council about if there are other efforts to be made to collect more of the debt or if there might be another way to calculate deposits differently. Zac Johnson Utilities Director said it is something they can look at moving forward. The bill was approved unanimously.
There was a resolution before the Council to enter into a contract with Surdex Corporation for new Digital Ortho Imagery. The last imagery was done in 2011. The imagery will be available to anyone with computer access via the City of Cameron website. The costs will be $18,100 with an expected delivery date of 60 days from the date of Council approval. The Council voted unanimously to approve.
There was also a resolution before the Council to offer support of the Dollar Tree store project at 2202 N. Walnut. Tim Wynes requested the resolution be tabled as during the construction of the retaining wall a gas line was discovered and the plans will have to be altered. The Council voted unanimously to table the resolution.
During the miscellaneous portion of the meeting at the end Shellie Blades, City Clerk informed the Council she has been selected to be the City’s representative for the Kiwanis Club which is trying to get started in Cameron.
Councilman Feighert said he appreciated all the tree removal from the recent ice storm but asked if perhaps there could be a second day scheduled in the future for limb removal, because as was in the case this year, there was a second ice event not long after the first which may have prevented citizens from being able to remove their limbs. Manager Gaugh said it is absolutely something the City staff can look into.
Mayor Breckenridge asked if there was some way to limit or to clarify what is considered trash for large trash pick up day because she has been noticing there is a lot of trash that seems to be just trash bags, instead of large trash. Councilman Jack said it seems the City of Cameron is cleaning up four counties on large trash day because when someone pulls up with a truck in front of someone else’s curb and unloads, you know that didn’t come from the resident living there. Gaugh said the contract is coming up and it is something we can look into.
The next meeting of the City Council will be Monday March 19 at 6 p..m.
