Glasgow City Council Met In Regular Session

The Glasgow City Council met on Oct. 4 in the Council Chambers located inside of the Glasgow Civic Center. Starting the meeting off, the Council approved the consent agenda items which included payment of claims in the amount of $259,210.83; payment of Valley Court apartment claims in the amount of $1,841.70, the minutes for the Sept. 18, regular council meeting and Resolution No. 3146, establishing budgetary authority in the City-County Library fund for the receipt and expenditure of a donation received from Nemont Telephone. With a motion made by Councilwoman Lisa Koski and a second by Dan Carr, the financials for May and June 2023 were also passed unanimously by the council.

Mayor Rod Karst and Kaden Bedwell, of Interstate Engineering who is the engineering firm of the Glasgow Pool project, provided an update to the Council regarding the current bathhouse.

“I did take it upon myself to have the inspector come. He walked over there and went through things with Jory [Casterline], myself and Rod Dees, looking at the facility. He said ‘You know, you have a 50-year old building that could be rehabbed, but how much are you willing to put into that?’ In his estimation, it’s going to be probably pretty close to the same as knocking it down, putting in a new building or rehab it,” explained Karst. “He did say we have a 50-year old building and who knows when we start working on it, digging out the floor, what’s that going to do to the walls. So we came to the conclusion it’s time to just knock it down and move forward.”

“We did have a committee meeting and it was discussed by the architect the same exact things, that we’re putting a lot of money into this building and basically all we’re saving is the walls. Once we started adding up the cost, it just wasn’t really feasible to reuse that existing bath house,” reiterated Bedwell.

After discussing the current funding available for the project as well as analyzing what a remodel would cost compared to building a new bathhouse, the Council voted unanimously to have the Valley County Community Pool Campaign committee move forward with plans to create and build a new bathhouse as opposed to remodeling the current one. These plans will include completing engineering drawings with specifications, and then advertising requests for bids for the construction. The estimated cost is $500,000 to $600,000 for a bathhouse, whether its renovated or built new. Though the committee doesn’t have the funds to build a new building currently, after raising funds 2.8 million for the pool itself, Mayor Karst, who is also a committee member, was confident fundraising efforts will continue for the project and City Grant Writer Ashleigh Beyers has some grants in mind to apply for to help the bathhouse project move forward.

The Council also discussed the logistics and how it would look if Bonnie Street and Aberdeen Street were closed for a portion of the evening on Halloween night for the safety of children and families trick-or-treating. “Drew Henry put together a petition for closing down Bonnie Street for Halloween, knowing that they get 300 plus kids up on Bonnie Street and Aberdeen,” explained Mayor Karst. “What they would like to do is block off the streets, have the parents park at the top of the street and have the kids walk down around the street, not having to worry about cars.”

“When Drew approached me, it was just to shutdown Bonnie Street. I said that it might not be a bad idea to talk to your neighbors and they put together a petition, the ones that were for the Bonnie Street, which is a majority of them,” explained Glasgow Police Chief Robert Weber. “Since that, it’s been thought that Aberdeen might be included in there. I’m not comfortable shutting down Aberdeen without Council approval, especially because there’s no petition from the neighbors.”

According to Police Chief Weber, there is a plan to utilize the Evangelical Church parking lot for parents to park their vehicles and allow the children to walk the two streets from there, which the church is in favor of. The street closures will still allow emergency vehicles to travel in the event of an emergency, however depending on the time of the closure, there was concern from the council members about people being able to get home for the day.

Before proceeding with the closure of these streets for a yet to be determined designated time frame, the Council tabled the decision until the next council meeting, 5 p.m., Oct. 16, in the Council Chambers, to allow residents of both streets to attend and express their input.

The Council also approved the change order of $3,480 for the Sewer Separation Project done this summer in Glasgow, payable to LSC Construction and approved a professional services agreement between the City of Glasgow and Great West Engineering in the amount of $71,300 t update the SWIF Plan for the Levee in Glasgow.

It was also reported from the City Water Department that residents of Glasgow used 40 million gallons of water in August but that number fell significantly in September to 22 million gallons. “We’re getting into our fall pumping, shorter days, so we’re going to be increasing a lot of the operation maintenance, the scheduled maintenance for our equipment and then we are also going to be running through emergency response plans for different things,” explained Water/Wastewater Supervisor Chelsea Dodd.

The Glasgow City Council will hold their next meeting on Monday, Oct. 16, 5 p.m., in the Council Chambers located inside the Glasgow Civic Center. Once available, the agenda will be posted on The Glasgow Courier Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/glasgowcourier.