At the last city council meeting, the newly elected and the unopposed city officials were sworn in. The election should have been in April, but it was delayed because of COVID-19. I was unsure of what to write about for the monthly mayor’s letter, but Carrie Moritz had a good idea. She thought it would be interesting to look back at my last term as mayor and what it was like.
First of all, I’d like to say that it has been an honor to serve the community. After acting as mayor for my first term, I’ve come to appreciate what all of our past mayors have done. Sometimes it can be a difficult job and unfortunately there is no instruction manual on how to do the job correctly. Secondly, it has been an honor to work with the city council members. They have done a great job. I appreciate how the council members can disagree and express their view points but still be cordial afterwards. They have had to make some difficult decisions.
During this last term we revised and improved the city’s planning and zoning guidelines. We also adopted and updated building and property maintenance codes. I created the position of a code enforcement officer to help us enforce new and current property codes.
To go along with property, we completed the TIF that was used to fund the new development on the south end of Garretson.
There have been several construction projects to improve our infrastructure. We completed the 5th Street project to improve water and sewer to the Industrial Development Park and surrounding area. This will allow for future development and expansion to the north of 5th Street. We are working on a project for the 5th Street bridge. This project will rehabilitate the current bridge and bring the historic and unique bridge up to date.
In this August 2019 file photo, Haarsma Construction can be seen working on 3rd Street. The contract with Haarsma was terminated in the fall of 2019 after the street project took two full summers and still hadn't even begun on the second half of Main or the Truck Route. Several weaknesses in the replaced infrastructure were found and had to be repaired.
We started the largest street project that our community has ever seen. As everyone is aware, the 3rd Street project started out OK but did have a few setbacks, including the wettest summer we’ve seen in a long time. Unfortunately, the second season of this project was a failure, with the work proceeding at an unacceptable pace.
We worked with the city engineers and lawyer to declare the construction company in default of its contract with the city. This rarely happens with any municipal project and required a lot of work and time for all of the people involved.
Personally speaking, this was the most difficult time of my first term. A decision to continue or to stop construction would have serious consequences for all parties involved. I spent many sleepless nights worrying about this project but looking back I’m absolutely confident that we made the right decision.
The second most difficult thing that I feel we have dealt with is the COVID epidemic. As a healthcare worker it has been incredible seeing things unfold. It was also important that we keep our community members safe. I brought some very difficult questions forward for the council to decide. I think that a lot of communities may have over-reacted but I feel that Garretson’s decisions were just right.
Again, it has been an honor to serve you. With my second term I promise that we will continue to grow and improve our community. This is a very exciting time for our community and we are on cusp of some really great things. Stay tuned and thank you.
