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Truman Council talks snow policy

TRUMAN — The Truman City Council on Monday discussed snow policy and snow emergency. The city does not currently have a snow emergency ordinance.

“The only thing that we currently have is an our city ordinance it says that people have to keep vehicles off the streets if it’s deemed as a hazard. We can tow them, but we have to tow them to a garage or a safe place and we don’t have anything like that,” said Police Chief Justin Jobe.

Jobe went on to say that they’ve had several problems so far this season that have been resolved, but the council discussed the need to take more action.

“I know last year we talked about parking on lawns because some places don’t have off-street parking so I don’t think we can take it completely away,” said council member Brandon Mosloski.

Other council members agreed and discussed odd and even sides of the street removal on alternating days. The council will further look into creating a snow emergency ordinance.

Continuing the discussion of snow, city administrator Bethanie Ekstrom informed the council that she has received numerous complaints from residents. Some complaints have been from residents who can’t get to their mailboxes due to the snow.

“If there’s snow in front of your mailboxes, that’s the residents responsibility, not the maintenance guys,” pointed out council member Kathy Hendricksen.

“I think they do an excellent job,” said Mosloski, to the agreement of the council.

Ekstrom also brought to the attention of the council a resident’s suggestion to turn the community building into a place to house stranded motorists.

Casey’s is not open 24/7 and the bed and breakfast in town has been known to take in people on occasion but there’s no guarantee.

Council members talked about getting some cots and wool blankets to be kept in the basement of the community building. Mosloski pointed out that the community building does have a kitchen so bringing food supplies in wouldn’t be a problem.

Jobe said he would look into grants from homeland security to help with funding in order to get some cots and other supplies.

Moving along to other matters, Billeye Rabbe, director at Prairieland solid waste management, was present to give an update from the previous year.

Prairieland is a facility owned by the taxpayers of Martin and Faribault counties and is headquartered at the edge of Truman. About 75 percent of the garbage that comes in goes to Xcel Energy in Mankato to be made into electricity.

“It’s been a good year for us at Prairieland,” Rabbe said.

In 2018, Prairieland processed almost 18,000 tons of garbage, which is up slightly from the previous year. The gross revenue from the garbage brought to Prairieland was $1,837,290.

“We continue to reinvest that money in the facility,” Rabbe said.- 3.30

Some highlights from last year include replacing the entire roof of the facility, which was originally expected to be patched. Nonetheless, this is Prairieland’s fifth year of being able to operate in the black.

Rabbe said some projects moving forward include continuing to improve safety aspects of the facility as well as improve security of the facility.

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