TRUMAN — The Truman City Council meeting opened Monday evening with the annual Board of Appeals and Equalization meeting. Dan Whitman from the Martin County Assessor’s Office was present to provide assessed values for properties in Truman that are used to assess property taxes. The sales period dated 10/1/16 — 09/30/17 shows 15 sales that occurred in Truman. The ratio on those sales was 79.52 percent. The State requires the assessor’s office sales to be between 90 percent and 105 percent. To accomplish this, two neighborhoods were raised 18 percent.

The council also heard a report from Truman pool commission members Faith Clow, Kirsten Bressler and Kim Breamer. The members announced that Amy Werner, who was previously on the commission, has turned in her resignation and they decided they don’t need to fill that open spot.

Breamer said that they’re looking at giving an incentive in order to retain some lifeguards. Breamer reported that several other area pools pay for their lifeguard’s training and Water Safety Instructor (WSI) certificate training. Truman used to pay for their lifeguards to receive training up front but then found that many lifeguards wouldn’t stay for long.

“If we want to keep them around and want to keep them on for a number of years I think an incentive of some sort is a good idea for them,” said Breamer.

Breamer said it costs $200 for lifeguard training so they’re contemplating giving the lifeguards $100 back at the end of the season if they had worked so many hours. If they were to stay on a second year, they would get the rest of the money back, too.

“I think it’s important we as a community show the kids that we appreciate them and we want them around,” said council member Kathy Hendricksen.

The council told the pool commissioners that they can come up with a minimum of hours lifeguards should work in order to get a reimbursement on training fees.

Bressler reported that they were able to get changing tables for both the men and women’s restrooms at the pool from McDonald’s for $50 each.

In other news, the council accepted the following donations:

q $12,242 from the Community Baptist Church for the swimming pool slide.

q $5,000 from Heartland Consumer Power for the LED street lights.

q $500 from MN Energy Resources for the Community Building furnace.

q Several individual donations for the ambulance fund.