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Properties want to leave Truman

TRUMAN — The Truman City Council on Monday reviewed a petition from four households on the southwest edge of town that requested detachment from the city.

One resident, Vernon Quade, was present at the meeting.

“We had two suggestions: Can we reduce the taxes because of lack of services, or can we detach from the city? Either way our objective is to lower our taxes,” Quade said.

The four properties do not receive septic system installation or maintenance; water system maintenance; street maintenance; lighting maintenance; snow removal; or other services from the city because of their location, so they must provide their own services at their own expense. If they are detached from the city and moved into Waverly Township, they believe the tax base of the township will better match their situation.

Without the four properties, the city of Truman would lose about $4,000 in property tax revenue.

Council member Jake Ebert said he understands Quade’s concerns but has some of his own, which other council members echoed.

“My concern is the ripple effect to the farmers saying, ‘Hey they’re annexed out, I want to be out of it too. I want to be in the township as well,'” said council member Brandon Mosloski.

Council members told Quade they would like to look at some options and come up with a compromise so his taxes are lowered and the city does not lose out on more in case of a ripple effect.

Moving to other matters, city administrator Bethanie Ekstrom informed the council there is a party interested in opening a tap room in Truman. The party has a location in mind but does not want to buy the property until they know making it into a tap room is a possibility.

The council currently has two on-sale and two off-sale liquor license in use, so it would need to approve another one.

“We want to have liquor license available for businesses to come in,” Ekstrom said.

The council was in support of the possibility but wants more information on what the interested party plans to do concerning on-sale or off-sale liquor. Ekstrom said she would check with them.

In order to keep the process moving forward, the council approved one more liquor license of each kind.

In other news, Ekstrom received a request from a resident to turn off the 7 a.m. sirens on weekends. The council discussed the matter and noted that a survey was sent out several years ago. It came back with around 90 percent of residents saying to keep it.

The council planned to check with an employee to see if it is even an option to get the siren programmed differently for the weekend.

Moving along to other matters, the council received a request to waive the campground fee for on-call EMTs on the weekends. The fee is $20 per day.

“They can’t leave on the weekends when they’re on call so at least this way they can do something fun,” said council member Jake Ebert.

The council approved to waive the fee for EMTs when they are on-call during the weekend.

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