Trending
TRUMAN-- At the Truman City Council meeting on Monday, Troy Nemmers, an engineer with Bolton & Menk, was present to give an update on the Highway 15 sidewalk project. The council has been discussing the project since the spring of 2023.
The city has received a grant from the state via the Local Partnership Program (LPP) for sidewalk improvements and Bolton & Menk has been working with the council on a design.
Nemmers said the main path for the sidewalk is on the east side of Highway 15 from South 1st Street up to Dollar General.
"We went out on site last summer and looked at the west side basically between East 1st and East 2nd Street," Nemmers said.
He provided the council with several other options for the sidewalk, including running the sidewalk north.
"Basically what we're looking at tonight are some cost estimates," Nemmers said.
Options ranged in cost from $12,000 up to $30,000 with the city responsible for that portion of the project.
Some councilors said they knew of some property owners that did not want to maintain the sidewalk on their property.
"I say we just stick to the east side and leave the other one alone," said Council Member Danielle Williams. "Because if we have to come up with extra money, where is it coming from?"
Mayor Jake Ebert said the main goal was to get something on the highway. Council Member Chris Mosloski said there was a desire to be able to access Dollar General and Casey's by foot.
"This money is for safety. That's the number one goal," said Ebert.
He asked whether the council wanted to put in a crosswalk on the north side of Aardvarks.
"The sidewalk has to be built into something that's ADA compliant. It can just dump off into a ditch or grass," Ebert said.
The council approve the Highway 15 sidewalk plan as is with a crosswalk on the west side from 1st Street heading north.
The council also heard from Deputy Matt Owens with the Martin County Sheriff's Office regarding nuisance enforcement.
At the last regular council meeting on March 17 the council discussed nuisance enforcement and the sheriff's department had suggested using door hangars to notify residents of violations.
On Monday Owns said that Deputy Sheriff Josh Nelson had identified 26 properties that were in violation and they were given until April 30 to correct the violation. City Clerk Melissa Sirovy said they will make door hangars for department members to use as discussed.
Owens told the council that its ordinance currently calls for a 10 day notice of an ordinance violation. He said he believed more grace could be included.
"The end goal is to stay out of court. We want compliance. We want clean up without going into court so by giving extra time, hopefully there will be compliance," Owen said.
Ebert said he was okay with allowing for 30 days. Owens said they could shorten it later but for this first go-around, with so many violations, he thought 30 days would be best.
"I think if we stay on top of it 10 days should be plenty, but since it was a pile of stuff 30 days is just fine," said Williams.
Owens said they can revisit how compliance looks after April 30.
In other business, Josh Kitzerow gave a quarterly ambulance department report. He said so far for the year they've had 61 calls, 40 in Truman, 12 in Fairmont and the rest to cities including Granada, Jackson and Mankato. He said they're averaging a five minute response time from getting a call to getting to the fire hall and then seven minutes to get to a scene.
Utility Foreman Brent Brown also provided a quarterly report and touched on the pickleball court project.
At the March 3 meeting the council accepted a pickleball equipment grant award from USA Pickleball and as part of that has 48 paddles and he's been working with city staff on where to store them.
"We're looked at getting a storage box at the park... we also looked at a pickleball training day and if they register for the class they get a paddle," Brown said.
In other action, the council set Saturday, Sept. 20 as the city wide clean up date.