After searching for a new City Administrator, the City Council unanimously agreed to approve the employment agreement of Nathan Vander Plaats to fill the role. Plaats is scheduled to start on December 10. According to the employment agreement, Plaats will be given an initial base salary of $82,000.00.The motion to accept the agreement was made by Chad Reilly and seconded by Greg Poppenga.
The Lennox City Council discussed in further detail this week on what to do about utility bills and surcharges while the snowbirds fly the coop for the winter.
Snowbirds
The council, per the recommendation of Finance Officer Donna Houck, discussed during the November 13 meeting what to do for charging minimums or surcharges to snowbirds who chose to shut off their water service when they move out of the area during winter. This was brought up to see how the city could maintain revenue that can be used to pay City water and sewer improvement debts during the winter months.
Now, the council had the chance to review the preliminary draft of the resolution that would address how the city would go about filling in this revenue gap.
The proposed resolution states, “Despite having service turned off during the winter months temporarily, said ‘snowbirds’ and customers benefit from the maintenance and improvements made to the water and sewer systems of the City and should be required to pay their equal share to debt repayment.”
Therefore, the resolution goes on to explain that, if accepted, the plan would be to implement a new set of surcharges for water and sewer on July 1, 2019 to water and sewer customers that chose to have their water service turned off during the winter. Houck emphasized that the summer date was chosen to keep the decision ethical by implementing such changes while said snowbirds were away. The proposed surcharges are as follows:
Water - $ 17.75
Sewer - $20.80
Total - $38.55
These surcharges mean that each snowbird bill then would be charged $38.55 per month while they are away, if the resolution passes in the future.
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