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Janurary 2010 City Council Meeting
Sun, 01/17/2010 - 11:56pm — john
I was at the brief meeting with just a few local people mostly sitting in the back row.
Mr Moore was not there.
The Mayor announced 3 grant applications had been made as I understand through SIDC for City Ditch on Mary Street, Water Dept, and a sewer line in the south east section of town. All about a million each as I understand.
The Mayor also commented that the southeast sewer line project is an agreed order project since 1993 with IDEM and must be done even if we get a grant for it or not. Lets hope
we get the grant otherwise we will have more to pay for.
Not mentioned was a grant application for improving downtown supposedly in the works.
There has been a meeting of citizens for input but I was never made aware of it and I would have liked to have attended and offered ideas.
Kind of disturbing was something brought up by the City Attorney and that was what seemed to be a kind of forced apology from Lisa Lehman to the Mayor and the Council for the trouble(?) she caused when she wanted to install a couple of house trailers close to her home for families to live in. As I understand she could have been legal with county ordinances (which govern us since we signed on to the County Master plan) but was told by the City she would be in violation of City Ordinances which as I understand don't exist at least not yet. At one time there were city ordinances covering this but not any more.
(BTW the Mayor appointed Steve Sandefer and Greg Bourlard along with himself to a committee to review City Ordinances.)
As a Realtor I would like to see more population here by way of folks moving in and annexation but with a city attitude like this it isn't likely to happen. Anyway she is going to dispose of the trailers even losing money.
The county and the city seem to be at odds over what is the legal procedure on things like this.
Ron Ackman
Comments
Sewerline work
The Mayor and council needs to be careful because IDEM is looking at the replacement of all sewer lines in Bicknell and the projected cost is set at over 16 million dollars by IDEM's engineering buddies; this is a very expensive can of worms for the city to be opening up.
Everybody understands now the damage to Bicknell that was caused when the last mayor and council allowed IDEM to dictate the cost of our new sewer plant and the sewer cost jumped 136% and that was only a 5 million dollar job.
John R. Stanczak
sewer Lines
I know United Engineering has said all the lines need repair and replacement but in this case there apparently is an agreed order with IDEM on this sewer line from Maryland St toward the sewage plant.
As I understand it does not have the capacity to handle the volume.
I've heard that there is a lot of infiltration prior to getting to the problem area of south Maryland St. Kind of like the new sewage plant in a way. Instead of stopping infiltration just build big enough to handle all the rain water. That's ok if you are rich.
Ron Ackman
Infiltration farce
It will turn out to be the same thing that happened at the sewer plant plans and discussions IDEM will talk them into replacing all of the lines, using threats of fines and jail time, the mayor and council will fold just like the last time and we will be on the end of a 16 million dollar payment plan.
The lines are big enough if the sump pumps and such are removed from the sanitary sewer system and re-hooked up the storm sewer system. Do that and the water flow will decrease significantly. If that isn't done then every line will be deemed to be too small to carry the waste water load.
John R. Stanczak
Council Meeting
The Mayor also made a comment during the meeting that these grant applications all required no matching funds and that he would not pursue a grant that did.
This is short sighted as something like the sewer line which must be done (sooner or later) even with a matching fund (up to 25%) would be better than us paying 100% in case we don't get a grant.
As I understand matching funds don't necessarily have to be cash but might be services etc. Maybe backhoe work clearing trees, taking up sidewalk, road and sidewalk replacement, hauling sewage during the job and other possibilities like backfill and reseeding. Matter of fact maybe the city might be able to even do the job in its entirety.
Fundraisers might be a possibility as well as donations etc.
from Ron Ackman
Trailers in Bicknell
Steps taken to put a Mobile Home on a property are as follows.
Ask for application at Knox County court house with Area Planning Commission.
If approved you can put the trailer on the lot without cities approval or any signatures from neighbors.
I was told since Bicknell has no planning commission of their own it is decided by Knox County.
There will be a 10 dollar permit fee charged by Bicknell though.
The papers to prove this was given to the last mayor by Dixie in 2003 with the codes highlighted.
When I ask about main street she said one could be placed there as well if the application was approved.
Trailers
As far as I know this is true and has not been changed; I attempted to get this changed so that Bicknell could control its own by writing its own rules so that housing and trailers would be treated equally as there are more bad houses in Bicknell than trailers, which I call factory built homes, I wasn't concerned at the time about trailers but I felt that the way the city was punishing people who wanted to bring in factory built homes was not fair and was illegal and because I felt that the city should be able to plan its own road use as well as tax status but the last mayor and council just set on it as they did everything else.
I favored and still favor annexation and development programs to increase population where the first step would be to lower sewer rates, water rates and property taxes.
Grants are good in most cases but grants to build homes for future population will not help draw population unless they are given away.
Time is short and if something isn't done by this administration Bicknell will be hurt for the next 10 years when the next census is taken in 2020.
Trailers may be the fastest way to increase population as soon as possible since this administration has waited so long to get started.
John R. Stanczak