Government : City Council Meeting: Fences, Seed House Update, Leaking Pool

The General Government Community and Economic Development Committee Meeting met before the City Council meeting and recommended to the council concerning a new fence ordinance that the council would make a 3-foot restriction in the front, 6 foot on the sides and back, and that it can be built on the property line and using recommendations from Crestwood, Missouri's ordinance, materials and etc. that can be used and it was also recommended to add that that meters and utilities would need to have access. There will be a presentation of the proposed ordinance concerning fences at the next meeting.

The owner of the Seed House gave a status update on his property and the ongoing cleanup that is happening. He plans to have the outside cleaned up, vehicles taken care of in the next week. Pointing out that the building takes up a quarter of a block so it is taking a lot of time and effort. To date he has moved 328 windows moved to the second floor, 88 bicycle wheels, 12 bicycle frames, 165+ bicycles were moved, 80+ boxes of miscellaneous debris and glassware from the flood of '08. There are still another 100 windows to move and 200 gallons of water to move, another 43 bicycles and 1-2,000 street bricks, 65+ car wheels, and 100 board feet of wood. He also will be working on the windows to get it looking nice before the sesquicentennial in August.

The council moved to purchase a new mower as well as a new and truck with a box and plow.

The council also moved to put $15,000 toward the Sesquicentennial celebration fireworks display.

The council also moved to consider a request for a contribution to the Benton County Ambulance of $5,257

Matt Boggess of Vinton Parks and Recreation brought to the council's attention that the city pool is currently leaking. The pool was filled on May 3rd, and after a couple of days of running the equipment to make sure everything was operating correctly, it was noted that the water level had dropped. Valves and inlets have been checked throughout the complete system. After spending multiple hours looking through microfilm to locate information on how to find plans for the pool, Boggess thinks that the problem could be with the filtration system because of the water loss happening only when that is turned on. After having a plumbing company with a camera snake out approximately 250-280 feet of pipe and looking at it via the video feed nothing was found that seemed to be causing the issue. They did see normal wear and tear with 31 year old plumbing but nothing that is causing the leak in the area that they looked at. There has been no solution found at this time. Boggess has been actively seeking various forms of help siting a potential sonar trained person that may look at it to see if they can discover the problem. There might be a way to bring another crawler camera to go into the field tile to see if they can follow the water.

Boggess clarified that he does not like the idea of the water being wasted, but he weighs that against the 600 swimming lessons, 50 part-time employees, over 250 pool pass holders, VAC swim club, 3 large daycares that use the pool on a weekly basis and the people that drive to Vinton to use the pool and the money they would spend in town and it seems to be obvious that the recommendation to pay the additional water cost would benefit the community to keep the revenue coming into the town.

It was decided to allow the pool to remain open through the summer and to deal with the issue in the fall.

Boggess wanted the city to be aware that there is seepage and that they may receive calls from residents who might see water that is coming out of the leaching field and would call to report the issue, but that there is no need for alarm. The water has been tested so that it also won't be causing a problem environmentally.

The two houses in the flood buyout have been purchased. The Corbett land has also been purchased.

The Garden Club has also discovered some grants that are available to make some improvements in the downtown.

It was mentioned that partnerships have been lined up for the broadband project to move forward. (There will be more information on Vinton Today at a later date)