WHITEHALL — Whitehall city manager Scott Huebler informed the city
council during Tuesday's regular meeting that the Zellar Road work is
set to be complete either at the end of this week or early next week.
The
road work, which was necessitated by recent heavy rain damage, is being
completed by White Lake Excavating at a cost of $80,440, the expense of
which was approved at a Nov. 1 special meeting of the council so that
the work could begin promptly.
Piping under Zellar Road will
need to be examined to determine the extent of repairs necessary as
well. The council approved a $32,000 bid from Plummers Environmental in
Byron Center to assess and repair damage to the storm sewer.
The
city will soon have to deal with another unexpected cost, as Huebler
reported to the council that a Whitehall police car was recently totaled
in an accident. Huebler said everyone involved was OK and that the
police officer was not at fault in the accident. The council will be
presented with pricing options at its next meeting; another
municipality, Huebler said, has a road-ready police car available to
sell the city, and the nearby Fremont Ford dealership also has an
available vehicle, but that one would require wiring work to be ready
for police use and would not be ready for months.
The council unanimously (apart from councilman Jeff Holmstrom, who was
absent) approved a Dec. 10 public hearing, to take place during the city
council meeting, to discuss amendments to the Tax Increment Finance
Authority and Local Development Finance Authority budgets.
Also
Tuesday, the council unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding
with Whitehall District Schools regarding the use of a school resource
officer (SRO). The SRO program has been in place for some time,
originally funded by a grant, according to Huebler, but since the
expiration of that grant the arrangement had been informal. The MOU's
approval formalized the arrangement without a change to the involved
finances.
The council praised the Department of Public
Works employees for their work in leaf pickup to date. The DPW picked up
those responsibilities from Lakeshore Leaf, which informed the city
earlier this month that it would be unable to fulfill a five-year
contract it and the city agreed to last year. Councilman Scott Brown
said the DPW is doing as good a job or better than Lakeshore Leaf did
the year prior.
