Toledo takes care of business

At 6 pm on October 19, the Toledo City Council Meeting was called to order. At the beginning of this meeting the council was informed of Councilman Nate Cook having called in sick. After the consent agenda, the council moved into department reports.

Mayor Jerry Pratt notified that he had no reports for the meeting so the attention was given to Public Works, Craig McCown. McCown reported that everything was "working well." As he continued, he stated that a fan at the plant had failed and the new one should be in soon. He also claimed that the head start was having problems. McCown told the council that it has been a problem for a while and will continue to be a problem unless money is put into it. As he went on, he told the council that the options were to either pay and get it fixed or keep putting out for it to be cleaned regularly. Also in this report, McCown said that the building had been aged by the head start. Although the building still looked good, there had been areas that were starting to show "dry rot." Closing his report,

Police Chief John Brockmueller was called forward.

"Things are going well. 20 calls of service in the past two weeks." Brockmueller told the council as he approached. In his report, he told the audience that the new young man they hired will start night shift within the week. With this new hiring, they are up to full staff. Mayor Pratt spoke up and told the council that the new officer had come into town before applying and looked around the town to check everything out. "He really put out the initiative." Mayor Pratt said. After this comment, Brockmueller told the council that they had picked up around three reserves, one from Winlock. With nothing else to his report, Councilman Steve

Dobosh said "keep up the good work" and Brockmueller returned to his seat in the back of the room.

Next under reports was City Clerk, Michelle Whitten. She started her report with notifying the council that she had been working on the close out papers to be completed by the end of the month. Should they be done by the end of the month, the interest rate could "go from a half of a percent down to one quarter of a percent for 30 years." Following this report, she reminded the audience of the budget workshop after the meeting. She also continued to notify the audience of the last public hearing that would be the night of their first meeting in November. Also for upcoming events, she told the audience on November 12th there would be a "big hoorah" at the waste water treatment. Continuing of the important dates, Whitten reminded everyone of the Veterans Parade during the first Saturday of November. With no further reports and no questions, the council moved into public comment.

With no Public comment at this time, the council dove into New Business. Under New Business, the only topic was the "Resolution 233A - Surplus Property." As there were no questions or comments, Councilman Mike Thomas made a motion to approve this resolution. After the motion was made, Councilman Jim Fluckinger seconded. As the motion carried unanimously, the council had no further business and opened the floor for public input. During this time, Fluckinger brought up a matter for getting lines for the sidewalk at the boat ramp. After this matter was brought up, several suggestions such as paint and rubber barricades were brought to the surface. Following the few minute discussion of what could be done, a member from the community told the council he had cleaned out a culvert and requested it to be picked up. When no one else spoke up with a topic, a motion was made to adjourn. After the motion was seconded and the motion carried, the meeting was adjourned. The next Toledo City Council Meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 2 at 6 pm.