By Annika Doberenz
At their most recent meeting on June 4, the Ostrander City Council made several routine motions.
These included their decision to waive the option of the statutory tort limit for another year, to advertise in the upcoming months that the brush dump behind the community center is in need of new maintenance, and that they will continue to rent the sheriff’s office, as they have in the past.
After the preliminary actions of the council were complete, representative Ann Keim presented the annual report on the city’s insurance. Although nothing had changed in the city’s infrastructure that would warrant a new plan, Keim did broach the topic of the statutory tort limit, which the council had chosen to waive in the previous year.
In essence, the decision of whether or not to waive the tort limit would impact only the amount of money a citizen could receive in the event of an injury being caused by the city. If the council chose not to waive the limit, the most an individual could receive would be $5,000. However, if the case had been that multiple people were injured, they would be able to provide for more than one person. Waiving the tort limit simply meant that there could only be one payout, but that the money distributed could be as much as $2 million. Like the previous year, the council moved to waive the tort limit. As Keim said, “It provides better protection for your citizens in the event that something really tragic happens.”
Following the motion to waive the tort limit, the cost of the new pump was discussed and accepted, and it was noted by the council’s clerk, Wendy Brincks, that “the cost on that was roughly $9,500 total, with the removal of the old pump, the fee of the pump, and the new installed pump.”
Jeremy Rinkel, who is in charge of city maintenance, then spoke about the need for someone to clean up and maintain the brush dump, so that it could be used as the site of the fire department’s annual mud bog. Fire Chief Jason Rice suggested placing an ad in the newspaper in the near future in an effort to make more people aware of the opportunity.
“The fire department holds mud bogs every year, and our brush dump is where they hold it,” Brincks explained. “If somebody maintains the brush dump, then they can have the bales off of it, and then usually they make a donation to the parks program, or something like that. As long as they’re tilling it, seeding it, and that, then they don’t have to make a donation that first year.”
After a couple more department discussions, the council moved on to consider several requests, which had been submitted via email on behalf of Ostrander Care and Rehab. First on the list of concerns was the upcoming retirement of the nursing home’s director of nursing, Denise Hoeft. Although Hoeft will not be leaving, her position will soon be available, and the administration has been searching for nearly six months to find someone to fill her spot.
With that goal in mind, Andrea Thayer, the vice president and co-owner of the nursing home, requested permission from the city council to put up a sign at the tennis court area of the park to get the attention of everyone who will be there for baseball games over the summer. Since other signs and advertisements are also posted in the park, it seemed a logical place to put it.
Thayer also asked for approval to rent an electronic sign to put on the main street of Ostrander, potentially by the fire station, which would also serve to draw attention to the open nursing position. Finally, she petitioned to change the Ostrander signs that surround the town in an effort to more adequately represent the businesses which are established in the town. However, since the signs were just recently replaced within the last couple of months, the council decided unanimously that this last request was not an option, but that they would brainstorm options for how to achieve better representation of the businesses and come up with examples of how it might be feasible to simply add to the new signs in the near future.
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