The Harmony City Council met with the Fillmore Central School Board and the Harmony EDA for their annual joint meeting on February 13 at 6:30 p.m. Each organization gave an update on their progress over the last year and discussed ways to work together.
The school is interested in doing a land swap with the city which would allow them to put a new football field in where the baseball diamond currently sits. They would also like to move the location for the baseball diamond to the field behind the community center, which would include building an additional parking lot near the library entrance. The city council was in favor of the plan. “It would be good to continue to collaborate on that and move that along.” Mayor Steve Donney said.
Roxanne Johnson from the Harmony Area Community Foundation noted that the foundation is celebrating its fifth year and has raised over $125,000 during that time. “Every dollar raised goes back into the community,” she added.
The EDA is planning to renew its housing rebate program this year to continue to encourage the growth of Harmony. The program was recently featured on CNBC.
Mayor Donney thanked everyone for attending the joint meeting before adjourning it and opening up the regular Harmony City Council meeting.
Joe Hahn was present at the meeting to discuss the possibility of extending city utility services to his homes on 5th Ave SE, a gravel road. He was able to obtain a quote for the project which is estimated to be around $27,000. The cost for the addition of the utilities plus curb and gutter would come to around $60,000. Hahn is willing to pay for the utilities, but not the curb and gutter.
Currently, the road is a private drive although City Administrator Jerome Illg noted that it should not be listed that way as there are several residences on it. “If we’re going to have city utilities through that, it needs to be plotted and needs to be a city street.” council member Kyle Morem stated. Another resident on that road, Dan Dornink agreed that eventually, the street should be turned over to the city.
Mayor Donney said that he would be okay with putting in the utility services now and assessing for curb and gutter later. Morem asked if the council could put a time limit of three to five years on how long before the street is paved to ensure that it would happen. The rest of the council agreed with that suggestion, and it was decided that Hahn could move ahead with connecting to the city utilities as long as he and Dornink agreed to curb and gutter assessments at a later date. Both homeowners agreed with the plan.
The library has raised enough money to redo the patio and would like to move ahead with the project. The council asked that the plans would be presented to them first for approval before any work begins.
The Arts Board will be working with the JEM Theatre to host a movie camp for kids this summer where kids will learn to shoot and edit their own movies. The event will include a premiere night with a red carpet.
The Chamber of Commerce is in the process of creating a special edition Harmonoply board game that will be sold later this year to raise money for the chamber.
The next Harmony city council meeting will be held on March 13 at 7 p.m.