Houston Considers Stop Signs Request

At their regular January 8 council meeting, the Houston City Council discussed a citizen request to add stop signs at the intersections of Chase and Spruce and Chase and Maple. Jeri Virock, who has lived on Chase Street for 17 years, said she personally has witnessed two accidents at the intersections. According to Virock, some drivers “blow right through,” paying little attention to other traffic.
Steve Rischette supported Virock in her statements and said he’d had an accident in the area as well. PWD Randy Thesing informed the council that the League of Minnesota Cities would require a stop sign at both sides of the intersection if any were to be added.
Mayor Scott Wallace opined that people assume the other guy has a stop sign if they don’t see one for themselves.
City Engineer Matt Mohs recommended that the council gather more information about the specific times and days as well as the frequency of the events and any property damage. Staff will meet with Mohs before the next council meeting to discuss the findings and make a recommendation to the council.
Skid for Fire Department
Fire Chief Steve Skifton presented a request to purchase a skid which could be used with the fire department’s new side-by-side. A recent Public Safety allotment received by the city had a total of $7,792.18 remaining after the city okayed purchases for the police department in December. Skifton proposed that the skid could serve a dual purpose by hauling water for brush fires and transporting patients as necessary.
The fire department intends to mount a seat on the old skid; the seat would then provide a place for the medical personnel serving patients. The new skid would be a backup for use with additional patients.
The total price for the skid was $8,745; Skifton noted that the fire department was able and willing to pay the extra amount to complete the purchase.
City Administrator Michelle Quinn pointed out that by using the rest of the Public Safety allotment this way would be a clean way to close the accounting for the allotment. Quinn commented that the funds were intended to be used to benefit the taxpayers; using the funds for the skid would help both the fire department and ambulance.
Cody Mathers was concerned about the requests of the ambulance department for funding. Quinn shared that the purchase of a new ambulance had been delayed because of little use during the pandemic. Requests from the ambulance amounted to much more than the Public Safety allotment, but the city can choose to fund the ambulance in other ways. Recently, the American Legion provided funding for new Resuscitation Annies to help in training new ambulance members.
The council ultimately chose to use the remaining allotment on the skid with the fire department covering the remaining expense in the purchase.
Summer Rec and Seasonal Maintenance Positions
After advertising the position, the city has received no applications or inquiries for the summer rec director position. Quinn checked with nearby communities about their summer rec programs. She learned that in a lot of communities, the programs are run through the school’s community education. Quinn shared that Spring Grove had been unable to staff the position for several years and had to discontinue the program those years.
In the last two years there has been overlap with Houston School’s summer enrichment program. When Quinn contacted the school regarding the coming summer, the school remained non-committal about whether it would be running a summer enrichment program. The council decided to have Cody Mathers and Zeb Baumann contact the school board to discuss possible collaboration on the summer activities. Quinn will research if the city can partner with the school in this way.
The council decided to post a summer maintenance help position; with this posting, the person who had applied to care for the flower baskets intends to withdraw from the flower position and apply for the maintenance position.
Other Business
Other business conducted by the council included:
• Approving a 5% increase in both water and sewer rates for the city;
• Choosing the Fillmore County Journal as the official paper and Rushford State Bank as the official depository with the mayor, finance director and city administrator receiving account powers;
• Kept committee assignments as they were in order to provide continuity;
• Authorized appropriations which had already been built into the budget in December;
• Accepted donations for the year totalling $37,484.18;
• Approved the CMS agreement for building inspections. The council decided to have the entire cost of inspection be charged to the person requesting it rather than charging a set free and supplementing with city funds; at this time they opted not to purchase accompanying software since there are relatively few inspections each year.
The next Houston City Councilman meeting will be February 12 at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at city hall. The public is welcome to attend.