City approves budget with slight millage increase

The Kimball city council approved its annual budget during the regular board meeting on Monday, Sept. 1.

“In terms of the budget, we discussed that and they gave their final recommendations to move forward,” Ortiz said. “With, they sought to keep the mill levy the same, which was about .55. I believe our total mill levy for 2014-2015 was .55211 and the proposed mill levy for 2015-2016 would be .556991.”

Property tax will fund, primarily, the police department and the fire department.

One of the amendments made for the upcoming budget is moving fire hydrant repair from the water department budget to the fire department budget.

“We will ensure that we are repairing or replacing fire hydrants as we see them,” Ortiz said. “Usually we anticipate two or three a year and we have historically relied on the water department fund to replace them. We are going to start cost-sharing that with the fire department.”

In addition to the budget, the board consider amending the zoning ordinance governing the size of storage sheds.

“That was a request brought up by a resident that forced us to look at our zoning,” Ortiz stated. “You have some residential properties that are going to have larger lots and other lots, and the zoning board looked at it and thought it prudent to change that so that someone who had a larger residential lot would have the opportunity to build a larger storage structure.”

The decision to amend was reached with the caveat that the storage building could not comprise more than 40 percent of the total land area, compared to the previous limit of 20 percent, and could not exceed 500 square feet instead of 200 square feet.

In a non-budget matter, the council decided to begin the legal process to secure the unsafe building at 301 S. Webster Street. It is owned by Mary Soper and is in the care of Rick Soper. The process will allow the city to force the necessary repairs or to demolish the building at the owners cost.

“The city had the option of just taking action ourselves of repairing or demolishing the property. They decided it would be cost prohibitive. Ultimately we may end up fighting it out in court,” Ortiz said. “We haven’t heard back from the owners on doing anything. I think the few times contact was made it was, ‘We’ll get around to it, we’ll get around to it.’”

Along the same lines, after discussion at length, the city began the legal process in abatement of the properties located by 810 W. 1st Street, 1101 S. Oak and 1109 S. Oak, all in Kimball and all owned by Michael Schadegg.

Those properties have received abatement letters in the past.

“In the past when they tried to move forward there was a conflict in that we had an attorney that was also Mr. Schadegg’s attorney,” Ortiz said. “At the time, he did make some improvements but then he just reverted back to its conditional state. Ultimately it wasn’t cleaned up and we are dealing with it now.”

Ortiz further stated that state laws are in place regulating the operation of junk yards in the state, and as far as Ortiz knows, Schadegg is not permitted to operate one.

The council also:

- Heard that Mayor Keith Prunty appointed Betty Schulte and Everett Durheim to the tree board for three-year terms.

- Amended an ordinance updating the policy regarding obstruction of right-of-ways.

- Designated Jim Shoup as the street superintendent. He previously served in that role in an interim capacity.

- Ratified the volunteer firemen list including the dismissal of Josh Hack, the resignations of Richard Olson and Jay Thurin, and the approval of Dan Schildhauer for active membership.