City considers cutting back

The Kimball Landfill has experienced more trouble from aging equipment according to a report given to the Kimball City Council by City Administrator Daniel Ortiz.

Steve Pinkerton of Prestige Manufacturing began making repairs to the bailer that is housed inside the large shop.

“It’s really showing its age,” Ortiz said. “It started operation out at the landfill in 1998 but we purchased it used.”

Landfill supervisor Jim Schulte said the bailer dates back to between 1972 and 1975 and handles, on average, 3.5 to 4 million pounds of waste annually.

“I talked to (Pinkerton) this morning and he said that it is a good, sound machine, it is just normal wear and tear because of what the feeding chamber goes through,” council member James Schnell said. “He felt real confident that a guy can get that rebuilt and have a good, functionable machine.”

While the current structural concerns are being addressed, future concerns may include electrical and hydraulic issues, according to Ortiz.

“Those are the ones that cause the greatest concerns,” Ortiz said. “Should those ever fail it would be hard to repair or even find parts or people that can still repair them.”

While the machine is being repaired trash is being placed in the cell and is being compacted with the recently purchased track loader, according to Ortiz, who added that due to this, the landfill may be closed on exceptionally windy days until repairs are complete.

“Hopefully what Pinkerton does will buy us three to five years,” Kimball Mayor Keith Prunty said.

In light of recent short meetings, council also considered amending the ordinance requiring board meetings twice each month and further considered changing meeting times.

“This kind of came up, I think, for the past several months we have had fairly short meetings, in some cases a little over an hour,” Ortiz said. “With the cancellation of the last meeting in December, we kind of stacked the last meeting with the first meeting in January. So, we were able to get through it fairly quickly.”

Ortiz said the idea was broached to eliminate one meeting altogether, with the remaining meeting to occur on the third Tuesday of the month.

“We looked at some of the requests that come through. The big ones, or the most common ones, are Keno and typically the same users are the ones that actively participate in the Keno fund application process and usually know the timetables for that,” Ortiz said. “Some of the other items, such as liquor license application follow the same format, so those would just be put on the agenda as they come in and are processed.”

Over the years certain duties have been shifted from the council’s agenda to the administrative process, alleviating council’s agenda of things such as nuisance and weed abatement letters.

“One caveat for the potential change would be to ask the Planning Commission to adjust their schedule to change it from the third Monday of the month to the first Monday of the month so there is time between that meeting and the council meeting to get things in play,” Ortiz said.

Prunty suggested changing the time for the meeting from 7 p.m. to six, to accommodate an expected increase in agenda items for the monthly council meeting.

“Certainly if you want to do this, we will have to bring this back at the next meeting for a ordinance change,” Ortiz said. “Our city code actually spells out days and times that we meet. We may want to simplify that and just say it will be established by the council.”

Council voted to make the change and further directed administration to add the item to the upcoming agenda for an ordinance change allowing for once-a-month council meetings to begin at 6 p.m.

“If this doesn’t work out we can always change it back and if there are issues that come up we can always schedule a special meeting if necessary,” Ortiz added.

Council voted to turn over a $2,000 Kimball Area Foundation grant received by the Kimball Police Department directly to The Friends of the Goodhand for an outdoor movie projector.

“It is an accounting matter, in that any funds the Police Department receives, since they are a City entity, they have to be processed through our banking and accounting system,” Ortiz said. “That raises the question if we acquire the property, if we purchase the projector, how to transfer that over. Our requirements dictate that we typically do that by surplus bid, at least in this fashion, just granting the funds to Friends of the Goodhand kind of simplifies the process.”

Prunty explained that Kimball Police Chief Darren Huff acquired a grant for outdoor movie equipment which will be used by the Friends foundation, and if the non-profit organization were to dissolve, the assets would then remain with the Kimball Banner County Chamber of Commerce.

Along the same lines, Chamber Director and Friends of the Goodhand member, Jo Caskey said that much work remains to be done. The group plans to continue renovating the building while movies are shown in the park and added that the timeline to begin showing movies has been adjusted.

“We found out that the theater first opened and had its first showing May 6, 1954,” Caskey said. “We are shooting to hopefully show the same movie that opened that night and the portable equipment can be used inside the theater, but because the HVAC system is not in great repair, we intend to continue showing movies in the park during the summer months when it would be too hot to actually be inside the building.”