Regular Council Meeting

April 8, 2025

The meeting was called to order by mayor Joe Shields at 5:00 P.M.

Roll call was taken by Robin Fox. Those council members present were,

• Stephanie Sewell,
• Fred Derby,
• Kathy McCracken,
• Dennis Pearson,
• Rich O’Brian,
• Tuck Liebl,
• Mikahael Rogers, assistant Town Clerk, was present.
• Trent Rittgers, Director of Public Works, and, guest present was Betsy Barnett.

Public Comment- Betsy Barnett gave an update on the remodel of the buildings attached to the theater that will house the library. They are making great progress.

MINUTES

Stephanie Sewell made a motion to approve the March minutes that were presented. Rich O’Brian seconded the motion. All Ayes

APPROVAL OF BILLS

A motion was made by Kathy McCracken to approve the bills and seconded by Fred Derby. All Ayes.

OLD BUSINESS

Airport- waiting on some items from the attorney. Fred said Roger was going to talk to the county.

NEW BUSINESS

Trent Rittgers asked about summer help, he would like to pay one employee more than minimum wage as this will be his 5^th year back with the town. The board agreed that paying him more is a good idea since he is a hard worker and knows how to do everything and won’t have to be trained.

Trent informed the board that the town hall has a sewer break and we are going to have to replace the line. Trent will call and find out the price of the sewer camera and see what else we can do to find the break.

Old pool- Kiowa county school did a quitclaim deed to sign the deed back into the town’s name. The asbestos reports were all negative. The town will turn the property over to the new group once they have the name of the group that will be building a recreational building.

Trent brought up that we have some fences going up to close to the curb lines; this will cause issues with reading meters and snow plowing. The board agreed we need an ordinance with a 5ft set back rule for fences based on the town easements in the alley, the front of the house and on the side of the houses that sit on corner lots. All fences will have to get permits just like building permits. Town Clerk will get the ordinance typed up and sent to the attorney for approval at the next meeting.

Bring up Items- Stephanie Sewell said she had someone say they wanted to help with the new pool. She also said someone had asked why the town hadn’t done swim lessons the past summer. Robin reminded them that she had just had major arm surgery and was still in a cast and unable to do lessons, and she had no help. Robin will look at lessons this year and see what interest we will have in lessons, and if she can get any help to do them, we must have at least 3 of us in the water at all times with the younger kids.

Executive- The board had wanted to speak with Betsy about something’s prior to the meeting and had not had a chance, the board was going to talk to Betsy in an executive meeting, and they decided not to be in executive Betsy also said no to that. Kathy McCracken did take some notes and recorder was running. The board had some concerns about things that are being misprinted and causing some issues. They talked to Betsy about Raina wanting a lot of information that has to be filed with an open records act and fees have to be paid, and that Raina had said wrong information on the fire department information. Betsy is concerned on the town elections and was worried the town was not in compliance with DOLA. The board informed her, the town was in compliance with DOLA and CML, all election information is correct. Betsy wants a list of who is up for election and the terms. Fred told Betsy he has seen all the emails to CML and DOLA. The board also explained how Raina’s email come off very rude, Betsy said she does not feel that was Raina’s intention. The board talked about how some wrong information that got printed caused a lot of issues.

Meeting adjourned at 6:00 P.M.

Joe Shields, Mayor

Robin Fox, Town Clerk