By Rich Wicks | Times Vedette
During the meeting of the Panora City Council on June 9, the council approved the purchase of a Ziegler CAT 2025 Caterpillar skid loader for $64,583. The city’s old skid loader will be traded in for approximately $15,000.
City Administrator Lisa Grossman and the council discussed the city’s sidewalk inspections and possible action regarding incomplete blocks that currently have partial sidewalks. Grossman explained that the city requires sidewalk to be installed with new construction, but some properties have no sidewalk on blocks that have sidewalk.
Grossman explained that, in some areas, sidewalk is not present because some areas are considered “drainage ditch.” Mayor Curt Thornberry said that in years past, the city has also identified other properties where sidewalk is missing, but previous councils have not chosen to require those properties to have sidewalk installed. Thornberry said that this is up to the council to decide. No formal action was taken at this time. The city will send out letters to inform the property owners who are missing sidewalk (or with badly damaged sidewalk), but the letter does not require that sidewalk be installed.
Grossman reported on the city’s upcoming cleanup day.
“We had 43 people sign up for cleanup day, which is this Friday. The deadline was last Friday,” Grossman said.
During the Public Forum portion of the meeting, Allie Halsey addressed the council about a concern. She showed pictures of a portion of her lawn.
“My property is at 215 East South St., and I’m here to talk about the spraying the city has done along the curb at my address. I think you’ll see in the first picture, there’s over a foot of dead grass along the curb,” Halsey said.
Halsey said she also has a company that treats her lawn for weeds. She suggested the city could inform property owners before spraying, so that kids and pets could be kept away. Since the issue was not on the agenda, no council action was taken at this time.
The council approved several licenses and permits, including an 8-month special Class C Retail Alcohol License for Off Course Golf Carts, a 12-month Special Class C Retail Alcohol License for Pedal-In, and Tobacco licenses for Casey’s and Dollar General.
The next regular meeting of the council will be Monday, June 23 at 5:30 p.m. The public is welcome. Interested persons may attend in person or electronically by visiting the website https://meet.goto.com/cityofpanora or by phone 1-312-757-3121 (Access Code 295-099-701, Audio PIN 220#).