MOUNT VERNON – The city will hold its first Workforce Development Employee Recognition event on Wednesday.
Mayor Matt Starr said the city had an excellent response rate by staff members voting for co-workers in different departments. Approximately 110 employees voted.
Councilmember John Francis, the keynote speaker, will hand out the awards.
“The big thing that has been going on is we’ve been interviewing candidates for our various utilities positions that are open,” Starr said. “There are some really nice candidates that have come in, and we’re excited about that."
Street Department prepared for next storm
The Street Department is ready to go for the next time Mount Vernon gets snow or ice. But it’s pretty much just operating business as usual right now, Starr said.
Parks Department cleans up
The Parks Department removed the Christmas lights and the decorations from the Public Square, Starr said.
After the last weather events, all tree limbs have been cleaned up in the city.
Parking garage work continues
The parking garage continues to make progress, with work done on the third floor. More steel was dropped off on Thursday. Starr said he doesn’t know when the project will be completed.
“The other floors are looking really good, though,” he said.
Council meetings shift to YouTube
Starr said that the city is shifting the live streaming of its meetings to YouTube.
Its contractor is finishing up work to set this up. Once the switch is made, a new link for live streaming the video of the meetings will be posted on the city website.
The new cameras look great, Starr said.
“It’s just getting the different audio systems to play nicely with each other, so that’s what we’re working on,” he said.
Utilities Commission discusses capacity fees
The Mount Vernon Utilities Commission considered how much to charge new water and wastewater customers based on a capacity analysis by its consultant, K.E. McCartney and Associates of Mansfield.
Mark Reuffner from McCartney said the company has been working with the city of Mount Vernon on the capacity analysis.
“A capacity fee is a fee that a new user would pay to become part of or become a customer on both your water and your sanitary system,” he said.
Commissioners considered the marginal incremental method of calculating fees as the most appropriate. Reuffner said in this method, they look at the capacity of the city’s water and wastewater systems to determine if expansion is needed to accommodate new development.
“The wastewater capacity fee, if you’re looking at just the marginal method is $4,200," he said. "The water capacity fee was $5,300."
Safety Services Director Rick Dzik, a member of the Utilities Commission, said he sees advantages in this method because it tries to accurately assess the available expansion and what new customers would need to pay for that expansion.
City Engineer Brian Ball confirmed that the city’s wastewater system has little capacity left to buy.
He said fees were set to ensure that the city is not subsidizing or overly subsidizing growth without creating too much of a barrier to entry.
“Traditionally, these kept wastewater tap fees lower because we don’t want people using septic tanks that are in failing condition, and it’s we don’t want to have a large barrier,” Ball said.
The goal was to keep wastewater tap fees lower than the replacement cost of a septic tank.
Law Director Rob Broeren said he could not immediately answer what votes the Utilities Commission and the City Council would need to take regarding the fees, so he recommended tabling the discussion.
