ORIGINALLY WRITTEN DON RATZLAFF
Construction likely won’t begin for a couple of more months, but the end of bad cell-phone reception in Hillsboro came a step closer Tuesday when the Hillsboro City Council approved the location and lease for building a new telecom tower within city limits.
Bud Harlow, representing Alltell Telecom Services, updated the council on the precise location of the proposed 150-foot mono-pole tower on the former AMPI property now owned by the city.
He said the original location was altered to meet Federal Aviation Administration regulations.
Under the terms of the lease, the city will receive $350 per month with the option to renew the lease for five five-year terms for total revenue of just over $100,000 for the 25-year span.
Harlow said the city will not incur any of the cost of building or maintaining the tower.
Cell-phone users won’t have to purchase Alltel services to benefit from the stronger signal, but they likely will encounter roaming charges with other providers.
In response to a previous council inquiry, Jerry Rayl, the city’s financial consultant through Gold Capital Management Inc., reported that city’s legal debt margin is still “well within reason” even with several major capital improvement projects in the works.
Rayl said state statute limits a city’s legal indebtedness to 30 percent of its assessed value. Hillsboro’s assessed value is nearly $14.52 million-including property and vehicles-and its current bonded indebtedness is $5.28 million, but $2.972 million of that debt is exempt from consideration.
Rayl said the city’s exempted debt includes improvements to the water-treatment and the sewer plants.
Hillsboro’s exempted debt totals just over $2.972 million, leaving the city with an applicable debt of nearly $2.31 million-and a debt ratio of only 15.91 percent.
If the city’s total indebtedness was considered, the debt ratio would be 36.37 percent-which is still well below the “acceptable” standard of up to 50 percent, Rayl said, and will not deter buyers when the city attempts to sell bonds for its major projects.
With that issue addressed, Rayl reported that because public notice of the city’s bond sale for the Main Street renovation project was “not published in a timely manner,” the sale had to be postponed from May 6 to May 20.
Rayl said he thought the city might even benefit from the delay because indicators suggest those rates may be slightly lower around May 20.
In other business, the council:
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approved the reappointment of Keith Collett as municipal judge, Steve Garrett as city treasurer, Dan Baldwin as city attorney, Janice K. Meisinger as city clerk, Dan Kinning as chief of police and Ben Steketee as fire chief.
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agreed the city should by the right to provide electricity for all city-owned properties along U.S. Highway 56. Garrett said Westar’s initial selling price had been negotiated down from $50,000 to $35,000.
“With the future of that area, I think its absolutely essential that we do this,” Mayor Delores Dalke said of the purchase.
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approved paying $9,757 to Wichita Electric Co. Inc. for work done on the lighting project at the city airport. Bob Previtera, the city’s engineer through Reiss & Goodness Engineers, said 5 percent of the cost of the $49,956 project-$2,497.80-will be paid after final reseeding of grass is done this fall. Ninety percent of the project was funded through a government grant.
The council also approved paying $2,567.50 to Reiss & Goodness for engineering and inspection fees.
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agreed to hire EBH as the city’s engineer for upgrading the sewer plant next year. EBH is also the company engineering upgrades at the water treatment plant.
Before voting the council discussed the advantages of having one company doing both projects, but agreed that the relationship between the company and city has been positive to this point.
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heard from Previtera that the Main Street renovation project is proceeding with “no problems so far.” He estimated the first half of the project will be completed in six to eight weeks, weather permitting.
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met as the Public Building Commission to elect Len Coryea as vice chair of that body.
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approved paying $1,100 toward the purchase of a $2,000 stair chair for the Hillsboro ambulance crew. A stair chair greatly reduces the problems that arise in transporting patients down and up stairs and in tight quarters, according to JoAnn Knak, director of the program.
The crew’s old chair was no longer functional.
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approved paying $500 out of the municipal court diversion fund “to help with the costs of upkeep and maintenance” for the city’s K-9 unit. Garrett said the department need to buy a larger dog cage for K-9 unit vehicle. The current cage will be sold to help defray the cost of the purchase.
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approved signing the “GAAP waiver” which allows a city not to keep track of all its individual assets and liabilities and thus “saves thousands of dollars” during the city’s annual audit.
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took no public action after meeting in executive session for reasons of personnel and lawyer/ client privilege.
