McPHERSON, Kan. — A change order on a design contract with Alfred Benesch and Company for the Hickory Street reconstruction project was approved during Tuesday’s McPherson City Commission meeting. This will add design for the 600 block of West Hayes, a project that is the last one identified during community input sessions over five years ago. This project was not able to be done last year as planned, and it will now be part of the Hickory project which will be bid out.
The Hayes Street project will be similar to what was done on Myers Street last year. This move was taken to allow city crews, who were originally going to do the work, to focus on a growing list of smaller street repairs and projects.
Commissioners dealt with a number of IT items, including annual payment to Eagle Technologies of up to $20,000 for renewal of the operating systems of all city servers except those used by the Police Department.
The city in the past only had to pay for the number of units it actually has, 32, but this year the city has to pay for a minimum of 72..REACH Solutions, which does IT work for the city, is looking at other options which could be implemented at the time the city replaces the current host server next year.
Commissioners also approved payment to REACH for various software subscriptions at a cost of just over $20,300.
Revised floodplain management regulations for the city of McPherson were approved. These regulations, which factor into discounts for federal flood insurance, have been approved by the chief engineer of the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources, and will now be submitted to the National Flood Insurance Program Coordinator who will then forward documentation to FEMA. Commissioners approved replat of the McPherson College Baseball and Softball complex on South Centennial, rectifying a prior replat at the request of the City and Kansas Municipal Utilities which have adjoining properties, and a replat of a just over 4.5-acre tract near Roth Court.
A $125 payment to Rockworks LLC for nuisance abatement involving a property at 1215 Eastmoor Drive. This involved issues with care of the exterior property. The Commission approved a just over $5,500 payment to Dacus Auto Body and Collision Repair for a park department vehicle that struck a flower bed on the Plaza while staff were pulling plants in preparation for winter last October.
It agreed to extend for one year a consulting agreement with Thomas Stinemetze, who has been advising the city of Planning and Zoning matters, with terms remaining the same as the initial agreement.
The Commission approved allocation of $50,000 in special alcohol tax funds, which are derived from liquor by the drink sales in the city. Central Kansas Foundation and Omega project will each receive $19,000 for outpatient services and drug and alcohol addiction counseling respectively, and the DARE/ADIS program will receive $12,000. Each entity is getting most of what it had requested.
Commissioners approved an annual payment to Axon Enterprise of $25,718. This is part of a seven-year contract covering the 40 tasers used by the Police Department along with duty, replacement and training cartridges.
Also approved was a nearly $7,000 payment to Foley Equipment in Salina to cover the remaining bill for repairs to a backhoe last year. Part of this had been paid in December, but that did not reflect the entire cost of repairs, including additional component replacement and service calls involved.
Several event requests were approved by Commissioners, including two for McPherson Main Street involving October’s Burnin’ Down Main chili and dessert cookoff and for a new Fall Wicked Walk and Shop in September. Also approved was a concert and movie night July 3 at Lakeside Park sponsored by the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the McPherson Park Department’s annual youth fishing derby June 20 in Lakeside Park, and the FYR-Mac-Town 5K run May 9 on the Water Park route which is part of All Schools Day events.
Commissioners also heard a report on visitor attraction grants approved by the CVB Board and on the Kansas Day event it held last month, and approved package beer license renewals for Love’s Travel Stop and Walmart.
