HOISINGTON — The Hoisington City Council held a short meeting Monday night. They were introduced to Kim Loesch, the city’s new Deputy City Clerk, who will be stepping into that position after Cecilia Conrad was promoted to City Clerk following the retirement of Donita Crutcher.
Loesch spoke of her Hoisington ties, her background and her family.
On behalf of the staff at Hoisington’s Friendship House and Trolley, Kathy McGinnis thanked the council during the public comment period for the holiday bonus employees there received this year.
In addition to the consent agenda, the council voted on one action item. At the Dec. 9 meeting, the council requested that city manager Jonathan Mitchell craft an invitation to citizens to apply to serve on a pool advisory committee.
He presented the final draft to be published in the city’s newspaper of record. It was approved with one change, to extend the deadline a few weeks to January 23.
Bike share on horizon
Hoisington may soon offer a bike sharing program after the city council showed interest in the project at Monday night’s meeting, Mitchell told the Great Bend Tribune by phone on Tuesday.
With cooperation from staff at the Rodeway Inn, which is adjacent to Bicentennial Park and the new Scentral Bark dog park, bicycles may soon be available for individuals to check out for a ride. While the city wants to be a participating partner in the project, Mitchell said the bulk of the funds would come from outside agencies.
Update on water softening and lagoon
Mitchell’s city manager’s report included news that the proper sized auger for the city’s water softener plant has been received and representatives from Merrick Industries are scheduled to install the on Friday, Jan. 3.
Also, contractors have completed work on the city’s sewer lagoons. At the Nov. 25 city council meeting, Mitchell shared some seepage had been detected from one of the lagoons, and testing was being done to determine how much and what the cause was.
Since then, engineers have determined that the reported seepage is within the acceptable levels the pools were designed to allow, so no additional work is needed to alleviate that issue, Mitchell said.
In the process of looking into the issue, the engineers referred to several aerial photos taken of the site from 1992 to present, and determined the area has been responding similarly the entire time. Mitchell said the city will reach out to neighboring landowners to share the findings.
