The Fennimore Common Council authorized seeking bids for the Fennimore Community Pool bath house reconstruction during its semi-monthly meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 27.

Alderperson Pete Adam distributed plans depicting the exterior of the bath house.

“Rachel has been diligently working on all of the particulars and details to get this out for bid,” Adam said. “We are looking to finalize the drawings and I spoke with Dennis [Biddick] and Ryan [Boebel] to go out for bid on Jan. 12 and ask for bids back by Feb. 10 and have a recommendation for Council at our normal 13th of February meeting.”

Rachel Zimmer of Zimmer Design has donated her time and talents to the project.

“I have got a good feeling about our numbers that we are going to get back,” Mayor Boebel said. “Just from different things that have been said.

“It will be an exciting next couple of weeks or month here.”

The footings and foundation of the previous bath house have been removed.

“A lot of volunteer work, a lot of in-kind donations,” Adam said. “It was great. A great feeling.”

An engineer’s opinion of probable cost for the bath house renovation was $639,000.

Closing time

The Fennimore Memorial Building’s auditorium will now close each night.

“One of the things that was brought to my attention was – every once in a while, not very often – there are people there 11-ish at night, things like that,” Boebel said. “Typically the police department has been locking it.”

Alderperson Sara Brodt asked what anyone would be doing in the auditorium at 11 p.m.

“I think it is an uncommon thing,” Boebel said. “We don’t really have anything set. It would be nice to have something set so the police department could have some guidance.”

Fennimore Police Chief Christopher French shared his experience with the Council.

“Usually what we do is we simply wait until it doesn’t look like anybody else is around, and whether that is at 6 o’clock or midnight, that is when we lock up,” he said. “And so I assume what we would do is if we look out the door and there is no one around at 6:30 we will lock it up.

“If someone is there at 10 we will politely ask them to pick up their stuff and then we will lock it up.”

Adam suggested a closing time of 10 p.m.

“The latest, I would think,” Brodt said.

The Council agreed and passed a motion establishing a 10 p.m. closing time.

Contracts approved

Per a recommendation from its Personnel and Administrative Committee, the Council approved employee contracts for City Clerk/Treasurer Margaret Sprague, Assistant Police Chief Walt Dresen, Biddick and French.

Sprague received a 3.12 percent wage increase, Dresen a three percent wage increase, Biddick a 3.13 percent wage increase and French a nine percent wage increase. French’s salary is now more comparable to area police chiefs.

All non-union employees received a three percent wage increase for the 2017 calendar year.

In other action, the Council:
• approved a bid by Allegiant Oil of Lancaster to provide the City with gasoline and diesel fuel in 2017.
Director of Public Works Biddick requested bids and received responses from New Horizons Supply Cooperative of Fennimore and Allegiant Oil.

Allegiant Oil bid 10 cents per gallon over cost.