Council talks meals, cemetery funds

HARRINGTON – City council discussed cemetery endowment funds and senior meals at its Oct. 28 meeting, which took nearly two hours to complete.

There were questions on several items with Mid-County Senior meals. There currently is no contract with anyone as the city has been using an old agreement. The agreement with OCTN doesn’t pertain to Mid-County Seniors now and council wants to revisit this in the spring.

The owners at 305 and 307 Sherlock would like to have the lot lines going north and south instead of east and west. This doesn’t affect the city at all and is just a formality for the district. This is being sold and the owners would like this for the future buyers. Council approved the motion 4-0.

A new handbook is now complete. The council will review this and see what they might want changed. Mayor Nathan Luck wanted it looked over and approved quickly.

The Preservation Committee has cleaned up the upstairs portion of the city hall building. They wanted to clean this up and get ready to get grant funding. They talked about the fact that there was not anything upstairs such as paperwork. All that is left is floor cleaning and taking down wallpaper.

Councilmembers stated a desire to have someone from the Preservation Society come and talk with them.

Councilmember David Buddrius talked about the junk ordinance. He received back information from attorney Joshua Grant.

Buddrius liked what he saw except in ordinance 389, where he wanted language cleared up and amended.

Buddrius also expressed concern about the best use of cemetery endowment money. The city would like to put this money in a state account, like many other municipalities.

Treasurerer Michael Cronrath said that the money with the state would be the best place to put this money and would be very safe.

Buddrius explained that his financial advisor would be happy to come and address these questions and explain how the investments work. He wants to have a committee formed that would have oversight for the Cemetery Endowment fund.

Stan Roth came to talk about the Cemetery Endowment Fund with some information on its creation. He came with his wife Louise, and Mike and Janis Rozelle.

Janis Rozelle’s father, Robert Copp, started the endowment in 1989 and they are looking for a document that was created called a Statement of Principles.

They want to find this document and keep the endowment in a local investment, instead of going with the state. They would also be in favor of a committee being created to keep this working the way they would like to see it.

Jess Silhan informed Roth that he would be willing to work on finding this document and staying in contact with him.

Councilmember Stephen Hardy inquired about having a workshop to have a direct voice for the public works employees. They have some issues about their work loads and other items that need to be addressed.