New Richland City Council
By CARRIE GILBERTSON
Contributing Writer
The New Richland city council held its first meeting of May on Monday the 13th. All members of the council were present.
The council approved the replacement of the current street lights along Broadway. The lights will be purchased from the city of Albert Lea at $50 per post. The New Richland council will be purchasing 20 posts to allow for the replacement of the current lights, as well as the installation of two extra posts on the corner of Division and Broadway. All four corners of the intersection will be lit. The remaining posts will be kept in storage so they are on hand in case of any damage to the installed posts.
The cost of the project will total roughly $43,000. The State Bank of New Richland has gifted $40,000 to pay for the bulk of this venture. The remaining cost will fall to the city council.“The whole people of New Richland would like to thank the bank,” said councilwoman Amy Ihrke.
The police department is taking applications for part-time help. They have an allocated amount of hours to divide up among the candidates that are hired. A full-time officer will likely be hired soon as well, hopefully by the end of June. There were 74 calls for service in the month of April. All initial contacts and follow-ups have been completed. There has been an increase in animal control calls due to the nicer weather.
The maintenance department requested the approval of roughly $2500 to repair the motor of the water pump at Legion Field. The council unanimously approved the repair. The motion for the repair of cracks in the streets was also passed at an amount of $6000.
A request to hire an additional maintenance worker was tabled to be decided at the next meeting. The maintenance department will be flushing hydrants on May 16th.
The purchase of a new radio for the ambulance was approved at $5268.58.
The next council meeting will be May 27th.