Also hears of dog deemed to be vicious although mother of dog bite victim couldn’t identity her until fourth photo
Jefferson mayor Matt Gordon put city engineer Jim Leiding and Bolton & Menk on the hot seat as the city council was asked at its Aug. 22 meeting to approve a change order in the amount of $117,779 for work being done on the wastewater treatment plant. It is the third change order on the project, putting it at the top end of expected cost, including the contingency amount added to the final budget.
The change order is to replace 10 existing variable frequency drives (VFD) and three existing power monitors that currently communicate with the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition). During a walkthrough of the plant Aug. 7 and a progress meeting Aug. 9, it was discovered the equipment uses an obsolete system to communicate with the SCADA and will not be able to communicate with the new SCADA as currently designed.
Gordon said he understood the need for the first two change orders. The first was due to an unmapped manhole was discovered during excavation at the site, and the second was due to finding the existing clarifiers needed to be replaced.
“What I don’t understand is that this seems like pretty important equipment, so why wasn’t it included (in the initial cost), why we’re coming back for a change for this much? All these change orders on a $21 million project…. This one seems like something that should have been included. We’re fast running out of what we have money to spend on this. How did this happen?,” Gordon asked.
Leiding said the project is a rehabilitation project. “We’re taking the existing system and trying to update it. We’re trying to do things that are needed and necessary and then add in other things that we want to do, and try and work all that together. It was assumed that these systems (the current VFD and power monitors) were working properly,” Leiding said. “They were replaced 20 years ago on the last update, so it was assumed they’d be able to carry forward and it wasn’t investigated any further.”
“Now when we get into it, it was found they don’t communicate with anything newer,” he continued. “Regretfully, things like this happen. You find things that didn’t come up with review or in the early stages of planning.”
Leiding said Shank Constructors has been working on the project since February. He was not uncomfortable with three change orders in seven months.
Council member Harry Ahrenholtz said the street/water/sewer committee had discussed the change order at length. “The fix that’s being proposed is the right way to do it. There’s no disagreement there,” he said. “I share some of the disappointment that this wasn’t part of the original contract…You’re right, we’re into our third change order. Two of them absolutely couldn’t have been anticipated, but this one might have been.”
“We do our best at covering all bases, but we’re also not focusing on items and equipment that aren’t planned to be replaced,” Leiding said.
The council approved the change order unanimously. Council member Pat Zmolek was absent.
The council approved hiring Zachary Barden as a Jefferson patrol officer at a starting annual salary of $55,221. His first day on the job will be Aug. 25. According to police chief Mark Clouse, Barden will work as a patrol officer before going to the winter Iowa Law Enforcement Academy.
Barden is a graduate of Roland-Story high school, where he wrestled and played football. He took classes at DMACC for a short time, then worked as a jailer at the Hardin County jail, where he said he began considering a career in law enforcement. He left a private company that provides security at the USDA facility in Ames to join the Jefferson PD.
The council approved decreasing the speed limit on Westwood Drive between Linwood St and Grimmell Rd from 35 mph to 25 mph. The change is due to an anticipated increase in pedestrian traffic with the Greene County Schools eliminating some Westwood Dr bus stops. Clouse said drivers exceeding the speed limit will receive a warning for the first few months, with citations not being issued until drivers have a chance to get accustomed to the lower speed limit.
The new speed limit becomes effective Thursday, Aug. 31.
The council failed to approve a resolution establishing access regulations and fees for the dog park adjacent to the Greene County Animal Shelter.
The animal shelter committee, which is not a council committee but includes council member Darren Jackson as a non-voting member, recommended requiring a user permit that would cost $35 annually. Obtaining a permit would require proof of vaccination and an annual fee of $35. A three-day visitor pass would be $5. Passes would be available at city hall or the Greene County Community Center.
The gates to the dog park would be locked. Upon obtaining a dog park permit, a dog owner would receive a code for the lock on the gate.
Jackson said veterinarian Amy Klauer strongly urged requiring permits as a way to guarantee the health and safety of canine users by requiring vaccinations.
The board does not have an annual budget for the dog park.
Council members Dave Sloan and Matt Wetrich both said they had heard from constituents that using the dog park should be free because city funds paid a portion of the cost and will cover operating costs.
Jackson made the motion to approve the resolution setting the regulations and fees. A second to the motion was slow in coming, but Wetrich seconded the motion, saying he knew the frustration of being part of a committee whose work was not heard.
On the vote Wetrich and Sloan voted no and Ahrenholtz and Jackson voted yes. On a tie vote the motion was not passed.
The council held the third and final reading of an ordinance increasing solid waste and recycling collection fees and the second reading of an ordinance increasing building permit fees.
During the open forum resident Allison Drewry addressed the council about what she called a “shoddy job” and “extremely poor investigatory work” by JPD officer Bohden Bigler that resulted in her dog being placed in 10-day quarantine and deemed vicious, requiring the dog be abated from the community after the quarantine.
Drewry lives at the corner of S. Vine and W. Madison Sts. She said that Friday at 11 am her 2-year-old dog Lily, who loves to run, bolted as she struggled with the gate while carrying jugs of water into the fenced-in yard. Lily headed south on Vine St. She had a visual on Lily except for the few seconds she went into the house to get her car keys. She drove one block south, the dog hopped in the car, and they returned home.
She said she was out with the dogs later that afternoon when Officer Bigler came to her house and said a child had been bitten by a brown dog at Russell Park earlier that day. He did not say what time the incident occurred. He got a photo of Lily, who is brindled. He left and showed the photo to the mother of the child and a resident of S. Wilson Ave, who said she had also been approached by a brown dog. Neither one could positively identify the pictured dog as the dog they encountered earlier that day.
Bigler went back to Drewry and got a second photo. Again, neither person could positively identify the dog from the photo. Bohden took photos of the dog and texted them to the mother, who said on speaker phone within Drewry’s hearing, that she could not be certain Lily was the dog that bit her son. Bohden took more pictures, went to the child’s home, and then reported to Drewry that the mother and the Wilson Ave neighbor had identified Lily as the biting dog.
Drewry showed proof of Lily’s vaccinations. She was taken to the animal shelter and placed in quarantine.
Drewry told the council she was “100 percent sure“ that her dog did not approach the child. “It is incomprehensible, it is not feasible, it is not possible that within the few seconds it took me to grab my keys from right inside the door, get in my car that was just feet away in my driveway, that my dog went a block to Russell Park, bit a child, and returned to the exact place I had last seen her.”
In other dog bite cases, the council has heard and decided appeals of a vicious dog declaration. In this case, JPD chief Clouse asked Drewry to talk with him the following day.
Drewry told GCNO Wednesday evening that Clouse defended Bigler’s work, said it was the council’s job to hear an appeal, and that if there were a question, he would always err on the side of public safety. Lily, who is a rescue dog and very fearful and reactive in strange places, must remain in quarantine at the animal shelter until the next council meeting Sept. 12.
Drewry has hired an attorney who is very experienced in such cases to represent Lily and herself at that meeting. Drewry, a 1995 Jefferson-Scranton graduate, returned to Jefferson after the pandemic to be closer to her parents, Noel and Sandy Drewry. She said that if Lily must leave town, they and her other dogs will return to New England.
