welcome back to another episode of council corner where we recap some of the main topics that were discussed during Tuesday's council meeting we are joined with W two councilman Kelly Harris thank you so much for being with us well thank you for having me it's a real pleasure okay of course so we're just going to jump right in we got a lot to cover we're going to start with fista the fista president and CEO Dr Christa Ratliff came and gave a presentation to council $9.6 million in Grands what does this mean for the city of lot so it means a lot uh it brings first of it brings the total of Grants to fista to almost $30 million which is huge but a particularly interest award to in this grant is $2 million to put up lighting at the intersection i44 and Rogers Lane which uh joins Fort Hill but also up and down Rogers Lane which is unlit at this time so it's going to increase the safety it's also going to improve the intersection ction of Gore and i44 as well as Lee Boulevard and i44 so I'm excited for that that's been one of the projects I've been pushing for for a long time yeah and uh aligns right with our efforts for a safe Community as outlined in our true north culture statement now also assistant chief Eric Carter gave a presentation over copper theft or just a material theft problem that we're experiencing in the city talk to us about the decision that Council made for that so this has been a problem not only for us but for cities all across the state and indeed Across the Nation and so we're trying to address uh this problem by addressing the uh the where they go to sell the uh the the material and to by doing that we want to work with the dealers the Recycled dealers in the community we're going to create a list of items that are just going to be uh forbidden from being bought uh the things that are high uh demand that for theft are air conditioning coils uh catalytic converters uh we we see all kinds of of different materials that are take copper wire which is created a problem with people breaking into uh unoccupied houses and stealing the wire out so by Banning this unless you have legitimate uh reason for having this material if you're a contractor who has recycled this material uh or you have a receipt for having purchased this material we will not or the the contractor will not be allowed to buy this material from you and we're hoping by reducing that uh Supply and the ability for people to make money off of that we reduce the uh incidence of theft in our community sure and and the next question kind of still in line with cleaning of our community let's talk about the DN program mayor wants to see uh the amount of dnds that we bring to council double so talk to us about how how that's going to happen so this is another issue that affects Ward 2 probably disproportionately there are a lot of owner unoccupied houses uh and we're trying to make an effort to keep a one keep the properties up and keep them from having to go on the DND we really don't want to put houses on the DND but at this time throughout the community there are a lot of homes that have they have holes in the roof they have sighing they have broken windows and that just invites some of the problems we just talked about before and so we're really working hard to deal with that issue and if you're not going to take care of your home and it becomes a hazard to the community or in this case uh dangerous and dilapidated which is what d andd stands for then we're going to put it on the list we're going to review it you will have the opportunity to come down and address the council under why you think it shouldn't be on the DN project but so last year we did over a 100 so this year we like to do twice as many to try to get these areas were blight reduced so that if you are a homeowner in this neighborhood that you have some price in your neighborhood and you feel like you can uh go home and one you can be safe two there aren't squatters living next door to you and that uh it will improve the property values throughout the city sure okay um now I thought that the presentation on the Museum of the Great Plains uh was incredibly interesting I love seeing renderings of any building that we have and just what could be so the Museum of the great PLS I understand that they're facing some issues so talk to us about what council decided to bring those uh just to bring the museum up to par and also just tell us why it's important that we make sure that we really preserve those those buildings that's a great point and so the Museum of the Great Plains is is a fantastic uh facility and for some reason I hadn't been to it in 30 years and I recently went to it and it was actually in the middle of a rainstorm and there must have been a 100 buckets uh around the museum catching water well water and uh art forms or art pieces or the collections that the museum have don't mix the humidity doesn't mix so there's a a multitude of reasons why some of it is damaged the the recent hell storm damaged both the roof and the facade outside but some of it is outdated construction and so uh we're going to bring up or or find $450,000 just to do an engineering study to find out what we need to do we gery already did part of that and identifi the problems so this study will identify how to fix it but the overall estimate at this point in time is almost $6 million to repair all of this and make bring this Museum back to the uh to the Quality that we it needs to be it really is a great museum and and it's it's recognized all over the country as being a super Museum on the artifacts that it has and so we want to preserve those for future Generations that's why we think that's so important and so $6 million what was kind of the proposition uh made yesterday at Council to get us to that number good question so $6 million we don't have that kind of money sitting around so we're going to propose the the Propel extension that we we're looking at that a portion of that money uh will be in the Propel extension we will also be actively seeking grants and other options to help pay for that but it's a vital part of our community it's in the Showplace Park of the community we have other things going to that Park the new Aquatic Center is going to be there uh there are other things that we have designed of course holiday and the park is there the two festivals are there every year so we we absolutely want to make sure that this park is a Showplace for everyone involved and also you know we recently upgraded and done a lot of work on the McMahon Auditorium and so we we need to get to keep matching that and part of this design will be to make it look more like the McMahon and which will then match uh when we build the Aquatic Center all the designs will be symmetrical so that we can you know it looks like it all goes together sure you know you mentioned McMahon and if you haven't driven by at night and seen the new McMahon Marquee it is beautiful courtesy of the McMahon Foundation it just it looks amazing McMahon Foundation was very generous uh Aeros Sign Company put the new sign up and it looks fabulous it's LED you we can put messages on it not only of upcoming events but uh other things of interest to the public it's a beautiful it's kind of a what you say it's Art Deco sure I don't know enough about you're too you're too young for Art Deco but I just know that it's pretty it's kind of art deco it looks like old Hollywood uh design it's an awesome job they did a great job with it I'm very proud of that yeah so I kind of got off track there because I do I love that sign so much so last topic we're going to talk about Lake latonka so the city of loton took over uh the schoolhouse L leases January 2023 since then there's been a lot of changes but one thing that Council talked about yesterday was making sure that the uh the the funds generated out of the lake stay at the lake why is that important so uh one of the things that was determined in the study uh the house study was that uh the rates for renting the both the schoolhouse The Boat House spaces and the campsites was Far underneath what is going in a regional area and so we wanted to increase those rates to make them comparable to what is being charged elsewhere but we decided to take those increased revenues and put those all back into improvements in the lake many of those have been needed for a long time we need a road for uh carts to be able to get back and forth around the area we need a shower uh we need a a good bathroom there's there's a so many things uh probably better sewer and water delivery out there so it like Tonka is really really a showpiece lake and it's people come from all over and our visitors that come to Fort S uh they they stop by and they say what a wonderful Lake and so we want that uh Lake to be a showpiece so we're going to put the money back in so the improvement shows in the future and we'll keep going there are other improvements we want to do I think the half report identified $200 million worth of improvements that could be done between Lake Lon and Ellsworth we will be work hopefully in the future uh to improve Lake Ellsworth at the same time wonderful wonderful question and that's one of the things I'm most excited about cuz that's that's a beautiful Lake uh to be at a lot of recreation goes on out there absolutely well I think that's all the time that we have today unless there's anything else you wanted to add no I I thank you for this I I really appreciate uh your work in this and I think that the citizens should feel free to contact their cons their councilman at any time if they have questions about any of these projects and we can provide more information to them at that time very good all right that about wraps it up for a full rundown of what happened at Tuesday's council meeting you can visit our website l.gov and if you'd like to come and see the council meeting in person that is happening February 27th at 2 p.m.
in the lotton city hall council chambers thank you again thank you and we'll see you next time.