Council discusses regional wastewater plan and bike safety program

With all members present, the Lennox City Council met Tuesday, Oct. 14.

Mayor Danny Fergen opened the meeting by asking for public comment for items not on the agenda. 

Brandie Nordman stood to address the council. 

“I’m here for the Commercial Club, we just want to thank you for the support that you gave with the Park Drive After 5 event that I set up and we are in the process of planning our 2026 events. We’re hoping to have five of them set up,” Nordman said.  

Discussions continued on a bike and scooter safety program. Chief of Police Will Erickson was present to give further details. 

“We have made progress on this and have had a couple of positive meetings with the school and so far, I think everything’s went really well. We had a lot of good discussions to get some kind of tentative idea of how we’re going to proceed forward with a safety program,” Erickson said. 

Discussions will continue through the school year with the next meeting scheduled for February during the Lennox Bike Rodeo Community Safety and Education Event. 

“My ultimate goal with this is that the community will support this and it gains its own legs and we don’t have to talk about how we’re going to fund these bikes or how we’re going to keep the program going,” he continued. 

Mayor Fergen praised Erickson’s efforts and reminded everyone that the bike rodeo will be available for the children of the community who ride scooters as well. 

“There’s confusion in the city for kids and they are wondering if they should ride on the sidewalk or the street,” Mayor Fergen said. 

The Council thanked Sheriff Erickson for his update.

The City of Lennox has been asked to participate in planning and potential construction of a regional wastewater treatment system. 

“This is a rather old project that is being revised. This started about 20 years ago with Lennox, Worthing, Canton, and Harrisburg, to talk about a regional wastewater system. That didn’t get off the ground and now Lennox is kind of on their own in the terms of communities that have a class 3 wastewater facility. Our capacity is about 650,000 gallons per day which will match our treatment capacity with Lewis and Clark once we reach that expansion,” City Administrator Nate Vander Plaats said. 

Lennox has been listed as a potential member of the project and Vander Plaats would like confirmation whether the board is interested or not in joining the efforts. 

“I’m glad that we took matters into our own hands as a community and built class 3 wastewater treatment facility and that we aren’t relying on another group like this coming in to kind of bail us out as we grow and conversely then I’m not excited about jumping in and spending more money in a regionalized system,” Alderman Bill Daugherty said. 

Vander Plaats recommended writing a letter in support of the project, but does not feel at this time Lennox should be a part of the project. 

“If nothing else, we should make sure we bring some more knowledge and perspective to the table. But I think a frank discussion of yes, I will write this letter of support, but we need to know if there is a cut off time to know whether we’re in our out,” he said. 

The council agreed to not move forward at this time with the project and only move forward with a supportive letter.

The Council was asked for a change order on the Central Basin 4 project. 

“This is going to be a change order with the net amount of $41,748. Next week, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad is supposed to be here to widen the crossing at elm Street that was supposed to be here this week,” Vander Plaats said. 

Representatives from the railroad have told staff members they were coming once before but have not shown up yet. 

“The net effect here is that we’re going to have to bring ASCO back to mobilize their equipment to tie everything in and that’s going to take some money,” he said. 

Motion to approve the change order made by Lauren VanDriel, seconded by Laura Thiesse, motion carried.