City council voting on new YMCA pool plans, road work resolutions
By Leah Rainwater
The St. Joseph City Council voted on a large number of bill resolutions at Monday’s meeting.
It was also Interim City Manager Clint Thompson’s first meeting in his new position.
“A majority of the items tonight have to deal with some funding and time lines,” said Thompson. “The city is up against a deadline of the end of 2024 to allocate our ARPA funds, these are federal funds that came through Covid.”
The city received approximately $38 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Thompson also had a reasoning as to why the agenda was longer than usual.
“It’s typical that we have two meetings each month, or ever two weeks,” said Thompson. “The previous city council meeting was cancelled due to some of our council members, the mayor, attending a conference out of town…in light of not having a previous council meeting for the past 30 days, the actual agenda itself was probably twice the size.”
One item on Monday’s agenda consisted of an extension to the YMCA’s fundraising deadline to it’s development of an indoor aquatic facility.
The approved resolution would push the fundraising deadline to April 1, 2025, instead of the original deadline of the end of the 2024 calendar year.
However, in a 7-2-0 vote, council withdrew the item, claiming fundraising for the new aquatic center would still be due by the end of 2024.
Council also discussed the authorization of a purchasing order to replace a collapsed cross-road culvert pipe on South 29th Street.
In August, the South 29th Street faced pavement caving in, causing a large hole in the roadway.
This resolution was passed and over $257 thousand dollars from the master agreement with Sprague Excavating Co. will go toward the repair.
Also in terms of roadwork, the council authorized over $1 million in ARPA funds to upgrade four major intersections in St. Joseph to modern mast arm infrastructure.
Intersections at 22nd Street and Frederick Avenue, Frederick Avenue and Noyes Boulevard, St. Joseph Avenue and Grand Avenue and St. Joseph Avenue and Middleton Street.
As of now, the four intersections are made of “span wire” used for temporary reasons. In the resolution explanation, the council notes, the new poles, bases, and mast arms are more robust and better suited to withstand strong storms compared to the current span wire system.
The resolution was passed during Monday night’s meeting and would also include the replacement of the mast arm structure at Cook Road and Walmart Drive, where the northeast corner pole has been hit and damaged multiple times.
