The Lisbon City Council voted Dec. 22 on the selection of Breanna (Bre) Ties as the new utility billing clerk. After receiving the recommendation of Ties from the personnel committee, the council unanimously voted for her to take on the role. To accommodate the thirty days that Ties must give to her previous employer, her starting date will be Jan. 12, with her first full week being Jan. 19.
Ties comes from a background in “administrative work, managerial work, HR work, billing,” with previous jobs such as her most recent role as the director of the Lisbon Early Childcare Center since June of 2016, and a facilitator role at a nonprofit for eleven years prior to that.
Although Ties will start at $22.00 per hour, council member Rick Scott suggested a motion to give Ties a starting pay of $23.50 per hour, with the opportunity to work up to previous clerk Marsha Lasack’s wage of $23.76 per hour. It was determined by mayor Doug O’Connor that the suggestion would be kept in mind but could not be voted on at the meeting on December 22.
Aside from the hiring of Ties as the new utility clerk, budget presentations and requests were also brought before the council.
Lisbon Public Library director Elizabeth Hoover de Galvez started off the meeting by simply sharing statistics as a year-end review, sharing that there was an 8% increase in circulation of physical materials, 91% increase in program attendance, 40% increase in website visits, and that the completion of summer reading logs doubled both for children and adults.
With the library’s statistical improvements came some physical ones as well. This year, the library hired Meredith Nehring as the new children’s librarian and completed a new shelving renovation, as well as making other repairs to the outside of the building.
In terms of the budget, the library decided to ask for an approximately 5% decrease, as the west wall fund had been cut out for the coming year.
The library was not the only organization able to share good news, however. Nicole McAlexander, the executive director of the SELCC, followed by sharing some positive statistics as well, such as 125 (14%) of Lisbon’s households were able to benefit from the food pantry, the new summer meals program brought in about 50 people per day, which was more people than the Coralville pantry had at their feeding site, 67 Lisbon kids were able to receive free school supplies and backpacks, and so on.
For their budget request, the SELCC asked for an increase to $30,000, as the visits to the food pantry were up 40% from the previous year. This increase in attendance is not something that is anticipated to go away, as there are new restrictions to SNAP benefits coming in the new year, as well as insurance rates increasing with the ending of federal subsidies going forward.
As a result, council member Rick Scott suggested that the council give them $35,000 instead of the $30,000 that they were asking for to which McAlexander said that they would take any funds the council was willing to give. SELCC board member and treasurer Gary Scott made the same request from the Mount Vernon City Council alongside McAlexander on the following Monday.
With these increases in attendance and reach, the SELCC has decided to open new locations in Ely and at Cornell College with funding from United Way for students and staff. This makes them the first pantry in the HACAP seven county region to open a second site, according to McAlexander.
Other budget presentations were from the EMA and TIF. Brandon Siggins presented for the EMA, asking for a slight decrease in their budget of $2,825. Future improvements that the EMA hopes to make are minor equipment line improvements so that the siren batteries can be fixed whenever needed, as well as looking for grants on top of their budget from the city council to buy portable highway signs for message displays like warning drivers of accidents ahead.
TIF made a request for $174,500. $114,500 of these funds would go towards the general obligation bond and sports complex bond; $20,000 would be contributed to downtown rehab projects, and Budget Blinds is still in a TIF rebate with the city, which would take the estimated remaining $40,000.
The last budget request was made by YTT to make the final payment to Dave Schmidt for Phase 1 at the sports complex. This payment would cover infrastructure for roads, soccer fields, and grading. However, there were a couple of issues throughout the process, such as misbilling and a complication with the concrete that led to the usage of a patching product that did not take. As a result, the city received a couple credits on the final payment from Dave Schmidt. When all is said and done, the final payment will be around $94,215.11.
Outside of budget presentations, different committees gave their reports. All things remained routine, with public works reporting that the dump truck got four new tires and is being looked at for a shifting issue, while the fire chief and city administrator Brandon Siggins reported that there were two machine shed fires Sunday, Dec. 14, within 10-15 minutes of one another. There was also an employee involved in an accident while snow blowing in the skid loader on Gillette Lane. Although there was no damage to the city’s equipment, the citizen’s truck had minor damage.