Travelers can expect to see a lot of road construction in and around Cyrus over the next three years. Four major projects will be done in 2024, 2025 and 2026 on pavement, water and sewer within the city. The first of these will be work on County Highway 3 north of Hwy 28 that will be done next summer.
Then in 2025 the Minnesota Department of Transportation will be redoing Hwy 28 from Morris and through Cyrus. With this project in the plans, the City of Cyrus will also do water and sewer replacement in the highway. Part of the MnDot project will be the resurfacing of the highway so Cyrus will be saving money by doing their infrastructure replacement at the same time.
The following year the Pope County Highway Department will complete the County Highway 3 work by doing the south section. Also during 2026 all of the paved roads in the north part of Cyrus will be dug up with new water and sewer lines put in and the roads repaved. When all is complete, nearly every road and water/sewer line in Cyrus will be new.
Naturally part of this work will need to be paid by the City of Cyrus. However, by doing it in conjunction with the state and county projects, the city will be saving a great deal of money. Bryan Bye of the Widseth Engineering firm was present at the Cyrus City Council meeting on September 12 to outline the projects and explain the financing options.
Bye explained that Cyrus should qualify for a grant/loan program through Rural Water. The city will be responsible for the first portion of the work but once a certain amount is reached, the grant will kick in. He could not tell the council members what that amount would be as of yet. He wanted to give the council some basic information for budgeting purposes.
The council members discussed a water flow issue at a few homes on CSAH 3 south. The water barely trickles out at the properties so something needs to be done before the work in 2026. Bye wll work with Public Works Director Adam Schmidgall on some options to help fix this problem. Discussion did center around boring a line under the street or putting in a new line. The jetline system would not be able to reach the line due to the distance.
Police Chief Bob Tirevold presented a list of three items he would like the council to consider for the police department. This could be paid for through the Department of Public Safety funds the city will be receiving. Cyrus will be getting $13,780 to be used for police, fire or EMS departments. His request was for a new mobile radio, handgun and handheld radar. Currently, Tirevold is using his own hand gun so this was one item the city felt needed to be addressed. However, they would also like to see some funds used for the siren in the city. The council tabled action on his requests.
Schmidgall told the council that he will be flushing fire hydrants during the weekend of Sept. 30. Also reported was that the work on the building at the sewer ponds is progressing. This building was damaged during the summer wind storm and should be covered under insurance. The new building will be re-insured but at a greater value.
The city has only received one applicant for the city clerk position but council members are aware of others who are interested. The application period was extended. The current city clerk updated the council members on the Federal Emergency Management Assistance fund that the city will be getting for damage caused in the 2021 wind storm. The paperwork for these funds needs to be submitted soon before the funds will be distributed.
City Attorney Jeff Kuhn updated the council members about an estate distribution through which the city will be receiving about $25,273. The city portion of the estate disbursement will be used for things like Cyrus Days and fireworks.
Council member Jeff Finke asked for permission to put about 20 goats on some land in the city for approximately three weeks. The goats will clean up the grass and weeds on the property so the council members agreed to the request. This was done last year and the lot looked nice after the goats were removed.
