Paving is nearly complete on the streets in Cyrus. The work started just before Labor Day, and the final touches could continue for a few weeks. The Cyrus City Council learned about the progress at their meeting on September 8. There was still some apron work needing to be completed with the tarring.

Concrete work on curbs and sidewalks is also continuing along Highway 28. The second lift has been applied to County Road 3, so progress is being made. The area between curb and sidewalk will be filled in and hydro-seeded this fall. 

The council met with only three council members present, which caused a little bit of a problem when it came to voting. A Public Hearing was held at the start of the meeting before Mayor Tyler Berg was able to attend. The hearing was regarding the Conduit Financing that St. Frances Health Service asked for at the August meeting.

One of the two councilmen, Jeff Finke, spoke at the hearing as a member of the public and expressed concern about the financing plan. He stated that he really wanted to take care of the City of Cyrus first before using these funds for St. Frances.

Carol Raw, CEO of St. Frances, explained that the financing is only a pass-through agent and would not affect the city in any way. However, Finke did not want to take on any risk, no matter how small.

The other council member present was Heidi Logeais, who is employed by Prairie Community Services. This is not direct employment with St. Frances but was close enough that Logeais felt uncomfortable voting. She decided to abstain from the vote. 

Berg arrived to make a motion to approve the Conduit Financing. Councilman Allan Rutter joined the meeting via phone and seconded the motion. Berg and Rutter voted in favor, Finke against, Logeais abstained, and Whitney Lesmeister, also a St. Frances employee, was not present at the meeting. Therefore, the motion passed with a 2-1 vote

The council debated a couple of other issues at the meeting.  After submitting payroll records to the state, City Clerk Lisa Banta was contacted that city employee John Mullins should be having PERA deducted from his paycheck. Any employee working six months or a set number of hours is required to participate in this plan. Last year, Mullins worked seven months. Banta will talk to Mullins about this to see if he wants to continue to work the seven months or go down to six to avoid this deduction.

City Attorney Jeff Kuhn told the council that he has received the needed paperwork for the annexation of a property into the city. This property owner wanted to connect to the city sewer as they were being asked to put in a new mound system. During the road work, the sewer line was stubbed in, and the connection to the home was made.

Kuhn wanted to know what the city wanted to charge for the annexation. He will be letting the property owner know that there will be a fee to cover filing costs, lawyer costs, and publications. The property owner will begin to be charged for the service.

The preliminary levy was discussed, and how much the city wanted to approve for this. The most a city can ask for in the preliminary levy is a 10% increase. This is a temporary increase and gives a city time to set the budget and see how much is actually needed. Then at the December meeting, the levy is approved at the rate needed to meet the budget. The levy can not be increased at that time, only decreased. The Cyrus Council decided to set the preliminary levy at a 7% increase and plans to lower that in December.

Several properties were noted to be three or four months behind in water/sewer rates. These will all be shut off until the bills are caught up.