Dear Citizens of Belle Plaine:
MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Or, if you prefer:
HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON!
PLEASE REMEMBER THE REASON FOR THE SEASON AND IF YOU CAN HELP SOMEONE HAVE A MERRY HOLIDAY SEASON, THEN PLEASE JOIN IN AND HELP OUT. WE CAN HAVE SHORTAGES OF PRODUCTS, BUT THERE SHOULD NEVER BE A SHORTAGE OF CHRISTMAS SPIRIT & KINDNESS!
Congratulations, BPCDC & volunteers, for a great Belle Plaine Holiday Homecoming and Shop Small Saturday. A lot of time & effort went into making this celebration work. Again, thanks to all those involved in decorating the downtown, especially City workers, BPCDC, & other volunteers. Also, a big thank you to the fire department that is always there to put up the decorations & take them down.
Take some time to spend an evening riding around & checking the sights.
Suppose you want to be involved in developing this city celebration and others. In that case, I encourage you to join BPCDC. It is not just for the businesses; they have individual memberships or simply volunteer to help that group out.
Ask to get on their volunteer list!
All that being said, from an economic standpoint, I hope that you support our local merchants during the holiday season. Remember, they are the ones who sponsor our little league teams, our July 3rd & 4th celebration, the Holiday Homecoming & many other local events. We sure don’t see the big box stores or Amazon sponsoring events in Belle Plaine.
Please support the merchants who support our community!
Our local merchants are still here for us, whether there is a pandemic or lousy weather.
Please support them.
Right now, our wells are holding their own & we have no immediate concerns about turning well six on. That could change sometime during the winter. We will give you advanced notice, and we will never have well #6 replace the other wells. It would always be a mixed flow, usually with Well #6 making up less than 40%. As for the water study, we had an experimental filter placed on well six to take water samples from it. The preliminary results look good, but we have to wait for all the test results before we make our next step. Suppose the filter works, and we mean that it filters out all the hardness so that well six water is not any different than our other wells. In that case, we will start to plan how to fix all our water problems. Please stay tuned and see what decisions the council makes. Look for action over the winter and this spring as we figure out how to ensure that Belle Plaine has a more than adequate water supply. Somewhere in those discussions will be a scheduling of a complete rebuilding of the interior of the water tower, which is probably a year or two overdue. Yes, it will cost money, and we will apply for every grant. However, the fact remains the city will still be responsible for paying our fair share. There are no grants to pick up the total cost. That is why we are studying how to do this reasonably. The last time I brought a water purification system up to an engineer and asked for a cost estimate, they said 8 to 10 million dollars.
We believe we can do much better than that!
Throughout the next couple of weeks, you will probably hear a rumor that the city of Belle Plaine is in court with a lawsuit against WRH. This is the company that built the sewer plant. That is not a rumor. The city is being sued by WRH for not making the final payment on the plant. The reason behind the whole lawsuit is WRH would not give the city the change order that was needed to draw the final grant money from the state government to make the payment. That refusal led to a disagreement between the city & WRH over the project was completed on time and several other issues. Even though the city has made several offers to settle this out of court, the WRH company’s lawyers or WRH owners would never agree to our offers. Eventually, the city council decided it was better to go to court and let a judge determine who owed what to each other and who was right and wrong. We will give you the solution as soon as the court decides.
If you could not make it to the Veterans Day Assembly, you missed one of the better ones the community has put on. Besides, an excellent job by Ella Brannaman & Lilly Fowler-Phillippe, the President & Vice President of the Student Council, hosting the event. Paster Don Drahos did a great job with the invocation & Rick Petersen, the Adjunct of Post 39 of the American Legion, gave a memorable speech. All the other presentations, including the quilts of valor & the DAR Good Citizen award, and the music and vocal presentations by the high school were outstanding. What you really missed is the Longfellow Grades 2 – 4 chorus stole the show with their singing presentations. Plus, the solo’s done by Liliana Beck, Zanden Steinman, Caysen Cantu, Trystan Downs, Harper Mitchell, & Jack Koch were fantastic. Besides the entire program doing a great job honoring our veterans, it sent the message that when you see our grade school or high school kids are putting on a concert, maybe you should make your way out to the school for some great entertainment.
Just a note about recycling and garbage. If Republic misses you on the assigned day, please call city hall, and the clerks will make arrangements to have whatever was missed taken care of during the week. Also, remember for big items to be picked up, you must make arrangements with city hall to have that done.
Remember the year it was challenging to support our local athletes in basketball and wrestling, plus the band & cheer squads, because of covid. Times are different, so get out and support the local kids who represent BPHS on the court, on the mat, or from the stands.
As always, “Go Plainsmen.” Remember, it is up to all of us to make Belle Plaine is the best hometown in Iowa!
Mayor Dave Fish – December 2022
Jim Magdefrau 