Lansing City Council hears updates on RAGBRAI® and Main Street well, discusses State Forester assessing Mt. Hosmer trees
by Macie Hill
The regular meeting of the Lansing City Council was held Monday, July 17. Discussion circled around safety management for the upcoming RAGBRAI® visit to Allamakee County, a city tree removal at 230 Third Street, a Main Street well update, hiring extra certified officers and security for RAGBRAI, and having a State Forester come in to look at the trees at Mount Hosmer.
Allamakee County Emergency Management Director Corey Snitker was present at this week’s meeting to discuss the overall plan for the City of Lansing for RAGBRAI, especially focusing on safety hazard-related items. Snitker says the biggest concern for him at the moment is the weather, as it is looking to be a pretty rainy week, so the City would want to be prepared to have sheltered places for the RAGBRAI riders to go in case a storm does happen to come while they are staying in town. Snitker suggested that another possible concern that officials could have to use the shelters for would be heat and hyperthermia (heat-related illness) precautions.
Snitker also explained that the railroad track will also be fenced off in a lot of areas during RAGBRAI, again for safety reasons, to limit the places people will be able to cross them. RAGBRAI will also be providing a mobile treatment center, four ambulances and two motorcycles that will be following the group and making sure everyone stays safe.
The City will be hiring some extra officers and security for RAGBRAI. Some will be certified officers and some will be members of the local fire department for security. Some of the fire department members did offer to volunteer their hours, but the City will still plan on paying them and it will be their choice if they want to take the money or not when the time comes.
The council approved the motion to remove a tree at 230 Third Street. This was brought up in a previous meeting but the council was hesitant to approve the removal because the owners did not yet have a building permit. The owners do have the building permit now, so the council did approve.
The Main Street water well test came back, and it was found out that the well does have to be replaced. The council agreed that there wasn’t really a choice to be made, as it’s just something that has to be done, so that process will be happening in the future.
The council discussed having a State Forester come to town and look at the back side of Mount Hosmer to see if any of the trees in that location need to be harvested. The idea behind this is that the City could use some extra money and some of those trees need to be cleared. It was explained that it would even be healthy for the overall growth of trees for some to be taken down.
