Maquoketa Weekly Report

In City Manager’s news, This week City Staff welcomed Melissa, Missy, Connor as the new Finance Clerk for the City of Maquoketa. Missy comes from Grand Mound and currently works for several small communities for clerking duties. Missy came recommended and complimented by a couple of Iowa Economic Development Authority Grant Program Managers which goes a long way to describe her attention to detail and vision for Community betterment. Missy was able to tell her pervious employers she was starting with us immediately Tuesday so we’ve really enjoyed having her extra help and optimism in the office. Missy is also able to work with Judy Carr in her final two weeks of work before her send off on the 20th.

We focused on releasing a normal sized City Council agenda for once and were able to do that with relative ease compared to the last couple.

In Community Development news, Quality Flow Environmental (QFE) had a positive update meeting with City Staff this week and discussed increasing the scale of their project. They learned this week they are being recommended for a $10,000,000 USDA grant to help capital stack for Maquoketa’s site investment. More Information will be forthcoming as their site engineering design is finished.

The Maquoketa Chamber of Commerce had a great “It’s a Wonderful Life In Maquoketa” event downtown on Sunday evening. According to Erin McCauley, 800-900 visitors participated in the event and lighting.

As part of Missy’s focus on finances develops and she is new to these (many) capital projects and grant investments, we met in person for our regular Sunshine Learning Center progress meeting with Sheets Construction. I have to admit the interior seems hardly recognizable except for the main entrance at this point. This will all be finished in mid-2025 so it will be exciting to see it end and benefit our area.

The Prairie Creek project is moving right along with several improvements visible form the HWY 64 area. Work will be slowing to a pause soon as the ground icepacks.

In Police Department news, On Monday our newest Officer, Rob Blake travelled to Ames, Iowa to take his physical test to get accepted into the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. Based on person’s age and gender the test requires Officers to complete a 1.5 mile run under a certain amount of time, and complete a certain number of sit-ups and pushups within a minute. Officer Blake successfully passed his physical and will start the Iowa law Enforcement Academy on January 6th. Officer Blake has worked hard to get to this point, his dedication and persistence will serve him well in the Police Academy.

On Thursday night the Maquoketa Police Department hosted the annual Shop with a Cop event at Walmart. Twelve kids from Maquoketa Schools were invited to participate in an evening of Christmas cookies, juice, and shopping with Officers from the Police Department. When kids arrived they were greeted by Santa and Mrs. Claus. I suspect the Officers were just checking to see if they were on the naught or nice list. When the kids were finished shopping, Maquoketa Optimist Club Members wrapped the kids’ treasures they purchased for friends and family. Our Shop with a Cop event is funded through donations and grant programs, I would like to thank everyone who donated to or volunteered their time to make our event a success.

In Water-Wastewater News, this week with the sub-zero temps should be a huge reminder things tend to thaw and break usually after the really cold temps. We had a water main break on McKinsey in the Maquoketa State Bank driveway that was broke between a claw foot service line that went to the old hotel behind Subway. Then yesterday we were notified of a large ice-skating rink behind the old Aldi’s building on South jones, the old fire suppression line that went to that building broke. Joel with Brad Deery whom owns that had us shut it off at the main.

The UV rep was here for the final inspection and to do a recall update on our bulbs adding O-Rings to the ends of all of them.

We had a call from a homeowner on Butternut of some sewer issues he had been having. We found a pretty large root ball in our line so we cut it out and sent the camera up to verify it had been removed.

The storm water pumps were started up Thursday and ran for 24 hours ensuring they were working properly.

In Fire Department News, This week we were dispatched to six calls. Two of most significant calls were a haybale burning near a barn on the very windy Wednesday afternoon, thankfully it was stopped before reaching any buildings and a structure fire in Nashville Sunday Evening. 21 Firefighters responded to the structure fire and no injuries occurred.

This week for training, Joey from Alliance Water who is also a firefighter talked about hydrant operations. One of the big things discussed now that we have entered the cold season is importance of making sure the hydrants are completely drained of water before we put the cap back on after a fire. We also conducted our monthly equipment checks verifying that all of our equipment is in the proper place and working order. This is extremely important after we have a working fire as sometimes items may not be placed in the correct spot after a call.

Fire Safety Tip: If you have a real Christmas Tree in your house please make sure it is properly watered to keep it from drying out.

In Public Works news, This week here at Public Works was spent on snow equipment. Our main concern is this weekend. They are calling for some ice accumulation Friday night going into Saturday Morning. ice is way different than snow.

With Ice, we have to mix man sand with our salt to provide better traction for vehicles to get around until the salt melts through or until warmer temperatures melt the ice. With ice we have to chain up the tires on our snow plows for us to get around. It’s way easier to deal with snow than ice. With each storm we will run the same routes. We start with our emergency services like the fire station, police station, and hospital ambulance services. Then we go to our designated snow routes and then into our residential streets. Let’s hope for an easy winter.

In Library News, We are getting ready for one of our most popular programs, our annual Taste Test. This year, we’re testing Goldfish Crackers. This has become a fun activity for a lot of families over Christmas break. We currently have almost 50 registrations submitted with almost 220 participants total. Everyone is welcome to participate. This past Sunday, the Friends of the Library held the Christmas Tour of Homes at three local Airbnb properties. It was fun event and raised almost $500.