Summary — City of Maquoketa January 20th through 24th, 2025

City Operations Weekly Summary – 01.24.25

City Manager’s Office:
Happy Friday! This week City Council had a fairly routine Council meeting with nothing highly significant
on the Agenda. City Staff worked on posting several construction bid requests for street improvements, park
parking lots, city hall parking lot, routine park mowing, mowing abatements, and external financial auditing
services. Late January to end of March is typically when contractors are competing for Summer work and this
is part of the City’s normal annual cycle for us to pick up bidding activity.
Community Development:
City Staff and Community Leaders met with JCEA Friday to discuss Jackson County child care provider
strategic planning.
JCEA met with City Staff as well to discuss incentive backed development agreements that already in progress.
The Airport Solar Array finally reached Alliant Energy’s “permission to operate” stage and was turned on this
week. We are now making enough energy to sustain and sell the excess production back to Alliant. This is on
a small system outside the main corporate hangar designed to feed the runway lights, well pump, and both
corporate hangars.

CITY HALL | 201 EAST PLEASANT STREET MAQUOKETA, IA 52060 | WWW.MAQUOKETAIA.COM

(563) 652-2484

Water-Wastewater:
We had 3 frozen water meters this week with 1 house having 2 broken water lines inside. We also had or first
water main break for 2025 on Tuesday at 815 S 5th street. I am very thankful this was a quick and easy one to
repair at 3 degrees with windchills reaching -30 it was very treacherous for our crew.

Jim Olson with Iowa Waste Reduction Center came to Maquoketa Wednesday to help prepare a SWPPP
(Source Water Discharge Permit Plan) that is needed for the WWTP per the last DNR inspection. He gathered
all his information and will send a copy by the end of next week. This is a free service recommended to us by
the DNR.
Sonac violated their treatment agreement for total suspended solids and total kjeldahl nitrogen with the City
so I sent them a violation letter that will be attached to the state report submitted to the DNR at the end of the
month.
I submitted our Tier 2 report to the state which is a yearly report submitted to the state as well as to our local
emergency management showing what chemicals and how many are stored at our 2 facilities.

CITY HALL | 201 EAST PLEASANT STREET MAQUOKETA, IA 52060 | WWW.MAQUOKETAIA.COM

(563) 652-2484

Public Works Department:
This week’s work schedule was changed on Wednesday morning. It started to snow. This was the first time we
really got to use our snow equipment. From our skid loader and brush which does sidewalks, to our dump
trucks that plow our City streets. The forecast was for a dusting one 1 inch. Well it wouldn’t quite snowing so
I think we got closer to 3-4 inches of the white stuff. Finally the snow stopped around 10pm. So we could go
home for the night. We came back early morning hours and picked up the Downtown area. Then we made
another pass through the whole city one more time. Friday is picking up parking lots so we can get back to
normal for the weekend.

Remember residents and business owners must shovel their sidewalks. Downtown businesses have 12 hours
after it stops snowing and residents have 24 hours.
Fire Department:
This past Saturday we were able to hold our annual banquet. This year we held the banquet at the new Together
We Build building at the fairgrounds and The Downtown Pub in Preston catered a delicious meal. The
banquet committee consisting of Cory Simoson, David Neumann, and Zac Collister did a great job planning
the event. We had 8 individuals recognized this year for their years of service. Zac Collister and Luke
Bowman 5 years, Bjorn Beck 15 years, Chad Steffen 25 years, Matt Balliu, Rian Meyeres and Paul Banowetz
10 years. Also, our 2024 Firefighter of the Year recipient was Chad Steffen. Chad does a great job keeping
our radios and pagers organized, he is in charge or making sure they are programmed correctly, sending broken

CITY HALL | 201 EAST PLEASANT STREET MAQUOKETA, IA 52060 | WWW.MAQUOKETAIA.COM

(563) 652-2484

ones in for repair or ordering new ones. Chad is also the chairman of our truck committee which is in the
middle of the purchase of a new rural pumper.

This week for calls, the fire department was dispatched to an alarm at Wady Industries early Sunday
morning, this turned out to be a false alarm. Monday night, the rescue squad was dispatched to a 2 vehicle
head on collision between Maquoketa and Baldwin. Unfortunately, this did end as a fatality for one of the
individuals involved.
With there being 5 Thursday’s this month, we were able to have a rare off night this month that everyone was
able to enjoy. We will have a few members taking on extra training this weekend in Altoona at the annual
State of Iowa Fire School.
Library:
We had a pretty busy week at the library. Tuesday night kept a lot of people away from book club, but we still
had a couple show up to discuss The Bodies in the Library by Marty Wingate. Wednesday morning we held
our Memory Cafe, a social hour for folks with memory problems and their care partners. We had three new
attendees for that. Thursday night was Crochet Chat with a half a dozen ladies in attendance, two were new
faces which we love to see. Thursday was also the quarterly board meeting of the Jackson County Dolly Parton
Imagination Library, the January meeting is always

CITY HALL | 201 EAST PLEASANT STREET MAQUOKETA, IA 52060 | WWW.MAQUOKETAIA.COM

(563) 652-2484

held at the Maquoketa library. Please remind anyone you know with kiddos under 5 in Jackson County to sign
up and get free books in the mail! https://tinyurl.com/5n6sz2zx
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