Maquoketa Weekly Summary

City Operations Weekly Summary –2-10-25  through  02.14.25

City Manager’s Office:
City Staff pieced together a shorter City Council agenda for Monday night. This previous Monday afternoon,
the Council Committees had their typical meetings that included a recommendation for street improvements
in 2025 and the last budget review meeting of FY2025-2026. It was a lighter week at City Hall overall,
everyone seems to be getting healthier after this terrible flu and cold season.
Community Development:
City Staff completed a comprehensive splash pad analysis for Parks Board consideration. The options in said
analysis have been completed with consideration and cooperation from all YMCA stakeholders. One of the
options may lead to a deeper data study by a third-party consultant. Another set of options directly pursue a
project with varying scale and locations, relative to available budget in future years. The City of Tiffin and
Solon were major contributors to this analysis with a full look at the “all-in” costs of building a splash pad as
well as the ongoing operation and maintenance costs.
I started working on an additional application toward IEDA’s Thriving Communities designation which would
award Maquoketa bonus points in the Housing Tax Credit program for developers in 2025.
Gronen Development and Dubuque Forward requested the City’s help in explaining how the City and
Betterment Corporation developed plans, community support, and finances for the Green Space
Redevelopment. They consulted with the City on some key variables affecting a property in the Millwork
district. Gronen has come to Maquoketa to check out a few properties and analyze the HWY-61 Industrial Park
for future build outs if they have a client come forward with a need. The basic thesis behind this is Dubuque
is now landlocked for warehousing development. Because of this, Dubuque area developments are having to
expand out to areas such as Dyersville, West Dubuque, Keiler, etc. Therefore, I saw no problem helping
provide some intel on how the MBC and City moved the Green Space project forward.
Water-Wastewater:
This week was busy with construction start-ups. We had the start-up of the bar screen, cyclone separator and
the grit pump. We took in training on each piece of equipment. We have also been heavily involved with
Automatic Systems who is doing the SCADA integrations.
I did a 1-hour webinar on water tower antennas; this was a very interesting talk. I worked with Dan from
Michel Pluming and pump on the sewer service for AP graphics, sending him an as-built drawing of the new
line from Platt Street and a copy of our sewer ordinance for the type of line that should be installed.

Police Department:
This week the City of Maquoketa experienced our first significant snow falls of the winter season. When a
forecast predicts this amount of snowfall it typically prompts a “Snow Emergency” to be declared by the
City. While the Public Works crew has to do all the heavy lifting by spending countless hours moving snow,
the police department does its part to assist in the process. Once a snow emergency has been declared the
police department makes efforts to remove vehicles that are parked on snow routes. Officers drive the snow
routes looking for vehicles that have not been removed after an emergency has been declared. When officers
locate a vehicle that has not been moved, they attempt to locate the owner, remind them of the snow emergency
and ask them to move the vehicle immediately. Locating the owners is done by knocking on doors associated
with the vehicle’s registration information, and checking our in-house records for contact information. There
are times that we are unable to make contact with the owners and those vehicles end up being ticketed and
towed. Unfortunately, there were four (4) vehicles that were towed during this snow emergency and numerous
more moved by owners after being contacted by officers  .Officers attempting to contact owners prior to towing a vehicle is not a requirement, it’s done as a courtesy
when possible. That’s why we would like to remind our residents that if you live on a snow route, pay attention
to the weather forecast when snow is predicted. Snow emergencies are announced on the City of
Maquoketa’s Facebook page, as well as on KMAQ. If social media and local radio are not options, residents
can call the police department’s non-emergency number at (563) 652-2468 and inquire about possible snow
emergencies.
Public Works Department:
This week was our first major snow event of the season. Also, this was our first snow emergency of the season.
It went from noon on Wednesday until Thursday at noon. The snow started late Tuesday night and went
through the day on Wednesday until 8pm. We started plowing the early morning hours on Wednesday and
went through the day and evening until 9pm. I think we received approximately 7 to 8” of snow. A storm like
this requires a lot of man hours and a lot of salt to keep the roads safe.

Looks like we get one day off and start back up again Friday night and into Saturday morning. Hopefully this
storm doesn’t pack a very big punch. So much for an easy winter! Have a great weekend.

Fire Department:
The rural pumper for the FD took another step forward this week. Fire Chief Al Muhlhausen received noticed
of the box going on the truck. It’s starting to look like a lot more than an oversized truck chassis.
Library:
It’s been quite a week at the library. We were closed on Wednesday due to the weather. We’ve spent a lot of
time cleaning up the bathrooms, which is leading to a discussion of whether we will lock the men’s room to
the public and require everyone to request a key in order to use it. We would rather not do that, so hopefully
things will turn around. Blind Date with a Book is going very well, we’ve had over 100 people sign up so far
and there’s still about 24 hours left. We had Crochet Chat this week, which is always a fun time. We’ve also
got Galentine’s Day at Moore Local coming up this Sunday from 1 to 3 PM.