By Jill Fennema –

The Edgerton City Council met for their regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

In the course of the meeting, City Clerk Joel Farrington told the council that on January 26, he, Jeff Snyder, and Doug Brands, the public works employees, met with the engineers and the city’s financial consultant Mike Bubany.

The engineers said that the USDA should supply the city with financing and grant terms in March. At that time, the city will invite Bubany to help them wade through the financial information and make a plan.

Bubany suggested that they have a large rate increase – possibly 25 percent for water and 100 percent increase for sewer in place so that it is obvious that the city is working towards having rates that are closer to average. Joel explained that his reason for bringing it up was just to inform people about what would be coming.

In December 2020, the council passed a 15 percent increase to both water and sewer.

In other matters, the council has retained Keith Elbers as a realtor to help them market the lots in the Northwest First Addition. Elbers will be opening a real estate office in Edgerton soon. It will be located in the Kooiman building on Main Street.

Elbers will be paid a six percent commission on lots he sells and will market them through Real Estate Retrievers that has several offices in the area.

“So far we have just been getting the word out through Facebook and the local newspapers,” Farrington said. “The bottom line is we just need a centralized location for everyone to work together. Real Estate Retrievers can help fill that need.”

After the agreement was approved, Elbers asked if the council would consider not charging the builder for a lot until the finished home was sold. Mayor Kirk Bleyenburg responded that the council could possibly entertain that idea, but the contractor would have to come before the council for a decision.

The city council received a letter from Mike Fey, the president of Fey Industries, regarding the city’s plan to put sidewalk on both sides of 4th Avenue North from County Road 9 to Capri St.

Fey said in the letter that he recommended that the city avoid putting sidewalk on the east side of the street past the parking lots and front of Fey Industries.

His letter stated, “I can understand the perspective of sidewalk on the west side of 4th Ave., however with the amount of car and truck traffic that comes in and out of our parking lot, it creates a dangerous condition for pedestrians.  It would be better to encourage pedestrians to use sidewalk on the west side of the street.”

Fey Industries owns land on both sides of 4th Ave. Fey added that he was not opposed to sidewalks; he simply thought that sidewalk on the east side would be more dangerous. Later he told this reporter that he considered the area to be much like the area by Chandler Feed on Mill Street – where the council decided not to put sidewalk because they wanted to encourage pedestrians to use the sidewalk on the south side of the street. The council did not discuss Fey’s letter at the meeting.

Farrington noted that the Safe Routes to School grant has been applied for and if the city is awarded grants, the council will have to abide by the plan that they submitted.