The Minonk City Council approved a revolving loan of $20,000 to Rusmeyer LLC for use in upgrading the Minonk Car Wash.  Principals of Rusmeyer LLC are Randy Ruestman and Craig Meyer.  City of Minonk Revolving Loan Administrator Sally Hanley reported that MInonk Car Wash would employ four full time employees and will require $145,000 in capital investment.   Terms of the revolving loan is 3 per cent interest for 5 years.  The car wash planned to open for business on July 16 but a mechanical difficulty delayed the opening until sometime later this week.

Garbage Pickup Schedule May Change

Roy Probus of Titan Environmental Services told the Council that his company may plan to change the garbage pickup to 2 days rather than the current 1 day pickup in the city.  Probus said this change may be necessary in order to reduce the labor cost of doing business.  He wanted to know if the Council had any objection to changing the pickup to 2 days.  Probus said by running a pickup on 2 days, he needs to run one truck on each day with 2 employees rather than the current 1 day pickup which requires two trucks and 4 employees.  He said he would give the City 30 days notice if the pickup schedule is to change.

Veterans Park Traffic Flow Discussed

The Public Safety Committee discussed the traffic flow problems at Veterans Park during a meeting on July 5th.  The concern was over the concession stand near the baseball diamonds in which a child may dart out into the street from the concession stand and be injured, as there is only a single lane of traffic when vehicles are parked on the north side of the concession stand.  Possible solutions discussed were permanently mounted signs and portable cones.  After a brief discussion the matter was tabled until Alderman Fiorini has a chance to talk with the Parks & Recreation Committee.  In the interim, two barricades from the Public Works Department connected with yellow tape will be used to prevent parking on the north side of the concession stand.

Public Comments

Dave Uphoff asked if the City would be willing to do something next year to prevent damage done by the invasion of Japanese Beetles on the Linden trees planted along the 400 block of Chestnut Street.  Uphoff said the trees have been devastated this year by the beetles.  Mayor Bill Koos said efforts will be made to include money in next year's budget for applying a systemic insecticide to affected trees on City property.