City council members talked over options they might have to clean up the downtown area in Flandreau when they met on Monday, April 3.
Donna Stenberg, owner of the Flandreau Flower Shoppe, initiated the conversation, commenting on the debris she sees outside her shop and her attempts to keep the area clean.
The council discussed a few options, including having city workers clean out the alcoves downtown, where garbage has blown, and bill the owner, similar to mowing lawns and snow removal.
“We don’t have a (sign or) alert or anything like that that enforces when we sweep the streets, so [city workers] have to move around whatever’s there,” Alderman Dan Sutton said. “We can’t force businesses owners to do it, but we can lead by example with the city properties we have on main street.”
City workers sweep the streets Friday mornings from 2-6 a.m., but for people who might not know this or who live downtown and park along Second Avenue, the cars remained parked along the street and the workers sweep around them.
Stenberg suggested sending out a letter to start advising people on the city sweeping hours. Alderman Ron Smith said if not parking downtown Friday mornings is a policy, it should be more consistently enforced.
Eng Services will be contacted about emptying the downtown trash receptacles and billing the city.
In other action, the Flandreau city council
approved Dakota Layers to use City Park for a community-wide Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 15, beginning at 10 a.m.
approved for Julia Eng to use City Park for her senior project on Saturday, April 22, for a walk/run for diabetes.
approved for Anna Kitto to use City Park for her senior project on Saturday, April 22, for a silent auction fundraiser to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
approved an invoice for airport engineering in the amount of $8,279.20, $805.60 for the mini-master plan and $7,473.60 for the airport layout plan, and for the mayor to sign the grant reimbursement request form.
approved a pay step increase for Brent Goehring, police officer, from $18.95 to $19.45 an hour.
Cleaning up the Parks
Trash has been collecting in the downtown areas over the winter months and Flandreau City businesswoman, Donna Stenberg, has asked the Flandreau City Council for aid in keeping the city looking spruced up. City council members told her they would have the employees be responsible for picking up the trash in the city owned spaces downtown.
