SL Mayor Says City Hall Project Will Move Rapidly Forward

Tuesday’s referendum in the amount of $1.35 million received support from 61.5% of those who voted, barely putting it over the 60 percent threshold needed under Iowa law for passage of bond issues.

Mayor Blain Andera says city officials are pleased to be able to finally move ahead on the long awaited project…(click here for comment.) “This is something the council has been looking at for a long time and we worked hard to put a plan together that the city could be proud of. We’re just anxious to move forward to the next steps now and finalize the actual plans for the building itself and get started on the construction.”

Andera says the next step is to start finalizing plans…(click here for comment.) “Right away we’re going to get with the architects and start going through finalizing what the building will look like, where the rooms will be, offices, restrooms, stuff like that in the building, then move up from their to the demolition and construction phase. We’re working with the Spirit Lake schools. We’re going to move over to the old admin office in the interim while we’re under construction. We certainly appreciate them working with us on that. So hopefully by, I would guess probably fall is when we would start construction of it.”

City officials say they’ll be able to pay off the bonds without raising taxes. Andera believes that and one other factor made the difference in getting the referendum passed this time around…(click here for comment.) “Well I think the council listened to their constituents and the residents of the city. We scaled back the project a little bit. You know the price was 22 percent down from what it was the first time we had the bond issue up, so, or referendum. I think, you know, just the fact they listened and took into consideration. The other thing is that we’re going to be able to finance with existing revenue and not raise property taxes. I think that’s a huge plus, too.”