City renews $7.3 million in notes for construction, purchases

MARION – Marion city council renewed the city’s $7.3 million note package, which covers a range of expenses, on July 27. These provide for improvements on several city streets and sewers and the purchase of several city vehicles.

City notes are temporary, auditor Kelly Carr explained, and the city can either pay them off or roll them over to the next year. After $9 million to $11 million worth of debt accumulates, she said, the city will convert them to bonds which have set payments for interest and principle.

The current notes include $116,000 for three police vehicles, $27,100 for an engineering department vehicle, $141,000 remaining payments for two sanitation department packer trucks and $312,000 for an EMS vehicle for the fire department.

The engineering truck, Bishop said, replaces an older vehicle that was so old it was more cost-effective to replace it than continue making repairs.

Marion Police Department Maj. Jon Schaffer said their three vehicles, a cruiser and two SUVs, are needed to replace older vehicles in their fleet.

One cruiser has 158,000 miles on it, he said, and at least three have more than 130,000 miles. The department’s total fleet of 35 vehicles has an average of around 80,000 miles.

Carr said the EMS vehicle will lead to revenue for the city, through EMS billing for ambulance rides usually paid through insurance.

“We actually make about $400,000 to $450,000 a year per squad,” Carr said.

The city paid $200,000 on the money borrowed for the two packer trucks, and were able to purchase two trucks before that with existing funds, Carr said.

The notes also include $300,000 in notes for City Hall’s HVAC system, installed three years ago as a replacement to the original oil-cooled system.

“We were running up significant repair bills, it was inefficient and quite frankly it was intermittent operation,” said Service Director Jay Shoup.

The street and sewer related notes include a range of past, present and future projects, according to Bishop and Carr.

Carr said the completed projects on Durfee Drive and Cummins Avenue, as well as adjacent roads, were part of past emergency projects to ensure the safety of the road. The Durfee Drive project, including adjacent streets, had a note worth $115,000 while the Cummins Avenue project’s note is worth $915,000.

Bishop said there’s currently work being done on Latourette Street, as sewers are replaced and the road will be rebuilt with stone, curb and asphalt paved over top. The 2014 note for that project is worth $216,000 while a spring 2015 note is worth $1,051,000.

Asphalt is also being repaved on North Greenwood Street and should be done in the next few weeks, according to Bishop. Notes for that project are worth $820,000 and $1,251,000.

There are also planned future projects for Ballentine Avenue and George Street, 2014 note worth $165,000 and 2015 note worth $851,000; Main and State Streets, worth $731,000; South Greenwood Street, worth $82,500; Belmont Street, worth $75,000 and George Street, worth $200,000.