Rhodes named fire marshall
By JENNIFER WILSON
News editor
The city continues to make progress on its housing rehabilitation program, improving Hillsboro houses in need of attention.
At Tuesday evening's City Council meeting, councilmembers saw invoices from Ponton Construction of Salina for work done on three houses that are in the rehab program. They're located on North Madison, North Washington, and North Lincoln.
Costs for the improvements to the three houses ranged from $4,900 to $8,200 per house. The variety of improvements made included replacing furnaces, sewer lines, and roofs, fixing foundations, and painting siding.
All costs will be paid for out of grant money, which funds the program.
But before they gave the final OK for the invoices, some councilmembers questioned the amounts spent, saying that some of the expenses looked too high.
Both Len Coryea and Matt Hiebert said that some individual items looked "padded." But the administrator of the rehab grant, engineer Rose Mary Saunders, said that Ponton had the lowest bid.
The whole project was bid in one lump sum, Saunders said. To bid each project individual would be a "nightmare."
In other council business:
— City building inspector and code enforcement officer Martin Rhodes was officially named as the Hillsboro Fire Marshall.
Rhodes suggested that he take over the position since current fire chief Ben Steketee already has a full-time job in addition to his fire department duties as chief. Rhodes has served as a fire marshall before.
Steketee agreed to the change, and the council approved it at Tuesday's meeting. Steketee will remain chief.
— A newly awarded grant has yielded the police department a device that detects drugs.
Police are getting the "mini-buster" after Chief Dan Kinning applied for a grant to get the device. The grant also comes with a two- or three-day training session for one officer.
The HPD will send Officer Jesse Hiebert to this session, which will be held in Florida.
— In board appointments, Megan Kilgore was appointed to the Marion County Economic Development Council. Kilgore, the executive director of the Hillsboro Management Board, will serve out the rest of the term previously held by Carol Wiebe.
The only other new board appointment is Rachel Watham, who will join the Hillsboro Historical Society.
— March 3 is the start date for construction on the airport lighting project. Wichita Electric, the company who won the bid, will have 45 days to complete the job.
