Council increases host of fees

The Fairfield City Council heard from Dexter Laundry Inc.'s senior human resource administrator Katie Six Monday about her company's 125th anniversary open house.

The event will be from 1-4 p.m. Aug. 10 in and around Dexter Laundry's factory at 2211 W. Grimes Ave. in Fairfield. Six said the event is open to the public and will include guided tours of the plant every 10 minutes, which is significant because Dexter has not been open for public tours since the 1950s, she said.

The business is planning activities at its soccer fields, so Six approached the council about closing the street in between the business and the fields across the street. Six said they plan to have horse and buggy rides, a fitting tribute to the champion racehorse 'Dexter” that the company and the town of Dexter were named after. The business also plans to offer food, live music and face-painting for children.

The celebration will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Dexter Laundry on West Burlington Avenue, a state-of-the-art self-service laundry. The ceremony will include tours, demonstrations and refreshments.

Mayor Ed Malloy said Dexter's new laundry is an asset to the community and he is looking forward to attending the ceremony.

Fees

The council approved the third and final reading to amend various fees associated with work the city does on private property to fix water and sewer problems. The fees do not refer to residents' monthly water and sewer bills. The purpose of the amendments to the ordinance was to pass on the true cost of the repairs and the employees' time to the residents benefitting from the work.

The council approved the third reading of other amendments along similar lines, such as those updating fire service fees, blocking streets and snow removal, and sanitary sewer connections.

The only change that drew much discussion was increasing the fees for lodging houses. Connie Boyer runs a bed and breakfast in town called Seven Roses Inn. She told the council that her fees would increase under the proposed rule change because her bed and breakfast is split between two buildings –a house with three units and a garage with a two-bedroom apartment above it. Boyer asked the council that since her buildings are on the same parcel of land, if it could consider them a single entity.

City Engineer Melanie Carlson said the standard the city landed on was to charge a rental housing inspection fee of $80 for the first unit, and $50 for each additional unit under the same roof. She said this was the fairest way to do it since a lodging business could have units all over town, so the city should count each trip as a new inspection, even though the properties are owned by the same business.

Boyer said she was hoping the city would count her buildings as a single inspection since they are on the same parcel of land, though they have two different addresses. Ultimately, the council voted 7-0 to keep the suggested language instead of making an exception for Boyer's property.

Boyer and her husband Bob have run the bed and breakfast for 13 years, and as far as she knows, it's the only bed and breakfast in Fairfield. She mentioned that her fees were once $50 a year, and then they rose to $200, and under the new ordinance they will rise to $250. She said that, though the couple has had a great time running the business, they are trying to sell it. Boyer said she and Bob have enough on their plate with full-time jobs and grandkids to care for.

RAGBRAI

The council announced that a downtown parking lot will be closed Thursday for RAGBRAI. The parking lot is on the northeast corner of the intersection of North B Street and East Broadway Avenue. Councilor Michael Halley said the parking lot will be used as a shuttle stop for the buses transporting riders through town, and as parking for the vehicles used by the musicians and entertainers.

Halley said RAGBRAI has engendered a great sense of community pride in Fairfield, prompting volunteers to undertake projects such as painting the Ron Prill Bandstand in Central Park and pulling weeds in the downtown.

'The downtown looks as good as I've ever seen it in the 26 years I've been here,” Halley said.

Halley specifically commended the work of city employees such as Shawn Worley, Julie Kinsella, Pam Craff, Darrel Bisgard, Scott Vaughan and Melanie Carlson for doing their part to beautify Fairfield and to prepare it for 10,000 cyclists.

Malloy said the Fairfield Convention & Visitors Bureau deserves to be commended for serving as the liaison between the town at the RAGBRAI committee.

'I'm happy that the infrastructure is in place for this to be a great event,” Malloy said.

Deed

Councilor Paul Gandy briefed the council on the most recent property committee during which committee members suggested deeding a piece of city land to the family of Katy and Eric Anderson. Since Katy is a member of the council, she abstained from voting on the matter, which was approved 6-0.

The Andersons' home abuts the Little League fields on the east side of town. Katy reported that foul balls are routinely hit into her yard and have damaged her fence. In fact, balls come in so frequently that she has barred her youngest child from playing in the yard while baseball games are being played at the fields.

The piece of land in question is a thin strip overgrown with poison ivy. Katy said the Little League is not interested in using or maintaining that land, whereas her family would like to landscape it by removing the poison ivy and planting trees there to create a buffer between their home and the fields.