Riverside council denies community club grant request

The Riverside City Council failed to pass a resolution to give the Riverside Area Community Club (RACC) $6,000 in hotel/motel tax funds. Councilor Ralph Schnoebelen motioned to approve the resolution, but the resolution died for lack of a second. RACC will hold a meeting Thursday to discuss the organization?s future. The meeting will be at 7 p.m. in the Riverside Community Building.

Shortly after the meeting began at 6:30 p.m., Mayor Brian McDole asked if anyone in the audience wished to speak during ?Citizen Time,? which was the third item on the council?s agenda. Joe Altmaier, Boy Scoutmaster for Troop 235 of Riverside, approached the podium to speak. McDole said that if Altmaier wished to speak about the RACC tax grant application, he should wait until that agenda item came before the council later in the meeting. However, when that agenda item came up, the motion to approve it was not seconded and therefore it was not discussed.

Even though discussion was not called for, Schnoebelen explained why he supported the resolution. He said he talked to a number of business owners who benefit from TrekFest, a RACC-supported event.

?I had one fellow tell me that without the RACC weekend, their business would have gone under,? said Schnoebelen. ?It?s an awesome time for businesses in Riverside. It brings a lot of people to town.?

Bill Poch, who is the town?s former mayor, asked McDole to let the people in the audience speak on the issue.  

McDole responded, ?I?m not for it or against it, but we had a lengthy discussion at the last council meeting. I?m pretty sure the council has had adequate time to absorb the information, and they?re choosing not to act on it.?

Poch said, ?You have a lot of people here to speak to this issue. They?re your residents.?  

McDole said the council couldn?t discuss the matter because the resolution died for lack of a second.

Poch replied, ?If you can?t even have a discussion of it, something is wrong.?

RACC member Carol Riggan said the council should let Altmaier speak since he was told he would get a chance to do so earlier in the meeting. RACC member Diane Poch said the council should return to Citizen Time to allow the audience to speak.

McDole responded, ?Quite honestly, I don?t have to give the Citizen Time to talk either. That is an item that does not have to be on the agenda. This is a meeting for the council to make decisions. The council has made their decision. They are not going to second the motion, so it?s done. We?re moving on.?

Riggan then stood up to address the council and the crowd.

?One thing I would like to say, if RACC is going to be dissolved ? if that?s how you feel, if we can?t get the city to help support it ? I think it?s time we stepped down and let somebody else do TrekFest.?

McDole said the issue was ?dead? and that if people in the audience wanted to discuss it they should go outside.

Riggan said, ?I feel bad that you wouldn?t let a Boy Scout talk.?

In an interview after the meeting, Altmaier said his Boy Scout troop would be negatively affected if RACC reformed. Troop 235 is chartered to RACC and has been for a few decades. If RACC reformed, Troop 235 would lose its charter until it could find another chartered organization. That delay would be bad for the Boy Scouts who are working on earning their Eagle Scout ranking, the highest ranking in the Boy Scouts. Once a Boy Scout turns 18, he can no longer be a Boy Scout, and would miss the opportunity to attain an Eagle Scout ranking if he has not done so by then.      

City Administrator Tina Thomas compiled a list of the sums of money the city has given and will give to RACC, TrekFest and the Riverside History Center over a four-year period. She included that list in the council?s packet.

In the past two fiscal years, the council gave $28,500 to the Riverside History Center, and budgeted for $15,000 more for FY 2011-2012. Until the fall of 2010, RACC managed the history center. From 2007 to 2010, the city gave RACC about $31,000 for costs it incurred during TrekFest such as the rodeo and the utilities. Over the past three years, the city spent $17,000 for the fireworks display during TrekFest, and budgeted for $6,000 in FY 2011-2012.

In other news, the council set the date of a public hearing on its trail construction contract for Monday, April 18, 6:45 p.m. The proposed trail will stretch from the west edge of town to Highway 218, and will eventually link to a trail in Johnson County. The trail would cost about $177,000. The city will pay for the trail via three sources: A grant from the Department of Natural Resources for $50,000; a Riverboat grant for $63,500 and a hotel/motel tax grant for $63,500.