Wayland fire chief to step down June 30

After four years as Wayland Fire Chief, Michael Shepherd is stepping down effective June 30, he announced at the city council meeting Wednesday night.

?I?m sure everybody at one point or another heard it through the grapevine,? said Shepherd, who cited changes in his professional and personal life as reasons for stepping down. ?There?s just a lot of things that have changed, and I?m not benefiting the fire department as much as I think the chief should.?

Shepherd told the council he appreciates all the support and help they?ve given. He said he won?t be leaving the fire department altogether and he?ll stay ?as long as they?ll have me.?

In other updates, Barry Leichty, gas superintendent, informed the council that he has been working on stabilizing the bandstand, and he may need to put some barricades up for this weekend to keep the kids off of it during the Easter egg hunt.

?It?s pretty feeble, so we?re going to try to stabilize it back one more time, and then see where it goes,? said Leichty. ?If we don?t get it fixed by Easter, we?ll probably just put some barricades around it.?

The council also recognized Police Chief Ron Roth for his 10-year anniversary with the City of Wayland.

?We have a little milestone tonight,? said Mayor Brad Roth, who presented the police chief with a plaque to commemorate his service.

In other business, the council passed a resolution to adopt a gas public awareness plan.

?We?ve had this gas awareness plan for five years, and I just found out that we?re supposed to adopt it,? said Marsha Chalupa, utility clerk. She noted that there are some revisions that will need to be made to the plan adopted by the council to make it more specific to the city.

The council also:

- Approved the first reading of an ordinance to amend an ordinance to establish fees for the board of adjustment variance applications, zoning changes and special use requests. The city is looking to increase the fees due to publication costs and the work involved in the process. The ordinance looks to increase the board of adjustment variance fees is increasing from $25 to $50; the zoning changes fee from $20 for residential and $30 for commercial to a flat fee of $75; and the boundry fee from $15 to $75.

- Approved the first reading of an ordinance to amend an ordinance to re-zone property owned by Mike Hulme from ?A? agricultural to ?R-2? medium-density residential district and ?R-1? low-density residential district to ?R-2? medium-density residential district.

- Decided to not revise the city?s golf cart ordinance. There had been a request to lower the age to 19 instead of 21, but the council had discussed at previous meetings that there may not be enough demand to justify the cost of revising the ordinance.

- Passed a resolution to award the contract for the watermain improvements project to Morris Enterprises of Clutier, who had the low bid of $125,387.50 at the March 21 bid letting. This bid was $42,612.50 less than the estimated project cost of $168,000.

- Withdrew from the SRF Construction loan, choosing not to use this funding for the watermain improvements project.

- Voted to increase certain coverage amounts on city property/liability insurance

- Approved the purchase of new computer software

- Approved Leichty and Water/Wastewater Superintendent Randy Morrow to attend the IAMU plastic pipe workshop in Ankeny on May 1 and Chalupa to attend the IAMU consumer confidence workshop in Coralville on May 3.