From the Marengo mayor

Happy New Year!

I would like to start off with congratulating Mike McBride on his 43 ½ years of service on Marengo Fire Department. Thank you for your dedication to our community, we appreciate your service.

The council approved a bid from S & S Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning of $11,850.00 to remodel the police department restroom. The existing public restroom on the east side of the police department is going to be eliminated.

The new public restroom on the east side of the new pool house will be open from spring to fall and serve as the new public restroom for the park and downtown recreation areas when city hall is closed. The new police department restroom will get new fixtures and have space for lockers and a changing area.

The pergola area at our new aquatic center will be named “Pool Pals Pavillion” in recognition of all their hard work and contributions to this project. I really can’t say thank you enough for everything they have done to make this project possible.

A project our public safety officials are working on is the implementation of Knox boxes for businesses. A Knox box is basically a key box that stores all your keys for access to your building that police, fire or EMS would need to gain access in the event of an emergency.

The police or fire department then have one master key that can open every Knox box in the community. If you are interested in purchasing one of these for your business, please contact the Marengo Police Department or go to the website knoxbox.com

The final project I would like to touch on is our Public Access AEDs or automated external defibrillators. In collaboration with local cities and the County, Iowa County Public Health and Iowa County EMS installed AEDs in outdoor cabinets at a few public locations.

In December we began adding the locations of these AEDs and other AEDs in the community to a phone app called PulsePoint AED. If you have a smartphone you can download the PulsePoint AED for free in your app store.