Kreis leaves city council after 32 years

MARENGO — When Bill Kreis finished his stint as a state officer with the Jaycees, he thought, “What the heck. I’d try City Council.”

That was 32 years ago.

Though Kreis has sometimes faced challengers during his re-election campaigns, he’s never lost an election.

Kreis was born in the Watts hospital across from the post office in Marengo and attended Iowa Valley schools.

Kreis’s parents, Dickie and Paul Kreis, owned and operated Kreis Music Co., a business that rented out coin-operated entertainment machines. They started the company in 1947 on Hilton Street across from the school. Kreis worked there while he was growing up.

Following high school Kreis attended trade school at Kirkwood in Cedar Rapids to become an auto body technician.

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The college doubled the class size that year to justify asking for more funding, Kreis said, “So I learned a little bit about government right there.”

Kreis worked for a body shop in Cedar Rapids until his father died, at which time Kreis moved back to Marengo, he said.

Kreis worked for Sherman’s Body Shop temporarily before finding a job with Hogan Brothers Automotive just west of the Marengo library. The business sold American Motors cars.

When Kreis’s brother came home from the service in 1976, he and Kreis bought their mother’s share of the family business. They owned and operated Kreis Music until 2018 when they sold it to Max Bender of Keswick, Kreis said.

Bender later sold it to an operator in Cedar Rapids. Kreis still helps with repairs there, he said.

When Kreis was first elected to the city council, Marengo’s streets were in need of repair, he said.

“In your first term, you really don’t know what you’re doing.” In the second term you know more, said Kreis. By the third term you think you’ve got things under control.

One of the first major projects of the city council during Kreis’ first term was paving the roads around the town. Miller Street on the south side of town was mostly done, Kreis said. Eastern Avenue to North Street needed done.

Frank Disterhoff of Marengo Ready Mix did a good job on the project, Kreis said. “They were the largest employer at one time.”

Kreis was on the council when the city put up the second water tower. The city combined the installation of the second tower with another project and received a grant to help pay for it.

Water towers never go down in price, said Kreis, but they will last a long time.

“The extra water was supposed to help us get better rates on our insurance,” said Kreis. That didn’t happen, but now the city can shut down one tower to work on it without depriving residents of water.

The city also made sure residents had water shut-off valves. Formerly, the city had to shut off water from the water plant in order for plumbers to work, Kreis said.

The city hired someone to turn the valves for about four years before finally getting its own valve tuner, Kreis said.

The city used to assess taxes for street paving, said Kreis, but the first council he sat on decided not to do that any more. When the city paves streets, it takes care of the inner structure first. “We made sure everything underneath was in good shape.”

Kreis was on the council when the library addition was built. The library board wanted to expand the library, said Kreis, and got a grant for several hundred thousand dollars, but the city had to match it.

Some residents were not in favor of the expansion. The city didn’t need a bigger library because people had computers, they reasoned.

Eventually the city did provide matching funds, Kreis said. The city postponed a culvert project to pay for the library addition.

The city had to back financial notes for the hospital a couple of times to keep a hospital in town, Kreis said. Marengo Memorial Hospital was started by the American Legion on city land, said Kreis. At one time the city almost lost it.

During Kreis’s time with the council, it approved the building of a power plant. “We’re fortunate because we have a power plant on Main Street east of town,” he said. “We’re glad they decided to build there.”

Kreis was a member of the council that updated the square. The city changed everything — sidewalks, the width of streets — and created bump-outs to increase pedestrian safety at each corner.

The city modeled it after Grinnell, Kreis said, but Grinnell’s streets are twice as wide.

The bump-outs take up two parking spaces, said Kreis, and they make plowing snow more difficult, but he thinks they do make crossing safer.

A a councilman, Kreis approved the building of the new water treatment plant and, more recently, the new swimming pool.

“Every four or five years there was some big project that we did,” said Kreis. “We were always doing something, changing something.”

Plans for the new sewage treatment plant started more than a dozen years ago, Kreis estimated.

First the Department of Natural Resources told the city it had leakage at the water plant and at the sewage plant. The city had to install a meter to measure water loss and it had to line the sewer lines, change manholes and put in new sewer lids.

“We did cut down on a lot of our leakage,” Kreis said.

Then DNR said their nitrate level was too high. The city is now in process of updating the sewage treatment plant.

The new pool was also years in the making, said Kreis. The old one was outdated in the 1980s.

“You’ve got to have amenities like that for your community,” said Kreis.

“The council they have … that’s coming on, I think, is going to be a good council,” said Kreis. He doesn’t they need his help. “It’s kind of a good feeling to have.”

They’ll be starting over, said Kreis of the new council. Marengo has a new mayor, a new city administrator and will be hiring a new financial manager.

Kreis said he has enough projects to keep him busy in his retirement from the city council. He likes to work on mechanical clocks, though no one uses them any more.

Kreis never wanted to be mayor, he said, though he’s been asked a couple of times to run. He liked being able to vote. He liked representing the people of Marengo. “It’s been fun,” Kreis said. “I’ve enjoyed it.”