Tri-County News

Eden Valley moves forward with injunction to evict tenant in troubled property


By Jean Doran Matua, Editor

At its Nov. 14 regular meeting, the Eden Valley city council approved several ordinances including an update of zoning fee schedules, adjusting the city’s fee schedule, and administrative offense penalties.

The city’s attorney advised issuing an injunction in order to evict a tenant from a bad (and unlicensed) rental property in town. A friend of the tenant was at the meeting asking that she not be evicted at this time of year as she is wheelchair-bound and struggling to do the best she can.  The issue is complicated because ownership of the property is not clear, although it’s being worked on by attorneys. The council advised the tenant to check into subsidized apartments in town, as a better housing alternative, and for the owners to continue to work on getting proof of ownership, while the city proceeds with the legal work of getting an injunction to evict the tenant (which could be two months before she has to move, if all goes on schedule) with the proviso that the injunction can be halted if needed.

At its Nov. 5 special meeting, the council approved hiring of Cindy Anderson as city clerk. Her first day will be Nov. 19.

The council approved payment of $375,429.14 for street construction work through Oct. 26.

The zoning board is seeking new members. At their Oct. 24 meeting, they approved a deck at one property, and two new entryways at another; both applications were approved by the council Nov. 14.

Four new rental licenses were issued in October, with another three to be licensed in November. There are four properties with outstanding issues.

Helen Grothe, on behalf of the Eden Valley Area Library board, made a request for two sets of automatic door openers at a cost of $4,664 plus installation. They have a $2,500 grant from Southwest Initiative Foundation, which needs to be matched, and several other grants are in the works. They want to have doors installed prior to May 1, 2019. Requests are up to $1,200 from the city in case additional funding does not come through. They will come back to the council when they have an exact figure of what, if any, they need to complete this project.

The Nov. 6 election was canvassed. Contractors did a great job making the street and sidewalk (under construction) accessible to most. The city did do some curbside ballots, for those who couldn’t make it into the building because of the construction. A total of 534 voters were registered as of that morning Nov. 6, with 30 new registrations that day; 44 absentee votes were registered. Winning the election were mayor Brent Bengtson, Janice Sheets, and Dan Thielen.

There were no delinquent water/sewer accounts this month.

The city’s investment firm Morgan Stanley is no longer servicing municipal clients, so the city transferred all available funds to RBC Investments under the direction of its advisor who also transferred from Morgan Stanley to RBC.

The council approved $11,922.16 for new flooring in the Civic Center for carpet and tile. They have a bid of $2,986.40 to convert fluorescent lights to LED in that building.

Meeker County is again doing a trails survey. Everyone is encouraged to complete this quick survey at www.surveymonkey.
com/r/MeekerTrailsSurvey
. (There is a link to the survey on the city’s website.)

The next regular meeting of the Eden Valley city council will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 5. Regular meetings are televised on Arvig cable TV on Thursdays. A meeting on rental ordinance changes will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 19; the Fire Relief board meeting is at 6:30 p.m. Monday,
Nov. 26; and a budget workshop meeting has been scheduled for
7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28.

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