The old hospital building in Ellsworth took one step closer to being demolished Monday after action taken by the Ellsworth City Council.

The council approved Ordinances 3123 A, B, C and D, directing removal of the old hospital building at 300 Kingsley, as well as 221 West Street, 225 St. Louis and 1105 North Park Street.

Rusty Varnado, city administrator, said this is the final step in gaining authorization to remove the four properties. He noted it is unlikely they will be removed before the end of this calendar year. The owner of one o the properties, that at 1105 North Park Street, has taken the initiative and is removing the structure. Varnado said he like when property owners do that because it keeps the city from having to demolish the property. Two of the properties wil be removed using the nuisance line item in the general fund. The hospital will be removed using TI funds.

Varnado said he is meeting with a consultan Thursday (Oct. 28) to provide an assessment fo the demolition of the old hospital.

In other business:

• Council member Tyle Renard said he has had heard from a lot of patrons raising concerns regarding convicted sex offenders living close to schools. He asked if the city could make an ordinance to address those concerns.

City attorney Melissa Miller said general rule for ordinances for cities i that the city can’t do something that’s less restrictive than what is at the state or federal level.

“But you can be more restrictive,” she said.

Renard said maybe there could be something developed so the offender would have to let the school know where they are living.

Miller said she would keep looking into it. However, any solution would not resolve any current issues, because those currently involved would be grandfathered in.

• After a public hearing was conducted, the council approved the city’s 2022 budget as presented. Mayor Mark Kennedy noted the budget is estimated to be 77.82 mills, with one mill equaling $16,132.88.

Varnado said when the city posted notice of a public hearing for its revenue neutral rate, it was mistakenly thought that notice was also given of a public hearing on the budget. He said the state would not accept the city’s budget until a public hearing was conducted to accept public comments.

“There is no changes in what you have already adopted,” he said.

The only public comment came from Jon Halbgewachs of Kirkham, Michael & Associates.

He reminded the council that two to three years ago, the council committed to include the reconstruction of a downtown alley way in one of the temp notes. He noted the alley way has continued to deteriorate.

“So if there is money available sometime through the course of the year, even if we could reconstruct part of that alley way, I know there’s a lot of people that would like to see that happen,” he said.

Kennedy said perhaps the work could be split between two years.

• Karen Shriner asked the council if the city owned a road grader.

“Yes, we do,” Kennedy said.

“Then why don’t we grade our roads,” Shriner asked. “My road has not been graded in over two years.”

Shriner said she would like to have the roads graded.

Kennedy said he will talk to the street superintendent to see if he has plans to do that.

Shriner then asked why the city keeps talking about tearing down buildings but never does anything.

“A lot of it has to do with the legal process,” Kennedy said. “It’s a very long, drawn out process.”

• Halbgewachs gave a brief update on the retention basin project at the intersection of Old 40 Highway and Douglas Avenue.

He said work on the north side basin will be done first, with the south side basin to follow.

• Josh Beckman of Kirkham, Michael & Associates said he talked to officials at the Kansas Department of Transportation to discuss the multi-use path project.

Beckman said KDOT would be open to additional funding if the city would request it to do the loop.

“They did say you don’t have to do the loop that goes up around the armory,” he said. “So really the scope of the project is just to connect the housing developments south on K-14 Highway and Good Samaritan to the downtown area.”

Beckman will come back to the council in two weeks with options and cost estimates.

“I have a tough time saying that we should extend that loop around when we’ve already got the pavement there,” Kennedy said. “If you want to do that in the future you could.”

“To connect it to downtown, I think we want to go straight through,” council member Steve Magette said.

• The council tabled action on a hybrid option presented from Suez regarding an additional 93 meters and several hundred meter lids that need replaced as part of the city’s automated meter reading program. The cost of the option would not exceed $90,000.

Varnado said he will call Jim Jackson of Suez to come to the Nov. 8 council meeting to discuss the update.

• Ordinance 3122 was approved, authorizing Collection Bureau Kansas to act as a collection agent for the City of Ellsworth.

• The Neighborhood Revitalization Program was approved as presented.

Varnado said there are no changes recommended to the current program, which expires in December.

Kennedy said he and Varnado have sat in on a number of Zoom calls with other mayors in the county.

“They feel like they needed to be a little bit more aggressive in this program,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy noted it was the consensus of the group that the City of Ellsworth didn’t need to be more aggressive than it already is.

“As the county seat, we’ve always had that slight advantage,” he added.

• Varnado said the city received the annual $50,000 Tenant Based Rental Assistance grant for 2022. He said the program assists local home renters.

• No action was taken after a 10-minute executive session with Varnado, Miller, and Stacie Schmidt of the Ellsworth County Economic Development to discuss data relating to trade secrets and a prospective business.

• No action was taken after a 10 minute executive session to discuss non-elected personnel (performance).

The next meeting of the Ellsworth City Council will be at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8.