Charles City Council moves to advance Pure Prairie Farms expansion ability

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Council took the first official steps at its regular meeting this week toward closing a block of North Main Street to make way for an expansion of the Pure Prairie Farms chicken processing plant.

The council also passed measures that will likely lead to allowing wider driveways for some residential properties, approved city street closings for upcoming community events and approved a $300,000 one-day general obligation corporate purpose note that the city uses annually to pay for various expenses.

Since shortly after Pure Prairie Farms took over the former Simply Essentials facility in Charles City, company officials have said one key to the success of the new company will be expanding the plant to create a distribution area and to allow room for better employee break and locker areas.

Because the property is wrapped around the north, west and south sides by railroad tracks, the only direction in which it can expand at its location is to the east, toward North Main Street.

City Administrator Steve Diers said Monday night that the city Planning and Zoning Commission had held a public hearing on the potential street closing and received no negative comments, and had voted unanimously to recommend the proposal.

Diers and City Engineer John Fallis have said that closing the one block of Main Street to the east of the plant would also give the city the opportunity to fix the intersection between North Main Street and North Grand Avenue that is less than ideal.

Drivers going north on North Main approach the North Grand intersection at a sharp angle, making them strain to look over their right shoulders to see if there is any northbound traffic coming on North Grand.

The new plan would be to have northbound drivers on Main Street turn right on Lane Street to get to North Grand.

Initially, the block of North Main Street would be closed and the property leased to Pure Prairie Farms. The traffic changes from North Main to North Grand would be marked with signs and painted markings on the street.

If the traffic changes are deemed a good solution after being in effect for awhile, then the area would be added to a future city street construction season for permanent road changes, Fallis said.

The city already owns the former Cal’s Auto Repair property at 808 N. Main St. that could be further used to straighten out the path over Lane Street connecting North Main to North Grand.

As part of its expansion project, Pure Prairie Farms is purchasing Dana Park – on the other side of Main Street – from the City Improvement Association, and additional land across from the plant from the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad Co.

The council passed the first reading of an ordinance that would vacate that portion of Main Street and set a public hearing for the City Council meeting at 6 p.m. on June 20 in the council chambers at City Hall for anyone to comment on the proposal.

Council member DeLaine Freeseman asked how soon the traffic changes would take effect.

Diers said it will be July before the process to vacate the street is completed, so possibly late July after RAGBRAI goes through the community, “but sooner rather than later.”

Brian Roelofs, the Pure Prairie Farms CEO and president, was at the council meeting and said the company still plans to begin processing chickens in late July, and wants to begin construction of the plant addition as soon as possible. The addition will go out to about where the sidewalk is now, and would not extend into North Main Street, but that section of North Main and the property across the street would be used for truck loading, parking and other uses.

Also at the meeting, the council:

• Approved the first reading of an ordinance that would increase the maximum width of a driveway on residential properties. The city controls the width of driveways on the “parking” area, that part of the property from the sidewalk property line to the curb. Currently the width limit is 30 feet at the property line, flaring to a maximum of 40 feet at the street.

The proposed change would make the maximum width at the property line 40 feet and the maximum flair at the end of the driveway 50 feet, but the driveway width at the property line could not be more than 50% of the total width of the property.

City Engineer Fallis said at the previous council workshop meeting that some areas of the city where they are building homes with three-stall garages would like to be able to build a driveway the width of the garages, but that is not currently allowed.

At that workshop meeting, council member Phillip Knighten had said he was concerned about the potential impact of wider driveways on the availability of street parking. At Monday’s regular meeting he said he didn’t think the proposed ordinance change should happen this quickly and he thought there should be more time to study the potential impact.

The council approved the first reading of the ordinance change on a 3-1 vote, with Knighten voting no and council member Keith Starr absent.

• Approved the city’s annual “one-day borrowing” for the current fiscal year in the amount of $300,433. The City Council sets the one day borrowing amount for the next fiscal year as part of its annual budgeting process, then uses the city’s debt service levy during that next fiscal year to collect the amount of money needed to cover the loan.

The city will use the money this year for police, fire and public works department equipment; emergency sirens; tree removal and nuisance abatement; purchasing vehicles for the Police Department; construction at the fire station for AMR ambulance offices to be located there; improvements at 401 N. Main St.; and for the first of three $100,000 payments to TLC: The Learning Center to help support the daycare’s move to the 500 North Grand building.

The city pays no interest on the general obligation corporate purpose note because it is taken out and repaid at the same time. The only cost is legal fees and a charge the issuing bank makes to process the transaction. This year First Security was the low bid on that transaction fee, at $150.

The reason the city does this is because it allows it to use its debt service levy capacity to repay the loan, rather than use other city property tax levies that have caps on them.

• Approved a Facade Improvement Grant for $5,946 – the allowed 50% of the project cost – for Rustic Corners to replace two windows on the back of the building that are currently covered over.

• Approved various downtown street closings for the four Party in the Park events this summer, on June 10 and 24, July 1 and Aug. 12; for the Independence Day Parade the morning of July 4; and for Independence Day events around Central Park from Friday, July 1, to Tuesday, July 5.

• Started the process of selling 515 6th Ave., which the city acquired as a nuisance property, to Kara Vogelson for a bid of $15,800. A public hearing on the sale of city property will be held at the City Council meeting at 6 p.m. June 20.

• Approved the appointment of Steph Williams to replace Collette Schmidtke on the Library Board.

• Approved a proclamation encouraging people to observe Flag Day on Tuesday, June 14, and encouraging everyone to renew their allegiance to the flag.