City council considers bill dispute of farm worker whose crew caused power outage (2024)

Lucas Johnson of rural Forest City made his case on June 3 for dismissing a $3,500 bill received from the city after one of his farm crew members accidentally contacted a power line this spring that caused area power outages.

Forest City council members had approved the approximately $3,500 bill at a prior meeting to recoup costs associated with running generators in-house to maintain electric service in Forest City during the outage.

Johnson said they were planting in a new area where trees had been cleared and the affected power line was obviously sagging. He noted calling his impacted electric service provider, Heartland Power Cooperative, immediately and said the line was still hanging after the incident. Johnson also noted having asked Dairyland to raise the saggy electric line that runs into a homestead grove area.

“I thought we’d get a bill from Dairyland, but what was a little strange to me was to get a bill from the city,” Johnson said. “From what I’ve heard, that’s never been done before.”

Mayor Ron Holland and council members quickly noted that the city had billed for a prior outage-causing incident in 2019. Their recollection was that the prior bill was for about $6,000.

“The concept is the city wouldn’t be expending that diesel fuel had your guy not contacted the wire,” said Councilman Dan Davis, who later added that he believes the city previously also billed for a power outage caused by a car accident. Such incidences can result not just in fuel costs, but some overtime plus additional wear and tear on city equipment.

Having been in the business of moving houses and other large structures, Mayor Holland said safety is paramount in such incidences.

“You should stay 10 feet away,” said Mayor Holland of the distance between equipment and power lines. “He could have been killed.”

“He didn’t know he hit it until he was away from it,” said Johnson after noting efforts to keep at least six feet of separation in detailing the safety precautions taken. “I’m talking about staying away from the poles themselves .. I’m trying to get rid of marker arms on my tractors and use GPS.”

Johnson said precautions have included safety meetings at least once a month as well as telling about a half dozen employees to look for and avoid power lines. He said he encouraged them to get out of the cab and look if necessary before this accident occurred.

“It’s just such a dangerous thing, a real killer,” Holland said. “We had to keep the power on during the period of the power outage too. We think it was a fair (charge).”

Even so, council members motioned to take a vote on whether to suspend the city’s billing to Johnson. The motion to suspend Johnson’s electric billing narrowly passed, but the full council was not in attendance at the meeting.

As allowed by code in such instances, Mayor Holland vetoed the suspension of the bill.

“I think we were very generous on this bill,” said the mayor. “I recommended $4,000.”

It remained unclear whether Johnson might return for a future meeting when the full council is present, in hopes of it being readdressed. He was directed to communicate with City Administrator Daisy Huffman about it.

Mayor Holland asked Johnson if he had investigated whether his insurance company might pay a claim on it.

“We’ll pay 10 times over for it, so I was wanting to see about it here first,” Johnson said.

The council unanimously approved a $7,325 materials and labor quote from Eddy’s Glass in Forest City for the installation of new aluminum doors with one-inch thick insulated glass and aluminum storefront with glass. The glass will be clear and low-E rated.

Water and Wastewater Superintendent Kevin Reicks said that the prior glass was only a quarter-inch thick. He noted that although sections of glass have been broken and repaired previously, the doors and storefront had not been replaced in at least 40 years.

The council approved the second reading of an ordinance to increase sewer rates. Those rates have been gradually increased annually prior to an estimated $20 million wastewater plant update project.

The proposed new sewer rates this year will include a $9.50 base fee, usage rate of $9.50 per 1,000 gallons of water used, and a capital equipment reserve charge of $9.50 per month. New rates would be effective starting with bills mailed in June, according to the ordinance.

The council also unanimously approved an urban renewal resolution and joint agreement with Winnebago County. City Administrator Huffman said it doesn’t impact the City of Forest City, which doesn’t collect any money from it. The urban renewal area is called the Winnebago Count UR-2 Economic Development District. Huffman said it does allow the city to have a say within a two-mile area of influence.

By a 3-2 vote, city council members approved the purchase of eight laptops for city council members and the mayor to use for official city business. City Administrator Huffman recommended purchasing the eight laptops that will be fully installed and set up for use.

“We can’t force everyone to use them,” said Huffman, who added it should be a lot “cleaner and safer” than use of personal devices. Huffman received updated quotes for this since budgeting for it more than a year ago. Price quotes from Computer Systems Unlimited, Inc. of Forest City ranged from $630 to $783 apiece for the purchase of eight laptops, depending on which make and model the city ultimately chooses. All of them would be 14-inch Notebooks.

Councilman Davis called it an effective way to disseminate information by secure means. He added that stored information for city business on personal laptops or cell phones could allow for all device information to be subpoenaed in an investigation.

“I just think it’s a more secure way to do it,” said Davis. “There’s a lot of cities and counties that have gone to this.”

During staff reports, Electric Superintendent Duane Kuhn said high humidity was causing one of his department’s air compressors to not run right. He added that moist weather conditions also likely pushed bad spots in two secondary lines to city residences to fail before they were repaired. He thanked his employees for saving some money by doing brickwork at the light plant themselves. Plant Foreman Doug Price oversaw the brickwork project.

In other business, the council approved two change orders for its 2024 street reconstruction project. One authorizes an additional $10,000 to use full cement rather than concrete mix containing fly ash, due to some reported quality issues that appear to be related to the fly-ash concrete. The other change is an additional $7,300 for a cart path change to provide additional workspace before repaving is completed.