City Administrator Dennis Wilde explained Duckwall-Alco was ready to proceed and hoped to open a retail store in Paynesville for the Christmas shopping season. The store is expected to measure about 22,000 square feet and will be located on Highway 23 south of the Country Inn.
Duckwall-Alco and the Economic Development Authority of Paynesville have been negotiating for more than a year.
City audit report
Loren Viere of Kern, DeWenter, Viere, Ltd., informed the council, for a city their size, they had an excellent fund balance ($1.7 million).
"The city has a very good financial condition," Viere said. "We recommend that a city have funds to cover a minimum of six months of expenditures. Paynesville has enough to cover more than a year and a half."
"Paynesville's debt service accounts are all in the black and in a good healthy condition. The water and sewer funds are doing reasonably well," he added.
The auditors recommended an easier way for the city to keep track of designated funds from the budget process would be to set up capital improvement funds.
The council approved setting up six new funds: street/sidewalk, general capital improvement, police department, parks, emergency services and airport.
In other business:
*The council approved constructing a new drainage ditch. The ditch project would be located in the right-of-way of County Road 33.
Ron Mergen, public works director, explained that in 1985 when the ponds were expanded, the water was diverted around the ponds and into the North Fork Crow River. The ditches have picked up a lot of sand and dirt from the fields and require cleaning every four years.
Low bidder on the project was Randy Kramer Excavating, Watkins, $14,558. Cost for cleaning out the present ditch on the east side of the lagoons is $6,000.
*The council approved hiring Tony Schmitt as the new police chief on the condition he receives a favorable report on a physical and psychological examination. He would start his new position on May 22 upon the retirement of the present police chief, Bill Drager.