A bill to establish a non-profit charitable foundation to serve Platte City residents facing utility funding shortages was passed by the board of aldermen Tuesday, April 28.
The ordinance will also support the Police Chaplain’s Assistance Program and other charitable community purposes.
Platte City administrator DJ Gehrt said this would serve as a good way for people to donate if they wish to help with utility funds.
“The reason we’re making it independent is because people would not just be able to help on city utilities like water, they would also be able to help on gas and electric,” Gehrt said. “People had wanted to give aid to us and we did not have a good mechanism to accept that kind of donation. So we approved the nonprofit and we would love to have people donate now.”
The three purposes of the non-profit are to provide people the opportunity to donate and assist people with utilities, to donate to assist the Police Chaplain’s Program — which creates a partnership with various faith-based leaders of the community to respond and assist police and other law enforcement agencies, to make counseling and pastoral services available to officers, their families, other departmental members and citizens of the community whenever services are requested — and to help support other Platte City not-for-profit organizations.
The new foundation will have an independent board which will allow one of the members to be an elected or appointed official, one employee or official of the school district and three other people in Platte City. All five members of the foundation board must be Platte City residents.
The board also discussed utility assistance but voted to table it until the end of July to have time to find out what level of assistance is coming from other sources and how bad things are going to be due to COVID-19.
The final plat on Rising Star Park was approved. One of the conditions before the board was a piece of property on a deed overlap. The legal description of the property from a 1883 survey showed that the same 28 feet was on a private property owner’s land and also on the Rising Star property.
There are a number of utilities including a power line and storm water drain on the property.
The private property owner was allowed to claim ownership and in return she granted the city a utility and storm water easement.
“It was a mess of legal descriptions,” Gehrt said. “Before we did anything we wanted to clear that up so there wouldn’t be any problems in the future. In her legal description she owned it and in our legal description we owned it. So we gave it to her. We cannot give public property for nothing so what we got out of it was the easement, which has value, so that clears up any issues that might occur with those utilities being on that strip. It’s a lot easier for her to have a clear title to her property in case she ever wants to sell it. It’s nice to get that stuff cleared up when there’s going to be a park that’s going to be there for a good long time.”
The board wanted to ensure that there would be no conflict and that the documents had been executed by the city and the property owner before they approved it.
The resolution awarding the contract for civil construction for Rising Star Park Phase I to WIL-PAV Inc. in the amount of $237,431 was approved. The rough grading of the park and improving the access road will begin in late June or early July.
“The next parts, the splash pad and the play area we can’t open anyway because of the coronavirus emergency so it gives us a little more time figuring out what we want to do,” Gehrt said.
An additional 2020 transportation capital project for asphalt mill and overlay of Running Horse Road was also approved.