By Kellen Olshefski
Correspondent
The City of Elkhorn is looking to update its joint facility use agreement with the Elkhorn Area School District.
The agreement, which spells out the terms of shared use for City and EASD facilities between the school district and City Parks and Recreation programming, has been in place for about the past 15 or so years, according to Parks and Recreation Director Karl Sorvick. He discussed the agreement at last week’s Municipal Services and Utilities Committee meeting.
Sorvick said the current agreement in place is very outdated, having last been updated around 2004 before he and Elkhorn Area School District Community Engagement Coordinator Jon Anzalone recently sat down to work on updating the agreement.
According to Sorvick, some of the biggest changes included removing a list of facilities, so it’s clear what is owned by the City and what is owned by the school district, as well as noting that for City facilities, Parks and Recreation programming will have first rights with the school district having second rights to facilities at no cost, and vice versa for school district facilities.
“It just kind of guarantees that there is a partnership there,” Sorvick said.
Sorvick said the updated agreement presented to the committee Jan. 13 is the same agreement that had already been approved by the Elkhorn Area School District Board of Education at a previous meeting.
Sorvick also noted he would be taking the agreement to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting on Jan. 15 for the board’s review, and that he would include any changes or recommendations from the board in a memo when he brings the agreement to the full City of Elkhorn Common Council at its Jan. 20 meeting.
Other business
In other business, the Municipal Services and Utilities Committee also heard from representatives of two vendors – Tantalus and Eaton –Jan. 13 regarding the City’s upgrade to an auto metering system for home electric and water meters within the City.
According to Utilities Director John Murphy, the upgrade has already been included in the 2020 budget, and the committee will see at least one more, potentially two, presentations on Jan. 27. The committee will then evaluate and, if all goes as planned, select a vendor on Feb. 24 to provide a recommendation to the City Council at its March 2 meeting.
Following approval, Murphy said the City would begin educating residents about the advanced metering integration, its benefits and how it will be rolled out.
Essentially, the new auto metering system will collect usage and status data from home water and electric meters throughout the City automatically, rather than needing employees to go around and take readings manually.
According to the vendors that presented, that will provide the City with data and software that will notify the department immediately of outages, help the City better service its residents and provide better data for the residents about their usage.
Vendors also noted that the auto metering system would take more frequent readings, as quickly as once every 15 minutes, rather than collecting a reading manually once a month.
