By Kellen Olshefski
Correspondent
The City of Elkhorn Common Council voted in favor of creating a memorandum of understanding for the shared use of the city’s generator between the Walworth County Historical Society and the Elkhorn Area Fire Department.
City Administrator Jim Heilman said at Monday’s meeting while the city had originally planned to disconnect from use from the present City Hall building, at 9 S. Broad St., he was approached by a member of the Walworth County Historical Society about the two entities sharing the costs.
Fire Chief Rod Smith said he originally wrote a grant proposal for the generator 14 or 15 years ago, and at the time, they opted to connect it to City Hall as well.
While he said the generator has only been on and in full use a couple of times, there are annual maintenance costs for the generator, such as oil changes and fuel for the piece of equipment.
“Once a month, we test it. It runs for an hour and a half to two hours, so there’s a gas charge and a maintenance charge that they would be sharing the cost of,” Smith said.
Heilman said the city would essentially be splitting the cost in half, with the historical society agreeing to pay 25% of the cost to replace the generator – if it’s needed in the first five years – and 50% of the cost after that.
“If it ever has to be replaced, they’re willing to participate in the cost and they’re willing to participate in the annual costs,” Heilman said. “It really doesn’t cost us anything. We actually save money.”
Under the agreement, Heilman explained that maintenance and operating costs would be split 50-50 between the fire department and the historical society and made it clear the WCHS is not trying to get something for free.
“They just figure, you have one hooked up already, why don’t we share the cost rather than going out and getting a generator and the cost to put it in there. But they’re willing to participate if something new has to be put in there or repairing the existing one,” he said.
Heilman said if the Common Council was in agreement, city staff would put together an agreement between the city and the historical society. It would then be brought back to the council for final approval.
A motion to recommend that staff write up the agreement was approved unanimously.
In other business
Also at Monday’s meeting, the council voted in favor of metal signs to help people find their way to the new City Hall building.
Department of Public Works Manager Matt Lindstrom said the signs would be similar to the blue, wooden wayfinding signs that can be seen around town currently. The new signs however, would be high-visibility and made of aluminum instead of wood so they won’t rust.
Lindstrom said signs would be placed on both the northbound and southbound sides of Highway 67/Lincoln Street, as well as on both the eastbound and westbound sides of Commerce Street by Seymour Court.
He said the signs would likely range in cost from about $95 to $120 for each pair of signs, depending on the size.
While the current designs were completed in the standard brown color most municipal signs are – such as the signs used for the Walworth County complex – councilmembers requested that if possible, they be created in purple and gold to match the Elkhorn colors.
Alderman Scott McClory also requested that the City Hall text be the prominent text on the sign, rather than the Elkhorn text logo.
“I just think that for the people who have sight issues, the City Hall thing is what they’re looking for,” McClory said.
A motion to approve, with the caveat that city staff pursue purple and gold “if it looks classy” and is allowed by the Wisconsin DOT for the Highway 67 signs, passed by a 6-0 council vote.
