City makes annual appointments, discusses Community Complex

HARTINGTON — The Hartington City Council Monday handled several routine year-end matters.

The Council made its annual appointments, which included re-appointing the 23 members of the Hartington Ambulance Squad and reaffirming Dirk Dailey as the president of the squad and Hal Thoene as the vice president.

The Council also reappointed the 38 members of the Hartington Volunteer Fire Department and reaffirmed Ryan Marsh as Fire Chief and Brandon Fischer as Assistant Chief.

The Council also appointed the Bank of Hartington as the official depository and the Cedar County News as the legal newspaper.

Council members also met Monday with representatives from Cedar Catholic and Hartington-Newcastle Public School to discuss options on how to best proceed with the needed repairs of the all-weather track at the Hartington Community Complex.

The track, which was originally built in 2004, has a 20year lifespan and it has about aged out, said Councilman Roman Sudbeck.

Sudbeck has been getting estimates. It will cost between $650,000 and $700,000 to replace the track, he said.

Mayor Mark Becker said he is looking for ways to better spread out the cost of updating the facility.

Currently, the schools pay rent each year to help pay for the upkeep at the facility. Those funds barely pay the annual cost for maintaining the grass and landscaping at the facility, Becker said.

'The money we get in rent doesn’t go very far,' he said. 'It doesn’t even pay the annual mowing and landscaping expense. There is nothing left to set aside for updates.'

The schools and the city agreed to form committees to further discuss how they might be able to work together.