Posted: 3/16/05
By Aaron Vehling
The City of Stacy just might get its wastewater lift station behind City Hall, after all.
City officials and Kim Filius, the owner of the property adjacent to Stacy City Hall, had been having trouble for the past few months negotiating a deal on a swapping of property.
That all changed at the Tuesday night (March 8) city council meeting. Filius was on hand with her lawyer, Travis Stottler, of the Miller Law Office in Wyoming, to iron out a deal so that the project can get underway to meet the October deadline.
Stottler, speaking for Filius, said that Filius was ready to move forward with the deal. Filius would give a 45 by 25 foot parcel in the northeast corner of her property to the city and would receive in exchange an 11 by 148 foot parcel.
Stottler and City Attorney Pete Grundhoefer both made recommendations to get the project moving.
As he has indicated at previous council meetings, Grundhoefer said the land needs to go to probate court to get the title in Filiusís name (it is currently under her late husbandís name). The council and Grundhoefer agreed at the Feb. 22 council meeting to reimburse Filius for the probate proceedings.
Stottler said he would do the probate for Filius for $3,000 - a sum Grundhoefer proposed earlier. At this point the spirit of disagreement manifested itself among the parties.
Grundhoefer disagreed with the sum, saying that $3,000 was ìmore than I anticipated spending.î
ìI put a max at $3,000,î he said. ìItís a fairly streamlined procedure that I think can be done for $2,000.î
Stottler disagreed as well. He said that $3,000 was much more fair as his staff had to review documents for the case.
Councilman John Daher told Stottler that $2,000 was fair, considering all that the city has already invested in the process.
ìThe probate moves the title over to Kimís name and is a benefit to her,î he said. ìSheíd have to get it done anyway.î
He noted to Stottler that Filius currently has no legal access to her garage because of current property lines. The 580 square feet of frontage property sheíd get out of the deal would return access to her garage.
ìI respectfully disagree,î Stottler said.
Tension increased.
ìAt the present time, we have already spent a fair amount of time on this project to move it forward,î Daher said. ìItís in both of our interests to have the lift back there (behind the city hall).î
Daher added that he also did not want the city to spend excessive amounts of money getting the lift station in the back when ìwe can just put it up front.î
Councilmembers Barbara Otterson, Daher and Mayor Michael Carlson supported a $2,000 cap on probate reimbursement, whereas councilman John Walz said he would be fine with spending $3,000, but preferred a cap at $2,500.
Stottler agreed with a $2,500 cap.
ìWe can do an itemized bill,î he said. ìIf the bill is less than $2,500 then the city will pay less than that. I just donít want her to pay money out of pocket.î
The city and Stottler came to the following agreement:
ï The city will conduct a survey of Filiusís land to provide a legal description of the property.
ï The city would pay the cost of probate attorney fees and related costs up to $2,500. The Miller Law Firm would be required to provide an itemized bill.
ï Filius would sign a temporary letter agreement that would allow the city to access the property to prepare for construction while the probate process was still underway.
ï The city would hand over the 11 by 148 foot strip of property to Filius.
ï Filius will work with the city to obtain release of her mortgage from Twin City Federal.
In other news:
ï The council voted to increase sewer and water rates by 3.5 percent.
ï City engineer Chuck Schwartz will not proceed with applying for a grant from the Department of Natural Resources. The city needs to build a pavilion in the park for their application to be competitive and the city does not have money to build it.
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