At the Osceola City Council meeting on Feb. 20, the council voted 3-1 to not open the Fern Underwood Aquatic Center for the season; councilman Dr. George Fotiadis voted no, and councilwoman Sonya Hicks was absent.
On Feb. 22, Osceola Mayor Thomas Kedley exercised his powers and duties of the office of mayor to veto the action taken by the council two days prior. In his veto message, Kedley said,
“My decision to veto this action is based on a desire to see the city take more time to exhaust all possible options before the March 1st deadline to proceed with the aquatic center rehabilitation.”
A mayoral veto can be overridden by a super majority of the council, when four out of five vote “yes.”
The council held a special meeting Feb. 27 to discuss the mayoral veto and pool solutions further, and voted 5-0 to overturn the veto, leaving the pool closed, but also with direction for city staff to discuss water solutions with the Osceola Water Board of Trustees.
Feb. 20 meeting
At the regular Osceola council meeting on Feb. 20, City Administrator Ty Wheeler explained Mid-America Pool Renovation, the company who the council awarded the pool replastering project to, needed to know by March 1 if the pool would be open this year, as they need to install a new pool shell. After March 1, it would be too late for them to get Osceola on their calendar.
To properly seal the shell, water weight is needed to be added quickly for the curing process. Due to the low water levels in West Lake, the question became how to get water to the pool; it takes about 250,000 gallons to fill, and uses roughly one-million gallons over the season; an Osceola Water Board conservation ordinance is still in effect for the city.
As the city council does not have a say in the conservation measures passed by the Osceola Water Board, Wheeler expressed concern about filling the pool when residents and businesses are being charged a surcharge for going over a monthly water usage limit.
“I am concerned if we fill the pool…let’s just forget about the refills, 250,000 gallons, is that an inconsistent message,” said Wheeler. If the council voted to open the pool, the water board would final say in opening the valve that fills the pool.
Kedley reminded the public the water board is its own entity. While he can bring members to the council to appoint to the board, he cannot remove them without due cause.
On the pool status, Kedley shared his thoughts,
“It’s unfortunate that we’re in the middle of the construction where we need water to cure [the shell]. If we had more time, we could wait it out and see if had a wet spring, but we don’t have that time, we have 10 days,” said Kedley, adding that being under a water crisis, “A million-gallons does matter, cause that’s one more day for Osceola have water in our pipes. I would be against opening the pool.”
Councilman Dan Hooper made a motion to close the pool for the 2024 season, and councilmen Tom Bahls and Jose Vargas voted in favor of the pool’s closure.
“This is a hard decision, we didn’t meet it just willy-nilly. It should have been a split vote..to show it was really a tough thing for us to do,” said Fotiadis when explaining his ‘no’ vote.
“It’s not an easy decision to make,” added Kedley. “In the situation we’re in, we have to make sacrifices at this point.”
“...We also have to face reality…We’re not in the position where we have the luxury of doing [this]...” said councilman Jose Vargas.
“In a normal year, this call could have been made in April…With as low as the lake is, it would have taken a tremendous amount of rainfall between now and April for West Lake to recover,” said Wheeler.
Hooper later stated the decision to close the pool was a “difficult one.”
“It’s not something that summer asset to our community,” Hooper said.
Feb. 27 meeting
At the beginning of the Feb. 27 meeting, Kedley read his veto message, and told council that he had agreed with their prior action to close the pool for water conservation, and that his veto was to buy time to find a way to move forward with the pool renovation project, as well as look for other solutions before March 1.
He then gave council members an opportunity to speak on the pool closure.
Hooper restated that it was a difficult decision, but in order to allow residents and businesses to have water, he stood with his vote to close the pool. He said he was open to changing that vote based on information presented to the council in the meeting, but that it would have to be “overwhelming.” Vargas also restated that it was difficult, but that reality had to be faced when looking at the current water situation.
Bahls gave a self-declared lengthy statement about Osceola being in a water emergency, and as such, many hard decisions had to be made. He spoke on both water to fill the pool, and water for the golf course. He touched on the government and state agencies lack of help, and hindrances to resolving Osceola’s water issue.
“Rather than providing assistance, they have put up roadblocks to any and all solutions we have submitted for consideration. The reason behind the state government’s refusal to act and provide assistance has yet to be fully ascertained,” said Bahls, reminding everyone that Osceola will not be the last, or only, community to face issues with the drought.
Bahls also reiterated the current water ordinance.
“Our role as council members is to at times make difficult, sometimes unpopular, decisions that are in the best interests of the overall community. I believe this is one of those times. The easy thing to do is approve water use for the pool and golf course,” said Bahls, adding it was a vote he wanted to cast, but would violate the ordinance, and questioned what message it would send to Osceola’s citizens.
Possible solutions
Wheeler spoke of some possible solutions that city staff had come up with. One was to truck in finished water from another source but that would not be feasible, as it would only fill the pool 6,000 to 8,000 gallons at a time. Another option would be to truck raw water from Grade Lake and Q Pond to West Lake to help offset what would be drawn out West Lake for treatment and distribution to the pool and golf course; the two would use about 2.5-million gallons collectively.
In order to do the latter, there would have to be concurrence with the water board, and a water use permit from the Iowa DNR to move water from one place to another. Kedley said they are in the process of pulling a permit from the DNR, as another resource to move water into West Lake, which continues to see decreases in water levels. Conceptually, there would be two tanker trucks that would run five days a week from Grade Lake and Q Pond to West Lake, with an estimated cost of $75,000 to do so. There is a pending request to the Clarke County Development Corporation for assistance. The DNR will be in Osceola this week to look at the two bodies of water.
After more discussion, including the importance of maintaining a good working relationship with the water board and needing to find more solutions other than conservation measures, Fotiadis made the motion to override the veto and the votes were cast. A motion was made to ask the water department if a variance or changes to the current ordinance could be made that would allow for the pool to open if an alternative raw water source was found, if they think the pool qualifies under as quality of life under the ordinance, and with DNR concurrence.