ST. ANTHONY The St. Anthony City Council held a fiscal 2015 budget hearing last week during its regular monthly meeting.

City clerk Patty Parkinson explained to the council there was an optional 3 percent tax increase that the council could vote to impose.

If you dont want to take it, what you would leave is approximately $30,000 that the city would be able to levy for, if you decided not to take the 3 percent Parkinson said. What that means is eventually that will go away if you dont ever levy for it.

Parkinson said when St. Anthony joined the fire district they had to raise their taxes.

Mayor Neils Thueson asked the council if they wanted to take the 3 percent increase or leave it the way it is.

Parkinson said utility rates would change in October. There would be a 37 cent increase in water rates and 91 cents for sewer costs.

I think if you take smaller increases over the years it makes it a little bit easier to budget for, Parkinson said.

Council members echoed their support for the finance committees proposal to impose the small raises.

The city did not raise property taxes.

Thueson closed the hearing after asking if anyone had any additional comments.

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Budget, retaining wall and dogs discussed at council meeting

North Charleston workers on Monday finish putting in a new sidewalk next to a home owned by Elliott Summey, the mayor's son, on the corner of Buist Avenue and Old Park Road near Park Circle. Grace Beahm/Staff

North Charleston has spent $37,000 on extensive landscaping and other improvements by city work crews at a house owned by Elliott Summey, the mayor's son and vice chairman of Charleston County Council.

City officials said the work was related to sidewalk repairs necessary for public safety - a project that included tree and brush removal, the replacement of a brick retaining wall, and landscaping with four pallets of sod, rows of azalea and rose bushes and new trees.

"We would have done that for anybody's (house)," said North Charleston Public Works Director Jim Hutto.

Park Circle resident Erin Sharpe is skeptical. She said she's been watching the work progress for more than a month, and said she and others thought it looked like special treatment for the mayor's son.

"It's not right," she said. "They don't come and landscape my yard and trim bushes."

Elliott Summey said he didn't ask for the work, and didn't benefit from it. In fact, he says the city went on his property without his permission, destroyed a dozen "priceless" heirloom camellias cross-bred by a botanist who used to live there, and caused a sewer back-up.

"They destroyed $40,000 of landscaping," Summey said. "They caused the sewer to back up into my basement, and I had to give the tenant a free month's rent."

Sharpe said Elliott Summey's overgrown yard had made the sidewalk impassable. Summey lives in Mount Pleasant with his family, and his house on the corner of Buist Avenue and Old Park Road is a rental.

"If my yard looked like that, code enforcement would have been all over me," Sharpe said.

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Neighbors question city landscaping work at home owned by N. Charleston mayor's son

August 19, 2014 Council urged to fix wall

By TESA GLASS tesa.glass@register-news.com The Register-News The Mt. Vernon Register-News Tue Aug 19, 2014, 06:14 AM CDT

MT. VERNON About 40 people blasted the City Council for choosing litigation over fixing a retaining wall on South 42nd Street.

In April 2012, Jon and Sarah Henninger addressed the council about problems with a retaining wall leaning over the sidewalk on North 42nd Street, asking the city to fix the problem before the wall fell on the sidewalk.

Since that time, the couple have filed a lawsuit against the city, and the wall has fallen onto the sidewalk. Last week, a sign was posted by the Henningers in their yard urging the city to please fix this wall.

According to City Attorney David Leggans, there is a legitimate dispute on the ownership of the wall. Its in litigation and being handled by the citys insurance carrier.

Resident Chris Donoho read a message from former Mayor Mark Terry, who explained the wall was built by the city.

Forty-second Street was widened during my last couple of years as mayor, Terry wrote. It was a city project, authorized, funded and directed by the city. If there was a design fault or construction fault by the contractor, that

caused the wall to fail, the city is responsible and should step up and accept responsibility. We can build beautiful water towers, spend thousands on signs to make sure we know where were going around the city and buy another study from every expert with a briefcase who drives through town selling his wares but sometimes we might just want (to) stop and look at the little things in the big scheme of things. This family did not cause this problem. They should not have to have a structural engineer on retainer to inspect this wall every year for structural integrity. The city should step forward, accept its responsibility, correct the problem and move on.

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Council urged to fix wall

Federal dollars whether they be used to reimburse homeowners who had major out-of-pocket expenses recovering from last September's floods or for building a new retaining wall on a critical stretch of the Big Thompson River was the theme Monday night at a town hall-style meeting in Longmont featuring the state of Colorado's flood recovery team.

For more information or to submit comments:

To review Colorado's Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery draft "action plan," visit dola.colorado.gov/cdbg-dr.That's also where people can submit comments, or they can email their comments to dola_recovery@state.co.us until Aug. 30. The state will forward a final draft action plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in September.

Molly Urbina, the state's chief recovery officer, walked the audience through a draft "action plan" that will be finalized before being sent off to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development, which has announced a new round of flood recovery money totaling $199.3 million it wants to give to the state.

The money is designed to aid in recovery from any federally declared disaster in Colorado 2011 and 2013. That will include not just last September's floods but also the Black Canyon and Hyde Park fires.

But because the money is coming through the federal government's Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funds program, 80 percent of the funds must go to the three counties hurt most by September's flooding, and 50 percent must go to benefit low- and moderate income people.

"Reallocation of funds from the top down, and increased funding, is very important," said Deward Walker, one of about a dozen speakers state officials listened to.

Walker owns a tree farm in Four Mile Canyon that suffered a lot of damage in the flood, at least part of that damage due to scarred hillsides from a previous fire that didn't hold the water in September's heavy rains.

One woman spoke of refurbishing three 120-year-old cabins and turning them into resort cabins on property she owns at the base of Big Thompson Canyon. Even though the cabins were well out of the flood plain, the water during the flood scoured away the land, leaving two of the cabins to fall into the river and the third sitting just eight-feet from the sheer dropoff to the river that the flood left behind.

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Longmont host to regional flood recovery program

City and CSX Transportation maintenance crews did not do a good job responding to repeated complaints from residents about street damage on the Baltimore block that collapsed in the spring, according to the city's transportation director and a report reviewing previous inspections.

The city of Baltimore issued the report Sunday analyzing the April 30 collapse of a stretch of East 26th Street after massive rainfall. The report noted that neither CSX nor city maintenance crews who responded to several resident complaints about the roadway before the disaster had the expertise to identify the surface issues as symptomatic of a larger failure of the street's subsurface.

While the report revealed a lack of coordination between the two entities and a lack of thoroughness in infrastructure inspections, it did not conclusively say what caused the collapse other than an unusually cold and wet winter.

"While we look at available information and discuss possible scenarios, the definitive conditions which ultimately caused the collapse remain inconclusive due to the lack of exploratory information which may not become available even during the extensive excavation of the failure area during the reconstruction phase," the report said.

On Sunday, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake met with several of the residents who were forced to temporarily leave their homes in the spring after a 120-year-old retaining wall failed after heavy rainstorms, causing much of the street to collapse. The meeting was to go over the results of the report Rawlings-Blake had ordered from city transportation and public works employees about the history of inspections and repairs to the street and complaints from residents.

"This is about getting to the bottom of what happened and why," Rawlings-Blake said after the meeting.

She said residents were given a timetable for repairs and were told of the changes city officials had made to ensure that streets, bridges and walls are thoroughly inspected.

The changes include sending out engineers to do ground testing of streets that receive more than one complaint and deploying city workers and inspectors to review the city's aging infrastructure after major rainstorms such as the deluge the city saw last week, which flooded some streets, particularly in Southeast Baltimore.

Some residents have hired lawyers to seek reparations from the city and CSX after being forced to relocate to city-paid hotels or making other living arrangements for weeks while structural engineers studied the collapse to make sure their homes were not in danger.

"We saw that the city appears to admit that mistakes were made, and we're happy with that," said Jeff Bowman, an attorney who represents five properties.

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Mayor meets with residents over E. 26th Street collapse

City and CSX Transportation maintenance crews did not do a good job responding to repeated complaints from residents about street damage on the Baltimore block that collapsed in the spring, according to the city's transportation director and a report reviewing previous inspections.

The city of Baltimore issued the report Sunday analyzing the April 30 collapse of a stretch of East 26th Street after massive rainfall. The report noted that neither CSX nor city maintenance crews who responded to several resident complaints about the roadway before the disaster had the expertise to identify the surface issues as symptomatic of a larger failure of the street's subsurface.

While the report revealed a lack of coordination between the two entities and a lack of thoroughness in infrastructure inspections, it did not conclusively say what caused the collapse other than an unusually cold and wet winter.

"While we look at available information and discuss possible scenarios, the definitive conditions which ultimately caused the collapse remain inconclusive due to the lack of exploratory information which may not become available even during the extensive excavation of the failure area during the reconstruction phase," the report said.

On Sunday, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake met with several of the residents who were forced to temporarily leave their homes in the spring after a 120-year-old retaining wall failed after heavy rainstorms, causing much of the street to collapse. The meeting was to go over the results of the report Rawlings-Blake had ordered from city transportation and public works employees about the history of inspections and repairs to the street and complaints from residents.

"This is about getting to the bottom of what happened and why," Rawlings-Blake said after the meeting.

She said residents were given a timetable for repairs and were told of the changes city officials had made to ensure that streets, bridges and walls are thoroughly inspected.

The changes include sending out engineers to do ground testing of streets that receive more than one complaint and deploying city workers and inspectors to review the city's aging infrastructure after major rainstorms such as the deluge the city saw last week, which flooded some streets, particularly in Southeast Baltimore.

Some residents have hired lawyers to seek reparations from the city and CSX after being forced to relocate to city-paid hotels or making other living arrangements for weeks while structural engineers studied the collapse to make sure their homes were not in danger.

"We saw that the city appears to admit that mistakes were made, and we're happy with that," said Jeff Bowman, an attorney who represents five properties.

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Rawlings-Blake meets with residents regarding E. 26th Street collapse

SARANAC LAKE - The town of Harrietstown hopes the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover most, if not all, of the cost of replacement of a retaining wall along the Saranac River behind the Harrietstown Town Hall.

Town officials recently submitted paperwork to the federal agency to reimburse the town $185,000, which represents their first payment to the project's contractor, Luck Brothers of Plattsburgh. Luck Brothers is expected to submit another invoice for roughly $80,000. The company bid $264,000 on the project.

Town Supervisor Mike Kilroy said FEMA has promised to give the town at least $207,000.

The town of Harrietstown is hoping the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover most, if not all, of the cost of replacement of this new retaining wall along the Saranac River behind the Harrietstown Town Hall. (Enterprise photo Chris Knight)

"As soon as Luck turns in their second one, I'll submit it," Kilroy said. "It's going to be about $80,000 something. They may give us all of it, and I'd be happy if they do. They might also say, 'Here's your $207,000. That's all you're going to get.' I'm just going to keep submitting until they say stop."

The original retaining wall was damaged in April 2011 when the river, fueled by a combination of heavy rain and spring snowmelt, overflowed its banks. Getting it replaced took more than three years. Town officials have said that's because the project required a long list of approvals from numerous agencies including the state Adirondack Park Agency, Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of Transportation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Work on the new retaining wall finally started in June. Town Code Enforcement Officer Ed Randig said Thursday that the project was "basically complete" except for some paving work and the installation of a railing.

"We restored the River Walk," he said. "All the bedrock is completed and we're waiting for the grass to grow."

Town officials noted that the wall is much taller than the one that was there before. One board member joked that it looked like a fort.

"The turret and the cannons are coming in next week, and we're going to have a re-enactment of the French and Indian War," Randig quipped.

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H'town banks on FEMA to cover retaining wall project

A 27-year-old woman heading home from work at Cousins Subs rolled her truck Friday morning when she slammed into a retaining wall near Rumsey Park.

Mike and Shelly Kraus, who were headed to Walmart around 10:30 a.m., witnessed the wreck.

Mike said as he headed north on McLane Road, the womans Dodge pickup pulled up behind the couple's minivan. Mike kept an eye on the truck from his rearview mirror, the woman on his tail.

Suddenly, the womans blue truck veered west, slammed into the concrete block retaining wall near Rumsey Park and flipped.

The crash gave the Krauses quite a fright. They turned around to see if the driver was all right and. The woman reportedly climbed out of the crumpled cab, crying, but okay.

I felt bad for her, Mike said.

The womans mother, who arrived on the scene shortly after the wreck, said her daughter had complained to her earlier of being hot at work.

Paramedics took the driver to Payson Regional Medical Center.

Her license plate read "Sea Yaa."

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Woman inexplicably rolls vehicle on McLane Road

NEW YORK Asdrubal Cabrera hit his first home run for Washington and tumbled over a retaining wall to make a terrific catch, leading the Nationals past the New York Mets 3-2 Wednesday night for their 10th straight victory at Citi Field.

Rafael Soriano held on in the ninth inning following Travis d'Arnaud's leadoff homer, getting the final two outs after the Mets put a pair of runners in scoring position.

Matt den Dekker was thrown out at home on pinch-hitter Eric Campbell's grounder to shortstop. Curtis Granderson hit a comebacker on the next pitch, giving Soriano his 27th save in 31 tries.

Bryce Harper and Kevin Frandsen each hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh to make a winner of Jordan Zimmermann (8-5). Drew Storen pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half, and the NL East leaders overcame three errors to win for the 24th time in their last 28 road games against the Mets dating to 2011. They haven't lost in Queens since June 29 last year.

The winning streak at Citi Field ties a franchise record for the longest at one venue away from home. The Montreal Expos won 10 road games in a row against the Chicago Cubs from 1982-83.

Coming off his 200th career win last Friday, Mets starter Bartolo Colon (11-10) allowed two runs one earned in seven innings.

Leading 1-0, Colon gave up a leadoff double in the seventh to Adam LaRoche. He stopped at third on a single to center by Ian Desmond, who advanced to second when Juan Lagares' high throw ticked off the glove of cutoff man Lucas Duda for an error.

That ended up hurting the Mets. Harper tied it with a sacrifice fly, Ramos singled and Frandsen put the Nationals ahead with another sacrifice fly.

Cabrera connected in the eighth off Jeurys Familia. The two-time All-Star hit nine home runs for Cleveland this season before he was dealt to Washington at the July 31 trade deadline.

In the bottom half, Cabrera bolted from his spot at second base and made a running catch of Granderson's foul pop just before hitting a retaining wall and going head over heels.

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Nats hold off Mets for 10th straight at Citi Field

Nats hold off Mets 3-2 for 10th straight at Citi

(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

By MIKE FITZPATRICK

AP Sports Writer

NEW YORK (AP) Despite three untimely errors, the Washington Nationals found a way to win at Citi Field. They always do.

Asdrubal Cabrera hit his first home run for Washington and tumbled over a retaining wall to make a terrific catch, leading the Nationals past the New York Mets 3-2 Wednesday night for their 10th straight victory in Queens.

"We're going to have games like this every once in a while. The fact that we were able to overcome it is key," manager Matt Williams said. "We were fortunate tonight."

Rafael Soriano held on in the ninth following Travis d'Arnaud's leadoff homer, getting the final two outs after the Mets put a pair of runners in scoring position.

Matt den Dekker was thrown out at home on pinch-hitter Eric Campbell's grounder to shortstop - and the call was upheld after a replay review to determine whether catcher Wilson Ramos blocked the plate illegally. Curtis Granderson hit a comebacker on the next pitch, giving Soriano his 27th save in 31 tries.

"We've got the best bullpen in the game," starter Jordan Zimmermann said.

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Nats Hold Off Mets, Claim 10th Straight W At Citi