City backing Hopper land for hospital site

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August 9, 2011 - 12:00 AM

Iola City Council members said they would support Allen County’s quest to build a new hospital along North Kentucky Street.
The consensus from Monday’s council meeting was the city favored seeing the county utilize a 24.9-acre parcel of land owned by former Iolan Chris Hopper just north of Fountain Villa.
Hospital trustees are considering that site, as well as one owned by Sally Huskey outside Iola city limits near the intersection of Oregon Road and U.S. 169.
Councilman Steve French was among a group of city council members who met recently with ACH trustees to discuss hospital sites.
While no site was perfect, the Hopper land seems to have the fewest hurdles from the city’s perspective, French said.
Council members are cool to the Huskey property because the city is eager to be the sole provider of utilities to the new medical facility. Building the hospital outside of town would require the city to annex the land, extend some utility services as much as two miles and then potentially pay to take over franchise fees from Kansas Rural Electric Cooperative or Rural Water District No. 5.
The Hopper land would require a zoning change, French noted, because it’s currently listed as a residential site.
The county has kept the city’s perspective in its thoughts throughout the planning process because Iola has agreed to use a portion of its annual sales tax revenues to assist with startup costs related to the hospital’s construction.
Hospital trustees have vowed to find a site within Iola’s city limits or close enough so the city could annex the land.
The trustees last week formally declared they will no longer pursue plans to build the hospital on either East Street or near Cedarbrook Golf Course, citing the costs associated with preparing the land for the new medical facility.

COUNCIL members will soon decide whether Iola will continue to provide an energy efficiency loan program for local utility customers.
The Efficiency Kansas Loan Program, through which local residents’ homes or small businesses undergo an energy audit to determine whether loans can be made available energy efficiency upgrades, has lost its state funding.
In order for the city to continue, it would have to front the money, likely from its electric fund reserves.
The loans would be repaid by customers over the next 15 years through their monthly utility bills.
The program is designed so that the loan payments are made possible because utility bills theoretically would be lower with the energy efficiency upgrades.
For example, a customer whose bill would drop from $200 to $160 after the improvements still would pay $200, with the added $40 going to retire the principle of the loan.
Since its inception in the summer of 2010, roughly 25 Iolans have undergone energy audits, City Clerk Roxanne Hutton said.
The audits list recommended ways for energy savings, with the customer deciding which to implement. At least five have done so, with two others currently in the bidding process, Hutton said.
Another dozen or so customers are at varying stages of the audit process. Those would be the ones the city would have to fund if council members wanted to continue the program, City Administrator Carl Slaugh said.
Iolan Becky Nilges spoke in favor of continuing the program.
“This is a great opportunity for the city to continue the program so that customers can make energy improvements they otherwise would never have been able to afford,” Nilges said.
Council members said they would continue to discuss the matter.

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