Iola is nearing the finish line in the Take Charge Energy Challenge.
Becky Nilges, who has spearheaded the campaign locally to get Iolans thinking about energy efficiency, told City Council members Monday that the challenge ends Sept. 30.
The challenge, hosted by the Climate and Energy Project and the Kansas Energy Office, is a competition among 16 cities in four regions of the state to see which can do the most to save energy and promote energy efficiency. Each regional winner receives $100,000 to be used for a renewable energy or energy efficiency project. The competitors get credit for offering informational seminars to the public.
Iola is one of four communities in southeast Kansas participating. The city is competing in three categories: Home energy audits, light bulb replacement and community projects.
The competition, at times, was like playing a basketball game, Nilges said, with rules being changed while the game is in play.
“It got frustrating to go into a ballgame and sometimes goals are worth three points, sometimes a foul is not a foul, and sometimes the boundaries change,” Nilges said.
To illustrate, she pointed to the energy audit program, in which Iolans paid $100 for the audits, then took out zero-interest loans from the state to make energy upgrades to their homes with the payments realized through savings from lower utility bills.
Problem was, Gov. Sam Brownback pulled the funding from the energy audit program at midstream, so some Iolans now have completed audits recommending changes to their homes with no money to fund them.
The Iola City Council declined to continue the program using city funds, instead recommending that those with the energy audits take the information to their respective banks for loans.
Now, Nilges said, there may be some funding left in the audit program and that some Iolans are still pursuing the state funding.
In any case, the city will know sometime in October whether it receives the $100,000 first prize. Iola is winning the community participation segment, but is in third place in the energy audit and light bulb exchange portions.
Even if the city does not win, many Iolans have learned about energy efficiency, which is rewarding in itself, Nilges said.
THE COUNCIL endorsed an effort by the Iola Library Board to take action against General Services Corporation of Oswego, the general contractor in charge of recent renovations to the library because the roof was “improperly installed and in poor condition.”
The roof has been a point of contention all along, particularly when rainy weather during a portion of the roof replacement caused several leaks, which in turn damaged the library’s interior.
COUNCIL MEMBERS approved the hiring of James Boeken to the Solid Waste Department. They also approved six-month or annual evaluations for seven other employees and subsequent pay raises ranging between 1.97 and 3.5 percent.
