Council approves new contracts with SWIPCO

The Red Oak City Council is continuing a partnership with the Southwest Iowa Planning Council for professional building inspection services.
At the most recent meeting of the council, council members held discussions with SWIPCO executive director John McCurdy to discuss the contract. McCurdy said the most recent contract was renewed in 2019 and expired in 2022.
“We’ve been operating without a contract for about a year, but we know there’s been a lot of transitions and things going on. We would like as we move forward to renew the contract so we can continue to provide the service,” McCurdy said.
The new contract would come with an increase, the first since the contract was originally written in 2016.
“Right now we charge $65 for a single-family rental inspection and $35 for a multi-family unit. We’re looking at a $5 increase to $70 and $40, which is in line with any community we start the program with right now. The contract would be for another three years. We’re really looking forward to continue to working with the city. There’s a lot of things going on now that I think can improve this program in a lot of ways,” advised McCurdy.
SWIPCO splits the rental inspections into three years, and includes  around 1,000 inspections.
“There has been a bit of a moratorium on properties needing to be inspected, or that failed to register appropriately. We want to get those up to date because it’s not fair to the property owners that we have done inspections on. As many properties that we’re asked to inspect, we will do. We try to do one third of the inspections each year, and then continue rolling through,” explained McCurdy.
The council approved the SWIPCO contract renewal as presented.
Also under discussion for approval was a one-year contract between SWIPCO and the City of Red Oak for services pertaining to requests for building permits and requests for change in zoning or variance for zoning compliance with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. Silvius said the reason the city was pursuing the contract was because they were being inundated with building permits daily.
McCurdy said the contract dealt with how a property was built, and where it could be built.
“We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the zoning and whether something can be built. While I’ve been providing feedback as much as I can, we don’t have a set relationship with the  city to review that type of thing,” commented McCurdy. “One of the things we want is to be able to see every permit that comes in so we know what’s going on. This contract gives us the ability to do that. We plan to do that for free, as a vast majority are submitted electronically. If we need to go to a meeting of the planning and zoning commission, there would be a $60 charge if we’re doing the meeting. However, my goal would be for them to have a staff opinion from us of why something needs zoning, or why it doesn’t. We’ll do it for one year with the option to renew. My hope is that city hall can answer those questions themselves, but right now, there’s too much going on.”
Silvius said nuisance property manager Bill Deitering is also being trained so the city will have an in-house person to handle the questions in the future.
Councilperson Brian Bills asked if the city should have its own zoning department and inspector. McCurdy said the city should have someone that can tell a citizen on the spot if the property meets the zoning requirements or not. While the framework exists to an extent, McCurdy said it would take some time to get people p to speed.
“We do a lot of building inspections, and I’m going to encourage the city to continue to use our inspection services, but when it comes to the permitting process, I think the city should be at the point where it can handle those questions in-house. We can also provide a checklist,” McCurdy commented.
The council then discussed adopting the 2018 International Property Maintenance code.
McCurdy said the city’s code of ordinances was based off the International Property Maintenance Code from 2015, as well as the 2015 residential code, and 2015 mechanical code. McCurdy said the 2015 code referenced the 2013 version.
“We want to go to the 2018 code, because it references the 2015 code, as there’s a lag. While there’s also a code for 2021, the State of Iowa hasn’t moved on from the 2015 code. By adopting the 2018 code, that would put the city consistent with others,” McCurdy advised. Once the state moves to 2018, then we would move to the 2021 code.”
Bills asked if there were any real changes to the new code versus the existing code. McCurdy said mainly it was just a difference in date, although there were other minor changes, such as requiring trash service for rental units. It would not put any major burden on property owners.
The council set a public hearing for adopting the 2018 code at a special meeting July 10 at 5:30 p.m.
Finally, the council discussed a letter of support for a joint application of Safe Streets with the Metropolitan Area Planning Agency and SWIPCO.
“This is a program we’ve talked about in the past. It can be used for sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, trails, and street repairs,” Silvius said.
McCurdy said in order to take the first step, the city had to have a plan in place.
“Iowa’s counties did a statewide application that included all towns under 2,500 people. While those communities are in the plan, Red Oak, Glenwood, Atlantic, Harlan, Shenandoah, and Clarinda are not included,” said McCurdy. “The minimum grant for the plan is $100,000, which should cover all those communities with a joint plan and separate sections for each community.”
While there was a local match, the last time it was offered the Iowa Department of Transportation provided the match. The city would have to come up with the projects the money would be applied to in the future if the grant was awarded.
“We’re going for the Safe Streets For All planning grant to have a Safe Streets For All approved plan. You’ll list out all of the things you want to do and then we’ll apply to the Federal DOT for those projects,” stated McCurdy.
Since Red Oak and the other communities were a bit small, there was an opportunity to combine items for the grant.
“As an example, if the cities want to update the crosswalks, it would be across all of those communities rather than just the City of Red Oak,” McCurdy commented.
The city approved the letter of support as presented.
McCurdy also gave an update on the transportation services offered so far this year through the Southwest Iowa Transit Agency.
“We’ve provided 4,250 taxi rides, 10,000 rides to the disabled, 9,320 in-town rides for school-age children, and right now we have the summer fun bus in operation. It’s $1 per ride, or $40 for an unlimited pass for the summer. So far there have been several excursion trips. They’ll be going to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha on July 11,” McCurdy stated.
Bills clarified that equated to about 25,000 rides in the community of Red Oak. McCurdy confirmed the numbers were correct.
“It’s a lot in a town the size of Red Oak. It’s definitely a well-utilized service here. We did 480,000 rides in total in 2022, and this year, we’re going to exceed 500,000 rides. SWITA is Iowa’s largest rural public transit agency,” McCurdy said.
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