PRESCOTT – At the Aug. 23 Prescott City Council meeting, the council approved plans for Coulee River Trails, Freedom Park and requests relating to Prescott Daze.

The meeting started with an approval of conceptual plans for the Coulee River Trails project; the concept plans were only in regard to two zones of the trail system. The zones where concepts were approved are located near Magee Park and on some privately owned land.

There are a total of six zones within the future plans for the trail system; the design approved is a small portion of the larger future for the project.

Next the council approved many additions and improvements to Freedom Park and the Great River Road Visitor & Learning Center located there. The Friends of Freedom Park are funding additions of a sound system within the visitor center, around five new tribute benches, two new sculptures, and a short-grass prairie garden.

The Friends of Freedom Park, approved by the city council, will approach the Prescott Fire Department to support a burn of one section near the Freedom Park bluff below the amphitheatre.

Aside from these improvements and additions, the council also approved the use of public properties for the annual Prescott Daze festivities which will be held Sept. 10-12.

The council denied a request for an off-sale liquor license for Ptacek’s due to no current availability. The city only has five offsale liquor licenses within the city and for this reason the request was denied. Mayor Dave Hovel agreed that this issue will be brought up at the next ordinance committee meeting, which will be held on Sept. 13.

“The city established this ordinance and we only have five,” Hovel said. “The council decided years ago that we only need so many liquor stores.”

“If we wanted to move forward with that, we would have to bring it up at the ordinance committee meeting to amend that ordinance,” said Alderperson Thomas Oss.

Alderperson Bailey Ruona suggested that this be on the agenda for the next meeting and other council members agreed.

Following action business, the council received an update on any incidents that have occurred at downtown bars over the past month.

Police Chief Eric Michaels wrote, “There has not been any significant incidents downtown involving the bars; we have had a few isolated incidents but they were just sent home. There was one incident that involved disorderly conduct and was cited by police… I will mention while things are going well downtown, the officers are spending an exorbitant amount of time downtown with this; the upper and residential areas are getting fewer patrols.

Charlie Evenson from the board of directors at Peacock Ridge Townhomes presented a PowerPoint to the council of some concerns about water drainage mitigation and the costs that the properties have faced due to damage from corrosion and rain. The retaining wall located on Highway 10 collapsed in April 2019 due to this corrosion.

Residents and property owners are requesting that the city waive 50 percent of property taxes for the next two years to help with the compensation of the costs this damage has presented. There was no action from the board on this concern but there are plans to investigate the issue and revisit it at upcoming council meetings.

There were no other public comments, bu the council briefly discussed a consideration from resident Sheila Dunn about the future of a Housing Authority Committee and this will also be discussed further at future council meetings.