PRESCOTT – The Prescott City Council held its bi-weekly meeting on Monday, July 26 and discussed several upcoming projects and announcements for the city. The meeting started with approval of minutes from previous meetings.

The council was briefed by Treasurer Beth Lansing on the 2020 audit report review. The audit went well and there were some suggestions during the review provided by Lansing and City Administrator Jayne Brand. Lansing said, “In general, I feel like the audit went well and everything came back very well.”

The general fund saw a slight increase during 2020 and there is money that is unassigned that the council will have to reassign to other projects in the future.

“We do have an outstanding dollar amount that is unassigned, and we will have to do some extra work during budget season to reassign,” said Lansing.

The Prescott Police Department received a grant from the National Criminal History Improvement Grant Program. An amount of money was needed to match a percentage of the award money of $21,820 which was approved by the council. Prescott Police Chief Eric Michaels talked briefly about what the grant is and how the money will be reimbursed.

“We have to match a certain percent so what I am asking for is for us to spend this money and the government reimburses us back all but $2,183 that comes from my budget,” said Michaels.

A purchase of a new compact utility tractor was also approved by the council. The tractor is more efficient for the city to mow and maintain areas in the city where it is needed.

The second payment request for the new courtesy dock and ramp project that was recently installed in Prescott was also approved by the council. There will be signs installed on the courtesy dock that read “No Fishing” due to safety concerns from the council, and fishing is not permitted off the dock. There are future plans to create spaces where residents and visitors will be able to fish off of a designated fishing dock.

K-9 unit The Prescott K-9 Project also received approval after discussion from the council. The program has fundraised enough money to move forward with implementing a K-9 unit in the city of Prescott. The program was formed four years ago after the passing of the late police chief Gary Krutke, who wanted a K9 unit in Prescott.

There were some concerns from some board members about future funding and the longevity of the unit being funded only through fundraising. Another concern brought up by the council included needing an officer to go through training for three months.

Since the department is already short staffed this was an issue that was discussed at length. The conclusion came to be that the department would need to be fully staffed before this was possible.

Lisa Johnson from the K-9 program and Prescott Police Officer Jesse Neely spoke to the council and answered any questions and responded to concerns. “We are asking for the support from the city council to go forward with this wonderful K-9 program that we feel would help stem our rapidly growing drug problem in Prescott,” Johnson said. “The unit would also serve the community in many other ways like search and rescue, officer safety, criminal apprehension and the schools DARE program.”

The council approved the program with a motion to go ahead with the implementation of the unit and the process of finding a dog and starting training once the department is fully staffed. The process of funding a dog for the department along with training and other aspects of the project will take a year at the least to be completed.

Other business

The council talked briefly about bar closing returning to normal hours on July 29 after the 30 days is up. The council agreed that they are comfortable moving forward with allowing bars to close at 2:30 a.m., the normal time, instead of 1 a.m. after that date. All altercations have slowed down, and the council is pleased with the cooperation of bars in downtown Prescott during the past 30 days.

The next item on the agenda was planning meeting times for the Parks and Public Property committee, which is going to be regularly meeting and discussing plans for the ongoing riverfront project.

An alternate day water ban will be put into effect in Prescott starting this week. This is due to the maintenance and shutting down of one of the city’s water towers. Even houses will be allowed to water lawns on even days and oddnumbered houses will be able to water on odd days. This will remain in effect until the water tower project is completed sometime in October.

The skate park will also be closed from Aug. 2 until Oct. 4 due to the water tower project as well.

The meeting then went into closed session.