City to explore building new municipal complex
The city of Rhinelander is looking into constructing a new municipal complex that would house police, fire and city offices. Concerns about the condition of the current fire station, shown here, have been raised in recent months. Star Journal photo
Council approves funding for first steps
By Eileen Persike, Editor
RHINELANDER – If a journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step, Rhinelander City Administrator Patrick Reagan said the city’s foot hasn’t even hit the ground yet. But the Common Council last week took its first step into investigating a new municipal complex by approving funding for preliminary work.
Currently the fire and police departments are housed in a facility that has experienced failures – the floor where the fire and EMS trucks are kept is crumbling and there have been issues with the roof and other areas. The initial concept is to put city offices in the complex as well.
“We love this building – it’s a great historic building, City Hall is, but it has kind of outlived its useful life as far as a city hall goes,” Reagan said. “It doesn’t have everything we need.
“We want to put a plan together – we don’t just jump into things, we’re going to put a plan together, present it to council and get the entire group moving toward this,” he added.
The Council approved $1,500 for Rhinelander firm DesignTech to assist in the process of developing criteria for future needs, assist in the solicitation of engineers and architects and develop a Request for Information for distribution to potential grant research firms.
To work on preliminary funding investigations and an implementation strategy, the council voted to hire Vierbicher, a planning, engineering and advising company, for a cost of $3,000, to be paid through the city’s American Rescue Plan Act funding. Vierbicher has worked with the city on previous projects; including design and grant writing for the Downtown Streetscape improvements.
“Having Vierbicher on, somebody who knows the process; has people who can work through the process and help us achieve our goals – that’s going to be terribly important,” Reagan said to the Council.
Should the Council decide to move forward, Vierbicher, for an additional cost, can submit grant and loan applications. A preliminary schedule in Vierbicher’s proposal shows a final funding plan being presented in March, funding application submitted April through August this year, funding approvals secured July through November with construction beginning spring 2025.
Pizza-supported snow plowing
The city of Rhinelander is one of 20 communities in the country to win a $25,000 grant from Domino’s Pizza to assist in snow plowing costs this winter.
“We got $25,000 for snow removal and there is no snow, but my understanding is this can be used to pay for things such as overtime salaries from earlier snowfall, equipment and plow blades,” City Administrator Patrick Reagan said last week.
According to the Domino’s website, the company “believes nothing should stand in the way of carrying out a hot, delicious pizza, including snowy, cold weather.” Awarding half a million dollars in grants for snow plowing. Nominations were open Dec. 4 through Jan. 21. Up to 20 cities were expected to be awarded $25,000 in snow plowing grants. Nearly 100 people nominated Rhinelander.
“We’re excited. Every community could use extra funds to help pay for things that we need we appreciate everyone who nominated us.”
Part of the agreement includes the city submit photos or videos to the company showing Rhinelander Streets Department staff removing snow, and giving Domino’s permission to use those photos anywhere in the world, forever.
Domino’s says it is giving away a total of a half a million dollars in the promotion.
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