(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic City Council’s held their first meeting of the year on Wednesday (today). The Council acted on approving some administrative matters at the beginning of their session, including:

• Naming the First Whitney Bank & Trust as the City’s Official Bank for the City Checking Account for 2025, and the Atlantic News Telegraph as the City’s Official newspaper for Legal Publication in 2025.
• And they appointed Shirley Jensen, Ali Pieken and Mary Strong to the Parks & Rec Commission. Councilman Mike McDermott:

The Council without hesitation passed a Resolution Approving additional (one-time) compensation for Atlantic Police Chief Devin Hogue (in the amount of $10,264.80), for his nearly 228 hours of overtime + holidays, multiplied by his current hourly rate of $45.12.

Atlantic City Council meeting, Jan. 8, 2025

They also passed a Resolution “Approving Campground Phone Compensation” for the Wastewater and Street Departments, with regard to the Schildberg Campground. The City’s Personnel & Finance Committee met Dec. 31, 2024, to review the matter, and endorsed compensating the Schildberg on-call phone the same as it would a Public Works Union member carrying their department’s on-call phone, at $40 per day. Councilperson Elaine Otte provided a bit of background on the compensation.

The phone is only required to be used by staff for six-months out of the year, as the other six-months the phone is held by the campground host, as part of their responsibilities. In other business:

• The Atlantic City Council passed a Resolution “Establishing Signatories to City Checks and Payables,” which is a routine matter when there is a change in individuals occupying the Office of the City Clerk.
• They held the First Reading of an Ordinance “Vacating the street located between 3009 Palm Street and 3101 Palm Street. City Administrator John Lund noted improvements to the Right-Of-Way have been completed following a process that began in Nov., 2022, and it is now time to divide and vacate the ROW, which can only be done by Ordinance.

The Council’s final order of business, Wednesday, was to enter into a Closed (Exempt) Session (per Iowa Code) providing for the Strategy Meetings of Public Employers for Collective Bargaining.