MONTEVIDEO -- Montevideo City Council members at their meeting on Monday voiced support for working out a framework to work with Chippewa County for the financing of the proposed hospital project.
The Chippewa County-Montevideo Hospital is looking at an estimated $30 million project to remodel the hospital and build a new clinic. City Manager Steve Jones said council members took no action, but indicated that the city would be willing to participate in financing the project under the current agreement. It calls for a 50-50 split between the city of Montevideo and Chippewa County as joint owners of the public hospital.
Council members agreed they would also be willing to consider other financing options, depending on what would best serve the needs of the community and hospital. Jones said it could be more advantageous to issue bonds for the project through just one entity, either the city or county. In such a case, a separate agreement could be adopted that would continue the 50/-50 partnership for responsibility of operation, maintenance and other needs.
Council members reviewed bids for the first phase of the clinic project, which were termed very favorable.
In other business, council members decided to take no action on the Southtown Plaza Parking Lot. Council members have proposed an estimated $300,000 project. Under the proposal, the city would take ownership of the lot, improve it and sell bonds to finance the work.
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The city believes it could obtain $87,600 in grant funds toward the project. The city would be responsible to retire 26.5 percent of the financing. Property owners would be assessed for the remainder based on their portion of the lot.
Property owners did not respond to a city survey asking their view on the proposal.
In another matter Monday, council members awarded a $29,904 quote to ACS Networking Services, Waite Park, to upgrade the city's computer hardware and software. The city purchased its system in 1996 and completed an upgrade in 2001.
Jones said the system has served the city well, but the need to upgrade has become apparent. The existing system is more than two software generations old. The city has not been able to upgrade its current software and its data storage capacity is a fraction of what the new system offers.
