Antigo City Council Eyes Big Donation For Dog Park

Creation of a dog park on the city’s northwest side, funded in part through an anonymous donation of $30,000, highlights the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting of the Antigo Common Council.

The governing body will convene at 6 p.m. in the chambers at City Hall.

With the 2013 budget completed and approved, the council will work through a straightforward and light agenda, focusing largely on improvements to the community’s recreational facilities.

Action on the dog park, which will be located at the city’s former Deleglise Street landfill site on the city’s northwest site, leads the agenda.

Aldermen are expected to approve a $30,000 anonymous donation toward the recreation of a park, and award the bid for fencing to Straightline Fence Company.

The project calls for a six foot tall woven wire fence with all wood posts and a small dog area in 11 gauge chain link.

The additional dollars are expected to be transferred from the capital improvement project funds originally earmarked for skate park improvements.

In other recreational items, aldermen will transfer $2,507 from the City Park bandstand renovation fund to the park and recreation expendable trust. The dollars were left over after the completion of pathways in the park and will now be earmarked for any improvements needed for the bandstand or the walkways. The transfer will allow the special fund to be discontinued.

Aldermen will accept a $5,000 donation, also made anonymously, for the purchase of playground equipment for the area known as “Duffek Island” off the Spring Brook Trail. The area already has a gazebo, also built with donated funds.

Aldermen are expected to change the fee for non-resident facility rental to make it consistent with the wording appearing in grant paperwork, a common source of funding for park and facility upgrades. The new schedule calls for non-resident use fees to be 1.5 times the rate of resident use fees. Currently they are double the resident fee.

Once the new fee schedule is inked, aldermen will move on and approve a rate schedule for the use of the Peaceful Valley Festival grounds. The charges are proposed at $50 for residents, $75 for non-residents and $25 additional for use of electric facilities.

In other business, aldermen will:

—retroactively waive the $25 fees for the Antigo Optimist Club Halloween parade and the Healthy Ways Coalition fall walk. The requests were filed too late for the October agenda.

—earmark $7,000 from the fire department capital improvements account for the purchase of escape respirators and adapter kits.

—and approve using $1,049 from the sale of three old IV pumps and tubing and $4,000 previously approved by committee to purchase a new IV pump for the ambulance service.