Joint Primghar and Paullina City Council Meeting
The City Councils of Paullina and Primghar met in a special session on Wednesday January 25 in ethe Primgar Council chambers. The meeting had no agenda. The two governing bodies are similar in size and services. Currently, both city governments are experiencing staffing shortages that have led them to reach out to each other for some specific needs.
Paullina had been relying on Primghar for assistance with drinking water and wastewater requirements. While Paullina is staffed in the water area, some licensing still needs to be completed to be less dependent on Primghar. Primghar has been working hard for over a year to get a journeyman electrician or head lineman. Paullina has been providing assistance to Primghar on work with their electric utility. A discussion between the councils about equipment and machinery for streets, sewer, water, electric and snow removal occurred. There was consensus between councils on sharing certain equipment. It was agreed that it seemed better to share certain expensive equipment that has limited use than for both communities to use taxpayer funds for equipment that is necessary but used just a few times a year.
Primghar continues to provide intensive assistance to the Paullina administrative office. There was little discussion about that set up on Wednesday, but the assistance is continuing and on-going for the time being.
The councils left the discussion with giving the two utility superintendents the directive to explore ways to work more cooperatively with each other. There seemed to be a high value placed on finding an on-call rotation that could reduce the demand for weekend and holiday availability by both staffs.