The reasons behind power outages in the past month in the City of West Liberty were discussed during the city council meeting Tuesday, June 6.
The city generates its own electricity and has three full-time staff in the electrical department overseeing this, according to the city’s website.
The question about the power outages came while reviewing the reports from each city department. Councilmember Ashely Smith asked if there was anything the city council needed to know regarding this issue.
City Manager Lee Geertz said she followed up with the electric department about this. She was told the power outages were due to squirrels causing it and outdated equipment that also caused some issues.
“There’s been quite a few,” Mayor Ethan Anderson said.
He asked for Ed Tvrs, the electric department superintendent, for further explanation.
“We’ve had six outages last month,” Tvrs said. “Three of them were from squirrels, two of them were from broken switches and one was from lightning.”
Nothing can be done about the squirrels causing the power outages but the switches were outdated that needed to be replaced, he added.
“That’s the only way, we wait for it (the switch) to fail then replace them?” Anderson asked Tvrs.
“Not typically,” Tvrs replied. “It’s on next year’s plan to start updating switches. Like I said, we only have so many people and so much time.”
There was no further discussion about this issue.
Other items covered during the city council meeting included:
• swearing in Shari Hoffert as the new city clerk. She has worked for the city for six years. She was deputy clerk before accepting the position of city clerk;
• approving to not meet on July 4;
• approving organization resolution with West Liberty State Bank Office of South Ottumwa Savings Bank;
• approving the contract with Language Link for translation services with the West Liberty Police Department;
• and approved a resolution accepting the preliminary and final plat of Parizek’s Next Gen Subdivision near West Liberty.