Ondrea Elmquist, Boone City Administrator, July 29, 2026

Today, taking time to visit with Andrea Elmquist, Moon City Administrator, and good to have you in again. Well, thanks for having me. Here we are, the beginning of the new fiscal year. Yes. Busy time. It is. It is. And we have lots going on. There is a lot going on. A lot of infrastructure, a lot of different things like that. But I did kind of want to go back and ask you a couple of different things, things that had been taking place. And I know that, again, the cost of it, codification, one in particular, working with Simran Corey on that. So at one point, a couple of months ago, they did send in information to city staff and the council and looking for direction on different things in city code. But updating city code, that's a big challenge. You just don't do that overnight. Nope. It is about an 18-month process. We have done the first section of it. What kind of happens is Simran Corey goes through it. They make recommendations. The staff then goes through it. We take those recommendations from Simran Corey and staff to the city council. And then they either approve it or make changes from there. Then it has to go back to Simran Corey to get codified to make all the official changes into the code. So that's where we're at in that process. Simran Corey is also who does all of our CDBG grants. So we have them extremely busy right now with at least five CDBG grants. So that's just us. And that's just us, correct, yes. So they're, yes, folks, they do handle a lot of other communities too. Yes, yes, absolutely. And right now, their focus is, you know, I'm sure it's on their mind is that recodification, we have two deadlines on CDBG grants that we're trying to get, get applications done on, and that is for the upper story and for the daycare. In addition to that, we have the Ground Storage Reservoir CDBG grant that we're trying to finish up and do drawdowns on and get all the paperwork done on that. And then you've got the ones that we've, we've received it when we haven't started. So we got a CDBG grant for the well number 30. You'll see that agreement on the August 3rd council agenda. So that's more paperwork that they're working on. And yeah, so like you said, we're not their only clients, but I'm sure we are taking up a lot of their staff. We have a lot of big and a lot of these are like the block grants that we're doing. Five, $600,000 for a lot. Yeah, yeah. So we've got mostly 500,000. We are applying for a 600,000 for the daycare. And then we just got 180,000 for a roof repair that would be for residential homes. And we're, I know that they're working on that and getting us guidelines of what we need to do to get that released out to the public. So a variety of things. Yes. I mean, you know, that's why it ranging everything from roof repairs to some of the housing and the, the well, obviously that's a big one. Yeah. We are. We are. And then we also have a EDA grant application that we are working with another organization on to, and that we're hoping to get at least a million dollars for, for the water tower. Okay. That's a whole different, whole different category there. But again, they, all these grants, it takes time and a lot of expertise. So again, going out for them, people would say, well, can't you just do that in-house? Not really. Again, for the kind of time and effort it takes, I would imagine. Yeah. A lot of the information has to come from in-house. But it's an expertise on a federal level. So these are all federal grants. And they take a lot of time just reading through the guidelines of what needs to be done. And some of the things I do have to do, like all the procurement stuff that is at the beginning of doing a CDBG grant. That is all on my own. Nobody can help me on that, because that is getting the grant writer on board. Got to do that. Anyway, we'll get it there. Anyway, we've been successful though. We have secured a lot of grants and been able to use that and help to fray some of the cost on some things. Obviously, the well would be a big one. That's a half million dollars for that or a million for the water tower. If you're able to secure those. That takes a lot off of what would have to be paid for through financing. Right. Yep. We got, I believe my last count, we've got about 1.5 secured plus the 3 million on the Hancock Drive extension. And we've got about another million dollars in grant or 2 million dollars in grant applications that we're submitting. Now the other thing I think a lot of people don't know, especially when you get into the housing grants and some of those others, Ames Regional Economic Alliance, definitely Brenda is really great, but knowing where these grants are and how to pursue them. Brenda Dreyer. Yeah. Brenda does a great job. She's- Especially on housing ones. Yeah. So she's the one that is leading kind of the daycare one along with CDBG and myself and Brittany out at childcare junction. And then the upper story is where she's really good about getting those pushed through. So it helps having all kinds of people. It takes a whole bunch, doesn't it? Yes. It takes a village, right? Okay. So, and that's just, well, I started out just on the codification just to see how we were progressing, but I know that's a pretty substantial, it takes time to go through all of that. Yeah. Yes. We knew it was about an 18 month process. Well, we do have a lot of other projects that are going on, a lot of other infrastructure. Getting close, I'm thinking on Hancock Drive, very close to having that, at least our portion of that taken care of, but we still have traffic signals that'll be going in out there and things like that. So, yeah, the concrete has not been poured yet. There was a little bit of delay there, so we're hoping to have the road completely done by November. Okay. And because I know initially they were saying, if we get the traffic signals, we could probably, by the end of summer, have those in place. Yeah. Yeah. There was some compaction issues, so. So, we had to go back, do a little more work. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we keep working on it too. Another project that is coming up, and I know that's going to be the eighth phase of INI, Inflow Infiltration, WHKS, another engineering firm that we've worked with in the past, well, be doing that, and again, I think they've already talked about doing smoke testing and things like that, but they're going to have a meeting with the residents, and it's a little smaller, well, I'm going to say smaller area, it's another area on the south side of town, but they're going to be making contact with residents and saying, we're going to have a meeting in August. Yeah. Actually, the meeting is tonight. Oh, it is. The public, I believe it. I think it's tonight. Maybe it's next week. Until five o'clock, you'll get a letter if you are one of the homes that we are going through, but yeah, that basically, they do a smoke test to see if there's any infiltration. And the big, and I call it some pump inspection, folks, but that's the easy way to do it. And we have seen success. Yeah. I mean, we've had some pretty heavy rains, and once again, occasionally, yes, we get some of the sewer related things with it, but the, it is, it's a, I mean, some of them are pretty silent amounts of rain, but areas where we had previously been having problems, it seems to have remedied some of those issues. It has. We're still looking for another big area that could be causing some of the issues, because we do still have. A lot of stormwater making it invalid. We do, yes, absolutely. And the big thing is, is you don't want to have to treat stormwater. If you don't have to. Correct. Yep. That it just increases our cost of production for water, for the sewer and the plant keeps pretty busy the way it is. Yes. Absolutely. Both plants are very busy keeping in with the regulations. Okay. Well, I know, obviously one of the things that keeps coming up questions about nitrates and Boone as for decades, and I mean, we're talking a long time ago, they'd always started with the process of blending while this is long before you got here, they had always blended water from the different wells to meet the standards or the levels that they had out there. Obviously more testing and more things have come up over the recent years, but they still, that's the process that they've been using. It's not that the city hasn't looked at you doing a nitrate removal process, I think in the plant back in the 90s when it was being updated. That was before my time. That was before your time. But I know they looked at reverse osmosis then and just did not think that residents would want to handle that bill. Okay. I think that was one of the big factors there. So they continued on with the blending process. We're still doing that, but at some point, I know you guys are looking at and you've looked at with other engineers, as the ancient particular, about other alternatives. And there are, I mean, there are some restrictions and some things that the DNR has already handed out to you about what you would have to do. Yeah. It's not that it's not on our radar, it is part of our capital improvement plans. But until we get these projects that we already have in the works completed, doing something like that, it does not, it, it wouldn't be accurate because we don't know necessarily how these changes will affect the nitrates, you know, until that well is drilled. And we know exactly what those nitrates levels are from that well. We just don't know what to expect other than from our testing, which is just, you know, preliminary numbers. So it's not that it's not on our radar and it's in our CIP. It's just, we have to do it in steps. Yeah. And a lot of people that, well, what do you just need to assume that it's going to happen? I guess. I don't know. Well, a part of it is too, once you get up and start operations, yeah, then you're going to be able to find out exactly what you're going to be dealing with. Correct. Right. So if you build something and those are not the numbers that end up being what comes through, then we may be spending more money than what we needed to. So we'll have to wait and see just once it's to that point, there are steps to take to follow along with. Absolutely. And we have a lot of projects going on in both water and sewer. So, so we really just need to get through the ones that we are doing right now. And then we'll take and start digging into the night. Some of the big ones that'll be coming up, obviously the water main, North Water Main, which is a pretty substantial project from Water Works on the north side of town. The part I know you like about it, it does give you redundancy because your current infrastructure is pretty old. It is old and we don't have any redundancy on the east side. So if there was something to happen, there would be no way to get water on that east side. And then you've got the issue of the fire safety issue of that whole situation. So yes, this protects the east side of Boone a lot more. If you look at a map, there's just nothing over on that for in regards to looping of the service. So I think it's a great project. I think that this benefits all of the east side of Boone for sure. It also resolves an issue with Daisy and getting them the pressure that they need. And it wasn't a situation where we wouldn't have had put some money into infrastructure anyways to get Daisy the pressure that they needed. This just solves two issues. And the one thing I know as engineers for those, because a lot of people didn't sit through here are some of those presentations, but trying to run the volume of water that they would need through your existing system, same with running sewer, which is why you're looking at a forest main because you didn't want to put that waste through the city system and again put residents at risk. Yes, and the forest main and the lift stations bid is today. Oh, that is. Yes. That's a big one. Yes. That's at two o'clock today. Well, we'll find out when it comes up for the council. What's going to be happening? There'll be, I know they'll take a look at the numbers and then they'll have to, by the way, for those that don't know, the lift station was going to be done anyway because the council had pretty much decided, well, this was like four or five years ago that needed to be done. It was just one of those things that had to be, it was being used to its capacity and needed to be increased. And then when Daisy selected, then it got upsized. Yeah, the lift station has been on our radar and our part of our capital improvement plan for as long as I can remember. And we've always just put it off as a development driven type of repair or type of improvement. The issue was, is that it was causing issues anyways. So we were just kind of buying time and hoping that we'd have a development to help pay for it. And so Daisy is our. Daisy will. Yeah. It's going to be. Our funding source. It will be the funding source. Anyway, pretty substantial because you are going to be sending a whole separate discharge down along Highway 30 all the way down to McCose Park and then approach from the south side. The plan will be approached from the south side. Correct, yes. That's the idea again, keeping it out of the current city system, which that's on the upside folks don't want to have any more. I mean, some of it already goes through the city system and I was thinking some of it actually from more on the north side of town comes in through that people need to see the maps of where all these two lines are. I tell you, it gets pretty interesting sometimes, but there, there's a lot out there and geeking out over the sanitary sewer and the water infrastructure, isn't that just something? Yeah. Well, what they don't know until they just know that if I turn on the tap, I want it to come out. And if I push it, I want it to go away. Yes. Yes. There are challenges there too, keeping all of that going on the on the water side, though that one we're starting to move forward with the SCH, I know they came in and they had a minor adjustment in their contract because they have to get again some land permission to go through. Yeah. It's not a, it's not a real bad pipeline, folks. It's a waterline. Yes. It's a waterline. And again, that will be on the north side because the, you did look at going through town and there are pressure zones in town that did create some concerns. Yes. So that's, that's what I was talking about before is that there was ways of doing it in repairing or adding lines throughout the community, but all that would have done is spending a few thousand, or sorry, a few million dollars just to get Daisy the pressure that they needed. This North transmission main, again, it fixes our redundancy issue. It provides us with fire safety and it fixes the Daisy pressure issues and getting there than the capacities that they need. These are just the infrastructure things that are happening. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We got that going on. What other things are going, oh, I was going to ask, how's your, how's the website work going? Yeah. Yeah. I know this is one of those, let's a couple others take, take a load off your plate here so that they could do some things. So yeah. I've got the city clerk leading that. We did get a rough draft of what it will, I believe what it'll look like. There is a, basically a mapping that we're going to be going through, I believe next Tuesday to look through to see if we need to move things around from where they currently are and any, any upgrades that we want to do from our current system. Has she been getting a response? People with photos and opportunities or do we need some more? We need some pictures. So please send those to clerk at BooneIowad.gov if you got pictures for us. Is there, I know that you sent out a notice and a thing like that, but is there an online at the city hall or on the city's website to just make contact and again, we'd like to have you do this or? That's a great idea. I'll, I'll do this and we'll try to get some more put out there so that folks can do that. But get that out on more information. We just want some different pictures. Yeah. We just want some pictures of our community and the beauty of it and things that are happening in it to put out on the website to use in publications, newsletters, things like that. Because we're really trying to promote our community and get people here to live here, to work here, to play here, to visit us. So yes, please send send in your pictures. Okay. Even if, even if they're Raghbray ones, we'll take them. Oh, absolutely. Raghbray's a great, great event that we had here and it shows people out and enjoying our community. So those would be perfect. We didn't have a lot of people, didn't we? We did. We didn't actually, we didn't hear too many issues. No, I think it went off without a hitch and a lot of good compliments from the Raghbrayers on what a great performance they had and just the setup of it and people coming in just said that they really liked our town. I like the, I think they'd like the fact that it was a lot cooler too. Yes. It did not hurt one a little bit too. That probably helped the crowds down on the south end. So we do have a lot of other things that are coming up and I know at least for the police department and others, they're going to be awfully busy with those. We get towards the end, well, got a few things here in October, like schools going to come back and then we have, oh, there's super nationals, but there's going to be the farm progress show. Yes, something. There's going to be a lot, a lot of activity still going on as we get into the latter part of this. So much. Plus, you get your bids for these projects. Yes. Some of our projects are expected to be let by the end of this year. So pretty much in the fall, starting now, we're starting to let them. We are still going through a couple of environmental reviews with the DNR. You'll see those on our agendas in the next couple of months. We'll have several of them. So one of the challenges, and I asked you this a long time ago, and this was part of this is staging projects so that again, as the costs start to, well, you have to start paying for them. Now, there are certain ones that were already planned and had been done previously. I'm thinking of the ground water, ground storage reservoir. That was another one that had been planned previously. So we knew that budgeting and everything else that was done, again, that was planned. So we know that those are being covered with our cost at this point in time. But some of these you're staging because when Daisy comes online, then that's when they're going to start paying. Yeah. So the benefit of using stay revolving funds, and there's definitely some extra work that goes involved into those things because they are federal dollars also, is that you don't start repaying those until you have spent at least, I believe, 75% of the funding. They are kind of treated more like a grant in that we have to pay for those projects, pay for those pay requests as we go, and then ask for reimbursement. There are things like the environmental reviews. There is Davis Bacon, which is required certain salaries and certain documentation and products have to be purchased within the United States. So there are things like that that also make this using state revolving funds more difficult. However, they also are typically lower in interest also. We have to take all that into consideration when we choose what type of funding we're going to use on these projects. So in the end, what we're hoping happens and we're expected to happen is that these projects are expected to be completed in August of 2028, which is about the same time that Daisy is going to go online. So it should be that with maybe six months worth of bond payments that we may have to cover, but then the days they should be starting to come in. And what to put out too, when you're using state revolving loan funds, they do have other requirements about reserves that you have to have. So there's a lot more that goes into it than just, it's not like going to the bank and get a loan. No, it's way easier to go out and get a loan and just do your project, get the cash in. You write your checks out. There's not a lot of tracking. There's not a lot of documentation other than, you know, keeping copies of those invoices. But yeah, the SRF, you have to have a 110, which means that you have to show that you are bringing in 10% more than your daily operational expenses. And that continues throughout the whole course of that bond. So most of these bonds are 20 year bond that we have to make sure that our revenues are coming in 10% more than the expenditures. It's good to say there's a couple other things that'll be coming up. And I know that we didn't really hit on too much of this, but you have pointed out to the council too that there are certain things that they will need to be looking at once you get past a lot of this infrastructure work going forward. A comprehensive plan. The city has not had an update. It's 20 years. Yes. And we do have those funds set aside in our budget this year. We have that as a goal. I was really hoping to have the RFP out basically in April, May, June. And we are now at the end of July. So we really, I need to get through these projects and lettings before I can really dive into that. Start to focus on that. And that would be securing, I think the last time we had, I think Snyder and associates maybe helped out or something. It's an engineering firm. Yes. It's a company that will walk through that. And again, at that time then you are going to have a lot of things and a lot of the development that's been going on. That will already be in place. So where do you build from there? It's kind of what you're going to be looking at long range down the road. Yeah. A comprehensive plan looks at typically around about two miles outside of the city limits and how you want to develop that. It looks at your infrastructure. It looks at what available land is within your community and how you want to develop that or where you see the future of that land and then how to serve that land and infrastructure costs. So, yeah, it's, there are, there is long range planning folks. It is. It happens all the time. It's just that we have to go into a new one now. So. Right. And already the update that you got on the kind of the most recent plant for the water plant. We've already mentioned that's kind of some of the data that was in there about how many new houses. We've already kind of met that and now we're moving on. Yeah. So when they, when they did that study back in 2023, they take basically a look at the history of how many new houses have come on, on board and then make a projection of, of what they would expect during this next 20 years. And they, they only expected about a hundred new housing units. And so we, we are meeting that and not, I don't think that way is something to be worried about in the fact that there's so many other things that went into that 2044 plan that we have not met, you know, industrial growth, the Daisy, we talk about Daisy and the matter of the fact is, is that Daisy's not going to start out at full production in 2028. So we'll, they'll buy us some time too. To build up. Yeah. And decide what we need, what really is coming through, what are they really using and, and what other developments are out there that are coming to town. They will draw some other businesses as well. Correct. Yes. Yes. Could have another impact. Yeah. So much. There is a lot of planning that does go into it. And again, most people aren't really aware because they don't get a chance to sit in on a lot of the meetings or they don't take the time to follow along until all of a sudden they go, well, why didn't you think of this before? Yeah. And, and the other thing is, is we do think of things and then something happens or when we start digging into it further, then we realize something else has happened. So we have to pivot and make a button of the plan. I was going to say, because I know when work was being done on the, what is our water plant now, waterworks, that at that time, I think the projection was, we were going to see usage probably up around two to two and a half million gallons per day. That's kind of what they were looking at 30 years ago. And we're hitting it. Yeah. And now it's time to, now we go to 2044. We'll go out further. Right. But if we, if we don't grow, then yeah, you know, you see communities all the time that if they're not growing, then people start moving away and, and then that's going to cause property taxes to increase even more. You know what? Okay. I got to ask you one more because we're seeing other cities that are doing it again. Tax abatements they're talking about again, especially with the tax property tax restrictions that are coming in from the legislature. City hasn't really talked about doing away with any of our abatements or our incentives that we have out there. Not at this time. We will have a budget work coming as we will be later this year when you get started on that. I'm pretty sure it's going to be one of those things they'll start asking about. So yeah, we start our budget about the 1st of October. Not that far away. No, it's not Andrea Elmquist, our guest on our program today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.