Cabling contract, zoning issue go before council
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
With much of the structure enclosed, an increasing amount of the work to complete a new conference center at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park is moving indoors. Electricians are in the process of installing wiring and fixtures, and the Maryville City Council this week approved a contract with Northwest Audio-Visual of Maryville to run the 15,815 linear feet of cable needed to support video projection and television facilities, an audio and paging system and an interior/exterior electronic surveillance setup.
The Maryville City Council on Monday approved a contract with Northwest Audio-Visual of Maryville for the purchase and installation of audio-visual cable at the new conference center under construction at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park.
Scheduled for completion in January, the $4.7 million center and golf course clubhouse, which embraces a large modular meeting and banquet space, is to be equipped with video projection and television facilities, an audio and paging system and an interior/exterior electronic surveillance setup.
City Manager Greg McDanel said that while most audio-visual components will be purchased during the 2018 budget year, which begins Oct. 1, construction progress dictates purchasing and installing AV cable this summer.
The center will require an estimated 15,815 linear feet of cable for data streaming, telephones, television screens and audio speakers. Installation of electrical wiring and fixtures is currently underway at the facility, and McDanel said it makes sense to move forward with the AV cable runs at the same time.
Northwest A-V quoted a price of $21,471 for the cabling project, $5,200 less than the $26,757 in budgeted funds available for such work during the current fiscal year.
“The conference center is going to be pretty high-tech as far as audio-visual is concerned,” McDanel said.
On other fronts, the council gave preliminary approval to a staff proposal for city-initiated rezoning of a two-block area in the Campus Town special overlay district, a 40-block section of mostly rental homes, duplexes and apartment buildings generally to the east of Northwest Missouri State University.
The blocks in question extend south to north between Sixth and Seventh streets and west to east from Walnut to Fillmore. Staff is recommending the area be rezoned from R-2, meaning single-family housing that can be either owner-occupied or rented, to R-2M, a designation that allows for the construction of duplexes.
McDanel and Assistant City Manager Ryan Heiland said the parcels in question adjoin higher-density properties, and that the intent of the special overlay district as described in the city’s comprehensive plan is to encourage new construction of rental housing.
Heiland said there are 14 residential properties within the blocks in question, and that only one landowner, the area’s sole owner-occupant, has expressed reservations, though not outright opposition, with regard to the proposed change.
Now that the measure has received initial support from the council, it will be placed before the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission. A final council vote following official landowner notification is required before the zoning change can go on the books.
In other business, the council briefly discussed proposed renewal of a Community Assistance Program agreement with the Missouri Department of Conservation, which allows the state agency to act as the fisheries manager at city-owned Mozingo Lake Recreation Park.
The current CAP pact expired in June after 25 years but will remain in effect until replaced.
MDC and the city are currently hammering out a new deal that would contain several changes, including a requirement that the city add the department’s name to at least some of the park’s advertising and marketing materials.
Other CAP additions could embrace substantial department funding for asphalt overlay of the state boat dock parking lot; installation of fishing jetties on the west side of the lake to provide both angler access and erosion control; and a handicap-accessible kayak access adjoining the existing handicap-accessible fishing dock.
McDanel and Heiland said the projects, which may take several years to complete, would be 75-percent funded by MDC with a 25 percent local match. The proposals are supported by the Mozingo Lake Advisory Board.
In a final note, Maryville Public Safety Director Keith Wood told the city’s governing board that his department and NorthwestCell have partnered to bring anti-bullying and sexting-awareness advocate Allyson Pereira to Nodaway County for a series of school presentations Aug. 21-22.
Pereira will deliver an evening talk open to the public at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 21, at Maryville High School’s Schneider Performing Arts Center.
While in town, Pereira will also give four presentations to Maryville R-II students in seventh through 12th grade and four talks for eighth and ninth graders at selected rural schools across the county.
Wood said Public Safety responds, on average, to a couple of bullying or sexting calls a month, and that the rate sometimes increases to two or three a week during the spring term of the school year.
