After the storm yesterday, many residents have trees and brush to get rid of.
The City of Mantorville will be doing a city wide brush pickup next week up until Wednesday. Starting Monday residents can place brush along curb-side and the city crews will be by to pick up that brush and take to our brush dump.
During the November 22 City Council meeting I presented the Kasson Mantorville KoMets with a proclamation declaring November 26 (Day of the State Championship game) as "KoMets Football Day". The coaches brought the entire team over to our chamber after practice. I wanted to share a picture that was taken last night as well as the proclamation which was presented to the team.
GO KOMETS!
Game Highlights from the semi-final game launching the KM FB team to the championship game.
The annual Field of Flags will be presented this year on September 11,2021 at 1:00 pm, To register for this event you can find the form here. Forms
The two Flags at City Hall and Riverside Park have been lowered to half staff in memory of the 13 soldiers lost this week due to Islamic terrorist in Afghanistan. We will keep the brave men and women in our thoughts and prays during the next few days and weeks.
In the first of a series of tour Minnesota articles that the Mantorville EDA is promoting, the first "experience" is being presented online this month. The write-up can be found at the link: Expedition Kristen. Every few months a new "Experience" will be presented by a different influencer, Each influencer has hundreds of followers looking for ideas to explore Minnesota. The EDA hopes this will draw attention to our community and promote tourism.
Come out IN-PERSON tomorrow Tuesday Aug 3rd 2021 for our Annual "National Night Out". There will be food and drink sponsored by the City of Mantorville. The event will be held at Riverside Park between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm. Representatives from the Mantorville Fire Department, Economic Development and City Council will be on site. The Dodge County Sheriff's Office also normally makes an appearance, so this is a great opportunity to catch up with community leaders in a fun environment.
Join u tomarrow niught to catch up with your neigbors and just have some fun.
Hope to see you there
Did I mention this is a LIVE event :-)
Don Hofstad resigned at tonight;s meeting. His resignation will be effective June 30, 2021. Don served as my deputy mayor and was also an active member of the Mantorville Fire Department. His insight dedication and commitment to our community will be greatly missed. I presented a engraved plaque and a certificate of appreciation to Don and I wanted to post the certificate on my blog. Thanks for your time effort and dedication Don, we hope you can help out again in the near future.
While the rain on Saturday placed a hamper on Rochester-fest, Mantorville soldiered on. The miniature horse drawn carriage did call it quits a few hours early but the rest of the events continued on in true Mantorville fashion. Two of the local news stations came out and covered our event. Both stations had very nice articles that aired this weekend and are available on-line for those that didn't get a chance to see them. I have placed link to both articles below. I hope you enjoy them:
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Channel 3 KIMT - Samantha Soto KIMT - SCD, Samantha Soto |
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Channel 6 KAAL - Devin Martin KAAL - SCD, Devin Martin |
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Next weekend June 25th to June 27th Mantorville's "Stage Coach Days" is happening and it is a LIVE event! Please come out and reconnect with your neighbors during this in-person event. Some of the activities already planned are:
The citizens of Mantorville can monitor their own water usage at any time during the month with a system called "Eye on Water". The Eye on water system is a system that works with the City's NEW water meters and can give real time information to help reduce water consumption. To setup your account follow these steps:
Luke Nash who passed away earlier this year was recognized by the City Council. I wanted to post a picture of the plaque that was presented to his family. We will miss Luke a great deal.
Sincerely
The 2020 Census Data results for Mantorville and Minnesota show that state holding the same congressional seats as already have (thanks NY!) A quick summary of the results for our State and City are:
US Population : 331,449,281
MN Population : 5,706,494 (7.6% increase) [1.7% of US Population]
Mantorville : 1,015
Age:
Under 5Yr : 5.4% ( 55)
5 Yr to 18 : 18.5% (188)
Over 18 Yr : 76.1% (772)
Over 65 Years Old : 14.0% (142)
18 < age < 65 : 62.0% (630)
For more information regarding the census results refer to the web page for the census at:
US Census Data for Mantorville : https://data.census.gov/cedsci/profile?g=1600000US2739986
With all the challenges of 2020 and the first part of 2021 many of us have utilized online merchants for medical supplies. Since medical supplies are tax deductible it is very helpful to have a full list of the things you bought. I recently found a hidden Amazon feature that will supply your purchase history report. To get to this report you can follow this link Order Report or follow these steps.
This took me a little R&D to find so I wanted to shre the link to help others out, good luck.
March 8, 2021
The City of Mantorville is in the process of interviewing for an open "City Clerk's" position. Cami Reber is stepping down after 17 years with the City of Mantorville. Cami has been a faithful servant for our community and has served with several mayors now. Cami has a passion for her job that is hard to find these days and she will be greatly missed! I wish Cami the best of luck in her new position and I know she will do a fantastic job for Byron. Cami is willing to work through the transition process and serve as a resource for the city as the need arises.
Good luck Cami and Thanks for a great 17 years!
March 8, 2021
The appointment for the two open seats were filled tonight. The appointment process first was a secret ballot where all three candidates (Bill Kinney, Kent Keller and Jeff Ingalls) received 2 votes. In situations like this any "game of chance" or "form of lottery" is allowed. After an extensive search for straws and coins a quarter was secured. The coin was flipped and each candidate called heads or tails while the coin was in the air. This took three rounds and finally Bill Kinney and Kent Keller won the toss and were appointed to fill the two open seats. I want to thank Jeff, Bill and Kent for their willingness to serve our community. I asked Jeff Ingalls if he would be willing to serve on the EDA because we have an open seat on that body as well. Jeff said he would be willing to serve the community this way.
I wanted to thank Don Hofstad and Henry Blair who set the record straight during our meeting tonight regarding a recent letter to the editor. I also wanted to thank everyone that approached me tonight and shared comments of support and appreciation for the hard work the council and I have performed. I know my community knows the truth and I appreciate your support.
Congratulations Kent and Bill, I know each of you will bring new insight and passion to our council and our community.
During the City Council meeting on Feb 22, 2021 Sharon Davern verbally announced her resignation from the council and left the meeting. Sharon followed up with a written resignation letter to the City on March 4, 2021. The City will move forward with appointments for Sharons seat in accordance with the City's ordinances.
This last week Mantorville has experienced a tragic fire which resulted in the loss of life. The structure needed an additional fire call this weekend. The City is still working with relief organizations to support our residents immediate needs.
The City Council also lost it's Deputy Mayor this last weekend. Luke Nash passed away over the weekend. Luke was a veteran, a former Dodge County Sheriff, former mayor of Mantorville, small business owner, community servant and loving husband and father. The City Council will miss his dedication, perspective and passion for our community. Please keep the Nash family in your prayers as they work through this very difficult time.
Because of the loss of our council member and the tragic fire in town, I have ordered the city and state flags lowered to half mass in honor of those lives which have been lost and those affected by these tragic events.
Thursday morning around 6:30am a fire broke out in the apartment complex in Mantorville located at 507 Chestnut Street, The Sheriff's office was first on scene and were able to get several residents out of the structure. Mantorville Fire Department responded at 6:45am and quickly called in mutual aid. Departments from Byron, Dodge Center, Kasson and Mantorville were on scene working to control the fire and limit loss of life. Unfortunately, the fire has claimed at least one life and sent others to the hospital. The apartment complex which had 12 units sustained substantial damage and the Fire Marshall is due on scene later today.
The City is reaching out to anyone affected by this tragic fire. The city will be working with state organizations to help anyone that needs housing assistance. Anyone needing assistance can contact City Hall at (507) 635 - 5170 or email me at MantorvilleMayor@GMail.Com.
Our community has always been an open and caring community and in times like this we reach out to help our neighbors. If you would like to offer assistance or if you need assistance please reach out to the City or myself. Some additional help resources are:
For the more information on this situation refer to the news links below:
I wanted to acknowledge the efforts of the Dodge County Sheriff's office, Kasson Police Department, Dodge Center Ambulance, Kasson Fire Department, Byron Fire Department, Dodge Center Fire Department and our own Mantorville First Responders and Fire Departments. The combined efforts of these brave men and women helped limit the loss of life. I also wanted to thank everyone that offered our responders coffee, pizza or a warm place to recover. I would like to also recognize the Kasson Mantorville School district for making a school bus available as a warming shelter for those residents which were displaced by the fire.
The families which have been affected by this tragic fire will be in our hearts and prays in the following days and weeks. Please join me in saying a prayer and offering to help those in our community which are suffering.
2021 State of the City, Mantorville Minnesota
Last year I started my State of the City with “Twenty-Nineteen is finally over and most of you are probably saying hooray”, little did we know what 2020 had in store for us. I attended the Chambers 2019 annual dinner (we canceled the 2020 meeting) and since that year was so challenging, I was asked to share something good about 2019. Mantorville saw historic flooding, wind damage and large hail damage, personally I had some challenges as well. When it came to my turn I said that my initial reaction to what was good about 2019 was that it was over! I then went on to say that if I had left my answer like that it would have been short sighted. With the Flooding the high winds and record-setting hail damage what I saw each time was our community coming together and neighbors helping neighbors. In my personal challenges too I have seen the true strength of a community like Mantorville with so many offers of help, support and prayers. Thank you one and all for everything you helped out with and the great offers of support, those have meant a great deal to my family.
The new year of 2020 brought hope and then almost immediately we were hit by both a pandemic and a heavy handed response to that virus that closed small businesses (some permanently) while the big box stores were exempted. We saw our neighbors struggling to save their small businesses while others lost their jobs outright because of the Governor's mandates. Just like in 2019, our community rallied together, offered help and support where they could and the City and EDA followed suit. The City offered deferments on water bills, the EDA obtained grant dollars to help our local community, the Fire Department had several programs to offer help and I had several correspondences with the Governors office regarding the impact of his emergency declarations. In one of those correspondences, I asked the Governor to consider pushing school decisions down to the local school board. Many other Mayors wrote similar letters and when the school impact was announced, the local advisory board approach was the one brought forward. I was asked to serve on the KM Advisory board and I agreed. The Advisory board has had several meetings and have been able to make decisions based on real data for our school environment. The ability for us to make these decisions at the local level has been instrumental in retaining our schools focus on quality education.
Continued effort of Investment
The city was able to continue working the street improvement plan, we had a record number of new building permits and were able to support those building efforts with infrastructure investments. The city is moving forward with a planning committee on the execution of the hiway 57 upgrade as it runs through Mantorville. The City started upgrades to our phone system and office space which will be completed in 2021. The city retired some older equipment as it reached it's end of life and has secured replacements to ensure uninterrupted service for our citizens.
The EDA secured a CEDA person to help write grants. We received the latest award letter of $5K from the SMIF grant in September and look forward to additional awards this year as well.
Commitment to Lower Taxes
The City is allowed to charge up to 1% of the taxable market value of a home. If the City were to charge the entire 1%, our “advertised levy rate” would be “100%” of that 1%. In other words a house with a taxable market value of $100,000 would be tax by the City in the amount of $1,000. Over the last few years the City has either raised the levy by a small amount like 3% or held even with a 0% levy. Thanks to the City council and our committee chairs we were able to do something very few governing bodies ever do, lower the rate at which we tax our citizens. In fact, our rate for 2014 is lower than our rate for any of the last three years. The City has passed a “1%” levy DECREASE that sets our rate at almost halfs of the max the City is allowed or a dollar value of $530,034. In order to put this figure in perspective, I have included a table below that illustrates the tax levy amounts and levy rates. The table below breaks the tax levy down to cost per citizen.
Commitment to Service
Last year one of our Public Works employee was recognized. Mantorville's Joe Adams has been recognized for his hard work, dedication and attention to details. Joe was awarded the "State of MN Wastewater Operator Association Class D Award winner of the year". Great Job Joe, keep up the awesome work!
The office staff utilized masks and kept a presence in the office serving our citizens as the need came up in stead of closing shop.
Our public works staff worked on our meter replacement project and continued to work their daily plan ensuring the Mantorville's needs were meet through out the summer and now into the winter.
Plans for 2021-2022
Continued commitment to maintaining a low tax burden for Mantorville citizens.
Work on infrastructure projects to improve the look and appearance of the City and parks.
Increase efforts on infrastructure repair and upgrades now that the waste water project is complete
Work with MNDOT on HWY 57 project to bury electrical lines, upgrade lighting and improve sidewalks
Continue to serve on the KM School's COVID advisory committee
Help our businesses transition from “survival mode” to “prosper mode” during the COVID challenge
Continue work to offer more “Mantorville Care” grant funds to local businesses
Continue work with joint venture group to achieve cost sharing with Kasson and the School District
Our community rose to the challenge of 2020. Now, with last year behind us I am looking forward to 2021 and the many new promises it brings. The State of our City is strong and we will only continue to improve.
Yours in service,
Chuck Bradford
Mayor, City of MantorvilleMantorville businesses and non-profits may qualify for a grant offering from the county.
See the attached for details
Laura Qualey works for CEDA and has been assigned to Mantorville to work with our EDA. Laura sent out the following email to Mantorville Business owners. Any business owner interested in having a discussion with Laura should reach out to her and setup a time. This is a great resource we are offering our business community free of charge.
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Good morning, Mantorville!
| Laura Qualey Community & Business Development Specialist Community and Economic Development Associates o: 507-263-9312 |
Two television stations have recently covered our local Hubble House and recognized them as one of the best restaurants. The links to the two news articles are located below. Congratulations to our local business the Hubble House.
Thank you Terry for sharing the links to the Articles:
Minnesota is know as the "State of Hockey". What is a "State of Hockey" without a rink?
The 2021 "All City Skating Rink" is now open in Mantorville. Enjoy our beautiful blue skating rink.
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| Mantorville Aerial Rink Photo |
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| Blue Ice Rink |
