Soccer

site

request delayed

Booster club

suggests use of cemetery land

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The New Ulm City Council started this year's business with a spirited debate over possible use of as-yet unused City Cemetery land as an interim site for a youth soccer field.

With the soccer field at Martin Luther College being lost for games for the next two years because of construction, the New Ulm Area Youth Soccer Association is casting about for a temporary location for its soccer games.

Its request was given a thumbs down from the Cemetery and Monuments Commission because "the Commission does not feel that it fits the intended use of the cemetery."

Then, a motion made by Councilor Joel Albrecht supporting the commission's recommendation to deny failed for lack of a second. Albrecht said the cemetery was a place for worship, contemplation and paying respect to dead relatives, and holding sports events there just wouldn't be compatible with that.

"What are we going to do, postpone funerals if there's a game going on? Are we going to have someone getting hit with a soccer ball? And when you have sporting events, you need porta-potties, and I, for one, don't want to see porta-potties on my parents' graves," Albrecht said.

Council President Dan Beranek called Albrecht's comment about outdoor biffies on people's graves "inflammatory. That's not going to happen, and you know it. The field they're talking about is a good 100 to 200 feet from the nearest graves."

Councilor Ruth Ann Webster offered a motion to have staff study the situation to see if it would be viable to use that area for soccer or if there is anywhere else that might qualify.

Wallace Bloedel, American Legion Post commander, told the council that area wouldn't work because that field has been "laid out" for future use so there are cement-block corner stones every 20 feet that would make the field unuseable for soccer.

After more debate, the council, with Albrecht voting no, approved Webster's motion.

Albrecht was reappointed vice president of the council; City Attorney Hugh Nierengarten, Assistant City Attorney Susan J. Nierengarten and Assistant City Attorney Roger H. Hippert were reappointed, and The Journal is again the city's official newspaper.

The council also approved Mayor Arnold Koelpin's appointments to the various city boards and commissions.

Acting on the recommendation of the New Ulm Safety Council, the council denied a request by the Minnesota Department of Transportation Office of Freight, Railroads and Waterways to close the 3rd South Street roadway at the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad tracks.

It authorized the lease/purchase of a Camel 200 Combination Jetter-Vacuum Truck with GCI Capital, Inc. The truck is used by the Street Department to clean the sanitary sewer system. It replaces a truck known in city circles as "the guzzler," City Manager Brian Gramentz said.

The council set 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, as the date for a public hearing to replace sidewalk at 1100 Center Street, 116 N. Franklin Street, 309 N. Jefferson Street and 1122 N. Payne Street.

It laid over until the Feb. 5 meeting the City Engineer's proposed 2002 Capital Improvement Program. The projects are expected to cost $2,369,148, with $1,794,408 to be covered by selling bonds. An informational meeting on the proposal will be held at 4:30 p.m., prior to the regular meeting.

Heymann Construction Company's request for allowing around-the-clock operation of earthmoving equipment at the Fairgrounds Tuesday through Thursday was withdrawn. Because of the mild turn in the weather, sub-contractor M.R. Paving and Excavating doesn't see the need to work through the night.