Building official appointment among items on Monday's Worthington City Council meeting

The appointment of a designated building official is among the items on the agenda for Monday evening’s Worthington City Council meeting.

State statute requires that municipalities have a designated building official to administer the code and perform inspection on what generally are identified as commercial buildings. While the city's building inspector, Brent Jacobsen, recently attained certification as Building Official-Limited, the city must continue to employ or contract with a certified building official.

In November of last year, council members approved the appointment of Gene Abbott as the designated building official for what was intended to be a short-term arrangement. Now, the City of Windom has agreed to allow its certified building official, Andrew Spielman, to be designated as Worthington's certified building official until Jacobsen attains his certification, which is expected in the next six to 12 months.

Under the terms of the agreement, Worthington will pay Windom $60 per hour plus expenses for Spielman's services for an estimated six hours per week of oversight and inspections. If approved by both communities, the designation will be effective on Feb. 16. Abbott will continue as the city's plans examiner and code consultant.

In another matter, the city council will consider ordering the preparation of a report on proposed street reconstruction improvements that include necessary curb and gutter reconstruction in the following locations: Apel Avenue from Clary Street to Bristol Street; Bristol Street from Apel Avenue to the west end; Cynthia Avenue from Diagonal Road to Tower Street; Eleanor Street, the entire length within the plat of Dano Addition; and West Oxford Street from Elmwood Avenue to Park Avenue. The city has an agreement in place with Bolton and Menk to provide engineering services on the work.

Also on the agenda is the consideration of new software for all parcel management, permit management, building/rental inspections and more. The city has been utilizing the IBM software Lotus for this work since about 1996; support for this software was withdrawn by IBM in 2014. A proposal for new software from Municity carries a first-year cost of $71,460; costs drop to less than $13,000 for the next couple of years. City staff is proposing to utilize American Rescue Act Plan funds to cover these costs.