Dysart Mayor Tim Glenn stands alongside his golf cart ahead of the first annual Saint Patrick's Day parade in downtown Dysart on Thursday, March 17. Photo by Soren M. Peterson

1. Budget adopted

A public hearing was held during the regular meeting of the Dysart City Council on March 9 for the proposed city budget for fiscal year 2023. No public comments were made during the hearing. A resolution to adopt the annual budget for the next fiscal year passed unanimously.

2. Holiday lights help

Ken Tanner with the Dysart Lions Club and Rhonda Lassen with the Dysart Development Corporation (DDC) were in attendance to discuss with the council proposed changes their respective organizations would like to make to the annual holiday lights display in Dysart City Park – a display their groups organize and erect annually as a team. “[W]hen the parks are lit up and it’s really looking sharp … it’s a message that says to our community we enjoy the Christmas holiday and it’s just a special time,” Tanner said. “But I would like to see it double or triple or get to be a lot more than what it is right now.” Tanner went on to explain the Lions and DDC would like to shift the responsibility for the lights from solely their organizations to a joint event with the community. Currently, the holiday light displays in the park are constructed over many days by Lions and DDC volunteers. Tanner suggested going forward, one date is chosen for the work. Tanner tentatively suggested Saturday, October 29, 2022. Several dozen adult volunteers and their families would be recruited to help on that date beginning in the morning, breaking at noon for lunch provided by DDC, and continuing until about 4:00 p.m. “We need help. We just need help,” Lassen said. “It does take a village.” Both Mayor Tim Glenn and the council expressed support for the idea. Tanner also suggested businesses be recruited to sponsor a display. Council member Steven Stoner said he liked the idea of including businesses. “Some probably don’t want to go all the way out to Hickory [Hills Holiday Light Show] and pay the money to do it out there,” Stoner said. “They can do it right here.” Stoner was referring to the holiday light show sponsored by Black Hawk County Conservation which features thousands of lights illuminating the campground at Hickory Hills Park – many of the displays designed by local businesses and organizations. Attendees must pay a fee to drive through the county park and experience the light show. There is no fee to drive through Dysart City Park to see the holiday lights. Glenn expressed support for the changes proposed by Tanner and Lassen.

3. Sesquicentennial committee

During the Mayor’s Report, Glenn told the council a planning committee was being formed for Dysart’s Sesquicentennial celebration. Dysart’s 150th anniversary takes place in 2023. Glenn said Catherine Wieck with the Dysart Historical Society gave the mayor the binder from the city’s 100th-anniversary celebration that took place in 1973. “We just need to be thinking about people who could be on that committee … We want to start planning this year so at Fourth of July we can tell people we’re going to be having a really big celebration next year … We just don’t want all the organizations going different directions.” A date has not been chosen yet for the official sesquicentennial celebration.

4. Summer hiring, Dysart Ambulance volunteers

There have been no applicants for the city’s aquatic center manager position nor for the director of summer recreation, while the city’s ambulance service also continues to struggle to find help. All three positions have been posted in multiple places.

Dysart Ambulance Director Julie Scadden shared during her report, she continues to need volunteers to drive the ambulance. “Everybody’s looking to hire – every single ambulance service is looking at how they can hire now because they can’t find volunteers.”

Council member Dabney said they would continue to try to hire an aquatic center manager but that there are plenty of lifeguards and two experienced assistant managers set to work this summer for the city. “We’ll get one,” Dabney assured the mayor of the manager position.

In regards to the vacant summer rec director position which is paid a lump sum of $600 for scheduling work that can mostly be done from home, city clerk Tabby Kaiser suggested registration packets for the summer baseball and softball leagues be distributed to the elementary and middle schools in order to determine the workload for a possible summer rec director. Last season, several teams played in La Porte City due to low Dysart numbers. A motion was made and passed to hire Ty Staveley for the third and fourth-grade boys’ recreational baseball coach.

5. Saint Patrick’s Day parade

At the conclusion of the meeting, Glenn injected a dose of lighthearted levity into City Hall by proposing a possible new parade for Thursday, March 17, in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day.

“Now, moving on to the most exciting part [of the meeting] – the St. Patrick’s Day parade!” Glenn said, eliciting an enthusiastic response from the council members. The mayor told the council the parade will start at Main and Wilson streets at 12:15 p.m. and end one block later at the Main Street Gorge. Drinks for both adults and children will be available, Glenn said. The idea is the result of a brainstorming session between the mayor and local business owner Jenna Scott of Harper’s Public House. Area merchants would be being invited to participate in the public parade which will take place during the Union Community School District’s spring break week. The mayor asked Dysart’s Chief of Police Joe Hols to lead the parade and the fire department to contribute a truck to which Dysart Ambulance Service Director Julie Scadden quipped amid council laughter, “A fire truck? From Wilson [Street] to the gorge? That’s one fire truck!”

“There will be staging,” the mayor responded with a grin.

The mayor was then asked if a bagpiper would be part of the parade.

“I’ve asked for bagpipes for Christmas the last three years and I haven’t gotten them,” Glenn said. “We’ll have [music piped] through the speakers.”

Although the mayor declined to close city offices during the parade nor make it a “national holiday” despite a request from the public in attendance, he did end the meeting on a lighthearted note: “The Protestants can wear orange.”