AMBOY – The City of Amboy was in a promoting mood during its Monday, Feb. 19 meeting.

Police Chief Paul Smith is now full-time earning $37 an hour, Tom Lehman also went from part-time to full-time, $30 an hour, and Officer Lisa Hart, who was already full-time, was given a raise to $30 an hour.

“We’ve promoted Paul Smith to full-time from part-time. He’s a retired police officer and his pension only allowed him so many hours a year,” said Amboy Mayor Frank Stenzel, who was at the helm for his second meeting as mayor. “He’s put that on hold, and he agreed to work full-time for the city. Tom Lehman said if Smith was going to be full-time, he would cut back on his business and be a full-time officer.

“The people of Amboy have been hollering for this. There are not many towns around with a full-time police force. It’s expensive, but people want it and with our three full-time officers, Smith, Lehman, and Lisa Hart, and a few part-time police officers, we’re going to have pretty good coverage.

“I’m pretty proud that we got that done.”

Stenzel added the law services will not be 24 hours, seven days a week, but will cover Amboy as much as possible.

City ordinance letters were mailed to homeowners with unkept homes or yards. For those who are ignoring the ordinances and their property, Stenzel said the City of Amboy is looking into different avenues to enforce the ordinances.

Committee Reports

Community Building – The city crew finished constructing a small edition on the Amboy Community Building, which is a 12x14 space to be used as a storage unit for chairs and tables.  Also, the building has more renters for events than in previous years.

Park – The Amboy Lion’s Club is interested in implanting a nine-hole frisbee golf course on the east end of the Amboy City Park. The frisbee golf course hasn’t been finalized as the park board plans for more meetings with more details.

Library – Greg Noble and Stenzel attended the last Pankhurst Memorial Public Library Board meeting and noted the library looked nice and the staff is working hard to improve the library.

Water/Sewer – Former mayor Jeremy Wittenauer reported $300,000 of sewer lining is going to be installed within the next month. The project was on the top of his to-do list before he resigned in December.

Concerns from the council

While at the library board meeting, Noble and Stenzel were made aware the library staff hadn’t received raises in quite some time. Similar to the police officers, raising the part-time employee’s hourly wages was added to the agenda.

Stenzel added he was shocked raises hadn’t been put into place because of their hard work to revitalize the library.

A city-wide clean-up is taking place in April, while a tire pick-up has been schedule.

The tire pick-up will be from 7 a.m.-noon Saturday, April 13. The City of Amboy is taking passenger tires only, attendees must show ID for proof of Amboy residency, and there will be a $2 fee as Amboy will pay the other half.

Stenzel ended the meeting by stating he was interested in finding grants for electrical vehicle charging. He thinks it would be a good thing for Amboy as other communities are installing them and more people are purchasing electrical vehicles.