Members of Sutton’s City Council had a number of hot ticket items to discuss during its March 9 meeting this past Monday night, leading off the meeting with the approval of a variance for the Sutton Community Home, as the facility begins the construction of a new 1,100 square foot therapy building on the east side of the nursing home.
The approval of the variance allows the home to encroach four feet, two inches into the 15-foot setback to make room for the construction on the new addition.
The long-discussed, and oftentimes, stressful discussion of a new private airstrip overlay (PAO) zoning district is officially over for the City of Sutton.
During Monday night’s meeting, council members heard that the city’s planning and zoning committee voted to repeal the adoption of the zoning district, and confirmed the repeal with a vote to strike down the zoning district, ending discussion for the need of a PAO with a unanimous vote to repeal ordinance 438 that would have placed several restrictions regarding the height of any new construction throughout the Sutton city limits.
VPR DISCUSSION
City leaders had discussions with two property owners in Sutton, including Juan and Carol Garcia, and Janie Bautista.
Both parties whose properties, located at 105 N. Way Ave., and 203 S. Maltby have been on the vacant property registry for a few years pleaded with the council to work with them to let them not only pay off the liens set against the properties in the amount of $6,250, but to also give them time to continue to make improvements at each location, or start work to improve them.
In the end, council members gave each property owner three months to not only pay off the lien fees, but to also make improvements to each property, giving the city the discretion to either move forward with foreclosure options, or to remove the properties from the VPR if positive progress is made on each.
SUPERVISOR CONTRACTS Council members approved two supervisor contracts related the DLD Park ballfields Monday.
Monte Lemkau was approved to continue as the DLD Supervisor from March through Oct. 31 this year in the amount of $22,500, while Robin Griess was retained as the concession stand supervisor at a rate of $9,500.
Lemkau received a $3,500 raise from a year ago, while Griess received a $1,000 pay raise from last season.
MOWING BIDS
Gibson Lawn Services was awarded the 2026 mowing bid contract with the City of Sutton to mow eight city owned properties to aid the city’s summer mowing schedule.
Blake Gibson, owner of the operation, was the lone entity of five total bidding operations in attendance, and was unanimously awarded the bid for each of the eight locations.
IN OTHER BUSINESS City leaders briefly discussed the need to update the city’s building, and building regulation codes, and chose to look over the proposal from city administrator Warren Myers for a month and potentially take action during the April 13 council meeting.
Council members approved a lease agreement with the Macqueen Equipment Group to lease a 2019 street sweeper from the business to replace the current used sweeper that has brought many repair bills to the city.
The lease agreement for the street sweeper comes with a five-year annual lease payment of $40,500, or a total cost of $175,000, with payment dates for each of the next five years set to be made each Oct. 1 for the next five years.
With the summer baseball and softball season looming in the coming weeks and months, Sutton council members approved two contracts for supervisors at DLD Park this year, including Monte Lemkau as the DLD Park supervisor, and Robin Griess to serve as the concession stand supervisor for the 2026 summer season. TORY DUNCAN | CLAY COUNTY NEWS
