Clear Lake council approves intergovernmental agreement, general obligation note for new wellness center

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council last night approved an intergovernmental agreement as well as the issuance of a general obligation note for the joint wellness center project between the city and the Clear Lake Community School District.

The council approved a 28-E intergovernmental agreement between the two governing bodies on the operation of the wellness center. Under the agreement, the school would own the center and lease it to the city for at least a 25-year period. The city would be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the center with the school having priority usage for practice times, educational courses, or programs for various portions of the facility.

The council also approved and authorized a loan agreement and the issuance of a $700,000 general obligation note for the center. city Administrator Scott Flory says the city requested quotes from local banks for the general obligation note and received outstanding proposals.  “We have three quotes back from local banks. The lowest-cost borrowing proposal that submitted was from MBT Bank at 0.37% interest, so in that, that is an amazing rate to say the least.”

Flory says he’s appreciative of local bank proposals that had the low interest rates.  “I think if you look around the country, you’re not going to see a rate like that ever. That’s once in a generation, maybe in a couple of generations you might see something like that. I talked with one of our outside folks in Des Moines on this, and he had made a very positive comment about he thought that was indicative of the city strong financial position with where we are at currently in terms of our borrowing capacity and our low tax rate and so forth, and also our healthy reserve funds.”

The council unanimously approved the 28E agreement as well as the general obligation note.

A groundbreaking for the wellness center was scheduled for yesterday morning but was postponed due to the weather. It is scheduled to be held next week.