New fire chief announced to Peabody council
By SUSAN MARSHALL
Staff writer
Peabody City Council heard Monday night that Bret O'Dell has been named to the chief's position of Peabody volunteer fire department following an election by members this past week. O'Dell's selection comes on the heels of an earlier announcement by former chief Ronnie Harms of his retirement from the department after 24 years of service.
Richard Holm and David Rempel will serve as assistant chiefs.
Council also reviewed its first serious application for a building lot under the city's free lot program. Bobby Winter has applied for the lot in the 700 block of North Sycamore Street.
Winter was not present because his job had taken him out of town, but Mayor Tom Schmidt presented council with architectural plans for the house.
Although council agreed the house met the building criteria, a legal discrepancy was noted in the city's plan to transfer title of the property. City administrator Jeff Benbrook will contact the city attorney and ask for resolution to the issue.
Benbrook also told council members a variance request at the site of the new municipal building on Ninth Street was denied by the local zoning board.
The board recommended that council get the lots surveyed, stake out the building, and then apply for appropriate variances. The zoning board was concerned the building as designed is too large for the lot.
The delay to survey the property and possibly change the building design could be as long as six weeks, council members were told.
Another issue brought before the board was lack of visibility at the intersection of Ninth and Olive streets. Council agreed it is a problem and will address the issue in conjunction with the construction of a new building at that site.
A zoning reclassification request for the lots was passed by the zoning commission. Of the four lots in question one was zoned residential and three were zoned commercial. The commission approved the city's request to change the residential lot to commercial zoning.
