It’s officially March! This year seems to be flying by already. February is often the month that our office sees things slow down momentarily. It’s important that when times like these roll around, we take a step back and look at the big picture—how we can improve our programs, benefits, and strategies over the course of this year. Before we know it, we’ll be right in the thick of it once more. We are thankful for the moments to take a breath but equally excited for the busy seasons that are yet to come.
Ottawa Library’s Next Chapter
Big news is coming out of the Ottawa Library this weekend: They closed on a new building for their future location! It’s no secret that our library has been in the planning stages of making a move. Having outgrown their space in City Hall, the demand for more services meant their staff has had to be continually flexible and find new ways to do more with less. For those reasons, there have been serious conversations between staff and the Library Board about what the future holds.
Planning something of this magnitude doesn’t happen overnight. From 2018 to 2019, library leadership held strategic planning sessions to develop a checklist of what would make a perfect library. This list included a downtown location, accessible and sufficient parking, and the ability to have a drive-through window. Unfortunately, at that time, no properties that were available met those requirements. As a result, work was done with architects to plan out a vision for a site that would sit on 15th Street. As time progressed, it was obvious that this undertaking would not fully come to fruition for many years.
With a long-winded timeline looming, that direction changed when the historic Coca-Cola bottling plant at 204 S Walnut Street hit the market. As of last Friday, the Ottawa Library is the proud owner of what was The Bottle House (full press release here). Prior to the transfer of the deed, the Ottawa Library took necessary steps towards feasibility studies to see if this space would work and what would be necessary to make this space the library of their dreams. The result was that it would still take some time, effort, and funds, but they would be able to shorten their timeline and check off more of the boxes that were originally envisioned when this project started seven years ago.
As the Ottawa Library moves forward, it plans to host some of its programs at 204 S Walnut. However, there’s still plenty to do before moving in officially, with renovations (including additions) and fundraising that needs to occur. In the meantime, this location will still host Ottawa and West Franklin’s prom this April. Executive Director Terry Chartier hopes the community will share their excitement and support this new opportunity. She mentioned to stop by and chat if you have any questions or just want to say congratulations. I look forward to more updates as we move through this year!
Keeping Ottawa Clean
This morning, we made up a recently rescheduled Chamber Coffee for local trash company, Ottawa Sanitation (pictures here). Without municipal trash services, citizens, businesses, and industries in Ottawa and Franklin County can choose which sanitation service provider to utilize for their disposal needs. Ottawa Sanitation is who many choose to contract with, and have for the nearly 70 years they’ve been around. Though the name has stayed the same, you’ll often see trucks and bins sporting the Green Environmental Services (GES) brand. This is because in 2018, GES bought the company, adding to their family-run business, which is now made up of four locations (see all their service areas here).
At their Chamber Coffee, General Manager, Tim Lewellyn shared that he knows the Ottawa Sanitation name has a good reputation, which is why GES chose to keep this moniker with such a rich history. However, it can be slightly deceiving. Ottawa Sanitation serves a much larger area than just the city limits (view their service area here). Portions of residents from Osage, Miami, and Douglas counties also work with this Ottawa company. The northern Kansas region (our service area) is home to over 15 employees, which helps them run six trucks daily. One of those trucks being the state-of-the-art Automated Side Loader (ASL). This vessel allows the operator to manage a route alone―not needing team members to ride along on the back. In a time where workforce is an ever-present challenge, these trucks allow operations to keep up with the demand with less manpower. And that demand is very real―we’re quite a messy bunch. It was shared that the average person disposes of about 3-4 pounds daily. That’s a lot of trash when our county is made up of over 25,000 people! But Tim said that this is the reason why he got into the disposal industry some 29 years ago… job security.
Tim jokingly asked several people in attendance whether or not they had their CDL and would like a job driving a truck. And though he was poking fun, he said that this is a very real challenge for his business. Finding, training, and then retaining CDL drivers is not easy. Other challenges are literal acts of God and come in the form of 11” of snow like this past January; there’s only so much that can be done. But the safety of their team is always the priority. They also believe in regular communication, which is why they implement text/email notifications to customers when there are delays due to weather or holidays. Another challenge is the recycling arm of the sanitation industry. They do offer recycling for customers, but it comes at a premium for Ottawa Sanitation to dispose of it. Tim said that recycling is in no way a moneymaker and that it has become increasingly more expensive for them to drop it off at the plant up in Douglas County. He stated that, unfortunately, these processes are not nearly as effective as they should be, making environmentally friendly choices more difficult. Regardless of where it goes, I think every citizen who pays for a trash bill knows that it’s money well spent. County Commissioner Ianne Dickinson said it best: You only realize trash is a problem when you can see it. Ottawa Sanitation continues to be a community advocate, and we’re thankful this historic business is keeping our residential and commercial spaces clean.
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I hope you have a pleasant weekend and see you soon!
Ryland Miller
President/CEO
Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce
ryland@ottawakansas.org
785-242-1000
