The Perry City Council met Monday evening in regular session.

They were one councilmember short, as Chuck Schott was not in attendance. In spite of Schott’s absence, the Council tackled one of the bigger issues that’s been on their plate recently: the City’s fireworks ordinance. With the recent legalization of the sale and use of fireworks in the state, the City wanted to get an ordinance on the books as soon as possible. With that in mind, they held a special meeting work session where they laid out how they wanted the ordinance to look.

It was refined leading up to Monday’s meeting by the City’s staff, and the final product was something everyone agreed upon. The councilmembers universally felt it was a good compromise, and unanimously approved the ordinance. Normally ordinances such as this need three readings in order to have final approval, but the Council agreed to waive the second and third readings in favor of approving the final reading at the meeting. In addition to the fireworks ordinance, the Council also approved two ordinances that will streamline the process to acquire “Urban Chickens.”

The rest of the meeting moved along briskly and included the approval of resolutions including: a 28E agreement with Polk City, allowing their police department to use Perry’s firing range; a payment request in the amount of $400,764.34 for the North Street construction project; approving the Town/Craft building to be repurposed as a coworking center; and approving two public hearings regarding easements with Tyson Foods. Additionally, the Council approved a three-year employment agreement with City Administrator Sven Peterson.

Finally, they approved a resolution approving the acceptance of a proposed sculpture donation, which will be placed on Willis Avenue. Jenny Eklund of La Poste said the sculpture is called “Born of Fire,” and is dedicated to the recently departed Pete VanKirk. It is the first of four sculptures that will be placed along Willis Avenue in the coming years.