The Sanborn Chamber of Commerce held its annual meeting February 7 at Sanborn Community Center. A social hour preceded the meeting from 5 p.m. with the meeting beginning at 5:30 p.m., giving the attendees time to enjoy the choice of chicken noodle or vegetable beef soup and a meat and cheese tray donated by Prairie View, The City of Sanborn and Sanborn Savings Bank. The donations to the event help make the event free to the public.
The meeting didn’t have a high attendance. Board Members present were Laura Lux, Treasurer Stacy Carlin (Family Health Chiropractic), Secretary Mackenzie Jenness (Sanborn Savings Bank), Caresa Carney (Iowa State Bank), and Stacy Andringa (Sanborn Housing). Absent Board Members were Wendy Nelson (Prairie View), Brian Nash (NCC), Connie Alberts (SGCC), & Amber Rogers (City of Sanborn).
President Laura Lux welcomed all in attendance and those joining the meeting remotely on Facebook live calling the meeting to order at 5:35 p.m.
The Annual Meeting minutes from 2022 will be reviewed and approved at the next scheduled board meeting.
Lux told the audience the financial report, agenda and other hand outs were available for anyone to look at on the counter in the back of the room. They were prepared by Stacy Carlin. Secretary Mackenzie Jenness then read off the secretary report. As of the Annual meeting there are 30 chamber members. Jenness reminded the audience to get their membership packets in. Members don’t have to be a business they can be a civic member. She informed people of the benefits of being a chamber member. Jenness spoke on the chamber’s decision to forgo a chamber director to save on money after former director Jennifer Van Dam stepped down from the position last year. Mackenzie nominated Laura Lux as president as her term had expired, approved by Stacy Carlin and Stacy Andringa. This will be Lux’s third year as chamber president.
Laura Lux took the floor again to ask for approval for Jenna Boyd (Prins Insurance) to join the board. Boyd was elected as a new board member to take an open board position. Boyd accepted the nomination on Wednesday at the noon chamber monthly meeting.
The board approved returning members of Stacy Carlin and Caresa Carney. Lux spoke on the open position of Vice President as former chamber vice president Denny Postma has moved out of the area. The chamber is looking to fill the position. Careasa Carney was nominated but Lux didn’t want to blind side anyone. The nomination was discussed at the monthly chamber meeting the following afternoon where Carney turned the position down.
Lux welcome anyone wishing to attend the monthly meeting to please attend. They are every second Wednesday of the month. Look to the Sanborn Chambers Facebook page for updates. They welcome new ideas.
Lux introduced the head of the new Railroad Days committee, Rob Balt. They have seven members as of the annual meeting. The Railroad Days committee is working on doing a raffle as a fundraiser. They are moving activities and events out to Miller Park this year. He said he knew some people might be upset but they are planning some good changes. Friday night of Railroad Days will be a pork and beef cook off. They will be a free meal with donations on Friday night. Balt said of the parade that the committee is planning to change the route a little because of complaints with all the starts, stops and gaps in the parade last year because of the truck traffic at AMPI. The route will start at the Hardware store so the parade will go by Prairie View. The committee wants to make a better route for everyone.
Food trucks will be out Saturday afternoon after all the local clubs have their meals. Friday night there will be kids dance with a DJ. Saturday night there will be a dance with bands. They are working on the bands. A dunk tank is being planned. A vintage tractor display is being worked on with Merne Haack. The free swim is being planned for Thursday and Friday and not on Saturday. They are working on Craft thing and farmers market out to the park. On Sunday they are hoping for a community potluck.
There will be tents and canopies in the park so people can be in the shade. The Commercial Chaos for a Cure is planning their events. There will be shuttles running from Vander Haag’s to Miller Park. They are working on having other shuttles available. The theme for this year’s Railroad Days is Patriotic. The committee has much more planned and welcomes any volunteers.
HMS Superintendent Patrick Carlin thanked the businesses for participating in High Five Friday. Carlin discussed the completion of the Elementary and Middle School Building projects. Elementary opened the fall of 2020. Middle school opened the fall of 2021. High school renovations in 21-22 were the HVAC, Roofs, Updated Office, Commons, Industrial Tech, and Gymnasiums. What is next for HMS? Carlin said HMS is seeking bids for HS parking lot resurface, lighting, baseball/softball complexes to improve dugouts, scoreboards, batting cages, adding a sidewalk and make it more ADA compliant. Carlin spoke on academics which he said initiatives and goals have stayed the same. Initiatives are based on four questions.

1. What do we want the kids to learn? (Standards/Core Curriculum)
2. How will we respond if we know they learned it? (Assessment)
3. How will we respond if they didn’t learn it? (Intervention)
4. How will we respond when they learn it? (Enrichment)
   Carlin said they continue to work on positive behavior with a system wide behavior management program focused on a common language and catching students doing right. Which he says the kids are doing well.
   Two years ago the district added Illustrative Math (K-12). Carlin said the district was contacted by the State Department of Education about the use of Illustrative Math wanting to hand out HMS name to other schools that wanted to add Illustrative Math to their districts. Carlin says it is a different math then what most are used to but the district is seeing favorable results. This year in Literacy the district added Amplify (K-4) Literacy Curriculum. Carlin said he didn’t want to get to far ahead but they were seeing good results.
   HMS current enrollment for the 2022-2023 school year is 640 about the same as last year but and increase from 10 Years ago. Enrollment in 2013 was 619. Carlin said the city adding housing was probably a major factor in the increase in enrollment. Carlin joked around about snow days with Anthony Minderhoud Principal of Sanborn Christian School.
   Anthony Minderhoud Principal of Sanborn Christian School thanked the City of Sanborn and the Chamber and appreciated the town of Sanborn. Minderhoud spoke on working well with HMS. They share a Title 1 services to work with the kids. Sanborn Christian and HMS are working on sharing Veterans Day and Memorial Day services. Minderhoud spoke on Sanborn Christian’s building projects that was expanded and renovated in 2016. They moved in in 2017 so the facility has been used for about 6 years. The project was a 3.5 million dollar project which 98% of the project is paid for. The goal is to have it paid off by the end of the calendar year.
   Minderhoud shared some of the things Sanborn Christian has been involved with. They took part in school safety initiatives and assessments. The school is waiting on the reports to come back. Minderhoud spoke on taking part in an active shooter training held at South O’Brien over the summer.
   Minderhoud spoke on important dates starting with a Red Cross blood drive on February 22 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Sanborn Christian. On March 15th Sanborn Christian is partnering with the Sanborn Fire Department to hold a Pancake Supper. Then the Memorial Day program on May 29th. Minderhoud closed with thanking the Sanborn Chamber.
   Laura Lux introduced the next speaker to the floor: Jim Zeutenhorst City Administrator. City of Sanborn Administrator Jim Zeutenhorst gave a recap of the many projects going on for the City of Sanborn as well as explained some of the potential projects to come. The city has just hired a full police department. There will be three regular officers and a reserve officer. Hartley Police department had been filling in until the City of Sanborn hired new officers. Zeutenhorst spoke on upcoming projects. They are in talks with County Engineers to work on improving E 2nd and E 3rd St. but with the materials it is hard to budget and get a bid on what it will cost. He spoke on the housing saying there has been a lot of interest in the lots. Jim spoke on the new Storm Water Utility that will be showing up on people’s bill soon. Jim says other communities already have something like this in place and it was needed because of past drainage issues. Residential lot $2.50 charge per month, business they can do one of two things depending on size of lot and based on utility prices and commercial $4 per lot but depends on lot and usage. Zeutenhorst spoke on the power situation saying it is becoming more common hearing about brownouts and blackouts. Sanborn gets its power from Missouri River where they own a Coal-Fired Power Plant. He said the EPA would like the scrubbers to be replaced on the stacks but that would cost a lot of money. EPA is pushing the coal-firing plants to close then there’s not enough power. The cities’ concern is about what to do for power. They experienced that during the cold snap about a month ago where they got a level one notice. Jim said at level one they get the generators ready at the water plant, level two notice the send out notices and warnings about possible power outage, level three some sections of town might be without power. The city is talking about moving to generation power and what it is. Questions were asked about time frame for this project. Zeutenhorst said they would know more maybe in the spring. A facility would have to be in place and he wasn’t sure how it would effect rates.
   Laura Lux spoke on goals and events for 2023 on how to increase memberships and how to help promote local businesses and help all chamber businesses grow. Lux asked for ideas on events that people might have and that if anyone had ideas for the new Railroad Days Committee to reach out to Rob. She spoke on how excited she was for the new Railroad Days Committee and with the new committee it gives the chamber more time to promote the businesses and the community. She reminded people if they would like to volunteer for Railroad Days to reach out to Rob. Lux moved on to donations for Railroad Days & Fireworks saying if anyone would like to donate to get it to the chamber members or to Rob. Laura then opened to floor for questions or comments from community members. The Annual meeting came to a close with President Lux thanking everyone for coming and to please eat and enjoy the soup.