After a lengthy discussion, the Nevada City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to approve connecting the 17 mobile homes in Quackenbush Trailer park, which is outside the city limits, to the city's sewer system. Bill Gillette voted no.

"My experience has been that the city council doesn't want to sell city services outside the city," councilman Bill Gillette said.

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"I think it's counterproductive to sell city services outside the city limits," he said.

Although connecting the trailer park to the sewer system may not benefit the city, it did pose a dilemma for the council.

If the city council did not allow the trailer park to connect to the sewer system, the trailer park would have to shut down, putting 17 families out of a place to live.

Jerry Quackenbush, co-owner of the trailer park, told the council that he would like to be annexed into the city, but there were property owners between the trailer park and the city limits who did not want to be annexed into the city.

Property must touch the city limits before it can be annexed into the city.

Quackenbush told the council that his trailer park has two sewage lagoons, with an overflow pipe and a drainage easement across neighboring property. The owner of that property had complained to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the DNR told Quackenbush that he must bring his lagoons up to current standards or shut down.

He told the council that he did not have room to build a third lagoon as required by the state and the ground in that area is not suitable for a septic system.

"There is no way to annex this, but I do agree the first option is to annex," Jayne Novak said.

Nevada City Manager Bill McGuire told the council that residents of the trailer park will pay higher sewer rates than city residents do, because their rates are figured on each month's water usage, instead of averaged for the winter months.

That means they will have to pay sewer taxes on water they use outside during the summer to water gardens and fill swimming pools that will never be discharged into the city sewers.

Monte Curtis told the council that although Quackenbush needs access to the city sewers, he has a problem with the city providing city services outside the city limits.

He said that developers like to build houses outside the city limits so they do not have to meet the city building codes and can still connect to the city sewer system.

Curtis said that as a real estate agent he wants to see the population of Nevada grow and by letting houses be built outside of the city and still have access to city services does not encourage people to build inside the city limits.

He said that he has talked to Wendy's and other restaurants, who say the town is too small.

He said he does not know how to get the population to grow if there is no incentive to build inside the city limits.

"We have the city limits for a reason," Mike Hutchens.

Nevertheless, Hutchens said that although he usually opposes extending city services outside the city limits, in this case the only option is to make 17 families look for a new place to live.

In other business the council:

* Voted 5-0 to authorize the city to apply for a Downtown Revitalization and Economic Assistance for Missouri Initiative grant. If the application is successful the city will have to provide a 20 percent match for the grant.

* Voted 5-0 to stop removing the pile of dirt from Davis Park and request that the parks board consider using the remaining dirt to build a bicycle motocross track in Davis Park.

* Approved the appointment of council member Joyce Wilson to the parks board committee that will be reviewing the request for qualifications for the enclosed shelter house.

The parks board will be holding a special meeting July 22 for that purpose.

* Accepted the low bid from Brenntag of Springfield of $11,100, not to exceed $11,600, for caustic soda for the water treatment plant.

* Accepted the low bid $11,250 from Ash Grove Aggregate of Butler for 600 tons of type-2 slurry chat for the slurry seal program for the city streets. The city is planning to seal about 50 blocks of city streets this summer to keep the streets from deteriorating.

* Accepted the low bid of $28,095 from Midwest Asphalt Products, Joplin, Mo., for 12,000 gallons of liquid asphalt for the slurry seal program for the city streets.