The city of Lewisburg saw a new councilmember sworn in, heard approval of and approved agreements relating to an approximately $37 million water infrastructure project, and more during the Tuesday, November 19, meeting of City Council.
Council appointed Joshua Edwards to fill the seat left vacant after the resignation of Eddie Johns.
After the swearing in, Edwards said he was “glad to be here,” and took his seat as the newest councilmember.
As with each appointment to fill a vacant council seat, the position will be added to the next municipal election.
Along with the change to council, Mayor Beverly White made the following recommendations for committee appointments, which council approved; Councilmember Arron Seams was appointed to be the chair of the public safety committee, Edwards to public works committee.
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A series of agreements and resolutions were passed, moving Lewisburg closer to many major water infrastructure upgrades.
“This has been a really long and ongoing process for the council for many years,” said City Manager Jacy Faulkner. “Our council and a whole team of people across the state are helping to get this done, so I’m happy to announce that we’ve gotten word from the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] that the project has been funded. … We are doing a major water system upgrade project that will include pieces through the water system, but mainly focus on the water plant and our water intake site.”
According to a press release from Congresswoman Carol Miller, the funds are comprised of “a grant, totaling $3,684,000, and a loan, totaling $33,834,000, from the [USDA] to the city of Lewisburg [which] will be used to improve the city’s water systems and benefit 4,194 residential customers, 611 commercial customers, and 104 public authority and industrial users” and are “part of a nationwide USDA investment of $635 million to improve water systems and wastewater handling in 42 states, through the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant program.”
The grants and loans required a number of agreements to be approved by the city, including a conflict of interest agreement, request for obligation of funds, drug-free workplace agreement, loan resolution, letter of intent to meet the conditions, and more. These agreements, explained Cassie Lawson of Region 4 Planning and Development Council, are typical for projects and loans of this size. The process is laid out to the city by a letter of conditions from the USDA.
“Receiving the letter of conditions is a major achievement,” Lawson said. “Kudos to the city, it took a lot of heavy lifting to get here. Greg Belcher, your engineer, deserves a lot of credit as well, he’s really been a driving force. The letter of conditions serves as a roadmap, documenting the USDA’s requirements and expectations.”
The project list includes upgrades the city has needed for a long time, such as moving the location of where on the Greenbrier River Lewisburg gets its water to two miles north of its current location, putting it upstream from both the landfill and a salvage yard, the installation of a 24-inch pipeline from this intake to the water treatment plant, finishing upgrades to the water treatment plant, increasing its capacity to 4,000 gallons a minute, the replacement of several lines, such as an 18-inch line from the plant to the Yates water tank’s current location, the replacement of the Yates tank with a 2.5 million gallon tank, the installation of a new 500,000 gallon tank, and more.
An upcoming water rate increase was approved by council in May, and will kick in on January 15, 2020. The rates were raised in order to secure this funding.
As part of the documentation, Councilmember Mark Etten inquired about potential training for managerial oversight of the loans and grants one agreement offers, which the councilmembers plan to pursue.
“We are talking about a significant amount of money here, an excess of a $33 million loan and almost 3.7 million in grant money,” said Etten. “I’ve been doing this going on 15 years and when I’m obligating the city to an excess of $30 million in funds, I want to make sure that I, personally, am not overlooking something that an expert … would say is obvious.”
Lawson stated Region 4 would be willing to facilitate and get more information on the training, making more information available to the city.
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In other business:
• Resolution 475, a controversial resolution proposed by former councilmember Johns was dismissed by council.
A standard operating guideline (SOG) concerning weapons and ammunition for the police department was approved by council. Another SOG concerning conductive energy weapons, commonly known as TASERS, was not voted on.
• Public Works Director Roger Pence noted during his report that the city’s unaccounted for water leaks were down to 20 percent this month, a significant drop from the appropriate 37 to 40 percent range as has been typical for the past several months.
• A special municipal election was called for February 29, 2020, to approve the levy for the 2020/2021 fiscal year, which was not included in the previous vote. The rate will not increase, as the vote is only for renewal.
• November 29, December 24, and December 31 were declared administrative holidays for employees of the city this year.
• Video lottery funds were allocated to the Greenbrier East Spartan Band, totaling $4,002, to assist paying for buses for an upcoming band trip to Florida.
• The salaries of several city employees were increased by council in order to keep the positions competitive; director of public workers salary to $52,000, chief of police to $63,000, and fire chief to $59,000, a chief water operator to $23/hour, a class III operator to $22/hour, another class III operator to $21/hour, a class II operator to $19/hour, and a operator-in-training $15/hour.
• Council approved a reimbursement-based, federal grant-funded bid for bulletproof vests for the police department.
• Both the annual employee luncheon and incentive pay for city employees were approved by council.
• A bid from Greenbrier Technologies was approved to upgrade computer servers and memory storage for the police department. The new storage, consisting of two invoices totaling approximately $23,000, will allow the police to store more video, keeping a backlog of potential video evidence.
• The Greenbrier County Convention and Visitors Bureau gave Lewisburg their annual report, highlighting the organization’s efforts and a long list of earned media Lewisburg has received over the past year.
Lewisburg City Council regularly meets on the third Tuesday of each month, at 7:30 p.m.
Read more in the Wednesday, November 20, 2019, edition of the West Virginia Daily News.
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