Multiple ordinances, new police vehicles with mobile terminal systems, new holidays, City Hall repairs, and more were considered by the Lewisburg City Council on Tuesday, September 17.
Council celebrated the work both done and upcoming by Schleiff Construction Inc.
“You’ll notice the outside of the building, the paint job that’s going on looks beautiful,” said City Manager Misty Hill. “There’s been no real big hiccups coming into plague that.”
Schleiff Construction paints City Hall. |
The City Hall is not only getting a paint job, but will have the main building and adjacent restrooms improved.
“The first item we have for consideration is a bid for repairs to City Hall,” said Councilmember Arron Seams. “The City Manager mentioned the paint job, there’s some other repointing, some upkeep on the building, making sure that we don’t continue to let it be damaged, and fixing [where] some of the weather is not staying outside like it should.”
Schleiff Construction will be continuing work on the building after council approved the only bid submitted for the project, which will be funded through the CARES Act reimbursement.
“There was one bid for that repair, and it did come under the ballpark for what we were aiming for. It was the finance committee’s recommendation that we approve the bid of $286,639.86 to Schleiff Construction LLC.”
In addition, another CARES Act project could also go to Schleiff.
“We did … reach out to Martin Schleiff … for winterizing the bathrooms,” Hill said. “We’ve asked him to give us an estimate for what he would charge. He’s going to be painting in there anyway.”
This is not the typical Lewisburg winterization, where the restrooms are shut down for the season.
“Normally we winterize them, which is draining the water from the lines, preparing them,” Hill explained. “This time we want to put a heater in there, put a ceiling in there, insulate a little bit more, and keep the restrooms open downtown for the holiday traffic. … It’ll be great to have those in use.”
White also noted this would mean the restroom in City Hall would be closed to the public, instead pointing those downtown to use the restrooms next to City Hall.
“We’ve had a lot of damage to this restroom and those restrooms are built for a lot of traffic,” Hill said. “Now that we have more restaurants downtown, we have really doubled the cleaning downtown in the bathrooms.”
Funds from the CARES Act were approved to go to this project during the July City Council meeting.
Council also approved new wayfinding signage, leading guests to parking lots and restrooms scatter throughout downtown. The contract is “not to exceed” $10,000 with the Mills Group LLC.
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Ordinance 295 makes adjustments to the fees associated with the use of the city’s parks.
“The most important and biggest thing that we covered [at the Parks Committee meeting] as the modification of our usage fees,” said Elkins. “We updated them to make them a little more competitive with other fees in the area. We are still the most competitive of any municipality in the area for how much we charge for day use of the shelter.”
The new rates include:
– Lewisburg Parks Shelter Reservation – $50/day
– Lewisburg Parks Concession Stand Use – $10/day or $100 per season
– Dorie Miller Ballfield Reservation – $10/day or $100 per season
– Hollowell Ballfield Reservation – $10/day or $100 per season
“I want to acknowledge that Councilmember Little did voice, at Finance Committee, that he is uncomfortable with the idea that we have to charge for the park and I want to acknowledge that and make sure it is only to cover the costs of cleaning the park,” Elkins said.
The ordinance passed first reading and is expected to go to second reading and public hearing in an upcoming council meeting.
In other business:
– Lewisburg is expecting approximately $840,000 to come in as a result of the American Rescue Plan. The entirety of the amount was dedicated to the city’s ongoing $37 million water infrastructure project.
– Two ordinances were passed on second reading and public hearing with no comment from the public. The first, Ordinance 293, updates the City Code to comply with changes to the state law from the West Virginia Legislature, including updates to the traffic code and general offenses. The second, Ordinance 294, approves a zoning change for 53.26 acres owned by DNA Holdings LLC. The change takes the zoning from I-1, limited industrial, to PUD, planned unit development.
– Resolution 486 grants White and a handful of city officers to approve a Master Equipment Lease-Purchase Agreement for five 2022 Chevrolet Tahoes for the Lewisburg Police Department. The resolution was approved by council.
– Resolution 487 also approves a Master Equipment Lease-Purchase Agreement for mobile data terminals for the Lewisburg Police Department. This resolution was also approved by council.
– The Lewisburg Volunteer Fire Department held their corporate elections on June 24. The election results included a unanimous vote of confidence in Fire Chief Joe Thomas, which White and council celebrated with a round of applause during the review. The vote also confirmed First Assistant Chief Matt Carver and Second Assistant Chief Gary Workman. In addition, the department’s Mutual Aid Agreement with the Fairlea Volunteer Fire Department was approved by council with no substantial changes from last year’s agreement.
– Four new holidays were added to the city’s administrative schedule. This includes Juneteeth, the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve. Councilmember John Little noted “we have been granting those dates in previous years, but we just had to bring that up for a vote everytime. The only new day is Juneteenth, which is a new federal holiday.”
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