LEWISBURG (WVDN) – The July meeting of the Lewisburg City Council included approval of the City Ordinance 304 which followed a public hearing on the updates to the building code within the city. These updates are following the state code which adopts historically the International Building Code and was recently updated by the state to a 2018 version. The change will take place on Aug. 1.
Pickleball courts located at Hollowell Park are receiving wonderful interest from the public. Increased use of them is expected so equipment for their use is available to rent from City Hall.
Councilmember Sarah Elkins stated, “Even The New Yorker magazine has lauded the pickleball wave by an article titled ‘How Pickleball Will Save The World.’”
Communities in Bloom judges were on their Lewisburg stop just as the windstorm tore through the county last week – not the greatest time for a judging inspection. The participation of Lewisburg in this International Competition is a result of being the winner of America in Bloom. The follow-up competition was postponed for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the judging will take place in Canada soon.
Shannon Beatty, city recorder, has kept the bloom fever going in Lewisburg and so the town looked remarkable, even immediately after the storm.
Beatty said at the meeting, “The judges said they also take into consideration planning and zoning ordinances, historic preservation, and environmental efforts which in Lewisburg the water project and plant facilities were a big deal to them. So, we made points on those areas.”
Other business included first reading of Ordinance 305 and 307. The details of these ordinances are available at City Hall for review. Second reading and public hearing on these will be next month.
Ordinance 305 is a planning and zoning commission issue involving the conditional use permit process. It requires a notification to adjacent property owners by certified mail that a use is being requested for property which is not included in their zone.
Councilmember John Little, planning commission president, said “This is the right thing to do, the commission is listening to the community when considering a single permitting for conditional use. It gives the adjacent property owners an ability to express their opinion to the board.”
Ordinance 307 will provide a municipal sales and service, and municipal use, tax of 1 percent. Again, this is first reading of the ordinance and the second reading and public hearing will be on Aug.13 at the regular meeting of the city council at 7 p.m. at Lewisburg City Hall.
A new and updated employee handbook was approved and will be printed and take effect in August 2022. Issues covered in this version of the handbook include social media use, and things that had been addendums before will now be part of the formal handbook.
Other employee benefits approved are the first annual city employee picnic and Mental Health Day, and an increase of vacation accrual hours will be calculated in 30-minute increments instead of single minute increments, also they will go from 80 hours to 120 hours as an accrual limit.
City employees may now have a family gym membership at Greenbrier Valley Fitness for the same low price of $15 which had been only a single membership before. The city pays the difference of the membership cost. They have had few employees take advantage of this benefit and hope that increasing to a family of three or four will result in more employees using this opportunity to become healthier.
