Economic Development Corporation Executive Director David Mitchell met with the City Council on Monday during their regular meeting requesting permission to use EDC funds for purposed fencing projects.
Mitchell explained that members of the EDC had been discussing placing another fence similar to one on the east side of the walking trail along the Y on the east side of Denver City as well as a fence on the south entrance into Denver City just south of the Denver City Motel on both sides of the highway.
The cost of the fencing around the Y would be right at $6,000, but the other fencing project would cost an estimated $21,000. Any EDC project exceeding $10,000 needs approval from the Council.
“Right now we are just in the talking stage about the fence south of the Denver City Motel,” Mitchell said. “We are laying out the pros and cons of this project right now, it’s not a done deal. I’m just here asking your permission to use EDC funds should we decide to move forward with this project.”
Councilman Clinton Bowman showed some concern over the amount of money being used for the bigger of the two projects.
“I’m all for beautification and dressing up our community, I’m just asking if those funds can’t be put to better use on other (EDC) projects,” Bowman said.” That seems like a lot of money to me, money that might be used somewhere else.”
Mitchell assured Bowman this project was still in the discussion stage and nothing definite had been decided.
“We have some board members with those same concerns,” Mitchell added. “We are just trying to think of ways to project a good image of our community as people drive into town. But let me repeat, we are just talking about this project, it’s not sealed in stone.”
Following some more discussions Bowman then made the motion to approve Mitchell’s request. It was unanimously approved by the Council.
During the announcements portion of the meeting City Manager Stan David informed the Council about a Senate and House bill was being discussed that would allow private companies to install a new tower within a community or to use current light and traffic poles to mount cellular antennas (cell nodes) for cell phone use. In a previous meeting the Council had denied a company the right to build a tower in a city right of way close to Hicks Appliances.
According to an email received by David earlier on Monday the passage of this bill, introduced by Senator Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills), would be harmful in an urban or rural city. Among other things, the bill would prohibit a city from getting a reasonable compensation from the private companies for the use of these poles.
David urged each Council member to contact Ken King, the state representative for this district, to voice their opinion.
In the next item David informed the Council there was a considerable amount of damage done to the City Hall roof following the hail storm last week. He noted the new polyurethane foam had been installed just over 6 years and had stopped all the leaks since then. He wanted to get the opinion of the Council on what to do before proceeding on.
Councilman Robert Hanneman said he wanted to move forward with a pitched medal roof. “That would certainly solve the problem permanently if we put up a pitched roof,” Hanneman said. “And making it a medal roof would be even better. That would solve the problem for ever.”
David went on to say no one had actually given him an estimate on the damages, but while waiting for his permit one of the roofers went on top to take a look at it.
“Once we decide what we want to do I’ll contact someone to access the damage and we’ll go from there,” David said.
Hanneman urged David to also get an estimate on what it would cost to put up the pitched medal roof.
Moving on David told the Council the latest draft of the “Code of Ordinances” has been received and he wanted to afford the opportunity for each council member to look through the book before “signing off on them.”
David said the current codes were adopted back in 1998 with some additions added since that time. He emailed the ordinances to each Council member for them to look over. He went on to say at some point in time the ordinances could be viewed on line.
The ordinance to adopt the “Code of Ordinance” will be put on the agenda for the next meeting.
None of the Council members had any suggestions of two members for the Planning and Zoning Board so this item was once again tabled. David said if anyone is interested in serving on this board they could contact him at the City Hall.
And in the last item David went over the 2017 Quarterly Investment Report for January 1 – March 31, 2017.
According to the report the two Investment Pools (TexPool and Texas CLASS) have funds that total $5,623,497, the West Texas National Bank checking account has $1,116,753, and the four Certificates of Deposit have total funds of $855,446 for a total of $7,593,696. This is up from $6,572,239 on December 31, 2016.
Following the Investment report a motion was made to pay the manual checks of $117,250.57 and the regular bills of $68,244.19.
The Council adjourned after addressing everything on the agenda.
Councilmembers Joan Breith, Ronald Weir, Robert Hanneman, Clinton Bowman, Mark Sherman, and Keith Mensch along with Mayor Tommy Hicks were all present.
The next meeting will be held on Monday, May 1 starting at 7 pm.
