by Blake Proctor
With the entire Board, as well as Town Attorney Santana Miller, in attendance, Mayor Perry Blanks called the March 8th Town Council meeting to order at precisely 7 pm. Following an invocation by the Mayor, the Board reviewed and approved the minutes of the February 8th meeting and the February Finance Statement.
The first item of business, eagerly anticipated for a year, was a presentation by Ivey Cauley with the Goldsboro engineering firm of McDavid & Associates: The Town had applied for a $300,000 grant from the NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to replace their ancient and often non-reading manually read water meters with state-of-the-art automatic-read meters.
This time last year, the Town had met with Mr. Cauley to finalize the grant and bidding processes, and to undertake the bidding process. Several months ago, the state denied the application for the automatic-read meters, but approved a grant for $115,000 for manually-read meters instead.
The procedures under the amended grant have now been completed; Mr. Cauley was present to update the Council on the status of the project and to inform them of actions that needed to be taken now to finalize the process.
He reported that Requests for Proposals (RFPs) had been advertised and the sole bidder, KBS Construction Company, LLC from Fremont, NC, had bid $44,325 to remove and replace 225 residential meters, five commercial meters, and one industrial meter, as well as to provide a supply of spares.
Mr. Cauley provided a resolution that the Council needed to adopt, informing both the prospective contractor and DEQ of the Town’s tentative acceptance of the bid.
Several Board members had questions regarding the difference between the bid on the work and the total grant amount. They were advised that the rest of the costs consisted of project planning and design, engineering and oversight, closeout costs, and contingencies. The Board unanimously approved the resolution, and Mayor Blanks signed the Project Bid Document that was to be sent to the Division of Water Quality at DEQ.
In other business, Councilmember Horace Munn informed the Board that the bush-hog was down temporarily for repairs.
Councilmember Lillian Graham told the Board that the fence contractor who had won the Old Gym fencing project had contacted her to let the Town know he would be on-site on March 29th to determine the exact location of the fence around the gym property.
A question then arose regarding the actual legal boundary of the property. Following a lengthy discussion and lively debate, it was determined that the Town would contract with a surveyor to find the corner irons prior to the site visit.
Accordingly, Councilmember Graham was to contact the contractor to postpone his visit until a legal property boundary has been determined.
Mayor Blanks said that he believed this year’s May Day event in Town needed to be cancelled officially due to the Xi Jinpingfluenza pandemic. The Council agreed, and by unanimous vote, the 2020 May Day ceremony in East Arcadia was cancelled.
At 7:50pm, the Council went into closed session to discuss personnel in accordance with State statute. The Board exited the executive session at 8pm and, taking no action, immediately adjourned.
About Author
