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Aldermen again targeting lot cleanup
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| By: THERESE APEL, DAILY LEADER Staff Writer |
November 04, 2009 |
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The Brookhaven Board of Aldermen and City Building Inspector Chip Genarro decided that it's time again for problem lots in Brookhaven to be cleaned.
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Genarro told the board at Tuesday night's meeting that after hand-delivered letters are sent to try to get owners of land on the problem lot list to move toward cleanup, the city can take the matter into its own hands. And the task of cleaning up the lots, which are submitted by aldermen for notification and cleanup, is not a small one, Genarro said.
"We've got a lot of houses on there," he said of the list.
Genarro said as the letters have been sent, some landowners have begun to work to clean their own lots. But there are others who have not heeded any of the notices that have been sent.
And there's another complication, he said. The city landfills, which can only hold so much, may not accommodate refuse from all the properties on the list if the city workers have to handle the cleanup problems themselves.
"We're getting short on landfill area," he said. "We may try to burn some of them with BFD."
The board voted unanimously to begin the lot-cleaning process.
In other action, the board agreed to share in the cost of temporary repairs of Industrial Park Boulevard. The road has developed deep grooves in the pavement where heavy trucks have traveled back and forth along the road.
Mayor Les Bumgarner asked the board to allow the city to chip in $5,000 toward the repairs, to match the money the county is giving to the project. Bumgarner said the money will come from the mayor's share of the paving money that is alotted in the 2009-10 fiscal year budget.
"It's needed, I'm telling you," said Ward Five D.W. Maxwell of the road repairs.
Meanwhile, the group also discussed a request by the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors to change the speed limit coming off the Industrial Park Bridge.
The speed limit currently is 30 miles per hour, but truck drivers have found it hard to slow down that far coming down such a steep grade, Ward Four Alderwoman Shirley Estes said. She added that the supervisors had asked for a new speed limit of 45.
"Thirty is hard to come down to off that bridge, even in a car," said Ward Six Alderman David Phillips. "I travel that way every day."
No action was taken on the speed limit issue.
The board also voted to move the time of the Nov. 17 meeting up to 5 p.m. instead of 6:30 p.m. in order to allow city officials to attend the Chamber of Commerce Banquet, which takes place that night. Bumgarner explained to the board that the time conflict was unavoidable and offered them the choice of missing the beginning of the banquet, moving the meeting up or changing the meeting date.
Financial consultant Demery Grubbs also spoke briefly to the board about his research into bond issues. He explained that he had found a bond that could be refinanced in order to bring the interest rate down from 6 percent to 2-4 percent without extending the maturity or adding years.
Grubbs told the board it would save them about $11,000 to $12,000 a year.
"What's happened is that in this economic crisis, a lot of people have pulled their money out of municipal bonds," he said. "But municipal bonds have less than a 3 percent failure rate ... and we're seeing people get back in."
Grubbs said the rates will go back up due to the influx of people buying back in, but that he was watching to "stay ahead of the curve."
Aldermen also approved the request of Brookhaven Discount Cigarettes owner Tony M. Gagliano to sell packaged beer.
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©The Daily Leader 2009
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