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“We are looking at building seven new camping pads,” said Mayor Jeff Stafford. These concrete pads will be located on the old baseball field.”
Stafford said it made sense to begin looking at increasing the number of camping pads at the park because “the facts are, the city brought in more revenue from camping last year than from travel baseball, and that was with no fishing at the lake.”
Stafford anticipates more lake traffic this summer with the opening of fishing again. The lake was drained three years ago for an upgrade on the levee. It was re-stocked two years ago this past spring.
While it was drained more fish structure was built so that the fish have a place to hang out, and there were some 30,000 fish put into the lake two years ago once it began to fill up again.
He is pleased with the health of the fish, “I had a guy to fish for three and a half hours just to check out what we have out there and they are looking good,” Stafford pointed out.
Other plans in the discussion stage include resurfacing basketball courts, building a new restroom down between the “Y” shaped pier and the “T” shaped pier and putting in a coin operated wash room.
“We are also looking at getting a pavilion built on the end of the peninsula so that we can bounce off of the water with the sound at the fourth of July celebration in the park.”
In other business at the meeting aldermen approved to allow allow Derrick Walls a conditional use to put up a ham radio tower in his yard.
The tower will have more than one leg and the height of it and the antenna on it has to be no greater than 50 feet. This was allowed specifically for Walls, the ordinance wasn’t changed for everyone. Anyone else wanting to put up a tower must seek the boards permission.
Walls is a ham operator, “and their help is invaluable when we have an emergency weather situation,” said Herman Austin, alderman at large, when the board was discussing the issue at an earlier meeting.
The board agreed to appoint a special judge and prosecutor for the Farris and Gillespie cases within the city.
The board ordered the purchase of candy in the amount of $600 to fill stockings for Santa to hand out on the square before the Christmas parade in December.
A check for $16,000 was ordered for the city Volunteer Fire Dept. in compliance with the interlocal agreement between the city and the department.
The city board approved the budgeted $35,000 for the Chamber/Main Street annual funding, even though the entity was seeking $40,000.
The board declared a mini excavator in the water and gas departments as surplus property and authorized the trade of the excavators for the departments.
In an effort to clean up unsightly property in the city, the board ordered the property at 169 Eighth St. and 167 East Oxford St. to be adjudicated so the city can cut down overgrowth.
A natural gas expansion was approved for Autry Lane. “We do have gas on Wilson Chapel Road and can get gas to these people,” Mayor Stafford pointed out.
In the consent agenda the board granted permission to Greg Bedford and Shad Long to attend the S.T.O.R.M. conference and set the holidays for the remaining year and new year.
City offices will be closed Nov. 24 and 25, Dec. 23 and 26 and Jan. 2. In light of the new year, the board ordered the depository bids to be advertised.
An executive session was motioned and approved for the aldermen to discuss economic development.