Signal Mountain Town Manager Elaine Brunelle introduced and welcomed the town’s new fire chief at the Monday council meeting. Chief Larry Sloan said he was born in Fayetteville, Tn., and has worked for the past several years in Tullahoma. This job in a unique town is one he said he had been watching for.
The fire department will be getting some updated equipment from an Assistant Firefighter grant coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).This is a two-part grant that will be used to purchase 90 sections of fire hose for $21,160 and 17 fire nozzles at a price not to exceed $16,868. The new equipment will allow all the fire trucks to have the same types of nozzles and hoses. The grant for both is $37,800 and the town will have to contribute $1,1933, or five percent of the total cost.
The Signal Mountain Police Department will be the beneficiary of another grant, this one from the Tennessee Highway Safety Office. Chief Mike Williams was authorized to accept the $25,000 that will pay for equipment and overtime for law enforcement activity relating to traffic enforcement within the town.
Signal Mountain’s public works department customarily does repairs and maintenance on vehicles used by the department. There is a four-post lift, a mechanical lifting system, that has been used for the past 20 years and, although it has been maintained, the lift is completely unusable now the council was told. Money and time have been saved by doing the repairs and maintenance in house and keeping the vehicles on the mountain versus taking them to outside service facilities. But the cost of a new four-post lift is $21,219.
Councilman Clay Crumbliss suggested for a period of several months seeing how the town does without having that equipment. During that time a record will be kept of the number of times vehicles and heavy equipment must be sent away to repair and recording if there are extra costs. He said the council should do what costs the citizens the least, and the data collected during this time can be compared to the replacement cost of a new lift to determine the best option. This will be discussed at a November meeting.
The parks and recreation boards will become a single board after a second and final vote on the measure, but until that vote takes place, they can continue to function in their previous roles. That vote has been postponed until the November council meeting, allowing the parks board to plan a Movie Night. It will be held on Saturday, Oct. 21, at the Signal Mountain Playhouse, where the movie Hocus Pocus will be shown. There will also be food trucks and popcorn. Councilman Andrew Gardener said the night will be paid for by sponsors lined up by the park board.
Vice Mayor Elizabeth Baker started the conversation about a state law that has recently gone into effect. The law is that public comments must be allowed during a public meeting and the procedure for the way it will be done must be on the agenda. The vice mayor said it will also be important that the procedure stays consistent. The council agreed that people who want to make comments at the meeting must sign up on a list by 5:55 p.m. before the meeting at 6. And from now on, there will be a statement on the agenda that residents of Signal Mountain will be given priority to speak.
The council has approved an agreement with former Interim City Manager Mitch Moore to act as a mentor to Town Manager Elaine Brunelle. He will read the reviews the council wrote for her yearly review, and then speak with each commissioner before meeting to talk with Ms. Brunelle. The council agreed to pay for two trips and an hourly charge, with a cap of $1,000.
Ms. Brunell reported that a software issue has delayed the city’s tax bills. They cannot be mailed until the problem is found and the bills can actually be paid. Tax bills will be mailed once the problem has been solved.
The council commended and congratulated three employees for completing the state of Tennessee’s required certification program for Municipal Financial Officers. This included budgeting, internal controls, accounting, financial reporting and cash and debt management. Graduates of the program are Town Manager Elaine Brunelle, CMFO, Finance Director Jenifer Broomfield, CMFO, and Executive Administrative Assistant Katie McKenna, CMFO.