The Signal Mountain Council has decided to forego another extensive search for a new town manager and to hire from within. Vice Mayor Clay Crumbliss said the council could only pick from the pool of candidates who applied in recent searches conducted by MTAS.
He said he feels that there is somebody who has proven he can do the job well and he sees no value in spending time on yet another search. He made a motion for Interim Town Manager and Water Utility Director Matt Justice to fill the permanent town manager position.
Mr. Justice said he is amenable to the proposal and in moving forward in negotiations for the job. The pay grade is one step above the water utility director, and it is expected that back pay for the interim position will be part of the negotiations. A resolution will be prepared and ready for a vote at the next work session meeting on Dec. 9.
Other discussions will also continue at the next meeting when they can be voted on. One topic was that “the purchase of an air curtain burn box was a mistake from the get-go.” The town paid $130,000 two years ago for the equipment to be used by the public works department as a way to dispose of leaves and brush rather than chipping it. But the burn box is too large and not set up for operations on Signal Mountain. Vice Mayor Crumbliss said that Public Works Director Wesley Stokes inherited the problem. It is designed to maintain embers that help start it up the next day; however the smoke continues, which violates the air pollution ordinance. And if the embers are extinguished, the time to start up the machine and then to close it down leaves just two hours that it can be used per day.
The consensus of the board of commissioners was to sell the burn box and revert to chipping. The town is running out of storage for the accumulating leaves and brush after two large storms and the brush truck is down for repairs. To make room for more, Big Woody’s will be used to chip the yard debris into mulch for an estimated $28,000 per year. It will be left for residents to use.
The public works department is requesting an unbudgeted purchase of two dump-bed trucks for around $95,000 each to replace two pick-up trucks. Mr. Stokes would like to have them available to use for snow plows this winter. It could be possible to stagger the purchase of two vehicles, but the dump trucks are available now and availability of big trucks has been an issue, said Mr. Stokes. The existing trucks have problems with rust because they have been used for hauling salt and have been poorly maintained, said Mr Stokes. This is another issue that the public works director inherited, said Vice Mayor Crumbliss. A decision for the purchase will be voted on at the next council meeting.
Another truck, a Toyota Tacoma, will be bought for the stormwater division of the public works department for an amount not to exceed $39,541.
The council has authorized an agreement with ASA Engineering to provide updated drawings for the sidewalk project in Old Town. The project that has been ongoing for years increased in price so that it exceeded the amount of the TDOT grant that is being used to build them. The town decided to do some of the work with the public works department, which reduced the scope of the contracted work that the grant would need to cover. The new drawings, that reflect the reduced size of the project, will be $25,500 with a 20 percent match of $5,100 from the town. “I’ll reiterate what I said at the last meeting, that it seems excessive that it is costing that much to delete a block of sidewalks,” said Councilman Miles Jorgensen.
A resolution passed that authorized plumbing services from Southeast Total Service to repair the sewer line at fire department station 1. The pipe will be lined versus digging through the concrete floor to replace it. The cost of the work is $16,673.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the town and the Signal Mountain Youth Basketball League will go into effect before basketball season begins this month. This will give the league priority use of the town hall gymnasium during specified times. Included in the agreement are mutual responsibilities such as scheduling priorities, maintenance obligations, insurance requirements and the payment of $1000. In the future, a separate agreement will be developed between each sport league and the town.
The next regularly scheduled council work session of the council will be next Monday at 6 p.m.