A new and improved experience is coming your way at the Grayville Pool, opening for the season on May 23rd. Sharon Walden, speaking at a more than hour and half city council meeting, says leaders are expecting around 200 kids for opening day.
We’ve been doing a lot of cleaning, painted the whole inside, changed where the concession stand is, it’ll be where the basket room is so it’ll be a lot easier. We’ve got a lot of new furniture. We’re looking for sponsors for free swim Sundays. $150 and we have two sponsors per Sunday and it goes over great. We’ll have probably 200 kids there so we’ll need more lifeguards and that’s great for the young community that has to learn how to work and clean a toilet. So, please come to our pool. It’s gorgeous.
Police Chief Mason Siegel gave the April police report which included 213 calls for service; he says the department opened 23 investigations, made 6 arrests, and issued 4 citations. Siegel also reported his department was losing Zach Coale as the officer has taken another position elsewhere. Coale joined the force almost exactly a year ago.
Following executive session, council agreed to put up for sealed bid three lots. Bids are due by June 19th at 3pm.
After the last meeting on April 27th where leaders considered updating procedures and policies surrounding utility shut offs and landowner responsibilities for those utilities, more discussion occurred at the May 11th meeting with a specific landlord calling into question how it would work. Leaders admitted it was the city’s fault for allowing write offs or backlogs in excess of $80,000 and said that their position is to find a way to keep that from happening moving forward and not to necessarily penalize the landlord. Finance commissioner and city attorney Jay Walden expressed they were in the very early stages of sorting it out.
New business matters took up more than an hour and six minutes of the meeting. The first agenda item took nearly 23 minutes, featured frustration and ended up getting tabled so the owner of Bailes Pure Drop could re-do paperwork and get all the information needed to provide the right figures for a TIF request.
After granting a request for the Friends of Grayville’s Hog Roast road closure and tabling security cameras at the library and park, leaders spent the next 40 minutes discussing animal ordinance issues. DeeAndra Martin addressed the council on a squabble between her family and a neighbor surrounding the Martins’ cat, Pooh-Bear. Attorney Jay Walden said the neighbor is bullying using the current animal ordinance, but he remains within his right to do so based on the language. Ultimately, he said it was just a bad situation. Martin says a golf ride around town revealed about five dozen feral, outdoor, or neighborhood cats and she wanted to know if she’s subject to a $250 fine, “where are the others?”. Beyond that, after the neighbor admitted to trapping and relocating the cat, he could’ve been charged with Theft, but the Martin’s declined to press charges. Cats and animal ordinances are a running theme across the government meetings we cover and just like others, leaders say they’ll continue to look at it, but no clear answer came to light throughout the discussion.
Last on the agenda, council approved a special liquor license request from Chappy’s for a cornhole tournament scheduled for May 30th.