Grayville leaders worked through a light agenda Monday evening in about 25 minutes including a 10 minute executive session. Grayville Treasurer Sharon Walden kicked things off with a statement regarding the recent enforcement against Fairfield National Bank where the city maintains a large portion of it’s accounts and deposits by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). It was November of 2024 when the OCC announced the bank’s violations which included staffing and training deficiencies, poor credit risk ratings, lax loan administration, and errors in financial reporting. Walden says city officials were made aware by bank leadership and offered the following recommendation.
The matter has previously been disclosed to city officials by Fairfield National. As Treasurer, I’m not recommending any action be taken with respect to the city’s accounts and deposits at Fairfield National. That’s just a statement I wanted to read so the public will be clear that we’re fine with them, but we are going to audit.
Assistant Police Chief Mason Siegel gave the April activity report for the department which found officers responded to 195 calls for service, opened 11 investigations, made ten arrests, handed out 5 citations, and gave 6 written warnings. Siegel will assume sole Chief status on June 1st as current Chief Robert Hatcher transitions to City Administrator. Siegel also gave updates on new officers.
Just wanted to congratulate Officer Elliott. He has successfully graduated police academy and passed the state exam. He’s in field training right now. Also want to wish our newest potential officer Zachary Coale…he’s leaving for police academy on May 18th. Good luck to him. He’s got a tough task ahead of him…I’m confident he’ll be successful in his journey and be a valuable asset to our department.
City Attorney Jay Walden is working to correct an issue with regards to the water main replacement/extension project surrounding Wiggs Excavating and prevailing wage. Walden explained grant manager Greater Wabash Regional Planning Commission has been dealing with the issue. One failure had to do with bonding. He says he believes that’s been addressed.
The other issue was failure to pay federal prevailing wage to two plumbers apprentices working for Wiggs. Greater Wabash worked with them. The original allegation was they were underpaid by over $12,000…that got backed down to $7,000. As I understand it, at the point where DCEO sends a letter to the city, then the grant manager is out of the picture and it falls in our lap. So, I have communicated with Wiggs and they either are required within 30 days (from April 29th) either they have to provide proof as to why they paid the correct amount or they are to pay the total restitution amount of $7,470.71. From the city standpoint, and I haven’t dealt with this before, if the matter doesn’t get properly resolved, it could impact our ability to get grant funding from the state. I’ll keep you posted. Nothing has to be voted on…no action needs to be taken. We received a directive on what to do and we’re trying to pursue it.
Following executive session, council agreed to post an advertisement for a new city utility worker and set the time and location for council meetings for the upcoming year. The meeting adjourned just before 7:30pm.
