The neighborhood standoff surrounding the feline Pooh-Bear continues in Grayville. A standoff between Friends of Grayville and the city pavilion regarding clean up and timing also reared its head at Monday night’s Council meeting. Leaders also continued to grapple with renter/tenant utility charge responsibilities at the latest gathering.
Both the Horton’s and the Martin’s have addressed Grayville Council over the last six weeks, albeit never at the same meeting, with the wandering felid the topic. The Martins are technically Pooh-Bear’s owner, maintain that he’s a sweet, fixed animal, but admit that he does wander. The Hortons have lived at their address near the Martins since the late ‘90s and are avid bird watchers and have been feeding birds for the last twenty years. Pooh-Bear is killing the birds. Gerald Horton says the cat makes its way over multiple times per day and he’s called police the last two days with no response. Mayor Travis Thompson says the Martins have been given a second citation. Horton says a litterbox and putting it in the house would solve the problem and he’s at his limit.
It’s just…I’m at my wit’s end on what to do about that cat. It may be I may have to be arrested sometime for what I do to it.
Thompson said City Attorney Jay Walden and Police Chief Mason Siegel will have a conversation on how to move forward.
Also before the council could get into the agenda, there was fallout from the Friends of Grayville Hog Roast held on Saturday. Representative Andy Brock says his code to the pavilion didn’t work on Monday to finish clean up. Mayor Thompson says codes are now only good for 24 hours after the event ends.
We’ve had some complaints over the whole situation so therefore now each person’s code isn’t good for the whole year; it’s good for their event. So if you want to get into the pavilion at a different time, you contact city hall and then they can contact city administrator [David] Kendrick and he can let you in. We had feeding of the children today, so they, we had to make sure that one, things were cleaned up this morning. We seen that stuff was still in the bathrooms. No grease was in the bathrooms. It was empty fish fryers. And we set the container with the grease outside, out of the way of the feed the children.
After discussion, it was determined that a checklist should be placed inside the building with clear expectations for anyone using the pavilion.
Following a brief executive session, council returned and accepted a $2,000 bid on the 611 S. Water Street property from Kenny Goldman and a bid of $7,513 on 117 East Martin Street from Pam House. Additionally, another property that didn’t receive bids will be listed with Integrity Realty.
Council also accepted the resignation of City Treasurer Sharon Walden effective September 30th.
Council decided against adding a day meeting to their schedule (the first regular meeting of each quarter) after the second reading died with a lack of motion to proceed. It now appears leaders will continue with all meetings being held at 7pm on the second and fourth Monday of each month.
Leaders and landlords continued the discussion on adding a chapter to the code of ordinances surrounding utility charges with regards to responsibilities and also disconnection fees and procedures. The language gives landlords some new abilities, but several have showed up to meetings in recent weeks saying they weren’t in favor of it because it adds liabilities to them as well. There was no motion to move forward after discussion ended.
Council also added an amendment to Grayville’s traffic code making West Martin Street a no parking zone from North State Road to North First.