Monday, May 22, 2017

City Council Meeting

I am a bit late commenting on last week's city council meeting but better late than ever, says I. Most of what took place was covered on the consent agenda. I came in too late to catch the first part of the meeting but there were a few interesting items on it.

$29,500 contract awarded to Rawson Excavating for demolishing the old Sidetracks building. The building sits what is today considered an unsafe distance from the railroad tracks, so the railroad declined to renew the lease, causing Sidetracks, now renamed Trax, to relocate to new digs in the old Gatsby's building. The demolished area will become more downtown parking.

Resolution authorizing the city manager to purchase materials, property, services etc. from Henry Printing. Yes, owned by our Mayor Henry. I assume this was discussed prior to my arrival at the meeting and figure they wanted to get an authorization by council on the record approving    potential purchases from the mayor's printing company.

$27,420 to CivicPlus to update the city website, which, below the front page, apparently hasn't been updated in about 20 years. Also roughly $5000 per year for website maintenance. No idea if this is an open ended contract or not.

Apparently the questions over the parking lot next to the Interfaith Center got answered as the contract for redoing it got awarded to Samron Midwest Contracting.

However the big discussion of the evening is the plan to provide roll out trash carts to all residents of the city. Any city resident who get trash pick up from the city will receive a standardized trash cart. These carts are designed to allow city waste trucks to latch onto and automatically dump them, rather than require a human to pick up the trash and throw it in the truck, speeding up trash pickup.Concerns regarding costs of the receptacles was expressed by some residents as larger families will generate more trash but may have problems paying the cost of the additional receptacle needed. Council agreed to address these concerns before bringing the ordinance up for a final vote

2 comments:

  1. As a Drupal developer who lives in town, that's a pretty steep bill for a previously developed CMS.
    Ever hear the phrase "shop local" City of Carbondale? Or possibly even, "shop around"...

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  2. Apparently city government only had a couple of responses to their RFP.

    ReplyDelete