City of Joaquin Swears in Griffith as Newest Council Member; Discuss Needs

City Secretary Amanda Willey swears in Jessie Griffith

August 15, 2017 - The City of Joaquin swore in their newest council member Jessie Griffith at the July 18, 2017 regular session meeting before starting an hour long meeting which included much discussion about current and future needs of the city.

Mayor Pat Gray welcomed everyone in attendance. Council member Frankie Cooper gave the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas Pledge were recited. City secretary Amanda Willey swore in Jessie Griffith who was appointed at the previous meeting held on June 20th to the open council position vacated by Mayor Gray.

Council reviews meeting packetMonthly reports were given, starting with the Utility Billing Manager, Barbara Pridgen, who reported billing out in July $69,162.13. As of meeting day, a balance of $18,934.92 was left to collect. The manager said the city expected to collect a large part of the remaining balance before 21st of July which is the cut-off day.

The City Secretary mentioned to the council an upcoming budget meeting which would require a more than fifty percent quorum. The secretary also mentioned a grant opportunity she was going to apply for which would pay to repair some of the paved roads in town. Willey said it was a slim chance the city would receive the grant; however, she would hate to miss the opportunity.

The public works manager, Perry Pugh, gave an update on the sewer plant rehab which is almost complete and he would soon have numbers on the cost. Pugh did advise that he also would soon be bringing numbers to the council to build a new sewer plant. Pugh said, "Everybody that looks at that plant, the first thing they say is 'Why is it built above ground?' Every one they've ever seen is in the ground. Ok, y'all know waste water and metal don't gee-haw. So, we've spent a lot of money in the last, I came here in 2009, we started on 2010 working on the plant. We've done a lot of work on it and I think we've spent over 100,000 dollars at that time. Ok, last year or so, close to two years now, right Amanda (Willey), we've doubled that or more. Now all of that wasn't at the sewer plant; some of that was pumps and fixing manholes and stuff like that. But I'll try to get it all broke down for y'all next meeting so you will know exactly."

A heated discussion between the council followed after Pugh's assessment of the sewer plant and building a new one. It was mentioned by Council member Doug Shook to plan and prepare for a new one later but not rushing into it so the city can get it's value out of the money which has been invested. Pugh did advise the city that the work on the plant might last five years but then the council would be looking at putting the same amount of money or more into it again. Another council member advised a big problem with the current waste water plant is it is at max capacity and with it the city will not be able to welcome any new industry or stores into the area.

Mayor Gray stopped the discussion and allowed Pugh to finish his report.

Pugh gave a praise report for a newer employee, Wyatt Windham, who is currently working part-time during his probationary period. He told the council he would like to increase the part-time worker's hours to 40 hours per week for the remainder of his probationary time. He needs the worker to be working 40 hours to keep up. This wasn't an item on the agenda; however, none of the council opposed Pugh working the employee full-time until it is brought to the council to make the employee a full-time hire. Willey advised since it was within his budget and he is currently short handed, Pugh can make the decision as supervisor to work the employee 40 hours a week and it not be an issue.

The city's water operator, Stacy Cranford, gave an update concerning the water department. The city voted to do repairs on the ground storage tanks and Tandem Tanks came out to review the work and realized the job was going to require more pipework than initially believed. Tandem Tanks went to another job to give the city time to install the Logansport meter. The Logansport meter installation has been complicated due to being able to locate the line following the construction by the state at the bridge. Cranford advised they are trying to locate it closer to the boat ramp and install a flush valve. He also advised Logansport is doing maintenance on their filters and they should be able to soon supply the city with water. The city of Joaquin only has one tank and no reserve tank so when the water is out it is out. Cranford is working with Mike Walker with Goodwin-Lasiter Engineering to put together a five-year, ten-year scope of upcoming projects so the city can budget for them and be prepared.

Cranford is also working on getting a quote on a standalone monitoring system for the water system. A monitoring system would send alerts when the water system has a problem which is invaluable over the weekends when no one is onsite. The monitoring system can be setup with customized alerts it sends out and it can alert multiple people.

Cranford gave an update on the Chlorine Injection System which the council had already approved saying they would research it some more and there would be additional engineering costs involved on the corrosion control study and getting the approval for gas chlorine.

Ray Vann with Raymond K. Vann and Associates who are grant administrators spoke to the council regarding the status of the 2017-2018 TDA Grant process and opportunities for other grants. "We work basically with the community development block grant program. So, every paycheck that everybody gets, in most cases, there is money sucked out of it. And then on April 15th, if not enough money was sucked out, then you figure it out and have to write another check and all that money goes to Washington. Washington takes the money out of Joaquin, they take the money out of the State of Texas, they get it and then they divvy it out up there."

Vann explained the Community Government Block Grant is from that money which comes back to Texas and is then distributed to regions such as Deep East Texas Council of Governments (DETCOG). Cities in that region then apply for funding, which is not free money. Because, it came from income tax but the money is not funded from property tax and is not an additional expense to the citizens unless the grant requires a match from the city.

The city did receive grant approval for a sewer line project in FY 2013 and the project was completed in 2015. "Y'all also applied for a 2017-18 grant project and I'm the bearer of bad news on that one. Thirty-four applications were submitted in the DETCOG region. Only about 15-16 will be funded, y'all won't be one of them this time, unfortunately," said Vann. He did explain that 200 points were available and the city received 196 of the 200 points meaning 4 points was the difference in receiving the grant.

Vann explained about three grant opportunities which included Texas Capital Fund, Downtown Revitalization Grant project, and GLO Grant.

Texas Capital Fund is for infrastructure which the city could utilize to help with the sewer plant. Grant funding is up to $1.5 million but would require partnering with a company coming into the area. The Texas Capital Fund grant is an ongoing grant opportunity.

The Downtown Revitalization Grant project looks at your downtown area and considers the sidewalks, architecture barriers for handicapped, and the general area. The funding you can apply for is as little as $50,000 and up to $250,000 with a minimum match amount of 10%. If a member of the city attends an application training on the program it is an automatic five points for the city which considering the city lost out on the last grant by four points, the training can make the difference. The Downtown Revitalization Grant is due the end of October.

The GLO Grant is based on disaster relief and is specifically tied to the flooding event in May 2015. It will address street improvements, drainage improvements, and culvert improvements tied to that flood. The minimum amount for the grant is $100,000 and the maximum is $1 million. The GLO Grant has only about $25 million to be divvied among 116 counties and all the cities and housing authorities in those counties. The minimum match is 1% and the due date on the application is November 10, 2017.

Another grant he spoke about had to do with law enforcement, "I understand that there has been some discussions and questions about possibly starting a department here and grant funds to fund that. I have dug, dug, and dug to try to find - there are law grants out there for law enforcement. There are no grants out there to start a law enforcement departments whether it is police department, sheriff, whatever, in y'all's case police or city marshals to pay for the initial person and the initial equipment for that." He finished saying it would be up to the city to hire someone first and pay the salary as well as get the basic equipment for them to do the job. At that time, there are grant opportunities.

From left: Frankie Cooper, Cathy Atkinson, Jessie Griffith, Doug Shook, Mike Cummings, Jr., and Mayor Pat Gray

Items approved:

5. Previous month's minutes
7. Payment of Bills
10. Adjournment

Postponed items:

9. Designation of East Texas Press as the official newspaper of the City of Joaquin

Next meeting agendas: