City News - July 21, 2008

A couple of quick notes from tonight's city council meeting:

Coach David Adkins will be moving to the maintenance director's position leaving his post as park director. The Park and Recreation Board has recommended moving Zane Miles to park director, but per city policy, the job will be posted in-house for 7 days to allow city employees an opportunity to apply. After those 7 days, the council may choose to accept the Park board's recommendation or interview anyone within the city who might be qualified for the position. Given Zane's background, it's likely the Council will accept the board's recommendation. Zane has a tremendous work ethic and will, no doubt, do an excellent job. If the board's request is approved as expected, salaries will be adjusted accordingly and will ultimately save the city approximately $4000 per year.

We discussed several areas of the city where illegal dumping has been a problem. One is along 13th Avenue and another along 3rd Street. These areas are becoming a nuisance and can be a health hazard. And we continue to have a problem with the old Cotton Bend Apartments. The current owner refuses to clean the grounds or repair any of the visible structural damage to the building. All of these areas are eye sores in our community, not to mention the many hazards associated with them. The city has limited resources to act upon such problems given our lack of zoning, but we will look at our options during the next city council meeting. Given certain circumstances, we may have the ability to clean up these lots and tack on the cost of cleanup to their property taxes. We have and will be contacting these owners requesting they act, but if anyone knows them, please encourage these owners to clean these lots and help keep Guin beautiful.

We distributed approximately $26,000($13k each) of our city tax money to Guin Elementary School and Marion County High School as part of the quarterly disbursement. The Council also approved $12,000 from the discretionary fund to allow the elementary school to purchase new playground equipment and another $4000($2k each) used as start up funds for the new school year. The new playground equipment will replace a piece of old equipment which had become a possible safety hazard. Mr. Nelson gave us an update on the progress they're making in several areas including our new distance learning lab. This lab will allow our students access to many opportunities not available previously, including access to a number of advanced placement courses. It's great to see our hard earned tax dollars going back to our community allowing our students opportunities they may not have had otherwise.

One final note: we are working toward obtaining ownership of the old Guin Manufacturing(Healthtex) building downtown. Once these issues are worked out, we'll be free to bring that building down and create opportunities for commercial development. There are several investors who have expressed interest in locating in the area now occupied by the Guin Manufacturing building.