Guin City News For January 2009

There wasn't much to report for the first council meeting of the year, but much more during our second meeting.

In new business, the council approved a resolution for a possible LETS (police) grant which would provide our department with an award totaling approximately $26,000. The city would be responsible for a 10% match ($2600). The grant would allow us to purchase a police car and a couple of taser guns. The city will find out at a later date if we were awarded the grant. We also heard from Zane Miles, Guin's park director. He gave us an update on the activities on going at the park, a proposed 2009 budget, and some issues at the water park which will need to be addressed before it opens. One note on the 2009 budget - Zane has identified approximately $45,000 in budget cuts as part of the city's efforts to become a more efficient business. Great job on Zane's part. In other park news, the council reappointed Richard Wates to a spot on the park board. Several other boards have vacancies and we'll fill those during later meetings.

The principals of both the elementary and high school were in attendance to update us on how each school used the city tax money during the fourth quarter. There's a lot of good work going on at both places. Mrs. Brown, in her short time in Guin, has really brought some excitement to the elementary school and wants nothing but a first class school for the kids in this community. Mr. Sizemore is new at Marion County High School and is just getting his feet wet, but he seems to be a very impressive gentleman. Those who work closely with him have raved about what he's done thus far. I look forward to great things from him and everyone involved with our local schools. They also received their quarterly allotments. Each school received $13,957.91 and $6,978.00 was put into the discretionary fund.

We also took up the business of appointing our city judge who's term runs out at the end of January. There was one council member absent, so we tabled the issue to a special called meeting. That meeting occurred on Wednesday, January 28th and the council agreed to appoint Matt Leduke to that post. Matt is a tremendous asset to our community and I have no doubt, he will, as always, do a tremendous job for the city of Guin.

Finally, in old news, we again tabled a decision on an ambulance service for Guin. There are still questions about the service RPS might provide the city of Guin. Hopefully, we'll get some final answers from RPS at our next meeting and move on to other business.

I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I'm going to try to get more active in the near future to keep you all updated on what's going on in your community. Thank you, as always, for reading.