By Sarah Richardson
At the December meeting of the Lewisburg City Council, Fire Chief Joey Thomas approached councilmembers to update them on Fire Engine Lease Purchase Agreement progress. However, prices and times on the truck delivery keep changing, with edits being submitted as soon as even 10 minutes before the Council meeting began.
Rosenbauer and Sutphen are the two contenders for the lease purchase of a new engine, and just before the meeting, Rosenbauer altered their information from 735 day build to a 900 day build, which Chief Thomas says is still better than Sutphen’s bid time, which was roughly three years. However, Sutphen offers a better warranty. The night before the Council meeting, the fire truck committee voted for the Rosenbauer bid, but that was before the last-minute changes were submitted.
“I’m not real comfortable at this point to say which truck is best,” said Chief Thomas, “I hate to say that, because I don’t know if they pricing is going to stay the same,” he adding that the pricing is “bounding back and forth” for both trucks, without a final price given at this point.
At the end of a lengthy discussion, Councilmember John Little made a motion to approve the purchase of a truck contingent upon approval through the corporation of either the Sutphen truck or the Rosenbauer truck not to exceed $935,879.30, which was unanimously approved.
The Finance Committee recommended approving a contract approving generator service to the water plant and the new water intake at a cost of $15,563 for this project, which was approved by Council. Finance also recommended approving $6,514 for video training by Lost Trail Studio relating to the new water plant. “This can be used as a training tool in the future, and also a reference for future employees,” explained councilmember Arron Seams.
Lost Trail Studio was also on the finance agenda for a “New Water Plant Video,” which Seams explained, “will help document the great undertaking, the huge undertaking, of this water plant, and will also be a useful tool to show how we spent the $63 million dollars and will hopefully be able to be shared with our founding partners on that project.” The video would cost $10,915, and was recommended by the Finance Committee to be approved.
Councilmember John Little said that he voted against this item during the Finance meeting, and also voted against it at Council, stating, “I don’t love the idea of spending $10,000 for a promotional video talking about the things we’ve done here. I’m grateful for the plant, I’m grateful for all the work, I don’t want to show off and spend another $11,000.”
City Manager Misty Hill rebutted in saying that the public has questions about the plant that she hopes the video will help with, and stated that there have been concerns circling on social media from those with “not a full understanding” of the project.
“On social media they don’t have the full understanding of what is going into this plant,” said Hill. “They didn’t have the full understanding of what the filtration system is, the housing that now going from three filters to six, they don’t understand the fuzzy filters, they don’t understand the magnitude of moving the intake, how far up the trail they went, they don’t understand taking the old building and refurbishing it, and being able to quiet the ones on social media that come up at me with so many questions and not a full understanding, I feel that this is a great tool.”
She further noted, “I think it will speak volumes not just for now, but for the future, knowing the maintenance and how then we can look back and say ‘well, you know, we have maintained this building,’ and that’s where I’m so passionate, not as much as just showing off, but as an educational tool for the public to understand where we left that trail and what it looks like now, it’s all phenomenal for the amount of work that’s been done.”
Little voiced support for a “more economical way” to convey the same message, however, the video project was approved with all councilmembers voting in favor, except Little.
In other news, four bids were received for the Greenbrier County Library painting project, and the bid was awarded to Custom Design Painting and Drywall in the amount of $28,900. A pay scale update for City employees was also approved.
The next meeting of Lewisburg City Council will be held at City Hall on Tuesday, Jan. 21, at 7 p.m.