Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

City's audit found to be clean

With Prescott Mayor Howard Taylor out of town, Billy House was selected as interim mayor for the Sept. meeting of the Prescott City Council.

City Accountant Carl Dalrymple presented an abbreviated audit report, telling the panel Randy Turner was ill and unable to make the presentation himself. Overall, he said, the city received a clean report, with the only problem being the Municipal Court.

However, he said, the court's problem stems from incidents years ago, and not the people currently working there. In fact, Dalrymple said Turner had made the statement getting the court records straightened out may be impossible because of the carryover problem from years past.

The city, he said, did not exceed its budget and ended its year in the black.

Dalrymple suggested the city's finance committee meet with him in October to begin working on a budget for 2004.

The council approved adding $5 to all fines levied. The Nevada County Quorum Court recently did the same thing.

What this means is tickets will cost the recipient an additional $5, with the money to be used for the Nevada County Jail.

City Attorney Glenn Vasser said the law allowing this was passed during the regular session of the Arkansas General Assembly. The money from the $5 fee will be turned over to the county and placed in the jail fund.

Vasser said it may be possible for this fund to grow and the county be able to build a new jail in the future, but building a jail would be a decision for the quorum court.

The council also formalized an interlocal agreement with the Nevada County Fair Association to help the organization pay its insurance costs each year. This was discussed at the August meeting.

Bids for a tree trimming truck were accepted as well. The city received three bids and went with the low bidder, T-Rex Utility of Little Rock with a price of $78,000.

Larry Jones said the utility department had also gotten a bid to repair the existing truck, with the cost being $26,925. However, the current truck burns gasoline and the new one will use diesel. The other two bidders were Pacific Utility ($81,900), and DUCO ($82,750).

Jones said they were all for basically the same truck and identical specifications. This vehicle also has a dump bed on it.

It will be used mostly for electrical work, clearing limbs from power lines, Jones said.

Dalrymple said the money is in the budget, from the depreciation fund.

Mary Godwin, executive director of the Prescott-Nevada County Chamber of Commerce, updated the council on the Chamber's activities. She said work on the old city jail has been completed and a sign will be put on it showing what it was.

The beautification committee is working on doing a city-wide cleanup in October, hopefully before the Pumpkinfest on Oct. 25.