Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

IP Bonds Approved

Gurdon's City Council, Monday night, approved the reissuing of bonds for International Paper Co.

The bonds were originally issued in 1978 for capital improvements for the company, along with pollution control measures.

Officials with IP wanted to close the bond deal by March 25 in order to get the best interest rate on the bonds. Because of this, the council, during its regular monthly meeting, approved an ordinance allowing the company to close the deal on time.

This does not obligate the City of Gurdon to anything, and will not cost the taxpayers of the city anything either. All costs will be incurred by IP, as the reissuing of the bonds was for IP's benefit.

The Gurdon Police Department, in other business, was given permission to purchase a new radar unit for its patrol cars.

Several complaints have been levied concerning speeding along Main Street. However, the GPD had no working radar even though two officers are certified to use the instrument.

Two such units were discussed at the meeting, with the GPD told to buy the one it wants. Funds for the purchase will come from the city fines 2 account.

There was other good news for the GPD as well. The department received a grant for $4,000 from the Cops More program. This money will be used to help buy the police car currently being leased by the GPD.

This will save $637 per month, which is what the lease cost. The vehicle will cost about $7,500, with the other $3,500 coming from the city fines 2 account also.

The Gurdon Fire Department will soon be getting a new pager system. Firemen will no longer have the telephone system at their homes to alert them to a fire, but will be contacted by pager instead.

Gurdon Mayor Rick Smith said Clark County is installing four new repeaters throughout the county. All four repeater signals will be installed into the pagers in case there is a problem with any other repeater.

The phone system was costing Gurdon $180 per month. Smith said the 20 pagers needed can be purchased outright for $6,500.

There is money in the GFD capital improvement budget to cover this purchase, along with buying emergency warning sirens for the city as well.

The money for the sirens, though, will be paid back to the GFD through funds raised from the sales tax passed in November.

In discussing the sirens, Smith said with the county updating its radio system it was originally thought the Gurdon sirens should be compatible as the first plans were to have the sirens set off from the Clark County Sheriff's Office.

However, after talking with Jim Burns, the Clark County Office of Emergency Services Coordinator, it was decided the sirens should be set off locally.

In this manner citizens will know severe weather or other emergency situations are upon them, and be able to take appropriate measures. Otherwise, an emergency in another part of the county could result in the sirens being set off unnecessarily.

There are those citizens who are using the old fire department telephone number to report fires instead of calling 9-1-1.

The council discussed having the telephone company roll the old GFD number over to 9- 1-1 so it would be answered by the CCSO.

It was also discussed to have an answering machine attached to the phone telling the caller to call 9-1-1.

Gurdon City Marshal David Childres said the city should be responsible for setting off its own emergency sirens so the people would know the emergency is localized and real.

Smith said what will happen is an encoder will be set up at city hall, with others installed in the city's police cars. This way officers on patrol can set the sirens off regardless of the time of day, or night as the case may be.

Bids for the siren system and pagers will be opened at the April meeting of the council.

Commercial solid waste accounts, Smith said, have been plugged into the system and some mistakes were made. This means some accounts were overcharged and need to be reimbursed.

The city's garbage contractor, A&M Hauling, monitored the output of the city's commercial accounts for five or six weeks to see how much these businesses were producing.

Smith said this was done so the price changes could be done fairly for business customers. As it stands, he said, the minimum commercial account will now be charged $9 per month.

This will not affect residential customers, as the residential rates went into effect on the February water and sewer bill. The residential accounts were raised 50 cents per customer across the board.

Trash bins were also discussed at the meeting. Smith said there are still several homemade trash bins on city curbs needing to be removed.

These bins are being identified and letters will be delivered to the homeowners by the GPD, asking the bins be removed and replaced with portable garbage cans.

Childres said several older residents have said they can't afford this kind of trash can and asked why they can't leave their current bins in place.

Smith said those customers wanting to use the homemade bins can do so, but must move them off the city's right of way. And, he added, the trash collectors will not go on private property to pick the garbage up. This is in A&M's contract with the city.

This means if a customer wants to use their homemade bins, they have to move them to the curb on garbage day, taking them off the right of way after the trash has been picked up.

Smith said the city needs to be fair to everyone and no exceptions can be made.

Bids for the addition of a vestibule on the front of city hall were opened, with only one bid received.

Bobs Glass of Arkadelphia submitted a bid of $3,450 to enclose the front of city hall in glass, and another bid of about $1,450 to put new glass in the current front of city hall, for a total of $5,000.

Money for this project will come from a $29,000 energy grant the city received last year. This money can only be spent for energy conservation programs.

Even after having the vestibule installed and new glass in the front section of city hall, there will be some $940 left in the grant.

The council decided to use this money to add more insulation to city hall and make it more energy efficient.

Smith informed the council the contractor to renovate city hall will be getting his contract soon. The city hall renovations will be paid for from a grant through the Horace C. Cabe Foundation, and no tax money will be spent on the project.

Smith said the original bids were more than the first grant approved for $200,000. The foundation was asked for more money and approved up to $25,000 more to complete the project.

The contractor will have six months to complete the interior and exterior renovations to city hall.