City Board 6 Nov. 2018: Phones, zoning, land donation, NALGW

A proposed new telephone system to serve all city operations was among the items considered by the New Albany city board during its Nov. 6 meeting.

Proposed new telephone system

Patrick Blansett of TEC Communications asked the Board of Aldermen to consider purchasing from his company a new internet-based telephone system to replace the AT&T system the city currently uses.

Blansett said the city would experience no up-front cost for the new system that would include 37 telephone sets. He said his company would be totally responsible for replacement or repair of the system during the lease term. Blansett said the TEC system proposal would save the city more than a thousand dollars per month compared to the cost of its present phone system.

The board took the TEC proposal under advisement.

Other items on the Nov. 6 agenda included: Zoning, Young family donation, LGW improvements

• Shane Crotts was granted a zoning variance to build a new house on a vacant lot at the intersection of Tilden and Polk streets on the city’s Historic North Side. Crotts told the aldermen that the city’s outdated building code prevents new house construction on the many vacant lots in that part of the city. The board voted unanimously to grant the variance.
• Terry Young told the aldermen he hoped the city would decide before the end of the year whether it would accept the donation of 26 acres of commercial land his family offered to the city during the board’s August 7 meeting. Young said his family’s company needed to move forward with surveys and other work that must be done for the development of the land and needs to know the city’s intentions regarding accepting the land donation. The board took no official action Tuesday evening, but some board members appeared to nod their heads in response to Young’s request.
• Bill Mattox, manager of the city-owned New Albany Lights, Gas and Water (NALGW). told the board that a substantial amount of pipeline for the delivery of fresh water had been replaced recently and that NALGW expects to replace more old pipeline with new galvanized water line in future months. For many years, NALGW has received complaints about water often being discolored because of rust in waterlines, some of which may be as much as a hundred years old. Mattox said complaints about water containing brown iron oxide have been reduced because of work already done, but that much more work remains to be done.
• Mattox also updated the board on work underway to extend NALGW natural gas service to areas of western Union County and portions of Marshall County. The work was approved earlier this year by the Mississippi Public Service Commission.
• Mattox said that the sale of $3-million of revenue bonds for partial financing of the extended natural gas service had been agreed at lower interest rates than had been anticipated. He said the city’s expense for bond service would thus be about $400-thousand less than previously believed. The board unanimously approved the bond sale.

The board also voted unanimously to award a $1.4-contract for initial work on the natural gas system expansion to the low bidder, Eubank Construction Company.

For more on the Young family land donation: http://nanewsweb.com/city-can-use-land-gift-for-any-city-improvement/