Wednesday, January 30, 2008

January 30, 2008
10:30 AM

The city received the first shipment of carts to be used by the citizens today. We have changed our plans for distribution. We are going to start delivering the carts to the residents today.

We have ordered the letters that are to be sent to the residents. The letters should go out next week.

I am looking forward to the citizens using these carts to dispose of their trash.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

January 24, 2008
12:55 pm

Today has been in interesting day in the cemetery business. I had to go early to the cemetery this morning to meet the gravedigger. We had a small problem with the location of a grave to be dug today. I met the gravedigger at sunrise in the cemetery and explained the problem to him. He was able to work around the problem.

I wanted the family to be aware of the location of the grave dug today in relation to the location of the monuments next to the grave. It appears that a monument has been set in the wrong location. It needs to be moved about three feet. I wanted to inform the family of this fact.

I arrived at the cemetery about thirty minutes before the scheduled service. The funeral home was there and I made contact with the funeral director. I ask him if he would have any contact with the family members and he said that he would. I told him of the problem and ask if he would tell the family members. He said the he would inform the family. Then he ask me if I would help them unload the casket and take it to the grave. He said that the family was not going to have the service at the original time. I told him that would help.

When Theda came back from lunch she said that a family member had called her and she expained the situtation with the graves and monument. Just another day in the cemetery business.

Friday, January 18, 2008

January 18, 2008

I met with George yesterday and after my meeting Jerry met with him about Killough. He will design repairs to the street and we will bid the project. If we have the money we will complete this project. If we do not have enough money we will have the plans that we could bid in the future when the necessary funds are in the bank to complete the road.

I also met with George about the survey of Cogbill Cemetery. He has almost completed his work. I ask the boys who work with him to mark the cornors with stakes that are about four or five feet high. We have plenty of land to have a cemetery in Wynne for a very long time.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

January 17, 2008

Jerry and I had a long discussion about the Dept. of Public Works this morning. We discussed some personnel moves and other items relating to the dpd.

We decided that we should proceed with the Killough street project. What we are going to do is have the engineer draw the plans for the needed improvments. We will bid the project and if we have enough money we will proceed. If we do not have enough money we will keep the plans and in the future, when the money is in the bank, we will proceed. The council voted several years ago that this would be the next project we would complete when funds are in hand.

We agreed a few days ago that the major equipment purchase for the street dept. this year will be a replacement for our street sweeper. We have the spec. now for the sweeper that Jerry wants and today we placed an ad for bids on the sweeper. The cost of the new sweeper, with our trade, will be about $100,000.00. We will have to finance this over a two year period. We also asked for bids to finance this purchase for the next two years. The reason for this appraoch is that we only budget $50,000.00 per year in the street dept. for equipment purchases.

I hope that we have enough money to complete Killough. This will greatly improve the traffic flow to the northern part of the city. The traffic has grown quite a bit since we completed the missing link in the street and Wal-Mart and several other businesses have located at the intersection of Killough and highway 64.

In the department head meeting we discussed the new cart system for the sanitaion dept. All comented that all of the response they had received had been positive and the people who had talked to them were looking forward to the change. So am I.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

January 15, 2008

I visited yesterday with the supplier of our new garbage carts. He expects them to be delivered to the city in about six weeks. If that happens we will start delivering the carts around the first of March. That is what we expected when we began this new program several months ago.

I think that the citizens of Wynne will enjoy this new way of getting rid of their household garbage. I look foward to this new program.

I talked with Jerry this morning and we are going to have to replace a bridge. We had two experts look at the bridge and had developed a plan to correct the problem at a small cost.

This morning when our crews began work to implement our plan we discovered that our plan will not work. We are going to have to do much more work than what we had planned to improve the bridge. Because of the change in plans we should have a bridge that will serve the residents for several years before any more work is required on this bridge.

Two years ago Teri passed away. I am still getting used to not having Teri around to brighten the day of people she came in contact with.

Monday, January 14, 2008

January 14, 2008

I attended the Arkansas Municipal League winter meeting last week in Little Rock. We had a very productive conference. I make some new friends and enjoyed visiting with my friends that I have make over the years.

The two most interesting meetings were the a represenative of DF&A and the Lt. Governor. The DF&A represenative discussed the streamlined sales tax and how it will impact government. There were a lot of questions, but most of them were directed at the speaker. He was only there to explain the law. He did not make the law.

Lt. Governor made a presentation about his proposed constutional amendment to the constitution. There were a lot of questions reguarding his proposal. After his presentation, most of the people I talked with seemed to be in favor of the change.

Since Amy has been involved in the funeral business, I have been buying model hearses and giving them to her. Last week I carried her two more for her collection. The two that I carried her were the same except for the scale. One was a 1/18th scale and one was a 1/32nd scale.

I also gave her the cowbell that I purchsed at the Liberty Bowl last year. She had ask me to get her a cowbell some time before the game. I did not carry my bell to the game, so I purchased one at the game to use and then give it to her.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

January 9, 2008

We had a very interesting city council meeting last night. We also accomplished a number of important items.

The city council accepted bids to buy carts to be used in our sanitation department. I look forward to having the cart system in place for the residents of the city. I think that the residents will enjoy the new system once it is in place and our employees work out problems that come with changing to a new system

The city council again discussed billboards in the city. The end result of the discussion this month and last month is no action has been taken to deal with what some residents feel is a problem. I again last night encouraged the city council members to form a small committee and meet with the city atorney and come up with an solution. They have shown no interest in doing this. I do not have a position on this subject. I plan to stay netural on this subject, but the city will enforce actions that the city council approves.

Today and for the next three days I will be in Little Rock attending the AML winter conference. I look forward to visiting with my friends from around the state and attending the meetings that have been planned.

Yesterday Amy had to come to Wynne to make a removal for her funeral home. She stopped by the city hall to give me my Christmas gift. She was not able to present it to me during Christmas because her supplier had some family sickness and could not complete my gift in time. She presented me with two large yard signs---A MISSISSIPPI STATE BULLDOG and AN ARKANSAS RAZORBACK. I look forward to displaying them in my yard to show my support for my favorite sports teams.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

January 8, 2008

I have had a very busy day in the office of Mayor. I have been very wanted and needed person today. I have had several meetings today with city personnel and citizens of Wynne. I have also had several calls to respond to during the day. Hopefully I had a productive day with all of the problems and request I responded to in the best way I could with the information that I had to work with.

I also took time to get my hair cut. My wife reminds me from time to time that I need to get a haircut. The length of my hair seems to bother her more than me.

My day will not end for several more hours. Tonight is the regular monthly meeting of the city council. The agenda is quite long, but I think that we will be able to complete the business of the city in, I hope, a short meeting.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

January 2, 2008

Today I start a blog. I am not a very good writer and I probably will not post as much as I should.

I hope to write about my time as mayor and the other activities that I participate in the following years.