HOLLY POND – The Holly Pond Town Council had a packed agenda at this week’s meeting. After opening statements, financial report approval and the welcoming of public comments, the council dove right into their reports.
Lightbulbs for the water treatment plant have been ordered and are ready to be installed, and Councilwoman Carla Hart voiced a complaint she had heard about the difficulty of seeing the edge of the road at night. A proposed solution was to paint bright lines down the edge of the road and possibly add more lighting. Hart also showed photos of the Town’s proposed new welcome sign and gave a price estimate for it.
The sewage report brought Living Water Services representative Tyler Keller to the front of the room. He mentioned that there had been a surprise inspection from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM), and that Holly Pond had received no citations. They were told, however, that they had one violation due to their automatic samplers not working, and work to fix the problem is underway. The last point of the committee report simply notified the council of repairs that would need to be made on the machinery in the future.
Councilwoman Lou Thomas told the council the approximate prices for some new Christmas decorations for the park, saying that she felt they needed to "put some life into the back side of the park." Mentions of getting a tree for the park were made, but no official decision was made on that. Michelle Bell closed the committee reports by saying that registrations for sports would be held on Feb. 11 from 9 a.m.-noon and Feb. 18 from 1-4 p.m., both at the town hall.
Mayor Bill Oliver brought the meeting to old business, where he said the council needed to make a final decision on what to do about the Christmas decorations, which led to a motion that put Thomas in charge of making all the choices and presenting them to the council for final approval. He also brought up the issue of gates being put up in the park to reduce the number of cars that use the path as a shortcut (a motion which had been approved by the previous town council) and said that he would begin looking into building the gates in the near future.
New business brought Keller back to the front with the ADEM reports and scorecard. The reports indicated no high flow violations and good lab analysis results, which led to a scorecard result of 40. On a scale of 0 to almost 800, with lower scores being better, Holly Pond's water treatment plant had almost no issues except for the facility's age. After he finished, a representative of Sand Mountain Pest Management offered the council the company's services for the town hall, the library, the Lions Club, and the concessions stand. Oliver and the rest of the council discussed her offer and made a motion that they would research other companies' prices before they made a decision.
Oliver said sometime in the near future, the council would have to "bite the bullet" and find ways to pay for paving roads and running the water treatment plant. He also proposed installing solar lights alongside the regular lights around the ballpark walking track. The council soon dissolved into conversation about landscaping around the new town welcome signs, and they all voted to purchase the signs if the state approved their locations.
The meeting adjourned after a motion was passed granting Oliver and Town Clerk Linda Pope permission to pay any membership dues the council owes to various organizations.
The Holly Pond Town Council meets on the first Monday of each month at 7 p.m. in the Guy Hunt Library. The public is welcome to attend.
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