LEESBURG - Change was the name of the game at the Leesburg Town Council Monday night.
For the first time since February, there was a full council and clerk-treasurer on hand to conduct a regular meeting.
And the new crew decided to make some new rules for running the town. First, purchase orders will be used for all transactions.
"It's a good business practice for all companies to use purchase orders," said board member Tom Moore.The board also approved a motion that requires their approval for any and all vendors used by the town.
"No matter how big or small, they must be approved by the board," said board member Doug Jones.
The council also gave the go-ahead to Jones to get a domain name and create a Web site for the town.
Jones, who owns Master Mind Computers in Leesburg, said he would donate his time so the town only would have to buy its domain name and Web space for the site.
The council also approved a motion to rescind raises for elected positions in the town. In February raises were approved, but since the original 2010 budget did not include the change, the raises had to be rescinded.
Clerk-Treasurer Jan Carter said so far she has been unable to find copies of the town's budget.
She also said that for the most part, the sewer bills are caught up and there is about $1,000 per day coming in to the office. Carter said that she did not believe deposits were being made in a timely manner in the past, and she plans to make deposits of sewer payments each day.
"Be patient with me," Carter said, adding that she was learning. "Anybody can come in my office any time of day and ask me a question."
Bob Murphy, grant writer for R.P. Murphy and Associates, updated the council on the grant for the storm sewers. The town received a $1 million one-time federal grant to update and repair its storm sewers.
The town accepted the bid from Cripe Excavating for the project. Cripe Excavating bid $726,893 to complete the project, which includes a base bid along with two alternates. A pre-construction meeting with the contractor will be May 18 at 11 a.m. in the Leesburg Town Hall.
The town has $800,000 in the construction budget, leaving a $73,107 contingency.
Murphy voiced concern about an additional $30,000 the council agreed to pay GRW Engineering for the project. He said he will have to file a modification with Office of Community and Rural Affairs and have the additional money approved.
Joe Tierney, engineer for GRW, said the additional charge came when the firm had to redesign the project to reduce costs. The original plans were drawn up to follow the original path of the storm sewer while saving trees and the brick streets. When that bid came back too high, the plans were redrawn to use open trenches in an alternate route for the system.
The board agreed to pay the additional fee due to the redesign work, leaving a contingency that is about 6 percent of the total budget.
In other business, the council:
n Heard an update on the sanitary sewer. Tenney said everything is running well and he has had no calls in the past few weeks. He also presented an inventory of the parts the town has in stock.
Tenney also gave a check to the town returning funds the town overpaid Tenney & Sons.
n Approved a motion to purchase spare parts and tools for the sanitary sewer system, including a locator, a front loader with a sweeper and gutter brush and spare pumps, totaling $135,572.48. These items all were included in the original plans for the project, and the purchases are being made to finish out the project.
n Decided to have town attorney Vern Landis draw up conflict of interest statements for council members.
Leesburg Town Council members are Rick Stookey, president; Tom Moore and Doug Jones. Clerk-treasurer is Jan Carter.
