Hawesville Council discusses several matters; budget, banking activities

The Hawesville City Council met on Tuesday evening, May 9th. These meetings are open to the public, and are held on the second Tuesday of each month.

The meeting began with a call to order by Hawesville Mayor Rob McCormick, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer. Roll was called, with council members present: Tracy Johnson, Wayne Herndon, Kevin Linn, Junie Morris, Danny Doyle and Justin Basham.

McCormick provided an update on the move of the City’s banking activities from First Financial to Independence Bank. “We held off on writing checks that didn’t need to be written until we received our new checks from Independence Bank,” he said. “We got the money all moved, and Councilman Herndon was able to that. So, you will see a very short list of payments this week. If anyone has any questions regarding any of them, please feel free to ask. Most of them are payroll and taxes. There has to be an ordinance in place in order to have the budget presented to the council. So, we’re reading the first reading of it tonight.”

Budget

“You’re not going to see any major changes from last year to this year in the budget itself,” McCormick said. “We do have some monies coming in that will be added to the budget, like the Kenergy franchise. That will be put under the audit line for audits, but we can make an amendment when that comes in. The budget carries a lot of money. This is an important part of our job, 1 A of importance, and the safety of our people is definitely in the top 2.”

Fire Chief’s Report

Hawesville Fire Chief Shane Richards said, “For the month of April, we totaled out at 49 runs for the department. It’s been one of our busier months so far. The total number of runs for a year, we’re up to 190 runs so far this year. To put it into perspective, we ran a total of 399 last year. We’re almost to 200 already in the first 4 months. It’s been a busy year. All 4 departments in the county are helping each other out, and making runs simultaneously on a lot of different things, so it is increasing our run volume quite a bit.

We have an EMR (Emergency Medical Response) class that’s taking place, right now, at our station, that is countywide. Several different departments are participating in that. It’s through Emergency Management (EM), they’re assisting with that.

Lift Station

Manager of Hawesville Water Works, Robert Adkins, provided an update. “The 2181 lift station is complete,” he said. “Old Hartford Road is complete. We had some school kids visit us at the water and waste plant here, in the last couple of weeks (HCHS CTE Teacher Josh Smith brought his students for a tour). They came and looked at what we’re doing in the plants. We’re a work in progress, and rough around the edges. Anybody who wants to know what is going on at the Hawesville Water Plant; it is on River Street (247 River Road). Anything you want to discuss or talk about, whatsoever, I’m down there 40 hours a week from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Come down there and talk to me.”

Police Report

“This is scam season,” Councilman Doyle said. “Everybody’s phone has been ringing. Be careful with those. They’re not who they say they are. Be diligent.”

Cody Axton, Hawesville Chief of Police, said that the police cruiser that was down is now repaired. “We took the cruiser to Bob’s Garage for a second opinion,” he said. “They ended up doing some work on it. Everything is fine, as of now. The shake that was in it has gone away. A motor mount had shaken loose and that was causing the disruption. We got that lined back out.

We did purchase some exterior lights for the vehicle, to let it be seen a little more. We went down to On Duty Depot, an extremely accredited agency that works for major police departments, and they cut us an amazing deal on some lights. They didn’t have to do that, but they did because they knew the situation we’re in, and they donated a bunch of lights that we’ll put on the end of this week, or early part of next week.

I got a call about the Police Academy in Richmond. The day that I was supposed to go was July 30th, and it has been bumped-up to June 18th. We’re going to go earlier than expected, and so we’re going to get back earlier than expected, and get back to working.”

Mayor McCormick stated that Lewisport Mayor Chad Gregory requested help from Hawesville during the Lewisport Heritage Festival, in providing an additional officer, because one of their officers will be in training at the Academy that week. The City of Lewisport will pay the officer for filling that position for the festival days, June 1-3.

By Jennifer Wimmer