By REID TUCKER
The Paxton Town Council voted in favor of awarding Martin Construction, LLC, with a contract to handle the city’s lift station rehabilitation project.
The Council returned a unanimous 4-0 decision of all members present (Councilwoman Ann Sexton was absent at the meeting) on the night of Tuesday, April 21, to award the contract to the DeFuniak Springs-based firm for a total amount of $471,350. Martin Construction was the low-bidder on the project, which involves performing necessary but extensive maintenance repairs to the Paxton sewer system’s five lift stations. The quoted amount is provided for in the Fiscal Year 2015 budget, and the city has already applied for a federal Community Development Block Grant to help cover the cost of the project.
Though the board awarded the contract, that isn’t the end of the process. Construction will begin roughly 30 to 45 days after the city receives approval from the state of Florida, which requires the submission of a number of documents detailing all the myriad facets of the project ranging, from the award paperwork itself to contractor information to copies of the bid. If OK’ed by the state, the city will hold a pre-construction conference with the contractor to go over the terms of the agreement and the plan of operations before work commences on the project.
In other meeting news, further discussion as to whether the Council should make changes to its water bill waiver policy was brought forward by Councilman Travis McMillian after the matter first came up around the first of the year. McMillian broached the subject after a Paxton resident requested a bill waiver for his elderly mother, whose monthly water bill increased from $10 on average to $200. The 91-year-old woman in question was also the victim of a robbery – the perpetrator of which left a faucet running in her home for an indeterminate but lengthy amount of time – which resulted in the higher-than-usual water bill.
Though the Council was quick to approve the waiver, the current city waiver policy limits homeowners to one such instance of fee forgiveness per lifetime, and that limitation has proven to be a particularly strong sticking point with the Council over the past few years. McMillian suggested that provisions be included in the revised policy that would allow older city residents and those on a fixed income due to disability to have the opportunity for more than one bill waiver at the Council’s discretion. City Attorney Clay Adkinson said he would bring back a draft of the proposed changes, plus definitions of “elderly, infirm or indigent” that were sufficiently inclusive to those the updated waiver rules seeks to protect.
Additionally, Adkinson recommended that the board consider including a provision for individuals who were, as in the aforementioned case, a victim of a crime or other legitimate hardships outside their control.
So far, the Council’s consensus was to allow one waiver for any reason, provided documentation could be shown demonstrating a higher than normal bill. Any subsequent waivers would have to be brought to the Council on a case-by-case basis before being approved or disapproved. How many waivers (if indeed there is to be a limit on waivers) will be discussed at a future meeting.
