By REID TUCKER
The Paxton Town Council swiftly dealt with its end-of-the-year agenda, passing two pieces of legislation in short order.
First, the board returned a 5-0 vote on Dec. 16 to hear second reading and to adopt Ordinance 14-02, which establishes a new city policy on abandoned water meters, allowing the board to waive impact and connection fees to residents moving into houses with an existing water meter. The ordinance also sets the cost of a new connection to coincide with the actual cost in terms of materials and labor, the combination of which is aimed at helping new Paxtonians get started in town. This newly passed ordinance goes along with another amendment passed a couple months back that changed 12 of the city’s past ordinances dealing with updated water and sewer rates, while also allowing future Town Council’s to effect rate changes by resolution instead of the lengthier ordinance process.
Second, the board members voted unanimously in favor of resolution supporting the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine’s dental school, which is set to open early in 2015 at the site of the former Microspine offices in DeFuniak Springs. Similar resolutions in support of the medical school, which is projected to generate annual tax revenues in the millions of dollars, have been passed by the city councils of DeFuniak Springs and Freeport as well as the Walton County Board of County Commissioners.
The only other items needing a vote at the meeting were 5-0 decisions to hire out the job of tuning the piano at Town Hall or, failing that, to look at purchasing a new piano sometime in the future, and to give city staffers a few extra days off for the holidays. Town Hall was to be closed noon Tuesday, Dec. 23, and all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with the Senior Center luncheon moved to the Paxton Agricultural Center. The office will reopen Monday, Dec. 29 at 7:30 a.m.
