MONTICELLO — Mayor Cathy Gross welcomed the newly hired paramedicine nurse to the Mobile Integrated Health program and gave her the oath of office at the Monticello City Council meeting Monday night. Courtney Dyer has 12 years of experience working with obstetrics and will be working in that capacity with the program. She was approved for hire at the Board of Public Works meeting prior to the city council meeting.
“It truly is a privilege to invite new young professionals to our city,” Gross said.
Wastewater Superintendent Bob Lindley said they investigated the sinkholes by the 1st Baptist Church on S. Beach Rd. and it is a compaction issue and the wrong size stone had been used. He said the work is still under warranty and the areas were excavated, the correct stone and concrete was put in to fix the issue.
He said they will wait on resurfacing until they are sure there are no other areas that will may have the same problem.
Lindley also reported they have the storm water awareness program posted on the website and on the city’s Facebook page. “We take pride in our rivers and lakes and don’t want our garbage flowing there,” he said. He hopes the program will educate the public about dumping into storm water drains.
Diane Bunnell, ADA/Title VI coordinator reported the ADA golf outing is Aug. 20 and there is still time to register a team for the outing. Two street signs have been placed about the golf outing, one at City Park and one at Hollow Acres Golf Course where the outing will be held.
She said she is working with Mitch Billue, parks superintendent, on a grant for the parks department.
Street Department Superintendent Frank Arthur said they worked on South Beach Monday for a stream that runs below the road. The spring has been resurfacing on the road “forever” he said, and now it is resurfacing worse than ever. They put in more drain tiles hoping to stop the water from coming over the road.
The storm that blew through on July 23 left some trees down in its wake so they added an extra brush pick up and cleaned up several trees that had come down.
And for good news, he reported the price of road salt did not go up this year.
A public hearing was held to allow additional appropriations of funds for diesel and gasoline for the street department due to the high cost of fuel. Arthur explained he did not anticipate such an increase for this year’s budget and the department has already run out of money for fuel. He asked for an additional $24,000 to get them through the rest of the year. This was approved by the council with one abstention by Ken Houston, who was attending via Zoom and was having trouble hearing the proceedings.
A request by SOMA for their $10,000 allotment for the next three years was tabled due to the technical issues on the council and another councilman absent. Councilman Bill Cheever asked that they delay this decision until they have a full council present. He also said he appreciates everything SOMA does.
Gross announced Dr. Becker and a nurse practitioner will be leaving the community. She said city hall has received phone calls about the situation. “For the record,” she said, “the city understands the needs of the community but we have no control over private health care providers. I’m thankful we have the mobile unit intact to fill in the gap, help make it better.”
She said IU Health is officially recruiting for providers and the city will do everything it can to help with this “most unfortunate situation,” she said.
