City Approves 2011-2012 Budget

City approves 2011-2012 Budget
 
The Board of Alderman approved the 2011-2012 budget in a special meeting yesterday. The meeting addressed some of the pressing issues facing the city.
 
The approval came a week after the board held a public hearing on the budget during their town hall meeting, to hold any concerns and to allow a clear view of the city’s spending by anyone interested.
 
The city’s budget was the top priority for the board during their special meeting. The motion was quickly approved, as the budget has been the talk of the board for several meetings now.
 
Other Issues
 
The rest of the meeting was spent reviewing some issues that had been discussed recently among the board and making routine approvals for various programs.
 
Issues included traffic issues on Sisk Avenue, the Square and Taylor Rd, declaring mills for the Oxford-Lafayette Vocational Technical Center, declaring the mill rate for 2011-2012 and to revisit the recent issue of the bars of silver that the city intends to sell this year.
 
The discussion of improvements on Sisk Avenue revolved around the improvement of the sidewalks leading to the school and the removal of residence mailboxes.
 
The work on the street will be made financially possible in part by the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program paying  for a majority of the costs.
 
The removal of the residence mailboxes will be addressed by the city replacing them with standard mailboxes with the residences of Sisk Avenue having the option to replace the boxes independently.
 
"The main concern in this situation has to be making those sidewalks as safe as possible" said Mayor "Pat" Patterson.
 
The Cobra Security direction Square traffic was also addressed due to the regular congestion experienced by people driving through the Square on game days. It was decided that during the Georgia game the city would try putting traffic guards on both sides Lamar on the south side of the square.
 
The introduction of a round a bout on Taylor Rd. to free up traffic was discussed due to concerns about the size of the bridge across Highway 6 and its accessibility for bikers and pedestrian walkers. The issue will continue to be discussed at coming Board of Alderman meetings.
 
The discussion of selling the city's silver bars also continued due to request by the city officials to postpone the sale until next year. The silver sale will also be discussed next Tuesday.