Monday night, the Century Council approved to award a bid from Precision Meter Repair to replace 283 of the town's gas meters at the cost of about $56,000.
“The system has 615 gas meters, 548 are active, 67 are inactive, and we've changed out 265,” said Interim City Manager Vernon Prather. “Inactive meters shouldn't be addressed now, because they are locked. We will address those meters as they are brought back up and made active.”
Replacement would be $160 per meter, with a material fee if the regulator needs to be replaced, but Prather said every meter will not need a new regulator. Prather recommended $10,754 should be allocated for regulator cost, as required.
He said the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds are eligible to fund this project and the town has already purchased the meters. The town budgeted $60,000 for this project based on an estimate. Prather said awarding this bid to Precision will keep the total under the budgeted amount. Precision gave a time frame of six weeks to two months to complete the project and will give a start date when the bid is awarded.
In a motion made by Councilwoman Brenda Spencer and seconded by Councilman Luis Gomez, the motion carried unanimously.
In other business, the council:
-Approved Councilman Luis Gomez to move from vice chairman to chairman of the Community Redevelopment Agency's (CRA)
-Approved Councilwoman Ann Brooks to be Vice Chairman of the CRA
-Approved Councilwoman Brenda Spencer to be the town's representative for the Community Action Program
-Approved a five-year extension of Republic Services Garbage Contract with the town
-Approved a transfer request of $5,436.80 of LOST funds for infrastructure, engineering and publication fees associated with capital projects
-Approved Debbie Nickles' recommendation to request the CRA Tax Increment Funding (TIF) funds of $13,929 for 2020 on Nov. 1, 2020
-Witnessed the swearing in of Councilwoman Brenda Spencer to fill council seat no. 3 by Town Clerk Kim Godwin, left vacant by Ben Boutwell
The next council meeting will be at 7 p.m., Monday, Aug. 3, at Century Town Hall.
