Mayor's Minutes
by Ricky White
Greetings!!!
A big thank you to everyone involved in organizing the “Christmas in the Park”. Chris Alexander and the Chamber of Commerce do a very good job each year with this event. The Sherriff’s department did a great job organizing the light parade. There was a very good turnout for this event and the kids really enjoyed themselves. That is what it is all about. The park looks great and all of the kids enjoyed visiting with Santa Claus.
The city is making some major repairs at the sewer plant on the sprinkler system. Legacy Pumps and Campbell Electric are working on the issues. Work at the Credit Union/Police Department is making good progress. The Public Works employees have done a lot of painting and replacing floor tile. The contractor, Johnny Alvarez, has completed three separate garages for the police cars, built an additional two rooms in the office area and will be installing bullet resistant windows in the front entrance. There is a lot of work to be done before the police department can move in. The projected “move-in” date will be around April 2017.
Judge Campbell had 59 new cases in November. There were 24 trials by judge cases that pled guilty and 33 cases disposed. There were an additional 6 new juvenile cases filed. Total fines collected were $6,945.84 and court cost equaled $2,750.81.
EMS had 33 total runs in November. There were 9 calls for 9-1-1, 17 calls for transfers and 7 calls resulting in “no transport”. Payments collected equaled $13,064.22 and billing totaled $42,878.24. Data Billing Company, Amarillo, TX. is doing a great job collecting the payments for the city.
Volunteer Fire Department was busy in November. There were 7 emergency calls. One call for a wreck 3 miles south on Highway 60 at the Cargill entrance; six calls were for fires-3 miles south on Highway 214 (gin), 8 miles east on Highway 60 (cotton fire), Friona Feed Yard (cotton burrs), east on Highway 60 (grass fire), east on Highway 60 (another grass fire), and south of Black (grass fire). There have been a total of 66 emergency calls this year, 42 emergency calls outside the city limits and 18 calls inside the city limits.
Diane and I, along with other city and county officials, were invited to the Volunteer Fireman Christmas dinner held at the Senior Citizens House. We all had a great time visiting with the volunteers and their families. We also, enjoyed some very good barbeque. We want to say “thank you” for the invitation. Congratulations to Glenn Reeve, Jr. for 60 years of service as a volunteer fireman. The volunteer firemen do a great service for our community and we are very grateful.
The city pumped, 13,019,700 gallons of water and sold 10,710,000 gallons during November. Payments collected equaled $60,791.74 with 1432 accounts billed.
Chief Jimenez and the officers responded to 290 calls in November. There were 131 stops, 75 warnings, 56 citations and 12 arrests (3-no driver’s license, 1-driving while license invalid, 1-family violence, 2-possession of marijuana, 2-possession of paraphilia, 1-criminal trespassing and 2-burglary of a habitation). The officers drove a total of 3822 miles patrolling and protecting our city.
Accounts Payable equaled $181,979.05 for November. All bills were paid and the city is in good standing.
The library had a total of 836 patrons visit in November an average of 44 per day. There were 868 items circulated and 85 new items added to the inventory. The Friends of the library are gearing up for their 2017 membership drive and coordinating the Literary Basket Fundraiser.
Your Mayor
