Bonifay Council looks at Florida Forever grant

BONIFAY - Bonifay City Council looked over a proposal for a grant for up to $4 million from Florida Forever at its regular meeting Monday night.
Council asked for more information about the grant that would be used for drainage and culverts. The application for the grant is due in September.

Part of this grant’s conditions is a local match from Bonifay. The grant would provide equipment, supplies and material and the city would provide the labor as an in-kind local match.

One project the grant could be used for is widening Jenkins Boulevard, creating a 60-foot right of away. Mayor James Sims said the project is important.

“The road is a lawsuit waiting to happen,” said Sims. “We’ve got to do something with this road or someone’s going to get hurt on it. It just isn’t safe.” Once a surveyor is hired an assessment can be made.

Sims also suggested setting a list of goals to be met from month to month and the resources necessary to achieve them. Meetings would be held to set the goals to come up with new ideas and approaches to City problems. Meetings would be done every 30 days. The city clerk will release the date and time of the first meeting.

In other business:

•Councilman Roger Brooks said that the city’s phone lines are too close to the water lines, making it difficult to repair water damage or leaks without interfering with the phone lines. He proposed a charge of $1 a foot to the company that lays out the phone lines. This would increase revenue and identify where the phone lines would be and if they are interfering with water line maintenance. Council agreed that it was worth looking into.

•City Clerk Jeri Gibson brought up a proposal to look into increasing the city’s water rates. Council agreed to look into the matter.

•A street festival will be held on March 21, 2009, on Esther Street behind First Baptist Church.

•The council’s next budget meeting will be on July 21 at 6 p.m.

•The annual $200 donation toward the Panhandle Patriotic Celebration on June 29 at the Holmes County Fairgrounds was approved.

•A letter from a “concerned citizen” was written to Mayor Sims, requesting a property owner should clear his property of overgrowth. The citizen wrote that his granddaughter often played in that area and he was afraid that a snake might bite her. Sims agreed to write the owner.

•Council agreed that the addition to rec park under the FRDAP grant should be a skate park. “Maybe now they won’t use the front of City Hall for their skating tricks,” said Gibson. Council decided that no additional money would be required if they took the money that would have built a shuffle board area and repairing and maintaining the pool at the recreational center and put it into the skate park.

•Council discussed the recreation center building and its need for maintenance.