Additional officer approved at Cloverdale Town Council

Sunday, March 29, 2015

CLOVERDALE -- The Cloverdale Town Council gave Chief Mike Clark permission to hire an additional officer at a special session last week.

Clark explained to the council the department had four officers several years ago, but before he came on as chief the department was reduced to three full-time officers. The department has been advertising to fill an open position, and Clark said he would like to consider the numerous applications for a new position.

"We are in dire need of a fourth officer. I get called out at all hours of the night, and my guys are building up comp time faster than they can use it," Clark said.

He added Clerk-Treasurer Cheryl Galloway told him there were enough funds to add another officer.

The council voted to unanimously to allow Clark to interview for a fourth officer.

In other business, the council forwarded five bids for the Lafayette Street storm sewer replacement project to the engineer for consideration. Lori Young with Curry Engineering was in attendance to take the bids for consideration.

The project is going to be funded by a grant through the Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA). It will be from Logan Street to Market Street. Council President Cowetta Patton said the town hopes to start the project by the end of the school year, and be complete when school starts.

The five bidders submitted a base bid for the storm sewer project, an alternate bid for continuing the sewer east of Lafayette, an alternate bids for replacing the culvert under the old railroad tracks and an alternate bid for resurfacing the road after the work is complete.

The bids were as follows:

* McCullough Excavating base bid $479,114, alternate bid one at $61,063, alternate bid two at $49,500 and alternate bid three at $107,307

* Reed and Sons Construction base bid $416,794, alternate one at $60,181, alternate two at $47,000 and alternate three at $62,450

* B&T Drainage Inc. base bid at $589,491.31, alternate one at $55,041, alternate two at $47,250 and alternate three at $61,805.25

* Steve Cooper Excavating base bid at $430,674.51, alternate one at $64,956.70, alternate two at $48,000 and alternate three at $66,929.75

* Atlas Excavating base bid at $618,394; alternate one at $88,395, alternate two at $9,800 and alternate three at $55,342

Young said she would calculate the numbers, review the submitted bid applications and bring the results to the April council meeting.

Representatives from Endeavor Communications gave a presentation at the council meeting to discuss preventative maintenance on the town's 12 computers and main server. Council members discussed a concern with prices, but Patton stressed the importance of protecting taxpayers' information.

Councilman Garry Bennington was concerned about one of the lower packages costing the town $400 a month with 13 hours of quarterly preventative maintenance, not to exceed 52 hours a year. Councilman Don Sublett said he spent his entire career working with computers, and stressed the importance of computer support.

Bennington added he would like to see the town try a small block of time to better understand how the services work.

The council decided to table the decision to the April meeting to have more time to look at the numbers.

The council will meet April 10 at

7 p.m. in the Town Hall.

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