City votes to close Monroe for home football games
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By BETH ZUMWALT
The Pittsfield City Council agreed to close the southern part of Monroe Street during home football games for pre-game get togethers.
“We agreed to close the portion of the street, south of where the street splits,” Gary Mendenhall,mayor, said. “It will be closed from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the public street and right-of-way.”
Mendenhall said he was approached about the idea and thought it was good one.
“People can set up grills, they plan to have music, the team will walk-through on their way to the locker room to get dressed for the game, it should be a good spirit booster and a lot of fun.”
Dates of home football games are Sept. 12, 26, 10 and 24.
The council also heard a report from the finance committee, who had walked thorough the aging and deteriorating waster water plant prior to the meeting.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done,” Mendenhall said. “There are four pumps that cost $52,000 a piece and we only have one operating.”
Mendenhall said several years ago, the council leased out the operation of the plant to a private company, who did little if any maintenance to the plant.
“So now we have pumps, motors and concrete all in need of replacement or repair,” Mendenhall said. “It will probably cost around $7 million to replace it back the way it was.”
Mendenhall said the council is looking at options, including discontinuing use of the plant and going to a lagoon system.
“Barry and Griggsville have lagoons,” Mendenhall said. “I don’t know if we could do that because of our population. That might be for smaller towns.”
The council could also put the filter house back on-line after it was removed several years ago.
“That would ease-up our chemical use,” he said.
The council also agreed to oil and chip all or parts of North Orchard, Oklahoma, Controy, Liberty, S.Memorial, Meadow Creek, S. Monroe, Knapp and Gay Street.
“The oil will be put down and the chips spread over the top,’ Mendenhall said. “We are not going to go through what we went through last year. We had one neighbor call and say the chips were too thick and were causing so much dust. We went out and scooped some off and later that same day, the neighbor on the other side of the street called and said the oil was bleeding through, we needed to come out and put down chips.”
Mendenhall said the chips help the oil solidify and build up the base of the street.
“The chips will have be down for 3-4 weeks,” he said.
