(Photo by Laura Mancuso, Illinois Valley News)
The Cave Junction City Council reconvened at City Hall for their regularly scheduled meeting Nov. 13. While this meeting was relatively short, many important updates were given to the council, and councilors also voted in a new member of the Parks and Recreation Commission.
Mayor Meadow Martell and Councilors Tina Casey Jones and Jean Ann Miles were present alongside city recorder Rebecca Patton. Councilors Ethan Lane and Jesse Dugas were both unable to attend the meeting.
Although Public Works Director Alex Ponder was not present, the council was able to go over a packet from the public works department that touched upon several important aspects of development: The Jubilee Park Veterans Plaza, the replacement of the slide in the park and the processes of installing the splash pad were all noted as going smoothly. However, the city’s bulk water station had broken down the previous week, with the packet saying a cable failure as the source of the issue. Any hopes of finding a replacement cable were dashed when it was discovered that the manufacturer no longer produces this essential part. The only way that the public works department can fix it is to replace the entire meter. The date of this meter replacement has yet to be determined.
Council liaison updates were brief, but all members of the council who were present mentioned how well the Nov. 11 Veterans Day celebration went at Jubilee Park, with all of them saying that they were proud to have been a part of such a meaningful event.
Teresa Stover also spoke to the council about a change in plans regarding the upcoming library renovation project. The estimate for the library’s stormwater detention and treatment system is a much higher cost than was previously anticipated. According to Stover, “The scope of the system means that it is only fair for us to rebid.”
ZCS, the team of architects and engineers behind the library project, have been revising the bid documents. Stover hopes that the project will be up for re-bidding by early December. With the addition of the drainage system, the amount of time it would take to complete the library has been tentatively extended to between six and nine months.
Toward the end of the meeting the mayor made a motion to appoint parks host Sabrina Dellinger to the Parks and Recreation Commission. The motion passed unanimously.a Ordinance 601, which would amend the city’s municipal code to include events like paint the pavement and block parties, was also read to the council for a second time. After this, the ordinance was unanimously approved.
City Hall will be closed Nov. 23-24 in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday.