News
PINE BLUFF CITY COUNCIL CHANGES STREET NAMES AND PASSES OLD VEHICLES TO ALTHEIMER FOR USE IN MONDAY MEETING
By Erin France/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 10:22 AM CDT
With much fanfare and dozens of residents present, the Pine Bluff City Council passed two resolutions renaming streets for community leaders.
Steven Mays, chairman of the Family Community Development Corp., spoke in favor of the renamings before the full council meeting started Monday at 5:30 p.m. in city hall.
“I’m asking you personally to support this,” he said, calling on each council member by their first name.
One resolution renamed Jean Street to Gwen Buckingham Drive and another renamed a portion of Fig Street to Levert Blunt Jr. Drive.
Buckingham was a member of the aviation commission as well as a member of the Family Community Development Corp.
Blunt represented the 4th Ward on the city council and was a member of the Watson Chapel School Board.
“I served with Alderman Blunt for years and he was my seat mate,” said 1st Ward Alderman Irene Holcomb. “I told him to save me a seat in heaven.”
Family members for both Buckingham and Blunt spoke to council members and thanked them for their consideration.
Also passed at Monday’s meeting was a resolution added and then amended to authorize the city of Altheimer to receive two older vehicles from Pine Bluff’s Police Department.
One vehicle will be a 2000 Ford Crown Victoria police sedan which is no longer used by Pine Bluff and was sold for $10.
The other vehicle, added through an amendment, likely will also be from 2000, said police officials.
At a public safety meeting earlier, Altheimer Mayor Donald Robinson requested the vehicles.
“What we have is a group of old cars,” he said. “They just won’t do the job.”
Robinson said some didn’t take the city’s police seriously because of the age of the vehicles.
“They are kind of making a joke out of us,” he said.
Holcomb did not talk about raising city revenues at the Monday meeting, although she had mentioned the possibility last week.
“We’re still going to have that discussion,” she said.
In other action, the council also:
Acknowledged receiving a $10,000 check from Waste Management for the city’s summer youth program. This is the second year the utility has donated money for the program.
Heard the first reading of a proposed ordinance to close a portion of Alabama Street north of East 12th Avenue.
Heard the second reading of a proposed ordinance to increase fines for convictions on misdemeanor offenses and violations from $5 to $20 to defray the cost of incarcerating prisoners. The measure was passed to committee for review.
Heard the second reading of a proposed ordinance waiving competitive bidding for an engineering study. The legislation would allow the city to purchase a copy of an engineering study completed by Carter & Burgess Inc. for the area of Bayou Bartholomew west of Olive Street. It was sent to committee for review.
Rezoned 1306 W. 46th Ave. as a R-PUD, or residential planned unit development district.
Closed Bryant Street between Webb and Smart streets.
Print this story | Email this story
|
