Piedmont, AL – The Piedmont City Council met Tuesday March 18th the planning session took place at 5:30 PM with the regular meeting scheduled to start at 6PM. Mayor Bill Baker stated there were regular expenses amounting to $243,761.22 and two weeks of payroll amounting in $155,260.44. The total expenses were $399,021.66 a motion was made, seconded and passed to pay the bills.
Corey Horton, manager of Piedmont Power and Light, informed the council of the upcoming rate increase that will be affecting the April bill for their customers. Police Chief Nathan Johnson then gave the police report. There have been a total of 35 arrests on 53 misdemeanor charges along with 8 felony charges. The department also reported 119 traffic stops and 77 incident reports.
Fire Chief Todd Kirkland presented the fire report. The fire department answered 13 fire calls, 32 calls for rescue & emergency medical service incident, 4 calls for hazardous conditions and calls for other non-emergency situations.
The next item on the agenda was visitor comments the council heard from Ms. Linda Bell discussing the utility rate increase. The council, Mayor and City Clerk gave their reports and motion was made, second, and passed for the meeting to adjourn.
Mark McGriff
Corey Horton, Manager of Piedmont Power and Light informed the City Council Tuesday evening of the rate increase. He said there would be a $10 per month increase on the base rate and one cent per kilowatt hour increase which would increase the average bill of about $19.30 per month.
Horton told the Council this should generate an extra 34 to 36 thousand dollars per month for Electrical Department. He asked the Council to put most of the money into the Utility department Capital Improvement account. After a lengthy discussion, Councilman South made the motion to put all the funds generated by the increase into a capital improvement fund for the Electric Department. The motion failed to get a second. Councilman Feazell made a motion to put 10 thousand per month into the electrical department account, 5 thousand in the water gas and sewer account each month and the rest of the funds into the general fund. The measure passed on 7-1 vote.
The increase is now in effect and customers will see it reflected on their April 1st Bill.
Tony Hathcock
(Information Provided by WEIS RADIO)
