The Shadow
COVINGTON Va. (VR) – The Covington City Council met to discuss various issues and happenings going on around the city on Tuesday, Oct. 8.
It is scheduled to be the last regular City Council meeting ahead of the Nov. 5 elections. There were very few empty chairs and a couple of citizens even chose to stand in the back during the meeting.
There were not many items on the Tuesday night agenda compared to some meetings, but the importance of those items cannot be understated.
Upon being brought to order and noting that all council members were present, Pastor Doug Hollenbeck led the invocation and Pledge of
Allegiance. With the agenda being approved, it was time for citizens to comment on anything they felt needed to be brought to the attention of the city council. Marie Fitzpatrick came forward to announce that the Christmas Mother applications were being accepted at Central United Methodist Church in Clifton Forge on Oct. 14 and 15 and in Covington on Oct. 16 through 18 at Granbery Memorial United Methodist Church.
Tammy Scruggs Duncan spoke about the Arts Council and everything happening in their upcoming season. It begins Thursday night with Neil Berg’s Fifty Years of Rock and Roll Part Three.
Mayor Sibold then brought it to everyone’s attention that a local hero, Tim Yancey, is retiring. He was brought forward and presented by City Manager Allen Dressler with a plague for his 14 years of service with the Covington Fire Department and Rescue Squad.
In the City Manager’s report, Dressler reported that the city had just wrapped up its second week of fall cleanup. All together the total amount of refuse collected came to 153.33 tons. The board thanked everyone for their hard work and brought attention to the fact that some of the cleanup came during unfavorable weather conditions.
The city has begun hydra-flushing the area’s fire hydrants, which will be done during hours of least water usage by the community to try and prevent decreased water pressure in citizens’ houses. The flushing will be going on over the next couple of weeks.
Dressler took the opportunity to update everyone on the status of the train derailment cleanup which happened early last Monday morning. The cleanup has gone well and was taken care of very quickly.
The $6 million grant received by the city for smoke testing will begin on Oct. 21 in the Monroe Street area. Residents will have a tag placed on their door. Dressler wants to assure everyone that the smoke is harmless and that there are many benefits to this testing.
The final bullet point on the manager’s list was to inform everyone that Lisa Worley has been promoted to Covington’s Recreation Director. Worley, after receiving congratulations, said a few words thanking everyone and giving credit to everyone who works within the department to keep Covington running smoothly.
There were a couple of items to be considered in ordinances and resolutions that were brought to the board for approval.
The first was to proclaim Nov. 1 Extra Mile Day. It is a day of giving thanks to those who go the extra mile to bring good to the community, and to encourage everyone to go the extra mile to help someone. The council then unanimously approved the resolution to go forward with participation in the opioid recovery settlement.
The last item of the evening’s meeting had to do with appointing someone for an open position within the local government. Someone was needed to take over Greg Martin’s place on the Social Services board. Corey Bowles and Kim Jefferson were both interested in the position and attended the meeting to present to the board why they wanted to be on the board and their qualifications for accepting the position. After being given five minutes to make their presentations, the City Council voted unanimously to give the board position to Kim Jefferson.
After closing remarks about the success of the area’s four days of presenting the Wall That Heals to the Covington community, the meeting ended at 7:30 p.m.
