The agenda for the first Lee Town Hall meeting of January held on Tuesday, Jan. 5 was short but held a few topics of interest.
The first topic up for discussion was two two-horsepower pumps at the Annette lift station that were no longer needed, as they had recently been replaced with four-horsepower pumps that were installed on Dec. 9.
Selling the pumps was discussed, but as there was no knowledge on a market for selling the pumps, since while they are still in good condition, they have been used and may not be worth much in a sale market. It was instead decided to donate the pumps to Florida Rural Water in the hopes of another community, one that may need the pumps, would receive them.
Florida Rural Water has often helped the Town of Lee and donating the pumps would keep from having to wade in through grants and funds.
Next, Diane Beck spoke about the Lee Volunteer Fire Department’s Christmas party. “We had a small turn-out,” Beck said. But the party was far from a disappointment, as afterwards, the fire department, with the help of the Lee school’s selection, went around to children in need and donated fully wrapped gifts to local children enrolled in Lee Elementary.
“The good thing about [the small turn out] was that, the kids that came got stuff,” said Beck. “Afterwards we were able to get up with Cindy Thomas and we were able to donate three huge totes full of toys to children from the school that pretty much weren’t going to have anything. That’s pretty much what it is all about. We are real proud that we were able to help a lot of families out with that.”
Speaking next, Town Manager John Anderson spoke about the application for the fifth grant extension regarding the Annette lift station as the last one expired on Dec. 2, and the success of the recently installed pumps.
The grant’s approval process is still in the works, but it is looking bright for the approval of it.
“I haven’t gotten anything back on paper,” said Anderson. However, he was emailed back and said that the grant’s extension was working towards being approved.
With that grant, numerous bills and payments will be paid. The general air of the meeting was of good anticipations towards this update.
If all goes according to plan, the Town of Lee will not have to pay out-of-pocket for the pumps.
Anderson also brought up the Chick Pea three-inch main water pipe busting on Dec. 9, there was enough water lost to “create a river,” although Anderson didn’t have a calculated estimate on exactly how much water was lost. The incident has created a sense of preparedness for the town. The town has added various supplies to their stock in order to prevent a slow response time in case of a future incident.
“Should that happen again, hopefully we will already have the materials on hand,” said Anderson. “[The lack of supplies on hand] was what cost us.”
Next up, the success of the Senior Citizens Health Fair that was held on Dec. 29 was discussed and then Anderson revealed that a local Lee establishment, Everything Pecan, has closed.
“We now have a kitchen open for rental if someone would like to [rent the facility],” said Anderson.
Several comments on the school warning signs were brought up.
“Where the school actually is and where you exit the parking lot, you aren’t even in the school warning zone,” said Anderson. “It doesn’t seem right.”
The movement of the warning zone has been a topic of concern among the citizens of Lee and the parents of Lee Elementary students. No solution has been presented yet, but the council is aware of the faulty positioning and it has been brought to the attention of the Florida Department of Transportation; hopefully there will be progress on fixing the issue before it is the cause of a breach of safety.
Mark Webb, a citizen, was present at the meeting to request permission to use a medal detector on school grounds.
Anderson said he didn’t see any issues with that, but wanted to bring it up to the council and make sure that it passed their approval.
Webb was granted permission with the clause that should anything of historical value be found he would hand it over to the town.
Webb promised to not destroy any property and if he moved anything, to put it right back how he found it. He was also asked to provide photo documentation if he extracted anything that could be considered valuable historically.
The last item of business after paying the bills was the update on the Family Dollar being built in Lee.
Anderson talked to the building superintendent and it is expected that the parking lot is to be paved by next week. Building completion has been estimated for sometime around Feb. 8.
“It’s very, very possible, as far as for Family Dollar, once he turns the building over to them, that they could have that store stocked and opened before the end of March,” said Anderson of his conversation with the building superintendent.
The air conditioning and ductwork has already been completed for the building.
After finishing the Family Dollar update, Eddie Bell made the motion to adjourn and the council parted ways until February’s meeting, which will be held on Feb. 2 at 7 p.m.