The Calion City Council held its monthly meeting on Thursday, March 11.
The meeting began with approval by the council of the monthly financial reports, the previous meeting minutes and payment of monthly bills.
Several previously-discussed issues, including sewer hook-ups and a “Welcome to Calion” sign to be placed at the town entrance from Hwy. 167, were tabled last month to be brought up again in March.
Mayor Bill Yutzy also re-visited several other items from the previous meeting, including speed limit adjustments, park lighting and lake water level.
The council decided in their February meeting to change the outgoing speed limit near Calion First Baptist Church to 35 miles per hour to match the speed limit when entering Calion from Hwy. 167, and to add a light to North Park.
“With the consistent speed limits for the city, those signs have not been received yet so they are not put up. With lighting for the parks, the lighting for the South Park looks to me like it’s adequate… I drove over there and all four corners have a large lamp shining down on the park… If anyone has any ideas about that, we can discuss it. In the North Park, we still have to get those lights up,” Yutzy said.
Yutzy next addressed issues encountered with Calion Lake’s water level in early March. On March 1, Yutzy warned citizens on his “Calion Mayor” Facebook page “Please be aware the flood warning for the area. The water level in Calion lake rising and coming in faster than it can go out.”
He addressed this in the meeting.
“I learned a lesson since last month, it almost got away [from] us. There were some people concerned around Dugan Reed [Street], water was up right at the house. There wasn’t a whole lot we can do. If we had the water level up to where we’d been asked to have it, we would have been in trouble… My recommendation is to let Carter Dale [King] do it the way he sees fit to do it,” Yutzy said.
King is a Union County contract employee who for several decades has monitored and maintained the water level in Calion Lake.
Yutzy then detailed the actions taken to adjust the water level during the rain to prevent flooding.
”I got complaints that we had a broken pump and that only one pump was running. I went over there and no pumps were running and the gates were opened. [King] explained to me that the water would go out through the gates faster than we can pump it. At 4 [a.m.] the next morning, he went over and shut the gate because the water level in the river had come up high enough that he could pump it faster than the gates would let it out. He shut off the gates and turned on the pumps. We have three pumps, all three were working… If the water is up high enough, the pumps work fine. If the water is low it will [cause cavitation], because you have to have water to feed the pumps,” Yutzy said.
The meeting then moved to new business, which Yutzy led by reading a letter from the Arkansas State Aid Street Committee.
“This is something [former Mayor Karen Evans] asked for I think three years ago and we’ve kept it on their agenda ever since,” Yutzy said.
The letter informs the city that the committee approved a request to overlay city streets including Lake Street, Dugan Reed Street, Amason Street, Tighe Street, Oak Loop, Thomas Street, Round Top and North Tippy Lane.
Next, the city council voted unanimously to accept Calion’s 2020 financial statement. Yutzy said the financial statement has been posted in locations around Calion including “city hall, old city hall, the police station, the Masonic lodge and the post office.”
Next, Yutzy showed council members a picture and described issues currently affecting the town community center due to damage caused by last month’s winter storm.
“The ceiling has pretty much caved in, the purlins above the room have caved in. The insurance company- I talked to the adjuster this afternoon- called an engineer to come look at it and make recommendations. The engineer came and looked at it Monday… We have to contact a contractor and get them to give us a bid, and we will turn that in to the adjuster, who will turn it in to the insurance company. We had a $1,000 deductible, but the building was not built to code and they will not put it back unless we do build it to code. That could cost us more than what we get,” Yutzy said.
The next Calion council meeting will be on Thursday, April 8.