The Jefferson City Council met Tuesday night in regular session.

During open forum, Jefferson Parks and Recreation Director Vicky Lautner addressed the Council about the swimming pool. She reviewed the options for renovating the pool floor. She recommended installing a PVC liner instead of hand grinding and repainting it. The cost to install the liner with RenoSys was $86,517. Even though it was the more expensive option upfront, Lautner noted that it would save money for the City over having to repaint the pool every three to five years. Plus, there was a ten-year warranty with the liner. The Council agreed to have the item on their next meeting agenda.

A Token of Love Founder MeLinda Millard also addressed the Council during open forum. She requested to have Mayor Craig Berry sign a proclamation to designate November 4th through the 10th as Donor Awareness Week and asked about having a display for donor families somewhere in town. Mayor Berry agreed to the proclamation.

The Council then approved Eldon Cunningham to be a volunteer firefighter in a leadership role to help primarily with the daytime on-call incidents. The Council also approved the first readings to amend the ordinances to increase water and sewer rates each by three-percent. For water, the increase will be $0.32 and for sewer, it would be a $0.52 increase to the base rate. Additionally, the Council approved an application for a Federal Recreational Trail grant with Region XII Council of Governments for the East Entryway project, and purchasing a permanent and a portable generator for the lift stations to not exceed $180,000.

The Council also discussed a development agreement for the new Jefferson Veterinary Clinic that will located on Gallup Road. The agreement will be at a minimum of $450,000 of assessed value for the next ten years and the owner, Dr. Mark Peters, will be rebated back $100,000 in property taxes for the next seven years. A public hearing on the agreement and an amendment to the urban renewal plan will be done at the October 23rd meeting.

Finally, the meeting ended in a priority budget workshop. The three top priorities that the Council wants to focus on for the 2020 fiscal year are: housing, obtaining grants and economic development.