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City manager reports hires, payment-system migration window and progress on 900 Whittington and roads
Summary
City Manager Burl outlined personnel changes, three retirements, a July 17–29 temporary outage for online payments while the city transitions to BSNA services, 900 Whittington renovation progress, and continued roads paving funded under the 'Roads Now' program.
City Manager Burl delivered a comprehensive report June 16 covering personnel moves, upcoming service changes and capital projects.
Staffing: Burl announced multiple hires and promotions across departments: new hires (District Court, wastewater construction), promotions within Fire and Police (Assistant Fire Chief Casey Burch; Captain Mark Davis to assistant police chief; other promotions to captain, lieutenant, sergeant and corporal), and Bobby Harris named director of utilities. Burl also recognized three upcoming city retirements: Kenny Talbert (fire department, retiring June 19), Tina Franklin (utility billing, retiring June 30) and Terry Ascu (city attorney's office, retiring June 30).
Payments migration: Burl said the city will transition payment processing to BSNA services, and as a result online and pay-by-phone payments will be temporarily unavailable from July 17 through July 29; during that window customers can pay by cash, check or use city dropboxes. Auto bank drafts will not be affected; credit-card payments will need to be reentered after the migration. Burl said the city will not terminate service during the transition window to avoid unintended disconnections.
900 Whittington and CRC: Burl reported 900 Whittington and Community Resource Center renovations are nearing completion, with washers/dryers, multiple restrooms/showers and furniture deliveries in progress and an open-house to be scheduled.
Roads Now update: In later discussion the city reported "Roads Now" funding has put roughly $30 million toward paving over five years and the city has paved about 40 miles to date; staff said the per-mile cost is high (cited roughly $380,000 per mile) because milling is required before repaving, and the program has about one more year of collections as the city considers extending the program.
Next steps: Finance and public works will proceed with the BSNA migration schedule, staff will arrange an open house for 900 Whittington when work completes, and the city will continue to coordinate paving and utility schedules to preserve new surface investments.
