At just about every recent meeting of the Newton Board of Mayor and Aldermen, the board has been considering placing speed bumps on roads.
In March, the city approved placing up to three speed bumps on Oak Street at the request of alderman Michael Hillie. On April 20, he asked that one of those speed bumps be moved from Oak Street to Railroad Street to stop speeding on that road.
“One speed bump appears to be working for now, but we’re going to need to put another one on down farther,” Hillie said. “But I’ve been getting complaints about speeding on Railroad Street, people racing. I think if we put that speed bump there, it will help cut down on that speeding.”
One thing that is compounding the problem is that Newton Police Department does not have the ability to run radar. Chief Randy Patrick informed the board that their radars have been shipped off for repairs.
Alderman Eric McCalphia said he’s getting concerns about speeding in his ward, but he was concerned that the speed bumps have been going up all over the city. In recent months, the city has placed speed bumps around the high school and elementary school. Speed bumps have also been added to other side streets.
“But before I requested the speed breakers, I know that everywhere we’re going there’s a speed breaker,” McCalphia said. “Are we going to get to where we have a speed breaker on every single street? Because every day, we’re having that same exact complaint. We’re getting it all over the city. Are we a speed breaker city now?”
Board attorney Brian Mayo said as long as the board can determine that there is a problem with speeding and it is dangerous to the community for public safety reasons, the city can place speed breakers on any street.
“If we can find a better way to stop speeding than placing a speed breaker, then we should try to do that.” Mayo said.
Mayor Murray Weems said he doesn’t think speed breakers should be placed on especially small side streets that are maybe one-quarter of a mile long, but he did consider that speed breakers could be placed on main roads like Main Street, Church Street and Oak Street where there were long stretches of straight roads.
Alderman Bob Bridges said the one area of speeding that keeps coming up is Church Street, along with a lot of heavy truck traffic.
“I think we might need to consider putting a speed bump on Church Street,” Bridges said. “It’s also trucks. That would really slow those trucks down.”
The board did close Church Street to through truck traffic, and Patrick said they have written tickets to trucks for that. However, they continue to come down Church Street. No action was taken on placing speed bumps on Church Street during the meeting.
In other business, the city held public hearings on properties owned by Robert Boyd and Larry Morgan.
Boyd owns property located at 122 Fourth Ave. The board found that the property was still a health and safety concern to the city and gave him 30 days to clean up his property.
Boyd said he keeps his tractors on his own property and not where he has farmland is due to making sure it doesn’t get stolen.
McCalphia said there is a stench coming from the property with the animals he has. He also said the residents have complained about the look of the property with all of his stuff out front.
The board also found there to be a health and safety issue at the Larry Morgan property at 107 Pecan St. and gave them 30 days to get the property cleaned up. Family members who attended the meeting said they are working to get the property cleaned up.
In other action, the Board:
• Heard from Lynetta Cooksey about the status of the Hwy. 15 loop project.
• Agreed to reduce the lien on a car abandoned on city property to $1,030. The car belonged to a car dealer in Forest.
• Renewed its certificate of deposit rate with BankFirst for 0.25 percent for a term of 12 months.
• Will allow a travel ball team to use city parks for practice when the city leagues are not using them. They will not interfere with any city leagues, and the team is required to have a liability insurance policy. Any other travel ball team that wants to use city parks for practice will have to have an approved contract.
• Agreed not to pay for stamps to send out invitations for Terry C. Burton’s retirement party due to its policy of not using city resources for personal uses. However, they will draft proclamation recognizing Burton’s service in the legislature for a ceremony that will be May 23.
• Presented proclamations to the girls and boys basketball teams for making the Final Four.
• Added city clerk Charlene Evans to the Regions airport account.
• Sent a courtesy letter for run-down property at 105 W. Tatum Street.
• Following an executive session for personnel and economic development in which developing a pay scale for city employees was discussed, approved an increase of $2 per hour for Joseph Johnson in public works.
• Hired Doug Everett at $17 per hour by a 4-1 vote. McCalphia voted nay because the position was not advertised.
• Accepted the resignation of Ronnie Myers.
• Denied a request from Vera Walker to sell lemonade at Ray Payne Park on the first Saturday of every month.
• Accepted the lowest and best bid of D&D Construction of $19,528.13 to build a storage building behind City Hall. The other bid was $23,400 from M&M Construction.
• Purchased six metal picnic tables for the Wade Park pavilion for $4,920 from the motel tax fund.
• Approved having an amnesty day for police fines and gave city judge Jason Mangum direction to issue new judgments during that day for fines up to 50 percent of the original fine.
• Approved financing for the new fire truck.
