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City appoints Tye for Place 2


The Rhome City Council filled its vacant Place 2 seat Wednesday night, appointing Michelle Tye.

Four residents applied for the seat, following councilman Kenny Crenshaw’s resignation last week.

The council voted 3-1 in favor of Tye’s appointment. Ashley Majors cast the lone vote against.

“Thank you for the opportunity [to serve]; I’m excited,” said Tye following the vote.

Tye boasts nearly 30 years in law enforcement and is currently a bomb tech/K-9 handler at the DFW International Airport.

The Place 2 seat will expire in May.

Tye didn’t have much time to settle into her new post, with several large issues facing the city, including a decision to move forward in the pursuit of a community development block grant and the ongoing city facility conundrum.

With their fifth council member sworn in, Rhome unanimously approved GrantWorks to write the application for the community block grant.

The grant would be for a maximum of $350,000. The city would be on the hook to match $35,000 or 10 percent of the grant. The administrative fees for GrantWorks on the project are $32,900.

City administrator Cynthia Northrop said the project would likely focus on water/waste water or road drainage, with those being the highest scoring categories to receive the grant.

“We will recommend water/waste water project(s),” White said in a text message Thursday.

The council then discussed possible ideas for facilities. Last week, staff presented a facility assessment/condition report that came back with a $10 million price tag to renovate its current buildings.

The discussion was wide ranging, but ultimately came down to if the city could afford any of the possible solutions, whether it’s building new, or renovating the old.

Some of the brainstorming ideas included selling city park property, which would likely require an election, purchasing or leasing modular buildings to be used temporarily until another facility bond could be put on the ballot, as well as seeking out certificates of obligation with city debt scheduled to fall off in coming years.

Councilman Sam Eason discussed the idea of putting another bond on the May ballot that would focus on facility upgrades, which would differ enough from the failed facility bond from November to avoid the three-year moratorium on a bond election from a failed measure.

“If we were to say, we don’t want to put out a municipal complex bond, but we want to refurbish the police department and refurbish the fire department, those weren’t on the previous bond, and say we’re going to build a city hall somewhere else, could we get it on the election in May, and support it as best as we can?” Eason asked.

The city will bring its bond attorney and financial adviser to an upcoming meeting to get more direct insight into those questions.

Mayor Jo Ann Wilson once again discussed her estimates from unidentified contractors to renovate the old city hall building. Wilson, who did not disclose the names of the contractors, said the estimate to renovate the old city hall building was around $250,000, adding that three separate contractors came in with estimates that hit around $200,000.

“One came in that was less than $200,000, another was $217,000,” Wilson said. “I kicked it up to $250,000 [in case they found additional work needed upon closer inspection.]”

In the city’s facility assessment report, the estimated cost to renovate was $981,875.

Mayor Pro Tem Elaine Priest once again countered with the city’s ordinances of developing a plan through an architect and structural engineer and putting those plans up for a bid.

Councilman Josh McCabe asked if those three contractors solicited by Wilson would be disqualified. City attorney Carvan Adkins said they wouldn’t be, if the city took steps to equal the playing field with other bidding contractors. Adkins said evening the playing field could include touring the buildings in a similar fashion.

The council plans to continue discussing facilities at future meetings.

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