Big day for Rainsville Police, taxpayers dodge more debt

Featured image: Rainsville Chief of Police, Johnny Stewart discusses equipment needs at Monday night's council meeting.

By Joeph M. Morgan

joseph@southerntorch.com

RAINSVILLE, Ala.—Early this week the citizens of Rainsville narrowly avoided the passage of Rainsville City Ordinance 05-02-2016, a measure that called for the city to immediately move forward in securing a $1.97 million loan to pay the balances owed by the city for construction and upgrade projects.

City officials confirmed weeks ago that Rainsville has the money on hand to pay the outstanding bills —a fact that Rainsville Mayor Nick Jones points to as reason in itself for the city to wait until there is an actual need for the money before taking on new debt. Jones has served as the lone voice of opposition from Rainsville City government in terms of speaking out against taking on unnecessary debt.

Rainsville Councilman Joey Graham originally introduced the ordinance at the last council meeting. Graham picked up on Monday where he left off at the previous meeting, asking the council Monday night for the support and votes needed to pass the ordinance.

“I will ask that we pass Rainsville City Ordinance 05-02-2016,” Graham said. “Once that ordinance has been passed I’m going to ask that we empower the mayor or the clerk to establish a construction escrow account with First Southern State Bank.”

Before discussion of the matter closed, Jones voiced his position on the matter. “We are not required to pass this ordinance in order to receive the grant funding from USDA,” Jones said. “Doing so and taking on debt that we do not need is simply an unwise decision.”

“This is what USDA requires, this ordinance,” Councilwoman Melissa Ledbetter broke in, supporting Graham’s previous claims of the same. “We need it to get the loan. That’s what the USDA, the attorneys from the USDA, that’s I mean exactly what they’re telling me so I don’t know why we’re having….”

“I’ve talked to both of the USDA attorneys and that’s just not the case,” Jones said. “We are required to do no such thing. With that said, it would be easier to have all of the debt consolidated. We can do that. We can have all of it consolidated into one loan a couple of weeks before our permanent financing closes. We don’t have to borrow a dime.”

Jones followed up his objection by then laying out a precise plan to navigate the finances of the project in a way that will save taxpayers considerable money and avoid the city taking on unnecessary debt.

“We can borrow short-term $700,000 or so, finish this construction project and then we consolidate that $700,000 with the money we’ve got in the project into a temporary loan,” Jones said. “I’ve talked with USDA and their financial folks about this. We don’t need that ordinance. We can borrow the money short-term. We can reimburse ourselves. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take full advantage of the loan—of the permanent financing so that we’ll get the full grant. But there’s no need to borrow all of this money right now. It’s simple, we pay that out of the general fund until we get our permanent financing, then we refund all of our accounts that would be temporarily used to pay for this construction. We just borrow what we need as we need it instead of racking up weeks of unnecessary interest on a loan that we don’t need yet.”

The council seemed to finally grasp the mayor’s logic of waiting until the city actually needs funding before committing to such a sizeable debt, ultimately choosing instead to vote down the ordinance and agreeing that the best course of action would be to use money that is in the city coffers now as opposed to borrowing more and taking on unnecessary debt.

“I’m glad that we were able as a group to come to a mutual understanding and avoid committing ourselves and the city to the unwise terms of the ordinance,” Jones said. “It has taken some time, but I think that at the end everyone finally was on the same page tonight—that everyone at the table finally got it, finally understood. This is not a new approach.

It’s very simple—we must commit to the common-sense, time-tested principles our parents and grandparents embraced—committing to living within our means, committed to not spending more money than we take in. It’s that simple.

In other business of note, the Rainsville City Council heard from Rainsville Chief of Police Johnny Stewart who presented a very organized, specific listing of equipment and personnel needs in the Rainsville Police Department. The council voted to approve each of the requests made by Stewart as listed below, and also took up the following business:

• Voted to Accept Previous Minutes (Graham)

• Voted to Hire Kevin Smith as full time patrolman (Ledbetter)

• Voted to Promote Sabrina Garman from part time Dispatcher to full time Dispatcher (Ledbetter)

• Voted to Change Cody Kimberly from full time Firefighter to part time (Lingerfelt)

• Voted to Post position for open firefighter (Lingerfelt)

• Voted to Hire part time summer worker for library

• Voted to approve Citizen Participation Plan (Freeman)

• Voted to Accept bid to replace HVAC Unit for Library (Lingerfelt)

• Voted to Purchase four park benches (Freeman)

• Voted to Authorize police department to buy four new mattresses (Freeman)

• Voted to Authorize police department to buy four tasers (Freeman)

• Voted to Accept FTC for Fiber optic (Ledbetter)