Council reallocates funds for city improvements

The Yoakum City Council has approved the reallocation of funds from the American Recovery Plan Act for capital expenses on street improvement projects at the Feb. 13 meeting.

“(There is) a list of 11 streets in town that desperately need leveling up,” former City Manager William Linn said.

$229,600 was taken out of ARPA. Initially, $240,000 was going to be taken out, but there needed to be money left from ARPA to pay administrative costs for ESSER.

Funds from ARPA in the amount of $111,000 were allocated for capital expenses for repair of the Wastewater Treatment Plant. $125,000 was also taken from the Reserve Funds for this repair as well.

The repairs include fixing two sluice gates that don’t work at the plant.

Council also adopted a second and final ordinance regarding upgrading international building codes, international plumbing codes, international mechanical codes, international fuel codes, international fire codes for commercial buildings, international residential codes for all single-family and duplex residential buildings, and national electric codes. These codes will be upgraded to be more in compliance with the codes being changed from 2015 to 2018.

The council also opted to make amendments to the City of Yoakum Municipal Golf Course operating schedule. The schedule will be akin to Cuero’s golf course schedule and the Municipal Golf Course will be closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.

On the agenda, the Yoakum Police Chief was supposed to give the 2023 racial profiling report, but those reports will be revealed at the next City Council meeting.

The next City Wide Clean-Up will be in March. The clean-up used to be twice a year, but the council opted to do this once a year in the spring instead.

A total of four junked vehicles were also collected at the meeting.