The Gallatin Board of Aldermen accepted bids Monday evening, January 11th for advanced metering infrastructure and a dump truck.
The accepted AMI metering system bid was for Core and Main for $25,852. Public Works Director Mark Morey recommended that bid based on the amount of strength the sensus radios have to collect data and the use of a single-collection tower versus a mesh network. Another bid was for Landis and Gyr for $454,335.80.
The board accepted a dump truck bid for Load King Peterbilt for $97,899. Other bids involved Ford F750 Landmark Ford East, Hino Trucks dump truck, Load King Freightliner, and Western Star with a range of about $87,719 to $142,996.
The board accepted the 2021 street improvement project invitation to bid. It involves West Grand from Market to Ash Street with alternates of Corrine Street from Route MM to Rocky Road and Berry Street from Highway 13 to Swope Street. Morey will submit the invitation to bid to contractors.
City Clerk Hattie Rains provided a Gworks brochure for a cloud-based application to allow for more transparency with customers regarding utility usage and bills. It was recommended it be discussed this fall after the AMI system has been installed and Gworks has officially rolled out a new application.
The board gave Administrator Rains authority to work with a customer regarding a large water bill from a water leak.
Two maturing certificates of deposits will be rolled as agreed by the board. One CD was for $65,199.07 from Farmers Bank. The CD will be rolled at the best rate for a maturity date of 2024. The other CD was for $100,917.48 from BTC Bank. That CD will be rolled at the best rate for 12 months. The board also agreed to take out an additional CD for $65,000 out of the sales tax savings account with a maturity date of 2025. City Clerk Rains will provide the competitive CD rates from Farmers and BTC at the next meeting to make the final decisions with the funds.
The board reviewed the previously proposed electric rate increases, but no decision was made. The topic will remain on the agenda for the next meeting.
There was discussion of the use of masks in the City of Gallatin. The board is not interested in implementing a mask mandate at this time.
Morey reported crews finished cleaning up after the snowstorm. Crews will work on taking down Christmas lights this week. Dielectric testing will be done Thursday for the bucket trucks in the electric department.
He has been working on year-end reporting. He has also worked on sending and collecting bids for various items budgeted for 2021.
Morey said he was told to expect a four to six-month delivery delay for an enclosed trailer.