City To Install High-Efficiency LED Bulbs

By Alex Haglund

At the beginning of the meeting of the Nashville City Council on Thursday, March 15, Mayor Erik Rolf asked for a brief moment of silence in memory of Karl Pries, who passed away on March 10.
Rolf stated that Pries was a member of the Municipal Golf Course Board and was grandfather to city council member Josh Fark, who was not present at Thursday’s meeting.
The council approved a project to replace most of the city’s high-efficiency fluorescent bulbs (mostly T5 and T8 bulbs) with LED bulbs that will fit into the same fixtures. The work will have an up-front incentive to purchase the new bulbs, and will be contracted through a local contractor, Power Trans Plus, who brought the quote for the upgrade, $4,011.70 for 1,626 bulbs being replaced.
“When you look at the cost savings,” Rolf said, “these bulbs will pay for themselves in a year.”
“Less than a year,” corrected street department superintendent Richard Schuette.
Rolf said that initially, the city was planning to use some of the grant money that Nashville received from the Ameren Progressive City award to add LED lights on the streets around the courthouse square, but stated that because any street lights that got old would be replaced with LEDs anyway, it made more sense for the city to utilize the grant money this way to help make city buildings more energy efficient.
Not included in the quote, but likely to be replaced along with the long bulbs are U-shaped bulbs in 76 fixtures in city hall, the bulbs in a handful of glass fixtures at city hall which Schuette said he wasn’t sure what sort of bulb they used, and 28 screw-in fluorescents in the public works building.
Schuette said that while these items weren’t included in the other quote, Bob Konkel of Power Trans Plus was looking for solutions to replace those as well at the same time.
“All of these are just simple replacements,” Schuette told the council. “Pop one out, pop the new one in, and you’re done.”
Schuette told the council that EPA regulations state that the city must account for the old bulbs as part of their disposal, but stated that there is a market for old fluorescent bulbs, so if the city could list and sell them at auction, that was what they would do.
If the city was forced to dispose of or recycle the bulbs, there might be some cost involved there. There is a facility in Effingham that will take them, Schuette stated, and along with transporting them there, there would also be a cost of about $0.75 a bulb to dispose of them that way.

Streets

In street department news, Schuette stated that the city Compost Site will reopen on April 4. The compost site is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., every Saturday and Wednesday. The recycling trcuk will also be at the compost site, on the first Saturday of every month.
Schuette told the council that the city’s MFT appropriation ordinance had been approved by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The bid letting for the MFT purchase was on Tuesday, March 20, at 2 p.m.
Spring All Trash days have been announced. These next All Trash days are on Saturday, May 5, Wednesday, May 9, and Saturday, May 12.

Water and Sewer

Hydrant flushing for the spring is coming up soon. Flushing will be happening from April 2 through April 13, and will be progressing through town from north to south.
The city voted to put in a sealed bid to try to purchase a 2001 Ford F550 Utility Truck with just over 68,000 miles on which is being sold by the Jefferson County Fire Department. The council did not state an amount publicly and instead voted to place a bid at, “a fair market value,” said Rolf.
If Nashville’s bid wins, then the water and sewer department will get the truck, and one of their trucks will then go to the golf course, with the oldest golf course truck being phased out of use.
Progress continues on the installation of the SCADA computer system out at the water plant.
“They’re working out the bugs here and there,” said City Utility Superintendent Blaine Middleton. “they’re testing…a lot of testing.”

Gas

Rolf told the council that he had received two requests from residents to run city gas lines out to the Deerfield Subdivision. Rolf asked the council to authorize Middleton to look into what the cost would be to run those lines.
“We pay for the main, of course,” Middleton said, “then they would pay for the service lines to the residences.”
Middleton also reminded the council that the city’s annual gas emergency plan meeting is coming up. The meeting will be held on Thursday, March 22. The social hour begins at 5:30 p.m., while the dinner and presentation begins at 6 p.m. It will be held downstairs at the Nashville American Legion Hall.
The meeting is very informative, and is both better attended and more valuable, Middleton said, than many other municpalities’ gas emergency meetings.
“Please show up,” Middleton said. “It’s really good to know this information”

Police

With Fark absent from the meeting, there was no official action from the police committee. Nashville Police Chief Brian Fletcher did state that the city’s golf cart permits issued last year are now expired. Fletcher instructed those with golf carts to contact the police department to renew the permits.

Finance and Insurance

A couple of insurance renewals for the city came up. The council voted to renew the city’s commercial fire, computer equipment, pipeline and distribution, and boiler and machinery insurance as of April 1.
Medical insurance for city employees came up as well. The cost for employee medical went down by about 7%.
“The only change that we made,” said council member Kelly Sheridan, “is that we went with iMed for vision, because it’s a little better coverage for the employees.”

Other

There will be no zoning board of appeals meeting for the month of March. The deadline to request a meeting of the planning commission for the month is this week.
Referring back to the request from Clearwave for the city to extend their contract and increase the city’s connection speeds, the council stated that they had not received any competitive quotes from other internet service providers.
“We’ve got some time,” Rolf said. “we’ll just wait to hear back.”
The city voted to make a donation to the Washington County Arts Council. They approved a $300 donation, the same that was approved last year.
The council discussed possible land purchases related to the sewer pump stations that have been discussed at the two previous meetings of the city council. The council returned to open session but took no action at this time.