THAT SINKING FEELING
Council is worried about final price tag of 7-foot-deep sink hole
BY GLORIA JENNINGS

A sink k hole on Golfcrest Street is giving the Rusk City Council a sinking feeling about the cost to repair it. Unofficial estimates place the damage as low as $50,000 and as high as $200,000.

"The hill adjacent to Golfcrest Street is going to wash into the houses below," Jo Ann Hart, resident, told members of the Rusk City Council Thursday evening.

The street adjacent to Ms. Hart's residence received heavy damages from floods earlier this year.

Various members of the council expressed their appreciation to Ms. Hart for her patience in the matter. The street washed during spring rains, causing a hole approximately seven feet deep. The damaged portion of the street is three feet wide and approximately 20 feet long. The road continues to crack, Ms. Hart said.

"This hill is going to fall. The problem has been going on for years. I made trenches near the road to help with drainage. I never had a problem until the hill was cut and then mud filled the street beneath," Ms. Hart said.

The hill beside the road belongs to Jan Pate, who developed the subdivision below. Several houses have been built on the undedicated street beneath the hill.

City engineers are studying the situation. The city hopes to receive some help from FEMA, but does not expect to receive the entire cost, City Manager Mike Murray said. Cost of repairing the street is still unknown but could be as little as $50,000 or as much as $200,000. When asked about an alternate route to her home, Ms. Hart said she was against it. If a drive was made to her house, it would go to the backyard and then she would have to drive around to get into the garage.

The council met in executive session following the regular meeting to further discuss possible litigation concerning the city's responsibility of street maintenance.

Other business

Following a public hearing, the council adopted a $4,086,054 budget and set a tax rate of 48.96 cent per hundred dollar valuation. The tax rate is the same rate as was used last year, but will generate $12,887 more in revenue because of new property.

The budget is divided with $2,083,451 going into the general fund and $2,002,603 in the utility fund budget.

The council raised residential water and sewer rates a total of 80 cents per month for the first 5,000 gallons used. Texas Department of Criminal Justice Skyview-Hodge water and sewer rates were increased 25 cents for each 1,000 gallons used. Sewer rates for Rusk State Hospital were raised 25 cents per 1,000 gallons. Rusk State Hospital does not buy water from the city because it has its own well.

The council will discuss the employment of a collection agency at the next meeting. Delinquent utility bills over $100 will be turned over to the agency for collection.

A penalty for not having new 911 address numbers attached to local houses by Nov. 1 will be discussed at the next meeting.

"We have sent notices out for all residents to call the appraisal district office for their new addresses. Persons who do not know their 911 addresses are asked to call our office," Lee Flowers, Cherokee County Appraisal District chief appraiser said. "We need to know a person's telephone number to be assigned to their 911 address," he said.

"There were 515 responses to a request to call our office for a 911 address. Currently, that number has only increased to 551.

"Because of the poor response and cooperation from citizens, we have been compelled to change our protocols regarding updating the state's 911 database. Instead of updating from the mail out survey, my staff has to compare the state database with our database, manually comparing and moving phone numbers from the state database to ours, and our new address to theirs. Obviously, the biggest concern is trying to ascertain that the correct match has been made between the two systems. This is a time consuming effort. If the staff were punching from survey responses, they would have a definitive phone number to use to compare the two systems.

"At this time, we have completed the state update on streets east of U.S. Highway 69. Now that this is complete, I will notify the police department. At this time, theoretically, the 911 dispatcher will have the new 911 addresses for those locations. Unfortunately, the citizen may or may not have their new number posted in accordance with city guidelines.

"Now that the areas east of U.S. Highway 69 are completed, I have instructed my staff to complete the updates on all addresses along Main Street and back to the east to U.S. Highway 69. From there, they will cover the area north of Sixth Street to U.S. Highway 69 leaving only the area south of Sixth Street to finish," Mr. Flowers said.

Bids for timber sale at Jim Hogg City Park and the Cannon property were accepted from Morris Timber Co. of Nacogdoches.

"We are looking at approximately $132,000 from this sale," James Houser, consulting forester, said.

In another matter, the council re-adopted an ordinance setting a juvenile curfew for persons under 17 years of age.

The ordinance includes enforcement for violations and setting a penalty.

The curfew is for 11 p.m.-6 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays and midnight-6 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Attending the meeting were Mayor Angela Raiborn; Councilmembers Kris Morgan, Walter Session, Don Jones, Donald Woodard and Sam Florian; City Manager Murray; and City Secretary Fran Wendeborn.