HIGHFILL - Going paperless is a goal of the Highfill City Council as it approved the purchase of eight iPads and a new data server for the city at its July 9 regular meeting at city hall.

The new tablets will be used to view documents by city council members, the planning commission and by the mayor and recorder treasurer at meetings rather than printing out packets for everyone each month.

According to council member Chris Holland, it won’t take long for the savings in printing costs to pay for the new devices - estimated to be about $499 apiece.

The tablets will not be taken home but remain at city hall for official use, Holland said.

The new data server - estimated to cost $2,100 - will be used to store and back up data from city computers to free up local hard-drive space and to prevent the loss of city records should the current system fail.

In other business, the council gave the go ahead for the police department to take its Dodge Durango to Brown’s Garage in Gentry to rebuild the transmission. The estimated cost is $2,418.75, with the money to come from the police department’s maintenance budget.

Discussed at the meeting were some possible ways to set aside the money the city will receive from the new 1/2 cent sales tax so that the money could eventually be used for some major street and road projects in the city like paving or repaving streets. Keeping the money in the city’s cash management fund but earmarked for the street and road repairs was suggested. Vernon Reams, the city’s street and roads supervisor, estimated the city would receive close to $10,000 per month, or $120,000 per year, from the new tax. The payments are scheduled to begin coming in to the city in August.

Highfill Mayor Stacy Digby suggested finding a way to include landlords as responsible parties for the city’s mandatory trash service so that the city can collect or, if need be, put a lien on property to collect the fees. He said the city could add the balance for unpaid bills to people’s county property tax bills, but said he didn’t want to do that if another solution could be found. He thought landlords could just collect the fee through rent charges.

Digby also submitted a mid-year update to the city budget and asked council members to review it for possible action at next month’s council meeting.

Digby reported that discussions were ongoing with neighboring municipalities in regard to how to pay the salary for the district court judge - either with a per capita charge or a charge per-case or ticket. He said he favored a per-capita charge rather than having a per-case charge because he didn’t want police to ever weigh into their decision of whether to write a ticket or make an arrest the cost to the city.

Included in the report of the water-wastewater department was the note that the department is looking into getting online bill pay.

News, Pages 5 on 07/17/2013