The Blue Ridge City Council held its regular meeting on March 8th 2016 and may be the shortest on record.  Lasting approximately 25 minutes the meeting moved swiftly through the short agenda.

The meeting ran smoothly and during old business the council voted on Serveline, an insurance policy to cover water issues.  Beginning soon residential water customers will see a $2 dollar charge for the policy which can be removed should water customers call and request it to be removed.  However if you remove the policy and have a leak on the customer side the customer will be liable.  A different rate will be set for commercial customers.

Next on the agenda there was a public disclosure from the council since all have family or own property on roads which will be improved such as Orchard Blvd, Orchard Place and Ridge Street.  The only exception was Rodney Kendall which doesn’t have any ties to the roads in the area.

The Summit street sale to Mr. Sisson (Sisson Log Homes) was made in a motion and approved to authorize Mayor Donna Whitener to complete the transaction of the small strip of land which will allow Sisson to move forward with his plans.  The cost to Sisson will be $4000.

The winning bid for the landscape in the park was Tree City Nursery with labor and material at a total bid of $45,509.  Other bidders were Second Nature Landscaping with a bid of $54,766.10 and Keith Sumner at $59,043.  The work on the downtown Blue Ridge city park has begun and is expected to be concluded maybe as early as mid April of 2016.  Dirt will be delivered soon to the park and 48 college students will be arriving March 14th to volunteer with the work in the park.

The City Council moved and approved to move council meetings back to one meeting per month.  The meetings will be held the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 6 pm with special called meeting as needed.

The meeting concluded with citizen speak.  Cesar Martinez of The Blue Ridge Business Association spoke and shared how the recent Fire & Ice Chili Cook off was the biggest one yet.  All the downtown merchants had record days.  He is looking forward to the 4th of July Parade and said this year will have more games and involvement from the Blue Ridge Fire Department.  Next Lynn Brinks spoke about the upcoming first Trout Unlimited Festival and was happy with the planned work dates for the park.

No executive session was needed and thus the shortest meeting we can remember in some time – maybe ever.