The town of Mt. Airy could use a few good men and women to work in nearly every department.
Town Manager Tim Jarrell already wears at least two hats, including that of police chief, but he may need to make some more head space the way things are going.
“If there’s a water issue, call me. If there’s a street issue call me,” Jarrell said at Monday’s council meeting. “If there’s a police issue, call me. I guess just go ahead and call me.”
Jarrell asked that the council also consider purchasing a lawn mower for the town to supplement contracted landscaping work already going on.
“We can expand and supplement what we are doing now with a tractor,” Jarrell said. “I can effectively use the manpower I do have if we had our own lawnmower.”
Mayor Ray McAllister cautioned that a decent mower, even used, could run the town between $10,000 and $12,000.
McAllister asked Jarrell to look for a mower with 500 or fewer hours on it.
Mt. Airy also is looking to make some infrastructure upgrades to its water system, including possibly an overhaul of the current supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) unit that runs the water tanks.
A newer system run through fiber could connect to mobile devices and instantly notify town officials of problems with the water flow. The cost for the system with monitoring in place is $35,670.
The council debated whether there was a cheaper option that would do the job, and they tabled the item until the July 18 meeting for further study and discussion.