Neal Carroll shows the Garland Board of Commissioners what the samples of water from three different places in the area look like during Tuesday night’s board meeting.
Alyssa Bergey | Sampson Independent
Water issues also discussed during town meeting
Garland has a new mayor pro tem following a vote Tuesday night to strip that title from the commissioner currently holding it.
The Garland town board approved making Commissioner Timothy Blackburn its new mayor pro tem, replacing Commissioner Jo Strickland, who was not present at the meeting.
“With the recent problems we’ve had, and with the citizen complaints and everything else, I think the time has come … and that we’ve met a point … we’re going to have to take some action,” Commissioner Ralph Smith Jr. told the board near the beginning of the meeting. “So, what I’m proposing tonight is that we remove Commissioner Strickland as mayor pro tem and replace (with) Commissioner Blackburn as mayor pro tem.”
The motion was seconded by Commissioner Lee Carberry and, with no questions or discussions, the board voted unanimously to approve the motion.
The board also voted unanimously to have Blackburn replace Strickland as the department head for Garland’s finance committee.
When Mayor Austin Brown was asked about the decisions, he merely stated, “This was a unanimous board decision of the members that were present.”
Only one other board member was absent during the meeting, Commissioner Anthony Norris.
The mayor pro tem discussion was walked on the agenda at the last minute, while members were going over the night’s business.
No further discussion was held and no questions were answered.
Attempts to reach Strickland for comment were unsuccessful, as were attempts to get her phone number, a public document.
Water violation
Another item on the agenda included hearing from OCR Neil Carroll, who gave an update on the Notice of Violations that Garland had been facing with its chlorine levels in the tested water.
“It seems like every month we’re going to get an NOV for chlorine; it’s the biggest thing we have problems with,” the mayor attested.
“We do eight [tests] a month for chlorine and two fecal [tests] a month, and it seems like every month we’ll get one violation of chlorine that we have a problem with,” Carroll said, agreeing.
Carroll then showed three vials of water — one that was filled with well water, one filled with water from the wastewater treatment plant in Roseboro, and one filled with water from Lamb Road after it had been treated at Lagoon.
The first vial was clear, while the water from Roseboro was a little cloudy but mostly clear, and the third vial was a dull yellow color.
“This one here I got from Lamb Road,” Carroll said while holding up the vial to show to the board. “That’s after it’s been through all the treatment at the lagoon, and what little bit it gets. The chlorine’s added to it and it goes to Lamb Road, and we add the dechlor to it, and it’s getting ready to go to the river.”
Carroll said that the testing of these waters is all done with a machine that shines light through it, and that is how they can measure the chlorine — which is what Garland has been getting violations for.
But while he showed a demonstration on how chlorine levels in the water are measured, most of his discussion was about how to fix the problems that led to the violations in the first place, namely, fixing the wastewater treatment plant and fixing a broken gate.
“I’m hoping when they do all the additions down there, you know, the bar screen, remove the trash, and you know, we’ll do them once full of trash. And by the gate being broken by three over there, we’re getting a lot of lower water. It would be contained in there, you know, so that might be something we can do later on,” Carroll said.
Brown clarified after the meeting that these notices of violations were happening due to the town “fighting an aging system that has been poorly maintained,” and that they have a grant to “help address most of the problems” that were brought up in the meeting.
He said the town was actively working on fixing the issues as they were brought up.
Employee uniforms/Leaf and Limb Pickup
The board also voted to go back to their original contract with Cintas for employee uniforms for “safety reasons.”
“They’re not wearing anything that says Garland, and they’re walking up to somebody’s yard,” Commissioner Carberry said. “I mean that’s a safety call.”
Lastly, the board voted to schedule their Leaf and Limb Pick Up for residents to happen June 17-21.
You can reach Alyssa Bergey at 910-249-4617. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.