Selectmen authorize bids for sewer plant

PLAQUEMINE – The City of Plaquemine Board of Selectmen authorized engineers to accept bids for the construction of a new sewer plant at a special meeting Tuesday.

“As soon as they have all the paper work in place,” Mayor Mark “Tony” Gulotta said.

In other news, the board got an update on the installation of a new transformer.

“The transformer project is going extremely well,” Gulotta said. “It is actually sitting on the slab. We are still looking at another seven to eight months of construction but the big part – groundwork, foundation, pilings and transformer is there. We are now just waiting on equipment to come in.”

The board also was updated on abandoned vehicles in the city by inspector Brandon Mellieon.

“We actually sent out letters to 90 different homeowners that had abandoned vehicles,” Gulotta said. “So far, 60 have been moved and we have 20 going to court this week.”

The board also adopted a resolution to apply for a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant through the Louisiana Office of State Parks and approved the Plaquemine City Park Master Plan Update Project.

“That is a grant for Belleview City Park,” Gulotta said. “We weren’t successful in getting it this year but we are reapplying for next year.”

Sewer district contracts with the Iberville Parish Government were also discussed.

“It is just time to renew them,” Gulotta said. “It deals with cleaning the sewer.”

An update on the City of Plaquemine and City Light and Water Plant 2012-13 budgets was also presented by finance director Lauren Berthelot.

“We went through all of the city budgets,” Gulotta said. “We are in pretty good shape. Our income is down because our sales tax is down so we have kind of a tight year but it is nothing drastic.”

Finally, the council accepted a bid on a surplus property and discussed finalizing the sale of other properties that could be closed out with the next two weeks, according to Gulotta.