City council to hold board of review online, with a twist

By CHARITY SMITH

[email protected]

Bessemer – Due to limitations on in-person gatherings the Bessemer City Council voted during its meeting Monday to hold the 2021 Board of Review hearings in a hybrid fashion.

Residents will schedule an appointment during one of the two scheduled days. During that appointment he or she will have two options to meet with the council. If they have difficulty with Zoom a representative of the city will be available to assist them with logging into a “Zoom station” located at city hall or the resident can just log into Zoom from home at specified time. The council will appear via Zoom.

Councilman Terry Kryshak, who came up with idea, said that by doing it this way “we cover all the things we need to cover.”

“I think that by having the Zoom station at city hall, we take out all the technologies that might be intimidating to somebody,” said councilman Rob Coleman.

City manager Charly Loper said she felt this was probably the safest option.

Those who arrive to city hall without an appointment will have to set up an appointment, perhaps the same day.

Council member Linda Nelson said not everybody will understand that they will need to schedule an appointment, so she said they need to accommodate those that just show up. “Sometimes people are only free on that one date. … It’s not like we have a million people knocking the door down to get in.”

Councilman Bill McDonald said he felt they should hold the board of review in person. During a discussion of his stance he hung up from his call into the meeting, before the decision was made. The vote to hold board of review online passed unanimously by the four remaining council members.

The 2021 water, sewer and U.S. 2 rebuild project should go up for bids mid February according to Darren Pionk, project manager with C2AE. The contractors would then have 30 days to bid on the project before the council can make a decision. He said that after the council’s decision the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development will have 60 days for closing. Pionk said this will mean the project should hopefully get underway in June.

“It’s very tight,” Pionk said. “It’s been very tight, but now we’re at a critical point. … Basically what we want to do is get this out for bids. We have contractors that are waiting to bid on this and we’re getting into that time period where they’ll either have to bid on this project or go elsewhere. We don’t want that to happen.”

The council also:

—Heard the new snowblower has arrived.

—Discussed the 2019/2020 Fiscal year audit.

—Passed a street fund deficit elimination plan.