City council hears from city attorney

The Comanche City Council met with the city's attorney on a couple of matters at it monthly meeting on Dec. 14.

The council spoke with attorney David Perryman about a bid that was not advertised properly and answered some questions about annexation.

A miscommunication led to a legal notice seeking bids for water system improvements being published once instead of twice as required by the state. The council learned the state was willing to accept the once published legal notice since there was just one bid and in fact there did not seem to be any more interest in the $280,000 project which is a small project compared to most others.

City manager Chuck Ralls asked Perryman to write a letter stating that it was published only once due to an error and that there were no other intentions with it not being published. Perryman said he would write the letter as long as the city backed him up in case there would be any problems. The council agreed.

The council agreed to accept the bid of Howard Construction for the water system improvement project which will be used to clean up lines and storage tanks.

In the other matter, Perryman gave the council a rundown in order for an annexation to take place and said it would depend much on the property being annexed. Ralls said he was not ready to announce the property the city was looking at annex publicly, yet.

In other business, the council agreed to the purchase of $28,000 for bunker gear for the fire department to be paid for by American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. They also voted to pay back hazard pay for essential employees a total of $10,000. It will be distributed at the discretion of the city manager.

A plan was tabled to renovate the parking lot at city hall for another month until the city could find out for certain what fund the money could come from. The city was thinking about using street and alley funds, but Perryman told them he was uncertain if the parking lot would qualify.