Community News

Council Looks at Contracts, Roundabouts, and The Fire District

October 25, 2012

Some on the Tusayan town council are speaking up. Members were poised to pay thousands to RobbCo, one of developer Stilo’s BFF’s for snow removal and bus stop maintenance.  That was until Councilman John Rueter spoke up and wondered why these jobs aren’t going out to bid.

Rueter noted at the October 17th council meeting that, “We’re writing some big checks here.” And he said “We need to offer the contracts to everyone so we don’t play favorites.”

Councilman Bill Fitzgerald agreed and soon enough the rest of the council saw it Rueter’s way and the town will now be putting out bids.

There were also some fireworks with respect to having a formal meeting with Fire Chief Robbie Evans in response to Evans inquiring about an intergovernmental agreement on fire protection. Rueter suggested it be placed on the agenda sooner than later and at such a time to give the idea enough time to be discussed.  Rueter noted that relationships have been strained in the past. Rueter added, “I’d like to be proactive and keep the positive lines of communications open.”

Mayor Greg Bryan responded that he would rather wait until November 14th, “I don’t see, I’m just gonna say as managing the meeting that there’s, we’re gonna piss anybody off who’s coming to have a discussion with us if they have to wait through that meeting, discussion and CAP and P and Z. That I think it would be more courteous to wait one week since this is a new discussion.”

The council is also worried about roundabout safety. The concern is the newly installed features on Highway 64 will cause accidents because drivers new to them won’t slow down in time. The DPS says for now the roundabouts will stay until ADOT gets data that shows they are a hazard. Because the features are new to the Highway, that data won’t be available for some time. Officer Shawn Shields from the DPS told the council he understands their concerns but he also noted there have not been many accidents at the Roundabouts.