By Crystal McGough
Copy Editor
The Clay City Council agreed to designate $500 per week to provide food for the Senior Center so that they can opt out of the state’s meal plan, administered by United Way, which was recontracted to G A Foods in October.
According to City Manager Ronnie Dixon, there have been constant issues with the provided meals not being the right temperature and being, in general, inedible.
“We knew that things were bad with the food,” Dixon said. “It has gotten a little better, as far as things being the right temperature and being safe to eat, but the fact of the matter is, it is not edible, from the standpoint of the taste.”
Councilor Becky Johnson said that if the food isn’t at the right temperature, it has to be thrown away and the city still has to pay for it.
Dixon added that, since October, there has not been one week where this wasn’t the case.
“I would like for y’all to let me opt out of the state program,” Dixon said. “What we’re doing now is, because it’s $3.93 a meal if we don’t have 25 people show up; we have more than 25 and they’re asked to make a donation — it’s not mandatory — of $1.50. Some of ours do and some of them don’t.
“What I’m asking y’all to do, based on my estimates, is allow $500 a week for food at the Senior Center, so it’s $24,000 a year. If they contribute $1.50, the ones that do, that’ll knock it down some. We’ll take the $10,000 that we get from the county and knock it down more. So at the most, we’re going to be paying $1,000 a month. As I told the mayor when I presented it to him, we’re paying more than that at the library for people to come and read stories, and our seniors are more important than that. A lot of them, the only hot meal they get is what they get at our Senior Center. We’re going to spend the same amount of money, but we’re going to give them quality food that we know is hot.”
Dixon said that the city has the money in the budget to take over financing food at the Senior Center.
“We’ve got plenty in the budget,” he said. “We just have to move it from one line-item to the Senior Center.”
The food the city will provide will come from various local restaurants and grocery stores, including Wing-A-Fish, Barbecue Stop, Piggly Wiggly, Publix deli, and the Food Giant and Winn-Dixie delis in Pinson, Dixon said.
“What I’ve done is worked out to some of our local restaurants and grocery stores to where we can feed them for $4 a piece,” he said. “We can make a weekly menu.”
Johnson said that she has been wanting to make this change ever since G A Foods took over in October.
“We’re going to change the way our food works at the Senior Center,” she said.
The Senior Center will also have a special lunch of Barbecue Stop on Friday, Dec. 21, at 11:30 a.m.
“It’ll be their last day of meeting before the new year,” Dixon said. “They won’t come back until Jan. 2. Alabama School of Fine Arts Chorale is going to be there and they have students from a bunch of different schools. They’ve got some kind of game to play that everybody that participates gets a gift.”
In other news, the council passed resolutions designating the 2019 meeting times for the Library Board and Board of Zoning Adjustments (BZA).
City of Clay Library Board 2019 Meetings:
January 23, 2019
April 23, 2019
July 23, 2019
October 22, 2019
City of Clay BZA 2019 Meetings:
January 14, 2019
February 11, 2019
March 11, 2019
April 8, 2019
May 13, 2019
June 10, 2019
July 8, 2019
August 12, 2019
September 9, 2019
October 14, 2019
November 18, 2019
December 9, 2019
“We haven’t had a BZA meeting in four years, but we have to designate the time,” Dixon said. “They only meet if there is an agenda. It’s the second Monday of each month if they have to meet.”
The council also passed Resolutions 2018-59 and 2018-60, authorizing the demolition and abatement of properties at 2346 Old Springville Road and 7730 Clayton Road. The resolutions also authorized the city manager to file with the Probate Court of Jefferson County to put a lien in the amount of $8,500 on each property for the abatement.
The Planning and Zoning Commission will not meet this week, and the next meeting of the Clay City Council will be Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, at 6:30 p.m., immediately following a pre-council meeting at 6 p.m.