If this past summer and fall’s drought conditions accomplished nothing else, they exposed a lot of water leaks around the city of Indianola.
For a couple of months, if there was water on a street, it was likely a leak.
Ward 4 Alderman Marvin Elder addressed this issue during this past Monday night’s regular board of alderman meeting. He floated the notion of hiring a contractor to help public works with some of those leaks.
“We need to try and get that ball rolling, because we see what is happening here in the city of Indianola,” Elder said.
Elder took it a step further and suggested the city look closer at hiring minority contractors for these types of jobs.
“We have to do our due diligence and reach out to some minority businesses,” he said at one point.
The discussion eventually brought public works director Elvis Pernell to the podium. Pernell acknowledged that there are times when the city has major water leak problems, but incidents like the one two weeks ago at the Modern Line building are rare, he said.
Most everything else, he said, is being handled by public works.
“It would be nice if the board members would go out to public works and let us show them a list of things that have been repaired,” Pernell said. “We had at one time a list of 37 leaks on the board. It’s probably down to eight, and those eight would probably have been taken care of had the major main on Curtis Street and the one at Modern Line (not happened).”
Pernell said he did not have a problem contracting with firms to help with jobs that would take more than one or two days, but he asked if the board could give him the authority to engage with those contractors as needed, rather than having to wait for permission.
The board said that was a day-to-day issue, and the mayor could authorize those things as needed.
