MORAN — Monday night Moran City Council members voted to increase employee wages by 25 cents an hour. They also approved a $25 a month increase to employees’ health insurance premiums, bringing them to a total of $325 a month.
Moran employees also will get a second personal day each year and one day of sick leave a month, which may accumulate to 560 hours, or 14 weeks. Their previous sick leave accumulation was 12 weeks.
Council members voted unanimously to increase Municipal Court fees from $60 t0 $70 for each fine, with $5 of the increase going to a fledgling campaign to raise money for a new library.
Nelda Cuppy, a library board member, told the Register the long-range plan was to build the new library on Cedar Street, the town’s main north-south avenue, and raze the old library so it could be made into a parking lot for the new structure.
No formal campaign has been organized to raise funds for the library, but council members said they would discuss fundraising at their Jan. 6 meeting.
Catalyst for the project was a $20,000 donation to the library by Union Pacific Railroad following a massive derailment south of Moran two years ago.
“They (Union Pacific officials) came to town looking for a storm shelter their employees might use during the cleanup,” Cuppy said. “When they found out there wasn’t one, they made the donation to help build a library with a storm shelter.”
Cuppy said Librarian Connie McWhirter had “some great ideas for the library that could be done with a new building.”
IN OTHER BUSINESS, council members:
— Authorized two purchases: $5,885 for a large mat-mounted transformer that will be used as a backup, and about $800 for a bullet-proof vest for the police department.
— Approved cereal malt beverage licenses for Pump-N-Pete’s convenience store and Stub’s Market.
— Put off review of city codes until January. Clerk Lori Evans said the codes hadn’t been reviewed for five years.
