Melody Nowowiejski was sworn in as the new Ward 3 council member during Tuesday’s meeting of the Brownwood City Council.

Nowowiejski won a specially called election on May 1 over Linda Heitman to fill the unexpired term of Larry Mathis, who is moving to Georgetown.

Once Nowowiejski received the oath of office, she took Mathis’ place on the dais.

Tuesday was also the final city council meeting for outgoing Brownwood Assistant Manager Tim Airheart, who is retiring after spending 30 years as an employee of the City.

Airheart provided an update on street repairs for the fiscal year.

The street department has approximately $172,000 remaining for street repairs this fiscal year from the original appropriation of $365,000 for the fiscal year 2020-2021 budget. Two major projects (16th Street and River Oaks Drive) were not completed in the fiscal year 2019-2020 and carried over into the fall, reducing the funds available for street repair this summer.

A list of streets for repair was presented in order of priority based on need for maintenance and the length of time, beginning with Melwood, on the street repair list. Weather permitting, the street department will continue to work down the list when the new fiscal year begins in October.

“We had far more streets repaired than the money available,” Airheart said. “What we would like to do is work our way down that list and get as far as we can. At the end of the summer, if we have expended all our funds we’ll work on street maintenance, which is basically pot hole patching, alley repair and that sort of stuff. Once the new fiscal year kicks off in October, the plan is to start work back on the list.”

The investment report for the quarter that ended March 31, 2021 was also presented. Though the investment balance was up over $1.7 million, according to City of Brownwood Finance Director Melanie Larose, that earned just $1,888 in interest. That figure compares to $51,593 in 2018, $94,756 in 2019 and $58,822 in 2020.

Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes said of the report, “This shows how things totally outside your control can affect the bottom line for the City. The first quarter of 2019 our interest revenue was over $94,000 and the first quarter of 2021 our interest was $1,888, a difference of somewhere between $92,000-$93,000. Multiple that by four and that’s around $365,000. It just goes to show how many moving pieces to the city budget there are. Thankfully, we typically don’t budget for much interest income, we’re pretty conservative there.”

Items unanimously approved on the consent agenda included:

* Authorize the City Manager to sign an agreement and any subsequent addend urns, amendments, and acceptance of additional funds during the term of the existing grant contract and the addition funding for COVID-19 activities, on behalf of Brownwood Brown County Health Department with Texas Department of State Health Services to continue providing Immunization services to our community.

* Authorize the City Manager to sign an agreement and any subsequent addendums, amendments, and acceptance of additional funds during the term of the contract with the Department of State Health Services.

Also Tuesday, Margaret Somereve with the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power presented a plaque to the City.