Jay honoring its former town clerk

The Jay town council approved unanimously a motion Monday night to rename the Jay Community Center after retired Town Clerk Linda Carden. Carden retired as town clerk on Oct. 31, 2016, after serving the town of Jay for more than 40 years. The new name will be The Linda Carden Community Center.

The council discussed renaming north State Street, where Carden grew up, in honor of her service to the town. According to Councilman David Bush, changing the street name to honor Carden would require so much time and effort for the street's residents, he suggesting naming the community center after her instead.

"She had her hands in on that community center, the construction, reworking, everything, she was really the main drive," said Bush. "The town owns it, and there was not as much paperwork involved as changing the street name. We thought it is a nice way to honor her commitment to the town."

The town will host a reception at the community center for Carden to be announced at a later date. The public will be invited.

Water system

In a motion made by Owens and seconded by Councilwoman Maxine Ivey, the motion carried.

In other business, council members discussed the on-going short-term and possible long-term solutions to the water problem in Jay.

Recently, a well near Caffee Street that had been turned off was turned back on, which produced an abundance of dirty water, according to Mayor Owens.

Operations Manager Eric Seib said that the town of Jay relies on two wells for its water, and that the School Street well requires lyme to be added manually every four hours, costing the town overtime in man hours.

"The Calffee Street well pump is bigger, more convenient," said Seib. "We are pursuing a more immediate solution to the water problem by flushing. Replacing the old cast iron pipes with PVC pipe is the long-term fix, but there are about 9 miles of cast iron pipes in the system now."

Seib says free monies are available through grants, but the process is a 10- to 12-month wait for the grant to be approved and distributed.

"It's a matter of free money versus loan money," he said. "We are expecting a Technical Assistance (TA) Grant through the Department of Economic Development in the amount of $15,000 next month. It will help us map out the water system so we can more easily isolate problem areas. It can be used with a GPS system to map out pipes, which can be used also for engineering design, etc. It will be an up-to-date electronic map of the water distribution system."

The next council meeting will be at 6 p.m., Monday, May 21, at Jay Town Hall.