HOGANSVILLE – During the City of Hogansville’s city council meeting Monday evening, the council spent a large amount of time discussing the possibility of allocating up to $10,396 in unrestricted city funds to update the city’s website, which was also discussed and tabled during the city council meeting held on April 1.

During the April 1 meeting, City Manager David Milliron requested that the council allow city staff to start the process of selecting a vendor to complete the necessary work, but no decision was reached at the April 1 or April 15 meeting.

In the midst of discussion on the website, the conversation quickly moved to improvements to Pine Street, a road that has been the subject of much conversation in recent months, as it is in dire need of repair.

“How long are we talking about leaving Pine Street [the way it is]? I think those citizens deserve better,” City Councilman Reggie Jackson said.

The city council decided to hold on a road paving improvement project to Pine Street during its March 18 meeting that would have cost the city between $155,000 and $165,000, on the advice of city consultant and engineer Adam Price.

Price said any work done on the road now may be undone in two years with federal money from a Community Development Block Grant. However, the council has still shown a desire to allocate whatever funds are available to the road and showed a desire on Monday to use the unrestricted funds toward patching Pine Street, which is currently undergoing preliminary work to fix water lines running underneath the road.

“In my opinion, if we could take that money and pave up those patches that we’re cutting up on Pine Street, we understand it’s temporary, but at least they have something,” City Councilwoman Theresa Strickland said. “If you live on that road, you never want to go home. We’re cutting places, and for the right reasons, but we need to be patching those places back up.”

Milliron raised the point that if the city’s website is not updated soon, it will eventually fail, leaving the city with no online presence.

“It won’t be long before that website dies and fails, then you won’t have a website,” Milliron said. “It’s more than just a website, it allows us to be able to post all of our documents, to manage our meetings, to post agendas, to be able to communicate outward, to be able to take citizen requests.”

Mayor Bill Stankiewicz also raised the point that both projects could be pursued, and he believes the website update is one of the most pressing needs facing the city.

“I don’t think this is an either-or situation,” Stankiewicz said. “We could use that line item for 100 different things in this city. But, we will take a step backwards into the last century if we don’t have a website. And we are about to not have a website.”

Strickland raised a similar point related to Pine Street.

“We’re back in time when you look at Pine Street, too,” Strickland said. “It’s horrible.”

Stankiewicz agreed with Strickland and the rest of the council that work is needed on Pine Street, and that funds should be committed to the road, but the city needed to make a decision on whether or not it wanted to see improvements and updates to its website.

“The website is partially working,” Strickland said. “My concern is priority. Anytime I see dollars out there available, we need to focus on Pine Street. The website, I’m not sure about. I see Pine Street as the big issue. $10,000 for a website, that money can go toward fixing what we’re tearing up on Pine Street.”

The discussion ended with no action taken by the council.