The Roy City Council discussed the city’s budget and what they could do to improve the town for residents at an early-hours budget retreat July 29.
The varying topics of improvement included implementing community events, a mobile food bank, water filtration, fixing potholes throughout the city and street safety.
“This part of the budget retreat is designed to hear from council members on what their priorities are,” Certified Public Accountant Tara Dunford said during the meeting. “This could be anything finance-related for 2024. It could be as simple as I want a nice picture on the budget book, or I want to fix potholes or it could be more complex. It can be anything that the council has in mind that’s a priority.”
The Roy City Council was asked to speak globally on their goals and vision for the City of Roy, and Councilor Harvey Gilchrist made it clear that his priority is restoring Roy’s sense of community through different gatherings.
These gatherings would include the return of the Hometown Heroes event, Roy’s Trunk-or-Treat, an open house tree-lighting event during the holiday season and Police Night Out. Gilchrist wanted to know if it would be possible to spend budgeted money to improve these events, such as giving out city-sponsored goodie bags at the open house tree-lighting event.
“We’ve previously done Police Night Out, trunk or treat, the Christmas event, and that brought people out from their homes to support their community, to support what we do here in town. Those were just to bring the community together, and we haven’t had that for a long time, especially after COVID,” Gilchrist said. “We’ve seen a lot of people and kids come through here to support (events), and we’ve also had volunteers come out to support.”
Roy City Councilor and Mayor Pro-Tem Yvonne Starks sees a need for the return of the mobile food bank.
“Another something that we used to have (in Roy) is a mobile food bank,” she said. “They used to park out on the side of the fire department and were told they had to move. They moved to where the car lot is but were later told that because it’s leased, they could no longer park there. We never gave them any options as to where they could go after that.”
She added that another area of importance is the city’s water filtration, as she applied for a Community Development Block Grant to improve the town’s water. She said cities such as Carbonado have received CDBG grants in the past for clean water and sees this as a huge opportunity for Roy.
The grant is worth $525,000 and would be used to improve the conditions of Roy’s water, which has iron and manganese in it.
“The grant that I wrote is hugely important because we have to show in the survey that we’re 51% low income (in Roy), and we need to reach those low income people to answer the survey,” Starks said. “They thought we needed (the grant) because of the iron and manganese in our water. I’m willing to write those grants if we could get the opportunity.”
Councilor Jim Rotondo believes that potholes in the city and overall street safety should be areas of focus in 2024. He said the crosswalks at intersections in the city during busy traffic provide a challenge for those trying to cross, and he believes Roy should implement crosswalk lights to alleviate any danger of crossing the road.
