Monday’s Hughson City Council meeting was filled with positive recognitions and the approval of many actions to help the city move in the right direction, which is a big change from the time during recall efforts to remove three council members.

Sergeant John Walker and Deputy Jesse Grogan with Hughson Police Services were recognized for their heroic and courageous efforts performed during a residential fire at Tully Road and Fox Avenue on Aug. 30.

Miss Hughson Lisa Crabtree and Miss Hughson Runner-Up Devoree Weimers were also presented with certificates.

On Monday the council also approved:

·         A grant application to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, upgrade a system to monitor the city’s water wells, storm drainage and sewer pumps, and allocated funding of the COPS grant for police services;

·         A grant that will bring Hughson in line with eight other cities in Stanislaus County in an effort to be complaint with AB 32 and SB 375, which require cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from both stationary and mobile emissions sources. There is no fiscal impact for Hughson except for 40 hours of staff time to match the grant. The grant is supposed to reimburse Hughson $23,000 for its staff time;

·         A bid for the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system to upgrade their current failed system to help electronically monitor water wells, storm drainage and certain sewer life pumps. The City is currently monitoring the pumps manually. The new system will cost $130,000 and is already accounted for in the 2010/2011 budget draft.

·         Supplemental Law Enforcement Services Funds of $100,000 that could be used in the Stanislaus County Drug Enforcement Unit, to fund a Deputy-Sheriff Coroner position as a School Resource Officer, to fund full-time and reserve deputy sheriff(s) who will provide extra patrol during proactive patrol operations, special events, festivals and traffic enforcement details and the continuation of the record maintenance and purging project for the Hughson Police Services.

A public hearing for the budget was continued to the next meeting on Sept. 27. The council will have a special budget workshop at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday in Council Chambers.

To contact Maegan Martens, e-mail mmartens@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2015.