The Town of Maplesville will be enforcing is business license ordinance on all businesses in the town, including those that have never bought business licenses before.

Town Clerk Shelia Haigler will send letters to those businesses this week who have not already obtained licenses for the current year. Then, they will be given until the end of this month to get a license to come into compliance.

Some of the people that have never paid business licenses before and will be asked to purchase licenses include cattle farmers, realtors and people who do roofing, plumbing and other sub-contracted jobs.

Mayor Kurt Wallace said officials are being reasonable to all businesses in the town, especially to those who have already purchased licenses each year.

“We’re going to give them a little extra time to pay it, but they’re going to have to pay it,” Wallace said at the town council meeting last night. “It’s only being fair to all the businesses.”

The town council also decided to renew its application for a grant for the Mitchell Hill Sewer. Bob Corwin of SITE, Inc., who is the town’s grant writer for this project, said the town was turned down for the grant last year because the program ran out of money.

“They said everything looked good with our application, but we just got turned down,” Corwin said.

Corwin said the grant program is going to be refunded this year, and the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs would look at some of the projects it didn’t have money for last year.

Haigler also said the town is planning to work with Corwin to seek grants from the Community Oriented Police Service program and for police equipment.

In other business, the council

heard from Paula Jo Mattingly from the Chilton County Humane Society about the organization’s status.

heard from Fire Chief Michael Abbott on the status of the town’s new fire truck. He said the 1996 model truck they recently purchased will get a rebuilt engine since the truck seller cannot properly repair the oil leak. Abbott also wants to get an extended 90-day warranty on the truck from the seller.

heard from court clerk Cindy Brown. She said the town’s warrant collection has been up, and the money paid to the court has also been up.

announced that Maplesville School principal Maggie Hicks was pleased with the police department’s search for drugs at the school. K-9 officer Corry McCartney coordinated the search.

increased the salary of William Hayes to $8 an hour because his CDL qualifies him to drive the town’s garbage truck.

declared the town’s mosquito sprayer surplus.

decided to try and sell the town bucket truck for whatever price they can get no matter whether the truck can be prepared. Currently, the truck only runs on four cylinders.

adopted an updated flood damage prevention ordinance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

was made aware of grants that could help relocate power poles in downtown and beautify the town.