VIENNA — After 12 years of service and good work with the City of Vienna, City Clerk Sherry James has accepted employment elsewhere and is stepping away from her job at city hall. Her last day was Sept. 18 but she will train the new city clerk as needed.

At the Vienna City Council’s September meeting, it was announced a new city clerk needs to be hired because James was recruited and accepted employment with Hippos, LLC. Hippos is the medical marijuana cultivation company which is establishing a cultivation facility at the former industrial development park, Highway V, Vienna. The company was awarded one of the coveted medical marijuana licenses and recently has begun working inside the large building in Vienna. The company has purchased all the property the City of Vienna owned at the industrial development park. Vienna receives a $5,000 check each month (for 60 months) from the medical marijuana company.

At the meeting last Monday night, James said she will be the office administrator for Hippos Vienna operation. James said she is willing to train the new city clerk up to November.

South Ward Alderwoman Brenda Davis asked if the next city clerk will be offered health insurance; James was exempted from health insurance and said it was because she is not a salaried employee, but is paid hourly. Davis said she doesn’t think they can hire a new clerk without offering health insurance. Mayor Tyler “TC” James said, “We definitely need to include it,” and the rest of the city council members agreed as well.

The council members discussed the advertisement for a new clerk and Davis said she thinks the pay range needs to be in the ad. “People need to know what it pays.” She also thinks the new city clerk needs to have proof of extensive computer skills, and know about accounting. She said at the least they need a person who can learn it. Mayor James said the city can pay the “market rate.” Davis said Clerk James can help the council members figure out what skills are needed for the job. North Ward Alderwoman Rita Juergens said all the clerk does now can be learned by a new person. Clerk James said she had an advantage when she became the city clerk because she knew the accounting and payroll programs.

To train the new clerk, Clerk James said she has a lot of vacation time built up and can “clock in and use the rest of my vacation.”

Mayor James said they need to move forward quickly as time is running out with Clerk James leaving at the end of the week. The council members decided to state in the advertisement “Salary based on qualifications and experience.”

In other action at the September Vienna City Council meeting:

• Marshall Decker was present with the city’s fiscal year audit report for the year ending June 30, 2020. Decker said the city is in good shape financially. He detailed the different fund balances. The general fund ending balance is $297,166. The street fund balance is $216,801, and Decker noted a big paving project could spend all of it. In the water fund there is an operating loss of $28,824, which is due to the additional $100,000 the council put towards its water system improvements loan through Rural Development. The sewer fund is in a positive position and Decker said the city’s utility funds look good. The city’s reserves are fine also.

He gave some advice about accounting software as the city is using and learning a new program. He said it is easier to learn a new format and tweak it instead of spending a lot of money on new software as some of the programs are very expensive.

• Davis said she has been attending the Vienna Chamber of Commerce meetings as a representative of the city council. She volunteered to be on the Show-Me Scholars committee, which needs fundraising in order to award scholarships to the Vienna High School seniors who qualify for the Show-Me Scholars. She is working with Lisa Garro. They will be selling limited edition Christmas ornaments. This will be done annually to showcase something tied to Vienna. For this year they selected the Old Jail Museum to be featured on the three-inch glass ornament. They will take orders for the ornament, which will cost about $15 and for a brass holder can be purchased in conjunction with the ornament. They will take orders soon and will accept them until the end of October.

• Clerk James said the school asked if the city would like to purchase a yearbook advertisement. A business card size ad is $45. Davis said she thinks as long as the city is solvent they should support the school and the council members agreed.

• City utilities employee Jim Sandbothe was present. Mayor James asked about the virtual meeting they had with the engineers about the city water system. Sandbothe said Jim Zumwalt of Mid-State Pipeline met with them as well. EPA is going to pay for the improvements. There are many valves to be replaced throughout the whole system including a way to shut off the storage tank. Mayor James said Vienna is in a super fund and the water plant will be fixed to way the city wants it to be fixed, to be fine tuned to the city’s needs. They also talked about using a softening agent in the water system.They are waiting to hear a price from Zumwalt. Mayor James said he hopes something comes out of this meeting.

About the street paving, Sandbothe said the company should be here soon to do the work.

• Davis asked about the work going on with Hippos at the industrial park. Mayor James said they are working in the building. Police Chief Shannon Thompson said they were supposed to get the electrical in this week. Mayor James said people are asking him about it. He was told an email account is being set up to send things to Hippos. People are asking about employment opportunities.

• Sandbothe said through Jeffries Electric they are planning to go with a monitoring system that will notify them of problems at the water plant by calling city hall and utility workers’ cell phones. Initially they thought the price was about $8,000, but now the price has increased to $17,000 to get what they want. Other phone lines will be disconnected and it will take about nine years in telephone bill savings to pay for the upgrade and recoup the costs. There will be a computer screen on the wall. Sandbothe said its high tech stuff. It’s a monitoring system only. It will tell them something is wrong and then they will come and deal with it.

Davis said the city counts on the utility men. Mayor James said he will leave the decision to them and to let the council know what they get figured out.