By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

HELENA–The Helena City Council approved a few needed expenses for various repairs and replacements at the latest city council meeting on Monday, June 15.

Some of the items approved for purchase included a new 60-inch commercial lawn mower for the parks and recreation department, the purchase of a new main server for Helena City Hall and the utility department, a recommendation to replace and repair bridges at Joe Tucker Park and installation of a wheel chair ramp at the Helena Museum.

The estimated cost to purchase a new commercial lawn mower is $10,000 and Helena Mayor Mark Hall discussed the reason for the purchase.

“This was a line item on the budget,” said Hall. “We’ll get the funds available and go ahead with that purchase and it will be used primarily on the infields so they can keep their best mower for football, baseball and soccer fields to keep them looking their best. The mowers we have take a lot of abuse, so it’s time to get one more in the fleet.”

The bridges at Joe Tucker Park have been in place for many years, and Hall said the repairs are dictated mostly from insurance inspections.

“The bridge next to Joe Tucker needs repair so we’ve got to replace it completely,” said Hall. “Of course, our insurance inspections kind of dictate that we do some of these repairs and replacements. Plus, we just need to upgrade those because they’ve been there a long time.”

The total cost to repair the bridges and to install a handicap ramp at the Helena Museum will cost a combined $10,900.

Lastly, Helena City Hall’s main computer server went down and is currently running on a back-up server. A total amount of $12,675 was approved to purchase a new computer server and software and is classified as an emergency repair replacement.

“We had a server go down, we’re running back up in the cloud so we’re going to have to replace that,” said Hall. “This is an emergency repair replacement and will save us about $20,000 in the long run to do it this way. This should suffice for the next three-five years.”

The next Helena City Council meeting will be Monday, July 6, at City Hall.