The Orange Fire Station No. 2 on Alllie Payne flooded, but could be fixed in about three weeks because the Orange City Council Tuesday approved special emergency action to forgo the bidding process.
“It would take you three weeks to get the scope of work needed” to advertise for bids, City Manager Dr. Shawn Oubre told the council.
The No. 2 station serves the Little Cypress area. Firefighters assigned to the station have been working out of the No. 3 station on Martin Luther King Jr. Driver. Oubre said the response time for emergencies has increased to the neighborhoods near the No. 2 station.
The Texas local government code allows entities to skip the bidding process because of “health and safety reasons,” he said.
The council’s action also will fix two sewer lift stations and a part of the sewage treatment plant. Oubre said the lift stations and the sewage plant are working, but not at full capacity.
Oubre said the library’s roof was damage during Harvey, plus the Neighborhood Facilities Building and the old National Guard Armory owned by the city were also damaged. However the city will go through the bidding process to fix those buildings.
The first business in the special called meeting was to set the tax rate of 71.774 cents per $100 valuation. The rate is the same as the current tax rate.
However, most of the meeting dealt with discussions of recovery efforts from Tropical Storm Harvey three weeks ago.
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