Mayor Brinson keeps projects going in 2nd term

Danielle Switalski

Plains’ mayor Michael Brinson will be starting his second four-year term as mayor in January and plans to keep his current projects under way. 

“I learned a lot in the last four years, the last year was probably the most important because we were dealing with grant money and engineers and I had not done that before,” said Brinson.

The grant money Brinson is talking about is the $240,000 grant the town received to fix the force main and replace the old eight-inch pipe with a new ten-inch pipe, which will allow for expansion should the town ever grow.

Grant money seems to be the trickiest part of the mayor post, but something Brinson sees as necessary to obtain in order to get certain things accomplished in the town.  The town is dealing with grant money that is paying for an engineering firm to conduct a study on the water and sewer system in Plains.  The study will be used to determine what kind of problems there are with the current system and any improvements that can be made for town growth over the next 20 years.

The study should be completed by the end of January.  Once the study is complete, Brinson will sit down with his fellow council people and see what changes need to be made to the water and sewer system.

They will then look to see if there is any grant money available in order to slowly start making the changes recommended by the engineer study.  For example, it might be adding another water tank so the town has more water storage in case there is a shortage sometime in the future.

Working with these two grants, one for the force main and one for the water and sewer study, Brinson said they have been learning experiences for him as mayor.

The town also attempted to obtain a grant to build a new fire hall in Brinson’s first term as mayor.  The town found someone to draw up plans for a new fire hall and someone to put together a grant proposal to obtain a $180,000 grant.  Although they did not find success in obtaining this specific grant, Brinson said they will apply for the grant again in 2010.  Brinson explained that he has learned from his time as mayor that obtaining grants takes time.  Even if a grant is secured, the money might take a year to actually come to the town. 

The force main grant was a rarity and came through very quickly after the grant was sent in and the town was approved for it. 

“I don’t know why it worked that way, but everything else seems to be a year behind, and it (the force main grant) was great and worked just right, but this other stuff is slow,” said Brinson.

Brinson said being mayor is a common sense thing.  He doesn’t have the authority or the will to spend large sums of money and the most important thing is knowing his boundaries.  He said his goals are to try and not cross the law and to stay where he is currently at in his position as mayor.  Brinson feels positive about his first term as mayor, as nothing has really gone wrong and things in the town have stayed fairly simple.

“I’m just simple, there might be some good things I’ve done, but I don’t try to push myself.  I don’t try to make something big out of something that’s not big.  I’m supposed to keep people as happy and content as I can and make sure the law enforcement is out there and these guys that work for me directly show up for work everyday and do their job,” said Brinson.