The Brookhaven Board of Aldermen and City Building InspectorChip Genarro decided that it’s time again for problem lots inBrookhaven to be cleaned.

Genarro told the board at Tuesday night’s meeting that afterhand-delivered letters are sent to try to get owners of land on theproblem lot list to move toward cleanup, the city can take thematter into its own hands. And the task of cleaning up the lots,which are submitted by aldermen for notification and cleanup, isnot a small one, Genarro said.

“We’ve got a lot of houses on there,” he said of the list.

Genarro said as the letters have been sent, some landowners havebegun to work to clean their own lots. But there are others whohave not heeded any of the notices that have been sent.

And there’s another complication, he said. The city landfills,which can only hold so much, may not accommodate refuse from allthe properties on the list if the city workers have to handle thecleanup problems themselves.

“We’re getting short on landfill area,” he said. “We may try toburn some of them with BFD.”

The board voted unanimously to begin the lot-cleaningprocess.

In other action, the board agreed to share in the cost oftemporary repairs of Industrial Park Boulevard. The road hasdeveloped deep grooves in the pavement where heavy trucks havetraveled back and forth along the road.

Mayor Les Bumgarner asked the board to allow the city to chip in$5,000 toward the repairs, to match the money the county is givingto the project. Bumgarner said the money will come from the mayor’sshare of the paving money that is alotted in the 2009-10 fiscalyear budget.

“It’s needed, I’m telling you,” said Ward Five D.W. Maxwell ofthe road repairs.

Meanwhile, the group also discussed a request by the LincolnCounty Board of Supervisors to change the speed limit coming offthe Industrial Park Bridge.

The speed limit currently is 30 miles per hour, but truckdrivers have found it hard to slow down that far coming down such asteep grade, Ward Four Alderwoman Shirley Estes said. She addedthat the supervisors had asked for a new speed limit of 45.

“Thirty is hard to come down to off that bridge, even in a car,”said Ward Six Alderman David Phillips. “I travel that way everyday.”

No action was taken on the speed limit issue.

The board also voted to move the time of the Nov. 17 meeting upto 5 p.m. instead of 6:30 p.m. in order to allow city officials toattend the Chamber of Commerce Banquet, which takes place thatnight. Bumgarner explained to the board that the time conflict wasunavoidable and offered them the choice of missing the beginning ofthe banquet, moving the meeting up or changing the meetingdate.

Financial consultant Demery Grubbs also spoke briefly to theboard about his research into bond issues. He explained that he hadfound a bond that could be refinanced in order to bring theinterest rate down from 6 percent to 2-4 percent without extendingthe maturity or adding years.

Grubbs told the board it would save them about $11,000 to$12,000 a year.

“What’s happened is that in this economic crisis, a lot ofpeople have pulled their money out of municipal bonds,” he said.”But municipal bonds have less than a 3 percent failure rate …and we’re seeing people get back in.”

Grubbs said the rates will go back up due to the influx ofpeople buying back in, but that he was watching to “stay ahead ofthe curve.”

Aldermen also approved the request of Brookhaven DiscountCigarettes owner Tony M. Gagliano to sell packaged beer.