VALLEY GRANDE — Two major questions were answered during last Monday’s Valley Grande city council meeting, and another answer will be found in the near future.

Following the recent departure of former city assistant city clerk Kim Harris, Mayor Wayne Labbe said the city has moved fast to find her replacement.

“Stephanie Motley is our new assistant city clerk and treasurer,” Labbe said “We are training here right now.”

Labbe said Motley brings years of experience in the field, something that was important when looking for a new bookkeeper.

“She had done the bookkeeping for Jones Oil for the past six years, and she was recently as Billingsley High School and was looking to get back into the bookkeeping work,” Labbe said. “We’re very fortunate to find someone with her background because she is very familiar with payroll and our accounting software. She is a good fit for us and we were so fortunate to find her.”

Labbe said the city also was able to set up a new three-year contract for the mowing on the city’s property with a familiar organization.

“Teen Challenge came through with the best bid for us,” Labbe said. “They are a Christian organization that helps boys and men that are in trouble. They had been doing this work for us, but the contract had ended and we had to put it out to bid.”

Labbe said a contract for cleanup of trash along the city’s roadways was still out to bid, but that the bidding process would close at the end of the business day Tuesday.

Speaking earlier this year, Labbe said the issue of trash in surrounding the city’s roadways had become too much to ignore.

“We just have so much trash in this town, especially on the roads that are traveled by more than just our citizens,” Labbe said. “We are trying to get bids on what it would cost to have someone pickup the trash on these roads every six or eight weeks.”

Currently, the city advertises for volunteers to help clear trash once every six months, and Labbe said that plan is not keeping up with the increased rubbish.

Labbe’s schedule Tuesday evening did not allow him to confirm the winner of the clean-up bid, but he agreed to comment later in the week.