Pembroke’s city council on Monday voted to spend as much as $185,000 on a pair of unrelated projects during a brief online meeting – perhaps the council’s last ZOOM get together of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most expensive is proposed improvements to the city’s water system on Ash Branch Road at the site of the old Bryan County Elementary School.

There, work on Pembroke’s first three-story structure, a senior living residence called Ash Branch Manor, has “revealed the need for greater and more reliable water pressure to support fire suppression systems and large concentrations of residents in taller buildings,” City Administrator Alex Floyd said.

The goal is to have a fix in place by the time Ash Branch Manor opens later this year. Council approved spending of up to $100,000 in Special Local Option Sales Taxes on the proposed project, which is still in the early stages and will have to be approved by Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division.

Council also OK’d spending up to $85,000 in SPLOST funds on rehabilitating railroad crossings through an agreement with Georgia Central Railroad out of Lyons and Hooks Backhoe Services of Macon. The work would include repairing crossings at Ledford Street, Poplar Street, Surrency Street and Clanton Street, while removing the railroad crossing at Bucks Lane, Floyd said.

“No more jarring your teeth on the way to the post office,” he noted. “The city would like to thank Georgia Central section-master David Liskey for his due diligence on ths project and for securing the contractor in a timely manner.”

Floyd said Hooks “has rebuilt crossings all over the state and fixed the crossing at College Street last year.”

At the end of Monday’s meeting, council members said they looked forward to being able to meet at city hall in June if guidelines enacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic are lifted.