LIVE OAK — The Live Oak City Council on Tuesday approved the final reading for Ordinance 1401, a fire assessment fee that will be charged to city residents’ utility bill.

The fee will be $8.75 a month for a total of $105 a year per house hold. It will earn around $291,000 and pay for 25 percent of the fire department’s budget. The rest of the budget will be paid for from the city’s general fund, according to Joanne Luther, finance director.

Councilman Bennie Thomas was the only vote against the ordinance.

During the city council meeting, the council authorized mayor Garth Nobles to execute an agreement for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds for Hurricane Hermine.

Ron Williams, city manager, said he expects the funds to worth around $32,000. Williams credited the funds to city staff documenting their efforts during the cleanup after Hermine.

“I can tell you that during any FEMA event, documenting is a key issue,” Williams said. “The city was represented well by the police department, the fire department and OMI. They had their details and facts together.”

The city was also awarded a Community Development Block Grant worth $750,000. But the process for the city to qualify for the grant will require months of paperwork and for the city to comply with handicap accessibility requirement of the grant.

Resolution number 16-15 was approved by the council to update compliance, which requires all city-owned facilities to be handicap accessible according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). To accomplish this, the city set up a three year transition plan for scheduled improvements.

Year one will be Fiscal Year 2017-18 and will install paddle handles on the woman’s restroom vanity sink in the police station.

Fiscal Year 2018-19 will involve two projects. First will be installing handicapped parking spaces and accessible walkways between new handicapped parking spaces and picnic pavilions at Baker Park. Second will be ADA compliant water fountains at the police station.

Finally, for Fiscal Year 2019-20, ADA compliant stalls in all city hall restrooms and automatic exterior door openers at both city hall and the police station will be installed.

The process to get the CDBG funding and get to the construction phase of any project is expected to take around half a year.