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All right. Welcome to the first meeting of the Watkinsville City Council of 2022. And I think with that we'll dispense with the | 00:00:06 | |
traditional welcome and go straight to go straight. | 00:00:12 | |
A moment while remember from the past few weeks. | 00:00:19 | |
All right. | 00:00:43 | |
Yeah. At that point, I was like we performed the national team. | 00:00:52 | |
It was a great feeling so. | 00:00:55 | |
Sharon, we can, we can cut it now. | 00:01:01 | |
The I just I've probably watched that video 10 or 12 or 20 times since since last week, but I had to watch it one more time and | 00:01:06 | |
officially get it on the record at the city. | 00:01:11 | |
Council meeting that we were celebrating the Georgia Bulldogs and notably we have some of that support staff lives here in | 00:01:16 | |
Watkinsville. | 00:01:20 | |
So, so anyway, I just want to congratulate our the University of Georgia, our football program. | 00:01:25 | |
And and everyone who helped and contributed to that, including the citizens of Watkinsville who did so welcome to the meeting. And | 00:01:31 | |
with that, we do have some special activities we have to kick off every January with. And that's the oath of office for myself, | 00:01:37 | |
Councilman Garrett and Councilwoman Massey. So if we could all step up here and we will. | 00:01:44 | |
Mr. Right when will administer the oath. | 00:01:51 | |
All right. How's that? | 00:02:05 | |
That's great, All right. | 00:02:07 | |
Do this State, or any political subdivision or authority thereof, that you are not the holder of any office of trust under the | 00:02:45 | |
Government of the United States, or any other state or any foreign state which you, by the laws of State of Georgia, will be | 00:02:51 | |
prohibited from holding, and that you are otherwise qualified to hold said office according to the Constitution and laws of | 00:02:57 | |
Georgia, And that you have been in President of your district in the City of Watkinsville for the time required by the | 00:03:04 | |
Constitution and laws of this State. | 00:03:10 | |
And that you will perform the duties of your office in the best interest of the city of Watkinsville to the best of your ability, | 00:03:16 | |
without fear, favor, affection, reward, or expectation thereof. You agree with that oath? Please say I do or I do, so help me God. | 00:03:23 | |
All right, very good. Congratulations, you're. | 00:03:32 | |
And Clerk Klein has the copies for each you to sign. I will then notarize and she will adjust. | 00:03:40 | |
Repeat after me is. | 00:03:52 | |
And with that, we're off to the races. We do have a quorum here tonight and appreciate all of you being here our next. | 00:03:59 | |
Next activity is the pledge and I'd like to ask my dad, Dad, Thanks for being here. Watkinsville citizen, military veteran, and | 00:04:08 | |
all around one of the best guys I know. So Dad's going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. | 00:04:14 | |
Excell. | 00:04:22 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. | 00:04:25 | |
And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:04:30 | |
All right. Thank you all for being here Again, a little bit of housekeeping tonight. We are changing things up for our guests who | 00:04:44 | |
may be online. We're using a new system called Suite 1. | 00:04:49 | |
That's a webcasting public portal. As some of you may recall. When the pandemic came, we had to adjust what we were doing and we | 00:04:54 | |
used a system called RingCentral. | 00:04:58 | |
And RingCentral was not built to broadcast City Council meeting. So last year council approved making a making a small investment | 00:05:03 | |
and upgrading our system for how we broadcast meetings. We've been trying. | 00:05:09 | |
That system out and working alongside RingCentral for the past few months, but the plan all along was the transition to a new | 00:05:15 | |
system that was purpose built. | 00:05:19 | |
For this, So in the new system, our visitors who are online can now see all the council packet materials, the background on | 00:05:23 | |
everything. When you're watching online, the audio should be better. The portal you know is working tonight, but give us some | 00:05:29 | |
grace. It is the first time that we've tried it, so we're going to continue to improve that. The one thing that has changed, we | 00:05:35 | |
noticed over the past four months that we had very little public feedback on RingCentral. This system at this time does not allow | 00:05:41 | |
the public to comment in the moment. | 00:05:47 | |
During the meeting. So if a member of the public does want to comment on something, that's on the agenda. | 00:05:53 | |
So hopefully this will be a new and improved approach. | 00:06:27 | |
The agenda is posted a full week before the meeting, so if anyone from the public cannot be here and they want to make comments on | 00:06:31 | |
that agenda. | 00:06:35 | |
The agenda is posted in advance and then the packet is also posted well in advance so people can review and make comments on that. | 00:06:40 | |
With that, we will move on to the approval of the minutes. Our minutes are from December 15th. I did provide one minor note to the | 00:06:47 | |
clerk that needs to be an edit that needs to be made around just adding the number of participants who are at the meeting. Did | 00:06:52 | |
anyone else catch? | 00:06:57 | |
Edits or changes that need to be made to the minutes. | 00:07:02 | |
Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the? | 00:07:07 | |
I make a motion to approve the minutes. All right, we have a motion from Mrs. Tucker. Do we have a second? Second. We have a | 00:07:11 | |
second for Mr. Campbell. Any comment? | 00:07:16 | |
All in favor, say aye, any opposed motion carries 50. Next on the agenda. The agenda is the approval of the agenda. A couple | 00:07:21 | |
updates there. Item 13 that was under new business which involve funding for A. | 00:07:29 | |
Funding for. | 00:07:38 | |
Um. | 00:07:40 | |
Funding for the Police Department that can actually be covered in our existing budget, so we don't need to add that to the agenda | 00:07:41 | |
so we can actually remove item 13. | 00:07:46 | |
From the agenda, I'd ask for a motion on that and any other any other items that you may want to. | 00:07:51 | |
Add or remove from the agenda. Please note that we do have several items under consent. So if there's anything that you want to | 00:07:58 | |
remove from consent, now is the time to do that so. | 00:08:03 | |
I'll entertain a motion to remove item 13 from the agenda and if there's anything that anyone wants to remove from consent. | 00:08:08 | |
Speak. | 00:08:15 | |
All right, then I'll take a motion on item 13. | 00:08:20 | |
To remove that. | 00:08:25 | |
Remove that item from new business. | 00:08:26 | |
I make a motion to remove item 13 from the agenda. | 00:08:28 | |
All right. We have a motion of the second. All in favor. Say aye. | 00:08:33 | |
Any opposed that motion carries 50, so we will remove. | 00:08:37 | |
13 from the agenda. | 00:08:40 | |
And we will move on to Administ. | 00:08:42 | |
First item under administration and just a reminder, doesn't look like we have a lot of folks here tonight, but our rule generally | 00:08:45 | |
is if you have any public comment, council can allow that comment on an item that is not a public hearing at council sole | 00:08:50 | |
discretion. | 00:08:54 | |
They have to be related to the agenda items. We need you to speak from the podium for four minutes per person. We don't allow | 00:09:01 | |
debate, personal attacks, argument or irrelevant discussion. But again, generally, unless it is a public hearing or something that | 00:09:06 | |
requires public input, that allowing that is at the Council's discretion. | 00:09:11 | |
First item on administration is the election of a Mayor Pro Tem. Does anyone want to nominate someone for mayor Pro Tem? | 00:09:17 | |
I'll nominate Christine for Mayor Pro Tem. | 00:09:31 | |
All right, Councilman Tucker has nominated Councilwoman Tucker. | 00:09:34 | |
Councilman Thomas, excuse me, has nominated Miss Tucker for Mayor Pro Tem. Is there a second? | 00:09:41 | |
The second from Council. | 00:09:49 | |
Campbell. | 00:09:51 | |
And any conversation or other nominations? | 00:09:52 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. | 00:09:57 | |
Any. | 00:10:00 | |
Congratulations, Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. | 00:10:01 | |
All right. | 00:10:05 | |
OK. Next item on the agenda is National 211 Day. This is for the United Way of Northeast Georgia and we have a proclamation. | 00:10:07 | |
Allison always is here from the United Way tonight, and we have a proclamation for. | 00:10:16 | |
211 and this is a national thing. I don't know how many of you have used 211, but it is. | 00:10:24 | |
Service that connects local resources to those in need in the community that's administered by the United Way. The date is going | 00:10:30 | |
to be the celebration day officially is February 11th, but we want to go ahead and do that in advance. So Allison, I will hand | 00:10:35 | |
this to you. Maybe we can take a quick picture and then if you've got a minute, you can offer us a little bit of background on the | 00:10:41 | |
United Way and all the good things that you do. | 00:10:47 | |
I don't know. | 00:10:57 | |
People. | 00:11:11 | |
Thank you. I'll do this so people can hear me online. I'm Allison always. I am with United Way of Northeast Georgia. Thank you | 00:11:13 | |
guys so much for having me and allowing us to. | 00:11:18 | |
Recipients of this proclamation SO211 is our Health and Human Services referral line. This is an asset to our region. When | 00:11:23 | |
neighbors are in need, it's really hard to figure out where to start. It can be challenging to decide. How do I find resources? | 00:11:31 | |
What do I actually need? That's what 211 is here for. So you can call 211 anytime during the work week, but you can text 211 | 00:11:38 | |
anytime of day and it's all free and confidential. | 00:11:46 | |
Folks with local resources near where they are meeting whatever needs those are. So it can be food, it can be shelter, it can be | 00:11:54 | |
support groups, it can be help with jobs and transportation. All kinds of needs are funneled through 211 and they are connecting | 00:12:01 | |
you with local resources. At United Way of Northeast Georgia, we're proud to serve this region. We are proud to serve in | 00:12:08 | |
Watkinsville and Oconee County. 211 has been a great asset for Oconee County specifically, 89% of the calls and inquiries that | 00:12:15 | |
come into 211 are answered and connected. | 00:12:22 | |
Folks with those local resources. So we're proud to have this here and we're proud to be a community member for Watkinsville. So | 00:12:30 | |
thank you guys so much. This was wonderful and we are always here to serve you. | 00:12:36 | |
Thanks. Thank you, Allison. I don't think I had any idea of how much, how many services were provided through 211. So I knew about | 00:12:43 | |
it, but didn't know that much about it. So thank you for coming. | 00:12:48 | |
Next on the agenda is our Financial Reports manager, Dickerson, if you want to cover that. | 00:12:54 | |
And we're going to be down to a slim crowd. Y'all, thanks for coming everybody. You'll have a great night, Yeah. | 00:12:59 | |
Financial Reports manager Dickerson. Yep. So we've got a few we do each month. I'm not going to go through the detail on the | 00:13:11 | |
general fund, but I do want to point out that we have about $4 million in the bank. | 00:13:17 | |
Our revenues are sitting at about 52%. We're about halfway through the year. So you know and revenues coming come in different | 00:13:24 | |
times. So that's not really a great measure, but it's good to know right that we at least half of the money in, but the expenses | 00:13:29 | |
are only at 42%. Now again there are some things that are outstanding. | 00:13:35 | |
Bills that are payment purchases that have been made that we haven't paid for yet but that's still that's still good news too. I'm | 00:13:41 | |
Staffs really working hard to try to you know, not spend money unless we need to and of course we're getting ready for budget. So | 00:13:47 | |
that's yes did not chief chief said he spends money all the time. | 00:13:52 | |
But I. | 00:13:59 | |
So that's good news. So if there any questions about the general fund or expenses revenues, I'm happy to answer those now or after | 00:14:00 | |
the meeting. | 00:14:03 | |
Now. | 00:14:06 | |
OK, so the item that is in front of you right now is the SPLOST 1. | 00:14:09 | |
Project list and what that provides you is a balance. | 00:14:14 | |
$453,000 and some change that is left in. | 00:14:18 | |
And the count the money that is in SPLOST one is going to be paired with money and splice 2 some of the money in SPLOS 2. The 5th | 00:14:22 | |
the last line that says water and sewer that 904 along with the 400 and. | 00:14:30 | |
53 will be right now is going to be used for the sewer line project for sewer line A. | 00:14:38 | |
The project balance of the account right now is 1.4 million. | 00:14:45 | |
So we have a little, so we have like about 40,000 more than we expected to have. That's not been appropriated by y'all, just just | 00:14:51 | |
a little tidbit of information, so. | 00:14:55 | |
As the the Parks and Rec project that's 456,000 that pays for the ESP. The fully accessible playground and engineering and | 00:15:00 | |
building inspections costs that the city is covering as part of our part of our arrangement with the with ESP. | 00:15:08 | |
Are there any questions about spice, two or spice? | 00:15:17 | |
And those numbers are a little bit higher. You guys may recall, you know we did see higher numbers in SPLOST. We saw loss at one | 00:15:20 | |
in 2020, but we saw an increase in 2021, so. | 00:15:25 | |
On Sposs 3, and this is terribly small and I apologize, but Spice 3, these are these again, I'll remind everybody that when you | 00:15:31 | |
look at this, what you need to focus on are the blue rows, where they those numbers are the numbers that were approved. | 00:15:38 | |
By the referendum and we budget based on 80% of the referendum because we figure we won't get the full amount that works out to | 00:15:45 | |
about $61,000 a month and that that'll be important. And then I'll, I'll point out why the items that are in red underneath are | 00:15:52 | |
items that have been designated or appropriated by this council already. So those are monies that have been set aside, not | 00:15:58 | |
necessarily spent, but set aside to be spent in those categories. | 00:16:05 | |
And this is where that's important to look at The 61,000 we average, we are the budget is 61990 a month and we're averaging 71996 | 00:16:12 | |
right now. | 00:16:17 | |
So we try to budget less, just in case. You never know. | 00:16:22 | |
Do we have enough high end capacity? Let's say that averages out over five years to $80,000. Do we have enough we built in enough | 00:16:26 | |
cushion to utilize all the funds potentially? | 00:16:31 | |
Yes, I think so. I mean, I think the key is, is you don't have specific projects that have been designated already, so you have | 00:16:38 | |
that flexibility. | 00:16:42 | |
To bump up a project or car or scale one back, OK. So that's, I think that's the benefit. | 00:16:46 | |
You have that money and you can make adjustments as needed. You haven't really committed to anything except for the items in red, | 00:16:53 | |
right? The buckets are the are the numbers in blue are Max that we can spend on the far right column. The referendum numbers are | 00:16:58 | |
the Max you can spend, right. OK, but are those, but if you don't get that in, so yeah. So hypothetically if we exceeded that | 00:17:03 | |
amount, I guess I'm asking. | 00:17:08 | |
What happens to the excess funds? | 00:17:14 | |
If you oh you mean if you if instead of 5.579 we got 5.8. | 00:17:16 | |
Million or what? I mean, we got more than the referendum. Then you can spend, you can spend it. It's a percentage, OK. It's based | 00:17:21 | |
on a percentage for each one of those. | 00:17:24 | |
And a not to exceed number, but if I don't know that we will. I mean they always set it high. | 00:17:28 | |
But I guess it's always possible. I mean we've got Costco coming and other things and that number is already increasing, so. | 00:17:33 | |
Yep. | 00:17:40 | |
A little note on ARP So American Rescue Plan fund. That was money that the federal government, the US Treasury. | 00:17:43 | |
Or the Congress approved last March, I think March or April and they started out with an interim rule which you guys may may feel | 00:17:50 | |
like I beat into your head about how you can spend this money. They were eligible. There are ways you could spend the money | 00:17:56 | |
eligible uses and you may recall essential workers or or premium pay for essential workers, water, storm water, broadband was a | 00:18:02 | |
category anything dealing with COVID, mitigating COVID and then there was an A category called lost revenue and that was | 00:18:08 | |
basically. | 00:18:14 | |
Way for governments to say, look, we didn't make the money we should have made this year and you had to do this formula and figure | 00:18:22 | |
it out. And I think we figured out we had 235,000 or something about the formula that we could spend and then under that category | 00:18:27 | |
you could spend it however you wanted. There was no restriction on. | 00:18:32 | |
And not be restricted by that formula. Now if we want to use the formula, if we were somebody a much biggercity and we were going | 00:19:08 | |
to be more than than 10 million and we want to use the formula, but we're not even getting that 1.1 million out of this to start | 00:19:13 | |
with. So the good news is, is we can use it pretty much how we want and we've gone through this whole exercise where we've set up | 00:19:17 | |
these categories and. | 00:19:22 | |
I'm not sure how this the federal government has not explained to anybody yet about what our reports are going to look like come | 00:19:27 | |
April. Thirty 30th I think is when the first report is due for the what they call the non entitlement units, the cities that are | 00:19:32 | |
smaller than 50,000 population. | 00:19:38 | |
But. | 00:19:44 | |
The good news is we've already got it segregated out. But I mean, so it's not like we got to go figure it out. But the better news | 00:19:45 | |
is that the next 548,000 you're gonna get July is not going to be restricted. You can use it for whatever government service you | 00:19:50 | |
guys want to use, whether it's capital expense or operating expense. | 00:19:56 | |
So, so I think that I think that's good news. | 00:20:02 | |
Any questions? | 00:20:06 | |
And I just note there is a balance right now as of December 31st of 533,000. We do have some checks that haven't cleared. That's | 00:20:08 | |
part of the reason that we've got you know revenues and expenses aren't as high. And we and I will also point out you may remember | 00:20:14 | |
that the state of Georgia had funds that they gave to us for our police officers and that's that Georgia. | 00:20:20 | |
State Fiscal Recovery Fund First Responder Supplement and we use this account as a pass through. | 00:20:27 | |
So the monies came from the state into this account. It just keeps everything nice and neat. It's all ARP money. It's just state | 00:20:32 | |
money versus local. | 00:20:35 | |
All right. Thank you. Sharon, any questions? | 00:20:42 | |
On the financial. | 00:20:44 | |
All right. Economic development, all right. | 00:20:47 | |
So obviously we are now taking in business licenses. We had 48 business licenses that came in and for alcohol licenses, I'll leave | 00:20:50 | |
that there just for a minute. Y'all should have it in your packet, so you can look at who's all already up there. | 00:20:58 | |
Why is it gotten their license? | 00:21:05 | |
We had a little bit more than 13,000 total. That includes our insurance payments that we also get from from the insurance | 00:21:08 | |
companies they're required to pay. | 00:21:12 | |
To basically provide insurance in this area, they have to pay a certain amount and that that is a separate report if y'all want | 00:21:17 | |
it. Is it $40 per visit? Yeah. | 00:21:21 | |
So that is that one. And then we've had nine building permits for 9 different projects. | 00:21:26 | |
And we expect we'll start seeing, we've seen quite a few on 111 S Bart Shoals Rd. which I think technically is at 1745 Electric | 00:21:33 | |
Ave. Now I think I can't remember it's changing. We're going to start trying to segue to the new Oconee County number for for that | 00:21:39 | |
project for Water Park, but right now it's listed as 111 S Martial Rd. So we're we've gotten a few in and we'll start seeing some | 00:21:46 | |
activity there. | 00:21:52 | |
Any questions? | 00:21:59 | |
All right, all right, Chief, you're. | 00:22:03 | |
Greetings Mayor and Council. Always a pleasure to be here before you this evening. | 00:22:12 | |
Last week I submitted a report that consisted of a bunch of information. | 00:22:18 | |
Because it is January, I wanted to kind of highlight and detail some of the aspects that we spent our year doing in training | 00:22:24 | |
because training is a very important element in my world and having a highly professional trained law enforcement agency is | 00:22:32 | |
valuable to our systems. So in total, we had 781 hours spent training last year. | 00:22:39 | |
In my first page that snapshot page. | 00:22:47 | |
You have every officer that was employed throughout the year and their high liability classes highlighted. | 00:22:50 | |
In the total hours for each officer spent. And then behind that you have a breakdown of each of the officers in the agency and the | 00:22:57 | |
classes that they participated in throughout the year. | 00:23:02 | |
That is the current, the current officers that remain in the department as we as we are here today. | 00:23:08 | |
Is there any questions over any of the training material one? | 00:23:16 | |
Training that was done over the last. | 00:23:19 | |
Connie, you got questions. I know you didn't know. | 00:23:23 | |
I have a comment. I just wanted to thank you for showing this to us because it's so essential. | 00:23:28 | |
For y'all to do this. I mean, This is why we hired you. | 00:23:38 | |
Partly that you're doing a really great job of making sure that our officers are trained so they can do a really good job, | 00:23:41 | |
especially in this climate environment. So thank you very much. | 00:23:46 | |
And then I also provided my monthly statistics as well as my speed table data from all my speed signs that we have out here in our | 00:23:54 | |
city. | 00:23:57 | |
Is there any questions over any of that material? | 00:24:02 | |
I had one, yeah. I didn't see the table for. | 00:24:06 | |
When we're cold. | 00:24:10 | |
4104 Forty one, Yeah, that's, uh, that's not a live reporting sign. So I don't pull that data. I can pull that data as I need it. | 00:24:13 | |
But historically, what I found that data to show is consistency. | 00:24:20 | |
A very little variation in. | 00:24:28 | |
The speed tables that I see and all the things that go through their quantity of cars. So yeah, it requires me to physically go | 00:24:32 | |
out to that location and Bluetooth to it and pull the data out and you got to sit there for the duration of time you pulling that | 00:24:39 | |
data. I think I suggest it needs to be moved because that's one of the highest speeding roads. I mean there's a lot of. | 00:24:45 | |
Traffic on that road that flies through and we've got a lot of complaints about it, yes. | 00:24:53 | |
So I had, I had previously had that sign located up closer to Mccree Street, right? Y'all remember? | 00:25:00 | |
So I took a period, I think it was like three or four months and I looked at three or four months that I had it at the Mccree St. | 00:25:09 | |
location and then I balanced it with the data that I was receiving from the location is currently in and I got much better data | 00:25:14 | |
quality out of. | 00:25:19 | |
And speed. | 00:25:25 | |
At the location it's at now versus the. | 00:25:27 | |
Location that was in. My speeds were much. | 00:25:30 | |
So basically what was going on is they didn't have any alert telling us slow. | 00:25:33 | |
And so they were coming into town and hitting the Mccree St. location at much higher. | 00:25:37 | |
So I'll look back that out and that's why I moved it back. So that's why it's back where? | 00:25:42 | |
We may want to put it on the opposite side of the road and see what it outbound, see what we get there. | 00:25:48 | |
I have AI have a very. | 00:25:54 | |
Special piece of equipment that's all in order that will be here momentarily. | 00:25:57 | |
Maybe I'll put that in your front yard. | 00:26:02 | |
I will say anecdotally, especially since we've reduced the speed limits elsewhere, I probably get more complaints about speed on | 00:26:06 | |
North and South Main. | 00:26:10 | |
Than any other area of town. The complaints on Barnett Scholes are that it's too slow, but the but the stucker disagrees. I know, | 00:26:15 | |
but I mean, you know and I. | 00:26:20 | |
Yeah, yeah, so, so, but anyway, the but I do think the South Main. | 00:26:26 | |
The folks who live there and and I think I mean I walk that sidewalk all the time, I mean. | 00:26:34 | |
I wish there was. I mean, I'm assuming there's just no way y'all can run radar there, right? On that stretch of Rd. we do and we | 00:26:38 | |
do routinely check it. | 00:26:41 | |
Various times of the day. | 00:26:46 | |
But what we find is that the violators are in the threshold that doesn't allow us to pursue. | 00:26:48 | |
Citations. That's us there. They're in that. They're in that bubble. | 00:26:55 | |
And that bubble would be the speed limit is 35 through there, 45, it's 35. So they're they're less than 45 miles an hour going | 00:27:00 | |
through there. Yeah. OK, Well, I'm sure I know Councilman Garrett and there's other others who would be glad to let you borrow | 00:27:06 | |
their driveways if you need to, need to run, need a home down there. | 00:27:12 | |
All right. Very good. Thank you. | 00:27:19 | |
All right. Any other questions for the chief? | 00:27:23 | |
All right. Thanks for what you do. | 00:27:28 | |
Appreciate. | 00:27:30 | |
All right. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. I do know we're going to have to push Item 7 to next month. I've not | 00:27:33 | |
gotten confirmation from my nominee that he's able to serve. | 00:27:38 | |
Despite all my comments at the start about taking things off the consent agenda, I failed on my own item. So. | 00:27:43 | |
Item seven we will have to table, but I'll take a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda. Councils will Mayor. Actually | 00:27:48 | |
item 8 doesn't have to be, it can be removed. Since Mayor Pro Tem has remained the same, we don't need to redo another one for the | 00:27:54 | |
bank, so we'll remove item 8 as well. So item 7 tables item 8. | 00:28:00 | |
Is off, so I'll take a motion to approve items 9 through 12 on the consent agenda. | 00:28:05 | |
I make a motion to approve items 9 through 12. | 00:28:11 | |
We have a second from Mr. Campbell. All in favor, Say aye. | 00:28:16 | |
Any opposed? | 00:28:21 | |
None are opposed, OK? We have no public hearings. | 00:28:23 | |
We have no appearances. We have no old business. Y'all just don't. | 00:28:26 | |
I've been around a while, Julie, and I've sat here through some 15 minute specials, so we aren't going to break that record, but | 00:28:35 | |
this is a nice, nice change. | 00:28:38 | |
Just be ready. We will have stuff on the agenda in February. | 00:28:42 | |
We removed item 13. | 00:28:46 | |
Is there any member of the public here to comment? It looks like there's. | 00:28:48 | |
So that takes. | 00:28:53 | |
The mayor's report a few things to highlight. | 00:28:55 | |
For us this, this month that the trees were planted I think early this morning that you all approve. Thank you for doing that. We | 00:29:00 | |
have 3 Willow oaks that have gone in on Main Street. You see two of them there, the third one. | 00:29:06 | |
Back closer in front of the historic building. | 00:29:13 | |
And then we have three that went in near the Verner pedestrian bridge on Hardin Hill Rd. And those will provide some nice shade in | 00:29:15 | |
the years ahead. So we're still looking for the right kind of crepe myrtles to plant. I think we still have a little bit of money | 00:29:21 | |
from what Y'all appropriated to use for those, but those are hard trees to find right now. | 00:29:27 | |
Up the road, so stay tuned on. | 00:29:35 | |
Um. | 00:29:38 | |
ESP. If you haven't gotten out there and walked around or seen it, it is it is turning into something special. | 00:29:38 | |
The only thing holding them back is the weather. Now I've heard from on the side improvements they need. | 00:29:45 | |
They need two solid weeks of sun and they'll have all the concrete down and then they'll be able to move along the landscaping for | 00:29:51 | |
this section. | 00:29:55 | |
Since this is technically city owned property, we are working closely with ESP to finalize those plans in terms of what trees and | 00:30:00 | |
shrubs are going to go into that area that will be. | 00:30:04 | |
That'll be planted with some some really nice, really nice mix of under of trees and. | 00:30:10 | |
Shrubs, especially back to the right to the City Hall side of the image that you see there. The area to the left up the ramp is | 00:30:16 | |
going to be a Plaza somewhere to big City bread. If any of you been there kind of with the with the trees that'll be shaded on | 00:30:22 | |
picnic tables and things out there where parents can sit while their kids are playing on the playground back there as well. So | 00:30:29 | |
that's really coming along and I would expect in the next few months it's going to really turn out to be to be spectacular. | 00:30:36 | |
So the only other update is hard. | 00:30:44 | |
The paving job is finished. We're just waiting on the striping, but it sure looks a lot better now that now that that's done. | 00:30:49 | |
As we all know the water will certainly drain better now that the road is crowned the right way and everything is going to move | 00:30:56 | |
over into that into that storm water system. So again thank you to council for. | 00:31:00 | |
Appropriating for that stormwater improvement. | 00:31:06 | |
Sewer Lana A There was a meeting. Last at the pre bid meeting was last week at the County Courthouse. There were four different | 00:31:09 | |
companies who attended that so I can't remember off the top of my head when those bids are due, but. | 00:31:16 | |
February 1st, so so hopefully we'll get the county will get a couple bids on that and we'll be able to get moving on sewer line a | 00:31:23 | |
so. | 00:31:27 | |
Just as a reminder, we still are. We have applied for a state grant to help offset part of the cost of that as well. So that we | 00:31:31 | |
have not heard back on that. That's still in the hopper. So we'll find out more on that later. So I think that's it for me and we | 00:31:36 | |
can move along to Councilman Garrett with whatever you've got. | 00:31:42 | |
Let's see just. | 00:31:50 | |
Make it Make sure everybody knows all the road projects were finished. Harden Hill like you said, And then the Simonson Bridge. | 00:31:53 | |
And then the county is letting out of bed tomorrow morning. | 00:32:02 | |
Silence and bridges on it so it'll be repaved. | 00:32:06 | |
Early spring of. | 00:32:10 | |
That'll be a nice, nice improvement there too. So they'll restripe all that as well, yeah. | 00:32:13 | |
OK. | 00:32:19 | |
That was a busy last week of the year with all that going on. | 00:32:21 | |
Week before Christmas, I guess. | 00:32:25 | |
Connie, what you got? | 00:32:29 | |
I have nothing to report, but I will say that the Simonton Bridge project went along very nice. They did a good job. | 00:32:31 | |
I hear that's good folks at that company. All right, Councilman Thomas. | 00:32:39 | |
I have nothing to report. I am extremely happy about Hardin Hill though. I drive that road multiple times a day and it is. | 00:32:44 | |
Beautiful now, so extremely happy for that. | 00:32:51 | |
All right, Councilwoman. | 00:32:55 | |
Just to say that in the works is a Harris Shoals Park subcommittee meeting to discuss what is going to help. The old playground is | 00:32:58 | |
going to be repurposed and there's some good ideas floating around so that is moving along and also some possibilities with the | 00:33:05 | |
Rotary Club for BBQ pits. | 00:33:12 | |
All right. | 00:33:18 | |
And Councilman Camp. | 00:33:20 | |
Nothing to. | 00:33:22 | |
All right. Nothing to report. All right. With that, I will entertain a motion to go into executive session to discuss. | 00:33:25 | |
Potential litigation and real estate. I make a motion to move to executive session to discuss potential litigation and real estate | 00:33:33 | |
and pending litigation. | 00:33:37 | |
All right. We have a motion in a second to enter executive session. All in favor, say aye, aye. | 00:33:44 | |
All right, we will need a minute before we begin talking this with this new system. | 00:33:49 | |
All right, Joe. Go ahead, Mr. Mayor. I'd recommend a motion from a council member, essentially as follows. In an abundance of | 00:33:56 | |
caution, I moved to ratify the consent order in the 60 S main Municipal Court case. | 00:34:03 | |
All right, We've heard Mr. Reitman's suggestion. Is there a council member who's willing to say so moved, so moved. And do we have | 00:34:12 | |
a second? | 00:34:15 | |
We have a second ANY. | 00:34:19 | |
All in favor, Say aye. | 00:34:23 | |
Sounds like that's unanimous. And unless there's anything else that needs to come before this body, we will entertain a motion to | 00:34:27 | |
adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. Do we have a second second? All in favor. We're adjourned. | 00:34:32 | |
That was efficient. | 00:34:38 |
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All right. Welcome to the first meeting of the Watkinsville City Council of 2022. And I think with that we'll dispense with the | 00:00:06 | |
traditional welcome and go straight to go straight. | 00:00:12 | |
A moment while remember from the past few weeks. | 00:00:19 | |
All right. | 00:00:43 | |
Yeah. At that point, I was like we performed the national team. | 00:00:52 | |
It was a great feeling so. | 00:00:55 | |
Sharon, we can, we can cut it now. | 00:01:01 | |
The I just I've probably watched that video 10 or 12 or 20 times since since last week, but I had to watch it one more time and | 00:01:06 | |
officially get it on the record at the city. | 00:01:11 | |
Council meeting that we were celebrating the Georgia Bulldogs and notably we have some of that support staff lives here in | 00:01:16 | |
Watkinsville. | 00:01:20 | |
So, so anyway, I just want to congratulate our the University of Georgia, our football program. | 00:01:25 | |
And and everyone who helped and contributed to that, including the citizens of Watkinsville who did so welcome to the meeting. And | 00:01:31 | |
with that, we do have some special activities we have to kick off every January with. And that's the oath of office for myself, | 00:01:37 | |
Councilman Garrett and Councilwoman Massey. So if we could all step up here and we will. | 00:01:44 | |
Mr. Right when will administer the oath. | 00:01:51 | |
All right. How's that? | 00:02:05 | |
That's great, All right. | 00:02:07 | |
Do this State, or any political subdivision or authority thereof, that you are not the holder of any office of trust under the | 00:02:45 | |
Government of the United States, or any other state or any foreign state which you, by the laws of State of Georgia, will be | 00:02:51 | |
prohibited from holding, and that you are otherwise qualified to hold said office according to the Constitution and laws of | 00:02:57 | |
Georgia, And that you have been in President of your district in the City of Watkinsville for the time required by the | 00:03:04 | |
Constitution and laws of this State. | 00:03:10 | |
And that you will perform the duties of your office in the best interest of the city of Watkinsville to the best of your ability, | 00:03:16 | |
without fear, favor, affection, reward, or expectation thereof. You agree with that oath? Please say I do or I do, so help me God. | 00:03:23 | |
All right, very good. Congratulations, you're. | 00:03:32 | |
And Clerk Klein has the copies for each you to sign. I will then notarize and she will adjust. | 00:03:40 | |
Repeat after me is. | 00:03:52 | |
And with that, we're off to the races. We do have a quorum here tonight and appreciate all of you being here our next. | 00:03:59 | |
Next activity is the pledge and I'd like to ask my dad, Dad, Thanks for being here. Watkinsville citizen, military veteran, and | 00:04:08 | |
all around one of the best guys I know. So Dad's going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. | 00:04:14 | |
Excell. | 00:04:22 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. | 00:04:25 | |
And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:04:30 | |
All right. Thank you all for being here Again, a little bit of housekeeping tonight. We are changing things up for our guests who | 00:04:44 | |
may be online. We're using a new system called Suite 1. | 00:04:49 | |
That's a webcasting public portal. As some of you may recall. When the pandemic came, we had to adjust what we were doing and we | 00:04:54 | |
used a system called RingCentral. | 00:04:58 | |
And RingCentral was not built to broadcast City Council meeting. So last year council approved making a making a small investment | 00:05:03 | |
and upgrading our system for how we broadcast meetings. We've been trying. | 00:05:09 | |
That system out and working alongside RingCentral for the past few months, but the plan all along was the transition to a new | 00:05:15 | |
system that was purpose built. | 00:05:19 | |
For this, So in the new system, our visitors who are online can now see all the council packet materials, the background on | 00:05:23 | |
everything. When you're watching online, the audio should be better. The portal you know is working tonight, but give us some | 00:05:29 | |
grace. It is the first time that we've tried it, so we're going to continue to improve that. The one thing that has changed, we | 00:05:35 | |
noticed over the past four months that we had very little public feedback on RingCentral. This system at this time does not allow | 00:05:41 | |
the public to comment in the moment. | 00:05:47 | |
During the meeting. So if a member of the public does want to comment on something, that's on the agenda. | 00:05:53 | |
So hopefully this will be a new and improved approach. | 00:06:27 | |
The agenda is posted a full week before the meeting, so if anyone from the public cannot be here and they want to make comments on | 00:06:31 | |
that agenda. | 00:06:35 | |
The agenda is posted in advance and then the packet is also posted well in advance so people can review and make comments on that. | 00:06:40 | |
With that, we will move on to the approval of the minutes. Our minutes are from December 15th. I did provide one minor note to the | 00:06:47 | |
clerk that needs to be an edit that needs to be made around just adding the number of participants who are at the meeting. Did | 00:06:52 | |
anyone else catch? | 00:06:57 | |
Edits or changes that need to be made to the minutes. | 00:07:02 | |
Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the? | 00:07:07 | |
I make a motion to approve the minutes. All right, we have a motion from Mrs. Tucker. Do we have a second? Second. We have a | 00:07:11 | |
second for Mr. Campbell. Any comment? | 00:07:16 | |
All in favor, say aye, any opposed motion carries 50. Next on the agenda. The agenda is the approval of the agenda. A couple | 00:07:21 | |
updates there. Item 13 that was under new business which involve funding for A. | 00:07:29 | |
Funding for. | 00:07:38 | |
Um. | 00:07:40 | |
Funding for the Police Department that can actually be covered in our existing budget, so we don't need to add that to the agenda | 00:07:41 | |
so we can actually remove item 13. | 00:07:46 | |
From the agenda, I'd ask for a motion on that and any other any other items that you may want to. | 00:07:51 | |
Add or remove from the agenda. Please note that we do have several items under consent. So if there's anything that you want to | 00:07:58 | |
remove from consent, now is the time to do that so. | 00:08:03 | |
I'll entertain a motion to remove item 13 from the agenda and if there's anything that anyone wants to remove from consent. | 00:08:08 | |
Speak. | 00:08:15 | |
All right, then I'll take a motion on item 13. | 00:08:20 | |
To remove that. | 00:08:25 | |
Remove that item from new business. | 00:08:26 | |
I make a motion to remove item 13 from the agenda. | 00:08:28 | |
All right. We have a motion of the second. All in favor. Say aye. | 00:08:33 | |
Any opposed that motion carries 50, so we will remove. | 00:08:37 | |
13 from the agenda. | 00:08:40 | |
And we will move on to Administ. | 00:08:42 | |
First item under administration and just a reminder, doesn't look like we have a lot of folks here tonight, but our rule generally | 00:08:45 | |
is if you have any public comment, council can allow that comment on an item that is not a public hearing at council sole | 00:08:50 | |
discretion. | 00:08:54 | |
They have to be related to the agenda items. We need you to speak from the podium for four minutes per person. We don't allow | 00:09:01 | |
debate, personal attacks, argument or irrelevant discussion. But again, generally, unless it is a public hearing or something that | 00:09:06 | |
requires public input, that allowing that is at the Council's discretion. | 00:09:11 | |
First item on administration is the election of a Mayor Pro Tem. Does anyone want to nominate someone for mayor Pro Tem? | 00:09:17 | |
I'll nominate Christine for Mayor Pro Tem. | 00:09:31 | |
All right, Councilman Tucker has nominated Councilwoman Tucker. | 00:09:34 | |
Councilman Thomas, excuse me, has nominated Miss Tucker for Mayor Pro Tem. Is there a second? | 00:09:41 | |
The second from Council. | 00:09:49 | |
Campbell. | 00:09:51 | |
And any conversation or other nominations? | 00:09:52 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. | 00:09:57 | |
Any. | 00:10:00 | |
Congratulations, Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. | 00:10:01 | |
All right. | 00:10:05 | |
OK. Next item on the agenda is National 211 Day. This is for the United Way of Northeast Georgia and we have a proclamation. | 00:10:07 | |
Allison always is here from the United Way tonight, and we have a proclamation for. | 00:10:16 | |
211 and this is a national thing. I don't know how many of you have used 211, but it is. | 00:10:24 | |
Service that connects local resources to those in need in the community that's administered by the United Way. The date is going | 00:10:30 | |
to be the celebration day officially is February 11th, but we want to go ahead and do that in advance. So Allison, I will hand | 00:10:35 | |
this to you. Maybe we can take a quick picture and then if you've got a minute, you can offer us a little bit of background on the | 00:10:41 | |
United Way and all the good things that you do. | 00:10:47 | |
I don't know. | 00:10:57 | |
People. | 00:11:11 | |
Thank you. I'll do this so people can hear me online. I'm Allison always. I am with United Way of Northeast Georgia. Thank you | 00:11:13 | |
guys so much for having me and allowing us to. | 00:11:18 | |
Recipients of this proclamation SO211 is our Health and Human Services referral line. This is an asset to our region. When | 00:11:23 | |
neighbors are in need, it's really hard to figure out where to start. It can be challenging to decide. How do I find resources? | 00:11:31 | |
What do I actually need? That's what 211 is here for. So you can call 211 anytime during the work week, but you can text 211 | 00:11:38 | |
anytime of day and it's all free and confidential. | 00:11:46 | |
Folks with local resources near where they are meeting whatever needs those are. So it can be food, it can be shelter, it can be | 00:11:54 | |
support groups, it can be help with jobs and transportation. All kinds of needs are funneled through 211 and they are connecting | 00:12:01 | |
you with local resources. At United Way of Northeast Georgia, we're proud to serve this region. We are proud to serve in | 00:12:08 | |
Watkinsville and Oconee County. 211 has been a great asset for Oconee County specifically, 89% of the calls and inquiries that | 00:12:15 | |
come into 211 are answered and connected. | 00:12:22 | |
Folks with those local resources. So we're proud to have this here and we're proud to be a community member for Watkinsville. So | 00:12:30 | |
thank you guys so much. This was wonderful and we are always here to serve you. | 00:12:36 | |
Thanks. Thank you, Allison. I don't think I had any idea of how much, how many services were provided through 211. So I knew about | 00:12:43 | |
it, but didn't know that much about it. So thank you for coming. | 00:12:48 | |
Next on the agenda is our Financial Reports manager, Dickerson, if you want to cover that. | 00:12:54 | |
And we're going to be down to a slim crowd. Y'all, thanks for coming everybody. You'll have a great night, Yeah. | 00:12:59 | |
Financial Reports manager Dickerson. Yep. So we've got a few we do each month. I'm not going to go through the detail on the | 00:13:11 | |
general fund, but I do want to point out that we have about $4 million in the bank. | 00:13:17 | |
Our revenues are sitting at about 52%. We're about halfway through the year. So you know and revenues coming come in different | 00:13:24 | |
times. So that's not really a great measure, but it's good to know right that we at least half of the money in, but the expenses | 00:13:29 | |
are only at 42%. Now again there are some things that are outstanding. | 00:13:35 | |
Bills that are payment purchases that have been made that we haven't paid for yet but that's still that's still good news too. I'm | 00:13:41 | |
Staffs really working hard to try to you know, not spend money unless we need to and of course we're getting ready for budget. So | 00:13:47 | |
that's yes did not chief chief said he spends money all the time. | 00:13:52 | |
But I. | 00:13:59 | |
So that's good news. So if there any questions about the general fund or expenses revenues, I'm happy to answer those now or after | 00:14:00 | |
the meeting. | 00:14:03 | |
Now. | 00:14:06 | |
OK, so the item that is in front of you right now is the SPLOST 1. | 00:14:09 | |
Project list and what that provides you is a balance. | 00:14:14 | |
$453,000 and some change that is left in. | 00:14:18 | |
And the count the money that is in SPLOST one is going to be paired with money and splice 2 some of the money in SPLOS 2. The 5th | 00:14:22 | |
the last line that says water and sewer that 904 along with the 400 and. | 00:14:30 | |
53 will be right now is going to be used for the sewer line project for sewer line A. | 00:14:38 | |
The project balance of the account right now is 1.4 million. | 00:14:45 | |
So we have a little, so we have like about 40,000 more than we expected to have. That's not been appropriated by y'all, just just | 00:14:51 | |
a little tidbit of information, so. | 00:14:55 | |
As the the Parks and Rec project that's 456,000 that pays for the ESP. The fully accessible playground and engineering and | 00:15:00 | |
building inspections costs that the city is covering as part of our part of our arrangement with the with ESP. | 00:15:08 | |
Are there any questions about spice, two or spice? | 00:15:17 | |
And those numbers are a little bit higher. You guys may recall, you know we did see higher numbers in SPLOST. We saw loss at one | 00:15:20 | |
in 2020, but we saw an increase in 2021, so. | 00:15:25 | |
On Sposs 3, and this is terribly small and I apologize, but Spice 3, these are these again, I'll remind everybody that when you | 00:15:31 | |
look at this, what you need to focus on are the blue rows, where they those numbers are the numbers that were approved. | 00:15:38 | |
By the referendum and we budget based on 80% of the referendum because we figure we won't get the full amount that works out to | 00:15:45 | |
about $61,000 a month and that that'll be important. And then I'll, I'll point out why the items that are in red underneath are | 00:15:52 | |
items that have been designated or appropriated by this council already. So those are monies that have been set aside, not | 00:15:58 | |
necessarily spent, but set aside to be spent in those categories. | 00:16:05 | |
And this is where that's important to look at The 61,000 we average, we are the budget is 61990 a month and we're averaging 71996 | 00:16:12 | |
right now. | 00:16:17 | |
So we try to budget less, just in case. You never know. | 00:16:22 | |
Do we have enough high end capacity? Let's say that averages out over five years to $80,000. Do we have enough we built in enough | 00:16:26 | |
cushion to utilize all the funds potentially? | 00:16:31 | |
Yes, I think so. I mean, I think the key is, is you don't have specific projects that have been designated already, so you have | 00:16:38 | |
that flexibility. | 00:16:42 | |
To bump up a project or car or scale one back, OK. So that's, I think that's the benefit. | 00:16:46 | |
You have that money and you can make adjustments as needed. You haven't really committed to anything except for the items in red, | 00:16:53 | |
right? The buckets are the are the numbers in blue are Max that we can spend on the far right column. The referendum numbers are | 00:16:58 | |
the Max you can spend, right. OK, but are those, but if you don't get that in, so yeah. So hypothetically if we exceeded that | 00:17:03 | |
amount, I guess I'm asking. | 00:17:08 | |
What happens to the excess funds? | 00:17:14 | |
If you oh you mean if you if instead of 5.579 we got 5.8. | 00:17:16 | |
Million or what? I mean, we got more than the referendum. Then you can spend, you can spend it. It's a percentage, OK. It's based | 00:17:21 | |
on a percentage for each one of those. | 00:17:24 | |
And a not to exceed number, but if I don't know that we will. I mean they always set it high. | 00:17:28 | |
But I guess it's always possible. I mean we've got Costco coming and other things and that number is already increasing, so. | 00:17:33 | |
Yep. | 00:17:40 | |
A little note on ARP So American Rescue Plan fund. That was money that the federal government, the US Treasury. | 00:17:43 | |
Or the Congress approved last March, I think March or April and they started out with an interim rule which you guys may may feel | 00:17:50 | |
like I beat into your head about how you can spend this money. They were eligible. There are ways you could spend the money | 00:17:56 | |
eligible uses and you may recall essential workers or or premium pay for essential workers, water, storm water, broadband was a | 00:18:02 | |
category anything dealing with COVID, mitigating COVID and then there was an A category called lost revenue and that was | 00:18:08 | |
basically. | 00:18:14 | |
Way for governments to say, look, we didn't make the money we should have made this year and you had to do this formula and figure | 00:18:22 | |
it out. And I think we figured out we had 235,000 or something about the formula that we could spend and then under that category | 00:18:27 | |
you could spend it however you wanted. There was no restriction on. | 00:18:32 | |
And not be restricted by that formula. Now if we want to use the formula, if we were somebody a much biggercity and we were going | 00:19:08 | |
to be more than than 10 million and we want to use the formula, but we're not even getting that 1.1 million out of this to start | 00:19:13 | |
with. So the good news is, is we can use it pretty much how we want and we've gone through this whole exercise where we've set up | 00:19:17 | |
these categories and. | 00:19:22 | |
I'm not sure how this the federal government has not explained to anybody yet about what our reports are going to look like come | 00:19:27 | |
April. Thirty 30th I think is when the first report is due for the what they call the non entitlement units, the cities that are | 00:19:32 | |
smaller than 50,000 population. | 00:19:38 | |
But. | 00:19:44 | |
The good news is we've already got it segregated out. But I mean, so it's not like we got to go figure it out. But the better news | 00:19:45 | |
is that the next 548,000 you're gonna get July is not going to be restricted. You can use it for whatever government service you | 00:19:50 | |
guys want to use, whether it's capital expense or operating expense. | 00:19:56 | |
So, so I think that I think that's good news. | 00:20:02 | |
Any questions? | 00:20:06 | |
And I just note there is a balance right now as of December 31st of 533,000. We do have some checks that haven't cleared. That's | 00:20:08 | |
part of the reason that we've got you know revenues and expenses aren't as high. And we and I will also point out you may remember | 00:20:14 | |
that the state of Georgia had funds that they gave to us for our police officers and that's that Georgia. | 00:20:20 | |
State Fiscal Recovery Fund First Responder Supplement and we use this account as a pass through. | 00:20:27 | |
So the monies came from the state into this account. It just keeps everything nice and neat. It's all ARP money. It's just state | 00:20:32 | |
money versus local. | 00:20:35 | |
All right. Thank you. Sharon, any questions? | 00:20:42 | |
On the financial. | 00:20:44 | |
All right. Economic development, all right. | 00:20:47 | |
So obviously we are now taking in business licenses. We had 48 business licenses that came in and for alcohol licenses, I'll leave | 00:20:50 | |
that there just for a minute. Y'all should have it in your packet, so you can look at who's all already up there. | 00:20:58 | |
Why is it gotten their license? | 00:21:05 | |
We had a little bit more than 13,000 total. That includes our insurance payments that we also get from from the insurance | 00:21:08 | |
companies they're required to pay. | 00:21:12 | |
To basically provide insurance in this area, they have to pay a certain amount and that that is a separate report if y'all want | 00:21:17 | |
it. Is it $40 per visit? Yeah. | 00:21:21 | |
So that is that one. And then we've had nine building permits for 9 different projects. | 00:21:26 | |
And we expect we'll start seeing, we've seen quite a few on 111 S Bart Shoals Rd. which I think technically is at 1745 Electric | 00:21:33 | |
Ave. Now I think I can't remember it's changing. We're going to start trying to segue to the new Oconee County number for for that | 00:21:39 | |
project for Water Park, but right now it's listed as 111 S Martial Rd. So we're we've gotten a few in and we'll start seeing some | 00:21:46 | |
activity there. | 00:21:52 | |
Any questions? | 00:21:59 | |
All right, all right, Chief, you're. | 00:22:03 | |
Greetings Mayor and Council. Always a pleasure to be here before you this evening. | 00:22:12 | |
Last week I submitted a report that consisted of a bunch of information. | 00:22:18 | |
Because it is January, I wanted to kind of highlight and detail some of the aspects that we spent our year doing in training | 00:22:24 | |
because training is a very important element in my world and having a highly professional trained law enforcement agency is | 00:22:32 | |
valuable to our systems. So in total, we had 781 hours spent training last year. | 00:22:39 | |
In my first page that snapshot page. | 00:22:47 | |
You have every officer that was employed throughout the year and their high liability classes highlighted. | 00:22:50 | |
In the total hours for each officer spent. And then behind that you have a breakdown of each of the officers in the agency and the | 00:22:57 | |
classes that they participated in throughout the year. | 00:23:02 | |
That is the current, the current officers that remain in the department as we as we are here today. | 00:23:08 | |
Is there any questions over any of the training material one? | 00:23:16 | |
Training that was done over the last. | 00:23:19 | |
Connie, you got questions. I know you didn't know. | 00:23:23 | |
I have a comment. I just wanted to thank you for showing this to us because it's so essential. | 00:23:28 | |
For y'all to do this. I mean, This is why we hired you. | 00:23:38 | |
Partly that you're doing a really great job of making sure that our officers are trained so they can do a really good job, | 00:23:41 | |
especially in this climate environment. So thank you very much. | 00:23:46 | |
And then I also provided my monthly statistics as well as my speed table data from all my speed signs that we have out here in our | 00:23:54 | |
city. | 00:23:57 | |
Is there any questions over any of that material? | 00:24:02 | |
I had one, yeah. I didn't see the table for. | 00:24:06 | |
When we're cold. | 00:24:10 | |
4104 Forty one, Yeah, that's, uh, that's not a live reporting sign. So I don't pull that data. I can pull that data as I need it. | 00:24:13 | |
But historically, what I found that data to show is consistency. | 00:24:20 | |
A very little variation in. | 00:24:28 | |
The speed tables that I see and all the things that go through their quantity of cars. So yeah, it requires me to physically go | 00:24:32 | |
out to that location and Bluetooth to it and pull the data out and you got to sit there for the duration of time you pulling that | 00:24:39 | |
data. I think I suggest it needs to be moved because that's one of the highest speeding roads. I mean there's a lot of. | 00:24:45 | |
Traffic on that road that flies through and we've got a lot of complaints about it, yes. | 00:24:53 | |
So I had, I had previously had that sign located up closer to Mccree Street, right? Y'all remember? | 00:25:00 | |
So I took a period, I think it was like three or four months and I looked at three or four months that I had it at the Mccree St. | 00:25:09 | |
location and then I balanced it with the data that I was receiving from the location is currently in and I got much better data | 00:25:14 | |
quality out of. | 00:25:19 | |
And speed. | 00:25:25 | |
At the location it's at now versus the. | 00:25:27 | |
Location that was in. My speeds were much. | 00:25:30 | |
So basically what was going on is they didn't have any alert telling us slow. | 00:25:33 | |
And so they were coming into town and hitting the Mccree St. location at much higher. | 00:25:37 | |
So I'll look back that out and that's why I moved it back. So that's why it's back where? | 00:25:42 | |
We may want to put it on the opposite side of the road and see what it outbound, see what we get there. | 00:25:48 | |
I have AI have a very. | 00:25:54 | |
Special piece of equipment that's all in order that will be here momentarily. | 00:25:57 | |
Maybe I'll put that in your front yard. | 00:26:02 | |
I will say anecdotally, especially since we've reduced the speed limits elsewhere, I probably get more complaints about speed on | 00:26:06 | |
North and South Main. | 00:26:10 | |
Than any other area of town. The complaints on Barnett Scholes are that it's too slow, but the but the stucker disagrees. I know, | 00:26:15 | |
but I mean, you know and I. | 00:26:20 | |
Yeah, yeah, so, so, but anyway, the but I do think the South Main. | 00:26:26 | |
The folks who live there and and I think I mean I walk that sidewalk all the time, I mean. | 00:26:34 | |
I wish there was. I mean, I'm assuming there's just no way y'all can run radar there, right? On that stretch of Rd. we do and we | 00:26:38 | |
do routinely check it. | 00:26:41 | |
Various times of the day. | 00:26:46 | |
But what we find is that the violators are in the threshold that doesn't allow us to pursue. | 00:26:48 | |
Citations. That's us there. They're in that. They're in that bubble. | 00:26:55 | |
And that bubble would be the speed limit is 35 through there, 45, it's 35. So they're they're less than 45 miles an hour going | 00:27:00 | |
through there. Yeah. OK, Well, I'm sure I know Councilman Garrett and there's other others who would be glad to let you borrow | 00:27:06 | |
their driveways if you need to, need to run, need a home down there. | 00:27:12 | |
All right. Very good. Thank you. | 00:27:19 | |
All right. Any other questions for the chief? | 00:27:23 | |
All right. Thanks for what you do. | 00:27:28 | |
Appreciate. | 00:27:30 | |
All right. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. I do know we're going to have to push Item 7 to next month. I've not | 00:27:33 | |
gotten confirmation from my nominee that he's able to serve. | 00:27:38 | |
Despite all my comments at the start about taking things off the consent agenda, I failed on my own item. So. | 00:27:43 | |
Item seven we will have to table, but I'll take a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda. Councils will Mayor. Actually | 00:27:48 | |
item 8 doesn't have to be, it can be removed. Since Mayor Pro Tem has remained the same, we don't need to redo another one for the | 00:27:54 | |
bank, so we'll remove item 8 as well. So item 7 tables item 8. | 00:28:00 | |
Is off, so I'll take a motion to approve items 9 through 12 on the consent agenda. | 00:28:05 | |
I make a motion to approve items 9 through 12. | 00:28:11 | |
We have a second from Mr. Campbell. All in favor, Say aye. | 00:28:16 | |
Any opposed? | 00:28:21 | |
None are opposed, OK? We have no public hearings. | 00:28:23 | |
We have no appearances. We have no old business. Y'all just don't. | 00:28:26 | |
I've been around a while, Julie, and I've sat here through some 15 minute specials, so we aren't going to break that record, but | 00:28:35 | |
this is a nice, nice change. | 00:28:38 | |
Just be ready. We will have stuff on the agenda in February. | 00:28:42 | |
We removed item 13. | 00:28:46 | |
Is there any member of the public here to comment? It looks like there's. | 00:28:48 | |
So that takes. | 00:28:53 | |
The mayor's report a few things to highlight. | 00:28:55 | |
For us this, this month that the trees were planted I think early this morning that you all approve. Thank you for doing that. We | 00:29:00 | |
have 3 Willow oaks that have gone in on Main Street. You see two of them there, the third one. | 00:29:06 | |
Back closer in front of the historic building. | 00:29:13 | |
And then we have three that went in near the Verner pedestrian bridge on Hardin Hill Rd. And those will provide some nice shade in | 00:29:15 | |
the years ahead. So we're still looking for the right kind of crepe myrtles to plant. I think we still have a little bit of money | 00:29:21 | |
from what Y'all appropriated to use for those, but those are hard trees to find right now. | 00:29:27 | |
Up the road, so stay tuned on. | 00:29:35 | |
Um. | 00:29:38 | |
ESP. If you haven't gotten out there and walked around or seen it, it is it is turning into something special. | 00:29:38 | |
The only thing holding them back is the weather. Now I've heard from on the side improvements they need. | 00:29:45 | |
They need two solid weeks of sun and they'll have all the concrete down and then they'll be able to move along the landscaping for | 00:29:51 | |
this section. | 00:29:55 | |
Since this is technically city owned property, we are working closely with ESP to finalize those plans in terms of what trees and | 00:30:00 | |
shrubs are going to go into that area that will be. | 00:30:04 | |
That'll be planted with some some really nice, really nice mix of under of trees and. | 00:30:10 | |
Shrubs, especially back to the right to the City Hall side of the image that you see there. The area to the left up the ramp is | 00:30:16 | |
going to be a Plaza somewhere to big City bread. If any of you been there kind of with the with the trees that'll be shaded on | 00:30:22 | |
picnic tables and things out there where parents can sit while their kids are playing on the playground back there as well. So | 00:30:29 | |
that's really coming along and I would expect in the next few months it's going to really turn out to be to be spectacular. | 00:30:36 | |
So the only other update is hard. | 00:30:44 | |
The paving job is finished. We're just waiting on the striping, but it sure looks a lot better now that now that that's done. | 00:30:49 | |
As we all know the water will certainly drain better now that the road is crowned the right way and everything is going to move | 00:30:56 | |
over into that into that storm water system. So again thank you to council for. | 00:31:00 | |
Appropriating for that stormwater improvement. | 00:31:06 | |
Sewer Lana A There was a meeting. Last at the pre bid meeting was last week at the County Courthouse. There were four different | 00:31:09 | |
companies who attended that so I can't remember off the top of my head when those bids are due, but. | 00:31:16 | |
February 1st, so so hopefully we'll get the county will get a couple bids on that and we'll be able to get moving on sewer line a | 00:31:23 | |
so. | 00:31:27 | |
Just as a reminder, we still are. We have applied for a state grant to help offset part of the cost of that as well. So that we | 00:31:31 | |
have not heard back on that. That's still in the hopper. So we'll find out more on that later. So I think that's it for me and we | 00:31:36 | |
can move along to Councilman Garrett with whatever you've got. | 00:31:42 | |
Let's see just. | 00:31:50 | |
Make it Make sure everybody knows all the road projects were finished. Harden Hill like you said, And then the Simonson Bridge. | 00:31:53 | |
And then the county is letting out of bed tomorrow morning. | 00:32:02 | |
Silence and bridges on it so it'll be repaved. | 00:32:06 | |
Early spring of. | 00:32:10 | |
That'll be a nice, nice improvement there too. So they'll restripe all that as well, yeah. | 00:32:13 | |
OK. | 00:32:19 | |
That was a busy last week of the year with all that going on. | 00:32:21 | |
Week before Christmas, I guess. | 00:32:25 | |
Connie, what you got? | 00:32:29 | |
I have nothing to report, but I will say that the Simonton Bridge project went along very nice. They did a good job. | 00:32:31 | |
I hear that's good folks at that company. All right, Councilman Thomas. | 00:32:39 | |
I have nothing to report. I am extremely happy about Hardin Hill though. I drive that road multiple times a day and it is. | 00:32:44 | |
Beautiful now, so extremely happy for that. | 00:32:51 | |
All right, Councilwoman. | 00:32:55 | |
Just to say that in the works is a Harris Shoals Park subcommittee meeting to discuss what is going to help. The old playground is | 00:32:58 | |
going to be repurposed and there's some good ideas floating around so that is moving along and also some possibilities with the | 00:33:05 | |
Rotary Club for BBQ pits. | 00:33:12 | |
All right. | 00:33:18 | |
And Councilman Camp. | 00:33:20 | |
Nothing to. | 00:33:22 | |
All right. Nothing to report. All right. With that, I will entertain a motion to go into executive session to discuss. | 00:33:25 | |
Potential litigation and real estate. I make a motion to move to executive session to discuss potential litigation and real estate | 00:33:33 | |
and pending litigation. | 00:33:37 | |
All right. We have a motion in a second to enter executive session. All in favor, say aye, aye. | 00:33:44 | |
All right, we will need a minute before we begin talking this with this new system. | 00:33:49 | |
All right, Joe. Go ahead, Mr. Mayor. I'd recommend a motion from a council member, essentially as follows. In an abundance of | 00:33:56 | |
caution, I moved to ratify the consent order in the 60 S main Municipal Court case. | 00:34:03 | |
All right, We've heard Mr. Reitman's suggestion. Is there a council member who's willing to say so moved, so moved. And do we have | 00:34:12 | |
a second? | 00:34:15 | |
We have a second ANY. | 00:34:19 | |
All in favor, Say aye. | 00:34:23 | |
Sounds like that's unanimous. And unless there's anything else that needs to come before this body, we will entertain a motion to | 00:34:27 | |
adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. Do we have a second second? All in favor. We're adjourned. | 00:34:32 | |
That was efficient. | 00:34:38 |