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All right. Welcome, everybody to the August Watkinsville City Council meeting. Grateful for everybody who could be here tonight. | 00:00:36 | |
We have a quorum. Four or five council members are here with us tonight. I'd like to start with the pledge if we could all stand. | 00:00:43 | |
Now I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:51 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:58 | |
All right. For those who have not been with us before, welcome. I'm Mayor Brian Broderick. We're grateful to all who made time to | 00:01:09 | |
come and all who are with us online. We are battling some technical difficulties tonight, so for our guests online, you should be | 00:01:13 | |
able to access the packet. | 00:01:18 | |
They can, you can hear, but we do not have a video recording available tonight due to some technical challenges we're | 00:01:24 | |
experiencing. But we thought we had the choice of offering video to those who weren't here or offering our graphics to the people | 00:01:29 | |
who are here. And we thought since y'all made an effort to be here, you should be able to see what we're talking about. So we're | 00:01:33 | |
going to do that tonight instead. | 00:01:38 | |
While we work through those technical difficulties, for anybody who has a hearing impairment, the city has a hearing loop system | 00:01:44 | |
in place here in the council chamber that was installed in 2020. The loop serves as a wireless network for those with hearing aids | 00:01:49 | |
or cochlear implants, signals from a microphone or public. | 00:01:54 | |
Automatically appear. Interested parties may also view a transcript of the meeting under the tap called Transcript as a reminder | 00:02:59 | |
of notice of the Council meeting, along with the current month's agenda is posted one full week before the meeting to allow the | 00:03:04 | |
public sufficient time to provide comments and writing to the clerk if they're unable to attend in person. I have to read all | 00:03:09 | |
that. Apologies. That's part of the process. All right, we will move on approval of the minutes. Council will entertain a motion | 00:03:14 | |
around the July 17th. | 00:03:19 | |
Regular meeting. If anyone cares to make one, make a motion to approve the July 17th meeting minutes. | 00:03:24 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:03:32 | |
Did I hear a second because you weren't here? I need a second. All right. Chuck wasn't here, but he's willing to second. All | 00:03:37 | |
right. All in favor. All in favor of approving the minutes. Please say aye. All right. Wonderful. | 00:03:44 | |
Approval of the agenda we have did get a request from the developer for the pipe plant parcel to remove that item. So that has | 00:03:51 | |
been removed from the agenda tonight. With that, are there any other adjustments to the agenda that need to be made? | 00:03:59 | |
I will note under consent agenda, we have some items related to banking services and Oconee State Bank. | 00:04:09 | |
I'm involved with Oconee State Bank as a board member, so I'll recuse from that part and Mayor Pro Tem Tucker will leave that part | 00:04:17 | |
of the agenda just for information, but hearing no changes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda and make a motion to | 00:04:21 | |
approve. | 00:04:26 | |
Do we have a second? Second, we have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any | 00:04:31 | |
opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to administration. As I've said before, most of you have been here before. We | 00:04:37 | |
will be. We have noted moments on the agenda for public comment. If you do have something you want to discuss, we do at times give | 00:04:44 | |
liberty to members who want to discuss that in the moment that is solely at council. | 00:04:50 | |
Council's discretion as well as our legal counsel. We reserve the right to offer that opportunity or not. If you are given that | 00:04:57 | |
opportunity awards during part of the normal public input process, we'd ask that you come to the podium. | 00:05:02 | |
Of course, with the audit you'll have the actual final numbers, but we seem to be moving along fine on that. Are there any | 00:06:38 | |
questions about those reports? | 00:06:42 | |
All right, so move on to SLOSS 3. So SLOSS 3 report, remind everyone that this began in October of 2021, ends in September of 27. | 00:06:47 | |
It's at 8.63% per our intergovernmental agreement with Oconee County. Right now we are our monthly revenues are averaging about | 00:06:55 | |
82,000 and some change. | 00:07:02 | |
This SPA 3 is being used mainly for Thomas Farm Preserve, the work that you see along Simonton Bridge Rd. Harris Shoals Park, | 00:07:10 | |
which we actually are sitting in right now. The park area has a lot of improvements that are being funded by SPLOS 3. And then | 00:07:18 | |
there's $875,000 in G Tib or Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank loan that we got for the Simonton Bridge Mulberry | 00:07:25 | |
Connector, which the mayor will touch upon later during his report. | 00:07:32 | |
There are some funds already encumbered in Splash 3 for to pay that back. | 00:07:39 | |
And then this is just your monthly sort of year to year average to see the change. We've got 6% up on average and we have a bank | 00:07:45 | |
balance of a little bit more than 1.4 million. | 00:07:50 | |
Talk about Floss, sorry T Sloss. So this one began in April 23, ends in March of 28. So it's five years, 7.77% was what we | 00:07:58 | |
negotiated with the county. Our average revenue monthly revenues are at 72,000. We think over the course of the 60 month period | 00:08:06 | |
that we will be closer to 78, hopefully more than that, but we seem to be doing moving along fine. The again the G Tib loan funds | 00:08:13 | |
we've encumbered 1.5 million for. | 00:08:20 | |
Thompson Bridge Rd. Mulberry Connector in this T sports project, South main sidewalk that we still have some work to do on the | 00:08:28 | |
ELMIG FY25 Rd. supplement, which we'll talk about tonight on item 10. And then future roads resurfacing projects and efficiency | 00:08:35 | |
improvements are pulled out of this. And then just your monthly, you know, report average though up about again 6, little bit more | 00:08:43 | |
than 6% on that. Our bank balances just under $350,000. | 00:08:50 | |
And then our American Rescue Plan report, so these are the monies that the federal government gave to a lot of communities, gave | 00:09:01 | |
all the communities in the in the United States and we made a decision, Council made decision, sorry, and to take the standard | 00:09:08 | |
allowance up to 10 million. We got a little bit more than $1,000,000. We have used that money for a number of of items you'll see | 00:09:16 | |
listed there. The remaining balance has been appropriated including any ongoing interest has been appropriate to the Thomas farm. | 00:09:23 | |
Project. It's a little bit more than 97,000 right now. | 00:09:31 | |
Any questions about any of those? | 00:09:35 | |
OK, we'll go on to the economic development reports. | 00:09:38 | |
So business and alcohol licensing, so business licenses and typically in April, so, but we have a few that are coming in new | 00:09:43 | |
companies or ones that have were delayed in getting their payments in. So we don't have a lot going on there and we did not have | 00:09:49 | |
any alcohol application fees this month. | 00:09:56 | |
Or last month. | 00:10:02 | |
On the excise tax point out that in June you'll see June of on the hotel motel, far right bottom, bottom it shows 500-6971. Today | 00:10:04 | |
we received the money from Airbnb for that will pop that up to around the two 2800 mark or so. So that will will present that | 00:10:11 | |
again next month. So you'll have a full picture of fiscal year 24. | 00:10:19 | |
And we are on target with that for our budget. So that's really good. And then on? | 00:10:27 | |
And this is the for the for July. So we did receive, I believe we received some money even though we only typically show what | 00:10:34 | |
shows up in June and July, but we did receive stuff in July that's actually for July. So that's why you get this report too. So a | 00:10:39 | |
little bit different. We'll have it cleaned up next month, so. | 00:10:45 | |
And then on building permits, we have 9 permits for eight projects and four of the eight projects are actually in Wire Park. | 00:10:53 | |
Any questions on any of those? | 00:11:01 | |
OK. | 00:11:05 | |
All right, so the main thing with Downtown development authority we had on August 3rd the barbecue and Bake Off at Rocket Field. I | 00:11:10 | |
know some of y'all were there. It was a fantastic event. There were about 600 arm bands for the all you can eat BBQ sold and then | 00:11:18 | |
there were people there because it one of the things that's so important. | 00:11:26 | |
In our city is to have space for all kinds of community and so. | 00:11:35 | |
This event was free for the public. There was a great band and we had some sponsors that donated water and chips and so people | 00:11:39 | |
could just come and enjoy and didn't have to buy a ticket. So there were more than 600 people there at this event and it was | 00:11:45 | |
great. Of course, anytime you do something once, there's some things that you want to tweak a little bit for the future, but we | 00:11:52 | |
are hoping this will become an annual event. | 00:11:58 | |
Umm, so and thank you so much to everybody who helped put this on because I know any kind of it is a big lift. | 00:12:05 | |
And then the other thing is we are still in the process of refining what we're looking for in a downtown development director and | 00:12:11 | |
in that hiring process. | 00:12:17 | |
So oh, and here are our winner. Sorry, I'm just skipping along. So Harold's BBQ was first, it was, I had two favors and it was one | 00:12:22 | |
of them. And then the Rotary Club of Oconee was second place and then but Styled in was third place, so. | 00:12:31 | |
And then this was for the the desserts, the Bake Off. So Coney Butts and Oh was first place. Food guru was second, and Jack's | 00:12:42 | |
cheesecake was third, so. | 00:12:49 | |
So much fun. Also, it raised a significant amount of money for Bethel Haven, which is a nonprofit in the area that has sliding | 00:12:57 | |
scale counseling services for people. | 00:13:03 | |
Do I say? | 00:13:11 | |
Yeah, it was about $10,000 that was raised for them. So it was a really wonderful event, not only a great time for the community, | 00:13:13 | |
but also raised a lot of money for a really good 'cause. So why does it say $400.00 on the screen? Well, so I'll explain. So, so | 00:13:20 | |
these were our expenses, but all the ticket sales went to Bethel Haven. So we didn't see any of that. This was between sponsors | 00:13:27 | |
and entry fees. There was a total revenue 3800, we had 3377 and 77 cents in expenses. And so the difference we agreed would go. | 00:13:35 | |
The extra money that we didn't need for the expenses would go to Bethlehem. So we paid them for 2223 and then they took all the | 00:13:43 | |
ticket sales. OK. So we basically broke even to put the event on and then they got another 10,000 from the sales. | 00:13:48 | |
Yes. So we didn't. It did not cost the city taxpayers any money to do this event. And yeah, so it was a great partnership. | 00:13:54 | |
Cool. | 00:14:03 | |
Win, win, win. | 00:14:08 | |
OK. | 00:14:10 | |
Welcome up, Sergeant Hilbert. | 00:14:11 | |
Give us the report. | 00:14:15 | |
Good evening. | 00:14:17 | |
Are we on? | 00:14:19 | |
Good evening. It's good to see some of you guys again. It's been a long time since I've stood up here and and presented to you all | 00:14:21 | |
some new faces that I haven't presented to before. So the August 24 council report, we had a lot of folks that completed some | 00:14:29 | |
training. I myself finished the second of three courses in our management process down at the Forsyth Training Academy. I'm also | 00:14:36 | |
completed the Taser instructor program, which allows us to host training here and also help. | 00:14:44 | |
Other agencies that don't have an instructor in the area, those are really hard to come by. So we finished that up. Sergeant Wade | 00:14:51 | |
completed his background safety investigator course, which is going to be helpful and hopefully a whole boatload of new applicants | 00:14:57 | |
that we have coming in sometime soon. | 00:15:03 | |
Officer Christian. Officer Anglin also completed courses. | 00:15:10 | |
For the vehicle, the new patrol truck that you guys see sitting in the parking lot and toodling around town, still very, very | 00:15:13 | |
clean. It hasn't gone off to get outfitted yet, but it will soon. As soon as the upfitter down in Augusta lets me know that they | 00:15:19 | |
have all the parts and pieces in for it. We want to minimize the downtime with that as best we can. So we're going to hold on to | 00:15:25 | |
it until the very last second. Then it should be about a week turn around or so. | 00:15:31 | |
For the events that we've got scheduled, obviously everybody knows that football seasons starting up really soon, so please | 00:15:38 | |
anticipate the traffic increase on Saturdays where we've got home games because. | 00:15:44 | |
We have plenty of it. | 00:15:51 | |
When football's in session on Saturday, we had officer helped direct traffic down at Core Blend. They were doing a charity event | 00:15:53 | |
down there to help with Lydia's place down on Jerry Smith Dr. | 00:16:00 | |
Which is a organization that helps with youth and homelessness and stuff like that. And so they they put on something and had a | 00:16:07 | |
great competition between all their competitors and donated all the proceeds from my understanding to Lydia's place and they did a | 00:16:13 | |
really great job at that. | 00:16:19 | |
For the stats for the month, we had two arrests. Both of those were driving related, no insurance and driving on suspended | 00:16:26 | |
license. | 00:16:30 | |
We answered 248 calls for service. | 00:16:34 | |
We did. | 00:16:38 | |
1051 security checks were out there, making sure everybody's houses as safe as humanly possible. | 00:16:39 | |
You know. | 00:16:45 | |
We had 14 reports that were generated from our calls of service, which is about our average, which is about what we normally see. | 00:16:46 | |
Then we had 117 citations or warnings combined that were written over the month, which again is about on average with what we're | 00:16:54 | |
normally seeing. And those were split almost 5050 with warnings and citations. So the officers are exercising their discretion and | 00:17:01 | |
they're they're making sure that what is beneficial for everybody is what they go with. Some folks need a little more. | 00:17:09 | |
Encouragement to slow down. | 00:17:16 | |
Other than that, we've got to save the date, which I would like to remind everybody of October 6th. | 00:17:20 | |
We're partnered with the Sheriff's Office and the first responders and Georgia Home Partners Realty. | 00:17:26 | |
For the Responder 5K that we've been doing for a number of years now. | 00:17:34 | |
Swing by, we'll have a lot of events there. They always have a good turn out. You'll get to see me in the dunk tank again. I | 00:17:38 | |
always enjoy that. Hope to go first. When it's nice and cold it's always fun. | 00:17:43 | |
And other than that, we've got also a public service notice. So one of the calls that we responded to over the last month was a | 00:17:50 | |
air conditioning unit, an HVAC unit got stolen from, oddly enough, the defects office down on Greensboro Highway, the entire unit | 00:17:56 | |
got taken. | 00:18:02 | |
They have 4 units, so it took them a little wit a little bit to realize that they were missing in an air conditioning unit. But | 00:18:09 | |
somebody came up and cut all the cables and cut the pipes and. | 00:18:15 | |
Put in the back of the truck and off they went. | 00:18:22 | |
So we've been working with some of the scrap yards in the area. | 00:18:24 | |
Through about six different counties, trying to locate the different parts and pieces for this unit. And it was valued about $5000 | 00:18:29 | |
for the unit itself. So we're trying to figure out who it was that actually took it, but we were working on a couple of different | 00:18:34 | |
ways to do that, so. | 00:18:39 | |
Other than that. | 00:18:46 | |
Anybody have any questions for the Police Department? | 00:18:47 | |
Awesome. | 00:18:51 | |
Thank you. Thank you. | 00:18:52 | |
All right, I will turn it over to Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. | 00:18:56 | |
All right, so we have the. | 00:19:00 | |
Consent Agenda, the resolution to approve the one year extension of the contract with the County State Bank for banking Services | 00:19:02 | |
to expire August 31st, 2025 and approval of the submittal of GERMA and GMA safety grant applications. Do I there any questions or | 00:19:10 | |
discussion or hear a motion to approve? | 00:19:18 | |
Are there 2 separate or one? It's all the consent agenda. So just one make a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:19:29 | |
All right. All in favor, aye. | 00:19:38 | |
Motion carries 40. | 00:19:42 | |
All right, we will move on to. | 00:19:53 | |
And then Mr. Ramasamy, is that correct? Then we'll let you come forward after we hear the report from the engineer. | 00:20:25 | |
Thank you, Mayor. | 00:20:33 | |
So the address for this request is 1071 Camden Park Drive. So Camden Park is a residential subdivision that is near the | 00:20:34 | |
Watkinsville city limits. As you're going out the Simonton Bridge Rd. it would be on the southern side before you would get to | 00:20:41 | |
Watkinsville Baptist Church. So the size of this parcel, it's approximately 7/10 of an acre. It is on septic. I think that's part | 00:20:47 | |
of the application here as well. | 00:20:53 | |
It's zoned attached residential and the variance request is. | 00:21:01 | |
Garage related. So it is for a front facing garage. If you'll go to the next slide, again you can see there it doesn't directly | 00:21:04 | |
abut the the the railroad tracks. There is a sliver of land owned by Watkinsville first that is between this property and the the | 00:21:12 | |
railroad tracks. Just for reference, it is located within a cul-de-sac there in Canyon Park. So hopefully that gives you an idea | 00:21:19 | |
of where 1071 is. You can see a plat there from when the subdivision was developed. You may remember that. But again. | 00:21:26 | |
The the plat itself is from 2005. So the plans that were submitted by the applicant, I did not include the existing plans which | 00:21:34 | |
you may actually have within your packet as part of that, but this is the proposed plan. So the proposed is to create an addition | 00:21:41 | |
to the existing structure that you saw there in that cul-de-sac. And while there is an existing garage there, there's a request to | 00:21:49 | |
put an additional garage off of that same access or driveway point. | 00:21:56 | |
And that additional garage is what would be front facing. | 00:22:04 | |
So there's a picture you can see there that is, is the the Street View, if you will, for what you just saw of the existing | 00:22:08 | |
structure. I will say approximately where the van you see in that driveway is where the access to the to the the new proposed | 00:22:15 | |
addition would be, which would mainly include a garage. It includes a few other things as part of it. Those things would need a | 00:22:22 | |
variance. The garage specifically that would be front facing is what would need the variance. So that is. | 00:22:29 | |
You know essentially what the request is associated with. I did mention. | 00:22:37 | |
That septic plays a part of this. The septic drain field, if you saw as part of the application, it's kind of on the southern side | 00:22:42 | |
of the house, if you will. It's not on the northern side of the house based on documentation submitted by Environmental Health. So | 00:22:49 | |
the idea to potentially put an addition with a garage that is not front facing would be Hanford or limited by the existence of | 00:22:56 | |
that existing septic drain field. I know the applicants here as well, but happy to answer any questions council might have. | 00:23:03 | |
All right, Mr. and Mrs. Ramaswamy, if you want to come forward and provide any additional context and we'll let Council ask | 00:23:11 | |
questions of either party. | 00:23:14 | |
Please just state your name and address for the record. Yeah, my name is Rama Raja Ramasamy. I'm the owner of the house on 1071 | 00:23:20 | |
Cameron Park Dr. I think he described it well. I think you know what you see on that floor plan, everything in black is the | 00:23:25 | |
existing house and everything that's in dark and red color is the extension they would like to make. And that garage, that near 2 | 00:23:31 | |
car garage would be still on the driveway. It is an extent past the the concrete driveway that we have and it doesn't be with the | 00:23:37 | |
septic tank. | 00:23:43 | |
And the train fields on the South? Yeah, the southern side of the house. | 00:23:49 | |
If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. OK. If you'll remain up here, that would be great. Council questions to staff or | 00:23:56 | |
to the applicant. | 00:23:59 | |
So have you gotten any feedback from any neighbors on this? | 00:24:03 | |
Yeah, all my neighbors know that we're trying to do this extension for quite some time. So we thought the variance is going to be | 00:24:08 | |
for something else. And then we realized this for the front facing garage. And actually we have two in the subdivision right next | 00:24:15 | |
to us is the front facing garage that's right from the start. And then we have one another house that was built approximately 10 | 00:24:21 | |
years ago, 4 houses down that's also front facing garage. So it's not unusual for the subdivision. | 00:24:27 | |
We have 10 houses in the subdivision and. | 00:24:35 | |
Two of them have front facing the rajas already. | 00:24:38 | |
And. | 00:24:41 | |
We're trying to put this to accommodate growing family. | 00:24:45 | |
I'm assuming you're planning on breaking it and matching the house. Yeah, our, our covenants require that it matches with the rest | 00:24:49 | |
of the house and the brick won't be 100% match, but you know, we'll try to make sure it's as close of a match as possible because | 00:24:54 | |
it's from about 15 years ago. | 00:24:59 | |
Any further questions? | 00:25:09 | |
All right, hearing none this is will close the public. Anybody else wish to? | 00:25:11 | |
Mr. Ramaswamy, you can have a seat I. | 00:25:16 | |
This is a public hearing and that hearing is now open. Is there anyone here with us tonight who would like to address this matter? | 00:25:20 | |
All right, See, no one will close the public hearing and now we'll move on to a vote council. You've heard the report from the | 00:25:29 | |
engineer, you've heard the request from the applicant. We had no public comments. Does anyone want to make a motion? | 00:25:34 | |
I'll make a motion to approve the variance request. | 00:25:42 | |
And I second, we have a motion. Yep, go ahead. | 00:25:45 | |
Make a motion to approve the variance request that meets all the standards of 14 point O5I. | 00:25:51 | |
That we tell the standards of 1405. I thank you. | 00:26:04 | |
And I once again second that. | 00:26:09 | |
We have a motion and a second. I won't attempt to restate that. Any discussion? | 00:26:11 | |
Hearing no discussion, all in favor Say aye. Any opposed? | 00:26:16 | |
Motion carries for a thank you. | 00:26:20 | |
OK. All right. We have no appearances under all businesses. We have none under new businesses. We have new business, excuse me, We | 00:26:24 | |
have approval of the submittal of the fiscal year 2025 Georgia Department of Transportation LMAO grants. | 00:26:31 | |
And I'll let Manager Dickerson make a report. | 00:26:40 | |
Thank you, Mayor. | 00:26:43 | |
So we're asking that you approve the submittal of this FY25 G dot G dot L Meg application to rehabilitate and pave Mulberry Street | 00:26:46 | |
and the Cemetery Rd. at an estimated cost of $193,570.00. With a little bit more than 47,000 coming from the ELMIG grant that the | 00:26:55 | |
state provided. 21,000 from the match that we budget for in the T spot project and an additional 125,000 and some change from. | 00:27:04 | |
T spots as well I'll walk you through. | 00:27:14 | |
Some of this. So in August of 21, we had a pavement evaluation of all of our roads. The city has to maintain provided an inventory | 00:27:16 | |
and condition rating of all those roads, which gave us a list which was we felt like is a better way to to determine the condition | 00:27:23 | |
of Rd. than us just going out and looking at it. So we've been following that since then. | 00:27:30 | |
In June of. | 00:27:38 | |
June of 2023 we received our FFY 24 L Meg money of $43,590.00. | 00:27:41 | |
G dot approved that shortly after that, but before decisions were made about how to use that money, the governor and the | 00:27:49 | |
legislature included another 250 million in local Rd. assistance funds to cities and counties throughout the state. And with that | 00:27:55 | |
we received another almost $54,000. So we use those funds the the new, what they call local Rd. assistance funds, along with our | 00:28:02 | |
local Maintenance Improvement Grant funds and. | 00:28:08 | |
Recommended. I think I may have moved on to the next page. Here we go. | 00:28:15 | |
Recommended Paving School St. Simonton Way on Jackson Street and Niagara Drive. | 00:28:19 | |
And then this year we've received and we got all those done. I didn't add up the total, but we got all those done and those have | 00:28:27 | |
been completed. And then in June of this year, we received the FY25 application and the amount that we in the notification that we | 00:28:35 | |
would receive around $47,000. And so that's what we're here to decide, ask you to consider how to use those funds. | 00:28:43 | |
Again, we received this money from the state on an annual basis to to be used for roads, drainage, bridge, bridges, sidewalks, | 00:28:52 | |
etc. | 00:28:56 | |
In 20. In 2020. | 00:29:02 | |
Sorry, I mentioned last year we use 2021 thousand and T spots funds for to match. Sorry, we use 19,000 last year. This year we're | 00:29:06 | |
using 21,000 and T splash funds as our local fund for the G for the Elmet grant. So along with the the G dot money, the L Med | 00:29:14 | |
grant money of 47,000 and the city's match of 21,000, we have about 68,000 when we started putting together the application and | 00:29:21 | |
looking and I'll have a slide in a minute, it'll show you what we. | 00:29:29 | |
Estimated this these are going to cost. We realized we weren't going to have enough money. The grant applications are due in | 00:29:36 | |
February. We typically try to get them in early and hopefully get some paving done before that gets too cold to do the paving the | 00:29:40 | |
end of the year. | 00:29:44 | |
Want to talk about a couple things though, how we how we arrived at the decision of the ones we're going to recommend. The paving | 00:29:49 | |
management plan that we talked about doesn't have a pavement condition index for Mulberry Street because that is a gravel or | 00:29:54 | |
unpaved Rd. So obviously it is prime for for being paved. The Cemetery Rd. is actually the third worst Rd. on the list. Again, | 00:30:00 | |
I'll show you that slide in a minute. | 00:30:06 | |
15 months or so before we see that that come forward. So we'll keep it on that and try to bring forward, try to pair it up when | 00:30:43 | |
the opportunity arises to to pave that road. | 00:30:47 | |
The other Rd. the 2nd Rd. that is listed on the pavement condition rating that is the worst is Williamsburg Place. The challenge | 00:30:54 | |
with that is similar to Carl's Creek, only half of Williamsburg places inside the city limits, about a point a little bit more | 00:31:00 | |
than 1/10 of a mile and serve 7 residential homes. | 00:31:06 | |
This is our proposed project report that will go to the Georgia Department of Transportation. We're recommending Mulberry Street | 00:31:43 | |
from 3rd St. to the dead end. And then we're recommending Cemetery Rd. which is a single lane Rd. which makes it maybe a little | 00:31:49 | |
bit less expensive because it's not a two lane. And I'll show you what we're estimating 193,000 minus the money that we have from | 00:31:55 | |
the grant and the match that's already been budgeted. We'll need another 125,000, which we're going to recommend come from the T | 00:32:01 | |
spot. | 00:32:06 | |
Project, which is what those funds are supposed to be used for. | 00:32:13 | |
Very tiny, tiny, sorry about that. But the very top Rd. I actually typed in Mulberry Street because it wasn't on there. Again, a | 00:32:17 | |
gravel Rd. similar to Durham St. and then Williamsburg below it and then Cemetery Rd. So you'll see. We're trying to stick to the | 00:32:25 | |
very top and the condition ratings are 20, I think 2020, 734 out of 100, so definitely not in the greatest shape. | 00:32:33 | |
Mulberry Street, Just a visual of what Mulberry Street looks like. So you'll see where the 3rd St. label is. That's Rocket Field. | 00:32:41 | |
Go a little bit further out and you'll see Mulberry Street and the estimated length of that. | 00:32:48 | |
And then Cemetery Rd. | 00:32:55 | |
Again, that's a single single line Rd. | 00:32:58 | |
So again, we're recommending to submit our application to rehabilitate and pave Mulberry and Cemetery Rd. at cost of what we | 00:33:02 | |
estimate will be 193,000. Maybe it'll be less appropriating the funding that Elma gave us a 47,000 and some change, the 21,000 and | 00:33:10 | |
teeth lost that has been budgeted and appropriating an additional 125,461 from the teeth floss budget. | 00:33:17 | |
All right. Any questions for staff on that? | 00:33:29 | |
Repay. So anyway, thank you for your diligence on that, Manager Dickerson. And I think during my Mayor's report, we'll kind of | 00:34:02 | |
talk a little bit more about how some of these, some of these areas are going to connect together to over the next couple years. | 00:34:08 | |
All right. | 00:34:17 | |
I make the motion to approve. We have a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:34:18 | |
Second, all right. We have a motion and a second, it's right for discussion if anybody wants to add anything. | 00:34:22 | |
Hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 00:34:27 | |
Motion carries 4 O. | 00:34:31 | |
Our friends in the cemetery will be glad to get those roads upgraded. They are in rough shape so. | 00:34:33 | |
All right, we'll move forward for public comments and for those of you who are new, we're moving pretty quickly through here | 00:34:38 | |
tonight. So we'll just have council reports after that and then we'll have a brief executive session after that. So public | 00:34:44 | |
comments, this is the time with you. Have something you want to say? Come on up to the podium. 4 minutes per person, same rules as | 00:34:49 | |
before, but if anybody has anything they want to offer us, come on up tonight. | 00:34:55 | |
Don't everybody come at once. | 00:35:03 | |
All right, we'll move on. | 00:35:06 | |
All right. Mayors report, have a few things to discuss. If you've driven down Simonton Bridge Rd. no doubt you've noticed the | 00:35:10 | |
progress at the park, very exciting. What you can't see is in the back, in the front we have, we've made significant progress, but | 00:35:17 | |
also in the back, most of the trails have been roughed in. We're beginning to put down the aggregate surface on that. | 00:35:24 | |
Trail, so it looks really great back there. I went for scouting walk last night. It looked like the Serengeti. There was about 30 | 00:35:32 | |
deer out there running around and coyotes, Hawks, all the things. So it's really beautiful. People are really going to enjoy it. | 00:35:39 | |
It makes makes my heart happy that this this time next year, even in the spring, people be out there. We also started yesterday on | 00:35:46 | |
the paved path. You can see there in red and blue. Those are going to be. | 00:35:53 | |
The paved path, so that's mainly at the front of the property. | 00:36:00 | |
I think the blue ones are 8 feet wide with a four foot aggregate shoulder. The red ones are just eight feet wide. Is that correct, | 00:36:04 | |
Manager Dickerson? I think that's right. So those will all be paved paths that will be accessible to folks in wheelchairs and | 00:36:11 | |
otherwise. And so we have a great crew out there focused and working on that. You can see the circle there that looks like a semi | 00:36:19 | |
circle. We've also will have an aggregate path with a bridge that'll go around the smaller pond in that area while it looks under. | 00:36:26 | |
Construction now is a wet one that will then grow back up around that path. So people be able to walk through a natural wetland | 00:36:33 | |
that will grow back up. So that that works also underway. I think we have one more slide is that right, manager Dickson? And then | 00:36:39 | |
we've also completed work on the restroom and the old dairy barn and house out there. So that's not open to the public yet, but | 00:36:45 | |
when it when it does, it's in great shape. So our our bidders did a nice job on that and we'll also tie that in that's. | 00:36:51 | |
ADA accessible. And so we'll tie that in with our paved area. So things are moving out there. | 00:36:59 | |
It's very exciting to see. Again, we're targeting the end of the year to open up that park to the public. | 00:37:04 | |
I know we've, I think we've touched on this a few times, but this is this also sort of connects the dots, but not between some of | 00:37:11 | |
the work we're doing in the cemetery and along Mulberry. We are trying to improve Mulberry, but we're also planning a significant | 00:37:16 | |
bike pedestrian upgrade in that area too. So you see here, I think is this supposed to be an 8 foot or 10 foot wide sidewalk? | 00:37:22 | |
Sharon, do you remember what we skipped? | 00:37:27 | |
10 foot. | 00:37:34 | |
It's not. | 00:37:35 | |
Generally A10 foot wide bike pedestrian path along Simonton Bridge Rd. that would connect Rocket Field to Simonton Place for now, | 00:37:38 | |
but it will also connect the park to to downtown, which is really important. You'll see here that it is going to be adjacent to | 00:37:44 | |
the park and to the cemetery and then. | 00:37:51 | |
We plan to come through the area the the woods between the cemetery and Mulberry to connect with a bridge through there, which | 00:37:58 | |
allows us to avoid the really steep grade on Simonton Bridge. So that's that's the plan right now. We have a schedule for that. | 00:38:03 | |
Right now we're in the engineering and right away acquisition phase for that project and we're working with various property | 00:38:09 | |
owners to get that done. | 00:38:15 | |
Waters Walk is underway. Demolition has been completed. | 00:38:22 | |
And that project, as Sharon said, will take about 18 months to be completed, but we're excited to finally see that project | 00:38:27 | |
underway. That's for 5555 and over only in that project. | 00:38:32 | |
I had the pleasure last week of meeting with Representative Mike Collins in Madison and they hosted as Chairman. Daniel and I went | 00:38:41 | |
down there. He had some good questions about challenges we're facing. I mentioned some of the difficulties in smaller cities being | 00:38:47 | |
able to utilize federal dollars due to a lot of red tape and. | 00:38:54 | |
And then we have Constitution. We have Constitution Day coming up sponsored. Our John Andrew chapter is really leaning into that. | 00:39:30 | |
Along with some of our other local civic groups. So you'll see here that they've got programs scheduled September 15th at Ashford | 00:39:38 | |
for Constitution history and then the Constitution Day bell ringing on September 17th. There may be a firing of cannons or | 00:39:45 | |
muskets. I think they're still working through when that happens. I know that always gets people's attention when the cannon goes | 00:39:51 | |
off. So just be aware on September 17th if you hear a loud noise. | 00:39:57 | |
It's probably it's probably the probably the cannon going off and what's the movies that Mary Poppins where they have the guy next | 00:40:04 | |
door who fire the fire the cannon, you know, and every they had to hold all the clocks anyway. It always kind of reminds me of | 00:40:08 | |
reminds me of that. So we're. | 00:40:12 | |
But we're grateful to the Daughters of the American Revolution for their patriotism and their energy around Constitution Day. | 00:40:16 | |
Event that's what we rebuilt rocket field for we said that not only could we have baseball but so that we could have those kind of | 00:40:53 | |
community events and it really showed well and Lawrence I'm glad to see you here I've been enjoying seeing all the people playing | 00:40:59 | |
potong at the at those areas too. That's been awesome and. | 00:41:04 | |
Anyway, it looks it's really great to see people using that too. So thank you for your vision and and your persistence in terms of | 00:41:12 | |
getting that done. It's it really is great to see people of all ages utilizing rocket field and what we did out there. | 00:41:19 | |
And then the second thing before we move on, I think I might have mentioned this last month, but I'm going to mention it again | 00:41:26 | |
because people need to know about it. The governor did approve in July $14 million to advance the Watkinsville bypass project. | 00:41:32 | |
That is for right of way acquisition and preliminary engineering, which is huge. | 00:41:38 | |
So that that project the route has not been determined. | 00:41:46 | |
But the engineering will determine that. There will be public conversations about that, but that is a huge step forward in terms | 00:41:50 | |
of reducing. | 00:41:53 | |
The traffic in downtown Watkinsville that many of you here and others are have been frustrated by and a lot of our downtown | 00:41:57 | |
residents are frustrated by because once you unclog Main Street, it is going to free up so many other things. So we're still years | 00:42:03 | |
away from that. Those projects don't happen fast. But that now has what's called a, a project number at the May Courts plan. This, | 00:42:10 | |
the funds that have been allocated will accelerate that project even further. | 00:42:16 | |
So we anticipate this phase probably taking one to three years to get the engineering and the right away done and then we can move | 00:42:23 | |
into final engineering and construction. But that is huge news for the long term health of downtown Watkinsville and for the city | 00:42:28 | |
as a whole to get truck traffic. | 00:42:33 | |
And a lot of the through traffic out of the city. So that's great news and our final item. | 00:42:39 | |
Happy birthday, Chuck Garrett. | 00:42:45 | |
August 5th, I think so. We always like to celebrate our council members. So Chuck, happy birthday to you. With that, we'll move on | 00:42:49 | |
to council reports and our birthday boy is first. Chuck, you have anything to report? | 00:42:55 | |
I recently attended the hazardous mitigation plan with county and Sergeant and Toby was there to keep us all in line. So but it | 00:43:02 | |
was very interesting to be there and just I think the county goes to great lengths to make sure we're safe in the city. Police | 00:43:10 | |
working alongside of them, but a lot of brainstorming and coming up with ideas and ways to get the public. | 00:43:19 | |
Our citizens more. | 00:43:28 | |
In team with. | 00:43:31 | |
Emergency, we got a lot of information, but a lot of people don't know where to get the information. I know Sharon does a good job | 00:43:32 | |
of putting stuff on the on the city web and stuff and just as something going forward to all of us going to have to do. | 00:43:39 | |
To make sure you know, when people get their bills, water bills, all kind of things, just letting the citizens know everything | 00:43:48 | |
that's out there other than 911 so and also I know they can be shifting the traffic on the. | 00:43:56 | |
The roads, everybody going to public starting in the morning, there's going to be a big traffic shift, so. | 00:44:05 | |
Be careful, Be careful. | 00:44:13 | |
Chuck, are you going to get that project finished for us anytime soon down there? | 00:44:17 | |
Nobody wants to take ownership of that, All right, Councilwoman Massey. | 00:44:24 | |
All right, Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. | 00:44:29 | |
Just I am headed down to Thomasville on Monday for a couple of days for the downtown development. Is it authority? Georgia | 00:44:32 | |
Downtown Association? Sorry, there's lots of associations, but I'm excited to learn more from people in our state about just how | 00:44:40 | |
to continue to make our downtown thrive and be great. So excited to learn next week. | 00:44:48 | |
I did see we have a new store coming into Town Center to replace Burden Brass, which is opened up has expanded and now we have a | 00:44:56 | |
children's clothing store. It looks like coming to Town Center. Yes. And if you haven't been to Burden Brass their new location, | 00:45:03 | |
it is in Judge Shivers old office and it's a great use of the space. She's also hosting workshops in the upstairs space. So it | 00:45:10 | |
gave her the space to expand not only. | 00:45:17 | |
She has a lot of original art, but also. | 00:45:24 | |
Home Decor and is hosting different workshops so last Saturday there was one on floral design and it's just another community | 00:45:27 | |
gathering space so check out Burden brass if you hadn't and we'll welcome these new businesses as they come in as well. It's a | 00:45:32 | |
great sound that our main streets filling up very quickly as soon as the space is available for rent they're they're filling up | 00:45:37 | |
so. | 00:45:43 | |
All right, Councilman Campbell. | 00:45:49 | |
Just a little more on the BBQ cook off. We had a follow up meeting after the contest to kind of. | 00:45:52 | |
Determine all our roles and so we can get the behind the scenes stuff a little more organized for next year. And we're having a | 00:45:58 | |
second follow up meeting Sarah, Melanie and I on Monday. So creating the To Do List for it and see how we can keep improving it. | 00:46:06 | |
For real estate and litigation, please make a motion to move into executive session for real estate and potential litigation. | 00:46:44 | |
Second. All right, all in favor. Say aye. All right, 3 minutes if you need to see anybody. | 00:46:52 | |
All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn? I make a motion to adjourn second. | 00:47:00 | |
All in favor, say aye. All right, you have a great evening. | 00:47:05 |
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All right. Welcome, everybody to the August Watkinsville City Council meeting. Grateful for everybody who could be here tonight. | 00:00:36 | |
We have a quorum. Four or five council members are here with us tonight. I'd like to start with the pledge if we could all stand. | 00:00:43 | |
Now I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:51 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:58 | |
All right. For those who have not been with us before, welcome. I'm Mayor Brian Broderick. We're grateful to all who made time to | 00:01:09 | |
come and all who are with us online. We are battling some technical difficulties tonight, so for our guests online, you should be | 00:01:13 | |
able to access the packet. | 00:01:18 | |
They can, you can hear, but we do not have a video recording available tonight due to some technical challenges we're | 00:01:24 | |
experiencing. But we thought we had the choice of offering video to those who weren't here or offering our graphics to the people | 00:01:29 | |
who are here. And we thought since y'all made an effort to be here, you should be able to see what we're talking about. So we're | 00:01:33 | |
going to do that tonight instead. | 00:01:38 | |
While we work through those technical difficulties, for anybody who has a hearing impairment, the city has a hearing loop system | 00:01:44 | |
in place here in the council chamber that was installed in 2020. The loop serves as a wireless network for those with hearing aids | 00:01:49 | |
or cochlear implants, signals from a microphone or public. | 00:01:54 | |
Automatically appear. Interested parties may also view a transcript of the meeting under the tap called Transcript as a reminder | 00:02:59 | |
of notice of the Council meeting, along with the current month's agenda is posted one full week before the meeting to allow the | 00:03:04 | |
public sufficient time to provide comments and writing to the clerk if they're unable to attend in person. I have to read all | 00:03:09 | |
that. Apologies. That's part of the process. All right, we will move on approval of the minutes. Council will entertain a motion | 00:03:14 | |
around the July 17th. | 00:03:19 | |
Regular meeting. If anyone cares to make one, make a motion to approve the July 17th meeting minutes. | 00:03:24 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:03:32 | |
Did I hear a second because you weren't here? I need a second. All right. Chuck wasn't here, but he's willing to second. All | 00:03:37 | |
right. All in favor. All in favor of approving the minutes. Please say aye. All right. Wonderful. | 00:03:44 | |
Approval of the agenda we have did get a request from the developer for the pipe plant parcel to remove that item. So that has | 00:03:51 | |
been removed from the agenda tonight. With that, are there any other adjustments to the agenda that need to be made? | 00:03:59 | |
I will note under consent agenda, we have some items related to banking services and Oconee State Bank. | 00:04:09 | |
I'm involved with Oconee State Bank as a board member, so I'll recuse from that part and Mayor Pro Tem Tucker will leave that part | 00:04:17 | |
of the agenda just for information, but hearing no changes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda and make a motion to | 00:04:21 | |
approve. | 00:04:26 | |
Do we have a second? Second, we have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any | 00:04:31 | |
opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to administration. As I've said before, most of you have been here before. We | 00:04:37 | |
will be. We have noted moments on the agenda for public comment. If you do have something you want to discuss, we do at times give | 00:04:44 | |
liberty to members who want to discuss that in the moment that is solely at council. | 00:04:50 | |
Council's discretion as well as our legal counsel. We reserve the right to offer that opportunity or not. If you are given that | 00:04:57 | |
opportunity awards during part of the normal public input process, we'd ask that you come to the podium. | 00:05:02 | |
Of course, with the audit you'll have the actual final numbers, but we seem to be moving along fine on that. Are there any | 00:06:38 | |
questions about those reports? | 00:06:42 | |
All right, so move on to SLOSS 3. So SLOSS 3 report, remind everyone that this began in October of 2021, ends in September of 27. | 00:06:47 | |
It's at 8.63% per our intergovernmental agreement with Oconee County. Right now we are our monthly revenues are averaging about | 00:06:55 | |
82,000 and some change. | 00:07:02 | |
This SPA 3 is being used mainly for Thomas Farm Preserve, the work that you see along Simonton Bridge Rd. Harris Shoals Park, | 00:07:10 | |
which we actually are sitting in right now. The park area has a lot of improvements that are being funded by SPLOS 3. And then | 00:07:18 | |
there's $875,000 in G Tib or Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank loan that we got for the Simonton Bridge Mulberry | 00:07:25 | |
Connector, which the mayor will touch upon later during his report. | 00:07:32 | |
There are some funds already encumbered in Splash 3 for to pay that back. | 00:07:39 | |
And then this is just your monthly sort of year to year average to see the change. We've got 6% up on average and we have a bank | 00:07:45 | |
balance of a little bit more than 1.4 million. | 00:07:50 | |
Talk about Floss, sorry T Sloss. So this one began in April 23, ends in March of 28. So it's five years, 7.77% was what we | 00:07:58 | |
negotiated with the county. Our average revenue monthly revenues are at 72,000. We think over the course of the 60 month period | 00:08:06 | |
that we will be closer to 78, hopefully more than that, but we seem to be doing moving along fine. The again the G Tib loan funds | 00:08:13 | |
we've encumbered 1.5 million for. | 00:08:20 | |
Thompson Bridge Rd. Mulberry Connector in this T sports project, South main sidewalk that we still have some work to do on the | 00:08:28 | |
ELMIG FY25 Rd. supplement, which we'll talk about tonight on item 10. And then future roads resurfacing projects and efficiency | 00:08:35 | |
improvements are pulled out of this. And then just your monthly, you know, report average though up about again 6, little bit more | 00:08:43 | |
than 6% on that. Our bank balances just under $350,000. | 00:08:50 | |
And then our American Rescue Plan report, so these are the monies that the federal government gave to a lot of communities, gave | 00:09:01 | |
all the communities in the in the United States and we made a decision, Council made decision, sorry, and to take the standard | 00:09:08 | |
allowance up to 10 million. We got a little bit more than $1,000,000. We have used that money for a number of of items you'll see | 00:09:16 | |
listed there. The remaining balance has been appropriated including any ongoing interest has been appropriate to the Thomas farm. | 00:09:23 | |
Project. It's a little bit more than 97,000 right now. | 00:09:31 | |
Any questions about any of those? | 00:09:35 | |
OK, we'll go on to the economic development reports. | 00:09:38 | |
So business and alcohol licensing, so business licenses and typically in April, so, but we have a few that are coming in new | 00:09:43 | |
companies or ones that have were delayed in getting their payments in. So we don't have a lot going on there and we did not have | 00:09:49 | |
any alcohol application fees this month. | 00:09:56 | |
Or last month. | 00:10:02 | |
On the excise tax point out that in June you'll see June of on the hotel motel, far right bottom, bottom it shows 500-6971. Today | 00:10:04 | |
we received the money from Airbnb for that will pop that up to around the two 2800 mark or so. So that will will present that | 00:10:11 | |
again next month. So you'll have a full picture of fiscal year 24. | 00:10:19 | |
And we are on target with that for our budget. So that's really good. And then on? | 00:10:27 | |
And this is the for the for July. So we did receive, I believe we received some money even though we only typically show what | 00:10:34 | |
shows up in June and July, but we did receive stuff in July that's actually for July. So that's why you get this report too. So a | 00:10:39 | |
little bit different. We'll have it cleaned up next month, so. | 00:10:45 | |
And then on building permits, we have 9 permits for eight projects and four of the eight projects are actually in Wire Park. | 00:10:53 | |
Any questions on any of those? | 00:11:01 | |
OK. | 00:11:05 | |
All right, so the main thing with Downtown development authority we had on August 3rd the barbecue and Bake Off at Rocket Field. I | 00:11:10 | |
know some of y'all were there. It was a fantastic event. There were about 600 arm bands for the all you can eat BBQ sold and then | 00:11:18 | |
there were people there because it one of the things that's so important. | 00:11:26 | |
In our city is to have space for all kinds of community and so. | 00:11:35 | |
This event was free for the public. There was a great band and we had some sponsors that donated water and chips and so people | 00:11:39 | |
could just come and enjoy and didn't have to buy a ticket. So there were more than 600 people there at this event and it was | 00:11:45 | |
great. Of course, anytime you do something once, there's some things that you want to tweak a little bit for the future, but we | 00:11:52 | |
are hoping this will become an annual event. | 00:11:58 | |
Umm, so and thank you so much to everybody who helped put this on because I know any kind of it is a big lift. | 00:12:05 | |
And then the other thing is we are still in the process of refining what we're looking for in a downtown development director and | 00:12:11 | |
in that hiring process. | 00:12:17 | |
So oh, and here are our winner. Sorry, I'm just skipping along. So Harold's BBQ was first, it was, I had two favors and it was one | 00:12:22 | |
of them. And then the Rotary Club of Oconee was second place and then but Styled in was third place, so. | 00:12:31 | |
And then this was for the the desserts, the Bake Off. So Coney Butts and Oh was first place. Food guru was second, and Jack's | 00:12:42 | |
cheesecake was third, so. | 00:12:49 | |
So much fun. Also, it raised a significant amount of money for Bethel Haven, which is a nonprofit in the area that has sliding | 00:12:57 | |
scale counseling services for people. | 00:13:03 | |
Do I say? | 00:13:11 | |
Yeah, it was about $10,000 that was raised for them. So it was a really wonderful event, not only a great time for the community, | 00:13:13 | |
but also raised a lot of money for a really good 'cause. So why does it say $400.00 on the screen? Well, so I'll explain. So, so | 00:13:20 | |
these were our expenses, but all the ticket sales went to Bethel Haven. So we didn't see any of that. This was between sponsors | 00:13:27 | |
and entry fees. There was a total revenue 3800, we had 3377 and 77 cents in expenses. And so the difference we agreed would go. | 00:13:35 | |
The extra money that we didn't need for the expenses would go to Bethlehem. So we paid them for 2223 and then they took all the | 00:13:43 | |
ticket sales. OK. So we basically broke even to put the event on and then they got another 10,000 from the sales. | 00:13:48 | |
Yes. So we didn't. It did not cost the city taxpayers any money to do this event. And yeah, so it was a great partnership. | 00:13:54 | |
Cool. | 00:14:03 | |
Win, win, win. | 00:14:08 | |
OK. | 00:14:10 | |
Welcome up, Sergeant Hilbert. | 00:14:11 | |
Give us the report. | 00:14:15 | |
Good evening. | 00:14:17 | |
Are we on? | 00:14:19 | |
Good evening. It's good to see some of you guys again. It's been a long time since I've stood up here and and presented to you all | 00:14:21 | |
some new faces that I haven't presented to before. So the August 24 council report, we had a lot of folks that completed some | 00:14:29 | |
training. I myself finished the second of three courses in our management process down at the Forsyth Training Academy. I'm also | 00:14:36 | |
completed the Taser instructor program, which allows us to host training here and also help. | 00:14:44 | |
Other agencies that don't have an instructor in the area, those are really hard to come by. So we finished that up. Sergeant Wade | 00:14:51 | |
completed his background safety investigator course, which is going to be helpful and hopefully a whole boatload of new applicants | 00:14:57 | |
that we have coming in sometime soon. | 00:15:03 | |
Officer Christian. Officer Anglin also completed courses. | 00:15:10 | |
For the vehicle, the new patrol truck that you guys see sitting in the parking lot and toodling around town, still very, very | 00:15:13 | |
clean. It hasn't gone off to get outfitted yet, but it will soon. As soon as the upfitter down in Augusta lets me know that they | 00:15:19 | |
have all the parts and pieces in for it. We want to minimize the downtime with that as best we can. So we're going to hold on to | 00:15:25 | |
it until the very last second. Then it should be about a week turn around or so. | 00:15:31 | |
For the events that we've got scheduled, obviously everybody knows that football seasons starting up really soon, so please | 00:15:38 | |
anticipate the traffic increase on Saturdays where we've got home games because. | 00:15:44 | |
We have plenty of it. | 00:15:51 | |
When football's in session on Saturday, we had officer helped direct traffic down at Core Blend. They were doing a charity event | 00:15:53 | |
down there to help with Lydia's place down on Jerry Smith Dr. | 00:16:00 | |
Which is a organization that helps with youth and homelessness and stuff like that. And so they they put on something and had a | 00:16:07 | |
great competition between all their competitors and donated all the proceeds from my understanding to Lydia's place and they did a | 00:16:13 | |
really great job at that. | 00:16:19 | |
For the stats for the month, we had two arrests. Both of those were driving related, no insurance and driving on suspended | 00:16:26 | |
license. | 00:16:30 | |
We answered 248 calls for service. | 00:16:34 | |
We did. | 00:16:38 | |
1051 security checks were out there, making sure everybody's houses as safe as humanly possible. | 00:16:39 | |
You know. | 00:16:45 | |
We had 14 reports that were generated from our calls of service, which is about our average, which is about what we normally see. | 00:16:46 | |
Then we had 117 citations or warnings combined that were written over the month, which again is about on average with what we're | 00:16:54 | |
normally seeing. And those were split almost 5050 with warnings and citations. So the officers are exercising their discretion and | 00:17:01 | |
they're they're making sure that what is beneficial for everybody is what they go with. Some folks need a little more. | 00:17:09 | |
Encouragement to slow down. | 00:17:16 | |
Other than that, we've got to save the date, which I would like to remind everybody of October 6th. | 00:17:20 | |
We're partnered with the Sheriff's Office and the first responders and Georgia Home Partners Realty. | 00:17:26 | |
For the Responder 5K that we've been doing for a number of years now. | 00:17:34 | |
Swing by, we'll have a lot of events there. They always have a good turn out. You'll get to see me in the dunk tank again. I | 00:17:38 | |
always enjoy that. Hope to go first. When it's nice and cold it's always fun. | 00:17:43 | |
And other than that, we've got also a public service notice. So one of the calls that we responded to over the last month was a | 00:17:50 | |
air conditioning unit, an HVAC unit got stolen from, oddly enough, the defects office down on Greensboro Highway, the entire unit | 00:17:56 | |
got taken. | 00:18:02 | |
They have 4 units, so it took them a little wit a little bit to realize that they were missing in an air conditioning unit. But | 00:18:09 | |
somebody came up and cut all the cables and cut the pipes and. | 00:18:15 | |
Put in the back of the truck and off they went. | 00:18:22 | |
So we've been working with some of the scrap yards in the area. | 00:18:24 | |
Through about six different counties, trying to locate the different parts and pieces for this unit. And it was valued about $5000 | 00:18:29 | |
for the unit itself. So we're trying to figure out who it was that actually took it, but we were working on a couple of different | 00:18:34 | |
ways to do that, so. | 00:18:39 | |
Other than that. | 00:18:46 | |
Anybody have any questions for the Police Department? | 00:18:47 | |
Awesome. | 00:18:51 | |
Thank you. Thank you. | 00:18:52 | |
All right, I will turn it over to Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. | 00:18:56 | |
All right, so we have the. | 00:19:00 | |
Consent Agenda, the resolution to approve the one year extension of the contract with the County State Bank for banking Services | 00:19:02 | |
to expire August 31st, 2025 and approval of the submittal of GERMA and GMA safety grant applications. Do I there any questions or | 00:19:10 | |
discussion or hear a motion to approve? | 00:19:18 | |
Are there 2 separate or one? It's all the consent agenda. So just one make a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:19:29 | |
All right. All in favor, aye. | 00:19:38 | |
Motion carries 40. | 00:19:42 | |
All right, we will move on to. | 00:19:53 | |
And then Mr. Ramasamy, is that correct? Then we'll let you come forward after we hear the report from the engineer. | 00:20:25 | |
Thank you, Mayor. | 00:20:33 | |
So the address for this request is 1071 Camden Park Drive. So Camden Park is a residential subdivision that is near the | 00:20:34 | |
Watkinsville city limits. As you're going out the Simonton Bridge Rd. it would be on the southern side before you would get to | 00:20:41 | |
Watkinsville Baptist Church. So the size of this parcel, it's approximately 7/10 of an acre. It is on septic. I think that's part | 00:20:47 | |
of the application here as well. | 00:20:53 | |
It's zoned attached residential and the variance request is. | 00:21:01 | |
Garage related. So it is for a front facing garage. If you'll go to the next slide, again you can see there it doesn't directly | 00:21:04 | |
abut the the the railroad tracks. There is a sliver of land owned by Watkinsville first that is between this property and the the | 00:21:12 | |
railroad tracks. Just for reference, it is located within a cul-de-sac there in Canyon Park. So hopefully that gives you an idea | 00:21:19 | |
of where 1071 is. You can see a plat there from when the subdivision was developed. You may remember that. But again. | 00:21:26 | |
The the plat itself is from 2005. So the plans that were submitted by the applicant, I did not include the existing plans which | 00:21:34 | |
you may actually have within your packet as part of that, but this is the proposed plan. So the proposed is to create an addition | 00:21:41 | |
to the existing structure that you saw there in that cul-de-sac. And while there is an existing garage there, there's a request to | 00:21:49 | |
put an additional garage off of that same access or driveway point. | 00:21:56 | |
And that additional garage is what would be front facing. | 00:22:04 | |
So there's a picture you can see there that is, is the the Street View, if you will, for what you just saw of the existing | 00:22:08 | |
structure. I will say approximately where the van you see in that driveway is where the access to the to the the new proposed | 00:22:15 | |
addition would be, which would mainly include a garage. It includes a few other things as part of it. Those things would need a | 00:22:22 | |
variance. The garage specifically that would be front facing is what would need the variance. So that is. | 00:22:29 | |
You know essentially what the request is associated with. I did mention. | 00:22:37 | |
That septic plays a part of this. The septic drain field, if you saw as part of the application, it's kind of on the southern side | 00:22:42 | |
of the house, if you will. It's not on the northern side of the house based on documentation submitted by Environmental Health. So | 00:22:49 | |
the idea to potentially put an addition with a garage that is not front facing would be Hanford or limited by the existence of | 00:22:56 | |
that existing septic drain field. I know the applicants here as well, but happy to answer any questions council might have. | 00:23:03 | |
All right, Mr. and Mrs. Ramaswamy, if you want to come forward and provide any additional context and we'll let Council ask | 00:23:11 | |
questions of either party. | 00:23:14 | |
Please just state your name and address for the record. Yeah, my name is Rama Raja Ramasamy. I'm the owner of the house on 1071 | 00:23:20 | |
Cameron Park Dr. I think he described it well. I think you know what you see on that floor plan, everything in black is the | 00:23:25 | |
existing house and everything that's in dark and red color is the extension they would like to make. And that garage, that near 2 | 00:23:31 | |
car garage would be still on the driveway. It is an extent past the the concrete driveway that we have and it doesn't be with the | 00:23:37 | |
septic tank. | 00:23:43 | |
And the train fields on the South? Yeah, the southern side of the house. | 00:23:49 | |
If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. OK. If you'll remain up here, that would be great. Council questions to staff or | 00:23:56 | |
to the applicant. | 00:23:59 | |
So have you gotten any feedback from any neighbors on this? | 00:24:03 | |
Yeah, all my neighbors know that we're trying to do this extension for quite some time. So we thought the variance is going to be | 00:24:08 | |
for something else. And then we realized this for the front facing garage. And actually we have two in the subdivision right next | 00:24:15 | |
to us is the front facing garage that's right from the start. And then we have one another house that was built approximately 10 | 00:24:21 | |
years ago, 4 houses down that's also front facing garage. So it's not unusual for the subdivision. | 00:24:27 | |
We have 10 houses in the subdivision and. | 00:24:35 | |
Two of them have front facing the rajas already. | 00:24:38 | |
And. | 00:24:41 | |
We're trying to put this to accommodate growing family. | 00:24:45 | |
I'm assuming you're planning on breaking it and matching the house. Yeah, our, our covenants require that it matches with the rest | 00:24:49 | |
of the house and the brick won't be 100% match, but you know, we'll try to make sure it's as close of a match as possible because | 00:24:54 | |
it's from about 15 years ago. | 00:24:59 | |
Any further questions? | 00:25:09 | |
All right, hearing none this is will close the public. Anybody else wish to? | 00:25:11 | |
Mr. Ramaswamy, you can have a seat I. | 00:25:16 | |
This is a public hearing and that hearing is now open. Is there anyone here with us tonight who would like to address this matter? | 00:25:20 | |
All right, See, no one will close the public hearing and now we'll move on to a vote council. You've heard the report from the | 00:25:29 | |
engineer, you've heard the request from the applicant. We had no public comments. Does anyone want to make a motion? | 00:25:34 | |
I'll make a motion to approve the variance request. | 00:25:42 | |
And I second, we have a motion. Yep, go ahead. | 00:25:45 | |
Make a motion to approve the variance request that meets all the standards of 14 point O5I. | 00:25:51 | |
That we tell the standards of 1405. I thank you. | 00:26:04 | |
And I once again second that. | 00:26:09 | |
We have a motion and a second. I won't attempt to restate that. Any discussion? | 00:26:11 | |
Hearing no discussion, all in favor Say aye. Any opposed? | 00:26:16 | |
Motion carries for a thank you. | 00:26:20 | |
OK. All right. We have no appearances under all businesses. We have none under new businesses. We have new business, excuse me, We | 00:26:24 | |
have approval of the submittal of the fiscal year 2025 Georgia Department of Transportation LMAO grants. | 00:26:31 | |
And I'll let Manager Dickerson make a report. | 00:26:40 | |
Thank you, Mayor. | 00:26:43 | |
So we're asking that you approve the submittal of this FY25 G dot G dot L Meg application to rehabilitate and pave Mulberry Street | 00:26:46 | |
and the Cemetery Rd. at an estimated cost of $193,570.00. With a little bit more than 47,000 coming from the ELMIG grant that the | 00:26:55 | |
state provided. 21,000 from the match that we budget for in the T spot project and an additional 125,000 and some change from. | 00:27:04 | |
T spots as well I'll walk you through. | 00:27:14 | |
Some of this. So in August of 21, we had a pavement evaluation of all of our roads. The city has to maintain provided an inventory | 00:27:16 | |
and condition rating of all those roads, which gave us a list which was we felt like is a better way to to determine the condition | 00:27:23 | |
of Rd. than us just going out and looking at it. So we've been following that since then. | 00:27:30 | |
In June of. | 00:27:38 | |
June of 2023 we received our FFY 24 L Meg money of $43,590.00. | 00:27:41 | |
G dot approved that shortly after that, but before decisions were made about how to use that money, the governor and the | 00:27:49 | |
legislature included another 250 million in local Rd. assistance funds to cities and counties throughout the state. And with that | 00:27:55 | |
we received another almost $54,000. So we use those funds the the new, what they call local Rd. assistance funds, along with our | 00:28:02 | |
local Maintenance Improvement Grant funds and. | 00:28:08 | |
Recommended. I think I may have moved on to the next page. Here we go. | 00:28:15 | |
Recommended Paving School St. Simonton Way on Jackson Street and Niagara Drive. | 00:28:19 | |
And then this year we've received and we got all those done. I didn't add up the total, but we got all those done and those have | 00:28:27 | |
been completed. And then in June of this year, we received the FY25 application and the amount that we in the notification that we | 00:28:35 | |
would receive around $47,000. And so that's what we're here to decide, ask you to consider how to use those funds. | 00:28:43 | |
Again, we received this money from the state on an annual basis to to be used for roads, drainage, bridge, bridges, sidewalks, | 00:28:52 | |
etc. | 00:28:56 | |
In 20. In 2020. | 00:29:02 | |
Sorry, I mentioned last year we use 2021 thousand and T spots funds for to match. Sorry, we use 19,000 last year. This year we're | 00:29:06 | |
using 21,000 and T splash funds as our local fund for the G for the Elmet grant. So along with the the G dot money, the L Med | 00:29:14 | |
grant money of 47,000 and the city's match of 21,000, we have about 68,000 when we started putting together the application and | 00:29:21 | |
looking and I'll have a slide in a minute, it'll show you what we. | 00:29:29 | |
Estimated this these are going to cost. We realized we weren't going to have enough money. The grant applications are due in | 00:29:36 | |
February. We typically try to get them in early and hopefully get some paving done before that gets too cold to do the paving the | 00:29:40 | |
end of the year. | 00:29:44 | |
Want to talk about a couple things though, how we how we arrived at the decision of the ones we're going to recommend. The paving | 00:29:49 | |
management plan that we talked about doesn't have a pavement condition index for Mulberry Street because that is a gravel or | 00:29:54 | |
unpaved Rd. So obviously it is prime for for being paved. The Cemetery Rd. is actually the third worst Rd. on the list. Again, | 00:30:00 | |
I'll show you that slide in a minute. | 00:30:06 | |
15 months or so before we see that that come forward. So we'll keep it on that and try to bring forward, try to pair it up when | 00:30:43 | |
the opportunity arises to to pave that road. | 00:30:47 | |
The other Rd. the 2nd Rd. that is listed on the pavement condition rating that is the worst is Williamsburg Place. The challenge | 00:30:54 | |
with that is similar to Carl's Creek, only half of Williamsburg places inside the city limits, about a point a little bit more | 00:31:00 | |
than 1/10 of a mile and serve 7 residential homes. | 00:31:06 | |
This is our proposed project report that will go to the Georgia Department of Transportation. We're recommending Mulberry Street | 00:31:43 | |
from 3rd St. to the dead end. And then we're recommending Cemetery Rd. which is a single lane Rd. which makes it maybe a little | 00:31:49 | |
bit less expensive because it's not a two lane. And I'll show you what we're estimating 193,000 minus the money that we have from | 00:31:55 | |
the grant and the match that's already been budgeted. We'll need another 125,000, which we're going to recommend come from the T | 00:32:01 | |
spot. | 00:32:06 | |
Project, which is what those funds are supposed to be used for. | 00:32:13 | |
Very tiny, tiny, sorry about that. But the very top Rd. I actually typed in Mulberry Street because it wasn't on there. Again, a | 00:32:17 | |
gravel Rd. similar to Durham St. and then Williamsburg below it and then Cemetery Rd. So you'll see. We're trying to stick to the | 00:32:25 | |
very top and the condition ratings are 20, I think 2020, 734 out of 100, so definitely not in the greatest shape. | 00:32:33 | |
Mulberry Street, Just a visual of what Mulberry Street looks like. So you'll see where the 3rd St. label is. That's Rocket Field. | 00:32:41 | |
Go a little bit further out and you'll see Mulberry Street and the estimated length of that. | 00:32:48 | |
And then Cemetery Rd. | 00:32:55 | |
Again, that's a single single line Rd. | 00:32:58 | |
So again, we're recommending to submit our application to rehabilitate and pave Mulberry and Cemetery Rd. at cost of what we | 00:33:02 | |
estimate will be 193,000. Maybe it'll be less appropriating the funding that Elma gave us a 47,000 and some change, the 21,000 and | 00:33:10 | |
teeth lost that has been budgeted and appropriating an additional 125,461 from the teeth floss budget. | 00:33:17 | |
All right. Any questions for staff on that? | 00:33:29 | |
Repay. So anyway, thank you for your diligence on that, Manager Dickerson. And I think during my Mayor's report, we'll kind of | 00:34:02 | |
talk a little bit more about how some of these, some of these areas are going to connect together to over the next couple years. | 00:34:08 | |
All right. | 00:34:17 | |
I make the motion to approve. We have a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:34:18 | |
Second, all right. We have a motion and a second, it's right for discussion if anybody wants to add anything. | 00:34:22 | |
Hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 00:34:27 | |
Motion carries 4 O. | 00:34:31 | |
Our friends in the cemetery will be glad to get those roads upgraded. They are in rough shape so. | 00:34:33 | |
All right, we'll move forward for public comments and for those of you who are new, we're moving pretty quickly through here | 00:34:38 | |
tonight. So we'll just have council reports after that and then we'll have a brief executive session after that. So public | 00:34:44 | |
comments, this is the time with you. Have something you want to say? Come on up to the podium. 4 minutes per person, same rules as | 00:34:49 | |
before, but if anybody has anything they want to offer us, come on up tonight. | 00:34:55 | |
Don't everybody come at once. | 00:35:03 | |
All right, we'll move on. | 00:35:06 | |
All right. Mayors report, have a few things to discuss. If you've driven down Simonton Bridge Rd. no doubt you've noticed the | 00:35:10 | |
progress at the park, very exciting. What you can't see is in the back, in the front we have, we've made significant progress, but | 00:35:17 | |
also in the back, most of the trails have been roughed in. We're beginning to put down the aggregate surface on that. | 00:35:24 | |
Trail, so it looks really great back there. I went for scouting walk last night. It looked like the Serengeti. There was about 30 | 00:35:32 | |
deer out there running around and coyotes, Hawks, all the things. So it's really beautiful. People are really going to enjoy it. | 00:35:39 | |
It makes makes my heart happy that this this time next year, even in the spring, people be out there. We also started yesterday on | 00:35:46 | |
the paved path. You can see there in red and blue. Those are going to be. | 00:35:53 | |
The paved path, so that's mainly at the front of the property. | 00:36:00 | |
I think the blue ones are 8 feet wide with a four foot aggregate shoulder. The red ones are just eight feet wide. Is that correct, | 00:36:04 | |
Manager Dickerson? I think that's right. So those will all be paved paths that will be accessible to folks in wheelchairs and | 00:36:11 | |
otherwise. And so we have a great crew out there focused and working on that. You can see the circle there that looks like a semi | 00:36:19 | |
circle. We've also will have an aggregate path with a bridge that'll go around the smaller pond in that area while it looks under. | 00:36:26 | |
Construction now is a wet one that will then grow back up around that path. So people be able to walk through a natural wetland | 00:36:33 | |
that will grow back up. So that that works also underway. I think we have one more slide is that right, manager Dickson? And then | 00:36:39 | |
we've also completed work on the restroom and the old dairy barn and house out there. So that's not open to the public yet, but | 00:36:45 | |
when it when it does, it's in great shape. So our our bidders did a nice job on that and we'll also tie that in that's. | 00:36:51 | |
ADA accessible. And so we'll tie that in with our paved area. So things are moving out there. | 00:36:59 | |
It's very exciting to see. Again, we're targeting the end of the year to open up that park to the public. | 00:37:04 | |
I know we've, I think we've touched on this a few times, but this is this also sort of connects the dots, but not between some of | 00:37:11 | |
the work we're doing in the cemetery and along Mulberry. We are trying to improve Mulberry, but we're also planning a significant | 00:37:16 | |
bike pedestrian upgrade in that area too. So you see here, I think is this supposed to be an 8 foot or 10 foot wide sidewalk? | 00:37:22 | |
Sharon, do you remember what we skipped? | 00:37:27 | |
10 foot. | 00:37:34 | |
It's not. | 00:37:35 | |
Generally A10 foot wide bike pedestrian path along Simonton Bridge Rd. that would connect Rocket Field to Simonton Place for now, | 00:37:38 | |
but it will also connect the park to to downtown, which is really important. You'll see here that it is going to be adjacent to | 00:37:44 | |
the park and to the cemetery and then. | 00:37:51 | |
We plan to come through the area the the woods between the cemetery and Mulberry to connect with a bridge through there, which | 00:37:58 | |
allows us to avoid the really steep grade on Simonton Bridge. So that's that's the plan right now. We have a schedule for that. | 00:38:03 | |
Right now we're in the engineering and right away acquisition phase for that project and we're working with various property | 00:38:09 | |
owners to get that done. | 00:38:15 | |
Waters Walk is underway. Demolition has been completed. | 00:38:22 | |
And that project, as Sharon said, will take about 18 months to be completed, but we're excited to finally see that project | 00:38:27 | |
underway. That's for 5555 and over only in that project. | 00:38:32 | |
I had the pleasure last week of meeting with Representative Mike Collins in Madison and they hosted as Chairman. Daniel and I went | 00:38:41 | |
down there. He had some good questions about challenges we're facing. I mentioned some of the difficulties in smaller cities being | 00:38:47 | |
able to utilize federal dollars due to a lot of red tape and. | 00:38:54 | |
And then we have Constitution. We have Constitution Day coming up sponsored. Our John Andrew chapter is really leaning into that. | 00:39:30 | |
Along with some of our other local civic groups. So you'll see here that they've got programs scheduled September 15th at Ashford | 00:39:38 | |
for Constitution history and then the Constitution Day bell ringing on September 17th. There may be a firing of cannons or | 00:39:45 | |
muskets. I think they're still working through when that happens. I know that always gets people's attention when the cannon goes | 00:39:51 | |
off. So just be aware on September 17th if you hear a loud noise. | 00:39:57 | |
It's probably it's probably the probably the cannon going off and what's the movies that Mary Poppins where they have the guy next | 00:40:04 | |
door who fire the fire the cannon, you know, and every they had to hold all the clocks anyway. It always kind of reminds me of | 00:40:08 | |
reminds me of that. So we're. | 00:40:12 | |
But we're grateful to the Daughters of the American Revolution for their patriotism and their energy around Constitution Day. | 00:40:16 | |
Event that's what we rebuilt rocket field for we said that not only could we have baseball but so that we could have those kind of | 00:40:53 | |
community events and it really showed well and Lawrence I'm glad to see you here I've been enjoying seeing all the people playing | 00:40:59 | |
potong at the at those areas too. That's been awesome and. | 00:41:04 | |
Anyway, it looks it's really great to see people using that too. So thank you for your vision and and your persistence in terms of | 00:41:12 | |
getting that done. It's it really is great to see people of all ages utilizing rocket field and what we did out there. | 00:41:19 | |
And then the second thing before we move on, I think I might have mentioned this last month, but I'm going to mention it again | 00:41:26 | |
because people need to know about it. The governor did approve in July $14 million to advance the Watkinsville bypass project. | 00:41:32 | |
That is for right of way acquisition and preliminary engineering, which is huge. | 00:41:38 | |
So that that project the route has not been determined. | 00:41:46 | |
But the engineering will determine that. There will be public conversations about that, but that is a huge step forward in terms | 00:41:50 | |
of reducing. | 00:41:53 | |
The traffic in downtown Watkinsville that many of you here and others are have been frustrated by and a lot of our downtown | 00:41:57 | |
residents are frustrated by because once you unclog Main Street, it is going to free up so many other things. So we're still years | 00:42:03 | |
away from that. Those projects don't happen fast. But that now has what's called a, a project number at the May Courts plan. This, | 00:42:10 | |
the funds that have been allocated will accelerate that project even further. | 00:42:16 | |
So we anticipate this phase probably taking one to three years to get the engineering and the right away done and then we can move | 00:42:23 | |
into final engineering and construction. But that is huge news for the long term health of downtown Watkinsville and for the city | 00:42:28 | |
as a whole to get truck traffic. | 00:42:33 | |
And a lot of the through traffic out of the city. So that's great news and our final item. | 00:42:39 | |
Happy birthday, Chuck Garrett. | 00:42:45 | |
August 5th, I think so. We always like to celebrate our council members. So Chuck, happy birthday to you. With that, we'll move on | 00:42:49 | |
to council reports and our birthday boy is first. Chuck, you have anything to report? | 00:42:55 | |
I recently attended the hazardous mitigation plan with county and Sergeant and Toby was there to keep us all in line. So but it | 00:43:02 | |
was very interesting to be there and just I think the county goes to great lengths to make sure we're safe in the city. Police | 00:43:10 | |
working alongside of them, but a lot of brainstorming and coming up with ideas and ways to get the public. | 00:43:19 | |
Our citizens more. | 00:43:28 | |
In team with. | 00:43:31 | |
Emergency, we got a lot of information, but a lot of people don't know where to get the information. I know Sharon does a good job | 00:43:32 | |
of putting stuff on the on the city web and stuff and just as something going forward to all of us going to have to do. | 00:43:39 | |
To make sure you know, when people get their bills, water bills, all kind of things, just letting the citizens know everything | 00:43:48 | |
that's out there other than 911 so and also I know they can be shifting the traffic on the. | 00:43:56 | |
The roads, everybody going to public starting in the morning, there's going to be a big traffic shift, so. | 00:44:05 | |
Be careful, Be careful. | 00:44:13 | |
Chuck, are you going to get that project finished for us anytime soon down there? | 00:44:17 | |
Nobody wants to take ownership of that, All right, Councilwoman Massey. | 00:44:24 | |
All right, Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. | 00:44:29 | |
Just I am headed down to Thomasville on Monday for a couple of days for the downtown development. Is it authority? Georgia | 00:44:32 | |
Downtown Association? Sorry, there's lots of associations, but I'm excited to learn more from people in our state about just how | 00:44:40 | |
to continue to make our downtown thrive and be great. So excited to learn next week. | 00:44:48 | |
I did see we have a new store coming into Town Center to replace Burden Brass, which is opened up has expanded and now we have a | 00:44:56 | |
children's clothing store. It looks like coming to Town Center. Yes. And if you haven't been to Burden Brass their new location, | 00:45:03 | |
it is in Judge Shivers old office and it's a great use of the space. She's also hosting workshops in the upstairs space. So it | 00:45:10 | |
gave her the space to expand not only. | 00:45:17 | |
She has a lot of original art, but also. | 00:45:24 | |
Home Decor and is hosting different workshops so last Saturday there was one on floral design and it's just another community | 00:45:27 | |
gathering space so check out Burden brass if you hadn't and we'll welcome these new businesses as they come in as well. It's a | 00:45:32 | |
great sound that our main streets filling up very quickly as soon as the space is available for rent they're they're filling up | 00:45:37 | |
so. | 00:45:43 | |
All right, Councilman Campbell. | 00:45:49 | |
Just a little more on the BBQ cook off. We had a follow up meeting after the contest to kind of. | 00:45:52 | |
Determine all our roles and so we can get the behind the scenes stuff a little more organized for next year. And we're having a | 00:45:58 | |
second follow up meeting Sarah, Melanie and I on Monday. So creating the To Do List for it and see how we can keep improving it. | 00:46:06 | |
For real estate and litigation, please make a motion to move into executive session for real estate and potential litigation. | 00:46:44 | |
Second. All right, all in favor. Say aye. All right, 3 minutes if you need to see anybody. | 00:46:52 | |
All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn? I make a motion to adjourn second. | 00:47:00 | |
All in favor, say aye. All right, you have a great evening. | 00:47:05 |