City Council Regular Meeting
Transcript
| Give a lot of feedback. | 00:00:01 | |
| OK. | 00:00:05 | |
| All right. Good evening, everybody. | 00:00:08 | |
| Welcome to the. | 00:00:10 | |
| September Watkinsville City Council meeting. | 00:00:12 | |
| OK. We're getting a little feedback here, So we might have to keep experimenting on that. | 00:00:16 | |
| Everyone's here, so we have a quorum. Welcome. We always start with the Pledge of Allegiance. We've got students here from High | 00:00:23 | |
| Shoals Column, Ferry and Rocky Branch. Is that right? So if you all could stand and help us leave the pledge, that would be great. | 00:00:29 | |
| How do we start to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God, | 00:00:39 | |
| indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:46 | |
| It is great to have such a crowd with us tonight. Excited to have chambers full. We have 3 proclamations will do before we get | 00:00:59 | |
| into the business of the meeting. The 1st is Constitution Week. And first of all, Lori Trail. Thank you to you and everyone who's | 00:01:05 | |
| been involved with been involved with that from the Reverend John Andrew chapter. | 00:01:11 | |
| It has been a great week. I wasn't able to be there yesterday, but it sounds like everything went great yesterday and I know | 00:01:19 | |
| Sunday was a really special day. | 00:01:22 | |
| At Ashford, with the children leading us throughout session and reminding us of the importance of the Constitution. | 00:01:26 | |
| Ask what? I was going to read that later. | 00:01:34 | |
| OK, but people can read that if they want to read about the hearing stuff. We can leave that on the screen and then I'll read it | 00:01:41 | |
| later. | 00:01:44 | |
| So the Constitution Week is, was is important and we're grateful to everything that you guys did. So I have a proclamation for | 00:01:51 | |
| that. I'm not going to read the whole thing. I'm going to hit a couple highlights. And Lori, you're welcome to offer your remarks | 00:01:57 | |
| up there as well. Constitution Week, September 17th through 23rd, 2024. The Constitution of the United States of America, the | 00:02:04 | |
| guardian of our liberties, embodies the principles of limited government and Republic dedicated to rule by law. | 00:02:11 | |
| September 17th, 2024 marks the 237th anniversary. | 00:02:18 | |
| Of the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention. It is fitting and proper to a | 00:02:22 | |
| court official recognition to this magnificent document. And it's a memorable anniversary. And to the patriotic celebrations which | 00:02:27 | |
| will commemorate it. I have here unto set my hand and cause the seal of Watkinsville, Georgia to be affixed on this 18th day of | 00:02:33 | |
| September, the year of our award, 2024. Thank you, Lori, for what you've done. | 00:02:38 | |
| We just have a certificate for the City of Watkinsville. Just saying thank you for being so supportive of our chapter and | 00:02:50 | |
| participating in all of our events and for our chapter for a long time now. So I just want to say thank you. | 00:02:56 | |
| Let's stand up there. | 00:03:03 | |
| All right. | 00:03:12 | |
| Thank you. | 00:03:15 | |
| All right, next on the agenda is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We'll have a proclamation for that. I think that's why all of | 00:03:30 | |
| our. | 00:03:33 | |
| Yes, Sir, here. Is that right? | 00:03:37 | |
| OK. | 00:03:40 | |
| Why don't y'all come up here with me? | 00:03:40 | |
| You want to join me for this? Come on up here. | 00:03:45 | |
| All the children, we all ready. This is a proclamation, OK? | 00:03:48 | |
| Why don't y'all stand up and when? Let's look out there and show this smile of those folks, OK, All right, Ready. | 00:03:56 | |
| All right, whereas childhood cancer effects 47 new children each day nationwide, a battle which impacts entire communities | 00:04:03 | |
| including parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and neighbors, this disease impacts hundreds of children each year in the state | 00:04:09 | |
| of Georgia, including some of Watkinsville's youngest and most courageous citizens. We're at. | 00:04:15 | |
| Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is recognized in September with the goal to increase awareness of childhood cancer, the need for | 00:04:20 | |
| more funding and research, and to support those families in Watkinsville affected by childhood cancer in honor and in memory of | 00:04:27 | |
| their children. Specifically in honor. Let's listen guys to this of childhood cancer fighter Brooks Thomas, son of Watkinsville | 00:04:33 | |
| residents Ty and Elise Thomas, who bravely beat Hepboblastic. | 00:04:39 | |
| OK. And which one is Brooks up here with us? | 00:04:47 | |
| Brooks, where are you? | 00:04:49 | |
| Brooks high five man. | 00:04:51 | |
| Wow. | 00:04:54 | |
| I should have read this in advance on Blonde way. These are normally just totally boilerplate. I can't believe Brooks. Man how | 00:04:57 | |
| brave. That is amazing. | 00:05:01 | |
| Families who have a son or daughter who are fighting for have fought active childhood cancer. | 00:05:07 | |
| Often experience long term effects from the treatments that has helped them survive and need additional emotional medical care | 00:05:12 | |
| long after the final treatments are completed. | 00:05:16 | |
| Were to honor families walking through this journey at every step of the way to let them know that they are brave and that they | 00:06:20 | |
| are not alone and witness they arrive. I've set my hand and caused the seal of the city of Watkinsville to be affixed on this 18th | 00:06:26 | |
| day of September 2024. That's a lot of words kids. But what that means is y'all are really brave and we're really grateful that | 00:06:31 | |
| you're here. We're going to do everything we can to fight cancer. | 00:06:37 | |
| Support people who are going through it. So what I'm going to do now is we're going to stand right in the middle. And then who? I | 00:06:42 | |
| think this young lady is probably my best bet to keep this safe. I'm going to hand this to you and I want you to stand right in | 00:06:47 | |
| the middle of me and we're going to get a picture taken together. OK, So you all move right over there. | 00:06:52 | |
| Right here y'all gather around. | 00:06:59 | |
| OK. | 00:07:02 | |
| And your eyes need to be able to see this camera. | 00:07:04 | |
| All right, spread out a little bit more. | 00:07:10 | |
| There we go. Perfect. All right, everybody now. | 00:07:14 | |
| Ready. You can get the picture. Get closer city. All right. Ready 123. | 00:07:24 | |
| Say cheese. | 00:07:30 | |
| Now see all they were here we've got one more proclamation then we'll do a quick break and if we have some people come in late if | 00:07:44 | |
| we need to get another picture, we can. But so thankful for all y'all being here tonight. It means means a ton to us to take that | 00:07:50 | |
| you took your time to be here and to support support us and I'm just. | 00:07:56 | |
| Brooks man, that's awesome. | 00:08:03 | |
| Is anyone here from? | 00:08:07 | |
| Georgia Reeds. | 00:08:10 | |
| OK, our final proclamation as Georgia Reads Day Proclamation literacy is not just an education issue, but an economic, workforce | 00:08:12 | |
| and quality of life issue is also a predictor of future educational attainment, economic status, and lifelong health and | 00:08:18 | |
| well-being. | 00:08:23 | |
| The Georgia General Assembly recognized the importance of literacy skills with the passage of two bills in 2023 and understanding | 00:08:30 | |
| that collaborative efforts and strategic partnerships must be undertaken to effectively address Georgia litter. To address | 00:08:36 | |
| literary issues, the Georgia Municipal Association and Georgia City Solutions partnered to establish Georgia Reads at the 2024 GMA | 00:08:42 | |
| Convention. Together, we will improve Georgia's economic vitality one book at a time. | 00:08:48 | |
| Brian Broderick Proclaim September 30th, 2024's Watkinsville, Georgia reads today and encourage all residents, businesses, and | 00:08:54 | |
| community partners to help promote and elevate literacy as a community priority. So all of you boys and girls who are here on | 00:09:00 | |
| September 30th, help your mom and dad remember that's a day that you need to be sure to read whether you're at school or not. | 00:09:05 | |
| OK, that is all for our proclamations tonight. So if anyone is here just for proclamations, you're welcome to go. Do we need to | 00:09:12 | |
| get another photo with all the boys and girls? Yes. OK, let's do that. One more photo. | 00:09:18 | |
| All right, get it around again. | 00:09:35 | |
| Right. | 00:09:43 | |
| Setting. | 00:09:48 | |
| 123. | 00:09:55 | |
| Cheese, I'll turn around and tell you a secret. You'll probably already know it. | 00:09:59 | |
| Right out there so. | 00:10:08 | |
| Stretch your legs on the program. Awesome. | 00:10:13 | |
| See y'all. | 00:10:46 | |
| All right. | 00:10:49 | |
| OK. | 00:10:52 | |
| And onto our normal. | 00:10:54 | |
| The meeting to allow the public sufficient time to provide comments in writing to the clerk if they are unable to be here in | 00:12:25 | |
| person. With that, we'll start off with the approval of the minutes, The minutes of the August 21st regular meeting. I'll | 00:12:30 | |
| entertain a motion to approve those minutes and make a motion to approve the minutes. Do we have a second, Second. Any discussion? | 00:12:35 | |
| All in favor say aye. | 00:12:40 | |
| Any opposed motion carries 5 O. We'll move to the approval of the agenda. I have no amendments to the agenda. Does anyone on | 00:12:46 | |
| council? | 00:12:50 | |
| Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve. | 00:12:54 | |
| I make a motion to approve the agenda. Do we have a 2nd, 2nd? | 00:12:57 | |
| All in favor, say aye. All right, we move to administration. Again. During administration, we have a limited public input only at | 00:13:01 | |
| Council's discretion. Comments shall be only directly related to an agenda items. You need to speak from the podium. If you have | 00:13:06 | |
| something you want to discuss at this point during the meeting, please raise your hand and we'll allow you to come forward at | 00:13:12 | |
| Council's discretion. | 00:13:17 | |
| Look at it can. | 00:13:54 | |
| The move forward on some of these other reports on our Splice 3 report, just a reminder this is this is the one that has that we | 00:13:57 | |
| get 8.63% from with our IGA with Oconee County. Right now our monthly revenues are averaging 82,000 and some change. Most of this | 00:14:04 | |
| money right now is being used for Thomas Farm Preserve and Harris Shoals Park improvements. | 00:14:12 | |
| On again, you'll see here our monthly revenues over the last three almost 3 fiscal years, bank balance pretty healthy bank balance | 00:14:20 | |
| of about 1.4, almost 1.4 million. | 00:14:26 | |
| On the T splash report, this one, we're averaging about 72,000. This one is almost 1% lower. We get 7.77% per our IGA with Oconee | 00:14:33 | |
| County. The funds from this are being used on our our ELNIG projects, which you'll be discussing tonight and some sidewalks in the | 00:14:39 | |
| community. | 00:14:45 | |
| And then this is our our monthly report, just a little bit more than one fiscal year full and we've got 425,000 in the bank. | 00:14:54 | |
| American Rescue Plan report the Council has appropriated the remaining balance of the. | 00:15:03 | |
| Funds that would be close to $90,000 and any, any additional interest we may receive on these funds will go towards the Thomas | 00:15:08 | |
| Farm Preserve project and that is in line with the requirements from the US Treasury that we have that money be appropriate before | 00:15:13 | |
| December 31st of this year. | 00:15:19 | |
| Any questions? | 00:15:26 | |
| OK, move on. On the economic development reports, business alcohol licensing fees, a couple new businesses, Home Run Hangout and | 00:15:28 | |
| Max and Mollies are are sort of some highlights on here that have come. We have no alcohol licenses that came in. | 00:15:36 | |
| On the excise tax, so I mentioned last month that we would have. | 00:15:45 | |
| The full fiscal year 24 shown because we had some bleed over some things that didn't come in. So we actually exceeded by a couple | 00:15:49 | |
| $1000 where our budget, what we budgeted or what we anticipated as far as our collections for hotel, motel and alcohol. And then | 00:15:55 | |
| this is your fiscal year 25 numbers. | 00:16:00 | |
| And you remember we received these after they've been collected, so. | 00:16:07 | |
| And then on the. | 00:16:11 | |
| On the building permits, we have 9 permits for eight different projects. We've got still some workout at Trove and then just some | 00:16:15 | |
| residential, residential and a couple of commercial, I guess, commercial electrical for Britain Electric. Any questions on this? | 00:16:23 | |
| OK, Sema, Thank you. | 00:16:34 | |
| All right, Mayor Pro Tem, what you do downtown development? OK, so I had the privilege to go down to Thomasville for the Georgia | 00:16:38 | |
| Downtown Association fall conference. I. | 00:16:44 | |
| Was it end of August? It's all a blur of all the days merged together and it was fantastic. It reminded me again of just what an | 00:16:50 | |
| incredible state we live in. | 00:16:56 | |
| With really wonderful resources at our disposal to help make our towns, whether they're small, medium or large. | 00:17:03 | |
| Really great communities, so we have strict a lot of great state resources and then also the different people that I met at | 00:17:12 | |
| workshops. | 00:17:16 | |
| In the different communities were so generous with their input on the things they are doing in their communities and how they are | 00:17:22 | |
| overcoming various challenges. So a lot was learned way more that I can summarize in in this little bit of time, but it was well | 00:17:30 | |
| worth it. Some some very good networking was done as well as some really good information found. | 00:17:37 | |
| Also, we have a DDA board member vacancy. The deadline to apply is October 4th. It's on our city website. The e-mail has also been | 00:17:46 | |
| sent out to any businesses in our downtown development area. So I. | 00:17:53 | |
| Yeah, that's it. | 00:18:02 | |
| All right. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. | 00:18:05 | |
| Police Department report Sergeant Hitler. | 00:18:08 | |
| Good evening. | 00:18:16 | |
| Are we on? | 00:18:18 | |
| Maybe. | 00:18:19 | |
| Says this song. Are we good? | 00:18:22 | |
| Good evening, everybody. So I'm here tonight to give the Police Department report. We had officers complete some training for us. | 00:18:25 | |
| I was down in Forsyth and completed the third installment of the management courses down there. So I have finished all of that. | 00:18:33 | |
| Which is nice to be out of the way. | 00:18:42 | |
| Then yesterday I attended the. | 00:18:45 | |
| District 9 Area Chiefs Association meeting in Loganville, got to do some really great networking with chiefs from all the way up | 00:18:48 | |
| in Mountain City, Snellville, everything around us. It was a great time, learned a lot, met a lot of new new people that I didn't | 00:18:56 | |
| previously know. Then Officer Krish completed an impaired driving investigation course over at UGA. | 00:19:03 | |
| Since the last council meeting, he also had a chance to network with some folks over at the Pack, the Prosecuting Attorney Council | 00:19:11 | |
| and the District Attorney's office, folks that work in Athens that he doesn't normally get to interact with. Then Officer Anglin | 00:19:17 | |
| completed his interviews and interrogations class in Forsyth as well. He was down there for three days, learned the insurance and | 00:19:24 | |
| outs of how people react when you're asking them questions. | 00:19:30 | |
| So. | 00:19:37 | |
| Then Officer Krish, the other officer Krish, completed her use of force training for the year, which is great to see that she's | 00:19:38 | |
| doing that when she's remote from us, she's doing that all online. So it was great to see that come in that she had completed all | 00:19:43 | |
| of that. | 00:19:47 | |
| I know everybody's interested in the new truck that we've got. | 00:19:53 | |
| It will be sent off for up fitting down in Augusta on the 3rd. | 00:19:57 | |
| And we'll be back to us probably the week after that should be the week after that. | 00:20:02 | |
| They've been waiting on some supplies to come in so I got noticed that those are in and we were scheduled on the 3rd to drop it | 00:20:08 | |
| off. | 00:20:12 | |
| Other than that, again, we had the Constitution Day events that happened downtown with the cannon firing and the musket volley, | 00:20:16 | |
| which I know. | 00:20:20 | |
| Interests everybody. That's always a fun time. Most folks heard about that and may not have seen it, but they probably heard about | 00:20:24 | |
| it. | 00:20:28 | |
| Then upcoming October 6th, we've got the. | 00:20:33 | |
| Run for responder 5K. | 00:20:37 | |
| Which is happening over at Oconee Veterans Park. | 00:20:40 | |
| We've been there the last couple of years, had a great time. If anybody's interested, yours truly will be in the dunk tank again | 00:20:42 | |
| this year. So you want to come and spend some money and put me in the water? I'd love for you to try. | 00:20:48 | |
| Other than that, then we've got the the monthly stats, which is always fun. We had two arrests, an aggravated assault which | 00:20:55 | |
| happened over on South Main Street and then we had a warrant service out of Bibb County. | 00:21:02 | |
| He was the caller actually didn't realize that he had a warrant for his arrest, so that was unfortunate. | 00:21:10 | |
| We felt bad for him but he got that taken care of really quickly and and is back home now. | 00:21:18 | |
| So total calls of service we had 192. | 00:21:24 | |
| Our officers did 600 security checks since the last council meeting, which is great to see. Our folks are out there checking | 00:21:27 | |
| neighborhoods and making sure that the businesses are secure at night. | 00:21:32 | |
| And we had 25 reports. We had 49 total citations. We had 28 warnings that were written, which is about right. That's about the | 00:21:38 | |
| ratio that we're looking for, about 2 to one, which means that we're cutting folks slack where we can and some folks that don't | 00:21:44 | |
| respond correctly get a little more encouragement. | 00:21:49 | |
| Of those, then, we had 12 incident reports and 13 accident reports, which again is about on par with what we normally see. | 00:21:57 | |
| So other than that. | 00:22:04 | |
| Do you guys have any questions? | 00:22:06 | |
| Great month. Thank you. Thank you guys. | 00:22:11 | |
| All right. We have nothing on consent agenda, nothing on public hearing, nothing under appearances and nothing under old business, | 00:22:15 | |
| but we do have several items under new business. | 00:22:19 | |
| So the first one of those is an update on our employee health insurance. So Manager Dickerson, I'll let you and Sandy Colwell | 00:22:24 | |
| offer the report on that, OK? | 00:22:29 | |
| Thank you, Mayor. | 00:22:34 | |
| So the specific request tonight is to approve the selection of Angle for medical insurance for 12 months beginning October one | 00:22:36 | |
| through September 30th of next year on the rates that were provided on your attachment and renewing with Anthem Blue Cross Blue | 00:22:41 | |
| Shield for employee dental, vision, life, accidental death and dismemberment, short term disability and long term disability for | 00:22:47 | |
| the 12 for the same 12 months. | 00:22:52 | |
| Try to walk through a little bit of history. So San and Caldwell is I guess technically the name of the company is not Insurance | 00:22:58 | |
| Brokers of Georgia. | 00:23:02 | |
| Oak Ridge, we partnered together in 2022, but I'm I'm still used to calling her so. | 00:23:07 | |
| That's right. | 00:23:16 | |
| So, so every year since we started engaging with them back in I guess 2019 I think. | 00:23:19 | |
| 18 they've they've they help evaluate the marketplace for us. This is their business. So they are recommending that we select | 00:23:25 | |
| medical insurance benefits with angle that is A at a 22 and almost a 22 1/2 percent increase over our current Blue Cross Blue | 00:23:31 | |
| Shield rates, which would, if we went with them would increase almost 50% renewing with dental vision long term with the other | 00:23:37 | |
| items with a 4% increase in the dental plan, no increase in the other coverages. Talk a little bit more about that. So again, our | 00:23:43 | |
| current health insurance. | 00:23:49 | |
| Blue Cross Blue Shield, it expires the end of this month. Council has made it a budget priority to cover 75% of this employees | 00:23:55 | |
| benefits. The premiums for those benefits, 100% of life, accidental death, short term and long term disability. It is an integral | 00:24:01 | |
| part of the city's benefit package to not just attract but also retain employees. We don't have a pension program a lot of lot of | 00:24:08 | |
| bigger governments do have and so benefits are a big attraction for us. | 00:24:14 | |
| The following shows the history of the medical premiums over the past fiscal years. You'll see. | 00:24:21 | |
| That when I came in on board in 2018, the the cost was actually higher and the only time that ever exceeded that was in 2022 and | 00:24:26 | |
| it only exceeded by about one less than 2%. So we've been able to keep it low. I'll let Santa maybe make some comments about maybe | 00:24:33 | |
| why it went up this time. We'll talk about a little bit about that. But they have been really instrumental in helping us negotiate | 00:24:41 | |
| those insurance rates for our employees over the of the past six fiscal years. | 00:24:48 | |
| Again, they went out for quotes for those services, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Angle United Healthcare, which is based on the | 00:24:57 | |
| Affordable Care Act guidelines. You do again on your attachment, have a side by side comparison of those medical rates that were | 00:25:01 | |
| provided. | 00:25:05 | |
| Again, based on the proposals, angles, premiums for medical coverage for both the medical plans are basically 24 percent or so, | 00:25:10 | |
| which are respectively much lower than anthems. | 00:25:16 | |
| Continue getting coverage without having to meet another deductible and they do provide a telehealth or a doctor on demand. | 00:26:21 | |
| Similar to Anthem, but Anthem required a copay. | 00:26:28 | |
| Again, this is what we're requesting. I'll turn it over to saying that she may have some more detail or you all may have questions | 00:26:32 | |
| specific, you know that she can answer specifically. | 00:26:35 | |
| She did a great job, Sharon. Yes, as you know, I'm your broker and I represent serve as your advisor and strategize about the | 00:26:41 | |
| upcoming year for the plans that we want to put together in your benefits package. We do review and shop the market every year and | 00:26:47 | |
| compare and contrast. | 00:26:53 | |
| Where we can get the best benefit for the dollar? | 00:26:59 | |
| We did have some high claims. We are a small group. Your rates belong to you. It's based on the Census of enrollment. I wish I had | 00:27:02 | |
| a magic wand that could get everyone just a rate decrease every year, but that's not exactly how it works. And. | 00:27:10 | |
| We received the renewal that did get negotiated down to 44% instead of 46, but it still wasn't worth renewing under the same plan. | 00:27:20 | |
| So I do feel this is our best option and what we are recommending to. | 00:27:26 | |
| The City of Watkinsville to move forward with for the coming plan year. Do you have questions about the plan? | 00:27:33 | |
| If our claims history improves, you know, is there a chance that the rates come back down in future years? | 00:27:43 | |
| We had one year where we actually were in a surplus and received that a couple of years ago, right. So every year is different. | 00:27:51 | |
| And from a simple math perspective, premium is, is a pretty easy calculation. Admin fees, expected claims of the group equals your | 00:27:58 | |
| premium for the most part. That's the equation that we look at. | 00:28:06 | |
| The cost of care often, and this applies to municipalities or any other client of mine, the cost of care is expensive, you know, | 00:28:14 | |
| and I'll give you a good example. | 00:28:19 | |
| I probably shouldn't say this is recorded. If it has a commercial, it's probably a very expensive medication. That is just | 00:28:25 | |
| something to be aware of. That's marketing one O 1. That's not about healthcare, that's about getting that name or Jingle in your | 00:28:32 | |
| mind so that you request that certain medication. And so when you think about that from a small group perspective, a single | 00:28:39 | |
| person's singular and I'm just using this as an example generically not related to the group specifically. | 00:28:47 | |
| But in general. | 00:28:55 | |
| You know, one medication for one person of any group could be very expensive and maybe lop side. | 00:28:56 | |
| The claim payout from the carrier on the coverage, if that makes sense. So we do want to be mindful and we do meetings every year | 00:29:04 | |
| with employees as well. We try to explain and educate how the plans work, how we can be personally responsible for our own | 00:29:12 | |
| healthcare and make wise decisions. We the same way that you would, you know, shop for an oil change or a new pair of shoes. We | 00:29:19 | |
| somewhat we want to bring back a little bit of that personal responsibility and say OK. | 00:29:27 | |
| If I can get this MRI at a standalone facility and it cost $500 versus the hospital and it costs $1200 and they're 2 miles apart, | 00:29:34 | |
| I want to go with Option A. So we have to be mindful. We have to be responsible for those personal healthcare decisions as well, | 00:29:42 | |
| because that does overall affect the claims of the group and the renewals that we receive. | 00:29:50 | |
| Thank you. Any other questions for Sandon or Manager Dickerson? | 00:30:02 | |
| OK, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. | 00:30:06 | |
| I'll make a motion to accept or approve the angle for the next 12 months. | 00:30:12 | |
| OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:30:19 | |
| Actually, just because it's split its angle and Anthem Blue Cross, maybe you could just say option one and then we can cover that | 00:30:21 | |
| maybe. | 00:30:25 | |
| I'll make a motion that we use option one. | 00:30:29 | |
| OK, option 1 is a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:30:33 | |
| 2nd, we have a second from Councilman Garrett. Any further discussion? | 00:30:36 | |
| Hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 00:30:40 | |
| Motion carries 5 O, We'll move on to. | 00:30:44 | |
| Approve awarding contract for the repair and reinforcement of existing timber pilings and replacement of the pedestrian boardwalk | 00:30:49 | |
| at Harris Shoals Park. Manager Dickerson. Thank you, Mayor. | 00:30:54 | |
| So we are going to request tonight that you award a contract to Martin Pelfrey, Handyman, for the contract to repair the | 00:30:59 | |
| pedestrian boardwalk at Harris Shoals Park with a not to exceed amount of $123,592.04. You approve the contract agreement with | 00:31:06 | |
| with that business and approve and authorize the mayor and City clerk to sign all relevant documents. | 00:31:13 | |
| So I'll walk you through some of the highlights. On December 20th, the 23 Council approved releasing half $1,000,000 that have | 00:31:21 | |
| been set aside as a local match for a Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program grant that we had tried 3 * / a three-year period to to | 00:31:27 | |
| obtain and begin actually implementing the Harris Shoals Park Master Plan improvements. And later that month, within just a couple | 00:31:33 | |
| weeks of that, the pedestrian boardwalk. | 00:31:39 | |
| Boardwalk was vandalized, rendering an unsafe for use in February. We engaged read sheets of Structural engineer to give us some | 00:31:46 | |
| input about the replacement of that boardwalk. | 00:31:51 | |
| Sorry, the framing and the railings. | 00:31:57 | |
| On March 7th, we released a request for proposal for the replacement of that 420 linear foot 6 foot wide pedestrian boardwalk. We | 00:32:01 | |
| advertised it in the Oconee Enterprise posted on the website and provided it to 8 companies. These are companies we worked with or | 00:32:08 | |
| or were told about to get in touch with so that we would actually directly provide that information. In mid March shortly after | 00:32:15 | |
| the release, while reviewing the work, one of the contractors was concerned about. | 00:32:22 | |
| The state of the temple pilings and so we held up, we held that up as suspended the RFP to evaluate it further. | 00:32:29 | |
| Engage Geo Hydro to complete some exploration. Some additional information on that. They recommended replacing the timber pilings | 00:32:35 | |
| with something called helical Piers, which you'll see #7 are very expensive. | 00:32:41 | |
| And so we actually provided that information to those contractors that I mentioned earlier. | 00:32:49 | |
| And request that information be back on July 15th. On July 15th we received one proposal from a company called Excel Yell Excel | 00:32:55 | |
| Yale Construction for almost $400,000. Due to the price proposal, which was more than our budget and the lack of competitive | 00:33:01 | |
| proposal proposals, we did not take any action. Shortly thereafter, the main sorry the mayor, myself and the city engineer talked | 00:33:07 | |
| about the. | 00:33:13 | |
| The boardwalk and what really needed to be done there, and perhaps the. | 00:33:20 | |
| Place in the Timber Pines wasn't, wasn't necessary and so we went back and released an RFP for just replacing the the decking and | 00:33:24 | |
| possibly fixing any of the timber Pines that they may come across that may need to be done. There's over like 90 of them. I | 00:33:31 | |
| believe the RFP was advertised both on the 25th and of July and August 1st posted on our website, also sent to all those | 00:33:38 | |
| contractors that were previously mentioned. And we also went after a couple of. | 00:33:45 | |
| Local deck company decking companies. | 00:33:53 | |
| And ask them for their for them to participate as well. | 00:33:56 | |
| On August 9th, we received 2 proposals on that opening. Those were still very high. | 00:34:00 | |
| On August 15th, we decided to issue A2 week extension. We did that as a result of the fact that neither one of those companies nor | 00:34:07 | |
| anyone other than the city clerk and myself were there at the, actually I wasn't there. City clerk and I think Robin, perhaps our | 00:34:13 | |
| executive assistant was there for the opening. So no one was there. We didn't publicize that information and so we extended it two | 00:34:18 | |
| weeks in hopes of maybe trying to get some more people to, to submit and look at it. | 00:34:24 | |
| On August 29th we received 3 proposals, three additional proposals, Martin Pell, free handyman, Piedmont Outdoor Services and | 00:34:31 | |
| Redemption modeling. Piedmont Outdoor is I believe that's the bulldog decking. I have to go back and look, but they're one of the | 00:34:35 | |
| local. | 00:34:40 | |
| As you'll see on the on that listing, we had about 123,000 on Martin Pelfrey 180 a hundred and 207,000 in Piedmont and then | 00:34:45 | |
| another almost 280,000 on redemption. So we are recommending I'm sorry, so based on council programming and there is a budget of | 00:34:52 | |
| about 200,000 for this boardwalk. So we do have money in the SPLOST three budget for this and again we will we would request that | 00:35:00 | |
| the award be given to. | 00:35:07 | |
| Healthy hand demand for an amount not to exceed 123,592 and four cents. | 00:35:15 | |
| It's a lot. | 00:35:22 | |
| Council, this has been. | 00:35:25 | |
| I think. | 00:35:28 | |
| I think one of the most frustrating things. | 00:35:29 | |
| In terms of how long it's taken to get this done and frankly the result of vandalism, it's just really sad when somebody took that | 00:35:32 | |
| action and didn't realize that. | 00:35:36 | |
| The consequences that it took, so it's. | 00:35:41 | |
| But I think we beat every Bush in Oconee County trying to get a low bid on on this. And I think all of us are wish it could be | 00:35:44 | |
| lower, but I don't know that we're going to get a lower number at this point. So that's the mayor's contacts after months and | 00:35:50 | |
| months of discussing this and looking at it. But you're welcome to throw your questions at the manager and then we can look at a | 00:35:55 | |
| motion if you guys are willing to willing to move forward on this. | 00:36:00 | |
| My my question, I guess it would actually be to Mark. | 00:36:09 | |
| I mean, how many, I mean, do we know how many pylons we think might be, I mean, I'm just assuming that they're either 6 by sixes | 00:36:14 | |
| or, or, or telephone pole. Yeah. And, and so again, I think the, you know, from a construction standpoint, it, it, it's not easy | 00:36:20 | |
| to get to that location. That's why the boardwalk is necessary because it's, it's not easily traversed. We can't just pour | 00:36:27 | |
| concrete out there. | 00:36:33 | |
| And and so doing some of the investigation, there was some surface, you know, potential issues where again the vandalism had | 00:36:40 | |
| occurred and some like bolts were were pulled out. | 00:36:45 | |
| And so I think, you know, early on, you know, some of the contractors said, well, hey, we don't want to get in the middle of this | 00:36:50 | |
| project and then have an issue. So that's overtime the the things that have been looked out. So I think based on the information | 00:36:56 | |
| that's been provided most recently after many, many months, gives us the best picture to have a good solution. And so I don't | 00:37:02 | |
| don't have an exact number, but we, we've got an idea and, and there is a little, you know, room is so to speak, if, if we do | 00:37:08 | |
| have. | 00:37:14 | |
| Then we at least know how we would handle those individuals. Yeah, sure. And the reason I asked that it was just looking at the | 00:37:20 | |
| top three where it might go. | 00:37:24 | |
| The top three or I guess the ones that came out on August 29th, there was just a vast difference between Marty and the other two. | 00:37:30 | |
| I mean there's, he's basically $5000 there at roughly 30,000 for, for the additional or for the alternative. And I just curious | 00:37:36 | |
| why, I mean that's, that's a substantial difference. So Marty included and he actually included that repair and his contingency | 00:37:42 | |
| number, not in that number. | 00:37:49 | |
| So he's got, I think he had 10% or whatever and I've got the detail, but 10% of the of his overall cost was put into contingency | 00:37:56 | |
| to deal with that. | 00:38:00 | |
| Man who did it with the city at that time, so. | 00:38:34 | |
| And I think the other thing for all of us to remember is you could do some different things with treated poles back in the 80s | 00:38:38 | |
| than you can now. So we're also kind of hesitant to pull out. Yeah, They had creosote back then. So yeah, you said it so, so, so, | 00:38:44 | |
| you know, we're kind of hesitant to pull those, pull those out when we know how long they're going to last compared to what | 00:38:49 | |
| something new might last in there, so. | 00:38:55 | |
| Completely understand as a guy that was formerly a lineman and yeah, the crease Oak Poles versus any other questions on this one? | 00:39:02 | |
| What's the time frame sharing on this because I know it hadn't rained much. It's probably ideal for him to get on this pretty | 00:39:10 | |
| quick and get it. So the contract is fraud to begin October 1 and finished by December 30. | 00:39:15 | |
| OK, Yeah. | 00:39:20 | |
| So 120 days or whatever that works out to 90 day, I don't however many days that is OK, all right. | 00:39:20 | |
| All right. | 00:39:28 | |
| If no other questions will entertain a motion. | 00:39:29 | |
| I make a motion to approve. | 00:39:33 | |
| The eight option one. | 00:39:37 | |
| All right. We have a motion to approve option one. Do we have a second? | 00:39:41 | |
| Second, all right, any further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed like sign motion carries 5. | 00:39:45 | |
| All right, now we'll move on to the award for the contract for rehabilitation, resurfacing and striping of Mulberry Street from | 00:39:53 | |
| 3rd St. to where the city's the dead end and cemetery, The Cemetery Rd. which is all the roads in the Watkinsville Cemetery. | 00:40:01 | |
| This is Sharon will explain it but this is working with our. | 00:40:10 | |
| Annual allocation from the state manager Dickerson, if you want to offer a report. So we're going to ask that you approve the an | 00:40:16 | |
| award to All About Asphalt for the contract for the FY25 Local Maintenance Improvement Grant. Resurfacing projects which the mayor | 00:40:21 | |
| just mentioned where our Mulberry Street, which is currently a gravel road and Cemetery Rd. which is a single lane Rd. that runs | 00:40:26 | |
| through the cemetery. | 00:40:31 | |
| Is the Cemetery Rd. again, it's a single lane Rd. Mark, if you want to jump in at all, we do have a section of Rd. that will have | 00:41:06 | |
| to be removed. There's some tree roots coming up, some pine trees, I think 4 pine trees that will need to be removed. We've walked | 00:41:12 | |
| that Councilman Garrett and the mayor and I and walked walk that and made the decision that'd be the best option. I believe | 00:41:17 | |
| Engineer Campbell also walked that with us. And then on Mulberry, you'll see that link there that's again, it's a gravel Rd. that | 00:41:23 | |
| will be. | 00:41:28 | |
| Resurfaced. | 00:41:35 | |
| You may recall we have a pavement management program that has identified the condition rating on all of our roads in the city. | 00:41:36 | |
| Again, these the Mulberry Street being a gravel Rd. didn't get a rating because it's a gravel Rd. but it is. It would be nice to | 00:41:42 | |
| surface it. So that sits at the top of the list. Cemetery Rd. also as well because of the concerns with the tree roots and | 00:41:48 | |
| whatnot. | 00:41:54 | |
| That was listed at the top as well and it is actually on the list. Is one of the worst roads. | 00:42:01 | |
| We did estimate it would be closer to 200,000. Happy to report it's not going to be that much to do this right now. We did receive | 00:42:05 | |
| our L mega amount from the state of a little bit more than 47,000 and we released an RFP on August 29th for those projects. And we | 00:42:12 | |
| got our check from the state on the 3rd on the 17th, which was yesterday that you guys got your report. Yesterday afternoon, we | 00:42:20 | |
| received 3 proposals. The one from all that asphalt is the one we were going to recommend. It's 108. | 00:42:27 | |
| A little bit more than 108,000 RT spots that will help fund some of this is required to use 30% of that funding to support this | 00:42:35 | |
| type of work. So that is in line with those goals. The RFP was advertised on September 5th and September 12th and was sent | 00:42:42 | |
| directly to the five companies that we've worked with in the past. Just a reminder, G dot doesn't require contractors working on | 00:42:50 | |
| Element projects be listed in the G dot directory, but they do have to follow G dot specifications. | 00:42:57 | |
| Again, our request is option one to award the contract to All About Asphalt and authorize us to work with that that contractor to | 00:43:05 | |
| also work out widening and resurfacing the entrance road to Thomas Farm. | 00:43:10 | |
| Questions. Yeah, so the. | 00:43:19 | |
| 1000 foot of existing asphalt to be removed is that you're going to remove trees and then put it back Is that the IT was the. | 00:43:22 | |
| Yes, so the, the pine trees and the asphalt don't get along. Yep, absolutely. But what we don't want to do and then and this was | 00:43:30 | |
| the contractors responded well to this as well. We don't want to get a milling machine in the cemetery period. So it's all cut and | 00:43:36 | |
| removed where where the the pavement is the worst based on the roots from the pine trees. Those pine trees will be removed as | 00:43:42 | |
| well, just not by the asphalt companies. But but we, it's not a situation where we have trees that are maybe more desirable what | 00:43:48 | |
| we're worried about removing. | 00:43:54 | |
| 2 oak trees that are in there, but we didn't feel like we didn't want to widen it and encourage fast traffic in the cemetery. We | 00:44:30 | |
| also thought it was important to kind of keep that ambience. So we're trying to be strategic in terms of what's coming out. And | 00:44:36 | |
| then we're also trying to tie that together with some of the efficiency of the work at the Thomas farm. So if we take those out, | 00:44:41 | |
| we can dispose of those trees at a lower cost. Doing that right now. | 00:44:46 | |
| Any other questions? | 00:44:55 | |
| All right, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. | 00:44:58 | |
| I make a motion to approve the bid from All About Asphalt to complete the work. | 00:45:07 | |
| As mentioned here, all right, we have a motion for #1 the action requested. | 00:45:12 | |
| We have a second. | 00:45:18 | |
| Second, all right, I have a motion. We have a second further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye, aye. Any opposed motion | 00:45:19 | |
| carries 5 O All right, we'll move on to the contract for the long-awaited first phase of the long-awaited Symington Bridge | 00:45:27 | |
| sidewalk. Manager Dickerson and engineer Campbell if you want to walk us through that. | 00:45:34 | |
| All right. So we're asking, well, I'll talk about the project first. So this is the generic concept plan for the for the Mulberry | 00:45:47 | |
| St. connector, the Simonton Bridge Rd. connector. The area we're specifically talking about is if you look in the upper far right | 00:45:53 | |
| corner where Simonson Place is, Simonton Drive is from that section all the way to the left hand side of the cemetery. That's the | 00:45:59 | |
| section phase one that we're talking about in this. | 00:46:05 | |
| So we're asking that you award the Gantt Construction and Maintenance LLC the contract for phase one, which is roughly 18180 | 00:46:12 | |
| linear feet of ADA compliant pedestrian and bicycle friendly concrete sidewalk anywhere from 6 to 10 feet along that range. | 00:46:20 | |
| In addition, extension of a 30 inch reinforced concrete pipe near the cemetery in an 18 inch corrugated metal pipe near Simonton | 00:46:29 | |
| Place. We are asking for the amount that the contractor is bid plus up to a 20% contingency. We'll talk a little bit more about | 00:46:35 | |
| that along with authorizing and requesting approval for the contract agreement with that vendor and the mayor and city clerk to | 00:46:41 | |
| sign those documents. | 00:46:47 | |
| So on January 17th, council of this year, council approved submitting AG Tibb. That's the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure | 00:46:54 | |
| Bank grant. | 00:46:58 | |
| And or loan application for this connector project. On June 6th, we were awarded a $1.5 million grant and a $2.25225 million loan | 00:47:02 | |
| from the G Tib for this project. | 00:47:09 | |
| It will be, it is the first step, you know, as the mayor said, the first step towards connecting that part of the community in a, | 00:47:17 | |
| in a way, a pedestrian connection for this part of the community to downtown. And of course Thomas Farm and other neighborhoods | 00:47:21 | |
| along Simonton Bridge have that same opportunity. | 00:47:26 | |
| The on July 8th, the loan and grant agreement was executed by G Tib. On August 29th we released an RFP for this phase. On | 00:47:33 | |
| September 17th we received this was again yesterday we received the following proposals for this project. Gantt construction was | 00:47:40 | |
| at one 63996 Mayweather Concrete was at 1:50 and SEW which is currently working on the the paved paths at Thomas Farm work was it | 00:47:47 | |
| 269 and. | 00:47:55 | |
| Smith and company was at 299. I do want to point out that the RFP specific items made their bid at two 38469. They had included a | 00:48:03 | |
| whole bunch of things like trash cans and lights and things like that that were part of the project, but I'm part of the overall | 00:48:08 | |
| project, but not specific to this RFP. | 00:48:13 | |
| Again, the RFP was advertised on September 5th and September 12th as well as on our website and provided to nine different | 00:48:21 | |
| companies. | 00:48:24 | |
| Directly. | 00:48:29 | |
| Haven't identified that may need to be addressed. And so we advocates for an additional allowance. There were contingency above | 00:49:00 | |
| the price proposal. It was provided just to give us a little wiggle room if we need it as we're going through this project based | 00:49:06 | |
| on the GTA budget that was approved and authorized, we do have sufficient funds for this project. And so again, option 1 is what | 00:49:11 | |
| we're recommending. | 00:49:17 | |
| All right. Council questions for manager Dickerson or engineer Campbell. | 00:49:25 | |
| When is this? | 00:49:30 | |
| Slated to start. | 00:49:33 | |
| So there's portions of the project they can begin very soon. There's some utility coordination that has already begun. But it the | 00:49:37 | |
| totality of this project couldn't start tomorrow because that needs to continue, whether we're talking about AT&T poles or some of | 00:49:43 | |
| those other types of things that that have been working through to look for some better solutions. But yeah, this is a 2024 | 00:49:49 | |
| project, not a, you know, next year project. | 00:49:55 | |
| Yeah. I mean the the one variable that's hanging out there as we are hopeful that we'll be able to. | 00:50:02 | |
| Maybe bury the power lines and stuff along that quarter. So we're working with those utilities and trying to get that done, you | 00:50:07 | |
| know, so that we can do that. So, yeah. | 00:50:11 | |
| Yeah, so. | 00:50:17 | |
| Any other questions? | 00:50:20 | |
| All right, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. | 00:50:24 | |
| I make a motion to. | 00:50:29 | |
| Prove what? Number one action request? All right, we have a motion to approve the action requested. Do we have a 2nd? I'll second | 00:50:32 | |
| we have a second. Any discussion? | 00:50:36 | |
| All right, this is a I'll just say before you do this, a pretty pretty big vote y'all. I think I've been sitting here for 20 years | 00:50:42 | |
| and people have been asking when will there ever be a sidewalk on Simonton Bridge Rd. I know we've all heard that we know there's | 00:50:48 | |
| more to come, but this is this is exciting. So all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 00:50:53 | |
| All right, good news for our friends on Simonton Bridge Rd. | 00:50:59 | |
| All right, we'll move on to manager contract Item 13. | 00:51:03 | |
| Most cities and counties have contracts for their city managers. There's really nothing unusual. I know you've all had time to | 00:51:08 | |
| review and see this. This ones modeled on the Oconee County contract with our county administrator with some additional input from | 00:51:14 | |
| attorney Reitman and some others that he's seen. This protects us and it protects the manager in a situation of non performance or | 00:51:20 | |
| in a situation if we felt like we needed to make a change. | 00:51:26 | |
| And so it's pretty straightforward, but I'll let Attorney Reitman add anything he wants to and then let you guys ask any questions | 00:51:32 | |
| you want to, OK. | 00:51:36 | |
| All right, questions from Council. | 00:51:41 | |
| All right. | 00:51:45 | |
| And this one will go through July of 25, I think 2222, September of 26th, September 26th. | 00:51:47 | |
| So right now it references on anniversary of employment there be a review. I think it'd be more efficient for that review to be | 00:52:01 | |
| synchronized with the time all the other city employees were reviewed. So my recommendation is if there's an approval to approve | 00:52:07 | |
| it with that provides that with that change. | 00:52:12 | |
| Is that what you were about to mention? And that's typically the cadence that we're on. So we request that you approve the | 00:52:18 | |
| contract with the review date moving to April, which is contemporaneous with the rest of our employees. | 00:52:24 | |
| All right, we have a motion. | 00:52:30 | |
| I make a motion to approve the manager contract with the change noted. | 00:52:34 | |
| Do we have a second? | 00:52:39 | |
| 2nd. | 00:52:40 | |
| Any further discussion? | 00:52:42 | |
| Hearing none all in favor say aye, Any opposed? | 00:52:44 | |
| Motion carries 5O. | 00:52:47 | |
| All right, we will move to public comments. Same routine as normal. Comments shall be directly related to agenda items. Speak from | 00:52:49 | |
| the podium, 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate, argument, personal attacks, or irrelevant discussion. Address only the | 00:52:55 | |
| merits of the pending matter or address remarks directly to Council. Council won't speak to potential litigation, attorney-client | 00:53:00 | |
| or personnel matters. | 00:53:05 | |
| All right. | 00:53:12 | |
| I'm Bob Smith. | 00:53:34 | |
| WATKINSVILLE, Georgia. | 00:53:36 | |
| He just voted on the manager. | 00:53:39 | |
| Agreement and it didn't say how much it was going to get paid. | 00:53:43 | |
| We don't see anything in that. But anyways, one thing I wanted to talk about was we're talking about the the the bridge that that | 00:53:47 | |
| hair shows park. | 00:53:53 | |
| And you may want to be concerned about the flood because in 1963, although granite tables out there were washed down to 53 | 00:54:00 | |
| Highway. | 00:54:05 | |
| And now we have houses built. | 00:54:11 | |
| And Bishop venue than Christian lake with with all the rooftops and not as much ground to absorb the water. So be careful about | 00:54:13 | |
| that. I come here to talk about money. | 00:54:19 | |
| How you going to pay back all these millions and dollars that this city is borrowing since September last year? | 00:54:26 | |
| I look at the total, it's about 7.8 million in expenditures. | 00:54:35 | |
| About 5.8 million of that, it borrowed money and I've heard Mayor Brian Broderick say that the money is going to be paid back with | 00:54:41 | |
| sports money. What if the splash doesn't pass in three years and four years it didn't pass on the transportation funding? | 00:54:50 | |
| It took a year later to pass that. Where's this money coming from? | 00:54:59 | |
| Who's paying attention? There's a problem. I walk on the streets, I talk with people. Nobody cares. And you really don't, because | 00:55:05 | |
| they don't know what they don't know. | 00:55:10 | |
| I'm concerned too, about this, this qualification for City Council this year, all of a sudden since 1983 when the charter was was | 00:55:17 | |
| created. | 00:55:24 | |
| Qualifications have been in the latter part of July, the 1st of August for. | 00:55:33 | |
| 30 years, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, this year, the qualifying March and I was asked by somebody today, | 00:55:39 | |
| what could Watkinsville have done? | 00:55:45 | |
| To to notify the people in Watkinsville that that that qualifying for City Council has changed. All of a sudden they were three | 00:55:52 | |
| people that wanted to run in August. They can't run. They couldn't talking to the Secretary of State's office. You couldn't run as | 00:55:59 | |
| an independent. You couldn't run into writing because you missed the deadlines. | 00:56:06 | |
| Why? Why did this happen? | 00:56:14 | |
| Well, I was asked, well, how could walk and spell it could have done it. Well, they put a little blip in the in this city website. | 00:56:18 | |
| Who linked the website? They could have blipped them. Now county Enterprise, how many people read that? | 00:56:25 | |
| In this camp in this town of 3000, plus people. But Watersville did two things it did verify. | 00:56:33 | |
| Things on this hair shows park project year to go they spent city money to send mail out to everybody in this town and in some in | 00:56:41 | |
| Athens I'm told. So there's one thing that this sound could have done #2 in my opinion there was an illegal. | 00:56:51 | |
| An illegal. | 00:57:01 | |
| Meeting held to send out a mail piece without any mailing addresses by the members of this council at that time. | 00:57:05 | |
| And then we're no, no, no, no, no mailing address. And they didn't say who they were. | 00:57:16 | |
| Didn't say who they were, but that's how you notify people. They did it in that, they did it in the other. Why didn't this town | 00:57:24 | |
| notify that people in Watkinsville that qualified? He changed. | 00:57:30 | |
| This is serious stuff, y'all. This is a this is a public. | 00:57:38 | |
| Public meeting and it's not very public. That's not staying open. Thank you. It's not very transparent. Your time is very much. | 00:57:42 | |
| Thank you. | 00:57:47 | |
| Just for clarity on them, since he's not staying to listen, I'll explain it to the rest of y'all for clarity on the how the debt | 00:57:53 | |
| will be repaid. The loan that we're using for the Thomas Farm Park is at what interest rates, You know, one point, 1.63 percent, | 00:58:00 | |
| 1.63%. We have a dedicated mileage increase that was vetted by the state aggressively and we're using that mileage, that very low | 00:58:07 | |
| mileage increase to repay those funds and had to go through a very extensive process. | 00:58:14 | |
| And then the money that we'll borrow in the short term for the sidewalks is also a very low interest rate and will be repaid with | 00:58:22 | |
| T spot funds and those have already been allocated. So those are already allocated for that project. So there's going to be no | 00:58:29 | |
| difficulty repaying the debt. And I won't address the rest of those comments. Mr. White, looks like you have something to say. | 00:58:36 | |
| My name is Johnny Leon. I live on Christian Drive. | 00:59:01 | |
| I'm talking too loud, let me know I'm talking too loud and no because some people haven't shot something. | 00:59:06 | |
| What hell I'm doing I don't like You sound great. | 00:59:11 | |
| Along with that. | 00:59:19 | |
| I've been talking to because all of you know I got bigger sign walking Bill Daniels out of my yard. Some people blow the horn, | 00:59:21 | |
| wave at me. Some people blow the horn, give me the finger and I just sit out then lay. I don't enjoy it all. | 00:59:27 | |
| But you don't come to be a problem with my son. | 00:59:34 | |
| And I've been working with Toby. | 00:59:38 | |
| He gave me a copy of the audience and all that stuff. | 00:59:40 | |
| It's my like insurance part if I read it three times. Still don't know what it means. | 00:59:44 | |
| But apparently someone had nothing to do. | 00:59:49 | |
| Complain about the signs in my yard. It's on my flavor in my backyard. | 00:59:52 | |
| Looking at the signals, I know I'm oversized. It's too big. He's both be there and all that crap. | 00:59:58 | |
| I know that. | 01:00:03 | |
| That's why I got smaller about that too. | 01:00:05 | |
| But looking at the audience though. | 01:00:09 | |
| On the item C. | 01:00:12 | |
| I'm not going to eat all that 'cause y'all got a God, I don't have to. | 01:00:14 | |
| A section permit can be issued at quarterly temporary signs. | 01:00:19 | |
| Why don't I come under that then? | 01:00:26 | |
| Have five more weeks. | 01:00:28 | |
| We got to do nothing really and take care of his own self. Five more weeks, everything be over. | 01:00:31 | |
| So. | 01:00:36 | |
| I'm working on that. | 01:00:39 | |
| Pay. We know my part. Pay no attention to it. I move my sailor. | 01:00:40 | |
| Back down toward the building, get it to get in the center of my lot. | 01:00:46 | |
| I moved up here probably. | 01:00:51 | |
| 5060 feet. | 01:00:53 | |
| Basically what I'm saying Mark Saylor or myself whenever. | 01:00:55 | |
| He parked in the middle of my backyard. | 01:00:59 | |
| No matter what the science is, no matter what size it is. | 01:01:03 | |
| What's in my backyard got nothing to do with this. | 01:01:07 | |
| So what I'm saying? | 01:01:13 | |
| Why can't I pop my side what I want to in my backyard? | 01:01:16 | |
| You got people all over the town, got junk calling. If I have piled in yard, we're talking about two different things. | 01:01:21 | |
| Mainly politics, man. What are you going to put in your trailer, truck or whatever it is? | 01:01:28 | |
| What is in my backyard is my personal feeling. | 01:01:35 | |
| Nobody business, especially people around in highway. | 01:01:39 | |
| They don't look at my yard. Keep that on the road where you have a wreck. | 01:01:43 | |
| Personally I think y'all got more to worry about dude. | 01:01:51 | |
| Be nitpicking with this problem we got. | 01:01:55 | |
| So. | 01:01:59 | |
| I've done what I think I can do. | 01:02:01 | |
| Are planning on doing anyway. | 01:02:04 | |
| I move the sign and inside the road. | 01:02:06 | |
| My trailer in the middle of my backyard. | 01:02:09 | |
| And I don't see what I need. Do nothing else and I'm not planning on doing nothing else. | 01:02:13 | |
| Sometime. | 01:02:20 | |
| What I'm thinking, what I say don't match when it comes out. | 01:02:23 | |
| So. | 01:02:27 | |
| I don't understand what I'm saying. You can call and let me know. | 01:02:34 | |
| Because I think. | 01:02:42 | |
| I think this. | 01:02:44 | |
| I understand what science said, but this I'm talking about sailing in no matter what's on it. | 01:02:46 | |
| I paid a lot of attention to downtown different what's on them. | 01:02:51 | |
| So that's all I got. | 01:02:55 | |
| Thank you, Mr. Leia. | 01:03:00 | |
| Frankly wish people wouldn't send letters about signs too. | 01:03:02 | |
| All right. Any other comments from the public? | 01:03:09 | |
| Once. | 01:03:12 | |
| My name is Lawrence Stoke. I live at 13 Barnett Shoals and I've talked to a number of you. | 01:03:19 | |
| Since I haven't talked to Brett about this, but I appreciate the. | 01:03:25 | |
| All the trees you all bought at Thomas Farms, it's probably 50 plus acres. | 01:03:30 | |
| And I realize we're taking down 4 pine trees, but that's the. | 01:03:36 | |
| But I want to talk about the trees it. | 01:03:40 | |
| Rocket field. | 01:03:42 | |
| I've been thinking about this. Well, we took down a few trees at Rockfield. | 01:03:44 | |
| There's one left, but I also would like to put some trees to shade the sidewalk on 3rd St. and. | 01:03:48 | |
| 2nd St. | 01:03:55 | |
| But also I think it would be nice to have trees in the. | 01:03:56 | |
| What was the dog park outside the fence? | 01:04:01 | |
| So it shades that sidewalk and then shades the playground. And I think for things like Fall Festival or just being out in the | 01:04:04 | |
| park, it'd be nice to have some shade. | 01:04:09 | |
| And it's. | 01:04:15 | |
| Out past the ball field. | 01:04:17 | |
| So that's what I'm and also up there by the Baton court, of course. | 01:04:19 | |
| Machine I like talked about that a lot. | 01:04:23 | |
| And yeah, I think I just could picture down 30 years from now. Having trees around that park would be gorgeous. So thanks for your | 01:04:26 | |
| thoughts. | 01:04:30 | |
| Thank you. | 01:04:35 | |
| All right. Anybody else? | 01:04:39 | |
| OK. | 01:04:44 | |
| All right, we'll move on to the mayor's report. | 01:04:45 | |
| You know. | 01:04:49 | |
| That was you get a little distance from this and. | 01:04:53 | |
| Sometimes you get some distance from a tragedy. It doesn't feel anymore. | 01:04:57 | |
| It starts to feel a little less impactful. This one hadn't gotten to that point for me yet. It sounds like the students are headed | 01:05:01 | |
| back to school on Monday. But I think it's all important as they start that journey that we remember all those students and the | 01:05:07 | |
| families that were affected by the tragedy at Apalachee. So just I just want to call that out. Our, our communities are really | 01:05:12 | |
| close to each other. Our law enforcement community is small. | 01:05:18 | |
| I know we've got Officer White here with us tonight, you know, and this. | 01:05:25 | |
| You know, we've all Sergeant Hibler. You know, you'll probably know folks who. | 01:05:32 | |
| Anyway, who were, who were, I don't know who've been impacted by this. So just I just want us all to remember as we get a little | 01:05:38 | |
| distance from this and other things take over the news cycle that we remember to keep praying for the folks at Apalachee. | 01:05:44 | |
| We have made remarkable progress thanks I think to the lack of rain and some really hard working contractors at Thomas Farm. | 01:05:54 | |
| We are, I think we're probably 90% of the way done with the concrete out there. What remains is pretty much has to wait to be done | 01:06:01 | |
| until after the we're done bringing equipment in and out of there. Work has begun on the park first parking area work is the dams | 01:06:09 | |
| have both been rebuilt in the past month with new siphon systems. The top dam is filling back up. We have a bridge coming for this | 01:06:16 | |
| spot from IMI. Work is ongoing on all the trails on the back of the property, which is just spectacular. That's a. | 01:06:23 | |
| Out of the damn work, the upper pond is filling back up pretty rapidly and then the lower one will start as soon as we get some | 01:06:31 | |
| rain and as soon as that upper pond begins to flow that way. I've spent a lot of time out there. There's not many days that I'm | 01:06:36 | |
| not out there checking on things, y'all. It's just, it's going to be tremendous. I continue to be more and more excited about | 01:06:41 | |
| about what's going to happen out there over the next few months. So more to come, but but it's, it's, it is going to be, it's | 01:06:46 | |
| going to be really amazing. | 01:06:52 | |
| When you when you see our our team or when you see. | 01:06:58 | |
| Mark Thomas and others who are working on this give them a pat on the back. They've really worked hard and we've gotten a | 01:07:01 | |
| tremendous value from our contracting team out there. | 01:07:05 | |
| Chuck Garrett's been flexing his muscles, helping us take care of our pavement, and one way he did that was giving us some good | 01:07:13 | |
| advice on School St. | 01:07:17 | |
| With some culvert work there and getting some RIP rap installed to help preserve that new pavement that was installed there. So | 01:07:21 | |
| we're grateful that that's been installed and done and help us maintain that investment. | 01:07:26 | |
| We have a big event at Harris Shoals on September 28th. | 01:07:32 | |
| Invasive species removal. I'm sure we've all noticed kudzu decided to have a party in Harris Shoals in early 2024 and it's going | 01:07:36 | |
| to be a couple years to get rid of all that. But we would love to have a big community turn out for that event. 9:00 AM to 12:00 | 01:07:42 | |
| PM on September 28th. And that's going to be the more people we have, the more we can get done in, the more invasive so we can get | 01:07:48 | |
| taken out. | 01:07:54 | |
| Reminder the date of the Christmas parade Sunday, December 8th and the Christmas tree lighting will be at 6:00 PM after the parade | 01:08:02 | |
| at 4:00 PM. We've got about two months to get your float registered. | 01:08:08 | |
| Just a reminder, this is easy to forget, but when we worked with Water Park on the their agreement, part of what we asked them to | 01:08:17 | |
| do is install a roundabout at the old Sharp Curve on Norton Road. That project is going to take about a week. It's going to start | 01:08:24 | |
| on October 2nd. That's going to put some pressure on Barnett Shoals and on Main Street for the cars that don't use that. But | 01:08:31 | |
| that's going to be a really nice win for the folks going to Wire Park and other places. | 01:08:38 | |
| That they've got quick access to Norton Road, so that project is going to be October. | 01:08:45 | |
| 2nd, October 9th, we're going to need to promote that a lot so people aren't surprised and I'm sure we'll be. The contractor will | 01:08:50 | |
| be using signage and other things to let people know about that. | 01:08:54 | |
| Last but not least, we've got a birthday. | 01:09:00 | |
| Happy birthday Councilman Thomas's. | 01:09:03 | |
| You want to share was it a milestone? No was not 4343 a youngster youngster with us. So but happy birthday. Happy birthday, Brett. | 01:09:07 | |
| I'm glad you're here with us. We mentioned Constitution Day earlier, so I won't cover that again. I do want to thank it's it's | 01:09:13 | |
| easy to forget. | 01:09:19 | |
| Summer is a busy, busy month for our public Works department. They've got acres and acres of grass to mow. They're trying to | 01:09:27 | |
| digest with the Parks and Rec department how to take care of our new parks and new facilities and all the things that we're doing. | 01:09:33 | |
| Please extend that gratitude to them for us. | 01:10:10 | |
| All right, with that, we'll move on to Council, reports Councilman Garrett post one. | 01:10:14 | |
| Speaking of public works, we had a fun time doing a little patching today and we got some well, well qualified guys that. | 01:10:18 | |
| Can do that now. | 01:10:29 | |
| They're certified. | 01:10:31 | |
| But that one particular spot was a spot that I noticed that it had about a three inch drop off and would Fall festival coming up | 01:10:34 | |
| and Halloween stuff, people walking. | 01:10:39 | |
| Thought there's something at least we could kind of safe it up. | 01:10:45 | |
| So yeah, we had a good time. | 01:10:49 | |
| Doing that, so you say they're certified, Garrett certified. | 01:10:52 | |
| Well, that's got to save. That will save us some money if the guys know how to do that, so. | 01:11:00 | |
| Anything else? Counseling here, That's all. | 01:11:04 | |
| All right, Councilwoman Massey. | 01:11:08 | |
| I attended the event yesterday at the courthouse and that's always a fun and interesting thing. I appreciate all our ancestors and | 01:11:11 | |
| all that they went through to give us our Constitution and everything, and I hope. | 01:11:18 | |
| Except it was alarms instead of bugles. | 01:11:57 | |
| Anything else? | 01:12:00 | |
| All right, we'll move on to Councilman Thomas. Yeah. So welcome to Cooler Weathers. I hope that it stays with us and it's not a | 01:12:02 | |
| false fall. But with that, I'd like to bring back again this year, falling fall for Watkinsville. Let's let's decorate our doors, | 01:12:10 | |
| decorate our yards, you know, give Miss Ivy's a little bit of competition. | 01:12:17 | |
| So we know that she will, she will definitely decorate. But you know, let's, let's other citizens in Watkinsville, please. | 01:12:26 | |
| We encourage you to decorate and get in the spirit of Fall. | 01:12:33 | |
| Also, I wanted to talk about seeing something on Facebook that's been passed around. You're talking about Apalachee. I don't know | 01:12:38 | |
| if I can do this or not, but I'm going to anyway. Texas Roadhouse, I saw a thing going around that on Monday, the 23rd, Texas | 01:12:44 | |
| Roadhouse at all their locations in Georgia is going to be donating 100% of their proceeds for the day to Apalachee, so I'm | 01:12:51 | |
| encouraging. | 01:12:57 | |
| Everybody to go eat lunch and dinner at Apalachee or at at Texas Roadhouse and support our. | 01:13:04 | |
| Awesome. Thank you for mentioning that. That's great. Yeah. | 01:13:16 | |
| All right, Councilwoman Tucker. | 01:13:20 | |
| Nothing this month. All right, Councilman Campbell. | 01:13:23 | |
| Nothing this month, all right. | 01:13:26 | |
| I don't think we have a need for executive session. | 01:13:29 | |
| Anyone have a need for executive session hearing? None. Then I'll entertain a motion to adjourn and make a motion to adjourn. | 01:13:32 | |
| Do we have a second, second. All in favor? | 01:13:37 |
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Transcript
| Give a lot of feedback. | 00:00:01 | |
| OK. | 00:00:05 | |
| All right. Good evening, everybody. | 00:00:08 | |
| Welcome to the. | 00:00:10 | |
| September Watkinsville City Council meeting. | 00:00:12 | |
| OK. We're getting a little feedback here, So we might have to keep experimenting on that. | 00:00:16 | |
| Everyone's here, so we have a quorum. Welcome. We always start with the Pledge of Allegiance. We've got students here from High | 00:00:23 | |
| Shoals Column, Ferry and Rocky Branch. Is that right? So if you all could stand and help us leave the pledge, that would be great. | 00:00:29 | |
| How do we start to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God, | 00:00:39 | |
| indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:46 | |
| It is great to have such a crowd with us tonight. Excited to have chambers full. We have 3 proclamations will do before we get | 00:00:59 | |
| into the business of the meeting. The 1st is Constitution Week. And first of all, Lori Trail. Thank you to you and everyone who's | 00:01:05 | |
| been involved with been involved with that from the Reverend John Andrew chapter. | 00:01:11 | |
| It has been a great week. I wasn't able to be there yesterday, but it sounds like everything went great yesterday and I know | 00:01:19 | |
| Sunday was a really special day. | 00:01:22 | |
| At Ashford, with the children leading us throughout session and reminding us of the importance of the Constitution. | 00:01:26 | |
| Ask what? I was going to read that later. | 00:01:34 | |
| OK, but people can read that if they want to read about the hearing stuff. We can leave that on the screen and then I'll read it | 00:01:41 | |
| later. | 00:01:44 | |
| So the Constitution Week is, was is important and we're grateful to everything that you guys did. So I have a proclamation for | 00:01:51 | |
| that. I'm not going to read the whole thing. I'm going to hit a couple highlights. And Lori, you're welcome to offer your remarks | 00:01:57 | |
| up there as well. Constitution Week, September 17th through 23rd, 2024. The Constitution of the United States of America, the | 00:02:04 | |
| guardian of our liberties, embodies the principles of limited government and Republic dedicated to rule by law. | 00:02:11 | |
| September 17th, 2024 marks the 237th anniversary. | 00:02:18 | |
| Of the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention. It is fitting and proper to a | 00:02:22 | |
| court official recognition to this magnificent document. And it's a memorable anniversary. And to the patriotic celebrations which | 00:02:27 | |
| will commemorate it. I have here unto set my hand and cause the seal of Watkinsville, Georgia to be affixed on this 18th day of | 00:02:33 | |
| September, the year of our award, 2024. Thank you, Lori, for what you've done. | 00:02:38 | |
| We just have a certificate for the City of Watkinsville. Just saying thank you for being so supportive of our chapter and | 00:02:50 | |
| participating in all of our events and for our chapter for a long time now. So I just want to say thank you. | 00:02:56 | |
| Let's stand up there. | 00:03:03 | |
| All right. | 00:03:12 | |
| Thank you. | 00:03:15 | |
| All right, next on the agenda is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We'll have a proclamation for that. I think that's why all of | 00:03:30 | |
| our. | 00:03:33 | |
| Yes, Sir, here. Is that right? | 00:03:37 | |
| OK. | 00:03:40 | |
| Why don't y'all come up here with me? | 00:03:40 | |
| You want to join me for this? Come on up here. | 00:03:45 | |
| All the children, we all ready. This is a proclamation, OK? | 00:03:48 | |
| Why don't y'all stand up and when? Let's look out there and show this smile of those folks, OK, All right, Ready. | 00:03:56 | |
| All right, whereas childhood cancer effects 47 new children each day nationwide, a battle which impacts entire communities | 00:04:03 | |
| including parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and neighbors, this disease impacts hundreds of children each year in the state | 00:04:09 | |
| of Georgia, including some of Watkinsville's youngest and most courageous citizens. We're at. | 00:04:15 | |
| Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is recognized in September with the goal to increase awareness of childhood cancer, the need for | 00:04:20 | |
| more funding and research, and to support those families in Watkinsville affected by childhood cancer in honor and in memory of | 00:04:27 | |
| their children. Specifically in honor. Let's listen guys to this of childhood cancer fighter Brooks Thomas, son of Watkinsville | 00:04:33 | |
| residents Ty and Elise Thomas, who bravely beat Hepboblastic. | 00:04:39 | |
| OK. And which one is Brooks up here with us? | 00:04:47 | |
| Brooks, where are you? | 00:04:49 | |
| Brooks high five man. | 00:04:51 | |
| Wow. | 00:04:54 | |
| I should have read this in advance on Blonde way. These are normally just totally boilerplate. I can't believe Brooks. Man how | 00:04:57 | |
| brave. That is amazing. | 00:05:01 | |
| Families who have a son or daughter who are fighting for have fought active childhood cancer. | 00:05:07 | |
| Often experience long term effects from the treatments that has helped them survive and need additional emotional medical care | 00:05:12 | |
| long after the final treatments are completed. | 00:05:16 | |
| Were to honor families walking through this journey at every step of the way to let them know that they are brave and that they | 00:06:20 | |
| are not alone and witness they arrive. I've set my hand and caused the seal of the city of Watkinsville to be affixed on this 18th | 00:06:26 | |
| day of September 2024. That's a lot of words kids. But what that means is y'all are really brave and we're really grateful that | 00:06:31 | |
| you're here. We're going to do everything we can to fight cancer. | 00:06:37 | |
| Support people who are going through it. So what I'm going to do now is we're going to stand right in the middle. And then who? I | 00:06:42 | |
| think this young lady is probably my best bet to keep this safe. I'm going to hand this to you and I want you to stand right in | 00:06:47 | |
| the middle of me and we're going to get a picture taken together. OK, So you all move right over there. | 00:06:52 | |
| Right here y'all gather around. | 00:06:59 | |
| OK. | 00:07:02 | |
| And your eyes need to be able to see this camera. | 00:07:04 | |
| All right, spread out a little bit more. | 00:07:10 | |
| There we go. Perfect. All right, everybody now. | 00:07:14 | |
| Ready. You can get the picture. Get closer city. All right. Ready 123. | 00:07:24 | |
| Say cheese. | 00:07:30 | |
| Now see all they were here we've got one more proclamation then we'll do a quick break and if we have some people come in late if | 00:07:44 | |
| we need to get another picture, we can. But so thankful for all y'all being here tonight. It means means a ton to us to take that | 00:07:50 | |
| you took your time to be here and to support support us and I'm just. | 00:07:56 | |
| Brooks man, that's awesome. | 00:08:03 | |
| Is anyone here from? | 00:08:07 | |
| Georgia Reeds. | 00:08:10 | |
| OK, our final proclamation as Georgia Reads Day Proclamation literacy is not just an education issue, but an economic, workforce | 00:08:12 | |
| and quality of life issue is also a predictor of future educational attainment, economic status, and lifelong health and | 00:08:18 | |
| well-being. | 00:08:23 | |
| The Georgia General Assembly recognized the importance of literacy skills with the passage of two bills in 2023 and understanding | 00:08:30 | |
| that collaborative efforts and strategic partnerships must be undertaken to effectively address Georgia litter. To address | 00:08:36 | |
| literary issues, the Georgia Municipal Association and Georgia City Solutions partnered to establish Georgia Reads at the 2024 GMA | 00:08:42 | |
| Convention. Together, we will improve Georgia's economic vitality one book at a time. | 00:08:48 | |
| Brian Broderick Proclaim September 30th, 2024's Watkinsville, Georgia reads today and encourage all residents, businesses, and | 00:08:54 | |
| community partners to help promote and elevate literacy as a community priority. So all of you boys and girls who are here on | 00:09:00 | |
| September 30th, help your mom and dad remember that's a day that you need to be sure to read whether you're at school or not. | 00:09:05 | |
| OK, that is all for our proclamations tonight. So if anyone is here just for proclamations, you're welcome to go. Do we need to | 00:09:12 | |
| get another photo with all the boys and girls? Yes. OK, let's do that. One more photo. | 00:09:18 | |
| All right, get it around again. | 00:09:35 | |
| Right. | 00:09:43 | |
| Setting. | 00:09:48 | |
| 123. | 00:09:55 | |
| Cheese, I'll turn around and tell you a secret. You'll probably already know it. | 00:09:59 | |
| Right out there so. | 00:10:08 | |
| Stretch your legs on the program. Awesome. | 00:10:13 | |
| See y'all. | 00:10:46 | |
| All right. | 00:10:49 | |
| OK. | 00:10:52 | |
| And onto our normal. | 00:10:54 | |
| The meeting to allow the public sufficient time to provide comments in writing to the clerk if they are unable to be here in | 00:12:25 | |
| person. With that, we'll start off with the approval of the minutes, The minutes of the August 21st regular meeting. I'll | 00:12:30 | |
| entertain a motion to approve those minutes and make a motion to approve the minutes. Do we have a second, Second. Any discussion? | 00:12:35 | |
| All in favor say aye. | 00:12:40 | |
| Any opposed motion carries 5 O. We'll move to the approval of the agenda. I have no amendments to the agenda. Does anyone on | 00:12:46 | |
| council? | 00:12:50 | |
| Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve. | 00:12:54 | |
| I make a motion to approve the agenda. Do we have a 2nd, 2nd? | 00:12:57 | |
| All in favor, say aye. All right, we move to administration. Again. During administration, we have a limited public input only at | 00:13:01 | |
| Council's discretion. Comments shall be only directly related to an agenda items. You need to speak from the podium. If you have | 00:13:06 | |
| something you want to discuss at this point during the meeting, please raise your hand and we'll allow you to come forward at | 00:13:12 | |
| Council's discretion. | 00:13:17 | |
| Look at it can. | 00:13:54 | |
| The move forward on some of these other reports on our Splice 3 report, just a reminder this is this is the one that has that we | 00:13:57 | |
| get 8.63% from with our IGA with Oconee County. Right now our monthly revenues are averaging 82,000 and some change. Most of this | 00:14:04 | |
| money right now is being used for Thomas Farm Preserve and Harris Shoals Park improvements. | 00:14:12 | |
| On again, you'll see here our monthly revenues over the last three almost 3 fiscal years, bank balance pretty healthy bank balance | 00:14:20 | |
| of about 1.4, almost 1.4 million. | 00:14:26 | |
| On the T splash report, this one, we're averaging about 72,000. This one is almost 1% lower. We get 7.77% per our IGA with Oconee | 00:14:33 | |
| County. The funds from this are being used on our our ELNIG projects, which you'll be discussing tonight and some sidewalks in the | 00:14:39 | |
| community. | 00:14:45 | |
| And then this is our our monthly report, just a little bit more than one fiscal year full and we've got 425,000 in the bank. | 00:14:54 | |
| American Rescue Plan report the Council has appropriated the remaining balance of the. | 00:15:03 | |
| Funds that would be close to $90,000 and any, any additional interest we may receive on these funds will go towards the Thomas | 00:15:08 | |
| Farm Preserve project and that is in line with the requirements from the US Treasury that we have that money be appropriate before | 00:15:13 | |
| December 31st of this year. | 00:15:19 | |
| Any questions? | 00:15:26 | |
| OK, move on. On the economic development reports, business alcohol licensing fees, a couple new businesses, Home Run Hangout and | 00:15:28 | |
| Max and Mollies are are sort of some highlights on here that have come. We have no alcohol licenses that came in. | 00:15:36 | |
| On the excise tax, so I mentioned last month that we would have. | 00:15:45 | |
| The full fiscal year 24 shown because we had some bleed over some things that didn't come in. So we actually exceeded by a couple | 00:15:49 | |
| $1000 where our budget, what we budgeted or what we anticipated as far as our collections for hotel, motel and alcohol. And then | 00:15:55 | |
| this is your fiscal year 25 numbers. | 00:16:00 | |
| And you remember we received these after they've been collected, so. | 00:16:07 | |
| And then on the. | 00:16:11 | |
| On the building permits, we have 9 permits for eight different projects. We've got still some workout at Trove and then just some | 00:16:15 | |
| residential, residential and a couple of commercial, I guess, commercial electrical for Britain Electric. Any questions on this? | 00:16:23 | |
| OK, Sema, Thank you. | 00:16:34 | |
| All right, Mayor Pro Tem, what you do downtown development? OK, so I had the privilege to go down to Thomasville for the Georgia | 00:16:38 | |
| Downtown Association fall conference. I. | 00:16:44 | |
| Was it end of August? It's all a blur of all the days merged together and it was fantastic. It reminded me again of just what an | 00:16:50 | |
| incredible state we live in. | 00:16:56 | |
| With really wonderful resources at our disposal to help make our towns, whether they're small, medium or large. | 00:17:03 | |
| Really great communities, so we have strict a lot of great state resources and then also the different people that I met at | 00:17:12 | |
| workshops. | 00:17:16 | |
| In the different communities were so generous with their input on the things they are doing in their communities and how they are | 00:17:22 | |
| overcoming various challenges. So a lot was learned way more that I can summarize in in this little bit of time, but it was well | 00:17:30 | |
| worth it. Some some very good networking was done as well as some really good information found. | 00:17:37 | |
| Also, we have a DDA board member vacancy. The deadline to apply is October 4th. It's on our city website. The e-mail has also been | 00:17:46 | |
| sent out to any businesses in our downtown development area. So I. | 00:17:53 | |
| Yeah, that's it. | 00:18:02 | |
| All right. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. | 00:18:05 | |
| Police Department report Sergeant Hitler. | 00:18:08 | |
| Good evening. | 00:18:16 | |
| Are we on? | 00:18:18 | |
| Maybe. | 00:18:19 | |
| Says this song. Are we good? | 00:18:22 | |
| Good evening, everybody. So I'm here tonight to give the Police Department report. We had officers complete some training for us. | 00:18:25 | |
| I was down in Forsyth and completed the third installment of the management courses down there. So I have finished all of that. | 00:18:33 | |
| Which is nice to be out of the way. | 00:18:42 | |
| Then yesterday I attended the. | 00:18:45 | |
| District 9 Area Chiefs Association meeting in Loganville, got to do some really great networking with chiefs from all the way up | 00:18:48 | |
| in Mountain City, Snellville, everything around us. It was a great time, learned a lot, met a lot of new new people that I didn't | 00:18:56 | |
| previously know. Then Officer Krish completed an impaired driving investigation course over at UGA. | 00:19:03 | |
| Since the last council meeting, he also had a chance to network with some folks over at the Pack, the Prosecuting Attorney Council | 00:19:11 | |
| and the District Attorney's office, folks that work in Athens that he doesn't normally get to interact with. Then Officer Anglin | 00:19:17 | |
| completed his interviews and interrogations class in Forsyth as well. He was down there for three days, learned the insurance and | 00:19:24 | |
| outs of how people react when you're asking them questions. | 00:19:30 | |
| So. | 00:19:37 | |
| Then Officer Krish, the other officer Krish, completed her use of force training for the year, which is great to see that she's | 00:19:38 | |
| doing that when she's remote from us, she's doing that all online. So it was great to see that come in that she had completed all | 00:19:43 | |
| of that. | 00:19:47 | |
| I know everybody's interested in the new truck that we've got. | 00:19:53 | |
| It will be sent off for up fitting down in Augusta on the 3rd. | 00:19:57 | |
| And we'll be back to us probably the week after that should be the week after that. | 00:20:02 | |
| They've been waiting on some supplies to come in so I got noticed that those are in and we were scheduled on the 3rd to drop it | 00:20:08 | |
| off. | 00:20:12 | |
| Other than that, again, we had the Constitution Day events that happened downtown with the cannon firing and the musket volley, | 00:20:16 | |
| which I know. | 00:20:20 | |
| Interests everybody. That's always a fun time. Most folks heard about that and may not have seen it, but they probably heard about | 00:20:24 | |
| it. | 00:20:28 | |
| Then upcoming October 6th, we've got the. | 00:20:33 | |
| Run for responder 5K. | 00:20:37 | |
| Which is happening over at Oconee Veterans Park. | 00:20:40 | |
| We've been there the last couple of years, had a great time. If anybody's interested, yours truly will be in the dunk tank again | 00:20:42 | |
| this year. So you want to come and spend some money and put me in the water? I'd love for you to try. | 00:20:48 | |
| Other than that, then we've got the the monthly stats, which is always fun. We had two arrests, an aggravated assault which | 00:20:55 | |
| happened over on South Main Street and then we had a warrant service out of Bibb County. | 00:21:02 | |
| He was the caller actually didn't realize that he had a warrant for his arrest, so that was unfortunate. | 00:21:10 | |
| We felt bad for him but he got that taken care of really quickly and and is back home now. | 00:21:18 | |
| So total calls of service we had 192. | 00:21:24 | |
| Our officers did 600 security checks since the last council meeting, which is great to see. Our folks are out there checking | 00:21:27 | |
| neighborhoods and making sure that the businesses are secure at night. | 00:21:32 | |
| And we had 25 reports. We had 49 total citations. We had 28 warnings that were written, which is about right. That's about the | 00:21:38 | |
| ratio that we're looking for, about 2 to one, which means that we're cutting folks slack where we can and some folks that don't | 00:21:44 | |
| respond correctly get a little more encouragement. | 00:21:49 | |
| Of those, then, we had 12 incident reports and 13 accident reports, which again is about on par with what we normally see. | 00:21:57 | |
| So other than that. | 00:22:04 | |
| Do you guys have any questions? | 00:22:06 | |
| Great month. Thank you. Thank you guys. | 00:22:11 | |
| All right. We have nothing on consent agenda, nothing on public hearing, nothing under appearances and nothing under old business, | 00:22:15 | |
| but we do have several items under new business. | 00:22:19 | |
| So the first one of those is an update on our employee health insurance. So Manager Dickerson, I'll let you and Sandy Colwell | 00:22:24 | |
| offer the report on that, OK? | 00:22:29 | |
| Thank you, Mayor. | 00:22:34 | |
| So the specific request tonight is to approve the selection of Angle for medical insurance for 12 months beginning October one | 00:22:36 | |
| through September 30th of next year on the rates that were provided on your attachment and renewing with Anthem Blue Cross Blue | 00:22:41 | |
| Shield for employee dental, vision, life, accidental death and dismemberment, short term disability and long term disability for | 00:22:47 | |
| the 12 for the same 12 months. | 00:22:52 | |
| Try to walk through a little bit of history. So San and Caldwell is I guess technically the name of the company is not Insurance | 00:22:58 | |
| Brokers of Georgia. | 00:23:02 | |
| Oak Ridge, we partnered together in 2022, but I'm I'm still used to calling her so. | 00:23:07 | |
| That's right. | 00:23:16 | |
| So, so every year since we started engaging with them back in I guess 2019 I think. | 00:23:19 | |
| 18 they've they've they help evaluate the marketplace for us. This is their business. So they are recommending that we select | 00:23:25 | |
| medical insurance benefits with angle that is A at a 22 and almost a 22 1/2 percent increase over our current Blue Cross Blue | 00:23:31 | |
| Shield rates, which would, if we went with them would increase almost 50% renewing with dental vision long term with the other | 00:23:37 | |
| items with a 4% increase in the dental plan, no increase in the other coverages. Talk a little bit more about that. So again, our | 00:23:43 | |
| current health insurance. | 00:23:49 | |
| Blue Cross Blue Shield, it expires the end of this month. Council has made it a budget priority to cover 75% of this employees | 00:23:55 | |
| benefits. The premiums for those benefits, 100% of life, accidental death, short term and long term disability. It is an integral | 00:24:01 | |
| part of the city's benefit package to not just attract but also retain employees. We don't have a pension program a lot of lot of | 00:24:08 | |
| bigger governments do have and so benefits are a big attraction for us. | 00:24:14 | |
| The following shows the history of the medical premiums over the past fiscal years. You'll see. | 00:24:21 | |
| That when I came in on board in 2018, the the cost was actually higher and the only time that ever exceeded that was in 2022 and | 00:24:26 | |
| it only exceeded by about one less than 2%. So we've been able to keep it low. I'll let Santa maybe make some comments about maybe | 00:24:33 | |
| why it went up this time. We'll talk about a little bit about that. But they have been really instrumental in helping us negotiate | 00:24:41 | |
| those insurance rates for our employees over the of the past six fiscal years. | 00:24:48 | |
| Again, they went out for quotes for those services, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Angle United Healthcare, which is based on the | 00:24:57 | |
| Affordable Care Act guidelines. You do again on your attachment, have a side by side comparison of those medical rates that were | 00:25:01 | |
| provided. | 00:25:05 | |
| Again, based on the proposals, angles, premiums for medical coverage for both the medical plans are basically 24 percent or so, | 00:25:10 | |
| which are respectively much lower than anthems. | 00:25:16 | |
| Continue getting coverage without having to meet another deductible and they do provide a telehealth or a doctor on demand. | 00:26:21 | |
| Similar to Anthem, but Anthem required a copay. | 00:26:28 | |
| Again, this is what we're requesting. I'll turn it over to saying that she may have some more detail or you all may have questions | 00:26:32 | |
| specific, you know that she can answer specifically. | 00:26:35 | |
| She did a great job, Sharon. Yes, as you know, I'm your broker and I represent serve as your advisor and strategize about the | 00:26:41 | |
| upcoming year for the plans that we want to put together in your benefits package. We do review and shop the market every year and | 00:26:47 | |
| compare and contrast. | 00:26:53 | |
| Where we can get the best benefit for the dollar? | 00:26:59 | |
| We did have some high claims. We are a small group. Your rates belong to you. It's based on the Census of enrollment. I wish I had | 00:27:02 | |
| a magic wand that could get everyone just a rate decrease every year, but that's not exactly how it works. And. | 00:27:10 | |
| We received the renewal that did get negotiated down to 44% instead of 46, but it still wasn't worth renewing under the same plan. | 00:27:20 | |
| So I do feel this is our best option and what we are recommending to. | 00:27:26 | |
| The City of Watkinsville to move forward with for the coming plan year. Do you have questions about the plan? | 00:27:33 | |
| If our claims history improves, you know, is there a chance that the rates come back down in future years? | 00:27:43 | |
| We had one year where we actually were in a surplus and received that a couple of years ago, right. So every year is different. | 00:27:51 | |
| And from a simple math perspective, premium is, is a pretty easy calculation. Admin fees, expected claims of the group equals your | 00:27:58 | |
| premium for the most part. That's the equation that we look at. | 00:28:06 | |
| The cost of care often, and this applies to municipalities or any other client of mine, the cost of care is expensive, you know, | 00:28:14 | |
| and I'll give you a good example. | 00:28:19 | |
| I probably shouldn't say this is recorded. If it has a commercial, it's probably a very expensive medication. That is just | 00:28:25 | |
| something to be aware of. That's marketing one O 1. That's not about healthcare, that's about getting that name or Jingle in your | 00:28:32 | |
| mind so that you request that certain medication. And so when you think about that from a small group perspective, a single | 00:28:39 | |
| person's singular and I'm just using this as an example generically not related to the group specifically. | 00:28:47 | |
| But in general. | 00:28:55 | |
| You know, one medication for one person of any group could be very expensive and maybe lop side. | 00:28:56 | |
| The claim payout from the carrier on the coverage, if that makes sense. So we do want to be mindful and we do meetings every year | 00:29:04 | |
| with employees as well. We try to explain and educate how the plans work, how we can be personally responsible for our own | 00:29:12 | |
| healthcare and make wise decisions. We the same way that you would, you know, shop for an oil change or a new pair of shoes. We | 00:29:19 | |
| somewhat we want to bring back a little bit of that personal responsibility and say OK. | 00:29:27 | |
| If I can get this MRI at a standalone facility and it cost $500 versus the hospital and it costs $1200 and they're 2 miles apart, | 00:29:34 | |
| I want to go with Option A. So we have to be mindful. We have to be responsible for those personal healthcare decisions as well, | 00:29:42 | |
| because that does overall affect the claims of the group and the renewals that we receive. | 00:29:50 | |
| Thank you. Any other questions for Sandon or Manager Dickerson? | 00:30:02 | |
| OK, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. | 00:30:06 | |
| I'll make a motion to accept or approve the angle for the next 12 months. | 00:30:12 | |
| OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:30:19 | |
| Actually, just because it's split its angle and Anthem Blue Cross, maybe you could just say option one and then we can cover that | 00:30:21 | |
| maybe. | 00:30:25 | |
| I'll make a motion that we use option one. | 00:30:29 | |
| OK, option 1 is a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:30:33 | |
| 2nd, we have a second from Councilman Garrett. Any further discussion? | 00:30:36 | |
| Hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 00:30:40 | |
| Motion carries 5 O, We'll move on to. | 00:30:44 | |
| Approve awarding contract for the repair and reinforcement of existing timber pilings and replacement of the pedestrian boardwalk | 00:30:49 | |
| at Harris Shoals Park. Manager Dickerson. Thank you, Mayor. | 00:30:54 | |
| So we are going to request tonight that you award a contract to Martin Pelfrey, Handyman, for the contract to repair the | 00:30:59 | |
| pedestrian boardwalk at Harris Shoals Park with a not to exceed amount of $123,592.04. You approve the contract agreement with | 00:31:06 | |
| with that business and approve and authorize the mayor and City clerk to sign all relevant documents. | 00:31:13 | |
| So I'll walk you through some of the highlights. On December 20th, the 23 Council approved releasing half $1,000,000 that have | 00:31:21 | |
| been set aside as a local match for a Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program grant that we had tried 3 * / a three-year period to to | 00:31:27 | |
| obtain and begin actually implementing the Harris Shoals Park Master Plan improvements. And later that month, within just a couple | 00:31:33 | |
| weeks of that, the pedestrian boardwalk. | 00:31:39 | |
| Boardwalk was vandalized, rendering an unsafe for use in February. We engaged read sheets of Structural engineer to give us some | 00:31:46 | |
| input about the replacement of that boardwalk. | 00:31:51 | |
| Sorry, the framing and the railings. | 00:31:57 | |
| On March 7th, we released a request for proposal for the replacement of that 420 linear foot 6 foot wide pedestrian boardwalk. We | 00:32:01 | |
| advertised it in the Oconee Enterprise posted on the website and provided it to 8 companies. These are companies we worked with or | 00:32:08 | |
| or were told about to get in touch with so that we would actually directly provide that information. In mid March shortly after | 00:32:15 | |
| the release, while reviewing the work, one of the contractors was concerned about. | 00:32:22 | |
| The state of the temple pilings and so we held up, we held that up as suspended the RFP to evaluate it further. | 00:32:29 | |
| Engage Geo Hydro to complete some exploration. Some additional information on that. They recommended replacing the timber pilings | 00:32:35 | |
| with something called helical Piers, which you'll see #7 are very expensive. | 00:32:41 | |
| And so we actually provided that information to those contractors that I mentioned earlier. | 00:32:49 | |
| And request that information be back on July 15th. On July 15th we received one proposal from a company called Excel Yell Excel | 00:32:55 | |
| Yale Construction for almost $400,000. Due to the price proposal, which was more than our budget and the lack of competitive | 00:33:01 | |
| proposal proposals, we did not take any action. Shortly thereafter, the main sorry the mayor, myself and the city engineer talked | 00:33:07 | |
| about the. | 00:33:13 | |
| The boardwalk and what really needed to be done there, and perhaps the. | 00:33:20 | |
| Place in the Timber Pines wasn't, wasn't necessary and so we went back and released an RFP for just replacing the the decking and | 00:33:24 | |
| possibly fixing any of the timber Pines that they may come across that may need to be done. There's over like 90 of them. I | 00:33:31 | |
| believe the RFP was advertised both on the 25th and of July and August 1st posted on our website, also sent to all those | 00:33:38 | |
| contractors that were previously mentioned. And we also went after a couple of. | 00:33:45 | |
| Local deck company decking companies. | 00:33:53 | |
| And ask them for their for them to participate as well. | 00:33:56 | |
| On August 9th, we received 2 proposals on that opening. Those were still very high. | 00:34:00 | |
| On August 15th, we decided to issue A2 week extension. We did that as a result of the fact that neither one of those companies nor | 00:34:07 | |
| anyone other than the city clerk and myself were there at the, actually I wasn't there. City clerk and I think Robin, perhaps our | 00:34:13 | |
| executive assistant was there for the opening. So no one was there. We didn't publicize that information and so we extended it two | 00:34:18 | |
| weeks in hopes of maybe trying to get some more people to, to submit and look at it. | 00:34:24 | |
| On August 29th we received 3 proposals, three additional proposals, Martin Pell, free handyman, Piedmont Outdoor Services and | 00:34:31 | |
| Redemption modeling. Piedmont Outdoor is I believe that's the bulldog decking. I have to go back and look, but they're one of the | 00:34:35 | |
| local. | 00:34:40 | |
| As you'll see on the on that listing, we had about 123,000 on Martin Pelfrey 180 a hundred and 207,000 in Piedmont and then | 00:34:45 | |
| another almost 280,000 on redemption. So we are recommending I'm sorry, so based on council programming and there is a budget of | 00:34:52 | |
| about 200,000 for this boardwalk. So we do have money in the SPLOST three budget for this and again we will we would request that | 00:35:00 | |
| the award be given to. | 00:35:07 | |
| Healthy hand demand for an amount not to exceed 123,592 and four cents. | 00:35:15 | |
| It's a lot. | 00:35:22 | |
| Council, this has been. | 00:35:25 | |
| I think. | 00:35:28 | |
| I think one of the most frustrating things. | 00:35:29 | |
| In terms of how long it's taken to get this done and frankly the result of vandalism, it's just really sad when somebody took that | 00:35:32 | |
| action and didn't realize that. | 00:35:36 | |
| The consequences that it took, so it's. | 00:35:41 | |
| But I think we beat every Bush in Oconee County trying to get a low bid on on this. And I think all of us are wish it could be | 00:35:44 | |
| lower, but I don't know that we're going to get a lower number at this point. So that's the mayor's contacts after months and | 00:35:50 | |
| months of discussing this and looking at it. But you're welcome to throw your questions at the manager and then we can look at a | 00:35:55 | |
| motion if you guys are willing to willing to move forward on this. | 00:36:00 | |
| My my question, I guess it would actually be to Mark. | 00:36:09 | |
| I mean, how many, I mean, do we know how many pylons we think might be, I mean, I'm just assuming that they're either 6 by sixes | 00:36:14 | |
| or, or, or telephone pole. Yeah. And, and so again, I think the, you know, from a construction standpoint, it, it, it's not easy | 00:36:20 | |
| to get to that location. That's why the boardwalk is necessary because it's, it's not easily traversed. We can't just pour | 00:36:27 | |
| concrete out there. | 00:36:33 | |
| And and so doing some of the investigation, there was some surface, you know, potential issues where again the vandalism had | 00:36:40 | |
| occurred and some like bolts were were pulled out. | 00:36:45 | |
| And so I think, you know, early on, you know, some of the contractors said, well, hey, we don't want to get in the middle of this | 00:36:50 | |
| project and then have an issue. So that's overtime the the things that have been looked out. So I think based on the information | 00:36:56 | |
| that's been provided most recently after many, many months, gives us the best picture to have a good solution. And so I don't | 00:37:02 | |
| don't have an exact number, but we, we've got an idea and, and there is a little, you know, room is so to speak, if, if we do | 00:37:08 | |
| have. | 00:37:14 | |
| Then we at least know how we would handle those individuals. Yeah, sure. And the reason I asked that it was just looking at the | 00:37:20 | |
| top three where it might go. | 00:37:24 | |
| The top three or I guess the ones that came out on August 29th, there was just a vast difference between Marty and the other two. | 00:37:30 | |
| I mean there's, he's basically $5000 there at roughly 30,000 for, for the additional or for the alternative. And I just curious | 00:37:36 | |
| why, I mean that's, that's a substantial difference. So Marty included and he actually included that repair and his contingency | 00:37:42 | |
| number, not in that number. | 00:37:49 | |
| So he's got, I think he had 10% or whatever and I've got the detail, but 10% of the of his overall cost was put into contingency | 00:37:56 | |
| to deal with that. | 00:38:00 | |
| Man who did it with the city at that time, so. | 00:38:34 | |
| And I think the other thing for all of us to remember is you could do some different things with treated poles back in the 80s | 00:38:38 | |
| than you can now. So we're also kind of hesitant to pull out. Yeah, They had creosote back then. So yeah, you said it so, so, so, | 00:38:44 | |
| you know, we're kind of hesitant to pull those, pull those out when we know how long they're going to last compared to what | 00:38:49 | |
| something new might last in there, so. | 00:38:55 | |
| Completely understand as a guy that was formerly a lineman and yeah, the crease Oak Poles versus any other questions on this one? | 00:39:02 | |
| What's the time frame sharing on this because I know it hadn't rained much. It's probably ideal for him to get on this pretty | 00:39:10 | |
| quick and get it. So the contract is fraud to begin October 1 and finished by December 30. | 00:39:15 | |
| OK, Yeah. | 00:39:20 | |
| So 120 days or whatever that works out to 90 day, I don't however many days that is OK, all right. | 00:39:20 | |
| All right. | 00:39:28 | |
| If no other questions will entertain a motion. | 00:39:29 | |
| I make a motion to approve. | 00:39:33 | |
| The eight option one. | 00:39:37 | |
| All right. We have a motion to approve option one. Do we have a second? | 00:39:41 | |
| Second, all right, any further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed like sign motion carries 5. | 00:39:45 | |
| All right, now we'll move on to the award for the contract for rehabilitation, resurfacing and striping of Mulberry Street from | 00:39:53 | |
| 3rd St. to where the city's the dead end and cemetery, The Cemetery Rd. which is all the roads in the Watkinsville Cemetery. | 00:40:01 | |
| This is Sharon will explain it but this is working with our. | 00:40:10 | |
| Annual allocation from the state manager Dickerson, if you want to offer a report. So we're going to ask that you approve the an | 00:40:16 | |
| award to All About Asphalt for the contract for the FY25 Local Maintenance Improvement Grant. Resurfacing projects which the mayor | 00:40:21 | |
| just mentioned where our Mulberry Street, which is currently a gravel road and Cemetery Rd. which is a single lane Rd. that runs | 00:40:26 | |
| through the cemetery. | 00:40:31 | |
| Is the Cemetery Rd. again, it's a single lane Rd. Mark, if you want to jump in at all, we do have a section of Rd. that will have | 00:41:06 | |
| to be removed. There's some tree roots coming up, some pine trees, I think 4 pine trees that will need to be removed. We've walked | 00:41:12 | |
| that Councilman Garrett and the mayor and I and walked walk that and made the decision that'd be the best option. I believe | 00:41:17 | |
| Engineer Campbell also walked that with us. And then on Mulberry, you'll see that link there that's again, it's a gravel Rd. that | 00:41:23 | |
| will be. | 00:41:28 | |
| Resurfaced. | 00:41:35 | |
| You may recall we have a pavement management program that has identified the condition rating on all of our roads in the city. | 00:41:36 | |
| Again, these the Mulberry Street being a gravel Rd. didn't get a rating because it's a gravel Rd. but it is. It would be nice to | 00:41:42 | |
| surface it. So that sits at the top of the list. Cemetery Rd. also as well because of the concerns with the tree roots and | 00:41:48 | |
| whatnot. | 00:41:54 | |
| That was listed at the top as well and it is actually on the list. Is one of the worst roads. | 00:42:01 | |
| We did estimate it would be closer to 200,000. Happy to report it's not going to be that much to do this right now. We did receive | 00:42:05 | |
| our L mega amount from the state of a little bit more than 47,000 and we released an RFP on August 29th for those projects. And we | 00:42:12 | |
| got our check from the state on the 3rd on the 17th, which was yesterday that you guys got your report. Yesterday afternoon, we | 00:42:20 | |
| received 3 proposals. The one from all that asphalt is the one we were going to recommend. It's 108. | 00:42:27 | |
| A little bit more than 108,000 RT spots that will help fund some of this is required to use 30% of that funding to support this | 00:42:35 | |
| type of work. So that is in line with those goals. The RFP was advertised on September 5th and September 12th and was sent | 00:42:42 | |
| directly to the five companies that we've worked with in the past. Just a reminder, G dot doesn't require contractors working on | 00:42:50 | |
| Element projects be listed in the G dot directory, but they do have to follow G dot specifications. | 00:42:57 | |
| Again, our request is option one to award the contract to All About Asphalt and authorize us to work with that that contractor to | 00:43:05 | |
| also work out widening and resurfacing the entrance road to Thomas Farm. | 00:43:10 | |
| Questions. Yeah, so the. | 00:43:19 | |
| 1000 foot of existing asphalt to be removed is that you're going to remove trees and then put it back Is that the IT was the. | 00:43:22 | |
| Yes, so the, the pine trees and the asphalt don't get along. Yep, absolutely. But what we don't want to do and then and this was | 00:43:30 | |
| the contractors responded well to this as well. We don't want to get a milling machine in the cemetery period. So it's all cut and | 00:43:36 | |
| removed where where the the pavement is the worst based on the roots from the pine trees. Those pine trees will be removed as | 00:43:42 | |
| well, just not by the asphalt companies. But but we, it's not a situation where we have trees that are maybe more desirable what | 00:43:48 | |
| we're worried about removing. | 00:43:54 | |
| 2 oak trees that are in there, but we didn't feel like we didn't want to widen it and encourage fast traffic in the cemetery. We | 00:44:30 | |
| also thought it was important to kind of keep that ambience. So we're trying to be strategic in terms of what's coming out. And | 00:44:36 | |
| then we're also trying to tie that together with some of the efficiency of the work at the Thomas farm. So if we take those out, | 00:44:41 | |
| we can dispose of those trees at a lower cost. Doing that right now. | 00:44:46 | |
| Any other questions? | 00:44:55 | |
| All right, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. | 00:44:58 | |
| I make a motion to approve the bid from All About Asphalt to complete the work. | 00:45:07 | |
| As mentioned here, all right, we have a motion for #1 the action requested. | 00:45:12 | |
| We have a second. | 00:45:18 | |
| Second, all right, I have a motion. We have a second further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye, aye. Any opposed motion | 00:45:19 | |
| carries 5 O All right, we'll move on to the contract for the long-awaited first phase of the long-awaited Symington Bridge | 00:45:27 | |
| sidewalk. Manager Dickerson and engineer Campbell if you want to walk us through that. | 00:45:34 | |
| All right. So we're asking, well, I'll talk about the project first. So this is the generic concept plan for the for the Mulberry | 00:45:47 | |
| St. connector, the Simonton Bridge Rd. connector. The area we're specifically talking about is if you look in the upper far right | 00:45:53 | |
| corner where Simonson Place is, Simonton Drive is from that section all the way to the left hand side of the cemetery. That's the | 00:45:59 | |
| section phase one that we're talking about in this. | 00:46:05 | |
| So we're asking that you award the Gantt Construction and Maintenance LLC the contract for phase one, which is roughly 18180 | 00:46:12 | |
| linear feet of ADA compliant pedestrian and bicycle friendly concrete sidewalk anywhere from 6 to 10 feet along that range. | 00:46:20 | |
| In addition, extension of a 30 inch reinforced concrete pipe near the cemetery in an 18 inch corrugated metal pipe near Simonton | 00:46:29 | |
| Place. We are asking for the amount that the contractor is bid plus up to a 20% contingency. We'll talk a little bit more about | 00:46:35 | |
| that along with authorizing and requesting approval for the contract agreement with that vendor and the mayor and city clerk to | 00:46:41 | |
| sign those documents. | 00:46:47 | |
| So on January 17th, council of this year, council approved submitting AG Tibb. That's the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure | 00:46:54 | |
| Bank grant. | 00:46:58 | |
| And or loan application for this connector project. On June 6th, we were awarded a $1.5 million grant and a $2.25225 million loan | 00:47:02 | |
| from the G Tib for this project. | 00:47:09 | |
| It will be, it is the first step, you know, as the mayor said, the first step towards connecting that part of the community in a, | 00:47:17 | |
| in a way, a pedestrian connection for this part of the community to downtown. And of course Thomas Farm and other neighborhoods | 00:47:21 | |
| along Simonton Bridge have that same opportunity. | 00:47:26 | |
| The on July 8th, the loan and grant agreement was executed by G Tib. On August 29th we released an RFP for this phase. On | 00:47:33 | |
| September 17th we received this was again yesterday we received the following proposals for this project. Gantt construction was | 00:47:40 | |
| at one 63996 Mayweather Concrete was at 1:50 and SEW which is currently working on the the paved paths at Thomas Farm work was it | 00:47:47 | |
| 269 and. | 00:47:55 | |
| Smith and company was at 299. I do want to point out that the RFP specific items made their bid at two 38469. They had included a | 00:48:03 | |
| whole bunch of things like trash cans and lights and things like that that were part of the project, but I'm part of the overall | 00:48:08 | |
| project, but not specific to this RFP. | 00:48:13 | |
| Again, the RFP was advertised on September 5th and September 12th as well as on our website and provided to nine different | 00:48:21 | |
| companies. | 00:48:24 | |
| Directly. | 00:48:29 | |
| Haven't identified that may need to be addressed. And so we advocates for an additional allowance. There were contingency above | 00:49:00 | |
| the price proposal. It was provided just to give us a little wiggle room if we need it as we're going through this project based | 00:49:06 | |
| on the GTA budget that was approved and authorized, we do have sufficient funds for this project. And so again, option 1 is what | 00:49:11 | |
| we're recommending. | 00:49:17 | |
| All right. Council questions for manager Dickerson or engineer Campbell. | 00:49:25 | |
| When is this? | 00:49:30 | |
| Slated to start. | 00:49:33 | |
| So there's portions of the project they can begin very soon. There's some utility coordination that has already begun. But it the | 00:49:37 | |
| totality of this project couldn't start tomorrow because that needs to continue, whether we're talking about AT&T poles or some of | 00:49:43 | |
| those other types of things that that have been working through to look for some better solutions. But yeah, this is a 2024 | 00:49:49 | |
| project, not a, you know, next year project. | 00:49:55 | |
| Yeah. I mean the the one variable that's hanging out there as we are hopeful that we'll be able to. | 00:50:02 | |
| Maybe bury the power lines and stuff along that quarter. So we're working with those utilities and trying to get that done, you | 00:50:07 | |
| know, so that we can do that. So, yeah. | 00:50:11 | |
| Yeah, so. | 00:50:17 | |
| Any other questions? | 00:50:20 | |
| All right, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. | 00:50:24 | |
| I make a motion to. | 00:50:29 | |
| Prove what? Number one action request? All right, we have a motion to approve the action requested. Do we have a 2nd? I'll second | 00:50:32 | |
| we have a second. Any discussion? | 00:50:36 | |
| All right, this is a I'll just say before you do this, a pretty pretty big vote y'all. I think I've been sitting here for 20 years | 00:50:42 | |
| and people have been asking when will there ever be a sidewalk on Simonton Bridge Rd. I know we've all heard that we know there's | 00:50:48 | |
| more to come, but this is this is exciting. So all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 00:50:53 | |
| All right, good news for our friends on Simonton Bridge Rd. | 00:50:59 | |
| All right, we'll move on to manager contract Item 13. | 00:51:03 | |
| Most cities and counties have contracts for their city managers. There's really nothing unusual. I know you've all had time to | 00:51:08 | |
| review and see this. This ones modeled on the Oconee County contract with our county administrator with some additional input from | 00:51:14 | |
| attorney Reitman and some others that he's seen. This protects us and it protects the manager in a situation of non performance or | 00:51:20 | |
| in a situation if we felt like we needed to make a change. | 00:51:26 | |
| And so it's pretty straightforward, but I'll let Attorney Reitman add anything he wants to and then let you guys ask any questions | 00:51:32 | |
| you want to, OK. | 00:51:36 | |
| All right, questions from Council. | 00:51:41 | |
| All right. | 00:51:45 | |
| And this one will go through July of 25, I think 2222, September of 26th, September 26th. | 00:51:47 | |
| So right now it references on anniversary of employment there be a review. I think it'd be more efficient for that review to be | 00:52:01 | |
| synchronized with the time all the other city employees were reviewed. So my recommendation is if there's an approval to approve | 00:52:07 | |
| it with that provides that with that change. | 00:52:12 | |
| Is that what you were about to mention? And that's typically the cadence that we're on. So we request that you approve the | 00:52:18 | |
| contract with the review date moving to April, which is contemporaneous with the rest of our employees. | 00:52:24 | |
| All right, we have a motion. | 00:52:30 | |
| I make a motion to approve the manager contract with the change noted. | 00:52:34 | |
| Do we have a second? | 00:52:39 | |
| 2nd. | 00:52:40 | |
| Any further discussion? | 00:52:42 | |
| Hearing none all in favor say aye, Any opposed? | 00:52:44 | |
| Motion carries 5O. | 00:52:47 | |
| All right, we will move to public comments. Same routine as normal. Comments shall be directly related to agenda items. Speak from | 00:52:49 | |
| the podium, 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate, argument, personal attacks, or irrelevant discussion. Address only the | 00:52:55 | |
| merits of the pending matter or address remarks directly to Council. Council won't speak to potential litigation, attorney-client | 00:53:00 | |
| or personnel matters. | 00:53:05 | |
| All right. | 00:53:12 | |
| I'm Bob Smith. | 00:53:34 | |
| WATKINSVILLE, Georgia. | 00:53:36 | |
| He just voted on the manager. | 00:53:39 | |
| Agreement and it didn't say how much it was going to get paid. | 00:53:43 | |
| We don't see anything in that. But anyways, one thing I wanted to talk about was we're talking about the the the bridge that that | 00:53:47 | |
| hair shows park. | 00:53:53 | |
| And you may want to be concerned about the flood because in 1963, although granite tables out there were washed down to 53 | 00:54:00 | |
| Highway. | 00:54:05 | |
| And now we have houses built. | 00:54:11 | |
| And Bishop venue than Christian lake with with all the rooftops and not as much ground to absorb the water. So be careful about | 00:54:13 | |
| that. I come here to talk about money. | 00:54:19 | |
| How you going to pay back all these millions and dollars that this city is borrowing since September last year? | 00:54:26 | |
| I look at the total, it's about 7.8 million in expenditures. | 00:54:35 | |
| About 5.8 million of that, it borrowed money and I've heard Mayor Brian Broderick say that the money is going to be paid back with | 00:54:41 | |
| sports money. What if the splash doesn't pass in three years and four years it didn't pass on the transportation funding? | 00:54:50 | |
| It took a year later to pass that. Where's this money coming from? | 00:54:59 | |
| Who's paying attention? There's a problem. I walk on the streets, I talk with people. Nobody cares. And you really don't, because | 00:55:05 | |
| they don't know what they don't know. | 00:55:10 | |
| I'm concerned too, about this, this qualification for City Council this year, all of a sudden since 1983 when the charter was was | 00:55:17 | |
| created. | 00:55:24 | |
| Qualifications have been in the latter part of July, the 1st of August for. | 00:55:33 | |
| 30 years, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, this year, the qualifying March and I was asked by somebody today, | 00:55:39 | |
| what could Watkinsville have done? | 00:55:45 | |
| To to notify the people in Watkinsville that that that qualifying for City Council has changed. All of a sudden they were three | 00:55:52 | |
| people that wanted to run in August. They can't run. They couldn't talking to the Secretary of State's office. You couldn't run as | 00:55:59 | |
| an independent. You couldn't run into writing because you missed the deadlines. | 00:56:06 | |
| Why? Why did this happen? | 00:56:14 | |
| Well, I was asked, well, how could walk and spell it could have done it. Well, they put a little blip in the in this city website. | 00:56:18 | |
| Who linked the website? They could have blipped them. Now county Enterprise, how many people read that? | 00:56:25 | |
| In this camp in this town of 3000, plus people. But Watersville did two things it did verify. | 00:56:33 | |
| Things on this hair shows park project year to go they spent city money to send mail out to everybody in this town and in some in | 00:56:41 | |
| Athens I'm told. So there's one thing that this sound could have done #2 in my opinion there was an illegal. | 00:56:51 | |
| An illegal. | 00:57:01 | |
| Meeting held to send out a mail piece without any mailing addresses by the members of this council at that time. | 00:57:05 | |
| And then we're no, no, no, no, no mailing address. And they didn't say who they were. | 00:57:16 | |
| Didn't say who they were, but that's how you notify people. They did it in that, they did it in the other. Why didn't this town | 00:57:24 | |
| notify that people in Watkinsville that qualified? He changed. | 00:57:30 | |
| This is serious stuff, y'all. This is a this is a public. | 00:57:38 | |
| Public meeting and it's not very public. That's not staying open. Thank you. It's not very transparent. Your time is very much. | 00:57:42 | |
| Thank you. | 00:57:47 | |
| Just for clarity on them, since he's not staying to listen, I'll explain it to the rest of y'all for clarity on the how the debt | 00:57:53 | |
| will be repaid. The loan that we're using for the Thomas Farm Park is at what interest rates, You know, one point, 1.63 percent, | 00:58:00 | |
| 1.63%. We have a dedicated mileage increase that was vetted by the state aggressively and we're using that mileage, that very low | 00:58:07 | |
| mileage increase to repay those funds and had to go through a very extensive process. | 00:58:14 | |
| And then the money that we'll borrow in the short term for the sidewalks is also a very low interest rate and will be repaid with | 00:58:22 | |
| T spot funds and those have already been allocated. So those are already allocated for that project. So there's going to be no | 00:58:29 | |
| difficulty repaying the debt. And I won't address the rest of those comments. Mr. White, looks like you have something to say. | 00:58:36 | |
| My name is Johnny Leon. I live on Christian Drive. | 00:59:01 | |
| I'm talking too loud, let me know I'm talking too loud and no because some people haven't shot something. | 00:59:06 | |
| What hell I'm doing I don't like You sound great. | 00:59:11 | |
| Along with that. | 00:59:19 | |
| I've been talking to because all of you know I got bigger sign walking Bill Daniels out of my yard. Some people blow the horn, | 00:59:21 | |
| wave at me. Some people blow the horn, give me the finger and I just sit out then lay. I don't enjoy it all. | 00:59:27 | |
| But you don't come to be a problem with my son. | 00:59:34 | |
| And I've been working with Toby. | 00:59:38 | |
| He gave me a copy of the audience and all that stuff. | 00:59:40 | |
| It's my like insurance part if I read it three times. Still don't know what it means. | 00:59:44 | |
| But apparently someone had nothing to do. | 00:59:49 | |
| Complain about the signs in my yard. It's on my flavor in my backyard. | 00:59:52 | |
| Looking at the signals, I know I'm oversized. It's too big. He's both be there and all that crap. | 00:59:58 | |
| I know that. | 01:00:03 | |
| That's why I got smaller about that too. | 01:00:05 | |
| But looking at the audience though. | 01:00:09 | |
| On the item C. | 01:00:12 | |
| I'm not going to eat all that 'cause y'all got a God, I don't have to. | 01:00:14 | |
| A section permit can be issued at quarterly temporary signs. | 01:00:19 | |
| Why don't I come under that then? | 01:00:26 | |
| Have five more weeks. | 01:00:28 | |
| We got to do nothing really and take care of his own self. Five more weeks, everything be over. | 01:00:31 | |
| So. | 01:00:36 | |
| I'm working on that. | 01:00:39 | |
| Pay. We know my part. Pay no attention to it. I move my sailor. | 01:00:40 | |
| Back down toward the building, get it to get in the center of my lot. | 01:00:46 | |
| I moved up here probably. | 01:00:51 | |
| 5060 feet. | 01:00:53 | |
| Basically what I'm saying Mark Saylor or myself whenever. | 01:00:55 | |
| He parked in the middle of my backyard. | 01:00:59 | |
| No matter what the science is, no matter what size it is. | 01:01:03 | |
| What's in my backyard got nothing to do with this. | 01:01:07 | |
| So what I'm saying? | 01:01:13 | |
| Why can't I pop my side what I want to in my backyard? | 01:01:16 | |
| You got people all over the town, got junk calling. If I have piled in yard, we're talking about two different things. | 01:01:21 | |
| Mainly politics, man. What are you going to put in your trailer, truck or whatever it is? | 01:01:28 | |
| What is in my backyard is my personal feeling. | 01:01:35 | |
| Nobody business, especially people around in highway. | 01:01:39 | |
| They don't look at my yard. Keep that on the road where you have a wreck. | 01:01:43 | |
| Personally I think y'all got more to worry about dude. | 01:01:51 | |
| Be nitpicking with this problem we got. | 01:01:55 | |
| So. | 01:01:59 | |
| I've done what I think I can do. | 01:02:01 | |
| Are planning on doing anyway. | 01:02:04 | |
| I move the sign and inside the road. | 01:02:06 | |
| My trailer in the middle of my backyard. | 01:02:09 | |
| And I don't see what I need. Do nothing else and I'm not planning on doing nothing else. | 01:02:13 | |
| Sometime. | 01:02:20 | |
| What I'm thinking, what I say don't match when it comes out. | 01:02:23 | |
| So. | 01:02:27 | |
| I don't understand what I'm saying. You can call and let me know. | 01:02:34 | |
| Because I think. | 01:02:42 | |
| I think this. | 01:02:44 | |
| I understand what science said, but this I'm talking about sailing in no matter what's on it. | 01:02:46 | |
| I paid a lot of attention to downtown different what's on them. | 01:02:51 | |
| So that's all I got. | 01:02:55 | |
| Thank you, Mr. Leia. | 01:03:00 | |
| Frankly wish people wouldn't send letters about signs too. | 01:03:02 | |
| All right. Any other comments from the public? | 01:03:09 | |
| Once. | 01:03:12 | |
| My name is Lawrence Stoke. I live at 13 Barnett Shoals and I've talked to a number of you. | 01:03:19 | |
| Since I haven't talked to Brett about this, but I appreciate the. | 01:03:25 | |
| All the trees you all bought at Thomas Farms, it's probably 50 plus acres. | 01:03:30 | |
| And I realize we're taking down 4 pine trees, but that's the. | 01:03:36 | |
| But I want to talk about the trees it. | 01:03:40 | |
| Rocket field. | 01:03:42 | |
| I've been thinking about this. Well, we took down a few trees at Rockfield. | 01:03:44 | |
| There's one left, but I also would like to put some trees to shade the sidewalk on 3rd St. and. | 01:03:48 | |
| 2nd St. | 01:03:55 | |
| But also I think it would be nice to have trees in the. | 01:03:56 | |
| What was the dog park outside the fence? | 01:04:01 | |
| So it shades that sidewalk and then shades the playground. And I think for things like Fall Festival or just being out in the | 01:04:04 | |
| park, it'd be nice to have some shade. | 01:04:09 | |
| And it's. | 01:04:15 | |
| Out past the ball field. | 01:04:17 | |
| So that's what I'm and also up there by the Baton court, of course. | 01:04:19 | |
| Machine I like talked about that a lot. | 01:04:23 | |
| And yeah, I think I just could picture down 30 years from now. Having trees around that park would be gorgeous. So thanks for your | 01:04:26 | |
| thoughts. | 01:04:30 | |
| Thank you. | 01:04:35 | |
| All right. Anybody else? | 01:04:39 | |
| OK. | 01:04:44 | |
| All right, we'll move on to the mayor's report. | 01:04:45 | |
| You know. | 01:04:49 | |
| That was you get a little distance from this and. | 01:04:53 | |
| Sometimes you get some distance from a tragedy. It doesn't feel anymore. | 01:04:57 | |
| It starts to feel a little less impactful. This one hadn't gotten to that point for me yet. It sounds like the students are headed | 01:05:01 | |
| back to school on Monday. But I think it's all important as they start that journey that we remember all those students and the | 01:05:07 | |
| families that were affected by the tragedy at Apalachee. So just I just want to call that out. Our, our communities are really | 01:05:12 | |
| close to each other. Our law enforcement community is small. | 01:05:18 | |
| I know we've got Officer White here with us tonight, you know, and this. | 01:05:25 | |
| You know, we've all Sergeant Hibler. You know, you'll probably know folks who. | 01:05:32 | |
| Anyway, who were, who were, I don't know who've been impacted by this. So just I just want us all to remember as we get a little | 01:05:38 | |
| distance from this and other things take over the news cycle that we remember to keep praying for the folks at Apalachee. | 01:05:44 | |
| We have made remarkable progress thanks I think to the lack of rain and some really hard working contractors at Thomas Farm. | 01:05:54 | |
| We are, I think we're probably 90% of the way done with the concrete out there. What remains is pretty much has to wait to be done | 01:06:01 | |
| until after the we're done bringing equipment in and out of there. Work has begun on the park first parking area work is the dams | 01:06:09 | |
| have both been rebuilt in the past month with new siphon systems. The top dam is filling back up. We have a bridge coming for this | 01:06:16 | |
| spot from IMI. Work is ongoing on all the trails on the back of the property, which is just spectacular. That's a. | 01:06:23 | |
| Out of the damn work, the upper pond is filling back up pretty rapidly and then the lower one will start as soon as we get some | 01:06:31 | |
| rain and as soon as that upper pond begins to flow that way. I've spent a lot of time out there. There's not many days that I'm | 01:06:36 | |
| not out there checking on things, y'all. It's just, it's going to be tremendous. I continue to be more and more excited about | 01:06:41 | |
| about what's going to happen out there over the next few months. So more to come, but but it's, it's, it is going to be, it's | 01:06:46 | |
| going to be really amazing. | 01:06:52 | |
| When you when you see our our team or when you see. | 01:06:58 | |
| Mark Thomas and others who are working on this give them a pat on the back. They've really worked hard and we've gotten a | 01:07:01 | |
| tremendous value from our contracting team out there. | 01:07:05 | |
| Chuck Garrett's been flexing his muscles, helping us take care of our pavement, and one way he did that was giving us some good | 01:07:13 | |
| advice on School St. | 01:07:17 | |
| With some culvert work there and getting some RIP rap installed to help preserve that new pavement that was installed there. So | 01:07:21 | |
| we're grateful that that's been installed and done and help us maintain that investment. | 01:07:26 | |
| We have a big event at Harris Shoals on September 28th. | 01:07:32 | |
| Invasive species removal. I'm sure we've all noticed kudzu decided to have a party in Harris Shoals in early 2024 and it's going | 01:07:36 | |
| to be a couple years to get rid of all that. But we would love to have a big community turn out for that event. 9:00 AM to 12:00 | 01:07:42 | |
| PM on September 28th. And that's going to be the more people we have, the more we can get done in, the more invasive so we can get | 01:07:48 | |
| taken out. | 01:07:54 | |
| Reminder the date of the Christmas parade Sunday, December 8th and the Christmas tree lighting will be at 6:00 PM after the parade | 01:08:02 | |
| at 4:00 PM. We've got about two months to get your float registered. | 01:08:08 | |
| Just a reminder, this is easy to forget, but when we worked with Water Park on the their agreement, part of what we asked them to | 01:08:17 | |
| do is install a roundabout at the old Sharp Curve on Norton Road. That project is going to take about a week. It's going to start | 01:08:24 | |
| on October 2nd. That's going to put some pressure on Barnett Shoals and on Main Street for the cars that don't use that. But | 01:08:31 | |
| that's going to be a really nice win for the folks going to Wire Park and other places. | 01:08:38 | |
| That they've got quick access to Norton Road, so that project is going to be October. | 01:08:45 | |
| 2nd, October 9th, we're going to need to promote that a lot so people aren't surprised and I'm sure we'll be. The contractor will | 01:08:50 | |
| be using signage and other things to let people know about that. | 01:08:54 | |
| Last but not least, we've got a birthday. | 01:09:00 | |
| Happy birthday Councilman Thomas's. | 01:09:03 | |
| You want to share was it a milestone? No was not 4343 a youngster youngster with us. So but happy birthday. Happy birthday, Brett. | 01:09:07 | |
| I'm glad you're here with us. We mentioned Constitution Day earlier, so I won't cover that again. I do want to thank it's it's | 01:09:13 | |
| easy to forget. | 01:09:19 | |
| Summer is a busy, busy month for our public Works department. They've got acres and acres of grass to mow. They're trying to | 01:09:27 | |
| digest with the Parks and Rec department how to take care of our new parks and new facilities and all the things that we're doing. | 01:09:33 | |
| Please extend that gratitude to them for us. | 01:10:10 | |
| All right, with that, we'll move on to Council, reports Councilman Garrett post one. | 01:10:14 | |
| Speaking of public works, we had a fun time doing a little patching today and we got some well, well qualified guys that. | 01:10:18 | |
| Can do that now. | 01:10:29 | |
| They're certified. | 01:10:31 | |
| But that one particular spot was a spot that I noticed that it had about a three inch drop off and would Fall festival coming up | 01:10:34 | |
| and Halloween stuff, people walking. | 01:10:39 | |
| Thought there's something at least we could kind of safe it up. | 01:10:45 | |
| So yeah, we had a good time. | 01:10:49 | |
| Doing that, so you say they're certified, Garrett certified. | 01:10:52 | |
| Well, that's got to save. That will save us some money if the guys know how to do that, so. | 01:11:00 | |
| Anything else? Counseling here, That's all. | 01:11:04 | |
| All right, Councilwoman Massey. | 01:11:08 | |
| I attended the event yesterday at the courthouse and that's always a fun and interesting thing. I appreciate all our ancestors and | 01:11:11 | |
| all that they went through to give us our Constitution and everything, and I hope. | 01:11:18 | |
| Except it was alarms instead of bugles. | 01:11:57 | |
| Anything else? | 01:12:00 | |
| All right, we'll move on to Councilman Thomas. Yeah. So welcome to Cooler Weathers. I hope that it stays with us and it's not a | 01:12:02 | |
| false fall. But with that, I'd like to bring back again this year, falling fall for Watkinsville. Let's let's decorate our doors, | 01:12:10 | |
| decorate our yards, you know, give Miss Ivy's a little bit of competition. | 01:12:17 | |
| So we know that she will, she will definitely decorate. But you know, let's, let's other citizens in Watkinsville, please. | 01:12:26 | |
| We encourage you to decorate and get in the spirit of Fall. | 01:12:33 | |
| Also, I wanted to talk about seeing something on Facebook that's been passed around. You're talking about Apalachee. I don't know | 01:12:38 | |
| if I can do this or not, but I'm going to anyway. Texas Roadhouse, I saw a thing going around that on Monday, the 23rd, Texas | 01:12:44 | |
| Roadhouse at all their locations in Georgia is going to be donating 100% of their proceeds for the day to Apalachee, so I'm | 01:12:51 | |
| encouraging. | 01:12:57 | |
| Everybody to go eat lunch and dinner at Apalachee or at at Texas Roadhouse and support our. | 01:13:04 | |
| Awesome. Thank you for mentioning that. That's great. Yeah. | 01:13:16 | |
| All right, Councilwoman Tucker. | 01:13:20 | |
| Nothing this month. All right, Councilman Campbell. | 01:13:23 | |
| Nothing this month, all right. | 01:13:26 | |
| I don't think we have a need for executive session. | 01:13:29 | |
| Anyone have a need for executive session hearing? None. Then I'll entertain a motion to adjourn and make a motion to adjourn. | 01:13:32 | |
| Do we have a second, second. All in favor? | 01:13:37 |