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All right, Good evening. Welcome to the November Watkinsville City Council meeting. We have a quorum here. Glad we have perfect | 00:00:15 | |
attendance tonight. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. | 00:00:20 | |
Shannon Brock, if you'd lead us in the pledge, please, Sir. | 00:00:26 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:30 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:37 | |
I'll call you Chief because that's what I always called you. We're thrilled to have you back in here with us tonight for a special | 00:00:45 | |
occasion. And it's just great to see your smiling face in the chambers again tonight. So thank you for leading us with that. | 00:00:53 | |
The fine print that I get to begin every meeting with. | 00:01:05 | |
That our lawyers tell me. I have to say if you have hearing impairments. | 00:01:08 | |
CC icon in the lower right of the video window. When the video from tonight's meeting is posted online, closed captions will | 00:02:13 | |
automatically appear. Interest in parties could also view a transcript of the meeting under the tab titled Transcript. As a | 00:02:18 | |
reminder, notice of the Council meeting along with the current month agenda is posted one full week before the meeting to allow | 00:02:22 | |
the public sufficient time to provide comments in writing. | 00:02:27 | |
All right. We're going to start with the administration of oath of office for our new DDA board members. I know Erica Fluke is | 00:02:32 | |
here. I don't think Brock Tool is. Erica, if you could step forward, Attorney Reitman will administer the oath. | 00:02:38 | |
We have one. | 00:02:51 | |
Very good evening. Congratulations. And this is somewhat ceremonial because we did administer an oath previously, so you'll be | 00:02:52 | |
official. But let's go ahead and repeat this posterity. If you'll raise your right hand, please do you, a citizen of Oconee | 00:02:58 | |
County, Georgia, solemnly swear that you will to the best of your ability. | 00:03:05 | |
Without favor or affection to any person, without any unauthorized financial gain or compensation to yourself, faithfully and | 00:03:13 | |
fairly discharge all the duties and responsibilities that devolve upon you as a member of the Watkinsville Downtown Development | 00:03:19 | |
Authority during the term of your service as such member and that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the | 00:03:24 | |
Constitution of Georgia. And you are not a member of the Communist Party. You are not the holder of any unaccounted for public | 00:03:30 | |
money. Do this. | 00:03:36 | |
Or any political subdivision or authority thereof. That you are not the holder of any office of trust under the government of the | 00:03:42 | |
United States, any other state, or any foreign state which you would be by the law as the State of Georgia, prohibited from | 00:03:47 | |
holding. And that you're otherwise qualified to hold said office according to constitutional laws of Georgia. And if you agree | 00:03:52 | |
with that, you can say I do. | 00:03:58 | |
Congratulations. | 00:04:04 | |
Mrs. Floyd runs a wonderful new business downtown. How long have you been open now? One year called Bird and Brass. If you've not | 00:04:10 | |
been to Bird and Brass, you need to visit. It's I'll let you describe it in a moment, but to me it is a wonderful mix of | 00:04:16 | |
inspiring. | 00:04:21 | |
Lifestyle materials and art and then you also she does art classes and just is in a lovely restored building downtown. | 00:04:28 | |
So Miss Flake, if you want to maybe for a minute, just describe your business and maybe why you're interested in joining the DDA | 00:04:34 | |
and then we'll turn you loose. | 00:04:37 | |
Hang on one second. Joe took the microphone. Hold on, I was ready to go on my next. | 00:04:40 | |
Thank you. Yes. So Burden Pass is a gift shop. I'm located just across from Blind Pick Tavern at 13 N Main, and I'm an artist, so | 00:04:47 | |
I have a lot of my art there. I also paint ornaments and pet portraits and make wreaths and all kinds of fun, you know, beautiful | 00:04:53 | |
crafty things. So so I sell all of those things at the store as well as just an assortment of beautiful gifts and things that just | 00:05:00 | |
help people appreciate nature. | 00:05:06 | |
And the beauty of nature. So that's kind of the concept behind the store. And I was just so thrilled to join. This has been such a | 00:05:13 | |
wonderful community that just welcomed me so well in the last five years. And I just want to be a part of it in a more meaningful | 00:05:19 | |
way and just contribute to the growth of downtown. So I'm very thankful. | 00:05:26 | |
Thank you. | 00:05:33 | |
Congratulations. And Erica, you're welcome to stay as long as you like. Our next item on the agenda is the oath of office for | 00:05:39 | |
Police Chief James R Wood. | 00:05:44 | |
Mr. Allwood, if you want to come forward. | 00:05:50 | |
I'm going to come over here to decide the hearing loop. | 00:05:52 | |
And I will read the oath and at the end you can see I do or I do some help of God. Let's raise our right hands. Do James, all | 00:05:56 | |
would solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of Chief of Police for the City of Watkinsville. And to | 00:06:04 | |
the best of your ability, support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of Georgia, and the charter, | 00:06:11 | |
ordinances and regulations of the City of Watkinsville, and that you are not the holder of any unaccounted for public money. | 00:06:18 | |
Do this State, or any political subdivision or authority thereof, and that you are not the holder of any office of trust under the | 00:06:25 | |
Government of the United States, any other state or any foreign State which you by the laws the State of Georgia will be | 00:06:31 | |
prohibited from holding. That you are otherwise qualified to hold said office according to Constitution and laws of Georgia, and | 00:06:37 | |
that you will perform the duties of your office in the best interest of the City of Watkinsville to the best of your ability, | 00:06:43 | |
without fear, favor, affection, reward. | 00:06:49 | |
Expectation thereof, if you agree with that oath, you can say I do or I do, so help me God. | 00:06:55 | |
Congratulations welcome. | 00:07:01 | |
In chief, I'll just say, you know, we went through a pretty rigorous search process. You rose to the top. We are grateful to you, | 00:07:08 | |
grateful for your service before and Jefferson and elsewhere, and excited to see what you bring to Watkinsville in the years ahead | 00:07:14 | |
as we seek to be Georgia's best small town. So I'll let you say a few words if you'd like, and welcome to Watkinsville. Sure, | 00:07:21 | |
sure. First. | 00:07:27 | |
Say thank you. I'm very blessed and very humbled with this opportunity. I want to thank the Lord for giving me direction, guided | 00:07:33 | |
me to this and through this journey. You know, I didn't really know what to expect going forward, but I feel very, very, very | 00:07:40 | |
thankful that I rose to the top and have this opportunity. I want to thank my wife, who is my best friend and thank her for her | 00:07:47 | |
support my family back here. | 00:07:54 | |
On the back row, you know your family makes you who you are. | 00:08:01 | |
Through the thick and the thin, I want to thank the city. Watkinsville. | 00:08:06 | |
The mayor, all the council, city manager, city clerk, finance manager, the Police Department and you know, honestly, that's what | 00:08:11 | |
made my decision was I come down here and I felt comfortable. I like the family atmosphere and I just want to be a part of it. I'm | 00:08:17 | |
excited and I'm ready to go. Great. | 00:08:23 | |
Sure. | 00:08:35 | |
Yeah. And I saw, I saw Officer Wade raised his hand when you recognize the family there. So, yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. | 00:08:36 | |
All right. | 00:09:05 | |
Yeah, OK. All right. | 00:09:13 | |
Congratulations. | 00:09:27 | |
I got a couple. | 00:09:48 | |
I failed to recognize when earlier when I was recognizing police chiefs. We do have the police chief of Jefferson here with us | 00:10:08 | |
tonight. Chief, thank you for being here. And. | 00:10:11 | |
Supporting now Chief Harwood, grateful for all you've done to grow him in his career. So thank you for being here with us tonight. | 00:10:16 | |
Yep, thank you. | 00:10:22 | |
All right, couple items under point of privilege. First of all, I'd like to invite Tony Ferguson to the podium. It sounds like | 00:10:25 | |
we've got some good news Mr. Ferguson might share with us about. | 00:10:32 | |
The contribution that will benefit downtown Watkinsville. Yeah. Well, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for having me here tonight. So | 00:10:40 | |
Georgia Power for over 100 years, 1883 is when we were formed and we've made a commitment to the communities that we serve. And | 00:10:47 | |
that's been our motto for over 100 years, to be a citizen where we serve. And one of the ways that we can do that is giving back | 00:10:54 | |
to our community. So we're excited to announce a $35,000 donation to the city of Watkinsville. | 00:11:02 | |
To help partner on the Downtown Development strategic Plan. | 00:11:09 | |
So we're just glad to be a part of that. Thank you. Great. | 00:11:12 | |
Thank you, Tony. | 00:11:15 | |
So later tonight, I think it's under consent, but we'll have a, we'll have a budget item to accept those funds and put it into the | 00:11:21 | |
budget. And Christine will look forward to you and the DA advising us how we can deploy those funds and put them to work for | 00:11:28 | |
downtown. So thank you again, Tony, for all that y'all do. Georgia Power has been a great partner for Watkinsville. | 00:11:34 | |
Through thick and thin and when the lights are on and when the lights are off. So, so we're grateful to that. And hopefully the | 00:11:42 | |
squirrels stay out of the substation for the remainder of the years the holidays approach. So all right, Next up, we have a | 00:11:46 | |
proclamation for. | 00:11:51 | |
National Hospice and Palliative Care Month is Matt Howell here. | 00:11:57 | |
All right, Mr. Howell is not here then, Julie, I'll just let you kind of read that into the record at some point, or not read it | 00:12:02 | |
in the record. Just put it into the record. Then I don't think we need to read that. Next, we'll recognize the fall for | 00:12:06 | |
Watkinsville contest winners. | 00:12:10 | |
Our third place. | 00:12:15 | |
Winner is Miss Carol Ivy. | 00:12:17 | |
Carol. | 00:12:21 | |
I. | 00:12:28 | |
I don't know how Miss Carroll St. got ended. Feel like she wins all of our contests. Congratulations. | 00:12:30 | |
Well, there's a reason she's on a permanent First Lady. | 00:12:39 | |
But your house is always beautiful. You have to wrap the front door yet for Christmas. | 00:12:48 | |
No, that happens. Our second place winner is Miss Megan Richter. All right. | 00:12:56 | |
Now where do y'all live? | 00:13:08 | |
The Meadow Springs. OK, awesome. Well, congratulations. All right. | 00:13:10 | |
And your name? David Steen when you pop in the middle, Megan and you'll. | 00:13:14 | |
Each of our. | 00:13:34 | |
Burger and so we got a lot of good burgers in town and the mayor gets in trouble if he endorses 1 burger of another. And then Miss | 00:14:06 | |
Carol, you've got a $25.00 gift certificate. The Wing House, which also has a great burger, and you've got a copy of the ornament | 00:14:12 | |
as well. Sharon, who did our ornament this year. | 00:14:17 | |
Klein. | 00:14:24 | |
Yeah. | 00:14:26 | |
It's a client finds creations later and handmade creations and it's it is inspired by Francis Bird art, which was part of the was | 00:14:27 | |
one of the artists that worked on the downtown rock and art right. OK, so this will be available this year to start commemorative | 00:14:33 | |
ornament. You'll see them on our tree. So thank you all for participating and congratulations again. You all can stay as long as | 00:14:39 | |
you want, but don't feel like you've got to hang around if you don't want to. We'll move pretty quickly through all right, | 00:14:45 | |
approval of the minutes council. | 00:14:50 | |
You've had the minutes in front of you. We did get do have a correction. I'd like to suggest we had someone review the minutes and | 00:14:57 | |
we looked at his comment and decided that we may need to adjust that. So Julie, if you could read the adjustment that we would | 00:15:03 | |
Julie and I'd like to recommend and if possible council, if you'd consider amending the minutes to include that language, we'd | 00:15:09 | |
appreciate it. Sure. On page 2 under public hearing, Bob Smith S Main St. expressed opposition. We're going to remove expressed | 00:15:14 | |
opposition. | 00:15:20 | |
And Put alleged that the city might not be abiding by open meetings law regarding the pipe plant property. | 00:15:27 | |
OK. I think that's an accurate reflection of what Mr. Smith said. If you all agree, if someone could make a motion to accept the | 00:15:36 | |
minutes as amended, that would be great. I make a motion to accept the minutes as amended. | 00:15:41 | |
Do we have a 2nd, 2nd? | 00:15:46 | |
Any discussion? | 00:15:48 | |
All in favor say aye. Any opposed like sign? | 00:15:50 | |
All right, minutes are accepted. Approval of agenda. I'd like to move the mayor's report to after approval of agenda, if everyone | 00:15:54 | |
is willing to do that. If you're willing to do that, please make a motion indicating so. I make a motion to approve the agenda, | 00:15:59 | |
moving the mayor's comments to right after this. | 00:16:05 | |
2nd a second. We have a second. Any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye. Any opposed? | 00:16:12 | |
All right, motion carries. All right, Mayor's report. I'm going to go through this while we have people here. We've had a lot | 00:16:18 | |
happening in Watkinsville. We have the fall Festival. Hard to believe that's been a month already. Time flies. 25 to 30,000 people | 00:16:24 | |
was our estimate from Mr. Hibler. I thought it was a second year with the new format and I thought it went off seamlessly. I don't | 00:16:30 | |
know if all of y'all were able to be there, but it was really a beautiful day. | 00:16:35 | |
It's taking our graphs a few weeks to recover. We didn't have much rain leading into that, but other than that, I think that was | 00:16:43 | |
the only, only living creature that didn't enjoy that beautiful day out there was our grass. Otherwise, it was perfect. | 00:16:48 | |
Congratulations to these three folks on their re-election unopposed. Congratulations, Brett, Christine and Jeff, happy to have you | 00:16:53 | |
all here for another two years. | 00:16:59 | |
On November 11th, we decorated, put flags up in honor of veteran's day at the Watkinsville Cemetery. Really grateful to the | 00:17:06 | |
National Society, the Daughters, the American Revolution, the John Andrew chapter that helps us with that every year. Connie, | 00:17:12 | |
thank you for being out there to help with that that effort. It is, it is not easy sometimes finding, finding those graves and | 00:17:18 | |
figuring out who is who. And so Lori Trail and her group have done a great job of mapping that out and identifying it and allowing | 00:17:24 | |
us. | 00:17:29 | |
Those who have served and sacrificed for their country. | 00:17:36 | |
Thomas Farm Preserve tremendously. | 00:17:41 | |
Progress over the past month and hard to believe but this at our next council meeting we will have it open. So our date for the | 00:17:44 | |
grand opening is December 14th. If you want to put it on your calendar. It looks like we will have, we will have an event around | 00:17:52 | |
11:30 out there. Hopefully we have good weather so we're looking at but we'll have some events throughout the day. | 00:18:00 | |
Where people can, I think we're planning maybe a leash cutting at the dog park. | 00:18:08 | |
Where people can enjoy that, we will have kind of a first walk and run on some of the trails. We'll have some hiking, some | 00:18:13 | |
mountain biking, so whatever people enjoy. So December 14th. | 00:18:17 | |
But the work that we have still to complete painting the structures, we have signage to go up, kind of punch list type items. But | 00:18:23 | |
it'll probably take us, I know it'll take us until the 14th to get all that done and make it safely available to the public. But | 00:18:28 | |
it's it's really beautiful. | 00:18:33 | |
Great progress at on the Hair Shoals boardwalk. I know there's a lot of interest in that as well and people miss being able to | 00:18:40 | |
walk across that. You can see progress shots there as I recall, that sort of the Trek slumber going down. So that should last a | 00:18:46 | |
really long time. We're able to reuse most of the number that's underneath that and we're adding new rails and new new trucks | 00:18:52 | |
there. So that's going to be really great when it's done and they're making steady progress. | 00:18:57 | |
We've also put out to bid the Giardini Green project at Harris Shoals Park. So this is where the old Giordini baseball field was. | 00:19:05 | |
So this is a concept rendering. This is what. And then the next one shows sort of the plan view of what it'll look like. This is | 00:19:12 | |
on the other side of the Creek. Hopeful to have that well underway in the spring. | 00:19:19 | |
And the Simonton Bridge pedestrian connector, some preliminary work has been occurring. You've seen that's right at the Thomas | 00:19:30 | |
Farm Parks project, we are hoping to have phase one done, phase one done by spring and the rest of it done by the end of next | 00:19:38 | |
year. I'm hoping December 2025, not January 2026. So, so we'll see the. | 00:19:46 | |
The utility relocation is taking longer than we hoped it would. So that's kind of pushing our timing back on that. But we're going | 00:19:55 | |
to do as much as we can in the short term. | 00:19:58 | |
Waters Walk is progressing behind Oconee State Bank. | 00:20:02 | |
And a lot of work on infrastructure and underground work there. Again, that's 55 and over only housing. Sharon, what's the unit | 00:20:06 | |
count there? 6060 units there. | 00:20:12 | |
Back there, this is kind of a now a amenity for the residents and a really nice view that they have. So they've done some nice | 00:20:49 | |
landscaping back there and turn that into something nice. | 00:20:53 | |
And there's walking paths around that as well. And that that's a 7 1/2 acre parcel that's been preserved back there. | 00:20:58 | |
On Morrison St. the residents requested some speed bumps and so we've responded to that. We installed temporary speed bumps. Those | 00:21:07 | |
are much more cost effective and we need to repave. They're easy to remove, so you see one on the Business Blvd. side and another | 00:21:11 | |
on the residential side. | 00:21:16 | |
This guy. | 00:21:53 | |
Has been chairman of first started, I think is the city's representative on the library board 10 years ago. And we all know over | 00:21:55 | |
the past two years being in charge of a library has not been easy. | 00:22:01 | |
And Mark Campbell, we are grateful for your leadership and your services. The Oconee County Library Board Chair. | 00:22:07 | |
We know that is you've been in the line of fire on some tough, tough moments and you've more than held your own over the past | 00:22:14 | |
couple years. So we're grateful to you for your service and thankful for what you've done and getting the new library opened up in | 00:22:19 | |
Wire Park. We also know not every chair gets to do something like that, so that was a big lift. So we're thankful to you for all | 00:22:23 | |
your work over the past 10 years. | 00:22:28 | |
Last month we recognized the Oconee County middle school cross country team. They were state champions. I always like to recognize | 00:22:47 | |
teams that win a state title. This one was the Oconee County boys high school cross country team won a state title a few weeks | 00:22:53 | |
ago. It was their third in a row, which is a big deal. Only one other team, the softball team at Oconee's 3P to twice. But they're | 00:22:59 | |
the they're the first team to do that in many years and. | 00:23:05 | |
Excited for them. | 00:23:11 | |
And the girls team took third and you'll see here the boys really wanted to celebrate them too. So they picked up their confetti | 00:23:13 | |
and decided to throw it in the air around the girls too. This is the girls the 8th year finishing in the top four. So | 00:23:17 | |
congratulations to our cross country teams. | 00:23:21 | |
And this guy has a birthday, Jeff Campbell. So happy birthday Jeff, your your council member with a birthday this month. | 00:23:26 | |
So we will move on from that to administration and. | 00:23:35 | |
Manager Dickerson, I will let you lead the way here. So the first item tonight is the fiscal year 2024 audit. So will Merit is | 00:23:39 | |
here with Russian and company and he'll present the audit. | 00:23:45 | |
All right. Good evening. | 00:23:55 | |
Hey. | 00:23:58 | |
Good evening. Depending on how the audit goes. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Evening, maybe I should say. | 00:24:01 | |
Thank you all for having us having me here tonight. | 00:24:09 | |
I've been working on this audit several years now and it's just. | 00:24:14 | |
Awesome to see the progress that's been made here, seeing the preservation of the land and those slides the mayor just shared. | 00:24:18 | |
It's just. | 00:24:21 | |
It's remarkable to see what what you guys are doing here and. | 00:24:26 | |
Not every place that I go and give a presentation to, can I say that. So kudos to you guys. Congratulations. This is an awesome | 00:24:30 | |
place and we appreciate the relationship and and hope we can continue it into the future. I hope that County Enterprise was taking | 00:24:36 | |
detailed notes on your entire remarks there so. | 00:24:42 | |
So. | 00:24:51 | |
I'll kind of get into the the meat of why I'm here. So we're here to present the audit. We come and. | 00:24:52 | |
Do some on site work multiple times, typically one time during the summer and then we come back again in in the September, October | 00:25:00 | |
time frame and we go through a lot. It's pretty extensive process, which I'm sure Lee and Sharon and Julie can alltel you, but | 00:25:07 | |
it's. | 00:25:13 | |
It's, it's good, it's rewarding. And we, we do kind of find a lot, not a lot of bad things, but we find a lot. And then we are | 00:25:21 | |
able to help the city produce these financial statements, which you all have a bound copy of. And you'll see that nice pretty logo | 00:25:28 | |
on the front of there. You also have a bound copy of this presentation. So if I go through it too quickly, you can look back | 00:25:36 | |
through it and if you have any questions. | 00:25:43 | |
I'll be glad to answer any that you have tonight or going forward. | 00:25:51 | |
So First things first, this the presentation kind of goes in order of the report. So kind of the first thing I want to highlight | 00:25:57 | |
is our independent auditors report. | 00:26:02 | |
And it includes the audit opinion, which is really what you pay us for. And it's it's why we're here. We're here to issue an | 00:26:08 | |
opinion on the financial statements and their freedom from misstatement. | 00:26:15 | |
And for the fiscal year into June 30th, 2024, we've issued an unmodified opinion, which is basically a clean opinion is the best | 00:26:22 | |
opinion you can have. So that means we believe these financial statements present fairly in all material respects the financial | 00:26:30 | |
position of the City of Watkinsville as of June 30, 2024 and that they are free from. | 00:26:38 | |
Material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. | 00:26:47 | |
We also have. | 00:26:52 | |
We outlined in this presentation the cities responsibility and our responsibility as an auditor. And we also go through what the | 00:26:53 | |
auditing standards are that we go by. I'm not going to bore you with all that, but just know that there are audit standards that | 00:27:00 | |
we have to go by while we're conducting this audit. | 00:27:06 | |
So next, this is just an overview of what's in the annual financial report. We have the government wide statements. So these are | 00:27:15 | |
the statements that provide information on the city as a whole. So not individual fund statements. This is the entire city in | 00:27:21 | |
these government wide statements. | 00:27:27 | |
Biggest thing here is net position. So this is your equity, so to speak. This is your assets minus your liabilities. We presented | 00:27:36 | |
a three-year comparison here I. | 00:27:41 | |
This stacked bar chart, I thought this was a pretty good illustration of kind of the work that's been happening, So you'll see. | 00:27:49 | |
That investment in capital assets is in blue, your restricted net position is in red, and your unrestricted net position is in | 00:27:58 | |
green. | 00:28:02 | |
So you'll see that $300,000 increase in unrestricted net position. | 00:28:08 | |
And then you'll see that. | 00:28:13 | |
About $2,000,000 increase in that investment in capital assets. | 00:28:15 | |
I'm sure you guys can probably guess what that's for. That's for that beautiful farm that has been purchased and y'all are making | 00:28:20 | |
a park. Well that. | 00:28:25 | |
That total amount of that asset goes into this calculation, so that's part of the large increase there. | 00:28:31 | |
So this is your change in that position. This is the kind of the bottom line on your statement of activities or your income | 00:28:39 | |
statement, as you can see, quite a stark change from 23 to 24. | 00:28:45 | |
A large portion of this change is due to capital grants and contributions related to that project, that Thomas Farm project. | 00:28:52 | |
These grants and contributions include ARPA. | 00:29:03 | |
And then this also includes your T SPLOST and SPLOST revenues. So sales taxes have been strong for the city of Watkinsville and | 00:29:06 | |
they continue to remain strong and this change in that position reflects that strength of your sales tax. | 00:29:14 | |
So then we'll kind of get into the general fund, which is the primary operating fund of the city. | 00:29:24 | |
So this is a depiction of the revenues and expenditures of the general fund. Sorry, those two numbers in 2022 are kind of close | 00:29:30 | |
together. But we really don't care about 22, right? We care about 24. | 00:29:37 | |
So you'll see pretty large increase in expenditures this year. | 00:29:46 | |
And then a solid increase in revenues, but the expenditure is kind of far outpaced that. | 00:29:51 | |
These are these are what we call above the line. So these are operating revenues and then I've got some notes here on the non | 00:29:59 | |
operating stuff, but you're operating in revenues increased almost $500,000 or about 18% primarily property tax increases, motor | 00:30:06 | |
vehicle tax increases and sales tax increases is what makes up that increase in general fund revenue. That's a digest increase not | 00:30:14 | |
a rate increase, correct, correct. | 00:30:21 | |
Yeah, that's an assessed value increase, Yeah. And that's pretty uniform across the state. I live in Hall County and we've | 00:30:29 | |
definitely seen that there as well. | 00:30:34 | |
Like revenues, your expenditures are way up. They increased about $3.6 million in 2024, had some increase in public works about 10 | 00:30:42 | |
percent, 63,000 bucks, but primarily. | 00:30:49 | |
That increase is in culture and recreation. | 00:30:57 | |
$3.6 million increase in culture and recreation and that's the purchase of the park and the ongoing project there. | 00:31:01 | |
And that land acquisition cost we have it about 3.55 million. | 00:31:10 | |
So, and that's total, that's not just the land, but that's kind of total everything that had happened as of June 30, 2024. | 00:31:16 | |
So. | 00:31:25 | |
Other, other items on that statement, the general fund revenue and expense statement, you had proceeds on the sale of capital | 00:31:28 | |
assets of about 15,000 bucks and then you had proceeds from the issuance of debt $3.5 million and that's your G4 loan that you | 00:31:34 | |
incurred to purchase that property. | 00:31:40 | |
That's also on that statement. | 00:31:47 | |
This is a breakdown of your general fund revenues by source, not a lot of change here. Biggest percentage is your local option | 00:31:50 | |
sales tax. As we talked about, sales tax has been strong. That 19% in red, that's your property tax. So property tax makes up | 00:31:58 | |
about 20% of your general fund revenue. Sales tax makes up 30%. So 1550% is made-up by those two. | 00:32:06 | |
Line items. | 00:32:15 | |
And then this is your general fund expenditures by function. | 00:32:18 | |
Obviously, the largest one here is, is the culture and recreation at 58%. That will not always be the case. That was just this | 00:32:23 | |
year with the purchase of the park, but then we got public safety and public works coming in at 14 and 10% respectively. Those are | 00:32:30 | |
typically your two largest expenditures by function. | 00:32:37 | |
All right, so. | 00:32:46 | |
This year and every year, we issue a report on the city's internal controls. | 00:32:48 | |
We do not upon on these internal controls, but we issue a report on them and this is where we would issue any findings that we | 00:32:54 | |
have. | 00:32:58 | |
We have two findings this year. They're the same as they've been in years past. They're in the report on pages 58 and 59. And I'll | 00:33:03 | |
just kind of summarize them and not get into any any of the details on those. But the first one is a basically a gap training | 00:33:11 | |
recommendation, which is a generally accepted accounting principles. And it basically just means that you need ACPA to come in | 00:33:18 | |
here and help you kind of get your books or your finances up to. | 00:33:26 | |
Standards of generally accepting accounting principles. This is very common, not unusual at all. We issue this finding on many, | 00:33:33 | |
many of our clients and this is it's normal. | 00:33:39 | |
The second one is what we call our year end clothes finding and it it's pretty similar to the gap training finding and it | 00:33:46 | |
basically means you guys need ACPA or an outside account to come in and help you with the accrual work, so recording receivables | 00:33:52 | |
and payables. | 00:33:57 | |
And just kind of getting things in order to present in the financial statements. | 00:34:04 | |
So again, nothing new here. These are these are the same findings as before, so. | 00:34:11 | |
If there, if there's any question on those, the details can be found pages 58 and 59. Well, if I can just point out to currently | 00:34:16 | |
Lee Black, our Finance Director is receiving some training and we believe that perhaps by this time next year she'll be able to do | 00:34:22 | |
that work that you just mentioned. So awesome. That's great. | 00:34:27 | |
And I know I've actually seen Lee at some conferences, so I actually know that she's getting some training. Yeah. | 00:34:34 | |
So this is kind of the big change this year. | 00:34:40 | |
So with the purchase of of the park, you guys took out AG Flone well that that G Fullone is actually backed by our funded with | 00:34:44 | |
federal dollars. So those G4 loans this is pretty common, but G for loans oftentimes trigger what they call single audit, which is | 00:34:53 | |
a federal grant compliance type audit and it's an engagement. | 00:35:01 | |
That's outside the scope of the normal year end audit that the city is has each year. | 00:35:10 | |
It's actually on a. It's by different guidelines. So this one is according to the uniform guidance, by the way. | 00:35:17 | |
If you ever can't sleep, I would encourage you to open up and read the uniform guidance. | 00:35:25 | |
It will cure your insomnia problem. | 00:35:30 | |
But that's what we have to go by to perform this audit. | 00:35:33 | |
So I guess Long story short, we had no material non compliance findings for the city's accounting for the expenditures under this | 00:35:37 | |
federal grant. So awesome job there. | 00:35:44 | |
But it is it is a new. | 00:35:52 | |
Kind of. | 00:35:55 | |
It's not, it's new to y'all, it's not new, but it is a, it's something that we've never had to deal with before. So there's | 00:35:57 | |
there's a lot of additional work that the staff had to do to help get this done and we appreciate all your help. | 00:36:03 | |
All right. | 00:36:12 | |
So what's coming down the pipe? So we got this actually happened this year. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board, they're | 00:36:14 | |
kind of who issues a governmental accounting standards. | 00:36:19 | |
Again, if you can't sleep, I would encourage you to read all these Gatsby pronouncements. They are very dry. | 00:36:26 | |
But they issued statement #100 this year, and it has to do with changes in accounting principles and error corrections. We've | 00:36:33 | |
implemented this standard in this report, so. | 00:36:39 | |
Just know that it has been implemented, you have taken care of it. | 00:36:46 | |
Future reporting changes so next year. Gatsby is going well. They've issued this. It's effective for the cities. | 00:36:52 | |
2025 fiscal year Gatsby statement 101 on compensated absences. And it it changes a little bit of the way that we have to show that | 00:36:59 | |
liability on the balance sheet. I don't anticipate it to have a large effect for the city, but it's just something I wanted to | 00:37:06 | |
make you aware of, but we'll deal with that next year. | 00:37:12 | |
All right, that's kind of the the highlights. So here's my contact information. I would encourage you if you have any questions, | 00:37:20 | |
concerns, comments, reach out. Be glad to help however I can. | 00:37:26 | |
Any questions now that I can answer? | 00:37:33 | |
Council, any questions for Mr. Merritt? | 00:37:38 | |
Well, thank you all very much and look forward to seeing you again soon. All right, well, I'd like to make just a couple of | 00:37:41 | |
comments real quick that we couldn't include in the report because of the requirements for the standards. I did want to point out | 00:37:48 | |
the city has resolved a few long standing significant deficiencies identified in previous audits including deposits not being made | 00:37:54 | |
in a timely manner. We did not have that finding at all in the sampling and also point out on page 69 it talks about. | 00:38:01 | |
Compliance requirements for federal major federal programs. The only federal programs that we participate in the American Rescue | 00:38:09 | |
Plan Act, which all cities and counties throughout the state throughout the United States. | 00:38:14 | |
Participated in and the Georgia Clean Water State Revolving fund for the G4 loan, which as you pointed out receives funds in this | 00:38:20 | |
case from EPA. | 00:38:24 | |
Yeah. Thank you for making that clarification. And and I will say that the city finance staff has has done a great job improving | 00:38:29 | |
the controls and and the processes over the years. | 00:38:34 | |
And we we've certainly had more recommendations in the past. So they've done a good job. You got a lot to be proud of and we | 00:38:41 | |
certainly appreciate it. Thank you, thank you. And I mean, all the credit goes to Lee Black. She's doing, she's back in the back, | 00:38:49 | |
keeping an eye on the on the recording, making sure that people can can see this from home. But Lee worked tirelessly with. | 00:38:57 | |
Will Harris or William Harris and Will and Clay at the Russian office and it is a lot if y'all came in during the audits when they | 00:39:06 | |
were here. | 00:39:10 | |
You would see stacks and stacks of books and things that Lee has to keep track of and, and pull samples up so that they can, they | 00:39:15 | |
can check to make sure that we're abiding by the standards. So kudos to Lee. She did an amazing job. And like Will said, she's | 00:39:21 | |
really, we really buttoned up a lot of the issues that we were having before. So Yep. So Lee, I know you can hear us. Thank you. | 00:39:26 | |
And, and to all of you, I know this probably seems boring, but ultimately this is the taxpayers money and we take seriously how we | 00:39:32 | |
take care of it. | 00:39:37 | |
And so that's that's the reason that we've got an auditor is because it's y'all's money. | 00:39:44 | |
It's not our money. And so we want to be sure we're spending it wisely. We want to be sure we're doing it the right way. So we'll | 00:39:48 | |
thank you for that. Absolutely. We take that responsibility seriously and we appreciate you making sure we're we're doing that. | 00:39:52 | |
Yes, Sir. Thank you. Appreciate all of you. | 00:39:57 | |
Sharon, were there any budget amendments that were part of that conversation or is that coming later? Yes, and they're on the | 00:40:03 | |
consent agenda. They're on the consent agenda. Oh, actually, no, I'm sorry. Hang on a second. | 00:40:07 | |
They should have been in your packet, they should follow us, so we do have budget amendments that need to be approved. | 00:40:12 | |
OK. All right. | 00:40:21 | |
Do we because they are in unless are they going to pop up? Are they in consent? | 00:40:23 | |
See if we can print them out for She's behind us about 30 seconds, OK. | 00:40:29 | |
All right, and we can. If need be we can. | 00:40:33 | |
Can you get up for a moment? It's about 30 second delay. What comes out here before? | 00:40:41 | |
If you can, go ahead and just make a couple of copies. | 00:40:46 | |
I apologize for that. | 00:40:50 | |
They make sure that they're reflected in the packet. | 00:40:55 | |
While we wait on that, Christine, do you want to do just or can we go on and do some other stuff and come back to that or Yeah. | 00:40:59 | |
I can go ahead and do the administration. We'll just leave 5 open and then we'll just come back and handle those if we go on | 00:41:05 | |
through. OK, All right, yeah, we'll talk. We're going to still talk about finances so. | 00:41:09 | |
Everybody should have received the balance sheet, the revenues and expenditure reports, really no surprises at this point. We're | 00:41:14 | |
up 30% through the year. | 00:41:18 | |
On the splash report, So I always like to give you sort of update on that. | 00:41:23 | |
So splash 3, we get 8.63% of the total sales that are collected. Sales taxes are collected. While this money has been used for | 00:41:27 | |
public safety vehicles, our variable message signs that you see around town. Improvements to Harris Shoals Park, including the | 00:41:34 | |
boardwalk that's currently under construction and the Giardini Green Thomas Farm Park allow those improvements are being paid for | 00:41:40 | |
three slots 3. | 00:41:46 | |
The signage, the green space signage, Mayor showed earlier. | 00:41:53 | |
Our entry signage and then our resurfacing projects and, and like between fiscal year 22 and 24, right now our average monthly | 00:41:56 | |
revenues are around $83,000 a month. When this project started we estimated only 64. So we are looking at having if, if things | 00:42:04 | |
continue to to run this trend having a little bit more than 700, maybe $800,000 for you all to try to figure out how to. | 00:42:13 | |
Use on projects in the city. | 00:42:22 | |
On the comparison sheet, here's the comparison year by year. You'll see it went from monthly average of 72,000 to 83 to 88 and | 00:42:25 | |
right now we're hovering around 90. We have a little bit more than $1,000,000 in Sloss 3 and that will sunset in September of 27. | 00:42:33 | |
On T's law, so this is transportation special purpose local option sales tax. So transportation related activities, we have three | 00:42:44 | |
different buckets sidewalks, our multi use trails, traffic efficiency improvements and road resurfacing. To date we have triggered | 00:42:50 | |
two of those buckets sidewalks. The money that's in there that's been encumbered will actually help service the Georgia | 00:42:56 | |
transportation infrastructure. | 00:43:02 | |
Bank loan that we got for 2.25 million to build the Simonton Bridge Rd. multi use trail. | 00:43:08 | |
We'll also be getting 1.5 million for that project as a grant, which we won't have to repay. And then this will also help pay for | 00:43:16 | |
some resurfacing projects. Right now, the project that we're waiting on is the Elmeg project for fiscal year 25, which includes | 00:43:23 | |
the entrance drive to Thomas Farm. The cemetery paving. I don't give them to the mayor. Yeah, that's fine. The cemetery paving and | 00:43:30 | |
the paving of Mulberry Street, which currently is one of our gravel roads in the city. | 00:43:38 | |
Again, right now we have we estimated that over the life of this project we'll have about 78,000 a month. Right now we're | 00:43:46 | |
averaging about 72. Again this program unity intent is that we'll grow. So I anticipate we'll we'll achieve you know exceed that | 00:43:51 | |
78,000 at some point. | 00:43:56 | |
And then when you compare the first year, we didn't have a full year, we only had a few months in that first year, fiscal year 23, | 00:44:02 | |
we went from 68,000 a month on average to 73. And I'm sorry, I did not see that I made that error is not 113,000 a month. It's it | 00:44:09 | |
is an average. It's actually on your prior sheet it's 72,000. So I will correct that, apologize for missing that. And we have a | 00:44:15 | |
little bit more than $620,000 in the bank for that. | 00:44:22 | |
And then last but not least, our American Rescue Plan monies, the the federal government said that those monies have to be | 00:44:29 | |
obligated by December 31st of this year. There is an item on your consent agenda tonight to go ahead and obligate for a purpose | 00:44:36 | |
that next month we will actually have to come back with the exact purchase purpose. | 00:44:43 | |
Of some purchase of some sort and I look forward to working with the mayor and the chief on deciding how that money will be spent. | 00:44:51 | |
It'll be about $10,000 but the monies right now that have been obligated are for the police public. Sorry public safety premium | 00:44:57 | |
pay retention, which is in the report that you received in your packet. You'll understand that we are running out of time for that | 00:45:03 | |
so we're asking that money be used for just public safety and like I said we'll come back next month with a specific. | 00:45:10 | |
Request to use that because that request has to be approved before the end of the month. | 00:45:17 | |
Year and then the other money, the remaining balance the Council appropriated for the Thomas Farm Preserve project and that will | 00:45:21 | |
finish out a little bit more than $1,000,000 that we received from the federal government through the ARPA program. Any questions? | 00:45:26 | |
Can we retire the spreadsheet then, Sharon? After December, it would be, I don't know if I can retire the spreadsheet until all | 00:45:32 | |
the expenses are in, maybe early next year. We'll see. I would love to. | 00:45:37 | |
Within the audit that they're accounted for appropriately, sometimes things get shifted, you know, counting in the wrong buckets. | 00:46:13 | |
I don't think that's what the print out was from Julie. So no, that's not yeah, that's not the correct one. | 00:46:21 | |
And so those are started coming and we also received a alcohol license renewal. | 00:47:00 | |
Collections, excise tax collections, we have this short term vacation rental as well, our hotel, motel and our alcohol. Remember | 00:47:06 | |
we received them after the fact. So what's showing for October, we won't see until November. So what you see in September is | 00:47:12 | |
actually what we received in October for September and we're tracking about where we expected to be. | 00:47:18 | |
And then finally on economic development, we have the building permits. We had quite a few very busy time, 23 apartments for 22 | 00:47:26 | |
projects, have several over at Wire Park that are going on. Looks like people are changing out their HVAC systems, perhaps getting | 00:47:33 | |
new ones and just lots of little residential type and commercial type permits that were issued. Any questions? | 00:47:40 | |
OK. | 00:47:48 | |
All right, Christine, Downtown Development Authority. OK, yes. So we are still searching for our DDA Director. We have some good | 00:47:51 | |
candidates. We're starting some interviews, but applications are still open. So some good board progress there. | 00:47:58 | |
The DDA is recommending Sorry sorry. That's alright, it's recommending that. | 00:48:07 | |
That the mayor appoints an Arts Council. We recognize the importance of Oak Half in our community and the partnership with OCAF. | 00:48:16 | |
And so having an Arts Council to help bridge that we think is an important function for the city. And then also perhaps one or two | 00:48:23 | |
have one or two members of the DBAB on that because again, we think the arts are incredibly important for our downtown as a whole | 00:48:31 | |
as well. | 00:48:38 | |
Downtown trick or treat? We have some pictures. | 00:48:47 | |
He decided no video, Sharon. Yeah, no. OK, there's some fun video of the mayor. | 00:48:51 | |
But it's it's not making the cut. He was the kool-aid man. There we go. There we go. We have a picture. So it was a great success, | 00:48:57 | |
lots of fun. I love that we even had dancers. So everyone was safe and fun. Time was had by all. | 00:49:05 | |
And we are looking forward to the tree lighting and the parade on Sunday, December 8th. The parade will be at 4. We have our our. | 00:49:15 | |
Entries are full with a waiting list, and every year I'm really impressed with the committee who does this. They work hard to make | 00:49:27 | |
sure things get smoother and smoother every year and that they're very safe for our community and lots of fun. So mark your | 00:49:32 | |
calendars. | 00:49:38 | |
And our grand marshals, we have Colin and Leah, who had the privilege of getting to know when we went out to Colorado when we got | 00:49:44 | |
the All American City Award. So they are two fantastic citizens that we have. And I'm excited that they get to be the grand | 00:49:51 | |
marshals this year. And they are excited. I'm getting text messages from Colin and Leah and they're they're pumped up about being | 00:49:58 | |
our grand marshals. Leah told my dad yesterday. She's worked, Leah works at the Helps. | 00:50:06 | |
The local at the food pantry acts in Bogart, and even though Leah has to use a Walker and is in a wheelchair, she's still | 00:50:13 | |
volunteering and working in the community. She told my dad I just don't want to, don't want to mess up being the Grand Marshall. | 00:50:19 | |
So I said I don't think there's any way Leah could mess up with her big smile. So she's she's very excited and I think Colin wants | 00:50:26 | |
to also be able to pet the horses too when they're pulling them. So. So anyway, it's going to be a it's going to be a great day. | 00:50:32 | |
All right. | 00:50:40 | |
Sergeant Hibor. | 00:50:42 | |
Tell us about all the things we'll see. If Halloween was as smooth as Christine's, Halloween was as smooth as Councilwoman Tucker | 00:50:46 | |
said. All right. | 00:50:51 | |
I'm a little sad, I think this is my last time standing up here giving this report. | 00:50:57 | |
You know, I'm a little nervous too, because my new boss isn't and my former boss, so I'm really nervous about this one. Don't mess | 00:51:03 | |
this up. But no, we've had a, we've had a great month since the last council meeting. Sergeant Wade is scheduled. We got the | 00:51:11 | |
approval that he's going to begin his management classes down at the training center in Forsyth. So we're excited for him. | 00:51:18 | |
Officer Walker is scheduled to go to an active shooter training class, also down at Forsyth, which he's excited for. He's ready to | 00:51:27 | |
go to that. And then Officer Krish completed his gang recognition for patrol course, which he was expanding on some knowledge that | 00:51:33 | |
he gained while he was at LAPD. | 00:51:40 | |
So it was great to see all three of them. | 00:51:46 | |
Moving forward, the new patrol truck is back from being upfitted and it looks great. It drives really well. | 00:51:49 | |
Other than that. | 00:51:58 | |
Like everybody said, the Fall Festival was a roaring success. We saw a boatload of folks there and everybody had a great time. I | 00:52:00 | |
don't know that anybody that I've talked to or that has contacted us had anything negative to say about it. | 00:52:07 | |
Then as Councilwoman Tucker said, we've already elaborated on the downtown trick or treating was again a great success. So, but | 00:52:15 | |
other than that, we've got the statistics. We had six arrests. Most of them, as you can see, were traffic related, which is about | 00:52:22 | |
on par for what we normally see. We had one warrant arrest which was helping Athens, Clark County. They had a simple battery | 00:52:29 | |
warrant that we helped them with. And then we had one call for service, which was an aggravated assault arrest. | 00:52:36 | |
Other than that we had 165 calls for service. | 00:52:44 | |
Since the last council meeting, we had 1070 security checks. So our folks are out here driving neighborhoods and checking areas | 00:52:47 | |
and making sure that everybody's being safe, stopping in the businesses and and meeting and greeting folks. We had 37 reports that | 00:52:53 | |
were generated. We had 74 citations and 71 warnings, which again, is about on par with what we normally see. It's about a 5050 | 00:52:59 | |
split. We're giving folks chances. | 00:53:06 | |
And then the folks that. | 00:53:13 | |
I've already gotten chances. We'd like to see them in this room later on in the month. | 00:53:15 | |
Incident reports, we had 25 of those and then we had 12 accident reports. And again, it's about normal for us, which is great to | 00:53:21 | |
know. | 00:53:24 | |
So but other than that. | 00:53:28 | |
Council have any questions? | 00:53:30 | |
Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. | 00:53:36 | |
All right. | 00:53:39 | |
Thank you. We'll move on to consent. Nobody asked for anything to come off. I know there are some other budget items in there, so | 00:53:41 | |
I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:53:47 | |
I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor, aye. | 00:53:53 | |
OK. | 00:54:01 | |
All right. We will move on to our public hearing. We have a variance at 111 Farm View Dr. Thank you to the Lucky's for being | 00:54:04 | |
patient. | 00:54:07 | |
Manager Dickerson and engineer Campbell will offer the report. | 00:54:12 | |
And then Mr. Lucky will have you come forward and provide any additional information you want to share. | 00:54:16 | |
All right, Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Mayor. | 00:54:23 | |
So the subject property is has an address of 111 Farm View Drive. It's actually at the corner of another couple streets we can | 00:54:26 | |
talk about as well. But the Vegas request is specifically related to proposed construction on to the existing detached residential | 00:54:32 | |
structure is within the neighborhood. So you can see the request there from the ordinance and it's mainly related to a a side set | 00:54:38 | |
back. | 00:54:44 | |
The the ordinance requires A10 foot side set back. The applicant's asking that be reduced down to. | 00:54:51 | |
Three feet. | 00:54:56 | |
So if you don't know where 111 Farming Drive is located, you can see that location there on the map. | 00:54:57 | |
A little bit of history here going back to Platbook 7. Some of our variances are related to when a property was actually platted. | 00:55:06 | |
So you can see this was originally called Crosstalk Subdivision. So you have Rail Drive and some other wonderful things that are | 00:55:13 | |
now Farm View Drive. So again, just a history lesson here at City Council tonight. So here's a view of the of the subject | 00:55:20 | |
property. So this is at the corner of Woodside Place. | 00:55:28 | |
And farm view facing, you know, proximately back to the northeast, really the subject portion of the property is on this specific | 00:55:35 | |
side as a sideways related, it's accessed via the existing driveway and it would be an extension of the structure in the direction | 00:55:41 | |
that you see here. Now where where vehicle access is already established. You can see probably the remnants of what may have been | 00:55:47 | |
an area for for vehicles on that side of the house that was closed in sometime in the past. And now there's an area here that | 00:55:53 | |
would be an extension of that. | 00:55:59 | |
Structure. So here's the the applicant's request for construction of a covered area over a pavement. It's currently dirt, but it | 00:56:05 | |
would be paved on the eastern side of the existing house to be within 3 feet of the adjacent boundary. So you can see the variance | 00:56:11 | |
requested with the ordinance setbacks. And then again just to cover it similar to some things that we've done before with the | 00:56:16 | |
parking and circulation facilities, because there would be an opportunity for this paved area that's covered for a vehicle to be | 00:56:22 | |
located under that. | 00:56:28 | |
And this is the variance criteria that's in Chapter 14 of the city ordinance. It talks about the criteria for how a variance is | 00:56:34 | |
reviewed by mayor and City Council. You've seen this before, but just want to make sure you understand that criteria. So that is | 00:56:40 | |
the the questions tonight. I'm sure the applicant might have something to add to that. I'm happy to answer any questions you might | 00:56:46 | |
have as well. | 00:56:52 | |
I think I remember seeing in the packet that the neighbor had written a note. | 00:56:59 | |
Saying that she was fine with it. I don't know that that's correct. So it was in your packet. Anybody was able to see that online | 00:57:04 | |
or download that? It's just not in the slides, so. | 00:57:09 | |
Mr. Lucky if you want to come forward and. | 00:57:15 | |
Share anything, feel free Council may have some questions or we're going to get you both. OK All right. | 00:57:17 | |
Mr. and Misses Mr. Moses state your name for the record, your address and this name is Dennis Lucky. I live at 111 Farmview Dr. My | 00:57:24 | |
wife, Ann. | 00:57:28 | |
We purchased the property back in. | 00:57:35 | |
2002 Our intention was to use it as a rental property. | 00:57:39 | |
My wife's mother decided she wanted to move back in town from out of town, so she was our tenant for approximately 15 years until | 00:57:45 | |
we decided we'd like to make it our home. When we purchased a property, it was overgrown. You couldn't see the house from the | 00:57:53 | |
road. The shrubbery in the front covered the gutters. The property is overgrown with privet with bamboo. | 00:58:01 | |
And so I spent a lot of years and a lot of time and hours. | 00:58:10 | |
You know, cleaning the property up, this part of our vision in that time since we moved in in 2017, we've totally renovated the | 00:58:16 | |
inside. Outside is still under construction. If you ride by there and see different colors of paint, we're waiting, you know, till | 00:58:22 | |
we finished to, to give it the final coat. But I've, I've done all the work myself. Two years ago we added a sunroom on the back, | 00:58:28 | |
which is gorgeous. | 00:58:34 | |
Per her request and close a small carport because I don't own a Volkswagen Bug that would fit in there. | 00:58:42 | |
So our plan is just to try to have something to get our cars out of the weather, which my truck many of y'all have seen is a small | 00:58:48 | |
bus and it doesn't fit in most places. So that being said, you know, it's just part of our vision, you know to. | 00:58:57 | |
To make the the property look better, be better for the whole community. I worked also with a lot of my neighbors in the | 00:59:06 | |
neighborhood helping them clean their properties up and prove their properties, build hardscapes or whatever. | 00:59:12 | |
Also, in 2020 I received a Georgia real estate license and I did that solely to buy rental properties and after becoming a | 00:59:21 | |
landlord for a while. | 00:59:25 | |
Got kind of soured out on that and decided I would just sell the things I bought. Well, this one, I'm sorry, my wife said. | 00:59:32 | |
Mama wants to look at the house, so before we sell it, let's let her look at it. So she lived there for a while and then we've | 00:59:41 | |
been there since. And if you drive by there or if you want to come inside, you'll see that. | 00:59:47 | |
It's become a really pretty spot on that corner. And as far as real estate goes, I just believe that, you know, anytime you make | 00:59:54 | |
an improvement to a property, it helps all those properties around you, helps the whole neighborhood, which, you know, helps the | 01:00:01 | |
whole city. So one other thing, I'm also a business owner in Oak County in downtown Watkinsville. | 01:00:09 | |
Local hair salon and and if you want to see my vision for what I do, just feel free to stop by there sometime and come inside. | 01:00:18 | |
So all right, any questions for us? | 01:00:26 | |
Yes, in the thank you. I walk by your house often with my dog. | 01:00:29 | |
So I think in the packet you had some, there were some renderings of the type of thing. So you're not talking about putting up | 01:00:36 | |
like a metal kind of carport thing, you're going to build like a more pavilion like as far as I know those metal. | 01:00:44 | |
Portable carports are not allowed in the city. I know some of them are grandfathered in that there's one right around the corner | 01:00:53 | |
for me on Lawana that's been paved over. And you know, they're really not an eyesore, but I understand the the idea that no, it's | 01:01:01 | |
going to be a frame built structure. The hope is to. | 01:01:09 | |
Have the the shingles are 7 years old on my roof so to have them be consistent with the original. | 01:01:18 | |
Shape, shape and contour of the house. | 01:01:25 | |
And and that there is a picture in your packet of a. | 01:01:28 | |
Carport that I designed for one of her friends over on Windsor Dr. and that's where I pulled that picture from because I designed | 01:01:32 | |
that as well and their builder went with that. | 01:01:37 | |
So. | 01:01:42 | |
Any other questions? | 01:01:45 | |
I can't attest if you stop by, if you're out campaigning or something and you need a door to knock on there the friendliest, | 01:01:48 | |
friendliest door to knock on. You might even get to come in and sit down for a while. So this is beautiful. | 01:01:53 | |
It's a beautiful home. So they bark, but they don't bite. So I'm just imagining looking at this picture that is in the packet that | 01:01:58 | |
you're going to extend the roof line over to the. So it'll all be one structure essentially. And the thing that that I don't love | 01:02:04 | |
about a roof line that you continue on out that far because. | 01:02:10 | |
My goal is to have a 28 by 28 foot structure and to have the same pitch but. | 01:02:17 | |
I don't want it to look like a chicken house, so I put a in there. You'll see a Gable bump out on the front, which is the same | 01:02:24 | |
thing that I designed for her her friend's house and it just just to break up the roof line so that you know, it looks more homey | 01:02:29 | |
and less. | 01:02:34 | |
Of commercial camp. | 01:02:41 | |
Questions for Mr. Lucky. | 01:02:45 | |
OK. | 01:02:47 | |
Thank you all, feel very happy. Appreciate it. At this point, I'll open a public hearing. This does require a public hearing since | 01:02:49 | |
it's a variance. So if anyone would like to step forward, public hearing is now open. We'll have 3 minutes for anyone in favor. | 01:02:56 | |
Seeing no one in favor, anybody opposed? | 01:03:04 | |
Alright, I'll close the public hearing now. We'll come back over to us and we'll vote on the Variance Council. Any discussion? | 01:03:07 | |
Hearing none, do I have a motion? | 01:03:15 | |
Make a motion to approve the variance for 111 Farm View Drive. | 01:03:19 | |
We have a motion, we have a second. Any further discussion? | 01:03:24 | |
Hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 01:03:28 | |
Motion carries 50. Thank you all. | 01:03:32 | |
All right. We have no appearances. We have no old business. | 01:03:35 | |
We have a resolution can you get you can go back to five. You should have the items in front of the item 5 This is the budget | 01:03:41 | |
amendments. | 01:03:45 | |
Just the closing and everything of the property on there as well. So these are just tidying up everything, make sure everything's | 01:04:20 | |
in where it needs to be for the fiscal year. And these are given to us by the auditors. OK. So this is just adjusting our numbers | 01:04:25 | |
to match the audit Council. I'd like a motion to approve the final budget amendment, please. | 01:04:31 | |
Make a motion to approve the final budget amendment for 2024. | 01:04:37 | |
Do we have a second? | 01:04:42 | |
A second. All right. Any questions or discussion? | 01:04:44 | |
Hearing none, all in favor say aye. All right, motion carries. | 01:04:48 | |
All right, so we are to new business folks were on the verge of wrapping up here you want to. | 01:04:53 | |
Hang around. I think don't have too much more to go if we can be just quick on this one share and I know we almost put this on | 01:05:01 | |
consent. So I don't think we need to go deep on this program. | 01:05:05 | |
So we're asking you to adopt A resolution and approve participation in the First Responder PTSD program. This was brought about, | 01:05:10 | |
you may recall, in October of 2018, Gwinnett County police responded to suspicious vehicle call. Officer Antoine Tony was first on | 01:05:17 | |
scene. He barely made it out of his car when he was shot 6 times. Sergeant Wilson stayed with him, rendering aid and giving him | 01:05:23 | |
CPR. Officer Tony ultimately died from his injuries. This is the House Bill 451. | 01:05:30 | |
It was sponsored that brought this about was sponsored by our our own local one of our local representatives Houston Gaines and it | 01:05:38 | |
requires that all public entities in Georgia offer supplemental illness specific insurance benefits. | 01:05:44 | |
For first responders who are clinically diagnosed by a qualified Dr. with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD as we know it, | 01:05:51 | |
the bill is also known as the Ashley Wilson Act. Again, Sergeant Wilson was the one who was with the officer when he was shot and | 01:05:56 | |
killed. | 01:06:00 | |
What this bill mandates is and I'll I can move, move through some of these. I'm sorry. It could have been passing through these at | 01:06:06 | |
same time Bill Mondays that by January 1 of this coming year, all public it public entities that have employed or volunteer first | 01:06:12 | |
responders that we provide a lump sum and income replacement benefit and Germa, our insurance provider is the only one. Actually | 01:06:18 | |
we did check with Anthem to see because we do provide. | 01:06:24 | |
The council has provided long term disability insurance for. | 01:06:31 | |
Long term disability insurance for our employees, our employees, but Garmas the only one providing this specific service. So it | 01:06:37 | |
will be, it will be a one time $3000 payment to help cover uninsured costs and up to 36 months of disability leave payment at 60% | 01:06:44 | |
of a first responder salary. Our premium for all of our officers is under $1000. It's something we can certainly handle within our | 01:06:50 | |
budget this year. And again the effective date of coverage will be January 1. | 01:06:57 | |
All right, so really glad that we're participating in this. I hope we never need it, but if we do, I'm very thankful it's there | 01:07:05 | |
and thankful that Representative Gaines got this passed. Council, any questions for the manager? | 01:07:11 | |
All right, hearing none, can we have a motion to approve the resolution? | 01:07:19 | |
I make a motion to approve the resolution. We have a 2nd, 2nd. | 01:07:24 | |
Any further discussion? | 01:07:29 | |
All in favor say aye. Any opposed? | 01:07:30 | |
All right, we'll move on to the pavilion at Thomas Farm Preserve. | 01:07:34 | |
OK, so we are asking the council to award Massey General Contractors the contract for the design and construction of a 30 by 30 | 01:07:38 | |
foot pavilion to be located at Thomas Farm. Asking that the contract be approved as well. The contractor has seen it and that the | 01:07:45 | |
Mayor and City Clerk signed all the relevant documents. In February of this year. Council approved programming plus three funds to | 01:07:51 | |
help with Thomas Farm as well as some ARPA money. | 01:07:58 | |
In September of this year, we released an RFP for the design and construction of the pavilion. | 01:08:06 | |
On November 8th we received price proposals from three companies, Massey General Contractors. The ad alternate is the one we would | 01:08:11 | |
be going with $47,800 and some change. Smith and Co at 117 thousand and some change in Bliss products at 95,000 and some change. | 01:08:17 | |
We reviewed all those we did send out to 19 specifically direct directly sent to these 19 contractors. We also advertised twice in | 01:08:23 | |
the in the paper. | 01:08:30 | |
And like I said, we received 3 price proposals back. | 01:08:37 | |
We are asking for a not to exceed 60,000 gives us a little bit of room to maybe tighten up the design some and and so that's what | 01:08:41 | |
we're asking any questions? | 01:08:46 | |
That includes the concrete path. No, it does not include concrete. The concrete pad is budgeted for separately. OK. | 01:08:53 | |
All right. | 01:08:58 | |
Council, any questions for Manager Dickerson? | 01:09:00 | |
What would be the timing on that? Yeah, so well, good question. I think in the contract we said by March or April of next year was | 01:09:03 | |
what we were hoping for. So we'll we'll see as we dig into it. Of course weather will determine a lot of it and contractors and | 01:09:09 | |
everything else that's going on out there. I said March 1st of 2025 is when we hope to have it done. So the plan would be start in | 01:09:16 | |
January and end finish it by March. | 01:09:22 | |
And then we anticipate pouring a concrete pad under that. | 01:09:29 | |
Probably the concrete pad will be poured at the same time. We'll work with the contractor for that because we need to know where | 01:09:32 | |
the footings will be and all that for the post. So, yeah, yeah, just slightly concerned that we were going to build a building and | 01:09:37 | |
pour concrete. No, no, no, we're going to. We just budgeted for it differently. We didn't want that to be part of the price. We'd | 01:09:41 | |
already sort of got an estimate for the for the concrete pad. Thank you. | 01:09:46 | |
All right, Council, do we have a motion? | 01:09:52 | |
Make a motion to approve this contract to them and recommend. | 01:09:57 | |
Christine's motion. Does anybody want a second? I think. | 01:10:07 | |
All right. We have a motion here, a second. Any further discussion? | 01:10:12 | |
All in favor say aye. Any opposed? | 01:10:15 | |
All right. | 01:10:20 | |
Bring us home, Mark. We've got the annual storm water update. Then we'll have right, we'll have to wait and even see citizens | 01:10:21 | |
laughing with joy that they get to hear the you don't. You don't have to wait in storm water for the annual storm water update. So | 01:10:28 | |
we'll have more time for Christmas parade awards next month, hopefully. But the good news on storm water is it's raining. | 01:10:34 | |
Umm, so I was worried about that for a month or so. When it's not raining, we kind of don't know what stormwater is doing. So | 01:10:41 | |
those are also sometimes, sometimes when leaves can can pile open some of those things. One of the things I want you to know that | 01:10:46 | |
we also have an annual training with our staff. | 01:10:51 | |
Annually. | 01:11:56 | |
Seeing none about those questions. | 01:12:00 | |
Great. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Sharon. All right, public comments. | 01:12:37 | |
If anyone would like to make a public comment, your time to shine, come on up. Comments shall be directly related to matters | 01:12:41 | |
tonight, or they could really be about anything you want. Speak from the podium, 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate | 01:12:47 | |
argument. Personal attacks are irrelevant discussion. Address only the matter merits of the pending matter and address remarks | 01:12:52 | |
directly to council. Council won't speak to litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. All right, who wants to speak to the | 01:12:57 | |
council tonight? | 01:13:03 | |
Oh, Kathleen, Nothing. | 01:13:09 | |
All right. | 01:13:14 | |
You have frequent fires. OK, All right. Here we go. Come on, Lance. All right. Yeah. Yep, Yep. All right. | 01:13:19 | |
Hi, my name is Lawrence Duke. I live at 13 Barnes Shoals. | 01:13:28 | |
And I really want to thank you all for putting the tree up at the Baton Court. | 01:13:31 | |
It's not to the South, but I'm so I'm hoping we'll add a couple more so it'll actually shade the court. But and I heard that we | 01:13:36 | |
might actually get a second light. | 01:13:40 | |
And that would be fabulous because then we have the only lighted baton court probably in. | 01:13:44 | |
Northeast Georgia. So thank you very much. OK. | 01:13:50 | |
Thank you, Lawrence. | 01:13:53 | |
Anyone else? | 01:13:55 | |
All right. | 01:13:57 | |
Hearing none. We are done with that, Council reports. We'll move to Councilman Garrett. | 01:13:59 | |
Post 1 nothing to report. | 01:14:04 | |
Councilman Massey. | 01:14:07 | |
Nothing to report. | 01:14:09 | |
Councilman Thomas continue to train. Nothing to report. | 01:14:12 | |
Mayor Pro Tem. | 01:14:16 | |
All right, Jeff pressures on you. | 01:14:18 | |
Say no. | 01:14:20 | |
I got nothing. | 01:14:24 | |
And even better, I don't think we need an executive session tonight. So I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to | 01:14:27 | |
adjourn. | 01:14:31 | |
Second. All right, all in favor. Say aye, we're done. | 01:14:34 |
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All right, Good evening. Welcome to the November Watkinsville City Council meeting. We have a quorum here. Glad we have perfect | 00:00:15 | |
attendance tonight. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. | 00:00:20 | |
Shannon Brock, if you'd lead us in the pledge, please, Sir. | 00:00:26 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:30 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:37 | |
I'll call you Chief because that's what I always called you. We're thrilled to have you back in here with us tonight for a special | 00:00:45 | |
occasion. And it's just great to see your smiling face in the chambers again tonight. So thank you for leading us with that. | 00:00:53 | |
The fine print that I get to begin every meeting with. | 00:01:05 | |
That our lawyers tell me. I have to say if you have hearing impairments. | 00:01:08 | |
CC icon in the lower right of the video window. When the video from tonight's meeting is posted online, closed captions will | 00:02:13 | |
automatically appear. Interest in parties could also view a transcript of the meeting under the tab titled Transcript. As a | 00:02:18 | |
reminder, notice of the Council meeting along with the current month agenda is posted one full week before the meeting to allow | 00:02:22 | |
the public sufficient time to provide comments in writing. | 00:02:27 | |
All right. We're going to start with the administration of oath of office for our new DDA board members. I know Erica Fluke is | 00:02:32 | |
here. I don't think Brock Tool is. Erica, if you could step forward, Attorney Reitman will administer the oath. | 00:02:38 | |
We have one. | 00:02:51 | |
Very good evening. Congratulations. And this is somewhat ceremonial because we did administer an oath previously, so you'll be | 00:02:52 | |
official. But let's go ahead and repeat this posterity. If you'll raise your right hand, please do you, a citizen of Oconee | 00:02:58 | |
County, Georgia, solemnly swear that you will to the best of your ability. | 00:03:05 | |
Without favor or affection to any person, without any unauthorized financial gain or compensation to yourself, faithfully and | 00:03:13 | |
fairly discharge all the duties and responsibilities that devolve upon you as a member of the Watkinsville Downtown Development | 00:03:19 | |
Authority during the term of your service as such member and that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the | 00:03:24 | |
Constitution of Georgia. And you are not a member of the Communist Party. You are not the holder of any unaccounted for public | 00:03:30 | |
money. Do this. | 00:03:36 | |
Or any political subdivision or authority thereof. That you are not the holder of any office of trust under the government of the | 00:03:42 | |
United States, any other state, or any foreign state which you would be by the law as the State of Georgia, prohibited from | 00:03:47 | |
holding. And that you're otherwise qualified to hold said office according to constitutional laws of Georgia. And if you agree | 00:03:52 | |
with that, you can say I do. | 00:03:58 | |
Congratulations. | 00:04:04 | |
Mrs. Floyd runs a wonderful new business downtown. How long have you been open now? One year called Bird and Brass. If you've not | 00:04:10 | |
been to Bird and Brass, you need to visit. It's I'll let you describe it in a moment, but to me it is a wonderful mix of | 00:04:16 | |
inspiring. | 00:04:21 | |
Lifestyle materials and art and then you also she does art classes and just is in a lovely restored building downtown. | 00:04:28 | |
So Miss Flake, if you want to maybe for a minute, just describe your business and maybe why you're interested in joining the DDA | 00:04:34 | |
and then we'll turn you loose. | 00:04:37 | |
Hang on one second. Joe took the microphone. Hold on, I was ready to go on my next. | 00:04:40 | |
Thank you. Yes. So Burden Pass is a gift shop. I'm located just across from Blind Pick Tavern at 13 N Main, and I'm an artist, so | 00:04:47 | |
I have a lot of my art there. I also paint ornaments and pet portraits and make wreaths and all kinds of fun, you know, beautiful | 00:04:53 | |
crafty things. So so I sell all of those things at the store as well as just an assortment of beautiful gifts and things that just | 00:05:00 | |
help people appreciate nature. | 00:05:06 | |
And the beauty of nature. So that's kind of the concept behind the store. And I was just so thrilled to join. This has been such a | 00:05:13 | |
wonderful community that just welcomed me so well in the last five years. And I just want to be a part of it in a more meaningful | 00:05:19 | |
way and just contribute to the growth of downtown. So I'm very thankful. | 00:05:26 | |
Thank you. | 00:05:33 | |
Congratulations. And Erica, you're welcome to stay as long as you like. Our next item on the agenda is the oath of office for | 00:05:39 | |
Police Chief James R Wood. | 00:05:44 | |
Mr. Allwood, if you want to come forward. | 00:05:50 | |
I'm going to come over here to decide the hearing loop. | 00:05:52 | |
And I will read the oath and at the end you can see I do or I do some help of God. Let's raise our right hands. Do James, all | 00:05:56 | |
would solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of Chief of Police for the City of Watkinsville. And to | 00:06:04 | |
the best of your ability, support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of Georgia, and the charter, | 00:06:11 | |
ordinances and regulations of the City of Watkinsville, and that you are not the holder of any unaccounted for public money. | 00:06:18 | |
Do this State, or any political subdivision or authority thereof, and that you are not the holder of any office of trust under the | 00:06:25 | |
Government of the United States, any other state or any foreign State which you by the laws the State of Georgia will be | 00:06:31 | |
prohibited from holding. That you are otherwise qualified to hold said office according to Constitution and laws of Georgia, and | 00:06:37 | |
that you will perform the duties of your office in the best interest of the City of Watkinsville to the best of your ability, | 00:06:43 | |
without fear, favor, affection, reward. | 00:06:49 | |
Expectation thereof, if you agree with that oath, you can say I do or I do, so help me God. | 00:06:55 | |
Congratulations welcome. | 00:07:01 | |
In chief, I'll just say, you know, we went through a pretty rigorous search process. You rose to the top. We are grateful to you, | 00:07:08 | |
grateful for your service before and Jefferson and elsewhere, and excited to see what you bring to Watkinsville in the years ahead | 00:07:14 | |
as we seek to be Georgia's best small town. So I'll let you say a few words if you'd like, and welcome to Watkinsville. Sure, | 00:07:21 | |
sure. First. | 00:07:27 | |
Say thank you. I'm very blessed and very humbled with this opportunity. I want to thank the Lord for giving me direction, guided | 00:07:33 | |
me to this and through this journey. You know, I didn't really know what to expect going forward, but I feel very, very, very | 00:07:40 | |
thankful that I rose to the top and have this opportunity. I want to thank my wife, who is my best friend and thank her for her | 00:07:47 | |
support my family back here. | 00:07:54 | |
On the back row, you know your family makes you who you are. | 00:08:01 | |
Through the thick and the thin, I want to thank the city. Watkinsville. | 00:08:06 | |
The mayor, all the council, city manager, city clerk, finance manager, the Police Department and you know, honestly, that's what | 00:08:11 | |
made my decision was I come down here and I felt comfortable. I like the family atmosphere and I just want to be a part of it. I'm | 00:08:17 | |
excited and I'm ready to go. Great. | 00:08:23 | |
Sure. | 00:08:35 | |
Yeah. And I saw, I saw Officer Wade raised his hand when you recognize the family there. So, yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. | 00:08:36 | |
All right. | 00:09:05 | |
Yeah, OK. All right. | 00:09:13 | |
Congratulations. | 00:09:27 | |
I got a couple. | 00:09:48 | |
I failed to recognize when earlier when I was recognizing police chiefs. We do have the police chief of Jefferson here with us | 00:10:08 | |
tonight. Chief, thank you for being here. And. | 00:10:11 | |
Supporting now Chief Harwood, grateful for all you've done to grow him in his career. So thank you for being here with us tonight. | 00:10:16 | |
Yep, thank you. | 00:10:22 | |
All right, couple items under point of privilege. First of all, I'd like to invite Tony Ferguson to the podium. It sounds like | 00:10:25 | |
we've got some good news Mr. Ferguson might share with us about. | 00:10:32 | |
The contribution that will benefit downtown Watkinsville. Yeah. Well, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for having me here tonight. So | 00:10:40 | |
Georgia Power for over 100 years, 1883 is when we were formed and we've made a commitment to the communities that we serve. And | 00:10:47 | |
that's been our motto for over 100 years, to be a citizen where we serve. And one of the ways that we can do that is giving back | 00:10:54 | |
to our community. So we're excited to announce a $35,000 donation to the city of Watkinsville. | 00:11:02 | |
To help partner on the Downtown Development strategic Plan. | 00:11:09 | |
So we're just glad to be a part of that. Thank you. Great. | 00:11:12 | |
Thank you, Tony. | 00:11:15 | |
So later tonight, I think it's under consent, but we'll have a, we'll have a budget item to accept those funds and put it into the | 00:11:21 | |
budget. And Christine will look forward to you and the DA advising us how we can deploy those funds and put them to work for | 00:11:28 | |
downtown. So thank you again, Tony, for all that y'all do. Georgia Power has been a great partner for Watkinsville. | 00:11:34 | |
Through thick and thin and when the lights are on and when the lights are off. So, so we're grateful to that. And hopefully the | 00:11:42 | |
squirrels stay out of the substation for the remainder of the years the holidays approach. So all right, Next up, we have a | 00:11:46 | |
proclamation for. | 00:11:51 | |
National Hospice and Palliative Care Month is Matt Howell here. | 00:11:57 | |
All right, Mr. Howell is not here then, Julie, I'll just let you kind of read that into the record at some point, or not read it | 00:12:02 | |
in the record. Just put it into the record. Then I don't think we need to read that. Next, we'll recognize the fall for | 00:12:06 | |
Watkinsville contest winners. | 00:12:10 | |
Our third place. | 00:12:15 | |
Winner is Miss Carol Ivy. | 00:12:17 | |
Carol. | 00:12:21 | |
I. | 00:12:28 | |
I don't know how Miss Carroll St. got ended. Feel like she wins all of our contests. Congratulations. | 00:12:30 | |
Well, there's a reason she's on a permanent First Lady. | 00:12:39 | |
But your house is always beautiful. You have to wrap the front door yet for Christmas. | 00:12:48 | |
No, that happens. Our second place winner is Miss Megan Richter. All right. | 00:12:56 | |
Now where do y'all live? | 00:13:08 | |
The Meadow Springs. OK, awesome. Well, congratulations. All right. | 00:13:10 | |
And your name? David Steen when you pop in the middle, Megan and you'll. | 00:13:14 | |
Each of our. | 00:13:34 | |
Burger and so we got a lot of good burgers in town and the mayor gets in trouble if he endorses 1 burger of another. And then Miss | 00:14:06 | |
Carol, you've got a $25.00 gift certificate. The Wing House, which also has a great burger, and you've got a copy of the ornament | 00:14:12 | |
as well. Sharon, who did our ornament this year. | 00:14:17 | |
Klein. | 00:14:24 | |
Yeah. | 00:14:26 | |
It's a client finds creations later and handmade creations and it's it is inspired by Francis Bird art, which was part of the was | 00:14:27 | |
one of the artists that worked on the downtown rock and art right. OK, so this will be available this year to start commemorative | 00:14:33 | |
ornament. You'll see them on our tree. So thank you all for participating and congratulations again. You all can stay as long as | 00:14:39 | |
you want, but don't feel like you've got to hang around if you don't want to. We'll move pretty quickly through all right, | 00:14:45 | |
approval of the minutes council. | 00:14:50 | |
You've had the minutes in front of you. We did get do have a correction. I'd like to suggest we had someone review the minutes and | 00:14:57 | |
we looked at his comment and decided that we may need to adjust that. So Julie, if you could read the adjustment that we would | 00:15:03 | |
Julie and I'd like to recommend and if possible council, if you'd consider amending the minutes to include that language, we'd | 00:15:09 | |
appreciate it. Sure. On page 2 under public hearing, Bob Smith S Main St. expressed opposition. We're going to remove expressed | 00:15:14 | |
opposition. | 00:15:20 | |
And Put alleged that the city might not be abiding by open meetings law regarding the pipe plant property. | 00:15:27 | |
OK. I think that's an accurate reflection of what Mr. Smith said. If you all agree, if someone could make a motion to accept the | 00:15:36 | |
minutes as amended, that would be great. I make a motion to accept the minutes as amended. | 00:15:41 | |
Do we have a 2nd, 2nd? | 00:15:46 | |
Any discussion? | 00:15:48 | |
All in favor say aye. Any opposed like sign? | 00:15:50 | |
All right, minutes are accepted. Approval of agenda. I'd like to move the mayor's report to after approval of agenda, if everyone | 00:15:54 | |
is willing to do that. If you're willing to do that, please make a motion indicating so. I make a motion to approve the agenda, | 00:15:59 | |
moving the mayor's comments to right after this. | 00:16:05 | |
2nd a second. We have a second. Any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye. Any opposed? | 00:16:12 | |
All right, motion carries. All right, Mayor's report. I'm going to go through this while we have people here. We've had a lot | 00:16:18 | |
happening in Watkinsville. We have the fall Festival. Hard to believe that's been a month already. Time flies. 25 to 30,000 people | 00:16:24 | |
was our estimate from Mr. Hibler. I thought it was a second year with the new format and I thought it went off seamlessly. I don't | 00:16:30 | |
know if all of y'all were able to be there, but it was really a beautiful day. | 00:16:35 | |
It's taking our graphs a few weeks to recover. We didn't have much rain leading into that, but other than that, I think that was | 00:16:43 | |
the only, only living creature that didn't enjoy that beautiful day out there was our grass. Otherwise, it was perfect. | 00:16:48 | |
Congratulations to these three folks on their re-election unopposed. Congratulations, Brett, Christine and Jeff, happy to have you | 00:16:53 | |
all here for another two years. | 00:16:59 | |
On November 11th, we decorated, put flags up in honor of veteran's day at the Watkinsville Cemetery. Really grateful to the | 00:17:06 | |
National Society, the Daughters, the American Revolution, the John Andrew chapter that helps us with that every year. Connie, | 00:17:12 | |
thank you for being out there to help with that that effort. It is, it is not easy sometimes finding, finding those graves and | 00:17:18 | |
figuring out who is who. And so Lori Trail and her group have done a great job of mapping that out and identifying it and allowing | 00:17:24 | |
us. | 00:17:29 | |
Those who have served and sacrificed for their country. | 00:17:36 | |
Thomas Farm Preserve tremendously. | 00:17:41 | |
Progress over the past month and hard to believe but this at our next council meeting we will have it open. So our date for the | 00:17:44 | |
grand opening is December 14th. If you want to put it on your calendar. It looks like we will have, we will have an event around | 00:17:52 | |
11:30 out there. Hopefully we have good weather so we're looking at but we'll have some events throughout the day. | 00:18:00 | |
Where people can, I think we're planning maybe a leash cutting at the dog park. | 00:18:08 | |
Where people can enjoy that, we will have kind of a first walk and run on some of the trails. We'll have some hiking, some | 00:18:13 | |
mountain biking, so whatever people enjoy. So December 14th. | 00:18:17 | |
But the work that we have still to complete painting the structures, we have signage to go up, kind of punch list type items. But | 00:18:23 | |
it'll probably take us, I know it'll take us until the 14th to get all that done and make it safely available to the public. But | 00:18:28 | |
it's it's really beautiful. | 00:18:33 | |
Great progress at on the Hair Shoals boardwalk. I know there's a lot of interest in that as well and people miss being able to | 00:18:40 | |
walk across that. You can see progress shots there as I recall, that sort of the Trek slumber going down. So that should last a | 00:18:46 | |
really long time. We're able to reuse most of the number that's underneath that and we're adding new rails and new new trucks | 00:18:52 | |
there. So that's going to be really great when it's done and they're making steady progress. | 00:18:57 | |
We've also put out to bid the Giardini Green project at Harris Shoals Park. So this is where the old Giordini baseball field was. | 00:19:05 | |
So this is a concept rendering. This is what. And then the next one shows sort of the plan view of what it'll look like. This is | 00:19:12 | |
on the other side of the Creek. Hopeful to have that well underway in the spring. | 00:19:19 | |
And the Simonton Bridge pedestrian connector, some preliminary work has been occurring. You've seen that's right at the Thomas | 00:19:30 | |
Farm Parks project, we are hoping to have phase one done, phase one done by spring and the rest of it done by the end of next | 00:19:38 | |
year. I'm hoping December 2025, not January 2026. So, so we'll see the. | 00:19:46 | |
The utility relocation is taking longer than we hoped it would. So that's kind of pushing our timing back on that. But we're going | 00:19:55 | |
to do as much as we can in the short term. | 00:19:58 | |
Waters Walk is progressing behind Oconee State Bank. | 00:20:02 | |
And a lot of work on infrastructure and underground work there. Again, that's 55 and over only housing. Sharon, what's the unit | 00:20:06 | |
count there? 6060 units there. | 00:20:12 | |
Back there, this is kind of a now a amenity for the residents and a really nice view that they have. So they've done some nice | 00:20:49 | |
landscaping back there and turn that into something nice. | 00:20:53 | |
And there's walking paths around that as well. And that that's a 7 1/2 acre parcel that's been preserved back there. | 00:20:58 | |
On Morrison St. the residents requested some speed bumps and so we've responded to that. We installed temporary speed bumps. Those | 00:21:07 | |
are much more cost effective and we need to repave. They're easy to remove, so you see one on the Business Blvd. side and another | 00:21:11 | |
on the residential side. | 00:21:16 | |
This guy. | 00:21:53 | |
Has been chairman of first started, I think is the city's representative on the library board 10 years ago. And we all know over | 00:21:55 | |
the past two years being in charge of a library has not been easy. | 00:22:01 | |
And Mark Campbell, we are grateful for your leadership and your services. The Oconee County Library Board Chair. | 00:22:07 | |
We know that is you've been in the line of fire on some tough, tough moments and you've more than held your own over the past | 00:22:14 | |
couple years. So we're grateful to you for your service and thankful for what you've done and getting the new library opened up in | 00:22:19 | |
Wire Park. We also know not every chair gets to do something like that, so that was a big lift. So we're thankful to you for all | 00:22:23 | |
your work over the past 10 years. | 00:22:28 | |
Last month we recognized the Oconee County middle school cross country team. They were state champions. I always like to recognize | 00:22:47 | |
teams that win a state title. This one was the Oconee County boys high school cross country team won a state title a few weeks | 00:22:53 | |
ago. It was their third in a row, which is a big deal. Only one other team, the softball team at Oconee's 3P to twice. But they're | 00:22:59 | |
the they're the first team to do that in many years and. | 00:23:05 | |
Excited for them. | 00:23:11 | |
And the girls team took third and you'll see here the boys really wanted to celebrate them too. So they picked up their confetti | 00:23:13 | |
and decided to throw it in the air around the girls too. This is the girls the 8th year finishing in the top four. So | 00:23:17 | |
congratulations to our cross country teams. | 00:23:21 | |
And this guy has a birthday, Jeff Campbell. So happy birthday Jeff, your your council member with a birthday this month. | 00:23:26 | |
So we will move on from that to administration and. | 00:23:35 | |
Manager Dickerson, I will let you lead the way here. So the first item tonight is the fiscal year 2024 audit. So will Merit is | 00:23:39 | |
here with Russian and company and he'll present the audit. | 00:23:45 | |
All right. Good evening. | 00:23:55 | |
Hey. | 00:23:58 | |
Good evening. Depending on how the audit goes. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Evening, maybe I should say. | 00:24:01 | |
Thank you all for having us having me here tonight. | 00:24:09 | |
I've been working on this audit several years now and it's just. | 00:24:14 | |
Awesome to see the progress that's been made here, seeing the preservation of the land and those slides the mayor just shared. | 00:24:18 | |
It's just. | 00:24:21 | |
It's remarkable to see what what you guys are doing here and. | 00:24:26 | |
Not every place that I go and give a presentation to, can I say that. So kudos to you guys. Congratulations. This is an awesome | 00:24:30 | |
place and we appreciate the relationship and and hope we can continue it into the future. I hope that County Enterprise was taking | 00:24:36 | |
detailed notes on your entire remarks there so. | 00:24:42 | |
So. | 00:24:51 | |
I'll kind of get into the the meat of why I'm here. So we're here to present the audit. We come and. | 00:24:52 | |
Do some on site work multiple times, typically one time during the summer and then we come back again in in the September, October | 00:25:00 | |
time frame and we go through a lot. It's pretty extensive process, which I'm sure Lee and Sharon and Julie can alltel you, but | 00:25:07 | |
it's. | 00:25:13 | |
It's, it's good, it's rewarding. And we, we do kind of find a lot, not a lot of bad things, but we find a lot. And then we are | 00:25:21 | |
able to help the city produce these financial statements, which you all have a bound copy of. And you'll see that nice pretty logo | 00:25:28 | |
on the front of there. You also have a bound copy of this presentation. So if I go through it too quickly, you can look back | 00:25:36 | |
through it and if you have any questions. | 00:25:43 | |
I'll be glad to answer any that you have tonight or going forward. | 00:25:51 | |
So First things first, this the presentation kind of goes in order of the report. So kind of the first thing I want to highlight | 00:25:57 | |
is our independent auditors report. | 00:26:02 | |
And it includes the audit opinion, which is really what you pay us for. And it's it's why we're here. We're here to issue an | 00:26:08 | |
opinion on the financial statements and their freedom from misstatement. | 00:26:15 | |
And for the fiscal year into June 30th, 2024, we've issued an unmodified opinion, which is basically a clean opinion is the best | 00:26:22 | |
opinion you can have. So that means we believe these financial statements present fairly in all material respects the financial | 00:26:30 | |
position of the City of Watkinsville as of June 30, 2024 and that they are free from. | 00:26:38 | |
Material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. | 00:26:47 | |
We also have. | 00:26:52 | |
We outlined in this presentation the cities responsibility and our responsibility as an auditor. And we also go through what the | 00:26:53 | |
auditing standards are that we go by. I'm not going to bore you with all that, but just know that there are audit standards that | 00:27:00 | |
we have to go by while we're conducting this audit. | 00:27:06 | |
So next, this is just an overview of what's in the annual financial report. We have the government wide statements. So these are | 00:27:15 | |
the statements that provide information on the city as a whole. So not individual fund statements. This is the entire city in | 00:27:21 | |
these government wide statements. | 00:27:27 | |
Biggest thing here is net position. So this is your equity, so to speak. This is your assets minus your liabilities. We presented | 00:27:36 | |
a three-year comparison here I. | 00:27:41 | |
This stacked bar chart, I thought this was a pretty good illustration of kind of the work that's been happening, So you'll see. | 00:27:49 | |
That investment in capital assets is in blue, your restricted net position is in red, and your unrestricted net position is in | 00:27:58 | |
green. | 00:28:02 | |
So you'll see that $300,000 increase in unrestricted net position. | 00:28:08 | |
And then you'll see that. | 00:28:13 | |
About $2,000,000 increase in that investment in capital assets. | 00:28:15 | |
I'm sure you guys can probably guess what that's for. That's for that beautiful farm that has been purchased and y'all are making | 00:28:20 | |
a park. Well that. | 00:28:25 | |
That total amount of that asset goes into this calculation, so that's part of the large increase there. | 00:28:31 | |
So this is your change in that position. This is the kind of the bottom line on your statement of activities or your income | 00:28:39 | |
statement, as you can see, quite a stark change from 23 to 24. | 00:28:45 | |
A large portion of this change is due to capital grants and contributions related to that project, that Thomas Farm project. | 00:28:52 | |
These grants and contributions include ARPA. | 00:29:03 | |
And then this also includes your T SPLOST and SPLOST revenues. So sales taxes have been strong for the city of Watkinsville and | 00:29:06 | |
they continue to remain strong and this change in that position reflects that strength of your sales tax. | 00:29:14 | |
So then we'll kind of get into the general fund, which is the primary operating fund of the city. | 00:29:24 | |
So this is a depiction of the revenues and expenditures of the general fund. Sorry, those two numbers in 2022 are kind of close | 00:29:30 | |
together. But we really don't care about 22, right? We care about 24. | 00:29:37 | |
So you'll see pretty large increase in expenditures this year. | 00:29:46 | |
And then a solid increase in revenues, but the expenditure is kind of far outpaced that. | 00:29:51 | |
These are these are what we call above the line. So these are operating revenues and then I've got some notes here on the non | 00:29:59 | |
operating stuff, but you're operating in revenues increased almost $500,000 or about 18% primarily property tax increases, motor | 00:30:06 | |
vehicle tax increases and sales tax increases is what makes up that increase in general fund revenue. That's a digest increase not | 00:30:14 | |
a rate increase, correct, correct. | 00:30:21 | |
Yeah, that's an assessed value increase, Yeah. And that's pretty uniform across the state. I live in Hall County and we've | 00:30:29 | |
definitely seen that there as well. | 00:30:34 | |
Like revenues, your expenditures are way up. They increased about $3.6 million in 2024, had some increase in public works about 10 | 00:30:42 | |
percent, 63,000 bucks, but primarily. | 00:30:49 | |
That increase is in culture and recreation. | 00:30:57 | |
$3.6 million increase in culture and recreation and that's the purchase of the park and the ongoing project there. | 00:31:01 | |
And that land acquisition cost we have it about 3.55 million. | 00:31:10 | |
So, and that's total, that's not just the land, but that's kind of total everything that had happened as of June 30, 2024. | 00:31:16 | |
So. | 00:31:25 | |
Other, other items on that statement, the general fund revenue and expense statement, you had proceeds on the sale of capital | 00:31:28 | |
assets of about 15,000 bucks and then you had proceeds from the issuance of debt $3.5 million and that's your G4 loan that you | 00:31:34 | |
incurred to purchase that property. | 00:31:40 | |
That's also on that statement. | 00:31:47 | |
This is a breakdown of your general fund revenues by source, not a lot of change here. Biggest percentage is your local option | 00:31:50 | |
sales tax. As we talked about, sales tax has been strong. That 19% in red, that's your property tax. So property tax makes up | 00:31:58 | |
about 20% of your general fund revenue. Sales tax makes up 30%. So 1550% is made-up by those two. | 00:32:06 | |
Line items. | 00:32:15 | |
And then this is your general fund expenditures by function. | 00:32:18 | |
Obviously, the largest one here is, is the culture and recreation at 58%. That will not always be the case. That was just this | 00:32:23 | |
year with the purchase of the park, but then we got public safety and public works coming in at 14 and 10% respectively. Those are | 00:32:30 | |
typically your two largest expenditures by function. | 00:32:37 | |
All right, so. | 00:32:46 | |
This year and every year, we issue a report on the city's internal controls. | 00:32:48 | |
We do not upon on these internal controls, but we issue a report on them and this is where we would issue any findings that we | 00:32:54 | |
have. | 00:32:58 | |
We have two findings this year. They're the same as they've been in years past. They're in the report on pages 58 and 59. And I'll | 00:33:03 | |
just kind of summarize them and not get into any any of the details on those. But the first one is a basically a gap training | 00:33:11 | |
recommendation, which is a generally accepted accounting principles. And it basically just means that you need ACPA to come in | 00:33:18 | |
here and help you kind of get your books or your finances up to. | 00:33:26 | |
Standards of generally accepting accounting principles. This is very common, not unusual at all. We issue this finding on many, | 00:33:33 | |
many of our clients and this is it's normal. | 00:33:39 | |
The second one is what we call our year end clothes finding and it it's pretty similar to the gap training finding and it | 00:33:46 | |
basically means you guys need ACPA or an outside account to come in and help you with the accrual work, so recording receivables | 00:33:52 | |
and payables. | 00:33:57 | |
And just kind of getting things in order to present in the financial statements. | 00:34:04 | |
So again, nothing new here. These are these are the same findings as before, so. | 00:34:11 | |
If there, if there's any question on those, the details can be found pages 58 and 59. Well, if I can just point out to currently | 00:34:16 | |
Lee Black, our Finance Director is receiving some training and we believe that perhaps by this time next year she'll be able to do | 00:34:22 | |
that work that you just mentioned. So awesome. That's great. | 00:34:27 | |
And I know I've actually seen Lee at some conferences, so I actually know that she's getting some training. Yeah. | 00:34:34 | |
So this is kind of the big change this year. | 00:34:40 | |
So with the purchase of of the park, you guys took out AG Flone well that that G Fullone is actually backed by our funded with | 00:34:44 | |
federal dollars. So those G4 loans this is pretty common, but G for loans oftentimes trigger what they call single audit, which is | 00:34:53 | |
a federal grant compliance type audit and it's an engagement. | 00:35:01 | |
That's outside the scope of the normal year end audit that the city is has each year. | 00:35:10 | |
It's actually on a. It's by different guidelines. So this one is according to the uniform guidance, by the way. | 00:35:17 | |
If you ever can't sleep, I would encourage you to open up and read the uniform guidance. | 00:35:25 | |
It will cure your insomnia problem. | 00:35:30 | |
But that's what we have to go by to perform this audit. | 00:35:33 | |
So I guess Long story short, we had no material non compliance findings for the city's accounting for the expenditures under this | 00:35:37 | |
federal grant. So awesome job there. | 00:35:44 | |
But it is it is a new. | 00:35:52 | |
Kind of. | 00:35:55 | |
It's not, it's new to y'all, it's not new, but it is a, it's something that we've never had to deal with before. So there's | 00:35:57 | |
there's a lot of additional work that the staff had to do to help get this done and we appreciate all your help. | 00:36:03 | |
All right. | 00:36:12 | |
So what's coming down the pipe? So we got this actually happened this year. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board, they're | 00:36:14 | |
kind of who issues a governmental accounting standards. | 00:36:19 | |
Again, if you can't sleep, I would encourage you to read all these Gatsby pronouncements. They are very dry. | 00:36:26 | |
But they issued statement #100 this year, and it has to do with changes in accounting principles and error corrections. We've | 00:36:33 | |
implemented this standard in this report, so. | 00:36:39 | |
Just know that it has been implemented, you have taken care of it. | 00:36:46 | |
Future reporting changes so next year. Gatsby is going well. They've issued this. It's effective for the cities. | 00:36:52 | |
2025 fiscal year Gatsby statement 101 on compensated absences. And it it changes a little bit of the way that we have to show that | 00:36:59 | |
liability on the balance sheet. I don't anticipate it to have a large effect for the city, but it's just something I wanted to | 00:37:06 | |
make you aware of, but we'll deal with that next year. | 00:37:12 | |
All right, that's kind of the the highlights. So here's my contact information. I would encourage you if you have any questions, | 00:37:20 | |
concerns, comments, reach out. Be glad to help however I can. | 00:37:26 | |
Any questions now that I can answer? | 00:37:33 | |
Council, any questions for Mr. Merritt? | 00:37:38 | |
Well, thank you all very much and look forward to seeing you again soon. All right, well, I'd like to make just a couple of | 00:37:41 | |
comments real quick that we couldn't include in the report because of the requirements for the standards. I did want to point out | 00:37:48 | |
the city has resolved a few long standing significant deficiencies identified in previous audits including deposits not being made | 00:37:54 | |
in a timely manner. We did not have that finding at all in the sampling and also point out on page 69 it talks about. | 00:38:01 | |
Compliance requirements for federal major federal programs. The only federal programs that we participate in the American Rescue | 00:38:09 | |
Plan Act, which all cities and counties throughout the state throughout the United States. | 00:38:14 | |
Participated in and the Georgia Clean Water State Revolving fund for the G4 loan, which as you pointed out receives funds in this | 00:38:20 | |
case from EPA. | 00:38:24 | |
Yeah. Thank you for making that clarification. And and I will say that the city finance staff has has done a great job improving | 00:38:29 | |
the controls and and the processes over the years. | 00:38:34 | |
And we we've certainly had more recommendations in the past. So they've done a good job. You got a lot to be proud of and we | 00:38:41 | |
certainly appreciate it. Thank you, thank you. And I mean, all the credit goes to Lee Black. She's doing, she's back in the back, | 00:38:49 | |
keeping an eye on the on the recording, making sure that people can can see this from home. But Lee worked tirelessly with. | 00:38:57 | |
Will Harris or William Harris and Will and Clay at the Russian office and it is a lot if y'all came in during the audits when they | 00:39:06 | |
were here. | 00:39:10 | |
You would see stacks and stacks of books and things that Lee has to keep track of and, and pull samples up so that they can, they | 00:39:15 | |
can check to make sure that we're abiding by the standards. So kudos to Lee. She did an amazing job. And like Will said, she's | 00:39:21 | |
really, we really buttoned up a lot of the issues that we were having before. So Yep. So Lee, I know you can hear us. Thank you. | 00:39:26 | |
And, and to all of you, I know this probably seems boring, but ultimately this is the taxpayers money and we take seriously how we | 00:39:32 | |
take care of it. | 00:39:37 | |
And so that's that's the reason that we've got an auditor is because it's y'all's money. | 00:39:44 | |
It's not our money. And so we want to be sure we're spending it wisely. We want to be sure we're doing it the right way. So we'll | 00:39:48 | |
thank you for that. Absolutely. We take that responsibility seriously and we appreciate you making sure we're we're doing that. | 00:39:52 | |
Yes, Sir. Thank you. Appreciate all of you. | 00:39:57 | |
Sharon, were there any budget amendments that were part of that conversation or is that coming later? Yes, and they're on the | 00:40:03 | |
consent agenda. They're on the consent agenda. Oh, actually, no, I'm sorry. Hang on a second. | 00:40:07 | |
They should have been in your packet, they should follow us, so we do have budget amendments that need to be approved. | 00:40:12 | |
OK. All right. | 00:40:21 | |
Do we because they are in unless are they going to pop up? Are they in consent? | 00:40:23 | |
See if we can print them out for She's behind us about 30 seconds, OK. | 00:40:29 | |
All right, and we can. If need be we can. | 00:40:33 | |
Can you get up for a moment? It's about 30 second delay. What comes out here before? | 00:40:41 | |
If you can, go ahead and just make a couple of copies. | 00:40:46 | |
I apologize for that. | 00:40:50 | |
They make sure that they're reflected in the packet. | 00:40:55 | |
While we wait on that, Christine, do you want to do just or can we go on and do some other stuff and come back to that or Yeah. | 00:40:59 | |
I can go ahead and do the administration. We'll just leave 5 open and then we'll just come back and handle those if we go on | 00:41:05 | |
through. OK, All right, yeah, we'll talk. We're going to still talk about finances so. | 00:41:09 | |
Everybody should have received the balance sheet, the revenues and expenditure reports, really no surprises at this point. We're | 00:41:14 | |
up 30% through the year. | 00:41:18 | |
On the splash report, So I always like to give you sort of update on that. | 00:41:23 | |
So splash 3, we get 8.63% of the total sales that are collected. Sales taxes are collected. While this money has been used for | 00:41:27 | |
public safety vehicles, our variable message signs that you see around town. Improvements to Harris Shoals Park, including the | 00:41:34 | |
boardwalk that's currently under construction and the Giardini Green Thomas Farm Park allow those improvements are being paid for | 00:41:40 | |
three slots 3. | 00:41:46 | |
The signage, the green space signage, Mayor showed earlier. | 00:41:53 | |
Our entry signage and then our resurfacing projects and, and like between fiscal year 22 and 24, right now our average monthly | 00:41:56 | |
revenues are around $83,000 a month. When this project started we estimated only 64. So we are looking at having if, if things | 00:42:04 | |
continue to to run this trend having a little bit more than 700, maybe $800,000 for you all to try to figure out how to. | 00:42:13 | |
Use on projects in the city. | 00:42:22 | |
On the comparison sheet, here's the comparison year by year. You'll see it went from monthly average of 72,000 to 83 to 88 and | 00:42:25 | |
right now we're hovering around 90. We have a little bit more than $1,000,000 in Sloss 3 and that will sunset in September of 27. | 00:42:33 | |
On T's law, so this is transportation special purpose local option sales tax. So transportation related activities, we have three | 00:42:44 | |
different buckets sidewalks, our multi use trails, traffic efficiency improvements and road resurfacing. To date we have triggered | 00:42:50 | |
two of those buckets sidewalks. The money that's in there that's been encumbered will actually help service the Georgia | 00:42:56 | |
transportation infrastructure. | 00:43:02 | |
Bank loan that we got for 2.25 million to build the Simonton Bridge Rd. multi use trail. | 00:43:08 | |
We'll also be getting 1.5 million for that project as a grant, which we won't have to repay. And then this will also help pay for | 00:43:16 | |
some resurfacing projects. Right now, the project that we're waiting on is the Elmeg project for fiscal year 25, which includes | 00:43:23 | |
the entrance drive to Thomas Farm. The cemetery paving. I don't give them to the mayor. Yeah, that's fine. The cemetery paving and | 00:43:30 | |
the paving of Mulberry Street, which currently is one of our gravel roads in the city. | 00:43:38 | |
Again, right now we have we estimated that over the life of this project we'll have about 78,000 a month. Right now we're | 00:43:46 | |
averaging about 72. Again this program unity intent is that we'll grow. So I anticipate we'll we'll achieve you know exceed that | 00:43:51 | |
78,000 at some point. | 00:43:56 | |
And then when you compare the first year, we didn't have a full year, we only had a few months in that first year, fiscal year 23, | 00:44:02 | |
we went from 68,000 a month on average to 73. And I'm sorry, I did not see that I made that error is not 113,000 a month. It's it | 00:44:09 | |
is an average. It's actually on your prior sheet it's 72,000. So I will correct that, apologize for missing that. And we have a | 00:44:15 | |
little bit more than $620,000 in the bank for that. | 00:44:22 | |
And then last but not least, our American Rescue Plan monies, the the federal government said that those monies have to be | 00:44:29 | |
obligated by December 31st of this year. There is an item on your consent agenda tonight to go ahead and obligate for a purpose | 00:44:36 | |
that next month we will actually have to come back with the exact purchase purpose. | 00:44:43 | |
Of some purchase of some sort and I look forward to working with the mayor and the chief on deciding how that money will be spent. | 00:44:51 | |
It'll be about $10,000 but the monies right now that have been obligated are for the police public. Sorry public safety premium | 00:44:57 | |
pay retention, which is in the report that you received in your packet. You'll understand that we are running out of time for that | 00:45:03 | |
so we're asking that money be used for just public safety and like I said we'll come back next month with a specific. | 00:45:10 | |
Request to use that because that request has to be approved before the end of the month. | 00:45:17 | |
Year and then the other money, the remaining balance the Council appropriated for the Thomas Farm Preserve project and that will | 00:45:21 | |
finish out a little bit more than $1,000,000 that we received from the federal government through the ARPA program. Any questions? | 00:45:26 | |
Can we retire the spreadsheet then, Sharon? After December, it would be, I don't know if I can retire the spreadsheet until all | 00:45:32 | |
the expenses are in, maybe early next year. We'll see. I would love to. | 00:45:37 | |
Within the audit that they're accounted for appropriately, sometimes things get shifted, you know, counting in the wrong buckets. | 00:46:13 | |
I don't think that's what the print out was from Julie. So no, that's not yeah, that's not the correct one. | 00:46:21 | |
And so those are started coming and we also received a alcohol license renewal. | 00:47:00 | |
Collections, excise tax collections, we have this short term vacation rental as well, our hotel, motel and our alcohol. Remember | 00:47:06 | |
we received them after the fact. So what's showing for October, we won't see until November. So what you see in September is | 00:47:12 | |
actually what we received in October for September and we're tracking about where we expected to be. | 00:47:18 | |
And then finally on economic development, we have the building permits. We had quite a few very busy time, 23 apartments for 22 | 00:47:26 | |
projects, have several over at Wire Park that are going on. Looks like people are changing out their HVAC systems, perhaps getting | 00:47:33 | |
new ones and just lots of little residential type and commercial type permits that were issued. Any questions? | 00:47:40 | |
OK. | 00:47:48 | |
All right, Christine, Downtown Development Authority. OK, yes. So we are still searching for our DDA Director. We have some good | 00:47:51 | |
candidates. We're starting some interviews, but applications are still open. So some good board progress there. | 00:47:58 | |
The DDA is recommending Sorry sorry. That's alright, it's recommending that. | 00:48:07 | |
That the mayor appoints an Arts Council. We recognize the importance of Oak Half in our community and the partnership with OCAF. | 00:48:16 | |
And so having an Arts Council to help bridge that we think is an important function for the city. And then also perhaps one or two | 00:48:23 | |
have one or two members of the DBAB on that because again, we think the arts are incredibly important for our downtown as a whole | 00:48:31 | |
as well. | 00:48:38 | |
Downtown trick or treat? We have some pictures. | 00:48:47 | |
He decided no video, Sharon. Yeah, no. OK, there's some fun video of the mayor. | 00:48:51 | |
But it's it's not making the cut. He was the kool-aid man. There we go. There we go. We have a picture. So it was a great success, | 00:48:57 | |
lots of fun. I love that we even had dancers. So everyone was safe and fun. Time was had by all. | 00:49:05 | |
And we are looking forward to the tree lighting and the parade on Sunday, December 8th. The parade will be at 4. We have our our. | 00:49:15 | |
Entries are full with a waiting list, and every year I'm really impressed with the committee who does this. They work hard to make | 00:49:27 | |
sure things get smoother and smoother every year and that they're very safe for our community and lots of fun. So mark your | 00:49:32 | |
calendars. | 00:49:38 | |
And our grand marshals, we have Colin and Leah, who had the privilege of getting to know when we went out to Colorado when we got | 00:49:44 | |
the All American City Award. So they are two fantastic citizens that we have. And I'm excited that they get to be the grand | 00:49:51 | |
marshals this year. And they are excited. I'm getting text messages from Colin and Leah and they're they're pumped up about being | 00:49:58 | |
our grand marshals. Leah told my dad yesterday. She's worked, Leah works at the Helps. | 00:50:06 | |
The local at the food pantry acts in Bogart, and even though Leah has to use a Walker and is in a wheelchair, she's still | 00:50:13 | |
volunteering and working in the community. She told my dad I just don't want to, don't want to mess up being the Grand Marshall. | 00:50:19 | |
So I said I don't think there's any way Leah could mess up with her big smile. So she's she's very excited and I think Colin wants | 00:50:26 | |
to also be able to pet the horses too when they're pulling them. So. So anyway, it's going to be a it's going to be a great day. | 00:50:32 | |
All right. | 00:50:40 | |
Sergeant Hibor. | 00:50:42 | |
Tell us about all the things we'll see. If Halloween was as smooth as Christine's, Halloween was as smooth as Councilwoman Tucker | 00:50:46 | |
said. All right. | 00:50:51 | |
I'm a little sad, I think this is my last time standing up here giving this report. | 00:50:57 | |
You know, I'm a little nervous too, because my new boss isn't and my former boss, so I'm really nervous about this one. Don't mess | 00:51:03 | |
this up. But no, we've had a, we've had a great month since the last council meeting. Sergeant Wade is scheduled. We got the | 00:51:11 | |
approval that he's going to begin his management classes down at the training center in Forsyth. So we're excited for him. | 00:51:18 | |
Officer Walker is scheduled to go to an active shooter training class, also down at Forsyth, which he's excited for. He's ready to | 00:51:27 | |
go to that. And then Officer Krish completed his gang recognition for patrol course, which he was expanding on some knowledge that | 00:51:33 | |
he gained while he was at LAPD. | 00:51:40 | |
So it was great to see all three of them. | 00:51:46 | |
Moving forward, the new patrol truck is back from being upfitted and it looks great. It drives really well. | 00:51:49 | |
Other than that. | 00:51:58 | |
Like everybody said, the Fall Festival was a roaring success. We saw a boatload of folks there and everybody had a great time. I | 00:52:00 | |
don't know that anybody that I've talked to or that has contacted us had anything negative to say about it. | 00:52:07 | |
Then as Councilwoman Tucker said, we've already elaborated on the downtown trick or treating was again a great success. So, but | 00:52:15 | |
other than that, we've got the statistics. We had six arrests. Most of them, as you can see, were traffic related, which is about | 00:52:22 | |
on par for what we normally see. We had one warrant arrest which was helping Athens, Clark County. They had a simple battery | 00:52:29 | |
warrant that we helped them with. And then we had one call for service, which was an aggravated assault arrest. | 00:52:36 | |
Other than that we had 165 calls for service. | 00:52:44 | |
Since the last council meeting, we had 1070 security checks. So our folks are out here driving neighborhoods and checking areas | 00:52:47 | |
and making sure that everybody's being safe, stopping in the businesses and and meeting and greeting folks. We had 37 reports that | 00:52:53 | |
were generated. We had 74 citations and 71 warnings, which again, is about on par with what we normally see. It's about a 5050 | 00:52:59 | |
split. We're giving folks chances. | 00:53:06 | |
And then the folks that. | 00:53:13 | |
I've already gotten chances. We'd like to see them in this room later on in the month. | 00:53:15 | |
Incident reports, we had 25 of those and then we had 12 accident reports. And again, it's about normal for us, which is great to | 00:53:21 | |
know. | 00:53:24 | |
So but other than that. | 00:53:28 | |
Council have any questions? | 00:53:30 | |
Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. | 00:53:36 | |
All right. | 00:53:39 | |
Thank you. We'll move on to consent. Nobody asked for anything to come off. I know there are some other budget items in there, so | 00:53:41 | |
I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:53:47 | |
I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor, aye. | 00:53:53 | |
OK. | 00:54:01 | |
All right. We will move on to our public hearing. We have a variance at 111 Farm View Dr. Thank you to the Lucky's for being | 00:54:04 | |
patient. | 00:54:07 | |
Manager Dickerson and engineer Campbell will offer the report. | 00:54:12 | |
And then Mr. Lucky will have you come forward and provide any additional information you want to share. | 00:54:16 | |
All right, Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Mayor. | 00:54:23 | |
So the subject property is has an address of 111 Farm View Drive. It's actually at the corner of another couple streets we can | 00:54:26 | |
talk about as well. But the Vegas request is specifically related to proposed construction on to the existing detached residential | 00:54:32 | |
structure is within the neighborhood. So you can see the request there from the ordinance and it's mainly related to a a side set | 00:54:38 | |
back. | 00:54:44 | |
The the ordinance requires A10 foot side set back. The applicant's asking that be reduced down to. | 00:54:51 | |
Three feet. | 00:54:56 | |
So if you don't know where 111 Farming Drive is located, you can see that location there on the map. | 00:54:57 | |
A little bit of history here going back to Platbook 7. Some of our variances are related to when a property was actually platted. | 00:55:06 | |
So you can see this was originally called Crosstalk Subdivision. So you have Rail Drive and some other wonderful things that are | 00:55:13 | |
now Farm View Drive. So again, just a history lesson here at City Council tonight. So here's a view of the of the subject | 00:55:20 | |
property. So this is at the corner of Woodside Place. | 00:55:28 | |
And farm view facing, you know, proximately back to the northeast, really the subject portion of the property is on this specific | 00:55:35 | |
side as a sideways related, it's accessed via the existing driveway and it would be an extension of the structure in the direction | 00:55:41 | |
that you see here. Now where where vehicle access is already established. You can see probably the remnants of what may have been | 00:55:47 | |
an area for for vehicles on that side of the house that was closed in sometime in the past. And now there's an area here that | 00:55:53 | |
would be an extension of that. | 00:55:59 | |
Structure. So here's the the applicant's request for construction of a covered area over a pavement. It's currently dirt, but it | 00:56:05 | |
would be paved on the eastern side of the existing house to be within 3 feet of the adjacent boundary. So you can see the variance | 00:56:11 | |
requested with the ordinance setbacks. And then again just to cover it similar to some things that we've done before with the | 00:56:16 | |
parking and circulation facilities, because there would be an opportunity for this paved area that's covered for a vehicle to be | 00:56:22 | |
located under that. | 00:56:28 | |
And this is the variance criteria that's in Chapter 14 of the city ordinance. It talks about the criteria for how a variance is | 00:56:34 | |
reviewed by mayor and City Council. You've seen this before, but just want to make sure you understand that criteria. So that is | 00:56:40 | |
the the questions tonight. I'm sure the applicant might have something to add to that. I'm happy to answer any questions you might | 00:56:46 | |
have as well. | 00:56:52 | |
I think I remember seeing in the packet that the neighbor had written a note. | 00:56:59 | |
Saying that she was fine with it. I don't know that that's correct. So it was in your packet. Anybody was able to see that online | 00:57:04 | |
or download that? It's just not in the slides, so. | 00:57:09 | |
Mr. Lucky if you want to come forward and. | 00:57:15 | |
Share anything, feel free Council may have some questions or we're going to get you both. OK All right. | 00:57:17 | |
Mr. and Misses Mr. Moses state your name for the record, your address and this name is Dennis Lucky. I live at 111 Farmview Dr. My | 00:57:24 | |
wife, Ann. | 00:57:28 | |
We purchased the property back in. | 00:57:35 | |
2002 Our intention was to use it as a rental property. | 00:57:39 | |
My wife's mother decided she wanted to move back in town from out of town, so she was our tenant for approximately 15 years until | 00:57:45 | |
we decided we'd like to make it our home. When we purchased a property, it was overgrown. You couldn't see the house from the | 00:57:53 | |
road. The shrubbery in the front covered the gutters. The property is overgrown with privet with bamboo. | 00:58:01 | |
And so I spent a lot of years and a lot of time and hours. | 00:58:10 | |
You know, cleaning the property up, this part of our vision in that time since we moved in in 2017, we've totally renovated the | 00:58:16 | |
inside. Outside is still under construction. If you ride by there and see different colors of paint, we're waiting, you know, till | 00:58:22 | |
we finished to, to give it the final coat. But I've, I've done all the work myself. Two years ago we added a sunroom on the back, | 00:58:28 | |
which is gorgeous. | 00:58:34 | |
Per her request and close a small carport because I don't own a Volkswagen Bug that would fit in there. | 00:58:42 | |
So our plan is just to try to have something to get our cars out of the weather, which my truck many of y'all have seen is a small | 00:58:48 | |
bus and it doesn't fit in most places. So that being said, you know, it's just part of our vision, you know to. | 00:58:57 | |
To make the the property look better, be better for the whole community. I worked also with a lot of my neighbors in the | 00:59:06 | |
neighborhood helping them clean their properties up and prove their properties, build hardscapes or whatever. | 00:59:12 | |
Also, in 2020 I received a Georgia real estate license and I did that solely to buy rental properties and after becoming a | 00:59:21 | |
landlord for a while. | 00:59:25 | |
Got kind of soured out on that and decided I would just sell the things I bought. Well, this one, I'm sorry, my wife said. | 00:59:32 | |
Mama wants to look at the house, so before we sell it, let's let her look at it. So she lived there for a while and then we've | 00:59:41 | |
been there since. And if you drive by there or if you want to come inside, you'll see that. | 00:59:47 | |
It's become a really pretty spot on that corner. And as far as real estate goes, I just believe that, you know, anytime you make | 00:59:54 | |
an improvement to a property, it helps all those properties around you, helps the whole neighborhood, which, you know, helps the | 01:00:01 | |
whole city. So one other thing, I'm also a business owner in Oak County in downtown Watkinsville. | 01:00:09 | |
Local hair salon and and if you want to see my vision for what I do, just feel free to stop by there sometime and come inside. | 01:00:18 | |
So all right, any questions for us? | 01:00:26 | |
Yes, in the thank you. I walk by your house often with my dog. | 01:00:29 | |
So I think in the packet you had some, there were some renderings of the type of thing. So you're not talking about putting up | 01:00:36 | |
like a metal kind of carport thing, you're going to build like a more pavilion like as far as I know those metal. | 01:00:44 | |
Portable carports are not allowed in the city. I know some of them are grandfathered in that there's one right around the corner | 01:00:53 | |
for me on Lawana that's been paved over. And you know, they're really not an eyesore, but I understand the the idea that no, it's | 01:01:01 | |
going to be a frame built structure. The hope is to. | 01:01:09 | |
Have the the shingles are 7 years old on my roof so to have them be consistent with the original. | 01:01:18 | |
Shape, shape and contour of the house. | 01:01:25 | |
And and that there is a picture in your packet of a. | 01:01:28 | |
Carport that I designed for one of her friends over on Windsor Dr. and that's where I pulled that picture from because I designed | 01:01:32 | |
that as well and their builder went with that. | 01:01:37 | |
So. | 01:01:42 | |
Any other questions? | 01:01:45 | |
I can't attest if you stop by, if you're out campaigning or something and you need a door to knock on there the friendliest, | 01:01:48 | |
friendliest door to knock on. You might even get to come in and sit down for a while. So this is beautiful. | 01:01:53 | |
It's a beautiful home. So they bark, but they don't bite. So I'm just imagining looking at this picture that is in the packet that | 01:01:58 | |
you're going to extend the roof line over to the. So it'll all be one structure essentially. And the thing that that I don't love | 01:02:04 | |
about a roof line that you continue on out that far because. | 01:02:10 | |
My goal is to have a 28 by 28 foot structure and to have the same pitch but. | 01:02:17 | |
I don't want it to look like a chicken house, so I put a in there. You'll see a Gable bump out on the front, which is the same | 01:02:24 | |
thing that I designed for her her friend's house and it just just to break up the roof line so that you know, it looks more homey | 01:02:29 | |
and less. | 01:02:34 | |
Of commercial camp. | 01:02:41 | |
Questions for Mr. Lucky. | 01:02:45 | |
OK. | 01:02:47 | |
Thank you all, feel very happy. Appreciate it. At this point, I'll open a public hearing. This does require a public hearing since | 01:02:49 | |
it's a variance. So if anyone would like to step forward, public hearing is now open. We'll have 3 minutes for anyone in favor. | 01:02:56 | |
Seeing no one in favor, anybody opposed? | 01:03:04 | |
Alright, I'll close the public hearing now. We'll come back over to us and we'll vote on the Variance Council. Any discussion? | 01:03:07 | |
Hearing none, do I have a motion? | 01:03:15 | |
Make a motion to approve the variance for 111 Farm View Drive. | 01:03:19 | |
We have a motion, we have a second. Any further discussion? | 01:03:24 | |
Hearing none, all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? | 01:03:28 | |
Motion carries 50. Thank you all. | 01:03:32 | |
All right. We have no appearances. We have no old business. | 01:03:35 | |
We have a resolution can you get you can go back to five. You should have the items in front of the item 5 This is the budget | 01:03:41 | |
amendments. | 01:03:45 | |
Just the closing and everything of the property on there as well. So these are just tidying up everything, make sure everything's | 01:04:20 | |
in where it needs to be for the fiscal year. And these are given to us by the auditors. OK. So this is just adjusting our numbers | 01:04:25 | |
to match the audit Council. I'd like a motion to approve the final budget amendment, please. | 01:04:31 | |
Make a motion to approve the final budget amendment for 2024. | 01:04:37 | |
Do we have a second? | 01:04:42 | |
A second. All right. Any questions or discussion? | 01:04:44 | |
Hearing none, all in favor say aye. All right, motion carries. | 01:04:48 | |
All right, so we are to new business folks were on the verge of wrapping up here you want to. | 01:04:53 | |
Hang around. I think don't have too much more to go if we can be just quick on this one share and I know we almost put this on | 01:05:01 | |
consent. So I don't think we need to go deep on this program. | 01:05:05 | |
So we're asking you to adopt A resolution and approve participation in the First Responder PTSD program. This was brought about, | 01:05:10 | |
you may recall, in October of 2018, Gwinnett County police responded to suspicious vehicle call. Officer Antoine Tony was first on | 01:05:17 | |
scene. He barely made it out of his car when he was shot 6 times. Sergeant Wilson stayed with him, rendering aid and giving him | 01:05:23 | |
CPR. Officer Tony ultimately died from his injuries. This is the House Bill 451. | 01:05:30 | |
It was sponsored that brought this about was sponsored by our our own local one of our local representatives Houston Gaines and it | 01:05:38 | |
requires that all public entities in Georgia offer supplemental illness specific insurance benefits. | 01:05:44 | |
For first responders who are clinically diagnosed by a qualified Dr. with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD as we know it, | 01:05:51 | |
the bill is also known as the Ashley Wilson Act. Again, Sergeant Wilson was the one who was with the officer when he was shot and | 01:05:56 | |
killed. | 01:06:00 | |
What this bill mandates is and I'll I can move, move through some of these. I'm sorry. It could have been passing through these at | 01:06:06 | |
same time Bill Mondays that by January 1 of this coming year, all public it public entities that have employed or volunteer first | 01:06:12 | |
responders that we provide a lump sum and income replacement benefit and Germa, our insurance provider is the only one. Actually | 01:06:18 | |
we did check with Anthem to see because we do provide. | 01:06:24 | |
The council has provided long term disability insurance for. | 01:06:31 | |
Long term disability insurance for our employees, our employees, but Garmas the only one providing this specific service. So it | 01:06:37 | |
will be, it will be a one time $3000 payment to help cover uninsured costs and up to 36 months of disability leave payment at 60% | 01:06:44 | |
of a first responder salary. Our premium for all of our officers is under $1000. It's something we can certainly handle within our | 01:06:50 | |
budget this year. And again the effective date of coverage will be January 1. | 01:06:57 | |
All right, so really glad that we're participating in this. I hope we never need it, but if we do, I'm very thankful it's there | 01:07:05 | |
and thankful that Representative Gaines got this passed. Council, any questions for the manager? | 01:07:11 | |
All right, hearing none, can we have a motion to approve the resolution? | 01:07:19 | |
I make a motion to approve the resolution. We have a 2nd, 2nd. | 01:07:24 | |
Any further discussion? | 01:07:29 | |
All in favor say aye. Any opposed? | 01:07:30 | |
All right, we'll move on to the pavilion at Thomas Farm Preserve. | 01:07:34 | |
OK, so we are asking the council to award Massey General Contractors the contract for the design and construction of a 30 by 30 | 01:07:38 | |
foot pavilion to be located at Thomas Farm. Asking that the contract be approved as well. The contractor has seen it and that the | 01:07:45 | |
Mayor and City Clerk signed all the relevant documents. In February of this year. Council approved programming plus three funds to | 01:07:51 | |
help with Thomas Farm as well as some ARPA money. | 01:07:58 | |
In September of this year, we released an RFP for the design and construction of the pavilion. | 01:08:06 | |
On November 8th we received price proposals from three companies, Massey General Contractors. The ad alternate is the one we would | 01:08:11 | |
be going with $47,800 and some change. Smith and Co at 117 thousand and some change in Bliss products at 95,000 and some change. | 01:08:17 | |
We reviewed all those we did send out to 19 specifically direct directly sent to these 19 contractors. We also advertised twice in | 01:08:23 | |
the in the paper. | 01:08:30 | |
And like I said, we received 3 price proposals back. | 01:08:37 | |
We are asking for a not to exceed 60,000 gives us a little bit of room to maybe tighten up the design some and and so that's what | 01:08:41 | |
we're asking any questions? | 01:08:46 | |
That includes the concrete path. No, it does not include concrete. The concrete pad is budgeted for separately. OK. | 01:08:53 | |
All right. | 01:08:58 | |
Council, any questions for Manager Dickerson? | 01:09:00 | |
What would be the timing on that? Yeah, so well, good question. I think in the contract we said by March or April of next year was | 01:09:03 | |
what we were hoping for. So we'll we'll see as we dig into it. Of course weather will determine a lot of it and contractors and | 01:09:09 | |
everything else that's going on out there. I said March 1st of 2025 is when we hope to have it done. So the plan would be start in | 01:09:16 | |
January and end finish it by March. | 01:09:22 | |
And then we anticipate pouring a concrete pad under that. | 01:09:29 | |
Probably the concrete pad will be poured at the same time. We'll work with the contractor for that because we need to know where | 01:09:32 | |
the footings will be and all that for the post. So, yeah, yeah, just slightly concerned that we were going to build a building and | 01:09:37 | |
pour concrete. No, no, no, we're going to. We just budgeted for it differently. We didn't want that to be part of the price. We'd | 01:09:41 | |
already sort of got an estimate for the for the concrete pad. Thank you. | 01:09:46 | |
All right, Council, do we have a motion? | 01:09:52 | |
Make a motion to approve this contract to them and recommend. | 01:09:57 | |
Christine's motion. Does anybody want a second? I think. | 01:10:07 | |
All right. We have a motion here, a second. Any further discussion? | 01:10:12 | |
All in favor say aye. Any opposed? | 01:10:15 | |
All right. | 01:10:20 | |
Bring us home, Mark. We've got the annual storm water update. Then we'll have right, we'll have to wait and even see citizens | 01:10:21 | |
laughing with joy that they get to hear the you don't. You don't have to wait in storm water for the annual storm water update. So | 01:10:28 | |
we'll have more time for Christmas parade awards next month, hopefully. But the good news on storm water is it's raining. | 01:10:34 | |
Umm, so I was worried about that for a month or so. When it's not raining, we kind of don't know what stormwater is doing. So | 01:10:41 | |
those are also sometimes, sometimes when leaves can can pile open some of those things. One of the things I want you to know that | 01:10:46 | |
we also have an annual training with our staff. | 01:10:51 | |
Annually. | 01:11:56 | |
Seeing none about those questions. | 01:12:00 | |
Great. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Sharon. All right, public comments. | 01:12:37 | |
If anyone would like to make a public comment, your time to shine, come on up. Comments shall be directly related to matters | 01:12:41 | |
tonight, or they could really be about anything you want. Speak from the podium, 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate | 01:12:47 | |
argument. Personal attacks are irrelevant discussion. Address only the matter merits of the pending matter and address remarks | 01:12:52 | |
directly to council. Council won't speak to litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. All right, who wants to speak to the | 01:12:57 | |
council tonight? | 01:13:03 | |
Oh, Kathleen, Nothing. | 01:13:09 | |
All right. | 01:13:14 | |
You have frequent fires. OK, All right. Here we go. Come on, Lance. All right. Yeah. Yep, Yep. All right. | 01:13:19 | |
Hi, my name is Lawrence Duke. I live at 13 Barnes Shoals. | 01:13:28 | |
And I really want to thank you all for putting the tree up at the Baton Court. | 01:13:31 | |
It's not to the South, but I'm so I'm hoping we'll add a couple more so it'll actually shade the court. But and I heard that we | 01:13:36 | |
might actually get a second light. | 01:13:40 | |
And that would be fabulous because then we have the only lighted baton court probably in. | 01:13:44 | |
Northeast Georgia. So thank you very much. OK. | 01:13:50 | |
Thank you, Lawrence. | 01:13:53 | |
Anyone else? | 01:13:55 | |
All right. | 01:13:57 | |
Hearing none. We are done with that, Council reports. We'll move to Councilman Garrett. | 01:13:59 | |
Post 1 nothing to report. | 01:14:04 | |
Councilman Massey. | 01:14:07 | |
Nothing to report. | 01:14:09 | |
Councilman Thomas continue to train. Nothing to report. | 01:14:12 | |
Mayor Pro Tem. | 01:14:16 | |
All right, Jeff pressures on you. | 01:14:18 | |
Say no. | 01:14:20 | |
I got nothing. | 01:14:24 | |
And even better, I don't think we need an executive session tonight. So I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to | 01:14:27 | |
adjourn. | 01:14:31 | |
Second. All right, all in favor. Say aye, we're done. | 01:14:34 |