Meeting: City Council Regular Meeting

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Event transcript
	All right, everybody, welcome to the December City Council meeting.	00:00:46
	Our last of the year. We've had a lot to celebrate in Watkinsville this year.	00:00:51
	And excited to celebrate celebrating the days ahead as a community and individually with all we have going on.	00:00:57
	We do have a quorum here. Councilman Campbell will be joining us a little bit late due to a conflict, but we do expect him to	00:01:04
	arrive and we have two young men from Colin Ferry. We're going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you guys could stand up.	00:01:10
	And get us started.	00:01:20
	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,	00:01:22
	indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.	00:01:29
	Thank you, gentlemen.	00:01:41
	We have the preliminaries over. We'll now start the meeting. We have a lot of fun things tonight.	00:03:11
	We'll move quickly through all these joyous celebrations at the start. I'll talk a little bit more about in a moment, as might one	00:03:15
	of our teachers here. But if it smells extra good in here tonight, it's because we have our, I think our third annual year of the	00:03:22
	column Ferry Elementary gingerbread houses that resemble downtown Watkinsville up here. So it's always a special treat to have the	00:03:29
	column fairy gingerbread houses here with us. First on the agenda, tonight's approval of the November 20th.	00:03:36
	Meeting minutes Council.	00:03:43
	I'll entertain any discussion or if there's a motion to approve those minutes. Someone please make the motion. I make a motion to	00:03:46
	approve and we have a motion. Do we have a 2nd? I'll second. We have a second. Any discussion of the minutes?	00:03:51
	Hearing none, all in favor say aye, any opposed? We'll move to approval of the agenda. I would ask that we add one item on to the	00:03:57
	agenda under new business and that's the acquisition of the Healy property, again under new business. I'll entertain a motion to	00:04:03
	approve the agenda with that addition, please. I make a motion to approve the agenda with the addition under new business of	00:04:08
	acquiring the Healy property. OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second?	00:04:14
	I'll second, we have a second. Any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye. Any opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll	00:04:21
	move on to the mayor's report. While we've got a crowd. I'll share some of the good news. On Saturday we had what I think is a a	00:04:27
	day that a lot of us will remember for the rest of our lives. And today I think that'll be appreciated long after we're gone. And	00:04:33
	that's the opening of the 100 acre Thomas Farm Preserve.	00:04:40
	You can see there the crowd that joined us, with some of the beauty of the park in the background.	00:04:46
	Grateful to Mark Thomas and his brother Mitch and their family who made it happen, as well as this council. I said this that	00:04:50
	night, and I'll say it again here. That was a big, big leap for us, a big leap of faith to do this project. I went out there at	00:04:58
	4:15 today, both parking lots, so you weren't packed full, but they were probably 80% full. Families, teenagers, senior citizens.	00:05:06
	Kids on scooters. It was kind of mind-blowing how many people were out there. And it's still winter, y'all. I mean, we might have	00:05:15
	to have more parking. I don't know what, but it was really great to see.	00:05:19
	We had a wonderful blessing of the land from Reverend Nunnally. We're grateful for the state's support and Representative Wiedower	00:05:25
	and their support as we found a low cost way to finance the project. And then we had a group run with about 80 people who were	00:05:30
	there for that. That morning we opened up our dog park and had a leash cutting, which was a lot of fun. If you ever tried to cut a	00:05:36
	leash, it's a little tougher than a ribbon.	00:05:42
	Pale yellow that you see there. I learned during that hike, the guided hike that is a called a.	00:06:18
	Mountain River cane, and this is this most southernmost example of that river cane that has been found in the state of Georgia.	00:06:26
	It's a deciduous river cane apparently, and it the most of it that grows South of here keeps, keeps its leaves all year. So that	00:06:31
	was interesting. So we have the southernmost location of Appalachian River cane is at the Thomas Farm Preserve that's been	00:06:37
	discovered.	00:06:42
	This is the Verner family before the Thomas family on this. The Verner family stewarded that property and then the Thomas family	00:06:49
	who was willing to work with us at a price that was much less than what the market would have paid for that land. We're grateful	00:06:56
	to them for their stewardship over time, and then also very grateful to not just all of you, but our partners locally and with the	00:07:02
	state who all made that happen. That's everybody from our City team to our contractors to our financial partners.	00:07:09
	To the folks who helped actually build build the infrastructure out there. So it was a wonderful day.	00:07:16
	This is our steering committee.	00:07:23
	Sharon, if we want to move on ahead.	00:07:26
	And I also just want to do a shout out, Sharon Dickerson. The day wouldn't have come together the way it did without all that you	00:07:29
	did in Chief as well as you and your guys. But Sharon, thank you. I got a lot of compliments on how the event worked and how it	00:07:33
	all fit together. So thank you for that.	00:07:37
	We're also in the process in Harris Shoals Park. We haven't forgotten about Harris Shoals, the boardwalk where your fingers	00:07:42
	crossed it may be complete by year end or early January. This is the progress. We are almost to the far end of that.	00:07:49
	It is looking really great for the long boardwalk to be complete. And then we are expect our first price proposals to come back on	00:07:57
	the renovation of the former ball field, which will we'll call the Giordini Green after Mayor Al Giordini who actually built a lot	00:08:04
	of that boardwalk and help build that boardwalk and was a real force in Watkinsville for for many years. So excited about that.	00:08:12
	We're going to talk more tonight about the Mulberry Simonton Bridge connector. This kids will be a sidewalk from the new park to.	00:08:19
	Rocket Field in downtown Watkinsville. So if you want to be able to walk safely from our new park or from downtown to our new	00:08:27
	park, you'll be able to do that. Families, it'll be a eight to 10 foot wide path that you'll be able to bike on, walk on.	00:08:32
	All the way from Simonton Place subdivision on Simonton Bridge Rd. back into Rocket Field. So the property that we, I mentioned	00:08:39
	we're acquiring tonight is actually going to be one of the things that allows us to do that. So you will see construction around	00:08:44
	the park and into downtown Watkinsville over the next year as we work to complete that project. Christmas at Wire Park this	00:08:49
	Saturday night. If you didn't go last Saturday, go this Saturday. Lot of fun, beautiful event and that's always a landmark in	00:08:54
	Watkinsville.	00:09:00
	Just a reminder, if you want to recycle your trees, you can do that at any local waste and recycling center. And last but not	00:09:06
	least, shop local. We have some great downtown retailers as well as retailers at Wire Park and in Watkinsville. I really hope	00:09:12
	you'll make time to check out those downtown retailers. They have some wonderful.	00:09:19
	Christmas ideas and items that you aren't going to find online, you're not going to find with Google, but you'll find some great	00:09:26
	stuff at our downtown retailers. So please shop local. All right, we will move on. Now to the reason that a lot of you are here.	00:09:32
	Column Fairy. We are so grateful for the Gingerbread House STEM project.	00:09:37
	I'd like to invite Miss Natalie Wyler to come forward. Miss Natalie, if you want to talk a little bit about this project and what	00:09:44
	these children have done and how they've done it, step to the microphone and turn that. Press share and press the button for you.	00:09:51
	And we'll let you tell us a little bit about the project, and then we'll have all these students come up and we'll recognize them	00:10:01
	and take a photo. Alright. Well, I wanted to start right. Thank you, Mayor Broderick, for letting us recognize our students today.	00:10:05
	They look really pretty, but.	00:10:09
	There was a lot of hard work and a lot of planning that was behind these. So my name is Natalie Wyler. I am one of six fifth grade	00:10:14
	teachers at Colin Ferry, and we're just going to talk a little bit more in depth about what went behind these projects and a	00:10:20
	little bit of the history behind the project. It was actually started 10 years ago when Miriam Shook was our librarian at Column	00:10:27
	Ferry. It was later taken on by our PACE program and they continue that project on.	00:10:33
	Mayor Broderick actually saw those pictures, I think he said about 3 years ago.	00:10:41
	And wanted to showcase them here at City Hall. So this is a tradition we've carried on and we hope to continue to do so because	00:10:45
	it's a pleasure. This year, however, we expanded it to all 5th graders. So we decided to turn this into our project based	00:10:51
	learning. And these projects are not only here tonight, but because we've invited that to so many more 5th graders, they are	00:10:57
	actually showcased all around Watkinsville.	00:11:03
	So we use an engineering design process. It's a five step process.	00:11:09
	And these students went through every single step particularly, and they learned a lot along the way. I even would say I learned a	00:11:14
	little bit watching them just go through it, and it was truly just a pleasure.	00:11:19
	So we asked our question, which was how can we showcase?	00:11:25
	Our lovely community through gingerbread and so we asked our question we imagined what it wanted to look like we.	00:11:29
	Been planned, measured, they researched and they wrote. It was wild, truly, if you raised.	00:11:39
	And they did tenfold what I was expecting out of them. And so the buildings you see here today are ones that we want to showcase	00:11:49
	here at City Hall. But a lot of students decided that they actually wanted to present them at the businesses as well. So we asked	00:11:54
	the students to find a way to how do you want to reach out to the business? Had students planning phone calls and calling	00:12:00
	businesses themselves and writing letters to those businesses. And, you know, watching 10 girls do a better phone call than I	00:12:06
	would have probably done at 15.	00:12:12
	Was both humbling and exciting because those are things our kids are going to need.	00:12:18
	And I'm in the 21st century, so we've connected our students with all of Watkinsville. It was truly a pleasure to watch some of	00:12:22
	these small business owners think those students yesterday and make connections and learn names. And it really made our growing	00:12:28
	town feel like a small town again. So thank you very much for your time, for listening, for recognizing our kids, for bringing	00:12:35
	your students here this afternoon. And we really, really appreciate your time.	00:12:41
	All right, Miss Wyler, stay up there.	00:12:48
	Invite.	00:12:54
	Invite our children up. If you were one of the children who helped with this project, why don't you come right up here and stand	00:12:57
	in front of the gingerbread houses? Right in the middle, Miss.	00:13:02
	Brown, we'd love to have you come up too, please, and Sharon can take a picture for you.	00:13:09
	Doctor Brown, I'll stand in the middle. You'll scoot over a little bit. We'll put that on this side.	00:13:17
	Can you get us all in there? Share.	00:13:31
	All right, ready and gingerbread.	00:13:35
	Stay there.	00:13:40
	OK, So what was each of you? Tell us what which one you did. We'll start with you. Tell us your name and which one you did.	00:13:44
	My name is Blaine. I did.	00:13:51
	You did the Santa going in, that's all.	00:13:59
	All right, Next up.	00:14:06
	Which one? Wolfgang's all right point to that one for us.	00:14:10
	There it is. OK the reindeers have done at Wolfgang or just.	00:14:14
	Reindeer or just dogs? There? Just dogs. All right. Your name.	00:14:19
	Brooks. Brooks. OK, which one did you do? Blind pig. Do you like wine, pig? Yeah, right behind you. OK, there's a blind pig. Oh,	00:14:24
	you did a great job. The tables outside. All right, Your name Saw your. OK, Tell us which one you did.	00:14:31
	What was hard about being an Eagle Tavern?	00:14:40
	Umm, the roof. OK, where's the eagle top chalice?	00:14:43
	OK, well done. And that's the oldest building in Watkinsville. Good job, Sawyer. All right, OK. And you know, the Eagle Tavern, as	00:14:48
	they say, is the reason why the University of Georgia and.	00:14:53
	Look that up on the Internet and find out why I said OK. All right. Emery, Emery. OK, which one did you do?	00:14:58
	So nervous. OK, Tell us about Synovus. Was that a challenging one? Yeah, it was.	00:15:07
	Cover it in fondant. We decided we were gonna do that, and that took some work. Fondant. That's kind of next level. If I'm, if my	00:15:12
	memory is right, am I thinking right about baking skills? OK, well, clap for our kids here. Congratulations.	00:15:19
	We've got a gift bag.	00:15:30
	For each of the kids.	00:15:32
	And we're going to recognize the parade, folks are welcome to stay for that. And then we'll have a break and everybody can side.	00:15:35
	Rest of the rest of the meeting.	00:15:41
	OK did every all of y'all get an ornament to the kids?	00:15:44
	OK.	00:15:50
	OK, Sharon, we're going to kick along to Christmas Parade. Thank you, Mark.	00:15:57
	First of all, I want to recognize we have. We have what I think is.	00:16:01
	The biggest, but definitely the best.	00:16:06
	Christmas parade in Northeast Georgia That happened with the people's great work leading the way for us. Miss Leah Johnson with	00:16:09
	her partner in crime, Colin Peppers. Leah was our Grand Marshall this year as she let us in the parade. She also LED us out to	00:16:14
	Denver when we won All America City.	00:16:20
	Give everybody a wave here.	00:16:27
	Yeah.	00:16:30
	I couldn't. I couldn't done it without everybody here. Well, we're all A-Team. We are a team. Yep. Thank you, Leah. That was	00:16:35
	great, Leah. Leah was a leader for us in Denver and a leader for us. We're grateful to you. All of our winners are getting our	00:16:41
	Watkinsville commemorative ornaments, and those are a design inspired by Francis Bernard and done by Klein's laser and handmade	00:16:47
	creations.	00:16:54
	All right, our partners in putting all this together in Watkinsville H&S lighting.	00:17:00
	Those the lights that you see up for free. Oconee County School District does the tree.	00:17:05
	Senator, the sound system, if you're there for the tree lighting, which was huge.	00:17:13
	Watkinsville Golf Carts donate some of the golf carts we need and The Wreckers, which helped set up our stage for announcement.	00:17:16
	Human Services. So we're grateful. This use, I think Miss Wilder said something about small town, you know, making it feel like a	00:17:25
	small town. And it's those kind of things that that definitely still keep Watkinsville small town that we love. I will read all of	00:17:31
	these out to you guys, but these were our friends and partners who helped us pull things together.	00:17:37
	Everybody from county tourism to local businesses.	00:17:44
	Always grateful Mark and.	00:17:47
	Sales and for leading our grand marshals through. These are Christmas parade volunteers. Again, tons of folks. So grateful to haul	00:17:50
	them for helping us.	00:17:54
	With the parade this year, our announcers Adam Hammond, Brock Tool, Ben Bridges and a new 8 hour.	00:17:58
	Represent the younger generation. A wonderful job.	00:18:06
	Keeping the energy high on Main Street Tree lighting ceremony. All the folks who helped put that together with the music.	00:18:09
	Wonderful event.	00:18:13
	And this is what it looked like. Leah helped us light the tree along with Santa Claus and Chairman Daniel. So we had a great time	00:18:18
	doing that downtown. Those of you couldn't join us.	00:18:22
	For next year, all the folks who helped pull this together on the City side listed up here.	00:18:27
	Manager Dickerson never lists herself, but she was out there the whole time. Here are some of those folks who did that.	00:18:33
	We're getting towards the end, I promise. Except for the awards, this is.	00:18:41
	Planning committee who helps put it?	00:18:45
	Stops and hops and makes on a year to help lead the way as our Tree Lighting Parade event coordinate. And that is not an easy job.	00:19:17
	If you've ever heard of cats, that's like hurting a herd, multiple herds of cats. So we're grateful to Melanie for doing that	00:19:22
	every year.	00:19:27
	All right, now we're winners. Some of them are here tonight. So for our winners, for children, best use of theme.	00:19:32
	That is. Anybody here with the Briarwood kids? All right, here we go.	00:19:41
	Congratulations. So it was entitled in God we truck.	00:19:50
	About 3035 kids.	00:19:57
	So, yeah, thank you, guys. All right, great. Thanks for putting the effort in.	00:20:01
	Here's your congratulations.	00:20:06
	All right, Next up and I'll have everybody come up. We'll just take a picture together at the end for children, most artistic, the	00:20:09
	stage Oconee. I don't know if Wendy Austria is here. OK, congratulations. Yep.	00:20:15
	Over here and tell us about what you did.	00:20:24
	We were representing our performance of A Christmas Story the musical, and so we had kids dancing and dressed up as Ralphie and	00:20:26
	his pink Bunny suit and just everybody had a lot of fun. Awesome love, little Raffy.	00:20:32
	That's right. OK, Adult. Best use of theme. Our friends at Oconee State Bank and we've got Haley here. Haley Reed, come on up.	00:20:39
	Well, we, we're just trying to figure out a way to incorporate the theme of the, of the parade. And we have a picture, if you can	00:20:52
	see it on our banner there. That's in our main office boardroom of two gentlemen playing chess underneath the oak tree on our bank	00:20:58
	property. So that was kind of our, our thoughts. So that's why all of our values are written out in the roots that are going	00:21:04
	around the, around the tree. So thank you.	00:21:10
	Awesome, Great job.	00:21:17
	You can see why they got best use of theme, OK adult, most artistic.	00:21:20
	Here for OK.	00:21:24
	Lawrence, you might get the perfect dependence award for City Council meetings this.	00:21:27
	We had some American artists on our float.	00:21:33
	And.	00:21:37
	Leslie Moody. All right. Little Leslie Moody. OK. All right. All right. Well, congratulations. All right.	00:21:40
	All right, Best tractor Keith Redford North Georgia 2 Cylinder Club. Keith, congratulations.	00:21:50
	Tell us about your tractor.	00:21:58
	OK, Next up we have best antique car Washington farms.	00:22:27
	That was pretty sweet, The Candy Canyon candy cannon.	00:22:33
	Wow. All right. Tell us where that came from.	00:22:38
	Well, it can. You can. It's been part of the farm for many years now and it's one of our favorite parts, so it's kind of a given	00:22:42
	to use it for the parade.	00:22:46
	But is it your first time in operator?	00:22:51
	All right. I haven't noticed it before. Has it always been mobile like that?	00:22:53
	OK. All right.	00:22:58
	Awesome. All right, now we've got a mobile candy cannon in Oconee County, another thing that no other county probably has in	00:23:01
	northeast Georgia. All right, spirit of the season, Ashford memorials. Anybody here with Ashford? Okay.	00:23:08
	Congratulations. Tell us about your flight. Our float was was designed by our children's ministers. I had nothing to do with it. I	00:23:18
	was hired in September, but thankful to be here tonight. What's your name and what do you do at Ashford? I'm the director of youth	00:23:24
	in college. All right, Chris. Well, thank you for ask for their. Let's do an awesome job.	00:23:30
	Thank you for that.	00:23:37
	And last, our overall the Mary D Williams Award. Mary D Williams, UM.	00:23:39
	Was our longtime parade coordinator, publisher, the Oconee Enterprise, and just had a huge, huge heart for the parade. So it's a	00:23:44
	big honor to win this. So a winner of the Married Williams Award. Wow, I remember that one. That is amazing. So that's the	00:23:52
	Piedmont Athens emergency department. I think I know who that is. Y'all come on up here. All right, congratulations.	00:23:59
	All right, tell us your name and tell us about this flow.	00:24:08
	Hey, I'm Zonnie Downs on the flow coordinator in the ER, Piedmont Athens. The theme of the parade was All American Christmas, and	00:24:12
	what more is America All American than Elvis Presley? So we work in the ER, we see people during some of their most difficult	00:24:18
	times, and we just wanted to spread some cheer through our department in our community. We do work in Athens, but we all live in	00:24:24
	Watkinsville. Our kids go to Colin Ferry, and so we just wanted to have some fun. And so we thought, let's dress up with Elvis and	00:24:29
	sing and dance and throw some.	00:24:35
	We're so honored that we wanted shocked more than anything, but honored to have won. So thank you all so much. Do any of you want	00:24:43
	to say Blue Christmas? You got a voice here?	00:24:49
	We can lead everyone in. OK, all right, all right, all right. I'm not. So it's like a no, all right, everybody, mainly because you	00:24:56
	want to give me saying y'all come on up everybody you want let's come up front. So come back up if you want. Let's stand together	00:25:01
	and we'll get a we'll get a picture together and then we'll let everybody who doesn't want to stay for the exciting meeting head	00:25:07
	home.	00:25:12
	Need to go on a website?	00:25:35
	All right, all right, I'm going to say one more thing and we're going to get out of here. If you don't want to stay, there's not a	00:25:40
	long meeting. So if you're interested in local government, feel free to stay here for the Scouts. Sometimes you get a extra credit	00:25:46
	for that. I do want to recognize our special relationship with Colin Ferry Elementary.	00:25:51
	Our school and in the city and while the school system is a county wide school system, we have a ton of pride and having common	00:25:59
	ferry in Watkinsville. We have a sidewalk to column ferry. We're thankful Doctor Brown for everything that you guys do to be a	00:26:06
	part of Watkinsville and there are police officers love investing in being with your students and we are so grateful for the way	00:26:13
	that you guys pour into our little town and work to be a part of Watkinsville. So thank you for that for those.	00:26:21
	And I don't think we need to hold the rest of this now a good time for everybody to head out unless you want to stay. We're going	00:26:28
	to take what y'all give you a minute or two to slide on out of here and get home for dinner and we'll carry on with our business.	00:26:31
	Thanks for coming tonight.	00:26:35
	Thank you for coming.	00:26:45
	Thank you. Congratulations.	00:26:55
	California.	00:26:59
	Congratulations.	00:27:35
	Yeah, right.	00:27:38
	I.	00:27:58
	What?	00:28:03
	Fire parts right when I leave a monsoon here between water park and my car. I get here, all the rain stop. Thank you. Thanks for	00:28:06
	being here. Wait, we had rain?	00:28:12
	I was like, is that wind? The skies opened and it went, yeah, it was a monsoon. Telling you not to not to double book yourself,	00:28:21
	Jeff.	00:28:26
	All right, Well, it looks like we have a lot of.	00:28:36
	It was a great start to the meeting. Lot of interest in the rest of it tonight. So we'll we'll move move quickly through quickly	00:28:39
	through the rest of this I.	00:28:43
	In fact, members of the public will talk about that if anyone wants to address us, but we have two here and I think we can handle	00:28:48
	that. Sharon will move on to the financial reports and we'll let you go. Thank you, Mayor. Balance sheet was sent this afternoon	00:28:54
	along with the expenses and revenues to the end of November. If there's any questions on those, please let me know.	00:29:00
	As a reminder, the this FLOSS 3 report we had, we were averaging about $83,000 a month that those funds are being spent on Thomas	00:29:07
	Farm Preserve, Harris Shoals Park improvements, public safety equipment, public works equipment, the Sundon Bridge Rd. pedestrian	00:29:14
	connector and resurfacing projects. So a lot, a lot going on, a lot of money. Thankful for that money. We wouldn't be able to do	00:29:20
	what we're doing. Our bank balance is a little bit more than $800,000.	00:29:27
	So that's good and healthy on the T spot. Remember this is a transportation special purpose local options sales tax, so it's	00:29:34
	specific to transportation.	00:29:38
	We are averaging about 73,000 a month. These funds are being used for sidewalk connections, Symptom Bridge, Rd. connector as well	00:29:42
	and road resurfacing projects. We have a little bit more, a little less than $700,000 in the bank for the those projects. And then	00:29:50
	last but not least, our American Rescue Plan Act reports we'll have all those money spent before December 31st.	00:29:59
	Which is great because that's what the federal government requires. And doing some work right now and some training.	00:30:08
	On the on the police side, Chief may talk a little bit about that tonight. Any questions on any of those reports? So the ARPA	00:30:13
	report will be retired after this meeting?	00:30:17
	I would like to, but as soon as ever all the, as soon as all the money clears, then yes. But I still have to report in April or	00:30:24
	May for the next couple of years. We have to report, you know, any funds and we don't have to read it every month, do we? No, not	00:30:28
	necessarily.	00:30:32
	No, I know. I do want to point out since we're on the finance, I do want to recognize Lee Black, who is back in.	00:30:39
	Another year or so to complete the rest of the certifications, but she should be able to do some stuff this next audit cycles so.	00:31:14
	Really thankful that she's taken on that additional training on economic development. We have business licenses are rolling in	00:31:20
	probably pretty steady, not too surprising, not necessarily a whole bunch more than we had this time last year, but those are all	00:31:27
	due by March 15th of next year without any type of penalty. Our excise taxes, both alcohol and hotel, motel, both of those I'll	00:31:34
	look back at last year where we were and both of those are trending higher than they were in fiscal year 24. So that is very nice.	00:31:41
	And then on our building permit.	00:31:49
	Couple of highlights on this, you'll see there are 13 permits for five projects. Two big projects, the PETA Mediterranean and the	00:31:51
	Thrive build out at Water Park are both on there. And we as a staff, some of us went to the Mediterranean place. I guess it was	00:31:57
	week before last. It was really good. So really nice to see that. And I think the Hot Dog Factory or whatever they're called,	00:32:04
	yeah, the hot Dog place, they're open as well. So a lot more people.	00:32:10
	A lot more opportunity for people to have food choices there. Any questions on any of those?	00:32:17
	OK.	00:32:23
	All right, so just a quick update today, we have actually made an offer to someone to be the new DA Director and we are waiting on	00:32:27
	a response. So hopefully next month I will be making an introduction in an official announcement.	00:32:36
	All right, Chief.	00:32:50
	Make sure the mics on. I think I left it on SO.	00:32:53
	When everybody was leaving.	00:32:56
	Hold it down.	00:33:00
	All right.	00:33:03
	The police report for the previous month of the training is still scheduled for Sergeant Wade and Officer Walker to attend the	00:33:05
	management courses. An active shooter and I just wanted last night we had a night fire qualifications with rifles and pistols and	00:33:12
	also a less lethal shotguns. So we're there till the dark hours last night and then we're going to do it again tomorrow night.	00:33:18
	Want to thank the Sergeant Hitler for for setting it up and getting it done. Does a really good job.	00:33:24
	And I also want to for special announcements.	00:33:32
	Recognize Sergeant Hitler. I thought he was going to come in here, but.	00:33:35
	Brett Lee I Why don't we? Why don't we get him? He's still out there, probably playing with the kids or.	00:33:42
	Talking to the kids.	00:33:46
	So.	00:33:51
	Come over here.	00:33:54
	It has been a blessing, honestly, to have be partners with Kyle. He has been a true help the last 2 1/2 weeks, but also as the	00:33:57
	past five months as the interagency head. He's done a lot for the Police Department and I think he should be recognized. And	00:34:03
	Sharon and I discussed and made him the training coordinator. That's something he likes to do and he's really good at it, and I	00:34:09
	just want to thank him.	00:34:15
	In front of everybody so he knows how much he's appreciated. I appreciate it.	00:34:23
	Kyle stay in here till the end.	00:34:30
	Here, Sure you're not done currently we got a few projects and I didn't put it on here, but we had ordered a outside storage	00:34:33
	building to move a lot of the outside pieces of property that we can make room and we're going to make a training room that's	00:34:39
	going to be multifunctional. It can be interviews, it can be meetings, it can be roll call, it can be so forth. We'll set it up	00:34:46
	kind of similar to this there'll be a large table with enough chairs that.	00:34:52
	Everybody in the Police Department can fit plus a few more. Maybe do some outside training or meetings. Have Intel meetings or	00:34:59
	investigative type of meetings with the surrounding counties.	00:35:03
	We are cleaning the floors, we're going to Polish them up, wax them, paint some walls, fill some holes and just make the Police	00:35:09
	Department more presentable. Thankfully city manager said we had some funds to spend, so I will help her out with that.	00:35:16
	Events. The Christmas parade I think was a huge success.	00:35:25
	Again, thank you, Sergeant Hitler. He does a very thorough job with that.	00:35:30
	The, the city, the team, let's call it our team, right? The Watkinsville team is really remarkable. I don't know if I've ever	00:35:35
	worked with such a group of people that work so hard and dedicated so much. And it's I'm, I'm proud to be part of it. I really AM.	00:35:42
	And also thank you to the Oconee County Sheriff's Office, the Fire Rescue and all the volunteers that make this thing successful.	00:35:49
	Thomas Farm, we helped out as much as we could with parking and, and I didn't think we really need a security so much because I	00:35:59
	think it's a good time for everybody. But we, I've asked the officers to help assist with patrolling it and, and, and assisting	00:36:04
	with the batteries, batteries, the bathrooms, making sure they're available at the right times when, when the community is there	00:36:10
	to use the park.	00:36:15
	As far as our stats, pretty, pretty similar to the month previous. We had a total of 254 calls for service, 873 security checks,	00:36:22
	citations, a total of 142, which 73 were actually warnings out of that, so just slightly above 50%.	00:36:31
	My philosophy is it's Christmas time, you know, maybe, maybe be a little more lenient, give a few more breaks. So that works out	00:36:44
	great, right?	00:36:47
	Any any questions on on that?	00:36:53
	All right. And, and honestly, I think the 142 is a really good number.	00:36:56
	Just the previous agencies I worked at that's that's, that's pretty good. That's really good number for officers are staying busy.	00:37:01
	And then the last thing we want to give a special thanks to.	00:37:09
	This the people and businesses who participated in stock stock stocking stuffers it's a tongue twister which is Athens Feed and	00:37:14
	seed, Firewood Baptist Church, Mama Nings, CSRA Probation, Gecko Kitchen, J&M Fire and Safety, Oconee Well Drillers, Scoops, Sun	00:37:23
	Catcher Cafe to Fauci Optics and White Tiger. We are all thankful for their contributions to.	00:37:31
	To a surprise, the officers with what they did and we want to continue to thank them for the support. We love our community and we	00:37:40
	wish them all a very merry Merry Christmas and I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and it's here. So thank you all very much	00:37:47
	for for having me. And I guess if there's any questions I'd be so Chief, that was badges and benevolence that did the stocking	00:37:55
	stuffer. It wasn't the city. I just you know, we have a we have a foundation now you might want to.	00:38:02
	That a little bit too.	00:38:10
	Yes, ma'am.	00:38:12
	Yep, so thankful for that. I did want to recognize, Chief, you've jumped in with jumped in with both feet. So we want to thank you	00:38:13
	for a great first month of the.	00:38:18
	And I felt like we had the right guy when he showed up for the volunteer day at Thomas Farms and we put him to work with the	00:38:24
	chainsaw for 3 1/2 hours out there and he was one of the people had to make quit working. So grateful for that. It was a great	00:38:31
	start and I appreciate all your help and stand up. Kyle, we just want to thank you.	00:38:37
	The You did a wonderful job of leading leading the department on an interim basis, and we're grateful for that. We know that	00:38:44
	doesn't come easy. We also know you juggle and handle a lot of different things in the department.	00:38:49
	And, and that does not go unnoticed, you know, I'm here more than the rest of y'all, but all the rest of y'all probably noticed it	00:38:56
	too. Kyle's Kyle do anything from making sure the cameras work to the IT to policy or you'll come up here on a Saturday or Sunday	00:39:02
	and he's out there, you know, fixing equipment to vehicles, you know?	00:39:09
	And now training, I don't know anything about training, but you know, coordinating that too. So Kyle, we appreciate whether we,	00:39:15
	whether it's a lot of hats or whether you're juggling or whether you're juggling and switching hats, we're appreciative of you and	00:39:20
	everything that you did in that period. So thank you, Kyle, Absolutely. Thank you.	00:39:25
	Any questions for the Sergeant or the chief?	00:39:33
	Yeah. All right. OK. Thank you, Chief. Good job. All right, consent agenda, we have none.	00:39:37
	Public hearing We have none. Appearances we have none. Old business We have none. Merry Christmas Show New business 2 items.	00:39:44
	I am so excited about this one. Y'all there is.	00:39:54
	Those people who have been around me know they're they're certain. There's certain projects that I've worked on for a long time.	00:39:57
	Not all of them have come to fruition, but when one of them does, I'm very excited. So I'm, I'm very, I'm going to let Sharon talk	00:40:03
	in more detail about this, but I'm very excited to say that with.	00:40:09
	Help from Georgia Power.	00:40:16
	Different points to handle the relocation of that power because it is significantly impeding the flow of safe pedestrian traffic	00:40:48
	on the sidewalk. This is just the highlights. I didn't put the whole report. Everybody can look at that online. But N2020 splash	00:40:55
	21/20/21 referendum was approved. 67% of the voters in Oconee County.	00:41:02
	And we began collecting that money in October. We talked about that a few minutes ago in the other report. As the mayor pointed	00:41:10
	out, we have for a number of years I've been here 6. And for the whole time I've been here, everybody's been talking about the,	00:41:15
	they've complained about that pole being there. And I know it's been there a lot longer than I've been here so.	00:41:20
	The plan is to is to remove it to improve the pedestrian safety. What I'm recommending is that we use the SPLOST 3 budget.	00:41:27
	For Rd. streets and bridges we have about 400,000 and stormwater improvements and that you guys approved.	00:41:34
	And so moving about 30,000, I don't think will impact any our ability to do anything with those funds down the road, but it will	00:41:42
	at least address this issue that you guys would like to see address. There's the infamous pole in the middle of the sidewalk.	00:41:48
	And then and then again, what we're recommending is option one, which is to approve an appropriate $28,000 for this project.	00:41:56
	And do we need any contingency there in case there's other costs from utilities or anything like that? Sharon, you know, Georgia	00:42:05
	Power gave us that number, if you. Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to. What do we normally do about?	00:42:11
	10%, she knows a baby. Yeah, maybe 30. I would recommend 35. We may have other utilities that want some cost to move off of that	00:42:17
	pole bread. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.	00:42:23
	Yeah, you got AT&T or whatever you got. You got all that communication underneath the power.	00:42:31
	Well, and I'm not and I don't know when they gave that price to us, if that included the coordination of that. Well, there was	00:42:37
	not. There was a caveat in there. I'd like to get a healthy contingency in there so you don't have to come back to us for that. If	00:42:42
	you may need any go higher than $7000 more because we know what we just paid for what's going on in front. You may need to do a	00:42:47
	little.	00:42:52
	But I do know that I mean they, they truthfully might let it hang for for a little while. I don't know. That's pretty long span.	00:42:57
	Yeah, for them, for them, I don't, I don't know if there's any slack that might be a slack bubble right there for the fiber that	00:43:05
	they might be able to actually push it out. I I imagine they're going to put two poles on either end of that property to make it	00:43:10
	more of a.	00:43:15
	Box than just an angled pole. That's right. They're going to go to they're going to go to the city owned sidewalk property and	00:43:21
	then they're going to go to the edge of the Sunshine Village property there. I'd recommend we just do an extra 10,000 if you are	00:43:27
	comfortable with that. We've got the budget numbers and spots with this project was quoted to me at 35,010 years ago.	00:43:33
	So I think we should just do the extra if y'all can get comfortable with that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. OK. All right. And if we don't use	00:43:40
	it, we don't use it. If we don't use it, we don't use it. I mean, you know, it'll come right back in forever. We've talked about	00:43:45
	this being an 88 issue.	00:43:51
	Banner we're going to get fixed. That's that's another great thing for 2024 Yeah, OK, I make a motion that we approve, but we	00:43:56
	budget.	00:44:02
	38,000 and change OK.	00:44:08
	All right, So that number would be $38,024.20 on the motion from Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. Do we have a 2nd? I'll second, second from	00:44:13
	Mr. Thomas. Any further discussion or celebrations?	00:44:20
	Hearing none all in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right, when that is done, we will check a big one off the list. Doesn't seem	00:44:28
	like that big a deal, but it is.	00:44:33
	We have consideration of year and bonuses for city employees, Manager Dickerson, if you want to make a report.	00:44:39
	Thank you, mayor. So I've presented to the committee on finance and personnel request to provide a year end bonus to our employees	00:44:44
	excluding me only those employees have been employed full time for the with the city for the last 12 months will be eligible. We	00:44:52
	have that those individuals here traditionally December's council meetings include in consideration of a year and bonus. It's not	00:44:59
	budgeted for and so those funds typically are appropriated and pulled from the fund balance which is pretty healthy right now so.	00:45:07
	That is the request.	00:45:15
	Council, you've heard the request. We have anything from the committee, this did go to the personnel committee. We we suggest that	00:45:18
	yes, we do give the bonus and we do suggest that we include Sharon in it because everybody including Sharon has done, has worked	00:45:24
	hard this year and I think they all deserve a bonus.	00:45:30
	All right, so that looks like if my eyes are working reasonably well, that's an additional $2101.90.	00:45:37
	One sense, OK.	00:45:44
	How long is Mr. Connor Brodus been with us?	00:45:46
	Oh, I see it. Sorry.	00:45:52
	Thank you.	00:45:54
	Entertain a motion on that I make a motion that we approve this bonus schedule with the addition of.	00:46:00
	Sharon Dickerson, we have a second.	00:46:09
	We have a second for Mr. Garrett. Any further discussion?	00:46:11
	Hearing none all in favor say aye, Any opposed?	00:46:15
	We have the opportunity for public comments.	00:46:19
	No, we don't. We forgot we added something, the Healy property we added during the meeting. So we'll discuss that. Sharon, do you	00:46:23
	have a report?	00:46:27
	Just a brief report, so.	00:46:32
	Just a brief report. Sorry about that. So we have, as everyone may recall, we popped this up earlier, This is Sumton Bridge	00:46:35
	pedestrian connector. This pedestrian connector will go through some private property. There's been discussion with the private	00:46:40
	property owner, Mr. Healy. Here's a picture of his property and I'll show how the connections proposed to go through this	00:46:46
	property.	00:46:52
	You'll see the blue squares there. I'm probably going to let the engineer talk about the engineering portion. I'll come back and	00:46:59
	talk about the money portion, but ultimately it goes right through the middle of this gentleman's property and he has agreed to	00:47:04
	sell that property to the city. I'll pass it to the engineer for a minute.	00:47:09
	Thank you, Sharon. So again the discussion during the design based on the location of this property, this is this is what I'll	00:47:15
	call the Creek property. This is how this pathway will cross the Creek outside of the Simonton Bridge Road right of way, which we	00:47:22
	understand has a covert coming under the roadway. The majority of the property does does have floodplain on it. There has been all	00:47:29
	survey work on this on this property, but the the idea was once you.	00:47:36
	Bifurcated the property with a pathway.	00:47:44
	Would it remain, you know, viable or usable anyway, or would you want to constrain your work to a, a narrow easement or right of	00:47:47
	way how that would look? You know, some of the details. This is where you have to put a bridge in to get across the Creek. So	00:47:54
	you've got some permanent features of that. You'll have some temporary features to construct a bridge across the Creek. The idea	00:48:01
	would also be there's likely some cost savings from construction if you have the ability to use the entirety of the property.	00:48:07
	Rather than being constrained by a.	00:48:15
	And the easement either temporary or permanent for a smaller portion thereof. So through through many discussions over a longer	00:48:18
	period of time, the, the point we're at now would be for the, the totality of this, this property to, to be purchased by the city	00:48:25
	for use specifically as part of this project. And, and down the road, it could be another addition to the, to the city's green	00:48:33
	space for those areas that are in and around the, the, the bridge itself in some ways, if you kind of.	00:48:40
	Realize that the bridge is part of the Hard Hill Rd. sidewalk project. This won't be exactly the same as that, but there there	00:48:48
	would that's probably the most similar to what you would look at in an understanding. There's areas around that bridge as well,	00:48:52
	so.	00:48:56
	Happy to answer your question.	00:49:02
	I'll talk about the financial side of it. So this is part of the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank loan and grant program	00:49:04
	that we received earlier this year. The loan was 2.375 million and the grant is 1.5 and some change. You'll see at the bottom that	00:49:10
	those funding, the funding source for the loan is going to be several different projects. We've got SPLICE 32 sections of Splice	00:49:16
	3.	00:49:22
	And then one section of T splost to help pay that back over time. And so it's a reimbursement grant. So right now we're spending	00:49:29
	money, the state will reimburse us for it. And at the end when we spend that 2.375, it'll be turned into a loan and we'll we'll	00:49:34
	use the funds.	00:49:39
	That are in those projects to pay back the loan overtime.	00:49:44
	So there's plenty of money. A couple points about this too by Mark alluded to, but I'm going to put a finer point on it by	00:49:49
	acquiring the whole parcel, we do anticipate potential cost savings about being able to do the bridge in some different ways. So,	00:49:55
	so the there is some advantage to that. Also there's a very healthy right of way budget. There's up at 276 that shown. We don't	00:50:01
	anticipate any other significant right away costs there. There could be something that crop up, but we have some verbal	00:50:07
	commitments.	00:50:13
	We don't anticipate additional right away costs impacting us on this project. So we're still operating well below our budget there	00:50:18
	in terms of what we anticipate using.	00:50:22
	But this is this is also a wetland area. So there's there's a lot of good reasons I.	00:50:30
	To acquire it and have it have it.	00:50:38
	Have low impact on it overtime.	00:50:41
	Questions for manager Dickerson, Engineer Campbell, myself.	00:50:43
	Are we voting on the?	00:50:49
	And we didn't. Did we say the purchase price, Sharon, do we need to put that on the record? I'm sorry, are we?	00:50:52
	With this are we?	00:50:58
	Approving this or like I have a question about the contract but I don't know if that's not for this if I just need to ask.	00:51:01
	Has been signed by the seller and then the purchaser via the mayor, subject to final council approval and DocuSign already.	00:51:09
	So if you have a question I would ask it now.	00:51:19
	This is me being ticky as this is what I do. So on 14 access the property is full at free ingress and egress to and from one or	00:51:24
	more public roads and seller has no knowledge of any factor condition which would result in termination of any such access.	00:51:30
	It doesn't have. I mean, it doesn't, does it touch? And I think it actually does touch a public road or not. It does. Yeah, it	00:51:39
	does. It doesn't have. It doesn't have.	00:51:45
	Just couldn't tell from this.	00:51:52
	Great. Just wanted to make sure that wouldn't be a little thank you for asking.	00:51:56
	But with your approval, we'll move forward on closing, closing this out in the next before the end of the year, so.	00:52:03
	In the in the purchase price of 60,000, I don't know if we said that on on the record or not, but that's what it is. Yep, Yep.	00:52:10
	All right. Do we have a motion?	00:52:19
	Can I finish?	00:52:21
	What?	00:52:23
	This is the same contract we used for Thomas Farm, but without the customization that was necessary due to the size that	00:52:25
	transaction and the acreage and the special conditions the rest of it should look.	00:52:31
	Pretty similar.	00:52:38
	That's fine, we've had an efficient meeting. I want every council member to be able to read it if they wouldn't like to.	00:52:39
	I know this was a late addition.	00:52:46
	For the benefit of the public, we have discussed this in executive session, as we have the right to do under.	00:52:51
	Property acquisition, Joe, but wanted to bring it to the public and bring it forward once we have the opportunity to close the	00:52:57
	sale.	00:53:00
	I'll add another point of clarification. This is bound on the east side by the Watkinsville Cemetery property. So, so there's	00:53:13
	there's not any property between the Watkinsville Cemetery property and this partial as well. So that that again allows for a	00:53:19
	little bit more if you have a shared property line and you can expand the property that allows for some more flexibility.	00:53:26
	OK, I'll do it. Thank you. You're good. OK. All right. Anyone want to make a motion?	00:53:34
	I make a motion that we.	00:53:43
	Approve the acquisition of the Healy property as stated.	00:53:46
	Do we have a 2nd, 2nd?	00:53:50
	Yeah, including the contract.	00:53:53
	I'll second. We have a second from Councilman Thomas. Any further discussion?	00:53:55
	All in favor say aye aye. Any opposed like some motion carries unanimously.	00:54:00
	Thank you all. All right, public comments.	00:54:04
	Y'all time to Sean. Come on up.	00:54:09
	All right.	00:54:13
	Hearing none, we'll move on to council reports.	00:54:14
	Post one Councilman Garrett.	00:54:18
	OK, opposed to Councilwoman Massey.	00:54:22
	All right, Post 3 Councilman Thomas, nothing to report.	00:54:26
	Post 4 Mayor Pro Tem Tucker, I just want to echo what has been said multiple times tonight, how incredible Thomas Farm Preserve	00:54:30
	is. I walked from my house there yesterday, walked around the property again. I mean, it is.	00:54:37
	It I'm almost get emotional every time I go, like, thank everyone in this room for the leadership that made that happen. Like what	00:54:46
	a legacy. So yeah, it is.	00:54:51
	Yeah, words don't really even do it justice, so thank you.	00:54:58
	Thank you.	00:55:02
	Councilman Campbell, nothing to report, all right.	00:55:03
	OK. All right. With that, I'll entertain a motion to move into executive session For the purpose of discussing real estate and	00:55:06
	pending and threatened litigation, I make a motion to move to executive session.	00:55:12
	So we have a 2nd, 2nd.	00:55:19
	All in favor say aye OK bikes are still.	00:55:21

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Event transcript
	All right, everybody, welcome to the December City Council meeting.	00:00:46
	Our last of the year. We've had a lot to celebrate in Watkinsville this year.	00:00:51
	And excited to celebrate celebrating the days ahead as a community and individually with all we have going on.	00:00:57
	We do have a quorum here. Councilman Campbell will be joining us a little bit late due to a conflict, but we do expect him to	00:01:04
	arrive and we have two young men from Colin Ferry. We're going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you guys could stand up.	00:01:10
	And get us started.	00:01:20
	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,	00:01:22
	indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.	00:01:29
	Thank you, gentlemen.	00:01:41
	We have the preliminaries over. We'll now start the meeting. We have a lot of fun things tonight.	00:03:11
	We'll move quickly through all these joyous celebrations at the start. I'll talk a little bit more about in a moment, as might one	00:03:15
	of our teachers here. But if it smells extra good in here tonight, it's because we have our, I think our third annual year of the	00:03:22
	column Ferry Elementary gingerbread houses that resemble downtown Watkinsville up here. So it's always a special treat to have the	00:03:29
	column fairy gingerbread houses here with us. First on the agenda, tonight's approval of the November 20th.	00:03:36
	Meeting minutes Council.	00:03:43
	I'll entertain any discussion or if there's a motion to approve those minutes. Someone please make the motion. I make a motion to	00:03:46
	approve and we have a motion. Do we have a 2nd? I'll second. We have a second. Any discussion of the minutes?	00:03:51
	Hearing none, all in favor say aye, any opposed? We'll move to approval of the agenda. I would ask that we add one item on to the	00:03:57
	agenda under new business and that's the acquisition of the Healy property, again under new business. I'll entertain a motion to	00:04:03
	approve the agenda with that addition, please. I make a motion to approve the agenda with the addition under new business of	00:04:08
	acquiring the Healy property. OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second?	00:04:14
	I'll second, we have a second. Any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye. Any opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll	00:04:21
	move on to the mayor's report. While we've got a crowd. I'll share some of the good news. On Saturday we had what I think is a a	00:04:27
	day that a lot of us will remember for the rest of our lives. And today I think that'll be appreciated long after we're gone. And	00:04:33
	that's the opening of the 100 acre Thomas Farm Preserve.	00:04:40
	You can see there the crowd that joined us, with some of the beauty of the park in the background.	00:04:46
	Grateful to Mark Thomas and his brother Mitch and their family who made it happen, as well as this council. I said this that	00:04:50
	night, and I'll say it again here. That was a big, big leap for us, a big leap of faith to do this project. I went out there at	00:04:58
	4:15 today, both parking lots, so you weren't packed full, but they were probably 80% full. Families, teenagers, senior citizens.	00:05:06
	Kids on scooters. It was kind of mind-blowing how many people were out there. And it's still winter, y'all. I mean, we might have	00:05:15
	to have more parking. I don't know what, but it was really great to see.	00:05:19
	We had a wonderful blessing of the land from Reverend Nunnally. We're grateful for the state's support and Representative Wiedower	00:05:25
	and their support as we found a low cost way to finance the project. And then we had a group run with about 80 people who were	00:05:30
	there for that. That morning we opened up our dog park and had a leash cutting, which was a lot of fun. If you ever tried to cut a	00:05:36
	leash, it's a little tougher than a ribbon.	00:05:42
	Pale yellow that you see there. I learned during that hike, the guided hike that is a called a.	00:06:18
	Mountain River cane, and this is this most southernmost example of that river cane that has been found in the state of Georgia.	00:06:26
	It's a deciduous river cane apparently, and it the most of it that grows South of here keeps, keeps its leaves all year. So that	00:06:31
	was interesting. So we have the southernmost location of Appalachian River cane is at the Thomas Farm Preserve that's been	00:06:37
	discovered.	00:06:42
	This is the Verner family before the Thomas family on this. The Verner family stewarded that property and then the Thomas family	00:06:49
	who was willing to work with us at a price that was much less than what the market would have paid for that land. We're grateful	00:06:56
	to them for their stewardship over time, and then also very grateful to not just all of you, but our partners locally and with the	00:07:02
	state who all made that happen. That's everybody from our City team to our contractors to our financial partners.	00:07:09
	To the folks who helped actually build build the infrastructure out there. So it was a wonderful day.	00:07:16
	This is our steering committee.	00:07:23
	Sharon, if we want to move on ahead.	00:07:26
	And I also just want to do a shout out, Sharon Dickerson. The day wouldn't have come together the way it did without all that you	00:07:29
	did in Chief as well as you and your guys. But Sharon, thank you. I got a lot of compliments on how the event worked and how it	00:07:33
	all fit together. So thank you for that.	00:07:37
	We're also in the process in Harris Shoals Park. We haven't forgotten about Harris Shoals, the boardwalk where your fingers	00:07:42
	crossed it may be complete by year end or early January. This is the progress. We are almost to the far end of that.	00:07:49
	It is looking really great for the long boardwalk to be complete. And then we are expect our first price proposals to come back on	00:07:57
	the renovation of the former ball field, which will we'll call the Giordini Green after Mayor Al Giordini who actually built a lot	00:08:04
	of that boardwalk and help build that boardwalk and was a real force in Watkinsville for for many years. So excited about that.	00:08:12
	We're going to talk more tonight about the Mulberry Simonton Bridge connector. This kids will be a sidewalk from the new park to.	00:08:19
	Rocket Field in downtown Watkinsville. So if you want to be able to walk safely from our new park or from downtown to our new	00:08:27
	park, you'll be able to do that. Families, it'll be a eight to 10 foot wide path that you'll be able to bike on, walk on.	00:08:32
	All the way from Simonton Place subdivision on Simonton Bridge Rd. back into Rocket Field. So the property that we, I mentioned	00:08:39
	we're acquiring tonight is actually going to be one of the things that allows us to do that. So you will see construction around	00:08:44
	the park and into downtown Watkinsville over the next year as we work to complete that project. Christmas at Wire Park this	00:08:49
	Saturday night. If you didn't go last Saturday, go this Saturday. Lot of fun, beautiful event and that's always a landmark in	00:08:54
	Watkinsville.	00:09:00
	Just a reminder, if you want to recycle your trees, you can do that at any local waste and recycling center. And last but not	00:09:06
	least, shop local. We have some great downtown retailers as well as retailers at Wire Park and in Watkinsville. I really hope	00:09:12
	you'll make time to check out those downtown retailers. They have some wonderful.	00:09:19
	Christmas ideas and items that you aren't going to find online, you're not going to find with Google, but you'll find some great	00:09:26
	stuff at our downtown retailers. So please shop local. All right, we will move on. Now to the reason that a lot of you are here.	00:09:32
	Column Fairy. We are so grateful for the Gingerbread House STEM project.	00:09:37
	I'd like to invite Miss Natalie Wyler to come forward. Miss Natalie, if you want to talk a little bit about this project and what	00:09:44
	these children have done and how they've done it, step to the microphone and turn that. Press share and press the button for you.	00:09:51
	And we'll let you tell us a little bit about the project, and then we'll have all these students come up and we'll recognize them	00:10:01
	and take a photo. Alright. Well, I wanted to start right. Thank you, Mayor Broderick, for letting us recognize our students today.	00:10:05
	They look really pretty, but.	00:10:09
	There was a lot of hard work and a lot of planning that was behind these. So my name is Natalie Wyler. I am one of six fifth grade	00:10:14
	teachers at Colin Ferry, and we're just going to talk a little bit more in depth about what went behind these projects and a	00:10:20
	little bit of the history behind the project. It was actually started 10 years ago when Miriam Shook was our librarian at Column	00:10:27
	Ferry. It was later taken on by our PACE program and they continue that project on.	00:10:33
	Mayor Broderick actually saw those pictures, I think he said about 3 years ago.	00:10:41
	And wanted to showcase them here at City Hall. So this is a tradition we've carried on and we hope to continue to do so because	00:10:45
	it's a pleasure. This year, however, we expanded it to all 5th graders. So we decided to turn this into our project based	00:10:51
	learning. And these projects are not only here tonight, but because we've invited that to so many more 5th graders, they are	00:10:57
	actually showcased all around Watkinsville.	00:11:03
	So we use an engineering design process. It's a five step process.	00:11:09
	And these students went through every single step particularly, and they learned a lot along the way. I even would say I learned a	00:11:14
	little bit watching them just go through it, and it was truly just a pleasure.	00:11:19
	So we asked our question, which was how can we showcase?	00:11:25
	Our lovely community through gingerbread and so we asked our question we imagined what it wanted to look like we.	00:11:29
	Been planned, measured, they researched and they wrote. It was wild, truly, if you raised.	00:11:39
	And they did tenfold what I was expecting out of them. And so the buildings you see here today are ones that we want to showcase	00:11:49
	here at City Hall. But a lot of students decided that they actually wanted to present them at the businesses as well. So we asked	00:11:54
	the students to find a way to how do you want to reach out to the business? Had students planning phone calls and calling	00:12:00
	businesses themselves and writing letters to those businesses. And, you know, watching 10 girls do a better phone call than I	00:12:06
	would have probably done at 15.	00:12:12
	Was both humbling and exciting because those are things our kids are going to need.	00:12:18
	And I'm in the 21st century, so we've connected our students with all of Watkinsville. It was truly a pleasure to watch some of	00:12:22
	these small business owners think those students yesterday and make connections and learn names. And it really made our growing	00:12:28
	town feel like a small town again. So thank you very much for your time, for listening, for recognizing our kids, for bringing	00:12:35
	your students here this afternoon. And we really, really appreciate your time.	00:12:41
	All right, Miss Wyler, stay up there.	00:12:48
	Invite.	00:12:54
	Invite our children up. If you were one of the children who helped with this project, why don't you come right up here and stand	00:12:57
	in front of the gingerbread houses? Right in the middle, Miss.	00:13:02
	Brown, we'd love to have you come up too, please, and Sharon can take a picture for you.	00:13:09
	Doctor Brown, I'll stand in the middle. You'll scoot over a little bit. We'll put that on this side.	00:13:17
	Can you get us all in there? Share.	00:13:31
	All right, ready and gingerbread.	00:13:35
	Stay there.	00:13:40
	OK, So what was each of you? Tell us what which one you did. We'll start with you. Tell us your name and which one you did.	00:13:44
	My name is Blaine. I did.	00:13:51
	You did the Santa going in, that's all.	00:13:59
	All right, Next up.	00:14:06
	Which one? Wolfgang's all right point to that one for us.	00:14:10
	There it is. OK the reindeers have done at Wolfgang or just.	00:14:14
	Reindeer or just dogs? There? Just dogs. All right. Your name.	00:14:19
	Brooks. Brooks. OK, which one did you do? Blind pig. Do you like wine, pig? Yeah, right behind you. OK, there's a blind pig. Oh,	00:14:24
	you did a great job. The tables outside. All right, Your name Saw your. OK, Tell us which one you did.	00:14:31
	What was hard about being an Eagle Tavern?	00:14:40
	Umm, the roof. OK, where's the eagle top chalice?	00:14:43
	OK, well done. And that's the oldest building in Watkinsville. Good job, Sawyer. All right, OK. And you know, the Eagle Tavern, as	00:14:48
	they say, is the reason why the University of Georgia and.	00:14:53
	Look that up on the Internet and find out why I said OK. All right. Emery, Emery. OK, which one did you do?	00:14:58
	So nervous. OK, Tell us about Synovus. Was that a challenging one? Yeah, it was.	00:15:07
	Cover it in fondant. We decided we were gonna do that, and that took some work. Fondant. That's kind of next level. If I'm, if my	00:15:12
	memory is right, am I thinking right about baking skills? OK, well, clap for our kids here. Congratulations.	00:15:19
	We've got a gift bag.	00:15:30
	For each of the kids.	00:15:32
	And we're going to recognize the parade, folks are welcome to stay for that. And then we'll have a break and everybody can side.	00:15:35
	Rest of the rest of the meeting.	00:15:41
	OK did every all of y'all get an ornament to the kids?	00:15:44
	OK.	00:15:50
	OK, Sharon, we're going to kick along to Christmas Parade. Thank you, Mark.	00:15:57
	First of all, I want to recognize we have. We have what I think is.	00:16:01
	The biggest, but definitely the best.	00:16:06
	Christmas parade in Northeast Georgia That happened with the people's great work leading the way for us. Miss Leah Johnson with	00:16:09
	her partner in crime, Colin Peppers. Leah was our Grand Marshall this year as she let us in the parade. She also LED us out to	00:16:14
	Denver when we won All America City.	00:16:20
	Give everybody a wave here.	00:16:27
	Yeah.	00:16:30
	I couldn't. I couldn't done it without everybody here. Well, we're all A-Team. We are a team. Yep. Thank you, Leah. That was	00:16:35
	great, Leah. Leah was a leader for us in Denver and a leader for us. We're grateful to you. All of our winners are getting our	00:16:41
	Watkinsville commemorative ornaments, and those are a design inspired by Francis Bernard and done by Klein's laser and handmade	00:16:47
	creations.	00:16:54
	All right, our partners in putting all this together in Watkinsville H&S lighting.	00:17:00
	Those the lights that you see up for free. Oconee County School District does the tree.	00:17:05
	Senator, the sound system, if you're there for the tree lighting, which was huge.	00:17:13
	Watkinsville Golf Carts donate some of the golf carts we need and The Wreckers, which helped set up our stage for announcement.	00:17:16
	Human Services. So we're grateful. This use, I think Miss Wilder said something about small town, you know, making it feel like a	00:17:25
	small town. And it's those kind of things that that definitely still keep Watkinsville small town that we love. I will read all of	00:17:31
	these out to you guys, but these were our friends and partners who helped us pull things together.	00:17:37
	Everybody from county tourism to local businesses.	00:17:44
	Always grateful Mark and.	00:17:47
	Sales and for leading our grand marshals through. These are Christmas parade volunteers. Again, tons of folks. So grateful to haul	00:17:50
	them for helping us.	00:17:54
	With the parade this year, our announcers Adam Hammond, Brock Tool, Ben Bridges and a new 8 hour.	00:17:58
	Represent the younger generation. A wonderful job.	00:18:06
	Keeping the energy high on Main Street Tree lighting ceremony. All the folks who helped put that together with the music.	00:18:09
	Wonderful event.	00:18:13
	And this is what it looked like. Leah helped us light the tree along with Santa Claus and Chairman Daniel. So we had a great time	00:18:18
	doing that downtown. Those of you couldn't join us.	00:18:22
	For next year, all the folks who helped pull this together on the City side listed up here.	00:18:27
	Manager Dickerson never lists herself, but she was out there the whole time. Here are some of those folks who did that.	00:18:33
	We're getting towards the end, I promise. Except for the awards, this is.	00:18:41
	Planning committee who helps put it?	00:18:45
	Stops and hops and makes on a year to help lead the way as our Tree Lighting Parade event coordinate. And that is not an easy job.	00:19:17
	If you've ever heard of cats, that's like hurting a herd, multiple herds of cats. So we're grateful to Melanie for doing that	00:19:22
	every year.	00:19:27
	All right, now we're winners. Some of them are here tonight. So for our winners, for children, best use of theme.	00:19:32
	That is. Anybody here with the Briarwood kids? All right, here we go.	00:19:41
	Congratulations. So it was entitled in God we truck.	00:19:50
	About 3035 kids.	00:19:57
	So, yeah, thank you, guys. All right, great. Thanks for putting the effort in.	00:20:01
	Here's your congratulations.	00:20:06
	All right, Next up and I'll have everybody come up. We'll just take a picture together at the end for children, most artistic, the	00:20:09
	stage Oconee. I don't know if Wendy Austria is here. OK, congratulations. Yep.	00:20:15
	Over here and tell us about what you did.	00:20:24
	We were representing our performance of A Christmas Story the musical, and so we had kids dancing and dressed up as Ralphie and	00:20:26
	his pink Bunny suit and just everybody had a lot of fun. Awesome love, little Raffy.	00:20:32
	That's right. OK, Adult. Best use of theme. Our friends at Oconee State Bank and we've got Haley here. Haley Reed, come on up.	00:20:39
	Well, we, we're just trying to figure out a way to incorporate the theme of the, of the parade. And we have a picture, if you can	00:20:52
	see it on our banner there. That's in our main office boardroom of two gentlemen playing chess underneath the oak tree on our bank	00:20:58
	property. So that was kind of our, our thoughts. So that's why all of our values are written out in the roots that are going	00:21:04
	around the, around the tree. So thank you.	00:21:10
	Awesome, Great job.	00:21:17
	You can see why they got best use of theme, OK adult, most artistic.	00:21:20
	Here for OK.	00:21:24
	Lawrence, you might get the perfect dependence award for City Council meetings this.	00:21:27
	We had some American artists on our float.	00:21:33
	And.	00:21:37
	Leslie Moody. All right. Little Leslie Moody. OK. All right. All right. Well, congratulations. All right.	00:21:40
	All right, Best tractor Keith Redford North Georgia 2 Cylinder Club. Keith, congratulations.	00:21:50
	Tell us about your tractor.	00:21:58
	OK, Next up we have best antique car Washington farms.	00:22:27
	That was pretty sweet, The Candy Canyon candy cannon.	00:22:33
	Wow. All right. Tell us where that came from.	00:22:38
	Well, it can. You can. It's been part of the farm for many years now and it's one of our favorite parts, so it's kind of a given	00:22:42
	to use it for the parade.	00:22:46
	But is it your first time in operator?	00:22:51
	All right. I haven't noticed it before. Has it always been mobile like that?	00:22:53
	OK. All right.	00:22:58
	Awesome. All right, now we've got a mobile candy cannon in Oconee County, another thing that no other county probably has in	00:23:01
	northeast Georgia. All right, spirit of the season, Ashford memorials. Anybody here with Ashford? Okay.	00:23:08
	Congratulations. Tell us about your flight. Our float was was designed by our children's ministers. I had nothing to do with it. I	00:23:18
	was hired in September, but thankful to be here tonight. What's your name and what do you do at Ashford? I'm the director of youth	00:23:24
	in college. All right, Chris. Well, thank you for ask for their. Let's do an awesome job.	00:23:30
	Thank you for that.	00:23:37
	And last, our overall the Mary D Williams Award. Mary D Williams, UM.	00:23:39
	Was our longtime parade coordinator, publisher, the Oconee Enterprise, and just had a huge, huge heart for the parade. So it's a	00:23:44
	big honor to win this. So a winner of the Married Williams Award. Wow, I remember that one. That is amazing. So that's the	00:23:52
	Piedmont Athens emergency department. I think I know who that is. Y'all come on up here. All right, congratulations.	00:23:59
	All right, tell us your name and tell us about this flow.	00:24:08
	Hey, I'm Zonnie Downs on the flow coordinator in the ER, Piedmont Athens. The theme of the parade was All American Christmas, and	00:24:12
	what more is America All American than Elvis Presley? So we work in the ER, we see people during some of their most difficult	00:24:18
	times, and we just wanted to spread some cheer through our department in our community. We do work in Athens, but we all live in	00:24:24
	Watkinsville. Our kids go to Colin Ferry, and so we just wanted to have some fun. And so we thought, let's dress up with Elvis and	00:24:29
	sing and dance and throw some.	00:24:35
	We're so honored that we wanted shocked more than anything, but honored to have won. So thank you all so much. Do any of you want	00:24:43
	to say Blue Christmas? You got a voice here?	00:24:49
	We can lead everyone in. OK, all right, all right, all right. I'm not. So it's like a no, all right, everybody, mainly because you	00:24:56
	want to give me saying y'all come on up everybody you want let's come up front. So come back up if you want. Let's stand together	00:25:01
	and we'll get a we'll get a picture together and then we'll let everybody who doesn't want to stay for the exciting meeting head	00:25:07
	home.	00:25:12
	Need to go on a website?	00:25:35
	All right, all right, I'm going to say one more thing and we're going to get out of here. If you don't want to stay, there's not a	00:25:40
	long meeting. So if you're interested in local government, feel free to stay here for the Scouts. Sometimes you get a extra credit	00:25:46
	for that. I do want to recognize our special relationship with Colin Ferry Elementary.	00:25:51
	Our school and in the city and while the school system is a county wide school system, we have a ton of pride and having common	00:25:59
	ferry in Watkinsville. We have a sidewalk to column ferry. We're thankful Doctor Brown for everything that you guys do to be a	00:26:06
	part of Watkinsville and there are police officers love investing in being with your students and we are so grateful for the way	00:26:13
	that you guys pour into our little town and work to be a part of Watkinsville. So thank you for that for those.	00:26:21
	And I don't think we need to hold the rest of this now a good time for everybody to head out unless you want to stay. We're going	00:26:28
	to take what y'all give you a minute or two to slide on out of here and get home for dinner and we'll carry on with our business.	00:26:31
	Thanks for coming tonight.	00:26:35
	Thank you for coming.	00:26:45
	Thank you. Congratulations.	00:26:55
	California.	00:26:59
	Congratulations.	00:27:35
	Yeah, right.	00:27:38
	I.	00:27:58
	What?	00:28:03
	Fire parts right when I leave a monsoon here between water park and my car. I get here, all the rain stop. Thank you. Thanks for	00:28:06
	being here. Wait, we had rain?	00:28:12
	I was like, is that wind? The skies opened and it went, yeah, it was a monsoon. Telling you not to not to double book yourself,	00:28:21
	Jeff.	00:28:26
	All right, Well, it looks like we have a lot of.	00:28:36
	It was a great start to the meeting. Lot of interest in the rest of it tonight. So we'll we'll move move quickly through quickly	00:28:39
	through the rest of this I.	00:28:43
	In fact, members of the public will talk about that if anyone wants to address us, but we have two here and I think we can handle	00:28:48
	that. Sharon will move on to the financial reports and we'll let you go. Thank you, Mayor. Balance sheet was sent this afternoon	00:28:54
	along with the expenses and revenues to the end of November. If there's any questions on those, please let me know.	00:29:00
	As a reminder, the this FLOSS 3 report we had, we were averaging about $83,000 a month that those funds are being spent on Thomas	00:29:07
	Farm Preserve, Harris Shoals Park improvements, public safety equipment, public works equipment, the Sundon Bridge Rd. pedestrian	00:29:14
	connector and resurfacing projects. So a lot, a lot going on, a lot of money. Thankful for that money. We wouldn't be able to do	00:29:20
	what we're doing. Our bank balance is a little bit more than $800,000.	00:29:27
	So that's good and healthy on the T spot. Remember this is a transportation special purpose local options sales tax, so it's	00:29:34
	specific to transportation.	00:29:38
	We are averaging about 73,000 a month. These funds are being used for sidewalk connections, Symptom Bridge, Rd. connector as well	00:29:42
	and road resurfacing projects. We have a little bit more, a little less than $700,000 in the bank for the those projects. And then	00:29:50
	last but not least, our American Rescue Plan Act reports we'll have all those money spent before December 31st.	00:29:59
	Which is great because that's what the federal government requires. And doing some work right now and some training.	00:30:08
	On the on the police side, Chief may talk a little bit about that tonight. Any questions on any of those reports? So the ARPA	00:30:13
	report will be retired after this meeting?	00:30:17
	I would like to, but as soon as ever all the, as soon as all the money clears, then yes. But I still have to report in April or	00:30:24
	May for the next couple of years. We have to report, you know, any funds and we don't have to read it every month, do we? No, not	00:30:28
	necessarily.	00:30:32
	No, I know. I do want to point out since we're on the finance, I do want to recognize Lee Black, who is back in.	00:30:39
	Another year or so to complete the rest of the certifications, but she should be able to do some stuff this next audit cycles so.	00:31:14
	Really thankful that she's taken on that additional training on economic development. We have business licenses are rolling in	00:31:20
	probably pretty steady, not too surprising, not necessarily a whole bunch more than we had this time last year, but those are all	00:31:27
	due by March 15th of next year without any type of penalty. Our excise taxes, both alcohol and hotel, motel, both of those I'll	00:31:34
	look back at last year where we were and both of those are trending higher than they were in fiscal year 24. So that is very nice.	00:31:41
	And then on our building permit.	00:31:49
	Couple of highlights on this, you'll see there are 13 permits for five projects. Two big projects, the PETA Mediterranean and the	00:31:51
	Thrive build out at Water Park are both on there. And we as a staff, some of us went to the Mediterranean place. I guess it was	00:31:57
	week before last. It was really good. So really nice to see that. And I think the Hot Dog Factory or whatever they're called,	00:32:04
	yeah, the hot Dog place, they're open as well. So a lot more people.	00:32:10
	A lot more opportunity for people to have food choices there. Any questions on any of those?	00:32:17
	OK.	00:32:23
	All right, so just a quick update today, we have actually made an offer to someone to be the new DA Director and we are waiting on	00:32:27
	a response. So hopefully next month I will be making an introduction in an official announcement.	00:32:36
	All right, Chief.	00:32:50
	Make sure the mics on. I think I left it on SO.	00:32:53
	When everybody was leaving.	00:32:56
	Hold it down.	00:33:00
	All right.	00:33:03
	The police report for the previous month of the training is still scheduled for Sergeant Wade and Officer Walker to attend the	00:33:05
	management courses. An active shooter and I just wanted last night we had a night fire qualifications with rifles and pistols and	00:33:12
	also a less lethal shotguns. So we're there till the dark hours last night and then we're going to do it again tomorrow night.	00:33:18
	Want to thank the Sergeant Hitler for for setting it up and getting it done. Does a really good job.	00:33:24
	And I also want to for special announcements.	00:33:32
	Recognize Sergeant Hitler. I thought he was going to come in here, but.	00:33:35
	Brett Lee I Why don't we? Why don't we get him? He's still out there, probably playing with the kids or.	00:33:42
	Talking to the kids.	00:33:46
	So.	00:33:51
	Come over here.	00:33:54
	It has been a blessing, honestly, to have be partners with Kyle. He has been a true help the last 2 1/2 weeks, but also as the	00:33:57
	past five months as the interagency head. He's done a lot for the Police Department and I think he should be recognized. And	00:34:03
	Sharon and I discussed and made him the training coordinator. That's something he likes to do and he's really good at it, and I	00:34:09
	just want to thank him.	00:34:15
	In front of everybody so he knows how much he's appreciated. I appreciate it.	00:34:23
	Kyle stay in here till the end.	00:34:30
	Here, Sure you're not done currently we got a few projects and I didn't put it on here, but we had ordered a outside storage	00:34:33
	building to move a lot of the outside pieces of property that we can make room and we're going to make a training room that's	00:34:39
	going to be multifunctional. It can be interviews, it can be meetings, it can be roll call, it can be so forth. We'll set it up	00:34:46
	kind of similar to this there'll be a large table with enough chairs that.	00:34:52
	Everybody in the Police Department can fit plus a few more. Maybe do some outside training or meetings. Have Intel meetings or	00:34:59
	investigative type of meetings with the surrounding counties.	00:35:03
	We are cleaning the floors, we're going to Polish them up, wax them, paint some walls, fill some holes and just make the Police	00:35:09
	Department more presentable. Thankfully city manager said we had some funds to spend, so I will help her out with that.	00:35:16
	Events. The Christmas parade I think was a huge success.	00:35:25
	Again, thank you, Sergeant Hitler. He does a very thorough job with that.	00:35:30
	The, the city, the team, let's call it our team, right? The Watkinsville team is really remarkable. I don't know if I've ever	00:35:35
	worked with such a group of people that work so hard and dedicated so much. And it's I'm, I'm proud to be part of it. I really AM.	00:35:42
	And also thank you to the Oconee County Sheriff's Office, the Fire Rescue and all the volunteers that make this thing successful.	00:35:49
	Thomas Farm, we helped out as much as we could with parking and, and I didn't think we really need a security so much because I	00:35:59
	think it's a good time for everybody. But we, I've asked the officers to help assist with patrolling it and, and, and assisting	00:36:04
	with the batteries, batteries, the bathrooms, making sure they're available at the right times when, when the community is there	00:36:10
	to use the park.	00:36:15
	As far as our stats, pretty, pretty similar to the month previous. We had a total of 254 calls for service, 873 security checks,	00:36:22
	citations, a total of 142, which 73 were actually warnings out of that, so just slightly above 50%.	00:36:31
	My philosophy is it's Christmas time, you know, maybe, maybe be a little more lenient, give a few more breaks. So that works out	00:36:44
	great, right?	00:36:47
	Any any questions on on that?	00:36:53
	All right. And, and honestly, I think the 142 is a really good number.	00:36:56
	Just the previous agencies I worked at that's that's, that's pretty good. That's really good number for officers are staying busy.	00:37:01
	And then the last thing we want to give a special thanks to.	00:37:09
	This the people and businesses who participated in stock stock stocking stuffers it's a tongue twister which is Athens Feed and	00:37:14
	seed, Firewood Baptist Church, Mama Nings, CSRA Probation, Gecko Kitchen, J&M Fire and Safety, Oconee Well Drillers, Scoops, Sun	00:37:23
	Catcher Cafe to Fauci Optics and White Tiger. We are all thankful for their contributions to.	00:37:31
	To a surprise, the officers with what they did and we want to continue to thank them for the support. We love our community and we	00:37:40
	wish them all a very merry Merry Christmas and I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and it's here. So thank you all very much	00:37:47
	for for having me. And I guess if there's any questions I'd be so Chief, that was badges and benevolence that did the stocking	00:37:55
	stuffer. It wasn't the city. I just you know, we have a we have a foundation now you might want to.	00:38:02
	That a little bit too.	00:38:10
	Yes, ma'am.	00:38:12
	Yep, so thankful for that. I did want to recognize, Chief, you've jumped in with jumped in with both feet. So we want to thank you	00:38:13
	for a great first month of the.	00:38:18
	And I felt like we had the right guy when he showed up for the volunteer day at Thomas Farms and we put him to work with the	00:38:24
	chainsaw for 3 1/2 hours out there and he was one of the people had to make quit working. So grateful for that. It was a great	00:38:31
	start and I appreciate all your help and stand up. Kyle, we just want to thank you.	00:38:37
	The You did a wonderful job of leading leading the department on an interim basis, and we're grateful for that. We know that	00:38:44
	doesn't come easy. We also know you juggle and handle a lot of different things in the department.	00:38:49
	And, and that does not go unnoticed, you know, I'm here more than the rest of y'all, but all the rest of y'all probably noticed it	00:38:56
	too. Kyle's Kyle do anything from making sure the cameras work to the IT to policy or you'll come up here on a Saturday or Sunday	00:39:02
	and he's out there, you know, fixing equipment to vehicles, you know?	00:39:09
	And now training, I don't know anything about training, but you know, coordinating that too. So Kyle, we appreciate whether we,	00:39:15
	whether it's a lot of hats or whether you're juggling or whether you're juggling and switching hats, we're appreciative of you and	00:39:20
	everything that you did in that period. So thank you, Kyle, Absolutely. Thank you.	00:39:25
	Any questions for the Sergeant or the chief?	00:39:33
	Yeah. All right. OK. Thank you, Chief. Good job. All right, consent agenda, we have none.	00:39:37
	Public hearing We have none. Appearances we have none. Old business We have none. Merry Christmas Show New business 2 items.	00:39:44
	I am so excited about this one. Y'all there is.	00:39:54
	Those people who have been around me know they're they're certain. There's certain projects that I've worked on for a long time.	00:39:57
	Not all of them have come to fruition, but when one of them does, I'm very excited. So I'm, I'm very, I'm going to let Sharon talk	00:40:03
	in more detail about this, but I'm very excited to say that with.	00:40:09
	Help from Georgia Power.	00:40:16
	Different points to handle the relocation of that power because it is significantly impeding the flow of safe pedestrian traffic	00:40:48
	on the sidewalk. This is just the highlights. I didn't put the whole report. Everybody can look at that online. But N2020 splash	00:40:55
	21/20/21 referendum was approved. 67% of the voters in Oconee County.	00:41:02
	And we began collecting that money in October. We talked about that a few minutes ago in the other report. As the mayor pointed	00:41:10
	out, we have for a number of years I've been here 6. And for the whole time I've been here, everybody's been talking about the,	00:41:15
	they've complained about that pole being there. And I know it's been there a lot longer than I've been here so.	00:41:20
	The plan is to is to remove it to improve the pedestrian safety. What I'm recommending is that we use the SPLOST 3 budget.	00:41:27
	For Rd. streets and bridges we have about 400,000 and stormwater improvements and that you guys approved.	00:41:34
	And so moving about 30,000, I don't think will impact any our ability to do anything with those funds down the road, but it will	00:41:42
	at least address this issue that you guys would like to see address. There's the infamous pole in the middle of the sidewalk.	00:41:48
	And then and then again, what we're recommending is option one, which is to approve an appropriate $28,000 for this project.	00:41:56
	And do we need any contingency there in case there's other costs from utilities or anything like that? Sharon, you know, Georgia	00:42:05
	Power gave us that number, if you. Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to. What do we normally do about?	00:42:11
	10%, she knows a baby. Yeah, maybe 30. I would recommend 35. We may have other utilities that want some cost to move off of that	00:42:17
	pole bread. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.	00:42:23
	Yeah, you got AT&T or whatever you got. You got all that communication underneath the power.	00:42:31
	Well, and I'm not and I don't know when they gave that price to us, if that included the coordination of that. Well, there was	00:42:37
	not. There was a caveat in there. I'd like to get a healthy contingency in there so you don't have to come back to us for that. If	00:42:42
	you may need any go higher than $7000 more because we know what we just paid for what's going on in front. You may need to do a	00:42:47
	little.	00:42:52
	But I do know that I mean they, they truthfully might let it hang for for a little while. I don't know. That's pretty long span.	00:42:57
	Yeah, for them, for them, I don't, I don't know if there's any slack that might be a slack bubble right there for the fiber that	00:43:05
	they might be able to actually push it out. I I imagine they're going to put two poles on either end of that property to make it	00:43:10
	more of a.	00:43:15
	Box than just an angled pole. That's right. They're going to go to they're going to go to the city owned sidewalk property and	00:43:21
	then they're going to go to the edge of the Sunshine Village property there. I'd recommend we just do an extra 10,000 if you are	00:43:27
	comfortable with that. We've got the budget numbers and spots with this project was quoted to me at 35,010 years ago.	00:43:33
	So I think we should just do the extra if y'all can get comfortable with that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. OK. All right. And if we don't use	00:43:40
	it, we don't use it. If we don't use it, we don't use it. I mean, you know, it'll come right back in forever. We've talked about	00:43:45
	this being an 88 issue.	00:43:51
	Banner we're going to get fixed. That's that's another great thing for 2024 Yeah, OK, I make a motion that we approve, but we	00:43:56
	budget.	00:44:02
	38,000 and change OK.	00:44:08
	All right, So that number would be $38,024.20 on the motion from Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. Do we have a 2nd? I'll second, second from	00:44:13
	Mr. Thomas. Any further discussion or celebrations?	00:44:20
	Hearing none all in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right, when that is done, we will check a big one off the list. Doesn't seem	00:44:28
	like that big a deal, but it is.	00:44:33
	We have consideration of year and bonuses for city employees, Manager Dickerson, if you want to make a report.	00:44:39
	Thank you, mayor. So I've presented to the committee on finance and personnel request to provide a year end bonus to our employees	00:44:44
	excluding me only those employees have been employed full time for the with the city for the last 12 months will be eligible. We	00:44:52
	have that those individuals here traditionally December's council meetings include in consideration of a year and bonus. It's not	00:44:59
	budgeted for and so those funds typically are appropriated and pulled from the fund balance which is pretty healthy right now so.	00:45:07
	That is the request.	00:45:15
	Council, you've heard the request. We have anything from the committee, this did go to the personnel committee. We we suggest that	00:45:18
	yes, we do give the bonus and we do suggest that we include Sharon in it because everybody including Sharon has done, has worked	00:45:24
	hard this year and I think they all deserve a bonus.	00:45:30
	All right, so that looks like if my eyes are working reasonably well, that's an additional $2101.90.	00:45:37
	One sense, OK.	00:45:44
	How long is Mr. Connor Brodus been with us?	00:45:46
	Oh, I see it. Sorry.	00:45:52
	Thank you.	00:45:54
	Entertain a motion on that I make a motion that we approve this bonus schedule with the addition of.	00:46:00
	Sharon Dickerson, we have a second.	00:46:09
	We have a second for Mr. Garrett. Any further discussion?	00:46:11
	Hearing none all in favor say aye, Any opposed?	00:46:15
	We have the opportunity for public comments.	00:46:19
	No, we don't. We forgot we added something, the Healy property we added during the meeting. So we'll discuss that. Sharon, do you	00:46:23
	have a report?	00:46:27
	Just a brief report, so.	00:46:32
	Just a brief report. Sorry about that. So we have, as everyone may recall, we popped this up earlier, This is Sumton Bridge	00:46:35
	pedestrian connector. This pedestrian connector will go through some private property. There's been discussion with the private	00:46:40
	property owner, Mr. Healy. Here's a picture of his property and I'll show how the connections proposed to go through this	00:46:46
	property.	00:46:52
	You'll see the blue squares there. I'm probably going to let the engineer talk about the engineering portion. I'll come back and	00:46:59
	talk about the money portion, but ultimately it goes right through the middle of this gentleman's property and he has agreed to	00:47:04
	sell that property to the city. I'll pass it to the engineer for a minute.	00:47:09
	Thank you, Sharon. So again the discussion during the design based on the location of this property, this is this is what I'll	00:47:15
	call the Creek property. This is how this pathway will cross the Creek outside of the Simonton Bridge Road right of way, which we	00:47:22
	understand has a covert coming under the roadway. The majority of the property does does have floodplain on it. There has been all	00:47:29
	survey work on this on this property, but the the idea was once you.	00:47:36
	Bifurcated the property with a pathway.	00:47:44
	Would it remain, you know, viable or usable anyway, or would you want to constrain your work to a, a narrow easement or right of	00:47:47
	way how that would look? You know, some of the details. This is where you have to put a bridge in to get across the Creek. So	00:47:54
	you've got some permanent features of that. You'll have some temporary features to construct a bridge across the Creek. The idea	00:48:01
	would also be there's likely some cost savings from construction if you have the ability to use the entirety of the property.	00:48:07
	Rather than being constrained by a.	00:48:15
	And the easement either temporary or permanent for a smaller portion thereof. So through through many discussions over a longer	00:48:18
	period of time, the, the point we're at now would be for the, the totality of this, this property to, to be purchased by the city	00:48:25
	for use specifically as part of this project. And, and down the road, it could be another addition to the, to the city's green	00:48:33
	space for those areas that are in and around the, the, the bridge itself in some ways, if you kind of.	00:48:40
	Realize that the bridge is part of the Hard Hill Rd. sidewalk project. This won't be exactly the same as that, but there there	00:48:48
	would that's probably the most similar to what you would look at in an understanding. There's areas around that bridge as well,	00:48:52
	so.	00:48:56
	Happy to answer your question.	00:49:02
	I'll talk about the financial side of it. So this is part of the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank loan and grant program	00:49:04
	that we received earlier this year. The loan was 2.375 million and the grant is 1.5 and some change. You'll see at the bottom that	00:49:10
	those funding, the funding source for the loan is going to be several different projects. We've got SPLICE 32 sections of Splice	00:49:16
	3.	00:49:22
	And then one section of T splost to help pay that back over time. And so it's a reimbursement grant. So right now we're spending	00:49:29
	money, the state will reimburse us for it. And at the end when we spend that 2.375, it'll be turned into a loan and we'll we'll	00:49:34
	use the funds.	00:49:39
	That are in those projects to pay back the loan overtime.	00:49:44
	So there's plenty of money. A couple points about this too by Mark alluded to, but I'm going to put a finer point on it by	00:49:49
	acquiring the whole parcel, we do anticipate potential cost savings about being able to do the bridge in some different ways. So,	00:49:55
	so the there is some advantage to that. Also there's a very healthy right of way budget. There's up at 276 that shown. We don't	00:50:01
	anticipate any other significant right away costs there. There could be something that crop up, but we have some verbal	00:50:07
	commitments.	00:50:13
	We don't anticipate additional right away costs impacting us on this project. So we're still operating well below our budget there	00:50:18
	in terms of what we anticipate using.	00:50:22
	But this is this is also a wetland area. So there's there's a lot of good reasons I.	00:50:30
	To acquire it and have it have it.	00:50:38
	Have low impact on it overtime.	00:50:41
	Questions for manager Dickerson, Engineer Campbell, myself.	00:50:43
	Are we voting on the?	00:50:49
	And we didn't. Did we say the purchase price, Sharon, do we need to put that on the record? I'm sorry, are we?	00:50:52
	With this are we?	00:50:58
	Approving this or like I have a question about the contract but I don't know if that's not for this if I just need to ask.	00:51:01
	Has been signed by the seller and then the purchaser via the mayor, subject to final council approval and DocuSign already.	00:51:09
	So if you have a question I would ask it now.	00:51:19
	This is me being ticky as this is what I do. So on 14 access the property is full at free ingress and egress to and from one or	00:51:24
	more public roads and seller has no knowledge of any factor condition which would result in termination of any such access.	00:51:30
	It doesn't have. I mean, it doesn't, does it touch? And I think it actually does touch a public road or not. It does. Yeah, it	00:51:39
	does. It doesn't have. It doesn't have.	00:51:45
	Just couldn't tell from this.	00:51:52
	Great. Just wanted to make sure that wouldn't be a little thank you for asking.	00:51:56
	But with your approval, we'll move forward on closing, closing this out in the next before the end of the year, so.	00:52:03
	In the in the purchase price of 60,000, I don't know if we said that on on the record or not, but that's what it is. Yep, Yep.	00:52:10
	All right. Do we have a motion?	00:52:19
	Can I finish?	00:52:21
	What?	00:52:23
	This is the same contract we used for Thomas Farm, but without the customization that was necessary due to the size that	00:52:25
	transaction and the acreage and the special conditions the rest of it should look.	00:52:31
	Pretty similar.	00:52:38
	That's fine, we've had an efficient meeting. I want every council member to be able to read it if they wouldn't like to.	00:52:39
	I know this was a late addition.	00:52:46
	For the benefit of the public, we have discussed this in executive session, as we have the right to do under.	00:52:51
	Property acquisition, Joe, but wanted to bring it to the public and bring it forward once we have the opportunity to close the	00:52:57
	sale.	00:53:00
	I'll add another point of clarification. This is bound on the east side by the Watkinsville Cemetery property. So, so there's	00:53:13
	there's not any property between the Watkinsville Cemetery property and this partial as well. So that that again allows for a	00:53:19
	little bit more if you have a shared property line and you can expand the property that allows for some more flexibility.	00:53:26
	OK, I'll do it. Thank you. You're good. OK. All right. Anyone want to make a motion?	00:53:34
	I make a motion that we.	00:53:43
	Approve the acquisition of the Healy property as stated.	00:53:46
	Do we have a 2nd, 2nd?	00:53:50
	Yeah, including the contract.	00:53:53
	I'll second. We have a second from Councilman Thomas. Any further discussion?	00:53:55
	All in favor say aye aye. Any opposed like some motion carries unanimously.	00:54:00
	Thank you all. All right, public comments.	00:54:04
	Y'all time to Sean. Come on up.	00:54:09
	All right.	00:54:13
	Hearing none, we'll move on to council reports.	00:54:14
	Post one Councilman Garrett.	00:54:18
	OK, opposed to Councilwoman Massey.	00:54:22
	All right, Post 3 Councilman Thomas, nothing to report.	00:54:26
	Post 4 Mayor Pro Tem Tucker, I just want to echo what has been said multiple times tonight, how incredible Thomas Farm Preserve	00:54:30
	is. I walked from my house there yesterday, walked around the property again. I mean, it is.	00:54:37
	It I'm almost get emotional every time I go, like, thank everyone in this room for the leadership that made that happen. Like what	00:54:46
	a legacy. So yeah, it is.	00:54:51
	Yeah, words don't really even do it justice, so thank you.	00:54:58
	Thank you.	00:55:02
	Councilman Campbell, nothing to report, all right.	00:55:03
	OK. All right. With that, I'll entertain a motion to move into executive session For the purpose of discussing real estate and	00:55:06
	pending and threatened litigation, I make a motion to move to executive session.	00:55:12
	So we have a 2nd, 2nd.	00:55:19
	All in favor say aye OK bikes are still.	00:55:21