Transcript

Event transcript
All right, I'm calling the June Watkinsville City Council meeting to order. 00:00:06
Welcome everybody, if you. 00:00:11
Are new here. This is not my normal role. I am not Brian Broderick. I am Christine Tucker the mayor Pro Tem and he is on a. 00:00:14
Of family vacation this week and so I am filling in for him which is the role of mayor Pro Tem. So I've never done this before so 00:00:22
please all bear with me. 00:00:27
We have a quorum so. 00:00:34
Everyone's here excellent. 00:00:37
And now we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance and we have two special guests with us. 00:00:40
Is Asher or Ethan? 00:00:46
The city has a hearing loop system in the council chamber. 00:01:15
Which is a wireless network for those with hearing aids. 00:01:19
Signals can be picked up by most hearing aids. 00:01:22
The city also has loop receivers for those who still have some difficulty hearing. 00:01:24
Anyone with questions can contact the ADA coordinator, which is our city manager. 00:01:29
Sharon Dickerson over there to allow the city to make reasonable accommodations. 00:01:33
This meeting is being broadcast online via a link on the City Council meeting information page of the city website. 00:01:38
This also provides closed captioning. 00:01:45
Click the CC icon in the lower right corner. When the video is posted, CC will automatically appear. 00:01:47
A transcript of the meeting is under the Transcript tab. 00:01:53
The current month agenda is posted a week before the meeting to allow time to provide comments in writing to the clerk. 00:01:57
All right. So now we are going on to approval. 00:02:04
Of the minutes, are there any discussions or motions on last month? 00:02:09
Oh, and there are two sets because we have the public hearing meeting summary. 00:02:15
Which was at noon and then the regular meeting. 00:02:20
I make a motion to approve the minutes. 00:02:27
Both sets. Both sets. 00:02:30
And I will second. 00:02:32
All in favor. 00:02:34
All right, 40, excellent. 00:02:36
OK. 00:02:40
Next up is approval of the agenda. 00:02:42
Do we have any discussion or motions? 00:02:44
I make a motion to approve the agenda. 00:02:48
I will second. 00:02:52
All in favor. 00:02:54
All right, passes 4 O. 00:02:56
Administration. 00:03:00
So throughout the evening we have some. 00:03:03
Different times for public input and with this process, members of the public wishing to address Mayor and Council may do so at 00:03:06
the noted times on the agenda or on request and at discretion of council. 00:03:11
Comments shall be only directed relating to agenda items. 00:03:17
Speak from the podium. 00:03:21
4 minutes per person. 00:03:23
Please refrain from debate, argument, personal attacks, or irrelevant discussion. 00:03:25
Address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to Council. 00:03:30
Council can't speak to potential litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. 00:03:35
All right. Next up is our financial reports. So manager Dickerson, take it from here. 00:03:41
Thank you, Mayor Pertain. 00:03:46
Everyone should have received the balance sheet as well as the general fund expenses and revenue sheet. We are tracking fairly 00:03:47
well. We'll know more obviously the end of this month when we closeout the fiscal year and our. 00:03:53
Auditors will be here next month to begin that process. 00:03:59
But I believe we are well under our, we've got more revenues than we do expenses. So that's always a good place to be at the end 00:04:02
of the year, so. 00:04:05
And there's lots of reasons for that, but so if you have any questions about that, let me know. I'll move on to spouse 3. 00:04:10
So our Splash 3 report, the end of May, we're averaging about $85,000 a month. 00:04:17
In revenues, we had projected a little bit less than 65,000, so that's an incredible number. 00:04:23
You guys may recall a couple months ago we came back to you because the county had had changed their estimates on the revenue 00:04:29
projections and so we change, we changed ours based on the county and. 00:04:35
Has provided additional funds that you have already appropriated some. 00:04:42
Some projects too. 00:04:46
So we have a little bit more than 1,000,001 in the bank right now. 00:04:48
You'll see here that month over month, April, this lot because again, we're a month behind so. 00:04:54
In May we get our April, and June we'll get our May and in July we'll get our June. So it all comes. 00:05:00
About a month behind, but we had an 8 1/2 percent increase over last year same time. So that's. 00:05:05
Certainly, umm. 00:05:11
Helpful and and suggest that. 00:05:12
Either the economy is growing or people are spending more money, or both. 00:05:15
So, and we get on this one, we get 8.63% of all Oconee County sales tax. 00:05:19
Some of the projects we've done, police vehicles, traffic calming equipment like our radar signs or rectangular rapid flashing 00:05:26
beacons that are at crosswalks. 00:05:30
The improvements that are going on at Thomas Farm Preserve, at Harris Shoals Park, rocket field and then resurfacing roads and 00:05:35
public signage and public. 00:05:39
Works equipment. Those are some of the things that SPLOST 3 pays for. 00:05:43
On our tea spots and that's specific to transportation. 00:05:48
Transportation type projects. We have sidewalk money, traffic efficiency improvement and Rd. resurfacing. 00:05:52
Right now we're averaging about 75,000 we budgeted over the course of the. 00:05:57
60 month period, about 78. So we're a little under that, but we're early in on this. It does not sunset until March of 28. 00:06:03
But we're averaging about. 00:06:10
A little bit less than 75,000 a month. 00:06:11
This one we get 7.77% that was. 00:06:14
Negotiated with the county of all county. County sales tax. 00:06:17
Month over month we're a little bit. 00:06:21
Less than 8% over where we were last April. 00:06:23
And a little bit more than $1,000,000 in the bank. 00:06:26
Some projects on that, we have the work that's going on right now in Simonton Bridge Rd. with our pedestrian connector. That's the 00:06:30
three $3.7 million project that is funded with a $2.25 million loan from GIFA. 00:06:36
And I'm sorry from. 00:06:43
Sorry, G Tib. 00:06:45
And in a $1.5 million grant from them, that project should be done the end of this year, if the weather will cooperate. 00:06:46
It also includes. 00:06:54
Resurfacing of local roads were actually the road we did in Harris Shoals and we're actually in the process of fixing to resurface 00:06:56
Stone Shoals subdivision. 00:07:00
So lots of exciting things that are happening with that money. 00:07:04
Just as a reminder on budget. So this is our last meeting. 00:07:09
For budget tonight, hopefully. 00:07:12
You will approve the recommended budget for me and the mayor. 00:07:14
We do have a required public hearing, which will happen shortly on the budget, as well as a required hearing for the adoption of 00:07:18
the mileage rate. 00:07:22
So after tonight it will hopefully be officially approved and notices will go out in the paper. 00:07:26
For next week. 00:07:31
Any questions on? 00:07:33
Financial. 00:07:35
OK. Did you move on to economic? OK. 00:07:36
So business license, alcohol licensing fees. 00:07:38
We had a little bit more than $1000 collected. No alcohol this time around. 00:07:42
Those. 00:07:48
Still trickling in. We have a few businesses we're checking on to make sure that they're still in business that haven't submitted. 00:07:49
They were due in March. 00:07:52
But we had a few more coming in and then some of these are brand new businesses that are coming in as well, so. 00:07:56
On excise tax collection. 00:08:01
Alcohol and hotel, motel or short term vacation rental. 00:08:04
Those are tracking actually a little bit above where we thought they would be. So that's always good. And again, we're reporting 00:08:08
through April, we still have two more months of revenues to come in. 00:08:12
And then on building permits, we had 14 permits for 14 different projects, lots of HVAC systems. I hope everybody's are. 00:08:18
HVAC's are running well. It's getting hot. 00:08:24
That is it. Any questions? 00:08:28
OK, all right, so I'm putting on my Downtown Development Authority chairperson hat. 00:08:32
To give the update there. So on Saturday we had. 00:08:39
Papa Palooza event which was lots of fun. 00:08:43
A great time for the community to come out and. 00:08:48
Enjoy each other, enjoy different local businesses, do some art. 00:08:51
And. 00:08:57
Celebrate Dad and enjoy beautiful rocket field. So lots of thanks to our DDA director who did a lot of work putting that together. 00:08:58
Umm, we also are going to be voting later this evening on a streetscape maintenance agreement on the consent agenda. 00:09:07
But. 00:09:17
I want to mention this because one of the things that's really important. 00:09:19
To us here in Watkinsville is. 00:09:24
Listening to local business owners and. 00:09:27
One in our community to be unique. 00:09:31
In its own special way. And so this is just a very small thing, but there is some landscaping that's in right next to a business 00:09:33
bird and brass. 00:09:38
And it's in the city right of way. And so this agreement is giving her basically permission. 00:09:43
To plant some more native species that should be really beautiful that she will maintain. So it's a way to beautify the city. 00:09:49
Help beautify the business. 00:09:58
And also is not using any taxpayer dollars. 00:10:00
And then a strategic plan update. So this is coming together really quickly. 00:10:04
I want everyone to mark their calendars next Thursday. 00:10:10
Thursday between 6:00 and 8:00 PM Inspire Placemaking. 00:10:13
Which is the firm that we have hired using the Georgia Power Grant. 00:10:18
As having a community engagement session at Warehouse 15. 00:10:24
Now I know in the summer people go out of town. There's a lot going on if you are unable to make that. 00:10:29
There also is going to be a very robust survey. 00:10:35
That we really would really want members of community to fill out. So please be looking for that if you do not get. 00:10:39
Weekly newsletter. There's going to be a link to it there. You also can sign up for e-mail notifications. That's another way we'll 00:10:46
send it out. 00:10:50
And also on all of our social media sites. Please pass it on to other people in the community that. 00:10:54
You think they would want to share their their input as well? So again, next Thursday, June 26, six to 8:00 PM at Warehouse 15, 00:11:00
which is the new event space. 00:11:05
On the corner of Morrison and 15. 00:11:11
OK. 00:11:15
Police Department report. 00:11:17
Chief, you're up. 00:11:19
All right. Thank you again always for having me. 00:11:26
It's a pleasure so. 00:11:30
We'll get through the report of as far as training, I went through our annual command college training, which had some really good 00:11:31
stuff they do every year. 00:11:35
It's a legal updates they had. 00:11:39
A class that I took pages and pages of notes called The Power of Coaching Leadership. 00:11:41
And that referenced it to a actual football team. 00:11:46
And how? 00:11:50
How important is the coach team and not just be a boss or manager or leader, but also coaching so. 00:11:51
I've put a lot of notes together and I'm gonna. 00:11:58
Forwarded to the guys to cover and training ourselves. 00:12:00
Officer Anglin, Officer Christian, Officer Walker had in service rifle training this year, this month and. 00:12:04
Sergeant Hitler just finished his use of force instructor training last last Friday. So that's a it's an 80 hour course and. 00:12:10
It kind of gives him a lot of expertise and instructor or use of force situations and updates that State of Georgia has every 00:12:16
year. 00:12:20
Special announcements, we got the emergency call box and the location was picked I think. 00:12:26
Mark and Toby were setting that up to get the cement in the ground where we can get that going, and it should already have a 00:12:31
program radio in it for dispatch, so it'll go directly to dispatch. 00:12:36
When somebody hits the button. 00:12:41
That alert, they'll call us and say, hey, we got. 00:12:43
Call box is going off. We need we need help out there so. 00:12:46
We have a bunch of stats that I went through 10 pages worth actually on Simonton Bridge. 00:12:50
We can go that in a minute. OK, OK. 00:12:57
So there's two different locations which the real similar this one is Katie Lane and Simonton Drive. 00:13:01
The blue represents coming westbound, the red is eastbound. 00:13:06
The highest daily counts between that section? Katie Lane and Simonton Drive. 00:13:12
We're 3500 cars coming in, 3714 going out. 00:13:17
The average speed 36 and 37. 00:13:21
But you'll see in a minute the high speeds but. 00:13:24
The the most traffic is obviously in the morning and in the afternoons, Saturdays and Sundays. It is kind of sporadic. It's pretty 00:13:27
consistent for several hours. 00:13:32
An afternoon. But the Monday through Friday, those were the times that were. 00:13:37
Pretty heavy I. 00:13:41
The top recorded speed coming in town was 81 miles an hour. 00:13:43
Going out with 68 miles an hour. 00:13:47
Well, I cannot verify if that was a patrol car or not. It could have been a county unit, could have been a bed unit there it 00:13:51
doesn't say, but 81 regardless, and at that location is extremely fast. 00:13:57
The travel direction, the amount of cars. 00:14:04
Westbound was 18,000. This is over A5 day period. 00:14:07
18,337 going out was 19,845 in that section. 00:14:11
And then on the second chart, it's actually Katie Lane and Spring Circle, so a little closer to town. 00:14:17
Very similar numbers. 00:14:22
3463 westbound, 3709 eastbound. The average speeds 37. 00:14:24
The times, the busiest times, you know, 7730 in the morning and then five, 5:30 in the afternoon and then. 00:14:30
The top recorded speed was 75, so I guess that car was slowing down a little bit when it got to this part. 00:14:37
And then 68 going out. 00:14:43
In very similar numbers, you know, it's just a few 100 difference because we're only a block away so. 00:14:45
A lot of numbers working on a plan we're going to, we're going to start hitting that area pretty hard especially. 00:14:51
If we're going to put a crosswalk in there, so. 00:14:57
We're gonna have to. 00:15:00
Just write a lot of citations I guess, and educate folks. 00:15:01
Let's see where we're at. So Officer Walker is now. 00:15:06
Mr. Mrs. Walker, he got married a couple Fridays ago, so congratulate, congratulated him, happy for. 00:15:10
Him and Miss Christie. She's a dispatcher. She works over at Sheriff's Office. 00:15:15
And then we have a new one. And before I introduce them. 00:15:20
I want to say one of our finest. 00:15:24
Worked with him for several years and he recommended this young man and. 00:15:27
I think if if Officer Anglin recommends somebody, then it's definitely worth looking into it and checking this person out. But. 00:15:31
This is Mr. Walter Claire So. 00:15:39
He we hired him, he's going to start the Academy July 7th. 00:15:42
He passed all our background. 00:15:46
Passed our test and I promise I didn't tell him to get his haircut like that. He did it on his own. 00:15:48
Umm, but he's married to Stephanie, they have 4 kids and he lives here in Watkinsville on Boulder Crest Circle. 00:15:55
He worked with Clark County Corrections for a little over three years, so he does have some public safety experience and. 00:16:02
We're proud to have them and get them an Academy July 7th that is now 808 hours, so we won't get them back until. 00:16:10
November 21st. 00:16:16
And then we'll put them in FTO probably for about another three months. 00:16:18
So he'll have a lot of training before he actually goes out and writes his first ticket or first traffic stop and we'll have them 00:16:22
well prepared by then, so. 00:16:26
And we're glad to have you there. Anything you'd like to? 00:16:30
To say, are you good? I'm good, OK. 00:16:32
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. We're glad to have him. 00:16:36
And his birthday is tomorrow, so happy birthday. 00:16:41
That's a good birthday present, right? Start a new career in law enforcement. 00:16:46
Yes, we were definitely glad to have them. 00:16:49
So flock cameras. 00:16:53
I think we have that nailed down. We are putting them on Simonton Dr. East End westbound. 00:16:57
For different reasons, because it's the busiest, because it's also going to give us a little added security for the park over 00:17:02
there and. 00:17:05
That is a hot spot in town and I think that we will utilized over there. 00:17:09
Chief, just because it may be good for a refresher for them and anybody in the audience or watching from home. 00:17:13
Explain what flock is and how that works and network. 00:17:19
Flock cameras are basically tag readers. They don't issue any kind of citations, they don't look in your cars, they don't do 00:17:22
anything but read tags. 00:17:26
And obviously the back of the description of a car. So if we're looking for A tag or a vehicle, then. 00:17:30
You can do a database search and you can actually link up with other agencies. So if we're looking for a card and we think they're 00:17:36
in Gwinnett County, then they could help us, or vice versa. 00:17:41
I myself have had the experience of. 00:17:46
At Jefferson of solving 2 murders because of plot cameras. 00:17:48
They're very well designed and that's, that's all they do is read your tag. They don't disperse the information anywhere. It stays 00:17:51
with us. 00:17:55
It's locked down. 00:17:59
And and. 00:18:01
You know, I think it's a very innovative tool to use. It's a, it's a force multiplier. If you've got instead of having somebody 00:18:02
out there looking for a car, we can just do a search. Hey. 00:18:07
We're looking for a red pickup truck with tag number dotted out. Or even if we just had part of the tag and it's going to show 00:18:12
you. 00:18:15
Whatever passed through that camera system. 00:18:18
So it's a, it's a great device, great device to use. 00:18:20
These are the little black cameras you see on the poles up and down the roads in every town you go to now. 00:18:24
For those that aren't familiar with the flock, they are everywhere so. 00:18:30
Yeah, they are everywhere. 00:18:35
And and and the great tool there some subdivisions, even the HOA spy. 00:18:37
Just for their subdivision, people that may come in and do internal autos or breaking houses. It's just for security purposes. 00:18:42
It's not for law enforcement purposes. 00:18:46
They don't have any right to be able to run their tag or. 00:18:49
Look up anybody's name or anything like that so. 00:18:53
Very good tool. 00:18:57
We're going to ask to get approval on surplus in a 2017. 00:19:02
High mileage vehicle to replace that of course the. 00:19:08
Miss Sharon managers Dickerson will get with y'all on that. 00:19:12
I just made a note to remind myself. 00:19:15
And then community events. We had had the pleasure of going down to the walk in cemetery and helping the Reverend. 00:19:18
John. 00:19:24
Andrew. 00:19:26
Daughters of American Revolution, that's a tongue twister, but put some put some flags out for memorial. That was pretty fun And 00:19:27
then. 00:19:31
My first ESP summer camp. 00:19:35
A lot of cars, a lot of traffic. We've had a few issues. The very first day, a chicken truck turned over on 441 and the buses with 00:19:39
the kids were on the other side. 00:19:45
So the parents were here waiting and they were blocking. 00:19:50
Out there on Spearmintal. So we had to be creative and we opened them up down there in Harris Poles and we made it work but. 00:19:54
So they are definitely fitting as many kids as they can into the camp. I think they're up to 140. 00:20:01
Each day. So that's at least 140 cars lined up somewhere. 00:20:07
So. 00:20:12
A lot actually. That's like good music down in the morning that was it wakes you up, it gets you going right so. 00:20:15
It's good times. And just what? 00:20:20
It it gets you excited, right? So. 00:20:22
Connect and create still going good. I've made several calls. 00:20:25
We did have one, I didn't write it on here. 00:20:29
Officer said he did get a refusal. 00:20:32
Nobody. A person didn't want to cooperate. This was a resident of the luxury inn. He refused to to give any information so. 00:20:35
That's the first one I've heard of, but other than that, everybody's been happy and. 00:20:43
Getting good comments and results and. 00:20:47
If they asked to have the chief called and I call him and talk to him and. 00:20:50
Ask them how we can improve or what, if anything, we need to do differently. 00:20:55
We had. 00:21:00
Seven arrest. 00:21:01
Our numbers total calls 320. 00:21:07
Security Checks 11:45 We had 22 reports, 73 citations and then 88 warning citations I. 00:21:10
So still you know, a little over the 50% mark, that's great. I think you know if you stay 5050 we're I'm pretty happy with that. 00:21:18
9 accidents and seven total arrests and 0 use of force. That's that's always good. 0 pursuits. 00:21:26
Attorney has been going back and forth on the policy on that so. 00:21:34
Our numbers, you know, again, I wanted to show you guys kind of monthly stats so you can see if they're consistent, if they're 00:21:38
increasing, decreasing or whatever and. 00:21:42
We're staying pretty well in line, but the rest 7 domestic to. 00:21:46
So several suspicious calls. 00:21:51
Still a lot of alarms and. 00:21:54
Fire and Medical. 00:21:56
A good number of those 34. 00:21:57
Nothing. 00:22:00
Just greatly increasing or decreasing. So we're staying pretty steady and. 00:22:03
That is with actually two officers short. 00:22:07
I'm proud of the. 00:22:11
The staff, the team, they're doing great. I. 00:22:12
Putting in a lot of hard work. 00:22:15
And we've done the charts already. Any questions? 00:22:20
I do. You mentioned the lecturing in Do you know what they were filming? 00:22:23
There the last couple weeks, I don't know. All I know is they were going to have some. 00:22:27
Blanks being shot off out there. That was one of the. 00:22:32
The issues of. 00:22:35
Officer Chris did go by there. 00:22:38
I know there was a guy dressed like a pirate. 00:22:42
But I found out that that was his normal attire. But I was told because I thought he was one of the actors. Got there by there 00:22:44
too. 00:22:48
And I'm like, that's got to be one of the actors, you know? And they said no, no, no. That's how he dresses every day. So I'll 00:22:52
just. 00:22:55
Pretty funny, but. 00:22:58
I don't know. I know that they did have a large crew inside one of the rooms and we're moving stuff around. 00:23:00
And then they were running behind because they were. 00:23:07
The the blank shooting earlier in a day and the guy that filled out the event, I don't remember his name, called me like at 7:30 00:23:10
or 8:00. 00:23:15
And said that we're getting ready to shoot the blanks. And I said OK, I'll call dispatch and the officers and let them know. But. 00:23:20
I I don't know anything about the movie. 00:23:26
Yeah. 00:23:29
Except the pirate, right? 00:23:30
All right. Thank you. 00:23:36
Thank you. 00:23:38
Regarding the proposed 2025 property tax mileage rate. 00:23:47
So the manager, Dickerson, if you'll give us an overview, please. 00:23:52
So this is just the property tax piece. We'll talk about it again when we talk about budget. Right now we are estimating that the 00:23:58
2025, this is based on the calendar year. 00:24:03
Property tax digest will be a little bit less than 275,000,000. That's an increase of just a little less than 13% or $30 million. 00:24:07
18 million of that reflects the increase in new development or improvements. 00:24:17
And then we are recommending staying at the at the existing mileage rate of 2.756. 00:24:21
Which is a little bit higher, slightly higher than if we took the rollback. 00:24:27
There is so there is no mileage rate increase, but because. 00:24:32
That same mill will create. 00:24:36
More money. That's why we're having all three, all three hearings. We had two last month and the last one is tonight. 00:24:38
Under the scenario, basically a home that's with a fair market value of 300,000 would would remain at $325. 00:24:45
$0.21 and a non homestead property or commercial property. 00:24:52
Would remain at $551.20, one that's valued at 500,000. 00:24:56
Property taxes are based on what the value is on January 1. 00:25:02
Of the year, we do not receive that. 00:25:06
Property taxes till the end of the year. 00:25:08
And so we'll we'll go about six months into the fiscal year before we start seeing property taxes coming in. 00:25:11
Do you want to point out it's always good to look at the value of our property taxes? 00:25:17
The fiscal year 26 cost for weekly garbage and leaf and limb services is costing the city $27.00 a month. That does include a new 00:25:21
A roll cart that's going to be coming out this next week. The mayor, Mayor pretend we'll talk about it at the end of the meeting. 00:25:28
That equates to about $324 a year. 00:25:35
And you'll see that, you know, a resident in a $300,000 house is paying $325 in city taxes. Now granted, this is just city taxes. 00:25:38
I can't do anything about your county or school taxes. But. 00:25:43
City taxes. So you're you're basically covering that, but you're getting so many more services from the city than just garbage and 00:25:48
leaf and limb. 00:25:51
And then I'll. 00:25:56
We did in the newspaper, I believe it was. It's been, I think. 00:25:57
Tomorrow to be our 4th week of having. 00:26:01
An ad in there about the about the. 00:26:03
Sales tax and the. 00:26:07
Digest, but you'll see here the. 00:26:09
We won't have the entire. 00:26:12
Of eight or ten years, it's up there, but we'll have the last five years showing how the digest has grown. 00:26:15
And again, we're looking to keep it at keep the mileage rate at 2.756. 00:26:22
Mills, which will generate, as I said, a little bit more than $84,000 more than last year if we keep it at the same mileage rate. 00:26:26
And then I've got a chart, and this is all online, but I've got a chart just showing that if the proposed mileage rate, there'd be 00:26:36
no increase if you took the rollback, which is .122. 00:26:40
Mills then there would be a different of. 00:26:44
Rebate if you will, or reduction in someone's city taxes. 00:26:48
In a homestead valued at 300,000, you'd see about $14.00. In a commercial property valued at half a million, you'd see about a 00:26:52
$24.00 decrease. 00:26:56
And of course, we're recommending that you keep it at 2.756. 00:27:01
Thank you. 00:27:07
So now it's time I'm going to officially open the public hearing if anybody would like to speak. 00:27:08
On the property tax mileage rate, now is your time to do so. 00:27:14
Julie, did we get any? 00:27:19
Comments. No ma'am. 00:27:21
OK. 00:27:22
I don't see anyone rushing to the podium, so I am now going to close the public hearing. 00:27:25
OK. 00:27:32
Now, uh. 00:27:33
I would like the manager to provide an overview of the recommended FY20 6 budget please. 00:27:36
OK. 00:27:42
So we have a number of budget goals. I won't go through all of these, but obviously our first and most important is making sure 00:27:44
the essential services, public safety and public health are covered. 00:27:48
We also. 00:27:53
Continue to look at maintenance of our infrastructure, our pedestrian sidewalks, our roads, investing in downtown and tourism, and 00:27:54
obviously continuing to work to be more efficient in our operations and how we run the city. 00:28:01
So those are our, but our basic goals that we build the budget around. 00:28:08
So this is very tiny, I apologize for that. But the we are presenting A balanced budget. The total budget is actually 3.366. 00:28:13
Million, there is the general fund, we have two. 00:28:22
Budget we have. 00:28:27
Funds, one is the general fund and one is the capital fund. So the budget, the general fund is what we're going to mainly talk 00:28:29
about today. I'll talk a little bit about the capital fund, but together they. 00:28:34
Bring us to a total of 3.366 million in requests, so I'll walk through that. 00:28:39
On the executive summary on revenues. 00:28:45
Again. 00:28:48
Talking just about the general fund and not the capital, 3.35 roughly million, that's an increase of 1.6% higher than last year's. 00:28:49
Approved an amended budget. 00:28:58
The top three revenue streams that are projected FY20 6, our local option, sales tax, property tax and franchise fees. And I'll 00:29:02
walk through those briefly. 00:29:06
Local option sales tax. We received 7.77% of all county wide sales tax revenues. 00:29:11
We have seen an average of nine point. 00:29:18
To 5% over the past five years and we saw a six, a little bit more than 6% increase in FY24. 00:29:20
And so we are estimating a 5% growth. 00:29:27
And we think that's probably that's pretty conservative, we think based on how things are growing. 00:29:30
And and so we'll, we're anticipating a collection of a little bit more than $1,000,000 in sales tax. 00:29:35
We just talked about property tax. So if you're good with that, I'll Pat, I'll jump through that one, do that one again. 00:29:43
On franchise fees being the third, the third highest revenue stream for us, we're projecting a little bit more than 330,000. 00:29:49
So we get franchise fees from Gas Electric? 00:29:57
Communications. Internet. 00:30:01
Providers that use our right away, they have to pay a certain franchise fees, those are set by law. So electric companies pay 4%. 00:30:02
Telecommunication companies pay 3% and natural gas pay 3%. 00:30:10
And of course, everybody knows their power bills and their commit on their telephone bills and all our Internet bills, all that's 00:30:14
continuing to go up. So we get a percentage that so ours goes up so. 00:30:19
On the expense side? 00:30:24
Reminder again, we're balanced, so 3.35 roughly in general fund operating expenses. We currently employ 21 full-time employees. We 00:30:26
are short right now a couple, but we're trying to fill those positions. 00:30:33
We also, so we provide a number of municipal services. I won't go through all of them, but basically building permits. 00:30:40
Downtown development, legal, Municipal Court operations, parks and green space plans review police. 00:30:47
Engineering services and public works. 00:30:54
We have 21 employees, but we do a lot of contract and we'll talk a little bit about how that breaks down. 00:30:56
Two of our contractors are sitting in the room. We have our city attorney Joe Reitman and Mark Campbell with. 00:31:01
Our Who's our city engineer? 00:31:06
And we rely very heavily on them and their team to keep the city's costs down. We don't have to employ 6 or 7 engineers or several 00:31:08
attorneys. We're able to use them and they they bring that depth. 00:31:13
To the table. A very efficient way to run a small government. 00:31:19
On the expenditure side, we have the two highest expenses, our police services at a little bit less than 850,000 and our garbage 00:31:23
and leaf and limb. 00:31:26
We actually in the FY20 6 budget are seeing a decrease and. 00:31:31
Over what we asked for last year, some of that is because we've made some changes. 00:31:36
Chief Arwood and I spoke about with oversight from the mayor, about reducing his staff and making some additional changes to that. 00:31:41
Structure, we do anticipate, even though we do see our population increasing, we do anticipate being able to sustain that for at 00:31:50
least two years and you know. 00:31:54
We estimate that. I can't promise that, but we think we'll be OK for a couple years, so we'll see how things. 00:31:58
Go as we grow. 00:32:04
On the garbage leaf and limb. 00:32:05
It does include an increase in the cost of service from $23 a unit a month to 27. We have roughly 14116 customers currently. We do 00:32:07
project additional customers because the Trove subdivision will be built out. Some of the work on Wire Park, the single family 00:32:13
homes, those will be built out. 00:32:19
Over the next year, and so that will. 00:32:25
That will increase our customer base, which will increase our cost overtime. 00:32:28
And we did budget. 00:32:32
For some of those in that 1416 number. 00:32:33
But we are. 00:32:37
One of the things that we are doing is improving the service, trying to provide some consistency and and beautifying the city by 00:32:39
having standardized roll carts. It also makes it easier for the collectors. 00:32:44
It makes it a little bit easier not to allow people to have 5 or 6. 00:32:49
Cans of garbage out at the street Which? 00:32:52
You know, everybody gets a 96 gallon. That's what we pay for. You have weekly pickup. Some communities don't even have weekly 00:32:55
pickup. They have every other week. 00:32:58
But the leaf and limb is also provided with this service and so. 00:33:02
You get a weekly leaf and limb and a weekly garbage so. 00:33:07
We think it's going to be really great. The road carts will be rolling out and the mayor Pro Tem will talk about that. But later 00:33:10
this week there should there will be a letter going out to every resident, every customer we have, letting them know about these 00:33:15
Rd. carts, what to expect, how to use them, etc. 00:33:19
We've had quite a few people call about. 00:33:24
The size, some older. 00:33:27
Individuals who are concerned about the size may be difficult to get it down. They're very easy to use, probably easier than what 00:33:30
the residents are currently using to get them done. But we're going to all start with 96 and we'll see how it goes and if we need 00:33:34
to make some adjustments, we'll make those with our. 00:33:38
With our contractor. 00:33:42
So I think it's always important to sort of look at. 00:33:45
How we spend our money in categories. 00:33:48
So right now we have the largest expenses personnel by far. 00:33:51
A little bit more than 1.6 million. 00:33:57
But when you add in contract labor, it takes up, it makes it even larger, right? So again, we contract with. 00:33:59
Our engineer, our attorney, our judges. 00:34:05
The company that does our plans and building inspections and permitting and of course garbage. So when you add that all up, it 00:34:08
makes up almost 70% of what we do is people related, right, service related. 00:34:14
A couple things to point out it, although our net budget increases just a little bit more than $52,000. 00:34:22
We did have some increases and so. 00:34:29
Every year we build our budget from zero, so we base it on the council's strategic initiatives and what they want to see done over 00:34:31
the next year and then of course the things that we have to maintain for state, you know, for law. 00:34:37
Purposes of law and public safety. 00:34:43
But so some of these things are going to be high, but we've offset them by making other cuts elsewhere. 00:34:46
So we are recommending this year a $2500 flat cost of living increase for all of our employees. And what that does is it helps 00:34:51
those on the lower end get a bigger lift than those of us on the higher end. 00:34:56
In range it goes from a 2.2% increase to a 6.7. 00:35:03
So at the high end of 2.2% increase in pay to a 6.7 on the on the lower end of the pay scale. 00:35:08
Oconee County did has done this for last two years. I actually didn't check. I was going to to see if they're going to do it again 00:35:16
this year, but it was. 00:35:19
Well received and we thought that would be a good way to handle it this year. 00:35:22
We are going to be participating in Georgia Municipal Employee Benefit System. It is a defined retirement. 00:35:27
Benefit program. 00:35:32
We've got some cost numbers back in. We're going to, it's going to be it probably towards the end of the year before we actually. 00:35:34
Engaged completely and it does require an ordinance that will have to come before Council. So I'm thinking probably in October 00:35:40
time frame will you will see that but we will be able to do that with the money that you guys have budgeted. 00:35:46
For us. 00:35:52
Medical, dental, vision, we unfortunately changes out just a little bit after the fiscal year begins. So it doesn't line up with 00:35:55
our fiscal year. So in I believe October 1. 00:36:00
We have renewal and so we have to always estimate. I have no clue what it's going to come into. You guys may recall last year we. 00:36:04
Had a huge increase. 00:36:11
This year we've been told to plan on about 15% in medical, hopefully won't come in that high and we've got some I know. 00:36:12
Clerk Klein went to a conference recently. 00:36:20
We may be able to find some additional vendors that may be able to assist us this year. We're going to pursue that up until it 00:36:23
comes before you, most likely come before you in September. 00:36:28
On the legal and professional side. 00:36:34
We continue to have issues and and struggles with having to respond to open records requests. 00:36:36
A number of which have come from one individual. 00:36:43
And it costs us a lot of money, all those, because of the litigious nature of them, we have to send them before the attorney to 00:36:46
review. 00:36:49
And then we have to go through the effort of estimating what it actually costs to provide those. 00:36:53
To the individual. So we do anticipate legal expenses. 00:36:58
Set aside of about 15,000 in fiscal year 26 to handle. 00:37:02
Handle those. 00:37:06
We also saw roughly an increase of about 15,000 on our maintenance with mainly because of Thomas Farm. We took on 100 acres. 00:37:08
That's a lot of property. 00:37:12
We had to. We do contract with someone to Bush hog. Although we have the ability to do it, it would take a lot of time. It's just 00:37:17
cheaper for us to use somebody else to do that. 00:37:21
We are. We're going to talk a little bit tonight. The mayor Pro Tem will share a little bit about some of the improvements that 00:37:25
are happening at Thomas Farm that are causing these increases, such as new bathrooms. 00:37:30
Internet service, that kind of stuff. 00:37:35
Street lighting as the Somton Bridge Rd. project. 00:37:37
Comes online, you will see. 00:37:41
St. lamps, I believe they're. 00:37:43
18 feet tall. They're taller than the ones downtown, just slightly taller. But there will be 18 of those lining Simonton Bridge, 00:37:45
so there'll be a nice Parkway feel when you come in. 00:37:49
But it costs money to run those. The grant and the and the loan is are paying for the actual St. lamps, but then we have to pay to 00:37:54
light them so. 00:37:58
So we we know there's going to be an increase. 00:38:03
Cost for that? 00:38:05
And then on the library, everyone may recall we have a library service agreement. The library is located at Wire Park in a 00:38:07
building the city now owns, as was donated by Duke Gibbs Wire Park. 00:38:12
And we agreed to set aside. 00:38:17
The 1st $30,000. 00:38:21
Taxes from those properties. So every year I go through a very detailed process of identifying what their taxes are for all those 00:38:23
property. 00:38:26
Properties that are in that development and the 1st 30,000 goes to the library and then 10% above that goes into additional 00:38:30
operating expenses and then 5% above that what the remaining balance goes into capital. 00:38:36
I think capital is like $100 this year. But anyway, we'll keep track of that and then at some point when the library may need, 00:38:43
say, some new capital item, they would come back before council and request that money be spent for that. 00:38:49
Purpose We also share maintenance expenses with Oconee County. 00:38:55
And we pay for the insurance for that building. 00:38:59
So both those things went up a little bit, not, not a huge amount on those. 00:39:02
And then on the tourism side, we are have already started planning. Our downtown development director is our contact person for 00:39:07
the America 250 celebration. Next year, America will turn 250 years old. 00:39:12
July 4th happens to be on a Saturday and we are planning a huge celebration tentatively planned for Thomas Farm Preserve, but 00:39:18
there will be a lot of activities throughout the city and throughout the county the month prior. 00:39:24
Prior to in June. 00:39:30
Those are coming together. We'll share more as we have more information to share about them. 00:39:32
And then finally property and liability. 00:39:36
Insurance workers comp Obviously everybody in this room has insurance. Everybody's insurance continues to go up because the cost 00:39:38
of fixing things goes up. 00:39:42
So we've seen a little bit of an increase, thankfully not as high as I was projecting, so just a little bit more than 5%. 00:39:46
On that insurance. 00:39:51
On the capital side, we do capitalize anything that has a value of at least $5000 we put into our capital improvement program. You 00:39:54
guys have seen it. It is in the in the packet. There's a very detailed spreadsheet. We keep try to keep track of all those, those 00:40:00
items from vehicles to buildings to even the playground. 00:40:05
And that's a tool for us to sort of keep track of so we don't all of a sudden realize we've got to replace the roof and we weren't 00:40:13
thinking about it or we have to replace a vehicle and we weren't thinking about. So we keep track of that and anticipate those 00:40:17
costs. 00:40:21
In in the fiscal year, so. 00:40:27
This year we are actually looking to replace the 2017 Ford Interceptor, which is on the consent agenda tonight for you all. 00:40:29
Going ahead and getting on. So because we don't have a July meeting, want to make sure we had plenty of time to get that out. 00:40:36
Out and and advertised and then replacing a 52 inch mower for public works. We are going to request keeping that other mower since 00:40:41
we now have Thomas Farm just continuing to use it until we can't use it anymore. It's still in decent shape but. 00:40:48
It's got a lot of hours on it, so the old one has a lot of hours on it. 00:40:55
It's important to point out that in the past, councils approved appropriation out of sloth for these those are things that were 00:41:01
set up and appropriated prior to. 00:41:04
These decisions and as a result instead of needing $67,500, our net to the net cost to the general fund capital counts only going 00:41:08
to be 17 five. So that's good news that keeps our capital account roughly around $130,000. 00:41:15
And we watch every year the mayor and I look at it. 00:41:22
And my finance director, Lee Black, we keep an eye on it so that. 00:41:25
We make sure we have enough in it. We don't drain it down anyone given year. If we know the next year we're going to have $50,000, 00:41:28
we may look at trying to add some money, some to the expenses in the budget to help offset that cost to keep the capital budget 00:41:33
healthy. 00:41:38
And healthy for us is probably about 140 hundred 50,000 so. 00:41:42
For it, because we don't have a lot this happened to replaced every year we try to you know if we have a vehicle that may need to 00:41:46
be replaced, but we have three of them we go. 00:41:49
We don't need all three of them. We try to, just like anybody would do at their home, they go, you know what? We can bleed this 00:41:53
one out a little bit longer. Let's move this one forward. Let's move that one out. 00:41:57
Just to draw it to adjust to keep things manageable. 00:42:01
So that is the budget. 00:42:05
All right. Thank you so much for that very helpful summary. 00:42:07
So now I am going to open up the public hearing. So if you have any comments on. 00:42:11
And the proposed budget. Now is your time to come to the podium and speak. 00:42:17
All right. 00:42:24
I did not receive anything OK. 00:42:26
So I am now going to close the public hearing. 00:42:29
We have no appearances, we have no old business. 00:42:33
So now we're moving on to new business. 00:42:37
So this is. 00:42:41
Looking at approving the three-year contract award for banking services. So Manager Dickerson, if you will give us your report 00:42:43
please. Absolutely. Thank you. 00:42:48
So we are requesting approving the three-year contract for banking services to Oconee State Bank per their banking services 00:42:53
proposal and asking that all relevant contractual documents be signed. 00:42:58
By the mayor and city clerk. 00:43:03
The little history on this in August of 2020. 00:43:05
We awarded a three-year contract for banking services with two year to one year extensions. We did extend in 23 and in 24. 00:43:09
I want to state what I didn't put on here was prior to that we did not have a contract. A lot of governments do have contracts. 00:43:17
That provides a little bit more security, a little bit more structure. 00:43:21
With collateralization and with deposits and just payroll and everything. And so we, we did that in 2020. We've had a really good 00:43:26
run with them. We did release an RFP that was advertised on April 3rd and April 10th. 00:43:32
In the enterprise and then we also sent documents directly to some of the banks that were in the area that we knew either had. 00:43:39
Proposed the first time, or we knew we're close and might be interested. That was American pride. 00:43:48
Bank of Ozarks Bank, South of County State Bank and Synovus. 00:43:53
At 10:00 on May 9th, we received 3 proposals from the proposals were from American Pride, Oconee State Bank and Synovus Bank. 00:43:58
The selection committee received those on May 10th. 00:44:06
That the selection committee is made-up of myself and my finance director. 00:44:09
We evaluated those, we discussed the proposals and then we brought in. 00:44:14
Consultant. 00:44:18
Free. Actually, John Culpepper, who used to be the finance director for Athens Clark County for 31 years. Personal friend and 00:44:20
somebody who just has such a vast array of information and knowledge on these things. 00:44:26
He teaches public finance with at the University of Georgia. 00:44:32
And, umm. 00:44:36
Anyways, was a great resource for that. We used him in the initial back in 2020. He and. 00:44:38
Wes, I can't think of West over at Oconee, can't think of his last name, but he was the finance director. 00:44:43
With Oconee County and he participated the first time around. 00:44:49
Some facts and issues. So, you know, banking is a little bit different for cities. We do have to ensure that taxpayer dollars are 00:44:53
are protected. 00:44:57
Strict guidelines, including collateralization of our public sector deposits. 00:45:01
And so banks have to be knowledgeable about that. 00:45:06
We had some objectives, some key objectives for requesting for our proposals were obtaining economic efficiency in our banking 00:45:10
services, maximizing our earning earnings. 00:45:14
Maximizing technology and continuing to further our financial system. 00:45:19
And I'm not going to read all these, but these are all the banking service. 00:45:25
Submittal requirements that they had to provide information on. Lots of different things that most of us in our household finances 00:45:29
don't have to worry about but we do with. 00:45:34
With either if you have a business or if you're running government operations. 00:45:39
So do you want to point out that although we're requesting a three-year contract, we do have a termination without cause clause 00:45:44
in? 00:45:48
The contract which we had the first time around and everything seemed fine with that, but we do have a way out if we need to. 00:45:51
We are recommending and I'll talk about the reasons why, but we are going to recommend as I said, three-year contract be awarded 00:45:58
to Oconee State Bank. 00:46:02
So the proposal was provided in the packet, so you can go online and look at that. 00:46:07
We have worked with Oak County State Bank for more than 40 years. We. 00:46:12
Prior to our contract agreement with them, we actually had agreement, we did have banking with other including Synovus and. 00:46:16
So there was a bank on Mitchell Bridge. I can't think of the name of the bank. There's a bank out there that when I started we 00:46:23
had, I think we had three or four different banks we were working with and we consolidate data down to one. It was crazy to have 00:46:28
money all over the place and we tried to focus on just one bank and the and those services. 00:46:33
So for the last five years, we've been under contract with Oconee State Bank. They've helped us with the collateralization that's 00:46:38
required. 00:46:41
And it's helped a lot to have one focused. 00:46:45
One group that's helping us handle payments and payroll and deposits. 00:46:49
And we've been very fortunate that learned a lot, implemented our new banking procedures along with our new financial. 00:46:53
Management's that our financial. 00:47:00
Services. 00:47:02
Software that we just implemented this past year. 00:47:04
Their financial team is always is obviously right down the road has always been accessible. 00:47:07
Day or night to work with us. 00:47:12
Through lunch hours and through all sorts of crazy things that we have going on. 00:47:14
They were responsive fully to our banking services needs. 00:47:18
They did provide a guaranteed floor interest rate on our money market and on our checking out our operating accounts. 00:47:21
And then back in 2020, they provided some remote deposit technology, some. 00:47:29
Just keep us from having to get in the car and drive up deposits. 00:47:34
Up to the bank. 00:47:38
So we have done that and we've gotten really good at using those and the auditors love it because everything stays very organized 00:47:39
and on time. 00:47:43
As I said, they're right up the street and they obviously come with a. 00:47:48
Great references the County Board of Commissioners, the school district and the City of Bogart's. 00:47:52
So again we are recommending to award a three-year contract with two one year renewals as we had in the past. 00:47:58
To Oconee State Bank and asking that the. 00:48:03
Mayor and city clerk be allowed to sign all those contractual documents. 00:48:06
OK. 00:48:12
Thank you so much. 00:48:13
Council, do we have any discussion on this motion? 00:48:16
I'll make a motion to approve the three-year contract with the county State Bank. 00:48:22
I will second that motion. 00:48:29
All right, I have a vote. 00:48:31
All in favor. 00:48:34
Aye, all right. Unanimous 40. 00:48:36
Excellent. 00:48:40
All right now we are looking at the resolution and adoption of the 2025 property tax mileage rate. 00:48:43
We have already gotten the very thorough report on that. 00:48:50
And so now, Council, any further discussion or Are you ready to make a motion? 00:48:54
Make a motion to approve the 2025 property tax mileage rate. 00:49:02
Presented. 00:49:07
I will second. 00:49:10
All right, all in favor. 00:49:11
40 again excellent. 00:49:14
Moving on to the resolution and adoption of fiscal year 2026 budget which runs from July 1st, 2025 through June 30th of 2026. 00:49:17
Thank you again, Mayor Dickinson, for your report and Council. Any further discussion or Are you ready to make a motion? 00:49:29
Make a motion to approve the fiscal year 2026. 00:49:36
Operating budget. 00:49:41
In general, Fund Capital. 00:49:42
And I will second, OK, excellent. We got a pattern going here. 00:49:45
Can I have a vote please? All in favor, aye, once again, 40. 00:49:50
OK, so now. 00:49:57
We are moving on to the consent agenda. 00:50:00
And do you do we? 00:50:04
We just. 00:50:06
Please make motions OK. 00:50:07
Umm, so. 00:50:10
Council. 00:50:11
Arrow, we're going to break things up a little bit. 00:50:13
More discussion. Are we ready for a motion? I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda as. 00:50:15
State OK. 00:50:23
Excellent. Do I have a second? 00:50:24
Thank you, Chuck and. 00:50:28
All in favor, aye? 00:50:31
40 All right, we're on a roll here. 00:50:33
OK, we are now to public comments. 00:50:38
Comments shall be only directly related to agenda items. Speak from the podium. 00:50:41
4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate, argument, personal attacks or irrelevant discussions please. 00:50:47
Address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to Council. Council cannot speak to potential 00:50:53
litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. 00:50:58
All right, so. 00:51:04
And if anybody like to come and speak to anything. 00:51:06
It could only be about agenda items. Yeah, I don't. I don't know why it said that. I read what was in front of me, but no, come 00:51:10
on. This is this is the time for the public to speak. 00:51:14
My name is Kathleen Mcquiston, I live at 13 S Barnett Shoals Rd. and I think. 00:51:23
What I'm about to speak to has I'm kind of late to the party. 00:51:29
But my husband and I and a couple of other local residents were walking down the new paved Mulberry St. 00:51:34
And we realized that along Jimmy Christophers. 00:51:42
Property line. There are a lot of trees marked to be taken down for the sidewalk. 00:51:46
We were horrified. 00:51:51
These are old trees, old oak trees. They shade the street. 00:51:54
And there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why the sidewalk can't be on either the other side of the road. 00:51:59
I know this means you'd probably have to close cross the road twice, but I think what's really going to happen since there's no 00:52:08
parking lot down there even though it looks like there's two parking spaces? 00:52:14
Is that most people are going to walk down the road. 00:52:20
And there's only one house down there. Isn't there some way that we could mark off? 00:52:23
What's already paved as a pedestrian way? Leave the trees. 00:52:29
And only allow access for the one house that's down there. 00:52:34
It seems a lot more logical than spending a lot of money to take the trees down putting the sidewalk when most people are going to 00:52:38
walk down the street anyways. 00:52:43
So that's, I know that it would require a change order, but I think under the circumstances that would make the most sense. Thank 00:52:49
you. 00:52:53
Thank you, Kathleen. 00:52:59
Anybody else have anything they would like to speak to you? It didn't have to be on the agenda tonight, but it does need to 00:53:01
pertain to the city. 00:53:04
All right. Anything sent in Julie? OK, excellent. So I am now closing public comments. 00:53:10
OK. 00:53:19
It is time. 00:53:20
For the mayor's report. 00:53:22
And I am subbing in. 00:53:23
All right, so Flag Day was June 14th. 00:53:25
Friday commemorates the resolution adopted by the Continental Congress on June 14th, 1777 to create the flag of the United States. 00:53:28
On Friday, June 13th, the junior American citizens provided a presentation on Flag Day at the Watkinsville Library. 00:53:38
So I. 00:53:45
All right, so. 00:53:48
You'll see pictures of the Harris Shoals Park Master Plan improvement Phase three, the Geradini Green. 00:53:52
I'm amazed that there have been enough dry days to pave anything I feel. 00:54:07
At least everything being planted is does not need to be water. That is the the positive of the insane amount of rain we've 00:54:13
gotten. But it's looking really great. And that's even just with dirt before the grass goes in. So I'm really excited to see. 00:54:20
What this is like as we continue to improve, not only add to our park system, but improve the parks that we already have. 00:54:26
So it looks great. 00:54:35
Also at Thomas Farm Preserve, we are continuing to make improvements. 00:54:36
There's now a bench at the waterfall and if you all have not taken the trail down to the waterfall yet, especially as things heat 00:54:42
up, that is my favorite walk. 00:54:46
Because so much of it is shaded and it is absolutely stunningly beautiful. Now you can sit and enjoy the waterfall for a while 00:54:51
from a bench. 00:54:54
We have are in the process of adding additional bathrooms. 00:54:59
Do we have an ETA and completion for that? Is that coming up? 00:55:04
Before July 4th. OK. Before just. So that's soon, actually. Wow. 00:55:08
And and then also we have a doc that is going to. 00:55:13
Becoming in July and. 00:55:19
The dock itself is actually being. 00:55:22
Donated by. 00:55:26
I am I sorry, with initials I'm always paranoid I'm going to get them wrong. I am I. 00:55:28
Umm, which is a great gift to the city. 00:55:33
And so that will be just a great place is obviously a rendering, but more places to fish, to enjoy the water. Umm, So what a great 00:55:36
addition to Thomas Farm. 00:55:41
And then also, as Kathleen mentioned a little bit about Phase 2. 00:55:48
But the pedestrian connectivity is continuing. 00:55:53
Umm, to connect Thomas Farm Preserve and actually the houses and the city limits of Watkinsville a little bit. 00:55:58
Beyond that, down to rocket field. 00:56:05
So paving continues. 00:56:08
And. 00:56:11
Phase 1 is pretty close to being done. 00:56:12
So very, very exciting. 00:56:16
Also, we have culvert improvements. I know we always do discuss the storm water. 00:56:18
Water is a gift from God and not something the city has complete control over at all. But. 00:56:26
We do have culverts to help with storm water and so we are making improvements wipes. Here's some pictures from White Subdivision. 00:56:32
And then also manager Dickerson noticed. 00:56:41
Just the erosion that was happening on Experiment Station Road, which is a state highway. So it's not something that. 00:56:45
The city is actually responsible for but it. 00:56:51
The erosion was below the pipe, so the pipes were no longer meaning to function so. 00:56:55
They have started the work on it. 00:57:01
But I. 00:57:05
It is not completed yet, but. 00:57:07
I'll just point out, so I noticed it, but you had a couple of council members in here. You mentioned it last month. I think that's 00:57:09
right. 00:57:13
Or Chuck Patterson, So we may thank you overture to them to come out and fix it. 00:57:17
And they, they responded quickly, it just wasn't completed quickly. But we're moving in the right direction. So that's. 00:57:21
Yeah, that's right. That's, that's right. The gas line happened. Lots, lots of excitement. I think first shovel. 00:57:29
Yeah, well. 00:57:35
Call before you dig. OK, so. 00:57:37
As Mayor Manager Dickerson mentioned, we are rolling out the roll carts. Can't help it making that pun. 00:57:41
But they're really very attractive and. 00:57:48
Will be much easier with those large wheels instead of dragging a trash can. It'll be very attractive on our streets to have these 00:57:52
uniform. 00:57:57
Roll carts so. 00:58:03
That will be happening next week. 00:58:05
Umm, so. 00:58:08
Something to look forward to. 00:58:09
Also on June 29th at the Oconee County Courthouse, we are having a ceremony honoring. 00:58:11
The 1905 lynching victims at 2:00 PM. 00:58:21
There this will be a memorial marker dedication ceremony. So umm. 00:58:25
I know that sometimes it isn't pleasant. 00:58:31
To remember things about our past, but if we don't, then. 00:58:35
How can we learn and move on and change so? 00:58:39
Is an important thing. June 29th. 00:58:43
And we have some birthdays. Joe, happy birthday. I think yours was was it last? 00:58:46
Last month, in the last month, just a few weeks, OK, a few weeks ago and then we have. 00:58:55
Another birthday our. 00:59:01
We've got Mark Campbell, look at him on. 00:59:03
Here's John Deere So. 00:59:08
We need, yeah, we need to get one for next year for you to have. That's good. So. 00:59:14
Happiest of birthdays, OK? 00:59:22
So now. 00:59:24
Council reports. 00:59:26
Chuck. 00:59:31
Connie. 00:59:34
All right, Brad, I know you got something to report. Yes, I do. July 4th, exciting time of year, every year. 00:59:35
We're going to. 00:59:42
Have our July 4th. 00:59:44
House decorating competition. Again, I'd like to invite all citizens in Watkinsville. 00:59:45
To decorate your home. 00:59:50
Citizens, residents of Watkinsville. 00:59:53
To decorate your home. Posted on Facebook. Will vote on Facebook. 00:59:56
It will begin this weekend. 01:00:00
And it'll be in the paper, we're going to advertise it, and it'll run all the way through July 4th. 01:00:03
And then we will vote on that in August at our next meeting. 01:00:08
So. 01:00:16
Just a couple little notes. So they need to send their pictures to us. We'll post because we'll put them on our Facebook page. 01:00:17
And they could send it to info@cityofwatkinsville.com. 01:00:24
And then we'll post it and then we'll get the most likes and that's how it'll be voted on whoever gets the most likes by, you 01:00:27
know, by the end of day, July 4th roughly. And we'll present that to you guys in August for them to. 01:00:33
And our enterprise will do an outstanding job of publicizing that for us. 01:00:40
Since she is here with us. 01:00:44
As noted. 01:00:47
But yeah, that's it for me. 01:00:49
OK, umm. 01:00:51
Jeff. 01:00:52
Nothing to report. 01:00:54
All right, excellent. 01:00:55
Well, I this is normally where I make a motion to enter executive session, but. 01:00:58
We need to go to executive session. 01:01:06
For I got to read this. 01:01:08
For yes, those things so. 01:01:11
We need a motion. I make a motion to move into executive session. 01:01:13
I will second all in favor. 01:01:17
All right, OK, So what that means is we have to say goodbye to. 01:01:19
Somehow this? 01:01:24
Hey, OK, we're back live, all right? 01:01:26
So we are out of executive session. Can I hear a motion to adjourn? I make a motion to adjourn. I'll second. 01:01:28
All in favor Aye 4. 01:01:34
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Transcript

Event transcript
All right, I'm calling the June Watkinsville City Council meeting to order. 00:00:06
Welcome everybody, if you. 00:00:11
Are new here. This is not my normal role. I am not Brian Broderick. I am Christine Tucker the mayor Pro Tem and he is on a. 00:00:14
Of family vacation this week and so I am filling in for him which is the role of mayor Pro Tem. So I've never done this before so 00:00:22
please all bear with me. 00:00:27
We have a quorum so. 00:00:34
Everyone's here excellent. 00:00:37
And now we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance and we have two special guests with us. 00:00:40
Is Asher or Ethan? 00:00:46
The city has a hearing loop system in the council chamber. 00:01:15
Which is a wireless network for those with hearing aids. 00:01:19
Signals can be picked up by most hearing aids. 00:01:22
The city also has loop receivers for those who still have some difficulty hearing. 00:01:24
Anyone with questions can contact the ADA coordinator, which is our city manager. 00:01:29
Sharon Dickerson over there to allow the city to make reasonable accommodations. 00:01:33
This meeting is being broadcast online via a link on the City Council meeting information page of the city website. 00:01:38
This also provides closed captioning. 00:01:45
Click the CC icon in the lower right corner. When the video is posted, CC will automatically appear. 00:01:47
A transcript of the meeting is under the Transcript tab. 00:01:53
The current month agenda is posted a week before the meeting to allow time to provide comments in writing to the clerk. 00:01:57
All right. So now we are going on to approval. 00:02:04
Of the minutes, are there any discussions or motions on last month? 00:02:09
Oh, and there are two sets because we have the public hearing meeting summary. 00:02:15
Which was at noon and then the regular meeting. 00:02:20
I make a motion to approve the minutes. 00:02:27
Both sets. Both sets. 00:02:30
And I will second. 00:02:32
All in favor. 00:02:34
All right, 40, excellent. 00:02:36
OK. 00:02:40
Next up is approval of the agenda. 00:02:42
Do we have any discussion or motions? 00:02:44
I make a motion to approve the agenda. 00:02:48
I will second. 00:02:52
All in favor. 00:02:54
All right, passes 4 O. 00:02:56
Administration. 00:03:00
So throughout the evening we have some. 00:03:03
Different times for public input and with this process, members of the public wishing to address Mayor and Council may do so at 00:03:06
the noted times on the agenda or on request and at discretion of council. 00:03:11
Comments shall be only directed relating to agenda items. 00:03:17
Speak from the podium. 00:03:21
4 minutes per person. 00:03:23
Please refrain from debate, argument, personal attacks, or irrelevant discussion. 00:03:25
Address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to Council. 00:03:30
Council can't speak to potential litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. 00:03:35
All right. Next up is our financial reports. So manager Dickerson, take it from here. 00:03:41
Thank you, Mayor Pertain. 00:03:46
Everyone should have received the balance sheet as well as the general fund expenses and revenue sheet. We are tracking fairly 00:03:47
well. We'll know more obviously the end of this month when we closeout the fiscal year and our. 00:03:53
Auditors will be here next month to begin that process. 00:03:59
But I believe we are well under our, we've got more revenues than we do expenses. So that's always a good place to be at the end 00:04:02
of the year, so. 00:04:05
And there's lots of reasons for that, but so if you have any questions about that, let me know. I'll move on to spouse 3. 00:04:10
So our Splash 3 report, the end of May, we're averaging about $85,000 a month. 00:04:17
In revenues, we had projected a little bit less than 65,000, so that's an incredible number. 00:04:23
You guys may recall a couple months ago we came back to you because the county had had changed their estimates on the revenue 00:04:29
projections and so we change, we changed ours based on the county and. 00:04:35
Has provided additional funds that you have already appropriated some. 00:04:42
Some projects too. 00:04:46
So we have a little bit more than 1,000,001 in the bank right now. 00:04:48
You'll see here that month over month, April, this lot because again, we're a month behind so. 00:04:54
In May we get our April, and June we'll get our May and in July we'll get our June. So it all comes. 00:05:00
About a month behind, but we had an 8 1/2 percent increase over last year same time. So that's. 00:05:05
Certainly, umm. 00:05:11
Helpful and and suggest that. 00:05:12
Either the economy is growing or people are spending more money, or both. 00:05:15
So, and we get on this one, we get 8.63% of all Oconee County sales tax. 00:05:19
Some of the projects we've done, police vehicles, traffic calming equipment like our radar signs or rectangular rapid flashing 00:05:26
beacons that are at crosswalks. 00:05:30
The improvements that are going on at Thomas Farm Preserve, at Harris Shoals Park, rocket field and then resurfacing roads and 00:05:35
public signage and public. 00:05:39
Works equipment. Those are some of the things that SPLOST 3 pays for. 00:05:43
On our tea spots and that's specific to transportation. 00:05:48
Transportation type projects. We have sidewalk money, traffic efficiency improvement and Rd. resurfacing. 00:05:52
Right now we're averaging about 75,000 we budgeted over the course of the. 00:05:57
60 month period, about 78. So we're a little under that, but we're early in on this. It does not sunset until March of 28. 00:06:03
But we're averaging about. 00:06:10
A little bit less than 75,000 a month. 00:06:11
This one we get 7.77% that was. 00:06:14
Negotiated with the county of all county. County sales tax. 00:06:17
Month over month we're a little bit. 00:06:21
Less than 8% over where we were last April. 00:06:23
And a little bit more than $1,000,000 in the bank. 00:06:26
Some projects on that, we have the work that's going on right now in Simonton Bridge Rd. with our pedestrian connector. That's the 00:06:30
three $3.7 million project that is funded with a $2.25 million loan from GIFA. 00:06:36
And I'm sorry from. 00:06:43
Sorry, G Tib. 00:06:45
And in a $1.5 million grant from them, that project should be done the end of this year, if the weather will cooperate. 00:06:46
It also includes. 00:06:54
Resurfacing of local roads were actually the road we did in Harris Shoals and we're actually in the process of fixing to resurface 00:06:56
Stone Shoals subdivision. 00:07:00
So lots of exciting things that are happening with that money. 00:07:04
Just as a reminder on budget. So this is our last meeting. 00:07:09
For budget tonight, hopefully. 00:07:12
You will approve the recommended budget for me and the mayor. 00:07:14
We do have a required public hearing, which will happen shortly on the budget, as well as a required hearing for the adoption of 00:07:18
the mileage rate. 00:07:22
So after tonight it will hopefully be officially approved and notices will go out in the paper. 00:07:26
For next week. 00:07:31
Any questions on? 00:07:33
Financial. 00:07:35
OK. Did you move on to economic? OK. 00:07:36
So business license, alcohol licensing fees. 00:07:38
We had a little bit more than $1000 collected. No alcohol this time around. 00:07:42
Those. 00:07:48
Still trickling in. We have a few businesses we're checking on to make sure that they're still in business that haven't submitted. 00:07:49
They were due in March. 00:07:52
But we had a few more coming in and then some of these are brand new businesses that are coming in as well, so. 00:07:56
On excise tax collection. 00:08:01
Alcohol and hotel, motel or short term vacation rental. 00:08:04
Those are tracking actually a little bit above where we thought they would be. So that's always good. And again, we're reporting 00:08:08
through April, we still have two more months of revenues to come in. 00:08:12
And then on building permits, we had 14 permits for 14 different projects, lots of HVAC systems. I hope everybody's are. 00:08:18
HVAC's are running well. It's getting hot. 00:08:24
That is it. Any questions? 00:08:28
OK, all right, so I'm putting on my Downtown Development Authority chairperson hat. 00:08:32
To give the update there. So on Saturday we had. 00:08:39
Papa Palooza event which was lots of fun. 00:08:43
A great time for the community to come out and. 00:08:48
Enjoy each other, enjoy different local businesses, do some art. 00:08:51
And. 00:08:57
Celebrate Dad and enjoy beautiful rocket field. So lots of thanks to our DDA director who did a lot of work putting that together. 00:08:58
Umm, we also are going to be voting later this evening on a streetscape maintenance agreement on the consent agenda. 00:09:07
But. 00:09:17
I want to mention this because one of the things that's really important. 00:09:19
To us here in Watkinsville is. 00:09:24
Listening to local business owners and. 00:09:27
One in our community to be unique. 00:09:31
In its own special way. And so this is just a very small thing, but there is some landscaping that's in right next to a business 00:09:33
bird and brass. 00:09:38
And it's in the city right of way. And so this agreement is giving her basically permission. 00:09:43
To plant some more native species that should be really beautiful that she will maintain. So it's a way to beautify the city. 00:09:49
Help beautify the business. 00:09:58
And also is not using any taxpayer dollars. 00:10:00
And then a strategic plan update. So this is coming together really quickly. 00:10:04
I want everyone to mark their calendars next Thursday. 00:10:10
Thursday between 6:00 and 8:00 PM Inspire Placemaking. 00:10:13
Which is the firm that we have hired using the Georgia Power Grant. 00:10:18
As having a community engagement session at Warehouse 15. 00:10:24
Now I know in the summer people go out of town. There's a lot going on if you are unable to make that. 00:10:29
There also is going to be a very robust survey. 00:10:35
That we really would really want members of community to fill out. So please be looking for that if you do not get. 00:10:39
Weekly newsletter. There's going to be a link to it there. You also can sign up for e-mail notifications. That's another way we'll 00:10:46
send it out. 00:10:50
And also on all of our social media sites. Please pass it on to other people in the community that. 00:10:54
You think they would want to share their their input as well? So again, next Thursday, June 26, six to 8:00 PM at Warehouse 15, 00:11:00
which is the new event space. 00:11:05
On the corner of Morrison and 15. 00:11:11
OK. 00:11:15
Police Department report. 00:11:17
Chief, you're up. 00:11:19
All right. Thank you again always for having me. 00:11:26
It's a pleasure so. 00:11:30
We'll get through the report of as far as training, I went through our annual command college training, which had some really good 00:11:31
stuff they do every year. 00:11:35
It's a legal updates they had. 00:11:39
A class that I took pages and pages of notes called The Power of Coaching Leadership. 00:11:41
And that referenced it to a actual football team. 00:11:46
And how? 00:11:50
How important is the coach team and not just be a boss or manager or leader, but also coaching so. 00:11:51
I've put a lot of notes together and I'm gonna. 00:11:58
Forwarded to the guys to cover and training ourselves. 00:12:00
Officer Anglin, Officer Christian, Officer Walker had in service rifle training this year, this month and. 00:12:04
Sergeant Hitler just finished his use of force instructor training last last Friday. So that's a it's an 80 hour course and. 00:12:10
It kind of gives him a lot of expertise and instructor or use of force situations and updates that State of Georgia has every 00:12:16
year. 00:12:20
Special announcements, we got the emergency call box and the location was picked I think. 00:12:26
Mark and Toby were setting that up to get the cement in the ground where we can get that going, and it should already have a 00:12:31
program radio in it for dispatch, so it'll go directly to dispatch. 00:12:36
When somebody hits the button. 00:12:41
That alert, they'll call us and say, hey, we got. 00:12:43
Call box is going off. We need we need help out there so. 00:12:46
We have a bunch of stats that I went through 10 pages worth actually on Simonton Bridge. 00:12:50
We can go that in a minute. OK, OK. 00:12:57
So there's two different locations which the real similar this one is Katie Lane and Simonton Drive. 00:13:01
The blue represents coming westbound, the red is eastbound. 00:13:06
The highest daily counts between that section? Katie Lane and Simonton Drive. 00:13:12
We're 3500 cars coming in, 3714 going out. 00:13:17
The average speed 36 and 37. 00:13:21
But you'll see in a minute the high speeds but. 00:13:24
The the most traffic is obviously in the morning and in the afternoons, Saturdays and Sundays. It is kind of sporadic. It's pretty 00:13:27
consistent for several hours. 00:13:32
An afternoon. But the Monday through Friday, those were the times that were. 00:13:37
Pretty heavy I. 00:13:41
The top recorded speed coming in town was 81 miles an hour. 00:13:43
Going out with 68 miles an hour. 00:13:47
Well, I cannot verify if that was a patrol car or not. It could have been a county unit, could have been a bed unit there it 00:13:51
doesn't say, but 81 regardless, and at that location is extremely fast. 00:13:57
The travel direction, the amount of cars. 00:14:04
Westbound was 18,000. This is over A5 day period. 00:14:07
18,337 going out was 19,845 in that section. 00:14:11
And then on the second chart, it's actually Katie Lane and Spring Circle, so a little closer to town. 00:14:17
Very similar numbers. 00:14:22
3463 westbound, 3709 eastbound. The average speeds 37. 00:14:24
The times, the busiest times, you know, 7730 in the morning and then five, 5:30 in the afternoon and then. 00:14:30
The top recorded speed was 75, so I guess that car was slowing down a little bit when it got to this part. 00:14:37
And then 68 going out. 00:14:43
In very similar numbers, you know, it's just a few 100 difference because we're only a block away so. 00:14:45
A lot of numbers working on a plan we're going to, we're going to start hitting that area pretty hard especially. 00:14:51
If we're going to put a crosswalk in there, so. 00:14:57
We're gonna have to. 00:15:00
Just write a lot of citations I guess, and educate folks. 00:15:01
Let's see where we're at. So Officer Walker is now. 00:15:06
Mr. Mrs. Walker, he got married a couple Fridays ago, so congratulate, congratulated him, happy for. 00:15:10
Him and Miss Christie. She's a dispatcher. She works over at Sheriff's Office. 00:15:15
And then we have a new one. And before I introduce them. 00:15:20
I want to say one of our finest. 00:15:24
Worked with him for several years and he recommended this young man and. 00:15:27
I think if if Officer Anglin recommends somebody, then it's definitely worth looking into it and checking this person out. But. 00:15:31
This is Mr. Walter Claire So. 00:15:39
He we hired him, he's going to start the Academy July 7th. 00:15:42
He passed all our background. 00:15:46
Passed our test and I promise I didn't tell him to get his haircut like that. He did it on his own. 00:15:48
Umm, but he's married to Stephanie, they have 4 kids and he lives here in Watkinsville on Boulder Crest Circle. 00:15:55
He worked with Clark County Corrections for a little over three years, so he does have some public safety experience and. 00:16:02
We're proud to have them and get them an Academy July 7th that is now 808 hours, so we won't get them back until. 00:16:10
November 21st. 00:16:16
And then we'll put them in FTO probably for about another three months. 00:16:18
So he'll have a lot of training before he actually goes out and writes his first ticket or first traffic stop and we'll have them 00:16:22
well prepared by then, so. 00:16:26
And we're glad to have you there. Anything you'd like to? 00:16:30
To say, are you good? I'm good, OK. 00:16:32
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. We're glad to have him. 00:16:36
And his birthday is tomorrow, so happy birthday. 00:16:41
That's a good birthday present, right? Start a new career in law enforcement. 00:16:46
Yes, we were definitely glad to have them. 00:16:49
So flock cameras. 00:16:53
I think we have that nailed down. We are putting them on Simonton Dr. East End westbound. 00:16:57
For different reasons, because it's the busiest, because it's also going to give us a little added security for the park over 00:17:02
there and. 00:17:05
That is a hot spot in town and I think that we will utilized over there. 00:17:09
Chief, just because it may be good for a refresher for them and anybody in the audience or watching from home. 00:17:13
Explain what flock is and how that works and network. 00:17:19
Flock cameras are basically tag readers. They don't issue any kind of citations, they don't look in your cars, they don't do 00:17:22
anything but read tags. 00:17:26
And obviously the back of the description of a car. So if we're looking for A tag or a vehicle, then. 00:17:30
You can do a database search and you can actually link up with other agencies. So if we're looking for a card and we think they're 00:17:36
in Gwinnett County, then they could help us, or vice versa. 00:17:41
I myself have had the experience of. 00:17:46
At Jefferson of solving 2 murders because of plot cameras. 00:17:48
They're very well designed and that's, that's all they do is read your tag. They don't disperse the information anywhere. It stays 00:17:51
with us. 00:17:55
It's locked down. 00:17:59
And and. 00:18:01
You know, I think it's a very innovative tool to use. It's a, it's a force multiplier. If you've got instead of having somebody 00:18:02
out there looking for a car, we can just do a search. Hey. 00:18:07
We're looking for a red pickup truck with tag number dotted out. Or even if we just had part of the tag and it's going to show 00:18:12
you. 00:18:15
Whatever passed through that camera system. 00:18:18
So it's a, it's a great device, great device to use. 00:18:20
These are the little black cameras you see on the poles up and down the roads in every town you go to now. 00:18:24
For those that aren't familiar with the flock, they are everywhere so. 00:18:30
Yeah, they are everywhere. 00:18:35
And and and the great tool there some subdivisions, even the HOA spy. 00:18:37
Just for their subdivision, people that may come in and do internal autos or breaking houses. It's just for security purposes. 00:18:42
It's not for law enforcement purposes. 00:18:46
They don't have any right to be able to run their tag or. 00:18:49
Look up anybody's name or anything like that so. 00:18:53
Very good tool. 00:18:57
We're going to ask to get approval on surplus in a 2017. 00:19:02
High mileage vehicle to replace that of course the. 00:19:08
Miss Sharon managers Dickerson will get with y'all on that. 00:19:12
I just made a note to remind myself. 00:19:15
And then community events. We had had the pleasure of going down to the walk in cemetery and helping the Reverend. 00:19:18
John. 00:19:24
Andrew. 00:19:26
Daughters of American Revolution, that's a tongue twister, but put some put some flags out for memorial. That was pretty fun And 00:19:27
then. 00:19:31
My first ESP summer camp. 00:19:35
A lot of cars, a lot of traffic. We've had a few issues. The very first day, a chicken truck turned over on 441 and the buses with 00:19:39
the kids were on the other side. 00:19:45
So the parents were here waiting and they were blocking. 00:19:50
Out there on Spearmintal. So we had to be creative and we opened them up down there in Harris Poles and we made it work but. 00:19:54
So they are definitely fitting as many kids as they can into the camp. I think they're up to 140. 00:20:01
Each day. So that's at least 140 cars lined up somewhere. 00:20:07
So. 00:20:12
A lot actually. That's like good music down in the morning that was it wakes you up, it gets you going right so. 00:20:15
It's good times. And just what? 00:20:20
It it gets you excited, right? So. 00:20:22
Connect and create still going good. I've made several calls. 00:20:25
We did have one, I didn't write it on here. 00:20:29
Officer said he did get a refusal. 00:20:32
Nobody. A person didn't want to cooperate. This was a resident of the luxury inn. He refused to to give any information so. 00:20:35
That's the first one I've heard of, but other than that, everybody's been happy and. 00:20:43
Getting good comments and results and. 00:20:47
If they asked to have the chief called and I call him and talk to him and. 00:20:50
Ask them how we can improve or what, if anything, we need to do differently. 00:20:55
We had. 00:21:00
Seven arrest. 00:21:01
Our numbers total calls 320. 00:21:07
Security Checks 11:45 We had 22 reports, 73 citations and then 88 warning citations I. 00:21:10
So still you know, a little over the 50% mark, that's great. I think you know if you stay 5050 we're I'm pretty happy with that. 00:21:18
9 accidents and seven total arrests and 0 use of force. That's that's always good. 0 pursuits. 00:21:26
Attorney has been going back and forth on the policy on that so. 00:21:34
Our numbers, you know, again, I wanted to show you guys kind of monthly stats so you can see if they're consistent, if they're 00:21:38
increasing, decreasing or whatever and. 00:21:42
We're staying pretty well in line, but the rest 7 domestic to. 00:21:46
So several suspicious calls. 00:21:51
Still a lot of alarms and. 00:21:54
Fire and Medical. 00:21:56
A good number of those 34. 00:21:57
Nothing. 00:22:00
Just greatly increasing or decreasing. So we're staying pretty steady and. 00:22:03
That is with actually two officers short. 00:22:07
I'm proud of the. 00:22:11
The staff, the team, they're doing great. I. 00:22:12
Putting in a lot of hard work. 00:22:15
And we've done the charts already. Any questions? 00:22:20
I do. You mentioned the lecturing in Do you know what they were filming? 00:22:23
There the last couple weeks, I don't know. All I know is they were going to have some. 00:22:27
Blanks being shot off out there. That was one of the. 00:22:32
The issues of. 00:22:35
Officer Chris did go by there. 00:22:38
I know there was a guy dressed like a pirate. 00:22:42
But I found out that that was his normal attire. But I was told because I thought he was one of the actors. Got there by there 00:22:44
too. 00:22:48
And I'm like, that's got to be one of the actors, you know? And they said no, no, no. That's how he dresses every day. So I'll 00:22:52
just. 00:22:55
Pretty funny, but. 00:22:58
I don't know. I know that they did have a large crew inside one of the rooms and we're moving stuff around. 00:23:00
And then they were running behind because they were. 00:23:07
The the blank shooting earlier in a day and the guy that filled out the event, I don't remember his name, called me like at 7:30 00:23:10
or 8:00. 00:23:15
And said that we're getting ready to shoot the blanks. And I said OK, I'll call dispatch and the officers and let them know. But. 00:23:20
I I don't know anything about the movie. 00:23:26
Yeah. 00:23:29
Except the pirate, right? 00:23:30
All right. Thank you. 00:23:36
Thank you. 00:23:38
Regarding the proposed 2025 property tax mileage rate. 00:23:47
So the manager, Dickerson, if you'll give us an overview, please. 00:23:52
So this is just the property tax piece. We'll talk about it again when we talk about budget. Right now we are estimating that the 00:23:58
2025, this is based on the calendar year. 00:24:03
Property tax digest will be a little bit less than 275,000,000. That's an increase of just a little less than 13% or $30 million. 00:24:07
18 million of that reflects the increase in new development or improvements. 00:24:17
And then we are recommending staying at the at the existing mileage rate of 2.756. 00:24:21
Which is a little bit higher, slightly higher than if we took the rollback. 00:24:27
There is so there is no mileage rate increase, but because. 00:24:32
That same mill will create. 00:24:36
More money. That's why we're having all three, all three hearings. We had two last month and the last one is tonight. 00:24:38
Under the scenario, basically a home that's with a fair market value of 300,000 would would remain at $325. 00:24:45
$0.21 and a non homestead property or commercial property. 00:24:52
Would remain at $551.20, one that's valued at 500,000. 00:24:56
Property taxes are based on what the value is on January 1. 00:25:02
Of the year, we do not receive that. 00:25:06
Property taxes till the end of the year. 00:25:08
And so we'll we'll go about six months into the fiscal year before we start seeing property taxes coming in. 00:25:11
Do you want to point out it's always good to look at the value of our property taxes? 00:25:17
The fiscal year 26 cost for weekly garbage and leaf and limb services is costing the city $27.00 a month. That does include a new 00:25:21
A roll cart that's going to be coming out this next week. The mayor, Mayor pretend we'll talk about it at the end of the meeting. 00:25:28
That equates to about $324 a year. 00:25:35
And you'll see that, you know, a resident in a $300,000 house is paying $325 in city taxes. Now granted, this is just city taxes. 00:25:38
I can't do anything about your county or school taxes. But. 00:25:43
City taxes. So you're you're basically covering that, but you're getting so many more services from the city than just garbage and 00:25:48
leaf and limb. 00:25:51
And then I'll. 00:25:56
We did in the newspaper, I believe it was. It's been, I think. 00:25:57
Tomorrow to be our 4th week of having. 00:26:01
An ad in there about the about the. 00:26:03
Sales tax and the. 00:26:07
Digest, but you'll see here the. 00:26:09
We won't have the entire. 00:26:12
Of eight or ten years, it's up there, but we'll have the last five years showing how the digest has grown. 00:26:15
And again, we're looking to keep it at keep the mileage rate at 2.756. 00:26:22
Mills, which will generate, as I said, a little bit more than $84,000 more than last year if we keep it at the same mileage rate. 00:26:26
And then I've got a chart, and this is all online, but I've got a chart just showing that if the proposed mileage rate, there'd be 00:26:36
no increase if you took the rollback, which is .122. 00:26:40
Mills then there would be a different of. 00:26:44
Rebate if you will, or reduction in someone's city taxes. 00:26:48
In a homestead valued at 300,000, you'd see about $14.00. In a commercial property valued at half a million, you'd see about a 00:26:52
$24.00 decrease. 00:26:56
And of course, we're recommending that you keep it at 2.756. 00:27:01
Thank you. 00:27:07
So now it's time I'm going to officially open the public hearing if anybody would like to speak. 00:27:08
On the property tax mileage rate, now is your time to do so. 00:27:14
Julie, did we get any? 00:27:19
Comments. No ma'am. 00:27:21
OK. 00:27:22
I don't see anyone rushing to the podium, so I am now going to close the public hearing. 00:27:25
OK. 00:27:32
Now, uh. 00:27:33
I would like the manager to provide an overview of the recommended FY20 6 budget please. 00:27:36
OK. 00:27:42
So we have a number of budget goals. I won't go through all of these, but obviously our first and most important is making sure 00:27:44
the essential services, public safety and public health are covered. 00:27:48
We also. 00:27:53
Continue to look at maintenance of our infrastructure, our pedestrian sidewalks, our roads, investing in downtown and tourism, and 00:27:54
obviously continuing to work to be more efficient in our operations and how we run the city. 00:28:01
So those are our, but our basic goals that we build the budget around. 00:28:08
So this is very tiny, I apologize for that. But the we are presenting A balanced budget. The total budget is actually 3.366. 00:28:13
Million, there is the general fund, we have two. 00:28:22
Budget we have. 00:28:27
Funds, one is the general fund and one is the capital fund. So the budget, the general fund is what we're going to mainly talk 00:28:29
about today. I'll talk a little bit about the capital fund, but together they. 00:28:34
Bring us to a total of 3.366 million in requests, so I'll walk through that. 00:28:39
On the executive summary on revenues. 00:28:45
Again. 00:28:48
Talking just about the general fund and not the capital, 3.35 roughly million, that's an increase of 1.6% higher than last year's. 00:28:49
Approved an amended budget. 00:28:58
The top three revenue streams that are projected FY20 6, our local option, sales tax, property tax and franchise fees. And I'll 00:29:02
walk through those briefly. 00:29:06
Local option sales tax. We received 7.77% of all county wide sales tax revenues. 00:29:11
We have seen an average of nine point. 00:29:18
To 5% over the past five years and we saw a six, a little bit more than 6% increase in FY24. 00:29:20
And so we are estimating a 5% growth. 00:29:27
And we think that's probably that's pretty conservative, we think based on how things are growing. 00:29:30
And and so we'll, we're anticipating a collection of a little bit more than $1,000,000 in sales tax. 00:29:35
We just talked about property tax. So if you're good with that, I'll Pat, I'll jump through that one, do that one again. 00:29:43
On franchise fees being the third, the third highest revenue stream for us, we're projecting a little bit more than 330,000. 00:29:49
So we get franchise fees from Gas Electric? 00:29:57
Communications. Internet. 00:30:01
Providers that use our right away, they have to pay a certain franchise fees, those are set by law. So electric companies pay 4%. 00:30:02
Telecommunication companies pay 3% and natural gas pay 3%. 00:30:10
And of course, everybody knows their power bills and their commit on their telephone bills and all our Internet bills, all that's 00:30:14
continuing to go up. So we get a percentage that so ours goes up so. 00:30:19
On the expense side? 00:30:24
Reminder again, we're balanced, so 3.35 roughly in general fund operating expenses. We currently employ 21 full-time employees. We 00:30:26
are short right now a couple, but we're trying to fill those positions. 00:30:33
We also, so we provide a number of municipal services. I won't go through all of them, but basically building permits. 00:30:40
Downtown development, legal, Municipal Court operations, parks and green space plans review police. 00:30:47
Engineering services and public works. 00:30:54
We have 21 employees, but we do a lot of contract and we'll talk a little bit about how that breaks down. 00:30:56
Two of our contractors are sitting in the room. We have our city attorney Joe Reitman and Mark Campbell with. 00:31:01
Our Who's our city engineer? 00:31:06
And we rely very heavily on them and their team to keep the city's costs down. We don't have to employ 6 or 7 engineers or several 00:31:08
attorneys. We're able to use them and they they bring that depth. 00:31:13
To the table. A very efficient way to run a small government. 00:31:19
On the expenditure side, we have the two highest expenses, our police services at a little bit less than 850,000 and our garbage 00:31:23
and leaf and limb. 00:31:26
We actually in the FY20 6 budget are seeing a decrease and. 00:31:31
Over what we asked for last year, some of that is because we've made some changes. 00:31:36
Chief Arwood and I spoke about with oversight from the mayor, about reducing his staff and making some additional changes to that. 00:31:41
Structure, we do anticipate, even though we do see our population increasing, we do anticipate being able to sustain that for at 00:31:50
least two years and you know. 00:31:54
We estimate that. I can't promise that, but we think we'll be OK for a couple years, so we'll see how things. 00:31:58
Go as we grow. 00:32:04
On the garbage leaf and limb. 00:32:05
It does include an increase in the cost of service from $23 a unit a month to 27. We have roughly 14116 customers currently. We do 00:32:07
project additional customers because the Trove subdivision will be built out. Some of the work on Wire Park, the single family 00:32:13
homes, those will be built out. 00:32:19
Over the next year, and so that will. 00:32:25
That will increase our customer base, which will increase our cost overtime. 00:32:28
And we did budget. 00:32:32
For some of those in that 1416 number. 00:32:33
But we are. 00:32:37
One of the things that we are doing is improving the service, trying to provide some consistency and and beautifying the city by 00:32:39
having standardized roll carts. It also makes it easier for the collectors. 00:32:44
It makes it a little bit easier not to allow people to have 5 or 6. 00:32:49
Cans of garbage out at the street Which? 00:32:52
You know, everybody gets a 96 gallon. That's what we pay for. You have weekly pickup. Some communities don't even have weekly 00:32:55
pickup. They have every other week. 00:32:58
But the leaf and limb is also provided with this service and so. 00:33:02
You get a weekly leaf and limb and a weekly garbage so. 00:33:07
We think it's going to be really great. The road carts will be rolling out and the mayor Pro Tem will talk about that. But later 00:33:10
this week there should there will be a letter going out to every resident, every customer we have, letting them know about these 00:33:15
Rd. carts, what to expect, how to use them, etc. 00:33:19
We've had quite a few people call about. 00:33:24
The size, some older. 00:33:27
Individuals who are concerned about the size may be difficult to get it down. They're very easy to use, probably easier than what 00:33:30
the residents are currently using to get them done. But we're going to all start with 96 and we'll see how it goes and if we need 00:33:34
to make some adjustments, we'll make those with our. 00:33:38
With our contractor. 00:33:42
So I think it's always important to sort of look at. 00:33:45
How we spend our money in categories. 00:33:48
So right now we have the largest expenses personnel by far. 00:33:51
A little bit more than 1.6 million. 00:33:57
But when you add in contract labor, it takes up, it makes it even larger, right? So again, we contract with. 00:33:59
Our engineer, our attorney, our judges. 00:34:05
The company that does our plans and building inspections and permitting and of course garbage. So when you add that all up, it 00:34:08
makes up almost 70% of what we do is people related, right, service related. 00:34:14
A couple things to point out it, although our net budget increases just a little bit more than $52,000. 00:34:22
We did have some increases and so. 00:34:29
Every year we build our budget from zero, so we base it on the council's strategic initiatives and what they want to see done over 00:34:31
the next year and then of course the things that we have to maintain for state, you know, for law. 00:34:37
Purposes of law and public safety. 00:34:43
But so some of these things are going to be high, but we've offset them by making other cuts elsewhere. 00:34:46
So we are recommending this year a $2500 flat cost of living increase for all of our employees. And what that does is it helps 00:34:51
those on the lower end get a bigger lift than those of us on the higher end. 00:34:56
In range it goes from a 2.2% increase to a 6.7. 00:35:03
So at the high end of 2.2% increase in pay to a 6.7 on the on the lower end of the pay scale. 00:35:08
Oconee County did has done this for last two years. I actually didn't check. I was going to to see if they're going to do it again 00:35:16
this year, but it was. 00:35:19
Well received and we thought that would be a good way to handle it this year. 00:35:22
We are going to be participating in Georgia Municipal Employee Benefit System. It is a defined retirement. 00:35:27
Benefit program. 00:35:32
We've got some cost numbers back in. We're going to, it's going to be it probably towards the end of the year before we actually. 00:35:34
Engaged completely and it does require an ordinance that will have to come before Council. So I'm thinking probably in October 00:35:40
time frame will you will see that but we will be able to do that with the money that you guys have budgeted. 00:35:46
For us. 00:35:52
Medical, dental, vision, we unfortunately changes out just a little bit after the fiscal year begins. So it doesn't line up with 00:35:55
our fiscal year. So in I believe October 1. 00:36:00
We have renewal and so we have to always estimate. I have no clue what it's going to come into. You guys may recall last year we. 00:36:04
Had a huge increase. 00:36:11
This year we've been told to plan on about 15% in medical, hopefully won't come in that high and we've got some I know. 00:36:12
Clerk Klein went to a conference recently. 00:36:20
We may be able to find some additional vendors that may be able to assist us this year. We're going to pursue that up until it 00:36:23
comes before you, most likely come before you in September. 00:36:28
On the legal and professional side. 00:36:34
We continue to have issues and and struggles with having to respond to open records requests. 00:36:36
A number of which have come from one individual. 00:36:43
And it costs us a lot of money, all those, because of the litigious nature of them, we have to send them before the attorney to 00:36:46
review. 00:36:49
And then we have to go through the effort of estimating what it actually costs to provide those. 00:36:53
To the individual. So we do anticipate legal expenses. 00:36:58
Set aside of about 15,000 in fiscal year 26 to handle. 00:37:02
Handle those. 00:37:06
We also saw roughly an increase of about 15,000 on our maintenance with mainly because of Thomas Farm. We took on 100 acres. 00:37:08
That's a lot of property. 00:37:12
We had to. We do contract with someone to Bush hog. Although we have the ability to do it, it would take a lot of time. It's just 00:37:17
cheaper for us to use somebody else to do that. 00:37:21
We are. We're going to talk a little bit tonight. The mayor Pro Tem will share a little bit about some of the improvements that 00:37:25
are happening at Thomas Farm that are causing these increases, such as new bathrooms. 00:37:30
Internet service, that kind of stuff. 00:37:35
Street lighting as the Somton Bridge Rd. project. 00:37:37
Comes online, you will see. 00:37:41
St. lamps, I believe they're. 00:37:43
18 feet tall. They're taller than the ones downtown, just slightly taller. But there will be 18 of those lining Simonton Bridge, 00:37:45
so there'll be a nice Parkway feel when you come in. 00:37:49
But it costs money to run those. The grant and the and the loan is are paying for the actual St. lamps, but then we have to pay to 00:37:54
light them so. 00:37:58
So we we know there's going to be an increase. 00:38:03
Cost for that? 00:38:05
And then on the library, everyone may recall we have a library service agreement. The library is located at Wire Park in a 00:38:07
building the city now owns, as was donated by Duke Gibbs Wire Park. 00:38:12
And we agreed to set aside. 00:38:17
The 1st $30,000. 00:38:21
Taxes from those properties. So every year I go through a very detailed process of identifying what their taxes are for all those 00:38:23
property. 00:38:26
Properties that are in that development and the 1st 30,000 goes to the library and then 10% above that goes into additional 00:38:30
operating expenses and then 5% above that what the remaining balance goes into capital. 00:38:36
I think capital is like $100 this year. But anyway, we'll keep track of that and then at some point when the library may need, 00:38:43
say, some new capital item, they would come back before council and request that money be spent for that. 00:38:49
Purpose We also share maintenance expenses with Oconee County. 00:38:55
And we pay for the insurance for that building. 00:38:59
So both those things went up a little bit, not, not a huge amount on those. 00:39:02
And then on the tourism side, we are have already started planning. Our downtown development director is our contact person for 00:39:07
the America 250 celebration. Next year, America will turn 250 years old. 00:39:12
July 4th happens to be on a Saturday and we are planning a huge celebration tentatively planned for Thomas Farm Preserve, but 00:39:18
there will be a lot of activities throughout the city and throughout the county the month prior. 00:39:24
Prior to in June. 00:39:30
Those are coming together. We'll share more as we have more information to share about them. 00:39:32
And then finally property and liability. 00:39:36
Insurance workers comp Obviously everybody in this room has insurance. Everybody's insurance continues to go up because the cost 00:39:38
of fixing things goes up. 00:39:42
So we've seen a little bit of an increase, thankfully not as high as I was projecting, so just a little bit more than 5%. 00:39:46
On that insurance. 00:39:51
On the capital side, we do capitalize anything that has a value of at least $5000 we put into our capital improvement program. You 00:39:54
guys have seen it. It is in the in the packet. There's a very detailed spreadsheet. We keep try to keep track of all those, those 00:40:00
items from vehicles to buildings to even the playground. 00:40:05
And that's a tool for us to sort of keep track of so we don't all of a sudden realize we've got to replace the roof and we weren't 00:40:13
thinking about it or we have to replace a vehicle and we weren't thinking about. So we keep track of that and anticipate those 00:40:17
costs. 00:40:21
In in the fiscal year, so. 00:40:27
This year we are actually looking to replace the 2017 Ford Interceptor, which is on the consent agenda tonight for you all. 00:40:29
Going ahead and getting on. So because we don't have a July meeting, want to make sure we had plenty of time to get that out. 00:40:36
Out and and advertised and then replacing a 52 inch mower for public works. We are going to request keeping that other mower since 00:40:41
we now have Thomas Farm just continuing to use it until we can't use it anymore. It's still in decent shape but. 00:40:48
It's got a lot of hours on it, so the old one has a lot of hours on it. 00:40:55
It's important to point out that in the past, councils approved appropriation out of sloth for these those are things that were 00:41:01
set up and appropriated prior to. 00:41:04
These decisions and as a result instead of needing $67,500, our net to the net cost to the general fund capital counts only going 00:41:08
to be 17 five. So that's good news that keeps our capital account roughly around $130,000. 00:41:15
And we watch every year the mayor and I look at it. 00:41:22
And my finance director, Lee Black, we keep an eye on it so that. 00:41:25
We make sure we have enough in it. We don't drain it down anyone given year. If we know the next year we're going to have $50,000, 00:41:28
we may look at trying to add some money, some to the expenses in the budget to help offset that cost to keep the capital budget 00:41:33
healthy. 00:41:38
And healthy for us is probably about 140 hundred 50,000 so. 00:41:42
For it, because we don't have a lot this happened to replaced every year we try to you know if we have a vehicle that may need to 00:41:46
be replaced, but we have three of them we go. 00:41:49
We don't need all three of them. We try to, just like anybody would do at their home, they go, you know what? We can bleed this 00:41:53
one out a little bit longer. Let's move this one forward. Let's move that one out. 00:41:57
Just to draw it to adjust to keep things manageable. 00:42:01
So that is the budget. 00:42:05
All right. Thank you so much for that very helpful summary. 00:42:07
So now I am going to open up the public hearing. So if you have any comments on. 00:42:11
And the proposed budget. Now is your time to come to the podium and speak. 00:42:17
All right. 00:42:24
I did not receive anything OK. 00:42:26
So I am now going to close the public hearing. 00:42:29
We have no appearances, we have no old business. 00:42:33
So now we're moving on to new business. 00:42:37
So this is. 00:42:41
Looking at approving the three-year contract award for banking services. So Manager Dickerson, if you will give us your report 00:42:43
please. Absolutely. Thank you. 00:42:48
So we are requesting approving the three-year contract for banking services to Oconee State Bank per their banking services 00:42:53
proposal and asking that all relevant contractual documents be signed. 00:42:58
By the mayor and city clerk. 00:43:03
The little history on this in August of 2020. 00:43:05
We awarded a three-year contract for banking services with two year to one year extensions. We did extend in 23 and in 24. 00:43:09
I want to state what I didn't put on here was prior to that we did not have a contract. A lot of governments do have contracts. 00:43:17
That provides a little bit more security, a little bit more structure. 00:43:21
With collateralization and with deposits and just payroll and everything. And so we, we did that in 2020. We've had a really good 00:43:26
run with them. We did release an RFP that was advertised on April 3rd and April 10th. 00:43:32
In the enterprise and then we also sent documents directly to some of the banks that were in the area that we knew either had. 00:43:39
Proposed the first time, or we knew we're close and might be interested. That was American pride. 00:43:48
Bank of Ozarks Bank, South of County State Bank and Synovus. 00:43:53
At 10:00 on May 9th, we received 3 proposals from the proposals were from American Pride, Oconee State Bank and Synovus Bank. 00:43:58
The selection committee received those on May 10th. 00:44:06
That the selection committee is made-up of myself and my finance director. 00:44:09
We evaluated those, we discussed the proposals and then we brought in. 00:44:14
Consultant. 00:44:18
Free. Actually, John Culpepper, who used to be the finance director for Athens Clark County for 31 years. Personal friend and 00:44:20
somebody who just has such a vast array of information and knowledge on these things. 00:44:26
He teaches public finance with at the University of Georgia. 00:44:32
And, umm. 00:44:36
Anyways, was a great resource for that. We used him in the initial back in 2020. He and. 00:44:38
Wes, I can't think of West over at Oconee, can't think of his last name, but he was the finance director. 00:44:43
With Oconee County and he participated the first time around. 00:44:49
Some facts and issues. So, you know, banking is a little bit different for cities. We do have to ensure that taxpayer dollars are 00:44:53
are protected. 00:44:57
Strict guidelines, including collateralization of our public sector deposits. 00:45:01
And so banks have to be knowledgeable about that. 00:45:06
We had some objectives, some key objectives for requesting for our proposals were obtaining economic efficiency in our banking 00:45:10
services, maximizing our earning earnings. 00:45:14
Maximizing technology and continuing to further our financial system. 00:45:19
And I'm not going to read all these, but these are all the banking service. 00:45:25
Submittal requirements that they had to provide information on. Lots of different things that most of us in our household finances 00:45:29
don't have to worry about but we do with. 00:45:34
With either if you have a business or if you're running government operations. 00:45:39
So do you want to point out that although we're requesting a three-year contract, we do have a termination without cause clause 00:45:44
in? 00:45:48
The contract which we had the first time around and everything seemed fine with that, but we do have a way out if we need to. 00:45:51
We are recommending and I'll talk about the reasons why, but we are going to recommend as I said, three-year contract be awarded 00:45:58
to Oconee State Bank. 00:46:02
So the proposal was provided in the packet, so you can go online and look at that. 00:46:07
We have worked with Oak County State Bank for more than 40 years. We. 00:46:12
Prior to our contract agreement with them, we actually had agreement, we did have banking with other including Synovus and. 00:46:16
So there was a bank on Mitchell Bridge. I can't think of the name of the bank. There's a bank out there that when I started we 00:46:23
had, I think we had three or four different banks we were working with and we consolidate data down to one. It was crazy to have 00:46:28
money all over the place and we tried to focus on just one bank and the and those services. 00:46:33
So for the last five years, we've been under contract with Oconee State Bank. They've helped us with the collateralization that's 00:46:38
required. 00:46:41
And it's helped a lot to have one focused. 00:46:45
One group that's helping us handle payments and payroll and deposits. 00:46:49
And we've been very fortunate that learned a lot, implemented our new banking procedures along with our new financial. 00:46:53
Management's that our financial. 00:47:00
Services. 00:47:02
Software that we just implemented this past year. 00:47:04
Their financial team is always is obviously right down the road has always been accessible. 00:47:07
Day or night to work with us. 00:47:12
Through lunch hours and through all sorts of crazy things that we have going on. 00:47:14
They were responsive fully to our banking services needs. 00:47:18
They did provide a guaranteed floor interest rate on our money market and on our checking out our operating accounts. 00:47:21
And then back in 2020, they provided some remote deposit technology, some. 00:47:29
Just keep us from having to get in the car and drive up deposits. 00:47:34
Up to the bank. 00:47:38
So we have done that and we've gotten really good at using those and the auditors love it because everything stays very organized 00:47:39
and on time. 00:47:43
As I said, they're right up the street and they obviously come with a. 00:47:48
Great references the County Board of Commissioners, the school district and the City of Bogart's. 00:47:52
So again we are recommending to award a three-year contract with two one year renewals as we had in the past. 00:47:58
To Oconee State Bank and asking that the. 00:48:03
Mayor and city clerk be allowed to sign all those contractual documents. 00:48:06
OK. 00:48:12
Thank you so much. 00:48:13
Council, do we have any discussion on this motion? 00:48:16
I'll make a motion to approve the three-year contract with the county State Bank. 00:48:22
I will second that motion. 00:48:29
All right, I have a vote. 00:48:31
All in favor. 00:48:34
Aye, all right. Unanimous 40. 00:48:36
Excellent. 00:48:40
All right now we are looking at the resolution and adoption of the 2025 property tax mileage rate. 00:48:43
We have already gotten the very thorough report on that. 00:48:50
And so now, Council, any further discussion or Are you ready to make a motion? 00:48:54
Make a motion to approve the 2025 property tax mileage rate. 00:49:02
Presented. 00:49:07
I will second. 00:49:10
All right, all in favor. 00:49:11
40 again excellent. 00:49:14
Moving on to the resolution and adoption of fiscal year 2026 budget which runs from July 1st, 2025 through June 30th of 2026. 00:49:17
Thank you again, Mayor Dickinson, for your report and Council. Any further discussion or Are you ready to make a motion? 00:49:29
Make a motion to approve the fiscal year 2026. 00:49:36
Operating budget. 00:49:41
In general, Fund Capital. 00:49:42
And I will second, OK, excellent. We got a pattern going here. 00:49:45
Can I have a vote please? All in favor, aye, once again, 40. 00:49:50
OK, so now. 00:49:57
We are moving on to the consent agenda. 00:50:00
And do you do we? 00:50:04
We just. 00:50:06
Please make motions OK. 00:50:07
Umm, so. 00:50:10
Council. 00:50:11
Arrow, we're going to break things up a little bit. 00:50:13
More discussion. Are we ready for a motion? I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda as. 00:50:15
State OK. 00:50:23
Excellent. Do I have a second? 00:50:24
Thank you, Chuck and. 00:50:28
All in favor, aye? 00:50:31
40 All right, we're on a roll here. 00:50:33
OK, we are now to public comments. 00:50:38
Comments shall be only directly related to agenda items. Speak from the podium. 00:50:41
4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate, argument, personal attacks or irrelevant discussions please. 00:50:47
Address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to Council. Council cannot speak to potential 00:50:53
litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. 00:50:58
All right, so. 00:51:04
And if anybody like to come and speak to anything. 00:51:06
It could only be about agenda items. Yeah, I don't. I don't know why it said that. I read what was in front of me, but no, come 00:51:10
on. This is this is the time for the public to speak. 00:51:14
My name is Kathleen Mcquiston, I live at 13 S Barnett Shoals Rd. and I think. 00:51:23
What I'm about to speak to has I'm kind of late to the party. 00:51:29
But my husband and I and a couple of other local residents were walking down the new paved Mulberry St. 00:51:34
And we realized that along Jimmy Christophers. 00:51:42
Property line. There are a lot of trees marked to be taken down for the sidewalk. 00:51:46
We were horrified. 00:51:51
These are old trees, old oak trees. They shade the street. 00:51:54
And there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why the sidewalk can't be on either the other side of the road. 00:51:59
I know this means you'd probably have to close cross the road twice, but I think what's really going to happen since there's no 00:52:08
parking lot down there even though it looks like there's two parking spaces? 00:52:14
Is that most people are going to walk down the road. 00:52:20
And there's only one house down there. Isn't there some way that we could mark off? 00:52:23
What's already paved as a pedestrian way? Leave the trees. 00:52:29
And only allow access for the one house that's down there. 00:52:34
It seems a lot more logical than spending a lot of money to take the trees down putting the sidewalk when most people are going to 00:52:38
walk down the street anyways. 00:52:43
So that's, I know that it would require a change order, but I think under the circumstances that would make the most sense. Thank 00:52:49
you. 00:52:53
Thank you, Kathleen. 00:52:59
Anybody else have anything they would like to speak to you? It didn't have to be on the agenda tonight, but it does need to 00:53:01
pertain to the city. 00:53:04
All right. Anything sent in Julie? OK, excellent. So I am now closing public comments. 00:53:10
OK. 00:53:19
It is time. 00:53:20
For the mayor's report. 00:53:22
And I am subbing in. 00:53:23
All right, so Flag Day was June 14th. 00:53:25
Friday commemorates the resolution adopted by the Continental Congress on June 14th, 1777 to create the flag of the United States. 00:53:28
On Friday, June 13th, the junior American citizens provided a presentation on Flag Day at the Watkinsville Library. 00:53:38
So I. 00:53:45
All right, so. 00:53:48
You'll see pictures of the Harris Shoals Park Master Plan improvement Phase three, the Geradini Green. 00:53:52
I'm amazed that there have been enough dry days to pave anything I feel. 00:54:07
At least everything being planted is does not need to be water. That is the the positive of the insane amount of rain we've 00:54:13
gotten. But it's looking really great. And that's even just with dirt before the grass goes in. So I'm really excited to see. 00:54:20
What this is like as we continue to improve, not only add to our park system, but improve the parks that we already have. 00:54:26
So it looks great. 00:54:35
Also at Thomas Farm Preserve, we are continuing to make improvements. 00:54:36
There's now a bench at the waterfall and if you all have not taken the trail down to the waterfall yet, especially as things heat 00:54:42
up, that is my favorite walk. 00:54:46
Because so much of it is shaded and it is absolutely stunningly beautiful. Now you can sit and enjoy the waterfall for a while 00:54:51
from a bench. 00:54:54
We have are in the process of adding additional bathrooms. 00:54:59
Do we have an ETA and completion for that? Is that coming up? 00:55:04
Before July 4th. OK. Before just. So that's soon, actually. Wow. 00:55:08
And and then also we have a doc that is going to. 00:55:13
Becoming in July and. 00:55:19
The dock itself is actually being. 00:55:22
Donated by. 00:55:26
I am I sorry, with initials I'm always paranoid I'm going to get them wrong. I am I. 00:55:28
Umm, which is a great gift to the city. 00:55:33
And so that will be just a great place is obviously a rendering, but more places to fish, to enjoy the water. Umm, So what a great 00:55:36
addition to Thomas Farm. 00:55:41
And then also, as Kathleen mentioned a little bit about Phase 2. 00:55:48
But the pedestrian connectivity is continuing. 00:55:53
Umm, to connect Thomas Farm Preserve and actually the houses and the city limits of Watkinsville a little bit. 00:55:58
Beyond that, down to rocket field. 00:56:05
So paving continues. 00:56:08
And. 00:56:11
Phase 1 is pretty close to being done. 00:56:12
So very, very exciting. 00:56:16
Also, we have culvert improvements. I know we always do discuss the storm water. 00:56:18
Water is a gift from God and not something the city has complete control over at all. But. 00:56:26
We do have culverts to help with storm water and so we are making improvements wipes. Here's some pictures from White Subdivision. 00:56:32
And then also manager Dickerson noticed. 00:56:41
Just the erosion that was happening on Experiment Station Road, which is a state highway. So it's not something that. 00:56:45
The city is actually responsible for but it. 00:56:51
The erosion was below the pipe, so the pipes were no longer meaning to function so. 00:56:55
They have started the work on it. 00:57:01
But I. 00:57:05
It is not completed yet, but. 00:57:07
I'll just point out, so I noticed it, but you had a couple of council members in here. You mentioned it last month. I think that's 00:57:09
right. 00:57:13
Or Chuck Patterson, So we may thank you overture to them to come out and fix it. 00:57:17
And they, they responded quickly, it just wasn't completed quickly. But we're moving in the right direction. So that's. 00:57:21
Yeah, that's right. That's, that's right. The gas line happened. Lots, lots of excitement. I think first shovel. 00:57:29
Yeah, well. 00:57:35
Call before you dig. OK, so. 00:57:37
As Mayor Manager Dickerson mentioned, we are rolling out the roll carts. Can't help it making that pun. 00:57:41
But they're really very attractive and. 00:57:48
Will be much easier with those large wheels instead of dragging a trash can. It'll be very attractive on our streets to have these 00:57:52
uniform. 00:57:57
Roll carts so. 00:58:03
That will be happening next week. 00:58:05
Umm, so. 00:58:08
Something to look forward to. 00:58:09
Also on June 29th at the Oconee County Courthouse, we are having a ceremony honoring. 00:58:11
The 1905 lynching victims at 2:00 PM. 00:58:21
There this will be a memorial marker dedication ceremony. So umm. 00:58:25
I know that sometimes it isn't pleasant. 00:58:31
To remember things about our past, but if we don't, then. 00:58:35
How can we learn and move on and change so? 00:58:39
Is an important thing. June 29th. 00:58:43
And we have some birthdays. Joe, happy birthday. I think yours was was it last? 00:58:46
Last month, in the last month, just a few weeks, OK, a few weeks ago and then we have. 00:58:55
Another birthday our. 00:59:01
We've got Mark Campbell, look at him on. 00:59:03
Here's John Deere So. 00:59:08
We need, yeah, we need to get one for next year for you to have. That's good. So. 00:59:14
Happiest of birthdays, OK? 00:59:22
So now. 00:59:24
Council reports. 00:59:26
Chuck. 00:59:31
Connie. 00:59:34
All right, Brad, I know you got something to report. Yes, I do. July 4th, exciting time of year, every year. 00:59:35
We're going to. 00:59:42
Have our July 4th. 00:59:44
House decorating competition. Again, I'd like to invite all citizens in Watkinsville. 00:59:45
To decorate your home. 00:59:50
Citizens, residents of Watkinsville. 00:59:53
To decorate your home. Posted on Facebook. Will vote on Facebook. 00:59:56
It will begin this weekend. 01:00:00
And it'll be in the paper, we're going to advertise it, and it'll run all the way through July 4th. 01:00:03
And then we will vote on that in August at our next meeting. 01:00:08
So. 01:00:16
Just a couple little notes. So they need to send their pictures to us. We'll post because we'll put them on our Facebook page. 01:00:17
And they could send it to info@cityofwatkinsville.com. 01:00:24
And then we'll post it and then we'll get the most likes and that's how it'll be voted on whoever gets the most likes by, you 01:00:27
know, by the end of day, July 4th roughly. And we'll present that to you guys in August for them to. 01:00:33
And our enterprise will do an outstanding job of publicizing that for us. 01:00:40
Since she is here with us. 01:00:44
As noted. 01:00:47
But yeah, that's it for me. 01:00:49
OK, umm. 01:00:51
Jeff. 01:00:52
Nothing to report. 01:00:54
All right, excellent. 01:00:55
Well, I this is normally where I make a motion to enter executive session, but. 01:00:58
We need to go to executive session. 01:01:06
For I got to read this. 01:01:08
For yes, those things so. 01:01:11
We need a motion. I make a motion to move into executive session. 01:01:13
I will second all in favor. 01:01:17
All right, OK, So what that means is we have to say goodbye to. 01:01:19
Somehow this? 01:01:24
Hey, OK, we're back live, all right? 01:01:26
So we are out of executive session. Can I hear a motion to adjourn? I make a motion to adjourn. I'll second. 01:01:28
All in favor Aye 4. 01:01:34