No Bookmarks Exist.
Good evening everyone and welcome to the July meeting of the Watkinsville City Council. We are excited to see such a big crowd | 00:00:10 | |
here tonight. This is going to be a special night on a lot of levels for Watkinsville and just really. | 00:00:17 | |
Excited to see some friends, old and new, here with us tonight. | 00:00:24 | |
We have a quorum here tonight. Councilman Thomas is unable to join us tonight, but we do have four or five members here tonight. | 00:00:29 | |
Thank you for all making time to be here on our rescheduled evening. At this point, I'd ask the Brock family to lead us in the | 00:00:33 | |
pledge, please. | 00:00:38 | |
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:46 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:53 | |
Just about a month ago. | 00:01:10 | |
We lost Mayor Dave. | 00:01:13 | |
Dave was never at a loss for words. | 00:01:17 | |
I'm gonna loss for words as I try to describe his impact on this city and on. | 00:01:20 | |
Frankly, myself and on this community. | 00:01:27 | |
I really have struggled with it, Dave. | 00:01:32 | |
Dave is a Goodman who led with his heart. | 00:01:35 | |
He demanded excellence from everyone that he worked. | 00:01:38 | |
He dreamed big. | 00:01:43 | |
And encourage others to do so, and inspired them to deliver. | 00:01:45 | |
He demanded Excell. | 00:01:48 | |
He encouraged, He pushed. He cajoled all those words. He was a man of vision. | 00:01:50 | |
Dave Sheeran was. | 00:01:56 | |
Mana vision and a difference maker in Watkinsville. | 00:01:58 | |
So tonight I thought it was appropriate, if we take some time, to recognize Mayor Dave's contributions. Thank you to all who were | 00:02:02 | |
here. | 00:02:05 | |
Mario Castro, Dave's husband, is here. Mario, we're grateful to you. We know that Dave was not operating alone. A lot of that | 00:02:11 | |
energy, a lot of that vision, a lot of that spark came, came from you and his special relationship with you and in that | 00:02:17 | |
partnership. And that's one of the things that made Dave so amazing. So we are eternally grateful for Dave and we have some things | 00:02:23 | |
that we want to share. | 00:02:30 | |
About Dave, so with that Sharon. | 00:02:37 | |
Yeah, let's do it. | 00:02:40 | |
This video this video is when Dave, Dave and Laura Whitaker. Dave and I went to visit LSI. It's a playground equipment | 00:02:54 | |
manufacturer that later manufactured the equipment out. There it was. | 00:02:59 | |
Freezing, freezing cold day in Minnesota and Dave loved the slide and we went outside on snowy playgrounds all over Minneapolis. | 00:03:05 | |
And no matter how much snow was on the ground, Dave did the slide. So Sharon, I think you have something you want to share about | 00:03:16 | |
Dave and some of the new slides here in Watkinsville. Well, on behalf of the City of Watkinsville's employees, we will be | 00:03:23 | |
donating, we will be donating enough money to dedicate a slide at ESP in honor of Mayor Dave. | 00:03:31 | |
Them. | 00:03:39 | |
And you can see from the imagery up here the, you know, the, the spirit that they brought, the energy he brought. Dave was a | 00:03:44 | |
bridge builder. | 00:03:48 | |
No matter your political belief, she couldn't help but love Dave, and that's always stuck out to me about what he did. We're going | 00:03:53 | |
to have an opportunity to celebrate Dave. | 00:03:58 | |
His in classic Dave style, he did not want a traditional memorial service. Instead, we'll have a celebration of life. | 00:04:05 | |
July 30th, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM at Rocket Field. Family fun day. All kinds of bounce houses, a petting zoo, a dunk. | 00:04:13 | |
Live music, trapeze artists, food trucks. I have a feeling some people who are sitting up here will be involved in that dunk tank | 00:04:20 | |
experience. So, so. | 00:04:24 | |
So, so we are. | 00:04:32 | |
Mario, I'm going to let some other people speak at this point, but just know that you've. | 00:04:34 | |
Been on the hearts and our minds and in our prayers over the past month. Know that your husband and partner made an eternal | 00:04:40 | |
difference to this to the city. | 00:04:43 | |
That, that will. | 00:04:48 | |
You know, it may be forgotten when we're not here, but it will never be lost. | 00:04:51 | |
Because it will stand the test of time, Council members with that, if any of you have any recollections you want to share about | 00:04:55 | |
Mayor Dave, I'd love for you to do so. And then we may have a few. I know we have at least one person from the audience who would | 00:04:59 | |
love to speak as well. | 00:05:03 | |
I do. | 00:05:08 | |
And I wrote it down and I'm probably still going to get emotional, so I apologize. | 00:05:10 | |
It goes without saying that Dave is irreplaceable and his presence will be dearly missed. | 00:05:15 | |
I had encountered his vivacious personality on occasion at events at Ashford Manor and through common friends, but I truly had the | 00:05:21 | |
privilege to get to know him while he served as mayor. | 00:05:26 | |
Dave was a man of integrity who pursued what he felt was right. | 00:05:32 | |
He courageously made important and necessary changes for the city, including major changes to our Police Department and hiring our | 00:05:36 | |
first city manager. | 00:05:40 | |
He was always open to possibilities and wasn't afraid to change the status quo. | 00:05:45 | |
I already miss his wit and his warmth and his wonderful stories. | 00:05:51 | |
Watkinsville. | 00:05:56 | |
Wouldn't be what and where it is today if it weren't for Dave. | 00:05:58 | |
And I also echo everything that Brian was saying about Mario I will never forget. | 00:06:02 | |
I was out of town and my husband was building our guest cottage. | 00:06:08 | |
And he got stuck on the roof. The ladder fell down and it's a steep pitch, big thing and. | 00:06:14 | |
I managed to get a call to Kathleen. | 00:06:21 | |
Kathleen, who called. Dave, who sent. | 00:06:24 | |
Umm to to go rescue my husband who he had never met, had no idea who he was off this steep roof and so. | 00:06:28 | |
That is a tiny, tiny little story of just. | 00:06:40 | |
What both of y'all mean to us? So thank you. | 00:06:44 | |
I failed to prepare anything but. | 00:06:57 | |
Everything. Every time I saw Dave, one thing I take from it as a way to live life is to there's a lot of times we're not happy. | 00:07:01 | |
He was always happy. He might get a set of things, but he would just had he smiled. He went forward and he he loved life. | 00:07:10 | |
And that was something that I always felt when I was around. | 00:07:18 | |
And I mean, there's probably. | 00:07:22 | |
Seven years ago now. It's hard to tell because time flies. But on 4th of July was approaching and David Mario invited us over to | 00:07:26 | |
spend the afternoon swimming in the pool at their house. | 00:07:31 | |
And honestly, at that time we went, I didn't know them real well at this time. | 00:07:38 | |
That's awesome. We get to hang out and get to know those two better. And it wasn't just my wife and I was. Our daughters were | 00:07:44 | |
there too, but they they both invited all of us and we just had a wonderful afternoon swimming in the pool on the 4th of July. | 00:07:51 | |
So I'm gonna love you both and but yeah, Dave, you know, whenever I get down, I can just see a picture of Dave and know how I | 00:08:00 | |
should be thinking about life. | 00:08:05 | |
And I just wanted to say that I was proud that I had the opportunity to meet Dave and Mario when my daughter got married at. | 00:08:19 | |
At their venue and I'm proud that I had the opportunity to work with him on council while he was mayor and I'm proud that I called | 00:08:28 | |
him my friend. | 00:08:33 | |
And he will be missed. | 00:08:39 | |
So I was trying to remember how long when it was when I met Dave, but it's been a long time and I know every time. | 00:08:46 | |
Out just He always made me feel important. He always took time to stop and. | 00:08:56 | |
How's it going? You know, it was just, he's one of those people. As we go through life, you'll meet people that. | 00:09:03 | |
Have an impact on you. You'll never forgive him, and he's one. | 00:09:08 | |
People in my life that I will never forget, the times that we got to talk and the you know, the words of encouragement he gave me | 00:09:12 | |
and. | 00:09:17 | |
Just a true friend is what boils down to just someone. | 00:09:22 | |
You know you just he makes, he just has a huge impact on everybody came in contact with. | 00:09:30 | |
And Representative Marcus Sweetow, I think is here and would also like to share. | 00:09:41 | |
Share. | 00:09:45 | |
Mario, like Chuck, I was trying to remember how long it's been. | 00:09:57 | |
Since I met you all, but it's been a long it's been a long time. | 00:10:02 | |
And. | 00:10:06 | |
I don't know how Brian holds it together. I'm an emotional guy. | 00:10:07 | |
So I will say this. | 00:10:10 | |
In the world we're living in. | 00:10:13 | |
Is what? | 00:10:18 | |
Leader should. | 00:10:20 | |
He was always welcoming. | 00:10:22 | |
To me, you both were. I thoroughly enjoyed some of our debates and conversations. | 00:10:24 | |
Have the utmost respect for both of you. | 00:10:32 | |
I cannot think of Watkinsville image without thinking of the two of you and what you've done for this community. | 00:10:36 | |
And what you have built. | 00:10:43 | |
I literally cannot think. | 00:10:45 | |
Concerts on the lawn to a random afternoon in your backyard having a glass of wine. | 00:10:48 | |
Umm. | 00:10:54 | |
Just what you guys have done. | 00:10:55 | |
And what you guys have meant to this community? | 00:10:57 | |
I've been thinking about you. | 00:11:01 | |
I will not be able to be in the dump take I will be spending some time with my family right before school starts. But I will be | 00:11:03 | |
thinking about you and I love you guys very much. | 00:11:08 | |
At this point I think. | 00:11:24 | |
I think we'll need. We'll move on. | 00:11:27 | |
Unless Sharon, is there anything else that we need to share about Dave? | 00:11:30 | |
Mario, I don't know if you are capable of speaking. Yeah, I think just. | 00:11:34 | |
I'll wrap it up with this, Dave. Dave put so many things in motion for this town. | 00:11:40 | |
And as the agenda came together for. | 00:11:46 | |
And I knew that David passed. | 00:11:49 | |
And I knew that we're going to share plans. | 00:11:51 | |
For a new. | 00:11:54 | |
We're going to share plans. | 00:11:56 | |
Revitalized Rocket Field. | 00:12:01 | |
We're going to swear in a police officer in a in a in a police force that has evolved tremendously due today's leadership. | 00:12:04 | |
I knew that. | 00:12:14 | |
There was something more than random things coming together on this night. It feels like a Mayor Dave kind of night in | 00:12:16 | |
Watkinsville. | 00:12:19 | |
Where big things are happening, he dreamed big. And some of those dreams are coming true. And the first step to that is tonight. | 00:12:24 | |
Mario and everybody who came to support Mario, you're welcome to go after we wrap this part up if you'd like to remain. We will be | 00:12:31 | |
working through those other issues relatively quickly tonight. So would love for you to stay and learn more about what's coming | 00:12:37 | |
down the Pike and we'll be swearing in Officer Anglin as well, which we're excited about. But I totally understand if people have | 00:12:43 | |
prior engagements and and need to go, so we will. | 00:12:49 | |
Take a brief break in case anybody does need to go after this, and then we will jump right into the minutes and the regular course | 00:12:55 | |
of our meeting. But thank you all for coming, Mario. We love you. | 00:12:59 | |
Yeah. | 00:13:05 | |
Call me if you need anything just let me know. | 00:13:19 | |
OK. | 00:13:51 | |
We will move along council. We will move to the approval of the Minutes. I don't know if anyone has any suggestions, edits or | 00:13:53 | |
changes to the Minutes. I did not notice any when I reviewed them. | 00:13:58 | |
If there are none, then I'll accept a motion to approve the Minutes. I make a motion to approve the minutes. | 00:14:05 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:14:13 | |
All in favor, Say aye. | 00:14:15 | |
Motion carries. All right now we are to approval of the agenda. I'd ask that we table item number 8. Do we have a consent agenda | 00:14:19 | |
this month Sharon, nothing on the month. | 00:14:23 | |
So I would ask that we that we approve the agenda, but tabling item number 8 regarding the. | 00:14:28 | |
Sewer on a update. | 00:14:36 | |
I'll entertain a motion to that. I make a motion that we accept the agenda admitting item number 8. All right, so to table item | 00:14:40 | |
number 8 until next month. Do we have a second? | 00:14:44 | |
We have a second from Councilman Campbell. All in favor? Say aye, aye. Motion carries. | 00:14:50 | |
All right, Administration. | 00:14:56 | |
Speak from the podium, address council when you speak, address the merits of the pending matter. Attorney will guide us through | 00:15:32 | |
any of the more formal public speaking parts of the process or if anybody gets out of line, attorney will handle that as well. So | 00:15:38 | |
under administration we kick things off with the financial reports Manager Dickerson, if you could walk us through that. | 00:15:44 | |
Thank you, Mayor. I do not have on the overhead the balance sheet because everybody would have to strain to read it all, but the | 00:15:51 | |
council has has it and it is also available online. | 00:15:56 | |
On splashed one, you may recall Splash One, the only project outstanding on that is the water and sewer that's the sewer Line A | 00:16:28 | |
going through the industrial park. That project is actually funded by Sewer Line One. The remaining funds of 248,000 and some | 00:16:33 | |
change along with. | 00:16:38 | |
$904.00 and some change in Spos 2 there are encumbered about $17,000 that actually the checks have not clear, but that was for the | 00:16:43 | |
workout front city, the City Hall sidewalk out front. The mayor will highlight that in his report later. | 00:16:51 | |
But those are the only two projects outstanding on that. | 00:17:00 | |
On Splice 3, you have encumbered some funds on that. On those items you have some capital monies in public safety that have been | 00:17:03 | |
set aside, also in multi-purpose government facilities. | 00:17:09 | |
But the big projects are we have $100,000 to spend about 10. | 00:17:16 | |
Of it so far on Paris Shoals Park, you just completed some work at Layla Lane. | 00:17:20 | |
Which was part of the element, the local maintenance improvement grant money and then some of the branding initiative that is | 00:17:26 | |
going towards signage. So those are the projects that are currently have been appropriated, funds have been appropriate for those | 00:17:30 | |
projects. | 00:17:34 | |
And you still have quite a bit of programming to do with those funds, but that's sort of where that sits Just as a comparison, you | 00:17:38 | |
have we budget around 60, I think it was 64,000 and we've been getting average of 72,000. | 00:17:46 | |
So we're up 6760 or so thousand over what we projected, which is always good news, right? | 00:17:54 | |
And then? | 00:18:03 | |
American rescue plan. | 00:18:05 | |
This is the money. This is the money from last year July of last year. I did not check the bank account today, but we are | 00:18:07 | |
anticipating the 2nd and final tranche of money to come in, which will be $548,204.50 out of that same amount that you got last | 00:18:14 | |
fiscal year. You you have a balance of 373,000, but I I did mention that you had appropriated money. | 00:18:22 | |
For public safety that you're not, we're not going to need, so we'll reshuffle that money back into the general bucket on the next | 00:18:30 | |
cycle. | 00:18:34 | |
Once we get all the expenses in, we'll cycle. We'll put that back in the non appropriate amount and you'll have that much to spend | 00:18:39 | |
in addition to the money you're getting, you'll be getting sometime this month. So you're roughly going to have about $700,000. | 00:18:44 | |
That has yet to be appropriated. | 00:18:51 | |
Any questions on those reports? | 00:18:54 | |
OK, seeing now, we'll jump to the next section which is economic development. | 00:18:57 | |
Had a lot of that going on lately. | 00:19:02 | |
We have six business licenses, 1 alcohol license that came in during the month of June. The one I'll highlight of course is South | 00:19:05 | |
Main Brewing. They came in, they are finalizing their construction. I think they're estimating sometime at the end of this month. | 00:19:10 | |
Once they receive their CEO from the city, they'll go to the state to the state, I think Department of Revenue and Department of | 00:19:14 | |
AG. | 00:19:19 | |
To get those check offs and I think there's some federal stuff as well that has to be checked off. So that's moving pretty | 00:19:25 | |
quickly. | 00:19:28 | |
Any questions about those? | 00:19:32 | |
OK, the next one is really tiny. | 00:19:35 | |
Um. | 00:19:39 | |
And what I'll highlight here is there were 55 building permits for 22 projects, the biggest of which was Trove, a residential | 00:19:40 | |
neighborhood off of Column Ferry Rd. | 00:19:44 | |
There were 11 houses housing building permits for 11 houses. That NSFR is non. | 00:19:49 | |
Single family residential within stand for, I can't remember. Anyway, that's what it stands for is single family residential and | 00:19:56 | |
you'll see that they had plumbing and HVAC and electrical for all of those. That's why you see so many of those repeating | 00:20:00 | |
themselves. | 00:20:05 | |
Because they have to have permits for each of those trades as well as building permits. | 00:20:09 | |
So lots of exciting things going on. Any questions? | 00:20:14 | |
OK. | 00:20:18 | |
She just walked out. Chief's timing is impeccable, as always. | 00:20:23 | |
On to the police report. | 00:20:28 | |
Good evening, Mayor. | 00:20:39 | |
How are y'all doing? | 00:20:42 | |
Glad to see y'all here early in the month instead of late in the month. | 00:20:44 | |
This is a week early. | 00:20:48 | |
So I submitted a report last week with. | 00:20:51 | |
Statistical data for the Police Department as well as the data that comes from our science throughout. | 00:20:55 | |
Are there any questions over any of the material I? | 00:21:00 | |
No looking good. | 00:21:08 | |
All right. Mayor mentioned to me earlier this evening that maybe I'll do some comparison charts. | 00:21:11 | |
Some of the statistical traffic data, I'll work something up and get you all a report next month so you can see how we're | 00:21:16 | |
trending. | 00:21:20 | |
All right. And with that, we recently graduated A. | 00:21:24 | |
Officer from the Academy. He went from cadet to be an officer. | 00:21:29 | |
Here recently Brian Ang. | 00:21:34 | |
And tonight? Oh, and during the celebration, a surprise. | 00:21:37 | |
The governor showed. | 00:21:43 | |
I've been to a lot of graduations in 23 years. I don't think I've ever had the governor show up to any of them. But this one he | 00:21:47 | |
did. That's awesome. | 00:21:50 | |
And as you can see, Ron took an excellent post right behind the governor. | 00:21:53 | |
Well done. | 00:21:58 | |
So tonight we're going to swear in Ryan and. | 00:22:00 | |
The mayor would come forward. I would like for you to do that. | 00:22:04 | |
Yes. | 00:22:21 | |
Congratulations in advance. | 00:22:25 | |
Sir. | 00:22:28 | |
Hi, Ryan. | 00:22:30 | |
Here by Solomon square that. | 00:22:33 | |
Support. | 00:22:42 | |
Our support and between the charter and ordinances of the City of office. | 00:22:54 | |
Charges and ambulances. I'm not the holder of any office of trust. I'm not the older them out. But for the government of the | 00:22:59 | |
United States and the government in the United States, any other states or the foreign states in the other states. In the foreign | 00:23:06 | |
state, the planned by the laws of the state, the time by the laws of the state of Georgia for the biggest community. | 00:23:14 | |
I'm otherwise qualified. | 00:23:23 | |
I'm not the older any kind of. | 00:23:37 | |
I set the law enforcement code events. I have left the law enforcement declared. | 00:23:52 | |
I'll faithful follow the orders of the Chief of Police. | 00:24:15 | |
Police officer. | 00:24:27 | |
How it works? | 00:24:32 | |
And as a matter of condition. | 00:24:54 | |
We allow a loved one of the officer to come forward and come back and. | 00:24:56 | |
The. | 00:25:02 | |
123. | 00:26:07 | |
Beautiful. Beautiful. | 00:26:17 | |
Hold. | 00:26:25 | |
Appreciate it. | 00:26:26 | |
I'm going to put my signature on this before I lose it and if I get it back to you, Chief. | 00:26:34 | |
Sign. | 00:26:40 | |
If it's three, we'll do it later because it's a long meeting. | 00:26:42 | |
Mayor Roberts crusade for shorter meetings and cities. | 00:26:48 | |
So we got to do the important thing that we will do them. All right, Chief, that's it for you, I'm assuming, because he is gone. | 00:26:53 | |
We will move on to our public hearing. I do want to recognize Judge Anglin. Thank you for being here. It was an honor to swear | 00:27:01 | |
someone in in front of you after you swore us in for so many years and always made time to do that. So we're thankful and grateful | 00:27:06 | |
to have you back in City Hall tonight. | 00:27:10 | |
All right, Next up on the agenda. We do have a public hearing. We have this thing coming up called the T Splost. | 00:27:16 | |
And. | 00:27:22 | |
Teaspost is a special purpose, local option sales tax to be dedicated to transportation uses. That's roads, sidewalks, things that | 00:27:24 | |
help people get around our community, which we need here in Watkinsville. Most of our traffic does not come from Oconee County. I | 00:27:31 | |
would certainly say most of it doesn't come from Watkinsville and a large part of it does not come from Oconee County. And what | 00:27:38 | |
that means is most people who drive through Watkinsville don't pay. | 00:27:45 | |
For the roads that they're using now, if a Tea SPLOST was passed by the voters, then that means that there would be a penny added | 00:27:53 | |
on to sales taxes and that penny would be used to help fund transportation improvements, including the transportation plan that | 00:28:01 | |
we've approved previously. The county is committed to a mileage rollback to offset a tax increase and grateful that they have done | 00:28:09 | |
that. But all four of the Oconee County municipalities need to agree to the T spot in order for it. | 00:28:17 | |
To pass at its full capacity in the county. So what we're doing tonight is we're taking a look at the. | 00:28:25 | |
The referendum, I'm going to let manager Dickerson fill in anything that I forgot in my soliloquy there. And then we will actually | 00:28:33 | |
vote on, we'll hear, have a public hearing and then we will close that public hearing and we'll vote on that matter later tonight. | 00:28:40 | |
So Manager Dickerson, please fill in the gaps of what I forgot and and then we can have a public hearing on that. | 00:28:47 | |
Thank you, Mayor. You did a great job. | 00:28:55 | |
So one of the key things to understand is that the city does have a percentage of those teaspoons that would come to us that has | 00:28:58 | |
been negotiated at 7.77%. Based on that and the projected revenues that the county has provided, the city will see about 4.69. | 00:29:07 | |
$1,000,000 over that five years. Again, that's projected. We always budget at about 85%. Eighty 3%, that's proven. Actually, we | 00:29:16 | |
actually hit higher than that, but we try to not budget for the full amount, never knowing what will happen. | 00:29:23 | |
The project does require tea spots, does require for 30% of the funds to be used on statewide goals. I think all of the cities | 00:29:31 | |
have basically said they're going to use it on roads. It's a real easy lift. Everybody needs to repair their roads, so 30% of the | 00:29:37 | |
funding will be used that way. Before I flip to the next slide, I do want to remind the council because we do this every time we | 00:29:43 | |
talk about tea spots, especially spots 3. | 00:29:49 | |
The referendum will state how the city wants to use those funds right now, the way it's laid out, and we'll talk about this when | 00:29:56 | |
we get to item 11. | 00:30:00 | |
Is that it will be simply a straight amount of 5.6. I think it's 5.516 million and some change with 30% of that amount having to | 00:30:04 | |
be dedicated for roads. | 00:30:09 | |
What the council has done in the past and what you did last year when you consider this and brought it for the the the citizens | 00:30:16 | |
for a vote, was get a little bit more specific. Because it's always important to put a little bit more, you know, detail on what | 00:30:21 | |
how you're going to spend the money so that the public has confidence that the monies are going to be spent well. | 00:30:27 | |
So. | 00:30:33 | |
I want to remind you that when I show this that that there are buckets, there's going to be 3 buckets and we've got the | 00:30:35 | |
percentages laid out. So that 30% does go towards the state, towards the state strategic transportation plan roads. | 00:30:41 | |
And bridges and that kind of those kind of items. | 00:30:47 | |
So should you decide, you can talk about this later. Donna, This is just so the public has something to maybe give you some | 00:31:27 | |
feedback on tonight before you vote. Should you decide to go forward, your ballot will show those 3 buckets. And then what that | 00:31:33 | |
means is if that passes, those are the three buckets you can use. You can spend up to that amount, not more than that amount. | 00:31:39 | |
There are rules if you have a project that maybe you can't fund for whatever reason, their rules for getting around that kind of | 00:31:45 | |
stuff, we haven't had to run into that yet. But you can sometimes deal, you can deal with that. So but right now that's sort of | 00:31:49 | |
how. | 00:31:53 | |
This is how you had it last year and I just took the same amount of money and the percentages and put it back in there for this | 00:31:58 | |
year for y'all to look at and consider. So I know y'all aren't necessarily going to be talking about it now. You want to get | 00:32:02 | |
public input, but I just want to make sure remind everybody that sort of how this is laid out and you may decide when you get to. | 00:32:07 | |
Item 11 that you just want to leave it at 5.5 and 30% and you can do that too. | 00:32:13 | |
OK. Thank you, Sharon. We'll move into the public hearing at this point. So I'd like to open the public hearing. I know we have | 00:32:19 | |
Chairman Daniel here tonight. Chairman, I don't know if you have anything that you want to add about Tea SPLOST and the county's | 00:32:25 | |
county's thoughts on that and the rollback you're? | 00:32:31 | |
Take some time or any citizen who wants to comment on T spot. You're welcome to come to the podium after Chairman Daniel. | 00:32:38 | |
So we did try this a year ago. | 00:32:52 | |
We had a after the results we had some citizens approaches about maybe trying again with a little bigger turn out. So we're | 00:32:55 | |
excited to try again we think. | 00:32:58 | |
A really good program for the citizens of Oconee. | 00:33:03 | |
Our share will end up being about 52,000,000 of the actual collection is our budget amount. | 00:33:07 | |
And we will do A1 mil rollback to OFF. | 00:33:12 | |
The new 1% sales tax and most of that's going to go to Rd. Paving in the county. We have a little bit set aside for trails and | 00:33:17 | |
some for intersection improvements. We have some challenging intersections we're trying to work on. | 00:33:22 | |
To get those straightened out, but be happy to answer any questions you have about it. But we really appreciate your | 00:33:29 | |
participation. Bogart and Bishop both signed on last night and will be in North High Shoals next week. | 00:33:35 | |
Thank you, Chairman Daniel. | 00:33:43 | |
Any questions for Chairman Daniel? Before we move on, anybody else in the audience want to speak about T Spice? | 00:33:47 | |
Yes, step on up so people can hear you. | 00:33:53 | |
My name is Wyler Hecht I'm give us your address too. Just we got to be formal with these public 38 S Barnett Shoals Rd. And I | 00:33:59 | |
really just have a question and that is I would like for somebody to help me understand what the what it means like the one mill. | 00:34:08 | |
To offset this to the tea spot. Can somebody help me understand that because I don't understand. | 00:34:18 | |
Thank you. | 00:34:26 | |
And how long does a teaspoon last? We're going to let our expert preacher come up here and handle that. | 00:34:28 | |
So this will last for five years regardless of the amount collected. Law just changed. | 00:34:36 | |
In the past, when you hit your goal, you had to stop collections, but luckily that the state legislature expanded that, so we'll | 00:34:40 | |
collect for a full five years. | 00:34:44 | |
$71,000,000 are asked. We think we'll hit close to that. | 00:34:48 | |
Investors Best of circumstances? | 00:34:52 | |
So we're able to take some of that one. | 00:34:56 | |
And put it toward Rd. maintenance that we're currently paying for out of property taxes. | 00:34:58 | |
So if the citizens allowed to do that, that's allowed to do that. | 00:35:03 | |
And we'll reduce your mileage rate by 1. | 00:35:06 | |
So right now we're at 6.56. We're about to do a rollback. | 00:35:09 | |
For the property, tax increases will push just under. | 00:35:14 | |
If this goes through, our mills rate will be just under 5. | 00:35:18 | |
For for property. | 00:35:22 | |
So your property taxes would reduce John's the account, not me. We have this conversation often, so I'm probably get this wrong. | 00:35:25 | |
But roughly about 1/6. OK, is that right, John, you going from 6 to 516. So what that means is, you know our a lot of I got calls | 00:35:30 | |
about people's property taxes and their frustration. If your property tax isn't in your mortgage, you know, you get that bill and | 00:35:36 | |
it it hits you right. And even if it is in your mortgage, it hits you. And so all of a sudden what this does is you could take off | 00:35:42 | |
1/6 of that property tax bill. | 00:35:48 | |
And what that's going to be covered by is partially by your shopping. But the reality is a lot of our sales tax revenue comes from | 00:35:54 | |
folks in Athens, folks in Barrow County, folks in Jackson County who are all coming, whether it's the Publix, whether it's to Wire | 00:36:00 | |
Park, whether it's other places who are using our roads and using our infrastructure. They'll pay for more of those costs. | 00:36:06 | |
Yeah. And also I will say that T spots does not apply to gasoline or any kind of motor fuel. So it's not going to affect you on | 00:36:43 | |
your price for gasoline. | 00:36:46 | |
What? | 00:36:51 | |
Your general food items, general general goods, and you go to Walmart about everything you find there will. | 00:36:52 | |
Yeah. So it's an extra penny of sales tax that is going to be offset by that. That rollback in the mileage rate is the idea. | 00:36:59 | |
Thank you. It's a good, great question. I think that's one of the things about this that it's hard, you know, you know? | 00:37:07 | |
You know, it's hard to understand the value in it, but when I look at what's changed in Oconee County over the past 20 years. | 00:37:14 | |
You know, sales tax has become increasingly important and as we have Costco and the Varsity and other places like that open up in | 00:37:20 | |
the Epps bridge area, we can we can fund an increasing amount of our needs based on from folks who aren't necessarily living in | 00:37:25 | |
our community but are visiting so. | 00:37:30 | |
Yeah. Any other comments on T? | 00:37:36 | |
All right. I'll close the public hearing at this point and we'll move along to appearances. Next up, we have some exciting guests | 00:37:40 | |
welcome. | 00:37:44 | |
To Rob and Carmen from Ponder and Ponder and they are providing an update on the new Oconee County Watkinsville branch. | 00:37:50 | |
The library which is going to be located at Wire Park. | 00:38:00 | |
Please introduce yourselves. Give us your address and. | 00:38:03 | |
And then share. | 00:38:06 | |
I'm Carmen Ponder. This is my husband and partner, Rob Ponder. We are Ponder and Ponder Architects. We are at 3000 Langford Rd. In | 00:38:08 | |
Peachtree Corners. | 00:38:15 | |
Georgia used to be Norcross. Some of you may know we live in Duluth. | 00:38:22 | |
So we understand community and wanting to keep a Public Library in your city, in your community. I am a library design specialist. | 00:38:29 | |
I'm design libraries all over the state, and I am also the design partner and project manager for this library project. Rob acts | 00:38:37 | |
as our architect of record. He's the stamp, he's also the one with the technical expertise and he coordinates a lot of the | 00:38:44 | |
engineering. | 00:38:52 | |
That goes into our buildings. Part of our team includes a professional interior designer, Courtney Orm, who is also a library | 00:39:00 | |
interior designer. | 00:39:06 | |
So we are a part of the new wire park multi use development. We are converting an existing warehouse. | 00:39:12 | |
That is was part of that manufacturing facility into a 21st century library. The exterior that you see in front of you, the | 00:39:24 | |
rendering represents. | 00:39:29 | |
A modern, industrial looking building representative of the history of that facility. | 00:39:35 | |
And it ties in with the new Wire Park development. Similar exterior materials, the same brick, the same metal siding, same colors. | 00:39:43 | |
We're exposing a lot of the steel framing and painting it black windows that will look similar so that it ties together and | 00:39:51 | |
becomes a sort of campus for the Watkinsville area, if you will. | 00:39:59 | |
The library is front onto the Plaza that has been built, and if you've been out there recently, they finished their Plaza. It's | 00:40:09 | |
just beautiful. So that's a public place for events, for gathering, and it'll connect via a courtyard up into the wire park with a | 00:40:19 | |
food court, shops. They'll eventually have offices as well. The park is open already, so the idea is to have synergy. | 00:40:29 | |
Between the facilities, our main entrance for the library will be off of a Plaza area. | 00:40:40 | |
That faces the main. | 00:40:47 | |
It's a little bit elevated. | 00:40:50 | |
And there's an addition that was made to that warehouse that we're proposing taking the walls off of and turning into a covered | 00:40:52 | |
outdoor space. And that's where the main entrance to the library would be. | 00:40:59 | |
The site work is all being done by the wire part development Gibb Capital. The one exception is we're proposing a new handicap | 00:41:07 | |
ramp along the front to connect the entrance to the southern parking lot, which would be very convenient for library users. | 00:41:17 | |
The library itself will be a large open space. We are developing 20,000 of the 25,000 square feet available because our goal is to | 00:41:27 | |
meet the budget. | 00:41:33 | |
The on the floor plan, the dark area that you see is the 5000 square feet for future development that the library can grow into. | 00:41:42 | |
It's mostly a large open space with the adult section when you first walk in, and then there's a gateway element with the youth | 00:41:50 | |
areas beyond that to give you some separation. It'll include a large public meeting room that can be open for after use via a | 00:41:58 | |
secondary entrance with a secondary lobby that has restrooms. | 00:42:06 | |
And a large friends of the library of workroom workroom because this library. | 00:42:15 | |
The most active friends of the library I've ever seen. Any. | 00:42:20 | |
We have, if you would please continue to the next slide, I think that has a close up of what the interior finishes are likely to | 00:42:25 | |
look like. The interior designers still working closely with staff, but it'll be warm, neutral colors. | 00:42:33 | |
Colors that are in the the carpet she's going to punch out as accent walls, but the majority of walls will be that soft, neutral, | 00:42:44 | |
tan color. Durable materials, stain resistant carpet. | 00:42:50 | |
Dirt. | 00:42:57 | |
That vinyl tile that looks like wood that is durable and the idea being a low maintenance facility. | 00:43:00 | |
The users and not it's going to be a community building the emphasis on flexibility and growing in the future. | 00:43:11 | |
Right. | 00:43:22 | |
And I want to say real quick, the structure that we've inherited out there will be reusing the floor, the concrete, the steel | 00:43:22 | |
beams, the steel columns. | 00:43:27 | |
The steel frame around the exterior of the building, we have figured out that the most economical thing to do for the roof is to | 00:43:33 | |
actually take the one off. There's a demand for for used panels. We can get a market for those and it will have a new roof that'll | 00:43:39 | |
be put on here. And with inside of the building itself, it will have new air conditioning, new electrical, new plumbing. | 00:43:46 | |
Within the structure. So we've tried to apply 21st century knowledge into how to reuse the frame of this. | 00:44:26 | |
We hope to start right the first of the year and should take 9 to 10 months to build. | 00:45:07 | |
We're available for questions. I have some questions. | 00:45:12 | |
So I'm very excited about the library going to Wire Park and being part of the community as a whole. | 00:45:17 | |
I know y'all have had some challenges as I'm sure expenses have continued to rise as as the project has gone on and also sometimes | 00:45:24 | |
inheriting of an older building has. | 00:45:31 | |
I mean, I'm sure even more challenges than what you just said. So I appreciate the challenges that y'all have had and I see a lot | 00:45:39 | |
of exciting things in this. I love that the Friends has a bigger space. I noticed there's a recording studio. | 00:45:46 | |
Which is bringing it into the 21st century. That's that's a great use. | 00:45:54 | |
So I do have a few concerns though, and I'm wondering if some of these might be affected by budget, but I would hope that there | 00:45:59 | |
might be a way around some of these things so. | 00:46:06 | |
I'm a mom of three. My kids are now teenagers, so I fortunately, you know, they're out on their own. But I spent many, many years | 00:46:13 | |
going to the library with my small children. | 00:46:18 | |
On the main plan. | 00:46:25 | |
It's hard to really see on any of these, but I've I studied, I studied it. | 00:46:28 | |
Yesterday and the packet. | 00:46:35 | |
That the children's section. | 00:46:38 | |
Is at the far bottom. | 00:46:40 | |
And the bathrooms are on the complete opposite end. | 00:46:43 | |
And. | 00:46:47 | |
At one point I had a three-year old and twin infants and inevitably you get a couple children happy and then one has to go to the | 00:46:49 | |
bathroom. And the way this is currently designed, a parent is going or caregiver is going to have to gather all of their children | 00:46:56 | |
traipse all the way through the main section of the library. | 00:47:04 | |
Where adults are perhaps trying to have peaceful time to get to the bathroom and. | 00:47:13 | |
And I know adding any bathroom cost money, so I'm I'm sure there's budget to this, but I would love if there would be a way to add | 00:47:21 | |
a restroom, perhaps using some of that unused space, just even if it was one section. Because I get that it's near the meeting | 00:47:27 | |
room and it's the extra lobby. And I mean, I understand the benefit of those restrooms being there. I would just love to see a | 00:47:34 | |
second one near the kids section. | 00:47:40 | |
OK, I've been in your shoes. | 00:47:47 | |
Mine are fully grown now as well and I feel your pain. | 00:47:50 | |
This library. | 00:47:55 | |
Does not give us the opportunity to do everything we would like to have done, I can tell you the staff. | 00:47:59 | |
That was one of the first things they asked for. Is a restroom convenient to the children's? We went back and forth on the design | 00:48:06 | |
quite a bit. At one time, the children's area was on the opposite side of the building, next to the restroom. | 00:48:13 | |
For that reason. | 00:48:21 | |
The restrooms and if you'll notice every room that requires plumbing is all in that tight upper left hand corner because that is | 00:48:23 | |
where the plumbing is coming in. | 00:48:29 | |
To provide plumbing anywhere else in the building would require cutting an 8 inch. Not the normal 4 to 6 inch, but an 8 inch slab | 00:48:37 | |
that has been there for decades and that has continued to harden. So it's just. | 00:48:44 | |
Highly impractical. | 00:48:52 | |
Nothing is impossible with money. | 00:48:55 | |
So you hit on the biggest? | 00:48:58 | |
To getting it where we. | 00:49:02 | |
And that is the. To get plumbing on the opposite side of the building is just completely impractical. | 00:49:04 | |
Where the this building right now is estimated by two different estimators to be $175 per square foot to do what we've shown. | 00:49:12 | |
To solve the 8 inch concrete and be able to try to run that plumbing the diagonal across the building. So we we're we're trying | 00:49:58 | |
but we just don't think it's there to be able to do that so. | 00:50:02 | |
I don't don't have any other answer. Well, and I I don't know if this is the, you know the place to get that. | 00:50:08 | |
Figured out, although Kathleen. | 00:50:15 | |
Children. | 00:50:20 | |
From one side of the. | 00:50:22 | |
The library staff absolutely insisted on the location being where the children's area was, away from the adult area, where the | 00:50:24 | |
meeting room would also be available for after hours. So there were a whole series of we must have this, we have to give up that, | 00:50:30 | |
and it was. | 00:50:37 | |
That's how we ended up where we are. | 00:50:45 | |
We we child. | 00:50:48 | |
It is. | 00:50:54 | |
There's no wall door. | 00:50:57 | |
You know in there and have you been to the? | 00:51:01 | |
This one doesn't either. There, the gateway is more of a visual separation. That's a little bit with distance, but there's no door | 00:51:06 | |
or hard wall really separating. It's a large open space and a lot of that is again trying to work with what we've got, a very, | 00:51:15 | |
very tall ceiling. So any wall we build to separate is a 20 foot high fall to start with, so. | 00:51:23 | |
We have a lot of open space. We're. | 00:51:32 | |
But. | 00:51:35 | |
The booking manager let's Yeah, OK, So I want to what I want to do is I don't like Christine. So I don't think we're going to | 00:52:13 | |
solve this problem tonight. I think we need to provide the feedback. | 00:52:17 | |
Do you have a few other things you want? Why don't we work through anybody else on council does and then we'll talk at the end | 00:52:22 | |
about maybe how we if if we're going to engage further on them. So you have alluded to the fact that it's a large open warehouse | 00:52:29 | |
and I didn't see anything in any of the renderings like any of the design pictures shows about maybe 8 feet up. What is that going | 00:52:37 | |
to look like? Do you have any any views of like how because how tall are the actual ceilings and and what is that? | 00:52:44 | |
What is that going to look like in the library? | 00:52:52 | |
The existing structure is. | 00:52:56 | |
Approximately 20 feet to the underside of the. | 00:52:58 | |
Open web joys and then there's some airspace above that. We have some areas with ceilings. We don't have ceilings everywhere. We | 00:53:03 | |
cannot afford acoustical ceilings everywhere, so we have chosen to put them in the children's area in the meeting room, insert in | 00:53:12 | |
the office spaces so the areas that need it most. Those ceilings will be at about 11:50 feet. | 00:53:20 | |
And in the main main part of the big room, it'll be fog painted black like you see a lot of modern contemporary buildings done up | 00:53:30 | |
from 10 feet up. All that'll be painted flat black. So that it it's that new look that you see in a lot of restaurants in a lot of | 00:53:36 | |
different places. So the interior designer is designing it to be used like I'm sorry we don't we don't have an interior rendering | 00:53:42 | |
to show you yet because she's working on it with the. So another thought in this this will be. | 00:53:49 | |
Not getting into the weeds of it, but you already alluded to the fact that we have an incredible friends the library. | 00:53:56 | |
Community and we have a lot of generous businesses and so. | 00:54:04 | |
I also understand your budget constraints and I understand the complexity of this library being part of a larger system that is | 00:54:11 | |
multi countrywide. And so have you all considered kind of making your your wish list of extras? Like for instance I'm looking at | 00:54:19 | |
the the amount of windows that are in in the library I'm I'm sure. | 00:54:27 | |
There were fewer than maybe in your perfect design world you would want. | 00:54:36 | |
The I've I've not seen any interior rendering, so maybe this will come, but I am not seeing anything particularly inspiring for a | 00:54:41 | |
children's library, and maybe that just that designer hasn't gotten to that yet. But something that really differentiates and | 00:54:48 | |
makes a children's library a very special place. And so I would love to see a list of your like if you want an extra window here, | 00:54:55 | |
and then it could be sponsorship or naming opportunities. | 00:55:02 | |
I would love if it's possible with it being a Public Library to have some naming opportunities. So a business could say you know | 00:55:45 | |
this cool tree house thing in the children's library is with a plaque. With that business name I I feel like we we could get a lot | 00:55:51 | |
of. | 00:55:56 | |
OK, a lot of. | 00:56:02 | |
Whole children's area was paid. | 00:56:04 | |
One donor and we were able to put in all kinds of wonderful things. Wonderful. So I just encourage that list and look forward to | 00:56:07 | |
maybe getting to be a part of that. | 00:56:13 | |
When we get the bid list in with the ad alternates if the base bid is if the if the base bid from the lowest contractor lets us | 00:56:19 | |
go, then we can always add on those ad alternates as money becomes available during the construction process even. | 00:56:25 | |
Well, we could, I I was sitting here thinking that if with permission from the staff, when we could look at an AD alternate so | 00:56:33 | |
that we would get a hard price for that to see how much it would cost to trench 220 feet across. | 00:56:38 | |
Yeah, I mean, there might be. I was thinking too, there might be untrenched boys, but again, not when I'm getting the weeds in | 00:56:45 | |
that right now. With permission, we can put that as an ad. | 00:56:50 | |
All right. Yes. Well, we'll do that as one of the adults and then we'll see what the price is from the contractor. | 00:56:56 | |
If you have others of those and we have access to Mark, if there's other potential and often it's that we need to price. If they | 00:57:02 | |
get to Mark, they'll get to us and we can add that on the list about I think the library staff would be very happy to have | 00:57:08 | |
children's restrooms. | 00:57:14 | |
Well, and I think the other thing, Christine, I'm glad you brought that up because you know, $80,000 seems like a lot of money | 00:57:22 | |
right now in the context of it. But if this library is there for 25 or 30 years? | 00:57:27 | |
And we look back and every Mama who goes in there spends, you know, spends 15 minutes of her time at the library walking her kids | 00:57:32 | |
back and forth to the bathroom on the other side. Then it may be worth us finding a way. | 00:57:38 | |
Bridge that gap as a community, so yeah. | 00:57:44 | |
Yep. | 00:57:49 | |
Council members, any other feedback on the library? | 00:57:50 | |
OK. This has been, this has been super. We appreciate the update. Thank y'all. Yeah, Yep. | 00:57:55 | |
OK. Moving to old business, we're going to this has been tabled several times. We're looking at the hotel motel excise tax manager | 00:58:09 | |
Dickerson, I think this is you've given us an update. | 00:58:14 | |
Thank you. | 00:58:21 | |
So what we're asking for tonight is for you to approve an ordinance that will set and levy the next size tax of 5%. | 00:58:23 | |
For basically short term vacation rentals, adopting a resolution to update the comprehensive fee schedule to deal with the | 00:58:31 | |
registration fee for those short term vacation rentals so we can keep track of them and issue them. The documents they need to do | 00:58:37 | |
so give a little history. Back in 2007, the Oconee County Commissioner, the Commission's adopted an ordinance authorizing a 6% | 00:58:44 | |
excise tax. | 00:58:50 | |
And then last year on the hotel rooms and whatnot and of course over. | 00:58:57 | |
Probably five or six years. Airbnb and those kind of short term rentals have really taken off. | 00:59:02 | |
And so the legislative session last year adopted a approved A. | 00:59:07 | |
A change in the code that would. | 00:59:13 | |
Create a definition for a marketplace innkeeper, basically a VRBO, a HomeAway, someone like that who basically acts on behalf of | 00:59:16 | |
the homeowner and what they By doing so they have brought them in and are requiring that they take that $5 a night tax, $5 a night | 00:59:24 | |
fee for the statewide hotel motel transportation fee and collect sales tax or excise tax. | 00:59:32 | |
The governor signed that back in July, April and it went into effect July, one of last year. | 00:59:41 | |
So just for your edification, the lodging receipt is comprised of the rate for the for the facility you're in, the sales use tax | 00:59:46 | |
or the local tax, the statewide transportation fee which is $5 and then an excise tax. We do excise taxes on alcohol. We are now | 00:59:54 | |
asking that you consider this for within the city limits an excise tax for hotel motel. | 01:00:02 | |
I mentioned about the the platforms marketing keepers. Right now those marketing keepers, if you go online and try to rent | 01:00:11 | |
something within the city limits is actually collecting 6% for rooms and lodgings. I will say that I don't know that they're | 01:00:17 | |
getting all of them right now and that's something we'll we'll work on. We've identified within the city limits 22. | 01:00:24 | |
Short term vacation rentals and several those. I went online and tried to rent them to see if they were collect. They were asking | 01:00:31 | |
for the tax. They are actually collecting the tax. I can't speak on behalf of the county if the county's getting it, but they're | 01:00:35 | |
certainly charging people for it. | 01:00:39 | |
This is not a new tax, as I said, the count, it is being collected. | 01:00:45 | |
Questionable whether or not the county is getting all of it, but we are proposing a 5% because it only requires a local ordinance. | 01:00:50 | |
If we went higher than that, it would require resolutions, state legislative approval, and approval by the governor. | 01:00:56 | |
And the the intent is just to help provide this. This tax will be used for transfer. I'm sorry for tourism trade and conventions, | 01:01:03 | |
a certain percentage of it is required to be used for that. The key thing here, I believe we spent the last couple of months | 01:01:10 | |
making sure that everybody understands we're not going to go after. | 01:01:16 | |
You know, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who happen to have a house that once a year they rent on their own. We're going after people who are | 01:01:23 | |
working with the marketplace innkeeper like a VRBOA home away or someone like that. | 01:01:28 | |
That are is collecting the tax and asking that they give it back to us and not put it in their pocket. So that's all we're asking | 01:01:35 | |
in this case. | 01:01:38 | |
The. | 01:01:43 | |
I tried to clear up the language. I believe the attorney looked at it. I think a Councilwoman Tucker had some concerns about | 01:01:45 | |
making sure that it was clear. I think we've done that. | 01:01:49 | |
I think it's also probably good to have that information. So if something you know if there's some issues with some properties or | 01:02:35 | |
whatever that are being rented that the city is aware that the Police Department is aware of it and so that's simply it'll be a | 01:02:42 | |
one time fee. If there are multiple locations that people own or or rent, we will require one for each of the of the locations. | 01:02:48 | |
A registration for that, but we will, we will give the and we cannot start this until September 1. So we'll after this meeting, if | 01:02:56 | |
it is approved, we'll go through the process of notifying everybody and letting them know what the dead deadline date is for all | 01:03:01 | |
that and then we'll notify once they tell us who they're using for the Marketplace and Keeper, we will notify them and let them | 01:03:06 | |
know that they will be. | 01:03:11 | |
Submitted or remitting that money to the city Watkins. | 01:03:17 | |
Thank you. So to summarize. | 01:03:23 | |
Because I know there are several air. | 01:03:26 | |
Owners in the room. | 01:03:28 | |
$40 fee one time fill out a simple form and then. | 01:03:31 | |
Money that's already been collected is just going to go to the city of Watkinsville that will help promote the community that. | 01:03:37 | |
She Kathleen, if you Let's finish up with council and then we'll come to the public if they have questions. Any other questions | 01:03:46 | |
from council for manager Dickerson. | 01:03:49 | |
OK, Kathleen, if you could come to the podium, that's helpful. For the folks watching online, they can hear you. My name is | 01:03:54 | |
Kathleen Mcquiston. I live at 13 S Barnett Shoals Rd. In downtown. | 01:03:59 | |
I have an Airbnb on 3rd St. and this is a question for Christine. So as I understand it with registered with Airbnb is they | 01:04:05 | |
collect the tax. I never see it, it's all part. | 01:04:12 | |
When the. | 01:04:20 | |
The guest signs up for a date. They're charged. | 01:04:22 | |
What I charge for rent a cleaning fee which I set taxes. | 01:04:28 | |
Which Airbnb collects and a 3% fee that Airbnb puts in their pocket. I have no control over what Airbnb does with that tax money, | 01:04:35 | |
so am I going to be responsible? How am I going to be responsible for making sure that Airbnb is paying you your tax? | 01:04:45 | |
So why don't you handle that on? So yeah, Christine, does that make, is that like? | 01:04:56 | |
I don't know 100%. Now no one really can talk to anybody really at Airbnb, but you might get so and so, but anyway. | 01:05:02 | |
So what my understanding is because this, this has been tabled several months as we've been trying to figure this out. | 01:05:12 | |
Is that? | 01:05:20 | |
The city will then notify. | 01:05:21 | |
Airbnb or VRBO and say, hey, five, you know this percent of the taxes you're already collecting, It's supposed to be coming here, | 01:05:25 | |
and then they should start sending that check to Watkinsville. So we shouldn't have to do anything other than fill out that one | 01:05:32 | |
form one time and pay $40. OK, I'm fine with paying $40 to register. | 01:05:39 | |
I That's fine. But I don't want to have to be taxed twice. The one that I pay Airbnb and then the one that the city comes after | 01:05:47 | |
because Airbnb didn't pay my chair. | 01:05:52 | |
I just wanted to know we all had that question too, yeah. | 01:06:26 | |
Thank you. | 01:06:32 | |
OK. Any further questions on? | 01:06:36 | |
The Hotel Motel excise tax. | 01:06:39 | |
Attorney Reitman, anything from you on that? | 01:06:42 | |
All right. Any discussion back behind the rail? | 01:06:47 | |
All right then, I'll entertain a motion. | 01:06:50 | |
I make a motion to pass. | 01:06:54 | |
To this. All right. So she makes a motion to approve the ordinance and the rest of what it says, and then to adopt the resolution | 01:07:01 | |
to update the comprehensive fee schedule. Is that correct? Christine? Got it. All right. I'm looking for a second. | 01:07:07 | |
2nd we have a motion, we have a second. Any further discussion behind the rail? | 01:07:13 | |
All in favor, Say aye, aye. Any opposed? | 01:07:18 | |
So motion carries 31. Councilman Garrett opposed. | 01:07:22 | |
All right, item 8 is off the agenda. We're going to move on to item 9, Rocket Field update. | 01:07:29 | |
Rocket field. | 01:07:38 | |
Rocket Field that has been a part of Watkinsville for a century. There's a lot of tremendous history there. | 01:07:42 | |
Rocket Field got its start as a facility for Watkinsville. | 01:07:50 | |
High school. It was a ball field for the high school. The high schools were consolidated in the 1960s. Bogart and Watkinsville. | 01:07:55 | |
They moved to Oconee County High School and since then the fields been used for a lot of different. | 01:08:01 | |
Different things. At some point you'll you'll notice if you go back. One slide sharing home plate originally was close, closest to | 01:08:08 | |
Ocalaf. In that corner you can see people sitting up on the bank there at picnic tables, elevated. | 01:08:14 | |
At some point the field was reconfigured and now it kind of sits in the middle of Rocket field. | 01:08:22 | |
Home plate faces towards towards 3rd St. rather than the corner. | 01:08:27 | |
And what we But through the years, it's had a tremendous amount of uses. It hosts the fall festival. It's parking for Ocala. | 01:08:33 | |
And we've had a real challenge figuring out how we might I. | 01:08:40 | |
Update the field even as citizens have said. Wouldn't it be nice? | 01:08:45 | |
Fill in the. | 01:08:49 | |
You know, wouldn't it be nice if the restrooms were decent? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a built-in place to water my dogs? | 01:08:50 | |
Wouldn't it be nice if my kids weren't sliding into a mud hole? | 01:08:55 | |
Wouldn't it be nice if there wasn't dog poop on the ball field? Wouldn't it be nice if, you know, I wasn't afraid of my dog | 01:09:01 | |
getting outside the gate? | 01:09:05 | |
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a shady spot to sit? | 01:09:10 | |
No. Wouldn't it be nice if the electric could handle the fall festival? Or if we could turn off the lights more easily? Or if the | 01:09:13 | |
lights were more energy efficient? | 01:09:17 | |
I've called it the third rail of Watkinsville politics for a long time because there's so many competing interests at Rocket | 01:09:22 | |
Field. | 01:09:25 | |
What I'm pleased to share tonight is I think we have a set of plans that. | 01:09:29 | |
Will make most people happy we've had. | 01:09:33 | |
We have had a private donor step forward who's willing to help us offset a significant amount of the cost. | 01:09:37 | |
To reimagine Rocket Field and reinvigorate Rocket Field. | 01:09:44 | |
And reinvigorate it in a way that would still allow us to. | 01:09:49 | |
Have a ball field to be proud of. | 01:09:54 | |
That would bring home plate back to where it was originally located. | 01:09:56 | |
That would still have space for dogs that would have space for citizens that would have gathering spaces. | 01:09:59 | |
That would have new bleachers that would have new electric, new infrastructure. | 01:10:04 | |
So I'm pleased to share some renderings if we go ahead and look at the next slide. | 01:10:08 | |
This is what the reimagined rocket field could look like. This is the view from the corner of 2nd and 3rd St. looking back towards | 01:10:12 | |
Ocala. | 01:10:15 | |
What you see here are the 2 by relocating home. | 01:10:20 | |
To the far end of the field closest to oh. | 01:10:25 | |
You begin to capture some unused space currently in the outfield. | 01:10:28 | |
What you see on the left side, what I would call plan West, but what's actually the northeast side of the field and we'll zoom in | 01:10:32 | |
on those. | 01:10:36 | |
Is an entrance potentially? | 01:10:41 | |
The dog park with a shade structure, a fence, water facilities. | 01:10:44 | |
On the right you see a gazebo. It doesn't have to be a gazebo. We were trying to think of a structure that would create an | 01:10:48 | |
opportunity for shade. | 01:10:51 | |
And people to utilize the field. Or if kids are playing ball and little brother and little sister want to go play. | 01:10:55 | |
They can walk down to that area and access part of the field and safely play there. Let's go on to the next slide, sharing. | 01:11:03 | |
This is the view from the area where we could potentially have the dog entrance in the dog. | 01:11:09 | |
There's a shade structure there. You begin to get a feel for the field, the fence structures. | 01:11:13 | |
Are removable, which means they could come out of the ground. Not easily, but the street department of volunteers could do it. So | 01:11:18 | |
for example, the fall festival, we could still put all the booths out. | 01:11:23 | |
For oh calf, as they needed us, we could still park vehicles out. | 01:11:28 | |
But you see that we had most of the time, the ball field would be divided from the dog, the dog park area or the other areas. It | 01:11:32 | |
creates A safer environment, creates an opportunity. | 01:11:37 | |
For some more usage and avoids those conflicts on the left side. Let's go back to go back, Shannon the left side. You'll see | 01:11:43 | |
bleachers built into the hill. | 01:11:46 | |
Again, that takes a space that's not currently being used and allows built-in space without the temporary bleachers, and allows us | 01:11:52 | |
to capture more of the field. | 01:11:56 | |
To be used as green space and for for more frequent use, We can go ahead Sharon. | 01:12:00 | |
Again, this is the close up of the conceptual entry for the dog park. Dog park space is approximately. | 01:12:06 | |
1/3 of an acre water available for dogs. If the public input meetings, we'll talk more about that, we'll talk about you know what | 01:12:14 | |
the options are for the dog park uses, what kind of amenities we may want to have in there if we just want it to be wide open. | 01:12:20 | |
Let's go one more. | 01:12:27 | |
This is a view of the same area, but from an aerial view. Again, you begin to get a feel of what we're doing. Let's go one more. | 01:12:30 | |
Something simple, not anything like what we have out here. | 01:13:09 | |
If we go on Sharon, this is the view from the back. This is a concession stand and restroom area and storage area. This would also | 01:13:12 | |
allow the second story would be used for scorekeeping videos. | 01:13:18 | |
Modern restrooms cleaned up and a concession stand for when we wanted to utilize that. | 01:13:26 | |
We'll get. | 01:13:33 | |
This is a view of the bleachers from the field, with rocket Field potentially put on the put on the bleachers. | 01:13:35 | |
This is a view of how it might look as you run across the. | 01:13:43 | |
Yeah. And we can go one more share. I don't know if we have more images. This is a view from the top. So you again you can begin | 01:13:47 | |
to get a feel for the. | 01:13:50 | |
For the potential solution for Rocket Field. | 01:13:54 | |
This is a view from the gazebo, again showing what that looks like. That's a shady corner of the of the park already. Sure if we | 01:13:58 | |
yeah, this is the best one. And then so again you see here the view from the OCALAF area. | 01:14:04 | |
But elevated, it gives you a feel of what the updated field may begin to feel like. | 01:14:10 | |
So I'm tremendously excited to bring this forward. As we look at timing for this, tonight, we're introducing this to council. | 01:14:16 | |
We will have two opportunities for public feedback and public input. These are conceptual plans, so we do want feedback from the | 01:14:24 | |
public. | 01:14:28 | |
August 2nd and August 9th, 6:00 PM here at City Hall. | 01:14:32 | |
We'll have two public input meetings. What we would plan to do is refine the plans based on public input and further discussion | 01:14:36 | |
from council. | 01:14:40 | |
September plans presented and approved by City Council of City Council's comfortable with this proposal. | 01:14:45 | |
And in October, if the plans were approved and legal documents finalized, construction would begin after the fall festival. | 01:14:51 | |
Ideally with the. | 01:14:58 | |
You know, reinvigorated Rocket Field, opening up to the public and available in the spring. | 01:15:00 | |
For Little League. | 01:15:05 | |
Sharon, if you can scoot back to the plan view. There's one or two more things that I wanted to highlight. | 01:15:07 | |
I. | 01:15:13 | |
Go back to the one that's yeah, this one. Go back one. Go forward. Yeah, you'll see here a new sidewalk along 2nd St. that's also | 01:15:13 | |
going to be added. One thing that's not shown is concrete aprons that would allow vehicles to enter in without damaging the grass | 01:15:19 | |
and new gates structures. | 01:15:24 | |
The private partner has agreed to do all the site work, all the drain work, all the electric work, all the grass, all the | 01:15:31 | |
concrete. | 01:15:35 | |
A significant the vertical structure, the concession stand, the city would be responsible for trees. | 01:15:39 | |
The Gaz. | 01:15:46 | |
In the. | 01:15:48 | |
So it's a pretty monumental investment by a gentleman named Kelly Mahoney, who lives here in Oconee County and has been passionate | 01:15:49 | |
about. | 01:15:54 | |
Rocket Field, his daughter plays softball and has been utilizing the field and he was looking for an opportunity to make a | 01:16:00 | |
difference and came and talked to us about Rocket Field. | 01:16:05 | |
And we felt like this is. | 01:16:10 | |
That could help and could help us take care of. | 01:16:13 | |
An area that's incredibly special to Watkinsville. And also just like we're thinking about the next 100 years for Rocket Hall, | 01:16:17 | |
thinking about the next 100 years for Rocket Field. | 01:16:22 | |
I'm gonna quit talking with that, Sharon, unless there's any other renderings. I don't think there is. We can go back to the | 01:16:28 | |
schedule and then council, I'd love to get your input. We can do some light public input tonight. That's fine. But I think the | 01:16:33 | |
majority of that I'd prefer to keep for the public input meeting. So we can go deep on your questions, but. | 01:16:38 | |
Council. | 01:16:44 | |
The potential timeline would welcome your feedback and thoughts. | 01:16:45 | |
I think it's an amazing opportunity to have such a. | 01:16:50 | |
Such a donation and what I love about it too is it is. | 01:16:55 | |
It's actually making it more historically accurate and it's bringing it back. So we're not losing, we're not losing Rocket Field. | 01:17:00 | |
We're really regaining Rocket Field. We're solving the, I mean, I think my very first City Council meeting, there was a hoopla | 01:17:06 | |
about the dogs on Rocket Field. Like you said, it's the third rail. And so I mean this is a solution for that, that the ball field | 01:17:12 | |
is separate from where the dogs play, but it's still a community park that everybody can use, not just Little League kids a few | 01:17:18 | |
times a year, so. | 01:17:24 | |
I'm thrilled. And I'm glad, of course, that we're doing public. I mean, we don't have all the ideas here, so I'm please tell your | 01:17:31 | |
friends. I know in this room already we have people with great ideas and great input. If Lawrence were here, he would be saying | 01:17:35 | |
that we need. | 01:17:40 | |
You're here in his said OK, so that was it. I can never pronounce it right. The patent yes, that needs to somehow be incorporated | 01:17:46 | |
in here so so that will all come at a public input and figuring out how to make it truly something for the whole community to use. | 01:17:56 | |
Well, let's let's do this. Let's let council finish their comments to make them back. | 01:18:09 | |
Why don't y'all make your offer your thoughts and comments and like I said, a little bit of public comment and then we'll move | 01:18:15 | |
along. | 01:18:17 | |
I think it's one of those opportunities that came before us that you know it's it's been a dream or an idea. | 01:18:21 | |
For a long time here we have an opportunity. | 01:18:29 | |
Do. | 01:18:32 | |
With very little cost to the city. | 01:18:34 | |
I think it's a great idea. | 01:18:40 | |
Thank you, Chuck. Connie, you're our. | 01:18:42 | |
I want to put this out there. You said that they had moved the home base from where it used to be and I am going to say that I'm | 01:18:46 | |
guessing they moved it. | 01:18:53 | |
Half, at least half of the games, if not more, are played late afternoon, early evening and if you move it back, the sun is going | 01:19:01 | |
to be right in the whoever's at home base trying to hit the ball. | 01:19:08 | |
And they may not be able to see the. | 01:19:16 | |
Because the sun's bright coming from that direction and the bleachers will be getting all of that sun also. So they're not going | 01:19:18 | |
to be able to see what's out on the field as good either. So I'm assuming that's why they moved home base from where it was over | 01:19:24 | |
to where it is. I think they moved it because they want to be able to play football on that field and they had to move it so that | 01:19:30 | |
they could play the football out there. Otherwise it didn't set up, but you know. | 01:19:36 | |
If you're going to move it, we can look at that. You know, I mean it doesn't. I think where you gain the efficiency is by moving | 01:19:44 | |
home point to a corner. | 01:19:47 | |
It doesn't. Might not have to be that corner, but what happens now is you. | 01:19:51 | |
You lose a third of the of the space on that field because. | 01:19:56 | |
Home plates in the middle of the field, essentially. | 01:20:01 | |
But good. I think that's something we need to take back to the designers and talk about. That's fair. | 01:20:03 | |
Jeff, anything you want to offer? | 01:20:09 | |
No, I just think it's a great opportunity for the city and the generosity of Mr. Mahoney. | 01:20:11 | |
To want to, you know, do this for the city and his daughter. So I like the concept and I think it satisfies. | 01:20:18 | |
You know the the two or three different camps and makes this a great attraction for our city, so we're looking forward to it. | 01:20:27 | |
OK, I think now members of the public, if you all want to make some comments, we'd welcome them understanding we're going to get | 01:20:37 | |
an opportunity to make a deeper dive. | 01:20:41 | |
A Deeper Dive at on August 2nd and August 9th. | 01:20:45 | |
OK, I can talk loud enough. Anyway, it doesn't matter. | 01:20:51 | |
Yeah, Laura Rose. I'm at 104 White St. and I want to thank you, Christine, for mentioning a patent court. But I would like to add | 01:20:56 | |
something I the design is beautiful, the idea is great, but what y'all are always leaving out. | 01:21:04 | |
Is that you think adults? Senior adults don't do anything except walk? | 01:21:12 | |
There are, there's if you had it in your plan, something for senior adults like Patonk or just bulls in general, or even | 01:21:19 | |
horseshoes, you'd be saying to the public. | 01:21:25 | |
That seniors matter. | 01:21:32 | |
Because we can't all be out there playing tennis. | 01:21:34 | |
And we can't all be playing pickleball, but we can play the talk. We can play bocce, you know, we can play horseshoes. | 01:21:38 | |
And it I feel like we just get completely left out and we're told you watch your grandchildren and you walk and you take your dog | 01:21:47 | |
to the dog park and that's what you're allowed to do. | 01:21:53 | |
That's kind of how it feels. | 01:22:00 | |
So just rethink a little bit. | 01:22:02 | |
What you're doing recreationally. | 01:22:06 | |
For older adults. | 01:22:09 | |
In your plan. And thank you, Christine. | 01:22:12 | |
And Kathleen, the question 13 S Barnett shells and these are two gentlemen who are in the tank club. | 01:22:16 | |
It's OK who play with my husband, Lawrence Duke. | 01:22:26 | |
On a gravel parking lot in Athens over at Lake Herrick. | 01:22:31 | |
But it is a gravel parking lot and we would greatly benefit from a having a pretend court here on Rocket Field. It would take | 01:22:39 | |
about the. | 01:22:45 | |
The court itself is about 4050 by 80 feet, is that correct? And a couple of benches for their seniors to sit down. This is | 01:22:51 | |
basically a senior sport. | 01:22:57 | |
There is a two patent clubs. | 01:23:04 | |
In Athens and many of the members are from here in actually here in Watkinsville, These two gentlemen are from Athens, but they | 01:23:09 | |
would love to come over here to Watkinsville, play for Tank and then spend their money at our restaurants. | 01:23:16 | |
It wouldn't. It's not an expensive thing to install based on the current plan that you have. Having it over by the gazebo would be | 01:23:24 | |
perfect because that's where there's some shade. | 01:23:31 | |
It would also, there's a lot of seniors moving here. I'm sure Wire Park is going to be chock a block with them and this is a nice. | 01:23:39 | |
Easy sport, it's there's a lot of competition that goes on. | 01:23:46 | |
These people are all going down to Saint Neely Island to compete. There's also competitions in France and it's it's an underground | 01:23:53 | |
sport. | 01:23:57 | |
That when you get to our age, you're going to love. | 01:24:04 | |
So we highly recommend that you and we can help you with the design and the plan and what kind of gravel you need and the edges | 01:24:09 | |
people bring their own bulls so you don't have to supply those and. | 01:24:16 | |
Oh, the little balls that you throw. You've all, you all know what bocce ball is. Well, this is the French version of bocce ball, | 01:24:24 | |
so it's very Snooty. | 01:24:28 | |
But I know that Dana and Charlie here can't wait to get their own bulls so they can come and join because it's right across the | 01:24:37 | |
street. And anyways, that's my spiel. | 01:24:42 | |
Sure. My name is Jerry Galeton. S Stratford, Athens, GA. | 01:24:50 | |
I'm an emergency professor at UGA and I just want to add 1 bit. | 01:24:54 | |
I've brought students that I teach and I still teach a freshman odyssey course. | 01:24:59 | |
To play Batank. So it's not just for the elderly, but I bring 18 year olds to Lake Herrick where they play and I would love to | 01:25:03 | |
bring them here where they can spend their money and you can get your one cents additional from them when they come here. I've | 01:25:08 | |
been listening. | 01:25:12 | |
And it is an international sport. Amelia Island is hosting an international competition. | 01:25:18 | |
And my wife lives in Brazil, so I go to Brazil and we played there as well. So it is a growing sport, not quite as fast as | 01:25:24 | |
pickleball, but it is growing. | 01:25:28 | |
1. | 01:25:33 | |
Thank you. Thank you all. | 01:25:36 | |
All right. Any further appreciate and and I don't want y'all to think because we didn't drop potential on the plans that were | 01:25:39 | |
anti. You know I mean it just that's that's you know but I appreciate the feedback and I know that you would rather have comments | 01:25:44 | |
on the 2nd and the 9th, but these gentlemen came all the way from Athens. Well that is it is duly noted and we will include | 01:25:50 | |
include that in the in the public feedback. | 01:25:55 | |
Anything else on Rocket Field? | 01:26:01 | |
OK. Thank you all. Yes, ma'am. | 01:26:03 | |
Right now it's Little League, right? Right. | 01:26:07 | |
Always paid the court. I'll repeat the question. Yep, Yep, Yep. So the the question is about upkeep. Our intention would be to | 01:26:11 | |
still work with Little League and other organizations who are leasing it to manage the upkeep. So we would anticipate. | 01:26:17 | |
Probably having Little League and some softball teams using it and having a joint lease with them and working with them on the | 01:26:25 | |
upkeep knowing we may have to do a little bit more. But also our our public works department isn't in the business of baseball | 01:26:30 | |
field management and doing it to the level that. | 01:26:35 | |
You know, a, you know, Little League and softball might expect so. | 01:26:42 | |
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We've got to come up to the we got people online, got people online, so, so. | 01:26:50 | |
You got it. You might come up to. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. | 01:26:56 | |
We live at 22 School St. | 01:27:04 | |
We we're going to see everything that happens there like we easily. | 01:27:06 | |
But now I was just. | 01:27:10 | |
Something about that upkeep. | 01:27:13 | |
The grass gets cut and. | 01:27:16 | |
Some other things get done, but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't get taken care of, like when the fencing is is torn. | 01:27:19 | |
I mean, we have kids that go in there and tear things up inside me. It's a lot of stuff is really pretty. | 01:27:26 | |
And I think her concern was that it, you know? | 01:27:31 | |
Well, is it going to be kept up so that doesn't get ready right away. So I think it's a fair concern. My experience has been with | 01:27:36 | |
public spaces. When they have more use, they're better maintained, you know, and I think part of the challenge is, you know, when | 01:27:41 | |
a place looks like it's not well taken care of when the bathrooms. | 01:27:47 | |
You know cobwebs when you know it. People, you know, people tend to think, well, nobody's taking. It's not being as well taken | 01:27:53 | |
care of as it should. So why should I care about how it looks or how I treat it? | 01:27:58 | |
Why? Why pick up all the litter that I've left, that I'm, you know, from my, my trophy boxes? I've been out there on a Saturday | 01:28:03 | |
morning and picked up. | 01:28:07 | |
Black garbage bags full of boxes because of Little League coach didn't care enough to take his boxes home with them. So I think, | 01:28:12 | |
you know as it gets more use and more people out there, there's going to be more pride in the field. | 01:28:18 | |
You know, and how it's maintained and I think we'll lean into it, you know, as a city too. But right now it's been a little bit of | 01:28:25 | |
purgatory because nobody knows what to do with it, right? We have. | 01:28:29 | |
Plenty. | 01:28:36 | |
Yeah, Yeah. Where I mean much, much better than some of the other plans that I've heard. | 01:28:37 | |
Leaving downtown and on the rocket field, you know that. I mean that was. | 01:28:45 | |
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. OK. Well, thank you, Mr. | 01:28:50 | |
Anyone else? | 01:28:56 | |
You coming back? Are you getting out of here? All right, getting out of here. | 01:28:59 | |
OK. Well, thank you everybody. That's what I would ask for I think tonight on Rocket Field. | 01:29:03 | |
Council, I would love. | 01:29:09 | |
To have a formal motion to move forward with the conversations with Mr. Mahoney and the public input process is articulated up | 01:29:13 | |
here. | 01:29:17 | |
So moved all in favor, say any further conversation? | 01:29:23 | |
All right, All in favor. Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries for a. | 01:29:29 | |
All right, new business potential referendum for tea spots. We talked about this during Public Input Manager Dickerson. Is there | 01:29:35 | |
any additional information we need to talk about here? | 01:29:40 | |
Now just just a reminder again that if you that you have, you have a choice to make. Well, you'll need to make it before you vote | 01:29:46 | |
on the next item. | 01:29:50 | |
Or when you've actually make the vote on the resolution, the way to intergovernmental agreement, we'll just talk about these | 01:29:56 | |
together because they're intermixed. The intergovernmental agreement currently has an Exhibit A that says that 5.516 million will | 01:30:02 | |
be that that's what you're estimating will be for the City of Watkinsville and 30% of that will be spent on the statewide | 01:30:07 | |
strategic transportation. | 01:30:13 | |
Goal of roads and maintenance on roads. | 01:30:20 | |
You can leave it like that, which leaves it very, you know, generic, you know very open or you can be more specific if you do. If | 01:30:25 | |
you are more specific then you will want to swap your Exhibit A for that for this and we've got it set up. Julie has both. So | 01:30:31 | |
whichever one you decide so that that can be signed and and given to the county and and and passed on to the Board of Elections so | 01:30:37 | |
that the referendum will be set up correctly for the City of Watkinsville. | 01:30:43 | |
And it will not be, it will at all be the bold and bold areas. It won't sell the rest of us. It will be sidewalk construction. | 01:30:50 | |
Basically. It's in bold traffic efficiency improvements and then Rd. resurfacing and rehabilitation. That's how it will read with | 01:30:55 | |
those amounts out to the side. | 01:31:00 | |
All right, Council. | 01:31:08 | |
So we're looking for first. | 01:31:12 | |
OK. We did the discussion. We're looking for the resolution and the resolution. | 01:31:16 | |
Whether we want this language in bold in terms of what we're specifically doing, or whether we want more generic language, I have | 01:31:21 | |
a question. | 01:31:24 | |
So looking at the one on this list, the traffic efficiency improvements at the 25%. | 01:31:28 | |
So I have two contradictory thoughts. One is, do we have enough? | 01:31:36 | |
Roads that are ours that we would need to be doing this with, since so many of the main thoroughfares are state highways or county | 01:31:41 | |
roads. | 01:31:45 | |
So that's one extreme and the other extreme is if we did do something is that enough money to really do anything. So I guess I | 01:31:49 | |
I'm, I'm hesitant to give 25% of that. | 01:31:55 | |
Just. | 01:32:01 | |
I don't have any particular projects in mind or thoughts I'm sure. I mean I know there are traffic efficiency improvements that | 01:32:02 | |
can be done in our community but I have you know we have an entire transportation study of sidewalk and multi use trail side path | 01:32:09 | |
that we know we want to do and get done. So I'm I'm leaning towards. | 01:32:15 | |
So it may be where we've got to chip in and say well if you want you know around about here then you've got to pay for half of the | 01:32:57 | |
engineering or if we want to as we think about experiment station road, you know we're going to have to look at, you know we may | 01:33:02 | |
have to chip in to offset some costs. So those are the kind of places that I could see that, see that, see that working and then | 01:33:07 | |
we do have some things in. | 01:33:12 | |
And our mobility plan that involves chicanes and some of the little, some of the things that we could do on some of the streets | 01:33:18 | |
that we end that slow traffic further that are residential streets. So that would be most, yeah. And then traffic calming measures | 01:33:23 | |
could also be some of the signage, you know that we have like the variable message side things that help calm the traffic. Those | 01:33:28 | |
are some things that because it's transportation related. | 01:33:34 | |
Rearrange the road a little bit to slow traffic down or something. So at least for that one I think you're probably OK. | 01:34:09 | |
I guess I would personally if we it sounded like this was an option to be more general tonight to move this forward say it's on | 01:34:16 | |
the ballot and. | 01:34:20 | |
Maybe spend some time really thinking through this and. | 01:34:25 | |
Can we do that, Sharon? Can we adjust that what goes on after tonight or is this we need to decide how it looks? Well, I think | 01:34:30 | |
that I think if I were going to go back and look at the deadline, I think the deadline is August 2nd. | 01:34:36 | |
And you can be, you know, and I mean there is some, you know. | 01:34:44 | |
There's benefits to both sides, right? If you, if you're not more specific than that, you got that 70% that you can then get input | 01:34:49 | |
from the public and you can do that later. But sometimes it's helpful when you're trying to get something passed and I'll remind | 01:34:54 | |
you that the city walkers will did pass it last year with this exact same percentage. | 01:35:00 | |
If you're a little bit more specific, people feel more confident that you know you've actually got some plans, you've thought | 01:35:06 | |
through it, but you also are, then if it passes, that's the way you have to use your buckets and use the money in those buckets. | 01:35:11 | |
What I like about this is it's general categories, but if we want to share with the public as we get closer to the election, | 01:35:16 | |
here's some specific priorities we would have. | 01:35:21 | |
We would do that. They wouldn't necessarily be on the ballot, but these would be we could outline some priorities that we would | 01:35:27 | |
have, for example, some of the sidewalk, some of the other things that we've outlined on the transportation plan. | 01:35:31 | |
Signal enhancements, other things like that so we can communicate those. | 01:35:37 | |
Publicly, even if they aren't on the ballot. | 01:35:42 | |
I think one of the reasons that it struggled county wide is there was a lack of specificity in what was people didn't know what it | 01:35:45 | |
was going to be used for. | 01:35:48 | |
Wasn't I think in Watkinsville. People know generally that we've been working on transportation things for a long time and we have | 01:35:53 | |
those so. | 01:35:56 | |
I guess my perhaps completely unfounded fear is that, like with. | 01:36:01 | |
With that you know almost $1.2 million that we will. | 01:36:08 | |
Then have this money and we will have to find money other places in our budget to actually do any of the projects, if that makes | 01:36:13 | |
sense. I and and maybe I'm just being. | 01:36:19 | |
I don't know. | 01:36:26 | |
I will certainly vote for it this way, but. | 01:36:28 | |
I knew a little bit more. | 01:36:33 | |
But I want it to pass. Oh, am I not supposed to say that so? | 01:36:35 | |
Thinking. State your opinion. Just can't campaign for it. Yeah, yeah. | 01:36:40 | |
Still a free country? | 01:36:46 | |
OK council that you've heard Councilwoman Tuckers perspective, you all have thoughts, Further thoughts here. | 01:36:48 | |
All right, hearing none, somebody make a motion. | 01:36:57 | |
I'll make a. | 01:37:06 | |
As stated item 11 with the bold faced categories. | 01:37:11 | |
Would be the specific buckets the bold faced categories with those dollar amounts. | 01:37:19 | |
OK, so we have a motion. Do we have a second for that? | 01:37:23 | |
We have a motion. We have a second, further discussion. All right, all in favor, say. | 01:37:27 | |
Any opposed all right motion carries 4. | 01:37:32 | |
All right, we are now to public comment. If anyone would like to address council on something that has not been discussed, now is | 01:37:36 | |
your moment. Come on up and give us your address and let's hear from you. | 01:37:42 | |
All right, everybody. Don't jump up at once. Julie, did we have anything come in? | 01:37:51 | |
From the Internet? | 01:37:54 | |
All right, hearing none of that, we will close public comment mayor's report. | 01:37:57 | |
Pleased to report that we have fixed the sidewalk outside of City Hall. If anybody has been here for about four months, we had a | 01:38:04 | |
little Cliff where we're trying to tie in the. | 01:38:09 | |
Playground of possibilities and the ESP work to City Hall that required us to adjust the elevation of our sidewalk so it's 88 | 01:38:15 | |
accessible across the board. We've also resolved a long standing drain issue, drainage issue that led to there being a puddle on | 01:38:21 | |
rainy nights right in front of City Hall, so that's been adjusted. | 01:38:27 | |
John, thank you to you and your team for helping us move our water meter. We appreciate that. And you also help with that flagpole | 01:38:34 | |
was reinstalled. The lines are mostly painted. We will fix the landscaping over the next few months and probably not plant stuff | 01:38:39 | |
till the fall so we don't have to water it and worry about it dying. So. So it will look better out front. I promise you that's a | 01:38:45 | |
project for us. It's not going to be beautiful for a few months though. | 01:38:51 | |
We were really pleased with our citizens helping to turn Watkinsville red, white and blue. We had some great, great submission | 01:38:58 | |
sent in by different people and what they did. | 01:39:03 | |
So once again, Councilman Thomas, if you're listening, we really appreciate you rallying everybody and putting that together for | 01:39:08 | |
us. | 01:39:12 | |
For two decades, John, the commissioners have done have worked really hard about designating S Oak County remaining rural, other | 01:39:50 | |
areas that are more that are designated for different types of growth. So that planning process is going on right now. It happens | 01:39:57 | |
once a decade and it's important that the public participate and indicate their preferences on that so. | 01:40:03 | |
You'll hear more from us on that in the coming months because we have to be a part of that process. | 01:40:10 | |
We got a birthday girl. | 01:40:16 | |
Happy birthday to Christine Tucker. | 01:40:20 | |
30 and holding. | 01:40:24 | |
Yeah. So, Christine, happy birthday to you July baby. I've got two of those myself. So we're we're thankful for you. Oh gosh, that | 01:40:26 | |
guy. That guy is familiar to me. He. | 01:40:33 | |
That's my son. He did well out in Oregon and is ready to run for the Oak County Warriors next year, so he's excited. | 01:40:40 | |
Take that away. Gosh. Stop. Stop. | 01:40:48 | |
Yeah. Stop. Stop. Stop. | 01:40:52 | |
Yeah, he grew a lot in the past month. | 01:40:56 | |
My time was my time is transposed there as an old runner, all saves. A little faster than that but I'm still. I'm still. I'm glad | 01:40:59 | |
I could get down the road. I promptly got injured on Saturday, so I'm recovering from that. | 01:41:04 | |
The what I was about to say is the World Series trophy, do we have a slide for that? We don't. OK. So what I thought I was about | 01:41:10 | |
to say is we're really pleased the Braves are bringing the World Series trophy back to Watkinsville for the second time. That's | 01:41:17 | |
August 20th at Wire Park, 1:50 I think or 11:50. So we're expecting a good crowd at Wire Park. | 01:41:24 | |
For the Braves, the World World Series trophy coming back as we get towards. | 01:41:31 | |
October, and hopefully another one for the Braves. So that's the mayor's report. Thank you for the embarrassing moments. | 01:41:35 | |
Thought I was in charge of that mayor's report. Now I know why I didn't. Didn't see that in advance. With that, we'll go to | 01:41:41 | |
council members for their update. Councilman Garrett post one. | 01:41:45 | |
Nothing from Councilman Garrett Councilwoman Massey Post. | 01:41:51 | |
Did have you seen any reduction in the stop sign running since last month? Any changes? | 01:41:55 | |
Vehicles coming off of your main. | 01:42:02 | |
Are slowing down. OK, know what they do once they get past the sign, But there's going down as they're coming up the bill. OK All | 01:42:06 | |
right. Well, I love the entertaining messages on the sign. Thank you, Chief. | 01:42:10 | |
Tell him who went Princess Bride if you've never seen The Princess Bride. | 01:42:21 | |
If you, if you. | 01:42:27 | |
Don't know, You'll find. Just don't Google while you're in the car. | 01:42:30 | |
But yeah, Chief, thanks for keeping those interesting and we appreciate you deploying that. That sign has been a valuable tool. I | 01:42:37 | |
noticed one at Social Circle all of a sudden today, Joe, you might have had some influence there. | 01:42:42 | |
Councilman Thomas is not here. Councilwoman Tucker, any updates? So this past month I got to go down to Savannah to the GMA | 01:42:47 | |
conference and attended an all day workshop on activating. | 01:42:54 | |
Downtown Development Authority. And so we are in process of getting that going. | 01:43:02 | |
There also was a whole section on the benefits of having a historic preservation district or area, and so I am. I sent out some | 01:43:10 | |
information about that to council in the last week or so, and I would like to see us moving forward with that as well. | 01:43:19 | |
I know a lot of us in this room live in homes that probably will qualify, but in reading through. | 01:43:29 | |
The version that they had, it does not seem as onerous as what some of them. | 01:43:37 | |
That we've seen before are and it seems like it really can be an opportunity to have a good balance to preserve the history that | 01:43:42 | |
we have and there are a lot of tax incentives and grants available when you have these in place. And so I. | 01:43:49 | |
I would love to see that moving forward. | 01:43:57 | |
Thank you, Councilman Tucker, Councilman Campbell. | 01:44:03 | |
Nothing to report, nothing to report from post five. OK, well hearing that we are going to move into executive session. So I will | 01:44:06 | |
entertain a motion to enter executive session. | 01:44:11 | |
Leave regular session Go into executive session for the purpose of discussing real estate and potential litigation. I make the | 01:44:16 | |
motion to leave regular session will move to executive session for the purpose of discussing real estate and potential litigation. | 01:44:22 | |
All in favor? All right, we'll start in 4 minutes. If anybody needs to go to the restroom, go now. | 01:44:29 | |
I make a motion to. | 01:44:37 | |
2nd a. | 01:44:39 |
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Good evening everyone and welcome to the July meeting of the Watkinsville City Council. We are excited to see such a big crowd | 00:00:10 | |
here tonight. This is going to be a special night on a lot of levels for Watkinsville and just really. | 00:00:17 | |
Excited to see some friends, old and new, here with us tonight. | 00:00:24 | |
We have a quorum here tonight. Councilman Thomas is unable to join us tonight, but we do have four or five members here tonight. | 00:00:29 | |
Thank you for all making time to be here on our rescheduled evening. At this point, I'd ask the Brock family to lead us in the | 00:00:33 | |
pledge, please. | 00:00:38 | |
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:46 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:53 | |
Just about a month ago. | 00:01:10 | |
We lost Mayor Dave. | 00:01:13 | |
Dave was never at a loss for words. | 00:01:17 | |
I'm gonna loss for words as I try to describe his impact on this city and on. | 00:01:20 | |
Frankly, myself and on this community. | 00:01:27 | |
I really have struggled with it, Dave. | 00:01:32 | |
Dave is a Goodman who led with his heart. | 00:01:35 | |
He demanded excellence from everyone that he worked. | 00:01:38 | |
He dreamed big. | 00:01:43 | |
And encourage others to do so, and inspired them to deliver. | 00:01:45 | |
He demanded Excell. | 00:01:48 | |
He encouraged, He pushed. He cajoled all those words. He was a man of vision. | 00:01:50 | |
Dave Sheeran was. | 00:01:56 | |
Mana vision and a difference maker in Watkinsville. | 00:01:58 | |
So tonight I thought it was appropriate, if we take some time, to recognize Mayor Dave's contributions. Thank you to all who were | 00:02:02 | |
here. | 00:02:05 | |
Mario Castro, Dave's husband, is here. Mario, we're grateful to you. We know that Dave was not operating alone. A lot of that | 00:02:11 | |
energy, a lot of that vision, a lot of that spark came, came from you and his special relationship with you and in that | 00:02:17 | |
partnership. And that's one of the things that made Dave so amazing. So we are eternally grateful for Dave and we have some things | 00:02:23 | |
that we want to share. | 00:02:30 | |
About Dave, so with that Sharon. | 00:02:37 | |
Yeah, let's do it. | 00:02:40 | |
This video this video is when Dave, Dave and Laura Whitaker. Dave and I went to visit LSI. It's a playground equipment | 00:02:54 | |
manufacturer that later manufactured the equipment out. There it was. | 00:02:59 | |
Freezing, freezing cold day in Minnesota and Dave loved the slide and we went outside on snowy playgrounds all over Minneapolis. | 00:03:05 | |
And no matter how much snow was on the ground, Dave did the slide. So Sharon, I think you have something you want to share about | 00:03:16 | |
Dave and some of the new slides here in Watkinsville. Well, on behalf of the City of Watkinsville's employees, we will be | 00:03:23 | |
donating, we will be donating enough money to dedicate a slide at ESP in honor of Mayor Dave. | 00:03:31 | |
Them. | 00:03:39 | |
And you can see from the imagery up here the, you know, the, the spirit that they brought, the energy he brought. Dave was a | 00:03:44 | |
bridge builder. | 00:03:48 | |
No matter your political belief, she couldn't help but love Dave, and that's always stuck out to me about what he did. We're going | 00:03:53 | |
to have an opportunity to celebrate Dave. | 00:03:58 | |
His in classic Dave style, he did not want a traditional memorial service. Instead, we'll have a celebration of life. | 00:04:05 | |
July 30th, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM at Rocket Field. Family fun day. All kinds of bounce houses, a petting zoo, a dunk. | 00:04:13 | |
Live music, trapeze artists, food trucks. I have a feeling some people who are sitting up here will be involved in that dunk tank | 00:04:20 | |
experience. So, so. | 00:04:24 | |
So, so we are. | 00:04:32 | |
Mario, I'm going to let some other people speak at this point, but just know that you've. | 00:04:34 | |
Been on the hearts and our minds and in our prayers over the past month. Know that your husband and partner made an eternal | 00:04:40 | |
difference to this to the city. | 00:04:43 | |
That, that will. | 00:04:48 | |
You know, it may be forgotten when we're not here, but it will never be lost. | 00:04:51 | |
Because it will stand the test of time, Council members with that, if any of you have any recollections you want to share about | 00:04:55 | |
Mayor Dave, I'd love for you to do so. And then we may have a few. I know we have at least one person from the audience who would | 00:04:59 | |
love to speak as well. | 00:05:03 | |
I do. | 00:05:08 | |
And I wrote it down and I'm probably still going to get emotional, so I apologize. | 00:05:10 | |
It goes without saying that Dave is irreplaceable and his presence will be dearly missed. | 00:05:15 | |
I had encountered his vivacious personality on occasion at events at Ashford Manor and through common friends, but I truly had the | 00:05:21 | |
privilege to get to know him while he served as mayor. | 00:05:26 | |
Dave was a man of integrity who pursued what he felt was right. | 00:05:32 | |
He courageously made important and necessary changes for the city, including major changes to our Police Department and hiring our | 00:05:36 | |
first city manager. | 00:05:40 | |
He was always open to possibilities and wasn't afraid to change the status quo. | 00:05:45 | |
I already miss his wit and his warmth and his wonderful stories. | 00:05:51 | |
Watkinsville. | 00:05:56 | |
Wouldn't be what and where it is today if it weren't for Dave. | 00:05:58 | |
And I also echo everything that Brian was saying about Mario I will never forget. | 00:06:02 | |
I was out of town and my husband was building our guest cottage. | 00:06:08 | |
And he got stuck on the roof. The ladder fell down and it's a steep pitch, big thing and. | 00:06:14 | |
I managed to get a call to Kathleen. | 00:06:21 | |
Kathleen, who called. Dave, who sent. | 00:06:24 | |
Umm to to go rescue my husband who he had never met, had no idea who he was off this steep roof and so. | 00:06:28 | |
That is a tiny, tiny little story of just. | 00:06:40 | |
What both of y'all mean to us? So thank you. | 00:06:44 | |
I failed to prepare anything but. | 00:06:57 | |
Everything. Every time I saw Dave, one thing I take from it as a way to live life is to there's a lot of times we're not happy. | 00:07:01 | |
He was always happy. He might get a set of things, but he would just had he smiled. He went forward and he he loved life. | 00:07:10 | |
And that was something that I always felt when I was around. | 00:07:18 | |
And I mean, there's probably. | 00:07:22 | |
Seven years ago now. It's hard to tell because time flies. But on 4th of July was approaching and David Mario invited us over to | 00:07:26 | |
spend the afternoon swimming in the pool at their house. | 00:07:31 | |
And honestly, at that time we went, I didn't know them real well at this time. | 00:07:38 | |
That's awesome. We get to hang out and get to know those two better. And it wasn't just my wife and I was. Our daughters were | 00:07:44 | |
there too, but they they both invited all of us and we just had a wonderful afternoon swimming in the pool on the 4th of July. | 00:07:51 | |
So I'm gonna love you both and but yeah, Dave, you know, whenever I get down, I can just see a picture of Dave and know how I | 00:08:00 | |
should be thinking about life. | 00:08:05 | |
And I just wanted to say that I was proud that I had the opportunity to meet Dave and Mario when my daughter got married at. | 00:08:19 | |
At their venue and I'm proud that I had the opportunity to work with him on council while he was mayor and I'm proud that I called | 00:08:28 | |
him my friend. | 00:08:33 | |
And he will be missed. | 00:08:39 | |
So I was trying to remember how long when it was when I met Dave, but it's been a long time and I know every time. | 00:08:46 | |
Out just He always made me feel important. He always took time to stop and. | 00:08:56 | |
How's it going? You know, it was just, he's one of those people. As we go through life, you'll meet people that. | 00:09:03 | |
Have an impact on you. You'll never forgive him, and he's one. | 00:09:08 | |
People in my life that I will never forget, the times that we got to talk and the you know, the words of encouragement he gave me | 00:09:12 | |
and. | 00:09:17 | |
Just a true friend is what boils down to just someone. | 00:09:22 | |
You know you just he makes, he just has a huge impact on everybody came in contact with. | 00:09:30 | |
And Representative Marcus Sweetow, I think is here and would also like to share. | 00:09:41 | |
Share. | 00:09:45 | |
Mario, like Chuck, I was trying to remember how long it's been. | 00:09:57 | |
Since I met you all, but it's been a long it's been a long time. | 00:10:02 | |
And. | 00:10:06 | |
I don't know how Brian holds it together. I'm an emotional guy. | 00:10:07 | |
So I will say this. | 00:10:10 | |
In the world we're living in. | 00:10:13 | |
Is what? | 00:10:18 | |
Leader should. | 00:10:20 | |
He was always welcoming. | 00:10:22 | |
To me, you both were. I thoroughly enjoyed some of our debates and conversations. | 00:10:24 | |
Have the utmost respect for both of you. | 00:10:32 | |
I cannot think of Watkinsville image without thinking of the two of you and what you've done for this community. | 00:10:36 | |
And what you have built. | 00:10:43 | |
I literally cannot think. | 00:10:45 | |
Concerts on the lawn to a random afternoon in your backyard having a glass of wine. | 00:10:48 | |
Umm. | 00:10:54 | |
Just what you guys have done. | 00:10:55 | |
And what you guys have meant to this community? | 00:10:57 | |
I've been thinking about you. | 00:11:01 | |
I will not be able to be in the dump take I will be spending some time with my family right before school starts. But I will be | 00:11:03 | |
thinking about you and I love you guys very much. | 00:11:08 | |
At this point I think. | 00:11:24 | |
I think we'll need. We'll move on. | 00:11:27 | |
Unless Sharon, is there anything else that we need to share about Dave? | 00:11:30 | |
Mario, I don't know if you are capable of speaking. Yeah, I think just. | 00:11:34 | |
I'll wrap it up with this, Dave. Dave put so many things in motion for this town. | 00:11:40 | |
And as the agenda came together for. | 00:11:46 | |
And I knew that David passed. | 00:11:49 | |
And I knew that we're going to share plans. | 00:11:51 | |
For a new. | 00:11:54 | |
We're going to share plans. | 00:11:56 | |
Revitalized Rocket Field. | 00:12:01 | |
We're going to swear in a police officer in a in a in a police force that has evolved tremendously due today's leadership. | 00:12:04 | |
I knew that. | 00:12:14 | |
There was something more than random things coming together on this night. It feels like a Mayor Dave kind of night in | 00:12:16 | |
Watkinsville. | 00:12:19 | |
Where big things are happening, he dreamed big. And some of those dreams are coming true. And the first step to that is tonight. | 00:12:24 | |
Mario and everybody who came to support Mario, you're welcome to go after we wrap this part up if you'd like to remain. We will be | 00:12:31 | |
working through those other issues relatively quickly tonight. So would love for you to stay and learn more about what's coming | 00:12:37 | |
down the Pike and we'll be swearing in Officer Anglin as well, which we're excited about. But I totally understand if people have | 00:12:43 | |
prior engagements and and need to go, so we will. | 00:12:49 | |
Take a brief break in case anybody does need to go after this, and then we will jump right into the minutes and the regular course | 00:12:55 | |
of our meeting. But thank you all for coming, Mario. We love you. | 00:12:59 | |
Yeah. | 00:13:05 | |
Call me if you need anything just let me know. | 00:13:19 | |
OK. | 00:13:51 | |
We will move along council. We will move to the approval of the Minutes. I don't know if anyone has any suggestions, edits or | 00:13:53 | |
changes to the Minutes. I did not notice any when I reviewed them. | 00:13:58 | |
If there are none, then I'll accept a motion to approve the Minutes. I make a motion to approve the minutes. | 00:14:05 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:14:13 | |
All in favor, Say aye. | 00:14:15 | |
Motion carries. All right now we are to approval of the agenda. I'd ask that we table item number 8. Do we have a consent agenda | 00:14:19 | |
this month Sharon, nothing on the month. | 00:14:23 | |
So I would ask that we that we approve the agenda, but tabling item number 8 regarding the. | 00:14:28 | |
Sewer on a update. | 00:14:36 | |
I'll entertain a motion to that. I make a motion that we accept the agenda admitting item number 8. All right, so to table item | 00:14:40 | |
number 8 until next month. Do we have a second? | 00:14:44 | |
We have a second from Councilman Campbell. All in favor? Say aye, aye. Motion carries. | 00:14:50 | |
All right, Administration. | 00:14:56 | |
Speak from the podium, address council when you speak, address the merits of the pending matter. Attorney will guide us through | 00:15:32 | |
any of the more formal public speaking parts of the process or if anybody gets out of line, attorney will handle that as well. So | 00:15:38 | |
under administration we kick things off with the financial reports Manager Dickerson, if you could walk us through that. | 00:15:44 | |
Thank you, Mayor. I do not have on the overhead the balance sheet because everybody would have to strain to read it all, but the | 00:15:51 | |
council has has it and it is also available online. | 00:15:56 | |
On splashed one, you may recall Splash One, the only project outstanding on that is the water and sewer that's the sewer Line A | 00:16:28 | |
going through the industrial park. That project is actually funded by Sewer Line One. The remaining funds of 248,000 and some | 00:16:33 | |
change along with. | 00:16:38 | |
$904.00 and some change in Spos 2 there are encumbered about $17,000 that actually the checks have not clear, but that was for the | 00:16:43 | |
workout front city, the City Hall sidewalk out front. The mayor will highlight that in his report later. | 00:16:51 | |
But those are the only two projects outstanding on that. | 00:17:00 | |
On Splice 3, you have encumbered some funds on that. On those items you have some capital monies in public safety that have been | 00:17:03 | |
set aside, also in multi-purpose government facilities. | 00:17:09 | |
But the big projects are we have $100,000 to spend about 10. | 00:17:16 | |
Of it so far on Paris Shoals Park, you just completed some work at Layla Lane. | 00:17:20 | |
Which was part of the element, the local maintenance improvement grant money and then some of the branding initiative that is | 00:17:26 | |
going towards signage. So those are the projects that are currently have been appropriated, funds have been appropriate for those | 00:17:30 | |
projects. | 00:17:34 | |
And you still have quite a bit of programming to do with those funds, but that's sort of where that sits Just as a comparison, you | 00:17:38 | |
have we budget around 60, I think it was 64,000 and we've been getting average of 72,000. | 00:17:46 | |
So we're up 6760 or so thousand over what we projected, which is always good news, right? | 00:17:54 | |
And then? | 00:18:03 | |
American rescue plan. | 00:18:05 | |
This is the money. This is the money from last year July of last year. I did not check the bank account today, but we are | 00:18:07 | |
anticipating the 2nd and final tranche of money to come in, which will be $548,204.50 out of that same amount that you got last | 00:18:14 | |
fiscal year. You you have a balance of 373,000, but I I did mention that you had appropriated money. | 00:18:22 | |
For public safety that you're not, we're not going to need, so we'll reshuffle that money back into the general bucket on the next | 00:18:30 | |
cycle. | 00:18:34 | |
Once we get all the expenses in, we'll cycle. We'll put that back in the non appropriate amount and you'll have that much to spend | 00:18:39 | |
in addition to the money you're getting, you'll be getting sometime this month. So you're roughly going to have about $700,000. | 00:18:44 | |
That has yet to be appropriated. | 00:18:51 | |
Any questions on those reports? | 00:18:54 | |
OK, seeing now, we'll jump to the next section which is economic development. | 00:18:57 | |
Had a lot of that going on lately. | 00:19:02 | |
We have six business licenses, 1 alcohol license that came in during the month of June. The one I'll highlight of course is South | 00:19:05 | |
Main Brewing. They came in, they are finalizing their construction. I think they're estimating sometime at the end of this month. | 00:19:10 | |
Once they receive their CEO from the city, they'll go to the state to the state, I think Department of Revenue and Department of | 00:19:14 | |
AG. | 00:19:19 | |
To get those check offs and I think there's some federal stuff as well that has to be checked off. So that's moving pretty | 00:19:25 | |
quickly. | 00:19:28 | |
Any questions about those? | 00:19:32 | |
OK, the next one is really tiny. | 00:19:35 | |
Um. | 00:19:39 | |
And what I'll highlight here is there were 55 building permits for 22 projects, the biggest of which was Trove, a residential | 00:19:40 | |
neighborhood off of Column Ferry Rd. | 00:19:44 | |
There were 11 houses housing building permits for 11 houses. That NSFR is non. | 00:19:49 | |
Single family residential within stand for, I can't remember. Anyway, that's what it stands for is single family residential and | 00:19:56 | |
you'll see that they had plumbing and HVAC and electrical for all of those. That's why you see so many of those repeating | 00:20:00 | |
themselves. | 00:20:05 | |
Because they have to have permits for each of those trades as well as building permits. | 00:20:09 | |
So lots of exciting things going on. Any questions? | 00:20:14 | |
OK. | 00:20:18 | |
She just walked out. Chief's timing is impeccable, as always. | 00:20:23 | |
On to the police report. | 00:20:28 | |
Good evening, Mayor. | 00:20:39 | |
How are y'all doing? | 00:20:42 | |
Glad to see y'all here early in the month instead of late in the month. | 00:20:44 | |
This is a week early. | 00:20:48 | |
So I submitted a report last week with. | 00:20:51 | |
Statistical data for the Police Department as well as the data that comes from our science throughout. | 00:20:55 | |
Are there any questions over any of the material I? | 00:21:00 | |
No looking good. | 00:21:08 | |
All right. Mayor mentioned to me earlier this evening that maybe I'll do some comparison charts. | 00:21:11 | |
Some of the statistical traffic data, I'll work something up and get you all a report next month so you can see how we're | 00:21:16 | |
trending. | 00:21:20 | |
All right. And with that, we recently graduated A. | 00:21:24 | |
Officer from the Academy. He went from cadet to be an officer. | 00:21:29 | |
Here recently Brian Ang. | 00:21:34 | |
And tonight? Oh, and during the celebration, a surprise. | 00:21:37 | |
The governor showed. | 00:21:43 | |
I've been to a lot of graduations in 23 years. I don't think I've ever had the governor show up to any of them. But this one he | 00:21:47 | |
did. That's awesome. | 00:21:50 | |
And as you can see, Ron took an excellent post right behind the governor. | 00:21:53 | |
Well done. | 00:21:58 | |
So tonight we're going to swear in Ryan and. | 00:22:00 | |
The mayor would come forward. I would like for you to do that. | 00:22:04 | |
Yes. | 00:22:21 | |
Congratulations in advance. | 00:22:25 | |
Sir. | 00:22:28 | |
Hi, Ryan. | 00:22:30 | |
Here by Solomon square that. | 00:22:33 | |
Support. | 00:22:42 | |
Our support and between the charter and ordinances of the City of office. | 00:22:54 | |
Charges and ambulances. I'm not the holder of any office of trust. I'm not the older them out. But for the government of the | 00:22:59 | |
United States and the government in the United States, any other states or the foreign states in the other states. In the foreign | 00:23:06 | |
state, the planned by the laws of the state, the time by the laws of the state of Georgia for the biggest community. | 00:23:14 | |
I'm otherwise qualified. | 00:23:23 | |
I'm not the older any kind of. | 00:23:37 | |
I set the law enforcement code events. I have left the law enforcement declared. | 00:23:52 | |
I'll faithful follow the orders of the Chief of Police. | 00:24:15 | |
Police officer. | 00:24:27 | |
How it works? | 00:24:32 | |
And as a matter of condition. | 00:24:54 | |
We allow a loved one of the officer to come forward and come back and. | 00:24:56 | |
The. | 00:25:02 | |
123. | 00:26:07 | |
Beautiful. Beautiful. | 00:26:17 | |
Hold. | 00:26:25 | |
Appreciate it. | 00:26:26 | |
I'm going to put my signature on this before I lose it and if I get it back to you, Chief. | 00:26:34 | |
Sign. | 00:26:40 | |
If it's three, we'll do it later because it's a long meeting. | 00:26:42 | |
Mayor Roberts crusade for shorter meetings and cities. | 00:26:48 | |
So we got to do the important thing that we will do them. All right, Chief, that's it for you, I'm assuming, because he is gone. | 00:26:53 | |
We will move on to our public hearing. I do want to recognize Judge Anglin. Thank you for being here. It was an honor to swear | 00:27:01 | |
someone in in front of you after you swore us in for so many years and always made time to do that. So we're thankful and grateful | 00:27:06 | |
to have you back in City Hall tonight. | 00:27:10 | |
All right, Next up on the agenda. We do have a public hearing. We have this thing coming up called the T Splost. | 00:27:16 | |
And. | 00:27:22 | |
Teaspost is a special purpose, local option sales tax to be dedicated to transportation uses. That's roads, sidewalks, things that | 00:27:24 | |
help people get around our community, which we need here in Watkinsville. Most of our traffic does not come from Oconee County. I | 00:27:31 | |
would certainly say most of it doesn't come from Watkinsville and a large part of it does not come from Oconee County. And what | 00:27:38 | |
that means is most people who drive through Watkinsville don't pay. | 00:27:45 | |
For the roads that they're using now, if a Tea SPLOST was passed by the voters, then that means that there would be a penny added | 00:27:53 | |
on to sales taxes and that penny would be used to help fund transportation improvements, including the transportation plan that | 00:28:01 | |
we've approved previously. The county is committed to a mileage rollback to offset a tax increase and grateful that they have done | 00:28:09 | |
that. But all four of the Oconee County municipalities need to agree to the T spot in order for it. | 00:28:17 | |
To pass at its full capacity in the county. So what we're doing tonight is we're taking a look at the. | 00:28:25 | |
The referendum, I'm going to let manager Dickerson fill in anything that I forgot in my soliloquy there. And then we will actually | 00:28:33 | |
vote on, we'll hear, have a public hearing and then we will close that public hearing and we'll vote on that matter later tonight. | 00:28:40 | |
So Manager Dickerson, please fill in the gaps of what I forgot and and then we can have a public hearing on that. | 00:28:47 | |
Thank you, Mayor. You did a great job. | 00:28:55 | |
So one of the key things to understand is that the city does have a percentage of those teaspoons that would come to us that has | 00:28:58 | |
been negotiated at 7.77%. Based on that and the projected revenues that the county has provided, the city will see about 4.69. | 00:29:07 | |
$1,000,000 over that five years. Again, that's projected. We always budget at about 85%. Eighty 3%, that's proven. Actually, we | 00:29:16 | |
actually hit higher than that, but we try to not budget for the full amount, never knowing what will happen. | 00:29:23 | |
The project does require tea spots, does require for 30% of the funds to be used on statewide goals. I think all of the cities | 00:29:31 | |
have basically said they're going to use it on roads. It's a real easy lift. Everybody needs to repair their roads, so 30% of the | 00:29:37 | |
funding will be used that way. Before I flip to the next slide, I do want to remind the council because we do this every time we | 00:29:43 | |
talk about tea spots, especially spots 3. | 00:29:49 | |
The referendum will state how the city wants to use those funds right now, the way it's laid out, and we'll talk about this when | 00:29:56 | |
we get to item 11. | 00:30:00 | |
Is that it will be simply a straight amount of 5.6. I think it's 5.516 million and some change with 30% of that amount having to | 00:30:04 | |
be dedicated for roads. | 00:30:09 | |
What the council has done in the past and what you did last year when you consider this and brought it for the the the citizens | 00:30:16 | |
for a vote, was get a little bit more specific. Because it's always important to put a little bit more, you know, detail on what | 00:30:21 | |
how you're going to spend the money so that the public has confidence that the monies are going to be spent well. | 00:30:27 | |
So. | 00:30:33 | |
I want to remind you that when I show this that that there are buckets, there's going to be 3 buckets and we've got the | 00:30:35 | |
percentages laid out. So that 30% does go towards the state, towards the state strategic transportation plan roads. | 00:30:41 | |
And bridges and that kind of those kind of items. | 00:30:47 | |
So should you decide, you can talk about this later. Donna, This is just so the public has something to maybe give you some | 00:31:27 | |
feedback on tonight before you vote. Should you decide to go forward, your ballot will show those 3 buckets. And then what that | 00:31:33 | |
means is if that passes, those are the three buckets you can use. You can spend up to that amount, not more than that amount. | 00:31:39 | |
There are rules if you have a project that maybe you can't fund for whatever reason, their rules for getting around that kind of | 00:31:45 | |
stuff, we haven't had to run into that yet. But you can sometimes deal, you can deal with that. So but right now that's sort of | 00:31:49 | |
how. | 00:31:53 | |
This is how you had it last year and I just took the same amount of money and the percentages and put it back in there for this | 00:31:58 | |
year for y'all to look at and consider. So I know y'all aren't necessarily going to be talking about it now. You want to get | 00:32:02 | |
public input, but I just want to make sure remind everybody that sort of how this is laid out and you may decide when you get to. | 00:32:07 | |
Item 11 that you just want to leave it at 5.5 and 30% and you can do that too. | 00:32:13 | |
OK. Thank you, Sharon. We'll move into the public hearing at this point. So I'd like to open the public hearing. I know we have | 00:32:19 | |
Chairman Daniel here tonight. Chairman, I don't know if you have anything that you want to add about Tea SPLOST and the county's | 00:32:25 | |
county's thoughts on that and the rollback you're? | 00:32:31 | |
Take some time or any citizen who wants to comment on T spot. You're welcome to come to the podium after Chairman Daniel. | 00:32:38 | |
So we did try this a year ago. | 00:32:52 | |
We had a after the results we had some citizens approaches about maybe trying again with a little bigger turn out. So we're | 00:32:55 | |
excited to try again we think. | 00:32:58 | |
A really good program for the citizens of Oconee. | 00:33:03 | |
Our share will end up being about 52,000,000 of the actual collection is our budget amount. | 00:33:07 | |
And we will do A1 mil rollback to OFF. | 00:33:12 | |
The new 1% sales tax and most of that's going to go to Rd. Paving in the county. We have a little bit set aside for trails and | 00:33:17 | |
some for intersection improvements. We have some challenging intersections we're trying to work on. | 00:33:22 | |
To get those straightened out, but be happy to answer any questions you have about it. But we really appreciate your | 00:33:29 | |
participation. Bogart and Bishop both signed on last night and will be in North High Shoals next week. | 00:33:35 | |
Thank you, Chairman Daniel. | 00:33:43 | |
Any questions for Chairman Daniel? Before we move on, anybody else in the audience want to speak about T Spice? | 00:33:47 | |
Yes, step on up so people can hear you. | 00:33:53 | |
My name is Wyler Hecht I'm give us your address too. Just we got to be formal with these public 38 S Barnett Shoals Rd. And I | 00:33:59 | |
really just have a question and that is I would like for somebody to help me understand what the what it means like the one mill. | 00:34:08 | |
To offset this to the tea spot. Can somebody help me understand that because I don't understand. | 00:34:18 | |
Thank you. | 00:34:26 | |
And how long does a teaspoon last? We're going to let our expert preacher come up here and handle that. | 00:34:28 | |
So this will last for five years regardless of the amount collected. Law just changed. | 00:34:36 | |
In the past, when you hit your goal, you had to stop collections, but luckily that the state legislature expanded that, so we'll | 00:34:40 | |
collect for a full five years. | 00:34:44 | |
$71,000,000 are asked. We think we'll hit close to that. | 00:34:48 | |
Investors Best of circumstances? | 00:34:52 | |
So we're able to take some of that one. | 00:34:56 | |
And put it toward Rd. maintenance that we're currently paying for out of property taxes. | 00:34:58 | |
So if the citizens allowed to do that, that's allowed to do that. | 00:35:03 | |
And we'll reduce your mileage rate by 1. | 00:35:06 | |
So right now we're at 6.56. We're about to do a rollback. | 00:35:09 | |
For the property, tax increases will push just under. | 00:35:14 | |
If this goes through, our mills rate will be just under 5. | 00:35:18 | |
For for property. | 00:35:22 | |
So your property taxes would reduce John's the account, not me. We have this conversation often, so I'm probably get this wrong. | 00:35:25 | |
But roughly about 1/6. OK, is that right, John, you going from 6 to 516. So what that means is, you know our a lot of I got calls | 00:35:30 | |
about people's property taxes and their frustration. If your property tax isn't in your mortgage, you know, you get that bill and | 00:35:36 | |
it it hits you right. And even if it is in your mortgage, it hits you. And so all of a sudden what this does is you could take off | 00:35:42 | |
1/6 of that property tax bill. | 00:35:48 | |
And what that's going to be covered by is partially by your shopping. But the reality is a lot of our sales tax revenue comes from | 00:35:54 | |
folks in Athens, folks in Barrow County, folks in Jackson County who are all coming, whether it's the Publix, whether it's to Wire | 00:36:00 | |
Park, whether it's other places who are using our roads and using our infrastructure. They'll pay for more of those costs. | 00:36:06 | |
Yeah. And also I will say that T spots does not apply to gasoline or any kind of motor fuel. So it's not going to affect you on | 00:36:43 | |
your price for gasoline. | 00:36:46 | |
What? | 00:36:51 | |
Your general food items, general general goods, and you go to Walmart about everything you find there will. | 00:36:52 | |
Yeah. So it's an extra penny of sales tax that is going to be offset by that. That rollback in the mileage rate is the idea. | 00:36:59 | |
Thank you. It's a good, great question. I think that's one of the things about this that it's hard, you know, you know? | 00:37:07 | |
You know, it's hard to understand the value in it, but when I look at what's changed in Oconee County over the past 20 years. | 00:37:14 | |
You know, sales tax has become increasingly important and as we have Costco and the Varsity and other places like that open up in | 00:37:20 | |
the Epps bridge area, we can we can fund an increasing amount of our needs based on from folks who aren't necessarily living in | 00:37:25 | |
our community but are visiting so. | 00:37:30 | |
Yeah. Any other comments on T? | 00:37:36 | |
All right. I'll close the public hearing at this point and we'll move along to appearances. Next up, we have some exciting guests | 00:37:40 | |
welcome. | 00:37:44 | |
To Rob and Carmen from Ponder and Ponder and they are providing an update on the new Oconee County Watkinsville branch. | 00:37:50 | |
The library which is going to be located at Wire Park. | 00:38:00 | |
Please introduce yourselves. Give us your address and. | 00:38:03 | |
And then share. | 00:38:06 | |
I'm Carmen Ponder. This is my husband and partner, Rob Ponder. We are Ponder and Ponder Architects. We are at 3000 Langford Rd. In | 00:38:08 | |
Peachtree Corners. | 00:38:15 | |
Georgia used to be Norcross. Some of you may know we live in Duluth. | 00:38:22 | |
So we understand community and wanting to keep a Public Library in your city, in your community. I am a library design specialist. | 00:38:29 | |
I'm design libraries all over the state, and I am also the design partner and project manager for this library project. Rob acts | 00:38:37 | |
as our architect of record. He's the stamp, he's also the one with the technical expertise and he coordinates a lot of the | 00:38:44 | |
engineering. | 00:38:52 | |
That goes into our buildings. Part of our team includes a professional interior designer, Courtney Orm, who is also a library | 00:39:00 | |
interior designer. | 00:39:06 | |
So we are a part of the new wire park multi use development. We are converting an existing warehouse. | 00:39:12 | |
That is was part of that manufacturing facility into a 21st century library. The exterior that you see in front of you, the | 00:39:24 | |
rendering represents. | 00:39:29 | |
A modern, industrial looking building representative of the history of that facility. | 00:39:35 | |
And it ties in with the new Wire Park development. Similar exterior materials, the same brick, the same metal siding, same colors. | 00:39:43 | |
We're exposing a lot of the steel framing and painting it black windows that will look similar so that it ties together and | 00:39:51 | |
becomes a sort of campus for the Watkinsville area, if you will. | 00:39:59 | |
The library is front onto the Plaza that has been built, and if you've been out there recently, they finished their Plaza. It's | 00:40:09 | |
just beautiful. So that's a public place for events, for gathering, and it'll connect via a courtyard up into the wire park with a | 00:40:19 | |
food court, shops. They'll eventually have offices as well. The park is open already, so the idea is to have synergy. | 00:40:29 | |
Between the facilities, our main entrance for the library will be off of a Plaza area. | 00:40:40 | |
That faces the main. | 00:40:47 | |
It's a little bit elevated. | 00:40:50 | |
And there's an addition that was made to that warehouse that we're proposing taking the walls off of and turning into a covered | 00:40:52 | |
outdoor space. And that's where the main entrance to the library would be. | 00:40:59 | |
The site work is all being done by the wire part development Gibb Capital. The one exception is we're proposing a new handicap | 00:41:07 | |
ramp along the front to connect the entrance to the southern parking lot, which would be very convenient for library users. | 00:41:17 | |
The library itself will be a large open space. We are developing 20,000 of the 25,000 square feet available because our goal is to | 00:41:27 | |
meet the budget. | 00:41:33 | |
The on the floor plan, the dark area that you see is the 5000 square feet for future development that the library can grow into. | 00:41:42 | |
It's mostly a large open space with the adult section when you first walk in, and then there's a gateway element with the youth | 00:41:50 | |
areas beyond that to give you some separation. It'll include a large public meeting room that can be open for after use via a | 00:41:58 | |
secondary entrance with a secondary lobby that has restrooms. | 00:42:06 | |
And a large friends of the library of workroom workroom because this library. | 00:42:15 | |
The most active friends of the library I've ever seen. Any. | 00:42:20 | |
We have, if you would please continue to the next slide, I think that has a close up of what the interior finishes are likely to | 00:42:25 | |
look like. The interior designers still working closely with staff, but it'll be warm, neutral colors. | 00:42:33 | |
Colors that are in the the carpet she's going to punch out as accent walls, but the majority of walls will be that soft, neutral, | 00:42:44 | |
tan color. Durable materials, stain resistant carpet. | 00:42:50 | |
Dirt. | 00:42:57 | |
That vinyl tile that looks like wood that is durable and the idea being a low maintenance facility. | 00:43:00 | |
The users and not it's going to be a community building the emphasis on flexibility and growing in the future. | 00:43:11 | |
Right. | 00:43:22 | |
And I want to say real quick, the structure that we've inherited out there will be reusing the floor, the concrete, the steel | 00:43:22 | |
beams, the steel columns. | 00:43:27 | |
The steel frame around the exterior of the building, we have figured out that the most economical thing to do for the roof is to | 00:43:33 | |
actually take the one off. There's a demand for for used panels. We can get a market for those and it will have a new roof that'll | 00:43:39 | |
be put on here. And with inside of the building itself, it will have new air conditioning, new electrical, new plumbing. | 00:43:46 | |
Within the structure. So we've tried to apply 21st century knowledge into how to reuse the frame of this. | 00:44:26 | |
We hope to start right the first of the year and should take 9 to 10 months to build. | 00:45:07 | |
We're available for questions. I have some questions. | 00:45:12 | |
So I'm very excited about the library going to Wire Park and being part of the community as a whole. | 00:45:17 | |
I know y'all have had some challenges as I'm sure expenses have continued to rise as as the project has gone on and also sometimes | 00:45:24 | |
inheriting of an older building has. | 00:45:31 | |
I mean, I'm sure even more challenges than what you just said. So I appreciate the challenges that y'all have had and I see a lot | 00:45:39 | |
of exciting things in this. I love that the Friends has a bigger space. I noticed there's a recording studio. | 00:45:46 | |
Which is bringing it into the 21st century. That's that's a great use. | 00:45:54 | |
So I do have a few concerns though, and I'm wondering if some of these might be affected by budget, but I would hope that there | 00:45:59 | |
might be a way around some of these things so. | 00:46:06 | |
I'm a mom of three. My kids are now teenagers, so I fortunately, you know, they're out on their own. But I spent many, many years | 00:46:13 | |
going to the library with my small children. | 00:46:18 | |
On the main plan. | 00:46:25 | |
It's hard to really see on any of these, but I've I studied, I studied it. | 00:46:28 | |
Yesterday and the packet. | 00:46:35 | |
That the children's section. | 00:46:38 | |
Is at the far bottom. | 00:46:40 | |
And the bathrooms are on the complete opposite end. | 00:46:43 | |
And. | 00:46:47 | |
At one point I had a three-year old and twin infants and inevitably you get a couple children happy and then one has to go to the | 00:46:49 | |
bathroom. And the way this is currently designed, a parent is going or caregiver is going to have to gather all of their children | 00:46:56 | |
traipse all the way through the main section of the library. | 00:47:04 | |
Where adults are perhaps trying to have peaceful time to get to the bathroom and. | 00:47:13 | |
And I know adding any bathroom cost money, so I'm I'm sure there's budget to this, but I would love if there would be a way to add | 00:47:21 | |
a restroom, perhaps using some of that unused space, just even if it was one section. Because I get that it's near the meeting | 00:47:27 | |
room and it's the extra lobby. And I mean, I understand the benefit of those restrooms being there. I would just love to see a | 00:47:34 | |
second one near the kids section. | 00:47:40 | |
OK, I've been in your shoes. | 00:47:47 | |
Mine are fully grown now as well and I feel your pain. | 00:47:50 | |
This library. | 00:47:55 | |
Does not give us the opportunity to do everything we would like to have done, I can tell you the staff. | 00:47:59 | |
That was one of the first things they asked for. Is a restroom convenient to the children's? We went back and forth on the design | 00:48:06 | |
quite a bit. At one time, the children's area was on the opposite side of the building, next to the restroom. | 00:48:13 | |
For that reason. | 00:48:21 | |
The restrooms and if you'll notice every room that requires plumbing is all in that tight upper left hand corner because that is | 00:48:23 | |
where the plumbing is coming in. | 00:48:29 | |
To provide plumbing anywhere else in the building would require cutting an 8 inch. Not the normal 4 to 6 inch, but an 8 inch slab | 00:48:37 | |
that has been there for decades and that has continued to harden. So it's just. | 00:48:44 | |
Highly impractical. | 00:48:52 | |
Nothing is impossible with money. | 00:48:55 | |
So you hit on the biggest? | 00:48:58 | |
To getting it where we. | 00:49:02 | |
And that is the. To get plumbing on the opposite side of the building is just completely impractical. | 00:49:04 | |
Where the this building right now is estimated by two different estimators to be $175 per square foot to do what we've shown. | 00:49:12 | |
To solve the 8 inch concrete and be able to try to run that plumbing the diagonal across the building. So we we're we're trying | 00:49:58 | |
but we just don't think it's there to be able to do that so. | 00:50:02 | |
I don't don't have any other answer. Well, and I I don't know if this is the, you know the place to get that. | 00:50:08 | |
Figured out, although Kathleen. | 00:50:15 | |
Children. | 00:50:20 | |
From one side of the. | 00:50:22 | |
The library staff absolutely insisted on the location being where the children's area was, away from the adult area, where the | 00:50:24 | |
meeting room would also be available for after hours. So there were a whole series of we must have this, we have to give up that, | 00:50:30 | |
and it was. | 00:50:37 | |
That's how we ended up where we are. | 00:50:45 | |
We we child. | 00:50:48 | |
It is. | 00:50:54 | |
There's no wall door. | 00:50:57 | |
You know in there and have you been to the? | 00:51:01 | |
This one doesn't either. There, the gateway is more of a visual separation. That's a little bit with distance, but there's no door | 00:51:06 | |
or hard wall really separating. It's a large open space and a lot of that is again trying to work with what we've got, a very, | 00:51:15 | |
very tall ceiling. So any wall we build to separate is a 20 foot high fall to start with, so. | 00:51:23 | |
We have a lot of open space. We're. | 00:51:32 | |
But. | 00:51:35 | |
The booking manager let's Yeah, OK, So I want to what I want to do is I don't like Christine. So I don't think we're going to | 00:52:13 | |
solve this problem tonight. I think we need to provide the feedback. | 00:52:17 | |
Do you have a few other things you want? Why don't we work through anybody else on council does and then we'll talk at the end | 00:52:22 | |
about maybe how we if if we're going to engage further on them. So you have alluded to the fact that it's a large open warehouse | 00:52:29 | |
and I didn't see anything in any of the renderings like any of the design pictures shows about maybe 8 feet up. What is that going | 00:52:37 | |
to look like? Do you have any any views of like how because how tall are the actual ceilings and and what is that? | 00:52:44 | |
What is that going to look like in the library? | 00:52:52 | |
The existing structure is. | 00:52:56 | |
Approximately 20 feet to the underside of the. | 00:52:58 | |
Open web joys and then there's some airspace above that. We have some areas with ceilings. We don't have ceilings everywhere. We | 00:53:03 | |
cannot afford acoustical ceilings everywhere, so we have chosen to put them in the children's area in the meeting room, insert in | 00:53:12 | |
the office spaces so the areas that need it most. Those ceilings will be at about 11:50 feet. | 00:53:20 | |
And in the main main part of the big room, it'll be fog painted black like you see a lot of modern contemporary buildings done up | 00:53:30 | |
from 10 feet up. All that'll be painted flat black. So that it it's that new look that you see in a lot of restaurants in a lot of | 00:53:36 | |
different places. So the interior designer is designing it to be used like I'm sorry we don't we don't have an interior rendering | 00:53:42 | |
to show you yet because she's working on it with the. So another thought in this this will be. | 00:53:49 | |
Not getting into the weeds of it, but you already alluded to the fact that we have an incredible friends the library. | 00:53:56 | |
Community and we have a lot of generous businesses and so. | 00:54:04 | |
I also understand your budget constraints and I understand the complexity of this library being part of a larger system that is | 00:54:11 | |
multi countrywide. And so have you all considered kind of making your your wish list of extras? Like for instance I'm looking at | 00:54:19 | |
the the amount of windows that are in in the library I'm I'm sure. | 00:54:27 | |
There were fewer than maybe in your perfect design world you would want. | 00:54:36 | |
The I've I've not seen any interior rendering, so maybe this will come, but I am not seeing anything particularly inspiring for a | 00:54:41 | |
children's library, and maybe that just that designer hasn't gotten to that yet. But something that really differentiates and | 00:54:48 | |
makes a children's library a very special place. And so I would love to see a list of your like if you want an extra window here, | 00:54:55 | |
and then it could be sponsorship or naming opportunities. | 00:55:02 | |
I would love if it's possible with it being a Public Library to have some naming opportunities. So a business could say you know | 00:55:45 | |
this cool tree house thing in the children's library is with a plaque. With that business name I I feel like we we could get a lot | 00:55:51 | |
of. | 00:55:56 | |
OK, a lot of. | 00:56:02 | |
Whole children's area was paid. | 00:56:04 | |
One donor and we were able to put in all kinds of wonderful things. Wonderful. So I just encourage that list and look forward to | 00:56:07 | |
maybe getting to be a part of that. | 00:56:13 | |
When we get the bid list in with the ad alternates if the base bid is if the if the base bid from the lowest contractor lets us | 00:56:19 | |
go, then we can always add on those ad alternates as money becomes available during the construction process even. | 00:56:25 | |
Well, we could, I I was sitting here thinking that if with permission from the staff, when we could look at an AD alternate so | 00:56:33 | |
that we would get a hard price for that to see how much it would cost to trench 220 feet across. | 00:56:38 | |
Yeah, I mean, there might be. I was thinking too, there might be untrenched boys, but again, not when I'm getting the weeds in | 00:56:45 | |
that right now. With permission, we can put that as an ad. | 00:56:50 | |
All right. Yes. Well, we'll do that as one of the adults and then we'll see what the price is from the contractor. | 00:56:56 |