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Sorry about that. | 00:00:03 | |
All right. Welcome everyone, to the September Watkinsville City Council meeting. Welcome, Miss Hendricks. Welcome former Mayor | 00:00:08 | |
Smith. We're glad to have you back tonight. | 00:00:13 | |
And with that, we'll get underway. We do have a quorum here tonight. We have a full house, which is great. And I'd love it, Miss | 00:00:20 | |
Hendricks, if you could lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. | 00:00:25 | |
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:33 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:40 | |
All right. Do we have any changes to the minutes from the August 17th meeting? | 00:00:55 | |
All right, hearing none, I'll take a motion about the minutes. Please. I make a motion to approve the minutes from the August 17th | 00:01:07 | |
meeting. Do we have a second, Second. Any discussion? | 00:01:12 | |
All in favor, say aye. Any opposed like sign motion carries 50 All right approval of the agenda. | 00:01:20 | |
Under consent, I would like to add job description for DDA Executive Director. If you guys are OK with that, I'd like to put it | 00:01:28 | |
under consent. If we need to put it under new business, we could also do that. | 00:01:33 | |
If anyone wants to discuss that job position, please let me know what your pleasure is and then, unless there's other changes, we | 00:01:40 | |
can move forward with approving the agenda. | 00:01:44 | |
I'm fine with consent. | 00:01:51 | |
All right. Can someone make a motion to approve the agenda with the? | 00:01:55 | |
We addition of Item 6 under consent the job description for the DDA Executive Director. | 00:01:59 | |
I make a motion that we approve the agenda with the addition of item number six. | 00:02:04 | |
The job description of the downtown Development Director under consent agenda. I'll tell you what, let's call that 5A if we can. | 00:02:11 | |
That way we don't have to change all the other numbering conventions through the meetings. | 00:02:16 | |
OK, you have a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:02:22 | |
All right. We have a second. Any further discussion? | 00:02:26 | |
All in favor of approving the agenda with the addition, say aye. Any opposed. | 00:02:29 | |
All right. With that, we will move to administration. And the first thing on the list is a proclamation honoring Constitution | 00:02:36 | |
Week. | 00:02:39 | |
Good. OK, Miss Hendricks, do you want to come up here and stand beside me? | 00:02:54 | |
First of all thank you for everything y'all are doing and. | 00:02:59 | |
235th Anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention. | 00:03:34 | |
And whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary | 00:03:41 | |
into the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate it. And whereas public on 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each | 00:03:47 | |
year by the President of the United States of America, designating September 17th through 23 as Constitution Week, now, therefore | 00:03:53 | |
I, Brian Broderick, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Mayor of the City of Watkinsville, do hereby proclaim the week of | 00:03:59 | |
September 17th through 23rd. | 00:04:05 | |
As Constitution Week in Watkinsville, GA. | 00:04:11 | |
And I urge our citizens to reaffirm the ideals the Framers of the Constitution had in 1787. By vigilantly protecting the freedoms | 00:04:12 | |
guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties, I have hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of Watkinsville, Georgia, | 00:04:18 | |
to be affixed the 17th day of September, the year of our Lord 2022. | 00:04:24 | |
Thank you. | 00:04:31 | |
You will not see the seal on there. Do you have an official copy or do we need the seal on there? So I want to be sure we've got | 00:04:34 | |
the seal, so. | 00:04:37 | |
I have a feeling you got to see it coming your way. | 00:04:43 | |
Thank you. | 00:04:47 | |
OK. | 00:04:50 | |
We will pause for a moment while we wait on the seal. | 00:05:08 | |
All right. | 00:05:40 | |
We are signed, sealed, delivered and we will move on to the financial reports. Miss Dickerson, if you could give us the monthly | 00:05:46 | |
update, please. Absolutely everybody should have received the balance sheet, the revenues and expenditure report. If there are any | 00:05:52 | |
questions on that, I'm happy to take those. Now everything's tracking as we expected. | 00:05:58 | |
No questions on that. I'll move to spouse One, Spouse one. You may recall, all this money right now is earmarked. | 00:06:07 | |
Sewer Line Construction of sewer line A through the industrial park it will be matched with. | 00:06:13 | |
Roughly 9 hundred $904,000 from squash 2. | 00:06:19 | |
And that's pretty much all that's left. There's a few expenditures related to some of the park in the City Hall sidewalk work that | 00:06:25 | |
hasn't cleared, and that's why it's still showing encumbered and not spent. But for the most part, Floss one is Floss 2 will be | 00:06:31 | |
mostly be spent on the remaining funds on the sewer line, a project. | 00:06:37 | |
It's Boss Three. That's our newest one that began last fall. | 00:06:45 | |
There's funds that have been encumbered in there for what is going on right now. Phase one of Parish Hills Park renovation. | 00:06:50 | |
There are some other funds with capital and there has been some money spent on the Jaws of Life. I believe it was a battery | 00:06:57 | |
powered one that was bought for the fire department. | 00:07:02 | |
We're trending about $8000 more a month in revenues. | 00:07:07 | |
Which is? | 00:07:11 | |
And that sort of shows you our bank balance is at 629,000 and some change. | 00:07:13 | |
On the AARP report, we have roughly $827,000 left. There's monies that have been encumbered for the premium pay retention | 00:07:21 | |
initiative that was approved. | 00:07:27 | |
And there are and then the the grossed up taxes we that hasn't cleared but that that was part of it passed through from the state | 00:07:33 | |
for the first responders supplement that was provided. | 00:07:39 | |
So that's where we stand on those projects. Any question on any of these finance reports? | 00:07:46 | |
If not, I will move on to economic development. | 00:07:55 | |
So on economic development, our occupational taxes were mainly what we're showing here, 8 businesses I believe, that have. | 00:08:00 | |
Their renewals. | 00:08:09 | |
And then a new report that City Clerk Klein has put together is our Alcohol and Hotel Motel. | 00:08:11 | |
Excise taxes just for your edification. The whole set, the alcohol. We have two ways that we collect the tax. The wholesale | 00:08:18 | |
distributors pay $0.22 a liter for everything they sell to businesses within the city limits. | 00:08:25 | |
And $0.05 per 12 ounce can of beer that's sold within the city limits. | 00:08:32 | |
And then? | 00:08:37 | |
I think it was July or August when you passed the excise tax for liquor by the drink. There's a 3% per drink and that just | 00:08:39 | |
started. I think that actually started September one I think. So we haven't seen anything on that yet. On the Hotel Motel, you all | 00:08:45 | |
passed a 5% excise tax on that, which also covers short term vacation rentals. | 00:08:51 | |
That actually doesn't start again until set. Bedding starts September 4th, so we won't see any of that money until October. And | 00:08:57 | |
we'll keep, we'll keep an eye on that. That's a new area we've moved into, so we'll keep you posted on that. | 00:09:03 | |
And then the final report under economic development is building permits. We've had 12 permits for 11 projects, a lot of you know | 00:09:12 | |
replacement of HVAC's and repairs. | 00:09:17 | |
Renovations and then a couple projects lay low. | 00:09:22 | |
Tech Takira thought you said techier, how do y'all say that anyway over at a wire park is they've got plumbing, they've got some | 00:09:26 | |
plumbing work that's going on over there. So there's a couple of couple projects that are part that show up on there so. | 00:09:32 | |
Any questions? | 00:09:39 | |
Thank you. | 00:09:44 | |
All right, Chief. We'll turn it over to you. All right. Good evening, Mayor. Council. Always a pleasure to be here before you. | 00:09:45 | |
I submitted my report last week. I believe you all received it in the package. Are there any questions over in the material? I'll | 00:09:51 | |
provide it. | 00:09:54 | |
All right. Well, let me highlight some some details from our speed signs. Of the 156,848 cars that traveled through Experiment | 00:10:05 | |
Station at 45 miles an hour, 2% of them are traveling at 11 miles an hour or over. | 00:10:11 | |
On North Main Street, which is the sign right there in front of the. | 00:10:19 | |
SP. | 00:10:25 | |
175,433 vehicles. Of those .8% less than 1%, are traveling at 11 mph. | 00:10:27 | |
Somerton Bridge Roadway Outgoing speed limit 25 miles an hour of the 72,000. | 00:10:35 | |
104 vehicles traveling through there. 12% are traveling at 11 mph and I do have officers that are assigned. | 00:10:40 | |
To be attentive to these areas because this is one of my violent, one of my trouble. | 00:10:48 | |
Sompton Bridge Rd. Incoming. That's the coming up the bridge from the cemetery. Of the 77,132 vehicles, 18% of those are traveling | 00:10:53 | |
at 11 mph over. | 00:10:59 | |
Make it Hwy. S Main St. Outgoing speed limit 35 miles an hour of the 56,233 vehicles. Low number in my opinion, I. | 00:11:06 | |
.5% Half a percent of those vehicles are traveling at 11 mph over. | 00:11:17 | |
And Barnett Scholes of the 59,499. | 00:11:23 | |
.6% of those are traveling at 11 miles. | 00:11:29 | |
And. | 00:11:33 | |
Rest of them are within, you know, the speed range. | 00:11:35 | |
Or just a slightly over within a range that we aren't able to really pay attention to. | 00:11:38 | |
Any questions? | 00:11:44 | |
All right. | 00:11:47 | |
What are we talking about? Greensboro? | 00:11:51 | |
Oh, I miss Greensboro. | 00:11:54 | |
My. | 00:11:57 | |
Where to? | 00:11:59 | |
It's on the screen if you need to. | 00:12:02 | |
There we are. Of the 177 of the 107,666 vehicles, 2% are traveling 11 mph Rd. | 00:12:05 | |
Um. | 00:12:14 | |
It's one of one of my spots that we initially had trouble with when we started monitoring that behavior and and you know just | 00:12:16 | |
through. | 00:12:20 | |
Presence and visibility, we've never been able to dial those numbers down. So All in all, our signs are reporting good numbers | 00:12:23 | |
with the exception of Simon Bridge of Barnett. | 00:12:28 | |
And currently have the variable message sign over on barns. | 00:12:33 | |
It. | 00:12:38 | |
The 85th percentile on Monday was 41 miles an hour, 6 miles an hour over poses being in the 35. So that's doing good. | 00:12:40 | |
I'd like to remind the community that we do have two brand new bikes, or at least a brand new bike. I've seen it out, I've seen it | 00:12:49 | |
in. | 00:12:54 | |
In action. And so we do have a brand new. | 00:12:59 | |
Bicycle or motorcycle, Motorcycle. Motorcycle that is a. | 00:13:03 | |
Up and running. | 00:13:08 | |
Yes, it is. | 00:13:11 | |
I heard it was active this morning. | 00:13:12 | |
Absolutely. All right. Thank you, Chief. Any questions for Chief? | 00:13:16 | |
OK. Thank you for what you do, Chief. We appreciate y'all. | 00:13:20 | |
All right. Next up we have the consent agenda again we. | 00:13:24 | |
Typically don't discuss that, so. | 00:13:28 | |
I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:13:31 | |
I make that motion. We have a motion from Councilman Tucker. Do we have a second? | 00:13:36 | |
2nd For Mr. Thomas, All in favor, say aye. | 00:13:41 | |
Any opposed, All right consent agenda passes. | 00:13:44 | |
All right, we're now moving into some public hearings we have. | 00:13:49 | |
We'll have two public hearings tonight. These will kind of mirror what we did last month. We have a little bit more cleanup to do. | 00:13:54 | |
One is on our official zoning map and the other is on amendments to the subdivision ordinance. | 00:13:59 | |
Manager Dickerson will give us an overview of both of those. Just a reminder on public comment, Comment should be directly related | 00:14:05 | |
to the agenda item. | 00:14:08 | |
Members of the public should come to the podium 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate, argument personal attacks are | 00:14:12 | |
irrelevant. Discussion address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to the Council. Council cannot | 00:14:17 | |
speak to potential litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. Public input will be allowed after council receives the | 00:14:22 | |
reports from staff and or the applicant. | 00:14:27 | |
Would you have anything further to add on? No, that covers it. I'll just simply mention that that is expressly per the | 00:14:33 | |
requirements of your city code Section 2-260. Thank you Sir. Thank you. So with that, we'll go to item 9, the updated official | 00:14:39 | |
zoning map and Manager Dickerson, if you could give us a overview of this please. Absolutely. | 00:14:45 | |
Pretty much the only thing that has changed since the last meeting was that we had missed the hatchery, which is located in that | 00:14:53 | |
little purple spot at the far left hand side of your screen, bottom of the screen which is on, I believe it's on old Bishop Rd. We | 00:15:00 | |
just had not put the correct zoning in there. So we've corrected for that and that's really all that was done different. | 00:15:06 | |
And this is simply to reflect all the zoning changes that have occurred since the last map was done and I think 2008 or 2009. | 00:15:14 | |
Right. So this is then sent to the Northeast Georgia Regional Center and then they provide us with updated maps back that we can | 00:15:22 | |
use and share with the public, so we have more clarity. | 00:15:26 | |
If you see our maps right now, we've added a lot of Julie's printed stuff out and we've stuck it on our maps, but it's not nearly | 00:15:30 | |
as clean as this one. | 00:15:33 | |
And again, a reminder to council, this is a 2 step. So we'll have the hearing now. We'll hear from members of the public and then | 00:15:38 | |
we will actually vote on this under old business. So with that, I'll open it up for a public hearing on the updated zoning map. Do | 00:15:43 | |
we have any members of the public who want to comment on the zoning map? | 00:15:48 | |
Did we receive any comments online court? | 00:15:56 | |
Yes, Sir. OK, no one wishes to speak. We have no online comments. With that, we'll close the hearing on the updated official | 00:16:00 | |
zoning map and we will move on to the subdivision ordinance amendments. | 00:16:05 | |
Manager Dickerson council Again, same process here. We're going to hear the update and then we'll move to the vote, which will not | 00:16:11 | |
require public comment under old business. | 00:16:15 | |
Manager Dickerson. | 00:16:21 | |
Thank you, Mayor. So at the last meeting we thought we had captured all the comments. Again, the purpose of doing this is to. | 00:16:23 | |
Is to ensure that our regulations that we follow actually reflect the process that we go through. | 00:16:32 | |
So the last meeting, we actually took care of a lot of that. This meeting, the changes, the strike throughs and underlined | 00:16:39 | |
additions were to reflect a request by both Councilman Garrett and Councilman Thomas. | 00:16:46 | |
So the final tweaks. | 00:16:54 | |
Section 5-85B, which would allow rollback style concrete curbs and gutters within residential streets with approval from the city | 00:16:57 | |
engineer. | 00:17:01 | |
It also will remove the prohibition of use of recycled asphalt pavement, which is very common now. Wasn't back when this was done. | 00:17:08 | |
It also changes the authorized representative mayor and council to city engineer. Again, administratively, we handle these things | 00:17:19 | |
differently. They don't have to come before council for these for these decisions. | 00:17:25 | |
And then there are 8 locations throughout the rest of the document that we picked up where it previously it said county and now it | 00:17:30 | |
should say city because these are all regulations and not the counties again when this wasn't changed prior. | 00:17:37 | |
Prior to changing it years ago, the city used to go used to have these items go through the Planning Commission. That doesn't | 00:17:44 | |
happen anymore. The city takes took those over because the county does not handle. | 00:17:49 | |
The form based code that was approved so, so these eight locations who. | 00:17:55 | |
Sorry about that. The eight locations are littered. | 00:17:59 | |
Throughout the document. | 00:18:03 | |
If there's any questions, I don't know if Councilman Garrett or Councilman Thomas want. | 00:18:05 | |
Respond since they looked like looked at it and worked. | 00:18:09 | |
We made that change just to match the other subdivisions in town in that way. | 00:18:17 | |
Everything mirrors looks the same. | 00:18:23 | |
Everything is ran asphalt today's recycle so. | 00:18:29 | |
Absolutely correct when that was done. | 00:18:33 | |
For whatever reason, it wasn't as common as it is today. | 00:18:35 | |
And Councilman Thomas, all your changes, you all your concerns are addressed OK? And sharing all the we got everything on the. | 00:18:43 | |
The aggregate and the roll curves that we need in there, Right. OK, all right. All right. With that, I'll now open up a public | 00:18:50 | |
hearing. Any comments on the amendments to the subdivision ordinance. | 00:18:55 | |
Court client, did we receive any online? | 00:19:01 | |
All right. Hearing none, I'll close. | 00:19:05 | |
All right. And we will move on again. These are about to come back to us for a vote in a couple minutes. | 00:19:07 | |
All right, appearance is a rare night with no appearances, so we will move on to old business. | 00:19:13 | |
And we will come back to the zoning map. So at this point, Council, if you have any discussion of the zoning map, now is the time. | 00:19:18 | |
If not, I'll entertain a motion to adopt the updated official zoning map. | 00:19:24 | |
And the. | 00:19:30 | |
And the associated resolution. | 00:19:34 | |
Nice. | 00:19:40 | |
I make a motion to adopt the updated zoning map and associated resolution. | 00:19:43 | |
We have a motion. I'll second. We have a second. Any further. | 00:19:50 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. | 00:19:55 | |
We'll move on to subdivision ordinance. Same process. We just went through this. These are the specific changes that are outlined. | 00:19:59 | |
Council, Any discussion of? | 00:20:08 | |
If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the amendments to the subdivision ordinance. | 00:20:12 | |
I'd like to make a motion to approve the administered subdivision ordinance. | 00:20:16 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:20:21 | |
All in favor, Say aye. | 00:20:23 | |
Any opposed? | 00:20:25 | |
Motion carries 5. | 00:20:27 | |
All right, item 13. | 00:20:29 | |
We do not have a construction lease to review tonight, but we did get updated plans. These should all be reflective of the | 00:20:33 | |
suggestions we made last month. | 00:20:38 | |
So I emailed these to you all as well. I just wanted to be sure we surface these. We may have to have a very short called meeting, | 00:20:44 | |
but we have not had time to get the construction lease. | 00:20:49 | |
Ironed out with Hill Point. At this point, I'm hoping that we have a tighter timeline and a. | 00:20:56 | |
And the lease for your review before the next meeting, if we may have to push it to the next meeting, we'll see. So we're working | 00:21:03 | |
with them on that. But this does reflect the patent courts in the area. We also had a pre, not a pre com. We did meet with Georgia | 00:21:08 | |
Power and the Chamber on site. | 00:21:14 | |
That area where the Fatah courts are is littered with a variety of different power poles and utility poles. | 00:21:19 | |
You always think, well, it's probably easy just to, you know, remove a few poles, breath, shaking his head and smiling. He knows | 00:21:26 | |
he's taught me a long time ago that it's not. | 00:21:30 | |
So, but some of them, we do think there's some redundancy on those poles and also on some of the other poles along the road. So | 00:21:35 | |
we're working to coordinate all that with utilities. Georgia Power has been a great partner. The Chamber has been great. | 00:21:40 | |
So we do have a fair bit of work to do there. So more to come in the next few months as we. | 00:21:47 | |
Try to get that project really moving here in October, November, because it's going to be important to get that started quickly. | 00:21:51 | |
So the field. | 00:21:55 | |
Ideally ready in summer, you know that we've got grass growing there in the summer and ready for the festival. | 00:21:59 | |
So. | 00:22:03 | |
Yes, figure out a scoreboard location. Because I'm not seeing anything on here. We have not figured out a scoreboard location. I | 00:22:06 | |
think it'll probably be right field outside the main fence. That's a good catch that I'll circle back with them on that. I think | 00:22:13 | |
it should be on the exterior of the field, not on the temporary fence. I think that would look weird. So, OK, so. | 00:22:19 | |
And was there any, I know we had discussed a potential of putting. | 00:22:26 | |
Put it maybe down here in the parking lot of Hair so. | 00:22:30 | |
Putting what in the parking lot? | 00:22:36 | |
I think that was just if they wanted a huge tournament type of thing, but I. | 00:22:39 | |
The gist of what I was hearing is that this is good. | 00:22:45 | |
Yep. And that's a that area is tremendously underutilized right now. And Potunk is such that as we've discussed you know they they | 00:22:50 | |
it's gravel, it's if somebody needs it for the fall festival, if we want to put picnic tables out there, if it's not going to | 00:22:54 | |
bother anybody. | 00:22:59 | |
When, you know, we'll just have to figure out. With the power poles, it's a trickier area on this, on this, it looks real easy. | 00:23:03 | |
When you when you drop 5 power poles in a you know in a 600 square foot space it's gets more complicated. So. | 00:23:10 | |
Trees. | 00:23:16 | |
So we'll figure we will we'll. | 00:23:18 | |
Determine that layout as we get a little further down the. | 00:23:21 | |
So no action necessary there tonight. I don't think sharing from council is there. I think you just need to table the item since | 00:23:24 | |
it's on the agenda. OK, so can we have a motion to table? | 00:23:28 | |
The approval of the construction lease, please? | 00:23:34 | |
Table. | 00:23:37 | |
And do we have? | 00:23:38 | |
I'll second all in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:23:40 | |
Motion carries 5. | 00:23:43 | |
All right. New business. We've got the Elmig application manager, Dickerson, if you want to walk us through that please. | 00:23:46 | |
All right. I'm not going to bore you with all the past L Meg projects that we've had. You have those in your packet. | 00:23:56 | |
Suffice it to say, there's been a lot of activity using the Local Maintenance Improvement Grant money from G dot. | 00:24:01 | |
From stormwater improvements on Industrial Blvd. To paving Meadowview Court, 1st 1st St. Bond Court, even up to the Lao Lane | 00:24:08 | |
action that was done just a few months ago. | 00:24:14 | |
So this money is really important. We are going to recommend that you resurface Buddy Hop Trail School St. and complete some | 00:24:20 | |
sidewalk work along Main Street and we'll walk through that a little bit that that that decision. I did have some feedback from a | 00:24:25 | |
couple of council members and the mayor on this, so. | 00:24:31 | |
Just a reminder that in August of last year, we engaged A consulting firm to help evaluate all of our roads. We have about 23. | 00:24:37 | |
Of Central, sorry, 24 center line miles, give or take a half mile or so. | 00:24:46 | |
And we wanted to get an inventory that we thought that would be really helpful for us so that we're not just driving up and down | 00:24:51 | |
the road trying to figure out what looks like it needs to be paved or not paved. So we have a complete inventory now of all of | 00:24:55 | |
our. | 00:24:59 | |
Center line miles and that created a debt. We created a database out of this and it shows the pavement condition index. In your | 00:25:03 | |
packet, you would have received one of the attachments that show you sort of the the rating and there's zero to zero to 100. So | 00:25:09 | |
we've got a fair number that are under 4040 is sort of really bad and we've still got a number that we have to address that We'll | 00:25:14 | |
be talking about some of those tonight. | 00:25:20 | |
Again, G dot administers this Local Maintenance Improvement Grant. You can use it for roads, drainage, sidewalks, bridges. | 00:25:26 | |
Pretty much anything related to that you can use it for. They have to still approve it, so you have to make applications what | 00:25:34 | |
we're asking you to do tonight. | 00:25:37 | |
We did budget in the SPA 3 projects. For the only match which is required, 30% is required. The state provided us based on our | 00:25:43 | |
center lane mileage, $43,000 and 700. | 00:25:50 | |
$49.93 in funding. We have to match that 30%, which is 13,000. We had budgeted 17,000 mainly because we weren't really sure what | 00:25:58 | |
we were going to get and what we might need. | 00:26:03 | |
So right now there's roughly just under $61,000 available for this project. This is just a snapshot of the earmark that was made | 00:26:08 | |
in the project list for Spos 3. | 00:26:13 | |
So the PMP report that you that you got that you actually got the full report of back when it was done last year and then the | 00:26:20 | |
segment you got shows Durham St. is actually being the worst St. however. | 00:26:26 | |
We talked about this in December. | 00:26:32 | |
Because we estimate the cost of paving Durham St. is going to be at least 1/4 of $1,000,000. | 00:26:35 | |
We've got a development that's in the process of coming forward with building plans, Waters Walk right there on Durham St. and | 00:26:41 | |
Waters Water St. | 00:26:45 | |
And because of the impact that the Highway 53 experiment Station Road project. | 00:26:49 | |
The decision at this point is just just holds hold steady and let's wait and see how this all shakes out. Obviously we don't have | 00:26:54 | |
$177,000 you know difference for this project. So so that that road although it is obviously the worst Rd. is not going to be one | 00:27:00 | |
that we're going to recommend at this point. | 00:27:06 | |
The net I would also say very low traffic. | 00:27:12 | |
Correct. Yeah, mostly for the businesses that are on that. | 00:27:16 | |
So then the next 10 top Rd. segments are listed here. I won't read through them. I'm going to talk a little bit about these. | 00:27:21 | |
Several of them are in subdivisions and that's going to dictate some of our recommendation tonight about what we move forward | 00:27:25 | |
with. | 00:27:30 | |
So. | 00:27:35 | |
The first. | 00:27:36 | |
Let me go back for a second. The first two calls Creek Circle and calls Creek Dr. You'll notice it's only about 500 feet or so. | 00:27:38 | |
Of asphalt that is part of a much larger subdivision that. | 00:27:44 | |
Is in the county not in the city and so our recommendation would be to wait and work with the county when they go to maintain that | 00:27:49 | |
road and or discuss maybe giving them those segments. So we'll that that has been a discussion with me and the county | 00:27:54 | |
administrator already so. | 00:28:00 | |
Simonton Way is another Rd. that has that is part of a larger subdivision. | 00:28:06 | |
And our recommendation, and I'll, I'll talk a little bit about this and then when I show you the pricing, but our recommendation | 00:28:12 | |
would be not to do 1 little segment in the subdivision, but to try to do the whole subdivision at once. I would imagine that that | 00:28:16 | |
would be hugely. | 00:28:20 | |
Unpopular and and frustrating for somebody to see one little segment get done and the other part not get done. But we'll talk | 00:28:25 | |
about that because we'll have to have some discussion about how we can phase that in and get those projects done. Some of them are | 00:28:29 | |
quite large. | 00:28:33 | |
Buddy hot trails 584 feet. That is one. We're talking about paving Niagara Drive again as part of the. | 00:28:38 | |
Bishops Vineyard subdivision again, actually, I think it may be Laura. It's at least as large, maybe not as large as Christian | 00:28:46 | |
Lake is as far as paving. I didn't measure out Christian Lake. | 00:28:52 | |
It's the larger. It's a really large subdivision, so lots to pave, stone Shoals, terrace. | 00:28:57 | |
As well as we're talking about a small segment, there's several other pieces that would need to be done. | 00:29:03 | |
Industrial Drive is not going to be on our list as well, partially well, mostly because when they do the sewer line project, we're | 00:29:09 | |
going to be cutting right across Industrial Drive. It would be silly to go pave it and then have them tear it up. | 00:29:15 | |
Didn't we just repay that a few years ago? Didn't we just repave Industrial that was Industrial Blvd. Industrial Blvd. | 00:29:22 | |
Industrial Drive is the one that runs perpendicular to School St. We are recommending doing that segment and we'll talk about that | 00:29:29 | |
in a minute. Jerry Smith, Dr. For the same reason that we're talking about Industrial Drive not doing it, we're going to have a | 00:29:33 | |
huge 20 foot. | 00:29:36 | |
Gap in there to in order for them to lay the pipe for the sewer line. So again recommend pushing that until after and then Jackson | 00:29:42 | |
St. which really is it's it's a really long street but it's not heavily traveled. Maybe more by foot than than potentially | 00:29:49 | |
drivable traffic. But again there's others above it that we feel like need to be addressed beforehand. | 00:29:56 | |
So try to walk you through this a little bit. So. | 00:30:03 | |
This chart shows you the cost or the estimated cost based on what we know of construction. | 00:30:08 | |
Of just an overlay on all these and that's assuming that's all we need to do and. | 00:30:15 | |
Fortunately we have a Councilman on on stat on the on council that that can advise us on this and has recommended that these that | 00:30:19 | |
this is all that would need to be required to do so. Simonson way was one of the ones that you know is on the list. | 00:30:26 | |
By itself, it's 25,000. However, if you want to do the entire subdivision, which you know, I would recommend you try to do the | 00:30:34 | |
whole thing at once for mobilization costs and whatnot. | 00:30:38 | |
You're looking at about 175,000. | 00:30:42 | |
So you don't have that kind of money right now. Niagara Drive is about 37,036 thousand and I apologize I should have added the | 00:30:45 | |
two, but Bishop's Vineyard all, all of the roads is actually 460 not so you don't add those two together. I should have made them | 00:30:51 | |
similar and I didn't, but but basically you're looking at about half $1,000,000 to do that, maybe a good reason to pass a | 00:30:56 | |
teaspoon. | 00:31:02 | |
Bunny Hop Trail we talked about, it's about 34,000 Stone Shoals. Again, Stone Shoals is in the subdivision to do that area. We're | 00:31:09 | |
looking at about 200,000 for the whole area. | 00:31:14 | |
School streets right around 17 or 18, and then Jackson Street is about 87. So Jackson St. although it may be a candidate, is more | 00:31:19 | |
more than what we have available. | 00:31:23 | |
Show you a couple slides or exhibits that Carter Engineering did for us, our City Engineer Bunny Hop Trail. | 00:31:29 | |
So roughly he figures it in units and I figured it in length. So but basically we're looking at. | 00:31:37 | |
Bunny hops about 584 feet and on the on the chart. I don't know that works out to in miles but it's on your chart works out. | 00:31:44 | |
.11 miles roughly. | 00:31:51 | |
That's funny, Hop. There's about 5-5 or six houses that front that road that's right off North Main. | 00:31:53 | |
And then School Straight the segment from from Main Street to Court Street. | 00:31:59 | |
And that is .056. | 00:32:04 | |
Miles, again, not not a lot. Collectively, they add up to a lot. | 00:32:07 | |
And then the remainder of the money we're recommending to be used to remove and pour concrete. There's a fair number of sidewalk | 00:32:11 | |
repairs. The mayor and I walked downtown a couple weeks ago with G dot official and there's a fair amount of work that can be done | 00:32:16 | |
just on Main Street. There may be some other spaces, you know, that part shoulder, etcetera that we can touch up, but Main Street | 00:32:22 | |
making this busy enough so. | 00:32:27 | |
So the recommendation is that we resurface Bunny Hop Trail. We submit an application to El Meg to G dot for this grant to | 00:32:32 | |
resurface Bunny Hop Trail Spill St. and some about 50 linear feet or so if sidewalk along Main St. | 00:32:40 | |
If there's any questions, happy to answer them. I don't know if any of the, especially Councilman Garrett who works in this area, | 00:32:48 | |
might have something to say. | 00:32:52 | |
No. | 00:32:57 | |
You've done a good job explaining it all in why we Covered the roads that we did. | 00:32:59 | |
The other Rd. because of the third maintenance I. | 00:33:05 | |
Hopefully the taste box. | 00:33:10 | |
And we can give you the money in and work. | 00:33:13 | |
As we go home, you know. | 00:33:16 | |
This is a good start. | 00:33:19 | |
But as you can see, you've got, we do have a, we do have a train coming down the track at us and you know as you talk in the | 00:33:24 | |
community, you know there's a lot of development that happened in Watkinsville in the 70s and 80s and even the 90s and those | 00:33:29 | |
roads. | 00:33:33 | |
You know, deteriorating, yeah. And showing their age. | 00:33:39 | |
You know, whether it's next year, the year after or the year after, we've got to start, we got to get on that so. | 00:33:43 | |
Yep. | 00:33:49 | |
I learned a lot from riding around the city and looking at all these streets. And I learned a lot from, you know, and there | 00:33:51 | |
there's other things we can do. Like I said, instead of complete, complete removal and starting over, I mean, you can resurface. | 00:33:58 | |
You know you fill the cracks. I don't know the technical term for it, but fill all the cracks in. | 00:34:06 | |
All of that little bit of stuff prolongs the life of the asphalt. | 00:34:10 | |
Chuck, we're thankful to have you working with working on this, yeah. | 00:34:18 | |
All right. Any further discussion? | 00:34:22 | |
Here, none. I'll take a motion on the ELMIG application. | 00:34:26 | |
I'll make a motion that we approve the L Meg application. | 00:34:32 | |
Do we have a second any further? | 00:34:35 | |
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:34:39 | |
Motion carries. | 00:34:42 | |
All right. | 00:34:46 | |
Manager Dickerson We're going to go on to item 15, the Watkinsville Downtown Development Authority. | 00:34:48 | |
I'll let you give us a briefing on that or Councilwoman Tucker and Councilman Campbell, if you want to give us a briefing on that | 00:34:54 | |
would be great. | 00:34:58 | |
Well, I may be deferring to the attorney on the because of the biggest thing is the resolution to activate it so the Downtown | 00:35:05 | |
Development Authority can be activated locally. This is something that's that simply requires a resolution by the council to | 00:35:12 | |
establish. You'll identify members, there are rules about who can, who can serve, and then defining your downtown development area | 00:35:19 | |
pretty straightforward. I know this is part of the Economic Development committees. | 00:35:25 | |
Director. | 00:36:03 | |
That person will be a city employee that was already planned ahead of time. In the future it might change, you know, if there | 00:36:04 | |
becomes some funding source for the DDA. | 00:36:08 | |
Where they can stand alone. But unlike Athens Park County and some of the surrounding communities, there's not like parking on | 00:36:12 | |
street parking, paid parking or parking decks that can fund those those efforts. So I think it'll work out really well. That'll | 00:36:18 | |
give us a really close connection with that DDA director access to that person. That person will also serve as the director of the | 00:36:24 | |
DDA as far as the the development authority and they'll have their own funds that may come through through grants and whatnot for | 00:36:30 | |
like facade grants or. | 00:36:36 | |
Improvements to businesses interior, exterior that are available through Main Street and through other programs that are supported | 00:36:42 | |
that are supported through DCA. | 00:36:46 | |
So. | 00:36:50 | |
I don't know, Joe, do you want to talk a little more about the legal aspect and then we can talk about The Who the members are in | 00:36:53 | |
the development area? | 00:36:56 | |
Very briefly, you'll see a resolution in front of you. The first long paragraph sites the Georgia law and states all the public | 00:37:00 | |
purposes and the benefits. And if we skip down 1/2 to the third, whereas below that it says mayor and council determine it's | 00:37:08 | |
desirable, necessary the DDA be activated immediately and then we go down from there 1 to the third whereas. | 00:37:15 | |
Talks about a need for revitalization and redevelopment the next, whereas references the benefits of developing and promoting | 00:37:23 | |
current and new trade, commerce and employment opportunities. Then flipping to the next page, just three paragraphs I think are | 00:37:31 | |
important to highlight. The third one down on the second page says you. The DDA will also serve as Urban Redevelopment Agency | 00:37:39 | |
under Urban Redevelopment Law that provides more tools in the toolbox. It's important to do that on the front end. | 00:37:47 | |
The very next paragraph, as you alluded to, Manager Dickerson references the appointments of these named individuals for the named | 00:37:55 | |
terms and I believe those were carefully selected based on their qualifications and meeting the criteria. Then jumping down 123 | 00:38:03 | |
more paragraphs, the very important the DDA area shall be that geographical area described in Exhibit A and I believe we have that | 00:38:11 | |
set forth here on the zoning map with an overlay. | 00:38:18 | |
And it's this kind of hashed area that surrounds the downtown development area. So that is part and parcel of this resolution. And | 00:38:27 | |
then finally just a little bit of housekeeping, we will give a copy of this to Secretary of State and DCA should it pass. So those | 00:38:33 | |
are my remarks. | 00:38:40 | |
Thank you, Joe. | 00:38:49 | |
Yes, Sir. Christine and Jeff, do you all have anything you want to add? | 00:38:51 | |
I would just say we're excited that this is getting started. We're really pleased at the level of enthusiasm that all of the Board | 00:38:57 | |
of Directors had and the excitement to serve. | 00:39:02 | |
Here and then also. | 00:39:08 | |
I spoke to several retailers in downtown Watkins the other day and I think Jeff did as well, just to let them know. | 00:39:11 | |
That we're doing this and that one of office, I won't speak for council. One of my personal goals is to help see the that corridor | 00:39:18 | |
really thrive, especially in retail potentially. We are thrilled that water park is coming to town and other opportunities, but we | 00:39:25 | |
are committed to our downtown core and this is a way to really show that. | 00:39:32 | |
To our community. And so, yeah, excited to be part of it. | 00:39:39 | |
Perfect, Jeff, anything you want? | 00:39:44 | |
She summed it up pretty well, but I think I'm able to turn on your microphone. | 00:39:47 | |
Yeah, she summed it up well. What we tried to do with the board of directors here was target people who have specific skills that | 00:39:51 | |
can help our downtown retailers grow. | 00:39:57 | |
You know, for example, there's a lawyer on there. | 00:40:03 | |
Which is a good resource for your small business own. | 00:40:05 | |
Worked at. | 00:40:08 | |
Robert Griffith Golden Pantry He's been doing big things with Golden Pantry rebranding. | 00:40:11 | |
That's been exciting. So we really try to get a list of resources for our downtown retailers so that they can thrive. | 00:40:18 | |
So that was kind of the goal with who we targeted. | 00:40:25 | |
Like Christine. | 00:40:28 | |
So we were calling. | 00:40:30 | |
We didn't. | 00:40:32 | |
It was very surprising. I was. I was expecting like come on, I need someone, but no, very positive. They're all excited about it. | 00:40:35 | |
Dan Elder, for example. | 00:40:43 | |
He. He even. | 00:40:45 | |
The the funding through the Downtown Development agency to redo the loft apartments upstairs above Rizzo's hair salon there. So he | 00:40:47 | |
had to go through the county years ago. | 00:40:53 | |
To get that done, because we didn't have a DDA, but he was able to somehow do it that way and he's actually just about to make his | 00:40:59 | |
last payment on that loan. | 00:41:03 | |
And he said he could not. | 00:41:07 | |
Fixed up those lost apartments upstairs without that loan because it was 4 percentage points lower than the regular rates. | 00:41:11 | |
So he's a really very good resource for other people that want to get it done. Then he knows the process. So that's just one | 00:41:21 | |
example from one of the people we targeted. | 00:41:25 | |
And you know, we. | 00:41:30 | |
As Christine. | 00:41:32 | |
Spoke to retailers. | 00:41:33 | |
They were all excited. | 00:41:36 | |
Well, this has been one of our priorities for a while. Thank you to the committee for your hard work to get this stood up. We've | 00:41:40 | |
been talking about it. We had Monica Callahan come in from Madison, I think nearly two years ago and speak to us about what their | 00:41:45 | |
DDA has done for their community and how important that's been. There's a lot of other small towns around Georgia that have. | 00:41:50 | |
Use them to great effect, so it's great to have another tool in the toolbox. So thanks to you guys for doing this, assuming this | 00:41:55 | |
passes. | 00:41:58 | |
Council, do we have? | 00:42:02 | |
Any questions for manager Dickerson, Mr. Reitman or the committee? | 00:42:04 | |
Any comments? | 00:42:11 | |
Right hearing none that I'll entertain a motion to. | 00:42:13 | |
What's to activate the Watkinsville Downtown Development Authority? | 00:42:17 | |
Is that what the motion needs to say, Joe? Or do we need to approve the resolution with Exhibit A there too, and to approve the | 00:42:23 | |
resolution with Exhibit A? | 00:42:27 | |
So motion to activate. | 00:42:32 | |
And then to approve the resolution with Exhibit A. | 00:42:34 | |
And to approve the resolution with Exhibit A, we have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a motion. We have a second. Any | 00:42:39 | |
further discussion? | 00:42:43 | |
All in further all in favor excuse. | 00:42:48 | |
Say aye, Any opposed? | 00:42:50 | |
And then the city will go ahead and start searching for downtown development director, the positions been budgeted to start in | 00:43:32 | |
January. | 00:43:36 | |
So we're not sure we're going to put that person yet, but work on that too. So, but those are the next steps. Great. Well, thanks. | 00:43:39 | |
We want to have somebody by January. I think the board had. | 00:43:44 | |
Get going. So, all right, Next up we have public comments. Just a reminder on those procedures, comments should be only directly | 00:43:49 | |
relating to. | 00:43:53 | |
I don't think they have to relate to agenda items, actually speak from the podium, 4 minutes per person, Refrain from debate, | 00:43:59 | |
argument, personal attacks or irrelevant discussion. | 00:44:04 | |
If it's related to something that's on the agenda, please address the merits of the pending matter. | 00:44:10 | |
And address your remarks directly to council. We cannot speak to potential litigation attorney-client or personnel matters. Do we | 00:44:14 | |
have anyone who wants to make a public comment tonight? | 00:44:18 | |
That actually is part. | 00:44:32 | |
Yeah. | 00:44:37 | |
Yeah. | 00:44:37 | |
Mr. Mayor Brian Broderick and members of the City Council. | 00:44:46 | |
And more importantly, the good people of Watkinsville, Georgia. | 00:44:52 | |
The people of Georgia. | 00:44:57 | |
The people of Watkinsville need to. | 00:44:59 | |
That the city of Watkins, who participated in an unconstitutional taking of private property. | 00:45:06 | |
Without due. | 00:45:13 | |
Of. | 00:45:15 | |
Or. | 00:45:17 | |
Just compensation under the 5th Amendment. | 00:45:18 | |
Of the United States Constitution. | 00:45:21 | |
The purpose of this illegal taking was for the installation of a forced sewer main that serves the South side of the railroad | 00:45:24 | |
tracks. | 00:45:30 | |
Which included all. | 00:45:36 | |
Major city develop. | 00:45:38 | |
And the industrial? | 00:45:40 | |
Whose property is this? | 00:45:43 | |
It was my personal property on MCC. | 00:45:46 | |
My Constitutional. | 00:45:49 | |
As. | 00:45:52 | |
Were. | 00:45:54 | |
The. | 00:45:56 | |
Mayor Broderick and the city have ignored this very serious matter. | 00:45:58 | |
A copy of one of the letters regarding this matter, which is addressed to the Mayor, Brian Broderick, City Council. | 00:46:03 | |
City Attor. | 00:46:11 | |
And others is available. | 00:46:12 | |
The fact the people of Watkinsville need to know the facts. | 00:46:15 | |
The mayor and City Council have made multiple unlawful. | 00:46:19 | |
And or inconsistent zoning decisions in recent times. | 00:46:24 | |
Just tonight, the City Council passed the updated official zoning map. I sent a letter to Mayor Broderick, the City Council, City | 00:46:29 | |
Attorney, and others this past Monday 2 days ago stating that two parcels were incorrectly identified. | 00:46:38 | |
This letter is available. | 00:46:48 | |
Further, in that letter, I once again stated that city. | 00:46:51 | |
Unlawfully voted to approve a standalone stormwater containment facility on South Main St. | 00:46:56 | |
Which were clearly and absolutely inconsistent with South Main Street Scenic Cargo Zoning Ordinance. | 00:47:04 | |
That zoning law was very. | 00:47:12 | |
The mayor and council violated. | 00:47:15 | |
Zoning, laws, multiple letters and communications from me over the last few years regarding this matter. | 00:47:19 | |
Were ignored, I received. | 00:47:27 | |
Responses. | 00:47:31 | |
The people of Watkinsville need to. | 00:47:32 | |
The facts to Property to private property owners, one at 117 S Main St. Mayor Broderick residents and another at South Main Street | 00:47:35 | |
address. | 00:47:41 | |
Were allowed by the city to construct additional buildings upon their property. | 00:47:48 | |
Without proper storm water plants and or without receiving approval by the city for additional sanitary sewer capacity. | 00:47:54 | |
Mayor Broderick was fined $500 by the city for not applying for and receiving a demolition permit and for not applying for and | 00:48:06 | |
receiving a building permit prior to a new construction project at his residence at 117 S Main St. | 00:48:16 | |
Mayor 20 seconds left, 30 seconds. | 00:48:26 | |
These are serious matters that the good people of Watkinsville need to be aware of. | 00:48:29 | |
Are the laws meant to be suggestions or do they really matter? | 00:48:35 | |
A zoning ordinance meant to be just suggestions for. | 00:48:40 | |
Or would they be consistent for all the people behind himself? | 00:48:46 | |
To the people of Watkinsville, thank you, Mr. Smith, thank you. | 00:48:50 | |
This could happen to you. Thank you Sir. The City Council 4 minutes is a law ordinances and regulations. Let's cut the mic. 4 | 00:48:56 | |
minutes is up the people of Watkinsville Unless. | 00:49:01 | |
Thank you, Mayor Smith. Appreciate your comments. | 00:49:09 | |
I will note for public consumption, it was my contractor who was fined, not me. He paid the fine. | 00:49:12 | |
And that the city of Watkinsville has not in Stewart installed, nor managed sewer And how many decades? | 00:49:18 | |
2-3 decades so anyway. | 00:49:24 | |
I won't dignify the rest of that. We'll let the comments stand any further public comments tonight. | 00:49:29 | |
Have we received any online? | 00:49:35 | |
Yes, Sir. All right. No further comments. We'll move on to the mayor. | 00:49:37 | |
This guy. | 00:49:44 | |
Umm. | 00:49:47 | |
Councilman Thomas. | 00:49:49 | |
We understand you're going to begin your deployment heading to Fort Benning on October 3rd. | 00:49:51 | |
And then to Kuwait on December 6th. So we're not sure how much we'll see you in the next few months, but we wanted to be sure | 00:49:56 | |
before you went that. | 00:50:00 | |
We gave you a big thank you. | 00:50:05 | |
From the citizens of Watkinsville for your service. | 00:50:08 | |
For all that you're doing. | 00:50:11 | |
We're grateful and we know it's going to be a long. | 00:50:14 | |
Better part of a year for you? | 00:50:17 | |
But we just want you to know how much We're grateful for your service and we'll carry on without you. But we appreciate you. | 00:50:20 | |
Thank you very much. It really means a lot. I enjoy doing what I'm doing in uniform and here and I'm I'm glad that we have found a | 00:50:25 | |
way for me to be able to continue to serve the citizens of Watkinsville while I'm gone. So. | 00:50:32 | |
Well, thank you for your service. | 00:50:40 | |
It's it's the. | 00:50:43 | |
Seems like a crazy place right now, and we don't take it lightly that you're headed into harm's way and we appreciate. | 00:50:46 | |
Thank you. | 00:50:52 | |
Branding update we have. | 00:50:56 | |
Rolled out the new logo. It seems like a long time ago, but it was in fact just after our last meeting, week after that meeting. | 00:50:59 | |
So we're all getting used to this. It looks great on the slides tonight. It's starting to pop up in other places. I saw my first. | 00:51:04 | |
Instagram post with the logo being used on a mural that someone had done for a piece of art for someone's house. | 00:51:11 | |
It is out in the wild and is getting good responses, so thank you Sharon for. | 00:51:46 | |
Working on that and getting that implemented and getting everything on the website so our partners can use it as well. | 00:51:52 | |
Mayor when those when the magnets and the hats come in we'll do some fun stuff on social media. You know some drawings and things | 00:51:57 | |
like that. We'll we'll try. If they get in before, I think we'll have the magnets before Fall festival, we may pop up over there | 00:52:01 | |
and do some fun giveaways. | 00:52:05 | |
The signs, she said. Three to four weeks. | 00:52:10 | |
Installed, but I'm not, you know, it just depends what it's really going to cut it close if we get it in before a fall festival. | 00:52:13 | |
But exciting to see all that getting underway. | 00:52:20 | |
Update on the ESP Miracle League. ESP put out a press release that kind of blew my mind, but if you spend much time at City Hall, | 00:52:25 | |
it won't blow your mind how much use the playground is getting. | 00:52:29 | |
Their calculations say 15 people per hour. That equals 150 people per day, 13,500 people in 90 days. And again, outside my window, | 00:52:34 | |
outside Sharon's window, it is almost nonstop. I mean, you know, it is really impressive, especially as the weather's cooled off. | 00:52:40 | |
How many people are out there? How many people are making that their kind of destination after school or in the evenings stopping | 00:52:46 | |
on their way home? It's really been great to see. | 00:52:51 | |
And on Saturday, ESP had their opening day and had their first big baseball tournament out there and that was absolutely amazing | 00:52:57 | |
to see that hear the music. They had three out of the park home runs. So it sounds like not only will that be a storm water | 00:53:04 | |
detention area down there, but it's going to be detaining and retaining some some some softballs and baseballs down there too. So | 00:53:11 | |
that's been great to see and and really is one of those projects that I think has been transformative for Watkinsville. | 00:53:17 | |
And as I've mentioned to some of you earlier, seeing the families utilize the sidewalk in front of City Hall and how the new | 00:53:25 | |
handicap parking works for them. | 00:53:29 | |
That expense was totally worth it. Y'all on Saturday. You know, knowing. | 00:53:34 | |
You know our former handicap parking would have been tougher for them to navigate and the sidewalks didn't connect and all of a | 00:53:37 | |
sudden when you see that family pull up and then seamlessly get out of their vehicle, get their child out of the vehicle and | 00:53:42 | |
navigate their way over there without a hiccup, it was awesome. So anyway, I appreciate y'all making that investment. Sharon, | 00:53:47 | |
thanks to you and Mark for coordinating that and getting it done and really cost efficient manner. | 00:53:53 | |
Fall Festival is coming up. This is our last meeting before the Fall Festival. Hard to believe October 15th. That's always a big | 00:54:00 | |
weekend for Watkinsville, so be sure it's on your calendar if it's not already. | 00:54:05 | |
That's coming your way. | 00:54:11 | |
And then again then I think we also have some congratulations are in order for Mr. Campbell Young. Sydney arrived shortly after | 00:54:13 | |
our last meeting I think and so. | 00:54:17 | |
I hope all is well at home and everything is going well. So congratulations on that, so. | 00:54:22 | |
And in order to get Sydney around what was mentioned earlier, but I do want to say, and I'll say it every month until November, T | 00:54:26 | |
Spice is really important. Y'all and you see those paving numbers. | 00:54:32 | |
When people ask me about it, I make it really simple. I'm. | 00:54:39 | |
We're going to. The county is going to reduce your property taxes, and we're going to have citizens from outside of Oconee County | 00:54:42 | |
bear a greater burden of the cost for paying for. | 00:54:46 | |
Sidewalks, roads and transportation infrastructure. That includes things in Watkinsville, More sidewalks. Intersection | 00:54:51 | |
improvements. That also includes things like. | 00:54:55 | |
Traffic lights that we all know are desperately needed. The corner of Union Church and Hog Mountain Rd. As our kids go back to | 00:54:59 | |
school around about at New High Shoals Rd. And Union Church Rd. | 00:55:03 | |
Significant additional pedestrian infrastructure outside of Watkinsville that will connect us to the rest of the county. So | 00:55:09 | |
please, the county has put up a website with some more information, but please talk to folks, educate folks about that, it is you | 00:55:14 | |
know. | 00:55:19 | |
It is a great opportunity for us to leverage the visitors to our community who are using our roads and help them help us pay for | 00:55:24 | |
some really needed. | 00:55:28 | |
Transportation infrastructure that otherwise will have to come out of property taxes and other revenue sources that all come from | 00:55:31 | |
just property owners in Oconee County. So please educate people about that. With that we'll go to council reports. | 00:55:37 | |
Councilman. | 00:55:44 | |
Thank you said it all. I've been trying to communicate that to people I've been talking to and I've had a lot of good comments, so | 00:55:46 | |
I. | 00:55:50 | |
Good about it, you know, And just let them know, you know. | 00:55:54 | |
What the money is going to be used for and. | 00:55:58 | |
Look at the county stuff, called the county commissioners and you know, so I've had a lot of positive into. | 00:56:02 | |
Yeah, I think that's the other thing on the county website, you can actually submit projects you'd like to see be involved in | 00:56:09 | |
that, you know, which is kind of nice. I think they're wanting to understand what people's priorities are and there's a lot of | 00:56:14 | |
things that are on the docket for the county that could be accelerated with those additional revenues. Costco alone is going to | 00:56:19 | |
add, I think 6 or 7% to the sales tax take for the county potentially. So that's a pretty significant, pretty significant increase | 00:56:25 | |
and that's opening in NN. | 00:56:30 | |
All right, Councilwoman Massey. | 00:56:36 | |
Really have much to report. I just want to say I think I said this before, I've been attempting to attend one or two of the | 00:56:40 | |
department head meetings a month and it's good to see that they all work well together. They're all doing a good job, they're all | 00:56:47 | |
keeping each other informed on things that are happening and that's good to see. Thank you all. | 00:56:54 | |
Thank you for saying that Connie. A lot of times it does go unnoticed how important that that not just Sharon, but the group that | 00:57:02 | |
your team that works for you and how important the high functioning team is and how much they get done. So Chief Sharon, thank you | 00:57:06 | |
all. | 00:57:10 | |
Shepherding she. | 00:57:15 | |
The team here at Watkins and. | 00:57:16 | |
Taking care of the. | 00:57:18 | |
All those basics that so we don't have to roll up our sleeves and get involved in that. All right, Councilman Thomas. | 00:57:20 | |
Nothing to report this evening, all right? | 00:57:26 | |
Councilwoman Tucker. | 00:57:29 | |
Work has started on dismantling the portions of the old playground that are going to go away and been in discussions with the | 00:57:33 | |
director Wendy at VO. | 00:57:37 | |
About some partnerships to have some kind of kid friendly art in there, so I have another meeting with her this week. So we are we | 00:57:43 | |
are moving along with ideas. | 00:57:48 | |
And I think what we end up with will be a great addition to our community. | 00:57:54 | |
Right. | 00:58:00 | |
Councilman. | 00:58:01 | |
We covered most everything that would have been in my report with the Downtown Development Authority, also I guess in between. | 00:58:03 | |
Last meeting in this one, I attended the Downtown Development Authority training, so I'm good to go. Christine's good to go, so. | 00:58:10 | |
All right. Again, thanks to you guys. That was a big lift. | 00:58:17 | |
All right. Anything further? | 00:58:20 | |
All right. With that, we will entertain a motion for a brief executive session to discuss real estate and threatened litigation, | 00:58:22 | |
please. | 00:58:27 | |
To go to executive. | 00:58:32 | |
To discuss real estate and potential medications. | 00:58:36 | |
All right. There's your motion. Do we have a second? All in favor? Say aye. | 00:58:39 | |
Any opposed? All right. We're in executive session. | 00:58:44 |
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Sorry about that. | 00:00:03 | |
All right. Welcome everyone, to the September Watkinsville City Council meeting. Welcome, Miss Hendricks. Welcome former Mayor | 00:00:08 | |
Smith. We're glad to have you back tonight. | 00:00:13 | |
And with that, we'll get underway. We do have a quorum here tonight. We have a full house, which is great. And I'd love it, Miss | 00:00:20 | |
Hendricks, if you could lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. | 00:00:25 | |
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:33 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:40 | |
All right. Do we have any changes to the minutes from the August 17th meeting? | 00:00:55 | |
All right, hearing none, I'll take a motion about the minutes. Please. I make a motion to approve the minutes from the August 17th | 00:01:07 | |
meeting. Do we have a second, Second. Any discussion? | 00:01:12 | |
All in favor, say aye. Any opposed like sign motion carries 50 All right approval of the agenda. | 00:01:20 | |
Under consent, I would like to add job description for DDA Executive Director. If you guys are OK with that, I'd like to put it | 00:01:28 | |
under consent. If we need to put it under new business, we could also do that. | 00:01:33 | |
If anyone wants to discuss that job position, please let me know what your pleasure is and then, unless there's other changes, we | 00:01:40 | |
can move forward with approving the agenda. | 00:01:44 | |
I'm fine with consent. | 00:01:51 | |
All right. Can someone make a motion to approve the agenda with the? | 00:01:55 | |
We addition of Item 6 under consent the job description for the DDA Executive Director. | 00:01:59 | |
I make a motion that we approve the agenda with the addition of item number six. | 00:02:04 | |
The job description of the downtown Development Director under consent agenda. I'll tell you what, let's call that 5A if we can. | 00:02:11 | |
That way we don't have to change all the other numbering conventions through the meetings. | 00:02:16 | |
OK, you have a motion. Do we have a second? | 00:02:22 | |
All right. We have a second. Any further discussion? | 00:02:26 | |
All in favor of approving the agenda with the addition, say aye. Any opposed. | 00:02:29 | |
All right. With that, we will move to administration. And the first thing on the list is a proclamation honoring Constitution | 00:02:36 | |
Week. | 00:02:39 | |
Good. OK, Miss Hendricks, do you want to come up here and stand beside me? | 00:02:54 | |
First of all thank you for everything y'all are doing and. | 00:02:59 | |
235th Anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention. | 00:03:34 | |
And whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary | 00:03:41 | |
into the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate it. And whereas public on 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each | 00:03:47 | |
year by the President of the United States of America, designating September 17th through 23 as Constitution Week, now, therefore | 00:03:53 | |
I, Brian Broderick, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Mayor of the City of Watkinsville, do hereby proclaim the week of | 00:03:59 | |
September 17th through 23rd. | 00:04:05 | |
As Constitution Week in Watkinsville, GA. | 00:04:11 | |
And I urge our citizens to reaffirm the ideals the Framers of the Constitution had in 1787. By vigilantly protecting the freedoms | 00:04:12 | |
guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties, I have hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of Watkinsville, Georgia, | 00:04:18 | |
to be affixed the 17th day of September, the year of our Lord 2022. | 00:04:24 | |
Thank you. | 00:04:31 | |
You will not see the seal on there. Do you have an official copy or do we need the seal on there? So I want to be sure we've got | 00:04:34 | |
the seal, so. | 00:04:37 | |
I have a feeling you got to see it coming your way. | 00:04:43 | |
Thank you. | 00:04:47 | |
OK. | 00:04:50 | |
We will pause for a moment while we wait on the seal. | 00:05:08 | |
All right. | 00:05:40 | |
We are signed, sealed, delivered and we will move on to the financial reports. Miss Dickerson, if you could give us the monthly | 00:05:46 | |
update, please. Absolutely everybody should have received the balance sheet, the revenues and expenditure report. If there are any | 00:05:52 | |
questions on that, I'm happy to take those. Now everything's tracking as we expected. | 00:05:58 | |
No questions on that. I'll move to spouse One, Spouse one. You may recall, all this money right now is earmarked. | 00:06:07 | |
Sewer Line Construction of sewer line A through the industrial park it will be matched with. | 00:06:13 | |
Roughly 9 hundred $904,000 from squash 2. | 00:06:19 | |
And that's pretty much all that's left. There's a few expenditures related to some of the park in the City Hall sidewalk work that | 00:06:25 | |
hasn't cleared, and that's why it's still showing encumbered and not spent. But for the most part, Floss one is Floss 2 will be | 00:06:31 | |
mostly be spent on the remaining funds on the sewer line, a project. | 00:06:37 | |
It's Boss Three. That's our newest one that began last fall. | 00:06:45 | |
There's funds that have been encumbered in there for what is going on right now. Phase one of Parish Hills Park renovation. | 00:06:50 | |
There are some other funds with capital and there has been some money spent on the Jaws of Life. I believe it was a battery | 00:06:57 | |
powered one that was bought for the fire department. | 00:07:02 | |
We're trending about $8000 more a month in revenues. | 00:07:07 | |
Which is? | 00:07:11 | |
And that sort of shows you our bank balance is at 629,000 and some change. | 00:07:13 | |
On the AARP report, we have roughly $827,000 left. There's monies that have been encumbered for the premium pay retention | 00:07:21 | |
initiative that was approved. | 00:07:27 | |
And there are and then the the grossed up taxes we that hasn't cleared but that that was part of it passed through from the state | 00:07:33 | |
for the first responders supplement that was provided. | 00:07:39 | |
So that's where we stand on those projects. Any question on any of these finance reports? | 00:07:46 | |
If not, I will move on to economic development. | 00:07:55 | |
So on economic development, our occupational taxes were mainly what we're showing here, 8 businesses I believe, that have. | 00:08:00 | |
Their renewals. | 00:08:09 | |
And then a new report that City Clerk Klein has put together is our Alcohol and Hotel Motel. | 00:08:11 | |
Excise taxes just for your edification. The whole set, the alcohol. We have two ways that we collect the tax. The wholesale | 00:08:18 | |
distributors pay $0.22 a liter for everything they sell to businesses within the city limits. | 00:08:25 | |
And $0.05 per 12 ounce can of beer that's sold within the city limits. | 00:08:32 | |
And then? | 00:08:37 | |
I think it was July or August when you passed the excise tax for liquor by the drink. There's a 3% per drink and that just | 00:08:39 | |
started. I think that actually started September one I think. So we haven't seen anything on that yet. On the Hotel Motel, you all | 00:08:45 | |
passed a 5% excise tax on that, which also covers short term vacation rentals. | 00:08:51 | |
That actually doesn't start again until set. Bedding starts September 4th, so we won't see any of that money until October. And | 00:08:57 | |
we'll keep, we'll keep an eye on that. That's a new area we've moved into, so we'll keep you posted on that. | 00:09:03 | |
And then the final report under economic development is building permits. We've had 12 permits for 11 projects, a lot of you know | 00:09:12 | |
replacement of HVAC's and repairs. | 00:09:17 | |
Renovations and then a couple projects lay low. | 00:09:22 | |
Tech Takira thought you said techier, how do y'all say that anyway over at a wire park is they've got plumbing, they've got some | 00:09:26 | |
plumbing work that's going on over there. So there's a couple of couple projects that are part that show up on there so. | 00:09:32 | |
Any questions? | 00:09:39 | |
Thank you. | 00:09:44 | |
All right, Chief. We'll turn it over to you. All right. Good evening, Mayor. Council. Always a pleasure to be here before you. | 00:09:45 | |
I submitted my report last week. I believe you all received it in the package. Are there any questions over in the material? I'll | 00:09:51 | |
provide it. | 00:09:54 | |
All right. Well, let me highlight some some details from our speed signs. Of the 156,848 cars that traveled through Experiment | 00:10:05 | |
Station at 45 miles an hour, 2% of them are traveling at 11 miles an hour or over. | 00:10:11 | |
On North Main Street, which is the sign right there in front of the. | 00:10:19 | |
SP. | 00:10:25 | |
175,433 vehicles. Of those .8% less than 1%, are traveling at 11 mph. | 00:10:27 | |
Somerton Bridge Roadway Outgoing speed limit 25 miles an hour of the 72,000. | 00:10:35 | |
104 vehicles traveling through there. 12% are traveling at 11 mph and I do have officers that are assigned. | 00:10:40 | |
To be attentive to these areas because this is one of my violent, one of my trouble. | 00:10:48 | |
Sompton Bridge Rd. Incoming. That's the coming up the bridge from the cemetery. Of the 77,132 vehicles, 18% of those are traveling | 00:10:53 | |
at 11 mph over. | 00:10:59 | |
Make it Hwy. S Main St. Outgoing speed limit 35 miles an hour of the 56,233 vehicles. Low number in my opinion, I. | 00:11:06 | |
.5% Half a percent of those vehicles are traveling at 11 mph over. | 00:11:17 | |
And Barnett Scholes of the 59,499. | 00:11:23 | |
.6% of those are traveling at 11 miles. | 00:11:29 | |
And. | 00:11:33 | |
Rest of them are within, you know, the speed range. | 00:11:35 | |
Or just a slightly over within a range that we aren't able to really pay attention to. | 00:11:38 | |
Any questions? | 00:11:44 | |
All right. | 00:11:47 | |
What are we talking about? Greensboro? | 00:11:51 | |
Oh, I miss Greensboro. | 00:11:54 | |
My. | 00:11:57 | |
Where to? | 00:11:59 | |
It's on the screen if you need to. | 00:12:02 | |
There we are. Of the 177 of the 107,666 vehicles, 2% are traveling 11 mph Rd. | 00:12:05 | |
Um. | 00:12:14 | |
It's one of one of my spots that we initially had trouble with when we started monitoring that behavior and and you know just | 00:12:16 | |
through. | 00:12:20 | |
Presence and visibility, we've never been able to dial those numbers down. So All in all, our signs are reporting good numbers | 00:12:23 | |
with the exception of Simon Bridge of Barnett. | 00:12:28 | |
And currently have the variable message sign over on barns. | 00:12:33 | |
It. | 00:12:38 | |
The 85th percentile on Monday was 41 miles an hour, 6 miles an hour over poses being in the 35. So that's doing good. | 00:12:40 | |
I'd like to remind the community that we do have two brand new bikes, or at least a brand new bike. I've seen it out, I've seen it | 00:12:49 | |
in. | 00:12:54 | |
In action. And so we do have a brand new. | 00:12:59 | |
Bicycle or motorcycle, Motorcycle. Motorcycle that is a. | 00:13:03 | |
Up and running. | 00:13:08 | |
Yes, it is. | 00:13:11 | |
I heard it was active this morning. | 00:13:12 | |
Absolutely. All right. Thank you, Chief. Any questions for Chief? | 00:13:16 | |
OK. Thank you for what you do, Chief. We appreciate y'all. | 00:13:20 | |
All right. Next up we have the consent agenda again we. | 00:13:24 | |
Typically don't discuss that, so. | 00:13:28 | |
I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:13:31 | |
I make that motion. We have a motion from Councilman Tucker. Do we have a second? | 00:13:36 | |
2nd For Mr. Thomas, All in favor, say aye. | 00:13:41 | |
Any opposed, All right consent agenda passes. | 00:13:44 | |
All right, we're now moving into some public hearings we have. | 00:13:49 | |
We'll have two public hearings tonight. These will kind of mirror what we did last month. We have a little bit more cleanup to do. | 00:13:54 | |
One is on our official zoning map and the other is on amendments to the subdivision ordinance. | 00:13:59 | |
Manager Dickerson will give us an overview of both of those. Just a reminder on public comment, Comment should be directly related | 00:14:05 | |
to the agenda item. | 00:14:08 | |
Members of the public should come to the podium 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate, argument personal attacks are | 00:14:12 | |
irrelevant. Discussion address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to the Council. Council cannot | 00:14:17 | |
speak to potential litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. Public input will be allowed after council receives the | 00:14:22 | |
reports from staff and or the applicant. | 00:14:27 | |
Would you have anything further to add on? No, that covers it. I'll just simply mention that that is expressly per the | 00:14:33 | |
requirements of your city code Section 2-260. Thank you Sir. Thank you. So with that, we'll go to item 9, the updated official | 00:14:39 | |
zoning map and Manager Dickerson, if you could give us a overview of this please. Absolutely. | 00:14:45 | |
Pretty much the only thing that has changed since the last meeting was that we had missed the hatchery, which is located in that | 00:14:53 | |
little purple spot at the far left hand side of your screen, bottom of the screen which is on, I believe it's on old Bishop Rd. We | 00:15:00 | |
just had not put the correct zoning in there. So we've corrected for that and that's really all that was done different. | 00:15:06 | |
And this is simply to reflect all the zoning changes that have occurred since the last map was done and I think 2008 or 2009. | 00:15:14 | |
Right. So this is then sent to the Northeast Georgia Regional Center and then they provide us with updated maps back that we can | 00:15:22 | |
use and share with the public, so we have more clarity. | 00:15:26 | |
If you see our maps right now, we've added a lot of Julie's printed stuff out and we've stuck it on our maps, but it's not nearly | 00:15:30 | |
as clean as this one. | 00:15:33 | |
And again, a reminder to council, this is a 2 step. So we'll have the hearing now. We'll hear from members of the public and then | 00:15:38 | |
we will actually vote on this under old business. So with that, I'll open it up for a public hearing on the updated zoning map. Do | 00:15:43 | |
we have any members of the public who want to comment on the zoning map? | 00:15:48 | |
Did we receive any comments online court? | 00:15:56 | |
Yes, Sir. OK, no one wishes to speak. We have no online comments. With that, we'll close the hearing on the updated official | 00:16:00 | |
zoning map and we will move on to the subdivision ordinance amendments. | 00:16:05 | |
Manager Dickerson council Again, same process here. We're going to hear the update and then we'll move to the vote, which will not | 00:16:11 | |
require public comment under old business. | 00:16:15 | |
Manager Dickerson. | 00:16:21 | |
Thank you, Mayor. So at the last meeting we thought we had captured all the comments. Again, the purpose of doing this is to. | 00:16:23 | |
Is to ensure that our regulations that we follow actually reflect the process that we go through. | 00:16:32 | |
So the last meeting, we actually took care of a lot of that. This meeting, the changes, the strike throughs and underlined | 00:16:39 | |
additions were to reflect a request by both Councilman Garrett and Councilman Thomas. | 00:16:46 | |
So the final tweaks. | 00:16:54 | |
Section 5-85B, which would allow rollback style concrete curbs and gutters within residential streets with approval from the city | 00:16:57 | |
engineer. | 00:17:01 | |
It also will remove the prohibition of use of recycled asphalt pavement, which is very common now. Wasn't back when this was done. | 00:17:08 | |
It also changes the authorized representative mayor and council to city engineer. Again, administratively, we handle these things | 00:17:19 | |
differently. They don't have to come before council for these for these decisions. | 00:17:25 | |
And then there are 8 locations throughout the rest of the document that we picked up where it previously it said county and now it | 00:17:30 | |
should say city because these are all regulations and not the counties again when this wasn't changed prior. | 00:17:37 | |
Prior to changing it years ago, the city used to go used to have these items go through the Planning Commission. That doesn't | 00:17:44 | |
happen anymore. The city takes took those over because the county does not handle. | 00:17:49 | |
The form based code that was approved so, so these eight locations who. | 00:17:55 | |
Sorry about that. The eight locations are littered. | 00:17:59 | |
Throughout the document. | 00:18:03 | |
If there's any questions, I don't know if Councilman Garrett or Councilman Thomas want. | 00:18:05 | |
Respond since they looked like looked at it and worked. | 00:18:09 | |
We made that change just to match the other subdivisions in town in that way. | 00:18:17 | |
Everything mirrors looks the same. | 00:18:23 | |
Everything is ran asphalt today's recycle so. | 00:18:29 | |
Absolutely correct when that was done. | 00:18:33 | |
For whatever reason, it wasn't as common as it is today. | 00:18:35 | |
And Councilman Thomas, all your changes, you all your concerns are addressed OK? And sharing all the we got everything on the. | 00:18:43 | |
The aggregate and the roll curves that we need in there, Right. OK, all right. All right. With that, I'll now open up a public | 00:18:50 | |
hearing. Any comments on the amendments to the subdivision ordinance. | 00:18:55 | |
Court client, did we receive any online? | 00:19:01 | |
All right. Hearing none, I'll close. | 00:19:05 | |
All right. And we will move on again. These are about to come back to us for a vote in a couple minutes. | 00:19:07 | |
All right, appearance is a rare night with no appearances, so we will move on to old business. | 00:19:13 | |
And we will come back to the zoning map. So at this point, Council, if you have any discussion of the zoning map, now is the time. | 00:19:18 | |
If not, I'll entertain a motion to adopt the updated official zoning map. | 00:19:24 | |
And the. | 00:19:30 | |
And the associated resolution. | 00:19:34 | |
Nice. | 00:19:40 | |
I make a motion to adopt the updated zoning map and associated resolution. | 00:19:43 | |
We have a motion. I'll second. We have a second. Any further. | 00:19:50 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. | 00:19:55 | |
We'll move on to subdivision ordinance. Same process. We just went through this. These are the specific changes that are outlined. | 00:19:59 | |
Council, Any discussion of? | 00:20:08 | |
If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the amendments to the subdivision ordinance. | 00:20:12 | |
I'd like to make a motion to approve the administered subdivision ordinance. | 00:20:16 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:20:21 | |
All in favor, Say aye. | 00:20:23 | |
Any opposed? | 00:20:25 | |
Motion carries 5. | 00:20:27 | |
All right, item 13. | 00:20:29 | |
We do not have a construction lease to review tonight, but we did get updated plans. These should all be reflective of the | 00:20:33 | |
suggestions we made last month. | 00:20:38 | |
So I emailed these to you all as well. I just wanted to be sure we surface these. We may have to have a very short called meeting, | 00:20:44 | |
but we have not had time to get the construction lease. | 00:20:49 | |
Ironed out with Hill Point. At this point, I'm hoping that we have a tighter timeline and a. | 00:20:56 | |
And the lease for your review before the next meeting, if we may have to push it to the next meeting, we'll see. So we're working | 00:21:03 | |
with them on that. But this does reflect the patent courts in the area. We also had a pre, not a pre com. We did meet with Georgia | 00:21:08 | |
Power and the Chamber on site. | 00:21:14 | |
That area where the Fatah courts are is littered with a variety of different power poles and utility poles. | 00:21:19 | |
You always think, well, it's probably easy just to, you know, remove a few poles, breath, shaking his head and smiling. He knows | 00:21:26 | |
he's taught me a long time ago that it's not. | 00:21:30 | |
So, but some of them, we do think there's some redundancy on those poles and also on some of the other poles along the road. So | 00:21:35 | |
we're working to coordinate all that with utilities. Georgia Power has been a great partner. The Chamber has been great. | 00:21:40 | |
So we do have a fair bit of work to do there. So more to come in the next few months as we. | 00:21:47 | |
Try to get that project really moving here in October, November, because it's going to be important to get that started quickly. | 00:21:51 | |
So the field. | 00:21:55 | |
Ideally ready in summer, you know that we've got grass growing there in the summer and ready for the festival. | 00:21:59 | |
So. | 00:22:03 | |
Yes, figure out a scoreboard location. Because I'm not seeing anything on here. We have not figured out a scoreboard location. I | 00:22:06 | |
think it'll probably be right field outside the main fence. That's a good catch that I'll circle back with them on that. I think | 00:22:13 | |
it should be on the exterior of the field, not on the temporary fence. I think that would look weird. So, OK, so. | 00:22:19 | |
And was there any, I know we had discussed a potential of putting. | 00:22:26 | |
Put it maybe down here in the parking lot of Hair so. | 00:22:30 | |
Putting what in the parking lot? | 00:22:36 | |
I think that was just if they wanted a huge tournament type of thing, but I. | 00:22:39 | |
The gist of what I was hearing is that this is good. | 00:22:45 | |
Yep. And that's a that area is tremendously underutilized right now. And Potunk is such that as we've discussed you know they they | 00:22:50 | |
it's gravel, it's if somebody needs it for the fall festival, if we want to put picnic tables out there, if it's not going to | 00:22:54 | |
bother anybody. | 00:22:59 | |
When, you know, we'll just have to figure out. With the power poles, it's a trickier area on this, on this, it looks real easy. | 00:23:03 | |
When you when you drop 5 power poles in a you know in a 600 square foot space it's gets more complicated. So. | 00:23:10 | |
Trees. | 00:23:16 | |
So we'll figure we will we'll. | 00:23:18 | |
Determine that layout as we get a little further down the. | 00:23:21 | |
So no action necessary there tonight. I don't think sharing from council is there. I think you just need to table the item since | 00:23:24 | |
it's on the agenda. OK, so can we have a motion to table? | 00:23:28 | |
The approval of the construction lease, please? | 00:23:34 | |
Table. | 00:23:37 | |
And do we have? | 00:23:38 | |
I'll second all in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:23:40 | |
Motion carries 5. | 00:23:43 | |
All right. New business. We've got the Elmig application manager, Dickerson, if you want to walk us through that please. | 00:23:46 | |
All right. I'm not going to bore you with all the past L Meg projects that we've had. You have those in your packet. | 00:23:56 | |
Suffice it to say, there's been a lot of activity using the Local Maintenance Improvement Grant money from G dot. | 00:24:01 | |
From stormwater improvements on Industrial Blvd. To paving Meadowview Court, 1st 1st St. Bond Court, even up to the Lao Lane | 00:24:08 | |
action that was done just a few months ago. | 00:24:14 | |
So this money is really important. We are going to recommend that you resurface Buddy Hop Trail School St. and complete some | 00:24:20 | |
sidewalk work along Main Street and we'll walk through that a little bit that that that decision. I did have some feedback from a | 00:24:25 | |
couple of council members and the mayor on this, so. | 00:24:31 | |
Just a reminder that in August of last year, we engaged A consulting firm to help evaluate all of our roads. We have about 23. | 00:24:37 | |
Of Central, sorry, 24 center line miles, give or take a half mile or so. | 00:24:46 | |
And we wanted to get an inventory that we thought that would be really helpful for us so that we're not just driving up and down | 00:24:51 | |
the road trying to figure out what looks like it needs to be paved or not paved. So we have a complete inventory now of all of | 00:24:55 | |
our. | 00:24:59 | |
Center line miles and that created a debt. We created a database out of this and it shows the pavement condition index. In your | 00:25:03 | |
packet, you would have received one of the attachments that show you sort of the the rating and there's zero to zero to 100. So | 00:25:09 | |
we've got a fair number that are under 4040 is sort of really bad and we've still got a number that we have to address that We'll | 00:25:14 | |
be talking about some of those tonight. | 00:25:20 | |
Again, G dot administers this Local Maintenance Improvement Grant. You can use it for roads, drainage, sidewalks, bridges. | 00:25:26 | |
Pretty much anything related to that you can use it for. They have to still approve it, so you have to make applications what | 00:25:34 | |
we're asking you to do tonight. | 00:25:37 | |
We did budget in the SPA 3 projects. For the only match which is required, 30% is required. The state provided us based on our | 00:25:43 | |
center lane mileage, $43,000 and 700. | 00:25:50 | |
$49.93 in funding. We have to match that 30%, which is 13,000. We had budgeted 17,000 mainly because we weren't really sure what | 00:25:58 | |
we were going to get and what we might need. | 00:26:03 | |
So right now there's roughly just under $61,000 available for this project. This is just a snapshot of the earmark that was made | 00:26:08 | |
in the project list for Spos 3. | 00:26:13 | |
So the PMP report that you that you got that you actually got the full report of back when it was done last year and then the | 00:26:20 | |
segment you got shows Durham St. is actually being the worst St. however. | 00:26:26 | |
We talked about this in December. | 00:26:32 | |
Because we estimate the cost of paving Durham St. is going to be at least 1/4 of $1,000,000. | 00:26:35 | |
We've got a development that's in the process of coming forward with building plans, Waters Walk right there on Durham St. and | 00:26:41 | |
Waters Water St. | 00:26:45 | |
And because of the impact that the Highway 53 experiment Station Road project. | 00:26:49 | |
The decision at this point is just just holds hold steady and let's wait and see how this all shakes out. Obviously we don't have | 00:26:54 | |
$177,000 you know difference for this project. So so that that road although it is obviously the worst Rd. is not going to be one | 00:27:00 | |
that we're going to recommend at this point. | 00:27:06 | |
The net I would also say very low traffic. | 00:27:12 | |
Correct. Yeah, mostly for the businesses that are on that. | 00:27:16 | |
So then the next 10 top Rd. segments are listed here. I won't read through them. I'm going to talk a little bit about these. | 00:27:21 | |
Several of them are in subdivisions and that's going to dictate some of our recommendation tonight about what we move forward | 00:27:25 | |
with. | 00:27:30 | |
So. | 00:27:35 | |
The first. | 00:27:36 | |
Let me go back for a second. The first two calls Creek Circle and calls Creek Dr. You'll notice it's only about 500 feet or so. | 00:27:38 | |
Of asphalt that is part of a much larger subdivision that. | 00:27:44 | |
Is in the county not in the city and so our recommendation would be to wait and work with the county when they go to maintain that | 00:27:49 | |
road and or discuss maybe giving them those segments. So we'll that that has been a discussion with me and the county | 00:27:54 | |
administrator already so. | 00:28:00 | |
Simonton Way is another Rd. that has that is part of a larger subdivision. | 00:28:06 | |
And our recommendation, and I'll, I'll talk a little bit about this and then when I show you the pricing, but our recommendation | 00:28:12 | |
would be not to do 1 little segment in the subdivision, but to try to do the whole subdivision at once. I would imagine that that | 00:28:16 | |
would be hugely. | 00:28:20 | |
Unpopular and and frustrating for somebody to see one little segment get done and the other part not get done. But we'll talk | 00:28:25 | |
about that because we'll have to have some discussion about how we can phase that in and get those projects done. Some of them are | 00:28:29 | |
quite large. | 00:28:33 | |
Buddy hot trails 584 feet. That is one. We're talking about paving Niagara Drive again as part of the. | 00:28:38 | |
Bishops Vineyard subdivision again, actually, I think it may be Laura. It's at least as large, maybe not as large as Christian | 00:28:46 | |
Lake is as far as paving. I didn't measure out Christian Lake. | 00:28:52 | |
It's the larger. It's a really large subdivision, so lots to pave, stone Shoals, terrace. | 00:28:57 | |
As well as we're talking about a small segment, there's several other pieces that would need to be done. | 00:29:03 | |
Industrial Drive is not going to be on our list as well, partially well, mostly because when they do the sewer line project, we're | 00:29:09 | |
going to be cutting right across Industrial Drive. It would be silly to go pave it and then have them tear it up. | 00:29:15 | |
Didn't we just repay that a few years ago? Didn't we just repave Industrial that was Industrial Blvd. Industrial Blvd. | 00:29:22 | |
Industrial Drive is the one that runs perpendicular to School St. We are recommending doing that segment and we'll talk about that | 00:29:29 | |
in a minute. Jerry Smith, Dr. For the same reason that we're talking about Industrial Drive not doing it, we're going to have a | 00:29:33 | |
huge 20 foot. | 00:29:36 | |
Gap in there to in order for them to lay the pipe for the sewer line. So again recommend pushing that until after and then Jackson | 00:29:42 | |
St. which really is it's it's a really long street but it's not heavily traveled. Maybe more by foot than than potentially | 00:29:49 | |
drivable traffic. But again there's others above it that we feel like need to be addressed beforehand. | 00:29:56 | |
So try to walk you through this a little bit. So. | 00:30:03 | |
This chart shows you the cost or the estimated cost based on what we know of construction. | 00:30:08 | |
Of just an overlay on all these and that's assuming that's all we need to do and. | 00:30:15 | |
Fortunately we have a Councilman on on stat on the on council that that can advise us on this and has recommended that these that | 00:30:19 | |
this is all that would need to be required to do so. Simonson way was one of the ones that you know is on the list. | 00:30:26 | |
By itself, it's 25,000. However, if you want to do the entire subdivision, which you know, I would recommend you try to do the | 00:30:34 | |
whole thing at once for mobilization costs and whatnot. | 00:30:38 | |
You're looking at about 175,000. | 00:30:42 | |
So you don't have that kind of money right now. Niagara Drive is about 37,036 thousand and I apologize I should have added the | 00:30:45 | |
two, but Bishop's Vineyard all, all of the roads is actually 460 not so you don't add those two together. I should have made them | 00:30:51 | |
similar and I didn't, but but basically you're looking at about half $1,000,000 to do that, maybe a good reason to pass a | 00:30:56 | |
teaspoon. | 00:31:02 | |
Bunny Hop Trail we talked about, it's about 34,000 Stone Shoals. Again, Stone Shoals is in the subdivision to do that area. We're | 00:31:09 | |
looking at about 200,000 for the whole area. | 00:31:14 | |
School streets right around 17 or 18, and then Jackson Street is about 87. So Jackson St. although it may be a candidate, is more | 00:31:19 | |
more than what we have available. | 00:31:23 | |
Show you a couple slides or exhibits that Carter Engineering did for us, our City Engineer Bunny Hop Trail. | 00:31:29 | |
So roughly he figures it in units and I figured it in length. So but basically we're looking at. | 00:31:37 | |
Bunny hops about 584 feet and on the on the chart. I don't know that works out to in miles but it's on your chart works out. | 00:31:44 | |
.11 miles roughly. | 00:31:51 | |
That's funny, Hop. There's about 5-5 or six houses that front that road that's right off North Main. | 00:31:53 | |
And then School Straight the segment from from Main Street to Court Street. | 00:31:59 | |
And that is .056. | 00:32:04 | |
Miles, again, not not a lot. Collectively, they add up to a lot. | 00:32:07 | |
And then the remainder of the money we're recommending to be used to remove and pour concrete. There's a fair number of sidewalk | 00:32:11 | |
repairs. The mayor and I walked downtown a couple weeks ago with G dot official and there's a fair amount of work that can be done | 00:32:16 | |
just on Main Street. There may be some other spaces, you know, that part shoulder, etcetera that we can touch up, but Main Street | 00:32:22 | |
making this busy enough so. | 00:32:27 | |
So the recommendation is that we resurface Bunny Hop Trail. We submit an application to El Meg to G dot for this grant to | 00:32:32 | |
resurface Bunny Hop Trail Spill St. and some about 50 linear feet or so if sidewalk along Main St. | 00:32:40 | |
If there's any questions, happy to answer them. I don't know if any of the, especially Councilman Garrett who works in this area, | 00:32:48 | |
might have something to say. | 00:32:52 | |
No. | 00:32:57 | |
You've done a good job explaining it all in why we Covered the roads that we did. | 00:32:59 | |
The other Rd. because of the third maintenance I. | 00:33:05 | |
Hopefully the taste box. | 00:33:10 | |
And we can give you the money in and work. | 00:33:13 | |
As we go home, you know. | 00:33:16 | |
This is a good start. | 00:33:19 | |
But as you can see, you've got, we do have a, we do have a train coming down the track at us and you know as you talk in the | 00:33:24 | |
community, you know there's a lot of development that happened in Watkinsville in the 70s and 80s and even the 90s and those | 00:33:29 | |
roads. | 00:33:33 | |
You know, deteriorating, yeah. And showing their age. | 00:33:39 | |
You know, whether it's next year, the year after or the year after, we've got to start, we got to get on that so. | 00:33:43 | |
Yep. | 00:33:49 | |
I learned a lot from riding around the city and looking at all these streets. And I learned a lot from, you know, and there | 00:33:51 | |
there's other things we can do. Like I said, instead of complete, complete removal and starting over, I mean, you can resurface. | 00:33:58 | |
You know you fill the cracks. I don't know the technical term for it, but fill all the cracks in. | 00:34:06 | |
All of that little bit of stuff prolongs the life of the asphalt. | 00:34:10 | |
Chuck, we're thankful to have you working with working on this, yeah. | 00:34:18 | |
All right. Any further discussion? | 00:34:22 | |
Here, none. I'll take a motion on the ELMIG application. | 00:34:26 | |
I'll make a motion that we approve the L Meg application. | 00:34:32 | |
Do we have a second any further? | 00:34:35 | |
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:34:39 | |
Motion carries. | 00:34:42 | |
All right. | 00:34:46 | |
Manager Dickerson We're going to go on to item 15, the Watkinsville Downtown Development Authority. | 00:34:48 | |
I'll let you give us a briefing on that or Councilwoman Tucker and Councilman Campbell, if you want to give us a briefing on that | 00:34:54 | |
would be great. | 00:34:58 | |
Well, I may be deferring to the attorney on the because of the biggest thing is the resolution to activate it so the Downtown | 00:35:05 | |
Development Authority can be activated locally. This is something that's that simply requires a resolution by the council to | 00:35:12 | |
establish. You'll identify members, there are rules about who can, who can serve, and then defining your downtown development area | 00:35:19 | |
pretty straightforward. I know this is part of the Economic Development committees. | 00:35:25 | |
Director. | 00:36:03 | |
That person will be a city employee that was already planned ahead of time. In the future it might change, you know, if there | 00:36:04 | |
becomes some funding source for the DDA. | 00:36:08 | |
Where they can stand alone. But unlike Athens Park County and some of the surrounding communities, there's not like parking on | 00:36:12 | |
street parking, paid parking or parking decks that can fund those those efforts. So I think it'll work out really well. That'll | 00:36:18 | |
give us a really close connection with that DDA director access to that person. That person will also serve as the director of the | 00:36:24 | |
DDA as far as the the development authority and they'll have their own funds that may come through through grants and whatnot for | 00:36:30 | |
like facade grants or. | 00:36:36 | |
Improvements to businesses interior, exterior that are available through Main Street and through other programs that are supported | 00:36:42 | |
that are supported through DCA. | 00:36:46 | |
So. | 00:36:50 | |
I don't know, Joe, do you want to talk a little more about the legal aspect and then we can talk about The Who the members are in | 00:36:53 | |
the development area? | 00:36:56 | |
Very briefly, you'll see a resolution in front of you. The first long paragraph sites the Georgia law and states all the public | 00:37:00 | |
purposes and the benefits. And if we skip down 1/2 to the third, whereas below that it says mayor and council determine it's | 00:37:08 | |
desirable, necessary the DDA be activated immediately and then we go down from there 1 to the third whereas. | 00:37:15 | |
Talks about a need for revitalization and redevelopment the next, whereas references the benefits of developing and promoting | 00:37:23 | |
current and new trade, commerce and employment opportunities. Then flipping to the next page, just three paragraphs I think are | 00:37:31 | |
important to highlight. The third one down on the second page says you. The DDA will also serve as Urban Redevelopment Agency | 00:37:39 | |
under Urban Redevelopment Law that provides more tools in the toolbox. It's important to do that on the front end. | 00:37:47 | |
The very next paragraph, as you alluded to, Manager Dickerson references the appointments of these named individuals for the named | 00:37:55 | |
terms and I believe those were carefully selected based on their qualifications and meeting the criteria. Then jumping down 123 | 00:38:03 | |
more paragraphs, the very important the DDA area shall be that geographical area described in Exhibit A and I believe we have that | 00:38:11 | |
set forth here on the zoning map with an overlay. | 00:38:18 | |
And it's this kind of hashed area that surrounds the downtown development area. So that is part and parcel of this resolution. And | 00:38:27 | |
then finally just a little bit of housekeeping, we will give a copy of this to Secretary of State and DCA should it pass. So those | 00:38:33 | |
are my remarks. | 00:38:40 | |
Thank you, Joe. | 00:38:49 | |
Yes, Sir. Christine and Jeff, do you all have anything you want to add? | 00:38:51 | |
I would just say we're excited that this is getting started. We're really pleased at the level of enthusiasm that all of the Board | 00:38:57 | |
of Directors had and the excitement to serve. | 00:39:02 | |
Here and then also. | 00:39:08 | |
I spoke to several retailers in downtown Watkins the other day and I think Jeff did as well, just to let them know. | 00:39:11 | |
That we're doing this and that one of office, I won't speak for council. One of my personal goals is to help see the that corridor | 00:39:18 | |
really thrive, especially in retail potentially. We are thrilled that water park is coming to town and other opportunities, but we | 00:39:25 | |
are committed to our downtown core and this is a way to really show that. | 00:39:32 | |
To our community. And so, yeah, excited to be part of it. | 00:39:39 | |
Perfect, Jeff, anything you want? | 00:39:44 | |
She summed it up pretty well, but I think I'm able to turn on your microphone. | 00:39:47 | |
Yeah, she summed it up well. What we tried to do with the board of directors here was target people who have specific skills that | 00:39:51 | |
can help our downtown retailers grow. | 00:39:57 | |
You know, for example, there's a lawyer on there. | 00:40:03 | |
Which is a good resource for your small business own. | 00:40:05 | |
Worked at. | 00:40:08 | |
Robert Griffith Golden Pantry He's been doing big things with Golden Pantry rebranding. | 00:40:11 | |
That's been exciting. So we really try to get a list of resources for our downtown retailers so that they can thrive. | 00:40:18 | |
So that was kind of the goal with who we targeted. | 00:40:25 | |
Like Christine. | 00:40:28 | |
So we were calling. | 00:40:30 | |
We didn't. | 00:40:32 | |
It was very surprising. I was. I was expecting like come on, I need someone, but no, very positive. They're all excited about it. | 00:40:35 | |
Dan Elder, for example. | 00:40:43 | |
He. He even. | 00:40:45 | |
The the funding through the Downtown Development agency to redo the loft apartments upstairs above Rizzo's hair salon there. So he | 00:40:47 | |
had to go through the county years ago. | 00:40:53 | |
To get that done, because we didn't have a DDA, but he was able to somehow do it that way and he's actually just about to make his | 00:40:59 | |
last payment on that loan. | 00:41:03 | |
And he said he could not. | 00:41:07 | |
Fixed up those lost apartments upstairs without that loan because it was 4 percentage points lower than the regular rates. | 00:41:11 | |
So he's a really very good resource for other people that want to get it done. Then he knows the process. So that's just one | 00:41:21 | |
example from one of the people we targeted. | 00:41:25 | |
And you know, we. | 00:41:30 | |
As Christine. | 00:41:32 | |
Spoke to retailers. | 00:41:33 | |
They were all excited. | 00:41:36 | |
Well, this has been one of our priorities for a while. Thank you to the committee for your hard work to get this stood up. We've | 00:41:40 | |
been talking about it. We had Monica Callahan come in from Madison, I think nearly two years ago and speak to us about what their | 00:41:45 | |
DDA has done for their community and how important that's been. There's a lot of other small towns around Georgia that have. | 00:41:50 | |
Use them to great effect, so it's great to have another tool in the toolbox. So thanks to you guys for doing this, assuming this | 00:41:55 | |
passes. | 00:41:58 | |
Council, do we have? | 00:42:02 | |
Any questions for manager Dickerson, Mr. Reitman or the committee? | 00:42:04 | |
Any comments? | 00:42:11 | |
Right hearing none that I'll entertain a motion to. | 00:42:13 | |
What's to activate the Watkinsville Downtown Development Authority? | 00:42:17 | |
Is that what the motion needs to say, Joe? Or do we need to approve the resolution with Exhibit A there too, and to approve the | 00:42:23 | |
resolution with Exhibit A? | 00:42:27 | |
So motion to activate. | 00:42:32 | |
And then to approve the resolution with Exhibit A. | 00:42:34 | |
And to approve the resolution with Exhibit A, we have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a motion. We have a second. Any | 00:42:39 | |
further discussion? | 00:42:43 | |
All in further all in favor excuse. | 00:42:48 | |
Say aye, Any opposed? | 00:42:50 | |
And then the city will go ahead and start searching for downtown development director, the positions been budgeted to start in | 00:43:32 | |
January. | 00:43:36 | |
So we're not sure we're going to put that person yet, but work on that too. So, but those are the next steps. Great. Well, thanks. | 00:43:39 | |
We want to have somebody by January. I think the board had. | 00:43:44 | |
Get going. So, all right, Next up we have public comments. Just a reminder on those procedures, comments should be only directly | 00:43:49 | |
relating to. | 00:43:53 | |
I don't think they have to relate to agenda items, actually speak from the podium, 4 minutes per person, Refrain from debate, | 00:43:59 | |
argument, personal attacks or irrelevant discussion. | 00:44:04 | |
If it's related to something that's on the agenda, please address the merits of the pending matter. | 00:44:10 | |
And address your remarks directly to council. We cannot speak to potential litigation attorney-client or personnel matters. Do we | 00:44:14 | |
have anyone who wants to make a public comment tonight? | 00:44:18 | |
That actually is part. | 00:44:32 | |
Yeah. | 00:44:37 | |
Yeah. | 00:44:37 | |
Mr. Mayor Brian Broderick and members of the City Council. | 00:44:46 | |
And more importantly, the good people of Watkinsville, Georgia. | 00:44:52 | |
The people of Georgia. | 00:44:57 | |
The people of Watkinsville need to. | 00:44:59 | |
That the city of Watkins, who participated in an unconstitutional taking of private property. | 00:45:06 | |
Without due. | 00:45:13 | |
Of. | 00:45:15 | |
Or. | 00:45:17 | |
Just compensation under the 5th Amendment. | 00:45:18 | |
Of the United States Constitution. | 00:45:21 | |
The purpose of this illegal taking was for the installation of a forced sewer main that serves the South side of the railroad | 00:45:24 | |
tracks. | 00:45:30 | |
Which included all. | 00:45:36 | |
Major city develop. | 00:45:38 | |
And the industrial? | 00:45:40 | |
Whose property is this? | 00:45:43 | |
It was my personal property on MCC. | 00:45:46 | |
My Constitutional. | 00:45:49 | |
As. | 00:45:52 | |
Were. | 00:45:54 | |
The. | 00:45:56 | |
Mayor Broderick and the city have ignored this very serious matter. | 00:45:58 | |
A copy of one of the letters regarding this matter, which is addressed to the Mayor, Brian Broderick, City Council. | 00:46:03 | |
City Attor. | 00:46:11 | |
And others is available. | 00:46:12 | |
The fact the people of Watkinsville need to know the facts. | 00:46:15 | |
The mayor and City Council have made multiple unlawful. | 00:46:19 | |
And or inconsistent zoning decisions in recent times. | 00:46:24 | |
Just tonight, the City Council passed the updated official zoning map. I sent a letter to Mayor Broderick, the City Council, City | 00:46:29 | |
Attorney, and others this past Monday 2 days ago stating that two parcels were incorrectly identified. | 00:46:38 | |
This letter is available. | 00:46:48 | |
Further, in that letter, I once again stated that city. | 00:46:51 | |
Unlawfully voted to approve a standalone stormwater containment facility on South Main St. | 00:46:56 | |
Which were clearly and absolutely inconsistent with South Main Street Scenic Cargo Zoning Ordinance. | 00:47:04 | |
That zoning law was very. | 00:47:12 | |
The mayor and council violated. | 00:47:15 | |
Zoning, laws, multiple letters and communications from me over the last few years regarding this matter. | 00:47:19 | |
Were ignored, I received. | 00:47:27 | |
Responses. | 00:47:31 | |
The people of Watkinsville need to. | 00:47:32 | |
The facts to Property to private property owners, one at 117 S Main St. Mayor Broderick residents and another at South Main Street | 00:47:35 | |
address. | 00:47:41 | |
Were allowed by the city to construct additional buildings upon their property. | 00:47:48 | |
Without proper storm water plants and or without receiving approval by the city for additional sanitary sewer capacity. | 00:47:54 | |
Mayor Broderick was fined $500 by the city for not applying for and receiving a demolition permit and for not applying for and | 00:48:06 | |
receiving a building permit prior to a new construction project at his residence at 117 S Main St. | 00:48:16 | |
Mayor 20 seconds left, 30 seconds. | 00:48:26 | |
These are serious matters that the good people of Watkinsville need to be aware of. | 00:48:29 | |
Are the laws meant to be suggestions or do they really matter? | 00:48:35 | |
A zoning ordinance meant to be just suggestions for. | 00:48:40 | |
Or would they be consistent for all the people behind himself? | 00:48:46 | |
To the people of Watkinsville, thank you, Mr. Smith, thank you. | 00:48:50 | |
This could happen to you. Thank you Sir. The City Council 4 minutes is a law ordinances and regulations. Let's cut the mic. 4 | 00:48:56 | |
minutes is up the people of Watkinsville Unless. | 00:49:01 | |
Thank you, Mayor Smith. Appreciate your comments. | 00:49:09 | |
I will note for public consumption, it was my contractor who was fined, not me. He paid the fine. | 00:49:12 | |
And that the city of Watkinsville has not in Stewart installed, nor managed sewer And how many decades? | 00:49:18 | |
2-3 decades so anyway. | 00:49:24 | |
I won't dignify the rest of that. We'll let the comments stand any further public comments tonight. | 00:49:29 | |
Have we received any online? | 00:49:35 | |
Yes, Sir. All right. No further comments. We'll move on to the mayor. | 00:49:37 | |
This guy. | 00:49:44 | |
Umm. | 00:49:47 | |
Councilman Thomas. | 00:49:49 | |
We understand you're going to begin your deployment heading to Fort Benning on October 3rd. | 00:49:51 | |
And then to Kuwait on December 6th. So we're not sure how much we'll see you in the next few months, but we wanted to be sure | 00:49:56 | |
before you went that. | 00:50:00 | |
We gave you a big thank you. | 00:50:05 | |
From the citizens of Watkinsville for your service. | 00:50:08 | |
For all that you're doing. | 00:50:11 | |
We're grateful and we know it's going to be a long. | 00:50:14 | |
Better part of a year for you? | 00:50:17 | |
But we just want you to know how much We're grateful for your service and we'll carry on without you. But we appreciate you. | 00:50:20 | |
Thank you very much. It really means a lot. I enjoy doing what I'm doing in uniform and here and I'm I'm glad that we have found a | 00:50:25 | |
way for me to be able to continue to serve the citizens of Watkinsville while I'm gone. So. | 00:50:32 | |
Well, thank you for your service. | 00:50:40 | |
It's it's the. | 00:50:43 | |
Seems like a crazy place right now, and we don't take it lightly that you're headed into harm's way and we appreciate. | 00:50:46 | |
Thank you. | 00:50:52 | |
Branding update we have. | 00:50:56 | |
Rolled out the new logo. It seems like a long time ago, but it was in fact just after our last meeting, week after that meeting. | 00:50:59 | |
So we're all getting used to this. It looks great on the slides tonight. It's starting to pop up in other places. I saw my first. | 00:51:04 | |
Instagram post with the logo being used on a mural that someone had done for a piece of art for someone's house. | 00:51:11 | |
It is out in the wild and is getting good responses, so thank you Sharon for. | 00:51:46 | |
Working on that and getting that implemented and getting everything on the website so our partners can use it as well. | 00:51:52 | |
Mayor when those when the magnets and the hats come in we'll do some fun stuff on social media. You know some drawings and things | 00:51:57 | |
like that. We'll we'll try. If they get in before, I think we'll have the magnets before Fall festival, we may pop up over there | 00:52:01 | |
and do some fun giveaways. | 00:52:05 | |
The signs, she said. Three to four weeks. | 00:52:10 | |
Installed, but I'm not, you know, it just depends what it's really going to cut it close if we get it in before a fall festival. | 00:52:13 | |
But exciting to see all that getting underway. | 00:52:20 | |
Update on the ESP Miracle League. ESP put out a press release that kind of blew my mind, but if you spend much time at City Hall, | 00:52:25 | |
it won't blow your mind how much use the playground is getting. | 00:52:29 | |
Their calculations say 15 people per hour. That equals 150 people per day, 13,500 people in 90 days. And again, outside my window, | 00:52:34 | |
outside Sharon's window, it is almost nonstop. I mean, you know, it is really impressive, especially as the weather's cooled off. | 00:52:40 | |
How many people are out there? How many people are making that their kind of destination after school or in the evenings stopping | 00:52:46 | |
on their way home? It's really been great to see. | 00:52:51 | |
And on Saturday, ESP had their opening day and had their first big baseball tournament out there and that was absolutely amazing | 00:52:57 | |
to see that hear the music. They had three out of the park home runs. So it sounds like not only will that be a storm water | 00:53:04 | |
detention area down there, but it's going to be detaining and retaining some some some softballs and baseballs down there too. So | 00:53:11 | |
that's been great to see and and really is one of those projects that I think has been transformative for Watkinsville. | 00:53:17 | |
And as I've mentioned to some of you earlier, seeing the families utilize the sidewalk in front of City Hall and how the new | 00:53:25 | |
handicap parking works for them. | 00:53:29 | |
That expense was totally worth it. Y'all on Saturday. You know, knowing. | 00:53:34 | |
You know our former handicap parking would have been tougher for them to navigate and the sidewalks didn't connect and all of a | 00:53:37 | |
sudden when you see that family pull up and then seamlessly get out of their vehicle, get their child out of the vehicle and | 00:53:42 | |
navigate their way over there without a hiccup, it was awesome. So anyway, I appreciate y'all making that investment. Sharon, | 00:53:47 | |
thanks to you and Mark for coordinating that and getting it done and really cost efficient manner. | 00:53:53 | |
Fall Festival is coming up. This is our last meeting before the Fall Festival. Hard to believe October 15th. That's always a big | 00:54:00 | |
weekend for Watkinsville, so be sure it's on your calendar if it's not already. | 00:54:05 | |
That's coming your way. | 00:54:11 | |
And then again then I think we also have some congratulations are in order for Mr. Campbell Young. Sydney arrived shortly after | 00:54:13 | |
our last meeting I think and so. | 00:54:17 | |
I hope all is well at home and everything is going well. So congratulations on that, so. | 00:54:22 | |
And in order to get Sydney around what was mentioned earlier, but I do want to say, and I'll say it every month until November, T | 00:54:26 | |
Spice is really important. Y'all and you see those paving numbers. | 00:54:32 | |
When people ask me about it, I make it really simple. I'm. | 00:54:39 | |
We're going to. The county is going to reduce your property taxes, and we're going to have citizens from outside of Oconee County | 00:54:42 | |
bear a greater burden of the cost for paying for. | 00:54:46 | |
Sidewalks, roads and transportation infrastructure. That includes things in Watkinsville, More sidewalks. Intersection | 00:54:51 | |
improvements. That also includes things like. | 00:54:55 | |
Traffic lights that we all know are desperately needed. The corner of Union Church and Hog Mountain Rd. As our kids go back to | 00:54:59 | |
school around about at New High Shoals Rd. And Union Church Rd. | 00:55:03 | |
Significant additional pedestrian infrastructure outside of Watkinsville that will connect us to the rest of the county. So | 00:55:09 | |
please, the county has put up a website with some more information, but please talk to folks, educate folks about that, it is you | 00:55:14 | |
know. | 00:55:19 | |
It is a great opportunity for us to leverage the visitors to our community who are using our roads and help them help us pay for | 00:55:24 | |
some really needed. | 00:55:28 | |
Transportation infrastructure that otherwise will have to come out of property taxes and other revenue sources that all come from | 00:55:31 | |
just property owners in Oconee County. So please educate people about that. With that we'll go to council reports. | 00:55:37 | |
Councilman. | 00:55:44 | |
Thank you said it all. I've been trying to communicate that to people I've been talking to and I've had a lot of good comments, so | 00:55:46 | |
I. | 00:55:50 | |
Good about it, you know, And just let them know, you know. | 00:55:54 | |
What the money is going to be used for and. | 00:55:58 | |
Look at the county stuff, called the county commissioners and you know, so I've had a lot of positive into. | 00:56:02 | |
Yeah, I think that's the other thing on the county website, you can actually submit projects you'd like to see be involved in | 00:56:09 | |
that, you know, which is kind of nice. I think they're wanting to understand what people's priorities are and there's a lot of | 00:56:14 | |
things that are on the docket for the county that could be accelerated with those additional revenues. Costco alone is going to | 00:56:19 | |
add, I think 6 or 7% to the sales tax take for the county potentially. So that's a pretty significant, pretty significant increase | 00:56:25 | |
and that's opening in NN. | 00:56:30 | |
All right, Councilwoman Massey. | 00:56:36 | |
Really have much to report. I just want to say I think I said this before, I've been attempting to attend one or two of the | 00:56:40 | |
department head meetings a month and it's good to see that they all work well together. They're all doing a good job, they're all | 00:56:47 | |
keeping each other informed on things that are happening and that's good to see. Thank you all. | 00:56:54 | |
Thank you for saying that Connie. A lot of times it does go unnoticed how important that that not just Sharon, but the group that | 00:57:02 | |
your team that works for you and how important the high functioning team is and how much they get done. So Chief Sharon, thank you | 00:57:06 | |
all. | 00:57:10 | |
Shepherding she. | 00:57:15 | |
The team here at Watkins and. | 00:57:16 | |
Taking care of the. | 00:57:18 | |
All those basics that so we don't have to roll up our sleeves and get involved in that. All right, Councilman Thomas. | 00:57:20 | |
Nothing to report this evening, all right? | 00:57:26 | |
Councilwoman Tucker. | 00:57:29 | |
Work has started on dismantling the portions of the old playground that are going to go away and been in discussions with the | 00:57:33 | |
director Wendy at VO. | 00:57:37 | |
About some partnerships to have some kind of kid friendly art in there, so I have another meeting with her this week. So we are we | 00:57:43 | |
are moving along with ideas. | 00:57:48 | |
And I think what we end up with will be a great addition to our community. | 00:57:54 | |
Right. | 00:58:00 | |
Councilman. | 00:58:01 | |
We covered most everything that would have been in my report with the Downtown Development Authority, also I guess in between. | 00:58:03 | |
Last meeting in this one, I attended the Downtown Development Authority training, so I'm good to go. Christine's good to go, so. | 00:58:10 | |
All right. Again, thanks to you guys. That was a big lift. | 00:58:17 | |
All right. Anything further? | 00:58:20 | |
All right. With that, we will entertain a motion for a brief executive session to discuss real estate and threatened litigation, | 00:58:22 | |
please. | 00:58:27 | |
To go to executive. | 00:58:32 | |
To discuss real estate and potential medications. | 00:58:36 | |
All right. There's your motion. Do we have a second? All in favor? Say aye. | 00:58:39 | |
Any opposed? All right. We're in executive session. | 00:58:44 |