No Bookmarks Exist.
Better start the meeting. | 00:00:15 | |
Thankfully, that's not our brand of politics. | 00:00:18 | |
We are nonpartisan and local, that's right. | 00:00:22 | |
Welcome everybody to the January Watkinsville City Council meeting. We are grateful for a full house for some special occasions | 00:00:27 | |
tonight that we're going to celebrate together shortly, but I will start off with a quorum check. We do have a quorum here | 00:00:33 | |
tonight. Unfortunately we do are missing 2 council members due to some work and family matters and look forward to having them | 00:00:38 | |
back with us in February. As always, we want to start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. I've asked Deacon Marvin Nunnally | 00:00:43 | |
to lead us in that tonight please. | 00:00:48 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:56 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:01:03 | |
Thank you Marvin, as always. | 00:01:15 | |
The service also provides closed captioning for a live meeting. The user must click the closed caption icon. It looks like a | 00:01:50 | |
little CC in the lower right of the video window. When the video from tonight's meeting is posted online, the captions will | 00:01:56 | |
automatically appear. Interesting parties can also view a transcript of the meeting under the tab titled Transcript and then of | 00:02:01 | |
course, we also always take minutes and approve those at the subsequent meeting. | 00:02:07 | |
As a reminder, a notice of the council meeting along with the current month's agenda is posted one full week before the meeting to | 00:02:13 | |
all the public sufficient time to provide comments and writing to the clerk if they're unable to attend the meeting. | 00:02:18 | |
With that, we'll move on into the approval of minutes and I will ask for a motion to approve our December 20th. | 00:02:24 | |
2023 regular. | 00:02:30 | |
Minutes. And since we're missing some members tonight, this might upset our normal motion and 2nd routine. So I'd ask for all of | 00:02:33 | |
you to be ready tonight. So, can I have a motion to approve the December 20th regular meeting minutes, please. I make a motion to | 00:02:40 | |
approve that meeting. Minutes. Do we have a second? All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:02:47 | |
And for our agenda, we'll need to approve the agenda tonight. I don't anticipate any changes to the agenda. Is that correct, | 00:02:56 | |
Manager Dickerson? | 00:03:00 | |
Yeah you can. It is on the agenda because it we didn't receive the withdrawal until after it already been posted. But item number | 00:03:06 | |
13 was supposed to be take was table from last month's meeting that has since been withdrawn. So you could just simply remove | 00:03:09 | |
that. | 00:03:13 | |
All right, so if you want to make a motion, Councilman Tucker, I make a motion to approve the agenda with the removal of item | 00:03:17 | |
number 13. | 00:03:22 | |
We have a motion. Do we have a second? Any discussion? | 00:03:27 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. Any opposed motion carries unanimously. | 00:03:30 | |
All right, before we've got several oaths to do before we do. | 00:03:37 | |
I just want to reflect into that a bit. You know, it is an election. | 00:03:41 | |
It feels like every year and every year is an election year in Watkinsville, so we do this, but these oaths are important. | 00:03:45 | |
We will do oaths for the mayor, will do oaths for council members, will do an oath for a new police chief tonight. I may speak a | 00:03:53 | |
little bit more to that before that oath, but I do want to just reinforce for council and all of us as we stand up here that these | 00:03:59 | |
oaths are important, they're serious matters. And as we move into a year where we'll be making a lot of serious decisions for our | 00:04:05 | |
country, I think we all need to reflect into what we're saying. | 00:04:11 | |
Agreeing to and the importance of these oaths that we're taking around defending the Constitution and how vital that is to the | 00:04:18 | |
health of our democracy. | 00:04:22 | |
In America. And that health really starts here in our local communities. So with that, Joe, I guess I get to go first. | 00:04:26 | |
Yeah, let's do that contemporaneously with the other two council members, so. | 00:04:32 | |
I. | 00:04:40 | |
Chuck. | 00:04:43 | |
As much as I'd love to read this oath. | 00:04:45 | |
Wait, Connie, I don't think this is only for Newton. We're next. We we get this coming. | 00:04:50 | |
Christine not let you get your. | 00:04:58 | |
Make sure we had the right turn on the mic so we can have this be official. | 00:05:08 | |
One moment. Press and hold. New batteries. All right. Are we live? | 00:05:14 | |
Very good. At this point, I'd ask each of you to raise your right hand. | 00:05:19 | |
And do each of you swear and affirm as follows, and I will read it out in its entirety at the end You can say I do or I do, So | 00:05:24 | |
help me God, do each of you solemnly swear, Affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of Mayor or Council Person of the | 00:05:30 | |
City of Watkinsville, and to the best of your ability, support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution | 00:05:36 | |
of Georgia, and the charter ordinances and regulations of the City of Watkinsville. You are not the holder of any unaccounted for | 00:05:42 | |
public money. Do this State. | 00:05:49 | |
In the best interest of the city of Watkinsville, to the best of your ability, without fear, favor, affection, reward, or | 00:06:29 | |
expectation thereof. If you agree with that, you can say I do. I do, so help me God. | 00:06:34 | |
Congratulations. | 00:06:41 | |
All right, Council, our next item is the election of the mayor Pro Tem. | 00:07:10 | |
Anyone like to nominate someone? | 00:07:15 | |
For mayor pro. | 00:07:18 | |
I'd like to nominate Christine. | 00:07:21 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:07:25 | |
We have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion. | 00:07:27 | |
Hearing none, assuming you're willing all in favor, say aye, aye. | 00:07:31 | |
Motion carries 3. | 00:07:37 | |
I think we even got a vote from the audience, was grateful for that. | 00:07:39 | |
Next we're going to do an oath for our new police chief and before we stand everybody up. | 00:07:45 | |
I'm just. | 00:07:51 | |
Forward to see the crowd here, but I shouldn't be because the person that we're about to swear in. | 00:07:53 | |
Is is uniquely qualified for this job, but I think we also. | 00:07:59 | |
She's inspiring. She knows our community. | 00:08:04 | |
She knows good police work. She's got such a heart, not just for Oconee County, but for anywhere that she serves and. | 00:08:08 | |
I don't know when I first met Courtney. I feel like I've known Courtney for 20 years, but we probably ran in some of the same | 00:08:17 | |
civic circles in Athens and different places and. | 00:08:21 | |
Around Oconee and I've never been anything but blown away with her, but blown away with her professionalism. | 00:08:25 | |
Her, the respect she commands from her peers and we are just delighted to have you here. | 00:08:33 | |
Leading the Watkinsville Police Department and are really excited to see what you're going to bring to the table over the next few | 00:08:40 | |
years and how you're going to continue to help our community as it evolves and grows. So welcome Chief GAIL, officially from us | 00:08:44 | |
behind. | 00:08:48 | |
The rail up here and with that we will turn you loose with Attorney Reitman to get sworn in. | 00:08:53 | |
I guess we could say Ditto. And we said before, but let's go ahead and minister the oath formally, shall we? And I see you've got | 00:09:02 | |
some support up here. Very good, Excellent. So let's get a good backdrop. | 00:09:08 | |
I'll just go where the city manager tells me and then we'll proceed. | 00:09:15 | |
On one side of him, just say we can get some while you're doing something. | 00:09:18 | |
Is everybody good? | 00:09:26 | |
Under the government of the United States, any other state, or any foreign state which you by the law is the state of Georgia, | 00:10:00 | |
will be prohibited from holding, and that you are otherwise qualified to hold said office according to the Constitution and laws | 00:10:06 | |
of Georgia. And that you will perform the duties of your office in the best interest of the City of Watkinsville to the best of | 00:10:11 | |
your ability, without fear, favor, affection, reward, or expectation thereof. If you agree with that oath, you can say I do or I | 00:10:17 | |
do, so help me God. | 00:10:23 | |
Congratulations. | 00:10:29 | |
What did it mean to do that afterwards? | 00:10:51 | |
OK. All right. Just we've got a couple more little items then we'll have a break. So I know some of you may not want to stay for | 00:10:53 | |
the entirety of the meeting, although it'll be brief. So but Next up it is related to our related to our Police Department I'd | 00:10:59 | |
like to invite. | 00:11:04 | |
I'd like to invite the representatives from the Daughters of the American Revolution Reverend John Andrew chapter to come forward | 00:11:11 | |
with a special recognition. | 00:11:14 | |
Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am Pamela Lore Hendricks and I am the current Regent of the Reverend John Andrew chapter, | 00:11:21 | |
National Society Daughters in the American Revolution. | 00:11:26 | |
And we are here tonight to honor your police force. And I want to turn it over. This is my Vice Regent Laurie Trail, and she's | 00:11:32 | |
done a lot of the work to get us to tonight, So I want to turn it over to her. | 00:11:39 | |
Hi, good evening. As you said, I'm Laurie Trail and I'm the Vice Regent for Reverend John Andrew. | 00:11:49 | |
We're here tonight present the DAR Distinguished Citizen Medal to the City of Watkinsville Police Department. | 00:11:55 | |
The Distinguished Citizens Medal is awarded to an individual or group that demonstrates honor, service, courage, leadership and | 00:12:03 | |
patriotism. | 00:12:08 | |
Those that have contributed to the defense, security or freedom of the community, state or nation in an exceptional manner and we | 00:12:14 | |
believe the City of Watkinsville Police Department does that. | 00:12:20 | |
So they've supported our chapter in many, many ways, including not only helping us with the flags. | 00:12:27 | |
And the flag holders out at the cemetery, but also installing those flag holders in over 100 veterans graves out there. | 00:12:35 | |
And they also come out and help for the three holidays each. | 00:12:44 | |
The 4th of July, Memorial Day and veteran's day. | 00:12:48 | |
Also for the cleanup of the cemetery, which I hope will be a biannual event. | 00:12:52 | |
Much less. | 00:12:57 | |
And as well as several of our other projects including Constitution Day. | 00:13:00 | |
For this award we had to get 2 letters of recognition not from our chapter and we have done that. I. | 00:13:05 | |
And I'll just summarize some of the aspects of those letters. Chief Brock had retired. Chief Brock had started that badges and | 00:13:12 | |
benevolence and charity and that has helped so many people in the community. | 00:13:18 | |
With various things and that has come to light and getting those letters of recommendation. He had started that project with a | 00:13:26 | |
community outreach that the Police Department does. | 00:13:30 | |
They've done so many help with so many fundraisers. They do lots of things for the children in the community, reading at the | 00:13:35 | |
library and those kinds of things. So they've done a lot with the community. | 00:13:40 | |
So we just wanted to present this award to them and say thank you for doing such a great job. | 00:13:45 | |
Keep it up and we really look forward to working with them closely on community events. | 00:13:50 | |
So it's with great honor we present these today. We have a certificate and a medal for this for the officers. All right, officers, | 00:13:59 | |
if you want to come on in and be recognized. | 00:14:04 | |
So I have their individually named. So we have Sergeant Kyle Hibbler. | 00:14:25 | |
Sergeant Lawrence Wade. | 00:14:38 | |
Officer Allen, is it? Chris, He's not here, OK? | 00:14:48 | |
Elena. | 00:14:55 | |
We'll get these to them. | 00:15:00 | |
Ryan, England. | 00:15:02 | |
Rachel Stern. | 00:15:11 | |
And Tristan Walker. | 00:15:18 | |
Oh, pictures, Sir. | 00:15:29 | |
Yeah, y'all look like you like each other. | 00:15:33 | |
All right. Ready. | 00:15:37 | |
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. | 00:15:45 | |
Two more items and then we'll have a little break first of all. | 00:15:56 | |
And anybody who knew her. | 00:16:36 | |
Her heart was just huge for anybody she met and we really miss her. | 00:16:38 | |
She made quite an impact in the city in her time and we're thankful that. | 00:16:42 | |
And what we saw here tonight, with our officers being recognized, with our history, with our work, it all starts with our citizens | 00:17:18 | |
feeling safe. | 00:17:22 | |
And then they can really feel connected. And I'm just excited that you're here to help build on what we've done. And with that, | 00:17:26 | |
I'll turn it over to you. It is quite the honor. I'm not going to be long winded, but thank you to each of you for coming, | 00:17:34 | |
supporting me all along the way. You've been here during good times and bad times. And you know what? Here we are. We're back | 00:17:41 | |
home. And so thank you. My church family is here. It is phenomenal and it's quite the honor. | 00:17:48 | |
I I just stand before you as a testimony of prayer, as a testimony of drive and and just go with where your heart is and where you | 00:17:56 | |
believe you should be. And this is where I knew I needed to be. | 00:18:02 | |
I won't disappoint you with all the good things that are going to come. This is you just met an incredible group of officers and | 00:18:10 | |
we're only going to go higher. So it is, it's very exciting. My peers are here from Athens and so we're going to work and continue | 00:18:15 | |
to work together. Jackson County is represented. | 00:18:21 | |
So you know, All in all these days, it is not just limited to our city and so having more resources and networks will only pay | 00:18:27 | |
dividends for this community. And so I'm thrilled about it. I thank you and I'm going to shut up so. | 00:18:34 | |
Well we share your excitement or excited about partnership with our friends across across county lines in every direction. So | 00:18:50 | |
welcome. We appreciate all of you coming. That said, you will not hurt our feelings if if anybody wants to, if anybody wants to | 00:18:55 | |
leave, I will preview. We're going to take the first look at our master plan for the new Thomas Park Preserve tonight, which is | 00:19:00 | |
exciting and the rest of the I anticipate the rest of the agenda being pretty short. So if you do want to stay, you're welcome to | 00:19:05 | |
do that, but we'll take. | 00:19:10 | |
Three or four minute break if anybody wants to. | 00:19:16 | |
Barton, head home. Thank you. | 00:19:18 | |
Got it. OK, perfect. | 00:20:50 | |
All right. I hope you're all staying. | 00:24:24 | |
Yeah. | 00:24:27 | |
All right, We've done all right. We've kept it pretty good, kept a pretty good crowd. | 00:24:41 | |
And we'll try to work through the rest of the matters on the agenda pretty quickly tonight and get to the, get to the. | 00:24:47 | |
Get to the meat of the agenda. So we will start off with with our financial reports. Just a light reminder, most of you have been | 00:24:53 | |
here before. I recognize most of the faces, but we. | 00:24:58 | |
The merits of the pending matter and speak directly to council. Council won't speak to pending litigation or attorney-client or | 00:25:36 | |
personnel matters. | 00:25:39 | |
So we'll kick it off with Financial Reports Manager Dickerson, if you want to walk us through those. Thank you, Mayor. Everyone | 00:25:43 | |
should have received the balance sheet as well as the revenues and expenditure sheets. No surprises. Everything's ticking along or | 00:25:48 | |
where we should be. If there are any questions, I can move to the next one. | 00:25:53 | |
All right, the fun ones are SPLOSS. This is where we're going to have a little bit of a little bit more fun, a little bit more | 00:25:59 | |
creativity. So spots to report should finish out this month. We waiting on a clear to check for the Rocket Field project. So that | 00:26:04 | |
project and the SPLOST. | 00:26:08 | |
Project itself, the overall effort will end, I hope and we'll be able to report that back to the county spots. Three we have right | 00:26:14 | |
now, We still have encumbered expenditures for Rocket Field improvement. Some remaining ones that are out there, Harris Hills Park | 00:26:21 | |
improvements, some Rd. resurfacing and subsidy signage and streetscape Whoops and I did not need to jump that. Sorry about that. | 00:26:28 | |
So we have a balance of a little bit more than $870,000 we're taking in an average of. | 00:26:37 | |
80,000 and and some change each month which is up from what we projected which was around 65,000. So that means we've got a | 00:26:45 | |
healthy extra balance to be coming. Of course that all depends on how the future years ago. We still have a few more years to go | 00:26:50 | |
on this one. This will finish up in September of 27. | 00:26:55 | |
The Tea Splost report. | 00:27:01 | |
This is our transportation special purpose local auction sales tax that is at 7.77%, which is a little bit lower than our SPLOST | 00:27:03 | |
3. So that averages about 70,000 a month. | 00:27:08 | |
These part, the projects right now that have been encumbered are for the sidewalks. We still have a leg of the sidewalk or a | 00:27:14 | |
segment of the sidewalk from. | 00:27:17 | |
New high Shoals down South Main that we're waiting to work on and then last month council approved 800,000 for the Mulberry | 00:27:23 | |
Simonton Bridge Rd. Connector and there's also some money encumbered in Rd. resurfacing for I'm Sorry that was spent for School | 00:27:29 | |
St. at Oak Ave. at Rocket Field and 2nd St. some improvements related to Rocket Field. | 00:27:36 | |
And there's a little bit of a monthly update for you. It's a little bit more than 300 fifty $50,000 in that account. | 00:27:44 | |
Our American rescue plan money. This is Money that has to be committed by the end of this year and spent, I believe, by the end of | 00:27:52 | |
26. | 00:27:55 | |
We are currently in a whole pattern, not spending any more money until at least July 1st so that we do not trigger another audit. | 00:28:00 | |
But there's about $93,000 remaining that the council can appropriate for transformative projects. That's the plan, and there's | 00:28:05 | |
some money left that has been encumbered for. | 00:28:11 | |
Retention program for our officers that the council approved. | 00:28:18 | |
Any questions on any of those? | 00:28:23 | |
OK. We'll go to economic development. So we have business licenses are coming in a steady stream. They are due March 15th. | 00:28:25 | |
And so we'll start seeing a few more those trickle in this next month may not be able to give you a specific, you can see how | 00:28:34 | |
tedious this is to read. But so those are coming in fairly well. And then our exercise both alcohol and our short term vacation | 00:28:39 | |
rental or hotel motel taxes are coming in and they are actually are short short term vacation rentals a little bit above what we | 00:28:45 | |
thought we were going to be getting at this point. So that's good news. | 00:28:51 | |
And then on the building permit side, we have 9 permits for eight projects. The one I'll highlight is the library project, which | 00:28:57 | |
is coming to close and I believe the mayoral mentioned a little bit about that later in his report. | 00:29:03 | |
Any questions? | 00:29:10 | |
All right, all right. Mayor Pro Tem Tucker, if you want to give us an update on the Downtown Development Authority. | 00:29:12 | |
OK. So we are rolling along. I think one of the most important things to just get on everybody's agenda. | 00:29:21 | |
Is we. | 00:29:32 | |
What got the rural zone designation and that is a great opportunity for businesses in the the map of the world zone, which is | 00:29:33 | |
essentially there's an outline thank you novels, I don't know how long I'm going to describe that one of it where there is | 00:29:41 | |
significant tax incentives. | 00:29:48 | |
For businesses that add new jobs, that's the main purpose, but it includes. | 00:29:57 | |
Renovations of property, purchasing property, anything that is adding at least two new jobs and so we are having on December, not | 00:30:04 | |
December, long month. | 00:30:09 | |
January 24th at 8:30 in the morning at Penny State Bank headquarters. | 00:30:16 | |
A really important meeting. So if you have a business in the downtown, if you are thinking about having a business in the | 00:30:23 | |
downtown, if you own property in the downtown, if you know if somebody please come to this and get more information, it really can | 00:30:30 | |
just contribute to the continuation of just the rejuvenation of Watkinsville. So this is really a big thing. Cannot emphasize it | 00:30:37 | |
enough. Can you go back? I know I kind of jumped ahead because I want to make sure that is the most important thing. | 00:30:44 | |
Also, you see a picture here, Kate Patterson, who is our downtown. | 00:30:53 | |
Our director and we just celebrated her one year anniversary and at our meeting today we just really gave her a lot of credit that | 00:30:59 | |
she deserves because it is always hard to come in and start the position, start the job when you have a a kind of a vague job | 00:31:07 | |
description. And we've never done this before, but let's figure this out And she has really done a tremendous job in doing that. | 00:31:14 | |
So I just want to publicly honor her. | 00:31:22 | |
Yes, I think. | 00:32:04 | |
That summarizes it, but January 24th OS anyone's phones out right now. I want to put it in your calendar 8:30. | 00:32:07 | |
So to give, well you just need to come to get all the details, but yes, it. | 00:32:17 | |
Creating jobs. | 00:32:23 | |
Get tax credits. | 00:32:25 | |
All right. Thank you, Mayor. Pro Tem, it has been amazing. How much is you guys have gotten done in your first year. It's pretty | 00:32:30 | |
awesome and having Kate on board has really accelerated that. And so let's all spread the word about the event on the 24th. I'd | 00:32:35 | |
love to have all of. | 00:32:40 | |
Downtown property owners. They are not just business owners, but the property owners. It's vital that they're there. We will move | 00:32:45 | |
on to Chief Gail's first Police Department report. | 00:32:51 | |
Chief GAIL, if you'll make sure that that light is on. On the mic, there's a button. | 00:32:57 | |
Pushed it really hard in the light and come on, push and hold, yes. | 00:33:03 | |
Does that work we on can you hear me All right excellent. So the the Police Department we've got one application in and and you | 00:33:10 | |
all have seen this but what I want to mention that is not on there because it has recently come up. | 00:33:19 | |
Sergeant Hitler and Officer Stearns has been working on a financial crime that has now blossomed. And so now they are working with | 00:33:28 | |
federal agents and other agencies in the state of Georgia. And it is solely because of their hard work and they're bringing the | 00:33:34 | |
pieces of the puzzle together. We will share more as it becomes available. However, I just want to give the recognition to the | 00:33:41 | |
hard work that they are doing. They went to a regional. | 00:33:48 | |
Intelligence meeting today. And so they're getting schooled up, they're speaking with investigators to see just how large this is | 00:33:55 | |
in our area and they're they're focusing on the city of Watkinsville and our victims here. But their diligent work has helped | 00:34:00 | |
already. | 00:34:05 | |
The FBI. | 00:34:11 | |
More to come in the future, but that's the big thing that they've been working on. We do have. It's going to get busy here rather | 00:34:13 | |
quickly with some events. The Police Department is going to be out there in the community and we look forward to it. There's just | 00:34:18 | |
a lot. | 00:34:22 | |
Of stuff we want to get and some of the stuff they have done already And so I'm excited to be a part of it. It's just exciting | 00:34:28 | |
time. We're going to be out there, we're going to be seen and I want to hear from everybody if you if you want to see us doing | 00:34:32 | |
something. | 00:34:37 | |
Whatever you'd like. So thank you. And that's that's where we're at. | 00:34:44 | |
All right. Thank you, Chief Gale. | 00:34:49 | |
Appreciate. | 00:34:51 | |
All right. Next up we have our consent agenda. There's no need for item number six, correct. Manager Dickerson, nothing's changing | 00:34:53 | |
on bank signatures, so we would be looking under consent for approval for the other items. | 00:35:01 | |
And we did not have anything pulled off when we set the agenda. So I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:35:09 | |
And make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do we have a second? | 00:35:15 | |
Any discussion? | 00:35:20 | |
All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:35:22 | |
Motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to our public hearing. We have two of these tonight. | 00:35:25 | |
Typically, and we will do this if it comes up of 10 minutes per side are allowed for people to address. | 00:35:32 | |
The matters on zoning procedures Comments, as before, should relate to the agenda item should be directed to council. You'll want | 00:35:40 | |
to speak from the podium and address the merits of the pending matter. | 00:35:44 | |
Directly to the council, we have two public hearings tonight. We have the zoning. Well, we have, we actually just have 1A zoning | 00:35:49 | |
text amendment related to outdoor. | 00:35:54 | |
Dining and mobile vendors. So first we'll have a public hearing on that matter and then we'll have a vote on that matter. After | 00:35:59 | |
that we'll move into old business. We'll get just so you all know what's coming, we'll have an update on historic preservation. | 00:36:04 | |
Then we'll move into new business and we'll discuss the farm winery matter that's related to South Main Brewing and also Thomas | 00:36:10 | |
Farm. | 00:36:13 | |
Preserve update at that point. So just so everybody knows what's coming, but we will start off with the zoning text amendment | 00:36:17 | |
related to mobile businesses and attorney Reitman if you could provide an overview of that amendment please Sir. | 00:36:22 | |
Glad to do so. You'll see up on your screen reference to Article 10 outdoor dining. This actually morphed into a slightly more | 00:36:29 | |
expansive ordinance addressing not only food trucks, but locally produced artisan products and produce etcetera as well, but it | 00:36:37 | |
was most conveniently located Article 10. Also Article 13 use regulation to allow such in the downtown quarter, commercial and | 00:36:45 | |
mixed-use office zones and Mr. Mayor, I think you. | 00:36:53 | |
Had encouraged us to add another zone to that, is that correct? I believe it is expanded beyond those zones. | 00:37:01 | |
I believe that is correct. | 00:37:10 | |
And the purpose of this is to address something that was not previously permitted in your zoning ordinance. As written, your | 00:37:14 | |
zoning ordinance without amending it does not expressly allow food trucks, mobile vendors, etcetera. The purpose of this is to | 00:37:22 | |
allow them with reasonable constraints so that the locations where they can set up. | 00:37:30 | |
Are clearly defined so that they will not block traffic, pedestrian, vehicular or otherwise. | 00:37:39 | |
Move forward on the public hearing. Does anyone have any questions or comments? | 00:38:19 | |
Council members. | 00:38:24 | |
Speak in favor of the. | 00:39:32 | |
Zoning text amendment or just generally? | 00:39:36 | |
You're welcome to come to the. | 00:39:39 | |
Seeing none anyone with any concerns. | 00:39:43 | |
Come. | 00:39:47 | |
Seeing none, I'm going to close the public. | 00:39:50 | |
At this point, we'll move towards the vote Council. You've heard all the background. This would be revising Article 10 outdoor | 00:39:53 | |
dining to expand such to address mobile vendors and that does include things beyond dining. So that's flower carts. A variety of | 00:39:58 | |
other mobile vendors would be covered by that. In Watkinsville if they're serving the general public, that would be in the | 00:40:04 | |
downtown quarter commercial historic main and mixed-use office zones. And I think we ice cream trucks are excluded from that and | 00:40:10 | |
can go anywhere. Is that right, Sharon? | 00:40:16 | |
That's correct. There's one other thing that Mayor just to make sure. So one of the things that you do need to that we do need in | 00:40:22 | |
the motion is the fee for the for the mobile vendor permit and we agreed, I believe we talked about it being the the lowest level | 00:40:28 | |
or zero to 1 employee on the occupational tax level. That $65 a year will add that to the fee schedule if that is, is what you | 00:40:34 | |
would like. | 00:40:40 | |
To approve. | 00:40:46 | |
OK. All right. So we're looking for a motion to approve the text amendments along with the fee schedule that will be that will | 00:40:48 | |
reflect the lowest possible business permitting cost in Watkinsville. | 00:40:54 | |
So moved will be fine. | 00:41:02 | |
Do we have a second? Any discussion behind the rail? | 00:41:05 | |
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:41:09 | |
All right, that motion carries. | 00:41:12 | |
We'll move on to appearances. | 00:41:16 | |
We don't have any under appearances under old business. We have Historic Preservation Council. Mayor Pro Tem Tucker, if you could | 00:41:21 | |
give us an update on our historic preservation in a moment, just a little bit of a preamble. I do think it's important to note. | 00:41:27 | |
The historic preservation and some of the other efforts that Mayor Pro Tem Tucker discussed earlier around the rural zone do go | 00:41:35 | |
hand in hand. In some ways, the rural zone efforts are primarily focused on downtown. But contextually this council's discussed, | 00:41:41 | |
and I think we all agree how important it is that we preserve our history in Watkinsville. A lot of our decisions have been made | 00:41:46 | |
around how do we preserve and activate our downtown hold on to our homes. | 00:41:52 | |
Historic homes. Sadly, we've lost a few of those homes in the past few years, and it has taken us a while to wrap our arms around | 00:41:58 | |
how we're can best protect those in a way that doesn't limit the options of homeowners. And Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Campbell | 00:42:04 | |
have been leading the way on on that effort for a while, so if you could give us an update, that would be great. | 00:42:10 | |
Yes. So as it outlines that they're starting in October, we met with Doctor Reeve in his class and what a privilege to have one of | 00:42:18 | |
the really the experts in the state on this issue. | 00:42:24 | |
Working with us with his class. And so Jeff and I met with him this past Monday with one of his students. Actually to go over the | 00:42:31 | |
we we were really the class project. | 00:42:37 | |
And so they gave us kind of their the students revised of the state ordinance and. | 00:42:45 | |
One of the things that we've been learning through this process is, unless you were already grandfathered in, so some of the | 00:42:54 | |
larger cities, Savannah, Atlanta. | 00:42:57 | |
Have their own historic preservation ordinances, but for most municipalities, the state of Georgia has outlined what it's going to | 00:43:02 | |
look like. And so you have to fit within those parameters. And the first step really is to simply adapt pretty much the | 00:43:11 | |
administrative processes. So it is not saying what is a historic property, where is the district? Who is on the committee? | 00:43:21 | |
None of those things are the initial things, The initial, the first thing you have to do is basically say we are going to have a | 00:43:31 | |
historic preservation ordinance. | 00:43:36 | |
And this is the basic administrative outline of what it's going to look like. And most of that outline is dictated by the state. | 00:43:40 | |
There are some little tweaks that can go into that aspect of it. And so that's what his class was working on was that initial kind | 00:43:47 | |
of outline of the historic preservation ordinance and so. | 00:43:55 | |
Because it is incredibly important to us, I would say, to have community input and all of this. | 00:44:03 | |
However, having historic preservation ordinance is something we've been talking about for years and see the necessity too. So we | 00:44:12 | |
are, Jeff and I are asking that even by next council meeting that we have a vote to approve it. And again that is just saying we | 00:44:20 | |
are going to have this and here is the basic administrative outline. It is not saying and by the way your house now has all these | 00:44:28 | |
regulations or all these things. It's not that at this point. | 00:44:36 | |
But having this historic preservation ordinance allows us to have different tax incentives. It gives possibilities for grants for | 00:44:44 | |
homeowners. There's a lot of benefits that have an historic preservation ordinance can have for individuals who are in districts | 00:44:50 | |
or who do have that designation. | 00:44:56 | |
And. | 00:45:03 | |
Just to echo what Brian said, it's just incredibly important to preserve the historic structures we have. So we are hoping in | 00:45:04 | |
February if council agrees to approve the basic administrative structures and then we will really start getting the public input | 00:45:10 | |
on area structures. | 00:45:16 | |
Because you do have a city has in the next phase of kind of like how much design overview are we going to have there? There's a | 00:45:24 | |
lot more to come. So I hope. | 00:45:30 | |
I hope I haven't confused matters but it was helpful for me to know there's kind of steps on this process and I think some of what | 00:45:37 | |
has taken us a while to get to this point as I think we thought we kind of had to do everything all at once which can be | 00:45:43 | |
overwhelming because we really want to make sure that we are also very conscious of individual property owners rights. So it is | 00:45:48 | |
that balancing act. | 00:45:54 | |
Perfect. Any questions for the mayor Pro Tem? | 00:46:01 | |
Oh, and one other thing His he has another class that's going to actually be helping us with the next steps of the process as | 00:46:05 | |
well. So we are again incredibly fortunate and so thankful to Doctor Reap and his classes. | 00:46:11 | |
It's great. One of the great things about being close to the university, right we have access to some experts who are willing to | 00:46:18 | |
work or they we paying them, Are they working for free? So it's free, which is great. | 00:46:23 | |
Awesome. All right. | 00:46:30 | |
New business. | 00:46:32 | |
Under old business, we don't have anything anything else under New Business Farm Winery at South Main Brewing. | 00:46:34 | |
We will want to potentially vote to send a letter of no objection or vote to object. | 00:46:40 | |
This is a little bit esoteric, so Attorney Reitman, I'm going to let you provide an overview to council and then if the. | 00:46:45 | |
Impacted applicant chairs to speak, then they'll have the opportunity to do that as well. Thank you Mr. Mayor, and I previously | 00:46:52 | |
sent you all out. A very simple outline of the state law. In essence, the state law gives 60 days for us to object if we choose to | 00:47:00 | |
object to a farm winery. The state has apparently also offered the applicant who is represented here tonight the opportunity to | 00:47:07 | |
solicit a letter from the city so they don't have to wait the full 60 days for you to not object, but instead you can. | 00:47:15 | |
Expressly state no objection. | 00:47:24 | |
IE you consent to the farm winery. This is something under state regulation. Your ordinances do not specifically address a farm | 00:47:26 | |
winery, so they would be able to come in and operate under state law pursuant to state oversight and regulation. You'd simply be | 00:47:32 | |
expressing a no objection If for some reason you found there were grounds to object based on public health, safety, welfare. You | 00:47:38 | |
do have that option. But I think practically speaking, a letter of no objection is with the applicant seeks and is probably not an | 00:47:44 | |
unreasonable request. | 00:47:51 | |
So at this point, turn back to you, Mr. Mayor, and then the applicant can be heard as well. | 00:47:57 | |
OK. And I don't know if Mr. Porter or Mr. Tool would like to come forward and speak please. | 00:48:02 | |
I'm not. | 00:48:07 | |
Please give us your name and address for the record. | 00:48:10 | |
Good evening, Council. My name is Stanton Porter. My address is 2920. | 00:48:13 | |
Fern Hill Rd. Bogart and Rock Tool, 1070 Barnett Ridge, Athens, GA. | 00:48:18 | |
Thanks for having us here tonight and I think. | 00:48:25 | |
Attorney Reitman did a fantastic job of summarizing real briefly what what this, what the ask is, but want to give a little bit of | 00:48:29 | |
context. | 00:48:33 | |
For what South Main Brewery is looking to do here. | 00:48:37 | |
Basically, this is a common thing with some breweries in the state of Georgia. There's a code section that allows. | 00:48:42 | |
For Georgia farm wineries to operate under the state regulation, and I don't know the whole legislative history on how this this | 00:48:51 | |
came to act, but basically under state regulation you can operate at what's called a Georgia farm winery. | 00:48:58 | |
And to be a Georgia farm. | 00:49:05 | |
You've got to do several things. The most important part of that is that the the fruit juice that you're going to use, whether | 00:49:08 | |
that's some variety of grape juice or blueberry or any other kind of juice, got to be at least 40% from the state of Georgia. So | 00:49:14 | |
it's under sort of an agritourism. | 00:49:20 | |
Georgia grown purview from the state law. | 00:49:27 | |
And so for example, if you'd been up to North Georgia, that's a common, you know, activity, people would go up to these wineries. | 00:49:32 | |
All of those, at least a large majority of those are operating under this Georgia farm winery code section. And So what we've had | 00:49:39 | |
to do on the brewery side so far is actually very similar to the brewery sort of steps. And so we've actually gone through the | 00:49:45 | |
federal process of getting our federal approval from the TTB. | 00:49:52 | |
And and that's not unique to farm wineries that all wineries in any same thing with the brewery and and we've obtained that | 00:49:59 | |
approval. | 00:50:04 | |
The, the sort of second step in that unlike with the brewery, which is when I was here in front of you that we got the approval, | 00:50:09 | |
you actually go federal. | 00:50:13 | |
Local and then state, but sort of skip that local step on the Georgia Farm winery because of this unique code section. | 00:50:18 | |
And and so we're in that state process, it's State Department revenue and but I actually did one recently for a farm winery in | 00:50:26 | |
Oconee County, not in the city limits of Watkinsville. | 00:50:32 | |
And the code section does say that essentially we give notice to the city and say we're attempting to do you know the the brewery | 00:50:38 | |
would like to have to operate as of Georgia Farm Winery. We've leased this space to to have our, our juice and and a lot of the | 00:50:45 | |
equipment's very similar and so there's not a lot to add to it to produce one that we can sell. | 00:50:53 | |
And the 60 days go by, but from a sort of courtesy both to to not have to wait those full 60 days, but also just from a | 00:51:02 | |
interagency courtesy. The preference on the state regulation side is that they actually have a very simple letter from the the | 00:51:08 | |
local body saying you know, we understand that that this business is trying to act as a Georgia farm winery and our code section | 00:51:14 | |
does not. | 00:51:21 | |
And that. | 00:52:00 | |
That a farm winery can operate or in particular South Main Brewing Farm Winery could operate under this Georgia code section which | 00:52:02 | |
is 3640 that allows. | 00:52:08 | |
The the farm wineries to operate now there's a few things that the breweries that in terms of just sort of a. | 00:52:15 | |
Out of the legal part of it, you know what's this going to look like different at the? | 00:52:21 | |
And and Brock may be able to mention even more to this but a couple things is that doctor be able to produce wine at the brewery | 00:52:26 | |
itself and under Georgia law that'd be wind, you know out of grapes that you you typically would think of. Also some you know a | 00:52:33 | |
popular drink would be a hard cider based on the alcohol content you're using, a fruit juice and a hard cider versus. | 00:52:40 | |
You know, something that's essentially from a grain to make beer and so that actually under under the walls considered wine, even | 00:52:48 | |
though we don't think of drinking a hard cider. | 00:52:53 | |
As a wine itself and so be able to may not even know the difference that in that that operating as a Georgia farm winery. | 00:52:59 | |
The other small part that is also allowed under Georgia farm wineries is that Georgia farm wineries can serve wine from other | 00:53:08 | |
Georgia farm wineries. And so you'd be able to see wines, for example, from Watkinsville wine, which technically is not in | 00:53:14 | |
Watkinsville, but I'm able to serve that wine as a Georgia farm winery. Again, this is a this is under state law. It wouldn't be | 00:53:20 | |
under any regulation here in Watkinsville have to meet all those requirements that that the state says, but you'd be able to | 00:53:26 | |
essentially promote Georgia agritourism. | 00:53:32 | |
In Georgia Farm Wine, so I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have and Brock here may be able to answer any questions | 00:53:38 | |
you have about the more details of what is actually going to look like at the brewery. | 00:53:43 | |
Are you going to have hard cider? | 00:53:51 | |
And so you guys will be making your own wine there, is that right? | 00:53:55 | |
Mayor, basically what we want to do is we won't sell everyone, OK? | 00:53:59 | |
Any other questions? | 00:54:14 | |
All right. Thank you. Thank you. | 00:54:18 | |
Yep, Council. I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion to send a letter of no objection. | 00:54:22 | |
All right. Do we have a second? | 00:54:29 | |
All in favor? Say aye. Opposed. | 00:54:32 | |
Connie, did you, were you in favor or you opposed? | 00:54:36 | |
Well, I really. | 00:54:39 | |
Don't like having. | 00:54:41 | |
There are wine or anything here in Watkinsville, but we've already got a brewery. | 00:54:43 | |
OK, I just want to be sure we captured your photo the right way. | 00:54:47 | |
I always appreciate your honesty on this, OK? | 00:54:52 | |
We are. Next up we have the Thomas Thomas Farm Preserve. | 00:54:55 | |
Update. | 00:55:00 | |
And so first of all, this is an exciting night. I would love for our steering committee members to stand up those who are here. So | 00:55:03 | |
everybody who's on our steering committee for the Thomas Farm Preserve, please stand. | 00:55:09 | |
Marvin Nunnally, Lisa Duvall, Jimmy Marbet, Rob Simpson and Carrie Hammond, I just. | 00:55:15 | |
For all of you to know, we had a committee of what was it, probably 1518 trying to count Now we had a big committee that's worked | 00:55:22 | |
really hard over the past few months to help us take. | 00:55:27 | |
A beautiful blank slate and turn it into something you know that frankly just needs a little work around the edges in a little bit | 00:55:33 | |
of detail. But this committee's worked really hard at it, and we're grateful to all of you who could join us here tonight and | 00:55:38 | |
everybody who couldn't for all of your work on that. | 00:55:43 | |
So thank you all. We're grateful. | 00:55:49 | |
Lawrence and Kathleen, you've come to several of the meetings too. We're grateful for your input along the way. And then Wes Riles | 00:55:56 | |
from SPG is here. Wes and his team have done the heavy lifting on the project in terms of what this is actually going to look like | 00:56:02 | |
and how it's going to work. So this is a time frame for the meetings and what we've done. | 00:56:09 | |
So far the goal being an updated master plan that we could put in front of council that would allow council to approve that and | 00:56:16 | |
then allow staff to begin budgeting and figuring out how we can best. | 00:56:22 | |
Program that park with the schedule. | 00:56:28 | |
Sharon, if you want to move ahead and Wes, if you want to come on and step forward. | 00:56:32 | |
I don't know if we want to start with this one, but Wes, I would love for maybe you to take a few minutes and just kind of | 00:56:37 | |
articulate. | 00:56:40 | |
At a high level, what we saw, perhaps what we heard from the community and walk through the plan for our attendees tonight and | 00:56:44 | |
then I'll fill in some gaps. Maybe at the end if there's things that you don't capture that we can, we can start here with the | 00:56:48 | |
overall master plan. | 00:56:53 | |
Looks like I'm still. | 00:56:58 | |
You know, First off, it's a pleasure to be here. I mean, what we're really presenting is the fruit of 4 1/2 months of very | 00:57:00 | |
dedicated. | 00:57:04 | |
Lots of Labor, lots of work that went into this, Lots of passion. So kudos really goes to the city for just assembling A stellar | 00:57:10 | |
team. | 00:57:14 | |
Committee members, several of you are here tonight and we just appreciate the feedback that you guys have provided. | 00:57:19 | |
The professional knowledge just that is really critical for making this park. | 00:57:26 | |
A success and it's it's going to be a heavy lift. I mean it's over 100 acres, but. | 00:57:32 | |
Anyway, lots lots of good effort went into this, this park planning here so. | 00:57:38 | |
Just kind of stepping back, so this is where we landed with the overall master plan. | 00:57:43 | |
In addition to this, my team was tasked with looking into management schedules that kind of lays out quarterly what needs to be | 00:57:48 | |
done this year to see this park up and running. | 00:57:53 | |
We've also looked into site narratives that will be used to inform pricing down the road. | 00:57:59 | |
And then I just want to mention public input. So we had two public input sessions. | 00:58:09 | |
I think these were the most well attended that we've had to date. The first one was over 35 people, so lots of good feedback there | 00:58:15 | |
that we've incorporated and put back into this plan. So thank you to those who attended and provided feedback. | 00:58:23 | |
There's a number of guiding principles that really informed our design, the first being a stewardship. | 00:58:33 | |
Design interventions have been informed by a desire to steward the property by balancing recreational use and enjoyment with | 00:58:40 | |
responsible management going forward. | 00:58:45 | |
This is a beautiful property. We don't want to do any undue. | 00:58:50 | |
Connecting. We want to provide broad accessibility to a diversity of user groups, and I'll touch upon that later when I talk about | 00:58:56 | |
the trail systems. | 00:59:00 | |
Enhancing and conserving. So there are many, there are many unique opportunities. | 00:59:06 | |
That exists for restoring and enhancing the natural features of the property. | 00:59:13 | |
One partnership that we've looked. | 00:59:18 | |
Has been through a collaboration with the Southeastern Grasslands Institute. They're based out of Austin Peay University in | 00:59:21 | |
Tennessee, but they have a local Rep here housed at the Bot Garden in Athens. So we've engaged them on. | 00:59:28 | |
Some potential management aspects for this this property. | 00:59:35 | |
Their primary objective is to preserve and restore native grasslands. | 00:59:40 | |
You know, we tend to think that the grasslands are always in kind of the Midwest, but we did have Southeastern grasslands that | 00:59:45 | |
were all up and down. | 00:59:49 | |
The the Eastern Seaboard here. | 00:59:53 | |
We're looking into the possibility of restoring up to 16 acres. | 00:59:57 | |
Own the property, some of which could actually be used as a native seed source. So kind of continue continuing that agricultural | 01:00:01 | |
legacy which I think. | 01:00:06 | |
Is a nice N. | 01:00:11 | |
The Thomas. | 01:00:14 | |
In terms of the master plan? | 01:00:16 | |
Sharon, could you go to the enlargement? | 01:00:19 | |
Of the plan. | 01:00:21 | |
There should be like an enlargement if you. | 01:00:23 | |
That's it. OK, there you go. | 01:00:27 | |
That one. | 01:00:30 | |
So you'll see here. | 01:00:33 | |
The entrance to the park is it's going to follow the same the existing driveway. We're going to widen that to accommodate 2 way | 01:00:36 | |
traffic. | 01:00:40 | |
You'll also notice that parking has been relegated to the the wings of the property. | 01:00:45 | |
That's intentional. What we're trying to do is really prioritize the pedestrian experience. We're tucking parking into existing | 01:00:52 | |
tree lines I. | 01:00:56 | |
A lot of feedback from the public kind of centered around the location of parking from a previous master plan. | 01:01:02 | |
And then just just trying to be mindful of neighbors we have. | 01:01:09 | |
Pull that parking closer to the Semiton Bridge. We've oriented it such that there's a low profile, so. | 01:01:14 | |
Very shallow view from neighbors and tuck that into existing tree lines. | 01:01:22 | |
Of which we could actually supplement with additional vegetation to really screen and make those areas go away. | 01:01:28 | |
In a sense, letter A, that's kind of the anchor for the entire park, so all the existing structures will remain. | 01:01:35 | |
As we're getting kind of bad here, but I think that is letter C, let's go with that. Letter C is the the main house and so the | 01:01:46 | |
existing house will remain. | 01:01:51 | |
To the right of that. | 01:01:57 | |
Below that is an existing shed building and then kind of planned east. | 01:02:00 | |
Is what we've been called. Is the. | 01:02:06 | |
Referred to as the the former dairy building for the farm. | 01:02:09 | |
So all those structures will remain. | 01:02:13 | |
Apart from some kind of minor cosmetic upgrades making the restroom facility fully accessible. | 01:02:16 | |
Some minor tweaks to the the structures to kind of make them Fillmore Park. | 01:02:24 | |
But letter A is is what we are terming kind of the the Oval or the the grand lawn for the park. So this is kind of your arrival | 01:02:30 | |
sequence. | 01:02:35 | |
This is where everybody would kind of enter into the park and from. | 01:02:40 | |
A series of meandering trails kind of takes visitors throughout the remainder of the. | 01:02:44 | |
We have 6 classifications of trails, that's really. | 01:02:50 | |
Designed to accommodate a diversity of user. | 01:02:56 | |
Ranging from families with young children. | 01:03:00 | |
88 having 88 accessibility. | 01:03:05 | |
Backcountry hikers. Mountain bikes. | 01:03:09 | |
Cyclists, trail runners, joggers, the full gamut. So we believe just in the size of the park that we're able to accommodate. | 01:03:12 | |
For these various user groups and to separate those uses from one another as well. | 01:03:21 | |
In terms of total trail can. | 01:03:27 | |
Bump back out to the full master. | 01:03:31 | |
Go back to the master plan. Yep, Sorry. I'm bouncing back and forth the overall. So all those little white squiggly lines, Those | 01:03:34 | |
are the various trails. | 01:03:39 | |
In total we have about 5 1/2. | 01:03:45 | |
Of which upwards of a mile and a half would be fully accessible. | 01:03:49 | |
Potentially more. We haven't really gotten into the design aspects, but just analyzing the existing topography, it would enable | 01:03:55 | |
for a good many of those to be fully accessible. | 01:04:01 | |
In addition to those various classifications. | 01:04:10 | |
There will be paved trail sections and then there will be unpaved. So the the widest paved section being 10. | 01:04:13 | |
With a four foot aggregate shoulder. | 01:04:21 | |
The narrowest aggregate trail is just your standard single track, so 30 inches is basically just a Backcountry trail. | 01:04:25 | |
And that would occupy the majority of the back. | 01:04:32 | |
So there's one kind of principal loop around the the big. | 01:04:36 | |
That's your your paved trail, and then it kind of comes back. | 01:04:41 | |
Between the. | 01:04:45 | |
Back into the 0. | 01:04:47 | |
And then potentially kind of spitting off of that into. | 01:04:49 | |
What there is is letter J. | 01:04:53 | |
In terms of land use, we're looking at kind of different management zones for the park. So what you see is kind of that yellow | 01:04:56 | |
color. This would be the the Meadow conservation areas, maybe more naturalistic. | 01:05:01 | |
The areas in green would be manicured so. | 01:05:10 | |
Twice monthly or something like that, but just kind of kept manicured and kind of more. | 01:05:14 | |
Park, like the areas in the back, would still stay as pasture, and so those could be known up to three times annually. | 01:05:20 | |
And we're looking into engaging potential farmers in this area that could actually hate these these fields. | 01:05:27 | |
If you want to dip back into the. | 01:05:35 | |
Let's go back to the enlargement real quick. | 01:05:38 | |
Sorry. | 01:05:42 | |
So in addition to the trails, there's actually 2 boardwalk systems, one that kind of takes you around the smaller pond, a portion | 01:05:44 | |
of which is actually. | 01:05:48 | |
Wetland and then another boardwalk that would extend out into the pond. | 01:05:53 | |
The larger pond, and we're envisioning that this would actually be used for fishing. | 01:05:59 | |
Take a poll down there. | 01:06:05 | |
There are pavilions that are scattered throughout the park, kind of tucked into the tree lines. | 01:06:07 | |
We're kind of envisioning that as kind of a focal feature that kind of draws you from kind of the main core. So you see that with | 01:06:14 | |
letters in and. | 01:06:18 | |
J And then there are a few in the back as well. | 01:06:23 | |
The variety of experiences there. | 01:06:28 | |
I think that about covers it. So if we want to flip through to the the Google Earth images images, So I've overlaid the trails on | 01:06:39 | |
top of Google Earth Aerial so you can kind of see how things are laying out but really taking advantage of the full extent of the | 01:06:44 | |
property. | 01:06:49 | |
A lot of nice topographical relief. | 01:06:55 | |
Not overly extreme until you get into the the tree line, but just a nice rolling pastoral landscape. | 01:06:59 | |
That, I think, is really going to be a nice asset for the city of Watkinsville moving forward. | 01:07:05 | |
And that's all I've gotten, unless y'all have any questions. | 01:07:12 | |
Thank you, Wes. One of the things I love about and if we look at the the Google Earth images, just note that they don't show the | 01:07:18 | |
Backcountry trails. So the Backcountry trails and and Rob and Jimmy, I know you all put a lot of planning into that. We wound up I | 01:07:23 | |
think getting a little more than two miles of just the mountain biking and hiking trails there, which is a really nice loop around | 01:07:29 | |
kind of around the perimeter of the property. | 01:07:34 | |
Safely connected. | 01:08:13 | |
To downtown. So excited about that. Also have to mention, you know one of the challenges on a project like this, where the land is | 01:08:14 | |
just so beautiful, is to not do too much. That's one of the things I'm grateful to this team for is understanding this was. | 01:08:21 | |
This is, this is maybe putting a few brush strokes on a masterpiece because God made this land beautiful and the Thomas family | 01:08:30 | |
kept it beautiful. And So what we're really trying to do here is how do we maximize the amount of people that are able to enjoy | 01:08:36 | |
that beauty and experience that beauty in a way that's safe for them and for their families to do so. So I'm excited about that. | 01:08:42 | |
Also honoring our agreement with the state, which is to preserve the environment there and to not impact the environment and to | 01:08:50 | |
preserve the watershed, which is so important and it's one of the reasons, the reason that we were able to receive some state | 01:08:55 | |
funding, low cost loans to help us support this. | 01:09:00 | |
So Wes, to you and your team, you have our thanks and our gratitude. Christine, you and Jeff were also active members of that | 01:09:06 | |
committee and we're grateful to you for all of your help and to Jeff for his at this point council, if you have any questions for | 01:09:13 | |
Mr. Riles, let's ask. And members of the public, we'd love to hear from you guys if you have any questions or thoughts on this. | 01:09:21 | |
As well. And then after that we all ideally we make a motion to adopt this or adopt it with any modifications as you guys see fit | 01:09:28 | |
and that will allow staff to get to work on thinking through implementation. | 01:09:34 | |
Council any questions for Mr. | 01:09:42 | |
From S. | 01:09:45 | |
All right, Kathleen, why don't you step forward so we can hear you? Well, she might have to step to the side in case we need your | 01:09:48 | |
help to answer it. But Kathleen, come forward to the podium, please. | 01:09:52 | |
It would for for all of Y'all to know too. We do have copies of the full report SPG produced. How many pages was 50 pages? Maybe | 01:09:58 | |
probably A50 page report. That includes a lot of details on the timing, the different elements, details on how the trails will be | 01:10:04 | |
built and things like that. Plant life, ecology, Renderings of the what the homes will look like in the future too. Kathleen | 01:10:10 | |
Mcquiston, 13 S Barnett, Chills Rd. | 01:10:15 | |
My question is about the timeline. | 01:10:22 | |
Well, as a certain trail becomes available, will that be open to the public? Is everything going to be done before it's open? | 01:10:25 | |
What? How do you foresee the this becoming open to the public? We do not know that yet. What my hope, my hope and this is | 01:10:34 | |
ambitious and I have a city manager who will always tell me I probably wish things would be done faster than they are. I would | 01:10:39 | |
love for the public to be able to be utilizing the park in a meaningful way and be able to access, even if all the trails aren't | 01:10:45 | |
built be able to access. | 01:10:50 | |
Most of the park by the fourth quarter of next year, that's what I'm hoping. | 01:10:57 | |
This year it's 2024, isn't it? So 2024. So that's what I'm hoping. But again, until until staff really studies it and begins to | 01:11:01 | |
get bids and estimates and timing. | 01:11:06 | |
We don't know, but I'm hopeful that we won't certainly won't wait for every mile of trail to be built before people are able to | 01:11:11 | |
access the park, as long as we can do that safely. OK, my second question is, is the Steering committee also looking at the | 01:11:16 | |
programming for the house? | 01:11:20 | |
What do you think? I don't know. | 01:11:27 | |
Yeah, I think that'll be a council decision. In short term, it'll be probably governed by budgetary, some budgetary limitations. | 01:11:31 | |
We could put a lot of dollars into the house and. | 01:11:39 | |
Out of the gate, we'll probably want to make sure the house is maintained that the restrooms are. | 01:11:41 | |
But we'll probably want to invest the majority of the dollars into the public facing aspects of the park, which will be the | 01:11:46 | |
trails, the parking and. | 01:11:49 | |
The restrooms I was referring more to classes about maybe about the the new grasslands or? | 01:11:52 | |
You know, meetings for the people who might participate in the community garden. | 01:12:02 | |
That sort of thing. | 01:12:07 | |
Yeah, I'm not sure. | 01:12:09 | |
What do you think? Well, I mean, I think we're still open to ideas for the use of the house. I think we want to obviously make the | 01:12:11 | |
best use of it and. | 01:12:15 | |
And it might have multiple uses and purposes. | 01:12:20 | |
So definitely open to hear ideas. I mean it's not like we don't have it figured out right on the agenda right now, OK. But but | 01:12:26 | |
it's going to take just, but you know that that's going to be a bigger project and what we don't want to do is we don't want to | 01:12:32 | |
spend money on it in a way that then we have to undo it and do something else with it. I think we really want to know what we're | 01:12:38 | |
using it for. But there is a plan to make at least one of the restrooms. | 01:12:44 | |
Fully accessible and and accessible for the park because that will actually probably save us some money. So that will be the | 01:12:51 | |
initial but open to be hearing ideas. | 01:12:56 | |
We may need to use some of it as office space in the short term too, because we're probably going to have to. | 01:13:02 | |
We may need to have an additional parks employee and someone stationed out there and working out of that space. | 01:13:07 | |
One of the other alternates, if you look at the map item K is a potential. There could be a date for some potential public | 01:13:13 | |
workspace out there. | 01:13:16 | |
So, so, yeah. So we're still really thinking through the house uses. OK, thank you. | 01:13:20 | |
Dan, come on. Come on up. | 01:13:26 | |
Dan Matthews, 1081 Kane Lane. | 01:13:35 | |
Thank you for having me back. | 01:13:38 | |
My question is once the. | 01:13:41 | |
On that map, it's blue. On this map, it's kind of green. What is that line? | 01:13:43 | |
That's the existing. | 01:13:51 | |
OK, that's Warner. | 01:13:53 | |
Bike lane or. | 01:13:56 | |
Other question is for gentleman's name and and some of our police officers and other people suppose somebody in the way way back. | 01:14:00 | |
Brinks An arm has an accident. | 01:14:10 | |
And we need to get to. | 01:14:12 | |
Right away. | 01:14:15 | |
Is that because that's going to happen? There's going to be some emergency, some broken ankle, some something that's going to go | 01:14:17 | |
awry and we're going to need to get to them right away? | 01:14:22 | |
And I don't know. I mean great job every. | 01:14:28 | |
Not trying to. | 01:14:32 | |
Get back there and get them out as fast as they could, but on our main trails, I'll get you in a second. Or our main trails, you | 01:15:04 | |
know, they're they're generally going to be wide enough to handle UTV or vehicle. | 01:15:09 | |
Out there. | 01:15:15 | |
Sanctuary. | 01:15:21 | |
Never been there. | 01:15:24 | |
And it's just out of town. The heart agree. Heart agree. Wildlife. | 01:15:25 | |
Yep. | 01:15:30 | |
Thank you for those who couldn't hear former Councilman Matthews. He talked about his visit to the Hard Agree Wildlife Preserve. | 01:15:35 | |
That's actually where we host the Cops and Barbers event, but it's a beautiful, beautiful location. | 01:15:47 | |
And you're right, this is going to be a similar similar to. | 01:16:00 | |
Other. | 01:16:05 | |
Comments. | 01:16:06 | |
Connie. | 01:16:08 | |
Looks like letter I is additional parking. | 01:16:12 | |
And you're going to have to go through the cemetery to get there. That kind of concerns me. | 01:16:17 | |
So we were looking at potentially locating additional parking behind the existing cemetery to both serve cemetery functions as | 01:16:24 | |
well as as parks and having that kind of dual use. | 01:16:29 | |
And frankly, you know, having some more eyes on the cemetery to, from my perspective isn't a bad thing if there's a little bit | 01:17:06 | |
more traffic in and out of there than it sort of prevents bad things from happening, so. | 01:17:11 | |
That was the thought process. We're not envisioning these parking lots to be paved. They would not be lit like a typical parking | 01:17:17 | |
lot. I mean, it's just going to be very similar to Harris Shoals or? | 01:17:22 | |
You know a park like feel. | 01:17:29 | |
Yeah, we we will have to discuss lighting. It may evolve into being lighted. It depends on safety and things like that. But out of | 01:17:32 | |
the gate what we anticipate is. | 01:17:35 | |
Utilizing, you know, they may be gravel in the short term. | 01:17:39 | |
So budgets, budgets, a concern there. Well, I was hoping that at some point in the future that we could possibly donate that | 01:17:43 | |
little bit of spot back there to the cemetery for extra. | 01:17:49 | |
Burial grounds just enough for like maybe 2 rows going across the back. So yeah, I think the deed restriction from the state will | 01:17:55 | |
make that difficult for us to. | 01:17:59 | |
Extract and donate it. Sadly, the cheap money came with some conditions because I had to. We talked about the same idea and had | 01:18:04 | |
actually explored that, but I'm not sure that we're going to be able to do it with. | 01:18:09 | |
With the deed restriction. | 01:18:13 | |
Good questions. | 01:18:18 | |
Any others? | 01:18:21 | |
So the. | 01:18:25 | |
Just checking that. Gee, I know you've you've heard me and my my my thought of the view of the property the gorgeous vistas. So G | 01:18:27 | |
is not going to detract from that the pavilion across the you think it'll be there's no pavilion down there. You're referring down | 01:18:33 | |
to the lake. I'm referring yeah. On the other side of the lake. G that isn't that isn't that isn't that that's a small pavilion | 01:18:40 | |
there. But no we are not envisioning that would detract from the. | 01:18:46 | |
Of course, Secretary, but I just have to put that out there. | 01:18:53 | |
All right. Well, Council, I'd love a motion to adopt the master plan. This doesn't mean that it will never be changed or can't be | 01:18:59 | |
altered. That's obviously. | 01:19:03 | |
Up to all of us, and it'll take years. | 01:19:09 | |
Implement all of this, but it will provide the guidance that our staff and team need to begin. | 01:19:11 | |
Budgeting, prioritizing, and moving forward with this. So I'd love to have a motion. | 01:19:16 | |
I make a motion to adopt this plan. | 01:19:21 | |
We have a second. So all in favor, say aye, thank you all. Plan was adopted. Once again our thanks and congratulations to | 01:19:24 | |
everybody who helped us with this. This is. | 01:19:29 | |
You know, there's a lot of ways that I talk about this, but the one that really resonates with me the most personally is we're | 01:19:35 | |
glad we have it now. We're going to be really glad in five years and our community is going to be incredibly thankful in 50 years | 01:19:41 | |
for this, this asset. It's a it's a difference maker and I think we're leading by example for our region in terms of what we're | 01:19:46 | |
doing to preserve green spaces in Watkinsville and I hope we can do more in the future. | 01:19:52 | |
So thank you all for being a part of that, who who were part of that. With that, we'll move on to public comments. This is the | 01:19:58 | |
part where you can get up and talk about anything you want to. | 01:20:02 | |
So if anybody has anything they want to say. | 01:20:08 | |
Come on up. | 01:20:10 | |
All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to the mayor's report. | 01:20:13 | |
And we'll wrap up the meeting post haste. We will have a short executive session at the end. Just so you all know, big day coming | 01:20:17 | |
up. February 3rd is the grand opening for the new Oconee Library Watkinsville branch at Wire Park. So February 3rd, 10:00 AM, put | 01:20:22 | |
it on your calendar. | 01:20:28 | |
Along with January 24th, get your phone back out and put that on there. So we're excited about having the new library opened up in | 01:20:34 | |
at Wire Park and can't wait for that date. So hope to see you all there. We do have our annual Mayor accounts, Mayor and Council | 01:20:40 | |
retreat that's scheduled for February 5th. | 01:20:45 | |
9:00 AM we estimate we'll finish at 2:30 PM. We may we've been known to finish a little sooner, so we'll see about 9:00 AM to 2:30 | 01:20:52 | |
PM that will be here and it'll also be simultaneously online. | 01:20:58 | |
And available for anybody who can't join us but wants to watch online. | 01:21:04 | |
Downtown Development Authority retreat February 9th. Will that also be? Do we know if that's going to be simulcast or if y'all are | 01:21:10 | |
going off site will not be simulcast? OK, so but there will be adda retreat February 9th, 9:00 to 11:00. | 01:21:16 | |
Has changed 11th 111 to one OK. | 01:21:23 | |
Mark your calendar for that if you're interested in things downtown. | 01:21:28 | |
And then we have a birthday. | 01:21:32 | |
Con. | 01:21:35 | |
Happy birthday in a few days. | 01:21:36 | |
As Dan Matthews would say, another joyous journey around the sun. Is that how it goes down OK? I've seen that on Facebook a few | 01:21:44 | |
times. | 01:21:48 | |
Goes fast, so enjoy your family and friends while you can. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that. | 01:21:52 | |
With that will do council, reports Councilman Garrett Post. | 01:22:00 | |
OK, Councilwoman Massey, Post 2. | 01:22:04 | |
Councilman Thomas is not here. Mayor Pro Tem OK, Councilman Campbell is not here. | 01:22:08 | |
So we are done with the meeting, except for executive session. So I will just stay seated for a second. I'll entertain a motion to | 01:22:16 | |
go into executive session. I make a motion to go into executive session to discuss real estate. Do we have a second? All in favor. | 01:22:21 | |
Say aye and we'll say goodbye to you guys. We'll take a quick break, 2 minutes. Council. We can circle back if anybody needs to | 01:22:27 | |
run. | 01:22:32 | |
See you, man. Take care. | 01:22:42 | |
All right. | 01:23:10 | |
All right. No action coming out of executive session. I'm going to get a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. | 01:23:21 | |
We have a second. All in favor, say aye, meeting. | 01:23:27 |
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Better start the meeting. | 00:00:15 | |
Thankfully, that's not our brand of politics. | 00:00:18 | |
We are nonpartisan and local, that's right. | 00:00:22 | |
Welcome everybody to the January Watkinsville City Council meeting. We are grateful for a full house for some special occasions | 00:00:27 | |
tonight that we're going to celebrate together shortly, but I will start off with a quorum check. We do have a quorum here | 00:00:33 | |
tonight. Unfortunately we do are missing 2 council members due to some work and family matters and look forward to having them | 00:00:38 | |
back with us in February. As always, we want to start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. I've asked Deacon Marvin Nunnally | 00:00:43 | |
to lead us in that tonight please. | 00:00:48 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:56 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:01:03 | |
Thank you Marvin, as always. | 00:01:15 | |
The service also provides closed captioning for a live meeting. The user must click the closed caption icon. It looks like a | 00:01:50 | |
little CC in the lower right of the video window. When the video from tonight's meeting is posted online, the captions will | 00:01:56 | |
automatically appear. Interesting parties can also view a transcript of the meeting under the tab titled Transcript and then of | 00:02:01 | |
course, we also always take minutes and approve those at the subsequent meeting. | 00:02:07 | |
As a reminder, a notice of the council meeting along with the current month's agenda is posted one full week before the meeting to | 00:02:13 | |
all the public sufficient time to provide comments and writing to the clerk if they're unable to attend the meeting. | 00:02:18 | |
With that, we'll move on into the approval of minutes and I will ask for a motion to approve our December 20th. | 00:02:24 | |
2023 regular. | 00:02:30 | |
Minutes. And since we're missing some members tonight, this might upset our normal motion and 2nd routine. So I'd ask for all of | 00:02:33 | |
you to be ready tonight. So, can I have a motion to approve the December 20th regular meeting minutes, please. I make a motion to | 00:02:40 | |
approve that meeting. Minutes. Do we have a second? All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:02:47 | |
And for our agenda, we'll need to approve the agenda tonight. I don't anticipate any changes to the agenda. Is that correct, | 00:02:56 | |
Manager Dickerson? | 00:03:00 | |
Yeah you can. It is on the agenda because it we didn't receive the withdrawal until after it already been posted. But item number | 00:03:06 | |
13 was supposed to be take was table from last month's meeting that has since been withdrawn. So you could just simply remove | 00:03:09 | |
that. | 00:03:13 | |
All right, so if you want to make a motion, Councilman Tucker, I make a motion to approve the agenda with the removal of item | 00:03:17 | |
number 13. | 00:03:22 | |
We have a motion. Do we have a second? Any discussion? | 00:03:27 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. Any opposed motion carries unanimously. | 00:03:30 | |
All right, before we've got several oaths to do before we do. | 00:03:37 | |
I just want to reflect into that a bit. You know, it is an election. | 00:03:41 | |
It feels like every year and every year is an election year in Watkinsville, so we do this, but these oaths are important. | 00:03:45 | |
We will do oaths for the mayor, will do oaths for council members, will do an oath for a new police chief tonight. I may speak a | 00:03:53 | |
little bit more to that before that oath, but I do want to just reinforce for council and all of us as we stand up here that these | 00:03:59 | |
oaths are important, they're serious matters. And as we move into a year where we'll be making a lot of serious decisions for our | 00:04:05 | |
country, I think we all need to reflect into what we're saying. | 00:04:11 | |
Agreeing to and the importance of these oaths that we're taking around defending the Constitution and how vital that is to the | 00:04:18 | |
health of our democracy. | 00:04:22 | |
In America. And that health really starts here in our local communities. So with that, Joe, I guess I get to go first. | 00:04:26 | |
Yeah, let's do that contemporaneously with the other two council members, so. | 00:04:32 | |
I. | 00:04:40 | |
Chuck. | 00:04:43 | |
As much as I'd love to read this oath. | 00:04:45 | |
Wait, Connie, I don't think this is only for Newton. We're next. We we get this coming. | 00:04:50 | |
Christine not let you get your. | 00:04:58 | |
Make sure we had the right turn on the mic so we can have this be official. | 00:05:08 | |
One moment. Press and hold. New batteries. All right. Are we live? | 00:05:14 | |
Very good. At this point, I'd ask each of you to raise your right hand. | 00:05:19 | |
And do each of you swear and affirm as follows, and I will read it out in its entirety at the end You can say I do or I do, So | 00:05:24 | |
help me God, do each of you solemnly swear, Affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of Mayor or Council Person of the | 00:05:30 | |
City of Watkinsville, and to the best of your ability, support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution | 00:05:36 | |
of Georgia, and the charter ordinances and regulations of the City of Watkinsville. You are not the holder of any unaccounted for | 00:05:42 | |
public money. Do this State. | 00:05:49 | |
In the best interest of the city of Watkinsville, to the best of your ability, without fear, favor, affection, reward, or | 00:06:29 | |
expectation thereof. If you agree with that, you can say I do. I do, so help me God. | 00:06:34 | |
Congratulations. | 00:06:41 | |
All right, Council, our next item is the election of the mayor Pro Tem. | 00:07:10 | |
Anyone like to nominate someone? | 00:07:15 | |
For mayor pro. | 00:07:18 | |
I'd like to nominate Christine. | 00:07:21 | |
Do we have a second? | 00:07:25 | |
We have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion. | 00:07:27 | |
Hearing none, assuming you're willing all in favor, say aye, aye. | 00:07:31 | |
Motion carries 3. | 00:07:37 | |
I think we even got a vote from the audience, was grateful for that. | 00:07:39 | |
Next we're going to do an oath for our new police chief and before we stand everybody up. | 00:07:45 | |
I'm just. | 00:07:51 | |
Forward to see the crowd here, but I shouldn't be because the person that we're about to swear in. | 00:07:53 | |
Is is uniquely qualified for this job, but I think we also. | 00:07:59 | |
She's inspiring. She knows our community. | 00:08:04 | |
She knows good police work. She's got such a heart, not just for Oconee County, but for anywhere that she serves and. | 00:08:08 | |
I don't know when I first met Courtney. I feel like I've known Courtney for 20 years, but we probably ran in some of the same | 00:08:17 | |
civic circles in Athens and different places and. | 00:08:21 | |
Around Oconee and I've never been anything but blown away with her, but blown away with her professionalism. | 00:08:25 | |
Her, the respect she commands from her peers and we are just delighted to have you here. | 00:08:33 | |
Leading the Watkinsville Police Department and are really excited to see what you're going to bring to the table over the next few | 00:08:40 | |
years and how you're going to continue to help our community as it evolves and grows. So welcome Chief GAIL, officially from us | 00:08:44 | |
behind. | 00:08:48 | |
The rail up here and with that we will turn you loose with Attorney Reitman to get sworn in. | 00:08:53 | |
I guess we could say Ditto. And we said before, but let's go ahead and minister the oath formally, shall we? And I see you've got | 00:09:02 | |
some support up here. Very good, Excellent. So let's get a good backdrop. | 00:09:08 | |
I'll just go where the city manager tells me and then we'll proceed. | 00:09:15 | |
On one side of him, just say we can get some while you're doing something. | 00:09:18 | |
Is everybody good? | 00:09:26 | |
Under the government of the United States, any other state, or any foreign state which you by the law is the state of Georgia, | 00:10:00 | |
will be prohibited from holding, and that you are otherwise qualified to hold said office according to the Constitution and laws | 00:10:06 | |
of Georgia. And that you will perform the duties of your office in the best interest of the City of Watkinsville to the best of | 00:10:11 | |
your ability, without fear, favor, affection, reward, or expectation thereof. If you agree with that oath, you can say I do or I | 00:10:17 | |
do, so help me God. | 00:10:23 | |
Congratulations. | 00:10:29 | |
What did it mean to do that afterwards? | 00:10:51 | |
OK. All right. Just we've got a couple more little items then we'll have a break. So I know some of you may not want to stay for | 00:10:53 | |
the entirety of the meeting, although it'll be brief. So but Next up it is related to our related to our Police Department I'd | 00:10:59 | |
like to invite. | 00:11:04 | |
I'd like to invite the representatives from the Daughters of the American Revolution Reverend John Andrew chapter to come forward | 00:11:11 | |
with a special recognition. | 00:11:14 | |
Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am Pamela Lore Hendricks and I am the current Regent of the Reverend John Andrew chapter, | 00:11:21 | |
National Society Daughters in the American Revolution. | 00:11:26 | |
And we are here tonight to honor your police force. And I want to turn it over. This is my Vice Regent Laurie Trail, and she's | 00:11:32 | |
done a lot of the work to get us to tonight, So I want to turn it over to her. | 00:11:39 | |
Hi, good evening. As you said, I'm Laurie Trail and I'm the Vice Regent for Reverend John Andrew. | 00:11:49 | |
We're here tonight present the DAR Distinguished Citizen Medal to the City of Watkinsville Police Department. | 00:11:55 | |
The Distinguished Citizens Medal is awarded to an individual or group that demonstrates honor, service, courage, leadership and | 00:12:03 | |
patriotism. | 00:12:08 | |
Those that have contributed to the defense, security or freedom of the community, state or nation in an exceptional manner and we | 00:12:14 | |
believe the City of Watkinsville Police Department does that. | 00:12:20 | |
So they've supported our chapter in many, many ways, including not only helping us with the flags. | 00:12:27 | |
And the flag holders out at the cemetery, but also installing those flag holders in over 100 veterans graves out there. | 00:12:35 | |
And they also come out and help for the three holidays each. | 00:12:44 | |
The 4th of July, Memorial Day and veteran's day. | 00:12:48 | |
Also for the cleanup of the cemetery, which I hope will be a biannual event. | 00:12:52 | |
Much less. | 00:12:57 | |
And as well as several of our other projects including Constitution Day. | 00:13:00 | |
For this award we had to get 2 letters of recognition not from our chapter and we have done that. I. | 00:13:05 | |
And I'll just summarize some of the aspects of those letters. Chief Brock had retired. Chief Brock had started that badges and | 00:13:12 | |
benevolence and charity and that has helped so many people in the community. | 00:13:18 | |
With various things and that has come to light and getting those letters of recommendation. He had started that project with a | 00:13:26 | |
community outreach that the Police Department does. | 00:13:30 | |
They've done so many help with so many fundraisers. They do lots of things for the children in the community, reading at the | 00:13:35 | |
library and those kinds of things. So they've done a lot with the community. | 00:13:40 | |
So we just wanted to present this award to them and say thank you for doing such a great job. | 00:13:45 | |
Keep it up and we really look forward to working with them closely on community events. | 00:13:50 | |
So it's with great honor we present these today. We have a certificate and a medal for this for the officers. All right, officers, | 00:13:59 | |
if you want to come on in and be recognized. | 00:14:04 | |
So I have their individually named. So we have Sergeant Kyle Hibbler. | 00:14:25 | |
Sergeant Lawrence Wade. | 00:14:38 | |
Officer Allen, is it? Chris, He's not here, OK? | 00:14:48 | |
Elena. | 00:14:55 | |
We'll get these to them. | 00:15:00 | |
Ryan, England. | 00:15:02 | |
Rachel Stern. | 00:15:11 | |
And Tristan Walker. | 00:15:18 | |
Oh, pictures, Sir. | 00:15:29 | |
Yeah, y'all look like you like each other. | 00:15:33 | |
All right. Ready. | 00:15:37 | |
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. | 00:15:45 | |
Two more items and then we'll have a little break first of all. | 00:15:56 | |
And anybody who knew her. | 00:16:36 | |
Her heart was just huge for anybody she met and we really miss her. | 00:16:38 | |
She made quite an impact in the city in her time and we're thankful that. | 00:16:42 | |
And what we saw here tonight, with our officers being recognized, with our history, with our work, it all starts with our citizens | 00:17:18 | |
feeling safe. | 00:17:22 | |
And then they can really feel connected. And I'm just excited that you're here to help build on what we've done. And with that, | 00:17:26 | |
I'll turn it over to you. It is quite the honor. I'm not going to be long winded, but thank you to each of you for coming, | 00:17:34 | |
supporting me all along the way. You've been here during good times and bad times. And you know what? Here we are. We're back | 00:17:41 | |
home. And so thank you. My church family is here. It is phenomenal and it's quite the honor. | 00:17:48 | |
I I just stand before you as a testimony of prayer, as a testimony of drive and and just go with where your heart is and where you | 00:17:56 | |
believe you should be. And this is where I knew I needed to be. | 00:18:02 | |
I won't disappoint you with all the good things that are going to come. This is you just met an incredible group of officers and | 00:18:10 | |
we're only going to go higher. So it is, it's very exciting. My peers are here from Athens and so we're going to work and continue | 00:18:15 | |
to work together. Jackson County is represented. | 00:18:21 | |
So you know, All in all these days, it is not just limited to our city and so having more resources and networks will only pay | 00:18:27 | |
dividends for this community. And so I'm thrilled about it. I thank you and I'm going to shut up so. | 00:18:34 | |
Well we share your excitement or excited about partnership with our friends across across county lines in every direction. So | 00:18:50 | |
welcome. We appreciate all of you coming. That said, you will not hurt our feelings if if anybody wants to, if anybody wants to | 00:18:55 | |
leave, I will preview. We're going to take the first look at our master plan for the new Thomas Park Preserve tonight, which is | 00:19:00 | |
exciting and the rest of the I anticipate the rest of the agenda being pretty short. So if you do want to stay, you're welcome to | 00:19:05 | |
do that, but we'll take. | 00:19:10 | |
Three or four minute break if anybody wants to. | 00:19:16 | |
Barton, head home. Thank you. | 00:19:18 | |
Got it. OK, perfect. | 00:20:50 | |
All right. I hope you're all staying. | 00:24:24 | |
Yeah. | 00:24:27 | |
All right, We've done all right. We've kept it pretty good, kept a pretty good crowd. | 00:24:41 | |
And we'll try to work through the rest of the matters on the agenda pretty quickly tonight and get to the, get to the. | 00:24:47 | |
Get to the meat of the agenda. So we will start off with with our financial reports. Just a light reminder, most of you have been | 00:24:53 | |
here before. I recognize most of the faces, but we. | 00:24:58 | |
The merits of the pending matter and speak directly to council. Council won't speak to pending litigation or attorney-client or | 00:25:36 | |
personnel matters. | 00:25:39 | |
So we'll kick it off with Financial Reports Manager Dickerson, if you want to walk us through those. Thank you, Mayor. Everyone | 00:25:43 | |
should have received the balance sheet as well as the revenues and expenditure sheets. No surprises. Everything's ticking along or | 00:25:48 | |
where we should be. If there are any questions, I can move to the next one. | 00:25:53 | |
All right, the fun ones are SPLOSS. This is where we're going to have a little bit of a little bit more fun, a little bit more | 00:25:59 | |
creativity. So spots to report should finish out this month. We waiting on a clear to check for the Rocket Field project. So that | 00:26:04 | |
project and the SPLOST. | 00:26:08 | |
Project itself, the overall effort will end, I hope and we'll be able to report that back to the county spots. Three we have right | 00:26:14 | |
now, We still have encumbered expenditures for Rocket Field improvement. Some remaining ones that are out there, Harris Hills Park | 00:26:21 | |
improvements, some Rd. resurfacing and subsidy signage and streetscape Whoops and I did not need to jump that. Sorry about that. | 00:26:28 | |
So we have a balance of a little bit more than $870,000 we're taking in an average of. | 00:26:37 | |
80,000 and and some change each month which is up from what we projected which was around 65,000. So that means we've got a | 00:26:45 | |
healthy extra balance to be coming. Of course that all depends on how the future years ago. We still have a few more years to go | 00:26:50 | |
on this one. This will finish up in September of 27. | 00:26:55 | |
The Tea Splost report. | 00:27:01 | |
This is our transportation special purpose local auction sales tax that is at 7.77%, which is a little bit lower than our SPLOST | 00:27:03 | |
3. So that averages about 70,000 a month. | 00:27:08 | |
These part, the projects right now that have been encumbered are for the sidewalks. We still have a leg of the sidewalk or a | 00:27:14 | |
segment of the sidewalk from. | 00:27:17 | |
New high Shoals down South Main that we're waiting to work on and then last month council approved 800,000 for the Mulberry | 00:27:23 | |
Simonton Bridge Rd. Connector and there's also some money encumbered in Rd. resurfacing for I'm Sorry that was spent for School | 00:27:29 | |
St. at Oak Ave. at Rocket Field and 2nd St. some improvements related to Rocket Field. | 00:27:36 | |
And there's a little bit of a monthly update for you. It's a little bit more than 300 fifty $50,000 in that account. | 00:27:44 | |
Our American rescue plan money. This is Money that has to be committed by the end of this year and spent, I believe, by the end of | 00:27:52 | |
26. | 00:27:55 | |
We are currently in a whole pattern, not spending any more money until at least July 1st so that we do not trigger another audit. | 00:28:00 | |
But there's about $93,000 remaining that the council can appropriate for transformative projects. That's the plan, and there's | 00:28:05 | |
some money left that has been encumbered for. | 00:28:11 | |
Retention program for our officers that the council approved. | 00:28:18 | |
Any questions on any of those? | 00:28:23 | |
OK. We'll go to economic development. So we have business licenses are coming in a steady stream. They are due March 15th. | 00:28:25 | |
And so we'll start seeing a few more those trickle in this next month may not be able to give you a specific, you can see how | 00:28:34 | |
tedious this is to read. But so those are coming in fairly well. And then our exercise both alcohol and our short term vacation | 00:28:39 | |
rental or hotel motel taxes are coming in and they are actually are short short term vacation rentals a little bit above what we | 00:28:45 | |
thought we were going to be getting at this point. So that's good news. | 00:28:51 | |
And then on the building permit side, we have 9 permits for eight projects. The one I'll highlight is the library project, which | 00:28:57 | |
is coming to close and I believe the mayoral mentioned a little bit about that later in his report. | 00:29:03 | |
Any questions? | 00:29:10 | |
All right, all right. Mayor Pro Tem Tucker, if you want to give us an update on the Downtown Development Authority. | 00:29:12 | |
OK. So we are rolling along. I think one of the most important things to just get on everybody's agenda. | 00:29:21 | |
Is we. | 00:29:32 | |
What got the rural zone designation and that is a great opportunity for businesses in the the map of the world zone, which is | 00:29:33 | |
essentially there's an outline thank you novels, I don't know how long I'm going to describe that one of it where there is | 00:29:41 | |
significant tax incentives. | 00:29:48 | |
For businesses that add new jobs, that's the main purpose, but it includes. | 00:29:57 | |
Renovations of property, purchasing property, anything that is adding at least two new jobs and so we are having on December, not | 00:30:04 | |
December, long month. | 00:30:09 | |
January 24th at 8:30 in the morning at Penny State Bank headquarters. | 00:30:16 | |
A really important meeting. So if you have a business in the downtown, if you are thinking about having a business in the | 00:30:23 | |
downtown, if you own property in the downtown, if you know if somebody please come to this and get more information, it really can | 00:30:30 | |
just contribute to the continuation of just the rejuvenation of Watkinsville. So this is really a big thing. Cannot emphasize it | 00:30:37 | |
enough. Can you go back? I know I kind of jumped ahead because I want to make sure that is the most important thing. | 00:30:44 | |
Also, you see a picture here, Kate Patterson, who is our downtown. | 00:30:53 | |
Our director and we just celebrated her one year anniversary and at our meeting today we just really gave her a lot of credit that | 00:30:59 | |
she deserves because it is always hard to come in and start the position, start the job when you have a a kind of a vague job | 00:31:07 | |
description. And we've never done this before, but let's figure this out And she has really done a tremendous job in doing that. | 00:31:14 | |
So I just want to publicly honor her. | 00:31:22 | |
Yes, I think. | 00:32:04 | |
That summarizes it, but January 24th OS anyone's phones out right now. I want to put it in your calendar 8:30. | 00:32:07 | |
So to give, well you just need to come to get all the details, but yes, it. | 00:32:17 | |
Creating jobs. | 00:32:23 | |
Get tax credits. | 00:32:25 | |
All right. Thank you, Mayor. Pro Tem, it has been amazing. How much is you guys have gotten done in your first year. It's pretty | 00:32:30 | |
awesome and having Kate on board has really accelerated that. And so let's all spread the word about the event on the 24th. I'd | 00:32:35 | |
love to have all of. | 00:32:40 | |
Downtown property owners. They are not just business owners, but the property owners. It's vital that they're there. We will move | 00:32:45 | |
on to Chief Gail's first Police Department report. | 00:32:51 | |
Chief GAIL, if you'll make sure that that light is on. On the mic, there's a button. | 00:32:57 | |
Pushed it really hard in the light and come on, push and hold, yes. | 00:33:03 | |
Does that work we on can you hear me All right excellent. So the the Police Department we've got one application in and and you | 00:33:10 | |
all have seen this but what I want to mention that is not on there because it has recently come up. | 00:33:19 | |
Sergeant Hitler and Officer Stearns has been working on a financial crime that has now blossomed. And so now they are working with | 00:33:28 | |
federal agents and other agencies in the state of Georgia. And it is solely because of their hard work and they're bringing the | 00:33:34 | |
pieces of the puzzle together. We will share more as it becomes available. However, I just want to give the recognition to the | 00:33:41 | |
hard work that they are doing. They went to a regional. | 00:33:48 | |
Intelligence meeting today. And so they're getting schooled up, they're speaking with investigators to see just how large this is | 00:33:55 | |
in our area and they're they're focusing on the city of Watkinsville and our victims here. But their diligent work has helped | 00:34:00 | |
already. | 00:34:05 | |
The FBI. | 00:34:11 | |
More to come in the future, but that's the big thing that they've been working on. We do have. It's going to get busy here rather | 00:34:13 | |
quickly with some events. The Police Department is going to be out there in the community and we look forward to it. There's just | 00:34:18 | |
a lot. | 00:34:22 | |
Of stuff we want to get and some of the stuff they have done already And so I'm excited to be a part of it. It's just exciting | 00:34:28 | |
time. We're going to be out there, we're going to be seen and I want to hear from everybody if you if you want to see us doing | 00:34:32 | |
something. | 00:34:37 | |
Whatever you'd like. So thank you. And that's that's where we're at. | 00:34:44 | |
All right. Thank you, Chief Gale. | 00:34:49 | |
Appreciate. | 00:34:51 | |
All right. Next up we have our consent agenda. There's no need for item number six, correct. Manager Dickerson, nothing's changing | 00:34:53 | |
on bank signatures, so we would be looking under consent for approval for the other items. | 00:35:01 | |
And we did not have anything pulled off when we set the agenda. So I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. | 00:35:09 | |
And make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do we have a second? | 00:35:15 | |
Any discussion? | 00:35:20 | |
All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:35:22 | |
Motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to our public hearing. We have two of these tonight. | 00:35:25 | |
Typically, and we will do this if it comes up of 10 minutes per side are allowed for people to address. | 00:35:32 | |
The matters on zoning procedures Comments, as before, should relate to the agenda item should be directed to council. You'll want | 00:35:40 | |
to speak from the podium and address the merits of the pending matter. | 00:35:44 | |
Directly to the council, we have two public hearings tonight. We have the zoning. Well, we have, we actually just have 1A zoning | 00:35:49 | |
text amendment related to outdoor. | 00:35:54 | |
Dining and mobile vendors. So first we'll have a public hearing on that matter and then we'll have a vote on that matter. After | 00:35:59 | |
that we'll move into old business. We'll get just so you all know what's coming, we'll have an update on historic preservation. | 00:36:04 | |
Then we'll move into new business and we'll discuss the farm winery matter that's related to South Main Brewing and also Thomas | 00:36:10 | |
Farm. | 00:36:13 | |
Preserve update at that point. So just so everybody knows what's coming, but we will start off with the zoning text amendment | 00:36:17 | |
related to mobile businesses and attorney Reitman if you could provide an overview of that amendment please Sir. | 00:36:22 | |
Glad to do so. You'll see up on your screen reference to Article 10 outdoor dining. This actually morphed into a slightly more | 00:36:29 | |
expansive ordinance addressing not only food trucks, but locally produced artisan products and produce etcetera as well, but it | 00:36:37 | |
was most conveniently located Article 10. Also Article 13 use regulation to allow such in the downtown quarter, commercial and | 00:36:45 | |
mixed-use office zones and Mr. Mayor, I think you. | 00:36:53 | |
Had encouraged us to add another zone to that, is that correct? I believe it is expanded beyond those zones. | 00:37:01 | |
I believe that is correct. | 00:37:10 | |
And the purpose of this is to address something that was not previously permitted in your zoning ordinance. As written, your | 00:37:14 | |
zoning ordinance without amending it does not expressly allow food trucks, mobile vendors, etcetera. The purpose of this is to | 00:37:22 | |
allow them with reasonable constraints so that the locations where they can set up. | 00:37:30 | |
Are clearly defined so that they will not block traffic, pedestrian, vehicular or otherwise. | 00:37:39 | |
Move forward on the public hearing. Does anyone have any questions or comments? | 00:38:19 | |
Council members. | 00:38:24 | |
Speak in favor of the. | 00:39:32 | |
Zoning text amendment or just generally? | 00:39:36 | |
You're welcome to come to the. | 00:39:39 | |
Seeing none anyone with any concerns. | 00:39:43 | |
Come. | 00:39:47 | |
Seeing none, I'm going to close the public. | 00:39:50 | |
At this point, we'll move towards the vote Council. You've heard all the background. This would be revising Article 10 outdoor | 00:39:53 | |
dining to expand such to address mobile vendors and that does include things beyond dining. So that's flower carts. A variety of | 00:39:58 | |
other mobile vendors would be covered by that. In Watkinsville if they're serving the general public, that would be in the | 00:40:04 | |
downtown quarter commercial historic main and mixed-use office zones. And I think we ice cream trucks are excluded from that and | 00:40:10 | |
can go anywhere. Is that right, Sharon? | 00:40:16 | |
That's correct. There's one other thing that Mayor just to make sure. So one of the things that you do need to that we do need in | 00:40:22 | |
the motion is the fee for the for the mobile vendor permit and we agreed, I believe we talked about it being the the lowest level | 00:40:28 | |
or zero to 1 employee on the occupational tax level. That $65 a year will add that to the fee schedule if that is, is what you | 00:40:34 | |
would like. | 00:40:40 | |
To approve. | 00:40:46 | |
OK. All right. So we're looking for a motion to approve the text amendments along with the fee schedule that will be that will | 00:40:48 | |
reflect the lowest possible business permitting cost in Watkinsville. | 00:40:54 | |
So moved will be fine. | 00:41:02 | |
Do we have a second? Any discussion behind the rail? | 00:41:05 | |
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 00:41:09 | |
All right, that motion carries. | 00:41:12 | |
We'll move on to appearances. | 00:41:16 | |
We don't have any under appearances under old business. We have Historic Preservation Council. Mayor Pro Tem Tucker, if you could | 00:41:21 | |
give us an update on our historic preservation in a moment, just a little bit of a preamble. I do think it's important to note. | 00:41:27 | |
The historic preservation and some of the other efforts that Mayor Pro Tem Tucker discussed earlier around the rural zone do go | 00:41:35 | |
hand in hand. In some ways, the rural zone efforts are primarily focused on downtown. But contextually this council's discussed, | 00:41:41 | |
and I think we all agree how important it is that we preserve our history in Watkinsville. A lot of our decisions have been made | 00:41:46 | |
around how do we preserve and activate our downtown hold on to our homes. | 00:41:52 | |
Historic homes. Sadly, we've lost a few of those homes in the past few years, and it has taken us a while to wrap our arms around | 00:41:58 | |
how we're can best protect those in a way that doesn't limit the options of homeowners. And Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Campbell | 00:42:04 | |
have been leading the way on on that effort for a while, so if you could give us an update, that would be great. | 00:42:10 | |
Yes. So as it outlines that they're starting in October, we met with Doctor Reeve in his class and what a privilege to have one of | 00:42:18 | |
the really the experts in the state on this issue. | 00:42:24 | |
Working with us with his class. And so Jeff and I met with him this past Monday with one of his students. Actually to go over the | 00:42:31 | |
we we were really the class project. | 00:42:37 | |
And so they gave us kind of their the students revised of the state ordinance and. | 00:42:45 | |
One of the things that we've been learning through this process is, unless you were already grandfathered in, so some of the | 00:42:54 | |
larger cities, Savannah, Atlanta. | 00:42:57 | |
Have their own historic preservation ordinances, but for most municipalities, the state of Georgia has outlined what it's going to | 00:43:02 | |
look like. And so you have to fit within those parameters. And the first step really is to simply adapt pretty much the | 00:43:11 | |
administrative processes. So it is not saying what is a historic property, where is the district? Who is on the committee? | 00:43:21 | |
None of those things are the initial things, The initial, the first thing you have to do is basically say we are going to have a | 00:43:31 | |
historic preservation ordinance. | 00:43:36 | |
And this is the basic administrative outline of what it's going to look like. And most of that outline is dictated by the state. | 00:43:40 | |
There are some little tweaks that can go into that aspect of it. And so that's what his class was working on was that initial kind | 00:43:47 | |
of outline of the historic preservation ordinance and so. | 00:43:55 | |
Because it is incredibly important to us, I would say, to have community input and all of this. | 00:44:03 | |
However, having historic preservation ordinance is something we've been talking about for years and see the necessity too. So we | 00:44:12 | |
are, Jeff and I are asking that even by next council meeting that we have a vote to approve it. And again that is just saying we | 00:44:20 | |
are going to have this and here is the basic administrative outline. It is not saying and by the way your house now has all these | 00:44:28 | |
regulations or all these things. It's not that at this point. | 00:44:36 | |
But having this historic preservation ordinance allows us to have different tax incentives. It gives possibilities for grants for | 00:44:44 | |
homeowners. There's a lot of benefits that have an historic preservation ordinance can have for individuals who are in districts | 00:44:50 | |
or who do have that designation. | 00:44:56 | |
And. | 00:45:03 | |
Just to echo what Brian said, it's just incredibly important to preserve the historic structures we have. So we are hoping in | 00:45:04 | |
February if council agrees to approve the basic administrative structures and then we will really start getting the public input | 00:45:10 | |
on area structures. | 00:45:16 | |
Because you do have a city has in the next phase of kind of like how much design overview are we going to have there? There's a | 00:45:24 | |
lot more to come. So I hope. | 00:45:30 | |
I hope I haven't confused matters but it was helpful for me to know there's kind of steps on this process and I think some of what | 00:45:37 | |
has taken us a while to get to this point as I think we thought we kind of had to do everything all at once which can be | 00:45:43 | |
overwhelming because we really want to make sure that we are also very conscious of individual property owners rights. So it is | 00:45:48 | |
that balancing act. | 00:45:54 | |
Perfect. Any questions for the mayor Pro Tem? | 00:46:01 | |
Oh, and one other thing His he has another class that's going to actually be helping us with the next steps of the process as | 00:46:05 | |
well. So we are again incredibly fortunate and so thankful to Doctor Reap and his classes. | 00:46:11 | |
It's great. One of the great things about being close to the university, right we have access to some experts who are willing to | 00:46:18 | |
work or they we paying them, Are they working for free? So it's free, which is great. | 00:46:23 | |
Awesome. All right. | 00:46:30 | |
New business. | 00:46:32 | |
Under old business, we don't have anything anything else under New Business Farm Winery at South Main Brewing. | 00:46:34 | |
We will want to potentially vote to send a letter of no objection or vote to object. | 00:46:40 | |
This is a little bit esoteric, so Attorney Reitman, I'm going to let you provide an overview to council and then if the. | 00:46:45 | |
Impacted applicant chairs to speak, then they'll have the opportunity to do that as well. Thank you Mr. Mayor, and I previously | 00:46:52 | |
sent you all out. A very simple outline of the state law. In essence, the state law gives 60 days for us to object if we choose to | 00:47:00 | |
object to a farm winery. The state has apparently also offered the applicant who is represented here tonight the opportunity to | 00:47:07 | |
solicit a letter from the city so they don't have to wait the full 60 days for you to not object, but instead you can. | 00:47:15 | |
Expressly state no objection. | 00:47:24 | |
IE you consent to the farm winery. This is something under state regulation. Your ordinances do not specifically address a farm | 00:47:26 | |
winery, so they would be able to come in and operate under state law pursuant to state oversight and regulation. You'd simply be | 00:47:32 | |
expressing a no objection If for some reason you found there were grounds to object based on public health, safety, welfare. You | 00:47:38 | |
do have that option. But I think practically speaking, a letter of no objection is with the applicant seeks and is probably not an | 00:47:44 | |
unreasonable request. | 00:47:51 | |
So at this point, turn back to you, Mr. Mayor, and then the applicant can be heard as well. | 00:47:57 | |
OK. And I don't know if Mr. Porter or Mr. Tool would like to come forward and speak please. | 00:48:02 | |
I'm not. | 00:48:07 | |
Please give us your name and address for the record. | 00:48:10 | |
Good evening, Council. My name is Stanton Porter. My address is 2920. | 00:48:13 | |
Fern Hill Rd. Bogart and Rock Tool, 1070 Barnett Ridge, Athens, GA. | 00:48:18 | |
Thanks for having us here tonight and I think. | 00:48:25 | |
Attorney Reitman did a fantastic job of summarizing real briefly what what this, what the ask is, but want to give a little bit of | 00:48:29 | |
context. | 00:48:33 | |
For what South Main Brewery is looking to do here. | 00:48:37 | |
Basically, this is a common thing with some breweries in the state of Georgia. There's a code section that allows. | 00:48:42 | |
For Georgia farm wineries to operate under the state regulation, and I don't know the whole legislative history on how this this | 00:48:51 | |
came to act, but basically under state regulation you can operate at what's called a Georgia farm winery. | 00:48:58 | |
And to be a Georgia farm. | 00:49:05 | |
You've got to do several things. The most important part of that is that the the fruit juice that you're going to use, whether | 00:49:08 | |
that's some variety of grape juice or blueberry or any other kind of juice, got to be at least 40% from the state of Georgia. So | 00:49:14 | |
it's under sort of an agritourism. | 00:49:20 | |
Georgia grown purview from the state law. | 00:49:27 | |
And so for example, if you'd been up to North Georgia, that's a common, you know, activity, people would go up to these wineries. | 00:49:32 | |
All of those, at least a large majority of those are operating under this Georgia farm winery code section. And So what we've had | 00:49:39 | |
to do on the brewery side so far is actually very similar to the brewery sort of steps. And so we've actually gone through the | 00:49:45 | |
federal process of getting our federal approval from the TTB. | 00:49:52 | |
And and that's not unique to farm wineries that all wineries in any same thing with the brewery and and we've obtained that | 00:49:59 | |
approval. | 00:50:04 | |
The, the sort of second step in that unlike with the brewery, which is when I was here in front of you that we got the approval, | 00:50:09 | |
you actually go federal. | 00:50:13 | |
Local and then state, but sort of skip that local step on the Georgia Farm winery because of this unique code section. | 00:50:18 | |
And and so we're in that state process, it's State Department revenue and but I actually did one recently for a farm winery in | 00:50:26 | |
Oconee County, not in the city limits of Watkinsville. | 00:50:32 | |
And the code section does say that essentially we give notice to the city and say we're attempting to do you know the the brewery | 00:50:38 | |
would like to have to operate as of Georgia Farm Winery. We've leased this space to to have our, our juice and and a lot of the | 00:50:45 | |
equipment's very similar and so there's not a lot to add to it to produce one that we can sell. | 00:50:53 | |
And the 60 days go by, but from a sort of courtesy both to to not have to wait those full 60 days, but also just from a | 00:51:02 | |
interagency courtesy. The preference on the state regulation side is that they actually have a very simple letter from the the | 00:51:08 | |
local body saying you know, we understand that that this business is trying to act as a Georgia farm winery and our code section | 00:51:14 | |
does not. | 00:51:21 | |
And that. | 00:52:00 | |
That a farm winery can operate or in particular South Main Brewing Farm Winery could operate under this Georgia code section which | 00:52:02 | |
is 3640 that allows. | 00:52:08 | |
The the farm wineries to operate now there's a few things that the breweries that in terms of just sort of a. | 00:52:15 | |
Out of the legal part of it, you know what's this going to look like different at the? | 00:52:21 | |
And and Brock may be able to mention even more to this but a couple things is that doctor be able to produce wine at the brewery | 00:52:26 | |
itself and under Georgia law that'd be wind, you know out of grapes that you you typically would think of. Also some you know a | 00:52:33 | |
popular drink would be a hard cider based on the alcohol content you're using, a fruit juice and a hard cider versus. | 00:52:40 | |
You know, something that's essentially from a grain to make beer and so that actually under under the walls considered wine, even | 00:52:48 | |
though we don't think of drinking a hard cider. | 00:52:53 | |
As a wine itself and so be able to may not even know the difference that in that that operating as a Georgia farm winery. | 00:52:59 | |
The other small part that is also allowed under Georgia farm wineries is that Georgia farm wineries can serve wine from other | 00:53:08 | |
Georgia farm wineries. And so you'd be able to see wines, for example, from Watkinsville wine, which technically is not in | 00:53:14 | |
Watkinsville, but I'm able to serve that wine as a Georgia farm winery. Again, this is a this is under state law. It wouldn't be | 00:53:20 | |
under any regulation here in Watkinsville have to meet all those requirements that that the state says, but you'd be able to | 00:53:26 | |
essentially promote Georgia agritourism. | 00:53:32 | |
In Georgia Farm Wine, so I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have and Brock here may be able to answer any questions | 00:53:38 | |
you have about the more details of what is actually going to look like at the brewery. | 00:53:43 | |
Are you going to have hard cider? | 00:53:51 | |
And so you guys will be making your own wine there, is that right? | 00:53:55 | |
Mayor, basically what we want to do is we won't sell everyone, OK? | 00:53:59 | |
Any other questions? | 00:54:14 | |
All right. Thank you. Thank you. | 00:54:18 | |
Yep, Council. I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion to send a letter of no objection. | 00:54:22 | |
All right. Do we have a second? | 00:54:29 | |
All in favor? Say aye. Opposed. | 00:54:32 | |
Connie, did you, were you in favor or you opposed? | 00:54:36 | |
Well, I really. | 00:54:39 | |
Don't like having. | 00:54:41 | |
There are wine or anything here in Watkinsville, but we've already got a brewery. | 00:54:43 | |
OK, I just want to be sure we captured your photo the right way. | 00:54:47 | |
I always appreciate your honesty on this, OK? | 00:54:52 | |
We are. Next up we have the Thomas Thomas Farm Preserve. | 00:54:55 | |
Update. | 00:55:00 | |
And so first of all, this is an exciting night. I would love for our steering committee members to stand up those who are here. So | 00:55:03 | |
everybody who's on our steering committee for the Thomas Farm Preserve, please stand. | 00:55:09 | |
Marvin Nunnally, Lisa Duvall, Jimmy Marbet, Rob Simpson and Carrie Hammond, I just. | 00:55:15 | |
For all of you to know, we had a committee of what was it, probably 1518 trying to count Now we had a big committee that's worked | 00:55:22 | |
really hard over the past few months to help us take. | 00:55:27 | |
A beautiful blank slate and turn it into something you know that frankly just needs a little work around the edges in a little bit | 00:55:33 | |
of detail. But this committee's worked really hard at it, and we're grateful to all of you who could join us here tonight and | 00:55:38 | |
everybody who couldn't for all of your work on that. | 00:55:43 | |
So thank you all. We're grateful. | 00:55:49 | |
Lawrence and Kathleen, you've come to several of the meetings too. We're grateful for your input along the way. And then Wes Riles | 00:55:56 | |
from SPG is here. Wes and his team have done the heavy lifting on the project in terms of what this is actually going to look like | 00:56:02 | |
and how it's going to work. So this is a time frame for the meetings and what we've done. | 00:56:09 | |
So far the goal being an updated master plan that we could put in front of council that would allow council to approve that and | 00:56:16 | |
then allow staff to begin budgeting and figuring out how we can best. | 00:56:22 | |
Program that park with the schedule. | 00:56:28 | |
Sharon, if you want to move ahead and Wes, if you want to come on and step forward. | 00:56:32 | |
I don't know if we want to start with this one, but Wes, I would love for maybe you to take a few minutes and just kind of | 00:56:37 | |
articulate. | 00:56:40 | |
At a high level, what we saw, perhaps what we heard from the community and walk through the plan for our attendees tonight and | 00:56:44 | |
then I'll fill in some gaps. Maybe at the end if there's things that you don't capture that we can, we can start here with the | 00:56:48 | |
overall master plan. | 00:56:53 | |
Looks like I'm still. | 00:56:58 | |
You know, First off, it's a pleasure to be here. I mean, what we're really presenting is the fruit of 4 1/2 months of very | 00:57:00 | |
dedicated. | 00:57:04 | |
Lots of Labor, lots of work that went into this, Lots of passion. So kudos really goes to the city for just assembling A stellar | 00:57:10 | |
team. | 00:57:14 | |
Committee members, several of you are here tonight and we just appreciate the feedback that you guys have provided. | 00:57:19 | |
The professional knowledge just that is really critical for making this park. | 00:57:26 | |
A success and it's it's going to be a heavy lift. I mean it's over 100 acres, but. | 00:57:32 | |
Anyway, lots lots of good effort went into this, this park planning here so. | 00:57:38 | |
Just kind of stepping back, so this is where we landed with the overall master plan. | 00:57:43 | |
In addition to this, my team was tasked with looking into management schedules that kind of lays out quarterly what needs to be | 00:57:48 | |
done this year to see this park up and running. | 00:57:53 | |
We've also looked into site narratives that will be used to inform pricing down the road. | 00:57:59 | |
And then I just want to mention public input. So we had two public input sessions. | 00:58:09 | |
I think these were the most well attended that we've had to date. The first one was over 35 people, so lots of good feedback there | 00:58:15 | |
that we've incorporated and put back into this plan. So thank you to those who attended and provided feedback. | 00:58:23 | |
There's a number of guiding principles that really informed our design, the first being a stewardship. | 00:58:33 | |
Design interventions have been informed by a desire to steward the property by balancing recreational use and enjoyment with | 00:58:40 | |
responsible management going forward. | 00:58:45 | |
This is a beautiful property. We don't want to do any undue. | 00:58:50 | |
Connecting. We want to provide broad accessibility to a diversity of user groups, and I'll touch upon that later when I talk about | 00:58:56 | |
the trail systems. | 00:59:00 | |
Enhancing and conserving. So there are many, there are many unique opportunities. | 00:59:06 | |
That exists for restoring and enhancing the natural features of the property. | 00:59:13 | |
One partnership that we've looked. | 00:59:18 | |
Has been through a collaboration with the Southeastern Grasslands Institute. They're based out of Austin Peay University in | 00:59:21 | |
Tennessee, but they have a local Rep here housed at the Bot Garden in Athens. So we've engaged them on. | 00:59:28 | |
Some potential management aspects for this this property. | 00:59:35 | |
Their primary objective is to preserve and restore native grasslands. | 00:59:40 | |
You know, we tend to think that the grasslands are always in kind of the Midwest, but we did have Southeastern grasslands that | 00:59:45 | |
were all up and down. | 00:59:49 | |
The the Eastern Seaboard here. | 00:59:53 | |
We're looking into the possibility of restoring up to 16 acres. | 00:59:57 | |
Own the property, some of which could actually be used as a native seed source. So kind of continue continuing that agricultural | 01:00:01 | |
legacy which I think. | 01:00:06 | |
Is a nice N. | 01:00:11 | |
The Thomas. | 01:00:14 | |
In terms of the master plan? | 01:00:16 | |
Sharon, could you go to the enlargement? | 01:00:19 | |
Of the plan. | 01:00:21 | |
There should be like an enlargement if you. | 01:00:23 | |
That's it. OK, there you go. | 01:00:27 | |
That one. | 01:00:30 | |
So you'll see here. | 01:00:33 | |
The entrance to the park is it's going to follow the same the existing driveway. We're going to widen that to accommodate 2 way | 01:00:36 | |
traffic. | 01:00:40 | |
You'll also notice that parking has been relegated to the the wings of the property. | 01:00:45 | |
That's intentional. What we're trying to do is really prioritize the pedestrian experience. We're tucking parking into existing | 01:00:52 | |
tree lines I. | 01:00:56 | |
A lot of feedback from the public kind of centered around the location of parking from a previous master plan. | 01:01:02 | |
And then just just trying to be mindful of neighbors we have. | 01:01:09 | |
Pull that parking closer to the Semiton Bridge. We've oriented it such that there's a low profile, so. | 01:01:14 | |
Very shallow view from neighbors and tuck that into existing tree lines. | 01:01:22 | |
Of which we could actually supplement with additional vegetation to really screen and make those areas go away. | 01:01:28 | |
In a sense, letter A, that's kind of the anchor for the entire park, so all the existing structures will remain. | 01:01:35 | |
As we're getting kind of bad here, but I think that is letter C, let's go with that. Letter C is the the main house and so the | 01:01:46 | |
existing house will remain. | 01:01:51 | |
To the right of that. | 01:01:57 | |
Below that is an existing shed building and then kind of planned east. | 01:02:00 | |
Is what we've been called. Is the. | 01:02:06 | |
Referred to as the the former dairy building for the farm. | 01:02:09 | |
So all those structures will remain. | 01:02:13 | |
Apart from some kind of minor cosmetic upgrades making the restroom facility fully accessible. | 01:02:16 | |
Some minor tweaks to the the structures to kind of make them Fillmore Park. | 01:02:24 | |
But letter A is is what we are terming kind of the the Oval or the the grand lawn for the park. So this is kind of your arrival | 01:02:30 | |
sequence. | 01:02:35 | |
This is where everybody would kind of enter into the park and from. | 01:02:40 | |
A series of meandering trails kind of takes visitors throughout the remainder of the. | 01:02:44 | |
We have 6 classifications of trails, that's really. | 01:02:50 | |
Designed to accommodate a diversity of user. | 01:02:56 | |
Ranging from families with young children. | 01:03:00 | |
88 having 88 accessibility. | 01:03:05 | |
Backcountry hikers. Mountain bikes. | 01:03:09 | |
Cyclists, trail runners, joggers, the full gamut. So we believe just in the size of the park that we're able to accommodate. | 01:03:12 | |
For these various user groups and to separate those uses from one another as well. | 01:03:21 | |
In terms of total trail can. | 01:03:27 | |
Bump back out to the full master. | 01:03:31 | |
Go back to the master plan. Yep, Sorry. I'm bouncing back and forth the overall. So all those little white squiggly lines, Those | 01:03:34 | |
are the various trails. | 01:03:39 | |
In total we have about 5 1/2. | 01:03:45 | |
Of which upwards of a mile and a half would be fully accessible. | 01:03:49 | |
Potentially more. We haven't really gotten into the design aspects, but just analyzing the existing topography, it would enable | 01:03:55 | |
for a good many of those to be fully accessible. | 01:04:01 | |
In addition to those various classifications. | 01:04:10 | |
There will be paved trail sections and then there will be unpaved. So the the widest paved section being 10. | 01:04:13 | |
With a four foot aggregate shoulder. | 01:04:21 | |
The narrowest aggregate trail is just your standard single track, so 30 inches is basically just a Backcountry trail. | 01:04:25 | |
And that would occupy the majority of the back. | 01:04:32 | |
So there's one kind of principal loop around the the big. | 01:04:36 | |
That's your your paved trail, and then it kind of comes back. | 01:04:41 | |
Between the. | 01:04:45 | |
Back into the 0. | 01:04:47 | |
And then potentially kind of spitting off of that into. | 01:04:49 | |
What there is is letter J. | 01:04:53 | |
In terms of land use, we're looking at kind of different management zones for the park. So what you see is kind of that yellow | 01:04:56 | |
color. This would be the the Meadow conservation areas, maybe more naturalistic. | 01:05:01 | |
The areas in green would be manicured so. | 01:05:10 | |
Twice monthly or something like that, but just kind of kept manicured and kind of more. | 01:05:14 | |
Park, like the areas in the back, would still stay as pasture, and so those could be known up to three times annually. | 01:05:20 | |
And we're looking into engaging potential farmers in this area that could actually hate these these fields. | 01:05:27 | |
If you want to dip back into the. | 01:05:35 | |
Let's go back to the enlargement real quick. | 01:05:38 | |
Sorry. | 01:05:42 | |
So in addition to the trails, there's actually 2 boardwalk systems, one that kind of takes you around the smaller pond, a portion | 01:05:44 | |
of which is actually. | 01:05:48 | |
Wetland and then another boardwalk that would extend out into the pond. | 01:05:53 | |
The larger pond, and we're envisioning that this would actually be used for fishing. | 01:05:59 | |
Take a poll down there. | 01:06:05 | |
There are pavilions that are scattered throughout the park, kind of tucked into the tree lines. | 01:06:07 | |
We're kind of envisioning that as kind of a focal feature that kind of draws you from kind of the main core. So you see that with | 01:06:14 | |
letters in and. | 01:06:18 | |
J And then there are a few in the back as well. | 01:06:23 | |
The variety of experiences there. | 01:06:28 | |
I think that about covers it. So if we want to flip through to the the Google Earth images images, So I've overlaid the trails on | 01:06:39 | |
top of Google Earth Aerial so you can kind of see how things are laying out but really taking advantage of the full extent of the | 01:06:44 | |
property. | 01:06:49 | |
A lot of nice topographical relief. | 01:06:55 | |
Not overly extreme until you get into the the tree line, but just a nice rolling pastoral landscape. | 01:06:59 | |
That, I think, is really going to be a nice asset for the city of Watkinsville moving forward. | 01:07:05 | |
And that's all I've gotten, unless y'all have any questions. | 01:07:12 | |
Thank you, Wes. One of the things I love about and if we look at the the Google Earth images, just note that they don't show the | 01:07:18 | |
Backcountry trails. So the Backcountry trails and and Rob and Jimmy, I know you all put a lot of planning into that. We wound up I | 01:07:23 | |
think getting a little more than two miles of just the mountain biking and hiking trails there, which is a really nice loop around | 01:07:29 | |
kind of around the perimeter of the property. | 01:07:34 | |
Safely connected. | 01:08:13 | |
To downtown. So excited about that. Also have to mention, you know one of the challenges on a project like this, where the land is | 01:08:14 | |
just so beautiful, is to not do too much. That's one of the things I'm grateful to this team for is understanding this was. | 01:08:21 | |
This is, this is maybe putting a few brush strokes on a masterpiece because God made this land beautiful and the Thomas family | 01:08:30 | |
kept it beautiful. And So what we're really trying to do here is how do we maximize the amount of people that are able to enjoy | 01:08:36 | |
that beauty and experience that beauty in a way that's safe for them and for their families to do so. So I'm excited about that. | 01:08:42 | |
Also honoring our agreement with the state, which is to preserve the environment there and to not impact the environment and to | 01:08:50 | |
preserve the watershed, which is so important and it's one of the reasons, the reason that we were able to receive some state | 01:08:55 | |
funding, low cost loans to help us support this. | 01:09:00 | |
So Wes, to you and your team, you have our thanks and our gratitude. Christine, you and Jeff were also active members of that | 01:09:06 | |
committee and we're grateful to you for all of your help and to Jeff for his at this point council, if you have any questions for | 01:09:13 | |
Mr. Riles, let's ask. And members of the public, we'd love to hear from you guys if you have any questions or thoughts on this. | 01:09:21 | |
As well. And then after that we all ideally we make a motion to adopt this or adopt it with any modifications as you guys see fit | 01:09:28 | |
and that will allow staff to get to work on thinking through implementation. | 01:09:34 | |
Council any questions for Mr. | 01:09:42 | |
From S. | 01:09:45 | |
All right, Kathleen, why don't you step forward so we can hear you? Well, she might have to step to the side in case we need your | 01:09:48 | |
help to answer it. But Kathleen, come forward to the podium, please. | 01:09:52 | |
It would for for all of Y'all to know too. We do have copies of the full report SPG produced. How many pages was 50 pages? Maybe | 01:09:58 | |
probably A50 page report. That includes a lot of details on the timing, the different elements, details on how the trails will be | 01:10:04 | |
built and things like that. Plant life, ecology, Renderings of the what the homes will look like in the future too. Kathleen | 01:10:10 | |
Mcquiston, 13 S Barnett, Chills Rd. | 01:10:15 | |
My question is about the timeline. | 01:10:22 | |
Well, as a certain trail becomes available, will that be open to the public? Is everything going to be done before it's open? | 01:10:25 | |
What? How do you foresee the this becoming open to the public? We do not know that yet. What my hope, my hope and this is | 01:10:34 | |
ambitious and I have a city manager who will always tell me I probably wish things would be done faster than they are. I would | 01:10:39 | |
love for the public to be able to be utilizing the park in a meaningful way and be able to access, even if all the trails aren't | 01:10:45 | |
built be able to access. | 01:10:50 | |
Most of the park by the fourth quarter of next year, that's what I'm hoping. | 01:10:57 | |
This year it's 2024, isn't it? So 2024. So that's what I'm hoping. But again, until until staff really studies it and begins to | 01:11:01 | |
get bids and estimates and timing. | 01:11:06 | |
We don't know, but I'm hopeful that we won't certainly won't wait for every mile of trail to be built before people are able to | 01:11:11 | |
access the park, as long as we can do that safely. OK, my second question is, is the Steering committee also looking at the | 01:11:16 | |
programming for the house? | 01:11:20 | |
What do you think? I don't know. | 01:11:27 | |
Yeah, I think that'll be a council decision. In short term, it'll be probably governed by budgetary, some budgetary limitations. | 01:11:31 | |
We could put a lot of dollars into the house and. | 01:11:39 | |
Out of the gate, we'll probably want to make sure the house is maintained that the restrooms are. | 01:11:41 | |
But we'll probably want to invest the majority of the dollars into the public facing aspects of the park, which will be the | 01:11:46 | |
trails, the parking and. | 01:11:49 | |
The restrooms I was referring more to classes about maybe about the the new grasslands or? | 01:11:52 | |
You know, meetings for the people who might participate in the community garden. | 01:12:02 | |
That sort of thing. | 01:12:07 | |
Yeah, I'm not sure. | 01:12:09 | |
What do you think? Well, I mean, I think we're still open to ideas for the use of the house. I think we want to obviously make the | 01:12:11 | |
best use of it and. | 01:12:15 | |
And it might have multiple uses and purposes. | 01:12:20 | |
So definitely open to hear ideas. I mean it's not like we don't have it figured out right on the agenda right now, OK. But but | 01:12:26 | |
it's going to take just, but you know that that's going to be a bigger project and what we don't want to do is we don't want to | 01:12:32 | |
spend money on it in a way that then we have to undo it and do something else with it. I think we really want to know what we're | 01:12:38 | |
using it for. But there is a plan to make at least one of the restrooms. | 01:12:44 | |
Fully accessible and and accessible for the park because that will actually probably save us some money. So that will be the | 01:12:51 | |
initial but open to be hearing ideas. | 01:12:56 | |
We may need to use some of it as office space in the short term too, because we're probably going to have to. | 01:13:02 | |
We may need to have an additional parks employee and someone stationed out there and working out of that space. | 01:13:07 | |
One of the other alternates, if you look at the map item K is a potential. There could be a date for some potential public | 01:13:13 | |
workspace out there. | 01:13:16 | |
So, so, yeah. So we're still really thinking through the house uses. OK, thank you. | 01:13:20 | |
Dan, come on. Come on up. | 01:13:26 | |
Dan Matthews, 1081 Kane Lane. | 01:13:35 | |
Thank you for having me back. | 01:13:38 | |
My question is once the. | 01:13:41 | |
On that map, it's blue. On this map, it's kind of green. What is that line? | 01:13:43 | |
That's the existing. | 01:13:51 | |
OK, that's Warner. | 01:13:53 | |
Bike lane or. | 01:13:56 | |
Other question is for gentleman's name and and some of our police officers and other people suppose somebody in the way way back. | 01:14:00 | |
Brinks An arm has an accident. | 01:14:10 | |
And we need to get to. | 01:14:12 | |
Right away. | 01:14:15 | |
Is that because that's going to happen? There's going to be some emergency, some broken ankle, some something that's going to go | 01:14:17 | |
awry and we're going to need to get to them right away? | 01:14:22 | |
And I don't know. I mean great job every. | 01:14:28 | |
Not trying to. | 01:14:32 | |
Get back there and get them out as fast as they could, but on our main trails, I'll get you in a second. Or our main trails, you | 01:15:04 | |
know, they're they're generally going to be wide enough to handle UTV or vehicle. | 01:15:09 | |
Out there. | 01:15:15 | |
Sanctuary. | 01:15:21 | |
Never been there. | 01:15:24 | |
And it's just out of town. The heart agree. Heart agree. Wildlife. | 01:15:25 | |
Yep. | 01:15:30 | |
Thank you for those who couldn't hear former Councilman Matthews. He talked about his visit to the Hard Agree Wildlife Preserve. | 01:15:35 | |
That's actually where we host the Cops and Barbers event, but it's a beautiful, beautiful location. | 01:15:47 | |
And you're right, this is going to be a similar similar to. | 01:16:00 | |
Other. | 01:16:05 | |
Comments. | 01:16:06 | |
Connie. | 01:16:08 | |
Looks like letter I is additional parking. | 01:16:12 | |
And you're going to have to go through the cemetery to get there. That kind of concerns me. | 01:16:17 | |
So we were looking at potentially locating additional parking behind the existing cemetery to both serve cemetery functions as | 01:16:24 | |
well as as parks and having that kind of dual use. | 01:16:29 | |
And frankly, you know, having some more eyes on the cemetery to, from my perspective isn't a bad thing if there's a little bit | 01:17:06 | |
more traffic in and out of there than it sort of prevents bad things from happening, so. | 01:17:11 | |
That was the thought process. We're not envisioning these parking lots to be paved. They would not be lit like a typical parking | 01:17:17 | |
lot. I mean, it's just going to be very similar to Harris Shoals or? | 01:17:22 | |
You know a park like feel. | 01:17:29 | |
Yeah, we we will have to discuss lighting. It may evolve into being lighted. It depends on safety and things like that. But out of | 01:17:32 | |
the gate what we anticipate is. | 01:17:35 | |
Utilizing, you know, they may be gravel in the short term. | 01:17:39 | |
So budgets, budgets, a concern there. Well, I was hoping that at some point in the future that we could possibly donate that | 01:17:43 | |
little bit of spot back there to the cemetery for extra. | 01:17:49 | |
Burial grounds just enough for like maybe 2 rows going across the back. So yeah, I think the deed restriction from the state will | 01:17:55 | |
make that difficult for us to. | 01:17:59 | |
Extract and donate it. Sadly, the cheap money came with some conditions because I had to. We talked about the same idea and had | 01:18:04 | |
actually explored that, but I'm not sure that we're going to be able to do it with. | 01:18:09 | |
With the deed restriction. | 01:18:13 | |
Good questions. | 01:18:18 | |
Any others? | 01:18:21 | |
So the. | 01:18:25 | |
Just checking that. Gee, I know you've you've heard me and my my my thought of the view of the property the gorgeous vistas. So G | 01:18:27 | |
is not going to detract from that the pavilion across the you think it'll be there's no pavilion down there. You're referring down | 01:18:33 | |
to the lake. I'm referring yeah. On the other side of the lake. G that isn't that isn't that isn't that that's a small pavilion | 01:18:40 | |
there. But no we are not envisioning that would detract from the. | 01:18:46 | |
Of course, Secretary, but I just have to put that out there. | 01:18:53 | |
All right. Well, Council, I'd love a motion to adopt the master plan. This doesn't mean that it will never be changed or can't be | 01:18:59 | |
altered. That's obviously. | 01:19:03 | |
Up to all of us, and it'll take years. | 01:19:09 | |
Implement all of this, but it will provide the guidance that our staff and team need to begin. | 01:19:11 | |
Budgeting, prioritizing, and moving forward with this. So I'd love to have a motion. | 01:19:16 | |
I make a motion to adopt this plan. | 01:19:21 | |
We have a second. So all in favor, say aye, thank you all. Plan was adopted. Once again our thanks and congratulations to | 01:19:24 | |
everybody who helped us with this. This is. | 01:19:29 | |
You know, there's a lot of ways that I talk about this, but the one that really resonates with me the most personally is we're | 01:19:35 | |
glad we have it now. We're going to be really glad in five years and our community is going to be incredibly thankful in 50 years | 01:19:41 | |
for this, this asset. It's a it's a difference maker and I think we're leading by example for our region in terms of what we're | 01:19:46 | |
doing to preserve green spaces in Watkinsville and I hope we can do more in the future. | 01:19:52 | |
So thank you all for being a part of that, who who were part of that. With that, we'll move on to public comments. This is the | 01:19:58 | |
part where you can get up and talk about anything you want to. | 01:20:02 | |
So if anybody has anything they want to say. | 01:20:08 | |
Come on up. | 01:20:10 | |
All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to the mayor's report. | 01:20:13 | |
And we'll wrap up the meeting post haste. We will have a short executive session at the end. Just so you all know, big day coming | 01:20:17 | |
up. February 3rd is the grand opening for the new Oconee Library Watkinsville branch at Wire Park. So February 3rd, 10:00 AM, put | 01:20:22 | |
it on your calendar. | 01:20:28 | |
Along with January 24th, get your phone back out and put that on there. So we're excited about having the new library opened up in | 01:20:34 | |
at Wire Park and can't wait for that date. So hope to see you all there. We do have our annual Mayor accounts, Mayor and Council | 01:20:40 | |
retreat that's scheduled for February 5th. | 01:20:45 | |
9:00 AM we estimate we'll finish at 2:30 PM. We may we've been known to finish a little sooner, so we'll see about 9:00 AM to 2:30 | 01:20:52 | |
PM that will be here and it'll also be simultaneously online. | 01:20:58 | |
And available for anybody who can't join us but wants to watch online. | 01:21:04 | |
Downtown Development Authority retreat February 9th. Will that also be? Do we know if that's going to be simulcast or if y'all are | 01:21:10 | |
going off site will not be simulcast? OK, so but there will be adda retreat February 9th, 9:00 to 11:00. | 01:21:16 | |
Has changed 11th 111 to one OK. | 01:21:23 | |
Mark your calendar for that if you're interested in things downtown. | 01:21:28 | |
And then we have a birthday. | 01:21:32 | |
Con. | 01:21:35 | |
Happy birthday in a few days. | 01:21:36 | |
As Dan Matthews would say, another joyous journey around the sun. Is that how it goes down OK? I've seen that on Facebook a few | 01:21:44 | |
times. | 01:21:48 | |
Goes fast, so enjoy your family and friends while you can. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that. | 01:21:52 | |
With that will do council, reports Councilman Garrett Post. | 01:22:00 | |
OK, Councilwoman Massey, Post 2. | 01:22:04 | |
Councilman Thomas is not here. Mayor Pro Tem OK, Councilman Campbell is not here. | 01:22:08 | |
So we are done with the meeting, except for executive session. So I will just stay seated for a second. I'll entertain a motion to | 01:22:16 | |
go into executive session. I make a motion to go into executive session to discuss real estate. Do we have a second? All in favor. | 01:22:21 | |
Say aye and we'll say goodbye to you guys. We'll take a quick break, 2 minutes. Council. We can circle back if anybody needs to | 01:22:27 | |
run. | 01:22:32 | |
See you, man. Take care. | 01:22:42 | |
All right. | 01:23:10 | |
All right. No action coming out of executive session. I'm going to get a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. | 01:23:21 | |
We have a second. All in favor, say aye, meeting. | 01:23:27 |