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All right. Welcome to the May meeting of the Watkinsville City Council. It's great to see so many of you here with us tonight. We 00:00:05
do have a quorum here, and I believe we also have Councilman Thomas from Kuwait. Welcome, Councilman, as always from. 00:00:13
From far, far away, we appreciate you making time to be with us in the middle of the night over there. 00:00:20
Thank you very much. All right. Well, very good. We will begin our meeting as we always do with the pledge and Miss Emily Antoine 00:00:25
is going to lead us in that. 00:00:29
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:00:38
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:00:44
Thank you, Emily, and if you want to step forward to the podium, Mom and dad are welcome. If they want to, we know. 00:00:56
We are excited to have you here. I wanted to recognize Emily at the start of the meeting she recently won. 00:01:06
The DAR essay contest for Oconee County. Is that right or for Yep, a copy of that. There's copies on the table. Every member of 00:01:11
council should have it. The topic was how will the essential actions of a good citizen. 00:01:18
Dependability, service, leadership and patriotism meet the challenges that America faces today. 00:01:26
I was so inspired by this I thought it would be incredibly. 00:01:32
Helpful to have Emily come here tonight. Maybe just share a little bit about what inspired her to write this, because I think this 00:01:39
is so much of the formula for how democracy needs to work both in Washington and in Watkinsville. 00:01:45
Then we will. After that we'll take a quick picture and let you get back to the activities of May summer. 00:02:23
Thank you so much. Yeah. So I was connected through doctor, especially through the scholarship or through this like organization 00:02:29
opportunity, but both of my grandmothers. 00:02:34
We're a part of DAR, so I'm very involved. And then they just really carry that spirit of patriotism and of wanting to be a good 00:02:41
citizen and those values of service and dependability, everything like that. And so I learned a lot through their example growing 00:02:45
up. 00:02:50
But especially as they've gotten older, I took an AP Gov class in high school and I was terrified of my teacher and. 00:02:56
Then throughout the year got to know her so well and she's definitely one of the most influential people over the course of my 00:03:03
high school career. But she thought she taught me so much about. 00:03:08
What it means to be an American and. 00:03:14
American government is built the way it is. And why it's so important to carry those values as a citizen, because America has such 00:03:16
a unique. 00:03:20
Concept of independence and of. 00:03:24
Individ. 00:03:28
Plus community, and I've written pieces about that in the newspaper, which has been a really cool opportunity. 00:03:30
But just really. 00:03:36
Why America is special and why is built the way it is. And so that's definitely something I've learned over the course of high 00:03:38
school through different teachers, through different perspectives that I received. And I'm really grateful for those opportunities 00:03:43
to learn. So thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. Thank you, Emily. 00:03:48
I'm going to read the last paragraph, the last paragraph item we wrote in our essay. Dependability, service, leadership, and 00:03:54
patriotism are the ideals by which modern Americans will defeat this decade's challenges. We have overcome a global pandemic and 00:04:00
political unrest, yet we continue striving to improve our country. From the beginning, it was clear that God had dynamic plans for 00:04:05
America, and we have the chance to continue those plans. 00:04:11
Each American citizen can make a difference through his or her dependability. Service, leadership. 00:04:17
And patriotism to help our country persevere. 00:04:23
So we'll get a picture there in front of the Watkinsville logo and let that, unless you want to stay and see. 00:04:32
All right, Mom and dad you all come up to. Let's get home with Mom and Dad. 00:04:48
He's a good picture and I appreciate you. 00:04:53
The family like here is it's hard for you to it's hard for you to make it it. 00:04:57
Impressive, all those kids. 00:05:00
OK. 00:05:06
31. 00:05:09
Thank you. 00:05:13
All right. We're also recognizing a very special member of our staff tonight, and that is Missus Lee Black. 00:05:34
To This is municipal, we're going to recognize Municipal Court Clerks Week, and Lee is an integral part. 00:05:43
Of almost everything we do here in Watkinsville, I feel like Lee wears multiple hats. But she is our Municipal Court clerk and 00:05:50
Emily would know if she was still here about separation of powers and how important that is. And there's a lot of reasons We have 00:05:57
a Municipal Court in Watkinsville and and Lee is an important part of helping to make sure we follow the appropriate practices and 00:06:03
procedures that come with that. So we have a proclamation for municipal Courts clerk Week. 00:06:09
I will not read the whole thing, but I think it is important to remember that I. 00:06:17
That the the court creates an important public impression for us. They honor a set of rules that are vitally important, that they 00:06:23
are followed, and that we are deeply, deeply thankful for Lee and all of her work and what she does for the city of Watkinsville. 00:06:29
So Lee, you come up, we'll get a picture with you too, with your proclamations. 00:06:34
Thank you. 00:06:52
All right. 00:07:02
A small government, people have to do a lot of things. And Lee is also our finance director and we'll be spending time on the 00:07:19
budget tonight. So if we fail to recognize Lee again, it's not because we aren't deeply appreciative of what you've done on that 00:07:25
as well. So, all right, so this meeting as normal is being broadcast cameras up there, being broadcast simultaneously via Suite 1. 00:07:32
So that's on our website. If any of you want to go back and watch it again after you're here tonight, you can do it. 00:07:38
The agenda and meeting materials are easy to access via that. 00:07:44
Portal. It allows the public to view and listen to the meeting in progress. Along with the items that we're looking at. We have a 00:07:49
little bit more of a liberal public participation policy here tonight. We typically if someone wants to speak on something, we 00:07:54
allow them to speak. We also have public. 00:07:59
Any discussion, and if there's not any, I would entertain a motion to approve those. 00:08:35
I make a motion to approve maybe minutes from April. We have a. 00:08:40
We have a second ANY. 00:08:45
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. 00:08:47
None. Opposed motion carries 5. 00:08:50
On the agenda, we will need to make one adjustment to the agenda. Just one. Is that correct, Sharon? 00:08:52
OK, so on the agenda we will need to remove item 3. 00:08:57
From the consent agenda that'll be tabled until next month. Sorry, Mayor, it's item 10, item 10. I'm sorry, the third item under 00:09:03
consent agenda, item 10. 00:09:07
The agreement with Enviro Spark, we've got a little bit of legal work to do before we can finalize our new electric charging 00:09:11
stations. So Joe is working with the Virus Parks attorneys on that. So if I could get a motion to approve the agenda. 00:09:17
With item 10 tabled until next month, please. 00:09:25
I make a motion to approve the agenda with item number 10 tabled until next month. Do we have a second? 00:09:29
All right. Any discussion? 00:09:36
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. 00:09:38
Motion carries 50. 00:09:41
All right. We'll move on to administration. Again, as I outlined earlier, you know this is if you have something you want to say 00:09:45
then we will, we will take that into consideration, but this is typically a time for reporting. 00:09:51
From staff to council on financial reports and other matters. And so manager Dickerson, I'll let you take it from here. 00:09:57
Thank you, Mayor. 00:10:04
So you should have in your packets the balance sheet, the general fund fund reserve information won't go through all that. It is 00:10:05
obviously very healthy reserve. 00:10:09
Do you want to talk about some of the other, oh, I guess the other point I'll make is revenues. We should be about 83% and we are 00:10:14
83% of revenues. Again, revenues come and go throughout the year at different times, so not really concerned, but we are 00:10:20
essentially right where we need to be. Expenses are at 75%. I do anticipate that there will be some funds coming back into the 00:10:25
general fund at the end of the year. 00:10:31
On that so. 00:10:36
Than good stewards of the money. 00:10:38
Talk a little bit about Spotted One. So this is as you can see we only have a little bit more than 10,000 and actually that money 00:10:41
if the cat if the check has been cash is probably already gone. But so we'll be closing out SPLOST One at the next meeting most 00:10:46
likely. We don't have anything left. That money along with most of the money left in SPLOST 2 was for the construction of sewer 00:10:51
line A. 00:10:56
Some funds are outstanding for some Police Department signs and some a little bit of work still at Hair Shoals. 00:11:02
We. 00:11:08
I did want to point out the mayor had asked about this. How much has already been spent on sewer line a construction. You'll see 00:11:10
we spent almost $850,000. We have the intergovernmental agreement with the county is for 1.6 million. That includes a 15% overage 00:11:16
if it if it goes over. 00:11:22
The budget was originally 1.4, but we built that in. The remaining balance is a little bit more than $760,000. 00:11:29
And I believe that project should be complete. 00:11:39
Next month I've been. I've asked the director, Water resources let me know, but I haven't heard back from them so. 00:11:41
I believe they're working towards that goal. 00:11:47
Splash 3. 00:11:51
This money is has been set aside. This is active. So we are right now we're our average monthly revenues around $82,000. That 00:11:54
covers some public safety vehicles, signage, traffic calming 100,000 that's been set aside for phase one at Harris Shoals Park, 00:12:01
about almost 300,000 for Rocket Field improvements which match a three quarter $1,000,000 private investment in that park. 00:12:08
There are funds for our local maintenance improvement grant for resurfacing projects. We'll talk a little bit about that tonight 00:12:17
as an item 18. 00:12:21
And then some signage we're doing, we're still rolling out signage. We anticipate. We've been rolling out pieces of the signage 00:12:25
since the branding occurred last fall. 00:12:29
Hopefully this week we'll have the industrial park sign and signs up and then. 00:12:34
Before the end of June, I'm hopeful that we'll have all the way findings out signs downtown. 00:12:39
Up as well. 00:12:44
On Splice 3, we this one was existing, so we still get 8.63% on that and you'll see that we've continued to increase over previous 00:12:45
years probably a lot of that's the Costco effect to some extent. 00:12:51
So that's what you're looking. 00:12:59
On American Rescue Plan, we have a little bit more than $780,000 in that budget. Those monies are still yet to be appropriated, 00:13:02
but that is supposed to be used for something transformative for our community. 00:13:08
Any questions about any of the budget reports? 00:13:15
Boss. 00:13:18
The last thing I'll remind you all about is the fiscal year 24 budget process. 00:13:21
We have now completed through the 2nd item under May 17th, the 5:00 PM. We are in the 6:30 meeting which will work what will have 00:13:26
a required public hearing under the. 00:13:30
Public hearings section of this meeting will have our second public hearing on the budget, the recommended budget that's been 00:13:36
published, and our second hearing for the adoption of the 2023 mileage rate this evening. 00:13:40
I believe we're not going to have a work session next week, but we'll we'll certainly publish, you know if if we do, we'll cancel 00:13:46
it and there'll be notice go out about it. 00:13:50
OK. 00:13:55
On economic development reports. 00:14:00
Business licenses, we had 11. These should be coming to close. We've had 11 come in. 00:14:02
Those were due March 15th. We're working with several of them finishing up their fire inspection reports, but that seems to be 00:14:07
moving forward fairly well. 00:14:12
And then on the excise tax side, we have alcohol excise tax. April is not completely shown in there because we sometimes we don't 00:14:16
get them on time, but we're averaging around 2500 a month now and then a hotel motel, this includes the luxury inn and all of our 00:14:22
short term vacation rentals. And of course you'll see we've just started collecting that officially started getting that in in 00:14:27
November. 00:14:32
Of last year. 00:14:38
On the permit side, we had 12 permits for 12 projects, although five of those are in the Trove subdivision, residential 00:14:41
subdivision. You'll see those up there. 00:14:45
And then just some basic, you know, gas lines. 00:14:51
Presidential ports, that kind of stuff that we normally see. 00:14:54
Oh, and then the big build up, the restaurant interior completion there at Wire Park is the last item on there. So and then we're 00:14:57
using the valuation formula sharing that's approved as part of the code correctly. 00:15:03
Yep. 00:15:10
Any. 00:15:12
I'm going to pass it on. 00:15:18
Councilman. 00:15:20
All right. So two weeks ago we had our DA planning retreat. Members of the community we're here as long as well as the DVA board, 00:15:24
members of staff, the mayor and. 00:15:31
We had overwhelming data collection from the community input, way more than is typical. 00:15:39
For a community to the point that they actually had us close up the surveys after only two days because we had such huge input 00:15:46
from our community. So we have some strategic goals that we are still finalizing. 00:15:54
And. 00:16:02
So we are applying to be part of the Georgia Main Street program. Kate Patterson, our DVA Director is finishing that up. Also 00:16:04
working on becoming a getting a rural designation, which it's it's a little competitive if we are able to get that there. There's 00:16:11
some grant opportunities that come with that. 00:16:19
Also with Creative Placemaking, we had received a grant from a workshop that we went to and Thomasville back in February, and we 00:16:27
have a committee that's meeting planning a community event. We do have the date. 00:16:36
Finalized, even though we have other things that are in the work, so it's going to be the Saturday before the fall festival. 00:16:46
Most likely at Rocket Field there will be a community art component to it. It should be free to the community. 00:16:54
And so we're really excited. We again have a great group of citizens who are putting their time, effort and energy into this. 00:17:02
If you don't already, please follow. If you are on social media, follow the Dva on Instagram and Facebook. 00:17:10
Yeah. That's it. Thank. 00:17:18
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and then I'd like to welcome Interim Chief Tedderton to the podium for the Police Department report. And 00:17:22
while he comes up, I do want to note. 00:17:27
We. 00:17:34
Miss Chief Brock as he is on leave working to address some serious health issues. And Chief, if you're watching, just know how 00:17:36
much we miss you and and hope you hope. 00:17:42
Feeling better as you as you battle those issues, but in the meantime, Interim Chief Tedderton is doing a great job of taking care 00:17:48
of Watkinsville and we look forward to your update Sir. 00:17:52
Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm honored to be before you tonight. You should have a packet that I forwarded 00:17:57
out. It will be a little bit different than the ones you previously received. 00:18:02
I did a little two page WPD at a glance. I'd like to just touch on for a moment on page one of that. 00:18:08
There is a pie chart that shows what our guys were doing over the month of May. 00:18:15
During that month we had 15175 calls for service. Please keep in mind that number includes self generated activity as well as 00:18:19
things my officers are dispatched to. 00:18:24
During that same time, the officers conducted 991 security checks. Security checks are where we go to homes or businesses, 00:18:30
generally in the after hours and make sure that they are. 00:18:35
Intact and not being broken into. And then we issued 149 citations. Now this does not include written warnings. These are actual 00:18:41
hard copy citations on that same one. Talking about citations, it shows you a little bar graph of traffic activity. 00:18:48
And it will show you that majority of those are actually being. 00:18:57
For speeding. 00:19:01
So the blue lines are. 00:19:03
Of citations issued and. 00:19:06
Orange lines are warnings, written warnings. So we're running around 50 to 55% warnings. Our goal is not to punish people, but to 00:19:09
gain compliance with our laws. 00:19:14
Then to the right of that, it talks about our fixed LPR camera activity for the month. These are issued citations. The ones in 00:19:20
blue are actually open and have been sent out. 00:19:25
The ones in orange are ones that miss Lauren is processing. 00:19:30
You guys have any questions on that by chance? 00:19:35
The next page tells a little bit about what we've been up to. 00:19:38
So, as you guys are probably aware of, we held our third annual Cops and Bobbers on May 6th. This is an event that Chief Brock 00:19:41
brought with him. 00:19:45
Saint Mary's Police Department, we did it at heart, Agree Wildlife Sanctuary. The mayor stopped by and said hello with us. 00:19:49
We had 91 children and their parents. We had a great morning of fishing for ages 5 and up. We fed two children snacks and a light 00:19:54
lunch and then we gave out some awards for the first fish, which was caught literally seconds after we blew the whistle. Smallest 00:20:00
fish, biggest fish and most fish. We had a young lady that. 00:20:06
14 fish during this short time. Then we fed them all of our leftover foods and snacks we donated to ESP. 00:20:12
We'd like to thank all of our sponsors as well as the Badge Benevolence Foundation who handled this event. 00:20:21
The next little line item is officer training. We are very involved in getting from our officers up to speed, which keeps us out 00:20:27
of trouble and keeps the city well protected and well served. So this is a list of training that our officers attended during that 00:20:31
month. 00:20:35
DUI training for Officer Stearns Crisis Intervention Techniques, which brings us to 100% on that training for Officer Goodson. 00:20:41
Sergeant Wade went to Georgia first Responder. As you guys know, we have an all Volunteer Fire Department and ambulance service. 00:20:47
They do a great job, but my guys usually beat them to the calls so it's important they know how to do basic first aid. 00:20:54
And then Officer Anglin went to family violence investigation training. 00:21:01
Another event we did along with training is we held Narcan class. Narcan is a nasal spray that our officers carry to give someone 00:21:06
that's experienced an opioid overdose and hopefully save their life. 00:21:11
Recently one of our officers had to get Narcan and we hosted that here in the. 00:21:17
And we had 41 officers, firefighters and paramedics from surrounding agencies. 00:21:22
That came and took part in that. 00:21:26
There's an interesting case of the month. I won't go into a lot of details on that. It surrounded a traffic arrest. 00:21:30
Involving a BOLO vehicle, Officer Stearns and myself responded to it. Officer Stearns stopped a single occupant minivan with a 51 00:21:36
year old female about 2:30 in the afternoon and at the conclusion of the investigation. 00:21:42
She gave us a breast sample of .327 at 2:30 in the afternoon. 00:21:50
She was actually in the process of drinking while she was driving to go get her children. 00:21:54
She's staying in jail that night and rules released on bond the next day, and she's going to appear in court at some point. 00:21:59
Talking about traffic. 00:22:07
We received a traffic complaint on Harden Hill. 00:22:10
And this came from a property owner over there. 00:22:14
So we take all of our complaints. 00:22:17
Or inquiries very seriously so we can develop the plan of action. We put one of our programmable message boards over there. Then 00:22:21
we started doing extra patrols. 00:22:25
So we've issued. Since that complaint came in about a week ago, we've issued 11 warnings and two citations. 00:22:30
I wrote one of the warnings myself today. 00:22:36
What is interesting is if we pull the data from the speed sign, that's over there. 00:22:39
It shows an 85th percent. 00:22:45
Of 32 mph in a 25 zone. That is an offense that my officers can't even take action for. Only the Georgia State Patrol can stop 00:22:47
someone for less than 10 mph over the posted speed limit. 00:22:53
The average. 00:22:59
For the month of May to date is only 25. 00:23:01
So. 00:23:06
We're checking it, but the stats doesn't show. 00:23:08
Growth speeding on that. 00:23:12
I was there today for one hour and I only observed 3 vehicles that I could physically stop and as soon as they saw me and they saw 00:23:16
our message board, they slammed on the brakes and those three vehicles was doing approximately 10 mph over. 00:23:23
Then we did 12 arrests. And I'm not going to go through all these other pages, you guys have them, but I will take questions if 00:23:32
you have any. 00:23:36
All right, the last thing I want to tell you about is along with special events. 00:23:41
Umm. 00:23:47
As you guys know. 00:23:48
Twice a year, my officers, in conjunction with the local chapter, the American Daughters of the American Revolution, place flags 00:23:49
on the graves of our veterans in the cemetery. We have 103. 00:23:55
Fallen heroes? 00:24:02
And in the past we've taken these wooden flags and tried to stick them in the ground and we end up breaking a lot of them. Or when 00:24:04
it rains, they fall over or the wind blows. 00:24:08
I reached out to Arlington National Cemetery and they told me about these, so I'm going to pass a couple of these out. 00:24:12
So. 00:24:21
Bad audio. 00:24:22
Badger Benevolence bought, which is our not-for-profit Foundation bought 110 of those. 00:24:27
Councilman Garrett sits on that board with us, and he gave us. 00:24:34
So we will install these Wednesday or tomorrow at 10:00. 00:24:40
And these will be permanently installed in the. 00:24:45
Near the front of the headstone, and then the volunteers on the 25th will just come by and stick the flag in it. Very simple. No 00:24:47
more drilling holes in the ground or poking them with a Phillips screwdriver. 00:24:53
And no more broken flags and it will pick them up and then in November we'll go. 00:24:59
And we'll use them again. They'll still be there. We'll go back and stick the flags. 00:25:04
For veterans. 00:25:08
So that's kind of an overview of what we've been up to. 00:25:11
We are currently fully staffed with the exception of a couple vacancies in part time, and the guys are excited to be here and work 00:25:13
for the City of Watkinsville. 00:25:17
Questions. Questions. Anyone? 00:25:22
Didn't want to do that. 00:25:25
All right, Chief. Brock misses you guys. 00:25:34
We miss him. We miss him. 00:25:38
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. 00:25:41
You know, really grateful that we have have someone who can just step in and keep things running that way. And that's a testimony 00:25:44
to Chief Brock and his thoughtfulness about how he rebuilt the department. So thank you, Major, for stepping in. 00:25:49
OK. We will move on to the consent agenda. 00:25:57
I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda, please. 00:26:00
I make a motion to adopt 8:00 and 9:00 on the consent agenda. 00:26:10
All right, items 8:00 and 9:00, motion to approve. As we discussed earlier, item 10 has been tabled. 00:26:17
Do we have? 00:26:22
All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Any comment, all in favor, any opposed? 00:26:25
We'll note that we've lost Councilman Thomas. We hope that we'll get him back at some point. 00:26:32
All right, we will move on to our public hearings. Joe, do you want to address procedures for public hearing, Sir? 00:26:39
Glad to do so. I'll reference City Code Section 2-260. Comment procedures for public comments shall be only directly related to 00:26:45
agenda items. Speak only from the podium for men's per person, refrain from debate, argument, personal tax or irrelevant 00:26:52
discussion. Address only the Mayor's. The pending matter address remarks directly to council. Council cannot speak to potential 00:26:59
litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. 00:27:07
Public input will be allowed after council receives any reports that staff and or applicant may proffer. Thank you. 00:27:14
So the proposed 2023 property tax mileage rate is an increase of point .84. Mills will bring up the city mileage from 2.081 to 00:27:56
2.922. That mileage rate is specifically to help cover potential service of debt on the property purchased at on Thompson Bridge 00:28:03
Rd. 00:28:09
Worthwhile to point out if you sort of did a couple of modeling for the public. This information is online as well. If your home 00:28:16
will, your home is worth $500,000. At the 2.081 mileage rate, you would be paying $412.04. 00:28:25
For that at the 2.92 you would be paying $578.36 the difference I need to point out the difference is the amount between what the 00:28:35
rollback would be if we took the rollback and the rollback. 00:28:40
Would. 00:28:47
The mileage rollback, Sorry. The mileage rollback would be 3.636, which I think drops it. 00:28:50
That's not right. Hang on a second, it's off the main one anyway. Drops at the 1.75 because you have to take that off the gross 00:28:58
mileage anyway. It would have come down to like 1.75 if the council took the rollback. So the recommendation is to is to increase 00:29:04
the mileage from 2.081 to 2.92. And for those who don't understand how the mileage is calculated on your home, if you have a 00:29:10
$300,000 home. 00:29:16
And you have a $5000, sorry, $300,000 home and you have a $5000 homestead. You decrease that by 5000. So then you have a $295,000 00:29:22
home and you multiply that by 40%, which is the assessed value That gives you 182,000. This information is in the packet online if 00:29:29
you want it, and then you multiply that 182 times the mileage. 00:29:37
Which is who? 00:29:44
002921 which would make it $531. I think I did my math right anyway. Umm, so it's it's an assessed value, not the actual market 00:29:47
value of your property that your mileage rate is applied to. But that 292, that $2.92 is for every $1000 worth of assessed value. 00:29:57
100,000 if you had $100,000 assessment. 00:30:08
For you'd have a hundred of those that are right, 100 of those at the two, so it would be 100 * 2.92. So I think I did that right. 00:30:12
Point O292, sorry. Yeah. Anyway, it's explained in the packet and there's information on if anybody wants, there are some packets 00:30:19
over there on the table for people to have. 00:30:26
All. 00:30:34
So that is our overview of the mileage rate. At this point, I'll entertain public comments on the mileage rate. Those comments 00:30:35
would be limited to 4 minutes apiece, correct, Joe? 00:30:42
All right. 00:30:49
Anyone want to speak on the mileage right? 00:30:51
Thank you Mayor and. 00:30:58
Mr. Smith, if you could just state your name and address. We require everyone to do that, please. I've come before you to discuss 00:31:02
the mileage rate increase. 00:31:05
I didn't hear what she said. I think she said .84 mil increase due and this is partly due to the purchase of a $4,500,000 park 00:31:09
project. 00:31:15
And. 00:31:23
I'm just trying to figure out as I mentioned earlier in your work session. 00:31:25
How this town of 2900 people can. 00:31:30
Acquire $4.5 million park land without consent of the taxpayers. 00:31:34
I'm sure you'll have an answer. 00:31:40
I went before you earlier to talk about what the private sector does when they look at the property. 00:31:49
They look at the property highest and best use. How many lots can I get on it? The highest and best use would probably be 00:31:56
residential, but do you have enough sewer capacity to handle this hundred acre truck? And can you get from one side of the 00:32:01
property to the other without the water restrictions out of there as shown on? 00:32:07
Topography maps. 00:32:13
How many lots can you get? 00:32:15
The profit sector says. 00:32:17
That I need to see how many lots I can get and how much I can get for these. 00:32:19
And then look at the absorption. 00:32:24
And the absorption rate maybe two years, three years, four years, whatever it may be got to decide cost benefit. 00:32:27
Did this town do this? Has this town had an? 00:32:35
One or two appraisal for this significant amount of. 00:32:39
And as as I was reviewing the contract. 00:32:43
I'm a little confused on the the 75 days on page two section 6 about 75 days, but I'm a little real confused about. 00:32:47
What was online now, I don't know if you've corrected or not, but this is what was online about this that so under our hands and 00:33:01
seal this April blank 202 three, there's a there's no date there. So when does the due diligence begin and end? Has the due 00:33:08
diligence begin now or does it begin at some certain date in April. So those are concerns from a private taxpayer that have done 00:33:16
several of these developments in the past 40 something years. 00:33:24
And I think the taxpayers should should know. 00:33:32
Before you move on to this particular. 00:33:36
Answer these questions. Did you get an appraisal or multiple appraisals? 00:33:40
How did you arrive at this value and how did this decision? How is this decision made without the consent? 00:33:45
But the taxpayers are walking still. Georgia, thank you. 00:33:53
Thank you. Mr. Smith, any further comments on the? 00:33:57
I will just slightly touch on Mr. Smith's points. 00:34:03
There was an appraisal conducted. You'll receive that in due time in alignment with the open records request that you filed. 00:34:07
And. 00:34:15
These this body was elected by the citizens of Watkinsville and we've outlined our priorities previously and talked about the 00:34:16
importance of parks and green space openly in public meetings and planning sessions. So we buy all legal rights are certainly able 00:34:22
to make those sort of decisions and it's a so with that. 00:34:28
I will close the public hearing on the mileage rate and we will move into the public hearing on. 00:34:35
The fiscal year, budget, general fund capital and operating budget manager Dickerson, Is there anything you want to share on this? 00:34:42
Yeah, I'll briefly go over that. Thank you, Mayor. 00:34:48
So this is the budget we're looking at, a $2.85 million budget. It is balanced with the mileage rate increase. 00:34:51
The. 00:34:58
So let me just talk about a few of these. There is an increase of about 6.9% I believe overall 180, eighty $4000 in the budget 00:35:01
increase. 00:35:06
But those are the three largest we get. We do have a variety of income sources, I think, the mayor pointed out during our earlier 00:35:40
meeting. That's really important for a community our size not to have reliance upon anyone in particular, and most communities 00:35:44
have. 00:35:49
You know, have similar percentages in their budget. I think Clark County, I think their property taxes outweigh their local option 00:35:54
sales tax by quite a bit. 00:35:57
On the expense side, again 2.8 million, we're balanced. We are we have 19 full-time equivalent employees right now. We are 00:36:03
recommending moving a part time person to a full time position that is our judicial assistant. 00:36:09
List of all the services, the one missing his library, but we have alcohol, business permits and licensing, building permits and 00:36:17
inspections. 00:36:20
Code compliance, Garbage leaf and limb, which we contract with the service provider for our legal services and our professional 00:36:24
engineering services we contract for, which is a very prudent way to handle things that we don't end up having to have someone on 00:36:28
staff. 00:36:33
Full. 00:36:38
And and pay their benefits. We also obviously provide Municipal Court services, police services, our parks, operations and 00:36:40
maintenance plans, review and zoning and our public works. And you'll see that the three largest ones are police and public works 00:36:45
is up there because the garbage is such a big piece. In fact, I don't have this, but in our packet you'll see garbage and police 00:36:50
make up 47% of our budget. 00:36:56
This is a capital and operating budget. So this is our capital. We are not asking for anyone time, capital expenses like to 00:37:02
replace some specific thing that we might only replace every 20 or 30 years. These are projects such as vehicles or other 00:37:07
equipment. 00:37:11
We have up for replacement on the schedule to to police vehicles. We have a 2009, 2011 Crown Victoria that we hope to surplus and 00:37:16
help offset the cost of new ones. We also asking to change out F-150 truck in public works to give us a little bit more 00:37:23
flexibility and adding a Gator again the parks with adding all the parks we need access to be able to get in and around the parks 00:37:30
for that point out that we do have a capital. 00:37:37
Improvement fund that has $318,000 and some change in it. We are going to be pulling some money out of SPLOST 3 that has already 00:37:44
been designated for police or public works for these for this equipment, which will reduce our need to pull out of that fund. 00:37:51
And that money does have to be spent. That was a referendum that citizens had. So that money does have to be spent. We can't keep 00:37:58
it in there. So we'll use that money first, which means we'll only need about 60,000 out of the fund, which leaves us a little bit 00:38:03
more than 258,000 in our capital fund. 00:38:07
Thank you, Manager Dickerson. This point we will with the same rules and approach before we'll entertain public comment on the 00:38:17
fiscal year. 00:38:21
24 budget. 00:38:26
If anyone has a comment on the budget, please come forward. State your name and address. 00:38:30
All right. Hearing none. I'll close the hearing. 00:38:39
Our third public hearing is related to a variance at 26 School St. I think Mr. Campbell will be our presenter on that and then 00:38:42
we'll ask the applicants to come forward. 00:38:47
Thank you, Mayor. So this agenda item is for a variance request at 26 school St. The size of that property is approximately. 00:38:54
3/10 of an acre. It might be slightly smaller than that based on the the survey. If you recall, this is an area where it's on the 00:39:04
opposite side of Rocket Field. 00:39:09
And. 00:39:16
At one point in time. 00:39:17
Served as a preschool formerly. So part of this request is I think is moving back to the detached residential use that it was 00:39:19
previously. Specifically, the request is in relation to the rear set back for the zoning requirements. There's an existing 00:39:27
structure there that is within the code requirement for a rear set back. The applicant has not requested to increase the size of 00:39:35
that structure or to encroach in any further distance on that structure, but to do work within that structure to. 00:39:43
Renovate it and to add additional facilities within the structure there and as a result they are required to come forward for this 00:39:52
variance. 00:39:56
Which had to take place some time ago to be able to be on tonight's agenda. So there if you see the map and where 26 School St. is 00:40:00
in relation to some of the other school buildings and of course Rocket Field, there the the following slide you can see. 00:40:07
From school St. looking back into the property. 00:40:49
The primary structure and then in the back would be the subject of this variance request from the rear. 00:40:52
So again this is this is a variance the applicant has to articulate within their application, which you should have as part of 00:40:59
your packet and then I'm sure maybe here tonight can go further to the details of what they're requesting. But specifically you 00:41:05
see the code section there the rear yard minimum set back is 15 feet. The existing structure is non conforming and does not meet 00:41:11
that requirement the applicant has requested. 00:41:17
The reduction of the set back to five feet because it's currently less than 10 feet, but the applicant has also indicated no 00:41:24
extensions to the existing structure are proposed. 00:41:29
Following slide you should see the. Those are the criteria for every variance. As I'm sure the attorney will let you know, every 00:41:35
variance is heard on a case by case basis, but those are the requirements within chapter 14 of the city code. I will be happy to 00:41:40
answer any questions you might have. 00:41:46
Thank you, Mr. Campbell, for that great explanation. 00:41:52
Mr. Mrs. Lancaster, do y'all want to be able to add anything? I will note for Council that will have a hearing on this variance, 00:41:57
then we will close that hearing and then we will move immediately into. That'll be our first item under appearance where we will. 00:42:03
We will then take any further, hear anything further as necessary and then vote on that variance so. 00:42:10
Paul and do y'all have anything that you want to add? 00:42:17
Yep, just come on up and state your address, name and maybe just give us an overview of what you, what you have planned and 00:42:21
anything you want to add. 00:42:26
Watkinsville, GA 306 Seven. 00:42:31
I appreciate your time, Mayor and Council. Mr. Campbell did an excellent job explaining our request. This is the house my son 00:42:34
lives at. Our son lives at, and he's an adult child, but he's still a child. 00:42:40
So he's living there. It's a two-bedroom house on the front as you said has been converted, Not converted, but just used now as a 00:42:47
residence and. 00:42:52
Our request just simply is to use the structure in the back that is there that the preschool have used previously. 00:42:59
We wanted to add a bathroom and. 00:43:05
Gets us to the request for the variance to get inside that to where it's now five feet reduced to that and. 00:43:07
Help bring the value of that property back up consistent with all the neighbors properties with residential uses there. Rocket 00:43:14
Field is coming along wonderfully. We approve and appreciate that and and everything else that's going on with the city. So we 00:43:19
appreciate your time. Thanks. 00:43:24
At this point, if anyone has comments or questions that they want to make, we're in a public hearing. 00:43:31
And that hearing is open for comments at the podium. 00:43:37
All right, I don't see any. I see neighbors, but I don't see comments, so. 00:43:44
That's OK. So no comments. Correct. OK. All right. Then I'm going to close the hearing and we will move into appearances. Joe, my 00:43:49
following procedure correctly here. All right. We'll move into appearances. And our first appearance is 26 School St. Is there 00:43:54
anything additional you need to add for the benefit of council, Mr. Campbell? 00:44:00
Anything that you guys want to add as the applicants? OK council, do you have any questions for the applicants or for the 00:44:07
engineer? 00:44:10
So essentially that because everything's happening inside, it's not going to affect like the the neighbor on the backside that. 00:44:13
Be closer to their property line. They won't affect them practically at all for them to add a bathroom, correct? I can't say 00:44:22
there's no impact because they're they're looking to rehabilitate that. But the applicants indicated they're not expanding the 00:44:27
structure any further or any closer to that property line than what already exists. But what already exists is an existing non 00:44:32
conforming condition. 00:44:37
Any other questions? 00:44:46
All right, Council, I'll entertain a motion. 00:44:50
I make a motion to approve the. 00:44:53
With Motion to Approve, Do We Have? 00:44:55
2nd. 00:44:57
Any discussion? 00:44:58
All right, All in favor. Say aye. 00:45:01
All right. Any opposed? 00:45:05
All right. I think we have Councilman Thomas back with us, and I think that's a father. Is that correct, Julie? OK. All right. 00:45:07
Great. Thank you. 00:45:10
All right, we'll move on to item 15. This is Big Springs Properties. They have a site development plan and wastewater capacity 00:45:14
allocation request. Welcome back this for those of you who don't remember weren't aware this is the structure that burned last 00:45:21
fall and I remember tonight and to the applicants credit they've had that they got their demolition permit approved. 00:45:28
We certainly have a lot more detail as far as what would be next or what is proposed to be next after that. So we can kind of step 00:46:06
through these these slides here again this property as an address. I think at one point it was 1210, now it's 1240 Greensboro 00:46:13
Highway which is there at the the corner of Morrison St. and State Route 15. There is the updated picture since last month's 00:46:20
council meeting where there once was a building and there is now a slab and the. 00:46:27
Engineer has submitted plans on this based on an updated survey. They did not have that I believe at the time of last month's 00:46:34
meeting either. I think the green and this image is certainly helpful to to provide some graphic of where green areas would be 00:46:40
within the proposed site plan. I will say that the proposed site plan is not exactly for what is there, but the engineer within 00:46:46
their plans have articulated the things that will change. I'll just take a quick moment to kind of mention those things and 00:46:52
sometimes things that we require. 00:46:58
If you have more than one acre of disturbance, you have to go and get approval from the state. Even though Watkins was a local 00:47:04
issuing authority, that approval has to come through the state. This property does not propose to disturb. It's even it's probably 00:47:10
less than 1/4 of an acre. The the disturbance based on the existing lab that's already there and some of the improvements is is 00:47:16
relatively small. Additionally, if a project increases the impervious coverage by more than 5000 square feet, then you have to do 00:47:22
storm water management plans. 00:47:28
This project does not do that either, and the engineer has provided sign and seal plans that indicate that. 00:47:35
That existing structure that was demolished based on the fire damage to it was on a septic system. 00:48:13
So approval of any water and sewer connection, sanitary sewer connection to the new proposed building which would no longer be on 00:48:19
the septic system is required by the Oconee County water resources. So that would be a conditional of approval. We can't approve 00:48:25
on their behalf. Likewise, any encroachment to or work within the Georgia Department of Transportation right of way, which is 00:48:31
State Route 16 is a state route or state Route 15 I should say for Greensboro Highway that also requires that approval. So I would 00:48:37
certainly recommend. 00:48:43
There be conditions of those two items that are placed there you can see on the bottom of the screen. 00:48:49
And I'm happy to answer any other questions. 00:48:54
Thank you, Mr. Campbell. 00:48:58
Would someone I don't know who wants to present on behalf of the applicant if you want to come forward and give us any additional 00:49:02
information, we need to know. 00:49:05
Perhaps a light overview. Welcome back, Abe. It's been a while, but we're glad to have you back at City Hall. Thank you very much, 00:49:09
Mr. Mayor. Good to see you all members of the council. We appreciate everything you do for the community. Everything is bursting 00:49:16
up, looking great. Signage, landscaping, you name it. We love it. So keep doing what you're doing. Congrats to you. I'm here. My 00:49:23
name is Ava Burundan. Abe is fine. That last name is a long one, so I'm here on behalf of the owners. 00:49:31
Mr. Actors here, Mr. Leaf, and you've met him. 00:49:39
Last meeting, so if he could put back Mr. Kimberly site plan so and I can point to it. So the main reason for us to be here today 00:49:41
is because the building was demolished. We we assessed it from a structural point when it was you know after the fire and it just 00:49:49
it was not doable to be refurbished or renovated. So that that's why they came forward for the demo. 00:49:57
So at this stage, you know they wanted to put a building back in that location and literally. 00:50:06
We're talking about. 00:50:12
It won't show on that screen for some reason. Cheryl. Cheryl circle with her cursor maybe so we can. Do you mean the new building 00:50:14
then? So that's the existing building that that burnt down, if you notice. 00:50:20
The front. 00:50:27
Pocket right there on the lower part of it in the upper. So those are pockets that were in the existing or previous building. So 00:50:28
when you start looking at buildings, today's market, the steel buildings or whatnot, they have to look at the rectangular, not a 00:50:36
regular shape. So part of that additional 28129 hundred square feet really relates to filling up those pockets of the building and 00:50:43
squaring up the building, OK. So when we did that, it really took part of the septic system. 00:50:51
That's in the front at the front left corner of that existing building. So and also they'll need more capacity. This there was an 00:50:59
old system based on one Office 1 stall what not so needed to be really served with a proper wastewater service. So part of that is 00:51:07
really squaring off that existing pad and we're not taking the pad up. 00:51:15
We really just cutting out what we need for the footers for the new building to be put in there. But part of the the code now we 00:51:24
have to be at the build line to build 2 lines excuse me. So that really added a soffit or an entry a covered entry grounded, which 00:51:32
we welcome because any building that you're going to put nice building you want a nice entry you want it. 00:51:39
Way to get into into the building and of course on the Northside of it we have a little bit of area there that's grass. Now we're 00:51:48
going to have to have some doorways, some access. 00:51:53
Through the new building if you could, Mr. Campbell, flip to the proposed site plan. 00:52:00
You have it back and I have it here so. 00:52:07
So if you Click to the proposed, I'll just do that public. 00:52:11
You will see this time. 00:52:16
That it shows the proposed building. 00:52:20
And I have here. 00:52:23
Why don't you just hand it over here when you're done and council can pass it down? I know some of them have it digitally. 00:52:26
Yep. 00:52:32
Multiple you know user standards what not we're very excited to have that kind of facility because what is going to do is allow 00:52:36
for more than one tenant to be in that place to offer different services, different amenities, different retail possibly you know 00:52:44
office warehouse. So all those that are within the zoning classification, it allows the particular owner to go forward and spruce 00:52:52
that that building from what used to be. 00:53:00
And have that corner well well designed while. 00:53:08
We've laid out all the proper parking. We made sure we have proper number of handicapped spaces. 00:53:12
Crosswalk to the front of the building. 00:53:20
So we're not adding any parking. 00:53:23
Yeah, everything is existing on existing pavement, pavement or pave services. So other than that really made sure that everything 00:53:26
is in order in terms. 00:53:31
Stormwater management in. 00:53:37
BMP's what we call best management practices. Fence, grassing, some hay bales to make sure we have more than one Ave. not the 00:53:40
barricades. Not to allow any silt movement during that construction. But this is relatively straightforward. 00:53:48
Work on our project. Basically we're trying to put another building right there and address the parking issues. With that. The 00:53:56
sewer request is necessary. As you may see, we don't have space to be able to expand existing septic system. 00:54:04
Beyond where it is. 00:54:12
But I'll be glad to answer any questions, Mr. Mayor. 00:54:15
Ladies. 00:54:19
Council. 00:54:21
Is the fence going down? 00:54:24
Is the fence going down? It was it would be going down to a point where. 00:54:27
There's a tenant in the back. 00:54:33
In that back building. 00:54:35
The back. 00:54:36
So there is a fence that encloses that that building there, but the fence along the road, Morrison, that's that's going away. Yes, 00:54:37
ma'am. You cannot have that. We got to see the building. We need visibility, yeah. 00:54:43
Few questions. 00:54:52
We just have to make sure we have salt plants. 00:55:23
Will have protection, you know tree protection fence, we love that tree. That's we almost want to come ask for a variance just to 00:55:25
keep it building where it was, but just not to be at the build to line so can protect that tree further. But our plan is to make 00:55:31
sure that is very well protected. Just make sure your construction team is as passionate as y'all are about that because it can 00:55:37
get lost with subcontractors and others. You're looking at the owners if they're going to make sure that tree is well taken care 00:55:43
of, yes, they love it. 00:55:49
What about? I know we'll see those plans at a later date, but what about the facade and the appearance? 00:55:56
Faces Hwy. 15 and Morrison St. What are y'all? What are y'all thinking? So you know, we are still at the early stages with that 00:56:01
and if you saw that building in different sections, we're trying to look at kind of Town Center or similar. 00:56:08
Way so you can have your own identity. 00:56:16
As you wish, if you wish to call it that. As you go down the building, you have different looks different, so it seems like it's 00:56:19
your own space. Your own. 00:56:23
Place for different. 00:56:29
As. 00:56:32
You know, 15 hour 15 S we'll have a parapet. 00:56:34
We. 00:56:39
Pretty, you know, pretty very special architectural. 00:56:40
Touch ups on there that Will. 00:56:44
Sust. 00:56:46
And nice at the same time. 00:56:48
We'll have quite a bit of glass. We like light. We want a natural light. 00:56:50
Probably looking at 18 to 20 foot EVE. 00:56:55
So on the front along 15 will have a parapet. 00:56:59
That because we want to address that a little bit. 00:57:03
On the other side, you're looking probably about 20 foot eaves in with each segment being treated architecturally. So it has its 00:57:07
own identity so that. 00:57:12
Our plan and we're excited about it. 00:57:17
It will be a great addition to that area. 00:57:20
For for the. 00:57:24
We expect quite a bit of evolution in that area over the next. 00:57:26
Next few years and we're excited about you guys set in a really positive tone over there. You're sitting next to the Bishop 00:57:29
family. They've invested a lot over there through the years. So, so anyway we're. 00:57:34
You know, excited to see that area continue to evolve and improve. I consider it the incubator of Watkins. Well, there's so many 00:57:39
great businesses that have gotten their start in that area and moved on to other things and it's just that whole quarter is really 00:57:44
important to the city. So appreciate Y'all making this investment. 00:57:49
Any other questions from council? 00:57:54
The only thing I will add as well, we can request sewer capacity. You know we do not grant sewer. So you be be sure you do your 00:57:58
homework with the county and everything you need to do and that that's in good order before you make final decisions about septic 00:58:03
and all that stuff. Is that accurate, Sharon? That's correct. And I I didn't talk about because I figured you might do the site 00:58:08
plan, vote on the site plan 1st and then vote on the wastewater. I can go ahead and talk about wastewater if you'd like. Yeah, go 00:58:12
ahead, talk about. 00:58:17
Wastewater do the site plan without. So this is just an excerpt because you guys have seen these spreadsheets tracking all this 00:58:22
stuff. 00:58:26
But basically they're asking for, and we have confirmed with Oconee County Water Resources that it needs 780 gallons per day. That 00:58:31
is to service not just this building but the other two buildings that are on site. 00:58:36
You have right now with that total you would have 98. 00:58:41
Appropriated 90, a little bit more than 90,800 gallons out of the 100,000 that was granted through our intergovernmental 00:58:46
agreement. We're sorry, the amendment of the agreement with the county, leaving you a little bit more than 9000 gallons of 00:58:53
wastewater until we get the next bump of 100,000 which will come when the wastewater treatment facility is expanded. 00:59:00
Probably sometime next year should be finished. 00:59:08
Not anything really to note. I mean they've, you know, they've met all the requirements and you've got, you've got the wastewater 00:59:11
capacity. I do as the mayor said, it is important to note the city does not charge for our capacity. The county does. 00:59:18
And so we've certainly counseled Miss Sullivan and Mr. Hamster about that process. So I think they've done their research and 00:59:27
understand what they're in for, what they have to do, all the connection fees, all that the city simply grants the capacity under 00:59:32
our agreement and then the count then you have to deal with the county on everything else. 00:59:38
So. 00:59:44
We just know this is the first step before we get there. I just want to be sure. A lot of times people circle back to us and think 00:59:45
we have more capability there than we do so. 00:59:49
OK, good Christine. All right. I have a question for Sharon on this. So with the total used, I'm noticing for the the four above 00:59:54
this request that it says Oconee County Water Resources stated this connection is not available. Are we still counting those 01:00:01
numbers because we had granted so. So we give them six months the the policy says they have six months to to get it or or not. If 01:00:07
they don't get it within six months then they lose it and we just expires and I'll keep note of that. I've got a note on my 01:00:13
calendar. 01:00:19
My understanding is is that connection could be made. 01:00:26
OK, I will need 2 motions as a part of this. I'll need a first one that would be to approve. 01:01:06
The site plan. 01:01:13
And that would be. 01:01:16
Joe, can I do one motion on this? It looks like it's 21 item on item 15. 01:01:19
OK. So we'll consolidate that, but I do need to note that on the site development plan, we do need to condition it upon state and 01:01:24
county approval for any road encroachment or. 01:01:29
Sewer capacity, so I'll entertain a motion to approve site development. 01:01:36
Wastewater capacity allocation request conditioned upon the applicant receiving. 01:01:41
Required state and county approvals for SEW. 01:01:48
Pursuer and the access required budget. 01:01:52
So moved. 01:01:56
Is there a second? 01:01:57
Second, with a motion may have a second further discussion. 01:01:59
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. 01:02:03
Thank you very much. Any opposed? 01:02:06
Motion carries father. 01:02:08
Thank you all. Thanks for bearing with us everyone. Next up in the same neighborhood we have Hillside Business Park. 01:02:10
This is a project by Mr. Bishop. Mr. Bishop, come on up. Mark Campbell is going to give us a quick overview and then we will turn 01:02:17
it over to you. So Mr. Campbell, if you want to lead us off and then we'll go to Mr. Bishop for his comments, please. Thank you, 01:02:24
Mayor. So again, this is a site development plan for property that is existing zone employment center EC. The property is 01:02:32
currently vacant. This may seem like a new project to you. I'm sure Mr. Bishop can tell you this is not a new project. 01:02:39
And looking back through the files, I think there was initially a concept plan on this, at least that I'm aware of going back as 01:02:46
far as 2015. 01:02:49
So this is something that. 01:02:52
He's been working on for a while. The ultimate application here is for site plan approval. The total acreage of this lot is 01:02:55
approximately 4.8 acres it is, but it's for a business park with seven individual lots accessed via a private drive that would be 01:03:02
off of Morrison St. So you can see there some relatively new stop signs that that are on Morrison St. So, so this would be on 01:03:08
Morrison St. facing back, I will say back. 01:03:15
Towards Hwy. 15 extinct, there's there's there's a lot of property in between there now. 01:03:23
We. 01:03:31
It's no, it just doesn't. We've got a new one. We just got to get it. 01:03:33
You get an excellent. 01:03:40
And this is somewhat from the other angle, right? So this is still the the property at the edge of Motion Street where the 01:03:42
connection would be based on what the applicants proposed. That ******** Motion has become a three-way stop. So the third leg of 01:03:48
that stop would be the the driveway for this proposed private drive. 01:03:54
You can see some clearing that you previously may have occurred on this on this property in order to get ready for this. It's a 01:04:00
relatively short. 01:04:03
Cul-de-sac Again, there would be 7 lots for small buildings with associated parking and utilities. Some of those lots also have 01:04:08
the ability to be expanded into the future. 01:04:14
The property is bounded by creeks. 01:04:22
There's updated floodplain information on this, some of which the applicant on a different project nearby coming off a business 01:04:26
Blvd. didn't have the the benefit of and had to go through their own flood study, but the floodplain in the most recent updated. 01:04:32
Maps from FEMA has been reduced, but there are limitations to the access to the property specifically based on being bounded by 01:04:39
state waters and streams of those types of things. So we did have meetings with the applicants engineer. So there are some more 01:04:45
technical comments in a in a letter that was dated earlier this month. Again, unlike some other projects we talked about tonight, 01:04:51
this project is 4.8 acres, so it disturbs more than one acre. Those plans have to be approved by the by the Georgia Stormwater 01:04:58
Conservation Commission. 01:05:04
That process has already begun. They've actually provided some of their initial comments on that. But again, that would just be a 01:05:11
condition of approval. You can see some of the other comments there. Likewise some of the other projects we talked about tonight. 01:05:17
They would not be accepted at this location. So the approval and I can just time feel if you go back to a previous slide there I. 01:05:23
One more so there there would be proposed sanitary sewer. There's existing sewer main on this property, but there would be 01:05:32
proposed center sewer to service each of these lots in an employment center capacity. Likewise, there'll be an extension of a 01:05:37
water main so that there's a fire hydrant in this cul-de-sac, so there's sufficient fire suppression at. 01:05:43
Those are all things that are shown on the engineering plans, but things that would be had to be approved by Oconee County Water 01:05:49
Resources. So I think if we have conditions that the the staff comments are addressed that should be sufficient to to cover the, I 01:05:55
want to say it's 14 items from the May 5th letter. Be happy to answer any other questions hopefully I haven't been too succinct on 01:06:01
that but. 01:06:06
Any other questions that Mayor Council might have? 01:06:13
I don't know if this is a question for you, Mark, or for you, Mr. Bishop, but. 01:06:16
In the picture of the property, the actual photograph. 01:06:22
There are beautiful trees lining at all, and I know directly looking at this picture to the right is a residential property. 01:06:27
Is are those? And I'm looking at the one that kind of shows the the trees, the drawings, but it's hard for me to tell how much of 01:06:36
that is going to stay. 01:06:40
OK, only a little bit at the front there, right here at the entrance, but we'll have to Mr. Lumpkin had a lifetime of state on the 01:06:45
backside of the property. 01:06:49
Which a right of way came through this property. So we're going to have to adjust to get his driveway onto my driveway so that we 01:06:54
don't have four things coming together there. And so almost all the trees, everything there is going to be basically built on that 01:06:59
hillside. 01:07:05
Without, without disturbing any of those trees. 01:07:11
And let me say more about Larson. 01:07:14
When we're over there working and we get construction, I'll be willing to work with Mr. Campbell in any way to help. 01:07:18
Make that intersection better. That's reasonable. I think we'll be able to make a. 01:07:26
Outside lane a little bigger and where it conjoins, Well, we've joined with my driveway and I plan to concrete that so you'd have 01:07:33
a clear demarcation from where my driveway began and the road was. 01:07:40
The road needs striping more than anything else. 30 years ago there were stock signs there. I think Mr. Smith can verify that. It 01:07:48
used to be stop signs there years and years and years ago. 01:07:53
But I'll be willing to work with the city in any way my engineer. 01:07:59
Laid up in the almost in the hospital tonight to work when we get there to that point in time to to make it change the grade a 01:08:04
little bit to widen the road there at the curve and all that will be, you know, incorporated and I think we're just going to have 01:08:10
to do it in the field out there and see what we need to do to make the intersection better. 01:08:17
The elder property, all those oak trees on the right hand side as you go around the curve or the left hand side just been with 01:08:28
where you're going but all on the right of way. But you know, so we can only do some months here but we can't get an apron there. 01:08:35
We can get some striking. It'll give the people three or four feet margin. 01:08:42
The roadway and the edge of. 01:08:47
Ground surface, so I'm willing to work with there and it'll be, you know what we'll be doing on the property won't be any problem. 01:08:51
Get out there and feel and get something in. Mayor, Council, anybody else? I'm looking for input. 01:09:00
The traffic is going to increase pretty much. 01:09:05
Over there with the housing development on the other end of the road, we only estimate, I don't know, 40-50 trips today on this 01:09:08
project because they're small buildings. 01:09:13
There any other questions about it? This time we get the sidewalks in there and the street lamps and street light on that corner 01:09:22
is going to be a it's going to be a little bit. It's going to look a lot different and feel a lot different, be a lot safer. 01:09:28
And I'm curious, is there any accidents? 01:09:35
Miss Shakin said. We're working occasionally and one in four stops, one in four cars has approached that intersection. Stop. Come 01:09:40
to a stop. You know, I kind of take a note of that. 01:09:46
Any questions you have for me? Any other regard to this? 01:09:53
Questions from. 01:09:57
I do have a question about the the sidewalk that's proposed, I guess along the what would that be the South side of Morrison, 01:10:00
Mark? 01:10:03
Would that would we then take out that all those trees in that area? How's that going to work, Mr. Bishop, in terms that's going 01:10:07
to be tough? 01:10:11
That's going to be tough to squeeze it in. 01:10:15
But we can. We'll just have to move that bank back, trying to save as many trees as we can and my problem? 01:10:17
With those trees along, there was Georgia Power wants to run an overhead line. I wanted underground all the way to it, but I it 01:10:25
won't work out. The elders would have to lose their China Berry tree. 01:10:30
Several other ways to get the underground cable. 01:10:36
But. 01:10:40
They're going to have to cut. 01:10:42
Residential So I'm a I'm a 50 foot set. 01:11:15
50 foot building on set back, but will the power line run on top of the sidewalk? Is that what you anticipate, Mr. Bishop? 01:11:20
And come through the woods there and. 01:11:29
The one with the one pole they'll have to put right there at the corner of the driveway. OK, so if you wanted to plant new trees 01:11:35
to give shade to the sidewalk eventually in the road, you could. Then it's not going to have the power line, right? 01:11:41
Pretty big elevation difference there. Probably 5-6 feet between the bottom of that bank and the top of that, right? Yeah, OK, You 01:11:48
have to get in there and work around and see how it works out. And would it would a small, another question, would a small traffic 01:11:54
circle work in that corner at all? Is that an option? Again, in partnership with the city? I'm not asking you to bear the entire 01:12:00
cost for that. I thought about this today. 01:12:06
What really needs to be there is a yield. 01:12:12
Yield. 01:12:16
Just ending up. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of an accident being there. It's just the curb is over 90° curve. It's. 01:12:17
And you have to just slow down to go around there and it just just need a little more. 01:12:27
Table. 01:12:32
Yeah, I think the striking so the people know where they're they're outside line isn't just they'll have another apron or two or 01:12:33
three feet of asphalt beyond that. 01:12:36
To do it. And when we fix that Broadway on there. 01:12:41
Do. 01:12:44
Because it won't be a big deal and if you had any feedback from the neighbors on the project. 01:12:45
Any other questions? 01:12:55
All right, we will entertain a motion to approve the site development plan with the conditions. 01:12:59
Outlined here on the screen. 01:13:07
Is there a motion? 01:13:10
Make a motion to approve the site plan with the conditions noted. 01:13:14
Is there a second? 01:13:20
All right. Any further comments from council? 01:13:23
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? 01:13:27
Aye Motion carries 5. 01:13:30
Thank you. Appreciate y'all. 01:13:33
All right old business. This is related to the Park decision. This will serve as a formal affirmation for the executed contract 01:13:36
for parcel CO3O22 and CO3O22 W from Mark and Mitchell with Mark and Mitchell Thomas. 01:13:46
Attorney Reitman, do you have anything you want to say about this? 01:13:58
Turn on your microphone please, Sir. Thank you. Appreciate that. Appreciate the reminder. This is the. 01:14:01
Fairly standard form real estate contract that was prepared. 01:14:09
And it, I believe, has been posted publicly and the purpose of this, as is, as stated, to formally affirm the executed contract to 01:14:13
do so in a open public meeting. 01:14:19
At this point, unless there any questions, there can be a motion to approve. 01:14:26
I'll entertain a motion to approve. I make a motion to approve. Do we have a second? 01:14:33
Any commentary or discussion? 01:14:39
Brett, you'll need to recuse from this one all in favor. Say aye. Any opposed? 01:14:42
All right, Motion carries 4. 01:14:50
New business. 01:14:53
We have some I'll make money that we need to spend on some resurfacing manager Dickerson, if you could give us a report on that. 01:14:55
Will do. Thank you. 01:15:04
To my specific request is going to be for you to award a contract to Smith and company for 40,000 dollars $40,523 for resurfacing 01:15:07
Bunny Hop Trail with a not to exceed amount. It's about a 5% buffer just in case because equipment you know. 01:15:15
Quantities can be a little different once you get in the field and appropriate The 12,157 that's required is our ELMIG match out 01:15:24
of the 2021 SPLOST. Little background on this, Obviously the city receives local maintenance improvement grant money from the 01:15:30
state to resurface. It's simply a. 01:15:36
A small stipend to help us resurface roads. It obviously doesn't cover the cost of roads we get. We have 21 miles lane, Mont 01:15:44
Center lane miles that we get money for. We did. 01:15:49
Submit a request for proposal. In February, we received only one proposal from Garrett Paving. We felt like that it wasn't very 01:15:56
competitive and we wanted to try again. So we released a second RFP in April and received 2 proposals, one from Smith and Company 01:16:02
and one from Garrett. 01:16:07
Main Street Back to Water St. 01:16:50
So right now we're just asking for the resurfacing of Bunny Hop Trail. 01:16:52
Our if there's any specific questions about that, but but the price proposals were, you know there was a significant difference. 01:16:57
We're not required because it was a price proposal and not. 01:17:03
And not a bid, we're not required to take the lowest, but we had our engineer look at it and he felt like, you know, we had a 01:17:10
good, good opportunity to save a little bit of money. And Smith and company hat does have a reputation, has done some work I think 01:17:14
with the school board. 01:17:18
So, so that is our recommendation to just do Bunny Hop Trail. Any questions? 01:17:22
I had one. 01:17:30
We got it on OK. 01:17:32
Smithing company. 01:17:34
Who? Who are they going to get to do the paving? 01:17:40
Their general contractor. 01:17:45
We didn't ask that question. I mean they proposed like anybody else I assume just like anybody else coming in, you know they'll 01:17:48
they'll work with someone to get that asphalt. 01:17:52
And they've done, they've done projects for the school district and came you know highly recommended. So I mean we did, you know 01:17:57
we put them on the list and asked for them to bid and they did bid on it. So and we're doing, you know, again we're doing Bunny 01:18:02
hop, we're not doing a whole bunch of others we'll we'll test them out and see how it goes. 01:18:07
I'm going to recuse myself. 01:18:13
From voting on it, but I do know that to spend the hell make money on it. 01:18:15
They're supposed to be a. 01:18:20
G dot. 01:18:22
And they're not on the approved vendor list. 01:18:24
For whatever that's worth, I would before I would approve it, I would want to know who was doing the work and if they don't 01:18:30
approve. 01:18:34
G dot list. 01:18:37
And that. 01:18:40
For our. 01:18:45
Well, I think we should probably table it if we're not sure and I will, I will ask that question. I appreciate that. I will ask 01:18:47
that question and and verify we we can table it bring it back next month. All right. I'll entertain a motion to table. 01:18:53
And make a motion to table. Do we have a second? Second. All right, all in favor, say aye. All right, Motion carried. 01:18:59
Thank you, Chuck. Good catch. 01:19:08
All right, we are now to public comments. Public comments. 01:19:11
Standard procedure 4 minutes. Hop up to the podium if you want to speak. Please refrain from debate, argument, personal attacks, 01:19:17
or irrelevant discussion. 01:19:21
Address the matters of the pending matter. 01:19:26
4/7. 01:19:29
Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council, first comment I wanted to make is you just approved. 01:19:40
A contract to. 01:19:47
Well. 01:19:50
$4.5 million property for. 01:19:51
And reading through, as I mentioned earlier in the work session, there was a number of items in our question, but more 01:19:56
particularly at this point. 01:20:00
There's a blank section in there that says April blank. 01:20:06
2023. 01:20:12
Contracts. 01:20:14
And they mean something when they signed it. It identifies a date, and in this case, this contract is talking about due diligence 01:20:18
of 75 days. 01:20:23
And a little bit of confusion on page two, number six about the due diligence, but I wanted to raise that point. And also how does 01:20:28
this body make a decision without the consent of the taxpayers of Watkinsville, Georgia? 01:20:35
First second thing, I want to talk about a pattern pattern that happens in this building. 01:20:44
For a long time. 01:20:52
My Hearings 8085% Loss. 01:20:54
I don't wish that on. 01:20:57
I buy the best equipment I can without any help from anybody. 01:21:00
I come in this body. 01:21:05
We have a hearing lo. 01:21:10
But when somebody looks. 01:21:12
Well, they turned ahead. 01:21:15
Well, the microphones is far away from the head, which has happened tonight and today. 01:21:17
Multiple times. 01:21:22
I corrected it. I asked this this at the work session and made these comments as well. 01:21:24
In the past, I've said to your city manager, you talk too fast. I can't read your lips that fast and and and here as well. 01:21:31
At home I have AI, have a TV decks, I have closed captions, and I read lips on TV to watch Perry. 01:21:41
And others. 01:21:51
But people continue to talk real fast in this place to talk about the city business. 01:21:53
You look. 01:21:59
You're not speaking into the microphone. 01:22:02
And it's a real problem when somebody is interested, as I am in government, as I have been for a number of decades. 01:22:05
To not be able to participate. 01:22:13
And this form of government, but thank you. 01:22:15
Thank you, Mr. Smith. 01:22:21
Shannon, are there any remarks we need to make about the hearing system in City Hall? 01:22:22
They're not aware of how to do that or they can't do it properly. That can affect it. We don't have any control over that. And if 01:23:40
I may make an observation, earlier at the work session, Mr. Smith was here and commented similarly that he had missed something 01:23:49
that I had said and I didn't realize that he was unable to hear or that he needed to read lips. And so I intentionally looked over 01:23:57
to him to repeat the comments. And tonight also have very intentionally tried to look in his direction and he looked down. 01:24:06
It seemed to choose not to read my lips at that point, so just want to note that observation as well. 01:24:16
And we'll let attorney Reitman if he has anything to add please. That yes reference was made to Americans with Disabilities Act, 01:24:23
ADA that requires a reasonable accommodation. The city has substantial expense. Three years ago incurred the expenditure of 01:24:31
installing a hearing loop system. In this facility I represent five other municipalities. Over the years I've represented as many 01:24:38
as 8 municipalities and the county, in some case 2 counties at one time. None of them, to my knowledge of recollection, had a 01:24:45
hearing loop installed. 01:24:52
So the City of Watkinsville has gone well above and beyond in installing the hearing loops loop system, repeatedly testing it, 01:25:00
continuing to monitor it as Madam Manager Reference tonight via Miss Lee Black, your Municipal Clerk and finance Director. And I 01:25:07
think the City has done far beyond just what is reasonable and accommodating, but gone above and beyond in every regard to not 01:25:15
only comply with the spirit and intent of law, but to exceed those requirements. Thank you. 01:25:22
Thank you, Mr. 01:25:31
We do have two members of the public remaining. Do you have anything you want to share? 01:25:33
Welcome. 01:25:37
Park that, you know that's in the work. I think it's fabulous and and for everything you did to make that happen, it's just 01:25:45
beautiful. It's and it needs to be protected and I just appreciate that. 01:25:53
Thank you, thank you. That seems to be the consensus of the vast majority of the community. 01:26:01
Yeah, Yeah, wonderful. All right, we'll move on to mayor and council reports. Just a couple. I'm going to move quickly through 01:26:06
these for the. 01:26:10
Sake of experience we have. I think everybody's aware. Mayor Ivy's family, after his passing, donated a wheelchair accessible 01:26:14
swing. 01:26:18
That we had installed when we began the work on the ESP in Watkinsville Playground of possibilities. That swing was taken down and 01:26:24
we're in the process of getting it back up. We've got some work to do to get the drainage re established and the ramp correct to 01:26:31
it, but I have what the Ivy family know that's in progress. They chose that location. 01:26:38
Behind City Hall and in the shade where they wanted to have an option As great as the new playground is, it can get pretty hot out 01:26:46
there. So they want to have an option with a little bit more shade if someone in a wheelchair wanted to use that swing. So we're 01:26:51
in the process of getting that reinstalled. 01:26:55
Thank you to Jesse Brown with Troop 80. He has built an amazing new mulch trail from the bottom of the improvements that the city 01:27:02
and ESP made behind the ESP that connects up to City Hall and connects all the way around the back of that trail. But there's also 01:27:08
another purpose to that and it allows for a clear area for us to continue to maintain that retaining wall and for it not to be 01:27:14
grown up. So kudos to Jesse Brown. Eagle Scouts continue to do important work in Watkinsville and we have a few more projects 01:27:20
coming up. 01:27:26
We've received our Tree City designation for 2022. I smile when we get that, Julie. Remember how hard that was for us years ago? 01:27:33
Concrete additional work at the dugouts. We are hoping that that children will be playing baseball out there in June. 01:28:11
We will not have a more formal grand opening. The other elements probably won't be done until August or early September just due 01:28:19
to construction situation, things like that. But for for baseball and softball, we see that beginning in June if everything 01:28:24
continues to. 01:28:29
Proceed. We are working through the lists of the rest of our capital improvements. 01:28:35
To really enhance that space, as Christine mentioned, we had a meeting with our DDA board and for planning in the biggest request 01:28:39
was more gathering spaces, great spaces to gather. So we're really excited about having Rocket Field coming online and with the 01:28:45
new design activating that space better and creating opportunities for people to gather and spend time. 01:28:52
Whether they're playing baseball or whether they're out in the beyond, the outfield fences and able to enjoy the dog park or the 01:28:59
play structure that's going to go out there. 01:29:03
Water Park had the long-awaited refuge island installed directly across from its green space, so be careful if you drive down 01:29:09
Barnet Shoals Rd. that is in now and that will allow safe crossing from Stone Shoals to Water Park. 01:29:15
We have some new signage coming in. As Sharon mentioned earlier, this is the first one. You will begin to see more blue and red 01:29:22
signs downtown pointing people to our parks, to City Hall, to ESP, to various other amenities and businesses. So when people 01:29:29
visit, they know how to get around Watkinsville. Sharon and I are working carefully so that we don't have a million new signs. I 01:29:36
think the plan is to replace some existing signs so it does not get cluttered, but it looks very nice. 01:29:43
We want to recognize Councilman Thomas during his deployment. He has been the USO Volunteer of the Month in April, and due to his 01:29:51
efforts, the USO saved more than $30,000 thanks to his efforts and leadership to leading the leading a group of volunteers who 01:29:58
built a new patio that our soldiers can use in off duty hours. Councilman Thomas, we know you have a big heart for service and I'm 01:30:05
not surprised you're still doing that halfway around the world. So thank you very much. 01:30:12
We've got the delay going. 01:30:26
Yeah. Thank you very, very much. I was super proud to leave that project. 01:30:28
You know, I had to take pictures of of all the soldiers that have now started utilizing that space. 01:30:34
That's great. 01:30:43
Awesome, awesome. Well, you know all about building great spaces from what you've done here in Watkinsville. So I'm glad you're 01:30:45
taking that over to Kuwait and doing that. So way to go. You're a great ambassador for us. 01:30:50
Also find a note. We don't have a slide on this, but I do want to thank him if you've had. I don't know about y'all, but City Hall 01:30:57
just looks amazing what Mark Novak and team have done to improve City Hall. The Christine Tucker blue, the logo, you know it looks 01:31:04
almost like a different building and we did have when we were working out there to redo the. 01:31:11
Dry Creek bed months and months ago with the Boy Scouts, we had a gentleman. 01:31:19
And we were weighing the, you know, the we were running back and forth to Ace Hardware to buy landscape fabric. And this 01:31:23
gentleman, his son, was going to a birthday party at at the playground of possibilities. 01:31:28
And he came over and he was just watching us. And I introduced myself and he said, you know, I can get you all of that you want. 01:31:34
And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, my company, we make that. He said if you ever need landscape fabric. 01:31:40
Let us know. And since then, his name is Umesh Patel and he's with a company called Scaps Industries. And they're donating 450 01:31:45
feet of 12 1/2 foot wide landscape fabric to lay underneath all of our beds at City Hall, which will save us a ton of maintenance 01:31:51
and a ton of work. 01:31:57
Mark and Mark and the guys know how to put that to work and he's offered to help us in a lot of ways whenever we're doing work in 01:32:04
Watkinsville. So anyway, that was one of those, you never know who's going to walk up when you have people doing good work and 01:32:10
have a conversation and all of a sudden we've got a great partner. So thank you to Mr. Patel and the team at SCABS for donating. 01:32:15
Donating that material and thanks to Mark Novak and the team for really turning City Hall into a place of beauty and creating a 01:32:21
great new first impression when when we walk up. So that's all I have if we want to move along to Councilman Garrett. 01:32:29
I've noticed you know G dot fix those crosswalk, they harden hill. 01:32:38
Sam. 01:32:44
This. 01:32:46
With all the rain, all the silks washing out of it. 01:32:47
Now, so we don't have the problem that we had before. 01:32:50
So filling out with mud, that's good news. Yep. Step by step, we're getting getting things checked off the list. I think we're 01:32:53
missing the little ABA map. I did send them a note about that and ask them when they might get that. And I haven't heard back 01:33:00
from, but you know, there's a map that has to be there for people that are visually impaired. So we'll follow up on that. 01:33:06
All right, Councilman Massey. 01:33:14
I don't have anything to report, but I would like to say that I'm sorry to see Chief Brock leave the Police Department. I 01:33:17
appreciate all the good that he did while he was here. 01:33:22
For the citizens of Watkinsville and all the events that he planned for all the kids in Watkinsville, because those were those 01:33:28
were great, they all enjoyed that. And so I I appreciate all your work, Chief Brock. 01:33:35
And Chief is on leave for now. It will, you know. So we we miss him, but he is going through a process where he's in. 01:33:42
He's on leave right now, so we do miss him while he's gone. 01:33:49
And Councilman Thomas. 01:33:52
Anything from Kuwait? 01:33:55
Good evening again. Hey, I just want to thank the city of Watkinsville. Y'all continue. 01:33:58
To impress. 01:34:06
With support over here, anytime we reach out for ask, y'all are always there to. 01:34:06
To assist and we got a couple boxes a few weeks ago from from the actual city of Watkinsville, so. 01:34:14
I was able to share that and very appreciative. 01:34:22
Of the sport there, you know we we reach out. I can't imagine begin to tell y'all how how incredible. 01:34:26
The community. 01:34:34
We get letters from people all the time. We get packages. 01:34:36
The City of Watkinsville donated. 01:34:42
You know, the citizens of the City of Watkinsville donated $1700 to get some Girl Scout cookies over here. And then, and just 01:34:46
earlier today, we reached out after. 01:34:51
To find a a new stove. 01:35:00
Over here for the USO and within two hours we had all the funding to purchase the new stove. So citizens of Watkinsville, I I 01:35:03
thank you immensely. My soldiers, thank you immensely for for your continued support of the soldiers, boy, thank you. 01:35:11
Yeah. 01:35:19
Thank you, Councilman Thom. 01:35:20
Councilwoman. 01:35:22
Talked about creative placemaking already and DDA the we are close to selecting art to go at the old playground space and next 01:35:27
month I will be asking for more money because we got some good proposals. 01:35:34
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman. 01:35:44
Remind me of one thing. When we Morrison St. came up, I was speaking with one of the residences a few days ago, asking about the 01:35:48
the stop, the new stop signs, and she said it does seem to be helping some. But one thing that she thought was really helpful was 01:35:54
there used to be a mirror there. You know, the circular mirror. 01:36:00
So you could see oncoming traffic coming because with that Big Oak that is right on the corner. So if. 01:36:06
If we have a mirror somewhere that we could put back up there, at least one of the residences has. 01:36:13
Asked for. 01:36:19
Let people back up. So I just want to mention that I think the mirror is what led to the lack of mirrors, what led to the stop 01:36:22
sign. So there's a major Tetherton will let you engage with Councilman Campbell and y'all we can talk mirrors versus stop signs 01:36:28
versus future traffic there, but we'll we'll keep working on that one. And then the other thing was I spoke with. 01:36:35
Scott Nesbitt in regards to historic preservation and his class is not going to be able to help us with the ordinance for the that 01:36:41
he was talking about in the fall, but. 01:36:46
He connected me with Professor Reap who is Historic Preservation and he teaches Historic Preservation Law and he is excited about 01:36:52
working with us, doing the ordinance in the fall and he wants his class to do it and can get started probably mid-september. 01:37:01
That's the right. Anyway, that's where we stand with that. Joe, you want to make a bolt on there? I do. Professor Reap is who I 01:37:10
worked with closely in 2016 to work on updating Madisons ordinance. That then led to the draft ordinance that a circulated deal 01:37:19
maybe within the last year or so, albeit condensed, simplified, more user friendly, more public friendly. So I think Doctor Reaper 01:37:27
really liked that version. I'm sure he will have his tweaks and recommendations, but I feel like it will be. 01:37:35
A more expedited process and perhaps originally contemplated since we have work product from myself and him from 2016 and we 01:37:44
streamlined it and cleaned it up since. So I think you've got a good foundation to work from. Thank you. 01:37:51
All right. Thank you. 01:37:59
All right. With that, I'll entertain a motion to go into executive session to discuss potential litigation and make a motion to 01:38:00
move to session to talk about potential litigation and personnel. 01:38:06
2nd we have a second, we have a second. All in favor, say aye. 01:38:12
I think I've lost predicate. 01:38:17
Yeah. 01:38:21
I make a motion to adjourn. 01:38:22
All in favor, Say aye. We are adjourned. 01:38:27
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All right. Welcome to the May meeting of the Watkinsville City Council. It's great to see so many of you here with us tonight. We 00:00:05
do have a quorum here, and I believe we also have Councilman Thomas from Kuwait. Welcome, Councilman, as always from. 00:00:13
From far, far away, we appreciate you making time to be with us in the middle of the night over there. 00:00:20
Thank you very much. All right. Well, very good. We will begin our meeting as we always do with the pledge and Miss Emily Antoine 00:00:25
is going to lead us in that. 00:00:29
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:00:38
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:00:44
Thank you, Emily, and if you want to step forward to the podium, Mom and dad are welcome. If they want to, we know. 00:00:56
We are excited to have you here. I wanted to recognize Emily at the start of the meeting she recently won. 00:01:06
The DAR essay contest for Oconee County. Is that right or for Yep, a copy of that. There's copies on the table. Every member of 00:01:11
council should have it. The topic was how will the essential actions of a good citizen. 00:01:18
Dependability, service, leadership and patriotism meet the challenges that America faces today. 00:01:26
I was so inspired by this I thought it would be incredibly. 00:01:32
Helpful to have Emily come here tonight. Maybe just share a little bit about what inspired her to write this, because I think this 00:01:39
is so much of the formula for how democracy needs to work both in Washington and in Watkinsville. 00:01:45
Then we will. After that we'll take a quick picture and let you get back to the activities of May summer. 00:02:23
Thank you so much. Yeah. So I was connected through doctor, especially through the scholarship or through this like organization 00:02:29
opportunity, but both of my grandmothers. 00:02:34
We're a part of DAR, so I'm very involved. And then they just really carry that spirit of patriotism and of wanting to be a good 00:02:41
citizen and those values of service and dependability, everything like that. And so I learned a lot through their example growing 00:02:45
up. 00:02:50
But especially as they've gotten older, I took an AP Gov class in high school and I was terrified of my teacher and. 00:02:56
Then throughout the year got to know her so well and she's definitely one of the most influential people over the course of my 00:03:03
high school career. But she thought she taught me so much about. 00:03:08
What it means to be an American and. 00:03:14
American government is built the way it is. And why it's so important to carry those values as a citizen, because America has such 00:03:16
a unique. 00:03:20
Concept of independence and of. 00:03:24
Individ. 00:03:28
Plus community, and I've written pieces about that in the newspaper, which has been a really cool opportunity. 00:03:30
But just really. 00:03:36
Why America is special and why is built the way it is. And so that's definitely something I've learned over the course of high 00:03:38
school through different teachers, through different perspectives that I received. And I'm really grateful for those opportunities 00:03:43
to learn. So thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. Thank you, Emily. 00:03:48
I'm going to read the last paragraph, the last paragraph item we wrote in our essay. Dependability, service, leadership, and 00:03:54
patriotism are the ideals by which modern Americans will defeat this decade's challenges. We have overcome a global pandemic and 00:04:00
political unrest, yet we continue striving to improve our country. From the beginning, it was clear that God had dynamic plans for 00:04:05
America, and we have the chance to continue those plans. 00:04:11
Each American citizen can make a difference through his or her dependability. Service, leadership. 00:04:17
And patriotism to help our country persevere. 00:04:23
So we'll get a picture there in front of the Watkinsville logo and let that, unless you want to stay and see. 00:04:32
All right, Mom and dad you all come up to. Let's get home with Mom and Dad. 00:04:48
He's a good picture and I appreciate you. 00:04:53
The family like here is it's hard for you to it's hard for you to make it it. 00:04:57
Impressive, all those kids. 00:05:00
OK. 00:05:06
31. 00:05:09
Thank you. 00:05:13
All right. We're also recognizing a very special member of our staff tonight, and that is Missus Lee Black. 00:05:34
To This is municipal, we're going to recognize Municipal Court Clerks Week, and Lee is an integral part. 00:05:43
Of almost everything we do here in Watkinsville, I feel like Lee wears multiple hats. But she is our Municipal Court clerk and 00:05:50
Emily would know if she was still here about separation of powers and how important that is. And there's a lot of reasons We have 00:05:57
a Municipal Court in Watkinsville and and Lee is an important part of helping to make sure we follow the appropriate practices and 00:06:03
procedures that come with that. So we have a proclamation for municipal Courts clerk Week. 00:06:09
I will not read the whole thing, but I think it is important to remember that I. 00:06:17
That the the court creates an important public impression for us. They honor a set of rules that are vitally important, that they 00:06:23
are followed, and that we are deeply, deeply thankful for Lee and all of her work and what she does for the city of Watkinsville. 00:06:29
So Lee, you come up, we'll get a picture with you too, with your proclamations. 00:06:34
Thank you. 00:06:52
All right. 00:07:02
A small government, people have to do a lot of things. And Lee is also our finance director and we'll be spending time on the 00:07:19
budget tonight. So if we fail to recognize Lee again, it's not because we aren't deeply appreciative of what you've done on that 00:07:25
as well. So, all right, so this meeting as normal is being broadcast cameras up there, being broadcast simultaneously via Suite 1. 00:07:32
So that's on our website. If any of you want to go back and watch it again after you're here tonight, you can do it. 00:07:38
The agenda and meeting materials are easy to access via that. 00:07:44
Portal. It allows the public to view and listen to the meeting in progress. Along with the items that we're looking at. We have a 00:07:49
little bit more of a liberal public participation policy here tonight. We typically if someone wants to speak on something, we 00:07:54
allow them to speak. We also have public. 00:07:59
Any discussion, and if there's not any, I would entertain a motion to approve those. 00:08:35
I make a motion to approve maybe minutes from April. We have a. 00:08:40
We have a second ANY. 00:08:45
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. 00:08:47
None. Opposed motion carries 5. 00:08:50
On the agenda, we will need to make one adjustment to the agenda. Just one. Is that correct, Sharon? 00:08:52
OK, so on the agenda we will need to remove item 3. 00:08:57
From the consent agenda that'll be tabled until next month. Sorry, Mayor, it's item 10, item 10. I'm sorry, the third item under 00:09:03
consent agenda, item 10. 00:09:07
The agreement with Enviro Spark, we've got a little bit of legal work to do before we can finalize our new electric charging 00:09:11
stations. So Joe is working with the Virus Parks attorneys on that. So if I could get a motion to approve the agenda. 00:09:17
With item 10 tabled until next month, please. 00:09:25
I make a motion to approve the agenda with item number 10 tabled until next month. Do we have a second? 00:09:29
All right. Any discussion? 00:09:36
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. 00:09:38
Motion carries 50. 00:09:41
All right. We'll move on to administration. Again, as I outlined earlier, you know this is if you have something you want to say 00:09:45
then we will, we will take that into consideration, but this is typically a time for reporting. 00:09:51
From staff to council on financial reports and other matters. And so manager Dickerson, I'll let you take it from here. 00:09:57
Thank you, Mayor. 00:10:04
So you should have in your packets the balance sheet, the general fund fund reserve information won't go through all that. It is 00:10:05
obviously very healthy reserve. 00:10:09
Do you want to talk about some of the other, oh, I guess the other point I'll make is revenues. We should be about 83% and we are 00:10:14
83% of revenues. Again, revenues come and go throughout the year at different times, so not really concerned, but we are 00:10:20
essentially right where we need to be. Expenses are at 75%. I do anticipate that there will be some funds coming back into the 00:10:25
general fund at the end of the year. 00:10:31
On that so. 00:10:36
Than good stewards of the money. 00:10:38
Talk a little bit about Spotted One. So this is as you can see we only have a little bit more than 10,000 and actually that money 00:10:41
if the cat if the check has been cash is probably already gone. But so we'll be closing out SPLOST One at the next meeting most 00:10:46
likely. We don't have anything left. That money along with most of the money left in SPLOST 2 was for the construction of sewer 00:10:51
line A. 00:10:56
Some funds are outstanding for some Police Department signs and some a little bit of work still at Hair Shoals. 00:11:02
We. 00:11:08
I did want to point out the mayor had asked about this. How much has already been spent on sewer line a construction. You'll see 00:11:10
we spent almost $850,000. We have the intergovernmental agreement with the county is for 1.6 million. That includes a 15% overage 00:11:16
if it if it goes over. 00:11:22
The budget was originally 1.4, but we built that in. The remaining balance is a little bit more than $760,000. 00:11:29
And I believe that project should be complete. 00:11:39
Next month I've been. I've asked the director, Water resources let me know, but I haven't heard back from them so. 00:11:41
I believe they're working towards that goal. 00:11:47
Splash 3. 00:11:51
This money is has been set aside. This is active. So we are right now we're our average monthly revenues around $82,000. That 00:11:54
covers some public safety vehicles, signage, traffic calming 100,000 that's been set aside for phase one at Harris Shoals Park, 00:12:01
about almost 300,000 for Rocket Field improvements which match a three quarter $1,000,000 private investment in that park. 00:12:08
There are funds for our local maintenance improvement grant for resurfacing projects. We'll talk a little bit about that tonight 00:12:17
as an item 18. 00:12:21
And then some signage we're doing, we're still rolling out signage. We anticipate. We've been rolling out pieces of the signage 00:12:25
since the branding occurred last fall. 00:12:29
Hopefully this week we'll have the industrial park sign and signs up and then. 00:12:34
Before the end of June, I'm hopeful that we'll have all the way findings out signs downtown. 00:12:39
Up as well. 00:12:44
On Splice 3, we this one was existing, so we still get 8.63% on that and you'll see that we've continued to increase over previous 00:12:45
years probably a lot of that's the Costco effect to some extent. 00:12:51
So that's what you're looking. 00:12:59
On American Rescue Plan, we have a little bit more than $780,000 in that budget. Those monies are still yet to be appropriated, 00:13:02
but that is supposed to be used for something transformative for our community. 00:13:08
Any questions about any of the budget reports? 00:13:15
Boss. 00:13:18
The last thing I'll remind you all about is the fiscal year 24 budget process. 00:13:21
We have now completed through the 2nd item under May 17th, the 5:00 PM. We are in the 6:30 meeting which will work what will have 00:13:26
a required public hearing under the. 00:13:30
Public hearings section of this meeting will have our second public hearing on the budget, the recommended budget that's been 00:13:36
published, and our second hearing for the adoption of the 2023 mileage rate this evening. 00:13:40
I believe we're not going to have a work session next week, but we'll we'll certainly publish, you know if if we do, we'll cancel 00:13:46
it and there'll be notice go out about it. 00:13:50
OK. 00:13:55
On economic development reports. 00:14:00
Business licenses, we had 11. These should be coming to close. We've had 11 come in. 00:14:02
Those were due March 15th. We're working with several of them finishing up their fire inspection reports, but that seems to be 00:14:07
moving forward fairly well. 00:14:12
And then on the excise tax side, we have alcohol excise tax. April is not completely shown in there because we sometimes we don't 00:14:16
get them on time, but we're averaging around 2500 a month now and then a hotel motel, this includes the luxury inn and all of our 00:14:22
short term vacation rentals. And of course you'll see we've just started collecting that officially started getting that in in 00:14:27
November. 00:14:32
Of last year. 00:14:38
On the permit side, we had 12 permits for 12 projects, although five of those are in the Trove subdivision, residential 00:14:41
subdivision. You'll see those up there. 00:14:45
And then just some basic, you know, gas lines. 00:14:51
Presidential ports, that kind of stuff that we normally see. 00:14:54
Oh, and then the big build up, the restaurant interior completion there at Wire Park is the last item on there. So and then we're 00:14:57
using the valuation formula sharing that's approved as part of the code correctly. 00:15:03
Yep. 00:15:10
Any. 00:15:12
I'm going to pass it on. 00:15:18
Councilman. 00:15:20
All right. So two weeks ago we had our DA planning retreat. Members of the community we're here as long as well as the DVA board, 00:15:24
members of staff, the mayor and. 00:15:31
We had overwhelming data collection from the community input, way more than is typical. 00:15:39
For a community to the point that they actually had us close up the surveys after only two days because we had such huge input 00:15:46
from our community. So we have some strategic goals that we are still finalizing. 00:15:54
And. 00:16:02
So we are applying to be part of the Georgia Main Street program. Kate Patterson, our DVA Director is finishing that up. Also 00:16:04
working on becoming a getting a rural designation, which it's it's a little competitive if we are able to get that there. There's 00:16:11
some grant opportunities that come with that. 00:16:19
Also with Creative Placemaking, we had received a grant from a workshop that we went to and Thomasville back in February, and we 00:16:27
have a committee that's meeting planning a community event. We do have the date. 00:16:36
Finalized, even though we have other things that are in the work, so it's going to be the Saturday before the fall festival. 00:16:46
Most likely at Rocket Field there will be a community art component to it. It should be free to the community. 00:16:54
And so we're really excited. We again have a great group of citizens who are putting their time, effort and energy into this. 00:17:02
If you don't already, please follow. If you are on social media, follow the Dva on Instagram and Facebook. 00:17:10
Yeah. That's it. Thank. 00:17:18
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and then I'd like to welcome Interim Chief Tedderton to the podium for the Police Department report. And 00:17:22
while he comes up, I do want to note. 00:17:27
We. 00:17:34
Miss Chief Brock as he is on leave working to address some serious health issues. And Chief, if you're watching, just know how 00:17:36
much we miss you and and hope you hope. 00:17:42
Feeling better as you as you battle those issues, but in the meantime, Interim Chief Tedderton is doing a great job of taking care 00:17:48
of Watkinsville and we look forward to your update Sir. 00:17:52
Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm honored to be before you tonight. You should have a packet that I forwarded 00:17:57
out. It will be a little bit different than the ones you previously received. 00:18:02
I did a little two page WPD at a glance. I'd like to just touch on for a moment on page one of that. 00:18:08
There is a pie chart that shows what our guys were doing over the month of May. 00:18:15
During that month we had 15175 calls for service. Please keep in mind that number includes self generated activity as well as 00:18:19
things my officers are dispatched to. 00:18:24
During that same time, the officers conducted 991 security checks. Security checks are where we go to homes or businesses, 00:18:30
generally in the after hours and make sure that they are. 00:18:35
Intact and not being broken into. And then we issued 149 citations. Now this does not include written warnings. These are actual 00:18:41
hard copy citations on that same one. Talking about citations, it shows you a little bar graph of traffic activity. 00:18:48
And it will show you that majority of those are actually being. 00:18:57
For speeding. 00:19:01
So the blue lines are. 00:19:03
Of citations issued and. 00:19:06
Orange lines are warnings, written warnings. So we're running around 50 to 55% warnings. Our goal is not to punish people, but to 00:19:09
gain compliance with our laws. 00:19:14
Then to the right of that, it talks about our fixed LPR camera activity for the month. These are issued citations. The ones in 00:19:20
blue are actually open and have been sent out. 00:19:25
The ones in orange are ones that miss Lauren is processing. 00:19:30
You guys have any questions on that by chance? 00:19:35
The next page tells a little bit about what we've been up to. 00:19:38
So, as you guys are probably aware of, we held our third annual Cops and Bobbers on May 6th. This is an event that Chief Brock 00:19:41
brought with him. 00:19:45
Saint Mary's Police Department, we did it at heart, Agree Wildlife Sanctuary. The mayor stopped by and said hello with us. 00:19:49
We had 91 children and their parents. We had a great morning of fishing for ages 5 and up. We fed two children snacks and a light 00:19:54
lunch and then we gave out some awards for the first fish, which was caught literally seconds after we blew the whistle. Smallest 00:20:00
fish, biggest fish and most fish. We had a young lady that. 00:20:06
14 fish during this short time. Then we fed them all of our leftover foods and snacks we donated to ESP. 00:20:12
We'd like to thank all of our sponsors as well as the Badge Benevolence Foundation who handled this event. 00:20:21
The next little line item is officer training. We are very involved in getting from our officers up to speed, which keeps us out 00:20:27
of trouble and keeps the city well protected and well served. So this is a list of training that our officers attended during that 00:20:31
month. 00:20:35
DUI training for Officer Stearns Crisis Intervention Techniques, which brings us to 100% on that training for Officer Goodson. 00:20:41
Sergeant Wade went to Georgia first Responder. As you guys know, we have an all Volunteer Fire Department and ambulance service. 00:20:47
They do a great job, but my guys usually beat them to the calls so it's important they know how to do basic first aid. 00:20:54
And then Officer Anglin went to family violence investigation training. 00:21:01
Another event we did along with training is we held Narcan class. Narcan is a nasal spray that our officers carry to give someone 00:21:06
that's experienced an opioid overdose and hopefully save their life. 00:21:11
Recently one of our officers had to get Narcan and we hosted that here in the. 00:21:17
And we had 41 officers, firefighters and paramedics from surrounding agencies. 00:21:22
That came and took part in that. 00:21:26
There's an interesting case of the month. I won't go into a lot of details on that. It surrounded a traffic arrest. 00:21:30
Involving a BOLO vehicle, Officer Stearns and myself responded to it. Officer Stearns stopped a single occupant minivan with a 51 00:21:36
year old female about 2:30 in the afternoon and at the conclusion of the investigation. 00:21:42
She gave us a breast sample of .327 at 2:30 in the afternoon. 00:21:50
She was actually in the process of drinking while she was driving to go get her children. 00:21:54
She's staying in jail that night and rules released on bond the next day, and she's going to appear in court at some point. 00:21:59
Talking about traffic. 00:22:07
We received a traffic complaint on Harden Hill. 00:22:10
And this came from a property owner over there. 00:22:14
So we take all of our complaints. 00:22:17
Or inquiries very seriously so we can develop the plan of action. We put one of our programmable message boards over there. Then 00:22:21
we started doing extra patrols. 00:22:25
So we've issued. Since that complaint came in about a week ago, we've issued 11 warnings and two citations. 00:22:30
I wrote one of the warnings myself today. 00:22:36
What is interesting is if we pull the data from the speed sign, that's over there. 00:22:39
It shows an 85th percent. 00:22:45
Of 32 mph in a 25 zone. That is an offense that my officers can't even take action for. Only the Georgia State Patrol can stop 00:22:47
someone for less than 10 mph over the posted speed limit. 00:22:53
The average. 00:22:59
For the month of May to date is only 25. 00:23:01
So. 00:23:06
We're checking it, but the stats doesn't show. 00:23:08
Growth speeding on that. 00:23:12
I was there today for one hour and I only observed 3 vehicles that I could physically stop and as soon as they saw me and they saw 00:23:16
our message board, they slammed on the brakes and those three vehicles was doing approximately 10 mph over. 00:23:23
Then we did 12 arrests. And I'm not going to go through all these other pages, you guys have them, but I will take questions if 00:23:32
you have any. 00:23:36
All right, the last thing I want to tell you about is along with special events. 00:23:41
Umm. 00:23:47
As you guys know. 00:23:48
Twice a year, my officers, in conjunction with the local chapter, the American Daughters of the American Revolution, place flags 00:23:49
on the graves of our veterans in the cemetery. We have 103. 00:23:55
Fallen heroes? 00:24:02
And in the past we've taken these wooden flags and tried to stick them in the ground and we end up breaking a lot of them. Or when 00:24:04
it rains, they fall over or the wind blows. 00:24:08
I reached out to Arlington National Cemetery and they told me about these, so I'm going to pass a couple of these out. 00:24:12
So. 00:24:21
Bad audio. 00:24:22
Badger Benevolence bought, which is our not-for-profit Foundation bought 110 of those. 00:24:27
Councilman Garrett sits on that board with us, and he gave us. 00:24:34
So we will install these Wednesday or tomorrow at 10:00. 00:24:40
And these will be permanently installed in the. 00:24:45
Near the front of the headstone, and then the volunteers on the 25th will just come by and stick the flag in it. Very simple. No 00:24:47
more drilling holes in the ground or poking them with a Phillips screwdriver. 00:24:53
And no more broken flags and it will pick them up and then in November we'll go. 00:24:59
And we'll use them again. They'll still be there. We'll go back and stick the flags. 00:25:04
For veterans. 00:25:08
So that's kind of an overview of what we've been up to. 00:25:11
We are currently fully staffed with the exception of a couple vacancies in part time, and the guys are excited to be here and work 00:25:13
for the City of Watkinsville. 00:25:17
Questions. Questions. Anyone? 00:25:22
Didn't want to do that. 00:25:25
All right, Chief. Brock misses you guys. 00:25:34
We miss him. We miss him. 00:25:38
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. 00:25:41
You know, really grateful that we have have someone who can just step in and keep things running that way. And that's a testimony 00:25:44
to Chief Brock and his thoughtfulness about how he rebuilt the department. So thank you, Major, for stepping in. 00:25:49
OK. We will move on to the consent agenda. 00:25:57
I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda, please. 00:26:00
I make a motion to adopt 8:00 and 9:00 on the consent agenda. 00:26:10
All right, items 8:00 and 9:00, motion to approve. As we discussed earlier, item 10 has been tabled. 00:26:17
Do we have? 00:26:22
All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Any comment, all in favor, any opposed? 00:26:25
We'll note that we've lost Councilman Thomas. We hope that we'll get him back at some point. 00:26:32
All right, we will move on to our public hearings. Joe, do you want to address procedures for public hearing, Sir? 00:26:39
Glad to do so. I'll reference City Code Section 2-260. Comment procedures for public comments shall be only directly related to 00:26:45
agenda items. Speak only from the podium for men's per person, refrain from debate, argument, personal tax or irrelevant 00:26:52
discussion. Address only the Mayor's. The pending matter address remarks directly to council. Council cannot speak to potential 00:26:59
litigation, attorney-client or personnel matters. 00:27:07
Public input will be allowed after council receives any reports that staff and or applicant may proffer. Thank you. 00:27:14
So the proposed 2023 property tax mileage rate is an increase of point .84. Mills will bring up the city mileage from 2.081 to 00:27:56
2.922. That mileage rate is specifically to help cover potential service of debt on the property purchased at on Thompson Bridge 00:28:03
Rd. 00:28:09
Worthwhile to point out if you sort of did a couple of modeling for the public. This information is online as well. If your home 00:28:16
will, your home is worth $500,000. At the 2.081 mileage rate, you would be paying $412.04. 00:28:25
For that at the 2.92 you would be paying $578.36 the difference I need to point out the difference is the amount between what the 00:28:35
rollback would be if we took the rollback and the rollback. 00:28:40
Would. 00:28:47
The mileage rollback, Sorry. The mileage rollback would be 3.636, which I think drops it. 00:28:50
That's not right. Hang on a second, it's off the main one anyway. Drops at the 1.75 because you have to take that off the gross 00:28:58
mileage anyway. It would have come down to like 1.75 if the council took the rollback. So the recommendation is to is to increase 00:29:04
the mileage from 2.081 to 2.92. And for those who don't understand how the mileage is calculated on your home, if you have a 00:29:10
$300,000 home. 00:29:16
And you have a $5000, sorry, $300,000 home and you have a $5000 homestead. You decrease that by 5000. So then you have a $295,000 00:29:22
home and you multiply that by 40%, which is the assessed value That gives you 182,000. This information is in the packet online if 00:29:29
you want it, and then you multiply that 182 times the mileage. 00:29:37
Which is who? 00:29:44
002921 which would make it $531. I think I did my math right anyway. Umm, so it's it's an assessed value, not the actual market 00:29:47
value of your property that your mileage rate is applied to. But that 292, that $2.92 is for every $1000 worth of assessed value. 00:29:57
100,000 if you had $100,000 assessment. 00:30:08
For you'd have a hundred of those that are right, 100 of those at the two, so it would be 100 * 2.92. So I think I did that right. 00:30:12
Point O292, sorry. Yeah. Anyway, it's explained in the packet and there's information on if anybody wants, there are some packets 00:30:19
over there on the table for people to have. 00:30:26
All. 00:30:34
So that is our overview of the mileage rate. At this point, I'll entertain public comments on the mileage rate. Those comments 00:30:35
would be limited to 4 minutes apiece, correct, Joe? 00:30:42
All right. 00:30:49
Anyone want to speak on the mileage right? 00:30:51
Thank you Mayor and. 00:30:58
Mr. Smith, if you could just state your name and address. We require everyone to do that, please. I've come before you to discuss 00:31:02
the mileage rate increase. 00:31:05
I didn't hear what she said. I think she said .84 mil increase due and this is partly due to the purchase of a $4,500,000 park 00:31:09
project. 00:31:15
And. 00:31:23
I'm just trying to figure out as I mentioned earlier in your work session. 00:31:25
How this town of 2900 people can. 00:31:30
Acquire $4.5 million park land without consent of the taxpayers. 00:31:34
I'm sure you'll have an answer. 00:31:40
I went before you earlier to talk about what the private sector does when they look at the property. 00:31:49
They look at the property highest and best use. How many lots can I get on it? The highest and best use would probably be 00:31:56
residential, but do you have enough sewer capacity to handle this hundred acre truck? And can you get from one side of the 00:32:01
property to the other without the water restrictions out of there as shown on? 00:32:07
Topography maps. 00:32:13
How many lots can you get? 00:32:15
The profit sector says. 00:32:17
That I need to see how many lots I can get and how much I can get for these. 00:32:19
And then look at the absorption. 00:32:24
And the absorption rate maybe two years, three years, four years, whatever it may be got to decide cost benefit. 00:32:27
Did this town do this? Has this town had an? 00:32:35
One or two appraisal for this significant amount of. 00:32:39
And as as I was reviewing the contract. 00:32:43
I'm a little confused on the the 75 days on page two section 6 about 75 days, but I'm a little real confused about. 00:32:47
What was online now, I don't know if you've corrected or not, but this is what was online about this that so under our hands and 00:33:01
seal this April blank 202 three, there's a there's no date there. So when does the due diligence begin and end? Has the due 00:33:08
diligence begin now or does it begin at some certain date in April. So those are concerns from a private taxpayer that have done 00:33:16
several of these developments in the past 40 something years. 00:33:24
And I think the taxpayers should should know. 00:33:32
Before you move on to this particular. 00:33:36
Answer these questions. Did you get an appraisal or multiple appraisals? 00:33:40
How did you arrive at this value and how did this decision? How is this decision made without the consent? 00:33:45
But the taxpayers are walking still. Georgia, thank you. 00:33:53
Thank you. Mr. Smith, any further comments on the? 00:33:57
I will just slightly touch on Mr. Smith's points. 00:34:03
There was an appraisal conducted. You'll receive that in due time in alignment with the open records request that you filed. 00:34:07
And. 00:34:15
These this body was elected by the citizens of Watkinsville and we've outlined our priorities previously and talked about the 00:34:16
importance of parks and green space openly in public meetings and planning sessions. So we buy all legal rights are certainly able 00:34:22
to make those sort of decisions and it's a so with that. 00:34:28
I will close the public hearing on the mileage rate and we will move into the public hearing on. 00:34:35
The fiscal year, budget, general fund capital and operating budget manager Dickerson, Is there anything you want to share on this? 00:34:42
Yeah, I'll briefly go over that. Thank you, Mayor. 00:34:48
So this is the budget we're looking at, a $2.85 million budget. It is balanced with the mileage rate increase. 00:34:51
The. 00:34:58
So let me just talk about a few of these. There is an increase of about 6.9% I believe overall 180, eighty $4000 in the budget 00:35:01
increase. 00:35:06
But those are the three largest we get. We do have a variety of income sources, I think, the mayor pointed out during our earlier 00:35:40
meeting. That's really important for a community our size not to have reliance upon anyone in particular, and most communities 00:35:44
have. 00:35:49
You know, have similar percentages in their budget. I think Clark County, I think their property taxes outweigh their local option 00:35:54
sales tax by quite a bit. 00:35:57
On the expense side, again 2.8 million, we're balanced. We are we have 19 full-time equivalent employees right now. We are 00:36:03
recommending moving a part time person to a full time position that is our judicial assistant. 00:36:09
List of all the services, the one missing his library, but we have alcohol, business permits and licensing, building permits and 00:36:17
inspections. 00:36:20
Code compliance, Garbage leaf and limb, which we contract with the service provider for our legal services and our professional 00:36:24
engineering services we contract for, which is a very prudent way to handle things that we don't end up having to have someone on 00:36:28
staff. 00:36:33
Full. 00:36:38
And and pay their benefits. We also obviously provide Municipal Court services, police services, our parks, operations and 00:36:40
maintenance plans, review and zoning and our public works. And you'll see that the three largest ones are police and public works 00:36:45
is up there because the garbage is such a big piece. In fact, I don't have this, but in our packet you'll see garbage and police 00:36:50
make up 47% of our budget. 00:36:56
This is a capital and operating budget. So this is our capital. We are not asking for anyone time, capital expenses like to 00:37:02
replace some specific thing that we might only replace every 20 or 30 years. These are projects such as vehicles or other 00:37:07
equipment. 00:37:11
We have up for replacement on the schedule to to police vehicles. We have a 2009, 2011 Crown Victoria that we hope to surplus and 00:37:16
help offset the cost of new ones. We also asking to change out F-150 truck in public works to give us a little bit more 00:37:23
flexibility and adding a Gator again the parks with adding all the parks we need access to be able to get in and around the parks 00:37:30
for that point out that we do have a capital. 00:37:37
Improvement fund that has $318,000 and some change in it. We are going to be pulling some money out of SPLOST 3 that has already 00:37:44
been designated for police or public works for these for this equipment, which will reduce our need to pull out of that fund. 00:37:51
And that money does have to be spent. That was a referendum that citizens had. So that money does have to be spent. We can't keep 00:37:58
it in there. So we'll use that money first, which means we'll only need about 60,000 out of the fund, which leaves us a little bit 00:38:03
more than 258,000 in our capital fund. 00:38:07
Thank you, Manager Dickerson. This point we will with the same rules and approach before we'll entertain public comment on the 00:38:17
fiscal year. 00:38:21
24 budget. 00:38:26
If anyone has a comment on the budget, please come forward. State your name and address. 00:38:30
All right. Hearing none. I'll close the hearing. 00:38:39
Our third public hearing is related to a variance at 26 School St. I think Mr. Campbell will be our presenter on that and then 00:38:42
we'll ask the applicants to come forward. 00:38:47
Thank you, Mayor. So this agenda item is for a variance request at 26 school St. The size of that property is approximately. 00:38:54
3/10 of an acre. It might be slightly smaller than that based on the the survey. If you recall, this is an area where it's on the 00:39:04
opposite side of Rocket Field. 00:39:09
And. 00:39:16
At one point in time. 00:39:17
Served as a preschool formerly. So part of this request is I think is moving back to the detached residential use that it was 00:39:19
previously. Specifically, the request is in relation to the rear set back for the zoning requirements. There's an existing 00:39:27
structure there that is within the code requirement for a rear set back. The applicant has not requested to increase the size of 00:39:35
that structure or to encroach in any further distance on that structure, but to do work within that structure to. 00:39:43
Renovate it and to add additional facilities within the structure there and as a result they are required to come forward for this 00:39:52
variance. 00:39:56
Which had to take place some time ago to be able to be on tonight's agenda. So there if you see the map and where 26 School St. is 00:40:00
in relation to some of the other school buildings and of course Rocket Field, there the the following slide you can see. 00:40:07
From school St. looking back into the property. 00:40:49
The primary structure and then in the back would be the subject of this variance request from the rear. 00:40:52
So again this is this is a variance the applicant has to articulate within their application, which you should have as part of 00:40:59
your packet and then I'm sure maybe here tonight can go further to the details of what they're requesting. But specifically you 00:41:05
see the code section there the rear yard minimum set back is 15 feet. The existing structure is non conforming and does not meet 00:41:11
that requirement the applicant has requested. 00:41:17
The reduction of the set back to five feet because it's currently less than 10 feet, but the applicant has also indicated no 00:41:24
extensions to the existing structure are proposed. 00:41:29
Following slide you should see the. Those are the criteria for every variance. As I'm sure the attorney will let you know, every 00:41:35
variance is heard on a case by case basis, but those are the requirements within chapter 14 of the city code. I will be happy to 00:41:40
answer any questions you might have. 00:41:46
Thank you, Mr. Campbell, for that great explanation. 00:41:52
Mr. Mrs. Lancaster, do y'all want to be able to add anything? I will note for Council that will have a hearing on this variance, 00:41:57
then we will close that hearing and then we will move immediately into. That'll be our first item under appearance where we will. 00:42:03
We will then take any further, hear anything further as necessary and then vote on that variance so. 00:42:10
Paul and do y'all have anything that you want to add? 00:42:17
Yep, just come on up and state your address, name and maybe just give us an overview of what you, what you have planned and 00:42:21
anything you want to add. 00:42:26
Watkinsville, GA 306 Seven. 00:42:31
I appreciate your time, Mayor and Council. Mr. Campbell did an excellent job explaining our request. This is the house my son 00:42:34
lives at. Our son lives at, and he's an adult child, but he's still a child. 00:42:40
So he's living there. It's a two-bedroom house on the front as you said has been converted, Not converted, but just used now as a 00:42:47
residence and. 00:42:52
Our request just simply is to use the structure in the back that is there that the preschool have used previously. 00:42:59
We wanted to add a bathroom and. 00:43:05
Gets us to the request for the variance to get inside that to where it's now five feet reduced to that and. 00:43:07
Help bring the value of that property back up consistent with all the neighbors properties with residential uses there. Rocket 00:43:14
Field is coming along wonderfully. We approve and appreciate that and and everything else that's going on with the city. So we 00:43:19
appreciate your time. Thanks. 00:43:24
At this point, if anyone has comments or questions that they want to make, we're in a public hearing. 00:43:31
And that hearing is open for comments at the podium. 00:43:37
All right, I don't see any. I see neighbors, but I don't see comments, so. 00:43:44
That's OK. So no comments. Correct. OK. All right. Then I'm going to close the hearing and we will move into appearances. Joe, my 00:43:49
following procedure correctly here. All right. We'll move into appearances. And our first appearance is 26 School St. Is there 00:43:54
anything additional you need to add for the benefit of council, Mr. Campbell? 00:44:00
Anything that you guys want to add as the applicants? OK council, do you have any questions for the applicants or for the 00:44:07
engineer? 00:44:10
So essentially that because everything's happening inside, it's not going to affect like the the neighbor on the backside that. 00:44:13
Be closer to their property line. They won't affect them practically at all for them to add a bathroom, correct? I can't say 00:44:22
there's no impact because they're they're looking to rehabilitate that. But the applicants indicated they're not expanding the 00:44:27
structure any further or any closer to that property line than what already exists. But what already exists is an existing non 00:44:32
conforming condition. 00:44:37
Any other questions? 00:44:46
All right, Council, I'll entertain a motion. 00:44:50
I make a motion to approve the. 00:44:53
With Motion to Approve, Do We Have? 00:44:55
2nd. 00:44:57
Any discussion? 00:44:58
All right, All in favor. Say aye. 00:45:01
All right. Any opposed? 00:45:05
All right. I think we have Councilman Thomas back with us, and I think that's a father. Is that correct, Julie? OK. All right. 00:45:07
Great. Thank you. 00:45:10
All right, we'll move on to item 15. This is Big Springs Properties. They have a site development plan and wastewater capacity 00:45:14
allocation request. Welcome back this for those of you who don't remember weren't aware this is the structure that burned last 00:45:21
fall and I remember tonight and to the applicants credit they've had that they got their demolition permit approved. 00:45:28
We certainly have a lot more detail as far as what would be next or what is proposed to be next after that. So we can kind of step 00:46:06
through these these slides here again this property as an address. I think at one point it was 1210, now it's 1240 Greensboro 00:46:13
Highway which is there at the the corner of Morrison St. and State Route 15. There is the updated picture since last month's 00:46:20
council meeting where there once was a building and there is now a slab and the. 00:46:27
Engineer has submitted plans on this based on an updated survey. They did not have that I believe at the time of last month's 00:46:34
meeting either. I think the green and this image is certainly helpful to to provide some graphic of where green areas would be 00:46:40
within the proposed site plan. I will say that the proposed site plan is not exactly for what is there, but the engineer within 00:46:46
their plans have articulated the things that will change. I'll just take a quick moment to kind of mention those things and 00:46:52
sometimes things that we require. 00:46:58
If you have more than one acre of disturbance, you have to go and get approval from the state. Even though Watkins was a local 00:47:04
issuing authority, that approval has to come through the state. This property does not propose to disturb. It's even it's probably 00:47:10
less than 1/4 of an acre. The the disturbance based on the existing lab that's already there and some of the improvements is is 00:47:16
relatively small. Additionally, if a project increases the impervious coverage by more than 5000 square feet, then you have to do 00:47:22
storm water management plans. 00:47:28
This project does not do that either, and the engineer has provided sign and seal plans that indicate that. 00:47:35
That existing structure that was demolished based on the fire damage to it was on a septic system. 00:48:13
So approval of any water and sewer connection, sanitary sewer connection to the new proposed building which would no longer be on 00:48:19
the septic system is required by the Oconee County water resources. So that would be a conditional of approval. We can't approve 00:48:25
on their behalf. Likewise, any encroachment to or work within the Georgia Department of Transportation right of way, which is 00:48:31
State Route 16 is a state route or state Route 15 I should say for Greensboro Highway that also requires that approval. So I would 00:48:37
certainly recommend. 00:48:43
There be conditions of those two items that are placed there you can see on the bottom of the screen. 00:48:49
And I'm happy to answer any other questions. 00:48:54
Thank you, Mr. Campbell. 00:48:58
Would someone I don't know who wants to present on behalf of the applicant if you want to come forward and give us any additional 00:49:02
information, we need to know. 00:49:05
Perhaps a light overview. Welcome back, Abe. It's been a while, but we're glad to have you back at City Hall. Thank you very much, 00:49:09
Mr. Mayor. Good to see you all members of the council. We appreciate everything you do for the community. Everything is bursting 00:49:16
up, looking great. Signage, landscaping, you name it. We love it. So keep doing what you're doing. Congrats to you. I'm here. My 00:49:23
name is Ava Burundan. Abe is fine. That last name is a long one, so I'm here on behalf of the owners. 00:49:31
Mr. Actors here, Mr. Leaf, and you've met him. 00:49:39
Last meeting, so if he could put back Mr. Kimberly site plan so and I can point to it. So the main reason for us to be here today 00:49:41
is because the building was demolished. We we assessed it from a structural point when it was you know after the fire and it just 00:49:49
it was not doable to be refurbished or renovated. So that that's why they came forward for the demo. 00:49:57
So at this stage, you know they wanted to put a building back in that location and literally. 00:50:06
We're talking about. 00:50:12
It won't show on that screen for some reason. Cheryl. Cheryl circle with her cursor maybe so we can. Do you mean the new building 00:50:14
then? So that's the existing building that that burnt down, if you notice. 00:50:20
The front. 00:50:27
Pocket right there on the lower part of it in the upper. So those are pockets that were in the existing or previous building. So 00:50:28
when you start looking at buildings, today's market, the steel buildings or whatnot, they have to look at the rectangular, not a 00:50:36
regular shape. So part of that additional 28129 hundred square feet really relates to filling up those pockets of the building and 00:50:43
squaring up the building, OK. So when we did that, it really took part of the septic system. 00:50:51
That's in the front at the front left corner of that existing building. So and also they'll need more capacity. This there was an 00:50:59
old system based on one Office 1 stall what not so needed to be really served with a proper wastewater service. So part of that is 00:51:07
really squaring off that existing pad and we're not taking the pad up. 00:51:15
We really just cutting out what we need for the footers for the new building to be put in there. But part of the the code now we 00:51:24
have to be at the build line to build 2 lines excuse me. So that really added a soffit or an entry a covered entry grounded, which 00:51:32
we welcome because any building that you're going to put nice building you want a nice entry you want it. 00:51:39
Way to get into into the building and of course on the Northside of it we have a little bit of area there that's grass. Now we're 00:51:48
going to have to have some doorways, some access. 00:51:53
Through the new building if you could, Mr. Campbell, flip to the proposed site plan. 00:52:00
You have it back and I have it here so. 00:52:07
So if you Click to the proposed, I'll just do that public. 00:52:11
You will see this time. 00:52:16
That it shows the proposed building. 00:52:20
And I have here. 00:52:23
Why don't you just hand it over here when you're done and council can pass it down? I know some of them have it digitally. 00:52:26
Yep. 00:52:32
Multiple you know user standards what not we're very excited to have that kind of facility because what is going to do is allow 00:52:36
for more than one tenant to be in that place to offer different services, different amenities, different retail possibly you know 00:52:44
office warehouse. So all those that are within the zoning classification, it allows the particular owner to go forward and spruce 00:52:52
that that building from what used to be. 00:53:00
And have that corner well well designed while. 00:53:08
We've laid out all the proper parking. We made sure we have proper number of handicapped spaces. 00:53:12
Crosswalk to the front of the building. 00:53:20
So we're not adding any parking. 00:53:23
Yeah, everything is existing on existing pavement, pavement or pave services. So other than that really made sure that everything 00:53:26
is in order in terms. 00:53:31
Stormwater management in. 00:53:37
BMP's what we call best management practices. Fence, grassing, some hay bales to make sure we have more than one Ave. not the 00:53:40
barricades. Not to allow any silt movement during that construct