Transcript

Event transcript
All right, Welcome to the September City of Watkinsville Council meeting. We have an exciting moment tonight and that Councilman 00:00:07
Brett Thomas is back from deployment in Kuwait. Welcome back. 00:00:14
We've said it, I think almost every month, but we are so grateful to you and and for your service, Councilman Thomas and. 00:00:24
Really thankful though to have you back here stateside and joining us. So we we have missed you and welcome back. 00:00:31
Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm super glad to be back, Glad to be here. I think I've been home for today, Wednesday. 00:00:37
Eight days now. So super glad to be back. Getting to a routine of normalcy again. Great. Welcome back. Welcome back. We do have a 00:00:45
quorum here tonight. In fact, we have everyone here, which is great. And we're going to lead off with the pledge as we always do. 00:00:50
Councilman Thomas, if you could lead us, please. 00:00:56
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:01:02
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:01:09
We don't have a big crowd tonight, but as always, I'll remind everyone this meeting is being broadcast simultaneously via Suite 1. 00:01:19
That's our webcasting public portal. Those who aren't able to attend the meeting can access that portal and they can review the 00:01:26
council packet as we go through it. That packet is also posted in advance so anyone who has questions can send them to us. 00:01:32
I'll entertain a motion or to approve those or any corrections to the minutes. 00:02:11
Make a motion to approve both. 00:02:18
Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to approve both sets of minutes. Any discussion? 00:02:20
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? 00:02:27
Motion carries unanimously. 00:02:30
Second item will be approval of the agenda. I do not have any. 00:02:33
Requests. We only have one item on consent, so unless anyone has any. 00:02:38
Adjustments to the agenda. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. 00:02:43
Make a motion to approve the agenda. 00:02:48
Do we have a second I? Second we have a motion in a second. Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor, say aye. 00:02:51
Any opposed motion carries unanimously. 00:02:58
Under administration, we will let manager Dickerson give us our financial reports as I said earlier. 00:03:01
Public comment is not typical during this part of the conversation, but if you do want to comment, please indicate and that 00:03:08
decision will be at the council's discretion. If you do make a comment, refrain from debate, address council and any no personal 00:03:14
attacks will be tolerated. Ultimately, that comes council and the attorney on matters that are not required. Public hearings will 00:03:20
make the decision about how long. 00:03:26
And whether you're to whether you can continue addressing Council Manager Dickerson, if you want to give us our financial reports 00:03:32
and economic development reports that would be great. Thank you, Mayor. 00:03:36
So everybody should have their balance sheets, the revenue and expense reports. If there are any questions, we're moving along 00:03:41
fine. We're only two months since it's kind of hard to tell you much of anything, but. 00:03:46
We're not out of money yet, so that's good. If you have any questions on that, I'll talk about SP. 00:03:52
So Sloss 2, we thought this would be closed out, but we've still not received the final invoice from the county for the work on 00:03:59
sewer line. 00:04:03
So as soon as that comes in, we will exhaust those funds including the 412 extra will take the balance. I think that probably is a 00:04:08
mixture of of. 00:04:12
Interest as well as other monies that we didn't, you know that came in that we didn't allocate for this purpose, but we do have 00:04:17
some money. You may recall that some of this is going to have to be paid for out of general fund fund balance. So we'll take that 00:04:22
extra 412 and any other interest we get on that and put it towards that as well. 00:04:27
So we'll see if we can get that paid before the end of this month and next month we'll have a loss to you, will be closed. 00:04:32
On splice. 00:04:37
We have this is the one that we still receive at 8.63% and these are the projects right now that are really active outside of the 00:04:40
Teesplos work that we'll talk about in a minute. So this is Rocket Field. 00:04:46
This is equipment we purchased for public works and or for public safety. 00:04:53
Any of the work that we're talking about tonight with regard to drainage and all that will be out of this fund, but this is where 00:04:59
we sit right now. So we have. 00:05:03
Received to date about 15,000 a month for the last 24 months, more than what we thought we were going to be getting. So that's 00:05:07
always good news. 00:05:11
So we're sitting above our projections by about $360,000. 00:05:16
So if we end up, is there a cap on this like so it's just we collect it through the timeline? 00:05:23
Yep, wonderful. There's a cap there, right? Sharing of the Max. 00:05:31
The Max amount. So these are all, I think this is all percentage the those numbers that we have the referendum, I put the numbers, 00:05:35
not the percentages. In the referendum the language was percentage or is it percentage and we estimate the percentage based on 00:05:40
what they thought they were going to collect. 00:05:45
So ultimately we never collect the full amounts that may or not make it. So the 5.579 million is the total is the most you can 00:05:51
collect. I do believe that is correct, but you will never, I don't think any they always set it higher. 00:05:58
But we always project and it's been about right somewhere between 83 and 85% collection so but now. 00:06:05
And this gets kind of crazy. But on each of those buckets, the referendum, you can never spend more than what's in that 00:06:12
referendum, that that line item for the referendum. 00:06:16
But you could, you know you could potentially. 00:06:22
Spend 540,000 and public safety but under spend and rec and park so that you don't ever go over you know the amount the over the 00:06:25
projection that that you have maybe that's not that may not be making sense but anyway but yeah there is the 5.579144 is the 00:06:31
amount that was approved the referendum they always estimate higher. I don't think anybody has ever gone over it that I know of 00:06:38
because they always build in a lot more than what they expect so. 00:06:45
But it will continue to collect and I don't think on Splost 2 and go back to Splos 2 that we. 00:06:52
Yeah, see, we only collect. 00:06:58
We collected for today 4 million and they estimate 4.7. 00:07:00
So are we trending on Spice 3 to be higher than that 83% that we budgeted on? 00:07:04
With an, I mean, how much we've been going up. Yeah, So the projection of revenues at 83 percent is 65,000 a month and we're at 00:07:12
79,000. So I don't know what that percentage would be. It's not 100, obviously 100%. 00:07:18
I can figure that out and let you know. OK. Thank you. And did we and our buckets, did we base them on the 5 million that is 00:07:25
probably never going to be not the 83. 00:07:32
Referendum language. You figured out about what you thought you needed in each one of those buckets, and there's even rules about 00:07:39
moving stuff from one bucket to the other if you need to. If you don't have a, you know so. 00:07:45
But yes, OK. Thank you. OK. 00:07:50
And then here's the breakdown so far. So you'll see just between. 00:07:55
Between July of last year and this year, there's a 15% increase over what was collected. 00:07:59
That's good news. 00:08:04
On tea Sploss. So this is right now, most of this money is being spent on sidewalks. You guys have approved and allocated money 00:08:07
for that. The mayor will talk a little bit about that in his report. 00:08:12
And we have not actually didn't it didn't clear this month or in July. I mean sorry, in August did not, the check did not clear. 00:08:19
But we have spent some money for Mr. Mayweather to do the work on new high shelves at just North, sorry, new high shelves. It just 00:08:23
hasn't shown up. 00:08:28
In the report yet. 00:08:32
And then you know this is at a smaller percentage 7.77%. We are averaging, I think I had it over here 68,000, but remember the 00:08:34
average is over the course of the 60 months. So if we do anticipate it will increase over time. 00:08:42
And that's how we budget. 00:08:50
We have about 270,000 or so in the bank. 00:08:53
The questions AARP, American Rescue plan monies right now you guys approved some appropriate some funds for the park purchase and 00:08:57
then we have existing money in our public safety retention initiative. Some of those officers are still receiving their second and 00:09:03
third checks. 00:09:09
Any questions on any of those? 00:09:16
Okie dokie. 00:09:20
And move into economic development? Not a lot yet. Julie's going to be sending out the. 00:09:21
Business license renewals, probably this next. 00:09:28
But right now we have 8, but one I'll point out is Mama's boy if y'all haven't been there. They did have a soft opening this 00:09:32
morning and so they've gotten their their business license and pretty excited about them joining the city. 00:09:37
Brett, we also have a cat cafe coming, so just you know why you've been gone. 00:09:44
Did they have biscuits? And they did. They had to form? No, I mean at Kuwait. 00:09:55
I was about to say you had to be missing some things over there. No, There we go. 00:10:03
On the excise tax you'll you'll note that August is not showing up for Hotel Motel, it's because we get it after the fact. So 00:10:09
we'll get the August payment and at the end of this month. 00:10:13
Alcohol and hotel motel are trending very well. 00:10:18
And then on the building permits only had a few, four of them, all individual, just basic kind of stuff. I had a little work from 00:10:22
AT&T going on the right away. 00:10:26
Any questions about? 00:10:32
All right, Mayor Pro Tem about the Downtown Development Authority. OK, we had our monthly meeting today. 00:10:37
Again, we have a fantastic board, really grateful for all of the the members who donate, you know their time and their expertise. 00:10:46
Again, a reminder if you all do not already have on your calendar October 14th at Rocket Field. We have the event that has been 00:10:54
made possible by the grant that we got from attending the Creative Placemaking event and it's going to be a lot of fun. The Splits 00:11:02
band will be there. They'll be music from, I mean Sorry, they'll be food and drink from local. 00:11:11
Restaurants including chops. 00:11:20
Brewery Dobies, Mama Nings and possibly some of our farmers market vendors will be there too, and some of the proceeds of all of 00:11:24
the sales will be going to help support the DVA which we've earmarked it for beautification. 00:11:31
Of our downtown and also. 00:11:40
We are, through this creating a pocket park. 00:11:44
In the space across from Dobies. And so the public art that is going to be created at this event will be displayed there and there 00:11:48
will be chairs. And we're still kind of figuring out exactly all of the things we're going to do there, but it should be another 00:11:54
community gathering space. 00:12:00
A place for us to come connect. So that's going on and moving along smoothly. But please, we're going to start posting things on 00:12:07
social media about this. If you use social media, if you will, share it. 00:12:13
And just, you know, we have local businesses who are coming and preparing food. We would hope that there will be people there to 00:12:19
purchase that. So please get the word out. Is there a name for the event? What's it called? It is called Rock and Art at the park. 00:12:25
All right. Gotcha. OK, so. 00:12:30
We also, we have new businesses that are coming into our downtown. We have 4 new businesses in the next few months, which is 00:12:40
really exciting. So and my notes I'm realizing are sitting on my desk. So I may get the names wrong, but we have. 00:12:48
The Outfitters, but that's not what it's called, but it's like a Coney Outfitters might be the name going where the old Welcome 00:12:58
Center is and it's going to have kind of a general store vibe. The owner also does outdoor events and so you'll be able to buy 00:13:07
packages and stuff there. And I think the kind of vibe of it if you've been to wander up in Clayton. 00:13:15
Obviously the space is not nearly that big, but it it will have kind of a similar vibe, so I think it'll be a great addition to 00:13:25
downtown. 00:13:28
Have a cat cafe coming which we got some details at our meeting of what that actually is. So it will be a spot where you can go in 00:13:31
and get smoothies, coffee, drinks, prepackaged food. The cats will be behind a glass wall so you will not be like at my house 00:13:38
where I often have a cat on my lap while I'm drinking my morning coffee. You that will not be happening. You separate the food 00:13:46
from the cats but you can see them and and so if you like cats but maybe don't want to have them in your house. 00:13:53
You can enjoy them or you can for a small fee, go in and play with the cats. And they're all adoptable as well. So I think that's 00:14:00
a fun new addition to downtown. And then the coffee roaster will be coming. They will not be selling cups of coffee, although I 00:14:07
did hear that if you go, he may give you a cup of coffee. And so that will smell wonderful throughout our town. And then there's a 00:14:14
new home kind of boutique. 00:14:21
In the Town Center shopping center. 00:14:29
By Mama Nings and I can't remember the names about the clothing boutique and so, but it's a local artist, so it will have probably 00:14:31
a mixture of things. So I think that's another great addition to our downtown. So all of those will be coming in the next few 00:14:36
months. 00:14:40
Oh, and we do, but with that, that will come up. 00:14:50
OK. And also we reviewed the. 00:14:53
The new business items 10:11 and 12:00 and. 00:14:57
They. 00:15:02
The board thought they were good ideas and. 00:15:05
Yeah. 00:15:09
Sorry, my notes are sitting on my desk, but they again and we have, if you don't know, the the board is made-up of local. 00:15:11
Business owners and so there's a good sampling of. 00:15:22
Of people very invested in our community. Again, I feel like we are incredibly fortunate with with our DBA board. 00:15:27
OK, that's it. 00:15:35
All right, until I get home and look at the notes on my desk. 00:15:37
Well, thank you for all your work and and to our Executive Director, Kate Patterson for keeping all that moving forward. 00:15:41
Speaking of hard workers, Chief Tedderton, why don't you come up and give us your report? It sounds like it's been an interesting 00:15:48
month. 00:15:50
Mayor, Council, good evening. 00:15:54
So in your packet, if you'll take a glance at the pie chart. 00:15:56
We had a pretty busy activities over the last 30. 00:16:01
For calls for service the numbers went up to 19140 that includes self generated activity. 00:16:05
For security checks on homes and businesses, the guys did 12115 and on. 00:16:12
Traffic stops, they did 212 of the 200 and 12113 of those were speeding and other 212. We issued a total of 119 warnings. The rest 00:16:17
of that was 4 citations. 00:16:23
If you go a little bit farther in on our. 00:16:31
We had a little bit busier month this month and we did last time we had a total of eight actual principal in custody arrests. We 00:16:34
had a couple that we. 00:16:38
Gave notices to appear because there were very low profile violations, but of our eight arrests. 00:16:43
Three of them were for criminal matters, all of which was drug related, cocaine, marijuana. 00:16:49
Some methamphetamine was the results of those. Now on one of those arrests we came in contact with three weapons which we seized. 00:16:57
And we're moving for forfeiture of those in. 00:17:05
Assault rifle, 2 pistols, a 357 and a 9mm that the people had in their custody and interestingly enough they were. Both of them 00:17:09
were out on bond on similar charges for weapons. 00:17:14
Drugs out of Emanuel County Down South and we actually they were coming to a ball game and we interrupted their day. 00:17:22
The other arrests were all traffic related and it ranged from 2 DUI's as well as. 00:17:29
Additional charges on those and the others were suspended or revoked driver's license violations. 00:17:34
So 200. 00:17:41
Traffic stops all told. 00:17:43
And all those resulted, all those arrests were from traffic stops. There were about 10 in total, 8 in custody and then two that we 00:17:45
released. 00:17:49
Community events. We stayed pretty busy this month. We went over to St. Gabriel's. They host a first responder, a breakfast every 00:17:54
September 11th. They did it last year for the first time. We were there last year and we were there this year. 00:18:00
Badges. Benevolence. We have come up with a new idea to do a cops and Cones event with the owner of Scoops and Wire Park. We've 00:18:08
come up with a Saturday. It's an away game every Saturday in. 00:18:13
Is a Georgia game, but this one in particular is an away game against Tennessee and we're going to be out there for about two 00:18:19
hours on a Saturday afternoon. 00:18:23
With the owner of that, he's providing us an opportunity to give ice cream cones to kids. We're going to let them look at our cars 00:18:27
and equipment. 00:18:30
And maybe play some games. 00:18:33
Recently we went to the library to the children's reading program. I put a Facebook post out and Officer Anglin, myself and 00:18:37
Sergeant Hiller went there and met some really little kids and read a book about police work and gave them some coloring books. 00:18:44
And spent some time there with. 00:18:51
Children's reading. 00:18:53
We went to an art selection I did with Sheriff Hale and we picked out some and Chief Thaxton from the fire department. 00:18:56
We picked out some. 00:19:03
That are going to be given out for the run for responders event in. 00:19:06
That's our big event. It happens October 1st. 00:19:10
So if you can, would love to see everybody come out to that. It's a good time. It's a Sunday. It starts at 12:30 and ends at 4:30. 00:19:13
So if you can come out and do that. 00:19:21
We have a flag placement that we're going to do in November and we have. 00:19:24
Kind of a volunteer. 00:19:29
Cleanup event the first week of November at the cemetery with the Arkansas and some other volunteers. We're just going to do a 00:19:31
general cleanup. 00:19:34
Before veterans. 00:19:38
Officer training. 00:19:40
Officer Walker leaves for basic narcotics investigations. 00:19:43
Monday and he'll be gone to Forsyth for a week. Myself, Sergeant Wade. 00:19:47
And Sergeant Hitler are going over for a garma GMA risk reduction class for law enforcement that's hosted at the Athens Police 00:19:51
Department. We're going to be doing that next week. 00:19:56
We went over to Piedmont traffic network in Winder. We had about 60 area law enforcement officers. We conducted ADR checkpoint 00:20:02
over there and Speaking of that, tomorrow we're going to. 00:20:09
Doing this month's traffic event over in Clark County, it's a little bit differe. 00:20:16
We're installing child safety seats and inspecting child safety seats. These are donated seats. 00:20:20
That we were given to give to needy families that don't have. 00:20:25
Interesting case of the month. This one was pretty lengthy. 00:20:30
And it is the one that involves the seizure of the methamphetamine, the cocaine, the marijuana and the firearms. That one's 00:20:34
detailed. 00:20:38
In your handout, it resulted from 2 arrests. 00:20:44
And actually, one of the people in the car shouldn't even have been in possession of guns, because they are a Lottenberg Amendment 00:20:47
violator. 00:20:50
Domestic violence, so they kept around firearms to begin. 00:20:54
But we have had an. 00:20:59
Month. Recently we've had two cases that are ongoing. Can't talk a lot about them, but they involve thefts at a very large level. 00:21:01
The smaller one was just over $40,000 and it was what was called the warrant scam, if you read my little. 00:21:10
Community public Safety announcement. If you'll take the time to read, that will explain what a warrant scam is. 00:21:16
But essentially, the victim was convinced by someone portraying themselves as a police officer that they had outstanding warrants 00:21:22
for their arrest. 00:21:26
And that she needed to provide them cash to stay out of jail. 00:21:29
And. 00:21:33
The poor lady drove around from 8:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night. 00:21:35
And they basically sucked her bank account dry during the course of that whole day. 00:21:39
And finally released her over at Barnes and Nobles at Epps. 00:21:43
And she's out about $45,000. 00:21:48
Umm. 00:21:52
Shocking. We have another business. 00:21:54
That is out 72,000. 00:21:57
We're going to probably be getting some outside help on that case with the GBI and the FBI because it involves transactions. 00:22:01
Through the wire, out to California, back and forth, and essentially it is a loan scam. 00:22:08
He was asked. 00:22:14
Provide money. 00:22:16
Of good faith money, if you will, The $72,000 in exchange for a loan of $3,000,000. 00:22:18
Generally speaking. 00:22:26
That's really unheard of. If you're borrowing money, they don't ask you to front money, especially in that amount. 00:22:28
But people get caught up in these. 00:22:34
So take a look at that and. 00:22:37
Outside of that, I think that's about it for. 00:22:40
Have you guys got? 00:22:44
I have a question. Yes, ma'am. So I have noticed that. 00:22:46
Umm, it seems like actual ticket writing may have gone down and warnings have gone up. And and I mean, I, you know, I don't have 00:22:52
all decisions in front of me. I know that writing tickets isn't about being punitive. It's not that like, oh, we you know. 00:22:59
We. 00:23:07
I mean it's it's not about, it's not about punishment. 00:23:08
So are you finding that the warnings are effective? And if I'm guessing that if someone gets pulled over for a second time they 00:23:13
got a warning the first time, they would not get a warning at that. Generally that's true. So when we when we issue a warning. 00:23:19
We try to keep it about a 5050 balance or maybe a 6040 balance in favor of the. 00:23:25
But if you're issued a warning when my guys put it into their computer if they stop you a second time? 00:23:31
Your information appears on the screen. They can tell whether you've had one or not. 00:23:37
And then they can click on it and it can tell what your warning was. 00:23:42
So they do take that into consideration, but they do make a judgment call on every individual traffic's office. So just because 00:23:46
you got one warning doesn't mean you might not get a second. 00:23:51
A lot of the speeding offenses. 00:23:55
I think the officers and I know personally, I take into account what a person tells me. 00:23:58
I. 00:24:04
You can talk yourself into a ticket, but you can also talk yourself out if you have a viable explanation. 00:24:06
And I'll give you a for instance, I was running stationary radar on North Main Street, and I clocked the car that was doing about 00:24:12
70 mph in a 45 zone. So I stopped. 00:24:17
They were actually on their way to Piedmont. 00:24:22
Because. 00:24:25
Mother was in the emergency room and was not expected to make it, so I gave those people a verbal warning and let them go. 00:24:26
That's an example of someone that. 00:24:34
We show compassion to and have. 00:24:35
There is no good reason for speeding, but had a understandable reason for speed. 00:24:38
But I think warnings are effect. 00:24:42
If. 00:24:45
To give somebody a warning. 00:24:46
Having said, there are things we'll give warnings more and things we will not. 00:24:48
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's helpful. 00:24:55
All right. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate all you do and all your guys. 00:24:59
Next on our item, our agenda is the consent agenda. We have one item on there and I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent 00:25:05
agenda. 00:25:09
Make a motion to approve the consent agenda 2nd. I'll second. All right. Thank you, Brett. All in favor, say aye. 00:25:16
Motion carries unanimously. 00:25:24
Public Hearings. We Have none Tonight. Appearances We Have White St. Parcel W 05079. 00:25:26
Demolition permit. We'll start off with them getting a report from the engineer. 00:25:33
And then we'll hear from the applicant if they want to add anything there. 00:25:39
Thank you, Mayor. 00:25:43
So this, the partial AT64 White Street is actually at the corner of White St. and Bunny Hop Trail. It's a detached residential 00:25:44
zone property. The request is for demolition of the existing structure. It's a relatively small partial based on the available 00:25:52
information. So you have an idea of where that is located. There again on that that southern corner of a White St. and Bunny Hop. 00:26:00
Recently the reason for the request of the demolition was recently a tree fell through. 00:26:09
The structure not just onto the structure, but into the structure. You can see a little bit better that on the. This is from the 00:26:15
from Bunny hop, so you can see the deterioration there. The applicants provided documentation related to the to the structure and 00:26:20
the disrepair of the structure. 00:26:26
That documentation was provided by a company called K2 Disaster Response. It was dated from earlier this month that based on the 00:26:33
damage that had occurred. 00:26:38
The. 00:26:44
Structure essentially is I don't say beyond repair, but in a state such that repair becomes more difficult. So that's the reason 00:26:46
for the demolition request. 00:26:51
Oconee County tax assessors does indicate the structure was constructed in 1965, which means it's old. There's no documentation of 00:26:57
any historical significance related to the structure at this location. 00:27:02
The applicant did provide information from a third party source related to asbestos. That report did indicate that there's no 00:27:09
asbestos containing materials, but that does not relieve the applicant from the responsibility of should they encounter any 00:27:15
asbestos containing materials that they would have to follow state law. As is related to that, again, there's not any disturbance 00:27:21
of greater than an acre on the site because the site is less than an acre. 00:27:27
But the applicant would need to take best management practices into place during a demolition to make sure there's no 00:27:33
sedimentation onto the roadway or any adjacent properties. I will note that the adjacent roadway was recently paved as of today, 00:27:39
so there will also need to be special care taken to make sure that there's no equipment that would damage that adjacent roadway on 00:27:44
Bunny Hop Trail. 00:27:50
Happy to answer any questions you might. 00:27:56
All right. Is the applicant here tonight? 00:28:00
All right. 00:28:03
OK, All right. Do we have any questions for the applicant? 00:28:07
All right, all right. We don't have any council, any discussion. 00:28:12
All right, we'll entertain a motion. 00:28:17
I make a motion that we approve the demolition request. 00:28:23
All right, we have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? 00:28:27
Oh, with the conditions. 00:28:30
Yes. 00:28:34
I will second with the conditions. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Any further discussion? 00:28:36
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? None. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Sir. 00:28:40
You're going to people get plans for a new house. I'm assuming there once this is done. 00:28:48
Boy. 00:28:56
Unfortunately, start right over. OK, All right, all right. Good luck. All right. For those who couldn't hear, the the owner does 00:29:00
plan to put a new house up. 00:29:06
Later new business, we have item number 9 related to a Water St. drain pipe upgrade. I'll let Manager Dickerson and Engineer 00:29:13
Campbell give us a report on that please. 00:29:18
Thank you, Mayor. 00:29:27
So a little background on this. We are first of all say what we're going to request. We're going to request that you guys approve 00:29:29
this contractor that you authorize me and the city engineer to negotiate with the lowest price proposal that we've received and 00:29:35
see if they can be as responsive as we need them to be, which is yesterday. 00:29:40
And then if there's any documents that need to be signed that the Mayor and city clerk be allowed to do that. We are also asking 00:29:47
to be able to negotiate with this whoever that contractor ends up being to do some add alternates for some other work that's 00:29:53
needed in the city Jackson St. and possibly Industrial Blvd. With some appropriation of of funds in those in out of Spouse 3. So 00:29:59
I'll walk you through a little bit. 00:30:05
So last month you all approved some money to cover some Stormware Stormwater Advance system upgrades. 00:30:12
And there's been considerable issues on Water St. probably related to some in some adjustments that have been made by G dot on 00:30:21
Main Street to deal with the water flowing off that road. As a result it's created some issues in the conveyance system. So we're 00:30:28
asking for some an upgrade to that the Carter engineering has designed and. 00:30:36
Solution to this problem, or at least somewhat of a solution we think to relieve some of that extra water that's coming off of. 00:30:46
Main Street and flowing underwater St. and back into the. 00:30:52
Back down the street, so you'll see we have 4 vendors that provided price proposals. 00:30:56
This is an emergency sort of situation. So we contacted all the ones that we knew of that would have an interest and we got all 00:31:02
four of all the four that we reached out to all responded. You'll see they're all sort of group together a little bit higher on 00:31:07
one of those that last one structural resources but. 00:31:12
But they're generally in the same area. So we felt pretty good about that. That means they're all sort of looking at the same, 00:31:18
looking at the same way. Again, purchasing policy allows me to grant some authority to purchase things in an emergency situation 00:31:24
well differently. And so like I said, we did not go out with a request for proposal, did not have time really for that. We did 00:31:29
request and didn't have drawings and had them look at those. 00:31:35
I did speak with the mayor. 00:31:42
Engineer I think the attorney was aware of it as well, and I believe Councilman Campbell was involved in that as well. 00:31:44
If the council appropriates, so we have some money left in ELMIG, which I would like to go ahead and use because we have to go 00:31:51
ahead and ask next month or the following month for the FY24 L Meg monies. So L Meg is the local maintenance improvement grant 00:31:57
funds that we get from the state to do basically Rd. improvements. 00:32:02
But it also includes other things like drainage. So we have about 6750 left in that account. So I'd like to allocate that money 00:32:08
along with the 60,000 that you guys gave us last month for this project. 00:32:14
And so we're short about roughly $10,000. So we do have the money in SPLOST, 3IN road streets and bridges in the storm water 00:32:21
improvements and you guys do have, I did provide a spreadsheet. So you'll see where that is. I'm just asking that you appropriate 00:32:26
it for that project. 00:32:32
This is a picture if you know. I don't know if engineer Campbell wants to talk about a little bit, but this is, and my cursor is 00:32:38
not very bright, but you'll see there's a right there in the middle is the pipe that we're talking about. 00:32:44
Lane across water St. to try to help. 00:32:50
Some of that water. Do you have anything you'd like? 00:32:53
Add engineer. 00:32:56
Yeah, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have. But this is again it's, it's added pipe to increase the capacity 00:32:58
mainly of the subsurface flow that's already existing and and rerouting that to the existing downstream discharge point to help 00:33:06
alleviate any surface flow that may be occurring there. On Water St. ordinary, the Water Street School St. intersection. This 00:33:13
should help get some of that water further downstream and have a positive impact on the roadway there. 00:33:20
And then this is really small and I'm sorry but my spreadsheets are pretty involved. So again, asking for. 00:33:32
$10,000 to be appropriated out of storm water improvements. I believe it's at the bottom of that. 00:33:40
And we do have plenty of we do have funds in that and since it's downtown, I believe that one in particular when you all were 00:33:47
building your Sloss project list there was something specific for downtown. So I felt like that was relevant to come out of that 00:33:53
line I mean lied on and that that sub bucket or whatever. So and I'll go back to the what were our request is that you'll see if 00:33:58
somebody wants to. 00:34:04
Ask questions or anything. 00:34:11
And is there any authorization needed for the add alternates or you will you come back to us on that or is this, that's what we're 00:34:14
asking you. I think that's all, that's everything you need for all the alternates you're talking about is? 00:34:19
So the plan is to use the existing, I mean if we can contract with this. 00:34:25
Provider, we will negotiate with them since they're going to be already be mobilized to go ahead and try to do those other 00:34:30
projects for, for example, the Jackson. 00:34:34
Project would not be covered by this amount of money, correct? 00:34:38
Yeah, no, we think it. 00:34:41
OK. 00:34:43
Right, Yeah. 00:34:45
There's a pie and not a Councilman Garrett. Maybe I'll explain better, but there's a pipe that runs underneath the road and 00:34:48
there's some erosion. The road is it. There's a whole bunch of issues with the road and the pipe perhaps and. 00:34:53
We haven't done a full engineering review of it, but it needs to be addressed. 00:34:59
If you if you walk down Jackson St. 00:35:04
Right on the left you can see where the road is. Just a road and falling off. 00:35:06
Where the. 00:35:11
Yeah, it's not you. All of us probably walk Jackson St. You don't really notice it. But when you pause down there at that low spot 00:35:13
and you look, it's bad. It needs to be fixed. 00:35:17
Down there and appreciate Councilman Garrett bringing that to our attention. 00:35:22
All right. We all heard the report. Any discussion? 00:35:29
Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to take the action requested shown on the screen. 00:35:36
I make a motion to approve. 00:35:42
We have a motion. Do we have a second? 00:35:45
2nd. 00:35:47
Any discussion? 00:35:49
All in favor, Say aye. 00:35:51
Any opposed hearing? None. Motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to item 10. 00:35:54
This is related to sidewalk permits for businesses, I. 00:36:00
I'll give a brief preamble here and then we'll turn it over to Manager Dickerson and Attorney Reitman. 00:36:04
We as we thought about what was going on downtown. 00:36:11
We've had. 00:36:15
We've seen some other cities have some pretty significant litigation related to items in the right of way. 00:36:17
On public sidewalks and other downtown areas. 00:36:22
And we did not have a process in place to allow businesses to do those displays that protected the city on public right away. So 00:36:26
we asked those businesses to remove those items and when we did that, they said what we would love to be able to do that again and 00:36:31
we we listen to them. 00:36:37
And as a result of that, Manager Dickerson and attorney Reitman have come up with a solution here that would outline a permit 00:36:42
permitting process. 00:36:46
So that businesses within some reasonable bounds and without violating ABA and protecting the city legally would be able to move 00:36:50
forward with that. So manager Dickerson, if you want to unpack the details here. 00:36:55
That would be great and then we can discuss it. 00:37:01
All right, well, and the mayor did not give himself credit, but he actually looked at it as well and and helped us button it up 00:37:04
quite a bit. We he added the planter option which we had not thought about so. 00:37:10
Chapter 32 of the ordinance that we're asking to amend will include a definition for a display and a planter, and it will be 00:37:17
specific to. I think I've got those here. It will give specific parameters dimensions for those items again. 00:37:25
Trying to ensure that the right of way that the sidewalk is passable. 00:37:35
Making sure that anything that is out being displayed. 00:37:40
Request, but they may decide not to do it. 00:38:17
Then they can do that again, there are conditions. It has to be on the front wall, the building. 00:38:19
Within certain you know, parameters 12 inches deep or long a step, I think Kate, our downtown development director checked and 00:38:25
most of the steps are about 12 inches deep so. 00:38:30
Have to be secured. Have to be items if you're displaying items. And we're not talking about planners, but if you're displaying 00:38:35
odds, they have to be sold as part of your regular what you sell in your business. 00:38:40
And. 00:38:47
I don't know if there's anything. The only thing I did not add, I didn't do it today either is I didn't put all the requirements 00:38:49
for insurance, but they are going to be required to have insurance. 00:38:52
Same insurance that like a Little League team would have to have. Or I was trying to think of some other. You know, basic 00:38:57
insurance is not expensive. 00:39:01
But it protects us that it protects them. If something were to fall out and hit somebody, then they would be responsible for 00:39:07
consent or right away. And so we have the right to request that they have. 00:39:12
Insurance and cover it. 00:39:17
Joe, you want to talk to more of the legal aspect of it since? 00:39:19
Clearly, protection of the public health, safety and welfare was paramount. References to limits on the size attachments, nothing 00:39:24
that would be dangerous. It could cause potential harm to our citizens. 00:39:30
We looked at several other communities. Primarily this was manager Dickerson pulled an exemplar from, I think, Athens Clarke. We 00:39:37
also had some language from Union Point, Madison that we'd worked on in distant years past. We're able to fold in some elements of 00:39:45
that and then make it pretty succinct, straightforward, easy to administer, easy to understand and protective of the public, And I 00:39:53
believe it accomplishes that. You might note there the five plus feet of unobstructed pedestrian passageway. 00:40:01
A compliance obviously very important. We want to be pedestrian friendly, tourist friendly, visitor friendly, citizen friendly, 00:40:09
and I think this accomplishes that. Are there any questions? 00:40:14
So the, you know the obvious example here is Attic treasures. You know will now be able to display items again a limited amount of 00:40:27
items and the and those items will not be able to fall into the street. You know they'll need to be secured in such a way. So we 00:40:34
you know that they will not do that and so the traffic's not obscured. But we I think in reflecting on this this is a really. 00:40:42
I give a lot of credit to our downtown development Director, Kate Patterson and Manager Dickerson for thinking about what's a 00:40:50
compromise that allows our businesses to show some creativity in a public space and highlight their businesses while protecting 00:40:57
protecting the city in that case. And so I think this is. 00:41:03
I think this is a good compromise. 00:41:10
And there were two notes as we were talking about this at DDA. They have come to me. 00:41:12
One is that they asked specifically about the sandwich board signs, which is not covered in this because we already do have a sign 00:41:22
ordinance that would allow that. So there already is a mechanism for that. And then the other thing is a request to slightly amend 00:41:30
this and I'm not sure how we would do that is that for the few special events a year downtown, such as the Christmas parade trick 00:41:38
or treating that obviously planters would not have to be moved, but if there are displays. 00:41:46
That is one option. Another option is just to add a subsection I at the tail end advising that. 00:42:27
Upon a request of the city, planters and slash or displays may be temporarily removed. 00:42:33
For short duration, for special events periodically or words to that effect. 00:42:41
If Julie's captured that, then you could certainly when you make a motion we can add that as item high, which I think would be 00:42:47
nice to have in there. That's a great catch and then we're going to tackle the sandwich board situation. 00:42:53
You know, there's there's not great clarity on that. So we're going to circle back to that in a few months, yeah. 00:43:00
OK. Any other thoughts, questions. 00:43:06
OK, we'll entertain a motion. 00:43:10
I make a motion to approve with the addition of letter I as discussed. 00:43:14
OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second? 00:43:20
Second All right. Any further discussion? 00:43:23
Hearing none all in favor, say aye, aye, any opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to item 11. That's the updated fee 00:43:26
schedule to adopt fees for sidewalk permits. Yeah. So I didn't put the whole thing on there. Thank you. 00:43:33
Because I could, I figured you wouldn't be able to read it, but basically we're adding sidewalk display or planner permit. There's 00:43:40
a flat fee of $10 and that would be an annual fee. 00:43:43
All right. You've got the fee in front of you, it's. 00:43:47
Very nominal, Any. 00:43:51
Any discussion? Hearing, None. I'll entertain a motion. 00:43:54
I'll make a motion to approve the. 00:44:00
Fee schedule for other permits and fees for display. So motion to update the fee schedule from Councilman Thomas. Do we have a 00:44:03
second? 00:44:07
All right, we got a second from that side of the room. 00:44:13
Any discussion? Hearing? None. All in favor? Say aye. Any opposed? 00:44:17
The $10 fee passes next item appropriation from suppose 3 for downtown streetscape improvements manager Dickerson. I assume this 00:44:21
is you. 00:44:25
Yeah. And you are not able to read that, but I will tell you what this is about. So over the last few months with the improvements 00:44:29
with Rocket Field, we have you all had approved and remember these these lines, these items that are in black on the white 00:44:37
background, those are those are project areas within the within the bucket if you will, the road, streets and bridges is the top. 00:44:45
Segment and. 00:44:54
When you created this project list you created in these with these titles or sub buckets and in that we had streetscape 00:44:55
improvements for downtown where we have spent. 00:45:01
The park, the pocket park in front of Blind Pig. You'll see some pictures of that. We've done some of that just within our own, 00:45:42
you know, money we have in the, but this is a bigger lift. This is potentially. 00:45:46
You. 00:45:51
To streetscape for downtown improvements. The other thing that is not in here that I did mention to the mayor prior to this 00:46:24
meeting is we have also hit our limit on the 60,000 that was appropriated for signage, entryway signage, industrial park signage. 00:46:32
I'm here Shoals Park. I know I'm missing wayfinding signage. All the stuff we've had our we're almost we're butting up against 00:46:40
that 60,000. We spent almost 57,000 and we still have signage for Rocket Field that needs to be finished. 00:46:48
Space, the Thomas Farm Park and all these and Trove as well as Watkinsville Woods. So based on what we've already spent, I'm 00:46:56
asking that you approve an additional 15,000 out of that bucket that's in the second blue mark at the bottom. You know you can't 00:47:03
read it but multi-purpose government facilities and signage and so we just bump that up to another. 00:47:09
15,000 We'll pull that money out of the 120 that was set aside for signage. 00:47:18
So again, we're just sort of we're peeling off out of that appropriations of that money. So another 15 out of the 120 that was set 00:47:23
aside. 00:47:27
So we're basically moving money around that we've already allocated for. You know when we, when we did the signage stuff we didn't 00:47:32
anticipate obviously Thomas Farm Park, all the downtown directional signage, some of the other great things, Rocket Field, you 00:47:37
know. So there there's we've had a we have some good reasons. 00:47:42
Spend those funds, but we just need to move some things around in different buckets. 00:47:48
Anything else? Manager Dickerson? 00:47:54
On that. 00:47:57
OK, what would be the language that you would want us to approve here, just in A? 00:47:57
The appropriation, yeah, I would say yeah, I was 3 for downtown streetscape improvements. 00:48:04
Well, it's more than 10K, it's, it's several different, yeah. So I think and I'll say it and then we can if some of its motion, 00:48:09
Julie can capture it off the video, but approve appropriation from Splice 3. 00:48:14
For $10,000 for Downtown St. safe improvements. 00:48:21
And we'll move that money from. 00:48:26
The sidewalk bike lane sub line, if you will. We'll figure out a better way to say that and then 15,000 appropriate 15,000 from 00:48:29
multi-purpose government facilities. 00:48:34
Entrance. 00:48:40
And that will be used for the. 00:48:42
Signs needed at Rocket Field, The Green Space and Watkinsville Woods. 00:48:44
All right. Can I hear So moved. Do we have a? 00:48:49
Second. All right. Quick question before we move on, sharing on. 00:48:54
So what the records show we're investing an additional $10,000 in downtown beautification of landscaping, correct? Yeah, I just 00:49:32
want to be sure all of our watchers are clear on that. All right. 00:49:37
We have a motion. We have a second. Any further questions? 00:49:42
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? 00:49:45
All right, 50. Now we're to public comments. There's no one here, Julie, did we receive any comments in advance? No comments 00:49:51
received in advance. We'll move on to mayor's report. 00:49:56
I'll work through these pretty quickly this These are some photos of the sidewalks. 00:50:03
New high schools. That was, I think, the first time that we really put our tea spots money to work in a meaningful way, and that 00:50:08
was exciting to see. Those are. 00:50:12
Pretty much done at this point. We're just waiting for grass to grow and for it to look a little cleaner. 00:50:16
So that has been done and we're glad. I think the residents are thankful for that. Rocket Field, the last I heard is that we, 00:50:22
knock on wood, want to be wrapped up not this weekend, but next weekend. We had a lot happen in the past month. They've really 00:50:27
been flying over there, so our new parking is installed. 00:50:33
With with new drainage underneath it. 00:50:39
Fence has gone back up, The light posts have gone up, then that makes a tremendous difference. They're beautiful. The bleachers 00:50:43
are there. Little League is on the field. 00:50:47
As there are the EC bullets, I went out there Monday night and there were about 33 year old kids running around just having a 00:50:53
ball. The parents were enjoying it. 00:50:58
Everything that I'm hearing is is really, really positive. There's a little bit of work still to come. The patent court needs to 00:51:04
be finished. There's one drainage issue that's going to be addressed. 00:51:09
There's going to be a little bit more landscaping that's going to go in and then you know we're we're going to, we're going to 00:51:15
start putting it to real use in October. We've got, I think, 4 different events in October. So our, our team here at the city when 00:51:21
it gets turned over to us is going to have their work cut out for them in terms of taking care of it. 00:51:27
So anyway, it's it's. 00:51:34
Been really great to see it all come together over the past two months. Bread. I'm curious, when you got home, were you impressed 00:51:35
with how it looked for you? Yeah. 00:51:40
Yeah. 00:51:45
Yeah, yeah. 00:51:46
But the other thing to mention to mayor is the scoreboard is supposed to be in early November, should be up before Thanksgiving, 00:51:48
and then the net climber that's similar to what water Park has will be put in it. All that's going to be after the fall festival. 00:51:54
Yeah, and we are working. I'm trying to get access to the calendar that the yard is using. We've had a little. 00:52:33
Issue getting ahold of it. As soon as I do, I'll create a QR code that will send them to our website and we'll keep the. 00:52:40
The most recent, because we can't let them into the calendar. They'll go in there and change things there, but we can take a 00:52:47
snapshot of it and try to keep it updated. So we'll have a QR code at the field so people can look and see when it's available. So 00:52:52
then though they can't bring their kid out at 3:00 on Saturday because something's going on then, but they'll know they can go out 00:52:56
at 5:00. So we'll work on that. Hopefully we'll have that done in the next couple weeks. 00:53:01
Sorry. 00:53:08
Yeah, so I know that. Umm. 00:53:12
A dog park was going to be on that that. 00:53:18
Minimally it is on pause while we wait for the sod to get established. 00:53:21
It was suggested by a resident who is on the Little Dog Park group meet that perhaps some signage stating that it is the currently 00:53:27
no dogs are allowed or whatever it is might be helpful. 00:53:35
Because you know, word doesn't always get around and they might see the fence and go, oh this is the dog park and so just a 00:53:43
suggestion from a good suggestion. 00:53:47
OK, great. 00:53:52
All. 00:53:55
We already talked about rock and art in the park. We're excited about that. Originally I thought was we were going to combine the 00:53:58
Rocket Field grand opening with that, but we had, we did have some schedule challenges. So we're also that'll be Saturday, then 00:54:03
Sunday. 00:54:07
We're going to also have the official grand opening of Rocket Field, where we'll recognize our donor will have an inning of 00:54:13
exhibition ball being played. We're going to let the kids run the bases. We're going to do a group photo of everybody in the 00:54:18
community who wants to come out. 00:54:23
A big show at that event, The 1st 200 kids who run the bases are going to get a special commemorative gift as well, so we'd love 00:55:00
to have a lot of kids out there to celebrate with us that day. 00:55:05
Going to do a Watkinsville Woods work day, September 30th, 9:00 AM for anyone who can join. We need to spread the mulch on The 00:55:11
Walking trails and we've got a couple other odds and ends. If we have enough people that we want to tackle, that we may want to 00:55:16
tackle while we're out there. 00:55:21
Then we have another work day at Harris Shoals that same day. It seems like Sharon and Toby just wanted to knock all that out in 00:55:27
one day. So we're going to put the I guess our City team are going to divide and conquer and we're going to have Boy Scouts and 00:55:32
others. But if you're in town, mark your calendar for September 30th. 00:55:38
It is. I promise I did not tell Sharon that I was going to be out of town that day, but unfortunately I am out of town that day. 00:55:44
You all know I love the woods, so I would be out there working, but but we would love to have a good community showing there. Keep 00:55:48
up. County Beautiful is helping us with the one at Harris Shoals. 00:55:52
This is a pretty big change near the Blind Pig that you'll notice. We're trying to address that area up. We've got some chairs 00:55:59
coming to replace the old benches, so that's going to have a little bit more of a feel of a pocket park for people who want to sit 00:56:05
out there and run around before. 00:56:11
Exposed tree roots. It was just dirt. 00:56:18
And we know a lot of people like to spend time out there as they wait in the evenings at Rocket Field and it is a pleasant, shady 00:56:20
area out there. 00:56:24
At different times of the day, so kudos to the to our public works department for getting that dressed up. I think a lot of that 00:56:29
work happened today. 00:56:33
Oconee County Library well underway under the leadership of their Able Board Chair. 00:56:38
Brick facade is done. The sheetrock looks great. 00:56:44
And Windows have been installed. So it's it's really coming together. We're still tracking towards January, Mr. Chairman. 00:56:48
All right. 00:56:54
We had our first meeting of the Thomas Farm. 00:56:58
Park meeting was to was Tuesday before last. We'll actually do our site tour this Monday. 00:57:01
So we're we're looking forward to that and this is the schedule for the rest of those meetings October 4th and 11th council 00:57:09
members if you want to join us for those that will be public input sessions and we hope to have a good turn out there. Obviously 00:57:15
we'll have to manage expectations of the public in terms of there's there's not, there's a lot of things we can't do out there but 00:57:21
we had a really good, we've got a really great committee that's working on addressing the things. 00:57:27
That we can do this is a snapshot of that. 00:57:34
And we're thankful to everybody for giving us their. 00:57:37
We also have a. 00:57:40
Divided up into three subcommittees, one committee will focus on paths and trails, another will focus on how to best maintain the 00:57:42
land and the property, and another will focus on. 00:57:47
Physical structures and branding, fencing, parking you know kind of the the non the capital investments that we need to make so 00:57:51
folks are volunteering for which subcommittees they want to be on. 00:57:57
We've also engaged Smith Planning Group at a much reduced cost to help us with actually developing the refined plan and they've 00:58:03
agreed to do that at less than half of their normal cost to work like this. 00:58:09
So we're thankful for. 00:58:16
Oh, it's a birthday with. Yeah, OK, well, happy birthday. What's that is today? Today? 00:58:18
So the 7th was my birthday, which was also the day I flew home. So probably the longest Day in History because I flew backwards in 00:58:25
time. Longest birthday ever. But it was a fantastic birthday because I was coming home. OK, well, happy birthday and welcome home. 00:58:30
Thank you. 00:58:36
All right, council members, your turn. Chuck Garrett post one. 00:58:43
I sit in or listened in on the webinar. 00:58:49
Historic preservations. This. 00:58:52
Very helpful. And I was telling Jeff it's right spot on with where we at. 00:58:55
So we're on the right track, the right people to get it going. So awesome. Confirmation. All right, Councilwoman. 00:59:00
Chuck and I went to. 00:59:11
Constitution Week event at the church Sunday. And they had a good crowd and it turned out real nice. They did a good job. Always a 00:59:14
fun event to go to. Yes. All right, good. 00:59:20
Councilman Thomas, Hey again, just glad to be back here again. Like I said, I I did ride around Watkinsville. I mean immediately 00:59:29
upon. 00:59:33
Getting here, that's first thing I did Friday morning after I went and got me a Golden Pantry biscuit. 00:59:39
So I did ride around. Look, I am extremely pleased with all the work y'all done over the over the last year. Watkinsville looks 00:59:45
great. It really does. A wire park looks great. I mean just. 00:59:51
The Rocket Field looks great. I mean just Watkinsville looks great. So proud to be here and proud to be part of this team. 00:59:57
Welcome back. 01:00:04
Mayor Pro Tem. 01:00:05
So just to kind of quick comment on my thankfulness for just being part of this community we. 01:00:09
I mean, we have our team, our staff team, that is amazing. But also I would say just being part of the city, the friendliness. 01:00:19
And and our community as a whole, also our county. I went to the. 01:00:27
The planning meeting for the school system last night and I think it was record turn out about 500 people and. 01:00:32
Just that that sense of collaboration and for the most part, positivity. 01:00:43
I'm just really grateful to get to be in this community and grateful to be sitting here. 01:00:50
So go Walkinsville. 01:00:56
All right, Councilman Campbell, you get to follow that. 01:00:59
I can't, so I have nothing to report. 01:01:04
All right. 01:01:09
I don't think we have any need for an executive session. 01:01:11
Hallelujah. So unless anybody objects, I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn, Please. I'll make a motion to adjourn and a 01:01:15
second, please, all in favor say aye. 01:01:20
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Transcript

Event transcript
All right, Welcome to the September City of Watkinsville Council meeting. We have an exciting moment tonight and that Councilman 00:00:07
Brett Thomas is back from deployment in Kuwait. Welcome back. 00:00:14
We've said it, I think almost every month, but we are so grateful to you and and for your service, Councilman Thomas and. 00:00:24
Really thankful though to have you back here stateside and joining us. So we we have missed you and welcome back. 00:00:31
Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm super glad to be back, Glad to be here. I think I've been home for today, Wednesday. 00:00:37
Eight days now. So super glad to be back. Getting to a routine of normalcy again. Great. Welcome back. Welcome back. We do have a 00:00:45
quorum here tonight. In fact, we have everyone here, which is great. And we're going to lead off with the pledge as we always do. 00:00:50
Councilman Thomas, if you could lead us, please. 00:00:56
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:01:02
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:01:09
We don't have a big crowd tonight, but as always, I'll remind everyone this meeting is being broadcast simultaneously via Suite 1. 00:01:19
That's our webcasting public portal. Those who aren't able to attend the meeting can access that portal and they can review the 00:01:26
council packet as we go through it. That packet is also posted in advance so anyone who has questions can send them to us. 00:01:32
I'll entertain a motion or to approve those or any corrections to the minutes. 00:02:11
Make a motion to approve both. 00:02:18
Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to approve both sets of minutes. Any discussion? 00:02:20
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? 00:02:27
Motion carries unanimously. 00:02:30
Second item will be approval of the agenda. I do not have any. 00:02:33
Requests. We only have one item on consent, so unless anyone has any. 00:02:38
Adjustments to the agenda. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. 00:02:43
Make a motion to approve the agenda. 00:02:48
Do we have a second I? Second we have a motion in a second. Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor, say aye. 00:02:51
Any opposed motion carries unanimously. 00:02:58
Under administration, we will let manager Dickerson give us our financial reports as I said earlier. 00:03:01
Public comment is not typical during this part of the conversation, but if you do want to comment, please indicate and that 00:03:08
decision will be at the council's discretion. If you do make a comment, refrain from debate, address council and any no personal 00:03:14
attacks will be tolerated. Ultimately, that comes council and the attorney on matters that are not required. Public hearings will 00:03:20
make the decision about how long. 00:03:26
And whether you're to whether you can continue addressing Council Manager Dickerson, if you want to give us our financial reports 00:03:32
and economic development reports that would be great. Thank you, Mayor. 00:03:36
So everybody should have their balance sheets, the revenue and expense reports. If there are any questions, we're moving along 00:03:41
fine. We're only two months since it's kind of hard to tell you much of anything, but. 00:03:46
We're not out of money yet, so that's good. If you have any questions on that, I'll talk about SP. 00:03:52
So Sloss 2, we thought this would be closed out, but we've still not received the final invoice from the county for the work on 00:03:59
sewer line. 00:04:03
So as soon as that comes in, we will exhaust those funds including the 412 extra will take the balance. I think that probably is a 00:04:08
mixture of of. 00:04:12
Interest as well as other monies that we didn't, you know that came in that we didn't allocate for this purpose, but we do have 00:04:17
some money. You may recall that some of this is going to have to be paid for out of general fund fund balance. So we'll take that 00:04:22
extra 412 and any other interest we get on that and put it towards that as well. 00:04:27
So we'll see if we can get that paid before the end of this month and next month we'll have a loss to you, will be closed. 00:04:32
On splice. 00:04:37
We have this is the one that we still receive at 8.63% and these are the projects right now that are really active outside of the 00:04:40
Teesplos work that we'll talk about in a minute. So this is Rocket Field. 00:04:46
This is equipment we purchased for public works and or for public safety. 00:04:53
Any of the work that we're talking about tonight with regard to drainage and all that will be out of this fund, but this is where 00:04:59
we sit right now. So we have. 00:05:03
Received to date about 15,000 a month for the last 24 months, more than what we thought we were going to be getting. So that's 00:05:07
always good news. 00:05:11
So we're sitting above our projections by about $360,000. 00:05:16
So if we end up, is there a cap on this like so it's just we collect it through the timeline? 00:05:23
Yep, wonderful. There's a cap there, right? Sharing of the Max. 00:05:31
The Max amount. So these are all, I think this is all percentage the those numbers that we have the referendum, I put the numbers, 00:05:35
not the percentages. In the referendum the language was percentage or is it percentage and we estimate the percentage based on 00:05:40
what they thought they were going to collect. 00:05:45
So ultimately we never collect the full amounts that may or not make it. So the 5.579 million is the total is the most you can 00:05:51
collect. I do believe that is correct, but you will never, I don't think any they always set it higher. 00:05:58
But we always project and it's been about right somewhere between 83 and 85% collection so but now. 00:06:05
And this gets kind of crazy. But on each of those buckets, the referendum, you can never spend more than what's in that 00:06:12
referendum, that that line item for the referendum. 00:06:16
But you could, you know you could potentially. 00:06:22
Spend 540,000 and public safety but under spend and rec and park so that you don't ever go over you know the amount the over the 00:06:25
projection that that you have maybe that's not that may not be making sense but anyway but yeah there is the 5.579144 is the 00:06:31
amount that was approved the referendum they always estimate higher. I don't think anybody has ever gone over it that I know of 00:06:38
because they always build in a lot more than what they expect so. 00:06:45
But it will continue to collect and I don't think on Splost 2 and go back to Splos 2 that we. 00:06:52
Yeah, see, we only collect. 00:06:58
We collected for today 4 million and they estimate 4.7. 00:07:00
So are we trending on Spice 3 to be higher than that 83% that we budgeted on? 00:07:04
With an, I mean, how much we've been going up. Yeah, So the projection of revenues at 83 percent is 65,000 a month and we're at 00:07:12
79,000. So I don't know what that percentage would be. It's not 100, obviously 100%. 00:07:18
I can figure that out and let you know. OK. Thank you. And did we and our buckets, did we base them on the 5 million that is 00:07:25
probably never going to be not the 83. 00:07:32
Referendum language. You figured out about what you thought you needed in each one of those buckets, and there's even rules about 00:07:39
moving stuff from one bucket to the other if you need to. If you don't have a, you know so. 00:07:45
But yes, OK. Thank you. OK. 00:07:50
And then here's the breakdown so far. So you'll see just between. 00:07:55
Between July of last year and this year, there's a 15% increase over what was collected. 00:07:59
That's good news. 00:08:04
On tea Sploss. So this is right now, most of this money is being spent on sidewalks. You guys have approved and allocated money 00:08:07
for that. The mayor will talk a little bit about that in his report. 00:08:12
And we have not actually didn't it didn't clear this month or in July. I mean sorry, in August did not, the check did not clear. 00:08:19
But we have spent some money for Mr. Mayweather to do the work on new high shelves at just North, sorry, new high shelves. It just 00:08:23
hasn't shown up. 00:08:28
In the report yet. 00:08:32
And then you know this is at a smaller percentage 7.77%. We are averaging, I think I had it over here 68,000, but remember the 00:08:34
average is over the course of the 60 months. So if we do anticipate it will increase over time. 00:08:42
And that's how we budget. 00:08:50
We have about 270,000 or so in the bank. 00:08:53
The questions AARP, American Rescue plan monies right now you guys approved some appropriate some funds for the park purchase and 00:08:57
then we have existing money in our public safety retention initiative. Some of those officers are still receiving their second and 00:09:03
third checks. 00:09:09
Any questions on any of those? 00:09:16
Okie dokie. 00:09:20
And move into economic development? Not a lot yet. Julie's going to be sending out the. 00:09:21
Business license renewals, probably this next. 00:09:28
But right now we have 8, but one I'll point out is Mama's boy if y'all haven't been there. They did have a soft opening this 00:09:32
morning and so they've gotten their their business license and pretty excited about them joining the city. 00:09:37
Brett, we also have a cat cafe coming, so just you know why you've been gone. 00:09:44
Did they have biscuits? And they did. They had to form? No, I mean at Kuwait. 00:09:55
I was about to say you had to be missing some things over there. No, There we go. 00:10:03
On the excise tax you'll you'll note that August is not showing up for Hotel Motel, it's because we get it after the fact. So 00:10:09
we'll get the August payment and at the end of this month. 00:10:13
Alcohol and hotel motel are trending very well. 00:10:18
And then on the building permits only had a few, four of them, all individual, just basic kind of stuff. I had a little work from 00:10:22
AT&T going on the right away. 00:10:26
Any questions about? 00:10:32
All right, Mayor Pro Tem about the Downtown Development Authority. OK, we had our monthly meeting today. 00:10:37
Again, we have a fantastic board, really grateful for all of the the members who donate, you know their time and their expertise. 00:10:46
Again, a reminder if you all do not already have on your calendar October 14th at Rocket Field. We have the event that has been 00:10:54
made possible by the grant that we got from attending the Creative Placemaking event and it's going to be a lot of fun. The Splits 00:11:02
band will be there. They'll be music from, I mean Sorry, they'll be food and drink from local. 00:11:11
Restaurants including chops. 00:11:20
Brewery Dobies, Mama Nings and possibly some of our farmers market vendors will be there too, and some of the proceeds of all of 00:11:24
the sales will be going to help support the DVA which we've earmarked it for beautification. 00:11:31
Of our downtown and also. 00:11:40
We are, through this creating a pocket park. 00:11:44
In the space across from Dobies. And so the public art that is going to be created at this event will be displayed there and there 00:11:48
will be chairs. And we're still kind of figuring out exactly all of the things we're going to do there, but it should be another 00:11:54
community gathering space. 00:12:00
A place for us to come connect. So that's going on and moving along smoothly. But please, we're going to start posting things on 00:12:07
social media about this. If you use social media, if you will, share it. 00:12:13
And just, you know, we have local businesses who are coming and preparing food. We would hope that there will be people there to 00:12:19
purchase that. So please get the word out. Is there a name for the event? What's it called? It is called Rock and Art at the park. 00:12:25
All right. Gotcha. OK, so. 00:12:30
We also, we have new businesses that are coming into our downtown. We have 4 new businesses in the next few months, which is 00:12:40
really exciting. So and my notes I'm realizing are sitting on my desk. So I may get the names wrong, but we have. 00:12:48
The Outfitters, but that's not what it's called, but it's like a Coney Outfitters might be the name going where the old Welcome 00:12:58
Center is and it's going to have kind of a general store vibe. The owner also does outdoor events and so you'll be able to buy 00:13:07
packages and stuff there. And I think the kind of vibe of it if you've been to wander up in Clayton. 00:13:15
Obviously the space is not nearly that big, but it it will have kind of a similar vibe, so I think it'll be a great addition to 00:13:25
downtown. 00:13:28
Have a cat cafe coming which we got some details at our meeting of what that actually is. So it will be a spot where you can go in 00:13:31
and get smoothies, coffee, drinks, prepackaged food. The cats will be behind a glass wall so you will not be like at my house 00:13:38
where I often have a cat on my lap while I'm drinking my morning coffee. You that will not be happening. You separate the food 00:13:46
from the cats but you can see them and and so if you like cats but maybe don't want to have them in your house. 00:13:53
You can enjoy them or you can for a small fee, go in and play with the cats. And they're all adoptable as well. So I think that's 00:14:00
a fun new addition to downtown. And then the coffee roaster will be coming. They will not be selling cups of coffee, although I 00:14:07
did hear that if you go, he may give you a cup of coffee. And so that will smell wonderful throughout our town. And then there's a 00:14:14
new home kind of boutique. 00:14:21
In the Town Center shopping center. 00:14:29
By Mama Nings and I can't remember the names about the clothing boutique and so, but it's a local artist, so it will have probably 00:14:31
a mixture of things. So I think that's another great addition to our downtown. So all of those will be coming in the next few 00:14:36
months. 00:14:40
Oh, and we do, but with that, that will come up. 00:14:50
OK. And also we reviewed the. 00:14:53
The new business items 10:11 and 12:00 and. 00:14:57
They. 00:15:02
The board thought they were good ideas and. 00:15:05
Yeah. 00:15:09
Sorry, my notes are sitting on my desk, but they again and we have, if you don't know, the the board is made-up of local. 00:15:11
Business owners and so there's a good sampling of. 00:15:22
Of people very invested in our community. Again, I feel like we are incredibly fortunate with with our DBA board. 00:15:27
OK, that's it. 00:15:35
All right, until I get home and look at the notes on my desk. 00:15:37
Well, thank you for all your work and and to our Executive Director, Kate Patterson for keeping all that moving forward. 00:15:41
Speaking of hard workers, Chief Tedderton, why don't you come up and give us your report? It sounds like it's been an interesting 00:15:48
month. 00:15:50
Mayor, Council, good evening. 00:15:54
So in your packet, if you'll take a glance at the pie chart. 00:15:56
We had a pretty busy activities over the last 30. 00:16:01
For calls for service the numbers went up to 19140 that includes self generated activity. 00:16:05
For security checks on homes and businesses, the guys did 12115 and on. 00:16:12
Traffic stops, they did 212 of the 200 and 12113 of those were speeding and other 212. We issued a total of 119 warnings. The rest 00:16:17
of that was 4 citations. 00:16:23
If you go a little bit farther in on our. 00:16:31
We had a little bit busier month this month and we did last time we had a total of eight actual principal in custody arrests. We 00:16:34
had a couple that we. 00:16:38
Gave notices to appear because there were very low profile violations, but of our eight arrests. 00:16:43
Three of them were for criminal matters, all of which was drug related, cocaine, marijuana. 00:16:49
Some methamphetamine was the results of those. Now on one of those arrests we came in contact with three weapons which we seized. 00:16:57
And we're moving for forfeiture of those in. 00:17:05
Assault rifle, 2 pistols, a 357 and a 9mm that the people had in their custody and interestingly enough they were. Both of them 00:17:09
were out on bond on similar charges for weapons. 00:17:14
Drugs out of Emanuel County Down South and we actually they were coming to a ball game and we interrupted their day. 00:17:22
The other arrests were all traffic related and it ranged from 2 DUI's as well as. 00:17:29
Additional charges on those and the others were suspended or revoked driver's license violations. 00:17:34
So 200. 00:17:41
Traffic stops all told. 00:17:43
And all those resulted, all those arrests were from traffic stops. There were about 10 in total, 8 in custody and then two that we 00:17:45
released. 00:17:49
Community events. We stayed pretty busy this month. We went over to St. Gabriel's. They host a first responder, a breakfast every 00:17:54
September 11th. They did it last year for the first time. We were there last year and we were there this year. 00:18:00
Badges. Benevolence. We have come up with a new idea to do a cops and Cones event with the owner of Scoops and Wire Park. We've 00:18:08
come up with a Saturday. It's an away game every Saturday in. 00:18:13
Is a Georgia game, but this one in particular is an away game against Tennessee and we're going to be out there for about two 00:18:19
hours on a Saturday afternoon. 00:18:23
With the owner of that, he's providing us an opportunity to give ice cream cones to kids. We're going to let them look at our cars 00:18:27
and equipment. 00:18:30
And maybe play some games. 00:18:33
Recently we went to the library to the children's reading program. I put a Facebook post out and Officer Anglin, myself and 00:18:37
Sergeant Hiller went there and met some really little kids and read a book about police work and gave them some coloring books. 00:18:44
And spent some time there with. 00:18:51
Children's reading. 00:18:53
We went to an art selection I did with Sheriff Hale and we picked out some and Chief Thaxton from the fire department. 00:18:56
We picked out some. 00:19:03
That are going to be given out for the run for responders event in. 00:19:06
That's our big event. It happens October 1st. 00:19:10
So if you can, would love to see everybody come out to that. It's a good time. It's a Sunday. It starts at 12:30 and ends at 4:30. 00:19:13
So if you can come out and do that. 00:19:21
We have a flag placement that we're going to do in November and we have. 00:19:24
Kind of a volunteer. 00:19:29
Cleanup event the first week of November at the cemetery with the Arkansas and some other volunteers. We're just going to do a 00:19:31
general cleanup. 00:19:34
Before veterans. 00:19:38
Officer training. 00:19:40
Officer Walker leaves for basic narcotics investigations. 00:19:43
Monday and he'll be gone to Forsyth for a week. Myself, Sergeant Wade. 00:19:47
And Sergeant Hitler are going over for a garma GMA risk reduction class for law enforcement that's hosted at the Athens Police 00:19:51
Department. We're going to be doing that next week. 00:19:56
We went over to Piedmont traffic network in Winder. We had about 60 area law enforcement officers. We conducted ADR checkpoint 00:20:02
over there and Speaking of that, tomorrow we're going to. 00:20:09
Doing this month's traffic event over in Clark County, it's a little bit differe. 00:20:16
We're installing child safety seats and inspecting child safety seats. These are donated seats. 00:20:20
That we were given to give to needy families that don't have. 00:20:25
Interesting case of the month. This one was pretty lengthy. 00:20:30
And it is the one that involves the seizure of the methamphetamine, the cocaine, the marijuana and the firearms. That one's 00:20:34
detailed. 00:20:38
In your handout, it resulted from 2 arrests. 00:20:44
And actually, one of the people in the car shouldn't even have been in possession of guns, because they are a Lottenberg Amendment 00:20:47
violator. 00:20:50
Domestic violence, so they kept around firearms to begin. 00:20:54
But we have had an. 00:20:59
Month. Recently we've had two cases that are ongoing. Can't talk a lot about them, but they involve thefts at a very large level. 00:21:01
The smaller one was just over $40,000 and it was what was called the warrant scam, if you read my little. 00:21:10
Community public Safety announcement. If you'll take the time to read, that will explain what a warrant scam is. 00:21:16
But essentially, the victim was convinced by someone portraying themselves as a police officer that they had outstanding warrants 00:21:22
for their arrest. 00:21:26
And that she needed to provide them cash to stay out of jail. 00:21:29
And. 00:21:33
The poor lady drove around from 8:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night. 00:21:35
And they basically sucked her bank account dry during the course of that whole day. 00:21:39
And finally released her over at Barnes and Nobles at Epps. 00:21:43
And she's out about $45,000. 00:21:48
Umm. 00:21:52
Shocking. We have another business. 00:21:54
That is out 72,000. 00:21:57
We're going to probably be getting some outside help on that case with the GBI and the FBI because it involves transactions. 00:22:01
Through the wire, out to California, back and forth, and essentially it is a loan scam. 00:22:08
He was asked. 00:22:14
Provide money. 00:22:16
Of good faith money, if you will, The $72,000 in exchange for a loan of $3,000,000. 00:22:18
Generally speaking. 00:22:26
That's really unheard of. If you're borrowing money, they don't ask you to front money, especially in that amount. 00:22:28
But people get caught up in these. 00:22:34
So take a look at that and. 00:22:37
Outside of that, I think that's about it for. 00:22:40
Have you guys got? 00:22:44
I have a question. Yes, ma'am. So I have noticed that. 00:22:46
Umm, it seems like actual ticket writing may have gone down and warnings have gone up. And and I mean, I, you know, I don't have 00:22:52
all decisions in front of me. I know that writing tickets isn't about being punitive. It's not that like, oh, we you know. 00:22:59
We. 00:23:07
I mean it's it's not about, it's not about punishment. 00:23:08
So are you finding that the warnings are effective? And if I'm guessing that if someone gets pulled over for a second time they 00:23:13
got a warning the first time, they would not get a warning at that. Generally that's true. So when we when we issue a warning. 00:23:19
We try to keep it about a 5050 balance or maybe a 6040 balance in favor of the. 00:23:25
But if you're issued a warning when my guys put it into their computer if they stop you a second time? 00:23:31
Your information appears on the screen. They can tell whether you've had one or not. 00:23:37
And then they can click on it and it can tell what your warning was. 00:23:42
So they do take that into consideration, but they do make a judgment call on every individual traffic's office. So just because 00:23:46
you got one warning doesn't mean you might not get a second. 00:23:51
A lot of the speeding offenses. 00:23:55
I think the officers and I know personally, I take into account what a person tells me. 00:23:58
I. 00:24:04
You can talk yourself into a ticket, but you can also talk yourself out if you have a viable explanation. 00:24:06
And I'll give you a for instance, I was running stationary radar on North Main Street, and I clocked the car that was doing about 00:24:12
70 mph in a 45 zone. So I stopped. 00:24:17
They were actually on their way to Piedmont. 00:24:22
Because. 00:24:25
Mother was in the emergency room and was not expected to make it, so I gave those people a verbal warning and let them go. 00:24:26
That's an example of someone that. 00:24:34
We show compassion to and have. 00:24:35
There is no good reason for speeding, but had a understandable reason for speed. 00:24:38
But I think warnings are effect. 00:24:42
If. 00:24:45
To give somebody a warning. 00:24:46
Having said, there are things we'll give warnings more and things we will not. 00:24:48
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's helpful. 00:24:55
All right. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate all you do and all your guys. 00:24:59
Next on our item, our agenda is the consent agenda. We have one item on there and I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent 00:25:05
agenda. 00:25:09
Make a motion to approve the consent agenda 2nd. I'll second. All right. Thank you, Brett. All in favor, say aye. 00:25:16
Motion carries unanimously. 00:25:24
Public Hearings. We Have none Tonight. Appearances We Have White St. Parcel W 05079. 00:25:26
Demolition permit. We'll start off with them getting a report from the engineer. 00:25:33
And then we'll hear from the applicant if they want to add anything there. 00:25:39
Thank you, Mayor. 00:25:43
So this, the partial AT64 White Street is actually at the corner of White St. and Bunny Hop Trail. It's a detached residential 00:25:44
zone property. The request is for demolition of the existing structure. It's a relatively small partial based on the available 00:25:52
information. So you have an idea of where that is located. There again on that that southern corner of a White St. and Bunny Hop. 00:26:00
Recently the reason for the request of the demolition was recently a tree fell through. 00:26:09
The structure not just onto the structure, but into the structure. You can see a little bit better that on the. This is from the 00:26:15
from Bunny hop, so you can see the deterioration there. The applicants provided documentation related to the to the structure and 00:26:20
the disrepair of the structure. 00:26:26
That documentation was provided by a company called K2 Disaster Response. It was dated from earlier this month that based on the 00:26:33
damage that had occurred. 00:26:38
The. 00:26:44
Structure essentially is I don't say beyond repair, but in a state such that repair becomes more difficult. So that's the reason 00:26:46
for the demolition request. 00:26:51
Oconee County tax assessors does indicate the structure was constructed in 1965, which means it's old. There's no documentation of 00:26:57
any historical significance related to the structure at this location. 00:27:02
The applicant did provide information from a third party source related to asbestos. That report did indicate that there's no 00:27:09
asbestos containing materials, but that does not relieve the applicant from the responsibility of should they encounter any 00:27:15
asbestos containing materials that they would have to follow state law. As is related to that, again, there's not any disturbance 00:27:21
of greater than an acre on the site because the site is less than an acre. 00:27:27
But the applicant would need to take best management practices into place during a demolition to make sure there's no 00:27:33
sedimentation onto the roadway or any adjacent properties. I will note that the adjacent roadway was recently paved as of today, 00:27:39
so there will also need to be special care taken to make sure that there's no equipment that would damage that adjacent roadway on 00:27:44
Bunny Hop Trail. 00:27:50
Happy to answer any questions you might. 00:27:56
All right. Is the applicant here tonight? 00:28:00
All right. 00:28:03
OK, All right. Do we have any questions for the applicant? 00:28:07
All right, all right. We don't have any council, any discussion. 00:28:12
All right, we'll entertain a motion. 00:28:17
I make a motion that we approve the demolition request. 00:28:23
All right, we have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? 00:28:27
Oh, with the conditions. 00:28:30
Yes. 00:28:34
I will second with the conditions. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Any further discussion? 00:28:36
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? None. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Sir. 00:28:40
You're going to people get plans for a new house. I'm assuming there once this is done. 00:28:48
Boy. 00:28:56
Unfortunately, start right over. OK, All right, all right. Good luck. All right. For those who couldn't hear, the the owner does 00:29:00
plan to put a new house up. 00:29:06
Later new business, we have item number 9 related to a Water St. drain pipe upgrade. I'll let Manager Dickerson and Engineer 00:29:13
Campbell give us a report on that please. 00:29:18
Thank you, Mayor. 00:29:27
So a little background on this. We are first of all say what we're going to request. We're going to request that you guys approve 00:29:29
this contractor that you authorize me and the city engineer to negotiate with the lowest price proposal that we've received and 00:29:35
see if they can be as responsive as we need them to be, which is yesterday. 00:29:40
And then if there's any documents that need to be signed that the Mayor and city clerk be allowed to do that. We are also asking 00:29:47
to be able to negotiate with this whoever that contractor ends up being to do some add alternates for some other work that's 00:29:53
needed in the city Jackson St. and possibly Industrial Blvd. With some appropriation of of funds in those in out of Spouse 3. So 00:29:59
I'll walk you through a little bit. 00:30:05
So last month you all approved some money to cover some Stormware Stormwater Advance system upgrades. 00:30:12
And there's been considerable issues on Water St. probably related to some in some adjustments that have been made by G dot on 00:30:21
Main Street to deal with the water flowing off that road. As a result it's created some issues in the conveyance system. So we're 00:30:28
asking for some an upgrade to that the Carter engineering has designed and. 00:30:36
Solution to this problem, or at least somewhat of a solution we think to relieve some of that extra water that's coming off of. 00:30:46
Main Street and flowing underwater St. and back into the. 00:30:52
Back down the street, so you'll see we have 4 vendors that provided price proposals. 00:30:56
This is an emergency sort of situation. So we contacted all the ones that we knew of that would have an interest and we got all 00:31:02
four of all the four that we reached out to all responded. You'll see they're all sort of group together a little bit higher on 00:31:07
one of those that last one structural resources but. 00:31:12
But they're generally in the same area. So we felt pretty good about that. That means they're all sort of looking at the same, 00:31:18
looking at the same way. Again, purchasing policy allows me to grant some authority to purchase things in an emergency situation 00:31:24
well differently. And so like I said, we did not go out with a request for proposal, did not have time really for that. We did 00:31:29
request and didn't have drawings and had them look at those. 00:31:35
I did speak with the mayor. 00:31:42
Engineer I think the attorney was aware of it as well, and I believe Councilman Campbell was involved in that as well. 00:31:44
If the council appropriates, so we have some money left in ELMIG, which I would like to go ahead and use because we have to go 00:31:51
ahead and ask next month or the following month for the FY24 L Meg monies. So L Meg is the local maintenance improvement grant 00:31:57
funds that we get from the state to do basically Rd. improvements. 00:32:02
But it also includes other things like drainage. So we have about 6750 left in that account. So I'd like to allocate that money 00:32:08
along with the 60,000 that you guys gave us last month for this project. 00:32:14
And so we're short about roughly $10,000. So we do have the money in SPLOST, 3IN road streets and bridges in the storm water 00:32:21
improvements and you guys do have, I did provide a spreadsheet. So you'll see where that is. I'm just asking that you appropriate 00:32:26
it for that project. 00:32:32
This is a picture if you know. I don't know if engineer Campbell wants to talk about a little bit, but this is, and my cursor is 00:32:38
not very bright, but you'll see there's a right there in the middle is the pipe that we're talking about. 00:32:44
Lane across water St. to try to help. 00:32:50
Some of that water. Do you have anything you'd like? 00:32:53
Add engineer. 00:32:56
Yeah, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have. But this is again it's, it's added pipe to increase the capacity 00:32:58
mainly of the subsurface flow that's already existing and and rerouting that to the existing downstream discharge point to help 00:33:06
alleviate any surface flow that may be occurring there. On Water St. ordinary, the Water Street School St. intersection. This 00:33:13
should help get some of that water further downstream and have a positive impact on the roadway there. 00:33:20
And then this is really small and I'm sorry but my spreadsheets are pretty involved. So again, asking for. 00:33:32
$10,000 to be appropriated out of storm water improvements. I believe it's at the bottom of that. 00:33:40
And we do have plenty of we do have funds in that and since it's downtown, I believe that one in particular when you all were 00:33:47
building your Sloss project list there was something specific for downtown. So I felt like that was relevant to come out of that 00:33:53
line I mean lied on and that that sub bucket or whatever. So and I'll go back to the what were our request is that you'll see if 00:33:58
somebody wants to. 00:34:04
Ask questions or anything. 00:34:11
And is there any authorization needed for the add alternates or you will you come back to us on that or is this, that's what we're 00:34:14
asking you. I think that's all, that's everything you need for all the alternates you're talking about is? 00:34:19
So the plan is to use the existing, I mean if we can contract with this. 00:34:25
Provider, we will negotiate with them since they're going to be already be mobilized to go ahead and try to do those other 00:34:30
projects for, for example, the Jackson. 00:34:34
Project would not be covered by this amount of money, correct? 00:34:38
Yeah, no, we think it. 00:34:41
OK. 00:34:43
Right, Yeah. 00:34:45
There's a pie and not a Councilman Garrett. Maybe I'll explain better, but there's a pipe that runs underneath the road and 00:34:48
there's some erosion. The road is it. There's a whole bunch of issues with the road and the pipe perhaps and. 00:34:53
We haven't done a full engineering review of it, but it needs to be addressed. 00:34:59
If you if you walk down Jackson St. 00:35:04
Right on the left you can see where the road is. Just a road and falling off. 00:35:06
Where the. 00:35:11
Yeah, it's not you. All of us probably walk Jackson St. You don't really notice it. But when you pause down there at that low spot 00:35:13
and you look, it's bad. It needs to be fixed. 00:35:17
Down there and appreciate Councilman Garrett bringing that to our attention. 00:35:22
All right. We all heard the report. Any discussion? 00:35:29
Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to take the action requested shown on the screen. 00:35:36
I make a motion to approve. 00:35:42
We have a motion. Do we have a second? 00:35:45
2nd. 00:35:47
Any discussion? 00:35:49
All in favor, Say aye. 00:35:51
Any opposed hearing? None. Motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to item 10. 00:35:54
This is related to sidewalk permits for businesses, I. 00:36:00
I'll give a brief preamble here and then we'll turn it over to Manager Dickerson and Attorney Reitman. 00:36:04
We as we thought about what was going on downtown. 00:36:11
We've had. 00:36:15
We've seen some other cities have some pretty significant litigation related to items in the right of way. 00:36:17
On public sidewalks and other downtown areas. 00:36:22
And we did not have a process in place to allow businesses to do those displays that protected the city on public right away. So 00:36:26
we asked those businesses to remove those items and when we did that, they said what we would love to be able to do that again and 00:36:31
we we listen to them. 00:36:37
And as a result of that, Manager Dickerson and attorney Reitman have come up with a solution here that would outline a permit 00:36:42
permitting process. 00:36:46
So that businesses within some reasonable bounds and without violating ABA and protecting the city legally would be able to move 00:36:50
forward with that. So manager Dickerson, if you want to unpack the details here. 00:36:55
That would be great and then we can discuss it. 00:37:01
All right, well, and the mayor did not give himself credit, but he actually looked at it as well and and helped us button it up 00:37:04
quite a bit. We he added the planter option which we had not thought about so. 00:37:10
Chapter 32 of the ordinance that we're asking to amend will include a definition for a display and a planter, and it will be 00:37:17
specific to. I think I've got those here. It will give specific parameters dimensions for those items again. 00:37:25
Trying to ensure that the right of way that the sidewalk is passable. 00:37:35
Making sure that anything that is out being displayed. 00:37:40
Request, but they may decide not to do it. 00:38:17
Then they can do that again, there are conditions. It has to be on the front wall, the building. 00:38:19
Within certain you know, parameters 12 inches deep or long a step, I think Kate, our downtown development director checked and 00:38:25
most of the steps are about 12 inches deep so. 00:38:30
Have to be secured. Have to be items if you're displaying items. And we're not talking about planners, but if you're displaying 00:38:35
odds, they have to be sold as part of your regular what you sell in your business. 00:38:40
And. 00:38:47
I don't know if there's anything. The only thing I did not add, I didn't do it today either is I didn't put all the requirements 00:38:49
for insurance, but they are going to be required to have insurance. 00:38:52
Same insurance that like a Little League team would have to have. Or I was trying to think of some other. You know, basic 00:38:57
insurance is not expensive. 00:39:01
But it protects us that it protects them. If something were to fall out and hit somebody, then they would be responsible for 00:39:07
consent or right away. And so we have the right to request that they have. 00:39:12
Insurance and cover it. 00:39:17
Joe, you want to talk to more of the legal aspect of it since? 00:39:19
Clearly, protection of the public health, safety and welfare was paramount. References to limits on the size attachments, nothing 00:39:24
that would be dangerous. It could cause potential harm to our citizens. 00:39:30
We looked at several other communities. Primarily this was manager Dickerson pulled an exemplar from, I think, Athens Clarke. We 00:39:37
also had some language from Union Point, Madison that we'd worked on in distant years past. We're able to fold in some elements of 00:39:45
that and then make it pretty succinct, straightforward, easy to administer, easy to understand and protective of the public, And I 00:39:53
believe it accomplishes that. You might note there the five plus feet of unobstructed pedestrian passageway. 00:40:01
A compliance obviously very important. We want to be pedestrian friendly, tourist friendly, visitor friendly, citizen friendly, 00:40:09
and I think this accomplishes that. Are there any questions? 00:40:14
So the, you know the obvious example here is Attic treasures. You know will now be able to display items again a limited amount of 00:40:27
items and the and those items will not be able to fall into the street. You know they'll need to be secured in such a way. So we 00:40:34
you know that they will not do that and so the traffic's not obscured. But we I think in reflecting on this this is a really. 00:40:42
I give a lot of credit to our downtown development Director, Kate Patterson and Manager Dickerson for thinking about what's a 00:40:50
compromise that allows our businesses to show some creativity in a public space and highlight their businesses while protecting 00:40:57
protecting the city in that case. And so I think this is. 00:41:03
I think this is a good compromise. 00:41:10
And there were two notes as we were talking about this at DDA. They have come to me. 00:41:12
One is that they asked specifically about the sandwich board signs, which is not covered in this because we already do have a sign 00:41:22
ordinance that would allow that. So there already is a mechanism for that. And then the other thing is a request to slightly amend 00:41:30
this and I'm not sure how we would do that is that for the few special events a year downtown, such as the Christmas parade trick 00:41:38
or treating that obviously planters would not have to be moved, but if there are displays. 00:41:46
That is one option. Another option is just to add a subsection I at the tail end advising that. 00:42:27
Upon a request of the city, planters and slash or displays may be temporarily removed. 00:42:33
For short duration, for special events periodically or words to that effect. 00:42:41
If Julie's captured that, then you could certainly when you make a motion we can add that as item high, which I think would be 00:42:47
nice to have in there. That's a great catch and then we're going to tackle the sandwich board situation. 00:42:53
You know, there's there's not great clarity on that. So we're going to circle back to that in a few months, yeah. 00:43:00
OK. Any other thoughts, questions. 00:43:06
OK, we'll entertain a motion. 00:43:10
I make a motion to approve with the addition of letter I as discussed. 00:43:14
OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second? 00:43:20
Second All right. Any further discussion? 00:43:23
Hearing none all in favor, say aye, aye, any opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to item 11. That's the updated fee 00:43:26
schedule to adopt fees for sidewalk permits. Yeah. So I didn't put the whole thing on there. Thank you. 00:43:33
Because I could, I figured you wouldn't be able to read it, but basically we're adding sidewalk display or planner permit. There's 00:43:40
a flat fee of $10 and that would be an annual fee. 00:43:43
All right. You've got the fee in front of you, it's. 00:43:47
Very nominal, Any. 00:43:51
Any discussion? Hearing, None. I'll entertain a motion. 00:43:54
I'll make a motion to approve the. 00:44:00
Fee schedule for other permits and fees for display. So motion to update the fee schedule from Councilman Thomas. Do we have a 00:44:03
second? 00:44:07
All right, we got a second from that side of the room. 00:44:13
Any discussion? Hearing? None. All in favor? Say aye. Any opposed? 00:44:17
The $10 fee passes next item appropriation from suppose 3 for downtown streetscape improvements manager Dickerson. I assume this 00:44:21
is you. 00:44:25
Yeah. And you are not able to read that, but I will tell you what this is about. So over the last few months with the improvements 00:44:29
with Rocket Field, we have you all had approved and remember these these lines, these items that are in black on the white 00:44:37
background, those are those are project areas within the within the bucket if you will, the road, streets and bridges is the top. 00:44:45
Segment and. 00:44:54
When you created this project list you created in these with these titles or sub buckets and in that we had streetscape 00:44:55
improvements for downtown where we have spent. 00:45:01
The park, the pocket park in front of Blind Pig. You'll see some pictures of that. We've done some of that just within our own, 00:45:42
you know, money we have in the, but this is a bigger lift. This is potentially. 00:45:46
You. 00:45:51
To streetscape for downtown improvements. The other thing that is not in here that I did mention to the mayor prior to this 00:46:24
meeting is we have also hit our limit on the 60,000 that was appropriated for signage, entryway signage, industrial park signage. 00:46:32
I'm here Shoals Park. I know I'm missing wayfinding signage. All the stuff we've had our we're almost we're butting up against 00:46:40
that 60,000. We spent almost 57,000 and we still have signage for Rocket Field that needs to be finished. 00:46:48
Space, the Thomas Farm Park and all these and Trove as well as Watkinsville Woods. So based on what we've already spent, I'm 00:46:56
asking that you approve an additional 15,000 out of that bucket that's in the second blue mark at the bottom. You know you can't 00:47:03
read it but multi-purpose government facilities and signage and so we just bump that up to another. 00:47:09
15,000 We'll pull that money out of the 120 that was set aside for signage. 00:47:18
So again, we're just sort of we're peeling off out of that appropriations of that money. So another 15 out of the 120 that was set 00:47:23
aside. 00:47:27
So we're basically moving money around that we've already allocated for. You know when we, when we did the signage stuff we didn't 00:47:32
anticipate obviously Thomas Farm Park, all the downtown directional signage, some of the other great things, Rocket Field, you 00:47:37
know. So there there's we've had a we have some good reasons. 00:47:42
Spend those funds, but we just need to move some things around in different buckets. 00:47:48
Anything else? Manager Dickerson? 00:47:54
On that. 00:47:57
OK, what would be the language that you would want us to approve here, just in A? 00:47:57
The appropriation, yeah, I would say yeah, I was 3 for downtown streetscape improvements. 00:48:04
Well, it's more than 10K, it's, it's several different, yeah. So I think and I'll say it and then we can if some of its motion, 00:48:09
Julie can capture it off the video, but approve appropriation from Splice 3. 00:48:14
For $10,000 for Downtown St. safe improvements. 00:48:21
And we'll move that money from. 00:48:26
The sidewalk bike lane sub line, if you will. We'll figure out a better way to say that and then 15,000 appropriate 15,000 from 00:48:29
multi-purpose government facilities. 00:48:34
Entrance. 00:48:40
And that will be used for the. 00:48:42
Signs needed at Rocket Field, The Green Space and Watkinsville Woods. 00:48:44
All right. Can I hear So moved. Do we have a? 00:48:49
Second. All right. Quick question before we move on, sharing on. 00:48:54
So what the records show we're investing an additional $10,000 in downtown beautification of landscaping, correct? Yeah, I just 00:49:32
want to be sure all of our watchers are clear on that. All right. 00:49:37
We have a motion. We have a second. Any further questions? 00:49:42
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? 00:49:45
All right, 50. Now we're to public comments. There's no one here, Julie, did we receive any comments in advance? No comments 00:49:51
received in advance. We'll move on to mayor's report. 00:49:56
I'll work through these pretty quickly this These are some photos of the sidewalks. 00:50:03
New high schools. That was, I think, the first time that we really put our tea spots money to work in a meaningful way, and that 00:50:08
was exciting to see. Those are. 00:50:12
Pretty much done at this point. We're just waiting for grass to grow and for it to look a little cleaner. 00:50:16
So that has been done and we're glad. I think the residents are thankful for that. Rocket Field, the last I heard is that we, 00:50:22
knock on wood, want to be wrapped up not this weekend, but next weekend. We had a lot happen in the past month. They've really 00:50:27
been flying over there, so our new parking is installed. 00:50:33
With with new drainage underneath it. 00:50:39
Fence has gone back up, The light posts have gone up, then that makes a tremendous difference. They're beautiful. The bleachers 00:50:43
are there. Little League is on the field. 00:50:47
As there are the EC bullets, I went out there Monday night and there were about 33 year old kids running around just having a 00:50:53
ball. The parents were enjoying it. 00:50:58
Everything that I'm hearing is is really, really positive. There's a little bit of work still to come. The patent court needs to 00:51:04
be finished. There's one drainage issue that's going to be addressed. 00:51:09
There's going to be a little bit more landscaping that's going to go in and then you know we're we're going to, we're going to 00:51:15
start putting it to real use in October. We've got, I think, 4 different events in October. So our, our team here at the city when 00:51:21
it gets turned over to us is going to have their work cut out for them in terms of taking care of it. 00:51:27
So anyway, it's it's. 00:51:34
Been really great to see it all come together over the past two months. Bread. I'm curious, when you got home, were you impressed 00:51:35
with how it looked for you? Yeah. 00:51:40
Yeah. 00:51:45
Yeah, yeah. 00:51:46
But the other thing to mention to mayor is the scoreboard is supposed to be in early November, should be up before Thanksgiving, 00:51:48
and then the net climber that's similar to what water Park has will be put in it. All that's going to be after the fall festival. 00:51:54
Yeah, and we are working. I'm trying to get access to the calendar that the yard is using. We've had a little. 00:52:33
Issue getting ahold of it. As soon as I do, I'll create a QR code that will send them to our website and we'll keep the. 00:52:40
The most recent, because we can't let them into the calendar. They'll go in there and change things there, but we can take a 00:52:47
snapshot of it and try to keep it updated. So we'll have a QR code at the field so people can look and see when it's available. So 00:52:52
then though they can't bring their kid out at 3:00 on Saturday because something's going on then, but they'll know they can go out 00:52:56
at 5:00. So we'll work on that. Hopefully we'll have that done in the next couple weeks. 00:53:01
Sorry. 00:53:08
Yeah, so I know that. Umm. 00:53:12
A dog park was going to be on that that. 00:53:18
Minimally it is on pause while we wait for the sod to get established. 00:53:21
It was suggested by a resident who is on the Little Dog Park group meet that perhaps some signage stating that it is the currently 00:53:27
no dogs are allowed or whatever it is might be helpful. 00:53:35
Because you know, word doesn't always get around and they might see the fence and go, oh this is the dog park and so just a 00:53:43
suggestion from a good suggestion. 00:53:47
OK, great. 00:53:52
All. 00:53:55
We already talked about rock and art in the park. We're excited about that. Originally I thought was we were going to combine the 00:53:58
Rocket Field grand opening with that, but we had, we did have some schedule challenges. So we're also that'll be Saturday, then 00:54:03
Sunday. 00:54:07
We're going to also have the official grand opening of Rocket Field, where we'll recognize our donor will have an inning of 00:54:13
exhibition ball being played. We're going to let the kids run the bases. We're going to do a group photo of everybody in the 00:54:18
community who wants to come out. 00:54:23
A big show at that event, The 1st 200 kids who run the bases are going to get a special commemorative gift as well, so we'd love 00:55:00
to have a lot of kids out there to celebrate with us that day. 00:55:05
Going to do a Watkinsville Woods work day, September 30th, 9:00 AM for anyone who can join. We need to spread the mulch on The 00:55:11
Walking trails and we've got a couple other odds and ends. If we have enough people that we want to tackle, that we may want to 00:55:16
tackle while we're out there. 00:55:21
Then we have another work day at Harris Shoals that same day. It seems like Sharon and Toby just wanted to knock all that out in 00:55:27
one day. So we're going to put the I guess our City team are going to divide and conquer and we're going to have Boy Scouts and 00:55:32
others. But if you're in town, mark your calendar for September 30th. 00:55:38
It is. I promise I did not tell Sharon that I was going to be out of town that day, but unfortunately I am out of town that day. 00:55:44
You all know I love the woods, so I would be out there working, but but we would love to have a good community showing there. Keep 00:55:48
up. County Beautiful is helping us with the one at Harris Shoals. 00:55:52
This is a pretty big change near the Blind Pig that you'll notice. We're trying to address that area up. We've got some chairs 00:55:59
coming to replace the old benches, so that's going to have a little bit more of a feel of a pocket park for people who want to sit 00:56:05
out there and run around before. 00:56:11
Exposed tree roots. It was just dirt. 00:56:18
And we know a lot of people like to spend time out there as they wait in the evenings at Rocket Field and it is a pleasant, shady 00:56:20
area out there. 00:56:24
At different times of the day, so kudos to the to our public works department for getting that dressed up. I think a lot of that 00:56:29
work happened today. 00:56:33
Oconee County Library well underway under the leadership of their Able Board Chair. 00:56:38
Brick facade is done. The sheetrock looks great. 00:56:44
And Windows have been installed. So it's it's really coming together. We're still tracking towards January, Mr. Chairman. 00:56:48
All right. 00:56:54
We had our first meeting of the Thomas Farm. 00:56:58
Park meeting was to was Tuesday before last. We'll actually do our site tour this Monday. 00:57:01
So we're we're looking forward to that and this is the schedule for the rest of those meetings October 4th and 11th council 00:57:09
members if you want to join us for those that will be public input sessions and we hope to have a good turn out there. Obviously 00:57:15
we'll have to manage expectations of the public in terms of there's there's not, there's a lot of things we can't do out there but 00:57:21
we had a really good, we've got a really great committee that's working on addressing the things. 00:57:27
That we can do this is a snapshot of that. 00:57:34
And we're thankful to everybody for giving us their. 00:57:37
We also have a. 00:57:40
Divided up into three subcommittees, one committee will focus on paths and trails, another will focus on how to best maintain the 00:57:42
land and the property, and another will focus on. 00:57:47
Physical structures and branding, fencing, parking you know kind of the the non the capital investments that we need to make so 00:57:51
folks are volunteering for which subcommittees they want to be on. 00:57:57
We've also engaged Smith Planning Group at a much reduced cost to help us with actually developing the refined plan and they've 00:58:03
agreed to do that at less than half of their normal cost to work like this. 00:58:09
So we're thankful for. 00:58:16
Oh, it's a birthday with. Yeah, OK, well, happy birthday. What's that is today? Today? 00:58:18
So the 7th was my birthday, which was also the day I flew home. So probably the longest Day in History because I flew backwards in 00:58:25
time. Longest birthday ever. But it was a fantastic birthday because I was coming home. OK, well, happy birthday and welcome home. 00:58:30
Thank you. 00:58:36
All right, council members, your turn. Chuck Garrett post one. 00:58:43
I sit in or listened in on the webinar. 00:58:49
Historic preservations. This. 00:58:52
Very helpful. And I was telling Jeff it's right spot on with where we at. 00:58:55
So we're on the right track, the right people to get it going. So awesome. Confirmation. All right, Councilwoman. 00:59:00
Chuck and I went to. 00:59:11
Constitution Week event at the church Sunday. And they had a good crowd and it turned out real nice. They did a good job. Always a 00:59:14
fun event to go to. Yes. All right, good. 00:59:20
Councilman Thomas, Hey again, just glad to be back here again. Like I said, I I did ride around Watkinsville. I mean immediately 00:59:29
upon. 00:59:33
Getting here, that's first thing I did Friday morning after I went and got me a Golden Pantry biscuit. 00:59:39
So I did ride around. Look, I am extremely pleased with all the work y'all done over the over the last year. Watkinsville looks 00:59:45
great. It really does. A wire park looks great. I mean just. 00:59:51
The Rocket Field looks great. I mean just Watkinsville looks great. So proud to be here and proud to be part of this team. 00:59:57
Welcome back. 01:00:04
Mayor Pro Tem. 01:00:05
So just to kind of quick comment on my thankfulness for just being part of this community we. 01:00:09
I mean, we have our team, our staff team, that is amazing. But also I would say just being part of the city, the friendliness. 01:00:19
And and our community as a whole, also our county. I went to the. 01:00:27
The planning meeting for the school system last night and I think it was record turn out about 500 people and. 01:00:32
Just that that sense of collaboration and for the most part, positivity. 01:00:43
I'm just really grateful to get to be in this community and grateful to be sitting here. 01:00:50
So go Walkinsville. 01:00:56
All right, Councilman Campbell, you get to follow that. 01:00:59
I can't, so I have nothing to report. 01:01:04
All right. 01:01:09
I don't think we have any need for an executive session. 01:01:11
Hallelujah. So unless anybody objects, I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn, Please. I'll make a motion to adjourn and a 01:01:15
second, please, all in favor say aye. 01:01:20