HIAWASSEE WORK SESSION AGENDA
March 25th, 2019
The March Work Session Meeting will be held at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall Upstairs Training Room
- Call to order
- Invocation – Nancy Noblet
- Pledge of Allegiance
- Mayor’s Introductions of Guests and Announcements
- Eli Moody
- Motion to Adopt Final Agenda as Distributed.
- Old Business
- Mayor’s Report
- New Business
- Bonny Herman – Earth Day
- Nancy Noblet – Square Activities
- Screw Press Declaration
- Debt Collection Service through GMA
- Defined Benefit Resolution-Ordinance – 1stReading
- Water Rate Study results
- 2019-2020 Proposed Budget
- December Financials
- Consent Agenda
- Approval of December Financials
- Approval of March City Council Meeting minutes
- Approval of March Work Session minutes
- Police Report
- Economic Development Report
- Main Street Affiliate
- Rural Zone Designation
- Adjournment
VIDEO OF HIAWASSEE WORK SESSION March 25th, 2019
HIAWASSEE WORK SESSION MINUTES
March 25th, 2019
The March Work Session Meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall in the Upstairs Training Room by Mayor Liz Ordiales.
Present, in addition to the Mayor, were Council members Anne Mitchell, Kris Berrong, Amy Barrett, Nancy Noblet and Patsy Owens. Staff present included Police Chief Paul Smith, City Attorney Thomas Mitchell, Economic Development Director Denise McKay and City Clerk Bonnie Kendrick.
The Invocation was given by Council member Nancy Noblet and was followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.
Mayor Ordiales welcomed all and introduced guests Ligia and Hector Gonzalez, Pam Fagan, Marcy Landau, Corbin McLain, and Scott Newton of GA TV. She also read the Speaker’s Ground Rules, which included no personal attacks on any person or business, no foul language, keeping topic relevant and brief and offering suggestions for improvement if bringing a complaint.
Mayor Ordiales presented Elijah Moody of the East Gate Life Academy who gave an excellent speech regarding artificial intelligence.
Motion to adopt the agenda as distributed was made by Council member Nancy Noblet, seconded by Council member Amy Barrett with all in favor.
In old business, the Mayor presented her report which included the plan to pay off another GEFA loan ($191,312.29 which will result in a savings of $50,543.67) leaving $3.8M in debt with $823,684 paid off to date, the rehab of the million gallon tank, the razing of the house on River St, the Post Office rehab, fire hydrant flushing schedule, update on PlanFirst at the capital, and information on the possibility of tablets for the council member provided by the City (approx. $1000). She also gave an update on the kudzu control by the Grand Rapids Michigan students on their spring break, the Old Rock Jail opening for the season on April 12th, the Georgia state requirements for fluoride in the drinking water, Earth Day/Clean Sweep programs, Music on the Square, Meals of Hope will be packaging meals on April 13th, and the possibility of putting videos of the council work sessions on our website. “Pick the Flicks” was also introduced as an effort with the Towns County Library. The project will entail sending home flyer for children in grades 3-6 to select the movies they would like to see over the summer at Movies on the Square on alternate Fridays. This year, the Mayor has secured a rain venue so there will be no interruption of movie showings due to weather issues. The meeting attendees were given the flyer to assist in the selection of the movies. In addition, she advised the Council that the next Mayor’s Day will be at Sundance Grill on April 9thwhere she will host trivia night. She told the council that Carrion Tree Services has offered to remove the trees at Lloyd’s Landing free of charge.
In New Business, Bonny Herman spoke about the Earth Day event hosted by the Rotary club on April 13th. They will be giving out free tote bags in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic used.
Nancy Noblet updated the council on the Square activities and her decision to step down from her role as Chair of the Square Committee. She has many things competing for her time (new grand baby on the way and her mother-in-law needing assistance) and no longer has the time to devote to the Square. She suggested it might be better to have more than one person in the role.
The Council was presented with the Screw Press Declaration which states the emergency need for the purchase of the screw press to replace the 40 year old belt press. It will be on the agenda for a vote next week.
Mayor Ordiales is requesting the council agree to Debt Collection Service through GMA for the delinquent tax and utility bills. Collection fee is 17.5% of any amounts collected. This will also be on the agenda for a vote next week.
The Defined Benefit Resolution and Ordinance was presented to the Council. The resolution will allow GMEBS (current DB administrators) to communicate with OneAmerica (new DB administrators) with regard to plan details and transfer of funds and duties if the ordinance passes the second reading (first reading will be at next week’s meeting). Brett Cohee of Edward Jones was present to answer any questions from the Council or citizens.
Mayor Ordiales presented the Water Rate Study results done by the University of NC who work with GEFA. Since we are a small city, the study was done for free. The study showed that the base rate should be $38.00, but Mayor Ordiales asked if they could spread the increase over 5 - 6 years to see what that would look like. It showed a year one increase from $19.27 to $24.67. At the same time, she would like to increase the base consumption from 1000 gallons to 1200 gallons to help offset the increase for lower usage consumers. Commercial rates will remain the same at this time. There was public comment regarding the BRMEMC increase that is imminent. A member of the public explained that the driving force behind the changes is to put the infrastructure costs into the “customer charges” portion of the bill, which will more fairly distribute the costs. His point was that under the current structure, the year round residents are augmenting the part time residents. By shifting the infrastructure to the customer charge, then lowering the KWH costs, it will more fairly distribute the costs. There was also a question as to the consolidation of efforts with the Towns County Water Authority. It was explained there would be little to no gain in efficiencies since the base of customers for TCWA was double that of the City.
The 2019-2020 proposed budgets for the City of Hiawassee was presented. The public hearing will be on Thursday April 18th@ 6pm in the Council Chambers at City Hall. The public is invited and encouraged to attend and comment on the budgets.
The December financials were presented to the Council by Mayor Ordiales. While we are overall in the black, the sewer and water departments continue to run at a deficit.
The consent agenda at the April Council meeting will include approval of the December financials, March City Council Meeting minutes and the March Work Session minutes.
The Police Report was presented by Police Chief Paul Smith and included information on the 2010 Explorer donated to HPD by the Sunny Isles Police Department (through a connection with the retired Sunny Isles Police Chief Fred Maas) as well as 6 LIDAR detectors. 5 will outfit all the vehicles and Chief Smith will donate the sixth one to another agency who will benefit from it. The detectors will be certified next week and will be put into use immediately after. Chief Smith explained that the difference between a LIDAR detector and a radar detector is the “spread” at 1000’. Radar is about 200’ meaning it is difficult to determine which vehicle it is reading when you have 4 lanes of traffic, but the LIDAR spread is 3’ making it easy to determine which vehicle it is detecting.
Denise McKay gave the report on her work on the Economic Development which included the Main Street Affiliate program and the Rural Zone Designation application (similar to the PlanFirst application) which she will be working to submit (awards for this program are announce in October). Denise also mentioned two new businesses – Appalachian Trails which will be opening at Timberlake Plaza, and General Supply, which is next to the Benjamin Moore paint store (in the county). It was also noted by members of the public that Main Street Grill has opened in the old Subway building, there is a new jewelry store on Big Sky, Alaura, Ashley Elizabeth hair salon, and Daniel’s Restaurant has new owners.
The citizens were then asked to assist in making the color selection for the Post office which is being pressure washed and painted by Alvin Gibson, the property owner. Mr. Gibson is a long time resident of Hiawassee and is very pleased to assist with the implementation of the Strategic Plan. There were 5 color palettes on display and all attendees were given a $100 bill and asked to deposit the $100 bill in their favorite selection. Results will be announced at the City Council Meeting.
Corbin McLain made an appeal to younger people to get involved. She is trying to reach people on how to improve the community and to help move things forward. She would like to see them get involved, come to meetings and generally improve communications to them. She said that they are not likely to get information from the newspapers (they aren’t reading them), but get more of their information from social media.
Betsy Young, president of the TCGOP announced that Congressman Doug Collins will be at Moon Dance Grill on April 16thfrom 5 – 6 and invited all to attend and meet Mr. Collins.
Motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Council member Nancy Noblet, seconded by Council member Anne Mitchell, with all in favor. The meeting was adjourned at 7:11 pm.