HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-18-1998 Regular Meeting
REGULAR MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBERS
August 18, 1998
Augusta-Richmond County Commission convened at 2:10 p.m., Tuesday,
August 18, 1998, the Honorable Larry E. Sconyers, Mayor, presiding.
PRESENT: Hons. Beard, Bridges, H. Brigham, J. Brigham, Handy, Kuhlke,
Mays, Powell, Shepard and Mr. Todd, members of Augusta-Richmond County
Commission.
Also present were Ms. Bonner, Clerk of Commission; Mr. Oliver,
Administrator; and Mr. Wall, County Attorney.
THE INVOCATION WAS GIVEN.
THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE WAS RECITED.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Ms. Bonner, do we have any additions or deletions?
CLERK: Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. We have a request as per our printed
addendum agenda and a request to add from our City Attorney, a request to
appoint a Commissioner to be designated as the Chairman of the Records
Committee.
MR. TODD: So move by unanimous consent, Mr. Mayor.
MR. BRIDGES: Second.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Discussion, gentlemen? All in favor, please cast your
ballot accordingly.
MOTION CARRIES 8-0. [MR. HANDY & MR. MAYS OUT]
CLERK: Mr. Mayor and members of the Commission, Commis-sioner Mays
called and said he's en route to the Commission meeting. He's out of town,
but he should be here shortly. The first item on the agenda is the
recognition of Boards, Authorities and Commissions appointees from the
Fourth District. Commissioner Todd?
MR. TODD: Yes. Ms. Bonner, I'd certainly like for you to read the names
off and where they serve. And would all of the appointees from the Fourth
District come up front, if you can, so we can see you, and we're going to go
out and have a photo op afterwards--or just hold your hands up. I see Ms.
Horne-- CLERK: Ms. Horne is from the Human Relations Board.
MR. TODD: Yes. And we have one back here that can't get in, but--just
come up front. Let's try to get everybody up front. Mr. Sims, do you want to
come on over? Mr. Sims is
Richmond County Public Facilities. He's one of the gentlemen that worked on
the $1.7 million deal for the golf course. Mr. Davis is on the Tree
Commission. And if there's anybody else--Ms. McKie, Board of Zoning and
Appeals. And we've got Mr. Tokar coming out, he's on Planning and Zoning,
he's done an outstanding job. Everybody's done an outstanding job, but he's
certainly done an outstanding job on Planning and Zoning. And basically the
reason that I'm doing this, I'm leaving on the 30th this month. And we also
invited General Gray, and he advised me Friday night that he was going to be--
he was out of town yesterday and wasn't sure if he could make it back in, and
apparently he did not make it back in town. And we have some other members
that wasn't able to make it, they're having to work. But I just wanted to
say, you know, personally that we certainly appreciate your service to the
community and the time that you've taken out of your busy schedule to do so.
And, also, I think it states in your letter, or at least I hope I did, that
you will serve until January--I mean December 31st, 1999, or the last day of
December 1999, and I'm sure whoever the Commission chooses to replace me, you
know, that they will certainly be glad to work with you also. And it may be
one of y'all, but that's up to you, so. And let me point out that Ms. Horne,
you know, certainly don't live in District Four, I think she lives in District
Three, but she's done an outstanding job with human relations in District
Four. And there's no requirement that she's got to live there, and she was on
the board before we consolidated as far as District Four Human Relations
Commission. Thank you again for your service, and we certainly appreciate it.
CLERK: Mr. Todd, do you want to do your photo session now? The
photographer is here.
MR. TODD: I don't want to hold up the Mayor, but certainly we could do
it now. I left home and turned up my collar and got it dirty, or got a spot
on it, so--and let me mention that we have Mr. Singleton sitting in the
doorway, and he resigned to do some other things and we replaced him with Mr.
Sims, which I think was a good choice.
[A ROUND OF APPLAUSE IS GIVEN.]
MAYOR SCONYERS: Next item, Ms. Bonner?
CLERK: Yes, sir. Mrs. Patricia Rhodes from MDA, would you join the
Mayor at the podium, please. Whereas fire fighting is one of our
nations most hazardous professions; and whereas firefighters daily dedicate
their lives to protecting the life and property of fellow citizens; and
whereas firefighters work together on community projects to make Augusta and
the State of Georgia a better place to live; and whereas each year hundreds of
dedicated firefighters across the State of Georgia provide vital and
lifesaving services to the citizens of our communities as well as contribute
countless hours to help those less fortunate through charity drives such as
the Annual Muscular Dystrophy Association Boot Drive; and whereas it is
fitting to commend firefighters for giving generously of their time and talent
to benefit others; and now therefore I, Larry E. Sconyers, Mayor of Augusta,
Georgia, do hereby proclaim the month of August 1998 to be MDA Firefighters
Appreciation Month. In witness thereof, I have unto set my hand and caused
the Seal of Augusta, Georgia, to be affixed this 18th day of August 1998.
Larry E. Sconyers, Mayor, Augusta, Georgia.
[A ROUND OF APPLAUSE IS GIVEN.]
CLERK: Next we will have the presentation of the "Heroic Samaritan"
award to the following local heroes who risked themselves to save someone
in need: Eddrick Johnson--would you please join the Fire Chief at the
podium, please--Tara T. Rouse, George Baxley.
CHIEF FEW: I have two wonderful opportunities today. This is one of the
highlights of my job, to be able to actually recognize the citizens who aided
us in saving some individual lives in these two incidents. One is the honor
of having a firefighter, when they respond to a call in the community, Mr.
George Baxley helped a father pull his two kids to safety out of a burning
home, and we want to show him how much we appreciate his heroic act. And,
George, we appreciate it because we know what would have happened if you
weren't there for us. Sometimes we have to have citizens to aid us also, and
if it wasn't for you we know those people would have perished in that fire, so
we appreciate it. On behalf of all of us in the Augusta-Richmond County Fire
Department, we say thank you.
[A ROUND OF APPLAUSE IS GIVEN.]
CHIEF FEW: Two weeks ago we witnessed another act of courage from our
citizens. Ms. Martha Bryan was trapped in a burning home when six citizens
stopped to tear away the siding of the home and pulled her out to safety. The
Fire Department arrived on the scene within two minutes after the 911 call,
and the citizens had already pulled Ms. Bryan out to safety. We are pleased to
report that she was treated and released that day. These citizens are Eddrick
Johnson, Tara Rouse, Luther Tyson, Fred Nixon, Willie Williamson, Wesley
Melton. I want to say that our Fire Department works very fast, but sometimes
it takes good citizens to help us and to aid us in saving people, and so we
really appreciate it. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present the recipients of a
"Good Samaritan" award. I've got to tell you that this definitely was a
heroic act. Although we got there very quickly, it was important that
somebody got there, and they actually saw the house burning and started
pulling the siding away just to get the lady out of the house, so we
appreciate it very much. Thank you all for what you done. We appreciate it
on behalf of all of us in the Augusta-Richmond County Fire Department. We say
thank you for what you done.
[A ROUND OF APPLAUSE IS GIVEN.]
CLERK: Next we will have a presentation by Ms. Yvonne Meeks, Vice
President of Compliance at the First Union National Bank.
MS. MEEKS: Mr. Mayor and Commissioners, I'm here today representing
First Union Direct Bank. That has sort of a different name than you may
identify First Union with, but last June Georgia issued a charter to a credit
card bank, First Union Direct Bank. Now, what most of you don't know is there
have been over 100 people for the past 10 years on the fifth and seventh
floors there at 699 Broad Street doing this same thing, but now we have our
own bank charter. Now, I've worked on that same corner for the last 25 years
and I've always been proud of the part the financial institution, regardless
of its name, has played in this community, and today is no different. So
whether we're at the March of Dimes or at Project Success or giving Paine
College scholarships, we're active in the community because we care about
Augusta. [inaudible] but in trying to grow Augusta, to improve Augusta, that
is a part that we want to diminish. And we want to have safe and affordable
housing for all of our citizens, so today that's why we're pleased to offer a
grant for $17,000 to Augusta Housing and Development to secure the services of
a consultant so that we can develop an action plan for some more housing to
help meet the needs of our citizens. Thank you, Mr. Sconyers.
MAYOR SCONYERS: On behalf of our city, I would like to say thank you
very much.
MR. MACK: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Commissioners. I met with First
Union about nine months ago, and they came to me and asked me what could they
do for this community. And being a good housing person and trying to develop
housing in the community, I basically said, hey, one of the things that we
need is a consultant to develop an action plan for us to do housing activities
in the city. And approximately one month later they called me and told me
that they were sending us a check for about $17,000. So we want to thank
First Union and let them know that the money will be well spent. Thank you.
[A ROUND OF APPLAUSE IS GIVEN.]
CLERK: If we could take Item 1, to allow the County Engineer
to get back to work. We have the introduction of the County Engineer.
MR. GOINS: Mr. Mayor and Commissioners, I'd like to introduce to you and
the audience our new County Engineer, Mr. Doug Cheek. Doug is a graduate of
Georgia Tech, he's a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Georgia,
and he comes to us with ten years experience from the Department of
Transportation. Mr. Doug Cheek.
[A ROUND OF APPLAUSE IS GIVEN.]
CLERK: Item 45-A: Discuss the consolidation of Consent Agenda at
Commission Meetings.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Mayor, I have written to you and the other
Commissioners about the consolidation of our consent agendas at these meetings
into one which would be called early on in the meeting. It has become
apparent to me that there have been members of the public and some of our
department heads that would have to wait till a later consent agenda for one
of the later committees, and if we went ahead and handled all this business as
a consolidated consent agenda early on at the beginning of the meeting we
certainly would be citizen-friendly in a real sense and department head-
friendly in terms of their time, and everyone would save, I think, precious
time and we would be able to move on to the debate items. The proposal that I
have made does not in any way affect any Commissioner's authority to remove
items from the consent agenda, we will just not go through the same process
for the consent agenda multiple times in the meeting. And I would anticipate
that the committee chairman would still identify the items coming from his
committee that would be on the consent agenda, as well as the Clerk
identifying those items that would come from other bodies such as the Planning
Commission, and even individual Commissioners could identify proposed consent
items such as the courtesy appointments that are usually handled by
Commissioner appointments such as the appointees that Mr. Todd recognized
today. We have some of those appointments and, as well, we have some second
readings which the Attorney brings up. So at this time, Mr. Mayor, I
would move that this body change its method of doing business and that it
adopt a consolidated consent agenda that would follow at this time in our
regular agenda meetings, following the proclamations and presentations, and
that we implement that procedure today, Your Honor.
MR. TODD: Second, Mr. Mayor.
MR. KUHLKE: Mr. Mayor, my question to Mr. Shepard would be this: We
get our--you are thinking that we wouldn't have any problem as far as pulling
things from the consent agenda by getting our agenda on the Friday preceding
our meeting?
MR. SHEPARD: You could pull it, Commissioner, up until it's called. I
think that we could go through these items today--I mean, I would anticipate
the Clerk--if we pass the procedure now, we'll deal with it in just a few
minutes, but you could--if Ms. Bonner reads the Planning Commission's
suggestions for a consent agenda, it would be then appropriate for any
Commissioner to speak up and say Item 7 or whatever wanted to be pulled, you
could pull it at that time, and then it would be omitted from the consent
agenda and we would debate it. I mean, we'd debate it in the numerical order
of the item, or if the Mayor saw fit to call it in a different order because
of the presence of a large number of folks who are interested in a particular
item, that could be handled as well. I'm just thinking that instead of taking
a consent agenda for Planning, a consent agenda for Finance, a consent agenda
for Administrative Services and so on, instead of all those votes we'd just
take one vote and consolidate them into one action motion and then we could
have fewer votes. And not so much that that's important to the Commission,
but I think those folks who are interested in a later consent item agenda
would be convenienced and would not have to wait as long till we got to that
consent agenda for, say, Public Services, which is the last committee to
report under our system. And, in addition, we could also approve the minutes
of that meeting in that motion.
MR. BEARD: Mr. Mayor, I think this is an excellent idea. The only thing
I would ask of Mr. Shepard, I'm not so sure how eager the Clerk and the
Administrator--can they institute this today. I'm thinking that maybe there
are some logistics that maybe they need to work out for the next meeting. I
don't have a problem with the idea, I think it's a good one, but would you be
able to do this today or--that would be my only question, are we prepared to
do this today?
CLERK: Yes, sir, we'll try to do it today.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, the only concern I have is Public Services. And as
Vice-chairman of the Public Services Committee, with the Chairman out of town
and trying to make it back, we didn't have a committee meeting-- CLERK:
There are no consent items under that committee.
MR. TODD: Okay. Then we're going to exclude Public Services and do
everything else?
CLERK: Yes, sir. And Public Safety, yes, sir.
MR. TODD: Okay. Mr. Mayor, I certainly think this is a good concept and
I support it. And, you know, all items on an agenda, there's no way that, you
know, you would have reasons for debate, and especially those Planning items
where there's no opposition and it's approved by Planning and Zoning. Thank
you, Mr. Mayor.
MR. SHEPARD: I was going to speak to the Mayor Pro Tem's comments. In
fact, the Clerk was encouraging me that we go ahead and adopt this today and
try it, so that's why I had asked for the matter to be put up as Number 1 as
opposed to Number 45 and that we try it. So that's the thinking there, Mr.
Mayor.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Further discussion, gentlemen? All in favor of Mr.
Shepard's motion, let it be known by the usual sign of voting, please.
MOTION CARRIES 9-0. [MR. MAYS OUT]
CLERK: The Planning Commission offers as a consent agenda all items
with the exception of Items 1, 2, and 6. That's 1, 2, and 6. The Finance
consent agenda will be Items 16 through 19.
MR. BEARD: Can we pull items at this time or at the end?
CLERK: Yes, sir.
MR. BEARD: Okay. Because there are some in Finance that I want to pull:
Number 16 and--well, you had no recommenda-tion on Number 20.
CLERK: No, sir, 20 is not part of the consent.
MR. BEARD: Okay. Just 16 then.
MR. POWELL: Mr. Chairman, I also would like to pull--on the Planning and
Zoning Commission, I'd like to pull Item 13 just for discussion.
CLERK: Under Administrative Services, consent agenda is Items 21 and 22.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Mayor, I would like to pull Item Number 22.
CLERK: The Engineering Services consent agenda will be Items 23 through
31.
MR. KUHLKE: Mr. Mayor, I would like to pull Item 31.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, on the final plat approvals, I just want to assure
that we have it signed off with everybody that's in the chain. We're running
into some problems now, Mr. Mayor, with some situations. I want to just
assure that. I know the County Engineer just got on board.
MR. OLIVER: We've been contracting out, Mr. Todd, the county engineering
services for drainage and things. Mr. Patty can answer whether--you know, to
confirm the approvals have been received. Is George here? They want to know,
for all the final plats, that all the approvals have been received.
MR. PATTY: Yes, sir. We don't put them on the agenda until they are.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: George, on Item 7, on Bertram Road, is the building
reverting back to [inaudible]. I thought that was part of this.
MR. PATTY: No. This is the young lady that you heard last month. I
think that, you know, you can only do that where it would be one professional
zoning that might be right for the area but others wouldn't, and I think in
this case any professional use in that area would be acceptable.
MR. BEARD: Mr. Mayor, I move that-- CLERK: Mr. Beard, we'd like to
add Items 43 and 44 as a consent under the Attorney as part of your consent
motion.
MR. BEARD: Okay. I move that we approve the consent agenda.
MR. TODD: Second.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Mayor, I don't think we included 41, approving the
minutes of the regular meeting. I would ask that that be in there.
MR. POWELL: Mr. Mayor, I'm going to have to ask that 44 be pulled
because I'd like a little bit more information on that before I vote on it.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Ms. Bonner, why don't we go back over the numbers now so
that everybody will know exactly where we are.
CLERK: Under the Planning portion, all items with the exception of Items
1, 2, 6 and 13. Under the Finance portion, all items with the exception of
Item 16. Under Administrative Services, Item 22 was pulled. Under the
Engineering consent agenda, Item 31 was pulled. We're adding Item 41, the
minutes of the regular meeting. Under the Attorney, we're including Item 44.
[1. Not included in consent agenda. 2. Not included in consent
agenda. 3. Z-98-90 - Request for concurrence with the decision of
the Planning Commission to approve a petition from Friendly Church of God
in Christ, on behalf of the Friendly Church of God in Christ et al.,
requesting a Special Exception for the purpose of establishing church
parking and church-related activities as provided for in Section 26-1,
Subparagraph (a) of the Comprehen-sive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta-
Richmond County, on property located on the northwest corner of the
intersection of Kirsch Lane and Carrie Street (1115 Carrie Street).
4. Z-98-91 - Request for concurrence with the decision of the Planning
Commission to approve a petition from Bishop Charles Herrington, on behalf
of Strait Gate Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, Inc., requesting a Special
Exception for the purpose of establishing a day care center as provided for
in Section 26-1, Subparagraph (a) of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for
Augusta-Richmond County, on property located on the northwest right-of-way
line of Richmond Hill Road, 819 feet, more or less, northeast of a point
where the northwest right-of-way line of Windsor Spring Road intersects the
northwest right-of-way line of Richmond Hill Road (3201 Richmond Hill
Road).
5. Z-98-92 - Request for concurrence with the decision of the
Planning Commission to approve a petition from Bishop Charles Herrington,
on behalf of Christine King, requesting a Special Exception for the purpose
of establishing a family personal care home as provided for in Section 26-
1, Subparagraph (h) of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta-
Richmond County, on property located on the northeast right-of-way line of
Woodward Avenue, 215.0 feet east of the northeast corner of the intersec-
tion of Jolles Avenue and Woodward Avenue (2208 Woodward Avenue). 6.
Not included in consent agenda. 7. Z-98-94 - Request for
concurrence with the decision of the Planning Commission to approve with a
condition, 'That a vehicle parking plan be approved by the staff before a
Certificate of Occupancy is issued for a non-residential use of the
property', a petition from Tina R. Sewell requesting a change of zoning
from Zone R-3B (Multiple-family Residence) to Zone P-1 (Professional) on
property located on the east right-of-way line of Bertram Road, 120 feet,
more or less, north of a point where the centerline of Centre West Parkway
extended intersects the east right-of-way line of Bertram Road (1058
Bertram Road). 8. Z-98-95 - Request for concurrence with the
decision of the Planning Commission to approve a petition from Julius E.
and Louise C. Mayberry requesting a change of zoning from Zone P-1
(Professional) to Zone B-1 (Neighborhood Business) on property located on
the northeast right-of-way line of Lumpkin Court (a.k.a. Lumpkin Circle),
96 feet, more or less, north of the northeast corner of the intersection of
Lumpkin Road and Lumpkin Court (2327 Lumpkin Court). 9. Z-98-96 -
Request for concurrence with the decision of the Planning Commission to
approve a petition from William A. Price, on behalf of Knox Properties, LP,
requesting a change of zoning from Zone R-1A (One-family Residence) to Zone
B-2 (General Business) on property located where the southeast right-of-way
line of Interstate 20 intersects the south right-of-way of the Atlantic
Coast Line Railroad line. 10. Z-98-97 - Request for concurrence with
the decision of the Planning Commission to approve a petition from Prime
Commercial Properties, on behalf of William R. Belangia, requesting a
change of zoning from Zone A (Agriculture) to Zone B-2 (General Business)
on property located on the northeast right-of-way line of Camilla Avenue
(a.k.a. Camilla Road), 685 feet northwest of the northwest corner of the
intersection of Davis Road and Camilla Avenue (240 Camilla Avenue).
11. Z-98-98 - Request for concurrence with the decision of the Planning
Commission to approve a petition from Lloyd DeFoor, on behalf of Dew Land
Development Co., requesting a change of zoning from Zone A (Agriculture),
Zone R-3B (Multiple-family Residence), and Zone B-2 (General Business) to
Zone R-1 (One-family Residence) on property located on the south right-of-
way line of Willis Foreman Road, 483 feet, more or less, east of a point
where the centerline of Rose Hill Drive intersects the south right-of-way
line of Willis Foreman Road. 12. Z-98-99 - Request for concurrence
with the decision
of the Planning Commission to approve a petition from Harold K. and Helen
B. Young requesting a change of zoning from Zone B-2 (General Business)
With Conditions to Zone R-1A (One-family Residence) on property located on
the northwest right-of-way line of Deans Bridge Road, 400.0 feet northeast
of a point where the northeast right-of-way line of Jennings Road
intersects the northwest right-of-way line of Deans Bridge Road (2749 Deans
Bridge Road). 13. Pulled from consent agenda per Mr. Powell. 14.
Z-98-102 - Request for concurrence with the decision of the Planning
Commission to approve a petition from James A. Howell, III requesting a
change of zoning from Zone A (Agriculture) to Zone R-1A (One-family
Residence) on property located on the southwest right-of-way line of
Lawrence Road, 1,422 feet, more or less, northwest of the southwest corner
of the intersection of Markwalter Road and Lawrence Road. 15. S-42-
III- Quail Ridge, Phase III - Final Plat - A petition from W. R. Toole
Engineers, Inc., on behalf of Nordahl and Company, requesting Final Plat
Approval of Quail Ridge, Phase III. This phase is an extension of
Crosscreek Road, adjacent to Quail Ridge, Section II (Phases I & II) and
contains 21 lots. 16. Pulled from consent agenda per Mr. Beard.
17. Motion to approve funding request from Aiken Economic Development
Partnership support of SRS plutonium disposition mission in the amount of
$50,000 from General Fund Contingency. 18. Motion to award purchase
order for one (1) cargo van for the Information Technology Department at a
total cost of $15,986.00. 19. Motion to approve engagement letter
from Cherry, Bekaert and Holland, CPA, regarding external audit services
for fiscal year 1998 at a cost of $118,000. 20. Not included in
consent agenda. 21. Motion to approve early retirement for Saralyn D.
Rowland under the 1977 Pension Plan. 22. Pulled from consent agenda
per Mr. J. Brigham. 23. Motion to approve the amendment to the
engineering proposal for the Willis Foreman Road Drainage Improvement
Project from W.R. Toole Engineers, Inc. in the amount of $6,700 to be
funded from the Project contingency. 24. Motion to approve contract
to Parsons Engineering Science, Inc. for the development of local
industrial pre-treatment limits at a cost of $31,500.00. 25. Motion
to approve contract with ZEL Engineers to clean the five clearwells and
prepare an inventory of valves at a cost not to exceed $66,000. 26.
Motion to approve resolution declaring surplus Parcel 99 located at the
intersection of Windsor Spring Road and Lucie Street, retaining right-of-
way limits and permanent construction maintenance and utility easements as
shown on the attached drawing. 27. Motion to approve approval of
counteroffer option in the amount of $2,600.00 to purchase 6,903 sq. ft. of
permanent easement and 10,320 sq. ft. of temporary construction easement in
connection with the R.C.C.I. Trunk Line Wastewater Collection System
Project owned by H.E. Mobley, Jr., a/k/a Howard E. Mobley, Jr. (Tax Map
168, Parcel 5). 28. Motion to approve award of contract to low bidder
for Crane Creek Improvements Project and authorize transfer of $34,000 out
of contingency into the construction budget. 29. Motion to approve
holding a public information meeting to close or redirect Goshen Industrial
Boulevard near Doug Bernard Parkway and install flashing lights and bells
at three railroad crossings on Doug Bernard Parkway. 30. Motion to
approve condemnation of right-of-way of 3.54 acres (Tract A) and 0.20 acres
(Tract C) of the Recreation Department Complex on Windsor Spring Road
Project which are titled in the name of Robert R. Warr, Frank Carroll Warr,
and Thomas Cooper Warr. Of these three owners, only Robert R. Warr
survives, with the other two-thirds of the property having been devised to
various beneficiaries (Tax Map 166, Parcel 1). 31. Pulled from
consent agenda per Mr. Kuhlke. 32. Not included in consent agenda.
33. Not included in consent agenda. 34. Not included in consent
agenda. 35. Not included in consent agenda. 36. Not included in
consent agenda. 37. Not included in consent agenda. 38. Not
included in consent agenda. 39. Not included in consent agenda.
40. Not included in consent agenda. 41. Motion to approve the
minutes of the regular meeting of the Commission held August 4, 1998.
42. Not included in consent agenda. 43. Motion to approve an
ordinance to amend the City's existing Atlanta Gas Light Franchise
Ordinance so as to modify the franchise fee calculation provisions.
(Approved by the Commission August 4, 1998 - second reading.) 44.
Pulled from consent agenda per Mr. Powell.]
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'd like for Number 17 to show I abstained in the
sense that my son's mother is a manager at SRS.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Further discussion, gentlemen? All in favor of Mr.
Beard's motion to approve, let it be known by the usual sign of voting,
please.
MR. TODD ABSTAINS ON ITEM 17; MR. MAYS OUT.
MOTION CARRIES 8-1.
MOTION CARRIES 9-0, ALL ITEMS EXCEPT ITEM 17.
CLERK: Item 1: Z-98-83 - Request for concurrence with the decision
of the Planning Commission to deny a petition from Gwenevere Watson
requesting a Special Exception for the purpose of establishing a family day
care home as provided for in Section 26-1, Subparagraph (f) of the
Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta-Richmond County, on property
located on the southeast right-of-way line of Wylds Road, 399 feet, more or
less, north of the northeast corner of the intersection of Forest Creek
Road and Wylds Road (1622 Wylds Road).
MR. KUHLKE: So move.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MS. JOHNSON: Mayor Sconyers and Commissioners, my name is Barbara
Johnson, and Mrs. Watson's job would not permit her to be here today so I
volunteered to come and share her presentation with the board. On August 10th
I stood before the Planning Commission to request a special exception for an
in-home day care. I was allowed time to make presentation, after which the
Commission asked if there were any opposers or anyone in support of my
request. A representative of the neighborhood association stood and made
clear the recommendation of the majority of our neighbors. Ms. Linda Bolt
stated that the majority of Forest Estates opposed my being granted a special
exception. After her presentation, the Commission asked for the
recommendation of Mr. Patty. He concurred with the neighborhood association
without any explanation or discussion. I would like to note, however, that
for the previous cases that went up for presentation persons were allowed to
speak for or against whatever was being proposed. This was not so in my case.
As a matter of fact, it was so cut-and-dry I was lead to believe that a
decision had been made prior to my ever being given an opportunity to present.
Yes, from all indication my neighborhood association and its members, as
well as non-members, may have signed a petition. However, the petition was
signed without accurate knowledge of what a special exception is. The wording
on the flyer passed out in my neighborhood was not accurate based on facts. A
copy of the flyer that has been passed out to you all will reflect that the
information given to my neighbors was ambiguous and without substance. Now,
let me stop at this point and ask you, do you all have a copy of that flyer.
Several people came to me stating that when they were approached they were
given the impression that I was moving out of my home or at least was going to
add additional space to open up a business, thereby needing a commercial
zoning. As you are all aware, this is not the case. Again, I simply want to
be granted a special exception which states, and I quote: A private residence
operated by any person who receives therein for pay, for supervision and care,
fewer than 24 hours per day, without transfer or legal custody, three but not
more than six children under 18 years of age who are not related to such
person and whose parents or guardians are not residents of the same residence.
The registration is non-transferable in any way. A change of residence or
address requires a new registration. Each registration shall be returned to
the Department immediately upon the closure of the home or suspension,
revocation, restriction or other registration. To ensure the integrity of
the neighborhood, there will be no posted signs in my yard. My sole intent
when I planned this center was to try to improve the quality of life for
myself, my children, and any child that I care for. And, of course, in order
to ensure a good quality of life, my neighborhood would have to be of good
quality; therefore, I would never do anything to jeopardize that standing. My
home will not be zoned commercial, as has been stated initially in the flyers,
which I was not given a copy of, but simply allow me to legally care for six
small children in my single-residence home. This, of course, requires a
special exception. Also, by being granted a special exception would be
responsible for paying taxes for all monies earned, which is not the case with
many home businesses. This special exception would not in any way have an
adverse effect on my neighbors or neighborhood. My driveway can hold four
cars easily at any given time. The access to my home during my hours of
operation would be via a back entrance that is not visible to passing cars or
neighbors. There are no homes in front of me. The road I reside on is Wylds
Road, which is already used as a thoroughfare for the Augusta Mall; therefore,
there would not be any more impact on traffic. And here are some pictures
that I'm going to pass that were taken just to give you an idea of it. I
also cannot conceive of all six cars arriving at the same time. The children
would not have the run of the neighborhood, they would be confined to the
boundaries of my home. I am a single mother who also cares for an ailing
mother, a property owner, a taxpayer, and a hard worker. Because I am single
and very much aware of many of our societal problems, I want to make sure that
my children are reared in the proper mental regulating of the Lord. In order
to achieve that goal, I realize the importance of the presence of a caring
parent and caregiver. I must also remain gainfully employed and a taxpayer at
the same time. I value my home and I value my neighborhood. Mrs. Watson went
on in her statement to point out that there are some other home-based
businesses in the neighborhood that are currently operating. There have been
home day care in that same neighbor-hood for some years, and this is a list of
some of those day cares. Some are still operating, some it was not known
whether or not they were still operating, and some were even state registered.
According to the Residential District Classification, Section 8, which is
zoned R-1, one-family residential zoning, application for a home occupation
are limited to personal services and are restricted by the following
conditions: Use is situated in the same dwelling unit as the home of the
occupant. The residential character of such dwelling is not changed. The
necessary functions of the home occupation should not occupy over 25 percent
of the floor area of the dwelling unit. It is further stated that a home
occupation permit may be denied by the Augusta-Richmond County Board of Zoning
Appeals if in its judgment such occupation would be hazardous or injurious to
the welfare of the community or if compliance with requirements of this
section has not been met. Therefore, it is my prayer, upon reviewing all that
has been presented, you will agree that there cannot be any impediment of
traffic on an already busy thorough-fare or street by allowing a home
occupation permit at 1622 Wylds Road. Nothing hazardous or injurious can
hamper the welfare of this community. Many businesses, again, already exist
in the neighborhood, and these businesses have gone unprotested and have even
been silently sanctioned or patronized. Therefore, my special exception
should in no way threaten the integrity of the neighborhood. This ends her
presentation.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Do we have a spokesperson for the Forest Estates
neighborhood association? Why don't y'all stand up and let's see how many of
y'all are here.
[APPROXIMATELY FIFTY OBJECTORS PRESENT.]
MR. TODD: Ms. Bonner, I didn't hear the young lady's address.
MS. JOHNSON: My address is 1000 Beverly Heights Drive. That's Augusta,
30907.
MR. TODD: Thank you. And, Mr. Mayor, also I have a couple of questions
and probably a brief statement. If I was opposed--I've been a neighborhood
association president, and if I was opposed to something happening in the
neighborhood, the last person that I would probably deal with is the person
that I am opposing or the neighborhood association is opposing. And not that
I wouldn't deal with them, I'd deal with them in the end, because what I'm
doing is using the leverage or the advantage to organize against, as I'm
elected to do or appointed to do by the neighborhood association. Then I would
meet with the person that wants to do it, the petitioner, and I would meet
with Planning and Zoning and talk to them. So I don't understand that state-
ment. I think at some point there should have been a meeting, but certainly I
don't see anything wrong with this statement. The statement made, you know,
about the [inaudible] what you are doing or what the person that you're
representing is doing, I would assume, is going to charge someone to keep
their children in their home. Therefore, technically it's a business even
though the law says you've got to get a special exception to do it. The
difference in that would be if it was a church, then it would be considered a
nonprofit organization. So I wanted to at least make that point, that even
though the flyer don't mention special exception, it mentions a business
operation in a home or residence, it's a business as far as I'm concerned.
MR. KITCHENS: My name is Bobby Kitchens, I live at 3337 Idlewild Drive,
and I've heard her arguments many times that she --in her speech that she's
just made. Three times she's said I'm a taxpayer. Well, excuse me, but I
think everybody in here and on the board is taxpayers. I think as a taxpayer
she's got her rights as long as it don't infringe on other people. Now, I've
lived in Forest Estates for 27 years, and we have been before y'all several
times, but I really think that this nursery she's talking about--I have called
Mr. Rob Sherman, I've talked with him [inaudible]. If she's got a list of
businesses being run in our neighborhood, then she needs to get with the right
authorities and get them shut down because, as far as I know, there ain't none
been okayed in that area. Thank you.
MS. BOLT: Good afternoon. My name is Linda Bolt, I reside at 3410
Colonial Drive in the Forest Estates neighborhood. Last week our neighborhood
association and residents attended the Planning and Zoning meeting. There we
presented them with 250- plus names of association members and residents who
oppose the issue of special exception to establish a family day care at 1622
Wylds Road. That petition was denied by the committee. As representative of
the association, I would like to reiterate that opposition and hope the
Commission will help us maintain our neighborhood as only single-family
dwellings. Although not a zoning action, our neighborhood is opposed to non-
residential encroachments for fear this will eventually affect our status as a
neighborhood established as single-family dwellings only. We are not opposed
to some home occupations that do not have traffic or deliveries, but things
that require a change in variance. I would like to ask two questions of Mr.
Patty, if I can, and then maybe we can get a little clarification. Does this
special exception of a family day care home classification go with the
property? In other words, if this individual were to sell her home, does the
next occupant have the right to have a single-family...
[END OF TAPE 1]
MR. PATTY: ...state license may not, but the special exception does go
with the property, not with the petitioner. And state law requires a one-year
waiting period for the same request or a six-month waiting period for a
request for another zoning classification if it's denied.
MS. BOLT: I think I forward a copy of the presentation that I--or the
talk that I had given to the Planning and Zoning Commission to each one of the
County Commissioners after last week's zoning meeting. I don't feel like I
need to repeat what has already been reviewed by each of you, but just to
reiterate again our desire for you to help us maintain our neighborhood, which
is surrounded by commercialism, as just that, a neighborhood. I appreciate
your time.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Mayor, I wanted to make Ms. Bolt's letter, which she
sent to me about Forest Estates community being an island in a sea of
commercialism--I think that's a very accurate depiction of the problem that
surrounds the neighborhood, and we need to maintain the neighborhood integrity
out there. From the photographs, this appears to jump the natural boundary
that the mall sort of halfway put in on Wylds Road, but the plantings are not
yet high enough, but maybe in time they'll grow up and there will be a green
zone between the parking lots of the mall and Wylds Road. And this jumps over
that. I think it would set a precedent that we'd not be able to retreat from
in that this would lead to commercialization of Forest Estates, and I think
that to preserve these natural boundaries we should deny this petition.
That's how I intend to vote, and I would ask each one of you to join me with
that. And I'd also like to--this is an excellent letter and I'd like the
Clerk to add Ms. Bolt's letter to the record, if we could, Madame Clerk.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Mr. Mayor, may I ask one question? Is there anything in
the home now? Does someone live there? Do you live there or does she live
there?
MS. JOHNSON: Mrs. Watson resides in the home, she and her two sons and
her mother.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Does she have a license now to do something or is she
just trying to go up to the six people?
MS. JOHNSON: No, she does not have a license to do anything now in her
home. This is just--she's in the process of trying to do that and this is one
of the steps that she needed to take before she could get licensed.
MR. KUHLKE: Call the question, Mr. Mayor.
MAYOR SCONYERS: All in favor of Mr. Kuhlke's motion to concur with the
Planning Commission to deny, let it be known by the usual sign of voting,
please.
MR. HANDY VOTES NO.
MOTION CARRIES 9-1.
CLERK: Item 2: Z-98-85 - Request for concurrence with the decision
of the Planning Commission to deny a petition from Manor House Retirement
Centers, on behalf of Clyde Ray, requesting a change of zoning from Zone R-
1 (One-family Residence) and Zone R-1B (One-family Residence) to Zone R-3C
(Multiple-family Residential) on property located on the northwest right-
of-way line of Pleasant Home Road, 116 feet, more or less, northeast of a
point where the centerline of Foxhall Drive extended intersects the
northwest right-of-way line of Pleasant Home Road.
[APPROXIMATELY TWENTY OBJECTORS PRESENT.]
MR. KUHLKE: So move.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Second.
MR. BRIDGES: I guess I'm a little bit confused. I've been getting some
letters that said this is going to be commercial and they don't want
commercial in the neighborhood. Is that correct or am I-- MR. PATTY: No,
that's not correct. It's a special exception that would allow them to do the
one specific thing they're asking to do; and they, of course, retain the
rights of the base zoning, which is R-1B, if it were approved.
MR. BRIDGES: So they're looking at putting in a--is this a nursing home
they're looking to put in there?
MR. PATTY: Under our ordinance, it fits in under a congregate care
facility, which requires R-3C zoning, which is a multiple-family residential
zoning classification. The unit, I believe--and the petitioner is here, but I
believe they would characterize it as an assisted living home.
MR. BRIDGES: As the property exists now, what would it be used for?
MR. PATTY: This is 4.4 acres, I believe, of Mr. Ray's property. He's
got a total of 15.2 acres, plus or minus. And of that, approximately 12 acres
of it is zoned R-1B, which would allow about 60 patio homes. These would be--
the lots could be as small as 7,500 square feet and the homes would be
basically detached homes on these lots.
MR. BRIDGES: Is that the only thing it could be would be patio homes? I
mean, it wouldn't be apartments or anything like that?
MR. PATTY: No, it could not be apartments, it could not be condominiums.
The zoning allows that by special exception, which he did not get. The
zoning was specific that it be a limit of--well, he had two different tracts
zoned. The first one was in '85, and there were no restrictions on that one.
The second one was in '86, and in '86 he zoned most of the property and there
was a restriction on that that it be limited to 50 units and they be detached
and they be set back 140 feet from Pleasant Home Road. So in total he could
build about 60 patio homes, detached, on individual lots that would be 75 feet
wide and 7,500 square feet.
MR. BRIDGES: Where is this location in regards to the existing nursing
home?
MR. PATTY: It's just to the west of the pond.
MR. BRIDGES: I notice the commission voted to deny. What was your
recommendation to the-- MR. PATTY: There was a lot of debate about this,
and the staff report was based on the Comprehensive Plan which says that this
area should be single-family. It does provide for integration of medium
density residential into the area, the density not to exceed six per unit,
which is approximately what the present zoning would allow.
MR. BRIDGES: What was the opposition at the meeting as far as for or
against this in the neighborhood?
MR. PATTY: We held two meetings, and a vote was taken at the second
meeting. These were meetings in the neighborhood, not the Planning Commission
meeting. There were folks in favor of it and folks in opposition to it, and
the majority were in opposition and I think the neighborhood associations will
speak to that.
MR. POWELL: George, my question for you is: Is this location--I'm
somewhat confused here. You're saying the neighborhood association. Is it in
the neighborhood or is it right next to the pond up there on--by the nursing
home? Is it right next door to the nursing home?
MR. PATTY: Right. It's just to the west--I believe that would be west
or north of the nursing home just beyond the pond.
MR. POWELL: So it's not in the neighborhood, it's out on the main road
there?
MR. PATTY: That's correct.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: George, let's explain also it's directly across the
street from the subdivision and you're talking about 50 foot. And this is
like some other ones that we've debated on the corners of Tobacco Road. You
know, if you want to debate on one side of it it should be commercial and the
other side is residential-- MR. POWELL: I was just merely seeking
information, Mr. Brigham, I wasn't wanting to debate it.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'd like to hear from the spokesman so I can make a
decision on this.
MR. HIRTH: Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission, my name is Mark Hirth.
I'm Director of Development with Manor House Retirement Centers. We're a
Richmond, Virginia based company that develops, owns and operates assisted
living facilities throughout the southeastern United States. We're here today
to seek your approval for the rezoning of a 4.4 acre parcel of land on
Pleasant Home Road from R-1B and R-1 to R-3C. This rezoning will allow us to
develop an assisted living residence on this property as this residence has
been defined as a congregate personal care home, quote/unquote, a permitted
use in R-3C. Assisted living, if I could address the question of the
gentleman over here, is a high-quality residential opportunity for the frail
and elderly. It really bridges the gap between independent living and full
nursing home living. You may, for example, have a relative or a great-aunt who
is of sound mind but not necessarily of sound body who needs some assistance--
some help with certain activities of daily life.
Our residences provide just that type of assistance, in addition to being very
quiet by nature, and are home to our residents who have an average of about 82
years. Our proposed development for this parcel is an 85-room, two-story
assisted living residence of approximately 53,000 square feet in size. And I
have an elevation--and I apologize for the scale, I'm certainly happy to pass
this around to members of the Commission, but this is the front elevation here
and all four sides actually which shows really the character of the building
that we're proposing for this particular property. It shows the residential
character of the building itself: brick and siding, a front porch portico,
gables, and this particular building is about 31 tall, which is the same
2
height as a two-story residential building. As far as our proposed use of the
property itself, this is a conceptual site plan that shows the property.
Here's Pleasant Home Road across the bottom of the site. This would be the
footprint of our building. This is a courtyard. It's actually a two-story
courtyard around a landscaped center courtyard here. You can see the outline
of the building, the footprint of the building, curb cut and access off of
Pleasant Home Road itself to the parking lot that would serve the front of the
building itself. I think what I really want to note here is our treatment of
and our use of the property both from the standpoint of setbacks in, from the
standpoint of buffers and landscaping. We're approximately 160 feet off of
Pleasant Home Road. Our parking would be moved back to 45 feet, which is a
special setback for Pleasant Home Road off the front of the property. And
we're approximately 160 feet and 180 feet off the sides of the property. We
have noted in dashed outline the possible expansion at some future point
should the market justify it of a wing, but at this point in time what you see
in solid is what we would propose developing. The key point I want to
make is that we chose this particular site--certainly chose Augusta for a
lot of different reasons, but chose this particular site because of the
character of the neighborhood and the character of the property itself. We
would retain all the existing trees we possibly could and certainly meet and
exceed the city's tree ordinance and landscaping requirements. And we like to
be in a residential setting for residential use, and we indeed feel we fit
very well on this property. Assisted living is a residential use and
complements the townhome development, the single-family residences, and the
nursing home that are all adjacent to this site. This particular residence
will also have less impact on the site than other permitted uses under the
current zoning, and I believe Mr. Patty covered that with regard to patio home
development. In addition, I want to note that our development would generate
much less traffic than other alternate uses under the current zoning. The
data and analysis shows that our residence would generate about 149 trips per
day as opposed to over 200 [inaudible]. We've met with the Foxhall
homeowners association, and while we were certainly given a very cordial
reception, we were unable to gain their support for this rezoning. Our
understanding, and I'll certainly let them speak for themselves, is that while
they're not necessarily opposed to our assisted living residence, they're very
concerned, the association is, about the precedent that the rezoning would
establish for Pleasant Home Road. We certainly respect that concern and would
have that concern likewise given some of the perspective uses under R-3C. I
do want to note, though, that this is the zoning category that was recommended
to us by the Planning Commission staff. Further, as the zoning category
itself appears to be very much an issue, we are more than willing to condition
this rezoning--approval of this rezoning on the stipulation that we build this
project as we present it today and only this project. In addition, we would
also like to ask that the County Commission judge our project on its own
merits and on its own merits alone. In conclusion, our assisted living
residence is a quiet and very benign use with significant buffers and setbacks
and is a good utilization of this particular site. We're a high-quality, low-
key alternative to patio home development or other types of multi-family
residential, and we'll have much less impact on this site and will generate
much less traffic. Additionally, it is a quiet residential use for the frail
and elderly. We are an excellent fit for the neighborhood and complement the
multi-family, single-family, and nursing home uses which surround the
property. Finally, we represent an investment of over $5 million which
2
would be made in the community as well as certainly a number of new jobs, all
requiring very little in the way of public services. We therefore seek your
approval of our rezoning request, and I certainly thank you for your time and
attention. I'm available for any questions you might have of me.
MR. POWELL: Mr. Chairman, I guess my concerns here is the zoning that is
already present, and I'd like to ask Mr. Ray a question. Mr. Ray, provided
that we don't approve this project today, what are your plans for this--
MR. RAY: Well, Mr. Powell, my plans are--you know, I mean, there just comes a
time [inaudible] 15 to 16 acres in there. What we've got to do is liquidate
some of it. And the parcel that we were working with Manor House on, of
course, I think that parcel--correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Patty, isn't that a
45-foot setback? Is that what you told me this morning?
MR. PATTY: Yes, sir.
MR. RAY: You know, that parcel is a 45-foot setback, which, you know, we
can start houses or whatever right there on Pleasant Home Road. Therefore, I
mean, you know, if everybody supports Manor House, which is--my wife is a
nursing home administrator and she checked them out thoroughly before we would
ever sign the contract with them. And we urge everyone up here to support it
because, you know, we know it's going to enhance the area. It's certainly not
going to hurt it. We're not going to do anything to hurt the area because we
have, you know, approximately 11/12 acres of land left in there, we live
there, and--you know, I just urge everyone to support it because, you know,
right now I've got Manor House under a contract. We certainly don't want them
to go to another county. Thank you very much.
MR. MARYAK: I wish you good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and County
Commissioners. I'm pleased to be here, using my vacation for such an
important issue. My name is Matthew Merriac and I represent the citizens of
Foxhall, Sugar Mill, Crofton, Ravenwood, and Montclair at this meeting. I've
lived at Foxhall for 14 years and I've watched business encroach upon what was
once a wood-surrounded suburb. I've driven up and down Pleasant Home Road
daily. Traffic has increased over time. And again, remember, it's Pleasant
Home Road. As I go down there I see homes on both sides. It's a
neighborhood--it's a community on both sides of the road. We are currently
pressed by business development on both ends of Pleasant Home Road. This has
brought tremendous traffic flow that depreciates our home values. Homes being
on that road do not bring traffic flow. I drive it every day. When I turn
into my subdivision, I find I'm the sole person after 50 cars go flying by.
And if you do go 35 miles an hour on that road you would notice that it is a
community, but it happens to be a great thoroughfare to both ends of our
business community. Because of these changes our home values have not kept
pace with inflation. We are presently faced with yet another rezoning
directly across from our subdivision. This is in opposition to Augusta-
Richmond County's Comprehensive Land Use Plan. This rezoning attempts to
violate the plan in the following areas. The plan states encourage the
preservation of the residential areas that comprise this MPA by protecting
them from encroachment of conflicting land use; discourage commercialization
of arterials and collectors where commercial development is not established.
Again, multiple-family and high-density single-family residential development
more than six years per acre should be permitted only in commercial areas.
They're requesting R-3C. This is 20 units per acre. We expect that you will
follow Augusta-Richmond County's Planning Commission's recommendation as voted
on August 10th and as written in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and only use
our voice for your support in denying this current rezoning request. We
as a community have met several times on this issue. We've had the good
fortune to have Mr. George Patty, Mr. Randy Hall, and our Commissioner, Mr.
Jerry Brigham, in attendance. Their guidance was highly appreciated. At that
meetings we had significant attendance representing all the surrounding
neighborhoods. A high level of interest and concern for the rezoning and its
ramifications was demonstrated at each of the meetings. Because of these
meetings we became aware of several compromises that the community has made in
the past and one that did not live up to our expectations. First, we already
allowed this property to be rezoned to R-1B with our initial compromise. In
addition, we as a community unfortunately allowed the nursing home to be
rezoned on the basis that this was the only business that could be placed
there. However, when the Planning Commission's resolution was forwarded here
for a vote, the wording was revised and our agreement was violated. We do not
wish to repeat this mistake. This is why we are here today. At our most
recent community meeting we met with the developer of the proposed rezoning to
ensure that we had all the pertinent information so that the community could
make an informed decision. We gained very valuable information about the
proposed development. However, several questions were left unanswered. The
developer was requested to get us answers to those questions. One such
question was what happened to property values in the areas where other units
such as this had been built. But, more importantly, the following question
remains: If we the community support the current rezoning, how can we legally
prevent future rezoning once we've allowed this precedent to be set? We
believe the answer is there is no stopping that trend. A vote was put before
the community at that meeting, and based on fact-finding and thorough
discussions amongst us the vote to support rezoning was soundly defeated.
We are primarily concerned about our property values and what rezoning to R-
3C has the potential to bring. A precedent will be set that there will be no
turning away from. This brings the potential of high-rises and other
development, which is going to become more tempting as the open property in
West Augusta disappears. Pleasant Home continues to be encroached by business
year after year. This rezoning opens the door to business in a residential
area and the potential to rezone all the remaining R-1 property in the future.
The encroachment must stop here. We must maintain an area for residents who
care about their quality of life and education or you, Richmond County, will
face the continued erosion of your homeowners' tax base to Columbia County.
As an alternative, we propose that Manor House Retirement, Inc. invest in one
of the other five sites that they have considered in Augusta. We believe that
this type of venture can add value to the community when properly sited.
Again, we urge you as our Commissioners and Mayor to support your planning
document and vote to deny the rezoning that would allow the continued erosion
of our property values and bring unwanted business into our neighborhood.
Thank you.
MS. RAY: Mr. Mayor, I'm Diane Ray. I'm Clyde's wife, the property owner
there, and I just wanted to say one thing. We've lived there a long time also,
and you say you've been there 14 years. If you can remember back when we
bought the property, I think we've improved Pleasant Home Road. Because at
that time it was totally wooded - underbrush, trees. You could not--the pond
that most of you enjoy, you couldn't even get to it when we bought the
property. We put up a fence, we keep it maintained. We cut trees down, we
cut the grass, we pick up paper on the road. But if you've lived there 14
years, you can remember that that was like a jungle when we bought the
property. We have done a lot of improvement. I have children, I have
grandchildren, I live there, I would never do anything that would hurt
Pleasant Home Road. And you say a business would hurt it. Mr. Brigham has an
office right down the street. But you talk about patio homes being there.
When you have people living in patio homes or whatever, you have people that
play music, they have fights, they have alcohol, they have a lot of alcohol
disturbances, and I think it would be a lot less disturbances with 82-year-old
people that are not driving, that are not raising the roof with their spouse
or drinking than it would be with patio homes. I mean, it's up to you, but I
know most of you remember that's been there. I moved there--my son is 20, I
moved there when he started the third grade, he was about eight, so we've
been there a long time. And we pay taxes on a lot of property. And, you know,
there again, most of you don't know that we live there. My driveway is right
there at the gates. And we maintain the pond, we maintain all the area that a
lot of you walk on, feed the ducks, and enjoy, but 14 years ago you didn't do
it because it was wooded and it was really a mess there. So we have really
improved the area, and that's all I have to say. Thank you.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I guess my question would be to Mr. Patty. What
creek basin is that on? You know, at some point we're going to have to plan
the storm drainage, and I know that's not necessarily here and now, but what
creek basin is that on?
MR. PATTY: Rae's Creek.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, I have a question for the homeowners association,
the gentleman who spoke over there. I would like to know what's the real
concern. Is it the property that's being asked to be rezoned now or the
remaining property that you feel that's going to go commercial?
MR. MARYAK: Well, we do not want business coming down Pleasant Home
Road. We appreciate our neighborhood and we'd like to keep it a neighborhood.
We would like to follow the Compre-hensive Land Plan that says this shall
remain residential.
MR. HANDY: I travel on Pleasant Home Road because my dentist is right on
the corner of Pleasant Home Road on Davis Road, and there is commercial
business on both corners of Pleasant Home Road.
MR. MARYAK: That's absolutely correct and that's according to the plan,
and this area should remain according to the plan.
MR. HANDY: What I'm saying, you're saying you all don't want businesses
there. You have businesses there. You have business in the middle, you have
business on both ends. I'm not saying that I'm for or against, I'm just
asking you a question when you say you're trying to keep it residential. The
side that you live on is mostly residential. The opposite side where they're
talking about building this particular building basically is more business, I
do believe, than houses on the end that it's on closer to Davis Road. On the
opposite end you only have the car lot and the offices where Mr. Brigham's
office is, and then it goes back to houses. I think
there are about two or three subdivisions on that same side of the street. So
what I'm asking is that you are concerned, or your organization is showing is
that if this zoning be changed for this particular building, that the entire
acreage that is left would be possibly zoned for commercial also.
MR. MARYAK: What I would like to address is exactly what you are
expressing in your comments that is our fear: that because we have business
here, because we have business there, well, why not have business here and
let's allow this one to go through. Now that we have allowed this business
here, why not fill it in from this point to the end of the road and, oh, let's
get rid of the communities on the other side and fill it in down to Washington
Road. This is exactly our concern. And if you go back and read the
agreements we had with the Planning Commission on the nursing home, it said no
other business shall be constructed here. Those words were changed. So this
is why we're here, we are very concerned about just that effect, the effect of
the domino. Once one falls, they all continue to fall. And we need a good,
sound community in West Augusta. Richmond County is a good community. We
need good school districts, we don't need business where business not belong.
We've got plenty of acreage for business to reside in. That's our concern.
MR. HANDY: Okay. The point that bothers me is that you're accusing
someone of changing something in Zoning. Now, we don't have that information
before us. We never heard of that until you just mentioned it there. So I
would like to address Mr. George. Could you explain what he's referring to,
George?
MR. PATTY: I don't have a clue, I'm sorry. I don't have any idea what
he's talking about.
MR. HANDY: Okay. So how do you expect for us to make a decision when
you come here and say that something's been changed, but the director over
that department doesn't know anything about it, so how do you have something
that he doesn't have?
MR. MARYAK: Well, it may be the sheer number of documents he's
interested in. But I'm not asking you to go and verify whether that's true or
not at this point, I'm asking you to vote on the merits of whether we're going
to follow our land use plan as a county and not allow business into a
residential area. We can hold off the plan any issue concerning the nursing
home, however, I'd be happy to go down and get copies of the document and show
you exactly how the wording was changed.
MR. HANDY: Okay. Thank you.
MR. BRIDGES: I've got a question for you too, sir, as far as your
neighborhood association goes.
MR. MARYAK: Can I correct something for a moment? I am representing a
group of neighborhoods. I'm representing Montclair, Sugar Mill, Crofton,
Ravenwood, and Foxhall. I happen to be wearing a sticker that says Foxhall, I
happen to live there, but we got everyone from those communities that was
interested, concerned, that came to our meetings. So we're not a singular
unit here. I just wanted to make that clear.
MR. BRIDGES: Well, maybe you can give me the read on the meetings you've
had and whatnot, but the reason I was asking Mr. Patty what could this be used
for, and I understand it could be used for patio homes as it exists. Is that
less of a concern to you than this manor home that would be going in there?
Would that be less of a concern to the residents in that area?
MR. MARYAK: The answer to that is yes. Obviously we'd like to see our
home values appreciate. We'd like to see singular value construction to
support our present home values. But we support residential units on that
property. There presently are houses right there adjacent to the duck pond on
that side of the road.
MR. BRIDGES: So that would be less of a concern then to you, I assume?
MR. MARYAK: Yes. They're there now.
MR. BRIDGES: Also, I'd like to ask the developer what other locations
are you considering in Richmond County other than this one?
MR. HIRTH: We looked at a variety of properties and certainly picked
this as the most preferred site by virtue of the character of the
neighborhood. But let me just correct one thing, and I understand and respect
the concerns about business and commercial uses. We're a residential use and
this is a residential zone. And the locations that we're in, so that you're
aware, we're in about 20 different localities right now, predominantly in
single-family neighborhoods and neighborhoods where you have a mix of multi
family and single family. We have looked at a variety of sites in a variety
of different areas and really felt very strongly, given the character of this
neighbor-hood, the fact that you have a nice blend of uses, the age and the
tradition certainly involved in the neighborhood, and the character of the
site itself, this was far and away our preference.
MR. BRIDGES: What I was asking is what other locations in Richmond
County, or are you looking at going outside of the county?
MR. HIRTH: We zeroed in on this site and have not looked at any since
then. Any other questions?
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I will just be very brief. I pushed for the
Comprehensive Plan because the one we were operating under basically had
expired, I think, several years before. In doing the Comprehensive Plan, Mr.
Patty and his organization, Planning and Zoning, scheduled meetings around the
county. And around the county, the citizens--and they broke it down in
districts, like you say, you know. And the citizens came to those meetings
and they kind of let the staff know what they would like to see as far as
growth management, zoning, etc., and what they come back with from--that was
pretty much common from East Augusta to West Augusta to South Augusta was that
they didn't want commercial development other than in intersections, and I
believe that's in the Comprehensive Plan, and it went so many feet and it cut
it off, you know, and we wanted some buffer. The issue in South Augusta, if
we're talking about the road it's the same issue, plus buffer zones buffering
business from residential. If I'm listening to the gentleman, the
spokesperson for the neighborhood associations, and he tells me that his
property value over there is not outgrowing inflation. I would seriously
doubt that, knowing inflation is somewhere around three and a half percent.
If I listen to the petitioner and he tells me that this is not going to be a
multiple-family--well, he didn't say necessarily not multiple-family, but said
it's going to be residential. Yes, residential, but don't try to mislead me,
it's going to be a multiple-family residential, and what the property owner
have now is patio home, single family. And I think, gentlemen, we need to
stick with our Comprehensive Plan. We need to stick with what the Planning
and Zoning has recommended to this board and vote to deny. Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
MR. HENLEY: I'm Tom Henley, I work for the management company for the
nursing home there on Pleasant Home Road. I'd like to speak to one important
issue that I think that we have forgotten today in talking about the zoning.
I'd like to speak for the elderly. If we think about it, most of us in this
room have been fairly successful. We've been successful because our parents
and grandparents fought for us to have an education. They fought for us to
have schools close to our neighborhoods, schools that are safe. Folks, we
have an obligation, an obligation to provide a safe environment for the folks
that are getting old, and some of us are getting that way now. And I ask you,
do we want to send them off to a commercial environment or do we want them in
our neighborhood? Think about it. I ask you to get involved like the young
people did today with the elderly and get them out of danger. So let's
provide a safe place within the community, within the proper level of care.
We do not have this level of care within our community. This is a level that
is not provided. It's a good location that provides good access to hospitals.
Remember, these folks aren't driving any more. They need to be close in,
they need to be where they can get access to all levels of medical care. So
let's think about it, do we want them in a commercial environment or do we
want them in a safe neighborhood environment? From what I see of the
building, it looks very good. It will improve what we're doing.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I have a question for the gentleman. You say
you're in the management business; right? Have you done an assessment of how
many units available? You know, we're looking at St. Joseph's, we're looking
at what University is getting ready to do or doing as far as assisted living
and having those facilities close to medical centers. Have you done a
calculation on that and what the market is in that area?
MR. HENLEY: When I said I was in management, I'm in the management
company that manages the nursing home on Pleasant Home Road. I'm not--no, I
haven't personally done any of those.
MR. TODD: Well, if you're in that area, I would suspect that you would
have some concept of what the market will bear.
MR. HENLEY: Well, this is definitely a level of care that we are not
providing within this community.
MR. HIRTH: I'd like to address your question.
MR. BEARD: Mr. Mayor, I was fixing to call for the question.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Were you finished, Mr. Todd?
MR. TODD: Well, if anyone would like to answer the question, you know,
I'd like to hear what they have to say.
MR. HIRTH: We've done extensive research demographically and market
analysis-wise in the community on certainly all the competition that is within
the community, both existing and planned, and feel that there is more than
adequate market to warrant our project. One final comment I would like to
make, I certainly understand concerns about home values. We've done a number
of studies in other communities and have found that our proposed development
or existing developments either had no impact at all or account for
appreciation in single-family homes adjacent to our facilities. Thank you.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you. All in favor of Mr. Kuhlke's motion to
concur with the Planning Commission's decision to deny, let it be known by the
usual sign of voting, please.
MR. BRIDGES, MR. HANDY & MR. POWELL VOTE NO. MR. MAYS ABSTAINS.
MOTION CARRIES 6-3-1.
CLERK: Item 6: A petition from Edward Oellerich, on behalf of Five-O
Development, et al., requesting a change of zoning from Zone A
(Agriculture) and Zone R-1A (One-family Residence) to Zone LI (Light
Industry) on property located on the southwest right-of-way line of Luke
Road, 1,253 feet, more or less, southwest of the southwest corner of the
intersection of Wrightsboro Road and Luke Road. This petition is being
forwarded to the Commission without a recommendation.
MR. PATTY: This is about a 15-acre tract. It's bisected by the Belair
Road extension project, and part of the property--the part to the west of the
project was developed, I believe, by the petitioner for homes. It's now a
subdivision. And the part east of the highway is what's now in question. The
petition is for light industrial zoning to do speculative warehouse--I'll
address the petitioner address specifically what he wants to do. But the
problem we have with it is the road frontage that this property has is on a
road called Luke Road, which is one of those prescribed roads that the county
paved a few years ago. They did a typical asphalt surface treatment over raw
existing material, and we've got about a 20-foot pavement and about a 20 to 30
foot right-of-way depending on where you are. And we don't feel that the road
would stand any kind of industrial traffic, regardless of what use he made of
it, any kind of truck traffic. It would be a short time before you all would
be called upon to improve that road to a higher standard. And, second, the
plans in that area calls for commercial zoning along Wrightsboro Road with a
limitation of 400 feet, and he's much further than that from Wrightsboro Road.
To be honest with you, nobody at my meeting would make a motion. They heard
both sides of it. I guess nobody had any strong feeling and nobody made a
motion, so it passed on to y'all as a no recommendation, which has never
happened before. And I hope it never happens again, I can tell you that.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Patty, what was the staff recommendation?
MR. PATTY: The staff recommendation was to deny it.
MR. SHEPARD: George, as I understand the maps, though, the only way that
this property could be accessed, due to the limited access condition of--this
is Dyess Parkway that you're talking about; right?
MR. PATTY: Dyess Parkway, I'm sorry.
MR. SHEPARD: It would have to be back out of this--the back side of this
property through a residential area; is that correct?
MR. PATTY: Well, it's scattered residential, but Luke Road travels up to
Wrightsboro Road. And there's an oriental church and there are a couple of
residences. It's scattered. It's not a typical subdivision, you know, I'm not
trying to portray the idea that this is a road that travels through a
subdivision. It's a sparsely-settled residential area with a church.
MR. SHEPARD: George, the junction of Luke Road and Wrightsboro Road,
though, is outside the area that was planned to be commercial?
MR. PATTY: No, the junction--the strip along Wrightsboro Road where Luke
Road intersects Wrightsboro Road would be commercial per the plan, but it
would only extend 400 feet down Luke Road and this is far beyond that.
MR. SHEPARD: How many feet beyond that, roughly?
MR. PATTY: It's about 750 feet from Wrightsboro Road, so you're talking
300 and some feet beyond the 400.
MR. TODD: What does this put it close to? Were there any objectors, I
guess, one.
MR. PATTY: Yeah, we had one gentleman that lives on Luke Road that
objected.
MR. TODD: And does this put him close to this project? And the other
question is what creek basin [inaudible]?
MR. PATTY: Once again, this would be in Rae's Creek.
MR. TODD: Again we're talking development where we've called for no
development--commercial development in the Comprehensive Plan; right?
MR. PATTY: That's correct.
MR. TODD: And again we're dropping into Rae's Creek, and with warehouses
it's going to have an impact. Do we have a motion on the floor? I'm going to
move, Mr. Mayor, that we deny.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Mr. Oellerich, would you like to speak?
MR. OELLERICH: Yes, I'd like to speak. We have a plat here that shows
the Dyess Parkway, which was Belair Road at the time, and this is the property
that's in question as we're talking. There's property on this side which is
landlocked, and we have an option to purchase this to gain access to Luke
Road. Luke Road was paved with one percent sales tax money. And, Mr. Patty,
did you go out and look at the road?
MR. PATTY: No, I never did get a chance to look at it.
MR. OELLERICH: I went out and measured the road. The road from back of
the curbing to back of the curbing is 25 feet and 8 inches wide, which was not
brought up at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. The road was paved
by APAC, was paved with one percent sales tax money. The road is six-tenths
of a mile long. There's only two houses on it beyond the point of the
property that I own. This is our concept map that we have, and the general
area that we're building on out there, there are a lot of these light
industrial type buildings. They are used by plumbers, they're used by glass
companies building on both sides of the county line. This is one good example
that I had: this is Sharon Road. It comes in off of Barton Chapel Road.
It's about--it's a good long road. And this comes in--because it has varying
right-of-way width, comes in and comes around to Lamar Outdoor Signs and backs
up to Bobby Jones Expressway. This is the same concept that I had with mine,
and I looked before I decided. My property was eliminated from building
houses because this Dyess Parkway separates. We have this property here, and
this Luke Road comes in off of Wrightsboro Road, which is a shorter distance,
and we back right up to the [inaudible]. We have the same setting that they
have on Sharon Drive, which backs right up to Sharon [inaudible]. I got
caught as a victim in this thing here. We've got property out there that we
bought, we worked with the county and the state, they took what they wanted,
and now we've got a piece of property--what are we going to do with it? It is
not a designable piece of property to put houses on. I'm a homebuilder and
have been since the '70s in Augusta and Richmond County. We don't see very
little use for this if we don't have a way out to use it. Y'all tell me some
good way to get the best use out of it. I think we're entitled to the best
use we can do with our property. I'm down here today to ask y'all to zone it
for something I feel comfortable with trying to improve it and make something
out of it. We paid for this road with tax money, one percent sales tax money.
How are we ever going to get any money back out of it if we don't use the
road?
MR. OLIVER: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Murphy is here, the Acting Public Works
Director, and he can speak to the road if the Mayor and Commission would so
choose.
MR. MURPHY: The road has an eight-inch sand clay base under it and
probably about an inch and a quarter of asphalt and concrete each. The
alignment is severe in one place in the bottom of a drain. It was not
designed for heavy truck traffic.
MR. POWELL: Mr. Chairman, I have a question. I'm somewhat confused. I
thought you said you was going to build houses in there.
MR. OELLERICH: Well, we were going to build houses in there, but we was
cut off from the outside. This was the side entrance we had. We had two
subdivisions coming in it and Dyess Parkway cut us in two, and so they took
away all of our utilities and access to the residential property. This shows
lots in here, but there's nobody in there. There's nothing in [inaudible].
And then, of course, we're right beside this five-acre tract of land
[inaudible]. They used that tract of land bringing big trucks in there coming
and going because APAC of Augusta paved it, and I don't know what the
specification was--of course, he's the county engineer.
MR. HANDY: How far away is this from where the new Sue
Reynolds school is going? On the opposite side of the street--on the opposite
side of Dyess Parkway?
MR. OELLERICH: Yes, sir.
MR. HANDY: You're on the opposite side of where the new school is going?
MR. OELLERICH: We're on the opposite side of the residential.
MR. BRIDGES: George, what is the best use for this property? I mean, I
sympathize with him here, he's saying that's about the best use he can use it
for. Does he have access to Dyess Parkway or-- MR. PATTY: No, there's
no access to Dyess Parkway. You know, every property has got, you know,
certain restrictions to development and the value is based on that, and this
is frankly not a very desirable property for any reason. It does have certain
impediments for residential development, it's got, you know, the problems I've
related to you for the industrial development and commercial. My feeling is
that the plan would support residential development of the property, but I'm
not standing here telling you it's a real desirable tract [inaudible], but in
my opinion it would be highest and best use.
MR. MAYS: I'd like to ask the petitioner, did you own any property other
than that piece that we're talking about now that was in there prior to them
coming through with the road?
MR. OELLERICH: Yes, I did. It was in a different area. Did I own other
properties other than this tract-- MR. MAYS: Did you have a more
valuable piece of property prior to that or was any of your property condemned
or anything in order to make way for that passage?
MR. OELLERICH: This property--the road itself was--it was a 26-acre
piece of land the road went straight through the middle of.
MR. MAYS: I guess what I'm getting to is your statement that you made
about they took what they wanted and they left you with-- MR. OELLERICH:
That's correct. They left--they took what they needed and left me with what
was left over.
MR. MAYS: I'm familiar with that. I guess my question to--I probably
would rather want to have it in your legal session, but, you know, I think the
Attorney probably knows my question that I'm going to ask with it. I mean,
obviously we
want to support what's in the plan, but I got something here where you're
telling me a gentleman, maybe anybody, had property prior to, and you make
room for modernization and progress and everything else, which all of us want,
and then you render a piece of property to be basically undesirable and then
you won't even have a suggestion as to what you tell a person to make for it
and you get a suggestion that comes from Planning with no recommendation
whatsoever, but yet you want to turn down the one he's got. Before I vote to
turn it down, I'd rather see us do nothing and, to a point, work with him on
seeing if something else can be put in there. Because, I mean, we're saying
that's not good. Well, then what is good? What have you left him with to do
anything with? And that's where I would be on it. Obviously the previous
board must have been just as confused because they didn't recommend and
probably stopped short of saying maybe the man might be in a position of some
type of inverse condemnation. And I'd rather have dealt with that legally,
but I'm going to be forced to talk about it out here if that's what you've got
is he's got a worthless piece of property.
MR. WALL: Mr. Mays, I am not certain--and, Mr. Oellerich, maybe you can
answer this question. Did the county actually condemn this or did you sign an
option and was it conveyed voluntarily, or do you know?
MR. OELLERICH: They condemned it.
MR. WALL: They condemned it. All right. And it was tried?
MR. OELLERICH: No, it was settled out of court.
MR. WALL: All right. As a part of the damages that would have been
claimed in that would have been any consequential damages to the remainder of
the tract, and so--I'm not familiar with the condemnation. I would have to
talk with Harry. I'm sure he's probably the one who handled the thing, Harry
Revell.
MR. OELLERICH: That's correct.
MR. WALL: But as a part of the damages that would have been paid through
a judgment or through settlement would be any consequential damages to the
remainder of the tract. So if it--if we rendered a portion of the property
less valuable by virtue of going through the middle of it, as Mr. Oellerich
stated, then he would have been compensated, and included in that would have
been a reduction in the fair market value of that remaining piece of property.
MR. MAYS: Mr. Mayor, I'm not looking for a dog fight today with Mr.
Wall, but unless the gentleman went to court against the county with F. Lee
Bailey or somebody, or knew about how he was going to be damaged, I would
question whether or not there may have been a compensation. And since I
don't know if the compensation, whether or not it was [inaudible].
Sometimes you get the attitude that you can't fight city hall, many people
take, and maybe they just stay in 17 months of court and deliberation like
I did. I'm going to make a substitution motion that we table it and that
we're allowed to find out what maybe went on with the compensation
proceedings on the tract of land.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Second.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Discussion on that motion, gentlemen?
MR. TODD: That's non-debatable, Mr. Mayor.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Excuse me, you're right, that's a non-debatable motion.
Thank you, Mr. Todd. Substitute motion first, made by Mr. Mays.
MR. POWELL: Mr. Chairman, may I ask one question? How long are we
talking about tabling it, to the next meeting or--I just want to clear up the
time frame.
MR. MAYS: That would be fine with me. I think in the fairness of maybe-
- MR. TODD: Point of order, Mr. Mayor. The Parliamentarian, please,
table?
MR. WALL: Well, table it would be to table it till later in the meeting.
To postpone would be to delay it to another meeting.
MR. MAYS: The maker of the motion will change the wording to postpone
it then.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: I'll accept that.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Ms. Bonner, would you read the motion, please?
CLERK: The motion made by Mr. Mays was to postpone until the next
meeting.
MAYOR SCONYERS: All in favor of Mr. Mays' motion, let it be known by the
usual sign of voting, please.
MR. J. BRIGHAM VOTES NO.
MOTION CARRIES 9-1.
CLERK: Item 13: Z-98-101 - Request for concurrence with the decision
of the Planning Commission to approve a petition from William Knight, on
behalf of Dallas Blume, requesting a change of zoning from Zone R-MH
(Manufactured Home Residen-tial) to Zone B-1 (Neighborhood Business) on
property located on the south right-of-way line of Tobacco Road, 3,000
feet,
more or less, west of the southwest corner of the intersection of White
Pine Court and Tobacco Road (2432-A Tobacco Road).
MR. POWELL: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we approve
this zoning, and I'd like to add as an amendment to the motion that the
stipulation be added that a building be constructed for business and not be
a manufactured home. We would also like to have in the motion that it be a
landscaped lot, with the landscape buffer zones to match the pre-existing
businesses that we've been putting on Tobacco Road, and that all play areas
be adequately fenced.
MR. TODD: Second.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, I have one question. I want to make sure I heard
Mr. Powell right. He said that there will be a--could you give me that
wording you used for the building?
MR. POWELL: Well, I added the amendment to it that the stipulation be in
place that the building be constructed for business and not be a manufactured
home.
MR. HANDY: Okay. I'm not trying to change your adding, but he can't do
that anyway.
MR. WALL: Well, there are certain types of prefab structures that could
be brought in on wheels that may-- MR. HANDY: But it would have to be a
commercial type and meet all ADA standards and all.
MR. WALL: DCA standards. The idea is that this would be a stick-built
or a permanent structure.
MR. HANDY: Okay. Thank you. I asked that question for a reason.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I would just like to thank Mr. Powell for that
motion. I think it's time we get serious about what's going on on Tobacco
Road and the south side, and this is the first step.
MAYOR SCONYERS: All in favor of Mr. Powell's motion to approve--
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, you have a gentleman that wants to address the
Commission.
MR. KNIGHT: I'm William Knight, I live at 3610 Sylvan Court. I wanted
to be clear on what you constitute as permanent because we did--we are
planning to put a prefab unit there for the day care, but it's already
approved, you know, as far as the requirements, the sprinkler systems and
whatnot. When you say permanent, does that mean that if we brick the
foundation down or underpin it with brick, would that constitute a permanent--
and not, you know, have it exposed with wheels under it, you know, like a
double-wide trailer.
MR. PATTY: The short answer to that is under our definition of a
manufactured home in the zoning ordinance, anything that ever had wheels on it
is a manufactured home.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Does that answer your question, Mr. Knight?
MR. KNIGHT: Yes, sir.
MAYOR SCONYERS: All in favor of Mr. Powell's motion, let it be known by
the usual sign of voting, please.
MOTION CARRIES 10-0.
CLERK: Item 16: Motion to approve funding request in support of the
Jessye Norman Home for the Holidays Christmas Special for PBS in the amount
of $15,000 from "Commission Other" account.
MR. BEARD: Mr. Mayor, I asked for this to be pulled because I do
understand that they are coming up a little short on this. And I think we
have some funds in our Commission Other account, and since we still have
such a hard time in using this for anything else I think this would be a
good opportunity. And I'm going to add to this that we approve another
$10,000 from the Commission Other account and with the Mayor adding $2,500
from his account to this.
MR. POWELL: Second.
MAYOR SCONYERS: We have a motion by Mr. Beard, seconded by Mr. Powell,
that we go from $15,000 to $25,000, and the Mayor will be more than happy to
put in $2,500 to make it a total of $27,500. Discussion, gentlemen?
MR. TODD: Yes, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, before I support this project, I
have some concerns about the funding source. And as you know, I haven't
supported spending money for projects from the Commission Other in the past
and I probably won't today. I've made suggestions, I guess, to the Clerk and
to other folks that why don't we look at fronting the money and putting seed
money up and raising the money that we need to do events like this. It seems
to me that the Greater Augusta Arts Council, you know, the Augusta Opera, and
other organizations would be glad to take a concept such as the city seal or
maybe a little music chamber on it or Ms. Norman's name to it and sell them as
mementos to raise the funds. I think it's a worthy project, I think it's
going to give us all kind of publicity throughout the state and possibly
throughout the nation, but I feel that too often we are the cash cow versus,
you know, insisting that organizations work to raise the funding and pay the
funding back to the government. And I think this would be one that we could
easily do and that if we could get the Jessye Norman organization or PBS or
whomever to agree to something, then we do it. I would encourage this
Commission to further investigate this and look into it and try to devise a
way or come up with a way to pay the funding back. I have no problem with it
being seed money if that's the way the promotion was presented and that we at
least go through the effort to raise the money to pay it back. Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you, Mr. Todd. Further discussion, gentlemen?
MR. HANDY: Call for the question, Mr. Mayor.
MR. POWELL: Well, I'll yield because Mr. Handy has called for the
question.
MR. HANDY: Thank you, Mr. Powell.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Well, that's my call, Mr. Powell. If you want to say
something, you can say something.
MR. POWELL: I would like to say one thing, Mr. Mayor, and I appreciate
the opportunity. I think that not to fund this would be doing a grave
disservice to the City of Augusta. We have the opportunity to promote this
fine city on a worldwide basis for a minimum amount of $27,500. If we were to
go out and try to buy 30 seconds worth of advertising for the City of Augusta
on this magnitude, there's no telling what it would cost us. So I ask all my
colleagues--I support this wholeheartedly and I think it's a wonderful thing
for Augusta and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you, Mr. Powell. Mr. Bernard, do you want to say
something, sir? Congressman Bernard, excuse me.
CONGRESSMAN BARNARD: Your Honor, if I might just say a word, please.
Gentlemen of the Commission, I just want to take this opportunity to thank the
Finance Committee for their very fine consideration of our initial request,
and I do appreciate the evidence of support that has already been given on
this project. This was something that was brought to us by National Public
Broadcasting. It has a budget of $549,000, and they have only asked this
community to participate to the degree of $110,000. We've already raised
$60,000 from the private sector. This is not a project really of the Augusta
Opera Association or the Arts Association. They all will be participating in
it, but this is--of all the things we've done, this is a civic endeavor.
We all realize the great treasure we have in Jessye Norman. Here's a young
lady that's been recognized worldwide and continues to be recognized
worldwide. Here she is coming to Augusta for two days, giving of her time to
produce a show. I say a show, but it's a concert. She will be participating
on Riverwalk, she will be in the schools, she will be helping with values of
young children, and then the climax will be on the 18th of November when there
will be a performance at the First Baptist Church sanctuary. And that will be
videotaped, along with her other appearances. This will be then shown
December the 21st on National Public Broadcasting as well as Georgia Public
Broadcasting, and Ms. Norman has agreed that we can show this Christmas
program for the next five years. So, you see, we have a tremendous,
tremendous opportunity to put our name all over the world. Now, I have been
advised that the Augusta-Richmond County Commission will get very, very
prominent recognition on the credits that, of course, precede and also follow
a broadcast of this kind. So I just thank you so much for this element of
cooperation that you have shown, and I can assure you I think it's going to be
one of the finest things that we have done in Augusta in many, many years. So
thank you very much.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you, Congressman Barnard.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I also would like to thank the Congressman for the
information that the private sector has already done their part, and I think
that with that information I can support the project.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, could I say one thing? Mr. Barnard, you mentioned
that it will be noted that the Augusta Commission made an outstanding
donation. The Mayor is not a Commissioner, so you might want to have them say
the Mayor and the Commission.
CONGRESSMAN BERNARD: Well, that's a good suggestion and we'll so make
that change.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you, Mr. Handy. It's nice to be included with
y'all. I would like to thank my colleague in Atlanta for this most worthwhile
endeavor. All in favor of Mr. Beard's motion, let it be known by the usual
sign of voting, please.
MOTION CARRIES 10-0.
CLERK: Item 20: Motion to approve a funding request from Augusta
Tomorrow in support of a study to assess an economic development package
for Richmond County at a cost of $15,000.
MR. TODD: I so move.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Second.
MR. TODD: Is it my understanding that this is the study on the Tobacco
Road corridor or which study is this?
MR. OSBON: Mr. Mayor and Commissioners, I appreciate this opportunity to
represent Augusta Tomorrow on this matter. I also would like to commend you on
your last vote because the Jessye Norman project is a very important one, and
I'm very proud to say I'm one of the private citizens that have supported
that. The issue at the table right now is results from a meeting that Augusta
Tomorrow had with Senator Walker earlier this year and the idea that we needed
to put together a package to go to the state legislature to try to obtain more
state funding in the Augusta area to support some of the economic development
projects that we have. What we have in mind is an objective to try to obtain
about $30 million from the state and match it with $30 million locally. The
$15,000 today we're trying to get you to approve is to partially fund a
feasibility study to look at the economic impact of these various projects
that do include all aspects of our county. There was an economic development
committee put together earlier this year that composes members of the
different segments of our community, including some of you that are here
today, and we've met, I suspect, about six or eight times so far. And, again,
this money is needed to help fund that feasibility study so that we can
determine the economic impact of these projects. I'll be glad to answer your
questions if you have any.
MR. TODD: Thank you, Mr. Osbon, for enlightening us on what this is.
You know, certainly when we look at what Columbus, Georgia, has done with
Mayor Peterson, you know, and them obtaining the funding and what they've done
for downtown Columbus and throughout Columbus with their funding, I think that
it's, you know, worthy of this community that we go after those funds. We
were in the Senate Majority Leader's office, I guess, earlier this year when
they were in session and we had mentioned this, and certainly I'm supportive
of it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Julian, when y'all did this study earlier, y'all didn't
do an economic feasibility study at that time?
MR. OSBON: LDR did one when we did the original project, but what we've
done now is come back and look at the various needs of the community, and I
can give you some specifics on this. The areas that we're looking at would
deal with the Laney-Walker center of economic impact analysis, Broad Street
rental economic impact analysis, South Augusta multi-purpose recreation
center, and these are just some of the ones that we have looked at. But what
we're doing right now is to zero in on specific projects and to take these to
the state next session to try to obtain state funds to match some local funds
that we hope to raise.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: When did y'all do the initial study, how long ago?
MR. OSBON: The LDR project? We did one back in the early '80s and we
revised it in the '90s, but-- MR. J. BRIGHAM: Haven't you revised it in
the last six months?
MR. OSBON: No.
MR. OLIVER: I think what Mr. Brigham may be referring to is what was
done for Greater Augusta Progress. That was done, I think, within the last
couple of months.
MR. OSBON: Right. The Greater Augusta Progress, I think you have agreed
to, through some funding mechanisms, provide money for that. Some of these
projects that we have here will complement and be part of that, but
specifically what we're looking for here is the economic impact of these
specific projects.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Did not LDR do that, though?
MR. OSBON: Yes.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: And didn't they just do it?
MR. OSBON: Not this, no.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Well, what's the difference?
MR. OSBON: The Greater Augusta Progress is the specific projects that
came out of the Pride and Progress in South Augusta that dealt with a broader
scope of activities in the community. What we're looking for here are
specific projects that we feel like we can obtain funding from the state to
help these projects be realized. A lot of it complements what has been--it
goes along with Greater Augusta Progress, but it is not the specific same
process.
MR. KUHLKE: Ms. Osbon, I believe that that initial study was financed
privately; am I correct?
MR. OSBON: Yes.
MR. KUHLKE: I'd like to ask the maker of the motion if he would include
in this motion that we get these funds from the Commissioner's discretionary
fund. If I'm correct, that'll leave us $4,000 in that fund and we won't have
to deal with it much any more.
MR. TODD: I guess you're going to get me two times in one day. But
certainly this is a worthy cause too, so yes, I'll accept it.
MR. BEARD: I would just like to clear one thing up, Mr. Osbon, because
it was my understanding, and you can correct me, that the $250,000 that was
allocated through the UDAG funds--of course, they have to be approved, I
heard, I think, but wasn't it all tied into this study? It was my
understanding that the study was in there to--you know, the gateways and the
different projects that you had listed there. Wouldn't that [inaudible]?
MR. OSBON: Yes, they--they would be doing this; right.
MR. BEARD: And I'm supportive of what you're doing, I just wanted to get
a clearer understanding of this. Because if the $250,000 is allocated, then I
think that we need to look at that [inaudible] and see what we can pull from
that prior to allocating this other, you know, $15,000 here, and that's what
I'm thinking.
MR. OSBON: I think part of it may be a timing issue, too. But if, in
fact--you know, when the $250,000 is released by HUD, I have no problem with
some of that money being dedicated to this process here and just simply
repaying it, if that occurs, but I think there's an issue of timing and this
is a project we need to get in place as quick as possible.
MR. BEARD: I just wanted to clear that up because I thought [inaudible]
all kind of tied together. Because, you know, it's time we started
[inaudible] Columbus to Savannah to Albany, and they are getting this money.
And it's my understanding that if we pursue this--and Speaker Connell and the
Senate Majority Leader Walker have indicated that there will be [inaudible]
between 40 and 50 thousand dollars back here for this area. And, you know, if
they can accomplish that [inaudible]. My whole thought there is that if we
had already allocated funds for that, then we could utilize those funds
instead of depleting the Commission Other. But I guess we might as well
deplete it and then we won't have anything to deal with.
MS. OSBON: Senator Walker asked us to try to get this together in time
for an advanced schedule for this next session. So I'm not too sure exactly
what the timing is, but I believe we're supposed to have this information in
the next 30 to 60 days, so, I mean, timing is an issue here.
MR. POWELL: Mr. Chairman, I could stand corrected, but I believe the
$250,000 for the study was to be funded out of some HUD money.
MR. OLIVER: That's correct. Some of these projects are clearly HUD
eligible. I would note, however, that before you can use HUD money--you can't
just go out and retain a consultant, you've got to go through a competitive
process. That process would take two to three weeks to complete.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, you know, the way we usually do things is that we
use a multiplier of five or maybe even ten, you know, when we done the Fort
Discovery down there or some of the other projects. And we go out and we do
it, and we promise folks what it's going to do and it don't do it. Well, this
is an opportunity to bring the experts in to tell us what it's going to do as
far as economic impact. Also, Mr. Mayor, when we're talking about the South
Richmond project, we have plans for a library there that we don't have funds
to put it there, and that's one of the projects that the good Senator is going
to help us obtain funds for. The other area that we could use some help in
South Richmond is a post office. Basically, outside the City of Hephzibah we
don't have one. We only have one other post office south of the Gordon Highway
unless you're willing to go, I guess, to Burke County, you know. So we need a
post office, and hopefully we can tie that in somewhere in there, too. And
certainly as far as the Tobacco Road corridor, Windsor Spring Road corridor,
Deans Bridge Road, Highway 25 and Highway 56, we need economic development,
and certainly this is going to help us there. We have some, Mr. Mayor,
without doing anything. Just by talking about doing things we have two major
shopping centers off Tobacco Road and 25 and 56. Certainly this is going to
help. I've supported, Mr. Mayor, initiatives for downtown, and I continue to
support initiatives downtown. Mr. Jimmy Smith has worked for a number of
years for initiatives, and others, in South Richmond, and I support those
efforts, too. And I call on my colleagues to let's fund this, then if we can,
you know, pay back the discretionary fund from the HUD funds that we may or
may not get, that HUD haven't approved the $7.5 million give-away and the
200,000 and some thousand dollar trade-off for. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, I have a question I need Mr. Kuhlke to clarify for
me, if he may. He wanted to tack on an amendment to come out of the
Commission Other account, then we have X amount of dollars left so we can go
on and get rid of that. Is that done because we gave Jessye Norman that
amount of money or you just want to hurry up and get rid of that?
MR. KUHLKE: I just want to get rid of it.
MR. HANDY: Why would you want to get rid of the Commission Other?
Something may happen that we may need money between now and the end of the
year.
MR. KUHLKE: Well, we won't have it.
MR. HANDY: Okay. You know, everybody know I'm going to be truthful and
honest with you. If I hear something, I'm going to come out and ask you to
answer whether you like it or not, and that's why I asked you that question.
Thank you.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you, Mr. Handy. All in favor of Mr. Todd's motion
to approve with the amendment, let it be known by the usual sign of voting,
please.
MR. HANDY VOTES NO.
MOTION CARRIES 9-1.
CLERK: Item 22: Motion to approve recommended modifica-tions to job
classification and compensation plan (cost impact this year $69,892; annual
impact $186,377.85 to be budgeted), approve new Compensation Policy and
Procedure Manual, and approve 1999 pay increases for employees ($400,000
budgeted for 1998).
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Mayor, I had asked that this be pulled, and part of
what I was concerned about was [inaudible] authorizing the Administrator to go
to the mid point on salary ranges in these procedures; is that correct, Mr.
Oliver?
MR. OLIVER: That's a policy decision. That was discussed briefly in
committee by Commissioner Todd, and that's truly a policy decision. If the
Mayor and Commission are more comfortable with anything above ten percent,
which is the current policy, coming back with the Commission, I think the
Commission should adopt it with that change, and that's fine.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Well, that's what I want to do is I want to maintain
the ten percent that we have and let us make the decision on [inaudible].
MAYOR SCONYERS: Is that your motion, Mr. Brigham?
MR. J. BRIGHAM: That's my motion.
MR. TODD: I'll second it, Mr. Mayor.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Did you get that, Ms. Bonner?
CLERK: Yes, sir, that we go ten percent--remain at ten percent?
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Remain at ten percent.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'll be very brief. I want to clarify that my
position was that I opposed going 50 percent and I think anything over ten
percent needs to come back here. Thank you.
MR. BRIDGES: Mr. Mayor? Randy, what are your thoughts on this? Where
is this coming from and what's the purpose of it?
MR. OLIVER: It's truly a policy decision. The only thing that it does
is it would give the flexibility administratively to do some things that have
come back to you all in the last several weeks when we went to hire this
person or that person. The mid point of the range is the average salary for a
person functioning in that position, and it's pretty typical as it relates to
personnel policy. I don't have a problem with it at ten. I mean, if that's
something that you all, you know, want to be involved with, that's your
decision.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Further discussion, gentlemen? All in favor of Mr.
Brigham's motion, let it be known by the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 10-0.
MR. MAYS: Can I ask a question, Mr. Mayor? There's a whole lot in Item
22. I notice y'all are bringing up the part about the range staying at ten
percent, but this encompasses everything, I presume, that's under Item 22, the
salaries and everything else.
MR. OLIVER: That's correct. It adjusts the pay ranges based on the
appeals process that the Mayor and Commission approved. The appeals process
has been complete. Based on that information, those salaries were changed or
will be changed subject to approval of this. The biggest impact is in
Transit. And it also deals with pay increases that were previously budgeted
as well as the compensation policy and procedures manual, and we will make the
change that--if this motion is approved.
MR. MAYS: So I presume this motion has no sections in it, this is an
all-or-nothing motion in terms of the salaries and everything else that's in
there. And I guess I'm being like Freddie on this one, and y'all know exactly
where I'm coming from. If we're going to--if we got something on our mind in
dealing with this salary package in here and we're going ahead with the
approval of them, does Finance or Administrative Services plan to bring any of
these up or is this one of those, like marriage, speak now or forever hold
your piece deals?
MR. BEARD: I think the main interest here was the 50 percent, and
putting that back down to ten percent, I think we could live with that. There
are some corrections to be made, I think, further down the line, and I think
[inaudible].
MR. MAYS: So if placed on a particular committee, where these are in
this salary range, then this is not a lock-out for discussion if that is
placed on board, whether it be through committee or through the agenda of this
regular Commission to be discussed at some further time if we so choose to do
it?
MR. OLIVER: The purpose of the appeals process was only to establish the
range. The range for the position is the minimum that the least qualified
person in the range would make and the maximum was the most that a qualified
individual would make. The Commission, you know, previously adopted the
policy that a person that was not at the minimum, was outside of the range,
below the range, would be brought at least to the minimum and a person that
was above the top of the range would be redlined until the range caught up.
And as a result, what happened was there were adjustments done last year on a
pay for performance basis, and what this agenda item is is it sets aside money
this year for further adjustment based on performance. And, you know, if a
department director feels there is an inequity, it will again go through the
EEO Officer and myself. Obviously the biggest issue is resources and funding.
But that's the policy that had previously been adopted by the Mayor and
Commission in that regard.
MR. BEARD: Mr. Oliver, if a person has been through the appeal process
and the Personnel Board and they have approved a range, can that person appeal
to the Commission to fulfill his term on that range [inaudible]?
MR. OLIVER: Obviously the Mayor and Commission developed the rules and
the procedures, but at this point that procedure does not exist. I think
that's a...
[End of Tape 2]
MR. BEARD: ...and set that person's salary or have the opportunity to do
that.
MR. OLIVER: Well, if you recall, and there will be some minor
adjustments that will come out of this, but the parameters that were adopted
last year was that a person's salary would go up either to the minimum of the
range or 15 percent, you know, based on the department director's evaluation.
Those were the guidelines and the parameters that were set up. We looked at,
if you recall, doing what was called comparatio, which meant if you were 50
percent of the old range, you would be 50 percent of the new range. The cost
impact of that, according to the consultant, to do that was $6 million
2
across the organization. Those funds were not available. The only thing I
want to make sure of is that all employees are treated the same way because--
for example, we use our classic meter reader example. We had meter readers
that came up to the bottom of the range, for example. They didn't appeal, and
there was--you know, they got the pay for performance and the merit increase
and that type thing.
MR. BEARD: Yeah, but I'm speaking of those people who actually appealed
their salaries [inaudible] dealt with those people below the range-- MR.
J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Mayor, aren't we in the middle of a vote?
MAYOR SCONYERS: The vote is over with.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Well, can we announce the results and go on with
business?
MAYOR SCONYERS: The motion carried ten to zero.
MR. BEARD: Mr. Brigham, I would like to complete what I'm saying because
I think-- MR. J. BRIGHAM: Well, I think we're in the middle of a vote
and we ought not to be going on-- MR. BEARD: Well, there were questions,
and I think Mr. Mays asked the question, and-- MR. J. BRIGHAM: Well, I
think he was out of order when he asked his question.
MR. MAYS: No, Jerry, he recognized me.
MAYOR SCONYERS: That's right. Finish it up, Lee, and then we'll move
on.
MR. BEARD: It was my understanding that the people on the Personnel
Board had the impression that once they approved a different range for a
person, that then that person would either be--it would be up to you or the
Commission to set that particular [inaudible].
MR. OLIVER: No, the Personnel Board--wherever that information came
from, that information that was conveyed was incorrect. Because it's been
made very clear to the Personnel Board that their responsibility was not to
look at the person, and the rules were spelled out for them, but rather their
responsibility was to look at the minimum of the range and the maximum of the
range, assuming no one was in it. And obviously it's always hard to eliminate
personalities, but those ground rules were clearly spelled out to the
Personnel Board in their mission, and on a number of occasions they were told
very clearly that the action that they took would not affect a given
individual's salary.
MR. BEARD: But it is a policy--it could be a policy decision made by the
Commission; right?
MR. OLIVER: The Commission can make--the Mayor and Commission can make
any policy decision that they believe is in the best interest of Augusta-
Richmond County.
MR. BEARD: Okay. Then we can bring this up at another time.
MAYOR SCONYERS: The motion carried ten to zero. Item 31, Ms. Bonner?
CLERK: Item 31: Motion to disapprove Change Order #44 for the
Jackson Road Widening Project in the amount of $12,000 with Mabus
Construction Company, Inc. to repair driveway and driveway pipe at 2710
Ingleside Drive.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Kuhlke had this pulled and I'm sure he have a
notion on what way to go, but it's my position that we've already done this
work once, I understand, and if we redo it and not let the property owner
himself do it, if we
tell him he's liable and should redo it, then I think we're going to have to
redo it time and time again. I think this is a property owner that we're not
going to satisfy. I think we're probably in as sensitive an area as we would
be if we were crossing the Augusta National, and I think most folks know where
I'm at as far as crossing the Augusta National. Give them the money, let them
do the project. And, you know, we know they're going to do it right because
they are doing it and they're going to do it to suit themselves because they
are doing it. If we're going to do anything here, I would be for giving the
individual the money and let the individual do the project himself. But those
are my comments and that's the reason that I supported the motion not to redo
this project. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
MR. KUHLKE: Mr. Mayor, I'd like to just call on Mr. Murphy. And the
reason I asked for this to be pulled, it was turned down by Engineering
Services, and I can understand with all the background information that Mr.
Murphy has where this person actually signed a release in some work that the
county had done previously over there. But back--I guess it's been almost two
years ago now, I along with Mr. Murphy and Mr. Adams at that time, who was the
County Public Works Director, met with Mr. Jimmy Davidson at his home and we
looked at the situation there. And at that meeting there was an agreement
reached whereby the county would go in and do a certain amount of work where
his driveway had dropped down under or over a pipe that takes some drainage
water from the property adjoining, I guess. And my concern here is that this
county, under the direction of Mr. Adams at that time, made a commitment to do
this work to this individual, and I frankly feel like that it's bad when you
give somebody your word and then you back out on what you intended or told
them that you were going to do. So I wanted to bring this--and, Mr. Murphy,
will you confirm what I just said, that a commitment from this government was
made to Mr. Davidson at that time?
MR. MURPHY: Mr. Adams made a commitment, yes.
MR. KUHLKE: Okay. And so I would like to ask my colleagues to
reconsider, and whether we do the work or whether we give this particular
property owner this money and let him do the work, Mr. Todd, I don't care.
All I'm saying is that there was a commitment made and I think that this body
should stand behind that commitment that was made at that time.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, my question to Mr. Murphy, was the work done that
the commitment was made on and did the property owner sign off as far as hold
harmless or any agreement that he wouldn't come back to this government?
MR. MURPHY: We've been at this site three previous times. The third
time we asked him to sign a release, which he did. The pipe does not belong
to us. The stream--we don't have an easement at all.
MR. TODD: Yes. You know, I understand that this is private property and
he signed off, so I don't see any obligation to the property owner whatsoever.
But I still maintain my position, you know, the only way to ever have a
disposition of this that's going to be lasting is to, you know, not do it
ourselves or have someone to do it but to settle with him with money. But I
can't see where we have any obligation in that this is private property. He
signed a release, so when he signed that release--did he sign that release
before Mr. Adams' conversation with him or after?
MR. MURPHY: He signed this release before Mr. Adams came on the scene
with Richmond County.
MR. TODD: Then there is a possibility that we do have some obligation to
him if Mr. Adams, as an agent of this government, representing this
government, made the promise. I would prefer to settle it in a way other than
going and dealing with that property and doing the work.
MR. WALL: Well, I've heard Mr. Kuhlke say he doesn't care which way. I
would encourage you that if you approve--I think the best thing to do is to
pay him some money, get another release, and let's stick with the next release
that we get if we go this direction.
MR. POWELL: So move.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MR. MAYS: Mr. Mayor, I'll vote for correcting a wrong that's been done
to a citizen, but I just want to ask Mr. Wall now, are we going to take the
same attitude with every driveway? I'm not necessarily talking about private-
-well, it may be private property, but where maybe consideration has been
given to get right-of-way and easements and where they've fallen in, caved in
or whatever and we're not even answering the call to them any more to go out
and fix it. You know, we always talk about we don't want to set precedent.
Now, I don't mind correcting somebody's problem, but I at least think that
when we've got them in some other neighborhoods and we hear that cry come to
Engineering Services, you know, I want y'all to at least listen in the same
way and be ready to give away some money and go out and fix some of those
driveways, too. Because you've got some of them out there, this ain't the
only one in Richmond County, and then those in some cases where people signed
away property for progress.
MR. WALL: And, Mr. Mays, I understand that, and I'm not advocating--I
didn't advocate that the work be done the first--or the number two and number
three times. I don't think I was involved in number one. But, you know, in
light of the discussion--and if y'all approve it, my suggestion is simply you
get another release and do it in money because I agree with what Mr. Todd
says, I don't think we'll ever please this property owner. And I don't know
that we--we didn't recommend going out there before, the truth of the matter,
but the Commission decided to do it, and that's y'alls prerogative to do that.
MR. OLIVER: I want to make one comment for either now or in the future.
No employee has the ability to bind this government, only the Mayor and
Commission do, and I think that's an important distinction. I mean, you know,
clearly within certain parameters we can, purchases under $500 and that type
thing. On this particular matter, however, no employee has the ability to
bind this government, and we set a dangerous precedent because stories change,
promises change, and things like that. In a minute we're going to consider
St. Sebastian Way, and you will note in the letter I was very careful to write
subject to the approval of the Mayor and Commission. Those are decisions that
are best made by you all. You know, I can't answer what happened in the past.
I clearly believe this is a personal property issue, though.
MR. MAYS: Mr. Mayor, I guess my other question would be then, were we
more in the tone of this being a settlement, somewhat of a legal situation
more so than a Public Works precedent? If so, I can vote for that to get it
behind us. But if we're doing this in this manner and no others, then I've
got a problem with it.
MR. WALL: Well, my recollection is the last time there was an issue
about gates, we were getting complaints about people being on the opposite
side of the road, both of the issues kind of got wrapped in together and we
needed to control access across a road--am I correct, Mr. Murphy?
MR. MURPHY: That's correct.
MR. WALL: And so this was sort of the way that this got thrown in the
pot, yes, to settle both issues, to allow us to control the area across the
road along Rae's Creek and without having to go through some kind of further
litigation or condemnation on that, and it was brought forward on that basis.
But I agree with what--with everything that Mr. Oliver says. The only caveat
I'd make is that there are times when employees go out there, citizens don't
know the legal rules, and you've got a department head there who makes a
representation to a citizen, and I think the way you deal with that is deal
with the department head that made the representation in many instances. You
don't necessarily always have to back them up, but, I mean, that's his job to
go out there and assess a situation and make judgments. And we may disagree
with it, but I think--I mean, he's not here now for us to deal with it, but I
think that's the way it has to be addressed.
MAYOR SCONYERS: All in favor of Mr. Powell's motion, let it be known by
the usual sign of voting, please.
MR. BRIDGES: Could I hear the motion again, Mr. Mayor?
MAYOR SCONYERS: Ms. Bonner, would you reread the motion, please?
CLERK: The motion is to approve Change Order #44 in the amount of
$12,000 and receive a release for repairs to the driveway at 2710 Ingleside
Drive.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Do you want to reword that a little bit, Jim?
MR. WALL: The motion is to approve settlement of the claim by the
payment of $12,000-- CLERK: Well, it didn't say settlement of claim.
That's what you want to add?
MR. WALL: Yeah, settlement of the claim of Mr. Davidson for all issues
related to his driveway. Anything other than the driveway, Jack?
MR. MURPHY: No, sir.
MR. WALL: How about the gate?
MR. OLIVER: Anything related to his property.
MR. WALL: Anything related to his property?
MR. SHEPARD: That'll be fine.
MR. TODD: Thank you, Mr. Shepard. We need two attorneys, I believe, on
this one.
MR. POWELL: That was the spirit of the motion.
MR. SHEPARD: That's why I seconded.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Mr. Mayor, we're saying the entire $12,000?
MR. WALL: Well, that's what I thought the motion was, yeah. Yeah,
$12,000.
MR. TODD: And also in the motion he needs to sign a release.
MR. WALL: Sign a release.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: We've got a lot of folks out there that would be happy
to sign releases.
MR. WALL: I understand that.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: I could not in good conscience vote against this, but
we've turned down these folks time and time again, water knee deep under their
house right now and we say we don't have [inaudible], and yet just to appease
a man we come up here and say let's give him $12,000 and let him be happy.
I'm not so sure that's the best way to do this.
MR. BRIDGES, MR. H. BRIGHAM & MR. HANDY VOTE NO.
MOTION CARRIES 7-3.
CLERK: Item 32: Motion to approve proposal with Law Engineering and
Environmental Services, Inc. to perform solid waste design modifications
and consulting services of Cell II-C at the Augusta Municipal Solid Waste
Facility for a fee not to exceed $13,000.00.
MR. BRIDGES: Motion to approve.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, one quick question. Law Environmental, I thought
we just had a problem with them, so why are we hiring them to do more work?
MR. WALL: This is a situation where they have the computer data that we
need and it's readily available to them. They will maintain the stream of
responsibility insofar as that work is concerned and are obviously in a better
position to do the work than to hire some new engineering firm that does not
have the background, was not involved in the design, etc. And the problems
that we had with them dealt primarily with the closure, did not deal with the
original cell. They did a good job on the first cell and they're in the best
position to fulfill this additional service, and I support the recommendation
that we grant it to Law.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Further discussion, gentlemen? All in favor of Mr.
Bridges' motion to approve, let it be known by the usual sign of voting,
please.
MR. POWELL & MR. TODD VOTE NO; MR. MAYS OUT.
MOTION CARRIES 7-2.
CLERK: Motion to approve abandonment of portion of existing drainage
easements on property located at the intersection of Meadowbrook Drive and
Windsor Spring Road, retaining a 30-foot drainage easement over existing
pipe, subject to approval from the Public Works Department, Administrator,
and Attorney.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I so move.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Discussion, gentlemen? All in favor of Mr. Todd's
motion-- MR. BRIDGES: I'd like to hear what the Attorney has to say on
that.
MR. WALL: This is one where a drugstore is going to locate at the
intersection of Meadowbrook and Windsor Spring Road. The property has been
filled since the original easements were obtained. We will maintain the
easement area over the pipe. The property owner and the new purchaser will be
responsible for the water after it leaves the pipe. This has been reviewed
with Mr. Murphy and he's in agreement with this, and we're recommending
approval of this. The other thing that is included is a no-access easement
that was included when Richmond County acquired a small portion of this
overall tract. By virtue of the fact that the tracts have now been combined,
there's no reason to have that restriction and lets the access rights be
determined by Planning and Zoning as any other parcel is concerned.
MR. TODD: Mr. Wall, also there's quite a bit of backfill over that
easement. If possible, let's make sure that that go along with it, that no
one come back to the county as far as the easement go.
MR. WALL: They did the filling over that easement, and I think Mr.
Robert Oliver has already looked at that.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Further discussion, gentlemen? All in favor of Mr.
Todd's motion to approve, let it be known by the usual sign of voting, please.
MOTION CARRIES 8-0. [MR. H. BRIGHAM & MR. POWELL OUT]
CLERK: Item 34: Discuss St. Sebastian Way Road Project.
MR. OLIVER: In your agenda book is a proposal, and there have been some
subtle changes made to that. The culmination of this will be to develop a
formal agreement. What we're going to ask is that you approve this in
concept, subject to the approval of Mr. Wall and myself and the Mayor, to get
a formal agreement executed. What it provides for are about nine items. It's
been reviewed by the Canal Authority, by the Planning Commission, Mr. Patty,
by Mr. Drew Goins, by Mr. Jack Murphy, by Mr. Wall and myself. The total cost
of the improvements that we are proposing to do is $202,500. The value of the
property that we're proposing to get swapped from Mr. Boardman, based on an
initial appraisal without going through, you know, any negotiations or
anything, is $170,000. That property is proposed to be used for St. Sebastian
Way. The legislation for St. Sebastian Way and the change that's needed to the
federal legislation has been passed by the Senate. It's my understanding it
has not yet been passed by the House. We are hopeful that that's going to
occur in the next couple of weeks. Obviously there's no guarantee of that
happening or whether the President will sign it, however, informally we've
been advised that it's likely. We have $1.5 million for St. Sebastian Way
that was approved in Phase III of the sales tax. It's proposed that these
improvements be done out of there. Item number one deals with parking.
Mr. Patty and I have reviewed that, along with the site plan, and we're
agreeing that the parking is adequate based on the current footprint of the
building and provided that footprint does not change. It also states that
Augusta-Richmond County has no responsibility now or in the future for
additional parking. Item number two is the city will assist Enterprise Mill
in obtaining permission from Georgia DOT--note that we're just going to assist
them, we can't guarantee them that that will occur, and I've told Mr. Boardman
that--to permit parking under the John C. Calhoun Expressway similar to what's
being done down at Sacred Heart. We will install street lights along the
line adjacent to his property at Enterprise Mill, and that we will also repave
Cottage Street by November 15th. There's been a section that's been added
that we anticipate that those lights will be installed by November the 15th,
however, at this point we can't guarantee it; it's going to be based on
manufacturer's delivery. We will install just one side now and when the
project is completed we would install the other side. We will install
lighting on both sides of Greene Street from 15th Street to the Salvation Army
using the fixtures that are downtown. These are the single-edged fixtures.
Estimated cost of that is $125,000. We will landscape the sides,
particularly the one next to the railroad track. Commissioner Jerry Brigham
indicated he had some concerns over the fence. We've gotten with the railroad
and Mr. Smith has received assurances that he thinks protects us and he thinks
he can put a species in there to create a hedgeline that will not require the
fence. Because I think Mr. Brigham had a good point about the possibility of
graffiti, particularly on the back side. The landscaping will be approved by
the Canal Authority. We also are giving him permission to landscape, at his
expense, the banks of the Canal in front of his property provided that he
continues to maintain it and he pays for the installation of it and holds us
harmless from that work. Number seven is that we will allow pedestrian
access to and from the Canal along Enterprise Mill. Obviously that's a water
feature that is attractive and is marketable to his property. The access
points must be approved by the Canal Authority. The city will construct, at
the appropriate time to support St. Sebastian Way, a decel lane on Greene
Street at our expense because obviously the traffic is going to be generated
by St. Sebastian Way. And the final item is that we will request that the
Sheriff's Department enforce the vagrancy laws. And we've indicated to Mr.
Boardman that the Sheriff is a separately elected official and that is within
his domain, but we would encourage the Sheriff, and I'm sure he'll work with
us. In return for that, he's going to convey to us the property necessary,
through right-of-way and everything, to do St. Sebastian Way.
MR. MAYS: Mr. Mayor, first let me just say that this is an excellent
project and I support it. We've probably been asked to do a lot more on a lot
of other projects in this community and I think this is a great undertaking.
But let me just say this: I think you put some good things in this letter,
Mr. Oliver, but I want to probably address this mainly to Mr. Wall or to you
and Mr. Wall. I kind of like everything you've got in here in writing from
one through eight, but I'm wondering, with putting nine in writing in an
agreement with us in reference to what we want the Sheriff's Department to do
in some type of written agreement, I mean, that's a normal function that
should be done or should be enforced, quite frankly, in anybody's
neighborhood. Now, I think that to encourage this in terms of where you have
high-level investment, that's all well and good, but I'm just not comfortable
with that being a part of a legal document signed by both parties with this
city and a private developer. And I guess hypothetically, let's just suppose
that there is, say, a continued problem, you know, with vagrants in there.
Does that leave us a line, Mr. Wall, to be sued for because we got folks that
we can't move off and maybe don't have any place to go? Because, I mean,
you're dealing with a natural congregate area to a point where you may have a
lot of people that are looking for day labor or may be homeless, and are you
locking yourself in there in something in writing in a written agreement that
I think maybe you just ought to encourage and you ought to try and support and
do. But to put that in the form of a written document to say that's what
you're going to do, I think that could cross a lot of different mayors,
different commissions, different attorneys, whatever, and I'm just throwing
that out for discussion.
MR. WALL: Well, I understand the concept behind perhaps not wanting to
put into a written document requesting something that law has an obligation to
do anyhow. I mean, the Sheriff has an obligation insofar as enforcement of
the laws, and so I appreciate your concern from that standpoint and your point
is well taken. However, the only obligation we have is to request the Sheriff
to enforce the laws that are there, and I do not think that it imposes any
legal obligation on us down the road that we could come back and be sued for.
It may make things a little more difficult insofar as negotiating with the
Salvation Army insofar as the shelter is concerned down there, but, you know,
I think that's more of a policy decision on how you deal with that issue when
it comes back up because at some point--I mean, you recall the discussion
earlier this year and last year, the Salvation Army was looking for an escape
so that they didn't have to deal with that situation. And it's an ongoing
problem and I don't know what the end result of the homeless situation is
going to be, so it may to that extent give them additional leverage to work
with the city insofar as trying to relocate that shelter.
MR. OLIVER: I suggested to Commissioner Mays, if it makes him feel more
comfortable, we could say enhance enforcement.
MR. MAYS: Well, what would make me feel a little more
comfortable is that we do one through eight and we don't do nine, and I'm
going to tell you why. Like I say, I support this project wholeheartedly, but
if it's that minor, if it doesn't mean that much, you know, then why do it.
I'm always uncomfortable with what we put in government as in writing. You
know, if you do what's in your head and you never say it, it doesn't get you
in trouble, but it gets you in a whole lot of trouble when you write it down.
You know, we got folk all the way from Augusta to Washington that find out,
you know, when you write something down it can be traced. You know, those
untraceable things, you know, those that you say that can't ever come back to
get you, you know, but when you write them down, when they are somewhere that
somebody can come back and deal with it--I mean, it's like me asking as 76-
year-old business, you're going to put a $6 million building on Laney-Walker,
are you going to clean up everybody that's basically on crack and any other
vice situation that you've got over there when you build the health department
and say you're going to make that request and demand of the Sheriff's Depart-
ment. I think general law enforcement needs to deal with that, but I think
putting that in writing in a written document, that that's not the place to do
that. And if you say it's that minor, if it's that minor, leave it out.
MR. OLIVER: I think, you know, Mr. Boardman clearly understands that law
enforcement is under the domain of the Sheriff's Department, and I think we
can give him verbal assurances that, you know, we will help, and I think he
would be willing to take that out if that is the desire of the Mayor and
Commission.
MR. MAYS: I just threw that in there, and I didn't want to muddy that
into what I feel is an excellent project, but I don't think that letter--when
you got down to that last part of it, that's a written obligation that I think
you could have everybody to a point they start saying if I make an investment
in this community, then will you sign a document off and basically to a
certain extent would it be I won't have a break-in, will this not happen to
me. Because, I mean, you've got places on Broad Street that's been broken
into three and four times this year since we put people down there, and that's
not necessarily the fault of folk we've got there patrolling, but they don't
have written documents and assurances. And I just think that the things we
are doing, we ought to do that with that kind of off-the-record assurance. And
the next step would be if we support some ideas that the Mayor has got and
want to do in terms of the Stockade situation or some other situation and
making a commitment and joining with the state and getting a commitment as one
of Georgia's major cities to do something in a realistic fashion in terms of
looking seriously at our homeless numbers, I think that's where we need to be
directing that type of attention and doing that as opposed to trying to
guarantee one private developer that you're going to, you know, enforce some
part of
the law that's already on the books as it is and then you turn around and put
it in writing. That's just my only objection.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Administrator, the request you're asking for today is
to approve this in concept and then come back with these eight points
[inaudible].
MR. OLIVER: What we'd like to do is to get this approved and let it go
to a final document, subject to Mr. Wall and my approval, with this as the
content of that, and then be approved, you know, for execution. If you want
it to come back to this body, that's fine. Obviously by bringing it back to
this body we can't do any of this work until it's formally approved.
MR. SHEPARD: This concept would allow us to acquire the land without
condemnation for the St. Sebastian/Enterprise Technology property; this is one
and the same?
MR. OLIVER: That's correct.
MR. SHEPARD: And we're not approving preferred alternative one today,
but would this be the land for preferred alternative one?
MR. OLIVER: I don't think that this land is in question. I think the
only question at hand is this would give us all the land from Greene Street
through to the Canal for St. Sebastian, but I don't-- MR. SHEPARD: We
could route it however we thought best then; is that--that doesn't dictate the
usage of an alternative, does it?
MR. OLIVER: Do you know, Jack? Or is Drew around? I don't know where
Drew--Drew gave me the routing alignment. I can't speak specifically to that.
MR. SHEPARD: Well, then if we could do that project, the state would
look more favorably, I believe, on the 15th Street project which involves the
bridge, which in turn would cause us to probably have more favorable
consideration in Washington for the ultimate extension of Greene Street west
from its present terminus at 15th Street.
MR. OLIVER: We have gotten estimates from the state DOT that indicates
that with the federal funding and our local funding, that there would be
enough money to do all three components. I'm a little uncomfortable with the
fly-over numbers, but to be honest with you, that estimate is a complex
estimate to do, but they have given us figures that indicate that all three
legs of that project can be completed: the off ramp, the fly-over, and St.
Sebastian Way.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Mayor, I move that we authorize the Administrator
and the Attorney to enter a contract on these first eight points in the
letter outlined in agenda item Number 34 to move this project forward.
MR. MAYS: I'll second.
MR. POWELL: Mr. Mayor, I just want to get a little information here.
Randy, in this letter here are you taking into consideration the mobilization
of pedestrian traffic there to and from and make sure that's figured into this
thing before we start? Because I think you're going to have a lot of
pedestrian traffic there, and you're going to have to get Walton Way's
intersection there at St. Sebastian prepared for that and you're going to have
to get access over the Canal, and I just want to make sure that's all in
there.
MR. OLIVER: That will only be done at the point that St. Sebastian Way
is constructed. But you're clearly right, the pedestrian crossing will be a
factor in a number of different locations and that's something we need to plan
for.
MR. POWELL: Okay. Well, that's what I wanted into this plan.
Originally I asked for it because I think it's something that's very
important. If you're going to enhance this project, you're going to have to
enhance it a lot with pedestrian traffic. And the second thing, as far as the
law enforcement issue, I think we could just send Mr. Oliver back over to deal
with the Sheriff [inaudible].
MR. OLIVER: The Sheriff and I get along well. For the record, Mr.
Boardman asked for this.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, I got a two-part question. Number one, do we
actually have to sign this agreement and get the land we need for St.
Sebastian Way? Can we condemn that land if we really needed it?
MR. OLIVER: Yes, sir, you can condemn it. Now, what he had proposed to
do was to construct parking over the proposed right-of-way line for this
particular project. If he did that, the cost of this would go up
dramatically. But clearly, you know, we have the power of eminent domain, we
could condemn it, but I think what we're trading is, you know, a fair and
equitable trade in light of what the project is going to bring and the value
of the land and that.
MR. HANDY: Well, if he's already proposed something, why are we changing
it just to--or that was thrown out there just in case he didn't want it, then
I'm going to propose--I'm going to put something there that'll cause you more
to do than what you want do. I'm just asking a question.
MR. OLIVER: I'm sure it was a negotiating strategy. There's no question
in my mind about that. I mean, because I
think St. Sebastian Way benefits his project greatly, and I think there's a
desire--you know, that it's desirable from his perspective to be able to get
from the Medical College over to this particular project. So I think it
benefits his project more than it serves as a detriment.
MR. HANDY: Okay. Then why would we have to agree in concept before you
and Jim and whoever needs to get together and give us a contract and then we
approve it, and why leave it open like that? I mean, why did you ask that
question or why would you want to leave it open in concept? I mean, if it's
not ready, so why should we do it?
MR. OLIVER: It's ready, but we need to work it into a--I don't know what
Jim wants to call it, but I called it the developer's agreement in Florida,
but that has the legalese in it that provides for certain things to happen and
to tie that down. My understanding is, and I think he has a representative
here, they're planning on opening at least part of this project November 15th,
and obviously they want good access to it. They'd like the street lights and
the landscaping in by November 15th. And, you know, if it's the desire of the
Mayor and Commission, we'd like to try to help accommodate that. If you all
want us to bring the final agreement back, that's fine too, however, it's
unlikely we'd be able to make that date.
MR. HANDY: Well, I just asked a question. I mean, it seems to me that
you're actually helping him finish his project in order to get it open by
November 15th then. That's what we're doing.
MR. OLIVER: Well, I think what we're proposing is that we are just going
to--in lieu of giving him cash for the property that we're buying. And the
property has been appraised for $170,000, we're going to give him improvements
worth $202,500.
MR. HANDY: Right, but we don't need the property he's going to give us
right now. We're not going to build St. Sebastian Way right now. That means
that we're putting out before we actually take his land and do what we need to
do with it.
MR. OLIVER: It'll take almost a year to do the total design for the fly-
over, the off ramp, and St. Sebastian Way. I mean, this is a major design
project and it would be almost a year to do that total design.
MR. HANDY: I'm not against it, but I'm saying we will be spending money
anticipating that we're going to get the land when we need it if we extend
Sebastian Way, so we're going to have to spend money now in order to help him
open his building in November.
MR. WALL: Mr. Handy, I think the concept behind trying to get this
worked out up front is that the original site plan that was presented by Mr.
Boardman, or the first one that I saw, in order to comply with the parking
requirements had parking coming out into right-of-way that we would need in
the event that we do, in fact, build St. Sebastian Way. If we then had to
remove the landscaping, cut back in the parking, etc., then we are increasing
the cost of the project and maybe, in fact, be killing the project, so the
idea was let's get the right-of-way up front. It looks like that the Greene
Street fly-over is going to be funded from a congressional level. That makes
it more likely that this St. Sebastian will happen, and so that's what
precipitated, from my understanding, this agreement. So we have the right-of-
way in place, we're protected from it, we've got that cost nailed down, we
don't have to negotiate that, we don't have to condemn it in the future, we
don't have to worry about what he might build or put within the needed right-
of-way that might ultimately kill the project, and so we're one step ahead by
going forward with that. And we do need a written agreement to tie down the
fact that we're going to--that the parties are going to fulfill their
obligations in this, and so that's the reason that--the development of the
necessary agreements, and it's up to y'all and your decision as far as whether
we bring those agreements back for final approval. Obviously the sooner this
can be done, if we're going to try to meet that November 15--we get a little
bit of a jump start if we move forward, but I can understand the Commission's
hesitation if you say I want to see the final agreement before we proceed any
further.
MR. HANDY: I'm not against the project, but I just want to know all of a
sudden--we don't normally plan like we're planning this job, and I'm hoping
that we're representing all people and we're not planning just because of
certain people. Because here we are acquiring land that we don't even need
yet, but yet and still we're going to do it, and we don't normally plan that
far ahead.
MR. OLIVER: I think we're planning better, to be honest with you,
because usually what we do, or at least it's been my experience from what I've
seen, is he would go ahead and put the parking lot in, then we'd come in and
take the parking lot out, and what we're trying to do is to be ahead of that
curve. The only reason, if I were in your position, that I would not support
this would be if you're not comfortable that you want St. Sebastian to be a
reality, then this item clearly should not be approved.
MR. HANDY: Right. But I'm not against St. Sebastian Way. I remember
Mr. Todd talking about St. Sebastian Way two or three years ago and there was
not a St. Sebastian Way, it will never be extended, and all of a sudden now
we're going to extend St. Sebastian Way and we're going to get the money from
Washington, and I'm just curious about why all of a sudden we're going to do
all this stuff on St. Sebastian Way.
MR. OLIVER: Because your Administrator and staff have been working with
the congressional representatives to get that money reprogrammed. To be fair,
though, Mr. Patty and a number of people have been working in that regard to
do that.
MR. HANDY: Okay. I'm just asking a question that's going to come up
later somewhere else.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Oliver, are we still proceeding along with the
extension of the off ramp of Calhoun Expressway down by the Canal to
University Hospital? Is that still being pursued [inaudible]?
MR. OLIVER: Yeah, and Jack can give you an update on that. The
restriping and the signalization, Jack?
MR. MURPHY: Yes. The off ramp of John C. Calhoun onto 15th Street,
there was a line run from that terminus right there around in back of the
apartments going back over towards Walton Way, and when George Patty ran his
model [inaudible].
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Are we going to use the St. Sebastian Way funds for that
project?
MR. MURPHY: We have not identified those funds right now.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Can we use St. Sebastian Way funds for that project?
MR. MURPHY: Subject to the Commission's approval, you can use any kind
of funds on any other kind of project.
MR. OLIVER: What's the cost, Jack?
MR. MURPHY: We haven't run the cost yet, but I envision that being a
Phase IV sales tax project.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: But if it's a current need, it could be advantageous to
us [inaudible].
MR. MURPHY: It's an advantageous project, it's a needed project. But if
you are asking me should you use St. Sebastian funds on this, I cannot answer
that right now.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Well, that's one question that I would like the answer
for eventually. The other question is, are you telling us the dollars that--
with a million and a half dollars and the federal and state dollars we will
have enough money to construct St. Sebastian Way today?
MR. OLIVER: That's what the Georgia DOT tells us. Jack, if you want to
speak to those estimates. Jack got the estimates.
MR. MURPHY: The estimates we're using in looking at this whole thing
were generated by the Urban Design section out of Atlanta, and I have absolute
confidence in these, but I do have a question about the estimates in regard to
the fly-over highway. And I've talked to these people in Urban Design and
they assured me that the estimates we have from them are adequate.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Is the fly-over too low or too high?
MR. MURPHY: My opinion is that the fly-over cost is too low.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: The fly-over, from our point of view, is probably the
most advantageous part of this plan.
MR. MURPHY: To me it's the most important element of the whole complex.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: The other question is, the way I read these eight lines
we are saying that St. Sebastian Way is going to be funded and constructed.
I'm not so sure that those funds exist and I don't want--I would like the "if"
clause in there somewhere.
MR. OLIVER: I think the "if" clause is in there. It doesn't require us
to build St. Sebastian Way, however, we would own the right-of-way. But I
would leave that to Mr. Wall to speak to the legalese.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: The way I read it, it sounds like we're going to
construct, and I don't [inaudible].
MR. WALL: No, sir. And I think that clearly the intent of this letter
and the way the final agreement will be worded is that if St. Sebastian Way
and at such time as St. Sebastian Way may be built, then we will own the
right-of-way, but we will not be under an obligation to build St. Sebastian
Way.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: I can support that, but I don't want to be under an
obligation to build a roadway that we don't have identified funds for.
MR. WALL: And this letter does not say that we will build it, it just
says that if we do, and that's what the final agreement will say.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: I think it says when constructed. I mean, that sounds
like we're going to build it to me.
MR. OLIVER: On three it says lights on the west side will be installed
as schedule permits and those on the east side when St. Sebastian Way is
constructed, but-- MR. J. BRIGHAM: Sounds like to me that this thing is
going to be constructed.
MR. OLIVER: It's not our intent to commit to that. Because obviously if
Congress doesn't give us the funding or the funding is not there, we can't do
it, and we can make that clarification.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Mayor, I'll amend the original motion if the seconder
of the motion will also accept the amendment that in case we are getting the
right-of-way for this Enterprise Technology Parkway/St. Sebastian Way, but we
are not required to construct the project. We are planning and anticipating
that we will be able to construct the project, but we will not--it will be
subject to having the funds to do it. I mean, I think that we're planning--as
I understand it, we're planning for the contingency that it will happen, and
instead of waiting to have to condemn it, we'll already have it.
MR. WALL: Exactly right.
MAYOR SCONYERS: Is that okay with you, Mr. Mays?
MR. MAYS: So agree.
MAYOR SCONYERS: All in favor of Mr. Shepard's motion to approve, let it
be known by the usual sign of voting, please.
MR. CARTER: Mr. Mayor, I have a question, if I may. You all may think
it's silly, but it's a serious question. Jimmy Carter, 1030 10th Street. The
bridge over the Calhoun Expressway, a lot of people, including myself, we like
to go down there and fish. A lot of elderly people come up there. If we go
down there after this is done, are we going to be considered vagrants? Is
that going to be private property and we have to move on or what? Right where
the Calhoun Expressway goes across the Canal, just about every species known
to man likes to get under there on a hot day, so that's a guaranteed thing.
MR. WALL: If you're down there fishing, you're not a vagrant. Now,
whether or not you have the right to fish there or not, I'm not certain. I
assume that you do, but I-- MR. CARTER: Well, right now we do. But, I
mean, after you-- MR. WALL: Well, that's not going to change. I mean,
that's a Canal-- MR. CARTER: If somebody look out the window and say,
you know, there's a vagrant out there and the cops come up there--you know,
this has happened to me before by the way I dress, so I'm used to it, but
there's a lot of elderly people that's down there, you know, and that's where
they're getting their dinner from.
MR. WALL: No, sir. I mean, that's a law enforcement issue.
MR. CARTER: All right. Okay, fine.
MAYOR SCONYERS: All in favor of Mr. Shepard's motion, let it be known by
the usual sign of voting, please.
MR. HANDY ABSTAINS; MR. TODD OUT.
MOTION CARRIES 8-1.
MAYOR SCONYERS: I'm going to ask Mr. Beard to take over, I've got to
leave.
[MAYOR SCONYERS EXITS THE MEETING AT 5:25 P.M.]
CLERK: Item 35: Motion to approve $523,560 to replace obsolete
equipment that is no longer manufactured and will not be supported after
1998.
MR. BRIDGES: So move.
MR. POWELL: Second.
MR. HANDY: Randy, could you tell me why Information Technology is
actually coming under Public Safety? It has nothing to do with Public Safety.
It should be Administrative or Finance.
MR. OLIVER: That was a decision, as I understand it, that was made by
the Mayor and Commission shortly after consolidation and the committee and the
departments were set up that way. If y'all want to move it, I mean, that's
appropriate.
MR. HANDY: As Chairman of Public Safety, I mean, I would like to say
that we need to put it someplace else other than--because it has nothing to do
with Public Safety.
MR. OLIVER: And I think Administrative Services--I mean, obviously
information technologies deal with everybody in your organization any more
from the Sheriff, Public Safety--you know, everybody you can think of. That's
your prerogative.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'll just say a brief--and it's not related to this
issue, but I left the room and I want the record to reflect that I did on the
Enterprise Mill debate in that I worked on the project. Thank you.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Ms. Bonner, would you take care of that?
CLERK: Yes, sir.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Oliver, I'm not familiar with this account number
[inaudible].
MR. OLIVER: This is equipment that we're going to buy next year--or this
year. We were originally contemplating buying it next year, but because the
vendor is not going to support it any longer we have no choice. I can't
answer for the specific account number and I don't know if David Collins is
around or not--that's right, he's in a training class today. I can't answer
on the account number, but it's a swap. Is Clifford here? Gary is here. Can
you speak to the account number?
MR. HEWETT: The definition of the account number is non-departmental
computer related expenses.
MR. OLIVER: But what it is, it's funds that were not budgeted this year
out of capital but had to be budgeted next year, and we're going to buy it a
couple of months early, and it will actually trade off into next year because-
- MR. J. BRIGHAM: In other words, we're taking it out of surplus this
year and putting it in the budget for next year to pay back the surplus?
MR. OLIVER: That's correct. Because as I say, they are not going to
support this, and Gary can speak to that.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: I understand that. I didn't understand just the account
number on here. There was no mention of what it was.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I guess for Mr. Oliver, what are we doing for the
year 2000 bugs? Are we making any plans there?
MR. OLIVER: We have extensive plans, and I think Mr. Hewett can speak to
that. But as you're aware, we're changing most of our software by the year
2000. Our biggest concerns deal with things you would not think about,
including elevators and things that have chips in it that are year-sensitive,
and I think they're in the process of getting a proposal to go through and to
look at those lesser thought of things. And, Gary, that's going to come to
the Mayor and Commission, what, in the next couple of weeks?
MR. HEWETT: Yes, it will. It may not come to the Commission then, but
it will go to Purchasing to be submitted for proposals.
MR. OLIVER: Ultimately it'll come here for award, though. But we're
more concerned not with the computer equipment as we are with some other
things that we've got.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Any other questions? All in favor, let it be known
by the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 10-0.
CLERK: Item 36: Motion to approve new application request by Richard
E. Youngblood for consumption on premises liquor license to be used in
connection with Richard's Place located at 2416 Windsor Spring Road.
MR. POWELL: So move.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MR. SHERMAN: It meets all the requirements and has been approved by the
Sheriff's Department and the License Department.
[NO OBJECTORS PRESENT.]
MR. BRIDGES: Call the question.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: All in favor, let it be known by the usual sign of
voting.
MOTION CARRIES 10-O.
CLERK: Item 37: Consider a request by Richard A. Wimmer for an
extension to purchase the consumption on premises liquor, beer and wine
license to be used in connection with Oldenberg Grill located at 3037
Washington Road. There will be Sunday sales.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: So move.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MR. SHERMAN: It meets all requirements, and they are building the
building. The license has been approved already. This is an extension for
purchasing the license for 90 days.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Okay. All in favor, let it be known by the usual
sign of voting.
MR. BRIDGES & MR. POWELL VOTE NO.
MOTION CARRIES 8-2.
CLERK: Item 38: Motion to approve the modification of the Washington
Road route due to pending construction at West Town Shopping Center.
MR. JOHNSON: What this item is, the manager of the West Town Shopping
Center contacted us to the fact that they were going to do some construction
in the location of the bus stop area there and they were going to put in an
instant banking machine. And so what is happening right now is that the bus
is coming down Washington Road, making a left turn onto Davis Road, and it's
going into the second entrance into West Town off of Davis Road, and it is
making another turn and coming in
right behind the bus stop, and that is the waiting area. And so that is the
part of the route that the shopping center would like for us to stop because
in that area will be the instant banking machine. When we first wrote this
letter we really didn't have any idea where to go, because I know from time to
time there was discussion as to bringing the Transit service back into
Richmond County, so that was the reason why the recommendation was as I wrote
it. But after talking to Mr. Oliver, he asked me to bring back the
recommendation of one to stay up in Columbia County and one to stay in
Richmond County. Myself and Mr. Lewis have ridden up there several times, and
what we would propose right now is that we go the same route. There is a
deceleration lane right there after you turn off of Washington Road onto Davis
Road. So what we would like for you to approve is that the bus will still
make the left turn, go onto Davis Road, pull right in front of the bus shelter
as it stands right now, and rather than going into West Town we will pull back
out onto Davis Road, proceed down Davis Road to Pleasant Home Road, make a
left on Pleasant Home Road and come back into Washington Road, and then it
would proceed back on its regular route.
MR. POWELL: So move.
MR. SHEPARD: Second.
MR. OLIVER: I want to make one point: this is the only route that we
have into Columbia County. Because of being into Columbia County, this brings
us under the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission. And, you know,
for what it's worth, they--Heyward can probably speak better to this than I
can as it relates to what hoops we have to jump through, but that may be a
consideration.
MR. JOHNSON: As Mr. Oliver mentioned, this is the one route which we
presently serve that goes outside of the municipal boundaries of Augusta-
Richmond County, and by that reason we do fall up under the auspices of the
Public Service. But we do not have to get Public Service approval to do
anything to our system unless it affects that Washington Road route, so that
is the only route. But for this minor change, this wouldn't apply.
MR. TODD: My understanding is we had requested that language. Did we
request the language? And if not--
MR. JOHNSON: We had discussed that back at the infancy of the
consolidated government, and basically the procedure would be that we would
have to ask for an exception to the policy, which would go before the Public
Service Commission and which they are the only body in the state of Georgia
that could waive that. But at the time that Mr. Wall and myself investigated
that, when we brought back the information at that time it wasn't the wishes
of the Commission to bring that bus back into Richmond County.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Johnson, if we don't vote to do this, do we lose any
federal funds?
MR. JOHNSON: No, sir. As I've mentioned on several occasions, the funds
that we receive is for the metropolitan area, which includes Columbia County,
Richmond County, and Aiken. So we are receiving the maximum amount of funds
that is authorized in any one fiscal year for the Federal Transit
Administration.
MR. MAYS: I'm just going to be sarcastic for a second. I'm hoping that
that request will be [inaudible] and that you basically were blocking that
instant banker.
MR. JOHNSON: That was the only reason why this was put on the agenda was
because of the management at West Town.
MR. OLIVER: I need to make one comment. I was just talking with Mr.
Murphy because I want to make sure I understood it. I thought, and it's been
confirmed, that the bus is going to wind up stopping in the decel lane for the
bus stop. Mr. Murphy advises me if it's a state route, that that's
prohibited. And they indicate it is a state route; is that correct, Jack?
MR. MURPHY: I doubt very seriously they're going to allow you to stop a
bus in the decel lane.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: This is Davis Road.
MR. MURPHY: I understood we were talking about--I asked you was it a
state route.
MR. OLIVER: Okay. If it's not a state route, then they can. From a
traffic perspective, stopping in a decel lane is not a good long-term
solution. Short-term it's okay, but long-term I think we need to look for
another location.
MR. TODD: In that we're in Columbia County, I think we need to get
approval from Columbia County to do this if we're stopping in their roadways.
MR. WALL: We don't have to have their approval to do it. Now, we may
want to go to them and just coordinate with them, but [inaudible]
MR. TODD: Well, when their citizens start complaining about a bus
stopping in the decel lane we're going to hear about it, so we need to
coordinate it.
MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Todd, when the old city first went to Columbia County,
West Town was the one authorized stop that we could make, and that was the
reason why we put the shelter there. But that was the only stop that we could
make in Columbia County, and that was the understanding from the very start
was that we couldn't stop along Washington Road, but that
we could stop at one location and that was at the bus stop at West Town.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I would suggest that the Mayor's Office coordinate
with Chairman Whitehead on what we are planning and that we don't have a final
action until, you know, we have some meeting of the minds.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: I think that could be duly noted in the minutes and
we can pass that on to the Mayor, Mr. Todd. Are you ready for a vote? All
in favor, let it be known by the usual sign of voting, please.
MR. TODD VOTES NO; MR. POWELL OUT.
MOTION CARRIES 8-1.
CLERK: Item 39: Motion to approve the elimination of transfers.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I would hope that we don't eliminate transfers. I
make a motion that we don't eliminate transfers.
MR. HANDY: And I need to second that one.
MR. BRIDGES: I need to know what we're talking about.
MR. JOHNSON: At the present we are using transfers--transfers is used by
a bus rider that wishes to move from one vehicle to another vehicle on another
route. Right now we presently have a fee structure to where it's 75 cents as
the base fare, so that the person rides one bus--a prime example is that the
person would use the Washington Road bus to come in from Washington Road and
75 cents is the fare that they would pay. At entry onto that bus, if they
wanted to transfer to the Augusta Mall bus, they would pay a 35 cent fee and
then they would receive a transfer, which would allow them to transfer to the
Augusta Mall bus at the transfer facility on Broad Street.
MR. BRIDGES: And you recommend approval of eliminating transfers?
MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir.
MR. BRIDGES: I'll make a substitute motion that we concur with the
decision of the Director and approve the elimination of transfers.
MR. OLIVER: I'd like to make one comment. With an earlier action, which
I think was the right action, we changed the pay structure for the Transit
drivers to make it competitive. And as I say, I think that was the right
action. The annual financial impact of that action will be $85,750, which will
have some impact this year, but the bulk of it will be next year, which
essentially will increase the operating deficit. The elimination of
transfers, according to Mr. Johnson, generates--I think it's about $68,000
with the savings and the cost.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Johnson, why don't you put a request in to raise the fee?
And if you had [inaudible]. You have a lot of elderly people already fixed.
That 75/35, which come up to, what, $1.10, and then now you're saying 75/75,
that means they're paying a dollar and a half, and that means it'll be 40
cents more than they're used to paying.
MR. JOHNSON: The federal government has an allowance for the senior
citizens and the handicapped to where we cannot charge no more than half fare
for them automatically, and that's by law. So no matter what we do here to
eliminate the use of transfers, with a 75 cent transfer each time, a senior
citizen or a person with disabilities would only pay approximately 35 cents.
So there are provisions. Also, for students, the Commission can set the rate
for a student. Right now a student is paying 35 cents to ride the bus and 20
cents for transfers.
MR. HANDY: I'm not against what you're trying to do, but the idea of
telling older people that you're eliminating the transfer and then they're
going to have to pay more money to ride the bus, that's the part--and they
don't understand like you and I understand. And I have somebody dear to me
have already told me that and I'm relaying the message to you.
MR. JOHNSON: I understand that, sir. But also, remember, even with a
fare increase you are still going to raise the fare. Just like, for example,
Athens charges $1.00 for the base fare and 50 cents for transfers. It's still
$1.50. So no matter how you do it, it still will be $1.50. But now, with the
way Athens does it, they have incurred the cost of having to buy the transfers
once or twice a year, so therefore that's an operating cost on top of that
fee, so it would be just as easy for Athens just to go with 75/75 and then
they would save some operating expense by not even having to purchase the
transfers.
MR. OLIVER: And, also, with transfers you're more susceptible to things
happening than you are with a straight 75 system.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: We didn't have a second to Mr. Bridges' motion.
MR. SHEPARD: I second the motion.
MR. TODD: You know, we helped out this situation with a tax on rental
cars, you know, and I was hoping that we wouldn't have to do away with
transfers until we got a pass in place. It's my understanding that the basis
of what we're doing is we're increasing the fare, and I believe that this is
going to affect more than 20 percent of our riders because everybody use
transfers. What's the average, you know, on transfers? You can only transfer
to one bus, then you've got to buy that fare for the next bus.
MR. JOHNSON: Right, sir. In 1997, the transfers that we issued was
155,000.
MR. TODD: So instead of paying the--what was it, 35 cents to transfer?
MR. JOHNSON: Right, sir.
MR. TODD: Okay. They're going to have to pay 75 cents. I guess
certainly, you know, when I made the motion, you know, I was hoping that the
Commission would consider that we're trying to help some of these low to
moderate income folks. And I remember when we was putting the Discovery center
downtown [inaudible] folks could walk to it and folks could ride the bus to
it, and now we're going to have the price where a person, you know, is going
to have a difficult time riding the bus.
MR. OLIVER: The rates haven't been changed since 1990, I believe. Is
that correct, Mr. Johnson?
MR. JOHNSON: April of 1991 was the last time that we had a fare increase
at Augusta Public Transit.
MR. TODD: Are we going to have a hearing, Mr. Mayor, on doing away with
transfers?
MR. JOHNSON: We had a hearing. A part of your packet is the official
minutes from that hearing that was held on May the 4th.
MR. TODD: On May the 4th? And what was your response from that hearing?
MR. JOHNSON: Well, as a part of it--what we did was we tried to break it
down. The responses that we received broke down into who was responsible for
the drop in federal fundings, some was opposed to the loss of transfers--there
was nine comments opposed to the loss of transfers and the increase in fare,
there was four comments on the thirty ride pass that we had discussed at the
meeting, there was fifteen comments to increase the bus line and the hours,
twelve comments was concerning the customer relations, and one comment on the
use of sales tax.
MR. TODD: And on the other comments, where are you going along those
lines?
MR. JOHNSON: On the use of the sales tax, we have discussed that with
the new federal regulation is for the next go-around possibly to try to
purchases buses off of that. Also, I mentioned that the Georgia Transit
Association is now trying to get legis-lation to try to use sales tax money
for operational expenses versus a capital expense. The better customer
relations, I have had--the concerned people from University Hospital, I got
with them and had them to do some employee awareness classes for the customer
relation comments.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Mr. Johnson, can you try to keep this to transfers?
I think that's what he wants.
MR. JOHNSON: Right, sir, but he was asking for what some of the comments
was at the public meeting, which was basically for the transfers, but these
are the comments that came out from that meeting.
MR. TODD: I think I get the gist of it, Mr. Mayor, that there were other
comments and he's already addressing some of those comments. I think it's
important that if we're going to sell something or we're going to get the
public to buy into it, that we at least look into some of the other concerns
and issues, and I thank you for your time and consideration there. I sincerely
believe--we had some conversation earlier and Mr. Johnson explained that on
the average system the rider pay about 33 percent [inaudible] and with us
we're only getting 27 percent, so I think if we want to be average, you know,
we have some room.
MR. MAYS: Mr. Mayor, if I might answer Mr. Todd's question very quickly,
and not to say that our Director and I weren't at two different meetings, but
just to follow up on it. Everybody did not ask a question as it related to
transfers. And, yes, that was what the meeting was called about, but I think
all of us know as elected officials that any time there is a public meeting
where the citizens are invited you are never going to stay on that one agenda
item that it's been called for, and we never violate that spirit by telling
someone that you can't do that, especially if you want to leave the meeting
alive. But I think it can be agreed that we had a room full of people that
night, a good crowd, and I think Mr. Eskola and others probably have tapes of
that particular meeting that night. And I think it was the general consensus
that if you're asking what was the opinion with reference to transfers, fare
increases or anything else along those lines, it was a resounding no. Now,
yes, other ideas were brought forward, and I'm going to go against the
elimination of transfers from the standpoint that if we are going to have a
public hearing and we're not going to bring back the ideas on other things
necessarily that were [inaudible] Maybe some of them have been resolved
internally, but I think when you have a public hearing, one of the things we
heard from the public hearing before was that when we made route changes, that
we basically made those changes. And, yes, we went through the technicalities
of doing what we were supposed to do, and our folk at Transit were absolutely
right, but one of the arguments that we got beat up on that night was the fact
that those things had been implemented basically from the standpoint that
that's what we had done. We got a whole lot of different sidebars and
that's another reason I'm going to probably not ever vote against increases in
Transit, because we seem to get down to this kind of thing and we find a whole
lot of other things that--we started spending money last year and I told you
when you were spending it and kicking it around, when we got back to this
issue I wasn't going to be in favor of doing anything else with it, so I'm for
leaving it exactly like it is. We find a whole bunch of money to do a whole
lot of other things with. If we want to come back to some of the creative
things that were asked at those public hearings, then I might be willing to
deal with that, but I'm not going to vote for elimination of transfers and not
fixing to vote for an increase in fares either.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, I call for the question.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: The substitute motion--could you read that, Ms.
Bonner?
CLERK: The substitute motion was to approve the recommendation of the
Transit Director, approving the elimination of transfers.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Are you ready to vote? All in favor, let it be
known by the usual sign of voting.
MESSRS. BEARD, H. BRIGHAM, HANDY, MAYS & TODD VOTE NO. MR. POWELL OUT.
MOTION FAILS 5-4.
CLERK: The main motion was to disapprove the elimination of transfers.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: All in favor, let it be known by the usual sign of
voting.
MESSRS. BRIDGES, J. BRIGHAM, KUHLKE & SHEPARD VOTE NO. MR. POWELL OUT.
MOTION FAILS 5-4.
CLERK: Item 40: Motion to approve and award bid item #96-698, South
Augusta Regional Park, to Blair Construction Company, Inc., in the amount
of $6,079,988.30 and allocate $880,000 in Public Works funding for roadway
improvements from Sales Tax Recapture.
MR. TODD: So move.
MR. HANDY: Second.
MR. OLIVER: I want to make a comment on this just to make sure you're
aware. The $880,000 is principally coming from Phase II sales tax. But I
would note, if you check the letter from Cranston, Robertson and Whitehurst,
there have been a lot of deletions done to make this project work. And while,
you know, that's understandable and the desire of the Mayor and Commission has
been to go forward, I think that's prudent. There are a number of these
things that are going to have to be done at some point. I mean, there are a
lot of parking lots that have been deleted. There's a lot of grassing, the
signage and the striping has been deleted, and the trash receptacles in the
parking areas, for example, and it's a minor item. Playground allowance has
been deleted. The shrubbery and the ground cover and the planting islands and
that type thing has also been deleted. And I just wanted everybody to be
aware so that when we get the project done everyone's expectations are the
same.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'd like to request of the Administrator to get a
list the items that was deleted, and anything that wasn't initially put in
that they had dropped off because of money, and make sure that my good
Senator, Senator Charles Walker, get that list. I understand that he's going
to help us get some money. And also that we get the figures for library that
we were doing and we get that to Senator Walker.
MR. OLIVER: We've made a request two times of the delegation. I'm not
convinced that it hit their budget cycle. But those deletions are shown in
your backup with the bid analysis.
MR. TODD: Well, I'm basically requesting that they get them up and that
we get them to Senator Walker. I think, you know, he's probably the man that
can help us. And whether the delegation is willing to help us or not, he's
the man that influences the money that goes all over the state of Georgia and
certainly I think that he'll help us in his home district. We have the Senate
Majority Leader here, we have the Speaker Pro Tem here, we really shouldn't
have to play the games with the delegation sometimes. And if we're talking
about bringing millions of dollars here, then certainly--we just funded a
$15,000 study on the overall economical impact that this park is going to have
as far as this community go, and I know that if we have this park completed,
then we can bid for Little League tournaments, we can bid for big league
tournaments, and we can bid on a lot of other things that's happening that's
going to have an economical impact. And also, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to see my
colleagues and the staff, you know, and everybody else get excited about this
project. I believe in this project--well, I won't even go there. I'll just
say let's get excited about South Richmond County for a change. Thank you.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Oliver, all this $880,000 are closed projects? All
$880,000 basically were all closed projects?
MR. BECK: Yes, sir. You remember.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: I'm trying to remember, that's why I'm asking the
question.
MR. BECK: Well, let me tell you how it went. We closed out a lot of
projects that needed to be closed out. We wound up with Phase II money,
mostly Phase II money, of $2,880,000. We funded Commissioner Todd's Barton
Chapel Road Phase II project with the $2 million and it left $880,000.
MR. KUHLKE: Maybe I can ask Mr. Beck this, but basically the way I'm
looking at this is that the project was $800,000 over budget and a lot of
items that it was suggested that you take out, I don't even see how you're
going to function without putting it back in there. But my question is this:
several months ago Mr. Brigham, I think, asked you and Mr. Acree to come back
to us and give us an update on all of your Recreation projects, and we haven't
gotten that yet is the way I--I haven't seen anything.
MR. OLIVER: That's true, and it's because we had a change in staff in
the Finance Office. There were some differences and we have somebody there
now.
MR. KUHLKE: Well, I made that comment because I think that that's going
to be very, very important. Because you're not going to open this facility
out here and function without some of these--a lot of these things being added
back in there, and I think this Commission is going to have to take a look at
a list of the remaining projects that we've got and make a conscious decision
that we may have to defer some of those projects to fund this particular
project, which is significant, to make it worthwhile to open it. So I would
encourage you and Mr. Acree as quickly as you can that this is something you
need to come back to us with.
MR. BECK: The only thing I would comment to that is we have done the
report and turned it over to administration.
MR. OLIVER: And I will say this: there were some differences in the
numbers, but, I mean, there wasn't any excess funding available. I was more
concerned that there was sufficient funding, and I think that we can get that
to committee not next week but the next committee after that because we now
have another person in that position.
MR. BECK: Mr. Kuhlke, if I can comment on your comments. And I think in
some respects you're correct, but we have made allowances within this budget
for some of the critical parts that have been deleted. The deletion that's
showing there for the bleachers, for example, that is a deletion out of the
contract itself, so the contractor would not be basically buying and having
the bleachers installed just as we could on our own. There is a tremendous
amount of money that we could save there for us handling that part of the
contract. For example, the deleting of the paint striping and stop signs,
that's something that we'll delete out of the contract and Traffic Engineering
will handle that part of it. They do all the paint striping for us anyway and
that's a fair amount of savings that can be done with very little in-kind work
from our government. Some of the major monies that have been deleted is
landscaping. Although the infrastructure will be there, all the irrigation of
where the landscaping has been deleted from is still going in, so that is
something that we can much more easily come back in the future and plant
plantings where you've already got the irrigation in place. The irrigation
would be the tough thing to come back and have to do.
MR. KUHLKE: What was our budget?
MR. BECK: Our budget for hard-dollar construction was $5.2 million in
Recreation dollars, and that's where--with these other $880,000 in road
projects, that made our actual hard-dollar construction budget right at $6.1
million. We still have $400,000 in contingency as part of this project, so--
of course, we can't sit here and say that something--and the reason you have
contingency is if something happens to come up that's unexpected. Should
those things not come up, we do definitely plan on trying to add some of these
things back in that can more fully have the park ready. Some of the major
implements and increments of this job, though, are still in. The scoring
towers are still intact, which is a main part of the infrastructure of these
two complexes, the baseball and softball fields. They have not been cut,
although we are planning on going to the contractor to see if there is any way
we can save any monies there. The ten fields are still going to be built with
high-quality lighting. The scoring towers will be intact: three-story,
first-class, state-of-the-art scoring towers. And even with some of the--
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: You're going to get all of that information to us;
right? It was my understanding that you're going to get us what [inaudible].
MR. BECK: As far as this contract? It should be in your packet.
MR. TODD: What would be kind of nice is to have the nice, you know,
architectural [inaudible].
MR. BECK: This, again, is something that we've shown in committee a
couple of times, to Public Services. And I guess Mr. Whitehurst and--we've
got our engineers here if you want to ask them any questions, as well as our
staff. But, again, coming off of Windsor Spring Road, the main entrance is
what a big part of this cost is and that's the road work that goes into this
project.
MR. TODD: Isn't there a possibility that Mr. Shackleford is going to be
able to help us with some road money in there, Mr. Murphy?
MR. MURPHY: The next phase. It's on the county contract list for what
Tom calls Phase II of this project.
MR. BECK: Yeah, it is on the project list to help complete part of the
roadwork. But in coming out of the park, what we've actually done, we're
completing-- MR. J. BRIGHAM: If you'll just review what this $800,000
is-- MR. BECK: That's what I'm going to do. What this is going to do is
build the road in, it's going to complete the five-field baseball complex and
scoring towers, it's going to build these parking lots, it's going to build
this parking lot, and it's going to build the five-field softball complex.
There will be some tree planting along the way, there will rough grading...
[END OF TAPE 3]
MR. J. BRIGHAM VOTES NO; MR. HANDY & MR. POWELL OUT.
MOTION CARRIES 7-1.
CLERK: Item 42: Appointments to various Boards, Authorities and
Commissions: A. Dr. John R. Maben, Richmond County Public
Facilities, Inc. B. Mr. David M. Butler, Sr., Housing and
Neighborhood Development Advisory Board C. Ms. Lucretia H.
Miller, Augusta-Richmond County Tree Commission.
MR. KUHLKE: So move.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Second.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Any questions? All in favor, let it be known by
the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 9-0. [MR. POWELL OUT]
CLERK: Item 42-D: Rescind the appointment of Mr. Robert Gray from
the Aviation Commission and appoint Mr. Michael Cooper.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, if you'll give me a minute of personal privilege.
I had a conversation with General Gray this past Friday night, and he
indicated to me that his residence will remain Augusta-Richmond County and it
will remain off of Meadowbrook Drive. And he also indicated that he would do
whatever I wished, you know, as far as whether he serve or not serve. My
position to him was that, with that information, I requested that he continue
to serve as District Four representa-tive on the General Aviation Board, and
he agreed to. He's out of town on business today, and basically what I'd like
to do is to just make a motion that we accept this as information as far as--
CLERK: Can we delete it, Mr. Todd?
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Let's delete it from the agenda.
MR. TODD: So move that we delete it.
MR. KUHLKE: Second.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Any questions? All in favor of Mr. Todd's motion,
let it be known by the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 9-0. [MR. POWELL OUT]
CLERK: Item 42-E, Appointment of Internal Auditor, and Item 42-F,
Appointment of Comptroller.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'd call for an executive session prior to doing
the nominations.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Are we going to do the legal meeting at the same time?
MR. TODD: Yes, and I'll add the legal meeting.
MR. BRIDGES: Let's keep the legal meeting separate. Let's discuss these
two appointments and get those done.
MR. TODD: I don't have a problem with that. That's my motion, do I have
a second?
MR. BRIDGES: Second.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: What was the motion, Mr. Todd?
MR. TODD: To have an executive session to discuss the appointments.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: The two appointments?
MR. TODD: Yes.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Todd, do you mind telling me why? Since you called it,
would you tell me why, please?
MR. TODD: Yes, I can tell you why. I think that we need to go into
executive session to talk about the merits of both candidates. And if the
Commission feels not, then you certainly have the option to vote no.
MR. HANDY: Do we have a list of who we're going to appoint?
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: We have two candidates for each one.
MR. HANDY: Well, I mean, where is the list? Who are the candidates?
MR. TODD: That's the reason we need to go into executive session--one of
the reasons, Mr. Mayor.
CLERK: Go into executive session, I'll bring it to you.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Any other questions, Mr. Handy?
MR. HANDY: No, no, no, we need to go behind closed doors.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: All in favor of Mr. Todd's motion, let it be known
by the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 9-0. [MR. POWELL OUT]
[EXECUTIVE SESSION, 6:15 - 6:30 P.M.]
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: The Commission meeting will come back to order. Do
we have a motion for the appointment of the Internal Auditor?
MR. BRIDGES: Mr. Mayor, I place in nomination Mary Williams.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, I would like to keep our existing Internal
Auditor, Baird & Company, with J.T. Cosnahan.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: If that's a motion, I second.
MR. HANDY: That is a motion.
MR. BRIDGES: Point of order. My understanding is we're taking
nominations here for Internal Auditor.
MR. WALL: Well, the agenda item is listed as appointment of an Internal
Auditor, and I do think that a motion would be in order as to whether or not
you're going to have a vacancy for an Internal Auditor to hire or whether
you're going to maintain the contract services. I mean, I think the motion is
in order.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Mr. Wall, if the motion is in order, do you have to
recuse yourself from voting [inaudible]?
MR. WALL: This issue has come up before and been addressed in several
different ways. The consolidation bill makes reference to the fact--let me
find it, if I may.
MR. TODD: The County Attorney can't work for nobody else.
MR. WALL: No, sir. It says "no elected official of such government nor
any member of the General Assembly whose district lies totally or partially
within Richmond County shall be eligible to do business with or receive any
contract from such government except through competitive bids." Then it goes
further to say "said person shall not receive personal services from county
vendors, attorneys or others." Now, if you read that strictly, that means
that none of the Commissioners could do business with any of the banks doing
business in Richmond County, and-- MR. J. BRIGHAM: That would mean that
we would have to have a competitive bid [inaudible] never had a competitive
bid for Internal Auditor.
MR. WALL: Well, my interpretation of that provision and my ruling thus
far has been that I think that is each Commissioner's decision as to whether
or not his relationship with an accounting firm or with a bank or with any
professional services--it's got to be up to him to decide. The "receive
personal services", that does not mean that any of you cannot go out and work
with an accounting firm. There are canons of ethics that accountants are
governed by, that lawyers are governed by, etc. There is a specific provision
dealing with attorneys, which is a separate issue. And so, Mr. Brigham, my
ruling in the past has been that, no, they are not, per se, excluded from
voting on the Internal Auditor even though they or some firm that they might
be associated with have their accounting work done by Baird & Company or any
other accounting firm such as Cherry, Bakaert & Holland with regard to those
decisions and to vote on them.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: I've got another question for you. Then what you're
telling me--what I heard you say, and maybe I didn't hear you say correctly,
was that the only way to not do that is through competitive bid. And I don't
think that--to outsource it, then we would have to have a competitive bid for
the Internal Auditor, and we've never had a competitive bid. We awarded it as
professional services.
MR. WALL: Well, Mr. Brigham, a strict reading of that provision would
mean that--let's assume that we order paper from, you know, whomever, Office
Max. You couldn't go in there and buy a pencil from Office Max, I mean, if
you read that section literally and strictly, and I don't think that's what it
was intended for. Personal services, I think that it would be improper if
somebody does free work in exchange for favors. I think that's what it was
intended to exclude, but I don't think that this was intended to prohibit you
as Commissioners from doing business with people who do business with Richmond
County, to prohibit y'all as Commissioners from doing business with banks that
do banking work with Richmond County, from dealing with accountants that do
business with Richmond County, or that type
of service. Admittedly, that sentence can be interpreted in a thousand
different ways.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: We accept your ruling on that.
MR. TODD: Nominations are still open; right?
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Yes.
MR. TODD: I'd like to nominate Rob Vistenks.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: I second that.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: I move that nominations be closed.
MR. BRIDGES: Second.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: All in favor that nominations be closed on those
three items, do it by the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 9-0. [MR. POWELL OUT]
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Is there any order, Jim, that we have to take these
in?
MR. WALL: Well, technically, the motion that was made was to retain the
existing contract, and that is not really a nomination, and I think it would
be appropriate to vote on that motion first before you get to the nominations.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Mayor, if we could, on the retention of the existing
Internal Auditor, I'd like to hear from Mr. Cosnahan to ask when he was
appointed and what he's currently doing and what is the extent of his
remaining term as he understands it. He's been here all day and didn't get
helped by the consent agenda.
MR. COSNAHAN: Thank you, Mr. Shepard. The two letters that I asked Mr.
Beard to pass out was really answering your questions. We started back in May
of '96 and have worked to that end up to that point. On May the 29th I sent a
letter out to each one of you suggesting that we continue as the Internal
Auditor through 1999. I also pointed out to you that we had the department
organized to the extent that we felt could drop [inaudible]. And in so doing
that, our fee would be reduced from $15,000 a month down to $11,800 a month
and that would result in a savings--and I had suggested this be done as of
October 1, 1998. That would result in a savings for '98 of $9,600 and result
in a savings for '99, and this is also based on [inaudible], of $38,400. So
that kind of gives you a summary of where we're at now. And I would have been
more prepared, but I didn't know about this until somebody brought me a
Metropolitan Spirit, that I don't usually read, yesterday. So that's the
reason I'm a little bit short-handed. This summary here kind of gives you a
current status of where we are right now. We are in our office right now a
final review [inaudible] is the report on the Probation Office, Purchasing
Department, Tax Commissioner's Office, and the Imperial Theater. We've still
got in process the scheduling of [inaudible] fixed assets by department. We
expect to have that completed by September the 15th. This will be a detailed
description of every fixed asset of the county be department which we have
either observed or we will have a note why we didn't observe it. We did some
work on payroll. We're testing it for payments that's been made for overtime,
comp time [inaudible]. We're also working with the Probation Office and
Municipal Court with their transfer of their receivables over to a outside
collection agency. And then we've got an ongoing schedule that we follow, and
the next department that we will be looking at will be the Landfill, Central
Services, Special Sales Tax, and Utilities Department. Does that give you
enough?
MR. SHEPARD: Well, are you now on a month-to-month contract?
MR. COSNAHAN: Well, our contract now runs through December 31, '98.
MR. OLIVER: My recollection is that contract contains a 30 or 60 day
termination provision.
MR. COSNAHAN: There is a 60 day termination clause by either side. Yes,
sir, that's correct.
MR. SHEPARD: So we could terminate you before this date in October
presently if we took this action today.
MR. OLIVER: I would note this, that--you know, I've received this
letter. While the hours have been decreased, it represents an increase in the
hourly rate from $42.86 to $47.20, which is a 10.13 percent increase. And
that may be due to the fact that there is more overhead from less hours, but
it represents that increase in the hourly rate.
MR. COSNAHAN: The increase is not because of the increase in overhead,
the increase is because with reducing hours we have higher priced people
working on it. So primarily the increase is due to the higher level and more
experienced level people working on the job.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, my concern has been with the in-house, you know,
situations. We had someone in-house, but that person was not getting the job
done, and it's very difficult to deal with somebody who's not getting the job
done. You know, hopefully if we go back to the in-house we won't have a
situation where we have a person that want to be a police officer or want to
be a volunteer with every organization in town and want to run every other
department. You can't be, you know, the guard dog of the chicken house and the
fox at the same time, so I would hope that we would never go back to that.
And one of the ways that we got out of that situation is that we outsourced
it, and I would hope that there is some lessons learned in outsourcing and
that we have a situation where we don't have the fox watching the chicken
house. Thank you.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: My understanding then what my colleagues would like to
vote on is to get somebody and in 60 days [inaudible]. Seems like to me that
that's maybe a little abrupt to be doing at this particular time. And I
certainly hope that my colleagues, with all the other changes coming along
with a new Mayor being elected in January who is going to certainly have some
feel for what the finances are going to be and his responsibilities or her
responsibilities, or in this case his responsibility may change at this
particular point. And it seems as if that we ought to just stay where we are
at this particular time, and I hope my colleagues would vote that.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Any other questions? All those in favor of the
motion-- MR. BRIDGES: Can we hear the motion repeated, please?
CLERK: The motion is to retain Baird & Company as the Internal Auditor.
MR. HANDY: Retain or continue? Make sure the wording is right because
they're already there. So what word do we need, Jim?
MR. WALL: I think it's the same meaning.
MR. MAYS: If we are retaining, are we retaining through the length of
the existing contract or are we talking about sitting down and going through
what Mr. Cosnahan suggested in reference to the year end of '99 or where does
that put us in terms of where we retain? We're under a contract, but, I mean,
are we doing something different? I just wanted to know.
MR. OLIVER: My recommendation would be to continue the existing contract
and not change it--perhaps talk about, you know, changing the number of hours,
but to continue the contract. Because I think if that's the way you all want
to go, that it would be in our best interest to continue it that way.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: I would agree that was--continue this throughout
the length of the contract, because we were asked and voted on at one time to
look into this possibility of an outside or in-house auditor. So it look like
it would be the length of the contract, because if we're going other than that
we would have to go back and rescind what we already did.
MR. MAYS: Maybe I fell off that turnip truck somewhere on the ride. The
existing contract ends when?
CLERK: This year, December 31st.
MR. MAYS: It ends in '98, so we're going to have to negotiate that
somewhere. It doesn't end in '99.
CLERK: But he's recommending that it go through December 31st of '99.
MR. OLIVER: No, we'll just--we can renegotiate contract, I mean, but--we
won't need to bring it back if that's the way you all want to go, with the
contract.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Yeah. And then we'd have to look at that in
December; right?
MR. OLIVER: Well, hopefully before then. I don't like waiting until
December.
MR. MAYS: And I agree with you. I think if there's this much confusion-
-not necessarily confusion. I won't get into the divulging and nothing is
illegal, but I think if you're that split on who's going to handle your
internal finances, and this is a conversation we had before we came back out
here, then maybe we need to stay with what we've got today provided we stay
with where the contract is today. And I think that gives us from August until
prior to a 60 day renegotiating period with the contract holder for us to
discuss the point of whether we want to go on with it or not and it gives J.T.
enough fairness to a point that we go with it if that's what we're going to
do. But I agree with Randy, we can't end up ending this contract in there and
think we can go out and muddy up the process of where you've gone through
interviewing people and think you can start that all over again by waiting
till the end of the year to do that at that point. I think we need some more
time and we ought to just stay where we are on the existing contract, and I
just wanted to make sure we weren't going past the year '98. And that's not
in favor of either one of the systems, outsourcing it or hiring a new person,
but I'm just gathering that we've got some splits, and when you start talking
about counting money and who's going to keep up with it, it ought to be
something that we darn near are unanimous on what we want to do, and that's
just my feeling with it.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Well, I think, Mr. Mays, this would be a good--
depending on this vote, I think it would be a good thing to take up in some of
the work sessions that we've got coming up in the future.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I call for the question.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Okay. All in favor, let it be known by the usual
sign of voting.
MR. BRIDGES & MR. J. BRIGHAM VOTE NO. MR. KUHLKE ABSTAINS.
MOTION CARRIES 6-2-1.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: The next would be the appointment of the
Comptroller, and I would like to--since I can do that at this point, I
would like to nominate Lon Morrey.
MR. KUHLKE: Second.
MR. SHEPARD: Mr. Mayor, I'd like to nominate Mr. Clint Carnahan.
MR. HANDY: Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that nominations be closed.
MR. TODD: Second.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Okay. It's been moved by Mr. Handy and seconded by
Mr. Todd that the nominations be closed. Any questions? We will now vote on
the first one, Lon Morrey. All those in favor of Mr. Morrey, let it be known
by the usual sign of voting.
MR. SHEPARD VOTES NO; MR. H. BRIGHAM & MR. MAYS ABSTAIN.
MOTION CARRIES 6-1-2.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'd move that we make it unanimous.
MR. KUHLKE: Second.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: All in favor, let it be known by the usual sign of
voting.
MR. SHEPARD VOTES NO; MR. H. BRIGHAM & MR. MAYS ABSTAIN.
MOTION FAILS 6-2-1.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Mr. Mayor, I move for the order of the day.
CLERK: Item 44: Motion to approve ordinance to amend Section 6-2-62
and 6-2-64 of the Augusta-Richmond County Code so as to conform to State
Law regarding the issuance of licenses for the sale of alcoholic beverages.
Approved by the Commission August 4, 1998 - second reading.
MR. WALL: All it does is to eliminate the requirement that the applicant
be a resident of Richmond County and they can designate a-- MR. SHEPARD:
So move.
MR. HANDY: Second.
MR. TODD: Is it my understanding we're coming into compliance with the
state law on 44?
MR. WALL: That's correct.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Any other discussion? All in favor of Mr.
Shepard's motion, let it be known by the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 8-0. [MR. BRIDGES & MR. POWELL OUT]
CLERK: Item 45-B: Consider restoring the 5% ($5,141) budgetary cut
to the CSRA Regional Development Center.
MR. HANDY: So move.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Second.
MR. TODD: Substitute motion, Mr. Mayor, that we don't restore the
budget.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Second.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, this is not just as cut-and-dry to help somebody
because maybe we like the director or we think they do go work. This is
complicated. It's as complicated as if you open Pandora's box, everybody's
going to want to get in. And I can assure you, Mr. Mayor, if we open back up
the budget, let one in, the door is going to be kept open and everybody is
going to rush in. I understand the work, Mr. Mayor, that RDC do, but I also
understand, Mr. Mayor, that this five percent haven't hurt them severely, that
they will still do their service delivery that they do. And, Mr. Mayor, I
would suggest that they find a way to--they should have found a way to cut
that five percent at the beginning of the year. If they haven't found a way,
then they need to seriously consider it and start looking. Because if it's
this five percent back, then there's going to be someone else wanting five
percent back and someone else wanting five percent back and someone else
wanting five percent back, and I don't believe there's enough money left in
the Mayor's and the Commissioners' discretionary fund to give it to them.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: There's none left, Mr. Todd. We will do the
substitute motion first. All in favor of Mr. Todd's motion, let it be known
by the usual sign of voting, please.
MR. H. BRIGHAM & MR. HANDY VOTE NO. MR. BRIDGES AND MR. POWELL OUT.
MOTION CARRIES 6-2.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Do we need to have a legal meeting?
MR. WALL: We've got one other item that you added at the beginning, to
appoint a Commissioner to serve as Chairman of the Records Committee. This is
a committee that was created under the ordinances. Frankly, they adopted
schedules and so there has not been a need for the committee to meet on any
regular basis, but now the county is looking at digitizing some of the
records. Decisions are going to have to be made and recommendations are going
to have to be made as to what documents we might want to retain a backup hard
copy. And so I'm asking that, in accordance with the ordinance, one member
from the Commission be appointed to serve as chairman of this committee.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I'd like to nominate Commissioner Steve Shepard.
MR. KUHLKE: I'll second that.
MR. SHEPARD: I'd make a substitute nomination that it be Mr. Todd, but
he won't be with us.
MR. KUHLKE: I make a motion that that be approved by affirmation.
MR. H. BRIGHAM: Second.
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Any questions on that? All in favor of Mr.
Kuhlke's motion, let it be known by the usual sign of voting.
MOTION CARRIES 8-0. [MR. BRIDGES & MR. POWELL OUT]
MAYOR PRO TEM BEARD: Anything else?
MR. WALL: Need a legal meeting for potential litigation and legal
advice.
MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I move we go into legal session.
MR. J. BRIGHAM: Second.
MOTION CARRIES 8-0. [MR. BRIDGES & MR. POWELL OUT]
[LEGAL MEETING, 7:00 - 7:30 P.M.]
[MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:30 P.M.]
Lena J. Bonner
Clerk of Commission
CERTIFICATION:
I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a
true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting of Augusta-
Richmond County Commission held on August 18, 1998.