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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCalled Commission Meeting August 25, 2015 CALLED MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER August 25, 2015 Augusta Richmond County Commission convened at 12:00 Noon, Tuesday, August 25, 2015, the Honorable Grady Smith, Mayor Pro Tem, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Lockett, Guilfoyle, Sias, M. Williams, Fennoy, D. Williams, Hasan, and Davis, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. ABSENT: Hon. Hardie Davis, Jr., Mayor; Frantom, member of Augusta Richmond County Commission. The meeting was called to order. Mr. Smith: Andrew, what I’d like to do is have, we have a representative from Daniel Field here and we’ve got the first item on the addition to the agenda. I feel like if we could go ahead and do this then she could get back and make sure everything is okay back at Daniel Field. She can do everything except fly a plane and I think she can do that too. Addendum Item 1. Motion to approve contract amendment to extend contract term to November 30, 2015 on Georgia Department of Transportation Project No. AP013-9021-47(245). There is no cost associated with this contract amendment. Requested by the General Aviation Commission Daniel Field) Ms. Rebecca Shealy: I can but I’ll let you know when I’m in the air so you can, like, take cover. First of all I want to thank all of you guys for letting me come up here today on such short notice. The reason that I’m here before you today is that we have a contract that you as the Commission approved. It’s an airport layout plan. The funding is from the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA. The contract expires August 31 and our GDOT representative has that the Mayor or the Mayor Pro Tem sign a supplemental agreement. There is no money involved. It just extends the time of the contract to November 30. If we don’t get the supplemental st agreement in to the GDOT office by the 31 then we will lose $25,000 that’s remaining on the contract. So my request to you is to please sign the supplemental agreement so that I can get it to the District Engineer’s office in Tennille, Georgia and then the GDOT commissioner needs to st sign it before the 31. Mr. M. Williams: I make the motion to add and approve. Mr. Guilfoyle: Second. Mr. Smith: Okay. Ms. Shealy: Thank you. Mr. Smith: Okay, we have a motion and a second so call for the vote. 1 The Clerk: For the record, we have unanimous consent to add this, right? Mr. Smith: Yeah. All right. Vote as you like, please. Mr. Sias and Mr. Lockett out. Motion carries 7-0. 1.LEGAL MEETING A.Pending and potential litigation B.Real estate C.Personnel Mr. Smith: Do I hear a motion for us to go into legal? Mr. MacKenzie: And that would be for pending and potential litigation, real estate and personnel. Mr. Fennoy: So move. Ms. Davis: Second. Mr. Sias and Mr. Lockett out. Motion carries 7-0. [LEGAL MEETING] Mr. Smith: The meeting will now come to order. 2.Motion to approve execution by the Mayor of the affidavit of compliance with Georgia’s Open Meeting Act. Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to execute the closed meeting affidavit. Also wanted to note for the affidavit there was no discussion relating to pending and potential litigation. There was a discussion relating to records exempt from inspection under the Open Records Act. Mr. M. Williams: So move, I think. Ms. Davis: Second. Mr. Smith: We have a motion and second. Call for the vote. Motion carries 9-0. 2 Mr. MacKenzie: The next item would be a motion to approve allocation of $125,000 from the Municipal Building Renovation Fund, Account # 328-05-11201212055101 to pay for Municipal Building security upgrades. Mr. Fennoy: So move. Mr. M. Williams: Second. Mr. Smith: We have a motion and a second. Call for the vote. Motion carries 9-0. Mr. MacKenzie: The last item would be a motion to discuss and possibly approve an intergovernmental agreement for SPLOST. Mr. Guilfoyle: So move. Ms. Davis: Second. Mr. M. Williams: Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith: Commissioner Williams. Mr. M. Williams: Andrew, can you restate that for me to give me a little bit of information. Mr. MacKenzie: Sure. It should have been distributed to everybody. It’s an intergovernmental agreement to approve the allocations for SPLOST and staff is here to discuss it. Initially you just have to agree to add the item on and then you can have a discussion as you would with any other item. Mr. M. Williams: Can somebody help me, give me a little bit of information? Ms. Jackson: Yes, Jim Plunkett can come forward and describe the item. Mr. Plunkett: Mr. Williams, in the SPLOST we have to have an intergovernmental agreement between the municipalities, Blythe and Hephzibah and Augusta. So the SPLOST package of $215,500, some of the SPLOST dollars are going to Hephzibah, some are going to Blythe. So this agreement sets forth between the parties how those monies are going to be used. It’s just one of the prerequisites to the calling for the election. Mr. M. Williams: Okay and the reason I questioned it I thought that had been done. I didn’t realize the Mayor met with those two entities and Mr. Guilfoyle represents some of that area out there, but I thought that had already been done and doing it now made me think why – 3 Mr. Plunkett: There was a meeting between the, what we first had, the meeting of the Mayors, that occurred back in July, then this body agreed to the amount of the SPLOST and then this body also agreed to the allocation for Hephzibah and Blythe and so those parties are all agreeing to those numbers now and it sets forth the schedule the body approved last week on the th 18 so it’s just kind of one of the prerequisites to that of how the money will be expended between the groups. Mr. M. Williams: That kind of helps me a little bit. I thought that was done when we approved the SPLOST and that had been met with the Mayors and all that had taken place – Mr. Plunkett: This is the document that goes along with that. Mr. M. Williams: Just coming in today, just coming back from your office, is that the delay? th Mr. Plunkett: No, sir, we didn’t have the numbers until the 18 as to the amounts. Mr. Guilfoyle: Madam Clerk, I’d like to add it to the agenda as well as a motion to approve it and for my colleague, this intergovernmental agreement where all three Mayors comes together and agree for his package, nothing changes as far as the numbers that’s been approved through this body as of last week. They didn’t get no more or no less than what was actually stated. Mr. M. Williams: And to my colleague I wasn’t questioning that. I understand – Mr. Guilfoyle: I know. Mr. M. Williams: I mean I’m just, because I thought that had been done and I just want to make sure if it was a reason that it was delayed or why it was delayed and Mr. Plunkett said he th just got the numbers on the 18 so we’ve got a motion to add and approve I think. Did we get a second on that? Mr. Smith: Commissioner Lockett had his hand up down there. Mr. Lockett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ve got a problem with this. On page six it said our Mayor, David S. Copenhaver. Who is that? The Clerk: Deke. Mr. Plunkett: That’s a good catch. Mr. Lockett: This is why I made it my policy several years ago not to vote in the affirmative on anything that I get at the last minute and haven’t had an opportunity to read and I’m not going to change my policy today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith: Okay. Commissioner Fennoy and then Commissioner. 4 Mr. Fennoy: Mr. Plunkett, what would happen if this is not approved today? Mr. Plunkett: What we would need to do, this agreement has to be approved prior to the call for the election. It was on the original schedule for today’s date. If we don’t do it today what we would need to do is have, probably the next convenient thing would be a special called meeting on September 1 and the body could approve the document and then we would call for st the election at the regular called meeting on the 1. It’s just that this is a prerequisite to calling for the election and so we were, I wouldn’t say scrambling, but we were working late last night and we had a computer crash. We started over again this morning trying to create documents for this to try to avoid inconveniencing this body to have to come for a second meeting. As long as we have a meeting and it, this vote is taken and then we conclude that meeting and the Mayor is able to sign, then we can call for the election. So it could be done today, it could be done on the first. But we have to have this to have SPLOST. Mr. M. Williams: Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Wouldn’t the document have to be changed with the Mayor’s name in place before we can vote on this? Mr. Plunkett: What we could do, Mr. Williams, is you can approve executing in substantially a similar form which means that we would take care of that error. We took care of it last night. We just didn’t take care of it again this morning so I apologize. It’s a substantially similar form, it’s the norm so if there was a typographical error or something like that, in this case we could clean that up but you’re approving the form of it and to be quite honest the main issue with this is that we have to get a document out to Hephzibah and Blythe for them to approve as well and so what happened in the last SPLOST is that Hephzibah acted, Blythe acted and then Augusta changed the document which required yet again that everybody has to meet a second time. So if this body was ready to approve, then we have a final document that Hephzibah and Blythe can also approve. We’re just trying to get the form of it approved. Mr. Hasan: I want to ask Attorney Plunkett. I’m looking at page four, the top of the page where it has two and it has 4C, it said we should give up the $3.2 million dollars of sales tax collections should be disbursed to Hephzibah each such calendar year. I know it says up to that. Mr. Plunkett: What that is is the, the funding for Hephzibah and Blythe are funded in the first two years. Half of the funding, $6.25 million dollars or $3.25 million dollars would go in year one or ’16 and $3.25 million would go in year two so that Hephzibah would be completely funded for its projects within the first two years of SPLOST. Mr. Hasan: Do those numbers again for me, please. Mr. Plunkett: It would be $3.25, the amount that is going to Hephzibah, $6.50 million dollars, they would be getting half of the money in ’16 and half of the money in ’17, or $3,250,000 each year. Mr. Hasan: Okay. And what about Blythe? 5 Mr. Plunkett: Blythe would get one-half of their $1.9 million, $950,000, that would be at the bottom of page three. So you would be basically funding Hephzibah and Blythe, go ahead and getting those funding amounts to them in the first two years so they could go ahead and finish up their projects as opposed to paying it over say, four or five years with collections. Mr. Hasan: Okay. Ms. Davis: Mayor Pro Tem. I don’t think we have unanimous consent to add this and Madam Clerk, is that correct? Mr. Lockett: That’s correct. Ms. Davis: So what do we do with this? Accept as information? The Clerk: Well, you can’t do anything with it today because you don’t have unanimous consent to address the time but if it’s the consensus of the Commission, we can add it to the September 1 agenda with the appropriate corrections. Ms. Davis: So moved. Mr. M. Williams: Second. The Clerk: We can’t do it. Mr. M. Williams: We can’t do anything with it because it ain’t added so we just bring it back. Mr. Plunkett: We would need to have a special called meeting that same day before your regular called meeting. It could be five minutes before so this could be voted on because the action to approve SPLOST, this is a prerequisite to having already been signed. Ms. Davis: Madam Clerk, I’ll change that motion to add it to the special called meeting we actually have discussed having one next week so we’ll add this to that agenda in the special called meeting on Tuesday, the first. That’s my motion if, Commissioner Williams, will you second that? Mr. M. Williams: Second. Mr. Smith: Okay, we have a motion and a second. Call for the vote. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Chairman, I’m not being recognized. Mr. Smith: Oh, raise your hand a little higher. It’s hard to see with Mr. Guilfoyle’s head in the way. I’m not saying he’s got a big head, I’m meant, you’ve got a small hand, that’s what I’m saying. 6 Mr. Lockett: I just wanted to say this is the reason why we need to get information early on. Not at the midnight hour. Mr. Plunkett, you and I, we’ve had this battle for at least five and a half years and you know how I feel about this and it’s obvious that my colleagues feel the same way. It’s too bad ya’ll had to work last night, but if you had started working a little earlier you wouldn’t have that problem, so please get us the information early on so we won’t have any more problems like this. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith: Okay, so we’ve got a motion on Mr. Plunkett’s work habits. Is that -- All right, we’ll call for the vote. We have a motion and second. Motion carries 9-0. The Clerk: That’s it, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Smith: Okay, thank you, ma’am. [MEETING ADJOURNED] 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 Called Meeting of the Augusta Richmond County Commission held on August 25, 2015. ________________________ Clerk of Commission 7