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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCalled Commission Meeting August 28, 2018 CALLED MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER August 28, 2018 Augusta Richmond County Commission convened at 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, August 28, 2018, the Honorable Hardie Davis, Jr., Mayor, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Jefferson, Guilfoyle, Sias, Frantom, M. Williams; Davis, Fennoy, D. Williams, Hasan and Smith, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. Mr. Mayor: Good morning, everybody. I want to call this meeting to order. The Chair recognizes Attorney MacKenzie. 1. LEGAL MEETING A. Pending and potential litigation B. Real estate C. Personnel Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to go into an executive session to discuss pending and potential litigation, real estate and personnel. Mr. D. Williams: So move. Mr. Jefferson: Second. Mr. Mayor: Voting. Mr. Mayor: I do want to take an opportunity before we all walk away and go in closed th session to welcome back the commissioner from the 7, Commissioner Frantom. Again our prayers continue to be with he and his family as a continuous journey. Several of us had an opportunity to be a part of the homegoing celebration on yesterday and those of you who have been praying for him and will continue to pray for him I know he appreciates that. The Chair th recognizes the commissioner from the 7 to say a few words. Mr. Frantom: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, it’s been a difficult week for my family. I just want to say thank you to all the department heads, all the colleagues that reached out, the Clerk for coming by. Ya’ll are like family to me and I appreciate it so thank you. Mr. Fennoy and Mr. Smith out. Motion carries 8-0. \[LEGAL MEETING\] Mr. Mayor: All right, the Chair recognizes Attorney MacKenzie. 2. Motion to authorize execution by the Mayor of the affidavit of compliance with Georgia’s Open Meeting Act. 1 Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to execute the closed meeting affidavit. Mr. Frantom: So moved. Mr. D. Williams: Second. Mr. Mayor: Voting. Mr. Smith out. Motion carries 9-0. Mr. Mayor: Okay, we’ve got a couple of things I want to make mention of before and then the Chair is going to entertain a motion to add an item to the special called meeting agenda again. It will require unanimous consent to do so. In fact, let’s go ahead and dispose of that right now. th We have a request from the commissioner from the 8 to add an item to the special called meeting agenda. Do we have consent for that? Mr. Sias: No. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Mr. Guilfoyle: Point of privilege, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: I’m going to come to you. Yes, sir. I am going to come to you. There’s th objection. All right, the Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 8. Mr. Guilfoyle: Mr. Mayor, you know this is our last chance to get this street light issue fixed and for us I wanted to show my colleagues what actually other people actually have to pay and it’s done by the linear footage which is not a and I wish my colleague who’s against it would actually consider it. I don’t care if he supports it when it comes to a vote. If you would just give me the time so I could show you what actual citizens pay for their street lights. Some’s up to $423.00 consistently with that so that’s all I’m asking for is for my colleague to reconsider. th Mr. Mayor: Yeah, all right, the gentleman from the 8 in his request for adding this item that does not have support to add it to the special called meeting agenda. I think what he does is he further raises the grave concern around a solution to this issue of how we fund our street light program. I think that we’ve had great discussion in the sub-committee process. We’ve had great discussion beyond that as well and a series of votes. They further in my mind magnify the need for greater understanding and more importantly, having a solution for the whole issue around street lights today and for future generations of Augustans so I look forward at the appropriate time to having that broader discussion. All right, so we will not be adding that to the special called meeting agenda. I want to draw everyone’s attention to your notebooks in the front leaf there are a number st of advisories there. On Friday, I want to remind everyone on the 31 at 10:00 a.m. there is the interview process for candidates for the position of Director of Transit for Augusta, Georgia and again Augusta Transit Service. That will take place on Friday at 10:00 a.m. I also want to remind everyone that the Augusta Commission’s 3PM Study Sub-Committee will have a meeting on 2 Wednesday, August 29 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 291. And the Judicial Circuit Clerk in Columbia and Richmond Counties have a Protocol Committee Annual Report that they have submitted. That’s also there. I want to encourage everyone to be mindful of that and on August 22 Madam Clerk provided to this body information related to a planning and visioning trip to Columbus, Georgia regarding the conceptual Augusta Whitewater Course. Please pay attention to those things. They are extremely important and let’s make sure we are in place to address those things. Yes, ma’am. The Clerk: Let me make a correction on the public notice regarding the Transit Director’s interviews. That time change is now 10:30 a.m. Mr. Mayor: 10:30 for that time change. Please make a note of that. Can I come back to you? I want to get a couple of motions. The Chair recognizes the Mayor Pro Tem for a motion. Ms. Davis: Mr. Mayor, I’d like to make a motion to approve the settlement of all claims of Ed Boyles Automotive Group related to property damage in the amount of $35,000 and to authorize the Administrator to disburse this amount from the Fire Department funds. Mr. Guilfoyle: Second. th Mr. Mayor: I have a motion and a proper second. Commissioner from the 8 with the second. Voting. Motion carries 10-0. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 7. Mr. Frantom: Mr. Mayor, I’d like to make a motion to increase the salary of Senior Staff Attorney Jenise Smith to $107,541.81 effective the beginning of the next pay period. Mr. Sias: Second. Mr. Mayor: A motion and a second. Voting. Mr. Guilfoyle votes No. Motion carries 9-1. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 6 for a motion. Mr. Hasan: Mr. Mayor, motion to approve expansion of Augusta’s current insurance to include security system coverage. Mr. Sias: Second. Mr. Mayor: Voting. 3 Motion carries 10-0. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 4. State your inquiry. th Mr. Sias: Thank you, sir. Reference to my colleague from the 8 request that I reconsider my objection to the item of the street lights agenda being added. We’ve been working this street light agenda issue for quite a while. We came up with some very good alternatives and we have to solve a problem that we have with our street light fund. Now we’ve had numerous votes on this and one of the things that’s been paramount to this issue was to leave our tax-exempt properties off this particular charge. The item request to be added to the agenda changes that so if we’re going to do the business of the people of what we need to do, when we have these opportunities to get these things resolved without going to patchwork, we shouldn’t do that. And we’ve had more than enough opportunities to do this right. If my colleague is willing to support the 131 commercial and 87 annual for residential, annual for both, then I will have no problem in supporting his request to add this to the special called agenda because it’s an urgent item that we need to address, but I cannot and will not support half-way doing it. We need to fix it and fix it so it will last for years. Thank you. Mr. Mayor: All right, I appreciate that. All right, I do not believe that there are any other matters. Well, there’s one, no, we’ve already addressed that. If there are no other matters before us, Madam Clerk, Attorney MacKenzie, all right, committees. \[MEETING ADJOURNED\] 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 28, 2018. ________________________ Clerk of Commission 4