City Council

Minutes Forsyth City Council Meeting June 21, 2021 Call to Order Mayor Wilson called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Pledge of Allegiance, Invocation and Roll Call Mayor Wilson led the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Dodd gave the invocation. In attendance for the meeting in person was Mayor Eric Wilson, Councilmembers Julius Stroud, Mike Dodd. In attendance via zoom was Councilmembers Chris Hewett, John Howard, and Melvin Lawrence. Also, in attendance for the meeting in person was City Manager, Janice Hall; City Attorney, Bobby Melton; and City Clerk, Regina Ivie. Councilmember Greg Goolsby was unable to attend the meeting. There were five members of Council in attendance for the meeting therefore all unanimous votes will be five votes (Howard, Stroud, Hewett, Dodd, and Lawrence). Approval of the Agenda Mr. Dodd offered a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Seconded by Mr. Stroud; the motion carried unanimously. Approval of the Minutes from the June 7, 2021 Council Meeting Mr. Dodd offered a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Seconded by Mr. Stroud; the motion carried unanimously. Swearing in of Ashley Deadwyler-Heuman as Municipal Court Judge Mrs. Ashley Deadwyler-Heuman was sworn in as Municipal Court Judge by Mayor Wilson. Pellicano Construction review of project status of new City Hall building by Michael Garrison. Mr. Garrison reviewed the status and latest developments as to the delay of progress with the City Hall Building project. He reviewed the roofing concerns and adjustments necessary, fire alarm system install delays, as well as the delay of eleven weeks for the interior composite wood panels. The modifications and delay of install for certain materials has pushed the project back for a substantial completion date of August 6, 2021. Mr. Garrison further stated that if Council approves the requested substantial completion date of August 6, 2021, Pellicano agrees that they will not ask for any further delay days except for acts of God or requests from the owner/architects for additional scope of work to the project; and this final request to council provides that Pellicano must complete the project in the requested timeframe or will face liquated damages on the contract. Approval of Pellicano Construction change order request #9 for City Hall building. Ms. Hall reviewed the change order request for $13,700.52 for miscellaneous items for the roof, plumbing and parlex acm material from 10mm to 8mm with a requested substantial completion date of August 6, 2021. Mr. Stroud offered a motion to approve the change order as presented. Seconded by Mr. Lawrence; the motion carried unanimously. Approval of Electric Cities of Georgia annual subscription. Ms. Hall reviewed the annual subscription for Electric Cities of Georgia in the amount of $111,947.00 for fiscal year 2022 which begins in July 2021. Mr. Stroud offered a motion to approve the annual subscription for Electric Cities of Georgia in the amount of $111,947. Seconded by Mr. Dodd; the motion carried unanimously. Approval of agreement with AT&T for new phone system for new City Hall. Ms. Hall reviewed the AT&T agreement for the new phone system for City Hall; the price of the equipment, installation, and support services of Avaya to be provided. Ms. Hall further stated that in the future it’s a possibility to add the remaining departments on the same service so that all City offices could be on the same phones, and service provider.  Page |2 Mr. Stroud offered a motion to approve the agreement with AT&T as presented. Seconded by Mr. Dodd; the motion carried unanimously. Approval of travel authorization for annual MEAG & Georgia Municipal Association upcoming meetings in July and August 2021. Ms. Hall reviewed that the travel authorization is for the MEAG annual meeting only; with a change in the registration fee due to an error on the form provided. The total cost for each attendee is $1,593.77. Mr. Stroud offered a motion to approve the travel authorization for the annual MEAG meeting in July 2021. Seconded by Mr. Dodd; the motion carried unanimously. Approval of acknowledgement and consent of Blockstream Load Billing Approach Ms. Hall reviewed the load billing approach for the Blockstream project; the metering is currently manually calculated. MEAG has agreed to create seven Pseudo meters to recognize the splitting of Adel #5B meter on a real-time basis so that each Pseudo meter is represented like any other physically metered MEAG power load and becomes part of each of the seven participant’s respective native load. Mr. Dodd offered a motion to approve the acknowledgement and consent Blockstream load billing approach as presented. Seconded by Mr. Stroud; the motion carried with four votes (Howard, Stroud, Dodd, and Hewett). Approval of street closure request of Patreecia Simmons on July 17, 2021 Mr. Hewett offered a motion to approve the street closure request as presented. Seconded by Mr. Stroud; the motion carried unanimously. Approval of Requisitions Greater than $5,000 Tyler Technologies, Inc $6,341.00 UV Superstore Inc $17,100.00 Mr. Hewett offered a motion to approve the requisitions as presented. Seconded by Mr.Lawrence; the motion carried unanimously. City Manager’s Report Ms. Hall provided the following report to Council: • Received information that the plant that burned in Taiwan that supplies chips for various pieces of equipment, vehicles and such also supplies chips for our water and electric meters. We have meters on hand but go through a lot of meters. Our last order is on backorder. We are looking for different vendors to purchase what we can. • Summer camps started on June 7 and will run through July 23 except for football camp which will be held in August. To sign up for the camps, contact Monroe County Recreation Department. The City funds the camps and the County host the camps at the recreation complex. 17 different camps are being offered. • Working with Steve Jones and Chief Harris on the 4-way stops that was discussed. We will not be able to install the signs advising of a stop sign ahead for those traveling East and will also need to remove some of the curb stops. Not ready for council to decide on this, just providing an update on where we are. • Speed bumps for East Main Street have been ordered and should be installed soon. • Bucket truck approved for the electric department should be delivered end of June or early July. Once delivered, we will process payment 1 of 6 in the amount of $28,027. • Audit is wrapping up with just a few items left. • Still have not received American Relief funds yet but Regina has submitted all required paperwork just waiting on OPB to work through the mountain of paperwork they have received as they are the clearing house for all of Georgia. We will receive ½ of the funds within 60 days of State receiving which was around May 11 and remaining ½ in one year; funds can be Forsyth City Council – June 21, 2021  Page |3 expended on a variety of areas, but no specific guidelines have been provided, just general areas. Would like to dedicate some of those funds to storm drain repair at Adams/Lee Street. Also looking at other areas to use the funds and will bring those back to council later. We are estimated to receive between $1.3 and $1.5 million (depends on which report you review). • We now have the capability of taking credit card payments for any fees; however, council approved only absorbing the credit card fee for utility payments, so any other fees paid by credit card also pay the additional 3% credit card fee. • With the approval of the requisition tonight for Tyler Tech, we will soon have the capability to email direct deposit slips for payroll, utility bills to customers. This has the potential of saving on not only supplies (paper, envelopes, and postage) but also staff time. The hard part will be getting email addresses from customers so we can email the bills. • We were having issues with bills being paid online the day of cutoff, now the system will not accept online credit card payments on the day of cutoff. There is a notice on the home page of our website letting customers know that they cannot pay online on cutoff day. • We have 1 part time fire fighter that will start basic firefighting training and 1 fulltime police officer starting mandate next week. We hired 2 fulltime temporary laborers in public for the summer. • Blount Street water line CDBG project - two more-meter sets and seven MXU’s are needing to be installed for the completion of all the services. Patching on Freeman Ave must be finished. One valve must be exposed, and the valve box installed. The old line must be isolated. Old hydrants must be removed. No timeframe given for completion. Roberts Hauling is past their end of May completion date. o Good progress made today on this project – couple of isolation valves to insert to kill old line, tie ins for houses in curve on Willis Wilder. • Georgia Hydrant and Helix were finally able to locate the right place to kill the short section of remaining old line on the West Main Street waterline project. Helix should finish up the road cuts on the side roads, install the ADA pads, and a few remaining items within the next 2 weeks. • Have not heard anything further from GDOT on the resurfacing of West Main Street, but the contractor doing the work has said 3 weeks before they are in Forsyth this week. Road construction signs went up last week. • Reservoir will be treated every two weeks for algae growth that occurs naturally this time of year; reservoir was approximately 12” below full-on last Thursday, depending on amount of rain runoff from weekend storms as to where we are this week. Need to encourage citizens to conserve water, only water outdoors between 4 p.m. and 10 a.m. and only if necessary. Demand was up significantly last week, and we ran Bunn Road station to counter that demand. o Significant rainfall this weekend and now back to normal full o Sediment levels are high as well which decreases capacity in reservoir. • Waiting on tree service to get tree removal on Indian Springs Drive scheduled; we have requested 4–5-day notice before of date so we can remove sidewalk and get street closures in place. We will have to close that section of Indian Springs Drive while they are removing sidewalk and then when the trees are being removed. • Cart path in golf course that we removed for underground electric line has been repaired. • Signage for park hours has been posted so new hours are being enforced. • TSPLOST project listing sent out Friday afternoon. If you have questions regarding the project information, please let me know. Upcoming on July 19 meeting o License approvals: o Valero convenience store wine package license for approval o Town Creek Center liquor store license approval o Public Hearings o Ordinance amendment for residential fence setbacks o Angel Latch request for mobile home variance o Valero request for sign variance Forsyth City Council – June 21, 2021  Page |4 Additional report • Would like for council to consider having a work session/retreat type meeting to present ideas and discuss how to use the American Relief Plan funding. My thought is that everyone comes with their ideas of how to use the funding, based on the general guidelines that we have, and present those ideas to the group. There is no urgency to spend the money immediately as we have until December 2024 to have funds obligated and December 2026 to have them spent. We can take our time and do this right, rather than looking back and wishing we had done something differently. Regina participated in a good webinar with our auditors regarding ARP and I have shared the slides from that presentation with you on Google Drive. I am looking at this from a “how to give back to nonprofits, local businesses, and employees” perspective. City Attorney Report Mr. Melton had no further business to report. Mayor’s Report Mayor Wilson reminded Council they have been invited to a Monroe County Joint Board Retreat on Friday, June 25, 2021 with a breakfast beginning at 7:30 a.m. meeting begins at 8:00 a.m. Additional Business Mr. Stroud requested the city reevaluate the need for quality, affordable housing within the city. Mr. Lawrence expressed his appreciation for the card received and the care he’s been shown recently. Public Comments No one came forward for public comments. Executive Session No executive session was held. Adjourn There being no further business to discuss Mr. Stroud offered a motion to adjourn the council meeting. Seconded by Mr. Hewett; the motion carried unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 6:39 p.m. Forsyth City Council – June 21, 2021