CITY OF BERKELEY LAKE

4040 BERKELEY LAKE ROAD

BERKELEY LAKE, GEORGIA 30096

PUBLIC HEARING/COUNCIL MEETING

Full Minutes for May 27th, 2003

Those in attendance for the Council Meeting were as follows:

Mayor – Lois Salter

Council Members: Betty Covington, Frank Lombardi, Massaroni, Delicia Reynolds, and David Steventon

City Attorney-Richard Carothers

City Clerk-Claire Grimes

Public Works – Marcie Zielazienski

Citizens Present-6

CALL TO ORDER

Mayor Salter called the meeting to order at 7:05 PM at 4040 South Berkeley Lake Road.

CITIZENS' COMMENTS

There were no citizens' comments.

DOWNEY POND

Marcie Zielazienski reported that Chattahoochee Landscape had responded to her request for the cost for going into the pond area to evaluate the problem. Greg Harris (Chattahooche Landscape) stated that he felt the area was too unstable for him to ask his men to go in there. Ms. Zielazienski stated that she talked with the engineer, Todd Seldomridge, and he said that the best thing to do is to engineer the problem as fast as we can and then get the contractor in there to fix the problem. Todd stated that they needed to survey heights and depths and locate utilities and then they will have enough information to explore different options on how to fix it. Todd also said he would like to do some preliminary engineering and then have Council decide what they want to do. We have a preliminary engineering cost of $2500.00 and a survey cost of $3000.00.

The Mayor asked for Council's thoughts.

Mr. Lombardi asked if this is the only contractor, engineering firm or solution that we are left with? Chattahoochee walked away from the problem.

Ms. Zielazienski stated that Greg doesn't want to commit his men to go in there. Greg said that he had gone in there and looked and if his men go in there and start digging the walls/dirt is unstable in the area. Greg is not sure that everything has fallen that is going to fall. Todd thinks that it may take a little longer to engineer this than we might want because this is a very confined space and when they engineer the fix we may even have to put a guardrail there because that may be part of the fix. Normally roads don't have that steep of a drop-off.

Mr. Steventon stated that he would go back to where we were at the last Council meeting, which was: 1. What is the point of differentiation between this detention pond and others? 2. The Downey's sued the developer of Miramont therefore this must be their property. If it weren't their property, how would they have claimed harm? Why is the City then spending $5000.00 to engineer a project that is not on the City's property?

Mayor Salter stated that the reason the City is considering doing this is that we don't want the road to cave in and regardless what is out there in Downey's property, we have to deal with what goes under the road.

Ms. Zielazienski stated that water, which is supposed to be going through the pipe, isn't going through the pipe; it is going around the pipe. We don't know how it's getting under there or how long it's been doing this or what kind of open spaces are under the road. There is a tremendous amount of water that comes down through there.

Mr. Steventon: So someone can sue someone to fix a problem that they consider their property but when it affects the City's road then the City goes in and fixes problem that is on their property?

Ms. Zielazienski: I think I need to clarify why the Downey's sued. There is a pond there and when the Downey's moved into their house the pond had four to six feet of water in it. When Miramont was built, silt came down from the new construction and filled the pond. Bill Downey then sued Ryland Homes. Mr. Downey has said that when he sued he made certain that the paper work stated that he was only accepting the condition of the pond at that time. Now it has another four to six feet of silt in it.

Mr. Steventon: The silt didn't cause the sinkhole. The deterioration of the stack and the piping caused the sinkhole. The water is not going through the stack properly because the stack has not been maintained. Who built the stack and who has the authority to maintain the stack and the responsibility to maintain the stack?

Ms. Zielazienski: I've argued my point and I'm not necessarily agreed with—I feel that the pipe under the road won't work unless the connections to the pipe under the road work. The connections to the pipe have failed. They have rusted away.

Mr. Steventon: Whose pipes are they?

Ms. Zielazienski: They are on the Downey/Dalton property line.

Mr. Steventon: Are they to maintain them?

Ms. Zielazienski: I don't think we have ever come up against this question.

Mr. Massaroni: It seems that we can go fix the problem under the road but if the root cause of the problem is that these pipes aren't working then we could be back next year to fix the same problem. The City may have to fix the roadway but the homeowners may have to fix the root cause problem.

Mr. Steventon: The City has to be certain that the road does not become a problem but who built the pond and whose responsibility is it; and whose responsibility is it to get the water out of the pond in a responsible manner.

Ms. Zielazienski: Historically, I would say that when the dam was built and they decided to develop this area somebody went out and built the road and it was probably the person that owned the whole seven hundred acres at the time.

Mr. Steventon: But somebody was deeded something and someone was given responsibility for something. Somebody built that infrastructure.

Ms. Zielazienski: When they laid out the property lines I would say they didn't measure that there should be easements. There may be somewhere in some old papers some language for easements.

Mr. Massaroni: One of the first things Ryland Homes would have done in the lawsuit would have been to confirm that Mr. Downey owned the property that he is complaining has been damaged. If Mr. Downey ended up with a settlement, I would presume that they at least concluded that he was a real party in this thing. If you were a real party for purposes of being damaged with respect to that piece of property, it would seem like a logical conclusion that you are a real party with respect to damage created by that piece of property.

Attorney Carothers: I agree with that.

Mr. Lombardi: It seems to me that we can look at solving this problem and protecting the road but isn't the problem further up stream? Don't we need to look at this as a whole solution and not just fix this little thing?

Ms. Zielazienski; My solution was to take a map of the City and locate every area where the City has infrastructure like the Downey Pond and then consider how the City might extend the right of way in some areas.

Mr. Lombardi: Aren't homeowners responsible for maintaining the right-of-way? So even if we were to extend the easement or the right-of-way it would still be the homeowner's responsibility.

Ms. Zielazienski: We have ten feet of right-of-way along Lakeshore Dr. and the City takes care of that.

Mr. Lombardi: We take care of that but it is still the homeowner's responsibility to maintain that area.

Attorney Carothers: Let's say that in this particular case based upon my review of the plat I think that it is the homeowner's responsibility to maintain that weir structure. It becomes a more interesting question that we don't know if the weir structure has failed or not because the water is going around it. The water drops down into a hole and disappears presumably going adjacent to the pipe or around the pipe.

Ms. Zielazienski: The contractor says that the water is doing that because the galvanized pipe over the last fifty years has rusted away.

Mr. Lombardi: How do we know that it rusted away? Can we actually see it? The pipe that we see sticking out of the ground at an angle was that originally vertical? Was that a "stand pipe"? How do we know that the weir failed?

Ms. Zielazienski: I can only go on what the contractor said and he had no reason to tell me anything that he hadn't seen. He said that he had put a light down in there and that the connections in the bottom of the pipe are all gone. There is nothing to hold the water on its course into the concrete pipe and it just finds its own way to that area.

Mr. Carothers: I am certainly not an engineer but it doesn't look like any water is getting into the original standpipe to fail and go somewhere else. It is just going a completely different route and is not even connected with the weir structure.

Ms Zielazienski: According to what the contractor tells me is it failed there so the water seeks the point of least resistance so it went over and there was a low area to the right side of the pond and the water gradually began to find its way down through that area and then it fell in. The bottom line according to all the highway people that I have talked to is that we are lucky that it hasn't been worse.

Mr. Steventon: Once again this pond is not one of one and I think it is responsible to ascertain who is responsible for what and to make a decision based on that and also to make a decision going forward with some consistency as opposed to the panic over a sinkhole that may affect the road so we hurry and fix it and then the next time someone says they have a pond/drainage problem that may not affect the road we tell them to fix it themselves. I want there to be a consistent fix.

Ms. Zielazienski: So do I, but this has to be Council's call.

Mr. Massaroni: There needs to be at least three steps in this project and the third one needs to be to develop a cohesive plan that we deal with everything the same way in every situation and not panic when one of these problems develops. We may decide the way we have done things in the past wasn't the right way because the situations have changed. We need to figure out whether there is going to be some immediate problems with the road that we need to fix even if only temporarily and then the intermediate step would be to figure out whether it is the weir that is the problem then have the responsible party fix the weir and then dig out the ditch and then a final fix on the roadbed. I agree that we need to have some conceptual plan whether it is the homeowners or the City's responsibility so that we can tell Marcie or whoever to do what needs to be done.

Ms. Zielazienski: As far as determining the condition of the road, the engineer says that he has people that can do soundings or borings to get some idea how cavernous it might be under the road. This would give us a better idea what we are dealing with. At this time, we need to take some steps to stabilize the area. This could cost quite a bit of money. It would cost $5000.00 to put a road into the area to put equipment down into the pond to work with equipment. The contractors want to work with equipment because they say that trying to hand work this area is impossible.

Mayor Salter: I am back to the question asked of Mr. Carothers about the differential responsibility between homeowner and the City in order to get this done as quickly as possible.

Mr. Carothers: As I see it, the responsibility is a combination of Mr. Dalton and Mr. Downey. The weir sits right on the property line. If the weir has failed, it is up to them to fix the weir from the point where it is to the point to where it connects to the City's concrete pipe, which appears to be at the right-of-way. If they have to remove silt in order to do that, I think it is their responsibility as it presently stands. I do think the City probably has an obligation (whether they want to seek repayment from someone in the future) to do some preliminary engineering work to see if the road is stable. We have noticed that there is a road condition and the fact that we may take the position that Downey and Dalton are creating a nuisance by allowing water to flow off their property in such a way as to damage City property may not eliminate our responsibility if we know or have reason to know or suspicion that there may be a problem with the actual stability of the road—we may need to investigate that and sort it out later. Council has to determine if there is going to be a citywide program and if we are going to get easements and do different things on various ponds but as it sits now this is their responsibility. I know they don't want that responsibility but the fact is as David said and as we all know there have been damages recovered on that property, the weir is on their property and it is obviously their property. The City didn't put the weir there; the weir has just been there and just because it connects or used to connect to a structure that is actually owned by the City is not important.

Ms. Covington: That's the law as it stands and that's the responsibility and that's his lap this baby is in—but my question is much broader—whose lap should the baby be in and how much trouble is it to get this in more of a level playing field for those of us who all share the responsibility as well as the benefit for the cure of the problem. I understand that if it's in someone's property we can't put taxpayer money on to someone's property without some extenuating circumstances. I would like your recommendation on what would be the fair thing to do and then how do we get that done rather than what is the legal thing to do and lets stay within that.

Mr. Carothers: That is for Council to do. If you direct me to get an easement from them then I am sure they would probably be willing to give an easement because the cost is going to be tremendous but then you've got to deal with Miramont upstream and they would probably give you money to take over that detention facility. The maintenance of stormwater drainage systems is outrageous.

Ms. Covington: All the more reason to question the fairness of it falling on the individual homeowner.

Ms. Salter: We have considered in the past, in fact Delicia who headed the stormwater Management Committee suggested developing some sort of stormwater utility tax that would be spread among the citizens of a certain area based on the amount of impermeable surface on their property. Meaning that if you paved your whole yard you cause more of a problem to the City because of more run-off. We would measure the space of someone's roof and driveway to figure how much impermeable property there was and levy a tax based on that and use those monies to deal with the stormwater maintenance issues in the City.

Mr. Massaroni: The way I think of it is to get an easement or some other conveyance of all these different areas and then make them the City's responsibility and then spread that out over the entire tax base. What you suggest may be a little more equitable I suppose but harder to administer.

Mr. Lombardi: But is the easement the way if it is still technically the homeowner's responsibility? Wouldn't they have to deed that part of the property?

Mr. Carothers: They would have to give us sufficient rights to an easement. They could probably still continue to use the property. We talked about this in conjunction with the fact that every pond is a detention facility; that's what they are designed to do. Berkeley Lake is designed to fill up with silt over the eons of time and that's what these ponds are doing—so you look at Josten, Cohen and Holben and what amount of work are we going to have to do or be required to do? Are we going to undertake as a City to remove the silt from those ponds? Let's assume the drainage structures are working properly but are we going to remove the silt that comes in from outside the City. We can craft a document to get those kinds of rights so the City would be working on its drainage property. Again, whether or not a homeowner wants to give that kind of easement to the City is another question. Downey would give an easement because there is no pond there but others who have real ponds in their front yards and plantings around them etc. they would have to give up a number of rights in order for the City to come in with a bulldozer if we see we have a need to correct the drainage structure.

Mr. Massaroni: It does depend on the body of water—the Miramont detention pond is no beautiful thing to look at and no one would feel threatened by the notion that it's being obtained by the City and bulldozers will be driven into it. If someone has an attractive pond, they may not feel nearly as happy about the notion that one morning backhoes may show up and start digging up the pond.

Ms. Zielazienski: What we come down to is do we have the engineer fix the whole problem or do we just stabilize things for a longer while and hope for the best.

Mr. Lombardi: I think Dick hit the nail on the head when he suggested that we need to find out if the road is indeed in jeopardy. Right now, from the City's standpoint, that's the only thing, today, that we are responsible for maintaining and protecting and keeping in working order. We ought to know if the road is at risk. If that means doing the borings or whatever they do to find out the condition of the road then we ought to do that.

Ms. Covington: What I thought I heard Marcie say was that by the time you get someone down there and pay somebody to take a look at it you might as well of paid them to fix it because the major expense is getting down there.

Ms. Zielazienski: They can do borings without getting down into the pond.

Ms. Covington: Is there a temporary fix for the road for a while and then go in and examine all of the pond situations at one time.

Ms. Zielazienski: I have asked what we could do and I have been told by a couple of contractors across the board and by the engineer that if there is a cave under the road, you really need to dig it up and fix it.

Ms. Covington: What damage would it be if we dug it up and fixed it and then fixed the source of the problem later rather than first.

George Kaffezakis: Mr. Kaffezakis asked the question who installed the weir in the first place. The answer was that probably the original developer installed the weir. Mr. Kaffezakis stated that the County normally has the stormwater structures on an easement and they get access to maintain the structures that are on that easement and it's the stormwater division's policy that their maintenance responsibility stops at the end of their easements. They do take care of the structures that are on their easements. I was a little surprised today to hear that the weir may not be on City owned property. To answer the question about temporary fixes, I think that Marcie was on the right track with hiring an engineer to come on board to evaluate the situation. You could do geo-technical borings to see if there are any obvious cavities along the side of the road. If you find that you have a problem with the road the best bet is indeed to excavate the road, size the new pipe correctly, which will require an engineering study of the watershed above the pipe so that there are no problems in the future. Put the pipe in and build the road up and then move on. I am not touching the issue of the silt on the private property. To answer the question on cost or level of cost, it's a lot of money just to investigate. It is probably one tenth to one twentieth of the cost to repair. These are expensive fixes. I would encourage the City to develop their own infrastructure inventory then prioritize the condition and set aside monies each year so that you have a continuing process by which you can maintain the City owned property. Given the size of the City, I would think the best bet is for the money to come out of the general funds.

Ms. Covington: What I hear you say is fix the road, get the proper pipe under the road and then solve the source of the problem.

Mr. Kaffezakis: If you are in the road and fixing the pipe, you need to deal with the weir situation and the standpipe as well. Being a citizen I would opt for the fair thing in this case which would be to acquire the easement to put in the weir structure and then take ownership of the maintenance of the weir structure itself. Leaving the issue of the existing silt in the pond for a later time at that point. The first thing would be to evaluate the condition of the road through a geo-technical exploration.

Ms. Reynolds: When I saw Todd Seldomridge last week, he indicated that he saw no problem with the road.

Mr. Kaffezakis: The road itself—well it is just speculation because soil bridges over, that is how you end up with sinkholes. They kind of develop from down deep and build up and then one day they fall in so it's hard to anticipate. Taking a speculative guess, I don't think there is an immediate threat to the road—I think you have a larger issue in general with the possibility of a larger collapse or if that standpipe fails and you end up with a big slug of silt going through the pipe and into the lake.

Rick Rice: You are saying that either the developer or the City put the weir pipe in there but once the homeowner bought the property they bought that pipe?

Mr. Carothers: That was absolutely standard at the time—you bought all the stormwater facilities on your property when you bought the property back when. They found over the years that the homeowners don't maintain them and that affects people both upstream and downstream so now they try to do things differently. For example, the County will take an easement or they will require it to be dedicated to a homeowner's assoc. that has the authority to assess the homeowners for the payments etc. It is on the property but the homeowner's assoc. had to maintain it and there is an easement to maintain it. The Miramont pond sits adjacent to someone's property or it could be a part of their lot but what they do is convey an easement to the homeowner's assoc. that is responsible to take that burden off of the individual homeowner not only the burden but also the ability to get things done.

Ms. Zielazienski: So around Lakeshore Drive where we have some nice ponds where the homeowners may not be so inclined to give an easement to make it consistent all the way around would it be difficult thing to go ahead and take those easements also?

Mr. Carothers: Yes we could to answer the question but I would think that if the City decides to have an overall program, they say this is our easement do you want us to do this? If the individual property owner does not accept, the City's response is then you, the property owner, have to maintain your pond according to the City's criteria.

Mr. Massaroni: I guess we could have an ordinance similar to the septic and stormwater ordinances and if the pond is not conforming to that requirement then we could make the homeowner fix it because they are in violation of the ordinance.

Mr. Carothers: Except remember that they are only going to be responsible if the pond was designed as required by regulations when it was built then we can't make them retrofit it in accordance with more current approaches.

Ms. Covington: If we have the easements we could retrofit it.

Mr. Carothers: That is correct. When the City accepts that responsibility for the ponds, the City becomes liable if it either does not maintain them or the downstream property owners say that the City is not maintaining them the way it should. Then all of a sudden the City could become a defendant in a number of these actions too. I am not saying don't do it I am just saying that it is all part of the mix.

Ms. Reynolds: Did you bring a release?

Mr. Carothers: The release we are talking about is that if we have to go onto private property for testing I am not eager to get on those two properties without having some kind of release that the homeowners are not going to say that their weir was great until your contractors got in there—that kind of thing.

Mayor Salter: We need a consensus as to how to begin. I think you have heard all the issues.

Mr. Massaroni: I would propose making two motions as follows: To motion to have the $5000.00 spent to have the road tested to determine the condition of the roadbed. To motion to have a consistent way of dealing with these issues in the future.

Ms. Reynolds: I would like to have Ellis Lamme or someone like him to come out and identify everything and ask Mr. Carothers to come up with the language to present to these homeowners while we are getting the engineering information on what structures we need to maintain. Ellis could give us a ballpark figure of what the condition is and a ballpark annual maintenance cost. Do we need to meet with the homeowners or can we just send a letter telling the homeowners what is going on.

Council Member Massaroni motioned to authorize the Director of Public Works to engage the engineering firm to spend up to $10,000 to determine the extent of the damage that has been created to the road at the Downey pond and suggest a solution to the problem. Council Member Covington seconded the motion.

Discussion:

Mr. Lombardi: I think we need to be very specific if we are going to have the engineer out there—I think the engineer should determine the status of the road as it exists. As it stands right now, the only thing the City has responsibility for is the road. Until we come up with how we will deal with whatever fix there is to the pond and the water getting under the road and until we come up with all the language, the only thing we can deal with is the road.

Mr. Massaroni: I couldn't agree more—I was trying to be very specific that to determine the state of the road as it stands. Not the pond, not the weir, not anything else.

Mr. Carothers: The reason for the release is in order to determine the status of the road; he may in fact have to walk into that pond area and be off the right-of-way.

Mr. Lombardi: Right and that is a dollar figure that we don't know but George thinks that $10,000 ought to cover it. This is to determine the status of the road.

Mayor Salter: Called the question. The vote to approve Mr. Massaroni's motion was unanimous.

Mr. Massaroni motioned to retain the engineering expertise of Ellis Lamme of McFarland and Dyer to create the inventory of potential stormwater management issues around the City so that we can determine the extent to what the future problems might be. Council Member Reynolds seconded the motion.

Discussion:

Mr. Lombardi: I would like to add that we have to determine the quantity of these potential areas and determine the magnitude and initially what it will take to bring them up to a maintainable standard and then we need to know what it will cost if we maintain these areas on a regular basis. If we are going to consider taking something on like this, at the very least I think we need to know what it will cost initially and then what is it going to cost on an on going basis assuming we keep up with the maintenance. I think then we will be in a better position to determine if this is something we want to tackle.

Mrs. Zielazienski: Are we talking about going away from the road to all the stormwater management facilities?

Mayor Salter: Yes. The only thing I would add to that is that I would like us to ask to prioritize the greatest need to the lesser need.

Mr. Massaroni: If the City is not committed to the notion of going and doing this then I wouldn't waste the money to have the survey done. The notion of spending the money to have the problems identified is the thought that we are going to get behind the problem and deal with it by making it our problem instead of the homeowner's problem. Your (Mr. Lombardi's) observation was that we ought to figure out how much this is and maybe not make the decision to go forward. If that is the case then why are we even spending money in the first place to determine how big the problem is—when we can comfortably just tell the homeowner that it is his problem and go fix it? We could send Dick off to compel the homeowner to fix the problem, which would be expensive in itself.

Mr. Lombardi: The only reason for clarifying that is that we haven't made the decision to do it yet. There is really more to this and Dick talked about it and that is what is the risk that this puts the City at in terms of down the road if we don't do something right like Dick said. Another reason for having a handle on the magnitude, the quantity and the cost is the stormwater management program that we are eventually going to have to get on board with; we will have to do this evaluation someday to know where we stand. If we know sooner rather than later, I think that's a good thing.

Mr. Carothers: George may know more about this than I do but the fact is that we don't have the authority to tell a homeowner that they have to retrofit a detention device. The EPD may have that authority under the stormwater regulations and the non-point source pollution regulations, which are constantly in flux. This has been going on for fifteen years and they're ratcheting it down. We have talked about the TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Loads) that we are dumping into the Chattahoochee and they have a map that shows the jurisdictions and what comes into those jurisdictions in terms of the streams and what goes out. Sooner or later we will have to test on a yearly basis on how much more goes out than comes in so it may be wise to get Lamme's thoughts on anything he may see on the horizon to comply with these regulations because I perceive that the cost will be extraordinary.

Mayor Salter: Called the question. The vote for the motion to retain the engineering expertise of Ellis Lamme was unanimous.

Mr. Steventon: I believe the release document needs to be very clear both verbally and in its legal execution so that it is a release for these inspections only and that it is strictly for egress for the inspections only. The second thing would be required to have a release for Lamme for each of these inspection sites?

Mr. Carothers: I wouldn't think so but it is something that I can talk to Lamme about. He will only be walking on their property. I am concerned about a release from the standpoint of doing work as opposed to the release you are talking about which is basically a right-of-entry agreement to look which we might need to get.

Rick Rice: If you need any help with calling or talking with any of the homeowners feel free to call the homeowners' assoc. and I would be happy to help.

MILLAGE RATE

Council Member Reynolds motioned for a Resolution by the Mayor and City Council of the City of Berkeley Lake that the Millage Rate for the year 2003 is hereby established at 4.35 mills. Council Member Massaroni seconded the motion and approval was unanimous.

Council Member Reynolds motioned to place on first read the Tax Millage Ordinance and to empower the City Clerk to do all the necessary paper work to get this done. Council Member Lombardi seconded the motion and approval was unanimous.

GREENSPACE RETAINED RIGHTS AND PRHIBITED USES

No business was conducted on this issue.

RIDGE ROAD DRAINAGE PROPOSAL

Ms. Zielazienski reported that Todd Seldomridge had reviewed Greg's plan for the corrections of the drainage problems on Ridge Road. Todd said that Greg's plan was good but that he (Todd) had designed a total fix to take all the water across the road meaning that he had designed a plan to have a pipe under Ridge Road to take water into the greenspace. He said that Greg's proposal is good and we can come back and put the pipe in later if we need to. There was much discussion.

Council Member Massaroni motioned to approve the expenditure of $5348.00 for the proposed Chattahoochee Landscaping repair to the Ridge Roads drainage problems. Council Member Reynolds seconded the motion and approval was unanimous.

CITIZENS' COMMENTS

Robert Betsill – 3591 Mansions Parkway – Robert asked about the Council giving away the property that the City paid for a couple of years ago without anyone voting to do so. He stated that he doesn't understand why it takes a vote to buy it but it doesn't take a vote to give it away. Mayor Salter stated that we had a town meeting on that issue. Council Member Covington stated that the City would retain ownership. She stated that we are putting the land into a situation that there won't be any development on it but the City will always maintain ownership of that property. Putting the greenspace in Trust assures that the land will always remain a greenspace. Council Member Steventon stated that when the property was acquired by the City a survey took place that indicated that this land was not to be acquired for a real estate investment trust but being acquired for greenspace. All that is being done now is a conclusion to that original acquisition. That is what the vote was and that is what the purpose of the acquisition was for and now this Council is going forward in putting the land in a position where it will always be maintained, as was the original intention. We are just doing what it was decided and determined and originally planned to do. All the Gwinnett Open Land Trust does is to assure that their expertise and their legal clout and organization will allow us not to have to get involved in additional spending to be certain that this goes forward. We have citizens who spent a year and were quite diligent in reviewing other options and what was determined is that GOLT does a better job because it has already been proven to be successful and is a great vehicle to carry out the wishes of the citizenry of Berkeley Lake when they decided they wanted to buy the land to start with. Mr. Betsill stated that when you do that, we have no control of the property anymore. In other words, you are doing what you want to do without asking the citizens to vote on that and you don't think it needs to be voted on. Council Member Reynolds stated that it was investigated and determined that this is the only way the property can be assured to remain greenspace. Mr. Betsill stated that it eliminates the options if you want to do something at a later date and I think you have a responsibility to the citizens to have the option to vote on that at a later time. Council Member Steventon stated that whatever that would be would be contrary to the original purchase of the property.

Debbie Robinson – 540 Lakeshore Drive – Debbie stated that she was happy to hear that the greenspace is being retained in trust for the original purpose because it is her understanding that the original purpose was for it to be preserved in its natural state and she just want to go on record agreeing with that and not that it would be used as a low impact walking or picnic space area. She also stated that she wanted to thank everyone for the rapid response to the sinkhole situation. "The last thing is that I know you guys were having an open session for educating the citizens of Berkeley Lake about local government which I'm getting interested in but when I was ready to show up on Saturday for the half-day session, found out it had gone to private and all day off site at a little bit more money for the taxpayers. I was concerned why this went private with no notice. Maybe at some point the Minutes or some other explanation to those of us who were interested in learning a little bit more about local government when it was posted in the Minutes that what happened to change this would be of interest." Council Member Covington stated that it was not a private meeting; it was a public meeting. Council Member Reynolds stated that it was advertised in the Gwinnett Daily Post. It was also posted on the website.

OTHER

Council voted unanimously with Council Member Reynolds abstaining to approve of Mayor Salter's appointment of Council Member Reynolds to chair the Financial Affairs Committee.

COUNCIL MEMBER LOMBARDI MOTIONED TO ADJOURN THE MEETING. COUNCIL MEMBER MASSARONI SECONDED THE MOTION AND APPROVAL WAS UNANIMOUS. THE MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:30PM.

Respectfully,

Claire Grimes