Those in attendance for the Council Meeting were as follows:

Mayor – Lois Salter
Council Members: Betty Covington, Frank Lombardi, Ken Massaroni, Delicia Reynolds, and David Steventon (part of the meeting)
City Attorney- Dick Carothers
City Clerk - Jackie Wall
Public Works Director– Marcie Zielazienski

Citizens Present-22

CALL TO ORDER
Salter called the meeting to order at 6:33 PM at 4043 South Berkeley Lake Road.

CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
Debra Robinson 540 Lakeshore Drive
Robinson said she wanted to respond and clarify the tone of comments from minutes from the last council meeting regarding the Dalton-Downey pond area and the repair of the road. She had raised questions about the maintenance and aesthetics of the project. She said delays were not related to their concerns as since that time no-one has contacted them about their involvement regarding easements or aesthetics. However, temporary and permanent easement flags have been placed on their property and they have lots of questions about them, which they would like to have answered by someone. Particularly, as they seem to include four large hardwoods, one 20-year-old dogwood and four large pine trees on their finished lawn. There are also at least 15 old hardwoods within the temporary easement area in the unfinished area of their property. Robinson said this concerns her, especially in a city that prides itself as a Tree City. She would like an explanation. It therefore is not unreasonable to question aesthetics with all the large number of trees involved. She pointed out that they had contributed $600, as opposed to the $30 the city contributed in their recent dealings with stormwater issues on their property. This does not reflect the 50-50 relationship they were promised, so she said she felt their concerns were not unfounded in that regard either.

Robinson said in the May 27th meeting, council said that they were committed to keep the road open, protected and in good working order. Since then, large amounts of rainwater have impacted and eroded the area and the road is now closed. The 'road only' fix was projected at $75,000, the second plan was described and projected at $110,000. She said she hoped that after the delays from council and the uncertainty, a resolution would come rapidly tonight, and that she looked forward to participating in any way they could before additional damage happens.

Bill Downey 527 Lakeshore Drive
Downey said that at the August 21st meeting, there was lots of discussion and questions about the engineering plans and 'liability'. Council was concerned about some of the liability questions revolving around the pipe and the fact the pipe falls partly on private property. The other liability issues raised were about the silt and drainage area.

Downey described events from 1994 when they bought the property. In the spring of 1995, there was water in the pond but the level was dropping. He spoke to Stan Kelly, the ZEO at that time. A 'sinkhole' was discovered which the water was draining through instead of going through the pipe. Downey reiterated that the city hired Michael Zielazienski to pack the sinkhole to plug it up so that the water was retained in the pond. Therefore the city was already involved in mending and repairing the area. The repairs were never completed as the pond soon began to fill up with silt from the building of the Miramont subdivision. There was a semi circular dam built with rip-rap stone which was built by Ryland’s employees at the city's request. Stan Kelly specifically requested it to keep the silt from going into the lake. The silt would therefore stay in the pond, so it wouldn't go into the lake. When it was built it was supposed to be 'temporary'. Downey said he assumed the city would help him get Ryland to clean the silt out when they were done which is what Ryland had promised. He said Ryland reneged on their promise and the city abandoned him, so he had to sue them himself. There is already history there to prove the city has some liability.

MINUTES
Reynolds motioned to change the June 19th minutes say read ‘second read’ instead of ‘first read’ in the section on the Property Maintenance Ordinance. Massaroni seconded the motion and approval was unanimous.

Massaroni motioned to accept the minutes from August 21st and September 2nd subject to corrections. Lombardi seconded the motion and approval was unanimous.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Salter announced that there would be an Earth day on October 11th to collect large trash.

She announced that a committee, which is working on preparing welcome packets for new citizens, met and is progressing with that.

Salter announced that the Finance committee has been asked through Chairperson Reynolds to put together a Financial procedures policy. Salter requests that the policy be kept simple as we have few employees and the history of the city so far proves that the city has coped so for without errors.
Salter said she has been asked to work hard to get the Agendas out as clearly and completely as soon as possible. Sometimes this contradicts itself but she asked the council's help on this issue.

OLD BUSINESS
Public Works projects- Chris Whitley - McFarland and Dyer Engineering

Covington asked if Whitley could walk council through the report, as they had not seen it in its entirety.

Whitley said that he had been asked to complete an inventory of the stormwater facilities in the city. The major draws and culverts were investigated in particular as many of the systems are aging and there are some erosion problems. He described some of the issues they had seen.

Lombardi asked for clarification that McFarland and Dyer had completed an inventory of the entire city.

Whitley clarified that they looked at the culverts and major draws, not the secondary systems in the newer subdivisions for example. However, they did look in the major stormwater systems throughout the city including, in the subdivisions. They used maps and checked upstream of the areas. They included areas, which would include maintenance in the future. He also clarified that some areas would need visual inspections but less maintenance.

Salter pointed out that Table 1 of the report shows the areas that were inspected

Massaroni described two areas he was familiar with to clarify what was surveyed in those particular instances, as an example. He asked whether both upstream and downstream areas were investigated,

Whitley affirmed that they were.

Whitley described the table in the report, which shows the locations of each of the sites and a description of the facility itself- the sizes of the pipes and materials. Each site has been given rating- 1 for the highest priority for maintenance and 5 for the lowest. The table shows proposed repairs and upgrades with their opinion of probable cost. He clarified that the probable cost was only approximate; more accurate prices would be available once proper designs were completed for each project. The probable costs were given so that council would have some idea to the costs involved. The report shows how their findings came about and the criteria they used to determine the ranking of the maintenance and repair. The field report has more information that they gathered in field. They mapped all the drainage fields in the structures to see if the existing fields could handle the flow and were up to today's standards. A lot of the pipes were installed a long time ago with 12-inch culverts, which are no longer allowed anywhere in the metro Atlanta area. He also described some limited hydrology studies that were completed to see which of the pipes could carry flow and which would not. They looked at the physical characteristics of the system- if it was rusting etc. They looked at what would be affected by the failure of each of the systems.

Salter said she thought it was a good attempt at an overview.

Steventon pointed put that their overview suggested a price of $40,000 for the Dalton-Downey pond area and current plans show an estimated cost of $75,000-125,000 to repair it. He asked why there was such a discrepancy in the figures. He asked whether the figures in other scenarios should be altered too.

Whitley said their estimates did not include the silt removal and unknown activity under the street as in the Dalton Downey pond. Most of the other situations are not so involved and the basic costs are for simple pipe replacements. He reiterated the prices are not based on a design so may not be accurate.

Steventon clarified that he hoped the other estimates are more likely to be a closer estimate of costs.

Whitley said that he was available at any time to answer any further questions that may come up.

Salter asked if the report was enough to enable council to move forward on the Dalton Downey Pond.

Massaroni said the report he received earlier that day was different to the one handed out at the meeting-specifically as it now entailed costs too. There was more information and too much to read having seen it for the first time in its entirety tonight.

Whitley explained that McFarland and Dyer were working right up to the last minute to prepare the most up to date information.

Salter said that she understood councils' concern was not to proceed with dealing with the Dalton Downey pond until they saw a better picture of all the problems the city may have to deal with. However, she said she hoped the report did achieve that goal.

Covington agreed but said she believed that the figure should also include other costs such as acquiring easements. The $40,000 estimate was to fix the pond but not the road as well. She asked if the projects ranking included a timeline associated with fixing them.

Whitley agreed the projects at the bottom of the ranking list could be done two or three years down the road, so it could be looked at as a five-year plan as Covington suggested. He said that some areas just need to be watched and periodically inspected.

Reynolds asked Carothers whether easements could be acquired based on the list in the report.
Carothers said easements could only be acquired once specifics were known on a project and they could only come from the actual plans themselves.

Massaroni asked if larger easements could be negotiated to save time, even if they were not necessarily used at a later date.

Carothers said he needed to be very specific on the type and quantity of easement required.

Steventon asked about the easements that had been marked on a citizen’s property already.

Carothers explained that he had written to inform property owners that some easements would need to be marked out to see where they were.

Seldomridge explained that he asked the surveyors to mark out the easements based on Plan 3. He explained that they had made them a little bigger than was probably necessary and that they could negotiate making them smaller to avoid losing so many trees. They would prefer to meet with property owners to plan exactly where the easement would ideally go. He also explained why the costs were more on the plan than on the report. The slope on the downstream side of the road needs stabilizing to bring it up to current safety standards.

Reynolds asked why the quote from Ragsdale Construction for $15,000 was so different from the one now described.

Seldomridge said that quote only included replacing a metal pipe and cleaning the sinkhole. It did not include replacing the culvert under the road. It was more of a temporary patch. More work is now necessary to fix the voids under the road too.

Reynolds asked how the three plans stopped silt going into the lake.

Seldomridge clarified that they all stopped silt going into the lake but in different ways.

Covington asked questions about some technical words included in the report.

Whitley described what they meant and some aspects, which were now required by law to fulfill certain standards.

Lombardi thanked Whitley on behalf of council and said that the report did provide the detail that they had asked for. Salter reiterated her thanks for the effort involved in completing it on time.

Whitley gave everyone his card so they could ask him any questions directly.

Lombardi said he was still not sure if the inventory was a complete citywide inventory because of conflicting comments. He clarified that the report was just a part of a citywide stormwater plan and council could not proceed until they had the inventory. He said residents should be aware that council requested the inventory at the May 27th meeting and asked Salter to explain why it had taken three and a half months for it to be completed.

Salter said it was a large tall order and there was an emergency situation. No one realized how long it would take to do it considering the complexity of the task. Part of the problem has been the different requests from different council members. There has been some confusion as to exactly what was wanted along the way.

Lombardi repeated the motion from May 27th and said it was not until July 31st that it was reported that they were only in the initial stages of the inventory. Council is being held accountable for the delay and they had no control over it as it looked like the work was started very late.

Whitley reiterated that the report is a citywide inventory

Zielazienski agreed that they had walked all over the city with maps to make sure they were thorough. The report contains samples of maps of the drainage basins to give council some idea of the detail to which they did complete the inventory.

Zielazienski then provided council with a timetable of all the events leading up to the report. She met with McFarland and Dyer on June 3rd to determine what was needed to even begin the inventory and then reports and maps had to be pulled to get all the information together to complete a viable inventory. By June 20th, they were able to identify the scope of the work. Between then and July 17th, (the next council meeting), Whitley was asked to work specifically on the Dalton Downey pond for that meeting. Therefore the rest of the inventory was delayed. She said that it has still been a very short time to put together a report for the scope of this task.

Lombardi said the inventory was required to make intelligent informed decisions and residents need to know council was not delaying it and that efforts were being put forward on a continued basis as Zielazienski described. They had requested the report and had to wait for the work to be done. He said having a consistent citywide approach was necessary.

Salter said that everyone agreed the road closure was an emergency situation and the city has taken action on that site and others in the past without the entire city having to be surveyed in detail first. There was the option at the time to begin to act on that project. She said she hoped that council would take some action to act on the Downey Dalton pond tonight.

Lombardi said council did not want to go forward without a consistent approach. He said that while it was an option, he said he did not think that council believed it was the right thing to just go ahead and do it at the time.
Steventon asked whether Carothers was now in a position to go ahead and obtain easements to keep moving on the project.

Carothers said that if he knew what plan council wanted to work on, then he could go ahead with obtaining easements.

Covington asked if council would agree to declare their intent to use the document to move forward to get easements to get routine maintenance going on the ponds. As each one comes to the table, then council can deal with what has to be done with each one, the easements, the plan and what it will cost individually. It would communicate to citizens what the goal is. It can be used as a priority list.

Covington motioned to use the report on the Drainage Inventory Proposed Improvements as a starting point for the status of the stormwater situation in Berkeley Lake. Council intends to get the easements required that mean the city be responsible for maintaining the retention ponds so that stormwater runs freely and cleanly throughout the city, both into Berkeley Lake and into the Chattahoochee River. With that intent, council will start work on the highest priority first, and there will be individual drawings and costs for each project.

Steventon seconded the motion. Approval was unanimous.

Salter asked how council wanted to move forward on the Downey Dalton Pond

Lombardi motioned to have the city attorney go ahead to get easements based on Plan number 3.

Massaroni seconded the motion. Approval was unanimous.

Zielazienski asked for clarification as to what happens next after the easements were obtained. She said she is concerned about the time involved.

Council reiterated that it is their intent to go ahead with all the projects. After all the procedures for obtaining easements are completed and final costs determined, they will go ahead with the Dalton Downey project and use it as starting point for the rest of the projects. They are more comfortable now they have a plan to work with. They will learn from this process.

Zielazienski pointed out that legal costs could exceed the costs mentioned in the report itself and cited Chris Holben's experience as an example. There are costs that cannot be estimated over and above the actual cost of repair and that should be a consideration in taking over Stormwater drainage issues. She said these are the things to consider when you take over private property.
Salter said an option might be to offer taking over private property to some of the homeowners but some of them might refuse. She said that some homeowners may chose to keep their ponds and fix stormwater issues themselves rather than give them over to the city’s care and Holben is one example. She said that would be their choice.

Covington agreed that it should be possible but they need to be kept in the same good repair as the rest of the city.

Lombardi said that a caveat should be included that at some point the city will be responsible for what comes out of his pond and he may not have that option. He asked whether there is silt coming out of Holben’s pond into the lake now.

Zielazienski said there was not at the moment.

Lombardi said if wants to clean out his pond for his own benefit, then he not could expect the city to clean it. He said the city might expect to take over whatever conveyed the water into the pond. The infrastructure would be the city’s responsibility.

Steventon asked about the screens the city had asked for and Zielazienski confirmed they had arrived but needed to be fitted.

Zielazienski asked about additional costs that have arisen on the Bayway Circle project. Council had already approved $4554.50, but the full cost is $5575, which is $1000 more than council had allocated. She asked for a motion to include the extra cost

Steventon motioned to approve the extra cost and Massaroni seconded the motion.

Carothers said that the motion should authorize the mayor to execute the contract which is to be approved by the city attorney as before.

Steventon agreed to amend the motion and approval was unanimous.

Zielazienski said work on the dam is ready to proceed. An engineer has to be present as the work progresses and she asked that council allow up to $4000 to cover that engineers work.

Steventon motioned that that is the case and Lombardi seconded the motion.
Approval was unanimous.

Seldomridge asked that he be allowed to talk to the homeowners about the easements.

Carothers suggested that Seldomridge be present to negotiate easements on site, which would help the easement process.

Steventon suggested that Carothers and Seldomridge work together on site to make the process faster.

Council asked Seldomridge to go ahead and get the contract drafted up after the easements are complete on Plan 3.

Carothers pointed out that the time it takes to negotiate the easements depends upon how agreeable residents are to the plan offered and their subsequent cooperation.

Reynolds asked who had bid the project and what the bids are.

Zielazienski described the bid from Ragsdale construction for $110,600 for Plan 3. Strickland and Sons pipeline, who are contracted to do the Bayway Circle, bid $81,029 if they are already mobilized in Berkeley Lake. However the city would have to be ready to go ahead whilst they are still in Berkeley Lake to get the reduced cost.

Carothers said that he thought they could still be in Berkeley Lake in 2-3 months.
Reynolds asked if they could do it sooner to get the road open quicker.

Zielazienski said that they are the main sewer contractor for the county and they may have other work they need to do for the county but she would find out if they do the work concurrently. If they were unable to be already mobilized in Berkley Lake, their costs would be similar to those of Ragsdale construction. Both the bids are based on Gwinnett County pricing.

Covington asked that Carothers inform council as soon as the easements have been negotiated so that council can call a special meeting to go ahead and proceed with the next stage of the project.

BUDGET 2004
There was discussion about costs requested by Reynolds for the budget from Massaroni regarding the modular office units needed whilst the new city hall is being built. Massaroni described the options available. There was discussion about all the separate costs that would be involved.

The city clerk has requested quotes from the chapel for rental costs for the chapel for next year’s meetings as well as rental space for parking during construction. There was discussion about the best option for using the chapel for 8 months to extend on a month-to-month basis after that.

Steventon had to leave the council meeting for personal reasons.

Reynolds asked for documentation to support the expense on sealant for the roads as requested in the public works budget.

Salter said council should be aware that the hours worked by the city clerk and Public works director need to be extended for budget purposes both for the end of this year and for next year. The city clerk's hours are approximately 30 hours a week and the Public works Director's hours are 25 hours a week at the moment due to current circumstances.

There was discussion about approving the new hours, as this will impact this year’s budget too. Council agreed that staff would be paid according to the hours they have to work right now.

There was discussion about the invoices that may be expected for current public works projects and how that may impact what is in the bank account now. Reynolds noted that the city would be overdrawn once current checks were issued but she did not know what income was due in the accounts as she had wire transfer notices from the bank but did not know where the money had come from because her email notifications had stopped.

Reynolds motioned to transfer $125,000 from LGIP to the SunTrust operating account. Lombardi seconded the motion. Approval was unanimous

There was discussion about the exterior materials for city hall and it was decided that brick and other such materials with the least maintenance possible should be used

CELL PHONE TOWER
Massaroni motioned to thank T Mobile for their interest in the city and to tell them we are not interested in siting a cell tower on city property.

Reynolds seconded the motion. Lombardi, Massaroni, and Reynolds voted in favor of the motion. Covington opposed the motion. Motion passed.

NEW BUSINESS
Stormwater Management Plan
There was discussion regarding using the draft stormwater guidelines drawn up by Lombardi as a working document.

CITY HALL COMPUTER
The City Clerk reported she had ordered the new city hall computer from Dell.

Covington motioned to approve the cost of $1665.34 to buy a new computer for city hall.

Reynolds seconded the motion and approval was unanimous.

GREENSPACE RESOLUTION
There was much discussion of the language in the Deed of Conservation document with the city attorney. The city attorney will bring the updated drafts to the next meeting.

There was a suggestion that all documents be dated so that everyone has the most up-to-date versions.

OTHER
There was brief discussion on whether Berkeley Lake will consider having a chipper for Christmas Trees. The idea was declined, as there are other drop sites nearby.

There was discussion on whether it is worth continuing to pay GMA for the assistance they provide the city regarding telecommunication issues. The city attorney will consider whether it is worth it based ion his work with them.

The Resolution on State Surface and Ground water proposed by Lombardi was discussed and postponed to the next meeting when it will be explained more fully.

There was discussion regarding the feasibility of changing the terms for the bond and reducing interest rates. It was suggested that there were no advantages to doing it now but the issue should be re-visited annually.

Lombardi motioned to adjourn the meeting at 9:55 p.m. Massaroni seconded the motion and all were in favor. Motion passed.