Those in attendance for the Council Meeting were as follows:
Mayor – Lois Salter
Council Members: Betty Covington, Frank Lombardi, Ken Massaroni and Delicia Reynolds
City Attorney- Dick Carothers
City Clerk- Jackie Wall
Public Works Director- Marcie Zielazienski

Citizens Present-8

CALL TO ORDER
Salter called the meeting to order at 7:03 PM at 4040 Berkeley Lake Road.

CITIZEN COMMENTS
There were no citizen comments

PUBLIC WORKS- ZIELAZIENSKI
Dam
Zielazienski said the work on the dam is finished. However, the drainage ditch has eroded over time and needs filling in. Greg Harris has quoted $2446 to repair it. She said she is also waiting for Mr. Woosley to inspect the dam before the work will go ahead in case there is anything else to add to the project.

Culvert Area
Zielazienski said there was a last minute meeting earlier this evening between the city attorney, the city engineer and the homeowners (Deb Robinson, Bill and Laraine Downey, Dan Dalton). They talked about some ideas for alternate 4. They will all meet together one more time so there will be a complete plan available for the Council meeting on November 20th.

Massaroni asked that Zielazienski describe the suggestions already made for alternate 4.

Zielazienski said the homeowners have asked for a less invasive repair than digging up the road. The engineer is looking at filling the voids with concrete. There would be less easements required. On the upside of the culvert, the homeowners have asked for the pond to be restored.

Carothers said that by filling the voids, the easements would be less on all sides. It would also require a lot less equipment.

Zielazienski said the suggestion had been made very early on too.

Massaroni asked if nothing had changed since then.

Zielazienski said something has changed but no one knows what. Something blew out in July and there is much more water tearing through on the downstream side.

Massaroni said he was concerned that if the actual pipe is not fixed, then the same problem may re-occur in a few years. He said that even if the voids are filled, it is still not known if the pipe under the road is intact.

Zielazienski said the other possibility would be to send a camera through the pipe.

Massaroni said the proposal from the homeowners only makes sense if the pipe is good.

Zielazienski was not sure how much it would cost but said approximately $400-800.

Reynolds asked if the pipe would be replaced with a bigger pipe.

Zielazienski said in plan 3 the pipe would be replaced by a 36-inch pipe. It is currently 18 inches.

Covington said she thought Seldomridge had said that the current pipe size is too small for today’s standards.

Zielazienski said those standards are not applicable for repairs. If the pipe were to be replaced totally, it should be 36 inches.

Covington said the homeowners need to be satisfied but it also needs to be the safest thing for the city. She said it worried her that they might accept a pipe under the road that would not meet today’s standards.

Zielazienski said that she thought Seldomridge would, without limitations, tear up the road, fix the road and restore the pond.

Carothers said he had asked Selomridge whether he would be prepared to propose a fix that only filled the voids with concrete, especially when it is not known what state the underneath of the road is in. It needs to be based on reasonable engineering certainty.

Zielazienski said one of the homeowners, Dan Dalton, had suggested a less invasive plan to create less disruption to the homeowners.

Covington asked if a bigger pipe needed more easements.

Zielazienski said it meant using more space and therefore losing more trees, as well as creating less disruption.

The next meeting with all those concerned will potentially be November 11th, 2003 in preparation for the November 20th meeting.

Berkeley Lake Road Closure
Zielazienski said the road is currently completely closed and will be so for about two months. Then the work will move to the Bush Road intersection. She said there is a lot of traffic currently cutting through Lakeshore Drive instead.

BUDGET 2004
Reynolds said she had no comments except that she would show the city clerk how to key in the budget on the Peachtree Accounting computer program.

Massaroni asked for clarification on the difference between the documents he had from the web site and the one Salter had passed out.
It was a page size problem.

There were no other comments about the budget.

GREENSPACE DOCUMENTS
Salter said that she had heard many comments from people who would prefer a referendum on the decision. She said she thought a referendum would pass but people wanted a chance to vote on it. She said her understanding was that council wanted to pass it as soon as possible, as they are worried about what the next council would do. She said she thought the next council were as committed to the Land Trust as they are.

Covington said if the future council had a strong opinion on it, she would prefer to delay it as well and work on something else that can be done in the next two months.

Salter reiterated that the only way to know for sure that it is what the citizens’ want, is to vote on it. She said it is a major decision and she felt that it ought to be voted on.

Sipe said, as a future council member, he was not asking the current council to delay the decision. He had heard different opinions on the fine points on the documents but not that citizens wanted a referendum. He said he didn’t think that the future council members saw it any differently than the current council members.

Massaroni clarified that he didn’t want the future council to feel they would need to undo something.

Cohen said once it was passed, it could not be undone. He said apart from minor issues, no one has any objection to what will be done. Details in the fine print may be altered later on if necessary. He said the current council had done a great deal of work so far. Cohen also said that it would be a year before a referendum could be done.

Covington asked the future council members if they had the commitment from them that if the current council members passed it now, that they would support them.

Massaroni said it sounded like there was general consensus from both current and incoming council members that they should go ahead largely in the form it exists right now.

Cohen said he believed that was true and that there was room to make adjustments later if necessary.

Massaroni said that the only person who seemed to want referendum was Salter. He asked Salter would she sign the documents if everyone agreed that a referendum was not necessary.

Salter said if either this or the next council passes it, then she would sign it. She said however, that significantly enough people would prefer a referendum as it is such a big issue and she felt it would be supported better by the community if there were one. She said she did not realize it would take a year to do a referendum though.
Carothers said it probably would not be able to be done until at least July.

Cohen reiterated that adjustments could be made after it is adopted.
Salter clarified if that that would be the case.

Massaroni said that it would be in the best interest for GOLT to agree to any changes too.

Salter said in principal, she would feel better if there were a referendum but if it takes a year and a lot of money to do it, and both this and the future council would pass it, then she would sign it.

Covington said it could be passed at the November meeting if everyone agreed.

Salter said if there were more things that needed talking about, then should they take another month to discuss it. She said she wanted everyone to be sure they knew what they were passing.

Reynolds said that minor details could be changed later.
Cohen agreed that the basic premise of it would not be changed.

HIRING POLICY
Covington said that she had been given the hiring policy to make it more useful for Berkeley Lake and less aimed at a big city. However she had not worked on it at she did not think the new council were interested in having a new hiring policy.

Cohen said with such a small number of part time employees, it should be left as the City code describes it. It said it could be dangerous to take on such a policy in the same way it would have been for the stormwater management policy.

Lombardi said the purpose of both policies was to get some consistency in the city in the way the city deals with these issues: in both hiring people and being consistent in dealing with the stormwater process. Both were an attempt to provide some framework, not usurp anything that the county or the state provided. He said he felt the city was sorely lacking in any kind of procedures for these issues.

Massaroni said that September 9th was the first time the city knew exactly where the stormwater problems were. The intent was to make sure that the immediate problems and longer-term problems do not become worse and to address a procedure whereby these things are reviewed with some frequency and regularity to avoid bad situations.

Cohen said he did not think there should be a policy, but that decisions were made as and when they were needed.

Massaroni said he understood that it would be worse not to follow a policy that had been made than not to have one at all but the intention was to create a policy that could be reasonably followed with respect to stormwater issues.

Zielazienski said that if the same inspections had been made a year ago during the drought, it was unlikely that the same problems would have been identified. Other city managers and contractors were experiencing the same things as the City of Berkeley Lake. The weather had had a significant impact on the entire infrastructure. She said she felt that some things had to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Cohen said he agreed and that the extremely heavy rain had not helped but it was also down to the county who had allowed extensive development nearby and the covering of the ground had caused run off to the point that the city facilities could not handle it. He said the problem did not arise in the city but they would have to deal with it.

Massaroni agreed but he said that with the absence of the chart, which identified four areas which had intermediate problems, then there would be major problems in three years time. He said by putting the chart in place, the city would never get to that situation.

Cohen said he still didn’t think those same problems could have been identified a year ago. This year’s amount of rainfall was exceptional. There were many people who had had flooded basements this year that had never experienced the same problem in the last twenty years.

Massaroni said that he thought the chart showed that the problems identified were not to do with the rainfall but maintenance issues that had not been kept up with over the years.

Cohen agreed that some maintenance needed to happen but he did not agree that there should be a policy to deal with them.

Massaroni asked that the new council revisit the issue. He said there should be a routine by which the identified problems are dealt with and it would be as bad not to do that.

CITIZENS COMMENTS
George Sipe- 401 Lakeshore Drive
Sipe asked that in the interests of the continuity of government, that the future council members be able to sit in on the executive session.
There were no objections but Massaroni asked for clarification that there would not be an issue of violating any code or law.

Carothers said he did not believe so and that it had happened before.

Sipe said that the council members elect had all been in executive sessions before and understood the need for confidentiality.

Deb Robinson asked for the record why the council needed to go into executive session.

Carothers said the executive session would be for discussing land acquisition and potential litigation and that he did not have to qualify that by law.

Deb Robinson- 540 Lakeshore Drive
Robinson said she wanted to comment on the issues in the culvert area. She said the four homeowners had issued a letter to council on the 24th October, which laid out their specific positions, proposals and requests. She said it was primarily to address the concerns expressed to council that it would be difficult to get everyone together. She said they had met together in their own time as a convenience and courtesy to council. She said she would be glad to address any points in the letter that she could.

Robinson said Dan Dalton was concerned that he had not seen any of the reports or studies that were done on the road when he generated his comments to Selomridge, the project engineer. He said he would be prepared to discuss- engineer to engineer, possible solutions to save the city some money and preserve trees in the area but that would take time. She said she had thought that it would save more time if all the homeowners got to together to discuss everything. She said the meeting took 4 hours and she hoped it had saved some legal fees already. She said nothing much had changed since and that no one was trying to propose an engineering fix to the road.

Covington said that if everyone had met and the engineer came up with a plan 4 and Zielazienski agreed the price then she would suggest going ahead. If it is a sound plan, legal and the city can afford it, she did not feel the need to know the details.

Robinson said that the homeowners just wanted to know what was being done to their part of the area too.

Robinson said for the record that they had filed an anti litem notice to the city purely to protect their property rights. They have been looking for some time at the amount of silt and debris that was coming in their cove from the culvert area. They had tried to talk to council, and individuals in the city at different times about it, and for many reasons, they had had different responses. They said they were feeling increasing frustration and urgency to get some resolution on the matter beyond the issue of the school bus needing to get through. She said in six months, there was now a delta of land caused by increasing amounts of silt, which they did not consider an asset. Their 67 feet of shoreline has been impacted and it is now different to what it was and it is not very nice. She said she did not think the Berkeley Lake Homeowners Association (BLHA) would be willing to pick up the tab on removing it. She said she was tired of feeling the sense of agitation it caused. She said council should not have to rush the decision; developing a policy, an inventory and engineering that considers a variety of sites takes time and she said the council should take the time now. There were other considerations to deal with as the seasons change. Now she had filed the anti litem notice they have four years and their rights are protected, so council could go ahead and take the time to do deal with the road and the situation. She said it was not a personal issue but a matter of business because there is a lot of silt that needs to be taken care of. It can be done collaboratively when the road is fixed. She said she had made the offer to consolidate this claim with the repairs back in July or August and she said she still thought they could do that very easily. She said that was the nature of the notice. She said it takes the intensity from their side and hopefully from the city too.

Robinson said however, that this is a small community and she had heard a lot of rumors, not least the reason for the executive session. She said she hoped that when they came out of the session that the distinction and the choices that are made are at least segregated as to who has filed the anti litem notice, who it involves, what it protects, and what it does not. She said the other property owners have nothing to do with it. They knew nothing about the anti litem notice when they wrote the letter. It was a private thing to protect their property rights as it is their property that is affected by the debris coming down. She said if anyone was going to get excluded down there on the corner, it should only be the people who submitted the notice and nobody else. She said whether they should be excluded from city activities or socialization is another question.

Robinson asked if anybody had any questions as to what they were doing and no one did.

LOMBARDI MOTIONED TO GO INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION REGARDING MATTERS RELATED TO THE ACQUISITION OF REAL ESTATE AND MATTERS RELATING TO PENDING OR POTENTIAL LITIGATION AT 7:55PM, MASSARONI SECONDED THE MOTION AND ALL WERE IN FAVOR.

REYNOLDS MOTIONED TO EXIT EXECUTIVE SESSION AND ADJOURN THE MEETING, MASSARONI SECONDED THE MOTION AND ALL WERE IN FAVOR.