Those in attendance for the Public Hearing and Council Meeting were as follows:

Mayor – Lois Salter
Council Members: Frank Lombardi, Ken Massaroni, Delicia Reynolds, and Betty Covington
City Attorney- Dick Carothers

City Clerk- Jackie Wall
Public Works Director- Marcie Zielazienski

Citizens Present-21

CALL TO ORDER
Salter called the meeting to order at 6:08 PM at 4043 South Berkeley Lake Road.

BUDGET 2004 PUBLIC HEARING
There were no comments specifically pertaining to the budget.

CITIZEN COMMENTS
Dave Garramone - 3581 Mansions Parkway
Garramone said he thought that putting the Greenspace in a land trust was a wrong move on the part of the city. He said taking it out of the city’s hands means it can never be used for any other purpose which although it is a great idea, the city has put itself in a financial “pickle”.

Garramone said this shows in the numbers in the council budget, it looks like a 25% increase in the millage rate. His subdivision is half in the city limits and half outside it and so it is $1200 cheaper to leave in the other side of it. He said the police department is the biggest benefit he gets out of his taxes. He said he grew up in a similar town with lots of real estate and no commercial tax base, so the taxes are higher to provide the sevices to the people of the city. He said the city is looking at a number of issues this year: City Hall, infrastructure, roads and sewers and the price is getting a little high.

Garramone said he thought the city was capable of doing a better job of dealing with their property and providing the kind of protection and conditions that are needed for it. Putting the Greenspace in a land trust means losing the flexibility of using it for other revenue. He said there is a proposal for a large sub-division to go in with high priced houses on very small lots. One of the big issues in the city has always been traffic and the best way to control it and avoid saturation is to require a minimum property size of half to three quarters of an acre. However, with the current plan of 90 houses there will be another 200 cars. It will bring in a lot of money but at what cost.

Garramone said these were all budget issues but there should be a happy medium between the two budgets proposed and some give and take on both sides. The council does not need to take salaries down as they do a lot of work and it is a thankless job. Although an increase in millage rate of 25% is little much.

MINUTES
Motion to accept the minutes from September 10th and September 18th by Reynolds, seconded by Massaroni. Reynolds, Massaroni and Lombardi were in favor of the motion, Covington abstained, as she was not at the meetings. Motion passed.

Motion to accept the minutes from October 14th and October 16th by Covington, seconded by Reynolds. Covington, Lombardi and Reynolds were in favor of the motion. Massaroni abstained, as he was not at the meetings. Motion passed.

FINANCIAL REPORT
Motion to accept the financial report as filed by Reynolds, seconded by Lombardi. All were in favor, motion passed.

STAFF REPORTS
There were no comments on the staff reports submitted by the Ordinance Enforcement Officer and Officer Doug McClure, the Police Chief.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Salter thanked Jackie Wall, the City Clerk and Election Superintendent and all the poll workers, especially Kay Lee, Carol Seitz and Lane Shutt, for their work during the Election. It was a very long day and there was a lot of work leading up to the election as well as the day itself. She also thanked the candidates who gave a lot of their time in the interests of supporting the city and she thanked them for their efforts and concern.

Salter said there is a proposal for a residential development for 90 homes on the sod farm owned by the Henderson Family. She said she had a copy of the proposed plat if anyone wanted to see it. It is only the beginning of the process. The Planning and Zoning Commission (P & Z) will deal with the proposal as appropriate. They will deal with the negotiations to get a fair deal for the developers as well as for the city. She noted that their next meeting has been postponed from November 25th to December 10th, 2003.

Salter said she had met with the Presidents of the Homeowners Associations this week. There were no pressing concerns but she had been asked to deal with noisy garbage collection.

Salter said she will be appointing several committees in the New Year and she asked that anyone interested in joining one to contact her as soon as possible.

OLD BUSINESS
DAM-ZIELAZIENSKI
There is some landscaping work that needs to be done on the dam since the repair work was completed. She asked for $2446 to cover the costs. This was postponed to later in the meeting.

CULVERT REPAIR
Zielazienski said she had emailed council with a summary of the follow up of the meeting of November 11th with the property owners, the city attorney, the Homeowners Association and engineers regarding the culvert repair.

Zielazienski updated the current status for the citizens. After the meeting there were several areas for concern from the residents, which needed addressing and she had summarized them for council. Most of the items had already been addressed. The Homeowners Association were asked to get figures for removing the silt from the culvert area but Zielazienski said she had not received those yet. Other issues were how to protect trees and marking temporary and permanent easements, as well as the limits of the construction, which have now been marked. Landscaping the area was discussed however in order to get an estimate for the area, a plan would need to be paid for. It depended on how much the area was landscaped.

Zielazienski said alternate 4 is a result of all the discussions. There should not be a substantial difference in costs between alternate 3 and 4 except for instead of trenching and placing rip rap, the silt will be removed.

There was discussion regarding the costs for silt removal and how it is difficult to judge the costs for it. The costs of the original rip rap stone would be taken from the estimate but would probably be less than the costs of removing the silt.

Seldomridge said alternate 4 had the new pipe, the same road repair but was different in what would be done upstream. He described what they would do to achieve the plan. The pipe would be replaced and brought up to code, as there were too many unknowns in trying to fill the voids under the road. They had also fine-tuned some of the easements.

There was discussion about the costs involved. The contractor would still need to price the final plan. Tree removal costs would be more because of the way they would have to do it to do it in order to protect the other trees around them. Costs could only be approximate at this stage but would be based on the last estimates with the new changes factored in.

There was discussion regarding any contributions from any homeowners, particularly the Downeys’ who had received a sum from the settlement for the pond. The Downeys’ said they would contribute $4000 from the settlement.

There was further discussion regarding the possible costs for landscaping.

Zielazienski said that the cracks in the road were still widening despite the fact there was no traffic on it at the moment, so it was a good decision to close it.

Reynolds asked Carothers if the job should go to bid.

Carothers said, as he said in his email, that it is an emergency situation. However, if it were a county road, then based on his experience, it would already have been done. They would have moved in, condemned the easements, done the project and then sorted out the issues after they had opened the road. The longer it is taking, he said, the more concern he has that it is not an emergency under the law. He said it should still be done on an expedited basis particularly with the other road closed. Council can determine if they want to get more bids.

There was further discussion on getting the easements required.
Carothers said he thought the homeowners would sign the easements if the issues of landscaping and silt removal were addressed.

Massaroni motioned to authorize a maximum of $110,600 plus 10% contingency, for the repair of the culvert, based on Plan 4 devised by Wolverton and Associates. Lombardi seconded the motion and all were in favor.

Massaroni motioned to authorize a maximum of $25,000 plus 10% contingency for the removal of the silt in the cove. Lombardi seconded the motion and all were in favor.

Massaroni motioned to authorize a maximum of $8000 plus 10% contingency for landscaping the area after. Lombardi seconded the motion and all were in favor.

Massaroni motioned to authorize the Mayor to sign the contracts for the repairs. Lombardi seconded the motion and all were in favor.
Salter asked Rick Rice, BLHA president, to work with Zielazienski on the silt removal in the cove. He agreed.

FRANCHISE AGREEMENT
Carothers discussed where we are from the city point of view and described some of the issues he is addressing with the GMA who are dealing with the Comcast Franchise Agreement on behalf of the City. He said he thought those issues should be resolved shortly and that the agreement should be finalized by next months meeting.

Andy Mackie from Comcast said he was looking forward to bringing the contract to closure and then he described their services.
Carothers asked council to consider whether the fee should be set at 3% or 5%.

There was general discussion about what is defined as a cable service as well as what the Franchise fees are and what they mean to the consumer.

OTHER OLD BUSINESS
Zielazienski asked for approval for $2446 for the landscaping repairs on the dam.

Reynolds motioned to approve the costs, Covington seconded the motion.
In discussion Lombardi clarified that the contingency had already been used.

Zielazienski said there had been more rock needed than they had originally thought. The new costs covered repairs from the dam repair as well as two other areas on the dam, which needed repairing due to erosion.

All were in favor. Motion passed.

2004 BUDGET
Massaroni recommended postponing the building of a new city hall in 2004 due to the number of public works projects pending next year. He suggested therefore removing all the costs relating to the project from the budget: Construction costs, office rental, furniture and extra office hours allocated. This would reduce the budget by $225,000.

There was discussion about other minor changes that had been proposed on the web site.

Reynolds motioned to postpone the acceptance of the budget until the December meeting so the changes could be added to the final document. Massaroni seconded the motion and all were in favor.

GREENSPACE LAND TRUST
Salter said all the documents had been posted on the web site for over a month. She still felt there should be a referendum on principal only but both the present and future council members all proposed to vote on it.

Covington reiterated that they were voting on the Greenspace documents with the consent and support of the new council and were not rushing it through before their term ended.

Reynolds motioned to adopt Ordinances 3-703 and 3-205 on second read. Massaroni seconded the motion and all were in favor.

Reynolds motioned to authorize the Mayor to sign the Landtrust Agreement with GOLT and execute it and to authorize the Mayor to convey the Deed of Conservation Easement to GOLT. Massaroni seconded the motion and all were in favor

Reynolds motioned to authorize the Mayor to enter into the contract with GOLT. Massaroni seconded the motion and all were in favor.

LIABLITY INSURANCE
Carothers said that having spoken to the Ken Swanson who is the liability supervisor with the third party who administrates the insurance policy for the Georgia Inter-Local Risk Management Agency, he was not recommending increasing the coverage for the city as we have only a small staff of part-time employees, no city vehicles or a police department. He suggested looking at it again at the next renewal.

Salter asked that the extra costs factored into her budget therefore be removed.

ROAD SAFETY
Zielazienski said she had spoken to Bob Manning and the county had agreed to add the markings to the road at 50 Lakeshore Drive. They would also explore where else needed the same at a later date. This service would be done by the county as the city has a agreement with the county to do those things and at no cost to the City, as we have no roads department.

Covington reiterated that the other areas in the city must not be ignored.

Zielazienski said that they would investigate other areas but may be able to do that area sooner as the county had already looked it at.

CHAPEL LEASE CONTRACT
Council had a copy of the proposal from the chapel board.

Reynolds motioned to authorize the Mayor to enter into a contract with the chapel for 27 meetings at a cost of $5400. Lombardi seconded the motion and all were in favor.

ASSET AUDIT
Lombardi asked if the city were still on track for the physical audit.
Salter confirmed that good progress was being made on it.

NEW BUSINESS
BOOKKEEPING –REYNOLDS
Reynolds said that she would work with the city clerk to show her how to do the new budget for 2004 and show her the new chart of accounts. The clerk is already training with the bookkeeper.

Reynolds said that the bookkeeper would be employed to finish out the year, so she could do the payroll taxes. Then the City Clerk would take over the City finances with a clean slate at the beginning of the year.

Council agreed with this.

LOGO PROTECTION- REYNOLDS
Reynolds said she had come across a web site with our City logo on it and that it is in violation of the city’s ownership rights. She asked what council wanted to do about it to protect it. She suggested an email be sent to anyone using it on-line to explain the logo usage policy and asking them to stop using it until they get approval.
Carothers was asked to come up with a form letter to send to anyone in violation of the city’s rights.

Reynolds said anyone using the logo must get permission to use it as council had adopted usage policy on it when they had bought the ownership rights to it. There is an application available.

SPEEDING
Covington asked that the police monitor speed in the area, especially along Lakeshore Drive, which has increased traffic on it since the closure of North Berkeley Lake Road during rush hour both in the morning and evening.

Lois said she had already heard this concern from Berkeley Walk and asked Covington to email her the times when it is particularly bad. She said she had already asked the police to monitor South Berkeley Lake Road.

CITIZEN COMMENTS
Dave Garramone (3581 Mansions Parkway) asked whether the citizens gain anything from the Franchise Agreement.

Carothers said the Agreement allows Comcast to operate in the area and the City gets paid a Franchise tax, which is a percentage of the revenue received from cable subscriptions in the city. It is a non-exclusive contract and providers of all the services in the area pay a similar franchise fee.

Garromone also said that there are restrictions for using speed cameras where there is no line of sight.

Salter said that was true but the police can catch people for reckless driving if necessary as they often leave their lane when driving too fast.

LOMBARDI MOTIONED TO ADJOURN THE MEETING AT 7:35 PM. MASSERONI SECONDED THE MOTION. ALL WERE IN FAVOR.
Correct as of December 15th, 2003