CITY OF BERKELEY LAKE

4040 BERKELEY LAKE ROAD
BERKELEY LAKE, GA 30096-3016
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
APRIL 14, 1999

Those in attendance for the Public Hearing/City Council meeting were as follows:

Mayor – Marguerite Cooke

Council Members: Anthony Arakawa, Kelly Goff, Tom Kitchens, Sherwin Levinson, Sherry Ruys

City Attorney – Dick Carothers

Public Works Director – Bob Flaherty

Zoning Enforcement Officer – Stanley Kelly

City Clerk – Anne Mayton

City Treasurer – Marcie Zielazienski

CITIZENS PRESENT: 11

The City Council meeting was brought to order by the Mayor, Marguerite Cooke, at 4043 S. Berkeley Lake Road at 7:12 p.m. Mayor Cooke explained that we have a short agenda resulting from the new method of approving monthly reports.

The invocation was presented by Britt Collins of 33 Lakeshore Drive.

CITIZENS COMMENTS

There were no citizens’ comments.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

The following corrections were noted for the minutes of March 11, 1999.

     Page 5 –middle of the page Mr. Kelly should be Mr. Goff

     Page 6 –middle of the page—there was no vote taken on changing the title of the Zoning Enforcement Officer
    to Ordinance Enforcement Officer.

Mr. Levinson moved that the minutes are approved with the changes noted; Mr. Kitchens seconded and the vote was unanimous.

APPROVAL OF FINANCIAL REPORT:

Mr. Goff explained that starting with Page 1 of the Revenues and Expenditures please notice that the fourth column over says "Three Months" expenditures. Please make a note that that is really "Five Months" the computer just can’t read that. That is November, December, and the First Quarter. On the next three pages you will have a 5 instead of a 3. This will give you a better picture of what our expenditures are. We will have this problem until the end of this Fiscal Year.

On the next to last page under City of Berkeley Lake Expenditures, there are a number of refunds to citizens for taxes that were double paid. But that is just reimbursements.

On the last page on the lower half where you have your debit column, the deposits from Accounts Receivable, that is tax income and the Superior Court of Gwinnett is an intangible tax rebate to us.

Mr. Arakawa moved that we accept the Financial Report as submitted; Mr. Levinson seconded and the vote was unanimous.

STAFF & COMMITTEE REPORTS

Mayor Cooke explained that we are now using a graph format for approval of these monthly reports.

Financial Affairs Committee

Mr. Goff announced that we have now invested in our fourth CD at a yield return of 5 ½ percent, which completes our CD acquisition for this year. We now have four Jumbo CDs of $100,000 each and they are bringing us 5.85 percent average as opposed to our GMA which this month is bringing in 4.84 percent so we are collecting 1 point better than we were in the past and that is on $400,000. We should hit our goal of $50,000.

Mayor Cooke announced that the Financial Affairs Committee would soon be able to meet the week before the Council meeting.

Codes Revision Committee

Mr. Levinson had nothing to report.

City Park Expansion Committee

Mrs. Ruys explained that the expansion should be done in about five (5) weeks. She also noted that we do need to have signs made about the Park’s being closed during this expansion process. We would like to have a sign made that an adult must accompany children under the age of 18. But, we will have to do an ordinance on that and I will bring that up under New Business.

River Hollow Project

Georgia Soil and Water Conservation has approved Mr. Hegner’s erosion and sediment control plan.

GMA Meeting

Mrs. Ruys attended the Georgia Municipal Association meeting. She reported that it was a very interesting meeting at the 755 Club at the Stadium. She will make copies of the information she received to share with the Council.

Mr. Arakawa is to attend the May GwMA meeting.

Government Grants Coordination

Mr. Arakawa gave us an update on his report. He applied for a grant from Gwinnett County for sidewalks and City Streets and the County came through with about $13,000 for us. So, it is a matter of how we can match that and what we want to do with it. He will get together with Mr. Flaherty and talk about how we can best utilize this funding.

OLD BUSINESS

Ordinance Enforcement Officer

Mayor Cooke asked if there was a motion for the Ordinance Enforcement Officer’s job description, which had been postponed from last month’s Council meeting. Mr. Kitchens replied that he still does not have the job description in place but that he should have it in place by the next meeting. The Ordinance Enforcement Committee just had not finished.

Mr. Kitchens made the motion to postpone the definition of Ordinance Enforcement Officer until our next month’s meeting at which time he will present a job description for the Ordinance Enforcement Officer. Mr. Levinson seconded and the vote was unanimous.

Mr. Kitchens asked Attorney Carothers to join the Ordinance Enforcement Committee meeting at 7:30 next Thursday.

Emergency Management Committee Ordinance

The Mayor reminded the Council that there was one change made on that Ordinance last month. The City Clerk and the Director of Roads and Public Works positions on the chain of command were switched.

Mr. Levinson moved to accept the Emergency Management Committee Ordinance as presented; Mr. Kitchens seconded and the vote was unanimous.

Other Old Business

Mr. Flaherty announced that he was meeting with Frank Stevens of the DOT tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. about moving the sewer line to within the shoulder of the road.

Mayor Cooke thanked him for his update.

Mr. Arakawa: At the last meeting we touched on the idea of proportional millage rollback based on the new assessments by the County. This was also discussed at the GMA meeting in March, is this something that we should be moving forward on at this point?

Mr. Goff: I don’t think so.

NEW BUSINESS

Peachtree Industrial Boulevard Land Acquisition

Results of questionnaire/survey (Mayor Cooke explained the various options)

    Option 1             53 votes

    Option 2             34 votes

    Option 3             13 votes

    Other                    2 votes

    Option 1 & 2        3 votes

A number of people expressed concerns as to the cost that the homeowner’s would incur.

Mayor Cooke asked the Council if they wanted to take action on the results of this survey.

The Council discussed the results of the survey at length. It was agreed that the majority of the citizens responding were in favor of acquiring the additional property. However, since such a small percentage of people responded, it was decided to send out a second, more specific survey to be mailed to everyone on the tax digest.

Mayor Cooke asked each Council member to submit their pros and cons to her regarding this survey by 5 p.m. Friday.

Mayor Cooke asked for a motion to have Dr. Theresa Sipe, citizen, write a Citizen’s Survey, accompanied by a cover letter written by the Mayor, to be sent to every registered voter. It was decided that a "not to exceed" sum of $500 should be paid Dr. Sipe for this survey.

The final survey is to be reviewed by the City Attorney and by the Council

Mr. Arakawa recommended we still include Option 3 because we got such a small response. Mr. Goff recommended using the term "Industrial Site" in the survey.

Mr. Levinson: We need to make it clear that the land that we swap would not be zoned M-1. Mr. Goff: Would prefer to give him C-2 rather than M-1.

Mr. Arakawa made a motion to have Dr. Sipe produce a survey—with the original three questions presented in a more neutral, more detailed manner —to be distributed to all homeowners and all taxpayers (even taxpayers who don’t live in the City) of the City of Berkeley Lake. Mrs. Ruys seconded and the vote was unanimous.

Municipal Garbage Collection Proposal

Mr. Arakawa: I have produced a report from the City’s perspective of going into a contractual agreement with one solid-waste agency. The citizens would get a price reduction and we would have only one service in the City doing damage to our streets instead of four services. I have put together a Contractor’s Specification, which I will pass on to the City Attorney for his review after which we can put this out for bids.

Mr. Goff asked if the Senior Citizens discount was included. Mr. Arakawa replied that it was. Mr. Goff also stated that he estimates that a large part of our road repair is due to the trash trucks and this will save us a lot of money in road maintenance.

Mayor Cooke asked for a motion authorizing Mr. Arakawa to get three (3) official bids'

Mr. Goff made the motion to authorize Mr. Arakawa to get three (3) official bids.

Attorney Carothers: This motion that would be better made at the next meeting after we have had a chance to really review this. There are a number of ways to do this. This will have to be publicly advertised. You have four solid-waste companies in the City now and I think you will have a lot of bids and I think they will be good bids. I don’t feel comfortable trying to run an ad between now and the next Council meeting. The City should move to formally advertise and in addition to this; the City needs an ordinance in place, which will allow us to do this. We need to determine at the next Council meeting how we will bill this to the Citizens. There are two (2) ways. One is to include it in the normal tax bill and the other is to have a special assessment.

Mr. Levinson moved that we postpone this matter until the next City Council meeting. Mrs. Ruys seconded and the vote was unanimous.

Law Enforcement Task Committee - Arakawa

Mr. Arakawa announced that it has come to his attention that there is a growing need for more police protection. The security and protection services that we have at this point have been to stabilize our community; but, we are moving forward with a number of new developments which include a new influxuation of people into our neighborhood—some just curious about our community and some commuting. Currently, we only have three (3) hours a day of paid officers looking after the needs of our citizens.

Just last month, several of us met with the City of Duluth and explored the possibility of our contracting with their Police Department for more full-time services. This would give us a 4-minute response time as opposed to a 45-minute response time, which we currently have. Full-time service would be cost prohibitive at this point so this committee is going to look at what kinds of services we can get with what time parameters and what cost structure would be involved. We also must look at the Uniform Code of Georgia, what kind of radar licensing we have to give on PIB—because you can imagine the kind of revenue we might be able to retain from South Berkeley Lake Road to North Berkeley Lake Road on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

The Council and the Mayor discussed the possibility of switching from using Gwinnett Police to using City of Duluth police and the ramifications of that move as well as the number of mandated services we as a City must provide our citizens.

Mr. Arakawa announced that he had had some difficulty in keeping committee members on this committee. Three citizens in the audience, Bob Flaherty, Britt Collins, and Ken Massaroni volunteered to be on this committee, as well as Mr. Levinson.

Mr. Levinson moved that the City resolve to ask Mr. Arakawa to establish a committee whose purpose is to explore law enforcement alternatives for the City.
Mrs. Ruys seconded and the vote was unanimous.

Mayor-Council Vacations

Mayor Cooke asked that Council members put their vacation schedules on the extra desk calendar in the City Hall. This would be for any vacation of more than three (3) days.

Mayor Cooke asked if there was any more new business.

City Park Ordinance

Mrs. Ruys brought up the City Park Ordinance and asked for an open discussion about whether we want to put up a sign about children under 18 who should be accompanied by an adult.

Much discussion followed. It was decided that we consult with at least three neighboring cities as well as the Gwinnett County Parks and Recreation Commissioner regarding rules and regulations for park usage. Mayor Cooke volunteered to contact Lilburn, Norcross, and Duluth.

Attorney Carothers is to give a more specific answer on limiting park usage at the next meeting.

Emergency Management Committee

Mr. Kitchens: At a meeting held late last week of the Emergency Management Committee, we discussed and possibly agreed to add another Council member to that chain of command, is this the appropriate time to make a resolution to do so?

The discussion that followed included the Sunshine Law, that any new members chosen for this Committee after July 1 must to go to a special training session, the need for a full disaster plan for the City, and compiling lists of companies that do clean-up work after disasters. It was not concluded that we should add a third Council member to the Emergency Management Committee. Mrs. Cooke, who took the minutes of the meeting, promised to produce those minutes as soon as possible.

Billboard Lights, etc.

Mrs. Ruys: I get an awfully lot of calls and I am very concerned with our light problem on PIB. The lights on the billboards and the lights on the buildings are disturbing residents of Berkeley Walk, Berkeley Commons, and at the Lake. I have spoken with Attorney Carothers and there are a lot of First Amendment issues involved. Is there some way we can adopt a Light Pollution Ordinance and then contact the billboard owners and ask them to focus their lights differently? We can put up a barrier to noise pollution.

There was much discussion regarding this issue by the Council. Attorney Carothers agreed to look into the possibility of our establishing a Light Pollution Ordinance.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

Mr. Levinson made a motion for the Council to go into Executive Session for the purpose of discussing personnel matters, land acquisition and potential litigation.
Mrs. Ruys seconded and the vote for approval of the motion was unanimous.

After the Executive Session, the City Council meeting was resumed. No citizens were present.

There being no further business, Mr. Levinson motioned for adjournment, Mrs. Ruys seconded and the vote was unanimous. The next council meeting is scheduled for May 13 at 7:00 p.m.