Those in attendance for the Council Meeting were as follows:
Mayor: Lois D. Salter
Council Members:
Bernie Cohen, Debbie Guthrie, Delicia Reynolds, George Sipe, and Marcie Zielazienski
City Attorney: Dick Carothers
City Clerk- Jackie Wall

Citizens Present- 6

CALL TO ORDER
Salter called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM at 4043 Berkeley Lake Road.

MINUTES
Cohen motioned to accept the minutes from March 18th, 2004. Guthrie seconded the motion. All were in favor, and the motion passed.

REPORTS
Salter said she had received reports from Doug McClure, the Police liaison and from Charles Sewell, the OEO. She summarized some of the report. She asked if there were any comments. There were none.

MAYOR’S MESSAGE
Salter announced that the City had collected $425 towards the Red Cross “Heroes Campaign” so far.

Salter said that Gail Macrenaris had to resign from the Events committee due to unforeseen family circumstances.

Salter announced that all the Mayor and Council Members had consented to volunteer on Earth Day. She said that there would be teams allocated to clean up around the City. She thanked Carol Seitz and Jackie Wall for their work in getting the day organized in Gail Macrenaris’ absence. Salter said there would be litter collection from 9 am until 11 am, with breakfast beforehand at 8:30 am at the Chapel. There would be large trash collection from 8 am to 1pm. Residents will need to bring proof of their residence in the City to use this service. She said that the City of Berkeley Lake’s Arbor Day will also be the same day, and the Berkeley Lake Conservancy is working on plans for that.

Salter said that the next meeting would be a Public Hearing to hear an appeal from Marvin Stringer, and had been advertised as such.

Salter said she had received a call from Steve Gaultney, who is interested in the development known as the Parsons Property on the intersection of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and North Berkeley Lake Road. He has two banks that are interested, and the possibility of retail and/or office areas too. She said she had referred him to Bob Herb, the Chair of the Planning and Zoning Committee.

OLD BUSINESS
INFRASTRUCTURE REPAIRS- ZIELAZIENSKI
Dalton-Downey Culvert
Zielazienski said the contractor at the Dalton-Downey culvert has completed his work except for installing the guardrails. The pond has filled without rain due to the spring that feeds it. She said that the paving contractor was late due to a delay on another job. She said he should be on site the following day.

Zielazienski gave the Council members a proposal from Greg Harris (Chattahoochee Landscaping) for “grooming” the area. She said it was specifically for the diversion of water, which flows down the hill to the area that has just been repaired. She said there is a need to control the water, and to protect the area before it washes across the new bank. The quote is for $2491.

There were questions as to whether any of the work quoted was required to be completed by the project contractor. None of it was. However the quote for repairs for damage caused by the contractor’s equipment on the Robinson’s property should be the responsibility of the contractor. It was suggested that the contractor’s insurance should pay for any such damage, and not the City. Zielazienski said she would take it up with the contractor.

Cohen motioned to fund the first three items on the quote to correct the drainage in the vicinity of the Downey Pond for the total of $2316. Reynolds seconded the motion and all were in favor. The motion passed.

Zielazienski said that the paving contractor had said that they would lay the base the next day, and hopefully complete the paving next week.

Spillway Replacement Pipe Project
Zielazienski said the Spillway pipe replacement project is well under way. An engineer has visited the site to suggest a solution to a problem they had.

ORDINANCE 3-703-8(M) BERKELEY LAKE CONSERVANCY (BLC) Possible adoption– SIPE
Sipe described the changes in the Ordinance. He said it changed the words “certain decisions” to “recommendations”. He said it was not a change to the authority of the BLC, and that their advice should still be sought from Council should changes need to made, as they were the subject matter experts.

Sipe motioned to adopt the Ordinance 3-703 (m). Cohen seconded the motion. All were in favor. The motion passed.

ORDINANCE 3-204-1 REGULAR MEETINGS- possible adoption REYNOLDS
Reynolds said this formalized that the Council meet the first and third Thursday of each month.

Reynolds motioned to adopt Ordinance 3-204-1. Cohen seconded the motion. All were in favor of the motion. The motion passed.

BULK MAIL PERMIT- SALTER
Salter said she had been asked to put together a procedure whereby the City might share its bulk mail permit with the Home Owners Associations (HOA) and other non-commercial organizations in the City. She said Wall had additional input from the Communications Committee, and asked her to share it.

Wall said she had not accurately represented one of the decisions made by the Committee in her report at the last meeting, and had been asked by committee members to clarify it. She said the Committee fervently believed that taxpayers’ money should not benefit any private organization. She said that none of the members were anti BLHA, and that she was a member herself, but it was a matter of what taxpayers’ money should be spent on.

Wall also said that in preparing the procedure that Salter has described, she had attempted to put together guidelines for use. When looking on the Post office web site, she found that a minimum of 200 pieces of mail needed to be bulk-mailed at the same time. This meant that all the other HOA except for BLHA would be excluded from using it as they are not big enough. She said both BLOSOMS and the Chapel could not afford to bulk mail their mailings either. She said that all the HOA should be able to use such a service or none of them.

Wall said there was also a question as to whether taxpayers’ money should be used to provide a service that the City does not receive any benefit from, and asked for the City attorney’s opinion on this.

Carothers said that the City could have an agreement with the BLHA that the City could publish information in the newsletter in return. However the Bulk Mail permit is still paid for by the City even if they do not use it. He said he would still like to see something in writing that the City was not violating the terms of the permit. He said that if more people were able to use the bulk mail permit, then in the long run postal rates would increase for everyone else.

Salter said it would not cost the City any more to share the bulk mail permit with BLHA.

Carothers said that it was still a benefit to BLHA, which would save them postage. He said any additional use of the bulk mail permit is an additional cost to other postal patrons too.

Salter reiterated that she believed that it does not cost the City anything extra to let BLHA use the permit, however she thought there was a perception that in reality, anyone else other than BLHA would not use the permit. She confirmed that the Communications Committee believed that it should not be used by any private organization, and asked that Council comment on that.

Cohen suggested that Council postpone doing anything until the next meeting. He said he would like to talk to other citizens to see how they feel.

Sipe suggested that Council ask all the HOA’s to see what they think as part of their liaison role.

Salter agreed that they do that and report back at the next meeting.

NEW BUSINESS
STORMWATER ISSUES- COHEN
Cohen said the storm water issues were costing the City a lot of money. He described what has been done so far, and what the County and State representatives that Sipe, Zielazienski and Cohen had met had suggested the City should do. He said the County had completed a survey of the entire basin at their cost. He had given a copy of the survey to each of the Council members. He said there were errors in the Lakeshore Drive part of the report but the County had already looked at them again. He said the County suggested the Mayor meet with the association from the industrial park to discuss the problems they have in their pond system, and see if they are willing to make some corrections and improvements. He said the County would take action if not. If the County did not succeed, the City attorney may need to follow it up.

Cohen described some of the sites in the City. He said Miramont subdivision has ponds it needs to look at, as they have responsibility for maintaining those sites.

Cohen said the two largest ponds in the City have the most problems (numbered 1755 and 1752 on the County report). The County agreed to engineer the sites provided Ragsdale Construction do the engineering, and the City would have to pay for the work. However, he said the work would have to be done this year. They would cost between $50,000 and $60,000 each to fix, and would have a life of about 15-20 yrs. He said the Finance committee still needed time to review how much is being spent, and how it is spent. They were going to contact the Safety committee as well to see what can really be delayed. He said both sites were listed as a 2 in the priority list on the original report commissioned by the City. He said the two sites listed as number 1 on the list would be completed this year (the Dalton-Downey Pond, and the culvert at 184 Lakeshore Drive).

Cohen said it is possible for the City to borrow money from the State grant as a loan up to $10 million paid over 15yrs at 3% interest. He said there is a cost of 2% of the amount that is borrowed, but it can be rolled into the cost of the loan. He described how the loan works. He said it takes 5 months to complete the process. He reiterated that the Finance committee wishes to review the finances first, however the loan is available should the City need it, but it could only be used for Stormwater projects. He said he had already applied for one other grant, and would continue to apply for others if possible. However the City does not qualify for many other grants as they are used to improve the quality of water, and our projects would not do that.

There was discussion about the sites listed on the County report, and Cohen described some of the issues pertaining to the ponds. He said there were other expenses that would be involved, for example rights of way legal expenses, costs of accessing the areas, and landscaping etc.

There was discussion as to which committee would be responsible for deciding which projects needed to be completed. It was decided that it would be the Stormwater Committee, and not the Safety Committee. It was noted that one of the members of the Stormwater Committee, George Kaffezakis, was one of the County engineers involved in compiling the report that the County had paid for. Cohen said all the other sites were listed as a 3, 4 or 5 on the report, and there was no necessity to complete those projects yet. However the Stormwater Committee would be asked to confirm this.

Mayor and Council acknowledged that the County had paid for the engineers to complete the report, and that the City was very grateful for that.

Cohen said that the County should do these things for Cities. He noted that the County charges the same rate of tax for both unincorporated Gwinnett as well as incorporated Gwinnett. Therefore every City taxpayer pays the same amount as the unincorporated areas. The County does not pay to surface the City roads or provide the services that the City provides, so they should be able to do these kinds of things for cities.

Salter said she would talk to Cohen about meeting the group representing the industrial park.

TAKE PRIDE IN GWINNETT RESOLUTION- SALTER
Salter said that ‘Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful’ had asked that the City consider the resolution, and that it coincided well with the Earth Day activities.

Sipe motioned to adopt the Take Pride in Gwinnett Resolution as presented. Zielazienski seconded the motion. All were in favor of the motion. The motion passed.

ARBOR DAY RESOLUTION-SALTER
Salter asked that this resolution be considered although it was not on the agenda. She said the Arbor Day Proclamation is done every year, and this year it would also be in conjunction with Earth Day activities, as she had said in her announcements.

Sipe motioned to adopt the Arbor Day Resolution. Guthrie seconded the motion. All were in favor of the motion. The motion passed.

CITIZEN COMMENTS
Jeff Pahl 888 Lakeshore Drive
Pahl asked if there would be a copy of the County report for review at City Hall. He was assured that this would be the case. A copy of the original McFarland and Dyer report was also at City Hall.

THERE BEING NO MORE BUSINESS, COHEN MOTIONED TO ADJOURN THE MEETING AT 8:08PM. ZIELAZIENSKI SECONDED THE MOTION, AND ALL WERE IN FAVOR. THE MOTION PASSED.

Respectfully submitted

Jackie Wall, City Clerk