Minutes Content
MINUTES
CLARKSTON CITY COUNCIL
Friday, October 20, 2006 7:00 P.M.
Officials Presen t: Mayor: Lee Swaney
Council : Wayne Foster, Karen Feltz, Joyce Wade, Hien Nguyen, Pat Davis-Morris, Rosemarie Nelson
City Clerk: Tracy Ashby
City Attorney: absent
The Mayor called the meeting to order at 7:00pm.
Joan Swaney gave the invocation. The Pledge of Allegiance followed.
NEW BUSINESS:
1. Georgia Department of Transportation agreement for Transportation Facility Improvements. Mayor Swaney asked for any questions on the agreement to come forward and Dan Cohen, the consultant for Pond and Company would answer.
Jan Gardner asked how the other items were added to the agenda as what was voted on at the previous council meeting was to discuss the moratorium. The City Clerk read from the Open Meetings Act stating verbal notice must be given to the legal organ a minimum of 24 hours prior to a meeting being held. The City Clerk explained that the Mayor had added the other items to the agenda and that the notice was verbally given to the Champion Paper on October 17 and the agenda has been posted on the City Hall front door. The notice for the moratorium was the only item that must be published and the ad ran on October 5.
Jan Gardner asked what the GDOT agreement was and the Mayor asked Dan Cohen to address the question. Mr. Cohen stated that several years ago Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was able to get a 4 million dollar earmark as part of the Transportation Bill to fund sidewalk and pedestrian improvements and streetscape projects within the City of Clarkston. The program requires a 20% match and the Federal government has taken back some of the funding so it is actually 3.6 million dollars. This agreement represents a local government projects agreement and when the City signs this you get assigned a P.I. number you can begin to access those dollars. He said that in the previous year budget one hundred thousand dollars had been set aside for a match and that only when the agreement is signed by the City and signed by GDOT and returned to the City can that money be expended. He stated that his company had been working with the City on the Parking lot project. Rosemarie Nelson asked if the churches did not agree to the parking lot project could the funds be used for another project. Mr. Cohen stated there will be several other projects in addition to the parking Lot project and that it is the Cities money to be used as they chose. It was clarified that once this agreement is signed it will encompass any further projects for the Transportation funding. There was further discussion on other proposed projects. Karen Feltz stressed the importance of starting on projects with the one hundred thousand dollars previously set aside to begin accessing eight hundred thousand dollars in projects. Joyce Wade asked Mr. Cohen to explain why the initial four million dollar grant had been reduced. Mr. Cohen explained that the federal government had started capturing funds from unused projects or from federal earmarks to cover their budget shortfalls and that it was nothing the City had done. There was further discussion on the status of the parking lot project. Joyce Wade made a motion to approve signing the GDOT agreement. Pat Davis-Morris seconded and the motion passed (6-0).
2. Public Hearing to discuss a Moratorium on all zoning change applications. Karen Feltz asked if Mr. Cohen could discuss the completion dates for the zoning ordinance and the importance for having the moratorium. Mr. Cohen stated he has been meeting with the Committees for the Zoning Ordinance and a work session is scheduled for December 7 on the proposed new ordinance and the regulations contained therein. He anticipated there would be many questions from that meeting. Mr. Cohen said you must have a first read and a second read for the ordinance and if any substantive changes are made in the first read you must go back to the first read again and this could take several months. Mr. Cohen anticipates a first read in spring. He said that since part of the funding for writing the zoning ordinance is coming from ARC they are contractually obligated to be completed with the technical portion of their duties by the end of this calendar year. Mayor Swaney asked Mr. Cohen’s opinion for how long to have the moratorium. Mr. Cohen felt 120 to 150 days would be necessary due to his prior experiences with writing zoning ordinances and the time frame to resolve all questions. Jan Gardner asked if these meetings would be public. Mr. Cohen stated there was a workshop scheduled for December 7 and there may be a need for another meeting depending on the outcome of that meeting. If the December 7th meeting went well and there was no request for another meeting, he anticipated going to a first read in January. Then depending on the outcome of the first read you could go to a second read in February or schedule more meetings. Each round there must be a public hearing and the public will be notified in the paper of record, which is the Champion. Ms. Gardner asked if the moratorium had to be on for all that time and Mr. Cohen stated yes, it is a good idea. There was discussion on the completion timeframe of the ordinance and that the ordinance could be adopted early with the bulk completed and some minor changes could be adopted later to enable applications to be processed. Mr. Cohen asked if there are many projects that the City feels are being held up by the moratorium being in place. Karen Feltz said no, that many developers she had spoken with would prefer to wait until the zoning ordinance is complete. Mr. Hailegoris said that he encouraged a longer timeframe for the moratorium so smaller businesses could plan rather than having shorter moratorium and extending it and then businesses couldn’t plan when a project could be started.
There were no further questions or comments for the public hearing and the public hearing was closed.
Karen Feltz made a motion to have a moratorium for zoning in the City of Clarkston until the end of April 2007. Wayne Foster seconded. Joyce Wade asked to add to the motion that the City also does a moratorium on any building and development permits for the same length of time. Karen Feltz seconded. Discussion was held on the motion proposed by Joyce Wade. Joyce Wade withdrew her motion after concern was expressed of how this would impact current development in the City. Karen Feltz restated her motion to have a zoning moratorium until the end of April 2007. Wayne Foster seconded and the motion passed (6-0).
3. Discussion on the permitted access to the park by dogs. Mayor Swaney stated he is opposed to dogs being in the playground area and the ball fields. Wayne Foster stated he would like to see a clear concise ordinance on dogs in the park. He did not feel dogs should be banned from all parts of the park, but felt the City should come up with an ordinance that allows people to walk their dog through the park from the other side of Norman road to walk to Forty Oaks. He felt the ordinance should state no dogs allowed on the athletic fields or in the footprint of the actual playground structures or areas or in the pavilions. Jan Gardner suggested a path be designated for dogs to walk through the park. After further discussion the Mayor asked the City Clerk to ask Mr. Rhodes to draft an ordinance to specify allowed locations for dogs in the park and that a trail be designated and marked.
4. Paper ballots. Mayor Swaney opened the forum for public comments on returning to paper ballots. Emanuel Ransom said that he wanted to remind the Council that the State is going to change their machines. He said it was fun to count paper ballots but that it would cost a lot of money to return to them and he suggested that the Council stick with what they have as the State is getting ready to spend 30 million dollars to upgrade the machines. Mayor Swaney said when they had paper ballots that it had always been a problem to have enough people to manage the polls. Jan Gardner talked about the advance voting where you used a paper ballot. She suggested if anyone wanted to use a paper ballot to use the advance voting option. Chris Busing expressed his concerns of potential corruption with the electronic machines and didn’t feel now was the time to trust the State. He felt the issue could be a national one and that despite further cost for going to paper ballots that maybe it was the right thing to do and he didn’t trust the State. Jan Gardner said many other groups such as AARP are discussing the issue and she suggested it be tabled until the outcome is resolved. Joyce Wade pointed out that it was too late to change anything for this year’s election. Wayne Foster made the comment that when everyone was using the paper ballots, and not just Clarkston, that a lot of people were complaining on how easy it was to corrupt the system with those paper ballots and how horrible that was to have paper ballots and now we’ve switched and everyone wants to go back. He said he didn’t think in the elections here for the City Council and Mayor he didn’t think that we’re going to have any top scientists seeking in the middle of the night, switching out computer chips in the voting machine and rigging the elections. He felt it’s working quite well and he hadn’t’ heard any elections that were turned around by the courts because great fraud and tampering was found. He did cite that the City of Chicago did elect a Mayor several times where there were dead people filling out paper ballots years ago. He stated there have been proven cases of horrendous fraud and abuse with paper ballots over the years and that electronic machines were new and maybe there would be a case in the future. He stated he was a proponent of switching to the machines with the problems of counting the votes and getting people to come count the votes. Joyce Wade made a motion to leave the election voting as it currently is. Wayne Foster seconded and the motion passed (6-0).
Karen Feltz made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Wayne Foster seconded and the motion passed (6-0).
The meeting adjourned at 8:02pm.