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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20060727_TybeeCouncilMinsCouncil Minutes Page 1 of 5 Meeting of 2006-07-27 City Council Minutes Mayor Buelterman called the Consent Agenda meeting to order at 6:30PM on July 27, 2006. Present in addition to the Mayor were Council members Shirley Sessions, Kathryn Williams, Mallory Pearce, Eddie Crone, Wanda Doyle and Paul Wolff. Also present were City Manager Diane Schleicher and City Attorney Bubba Hughes. Mayor Buelterman requested the following items be placed on the Consent Agenda, Budget Adjustment of $15,000 for a Folder Inserter for Finance and Water Billing, Special Events Taste of Tybee and November Fest, One day Alcohol permit for Taste of Tybee, Minutes for July 13, 2006, Ratification of 2nd Reading of the Emergency Procurement Ordinance and Ratification of 2nd Reading of the Emergency Hiring Ordinance. Mr. Hughes said if the addition of the Folder Inserter is to go to monthly billing then we have to change the ordinance. Ms. Schleicher said we do not have enough man power to go to monthly billing at this time. Ms. Schleicher said we have a complaint concerning the lack of Handicapped parking in front of City Hall. She said she asked DOT if there was a possibility of having it done. She said the DOT recommended that we include that request in the design for the TEA Grant to make the sidewalks compliant. As there were no other items to be put on the Consent Agenda the meeting was closed. Mayor Buelterman called the regular meeting of the City Council to order at 7:00PM. Everyone attending the consent agenda was still present. Tiffany Dennis presented the invocation and the Tybee Island Memorial Guard posted the colors. Everyone recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor Buelterman read the proclamation for Tiffany Dennis and proclaimed August 2, 2006 as Tiffany Dennis Day on Tybee Island. He said there will be an event honoring her at the Legion on the 2nd at 7:00PM. Mayor Buelterman presented a proclamation for Sonny Dixon and proclaimed August 15, 2006 as Sonny Dixon Day. Katrina Murray of the Tybee Tourism Council presented a preview of the commercial for Tybee that will be aired in Atlanta next Monday. She said they primarily created the commercial in hopes of filling the shoulder seasons at Tybee. Mr. Harmit Bedi Deputy Executive Director of the Chatham County Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission. He briefed council on the intergovernmental agreement that is part of the comprehensive plan requirement. He said it is the unified comprehensive plan for City of Savannah and the unincorporated areas of Chatham County. He said although the deadline is 2008 they have taken a proactive stance and started the process early. He said part of the comprehensive plan is updating the intergovernmental agreement. In April of 1999 under house bill 489, Tybee Island along with other municipalities of Chatham County signed an agreement with Chatham County called a service delivery strategy. He requested that the agreement be put on the next agenda and asked for Councils approval to update the form. He said they will have two staff level meetings on November 9, 2006 and June 7, 2007 to share information and bring everyone up to speed. CC Minutes 7-27-06.doc Council Minutes Page 2 of 5 Mayor Buelterman said one of the things Council and Staff are trying to do is make City Hall more customer friendly. He said they have decided to extend the hours starting Monday. The new schedule will be 7:30AM until 5:00PM weekdays and they will also open on the last Saturday of the month from 9:00AM until 12:00PM for customer service concerning billing issues. Ms. Schleicher said the Saturday hours are on a trial basis to determine the needs of the customers. She said staff has agreed to flex hours so that budget impacts will not happen and the city can provide the extended service. Ms. Williams requested a press release be made to the public through all media outlets. Ms. Schleicher said they received three proposals from Engineers in response to the RFP for Engineer Consultants for the TEA Grant. She said all three were very good but the evaluation committee chose Hussey Gay Bell & DeYoung to recommend because of their proposal accuracy. She requested to be able to negotiate a contract with that Engineer. Ms. Schleicher introduced a Text Amendment to the sign ordinance. She said in reading the sign ordinance it says you cannot put a sign in any city right of way. She said most people don’ t know that the city’ s right of way can come in 10 or 20 feet on their lawn. She said staff’ s recommendation is to change the text to read 5 feet off of Driving Surface. Ms. Williams asked how that would affect the right of way at street corners. Ms. Schleicher responded that if you come back 5 feet off of the pavement most likely they would be in someone’ s yard. She said their interest is in allowing people to put signs in their own yards but controlling the signs on street corners and along the highway and medians. Mr. Crone asked for the definition of driving surface. Ms. Schleicher said that is something Mr. Hughes will work on. Mr. Hughes recommended that Council send this to the Planning Commission. Mayor Buelterman asked if there could be exceptions for non-profit groups. Mr. Hughes said you don’ t want to prefer one form of speech over another. Mr. Crone said the sign ordinance should be for everyone. Mayor Buelterman opened the meeting for business legally presented and asked for a motion concerning the consent agenda items which were the Budget adjustment for the Folder Inserter for Water Billing, Taste of Tybee Special Event on August 24 at the Pier, November Fest Special Event at Memorial Park on November 11 & 12, One day Alcohol Permit for Taste of Tybee, Minutes from July 13, 2nd Reading of the Ratification of Emergency Procurement Policy. Mr. Pearce motioned to approve the consent agenda items, Mr. Wolff seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Ms. Sessions moved to approve the proclamation for Tiffany Dennis, Mr. Pearce seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Ms. Sessions moved to approve the proclamation for Sonny Dixon, Mr. Wolff seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Ms. Sessions moved to approve Hussey, Gay, Bell & DeYoung as Engineer’ s for the TEA Grant as recommended, Mr. Wolff seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Mayor and Council took a voice vote instead of using ballots to select a replacement Planning Commission member to fill the spot vacated by Rachel Perkins. Mayor Buelterman asked if anyone wished to vote for Charlie Brewer. Kathryn Williams, Eddie Crone and Shirley Sessions voted in favor. Mayor Buelterman asked if anyone wished to vote for Brian Renner, Paul Wolff, Wanda Doyle and Mallory Pearce voted in favor. Mayor Buelterman broke the tie in favor of CC Minutes 7-27-06.doc Charlie Brewer. Ms. Williams expressed appreciation to everyone that submitted resumes for the position and added that there will probably be vacant seats in January. She requested they resubmit their resumes at that time. Council Minutes Page 3 of 5 Mr. Pearce motioned to accept the $5,000 grant awarded to the Tybee Fine Arts Commission by the State. Ms. Williams seconded, Mr. Wolff asked if the 50% match would be in next year’ s budget. Ms. Schleicher said yes. Mayor Buelterman said several months ago council requested an analysis of wage levels for Police Officers. He said they did get information from Pooler, Port Wentworth and Tybee Island. He said the intent of this is to attract and maintain good Police Officers. He said it would take an 11% raise to get them to the level of officers in Bloomingdale. Mr. Crone said they can’ t be rated like the surrounding municipalities because our officers have to go through a lot more conflict because of the crowds of people we have seven months out of the year. Mayor Buelterman said the state gave its highway patrol a 7% raise in the next budget cycle. He said Savannah-Chatham gave their officers a significant raise also. Ms. Williams asked if the Mayor’ s recommendation was to take this up during the next budget cycle. Mayor Buelterman said that is the only way. He said that would make it effective January 1, 2007. Ms. Schleicher said she would ask Major Case if the figures reflected a starting pay or average pay rate. Also she said they would expand the analysis to reflect how much overtime is built in. Ms. Sessions asked that they consult with municipalities that are similar to Tybee and are tourist destinations. Ms. Williams asked if raises for officers have been requested during the budget process and not funded. Ms. Doyle suggested they take a look at Foley Beach South Carolina. She said that is a beach community a lot like Tybee. Mayor Buelterman said he talked with Ms. Schleicher about the phone system at City Hall after having a frustrating experience with it. He said in the report that was given by Ms. Schleicher it showed many more calls coming into city hall than he realized. Ms. Schleicher said in brain storming with staff they came up with a shortened message to get the public to a person faster. Ms. Schleicher said at having almost 500 calls coming in during the day it would be difficult to assign a person to answer them as well as their other duties. She said the calls directed to the operator would go into the work group which accesses 8 phones in city hall. Ms. Schleicher said the longer message will be on at night so the public can leave messages for specific people. Ms. Sessions asked how to get to a point where we have the capability to track a call to make sure they are being returned after a message is left. She said that would be a way to measure our successes. Ms. Williams said as we upgrade our website and switch over to the new format we want to encourage people to use the website for general information. She said 500 calls takes up a lot of staff time and the information may be readily available on the website or they can e-mail questions to staff members. Ms. Schleicher said staff is working on a list of the most frequently asked questions so the answers can be put on channel 7 and our website to utilize the technology we already have in place. Mayor Buelterman said a lot of the streets on the beach side of Butler have been damaged because of the waterline project. He requested an analysis of the money left over in the 98 SPLOST from drainage. Ms. Schleicher said there is about $170,000 left over with about $120,000 worth of drainage projects left to do. She said the way the fund is written is the list of projects has to be completed before the remaining $50,000 is used for anything else. Mr. Wolff CC Minutes 7-27-06.doc said we might want to tie this in with repaving Butler because it takes a lot of money to mobilize equipment and it might not be cost effective to try to do these little side streets. Mr. Anderson said DOT said paving Butler Ave. is about 1 ½ years out. Mr. Crone asked if anyone had contacted Chatham County about repaving the roads because they used to do it. Ms. Sessions asked about the status on the 10th Street drainage problem. Ms. Schleicher said they are looking into a DNR permit for inter dune drainage. She said Mr. Hughes is researching Council Minutes Page 4 of 5 the damage development has had on that street. Ms. Schleicher said a letter is being sent to the surrounding property owners today to notify them of the City’ s intent. Ms. Williams said the Beach Business Committee has adopted The Tybee Island Economic Development Committee as their new name. She said they have adopted a mission statement and are in the process of adopting by laws. She said the business owners were delighted about the millage roll back. Ms. Williams said she has assured council that, as council liaison to the audit committee, she would be in contact with staff. She said she met with Ms. Schleicher and Jan Fox and received clear direction from them as far as their needs and terms for what the Audit Committee can do for them. Mr. Major, Chairman of the Audit Committee, brought it to their attention that the by- laws have more expanded duties than the ordinances. She said Mr. Hughes said if council wants the A.C. to do something not specifically covered by the ordinance, council can make a motion and vote on it. However he recommended the easiest way being to amend the ordinance. Mr. Hughes said the committee is concerned about liability if they should act outside of their bounds and a claim is made. He said this would expand their authorization. Mr. Wolff said they are doing an outstanding job and he would like for them to continue reviewing contracts. Mr. Hughes said it would be better if we can hold down the duplication of effort. Ms. Williams said staff is in the process of establishing a contract calendar for an easy visual of contract expirations. Ms. Williams said she talked to Ms. Schleicher about a newsletter being generated by the city. She said Ms. Schleicher said it could become a huge thing in which a lot of staff time would be devoted to publishing it. She said she would like for us to utilize the new water bill to get information to people. She said it will have the ability to add a 2nd sheet or an envelope. Ms. Sessions suggested that a staff member or the Mayor write a letter keeping people informed about city hall and putting it on the website or in a local paper. Ms. Schleicher said it has to be fresh news or it gets static. Ms. Williams asked that it be sent to all publications and not just one. Mayor Buelterman said he will do a monthly letter. Mr. Hughes said the City had received an Ante Litem Notice from the Renfroe’ s regarding a sewage backup incident that has been turned over to GIRMA. Mr. Hughes said in order to get the time running in which action will have to be taken by them council needs to act on it by denying it and letting the insurance carrier deal with it. Mr. Hughes presented an amendment to the American Tower lease. He said they are asking to add an additional 550 sq ft of ground on the lease to sublease a portion to another provider. He said the city currently receives 10 % of whatever American Tower gets for the sub-lease. Mr. Hughes recommended Council approve the Mayor signing the lease after Mr. Hughes and Ms. Fox come up with an appropriate amount. Mr. Hughes said the additional space would be used for a generator. Mr. Pearce moved to approve the Mayor signing the lease, Mr. Wolff seconded and the vote was unanimous. CC Minutes 7-27-06.doc Mayor Buelterman said that money now goes to green space thanks to Mr. Crone. Mr. Pearce moved to deny the Ante Litem claim, Mr. Wolff seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Ms. Sessions asked to have the action items under the City Managers name on future agenda’ s. Ms. Williams moved to approve the ratification of the Emergency Hiring Ordinance that may have been omitted from the consent motion, Ms. Sessions seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Council Minutes Page 5 of 5 Mr. Wolff moved to go into Executive Session to discuss Litigation, Personnel and Real Estate, Mr. Pearce seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Mr. Pearce moved to end Executive Session and Adjourn, Mr. Wolff seconded, and the vote was unanimous. ______________________________________ Mayor Jason Buelterman ____________________________________ Vivian O. Woods Clerk of Council