City of Nelson Meeting Announcement

Legal Notice

Monday, January 7th, City of Nelson Workshop at 6:00 p.m. at Nelson City Hall. Regular meeting at 7:00 p.m. to follow. Meeting Agenda Monday January 7, 2013
1. Call to Order
2. Pledge of Allegiance
3. Appoint Mayor Pro-tem
4. Agenda Approval
5 Approval of Minutes from December 3, 2012 & December 20, 2012
6. Invited / Recognized Guest
Welch, Walker & Associates, PCs, CPAs – (Edgar Land)
7. Reports from Committees and Departments
– City Manager Report (Brandy)
– Public Safety (Duane)
8. Old Business:
a) Microphone System: (Edwards)
Purchase a microphone system in the council chambers. Received two quotes for a
Microphone System.
b) Surplus Assets: (Edwards)
1) Review sealed bids. Motion to accept or reject.
2) Motion to have Joey Smith & Jackie Jarrett take scrap metal to scrap yard.
9. New Business:
a) Council Appointments: (yearly)
Brandy Edwards – City Clerk / Manager
Heath Mitchell – Chief of Police
Jeff Rusbridge – City Attorney
Richard Jones – Municipal Judge
Jeff Rusbridge – City Solicitor
Mike Haviland – Zoning Administrator
b) Rental of Backhoe: (Edwards)
Motion to rent a backhoe from Ellijay Tool Rental for $650 for a week. To start kiddie
park project and to clean culvert’s.
c) Motion to adopt rules of decorum: (Cronic) After looking I have found our only rules of decorum that our elected officials and public have to go by is found in our Charter. The rules listed are not specific and lack and depth in meaning. Therefore I propose we adopt new rules as outlined in the packet I have put forth for review
d) Motion to adopt the current park plan as is with no further changes from Nelson to Cherokee County and allocation of $50,000 to the Parks Bond Project . City Manager will be contact person for Nelson as Cherokee works through the park:(Cronic & Portillo) After our work session with Mr. Echols, I believe the Council has come to a final compromise on the City Park. As stated in the work session by Mr. Echols, any further changes to the park by Nelson would include additional costs, and we are already over budget. Therefore, I would like to propose a formal halt to any further changes. We appreciate Mr. Kellett’s efforts on making sure our Park is something we all can be proud of. However, Mrs. Edwards will now be the contact person for any tweaks from Cherokee. She will be responsible to notify the Council in a timely manner on all contact from Cherokee to Nelson.
e ) Motion to clarify duties between our City Manager and Mayor so each will know their role better: (Cronic) I purpose we adopt a strict guideline for the duties between our Mayor and City Manager in regards to the following: 1) Who actually recommends the operating budget and capital improvement budget?
2) Who will create a Capital Improvement plan for approval? According to our Charter the Mayor has the responsibility to create and present an operating budget and capital improvement budget annually. The Charter also states that the Council can delegate any administrative duties of the mayor to the City Manager. According to the City Manager ordinance adopted by the council this past year, our City Manager is to work WITH the Mayor in creating these purposed budgets… However neither document states who is to take the lead, and who is responsible. I feel clarification is needed in this area, as well as others outlined in the document provided.
f) Motion to reject the Local Maintenance & Improvement Grant (LMIG): (Cronic) Because our vote to “postpone” the grant apparently did not work, I would like to officially ask the council to reject the LMIG grant. I do not have any factual evidence that this money is needed at this time; therefore I cannot accept this money without documented reasoning as to why we need it. We currently have approx. $420,000 in SPLOST funds to be used for Roads and Streets, with an additional $720,000 coming in over a 6-year period. The public may inquire as to why we would turn away money to help the city of Nelson. However, they SHOULD inquire as to why we have waited for a $10,000 grant (2% of our funds) when we had over $400,000 already allocated for these projects for years, and why have we not begun work on these projects before now since the money has been there. I feel if we accept this money then we are telling our citizens that we (the government) know better how to spend their money than they do.
g) Motion to have city manager to review employee handbook with all employees and have all employee sign that they understand and will abide by the conditions of the employee handbook annually: (Cronic) I propose that the City Manager annually review the employee handbook with all employees of the city, and require the employees sign off that they are aware of the policies in the handbook and agree to abide by the said policies.

h) November Election: (Edwards)
Motion to hold the election for the Mayor and 2 council members on November 5, 2013,set qualifying dates to Monday, August 26th at 8:30 a.m. and ends Friday, August 30th at 4:30 p.m. and fee to $25 for.

i) Reserve Fund: (Edwards)
Motion to have the bank signers move $30000 from General Fund to a Certificate of
Deposit (CD) to replace reserve funds.

10. Public Appearance
11. Executive Session – Personnel
12. Adjourn

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