Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 2A BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2020 Auburn plans increase to starting salary for police officers Winder council approves 3-percent pay increase for all city employees By Scott Thompson sthompson@barrownewsjournal.com The City of Auburn plans to restruc ture the pay scale within the police de partment and bump the starting salary for officers up by roughly $2,100 in an effort to retain officers and also fill existing va cancies. During a Thursday. Dec. 17 work ses sion, no one on the city council objected to Chief Chris Hodge's recommendation to boost the pay rates for all ranks from sergeant and below and to increase the starting officer salary in the department from $42,999 to $45,184 to help the city be more competitive to surrounding ju risdictions. The council is expected to approve the changes during its next vot ing session, scheduled for Jan. 7. In other recommended changes, the department will eliminate one road of fice position and one support services position that has been vacant since July. Those moves will contribute to saving the city more than $53,000 and represent a 5.8-percent drop in the department’s salary and compensation budget from $1.35 million to $1.3 million, Hodge said. The city also will save money un der another change proposed by Hodge, where the city would be allowed to hire qualified personnel who wouldn't have to undergo Georgia Peace Officer Stan dards and Training (POST) training. Hodge said the department is down three road positions, and that number has been four lately due to an officer being out while recovering from a knee inju ry. The staffing levels reached a critical point, the chief said, to where he had to come off his desk and go out on road pa trol. “Certified officers are increasing ly hard to come by, and (the changes would) bring us to the levels to where we can attract more qualified people, but also retain officers." Hodge said. “We have a really good group. It’s been tough to achieve full staffing. It’s not because people are unhappy; there are just bet ter-paying jobs out there. This will put us in a much better position.” Hodge said since the support services person resigned in July, he has restruc tured the division to compensate for the departure and believes it is functioning well enough to where it isn’t necessary to fill the vacancy. He said all education and training incentives tied to employee pay increases will be suspended until the city reaches a point where they can be reinstated without “causing a financial burden.” OTHER BUSINESS Other items the council is expected to approve at its Jan. 7 meeting include: •an amendment to the city’s zoning ordinance creating a new City Center Planned Community District. The new district runs along with the city-initiat ed rezoning of 57 acres south of Atlanta Highway, where the new municipal com plex will be built and a city center and residential uses will also be developed. The council will also need to hold a pub lic hearing and vote on the rezoning next month and will have to also approve a site plan for the development. The city’s planning commission recommended ap proval of the new district last week. •the selection of Cabot’s Drive to be resurfaced with Fiscal Year 2021 state Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) money from the Geor gia Department of Transportation. The city is projected to receive $80,791 in LMIG money and is required to provide a 30-percent match at $24,237. Cabot’s Drive is a 29-year-old residential street that has never been resurfaced and has continuous “alligator cracks” and crum bling asphalt. Iris Abridge, the city’s public works director, said. •increasing the weekend rental fees at the Perry Rainey Center in order to help pay employees who are called in to clean up after and between events. Some council members suggested implement ing a policy where a deposit would be charged and would be non-refundable in parties leave damage or do not clean up the facility themselves after they’ve used it. •setting the week of qualifying for the Nov. 2. 2021 municipal election to be Aug. 16-20. Councilmen Robert Vogel III and Bill Ackworth are up for re-elec tion, and the qualifying fee for each seat will be $144. All council seats are at- large and not relegated to any zone or district within the city. By Scott Thompson sthompson@barrownewsjournal.com All City of Winder employees will get a 3-percent pay raise starting in January as city leaders looked to signal their support for the staffers during a trying year. During a called meeting Thursday, Dec. 17. the city council unanimously approved councilman Travis Singley’s motion to implement the 3-percent raises across the board and pay all employees a $100 Christmas bonus. “Each one of them has been essen tial this year,” Singley said, adding that the raise should help “boost their confi dence.” City administrator Mandi Cody said the raises would be slotted as cost-of-living adjustments rather than the merit-pay increases the council had previously dis cussed potentially implementing. The raises are projected to cost a little more than $124,500 to implement for the final six months of Fiscal Year 2021. and the bonus payments will come at a cost of $17,440 to the city, Cody said. When the council approved the FY2021 budget in June, it did so with a stipulation that merit-pay increases would be consid- Loeffler and Wamock were the top two vote-get ters in the “jungle primary” special election, which featured more than 20 candidates on the same ballot in November. A runoff election for the public service commis sion seat between Republican incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald and Democratic challenger Daniel Blackman is also on the ballot after the orig inally-scheduled December runoff for that race was postponed by a month to coincide with the Senate elections. According to county elections director Monica Franklin, 6,268 people took advantage of the first week in-person early voting last week in Barrow County. The elections office had also received back 4,295 of the 7,417 absentee ballots that were re quested as of Monday afternoon, Franklin said. A little more than 38,000 people in Barrow voted in the November general election, a turnout of 68.4 percent among registered voters. In-person early voting was continuing this week from 8 am. to 5 p.m at the county elections of- ered halfway through the year, if financial conditions warranted it, given the uncer tainty of the coronavirus pandemic. But despite the economic toll the pandemic has taken, the city has held steady with its revenues, realized savings on initial employee health insurance costs and also got a jolt with $934,000 in federal coro navirus relief money through the CARES Act, which was deposited into the city’s general fund, leaving the city plenty of room to implement raises. While merit-pay raises would not have guaranteed all employees a 3-percent salary bump and the amount would have been based on individual performance, council members agreed they would rath er hold off on those merit-pay evaluations until the next budget year and instead give everyone the 3-percent hike. “Every employee deserves a 3-percent pay raise, period,” councilman Chris Akins said. “I think it’s the right thing to do. I think it’s the way to go. This is a per fect opportunity and perfect time to put this out there.” “It’s good for morale for them to see that we believe in and care about them.” councilwoman Kobi Kilgore added. fice, 233 East Broad St, Winder. The office will be closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as well as New Year’s Day, and there is no weekend voting. The final week of early voting will be Mon- day-Thursday, Dec. 28-31, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Voting on Jan. 5 will be from 7 am to 7 pm at the county’s eight precinct locations. To find your polling location, you can call the elections office at 770-307-3110, go to the county website or go to mvp.sos.gagov. The county is accepting absentee ballot requests through 4 pm Dec. 31, though the Post Office will be closed on New Year’s Day. Forms can be mailed to or turned in in-person at the elections office, emailed to mfranklin@barrow- ga.org or faxed to 770-307-1054. Absentee ballots are due at the elections office by 7 p.m. Jan. 5. All forms and additional information can be found at http://barrowga.org/departments/elec- tions-registration-main.aspx. Voting continLied from 1A Statham continLied from 1A “We want to see if we can get something that is approvable, that is the best product and would be a suc cessful project and a benefit, not a detriment, (to the city's citizens).” In addition to poten tial traffic issues, concerns have been raised by council members and residents over the impact on the city’s in frastructure and the Barrow County School System's two schools in the city (Statham Elementary and Bear Creek Middle). Resi dent Andy Woods said at the Dec. 3 public hearing that the developer should aim for larger homes on larger lots for a “higher-quality” devel opment with higher property values. The city staff's recom mendation was that the de velopment include no more than 175 homes, with a mini mum lot size of 7,500 square feet, and that no more than 25 percent of the homes be less than 1,650 square feet. Councilman Dwight Mc- Cormic cautioned that the developer may not want to “waste a whole bunch of money” on a traffic study if a main concern was the density of the proposed de velopment. “A lot of (the property) is unbuildable,” Porter replied. “The rezone is being re quested to allow for smaller lots, not to cram a bunch of extra houses in.” WALTON DEVELOPMENT PROPERTY In other action at its Dec. 15 meeting, the council ta bled until next month a po tential vote on what to do with more than $300,000 in money for a proposed mixed-use development at State Route 316 and McCa rty Road that was started in 2012 but has yet to come to fruition. The project — which has been backed by a $300,000 federal grant that was ad ministered through the At lanta Regional Commission, along with the city funding and a match by Walton De velopment — was intended to be used for a water lift sta tion. But Walton, the Cana dian-based real estate firm, is no longer seeking to devel op the property and has put it up for sale. Mayor Joe Piper said Walton's principal play ers in the initial project are no longer involved with the company, and the company has switched from being a developer to a “land flipper.” Walton now typically fo cuses on pre-development of raw land by purchasing undeveloped property in high-growth areas, acquir ing appropriate zoning, then eventually selling the prop erty to developers. Walton has continued di vesting itself of numerous real estate holdings in the Atlanta area this year, in cluding a few in neighboring Jackson County. A plan by Walton to have the City of Arcade annex a large tract in south Jack- son County near the Clarke County line was thwarted in 2014 after a public outcry over the idea. Walton want ed to annex the land to get a more favorable zoning for higher density housing than it could have gotten from the county board of commis sioners. Walton was successful in having Arcade annex the large tract known as the old 4-W Farm into the town for a massive master planned community, but the property remains undeveloped. Councilman Gary Ven able has said he would like to see the $313,000 Statham has on hand for the project to be redirected for well de velopment to help relieve the city’s water dependen cy on Barrow County and the City of Winder. Venable and councilwoman Tammy Crawley said self-sufficien cy should be the city’s ul timate aim. Venable noted that the city has spent hun dreds of thousands of dollars in recent years in water pur chases. “There's not much move ment that I can tell (with the project),” Venable said. “... That's a lot of money going to entities other than (the City of Statham). The goal here is to find a clean-water solution that Statham owns and operates. We don't have a plan, as I understand it, to fund that solution. But water revenues are how we fund CITY OF STATHAM, GEORGIA FISCAL YEAR 2021 (FY21) AMENDED BUDGET REVIEW & ADOPTION (JULY 1, 2020 - JUNE 30, 2021) PUBLIC HEARING ON FY 21 AMENDED BUDGET: A Public Hearing to amend the FY 21 budget is scheduled for Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, located at 327 Jefferson Street, Statham, Georgia 30666. At this meeting, the Mayor and Council will receive both written and oral comments about the annual amended budget for the City of Statham, Georgia. BUDGET REVIEW: The Mayor and Council are scheduled to review the amended FY21 budget on Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall. BUDGET ADOPTION: The Mayor and Council of the City of Statham are scheduled to adopt the amended FY21 budget at their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. The meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall. most of our budget. If our infrastructure is crumbling, how long is that sustainable? That’s the issue for me.” Jordan McDaniel, the city’s public works director, has recommended that the project funds be left in place for a lift station and that the city look for other funding to support a water research project. The city can't apply for grant monies to assist with that until it is up to date on its audits. Piper said the city’s au ditor should have a draft of the 2018 audit to submit to the council within the next month and has started work on the 2019 audit. OTHER BUSINESS In other business at the Dec. 15 meeting, the coun cil approved a memoran dum of understanding with Barrow County Emergen cy Services to conduct fire safety inspections within the city. Piper said the city canceled an MOU with the Georgia State Fire Mar shal's Office in 2012 and the county has been performing the services as a courtesy since then. Mike Buffington contrib uted background reporting on the Walton item. Considering ((TM*R) )) buying or selling? 770-867-9026 www.maynardrealty.com VOTE REPUBLICAN ADVANCE VOTING NOW THROUGH DEC. 31 8 A.M. - 5 P.M. 233 E. Broad St., Winder For Absentee Ballots By Mail Call 770-307-3110 U. S. SENATE RUN-OFF ELECTION TUESDAY JANUARY 5 Paid for by the Barrow County Republican Party, Debbie Reid, Chairman, Bob Lanham, Treasurer • www.barrowgop.org