A power struggle inside Winder’s city government may come to a head this week, when the mayor and city council at two meetings square off over hot-button issues involving millions of dollars in public funds and some last-minute political maneuvering.
On the agendas of Monday’s 5:30 p.m. work session and Tuesday’s 6 p.m. voting session are two big-ticket items:
• a new $256,500 engineering contract to keep alive a controversial $4.9 million federal loan application and public works project that the council three weeks ago appeared ready to halt.
• and a new storm water ordinance with a rate schedule that would cost city property owners $380,904 in 2011 and twice that annually by 2015.
MAYOR DELIVERS ONE-TWO PUNCH
Mayor Chip Thompson on Friday ratcheted up the pre-meeting tension by delivering the council a political one-two punch.
Winder mayor and council to face off this week
Sunday, August 1. 2010
First, he added to the meeting agendas a newly drafted – and unexpected – contract with the city’s longtime engineering contractor, Keck & Wood Inc.
The new agreement would replace a 2004 contract the council three weeks ago refused to amend for additional work on the controversial loan and public works project.
The council members were unaware of the new contract until it arrived in meeting packets that were delivered to their homes Friday morning.
Councilman Bob Dixon, on his way out of town Friday afternoon, told the Barrow Journal from his car that he had brought the packet with him on the trip but had not had time yet to look at it.
Asked if he knew anything about the new Keck & Wood contract, Dixon said bluntly: “I don’t know anything about it. But I do know that I am 100-percent against it.”
Councilman Sonny Morris, who as mayor pro tem has been meeting weekly with Thompson to improve communications, said Saturday that not once during their one-on-one meetings did the mayor mention a new agreement was in the works.
“It has not been mentioned that he was working on a new contract with Keck and Wood,” Morris said. “It has not.
“As a matter of fact, I was up there as late as last Wednesday and had not heard anything. Keck & Wood’s name wasn’t even mentioned in my conversation with him.”
In addition, Morris said, he learned about Friday’s press release only after receiving a call from a local resident Saturday afternoon.
“I had thought communication was improving,” Morris said. “But evidently it’s not,” he said.
MAYOR DEFENDS ACTIONS
Whether the mayor has helped or hurt his new project’s chances at this week’s meetings isn’t clear.
In an interview Friday, he downplayed the significance of the new contract with Keck & Wood.
He said it was drafted only to provide the council an opportunity to vote on a full contract, rather than only on an amendment like the one rejected July 13.
However, the mayor did not disclose during the interview that he had issued, or was about to issue, the press release to publicly pressure the council prior to the vote.
A copy of the press release obtained late Friday afternoon provides a defense of the loan application, the public works project, and a series of recent tours that Thompson arranged in a way that bypassed the public-notice requirements the Georgia Open Meetings Act.
A July 21 editorial in the Barrow Journal sharply criticized him for asking council members to tour existing city facilities two by two so the media would not have to be invited to come along.
However, the press release argues that elected officials may tour public buildings at any time without the media present “as long as no decision affecting the facility is made during these inspections.”
The document makes it plain, on the other hand, that the purpose of the tours was to show the councilmen “what could be accomplished with a new public works facility.”
Noting that existing public works facilities are “unsightly and overcrowded” and in need of “serious repair,” the press release states loans to local governments are “inevitable.”
The document then makes the case that even with a new $4.9 million federal loan requiring monthly payments of more than $20,000 over 40 years, the city would be paying less each month on debt than it now does because of the retirement of earlier debts.
“The math speaks for itself,” the press release states. “By the end of 2013, the City would still save $87,312 per month over what it is currently paying on outstanding loans.”
The press release also notes that once existing public works offices on May Street are vacated, the city property could be cleared and sold to offset the borrowed federal funds.
COUNCIL REACTS
Dixon, the newest but most outspoken council critic of how business is conducted at city hall, said Saturday after learning about the press release that the mayor is out of touch with current economic reality.
He said instead of finding new ways to spend the cash freed up by retiring other debts, the city should be building its reserves to get the municipal government through the remaining years of the recession.
“The fact is we should not take on a project like that,” Dixon said. “We don’t know how bad this recession is going to be. They have been mentioning numbers like we haven’t had since the 1940s.”
Dixon called the mayor’s push for a major new city complex “off base” and said Thompson needs to think about the local residents and businesses that are footing the bills of the city government.
“He’s out of touch,” Dixon said.
Dixon said most of the facilities he toured a couple of weeks ago at the mayor’s request are in “C+” condition.
The only one in very poor shape is the Facilities Maintenance Department building behind city hall, and it is obvious by the condition of the badly leaking roof that city officials have chosen to let it deteriorate, Dixon said.
He said the roof either could be repaired to enable the department to continue using the space until the recession is over, or the city could use $190,000 currently in the budget to construct a very basic facility at the proposed public works site off Miles Patrick Road just for that department and to provide storage space for the Winder Police Department.
As for the mayor’s plan to sell existing city property along May Street to offset the expense of the $4.9 million loan, Dixon said the demolition and clearing would be expensive, and there is no telling, in the current market, when a qualified buyer would step forward with a decent offer.
“Most experts feel it could be 10 years before the real estate market comes back, and it will probably never be what it was in ’04 and ’05,” Dixon said. “That property we have out there is a lame duck for a long time.”
Councilman David Maynard said this weekend that the price of existing industrial space also is expected to drop 50 percent over the next two years, and the city should consider buying some of that space to accommodate the natural gas, water and other public works departments.
Morris said the city already owns a warehouse property downtown that could be renovated for new office space. He said the renovation of the entire first floor of that building was discussed not long ago.
OTHER ISSUES
An agenda item that the council did receive advance notice about is a proposed storm water ordinance that would establish an annual fee on all property with “impervious” surfaces such as buildings and driveways that block the ground and cause runoff.
There are at least two possible fee structures under consideration. Both would apply to all properties regardless of tax status and would generate hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the city’s stormwater management program.
Also to be discussed at Monday’s meeting is the salary for the new city administrator who soon will fill the vacancy created by the death of Bob Beck.
Dixon said in early June that he wanted the council to set the administrator’s salary, but the mayor has held off action and now says the council will not get an opportunity to vote.
The mayor said it is his position that the council in the June budget action determined the FY2011 appropriation for the city administrator’s office, and now he has the sole authority to determine the position's pay scale.
One other agenda item of potentially major public interest is a vote on whether to have the city’s TV crew begin videotaping council meetings to provide broader public access to city business and to create a permanent record of council actions.
All of the in-depth discussions of the issues will take place at Monday’s work session, and most votes will occur during Tuesday night’s business meeting.
Both agendas include opportunities for “citizen input” on the agenda items.
The meetings will be held at the Winder Community Center, 113 E. Athens St.
The new agreement would replace a 2004 contract the council three weeks ago refused to amend for additional work on the controversial loan and public works project.
The council members were unaware of the new contract until it arrived in meeting packets that were delivered to their homes Friday morning.
Councilman Bob Dixon, on his way out of town Friday afternoon, told the Barrow Journal from his car that he had brought the packet with him on the trip but had not had time yet to look at it.
Asked if he knew anything about the new Keck & Wood contract, Dixon said bluntly: “I don’t know anything about it. But I do know that I am 100-percent against it.”
Councilman Sonny Morris, who as mayor pro tem has been meeting weekly with Thompson to improve communications, said Saturday that not once during their one-on-one meetings did the mayor mention a new agreement was in the works.
“It has not been mentioned that he was working on a new contract with Keck and Wood,” Morris said. “It has not.
“As a matter of fact, I was up there as late as last Wednesday and had not heard anything. Keck & Wood’s name wasn’t even mentioned in my conversation with him.”
In addition, Morris said, he learned about Friday’s press release only after receiving a call from a local resident Saturday afternoon.
“I had thought communication was improving,” Morris said. “But evidently it’s not,” he said.
MAYOR DEFENDS ACTIONS
Whether the mayor has helped or hurt his new project’s chances at this week’s meetings isn’t clear.
In an interview Friday, he downplayed the significance of the new contract with Keck & Wood.
He said it was drafted only to provide the council an opportunity to vote on a full contract, rather than only on an amendment like the one rejected July 13.
However, the mayor did not disclose during the interview that he had issued, or was about to issue, the press release to publicly pressure the council prior to the vote.
A copy of the press release obtained late Friday afternoon provides a defense of the loan application, the public works project, and a series of recent tours that Thompson arranged in a way that bypassed the public-notice requirements the Georgia Open Meetings Act.
A July 21 editorial in the Barrow Journal sharply criticized him for asking council members to tour existing city facilities two by two so the media would not have to be invited to come along.
However, the press release argues that elected officials may tour public buildings at any time without the media present “as long as no decision affecting the facility is made during these inspections.”
The document makes it plain, on the other hand, that the purpose of the tours was to show the councilmen “what could be accomplished with a new public works facility.”
Noting that existing public works facilities are “unsightly and overcrowded” and in need of “serious repair,” the press release states loans to local governments are “inevitable.”
The document then makes the case that even with a new $4.9 million federal loan requiring monthly payments of more than $20,000 over 40 years, the city would be paying less each month on debt than it now does because of the retirement of earlier debts.
“The math speaks for itself,” the press release states. “By the end of 2013, the City would still save $87,312 per month over what it is currently paying on outstanding loans.”
The press release also notes that once existing public works offices on May Street are vacated, the city property could be cleared and sold to offset the borrowed federal funds.
COUNCIL REACTS
Dixon, the newest but most outspoken council critic of how business is conducted at city hall, said Saturday after learning about the press release that the mayor is out of touch with current economic reality.
He said instead of finding new ways to spend the cash freed up by retiring other debts, the city should be building its reserves to get the municipal government through the remaining years of the recession.
“The fact is we should not take on a project like that,” Dixon said. “We don’t know how bad this recession is going to be. They have been mentioning numbers like we haven’t had since the 1940s.”
Dixon called the mayor’s push for a major new city complex “off base” and said Thompson needs to think about the local residents and businesses that are footing the bills of the city government.
“He’s out of touch,” Dixon said.
Dixon said most of the facilities he toured a couple of weeks ago at the mayor’s request are in “C+” condition.
The only one in very poor shape is the Facilities Maintenance Department building behind city hall, and it is obvious by the condition of the badly leaking roof that city officials have chosen to let it deteriorate, Dixon said.
He said the roof either could be repaired to enable the department to continue using the space until the recession is over, or the city could use $190,000 currently in the budget to construct a very basic facility at the proposed public works site off Miles Patrick Road just for that department and to provide storage space for the Winder Police Department.
As for the mayor’s plan to sell existing city property along May Street to offset the expense of the $4.9 million loan, Dixon said the demolition and clearing would be expensive, and there is no telling, in the current market, when a qualified buyer would step forward with a decent offer.
“Most experts feel it could be 10 years before the real estate market comes back, and it will probably never be what it was in ’04 and ’05,” Dixon said. “That property we have out there is a lame duck for a long time.”
Councilman David Maynard said this weekend that the price of existing industrial space also is expected to drop 50 percent over the next two years, and the city should consider buying some of that space to accommodate the natural gas, water and other public works departments.
Morris said the city already owns a warehouse property downtown that could be renovated for new office space. He said the renovation of the entire first floor of that building was discussed not long ago.
OTHER ISSUES
An agenda item that the council did receive advance notice about is a proposed storm water ordinance that would establish an annual fee on all property with “impervious” surfaces such as buildings and driveways that block the ground and cause runoff.
There are at least two possible fee structures under consideration. Both would apply to all properties regardless of tax status and would generate hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the city’s stormwater management program.
Also to be discussed at Monday’s meeting is the salary for the new city administrator who soon will fill the vacancy created by the death of Bob Beck.
Dixon said in early June that he wanted the council to set the administrator’s salary, but the mayor has held off action and now says the council will not get an opportunity to vote.
The mayor said it is his position that the council in the June budget action determined the FY2011 appropriation for the city administrator’s office, and now he has the sole authority to determine the position's pay scale.
One other agenda item of potentially major public interest is a vote on whether to have the city’s TV crew begin videotaping council meetings to provide broader public access to city business and to create a permanent record of council actions.
All of the in-depth discussions of the issues will take place at Monday’s work session, and most votes will occur during Tuesday night’s business meeting.
Both agendas include opportunities for “citizen input” on the agenda items.
The meetings will be held at the Winder Community Center, 113 E. Athens St.
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10 years. You are a grand stander that wants
your name in the paper. I have talked to many
people in the community and they all say the same,
you dont repersent us. So the next time you claim to
repersent all the citizens of Winder you need to
take subtract about 15 people, because you are an
embarrassment. I believe in having open government, and healthy debates but you are disrespectful and make the entire City of Winder look like idiots every time you open your mouth.
You can't argue with that.
The truth and underlying issue is this...we are broke and have no money! Winder and Barrow county.
QUIT SPENDING! We don't need a new multi- million dollar facility.
Dixon is exactly what we needed in this council to offset the mayor's excessive and extravagant plans! Go Bob Go!
Beyond that, the previous City Administrator Mr. Beck did multiple things to help the City and its reserves to prepare itself for financial times such as these. Mayor Outz would never spend a dime even when businessmen like Chris Maddox offered to put up more than required to help repair the image of downtown.
Mayor Outz allowed all of the facilities to deteriorate to the point that in a situation like this the City would probably spend more money trying to repair buildings that have been un-maintained for so long. Instead, they have an opportunity to get a low interest loan with a 40 yr payback period to help make these improvements that are needed and once the new facility is established the current land can be sold. Plus, nobody is saying that construction will begin tomorrow!