Albany city commissioners want closer scrutiny of spending by boards

ALBANY — Interim City Manager Tom Berry told the Albany City Commission during a work session Tuesday morning that any expenditures approved by boards under the city’s oversight will henceforth be brought to the commission for final approval.

Berry made the comment after Commissioners Roger Marietta and Jon Howard expressed concern over recent actions by the Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority, which, among other things, approved purchase of land along Oglethorpe Boulevard for $195,000 that was sold to the Waffle House restaurant chain for a reported $5,000.

“We will bring expenditures to this board (for approval) in every single case,” Berry told the commission.

Mayor Dorothy Hubbard reiterated the commission’s concerns.

“We’re all sharing the concerns expressed by Commissioners Marietta and Howard,” she said. “We have to be more actively involved not only in what ADICA is doing, but in what every board is doing.”

The issue was part of a work session that saw the commission give initial approval to an ordinance, patterned after the one signed recently by Gov. Nathan Deal, that would remove questions about arrest records on initial employee applications. The board also gave non-binding approval to alcohol license applications for Annie Convenient Store at 224 Johnson Road and Krush Lounge & Nightclub at 242 W. Broad Ave., and to a license transfer for the Sunrise Store at 1608 W. Broad Ave.

The board tabled a planned public hearing on efforts to update the city’s tree ordinance, an effort that Planning Director Paul Forgey said has “been in the works since 2009 or so,” and OK’d an amendment to the city’s Fiscal Year 2015 capital improvement fund budget. Interim city Finance Director Derrick Brown said an additional $685,000 is required to fill “a critical need identified by Fleet Management.”

“We had hoped to get through the fiscal year without a budget amendment, but we have emergency needs, primarily with our rolling stock,” Brown said.

And in Southwest Georgia Regional Airport Director Yvette Aehle’s final planned meeting with the board, commissioners agreed to accept the Federal Aviation Administration grant offer of $231,300 that will be used for three projects at the airport: a pavement strength analysis, a wildlife hazard management plan and design work on Runway 422.

Aehle announced at the Albany-Dougherty Aviation Commission’s monthly meeting Monday that she was taking a deputy director’s position at the St. Petersburg/Clearwater (Florida) International Airport.

In items that are to be discussed at future work sessions, Ward III Commissioner B.J. Fletcher asked staff to look into a $1-$3 hotel/motel fee that could bring a “minimum of a half-million dollars to the city each year.” Fletcher said she became aware of such fees while at a recent new commissioner training meeting in Macon.

“We don’t stay in hotel rooms here, so we don’t know about the fees,” Fletcher said. “But they’re charging them all over the state. We worry about where money for the Flint RiverQuarium or the Albany Civil Rights Institute will come from, but here’s a way to help finance them and not spend a penny of taxpayer money. The fee would come entirely from out-of-town visitors.”

Postell said he wanted police to do a better job of cracking down on young people who wear pants that sag too low.

“We have an ordinance in place (to address the issue), but our police are ignoring it,” the Ward VI commissioner said. “It’s these gangs who are flaunting our rules, and the police are letting young boys and girls walk around half-naked. I don’t want to hear that there’s not enough police to enforce the ordinance. If we see it, they have to see it out riding around in their cars.”