Albany City Manager Sharon Subadan approves overtime for grounds maintenance | PHOTO GALLERY

ALBANY — Assistant City Manager Stephen Collier told the Albany City Commission Tuesday morning that employee overtime authorized by City Manager Sharon Subadan should give the city’s Recreation and Parks Department an opportunity to catch up on grounds maintenance that has become an issue of concern in the community.

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The matter came up after Ward III Commissioner B.J. Fletcher said she’d had a number of complaints from constituents about upkeep in the city-maintained Riverside and Oakview cemeteries and the Albany signs located along city gateways.

“I’ve gotten tons of calls from constituents complaining about the cemeteries and the gateway signs,” Fletcher said. “I want to see us get aggressive in addressing this issue. We had a local church that expressed interest in ‘adopting’ one of the signs and maintaining the area around it. I’d like for us to see if there are groups or businesses that would take that over.

“I also want us to get to a point where we do a better job of handling the cemetery maintenance.”

Collier said recent heavy rains had put grounds maintenance crews behind in their grass-cutting cycle.

Keeping grounds maintained “is a challenge this time of year, and with all the rain we’ve had it’s been especially challenging this year,” Collier said. “But Ms. Subadan has authorized after-hours work on the weekend, so we’re hoping this overtime will allow us to catch up.”

Recreation and Parks staff were working on the grounds in the Riverside Cemetery after Tuesday’s commission meeting.

“We cut the cemeteries in a cycle: Riverside 1, 2 and 3 and then Oakview,” Rec Department employee Arthur Royal said. “We’ll sometimes reverse that cycle depending on need, but it’s tough to stay caught up this time of year.”

Like Fletcher, Dougherty County Commissioner Anthony Jones had asked County Administrator Richard Crowdis to look into “the overgrowth of weeds” in front of the east Albany gateway sign at that board’s meeting Monday morning.

At a brief special called meeting that followed Tuesday’s City Commission work meeting, the board OK’d a lump-sum worker’s compensation settlement for a claim filed by Billy Williams. Risk Management officer Veronica Wright said the commission had approved a settlement offer of up to $60,000, but the $65,000 payment was reached through negotiations with Williams.

The commission held a brief executive session to discuss real estate acquisition, presumably concerning property that would be part of downtown redevelopment. Subadan said she couldn’t disclose a matter discussed in executive session.

“I will say that, in general, we are moving forward with our plans for downtown development,” the city manager said. “I made it clear when I came here that that issue is important to me, and I expect to involve this board in the process on an ongoing basis.”