Storm water, service delivery on Leesburg Council agenda
Leesburg City Council conducts its last scheduled meeting of the year
By Gypsy Crow
LEESBURG — Surrounded by seasonal decorations, the Leesburg City Council met on Tuesday to discuss city matters including storm water issues, a service delivery strategy and department reports.
Engineering consultant Mike Talley with Waterhouse Engineering delivered a presentation related to storm water issues. Talley works with the city of Leesburg for the MS4 permit required by the state and assists the city with writing the report sent to the Environmental Protection Division for the city’s approval every five years in January. This is the year the permit requires an update.
Talley said that under the direction of City Manager Bob Alexander, the city and Waterhouse Engineering are utilizing the services of another firm, Ecological Planning Solutions of Savannah, which specialized in helping rewrite the permit to match new state requirements.
Leesburg has 90 days to create an updated plan, but officials with the city and Lee County said were not notified. This was because, Talley explained, the EPD has around five reviewers that review the reports and permits, and the one who conducts Leesburg and Lee County’s reviews retired.
Talley added that to receive assistance from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency for a Hazard Mitigation Grant regarding the heavy rainfall received over the weekend, Leesburg would have to provide documentation. Leesburg Police Chief Chris Prokesh said later in the meeting that he had photos of the flood damage. GEMA will provide funds only to projects that show a 1:1 cost benefit, meaning that the cost of the project must be equal to or less than the cost of the problems the project would solve.
Leesburg City Attorney Bert Gregory gave an update on Leesburg’s service delivery strategy shared by the city, Lee County and the city of Smithville. Representatives of the three governments met on Nov. 29 to negotiate the strategy.
“At that meeting, the cities jointly whittled away many of the claims that were being put forth by certain representatives from the county,” Gregory said. “Some of the things they were asking for, quite frankly, they were asking us to fund 10 percent of budgetary areas of, for instance, the tax digest when it statutorily says ‘they shall do so at no cost to the city,’ So we had a lot of things knocked off the table just by sitting face to face and saying this is unacceptable.”
Gregory said that he thinks at one point the proposal started out close to $1 million between the two cities but was brought down significantly in the meeting. He said the county wanted the city to pay for services such as registering people to vote in city elections, but the cities pointed out in that joint meeting that the county already has to determine where a person lives for elections anyway, so it’s no extra cost.
The cities were about to avoid double taxation of their residents through negotiation of the service delivery strategy because of the fact that Leesburg and Smithville residents are residents of Lee County, equal to residents within the unincorporated parts of the county.
Leesburg officials drafted a resolution that was approved at Tuesday’s meeting with an offer to the county, awaiting Smithville’s approval. The resolution states that the service delivery plan will remain as it has been over the last 20 years with the exception of fees that assist running the jail and for code enforcement.
The county can choose to adopt an ordinance that will add an additional 10 percent surcharge to all fines levied in the county collected in all courts to be used to fund the jail and its staff. The fines for code enforcement and animal control will be collected by both Leesburg and Smithville and turned over to the county. Fines for animal control include a $25 fee to shelter each animal.
The service delivery strategy remains under negotiation.
Other orders of business included the approval of a bid of $26,439.32 for a new 2019 Ford F-250 crew cab long wheel base pickup truck from Sunbelt Ford for Public Works.
Leesburg City Manager Bob Alexander announced the resignation of Leesburg City Council Member Debra Long by reading the letter of resignation she presented to him that morning.
Prokesh reported the Leesburg Police Department made 10 arrests and issued 59 citations and 43 warnings. The arrests included three DUIs, two drug-related arrests, one suspended license, three disorderly conduct charges and one speeding incident. The speeding incident involved a youth with a Class D license (the next step above a learner’s permit) driving 103 miles per hour.
The next City Council meeting will be on Jan. 8.
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