By: Jacob Kessler
The Delta Village Council held their meeting on Monday, December 6th at 5:30 p.m. The meeting was called to order followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer given by Pastor Dave Underwood.
Council first moved to approve the minutes from the previous meeting that took place on November 15th. With no public wishing to address council or correspondence to be heard, council moved to hear updates from members of the administration.
Village Administrator Peebles informed council that the abatement list that was given to council by the school had been looked over.
A recalculation of the abatement figures was done, in regard to the school districts assigning of taxable values from the county auditor, versus the estimated values that were given during the application process.
“Each one of those numbers that were represented by the school were applications with the estimated cost of construction, which are always vastly different than the actual taxable value assigned by the county auditor,” said Mr. Peebles.
The values that were recalculated show a “significant difference” according to Mr. Peebles between the numbers the school has given regarding application estimates for tax purposes and the actual value.
An invitation was given to council from the school board President to meet with the school board to discuss the CRA program. Mayor Wilton requested that the board accept the invitation and the meeting will take place on Wednesday, December 8th at 3:00 p.m. and will include the Mayor, Councilman Tanner as President of Council, and Councilman Thomas as Chair of the Development Committee.
Mr. Peebles then proceeded to hand out a packet to council and stated “we have, over the past 2 to 3 years begun to experience significant uptick in our water treatment and wastewater treatment capacities.
Our available capacity currently for our plant is .725 million gallons per day. Unfortunately, what is happening is that with the CSO detention basin and the fact that we are now required to treat storm water, our plant is running at or near capacity or above capacity a significant amount of the time. Especially after heavy rain events,” said Mr. Peebles.
It was explained that this was important today because a discharge permit will need to be renewed in 2022. “I am confident, we are confident that this is going to be addressed during that permit process,” said Mr. Peebles.
Council was then informed that quotes are being obtained to have engineering completed for the potential expansion of the sewer plant. It was stated that it is important to get started on this soon due to the Biden Administrations intent to put significant investment into water and sewer treatment throughout the United States.
As a general rule of thumb, before any designs, a plant expansion of around 250,000 gallons per day is around $5 million which would include the construction of an additional SBR tank.
It was then stated to expect legislation within the next 30 days to hire a company to do the study and prepare plans for an expansion. A question was asked if an additional basin could be made instead of an expansion.
Mr. Peebles stated that it could be studied but that with the growth of the community a new expansion will be imminent and needed at some point anyways.
The finance director then asked council to approve the invoices that were presented which passed. A request was then made for council to make a motion to either request a hearing or not request a hearing for the division of liquor license for Speedway.
There was a change in their managing member for the company, so the state is requesting a response for the name change. A motion was made and approved for no hearing in order to allow everything to go through without being delayed.
The Police Chief then informed council that he was notified by Chrysler that they are starting to take orders again for patrol vehicles. They are however eliminating 7 colors and redoing a few things for the process so it will all have to be looked at.
A motion was made and passed to approve the minutes for the finance committee meeting that took place on November 13th.
It was then asked if anyone had thought about the request for a wage increase for the police department. It was decided to have a finance committee meeting before the second regular council meeting in January at 5:00 p.m. to further discuss it.
Council then moved to old business. The Third Reading for Ordinance 21-17 was heard and was in regard to the establishing of salaries and wages for employees of the Village of Delta. A motion was made to approve the ordinance which passed.
In new business, the First Reading with Emergency Provisions for Ordinance 21-20 was heard. The ordinance supplements ordinance 20-30 to make supplemental appropriations for the current expenses of the Village of Delta for the fiscal year ending on December 31st, 2021.
A motion was made to suspend the rules which passed followed by a motion to approve the ordinance which also passed.
Next was the First Reading for Ordinance 21-21 regarding the directing of administration to prepare and file with the Fulton County Board of Elections, ballot language for the general election to be conducted May 3rd, 2022, for the approval of, cultivation, processing, and dispensing of medical marijuana under certain terms and conditions within the Village of Delta. A motion was made to approve the ordinance which passed.
Lastly, the First Reading of Resolution 21-21 was heard. The resolution is in regard to the authorization for the Village Administrator to advertise for bids and enter into contract for the capital improvement projects in 2022.
The mayor then asked for the creation of a committee that will search for a new village administrator. Council members Todd, Tanner, and Thomas were nominated by the mayor.
The next meeting was slated for December 20th, 2021, at 5:30 p.m. A motion to adjourn was then made and approved.
Jacob can be reached at jacob@thevillagereporter.com
