Council Names DDA Members
The Monticello City Council named two members to the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) at its regular meeting Tuesday night.
Dayana Barragan who owns the LaEskina Mexican Restaurant, and Amanda Edge, who owns Edge’ys Ice Cream, both on the Square are the newest members of that board.
Judy Hunsucker, DDA chair, thanked the council for the DDA budget which includes funds for a part-time director. She said they are working on that now.
Chamber of Commerce President Mandi Tanner reported to the Council that the Market is going good with an average of more than 20 vendors per week. She said they try to keep it at least 70 percent produce and 30 percent other vendors. She said last weekend a blueberry vendor had sold 50 pints by 10 a.m.
The council also approved the first reading of a new oath ordinance, which will presumably be adopted next month. The council is planning to meet and adopt the budget next Thursday, June 18.
In addition, the Council planned a Retreat at Mine Lake for Saturday, June 27, at 9 a.m. This retreat will not have a facilitator. Mayor Bryan Standifer said the group needs to get together without a facilitator first, then plan another retreat before too long with a facilitator.
City Manager Tim Young said that representatives of the Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia (MGAG) had visited and explained that there is a worldwide glut of natural gas, there- fore they can be fairly confident gas prices won’t increase for at least eight to 12 months. The biggest use of gas currently, he said, is the production of electricity.
He also said that the handheld meter readers were out-of-date, and would not be serviced, so the city will need to invest nearly $25,000 in the next two years to upgrade software. Mr. Young said the radio on the meter itself is fine for a number of more years, but the handheld readers are obsolete.
He also told council that a Ford F150 belonging to the city was recently been declared surplus, and that he had one quote for a replacement—$34,239 from Courtesy Ford in Covington.
The council questioned why that was included in budget figures. They had a called meeting on the budget before the regular meeting, and have a public hearing on it scheduled for next Thursday. The details are on page 2 of today’s paper.
Towards the end of the regular meeting, the group went into closed session to discuss personnel, and came out taking no action. They did discuss at the end of the meeting whether each council member had copies of resumes that had been submitted for the city manager position that Mr. Young is vacating.
