Good News in the City

Here are a few good things happening in your city.

First, a follow-up meeting was held with our Georgia DOT District Engineer, Jimmy Smith, and staff concerning traffic on the Monticello Square and Georgia DOT projects. In attendance was our Sheriff Donnie Pope, Jasper County Economic Development Director David Dyer, and City elected and appointed staff. Mr. Smith reported that the Ga. 380 (Monticello truck route) was on schedule with right-of-way acquisition proceeding.

While this project will alleviate a great deal of the truck traffic from the Square, Mr. Smith is committed to trying to find ways to keep our Square from becoming gridlocked. He has gotten approval from the State GDOT office for a traffic solution study to be made on whether the traffic lights help or hurt traffic patterns and what recommendation can be made to improve traffic in the short and long term.

Mr. Smith is very aware of the parking and pedestrian safety issues of our Square. When the plan is completed in three months, a public meeting will be called to discuss if we should proceed with a test period. This will be a local decision.

This administration and council are proceeding with an aggressive Housing Code Enforcement agenda. While I still believe it would have been good government to share enforcement with the county, I am very happy that the council voted to transfer the money we would have paid to the county allowing us to add work days and duties to our City Manager to work with the Magistrate Court on improving the housing in our city. Seventeen property owners have been contacted and action has been started on several properties.

I am very proud of the nine months this council has been together. It is remarkable what has been done in a very short time with three new council members, a new City Manager and a new City Clerk. We have tackled one annual budget with no tax increase, look forward to a clean audit, will adopt a new Personnel Policy, committed to Code Enforcement, and successfully competed for a USDA grant for new work trucks and a new chipper.

On the horizon are decisions on sewer upgrade, the beginning of the Funderburg Park to Westview Park new sidewalk project, additional sidewalk projects, Square parking acquisition, city maintenance facility grant application, new appointments and training for the Historic Preservation Commission and the Downtown Development Authority and the hundreds of things it takes to maintain good government at any level.

Citizens are welcome at our meeting on the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. We try very hard to keep the meetings to one hour and there is a citizen comment period.