The Calhoun City Council members along with Mayor Jimmy Palmer met on Monday, Sept. 10.

Mayor Palmer and the council started the meeting by recognized the Calhoun 7-8 Girls All-star team who won the GRPA Class B State Championship. They also recognized the members of Boy Scout Troop 39.

Lamar Norton, Executive Director of Georgia Municipal Association honored Representative John Meadows for his work in the Legislature, and being a friend to Cities.

“Representative Meadows is not only a friend to Calhoun but to all Cities and Counties as well, that being a former Mayor he understands,” Mayor Palmer said.

Mayor Palmer also would like to remind everyone of an annexation and zoning request of R-1B for 0.45 acres at a location of 123 Thomas Street for Patsy Hall. The ZAB will meet on October 4, and the Public Hearing will be on October 8.

Council member Al Edwards gave the monthly reports for the police department, municipal court and probation, fire department, fire inspection and the downtown development authority.

The police department made 598 cases with 11 DUI’s, issued 598 warnings, investigated 47 highway accidents, 24 private property accidents, provided 70 escorts, 1,490 incident reports, responded to 728 alarms, patrolled 47,191 miles and responded to 4,683 calls for service by E-911. The CPD also collected $66,733 fines by Municipal Court.

The Municipal Court and probation had 511 Court cases, $17,592 collected in probation payments, they dropped 85 cases, had 304 Bond forfeitures, 55 probation cases, 6 probation revocations, 74 failures to appear and transported 31 prisoners.

The Fire Department responded to 151 calls for service for the suppression division, 6 fire incidents for damages, they responded to 97 medical service calls, 8 hazardous conditions incidents, 26 false alarms or false calls, eight good intent, zero weather and natural disaster calls and they Assisted with fire drills at: Gordon Central, Ashworth, Calhoun High, Calhoun Middle, Calhoun Primary, and Calhoun Elementary schools.

The training division completed 649 man hours of training. Three members participated in a rope class with members of the police department. The firefighters completed a National Fire Academy accredited class on incident command for structural collapse. The training division also conducted night drills on water survival for all firefighters at the recreation pool.

The Fire Inspection Department had 135 total reported activities/inspections which included 22 annual inspections, zero new business inspections, 29 requested inspections, 17 follow-up or re-inspections and 62 consultations.

The Downtown Development Authority (DDA) office continues to work with the streetscape project, which completion is expected by the end of this month.  Also, they hope to have news of the results of LITHC application (housing tax credits) for the proposed Cherokee Mill Lofts project sometime during October. 

Harvest Fest, a downtown street festival, will be held Saturday, October 27 from 10 am until 4 pm.  All vendors are invited to participate and for more information call 706-602-5570.

Council Member Matt Barton informed the community on the street department, cemetery department, rabies control, parks department, safety committee and recreation.

The street department completed 20 shop and 37 street department work orders, they placed 3 new street signs, inspected and maintained approximately 98 miles of street and storm drainage, repaired utility cuts and several pot holes around town using 81 tons of asphalt. For better access, they poured a set of concrete steps at Chandler Cemetery

The cemetery department performed routine maintenance on Fain and Chandler Cemetery, and they supervised the opening and closing of four gravesites and sold four new grave spaces. They worked four overall gravesites.

Rabies Control housed 18 dogs and nine cats. They issued one warnings, and answered 56 customer calls.

The parks department ground crew picked up litter, hauled garbage to the dump, books from the library and maintained records at the records room. They mowed and weedeated approximately 19 miles of sidewalks, 29 islands and 42 other designated places in the city. The building and maintenance crew performed routine maintenance and designed city buildings and all fountains, and repaired irrigation system downtown.

The safety committee did inspection on the sewer plant. They had zero vehicle accident, and zero workers comp.

The new Concession/Bathroom at the recreation department has been completed. A total of 485 visits were made to the swimming pool during the month. The pool was closed for the season to general public on Sunday, August 26. Adult Swim was offered on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays during the month of August in the evenings. Registration for Football, Cheerleading, Soccer and Adult Softball concluded, and the registration numbers were Football 348 participants 5 – 12 year olds registration up by 89 participants, Cheerleading 63 participants 5 – 12 year olds Registration up by 3 participants, Soccer 276 participants 5 – 12 year olds registration down by 21 participants and Adult Softball 6 Coed Teams registration up by 1 team. The Youth Football Opening day was Saturday, September 8. The Youth Soccer Opening day was Saturday, September 15. The new bike/walking path is scheduled to be paved this week.

Council member George Crowley reported on water, sewer, engineering and building inspection.

The water, sewer and engineering department said the Brittany Drive Expansion Project Construction of the filter structures is complete, and forming of the walls for the pipe gallery is underway. Maintenance crews are approximately 50 percent complete with the upgrades to the Coosawattee intake. The largest portion of the water system flushing program has been complete. The design and permitting is complete, and construction began in late August on the Harris Beamer Water Main.

Water Treatment plant pumped a total of 327,840,000 gallons of water for a daily average of 10,575,484 gallons. The Brittany Drive Treatment Plant produced 42.6 percent of the city’s potable water for the month. They reported the rainfall was 3.98 inches.

The water distribution repaired six water connections, 45 water service leaks and 30 water main leaks. They installed 800 feet of 2 inch pvc water line installed, 2 change out of meters, 71 utility locates called in for work orders, 360 utility locates responded to and 151 miscellaneous calls. They began installing 2 inch pvc line along Thelma Drive and Quinton Drive to replace old 2 inch galv line. They began installing eight inch ductile iron pipe along Highway 156 to Harris Beamer Road.

The Building Inspection Department issued 32 permits for an estimated cost of $411,943. This included zero new residential, three residential remodeling, four commercial remodeling, six residential electrical, two commercial HVAC, one industrial electrical and two sign permits.

Councilman Hammond gave the report on the electric department, telecommunications, geographic information systems (GIS), the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission (NWGRC) and the airport.

The major construction projects for the electric department are Calhoun High School, Streetscape Phase 3, Mohawk Rug and Textile Expansion. Tree trimming has begun in Spring Valley subdivision and will continue through Maplewood over the next few weeks. Work orders in process or completed are, Newly created 79, Completed and closed 48, Consisting of Street and security lighting 12, new business 8, distribution maintenance 6, after hours trouble and callouts 7, City electrical maintenance 9, meter maintenance/replacement 41, New customer meter sets 8 and monthly total system locate tickets processed 286.

The electric system supplied 42,730,046 kwh in August.

The telecommunications departments installed three new internet connections and moved one point-to-point circuit, met with vendors to start process for major billing softwar upgrade, researching new servers to increase application reliability, searching and testing new firewalls for city government and opened 42 and closed 40 work orders.

Geographic Information System (GIS) installed GIS software onto two new field devices. There are now 13 laptops and tablets running GIS in the field. They cleaned up electric connectivity data and provided training Continue to assist the cemetery with web mapping and plot management, updated changes between physical addressing and billing account information, continue to assist Engineering with wastewater inflow/infiltration project, water valve identification tagging and water hydrant and hydrant valve inventory and updated City and GIS websites.

Northwest Georgia Regional Commission is currently looking for a new executive director and a finance director.

The airport is currently doing environmental engineering studies concerning the new runway.

The board approved a resolution authorizing the intent to dispose of certain parcels of property located within the West Calhoun Urban Redevelopment Area.

The board adopted a Hazard Mitigation Plan for Gordon County.

For more information on the City Council meeting please visit www.cityofcalhoun-ga.com.