Minutes

ADRIAN MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEETING

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2020, 2020 AT 6:00PM

ADRIAN ANNEX, NORA BLVD., ADRIAN, GA. 31002 

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER:  Called meeting to order at 6:00pm.

II. INVOCATION AND PLEDGE: All in attendance

III. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA: CM Yawn- Makes a motion to adopt the agenda. CM Brown- Seconds. All voted. Motion Passed.

IV. SPEAKERS:

1. Judy Garman- Election. Judy Garman-This is directed to Stephanie please. Stephanie why didn’t you notify the candidates that qualified that they had qualified? I know this is your first time but I was reluctant to order any signs due to I did not have a formal recognition that I had qualified. Clerk Jean- Well I thought they were all notified, that is what I thought. But it took a long time to make sure the checks cleared and everything else cleared. Judy Garman- Now on Julie Griffin. I had a resident outside the county step on my toes, because I did not know she was running. Because last month she resigned from that position, and then that day she apparently re-qualified. Clerk Jean-You don’t have to re-qualify because she never signed the affidavit. Which means until you sign that it doesn’t matter who she said it in front of, which she never signed, and she informed me she would be running because her test come back ok. Judy Garman- I feel like I had just lied to all the people that I had told that Zelda was not opposed. Clerk Jean-Well everybody knew that until she signed the affidavit, because I listened to the last meeting. Judy Garman- As candidates how do we know the affidavit had been signed? Shouldn’t we have been notified? Clerk Jean-Mayor did you notify the person who needed to know? Mayor- Zelda was the only one when I found out for sure about 4 weeks ago. Judy Garman- So nobody was notified? Clerk Jean- She was in the running regardless of whether anybody was notified or not. Judy Garman- How could you know that it has been a month. Clerk Jean- Because she had not signed an affidavit that is how I knew it. Judy Garman- But the other candidates didn’t know that. Clerk Jean- But she was already in the race and you all knew that. Judy Garman- But she resigned. Clerk Jean- Just because she says it. You need to look up on the laws, because until you sign an affidavit you are in the running for candidacy. Judy Garman- But as City Clerk shouldn’t you be obligated to tell us? Clerk Jean- Something you already know? No I do not I don’t feel like I am obligated to do that. Judy Garman-End of discussion. Clerk Jean- Yes mam.

V. OLD BUSINESS:

1. PART-TIME CLERK- MAYOR- Everyone has seen how the sicknesses there absences and different things going on with the clerical department and I wanted to bring it back up again that we need to put the word out there say we are taking applications for a part-time clerical so that when the clerical department is out sick we got somebody we can call to come up there and keep the city running. Keep it going. I mean we see how several times this year we basically had to shut it down, because we didn’t have anybody to keep it going. So that is my main thing for bringing it up again. Being up there and seeing everything shuts down when the clerical staff is not there. Yes, someone can walk in and give me a check for water bill and a few things like that , but looking up to see how much someone’s water bill is I don’t have access to the software. Someone calls and wants to know how much a citation is I don’t have that information so there are certain things that we need to have in place in order to keep the city going. So I wanted to bring it up again, because the last 2 times it was not voted on maybe it was postponed a couple of times or whatever the reason may have been, we need to readdress it, because like I said when you out sick you can’t help it you are sick. But we need to get a part-time person in here and trained so that they can keep the city going if and when if it were to happen again in the future. So I want to put this out there again, and I want the council to let me know what you think about it and see how we can proceed with it. CM Love- So are you talking part-time or PRN? Mayor- At first part-time to be trained and then go to PRN as needed. CM Yawn- My thing is if the virus goes around again we will be paying 3 instead of 2 so my suggestion is to wait. I know we have some critical times, but everybody has. The whole world has. So in my opinion we need to put that off. Mayor- Not necessarily every year, because we have a policy that says that we only pay up to 80 hours annually, lifetime, or whatever, so I don’t see where another time in that year that we would end up paying that many people. Plus we talking about a PRN person. You know they not going to get the same benefits as a regular clerical person. Theirs will be made that is salary based. CM Love- I thought that we postponed that until we found out the legalities of it. Mayor- We voted to adopt it with corrections. CM Love- Did you find out the legalities or it? Mayor-The legalities of it what I found out, Stephanie and I, you know she has been out sick like that too, but anyway what I found out was talking to GMA and talking to the Department of labor it is basically up to the city to determine. But they give you a set of rules and guidelines to go by. You determine what you want to do for your city. That you adopt or whatever. CM Yawn- My thing is if you are out with the corona like this last time when we was all out, I think there is nothing to do but to pay your people. There are too many legalities and too many lawsuits, and I would rather have my employees happy. We got a good staff, and we need to keep it that way right now. Mayor- I mean we got a policy that we adopted. Why did we adopt it if we gonna keep it that way? You got to have rules and regulations. Like it was stated at the last meeting or the one before that is that you get to a point in time where you keep paying paying paying you not gonna have that much to pay. So we got to have some guidelines, rules, and some guidelines. CM Brown- So I was told I couldn’t pass this COVID for just 90 days. What I don’t understand is that covers somebody for 80 hours at the end of 90 days it comes back and we talking about city workers anyway. CM Yawn- My vote is my employees need to get paid. Stephanie was able to get us some money. More than we paid out so I think in return secure them in a job that there doing. CM Hutchinson- Well my concern is that when everybody is sick the City Hall is not open. Nobody there to take the bills. We gonna have to have some back up. CM Yawn- I have checked on that also, and a lot of cities were allowed to work from home. They transferred calls to their cell phones. They got a laptop and were doing work from home.  And yall didn’t allow or you all didn’t want them to do that, but I am not going to sit up here and argue with yall. Mayor- I am not going to argue either, but I don’t think when someone is sick you need to ask them to work from home. If they are able to work they need to be at the office. CM Yawn- It’s different sitting at home sick and sitting at home quarantined. When they are sitting at home quarantined it don’t do one bit of hurt for them to be working. We can have phones transferred, give them a laptop, and there is no reason the work shouldn’t be done. They can drop money off at the drop box or pay online.  I mean there are ways to do it.  CM Sumner- I don’t know of any other cities that are closed. Most of them have staff that if they get sick and have COVID, then they go home and quarantined, then they go to the doctor, they quarantine, and they do their time, and they come on back to work and the other personnel continue to work. I don’t know of any other that shut down completely because of this. Mayor- Well when they start saying essential workers, then essential workers are the ones that keep the city going. So then that kinda got separated out somewhere or another. As far as who is an essential worker and who is not, but I am asking the council to make a decision. CM Love- Do we even have the funding to do this?  Mayor- Stephanie hasn’t had a chance to do the budget yet. CM Yawn- On the part-time help, I make a motion that we postpone hiring anybody part-time. Mayor-Repeats motion and ask for a second. CM Brown- Seconds.  Mayor- Calls for a vote. CM Yawn, CM Brown, and CM Love voted to postpone. CM Hutchinson and CM Sumner voted against to postpone hiring part-time help. Motion passed.

2. Elections- The people that Stephanie has been able to get trained are Sue Parrish, Lacy Mincey, Stephanie Jean, Gail Strickland, Kaylah Parrish, and Felicia Owen. That is the people that is the people that will be helping with early voting and the election November 3. And remember that early voting is from 8:30-5 Monday-Friday for the next 3 weeks. The regular election is November 3rd and it will be from 7:00 in the morning until 7:00 that afternoon. On that day at 7:00 Stephanie will announce that voting is over and the poles are closed and we’ll all come in and get ready to go over the ballots. Mr. Nick Alfonso has gracefully agreed to call out the ballots. We have 2 official pole people that will be tallying up the votes. We are going to set up the table and maybe have Nick in the middle. On one end we will have Ms. Debbie Meadows, and at the other end we will have Ms. Vickie Renfroe. Clerk Jean- There will be 3 of us tallying up.  Mayor- The next thing I want to talk about with the election is it’s a shame with a city as small as Adrian that we have resorted to all kinds of bashing and foolishness when it comes to this election. And the people that are doing it. Now I don’t read what is on the computers people call me and tell me but I don’t respond to it.  I really don’t want to hear it because I really don’t care. What it amounts to is it is a whole bunch of bashing  and a whole bunch of lies. And a whole bunch of unnecessary things that shouldn’t take place. These are the people were are electing to do the right things for the citizens and also the City of Adrian. That is what we need to focus on. Who is the right person for these positions?  Like I said they want to call names and that is just a bunch of stuff, but you know the part that really gets me is the lying. If you want to tell the truth on someone tell the truth all day long and all night long, but stop the lying. Yesterday I had a cousin to call me and she told me that she had been told that I had been holding on to a grant and would not sign it. When we put in an application that is the only thing I do for a grant. If we get it or don’t get it. It goes in to the account and we use it for what is supposed to be used for. (Mayor continues on about this subject for some time). CM Love- I have something to say. Mayor- Go ahead. CM Love- I am really upset about something, however when I say it I’m done. My neighbor came to my house last night, because 3 candidates had come to her door and she felt intimidated. The neighbor asked the candidates about the speed bumps and 1 of them stated on 3 different occasions that it was Michelle’s fault they were not yet in service. It is my fault. It is my fault because you have to have signs when you put speed bumps up. My husband’s company donated $600 worth of speed bumps. It’s my fault because I got COVID, and the signs came in when he was not at work to get them when they came in. CM Love went on several minutes concerning this matter. Mayor- I had it down on here to talk about the speed bumps I just have not got to it yet. And that is the only thing I said was I know the only thing we are waiting on is the signs. At the last meeting we talked about it. So why wasn’t that clarified? CM Sumner- States she never said anything to the neighbor that was negative in any way. CM Hutchinson- We not there 5mins. Mayor- Ok let’s move on. If you have anything to say you can say it when it is your turn to speak.

3. Trunk or Treat- Nothing has been decided. We need to make a decision tonight. CM Hutchinson- I think we should go ahead and do something for the kids. CM Yawn- Expressed that the city did not need to sponsor the event, but the citizens could do what they felt the need to do. CM Love- Offered up having a shoot to give the kids candy for social distancing purposes.  Citizen Ginger Green-Misunderstood that the council did not want to “cancel” Halloween, but just want to make sure they were following all guidelines. Discussions got heated between the Council members and the citizen. Mayor- So what are you all proposing that we do? CM Yawn- I think we should do old fashioned Trick or Treating, but just not block the road off to have it. Mayor-So basically what it amounts to whoever wants to pull out here and trunk or treat can or whoever wants the kids to come to their house can? Is that what you are saying? CM Love- No one is trying to cancel Halloween we are just trying to keep it safe. Mayor- Let’s move on then.

4. Signs- Mayor- I know how people having been riding by seeing our signs all bent up so Snoop and Stephanie have been reordering a lot of the signs, because some of the look so bad. So they are in the process of replacing signs that is what they are doing.

VI. NEW BUSINESS:

1. LMIG- Mayor- The LMIG grant was approved and the total was $11,551.29.  That included the city’s 10% matching included. Mayor goes on to discuss the plan which included paving all the way to Hwy. 80.

2. Mil Rate- Mayor- Everyone has a copy of the Mil Rate. CM Yawn- I am going to make a motion that the mil rate stays at 11.000. I am not running for election but some of them are and I don’t want them to have to vote to raise taxes. CM Hutchinson- Well I wouldn’t have voted for an increase anyway. CM Yawn- We will be losing a little money. Mayor- Not much though. .25% is all. Is there anymore discussion on this? Can I get a second? CM Love- Seconds. All voted. Motion passed.

3. BANK RECONCILIATIONS: Mayor- On the bank reconciliations, last month Stephanie told yall they bank owed us $134.70 and they put it back it to the General Account. 

VII. REPORTS:

DEPARTMENT HEADS:

1. FIRE DEPARTMENT- CHIEF JESSE YAWN- The Fire Department has slowed down on calls. The city truck did pass inspection this year. The truck did get fixed. The county truck passed inspection as well.

2. STREET/WATER DEPARTMENT: CM YAWN- We had a few drains over the weekend squirting water.  It was actually an underground water pipe stopped up. I think Johnny and them got that done. Mayor- Yeah they did. CM Yawn- They have been working on these roads. Stephanie called the guy from the state and they sent out their work crew, a bunch of prisoners. They worked from the red light on Hwy 15 going all the way to the curve. Mayor- Their initial call was “there is a leak down from the Methodist Church”. So I said ok I will send the guys down there, and they went down there and said “it’s not a leak, but a whole bunch of other stuff”. So I called Stephanie and said that is on 15 so call your buddy, and come down there and do something about it. So he got the prisoners down there and it looks real real good.

3. POLICE DEPARTMENT: CHIEF KYLE STRICKLAND- We have had several calls in the month of September. 23 to be exact. A total of 22,235 worth of citations. The handheld messed up on me Friday, and actually keyed up by itself Saturday. And locked up Johnson County’s channel for about 10 minutes. Mr. Kevin called me back and said the only thing that would work is the Bluetooth. Chief Strickland explained this to the council for some time. The cost to replace the 2 inside of both cars, for service calls, programming, and everything they had to do would run around $1200. He does not have the stuff now and he would have to order it. CM Sumner- Did he give you a price? Chief Strickland- Yes mam, $1200, and that should cover both docking stations, the new handhelds, everything he needs. Chief Strickland goes on to tell everyone about the Back the Blue in November. CM Yawn- I would like to go ahead and make a motion that we go ahead and get them radios. Mayor repeats motion and ask for a second. CM Sumner seconds. All voted. Motion passed.

4. SAFETY DEPARTMENT- FELICIA OWEN- Mayor- Felicia is not here so she probably doesn’t have anything. Clerk Jean- No she doesn’t.

5. RECREATION DEPARTMENT- CM LOVE- Mayor- Anything new on that Michelle? CM Love- No other than getting the storage unit for ball cleaned out. Getting organized and hopefully getting some activities going on.  CM Hutchinson- At the next council meeting I would like to discuss the Christmas parade. CM Hutchinson goes on to talk about the previous year’s Christmas parade.

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VIII. COUNCIL MEMBERS:

1. ED BROWN- Mayor- Ed what you got? CM Brown- Well Church Street is still Church Street. One day I will get to pat someone on the back and tell them good job. CM Yawn- What was Shannon trying to get over there. Mayor- We have plenty plenty plenty of crush and run. We are probably going to have to do something with these water pipes. Mayor- We need to get some better measurements on that road about how wide it needs to be. CM Yawn-There is a 50 ft. right-of-way. Mayor- You said there would not be a problem with us taking as much as we need to right? CM Brown- Yeah not that I know of. CM Yawn- And we need to get that dig permit. Mayor- Yeah we need to go over there and however wide you tell us we can make it that is how wide we gonna make it. We need some measurements to make it as wide as possible like it is supposed to be and the plaque. You know whatever they have there at the county. You know we need to make sure. We want to make it nice, big, and wide like it is supposed to be.

2. JESSE YAWN- Nothing.

3. MICHELLE LOVE- Nothing.

4. SUZANNE HUTCHINSON- Nothing.

5. ZELDA SUMNER- Um…it keeps being brought to my attention about city hall about employees being late, employees not working, um employees still getting paid for 40 hours. I don’t know what to tell the citizens that asking me. I don’t have an answer. I pulled time cards for the whole year and you can look at the time cards. You can see they come in late. They work like they want to. They get paid 40 hours regardless of how many hours they worked. I looked back on the time cards, and if I am not mistaken, I looked in the handbook, and employees get 40 hours a year in sick leave, and both of them have went over those 40 hours. Um…. One of them has been late 40+ times. You can look at time cards and they have been asked time and time again to clock in and not write in, so that you will have an accurate count of time and if you will look on the time sheets you will see it is continuously written in. There is also a problem that they are not clocking in and out for lunch. And when she doesn’t clock in and out for lunch she is paying herself for that 30 minutes she is taking a lunch. Which is wrong. If you take that 30 minute lunch you are supposed to be docked 30 minutes and if you don’t that is actually stealing time from the city. Um, I I have just kinda reached a point where I don’t know what to tell the citizens when they ask me. They complain that every time they ride by city hall she is outside smoking, and if they come back by 30 minutes later she is back outside. And I told them I would bring it up and the council meeting  tonight and see what council was willing to do or wanted to do about it. CM Brown- Who’s that doing it? CM Sumner- I have several citizens asking about all this, and I didn’t want to accuse nobody or nothing wrongly so I pulled time cards so I could look at them and I saw Felicia was late 3 times. I mean anybody can be late. And it looks like she has paid 49 hours for sick um Stephanie has 128 hours of COVID, and that is where she wrote COVID on her time card so you know that is what she got paid for, but she also has another 160 hours where nothing is clocked in or out that 40 is just written on there. I don’t know what that’s for. I don’t know if she was sick. I don’t know if she was out for COVID. It just has 40 wrote on there and that is all. She has been paid 47 hours sick pay. Um what bothers me as much as anything when you are getting paid for lunch and shouldn’t. And um it’s illegal and it’s wrong. CM Brown- You are looking at me, but you are directing that to Stephanie Right? CM Sumner- I’m looking around at the council. I’m looking at yall because I am bringing this to yall’s attention. CM Yawn- I want to talk to Stephanie personally and see what the deal was, and what the time was. She was the time keeper and the clerk, and if she has been overpaying herself we will deal with it. CM Sumner- I um what makes it really easy to do things that you shouldn’t do, down at the bottom of the time cards there is a place for the employees to sign and there is an approved by down here, and I personally think that all time cards should be reviewed and signed off on by the mayor. CM Yawn- I do think it needs to be looked it to, I just don’t want to do anything now with everything we have going on, but as soon as possible. CM Sumner- All I know is the 5 citizens that talked to me, I told them I would bring it to the council’s attention tonight and I would get copies and give to you. Um…Clerk Jean- So they got copies of my time cards too?  All 5 citizens had copies of my time cards? CM Sumner- No. Clerk Jean- Ok. CM Sumner- But I done what I said I would do. I said I would bring it before the council, and make yall aware of what’s going on. And a comment was said that Stephanie’s always saying she ain’t never got time to do her job, but if she would stay inside city hall and do her job instead of being outside smoking every 15 to 20 minutes she would have time to do her job. Um… the handbook personal handbook says she gets 1 15 minute break between the time she comes in and lunch, and 1 15 minute break from lunch until the time she goes home. And I know she takes more than that, and if her job was getting done it wouldn’t be a problem. CM YAWN- Well I think she has done her job and more. All the stuff she does and the grants. She got us over $20,000 on just this COVID pay. CM Sumner- I understand all that Jesse. CM Yawn- But people don’t know what she is doing behind the scenes. They don’t know the hours she has spent that she is talking to people. Even though she is standing out there she has still got the phone, and I am just saying some citizens don’t know what goes on in that office, but I think if we talk to her she will explain most of this stuff. CM Hutchinson- Well I think she should sit down and talk to all of us and not just you. Clerk Jean- I don’t have a problem with that. CM Hutchinson- Ok. CM Yawn- She don’t have a problem sitting down talking. Clerk Jean- Not at all. CM Yawn- If I have questions I always ask and I say “Stephanie, make sure your time is correct if you don’t you will owe the city and she can tell you I have told her that. CM Sumner- And all this time she has been out there has been only 1 doctor’s excuse. Clerk Jean- There are several doctor excuses in my file. CM Sumner- Ok well I asked the mayor. Mayor-I just have this one. Clerk Jean- And I have more than one because I sent it to Felicia. CM Sumner- And there was several weeks off, and when you are out like that, you know you are supposed to have a doctor’s excuse when you are out 3 days or more. And if you will check your email you will find a message from Wynola concerning COVID. And that email is from Artiffany with GMA if you get COVID pay, you have to have a doctor’s papers saying that you have to quarantine. You can’t just say “Joe Blow came in here with COVID now I got to quarantine 2 weeks” and get paid. According to what Artiffany with GMA you have to say “ok I have been exposed” , and you go to the doctor and he has to tell me I have to stay home. You have to have that doctor’s excuse to get paid. Mayor-And it has to state it is COVID related. CM Sumner- I am saying if you have been exposed, and you go to the doctor, and the doctor says, even if you get tested you don’t, which most of the time you will have to get tested. If you go to the doctor and he says go home and quarantine for 2 weeks and he gives you the paper saying “you got to go home and quarantine for 2 weeks then you are entitled to COVID pay, but if somebody just came in and says I got COVID and you decide I am going home and staying for 2 weeks to quarantine just because they said it and see if I come down with it, you are not entitled to COVID pay. And I don’t think that we had doctor notes and I don’t think it has been done correctly, um to get some of this COVID pay. Citizen Julie Griffin-Commented. CM Sumner- If you go to the doctor, and the doctor allows you to go back to work, then you need to get on back. CM Love- Commented regarding being quarantined because of 1 person being affected by COVID in a group and the whole group under quarantined. Several people speaking at one time. CM Sumner- The CDC or the Health Department or whoever it is that kept calling all of us when we were sick, when they call you and you test positive they ask you who all you been around, when I told them that she had been around me then they called the school, and told her she couldn’t come back for such and such time. So she didn’t actually have a doctor’s note, but they had called and said “this child has quarantined and can’t come back to work”, and that could be the same situation up here. If one of our employees couldn’t come, but the CDC called and told the Mayor that we had an employee that can’t come back, then I am good with that. I’m good with that. Citizen Julie Griffin- I am sorry you all were sick, but when this happened, did the CDC contact the rest of the council? Mayor- Yes you have to give the names to the Department of Public Health, and they called to verify everyday. CM Yawn- Talked about how another council member, Ed Brown, had to quarantine for a whole month.  CM Brown- I asked the doctor if I need an excuse to go back to work, and they said “well if you do, we will give you one, but if not go on to work”. Several people talking at one time. CM Love- Commented concerning her child. Chief Kyle Strickland- I have a question, I’m sorry can I ask? Mayor-Sure. Chief Kyle Strickland- I am not asking this as the Police Chief by on means, and this is not directed towards anybody what so ever. You know I talk to Snoopy and Wardale sometimes, but Snoopy mentioned that Wardale tested positive or whatever and that he was sent home for 2 weeks. Am I right or wrong? Mayor-Um huh. Chief Kyle Strickland- And he was not paid for that. So how is it the same, now like  I say  I don’t know, I just feel like I heard that. Mayor- I think what happened and I really don’t like to, cause I would even tell um, Suzanne you know with an employee, and she sent me something say she tested whatever, I asked her permission before I shared it with everybody, and I am saying that to say this, it is the same thing with Snoopy and Wardale,  however they gave me permission to share that information that is why I am going to talk about it. Ok Wardale was out the first time he was exposed. I think he stayed home. Ok. If he didn’t get his 80 hours then he got his 80 hours. Chief Kyle Strickland- I am saying that Snoopy said when Wardale tested positive, he was sent home, and he was only paid for the hours that he worked. Is what it seemed like I was told. So if he was sent home because he was exposed to Wardale, then wouldn’t that be where he deserved to get paid? Mayor- Absolutely, Absolutely. And we need to go back over that why, you don’t have but a handful of employees but everybody needs to be treated the same. That my whole thing. That’s why I try to get policies and that because we all got to be treated the same. Chief Kyle Strickland- I really don’t know just something come up about COVID, and stated Snoopy didn’t care but when I went home I didn’t get .paid. Mayor- He should have because he was exposed. Chief Kyle Strickland- I feel like he deserves it. CM Summer- Yes he should have. Mayor- My whole thing about it is you know if it ended up happening to everybody in the office as far as we know. And when it came out that , you know Wardale might have tested positive, and maybe I didn’t understand how close in proximity that he was to employees, employees or whatever, and It got blown all out of proportion, ok see now when the shoes on the other foot. It can happen to any of us is what I am trying to say. And she goes on about this for some time. Chief Kyle Strickland- I know he would not say anything , but I feel like he deserves it. Mayor- He most certainly does. CM Sumner- I have the time cards here and that can certainly be checked. CM Yawn- Mayor I think you went around to everybody but yourself. I am not going to talk about anything else tonight.  

1. MAYOR- I am not going to talk about anything else tonight.

VIX. ADJOURNMENT: CM Yawn- Made a motion to adjourn. CM Love- Seconds. All in favor. Meeting adjourned at 7:16pm.