Austell City Council Conducts Private 'Phone Poll' Vote on Use of SPLOST Dollars

Austell's City Hall is looking pretty good these days. It has a working digital LED sign, which tells the correct time and displays meetings and events in a highly visible area, and it has a newly resurfaced parking lot.

At their regular monthly City Council meeting on Monday evening, Austell City Council members voted to approve resurfacing the parking lot of City Hall and Mulberry Street. Only the street and the parking lot had already been resurfaced.

Mayor Joe Jerkins said the city council voted to approve using SPLOST dollars for the project in a "phone poll."

Jerkins explained that it was decided that paving contractors move forward with the resurfacing since they were already in the area.

"We got the OK on it, and it wasn't completely done (before the vote)," Jerkins said.

"I don't know of any law that says we can't do it," he continued.

Under Georgia's Open Meetings law, a "phone poll" vote of this manner is not allowed.

"I know that in this situation, it was part of the LCI project that was ongoing, and they needed to get it in while those contractors were still working on it," said City Attorney Scott Kimbrough, referring to the Atlanta Regional Commission's Livable Centers Initiative streetscape improvement project.

Kimbrough said the city wanted the entire project to be "tied together and done at the same time."

Because the resurfacing project cost $21,432, it was not required to go to bid, Kimbrough explained. Any project that costs at least $100,000 must go to bid, according to state law. Although municipalities can choose to send projects below that amount to bid as well.

"This was not anything that was done in any secretive nature, but based on the project that was ongoing and this needed to be in there, that's why it was done this way."

The City Council also:

• presented a 10-year service award to city employee Antonio Ferguson,
• approved the organization of an Austell Women's Beautification Society,
• approved a new residential recycling program, which awards residents for recycling with coupons, discounts and gift cards to various participating businesses
• and returned the business license to Acapulquito Mexican restaurant and nightclub after a public hearing. Within the last month, the city had received 12 complaints about the restaurant's noise level at night. If the music at the restaurant is measured above the city's approved night decibel level, which was not available at the meeting, then the business would be closed for good.