GRAY CITY COUNCIL
City council members appointed a new department head and finalized its schedule for budget hearings and adoption of the budget and tax rate at their September business meeting.
The Sept. 12 meeting was called to order by Mayor Ed Barbee. The meeting that is usually held on the first Monday of the month had been postponed due to the Labor Day holiday.
All council members were in attendance with the exception of Councilman Benny Gray.
The first agenda item was the presentation of the FY 2023 Budget that includes budgets for the General Fund, Police Confiscation, Hotel/Motel Tax, ARPA Fund and the 2022 millage rate. The proposed tax rate remained at 9.5 mills. The net tax rate includes a Local Option Sales Tax rollback of 4.61 mills or $523,160.
The city’s 2023 budget totals $2,576,250.
A public hearing for the proposed 2023 budget and 2022 mill rate was scheduled Sept. 19 at 6 p.m.
The adoption of the budget and mill rate is scheduled at the next monthly business meeting Oct. 3.
Council members voted unanimously to appoint Interim Main Street Director Ashley Roberson as the city’s Main Street Director. Roberson was appointed interim director March 7 by council at the same meeting the organization became a city department.
Councilmen adopted a resolution to amend the city’s Design Guidelines manual with a small change to the section about buildings and roofs. With the change, metal siding is permitted as long as it does not exceed 20 percent of the structure.
Metal siding was not previously allowed. In a previous committee meeting it was stated the reason for the change is the improvement of metal siding. The vote to amend the guidelines was unanimous.
Council voted to reappoint Joni Miller as the city’s representative on the Jones County Board of Health. Barbee recommended her reappointment and stated that Miller regularly attends the meetings and represents the city well.
The next six agenda items were resolutions pertaining to the Community Home Investment Program (CHIP) grant Gray recently received from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
The resolution authorized Barbee to execute agreements, adopt CHIP eligibility and property value limit requirements, adopt Housing and Urban Development policies, procedures and program design for the CHIP grant.
Each of the resolutions was approved unanimously.
The final agenda item was the reappointment of Gray Downtown Development Authority members Cecil Ethridge, David Tufts, Vicki Ethridge and Bert King to four-year terms. The reappointments were agreed to with a unanimous vote by council members.
At the conclusion of the agenda items, the meeting was adjourned.
The next meeting of the city council is their all committees meeting scheduled Sept. 19.
