Minutes of the
REGULAR MEETING
For the
City of Lookout Mountain, Georgia
January 16, 2005


PRESIDING: Thomas G. Gifford, Mayor

PRESENT: Council Members Dennis Eischeid, Ray Seipp, Catherine Kelley, Sandy Gothard, and City Attorney Bill Pickering. Also present were Chief Wallace Taylor, Holly Cowart, and John Tallman.

CALLED TO ORDER: Mayor Gifford called the meeting of the City Council to order at 7:30 p.m. at 1214 Lula Lake Road, Lookout Mountain, Georgia.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:  The minutes of the regular meeting held December 15, 2005 were approved as submitted.

MUNICIPLE PLANNING COMMSISSION: It was moved, seconded, and passed to re-appoint Chairman Earl Carstens, whose term had expired, to the planning commission and to add Chip Corley as a new member to fill a recently created vacancy.

BUILDING PERMITS/PRIVILEGE LICENSE FEES:  After some discussion on the need to increase our building permit fees, a new Ordinance, to amend and restate the schedule of fees charged by the City of Lookout Mountain, Georgia for building permits and other purposes, was passed on first reading.

Mayor Gifford also advised the Council that a purposed general business license applicable to anyone doing business within the City Limits was not allowable under current Georgia law
As explained by City Attorney Bill Pickering.

MAYOR’S REPORT:

Mayor Gifford reported on several somewhat costly repairs during the month to the backhoe and a new engine for one of the police cars.

The Mayor also read a memo from Chief Taylor requesting the replacement of the yellow fire truck due to its unreliability and the unavailability of spare parts for it. This request was backed up by a report from the Walker County Maintenance department advising they could not fix the truck and recommending it be replaced.

The mayor further advised that in the interest of time and as required by ordinance, ads had been placed seeking bids on used or new fire trucks to our specification.  



Minutes of City Council
January 19, 2006
Page 2

After further discussion, Councilmen Eischied made a motion that the Mayor, Chief Taylor, and himself be empowered to accept the lowest and best bid to purchase a fire truck with a limit of $100,000.  Funding to be provided primarily from Splosh revenue. The motion was seconded and passed.

CITY HALL FACE-LIFT:  Mayor Gifford continued this discussion from last month and distributed a plan prepared by Larry Reed for information purposes. He explained Catherine Kelley, with input from all city employees’ involved, was working on this.
Grant money available possibly by June was being pursued, and an interested contractor was calculating preliminary costs.


TOUR DE GEORGIA - The Mayor announced the prestigious Tour de Georgia professional bike race will pass through the City on April 20th.  The event will be the time trial that goes from Chickamauga to Chattanooga passing through our community. This is an exciting event that will take lots of volunteers and create some traffic disruption, but it is an excellent opportunity for exposure for us.  Details were still sketchy but a series of meetings are scheduled to inform all communities of what will be involved.

There being no further business to come before the Council the meeting was there upon adjourned.                                                             

Respectfully submitted,
Tom Gifford
Mayor