Notes From the ACC Agenda Setting Meeting - January 15, 2002

Special called session:
Commission voted to provide $65K for relocation assistance to Garden Springs residents.

TDR Committee:
Doc said he is still looking for more recommendations for the TDR committee… so far he has recommendations from four commissioners, but would like to hear from more to ensure that the committee is not balanced too much in favor of pro-TDR adovocates, such as those recommended by AGGC.

Consent agenda items:
The commission approved 12 items for the consent agenda with no citizen input. Item one engendered a fair bit of discussion among the commissioners: this is intended to clarify the ordinance that says it’s unlawful to ride a bicycle on sidewalks downtown, but legal elsewhere (news to me). States pointed out that it looks like it’s also legal to ride skateboards and to rollerblade on streets. There were other concerns about cycling in other commercial districts. This was removed from the consent agenda and will be on the discussion agenda at the voting meeting next month.

Most other consent agenda items were to accept grants or make purchases.

Discussion agenda items:
Of the discussion agenda items, there are two that are of potential interest to Grow-Greeners and will be on the discussion agenda for the voting meeting. These are the Greenway Network Plan and a portion of the Storm Drainage Improvement Program.

Dick Field spoke in favor of the Greenway Network Plan on behalf of the Greenway Commission. Scottie Atkinson spoke on behalf of the Red Fox Run neighborhood, which is bounded by the North Oconee, Middle Oconee and other potential greenway routes. They oppose any public greenway trails, saying they support a “river-only” greenway, meaning riparian buffers with no public access. There was limited commissioner discussion, but Doc said that the county's position has always been that no greenway will go in unless the neighbors want it.

Area-wide storm drainage improvement: Fifty-seven high-priority problems were identified and ranked; the worst three will be addressed this year. States questioned the ranking and wanted an opportunity for input, given that it didn’t match his experience with complaints he received and problems he observed. John Barrow gave a brief lesson on Utilitarian philosophy and proposed a reordering of priorities. He would rather focus on the problems that cause major impacts on a few people rather than the problems that have a small impact on many people. Anyway, the manager said that any input from the commissioners was welcome and would be used as they finalized the priority list, so if you have interests in this, call your commissioner.

Carl Jordan was absent.

Seth Wenger