Other action
Also Tuesday night, Cumming’s mayor and council:
• Postponed until next month a bid for construction of a new wastewater pump station on Lanier Beach South Road, off Buford Dam Road. The facility would replace two smaller pump stations and an aging treatment plant currently at the site. Jon Heard, director of the utilities department, requested the postponement due to “engineers still reviewing details of the project.”
• Held a public hearing, at which no one spoke, and approved a resolution adopting community participation and assessment portions of a city comprehensive plan. They will be submitted to the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission. The city must maintain a current plan in order to apply for grants and loans.
• Approved an agreement with Forsyth County for new district election lines, which will consolidate the city’s polling places into one. All voters in the city will now cast ballots at Cumming City Hall.
• Announced a special called meeting with Forsyth County commissioners at 4:30 p.m. today at the County Administration Office. The meeting concerns a possible referendum on extending the 1-cent sales tax.
• Discussed reviving the city’s downtown development authority. Gravitt said the panel has not been active in several years. In light of the economy, however, he felt it would be good to reactivate the group and asked council members to identify possible candidates to serve on it by next month.
• Awarded a bid for $3,600 to The Graphic Edge for printing of the recreation and parks department’s fall and winter brochures.
• Accepted a bid of $6,500 from Southern Flooring for resurfacing of basketball courts at the Dobbs Creek Recreation Center. The maintenance project was originally budgeted for 2010 and then postponed.
• Authorized City Administrator Gerald Blackburn to sign an agreement with Universal Studios for use of Mary Alice Park this week for filming of the movie “American Pie Reunion.” The city will receive $23,000.
-- Crystal Ledford
City leaders on Tuesday night approved monitoring for a stream restoration project at the Cumming Aquatic Center.
The Cumming City Council voted 4-0, with Ralph Perry absent, to award a bid to Register-Nelson Environmental Consultants not to exceed $28,500 over the next five years.
Scott Morgan, the city’s director of planning and zoning, said the Stockbridge-based consultants will send their findings the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
The monitoring is part of the legal settlement between the city and Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper that was reached in February 2010.
The environmental group had sued over violations of state and federal environmental regulations resulting from work at the aquatic center site.
The swimming facility opened to the public last month off Pilgrim Mill Road, not far from Ga. 400 Exit 16.
"This monitoring for five years is part of that agreement," Morgan told the councilmen during their regular monthly meeting.
"It’s just to make sure the restored area is holding up, the plant life is striving and the natural surroundings are being upheld."
Also as part of the settlement with the Riverkeeper group, the city agreed to improve a second stream in Cumming City Park.
Morgan said that project, which will not be included in the environmental monitoring, was completed in late June at a cost of about $103,000.
Both projects involved making the streams look more natural with "drops, ripples and pools" and adding vegetation around them.
As part of the settlement, the city was also required to support environmental programs, comply with a list of conditions from the EPD and pay a $40,000 fine.