GREENE COUNTY
Greensboro city council moved ahead last week on confirming the salary for its new city manager, Jarvis Simms, who took the position at the beginning of the month.
He will be paid $135,000 per year.
Former city manager Larry Postell has been retained though July as a consultant. It is unclear what salary changes, if any, will occur.
The city also voted for a five percent increase in salary for all city employees, not including the new city clerk, Toinia Butler, or Simms.
The city currently employs 63 people, including four council members, a mayor and mayor pro tem. Greensboro’s current population stands at 3,675. The city is actively searching to fill a finance director position that has been advertised. Postell had concurred that the city was in need of this position for some time.
Volunteer firefighters for the city are routinely paid $30 per hour for their work manning fire safety in the city. Resident and long-term firefighter, David Cronic, was appointed as the official fire chief, having served as the interim chief. He requested council help recruit much-needed firefighter volunteers for the city.
According to Cronic, the city averages about 10 fires a year, but volunteers are expected to attend training throughout the year in their volunteer roles.
Adrian Circle in the city has become a hotbed of concern and has been for many years. The parcel of land, located off Martin Luther King Boulevard, experiences flooding consistently with heavy rains, and homes surrounding the area have also suffered sewage leakage. A lawsuit will move forward against the city in August representing eight homes affected by sewage and flooding in the immediate area. The city has failed to act on both corrective and immediate measures for the homeowners for some time.
An independent engineer brought in stated the area is in a federal flood zone but noted that the city is responsible for fixing the problem.
A creek behind the properties is obstructed with debris, including falling trees, concrete culverts and garbage. The council moved ahead on a vote to have Larry Postel, former city manager and now a consultant, to acquire clean-up bids.
Due to the nature of the terrain, most of the cleanup will need to be done by hand and not machinery, as it will not accommodate the area. This could exceed more than a thousand dollars a day in cleanup fees.
Lillie Tripp, an area resident who owns an assisted living property at 1080 Adrian Circle, spoke to her concerns in a prior meeting with the council.
“Over the last 15 years, my property has suffered considerable flooding damage with no accountability or remedy from the city,” Tripp said. “The backyard gets worse, and I have been frustrated that complaints to the city about this ongoing problem go unanswered. I have been told several times that the creek flooding is not the city’s responsibility when, indeed, it is. They need to be proactive by not throwing the responsibility onto someone else.”
Because the city has not been compliant with state-mandated audits as recently reported in the Lake Oconee News, the city may not be able to move ahead on some grant proposals.
A request for a Streetscape grant of $350,000, of which the city would be responsible for $70,000, was not approved.
LON’s requests for further data on money spent from grant funding and the key city projects to have benefited from them remain unanswered, despite a document received that only outlines grants applied for and which ones were funded.
Requests for further information were explained to be “costly” and LON would have to pay on an earlier invoice as well as others that may be presented, according to Cail Hammons, Community Development Director, in a prior meeting held with LON.
These requests are routine by news media and citizens and are typically granted in other communities. The city should be able to provide a full accounting of expenses related to projects and what has been billed out for reimbursement.
Several calls and two emails to Simms have gone unanswered as of press time.