Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Americus Mayor and City Council met to set the agenda for January’s meeting on Thursday, 1.13.22. The meeting was the first for Mayor Lee Kinnamon as well as Councilwoman Nicole Smith. The first item of business was to approve a resolution to declare a state of emergency in order to hold the meeting in the virtual format. After doing so, the business was straight forward with most of the items going to the consent agenda.

There were two items which brought forth a significant amount of conversation. The first is the city taking over maintenance on city roads which had been under the care of the county. According to Juanita Wilson and Nelson Brown, this discussion was held perhaps ten years ago with the agreement the city would take over care once the county “brought them up to standard.” The are approximately 11 miles worth of streets which this agreement for affect. In taking over care of the road, it is also inherent the city will be taking on the right-a-ways for the streets. As Chris Wooden and Diadra Powell explain, to take over the streets will demand additional resources and perhaps additional employees. It was established Jimbo Littlefield, the County Public Works Director had contacted the city about 6 months ago with the intention of handing the streets back over to the city. At this time, city staff began an assessment of the situation and put together the information which would be needed for the council to make an informed decision. Towards the end of the conversation, Jimmy Skipper was tasked to see if the city had an option on taking the streets over and further research would be required to see if an intergovernmental agreement had been entered into at one point.

Another item of interest was brought forth in City Manager, Diadra Powell’s report. The city is in desperate need of new vehicles and despite the efforts made to procure them over the year, there is a shortage. However, the City of Albany rids their fleet every five years. Powell wanted permission to procure some the Albany vehicles as a stop gap to meet the demand Americus has. She was asking to be allowed to spend up to $10,000 in these efforts. After much discussion, the item was added to the agenda for the regular meeting.

The regular meeting of the Americus City Council will be held on Thursday, January 20, 2022, at 6pm. The meeting can be viewed using Zoom.com.