More mowing, maintainence needed in Augusta, commissioners say
Tom Corwin @aug_scimed
May 14, 2019 at 5:59 PM May 14, 2019 at 6:37 PM
Augusta Commissioners want to explore having city crews and contractors mow around streets more often and some feel Recreation and Parks needs to do a better job of maintenance.
Augusta commissioners got down to basics – mowing and maintenance – in committee meetings Tuesday, looking for improvements across the city.
Engineering Director Hameed Malik said the right of way along city streets gets mowed four times a year and costs about $2.1 million that is paid for by stormwater fees. But commissioners told him those overgrown areas are a top source of complaints. For instance, "it's terrible" around John C. Calhoun Expressway, Mayor Pro Tem Sean Frantom said. "We spent all of that money on flower beds and it just looks terrible."
That is a Georgia Department of Transportation road, and they have their own schedule for mowing, Malik said. The state has a mowing and litter pickup contractor that does the major work across the 27 counties in this region, said Kyle Collins, the district communications specialist for the state DOT's East Central Georgia Office. Interstates get mowed four times a year and state highways get mowed three times, he said.
It is still a source of complaints to commissioners, Frantom said.
"We're getting blamed because they are not being mowed, but they're GDOT roads," he said.
The city could do it but would have to use its own resources, Malik said.
There is an area around the corner from Commissioner Bobby Williams' house that looks like a "jungle," he said.
"I may not be on commission next year if we don't get it cut," Williams said jokingly.
Commissioner Bill Fennoy also joked that it is one reason he thought the city should explore the idea of using some of its land near downtown to grow medical marijuana, an idea he threw out at one meeting that is still being researched by the Law Department.
"The reason I was trying to grow grass downtown is it is fertile," he said, provoking laughs from his fellow commissioners. "Stuff grows downtown."
The schedule probably isn't adequate for a city in this area, Commissioner Marion Williams said.
"Four times a year in this climate really isn't enough," he said. "We may have to put more resources into this program."
In addition to contractors, the city has two three-man teams and six tractors it uses for mowing, said Tony Williams, the assistant director for maintenance in the Engineering Department. Commissioner Ben Hasan wondered whether the city could use inmate labor to cut the grass more often if it got a van and additional personnel to watch them. He thought that could be done for $100,000 to $200,000, depending on the number of crews.
A more desirable schedule would be six times a year, but adding those additional cycles could run $1.2 million or more, Malik said. That would likely have to be addressed in the 2020 city budget, he said.
Bobby Williams said he is also getting a lot of complaints about the Henry H. Brigham Community Center, from water leaking onto the gym floor to the condition of the gym floor and the lack of hot water.
"We just want the city to try and move forward with some repairs," he said. "If they just can't get it done, maybe we need to put a new building in" the next special purpose local option sales tax package.
Recreation and Parks Director Glenn Parker said many of the big repairs the centers needs – the roof, water heater and gym floor – collectively would be "in the $200,000 range." There is around $145,000 in SPLOST money for the center that has yet to be spent that possibly could be redirected, he said. On the smaller stuff, "some of that can be done internally with staff," Parker said.
That prompted commissioners to ask why it wasn't getting done in some places.
"Can't we get the people on staff to do some of this maintenance?" Commissioner John Clarke asked.
"They do," Parker said. But most centers have only a single person whose job it is to help with maintenance. Recreation and Parks also has a person who does painting, but that person is pretty busy, he said.
The Central Services Department is responsible for maintaining facilities and responding to repair requests, Hasan said. Why not have those maintenance people transferred to Central Services, he wondered.
"The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing," he said. "We need to centralize that."