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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Letter From Council Person Julie Zahner-Bailey

Dear Friends, Neighbors and Milton Citizens,

I promised to provide you an update tied to the discussion surrounding the "no sewer" policies as discussed at the Mayor and Council Work Session of January 17th. Many of you emailed your opinions as to what you expect the "no sewer" policies to continue to mean for Milton, previously unincorporated Northwest Fulton County. Thank you for ensuring your opinions and expectations are communicated to the Mayor, Council and staff. Your continued input remains important on this critical issue.

The next meeting tied to this topic of Milton's sewer versus no sewer policies has been called for tomorrow night, Wednesday, January 30th at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall. As a bit of background, the item was first placed on the Jan. 17th , 2008 Work Session agenda at the request of staff. It was noted during the meeting that staff wanted to verify with the Mayor and Council what "no sewer" meant to us for purposes of applying those policies to various requests that come before staff. The Work Session was for discussion purposes only and no votes were taken. Staff noted that they understood the no inter basin transfer policies for the Little River Basin, but were focused on trying to verify our intent regarding possible sewer extension within the Big Creek Basin to certain parcels in that basin that did not currently have access to public sewer.

For the record, I made it clear that my understanding historically and currently is that the "no sewer" policies for this area include no extension of sewer beyond where sewer currently exists - regardless of whether the parcel(s) is in the Little River Basin or the Big Creek Basin. The extension of public sewer and the extension of associated trunk lines to any parcels not currently served by such sewer trunk lines would represent sewer extension from my perspective. Others on Council shared this view, but not all.

As noted above, the next step is that a Special Called meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow, Wed., January 30, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. and will be held at City Hall. Please view the agenda by using this link.Tomorrow night's meeting will include additional discussions on this very important topic and staff will provide maps of the areas for which they are asking for additional clarification. This is a public meeting and public comments will be allowed. I encourage you to express your opinions in writing and at the meeting during the public comment period and/or when the item itself is before us. Beyond tomorrow night's meeting, a brief summary of the results of the Mayor and Council Meeting of January 24th can be found to the right.

Please note, Milton has changed our Mayor and Council meeting dates as well as our Work Sessions to Monday nights beginning with the first Monday, i.e. February 4th. These meetings will begin at 6:00 p.m. Scroll down for more details on this topic and use this link to review the Resolution that initiated the change of dates including the attached chart of dates for 2008. On the right are the results of the zoning cases that came before us on January 24th.Please join me in congratulating Council member Tina D'Aversa as our new Mayor Pro-Tem. She was nominated by Mayor Lockwood and received a unanimous showing of support.As always, your input and comments are valuable and I encourage you to share them as we affirm what the no sewer policies mean for Milton and our collective community. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

All my best,

Julie Zahner Bailey
Milton City Council
770-664-5529 (h)
404-310-6344 (c)
Julie4Milton@mindspring.com
Julie4Milton.com

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Julie, we appreciate your hard work, but at sometime you are going to have to realize that you are a "council member" now and not a "community activist". Please do your new job and let others do your old one.

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much, Roger Santi, or Roger Santi wannabe. Sad for you that you lost. The citizens spoke. Evidently they like Julie and what she stands for. Give it a rest!

Anonymous said...

I would welcome others to do Julie's job as previous activist for our community, however, it seems no one can do it like she did (BHA), nor have the passion behind it! The BHA needs to regroup and find a leader of her caliber and passion for this community. Or revamp their mission statement to "selective" support of community concerns.

Anonymous said...

Julie, please respond to the letters and emails you have been sent over the last year about the new Freemanville school site. You ask for our help with community issues. The new school will negatively impact our watershed the very thing you received a "proclamation" for your work for River's Alive. Why are you not taking a stand publicly about this? We, the citizens of Milton and your supporters, deserve an answer. We are not interested in hearing from you anymore that we cannot fight the BOE. It is a poor excuse for not getting involved or at the very least, being considerate to your supporters by a reply to our concerns. Please be a true steward and get engaged in what matters to hundreds of us.

Anonymous said...

wake up already...you can't fight the BOE...find me an example where they've been beaten and I'll be happy to jump on your bandwagon...until then...sucks for you...

Anonymous said...

Don't need people with that outlook on anyone's bandwagon on any issue, anywhere.

The bigger they are the harder they fall. The BOE is not above the law, nor above the State Environmental issues or laws, no one is. The BOE is being paid by the taxpayers in Fulton County, period. They answer to us, bottom line.

Would you lie down and be a doormat for your American Government and let them stick it to you on all issues, if they had never been beaten before? or would you challenge their authority and stand up and do something about it?

Anonymous said...

Maybe JJ can introduce and support legislation to correct this problem....no wait, she is on the education committee. If she can't do it, it can't be done....end of problem.

Anonymous said...

Challenge the BOE all you want...or spend time on things that can be accomplished...it's not like they bought land where homeowners had to be forced out...

Is it a bad location, yes, I'll concede that, but it's too late to do anything about it now

Anonymous said...

JJ, well written, may be the most sensible statement you have written.

Anonymous said...

I guess the Georgia water situation is not important nor the drought?

Let's continue to allow government and entities such as the BOE to be irresponsible and pollute our watersheds because they didn't have to force anyone off their property? Is that what you are inmplying? So that is not worth fighting for and can't be accomplished? I guess our state legislatures should hang up all the hard work they are doing to protect the water in Georgia. Lets keep on polluting the bodies of waters in our watersheds unessarily when other properites not in the watershed are better suited for schools, then complain that we don't have drinking water in our lakes, and you can't take a shower, and you can't water your lawn, and please don't swim in that creek because there is fecal matter in it. Where do you think the water in the lakes comes from? It's all connected and worth fighting for every drop. Go see the State DNR website and look at their mission statement.

Anonymous said...

Haven't you heard this?
QUESTION AUTHORITY (aka BOE)

Ignorant people do not.
Intelligent people DO.
It takes courage.

-(Yeah, you know)

Anonymous said...

To: The intelligent courageous one.

"We killed a bear, but pa shot him"

Have at it, take on BOE, GOOD LUCK.

Anonymous said...

.... and the Bear Skin is on the floor in front of my fireplace.

Love,
Pa

Anonymous said...

Has anyone questioned the people that have moved here, had children, maybe live in "White Columns" and have been responsible for the need of a new school because of their inability to control their primate urge to have sex and populate the neiborhood which neccesitates Fulton County BOE to plan ahead and build schoolds?

Anonymous said...

Like you can control yours??

Sometimes this blog seems like the new TMZ.com and we are watching Britney go down.

Maybe you should add some video, Tim!