---
date: 2007-06-28
title: June 28, 2007 Minutes
source: 2007-06/2007-06-28_June 28, 2007_Minutes.pdf
pages: 1
---

June 28, 2007

CITY OF STOCKBRIDGE MINUTES
HENRY COUNTY, GEORGIA JUNE 28, 2007

A Special Meeting of the Stockbridge City Council was held on June 28, 2007 at 5:00 P. M. Mayor R. G.
Kelley presided and members present were Harold Cochran, Fred Evans, W. A. Gardner, Steve Moon and
Leila Turner.

Harold Cochran made a motion to convene; Fred Evans seconded, and passed unanimously.

Steve Moon gave the invocation.

Mayor Kelley welcomed guests.

NEW BUSINESS

NOVEMBER 6, 2007 ELECTION – Mayor Kelley asked Janet Shellnut, Henry County Chief Registrar, to
give the Council an update on the November 6, 2007 election.

Janet Shellnut stated that she has checked with the Attorney General and Secretary of State that when you
vote on anything in a municipal election it needs to be held within a municipal precinct. Some of the county
precincts are outside the municipalities. They even looked at trying to bring the county precincts in but the
voters would still have to go two places or else you would have 30,000 people trying to vote out of City Hall.
That’s how many people you have totally in the county precincts. They are back to having to separate the
election because it could hurt the City Council or hurt the SPLOST. The Registrars are going to work with
each city on the way they want to do it.

Mrs. Shellnut stated that Hampton is the only City that came out O.K. They have not annexed much and
they are still in one circle and their City is within the municipality. They are the only City that will be on the
ballot.
Locust Grove has decided to go with paper ballots. They are under 3,000 registered voters and that should
work fine for them.

During their early voting the County will install a County satellite voting booth so during early voting they can
also vote for the SPLOST and not go to two places on Election Day. During early voting, Voter Registration
will calculate and mark the votes each day. On Election Day the equipment is not connected in any way.
The voting machines will be set for the City Election in one area and SPLOST in another area of the room.
The voting precinct at City Hall will be for City residents only.

Stockbridge has three (3) choices.

1) The City can contract with Henry County Registrars and they will take over the election right after
qualifying. That would mean the Registrars office would handle the absentee ballots and early voting and
would be at City Hall to manage early voting.

2) The City could go with paper ballots and have Carolyn Whitford, Election Manager, conduct the election
just like she has in the past.

3) The third (3rd) option is the have the County do the data building and the City borrow their equipment.
The Election Manager will take the totals right off the electronic equipment and add them to the absentee list
at the end of the night. Otherwise, there is one difficulty that the City has not realized, the County has only
one server that all the results go through. It can handle only one data base at a time. The County results
will come first and once the County results is uploaded and closed out they can begin with the Cities which
means the Cities’ results may not come in until 11:00 or 12:00 P.M. It just depends on how fast the results
come in. In a Special Election it does not take long to get the results.

Those are the three (3) options. If the City does not want to contract with the County and train their own
people to use the electronic voting equipment, the County will loan their equipment to the City. It was pointed
out that the Election Manager is required to be certified to use the electronic equipment. Carolyn Whitford is
usually one of the County’s Election Managers and is certified and will be the City’s Election Manager at the
November election.

Janet Shellnut pointed out that the County has early voting from 7:00 A.M to 7:00 P.M. but the City has early
voting from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Friday. She suggested the City use at least two (2)
workers for early voting so the burden want be put on one person if something happened. Ms. Shellnut asked
the Council to let her know as soon as possible because she needs to notify the U. S. Justice Department by
letter of the direction the County and Cities are going to get their approval.

Mayor Kelley stated that the Council will meet Monday July 9, 2007 and let her know their decision. Ms.
Shellnut said that under the basic contract method, if something happens to the electronic equipment and
needs repair while in use the City would have to pay for the repairs. The Secretary of State has hired
Kennesaw State to build the County Data Base. The County gives them the information and they build the
Data Base and they will build the City Data base at no cost to the City. There will be a minor charge for the
County workers to enter the data base on the machines for the City. If the County contracts with the City or
if the City uses the County equipment, the day qualifying closes the City needs to contact Ms. Shellnut with
the names of the candidates who have qualified so they can be entered into the data base.

Mayor Kelley asked when qualifying begins. Ms. Shellnut responded it would open August 27 and closes
August 31, 2007.

CITY HALL – 4740 NORTH HENRY BOULEVARD – This meeting was called to review the
recommendations of the Urban Redevelopment Agency for selecting a contractor to construct the New City
Hall. A.J.Welch stated that the Urban Redevelopment Agency offered for bid the construction of the New
City Hall and the adjourning facilities. Sizemore Group has prepared the plans. It was advertised and as
part of the advertisement we put in there that we wanted them to give us a maximum amount. They were to
base their bid upon the plans that we had but if they could do what is known as “Value Engineering” they had
to give us those proposals in writing as to what their proposed “Value Engineering” was worth. We received
a lump sum bid from WMC Construction Company with no “Value Engineering” being listed as a written item.
Also, on that specific bid they were asking for 15% profit and overhead for their prospective charges made
outside of the contract.

The second bid was from JTV General Contactors, Inc. and the face bid was $27,000 higher than the first
bid. They offered a number of items of “Value Engineering”. The City’s engineers and architects have gone
through the “Value Engineering” items and they have recommend by way of a report to Ted Strickland that
the Mayor and Council and the Urban Redevelopment Agency accept about $85,000 of immediate savings
to the City that can be immediately picked up from their “Value Engineering” bid. Their overhead and profit
is substantially less, it’s in the eight (8%) percent range versus the fifteen (15%) range so when you evaluate
both bids in their entirety, there is no question that JTV General Contractors, Inc. is the low bid. The low bid
would be at $10,212,179.00 and that is after deducting out their original bid of $10,297,779.00 plus the
$85,600.00 that was mentioned to give the $10,212,179.00 maximum contract. There are a number of items
on their “Value Engineering” that are still up for discussion. Mr. Vann has submitted a written report to Mr.
Strickland explaining all those “Value Engineering” items. Recommendation of staff is that the Committee
get back together with the architect and contractor and they make some calculated decision as to whether or
not they are going to go forward with some of them. It is known now that we will not accept some of the
“Value Engineering” because it would be changing some of the plans significantly and at this time he can’t
recommend to the Mayor, Council and Agency. There are some items such as the type of handrails that we
use whether they are stainless steel or whether they are powder coating. It is where they cover the metal
with a nice covering but it does have issues of chipping that has been brought to their attention by Mr. Vann
and other people on the Agency that are familiar with this but that’s going to wind up being an evaluation for
the Committee and then report back to the Council whether or not the Council wants to go in that direction.
The staff recommends the Urban Redevelopment Agency adopt the resolution which would recommend to
the Mayor and City Council the JTV General Contractors, Inc. be employed to build the facilities at the
maximum price of $10,212,179.00.

See minutes of the Urban Redevelopment Agency Minutes.

Mr. Welch reported that the resolution from the Urban Redevelopment Agency recommending they contract
for the maximum and the staff recommendation to the Mayor and Council is the same for the contract to be
awarded to JTV General Contractor, Inc.

Mayor Kelley asked if WMC Construction Company, LLC submitted a bid. Mr. Welch responded they did but
did not have any “Value Engineering” in their bid. Jim Butcher, Director, Urban Redevelopment Agency
responded that at bid opening WMC Construction Company, LLC said they would provide the “Value
Engineering”. In order for WMC Construction Company, LLC to provide it the City would have to reopen the
bidding process and we don’t need to start over again. Mr. Welch said we clearly asked for “Value
Engineering” to be in writing and had to be part of the bid.

Councilman Moon asked if any part of the “Value Engineering”, the $85,000, if it goes back to the engineers,
could it be less money. Mr. Welch responded the answer to that is NO. The contractor has given his specific
price that we can use as a deductible from his original bid. He says if you accept these and you take that off
my bid amount. We have a report from the architect recommending that we accept those for a total of $85,600
so they are being accepted if you adopt the resolution. Councilman Moon said that’s the part with all that
you are saying he couldn’t tell if it needed to go back to the architect to be evaluated and he understands
that its already been evaluated and what we have now is everything can go. Mr. Welch stated that it does
not mean that we can’t get more because the way we bid and the way the contract reads we can renegotiate
items of “Value Engineering” as we go through it.

Councilman Evans stated that one of the changes is to change the brick pavers to stamped concrete. If we
accept this today, is this what these people propose to do? Mr. Welch said that is what they would do if you
decided to go through the list and pick those up. The bid is good for sixty (60) days. We can pickup any of
those items we want during the sixty (60) days. What we felt like it was best to do was have the architect tell
us which ones they agreed with without any question without committees having to get together and go back
and forth that were absolute savings. Then the committee would get back together and go through these
items step by step and then we would notify him that we are accepting as you put it instead of pavers stamped
concrete. Councilman Evans said what he is getting at is the Council can scratch any of these at any time
within a certain amount of days? The brick pavers look better than stamped concrete. Mr. Welch stated that
that one was not recommended to be tabled. Gulf Tech did not recommend that and they wanted the brick
pavers and they did not recommend that particular item but there was items. Mayor Kelley asked that is in
the $85,600? Mr. Welch responded that the report says we recommend the City accept this and we
recommend you don’t accept this. He went through every item that Vann put in his proposal and it had been
filed with Mr. Strickland.

Mayor Kelley asked if there is any more questions.

Fred Evans made a motion to accept the bid from JTV Contracting Company, Inc. for $10,212,179; Steve
Moon seconded, passed unanimously.

Mr. Welch advised the Council that the contract documents will be finalized and sent out next week. We will
notify Vann tomorrow morning. They will be notified to get their bonds together and hope to have the
contracts signed by July 15th and moving dirt on the 16th.

Mayor Kelley advised Mr. Welch that before he arrived the Council told Janet Shellnut that we would let her
know at the next Council Meeting on the local precincts which one we wanted to go with. She gave the
Council three (3) options and instructed Mr. Welch to be thinking about this.

Harold Cochran made a motion to adjourn; Fred Evans seconded and passed unanimously. Meeting
adjourned at 6:15 P. M.

Respectfully submitted,

Merle Manders, CMC R. G. Kelley
City Clerk Mayor
