In December, city officials listed the other properties they are looking at leasing longer than five years as: He said building new hangars and other structures at the airport is expensive, and no one is willing to make that sort of investment if they can lease the property underneath the structure for only five years. Miller said the discussion about expanding the time period the city can lease property first came up in discussions about the Dalton Municipal Airport. On Monday, Miller said after discussion with the legislature's general counsel he had determined the city could make that change by changing the city charter. In December, the council asked the local delegation to the Georgia legislature to introduce local legislation to increase the number of years the city could lease city property. The council is expected to hold the second vote on the change at its Monday, April 18, meeting.Ĭurrently the city can lease properties for up to five years.
City Attorney Terry Miller said because this involves a change to the charter, the council will have to vote twice.
The city eliminated its building inspector's office in 2009, following the Great Recession, in a budget-cutting move, and transferred code enforcement to the police department.Ĭouncil members also voted 4-0 to change the city charter to allow the city to lease city properties for up to 25 years. These people will only be involved in code enforcement." "This police department has a lot of other things to worry about. "This will be more efficient," said council member Tyree Goodlett, who is also a member of the Public Works Committee. The police officers now assigned to code enforcement will be moved to unfilled positions in the police department and the funding for their positions will be used to pay the new code enforcement officers, so the change will be budget neutral. The city plans to hire code enforcement officers who will focus solely on that task. City officials said the police officers assigned to code enforcement have that as their primary duty but they still have duties as patrol officers.