The Ellijay City Council approved hiring a web design company to maintain the City of Ellijay website, while also tabling the second reading of a packaged liquor ordinance, when meeting at City Hall Monday, March 21.
Councilmembers Sandy Ott, Tom Crawford, Katie Lancey, Al Fuller and Kevin Pritchett approved hiring Shepherds Loft to maintain and revamp the city’s website. Ott said the website designer, which is locally owned and comes with multiple recommendations, will be doing a complete rehaul of the city website to make it more up-to-date and informative.
At the city council’s February meeting, Mayor Al Hoyle confirmed the city would be looking into hiring a website management company. During that same meeting, a local property owner, Brian Graffius, told Hoyle and the city council that the website not being kept up to date with current information violates state Sunshine Laws, and he’d contacted “the attorney general” about that.
The goal is for the new website to be up by July 1, Ott said.
“They will maintain our city website and keep the information current, posting agendas, city memberships and a calendar of events. It (will) streamline and combine multiple pages to keep it at about a 20-page website,” she added.
The second reading of the city’s off-premise distilled spirits consumption ordinance for packaged liquor sales was tabled after Crawford said several things need to be looked at again. Among the issues are footage requirements in the ordinance, he noted.
The ordinance draft states that packaged distilled spirits cannot be sold within 100 yards of any church building or within 200 yards of any school building, education building, school grounds or college campus. It also states that multiple licensed liquor stores can’t operate within 500 yards of one another.
Hoyle said the distance requirements are state law and can’t be changed by the council.
“The footage the state refers to is not footage from an on-premise consumption license. It’s footage from another retail off-premise consumption (license). It’s package store to package store, not package store to bar. We cannot make it less than what the state says. We put it in there as a point of reference,” he added. Crawford said he understood the state law can’t be changed, but there’s still very few locations, especially in Ellijay’s central business district, that could be considered for a liquor store.
Hoyle said a fee for packaged liquor sales still needs to be set. Whether or not changes are made, the ordinance, which underwent its first reading in February, must still receive a second reading before it can be adopted.
Certain changes would also require it to undergo another first reading, which would then be followed by a second reading.
In other news ...
Councilmembers approved a special event permit, including alcohol, for a Music in the Park event at Harrison Park scheduled for May 13.
Linda Lancaster, of Friends of Harrison Park, said the park has hosted this type of music event the past three years, and alcohol was available at last year’s event.