The Ellijay City Council approved hiring a paving company to do resurfacing work on two city streets when meeting Monday, July 20.
“We’re doing all of North Avenue and Logan Circle. On North Avenue, they’ll clean up all the loose gravel and mill out the broken-up sections, patch it up and put topping on top of that,” said Mayor Al Hoyle.
Councilmembers approved hiring Colditz Trucking for $70,494, the lowest of five submitted bids. Proceeds from a Georgia Department of Transportation Local Maintenance Improvement Grant (LMIG) will fund $41,570 of the project and the remainder will come from SPLOST funds.
The city usually applies for and receives an LMIG grant each year, which is used for paving and resurfacing projects, Hoyle noted.
“We had planned to do (North Avenue) with this year’s LMIG money. The county was kind enough to help us out and put gravel down back during the winter. That was kind of a Band-Aid till we could get to this year’s paving project,” he added.
Hoyle said the work needs to be done before winter, but the hired company could possibly start on the project as soon as next week.
In other news ...
﹣ Two Seminary Circle residents attended the May city council meeting to talk about heavy traffic in the area around Seminary Circle and Corbin Hill Road and inquire about whether a stop sign can be installed at that intersection.
In response to that inquiry, Police Chief Ed Lacey shared findings from recent research of the intersection.
The report states that vehicles exiting Seminary Circle onto Corbin Hill Road have very limited left and right sight distance and that condition may create a less safe feeling by drivers entering the intersection, but the decision to change it to a multiple lane, stop sign-controlled intersection should not be made without obtaining the opinion of a traffic engineer.
“The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices states that intersections should never go from being unregulated to having stop signs unless there is a traffic engineering study,” Lacey said.
That type of study would cover such criteria as line of sight, traffic volume, crashes at the intersection and traffic speed, he added.
﹣ An on-premise consumption license for beer, wine and distilled spirits was approved for Cajun Depot, which is under new ownership.
﹣ A zoning change for 1380 Legion Road was approved. The property, previously zoned general commercial, is now zoned single family residential.
﹣ Claudia Penland was appointed to fill a vacant seat on the planning and zoning commission.
﹣ Mitchell Morgan was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Gilmer County Library Board of Trustees, while Amy Sanford was reappointed to another term on the library board.