In a special called meeting Friday morning the East Ridge City Council named five people to a Personnel Review Board and amended a use agreement with developers of Jordan Crossing.
A personnel review board was established in 2010 as a panel that would consider appeals of employees who were terminated. That board never met, city officials said.
Mayor Brent Lambert said during the meeting that there is now a need for the review board as ERPD Officer Adam Rose wants to appeal his recent termination.
Mayor Lambert appointed Jackie Berry, a previous appointment to the board. Councilman Jacky Cagle named Doris Rogers, who also had been appointed to the board. Councilwoman Esther Helton appointed Charles McCullough, Councilman Brian Williams appointed Colleen Lieberum and Vice Mayor Larry Sewell appointed Robert Jones, an unsuccessful candidate for City Council in the municipal election that was held earlier this month.
City Attorney Mark Litchford said that after reviewing the resolution establishing the board, that it had no power to reverse any decision by city officials regarding terminating an employee. The board, he said, simply is an advisory panel.
The only other piece of business before the council was amending a use agreement that city has with Exit 1 LLC. Assistant City Manager Kenny Custer explained to the council that it had previously granted a use agreement with the developers of Jordan Crossing allowing them use of city property for additional parking spaces at Chick-fil-A. The amended agreement would bring an additional fraction of an acre of property into play allowing for traffic flow into an additional parcel under development and a new monument sign for that business.
The new national tenant next door to Chick-fil-A has not been publicly announced, but Mayor Lambert said that “10 years ago if you told people in East Ridge that this business was coming, they would have laughed.”
He also explained that the urgency with the city council dealing with the issue was because the new tenant wanted the agreement with developers consummated as soon as possible to move forward with the project.
Councilman Cagle asked questions about the size of the property in question. Custer told him that it was no more than .2 of an acre in size. Cagle then asked why the city just didn’t give the land to the developers and it would then be back on the tax rolls. It was explained by John Healy, a principal in Exit 1 LLC, that the property – essentially right-of-way along Camp Jordan Parkway – was deeded to the city for “public use.” In order for the city to deed it over to developers, a tedious, time-consuming process would have to begin with state officials.
Cagle asked that Custer begin that process. Cagle then cast the lone vote against amending the use agreement.
_ On Thursday evening, the city’s Housing Commission met in a called meeting concerning a small apartment complex on Greenslake Road. Officials with codes enforcement had uncovered deteriorating conditions in the unit located at 1020 Greenslake Rd. Codes officials had recently been allowed access to three more units where numerous code violations were discovered, including a leaking roof and electrical issues.
The housing commission voted to condemn all the units pending an inspection by a structural engineer.
