At Tuesday night’s work session, the Demorest City Council discussed grants, upcoming votes, council candidates, and hospital security plans. At the upcoming monthly meeting, taking place on Tuesday, Oct. 6, votes will be taken on the 2021 proposed millage rate, which is expected to be lowered, as well as further discussion and possible voting on the use of FEMA grants, application for recreation grants, and Habersham Medical Center’s security contract with Demorest Police.
At 6:00 on Oct. 6, preceding the meeting, a forum will be held for Demorest council candidates. The forum will be socially distanced, and candidates will speak in random order. “We won’t play favorites,” Mayor Rick Austin says.
Possible changes for Demorest park
City manager Kim Simonds and Austin discussed a grant application for local government recreational spaces. These funds would not be available until the fall of 2022, but the funds could be used for upgrading the bathrooms and lighting in Demorest Springs park. Austin and Simonds discussed the possibility of adding walking and nature trails in Demorest with these funds.
While the city hopes to replace the bathrooms sooner than 2022, which it has plans for in the 2021 SPLOST referendum should it pass on Nov. 3. If the SPLOST does not pass, the park bathrooms will be the main priority of this grant.
Using FEMA grant funds
After Hurricane Irma launched Habersham County into a state of emergency in 2017, the City of Demorest looked to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the means to better prepare for a disaster like it experienced three years ago. The city plans to vote on a proposal to purchase two generators with the FEMA grant money they recently received, which Mayor Austin and councilman Dr. John Hendrix are in favor of.
The two generators would cost $40,000 and could be used during emergencies and during the city’s Fourth of July festivities. According to Austin, the generators would pay for themselves within four years of Fourth of July events accounting for how much the city spends renting generators for this annual event.
Fire Chief Ken Ranalli suggested hardwiring another generator the fire department had acquired to the Demorest fire station and municipal court for $3,000, which would power the fire station as well as make the building a “control center,” as Austin described, for future emergencies.
Plans for hospital security
For the past three years, the Demorest Police Department (DPD) has provided contracted security at the Habersham Medical Center. Police Chief Robin Krockum says the partnership between the DPD and hospital has been “mutually beneficial,” and the hospital has asked to renew their contract with the DPD. To do this, the DPD will need to hire a new officer, as of their full-time officers is currently stationed at the hospital.
Hendrix expressed concerns regarding the city’s liabilities and the straight-forwardness of the new contract, saying “I think we need to run the numbers and actually find out what [hiring a new officer] costs and [what the] liability for the city [is].” Hendrix stressed that he felt it was important to “have a straight-forward agreement that covers the liability of the city.”
Austin is in support of renewing the contract with the hospital.
“Having [the Demorest Police Department] in this arrangement for the last four years has saved our community untold thousands of dollars,” Mayor Rick Austin said. “The number of, for lack of a better term, folks that are seeking pain medications particularly, has dropped substantially. We also know that every person who walks through the door of the emergency room has to, by federal law, be treated. We had a large number of people coming from surrounding counties that were showing up in our hospital that were picking our pockets, for lack of a better term, because they weren’t paying anything. I’ve heard the number of people walking through that door has been absolutely, drastically reduced.”
The City of Demorest’s calendar has upcoming meetings posted to it for the convenience of citizens interested in attending.
