Blue Ridge Ordinances Move Toward Approval

The Blue Ridge City Council made progress in adopting two ordinances at a special called meeting on December 28th.During last week’s meeting, council discussed an amendment to the city’s alcohol ordinance and a garbage collection ordinance. Each of these documents received approval for their second reading, which puts them one step closer to being adopted. The alcohol ordinance will change the amount of fees paid for alcohol vendors for their licenses. Once adopted, the license fee will be based on the total square footage of the business instead of the space that is dedicated to promote and house alcohol to be sold. The garbage collection ordinance will provide the citizens and businesses within the city limits of Blue Ridge to obtain garbage pick up service and be billed by the city with their other utility payments offered by the city. This ordinance will open up the service to three different vendors instead of the one vendor, which is what is currently in the ordinance. Each of these documents must be reviewed by coucil members and Mayor Donna Whitener before they can be adopted and become effective.

The council also opted to table the request made by Joe Webb for the Fannin County Public Library. He asked the city for an additional $1500 donation in order to keep the library open for its normal hours currently held. This would make the city’s donation to come to a total of $4500 compared to the $3000 in 2011.

“I don’t mind doing it if we can afford it,”

Council member Michael Eaton said. Council member Rhonda Thomas then made the motion to table the request until the January meeting to give the council members more time to deliberate on the amount of the donation and to ensure the city could afford the additional funding.

The next council meeting will take place January 8, 2013.