From Bob Schwartz, City Manager
→ Whatcoat Street trees – The air spading work was done Monday, November 26. Rob
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Swanson, our contractor, loosened the dirt around each tree. He removed
the polyethylene rope. And, it turns out, the burlap was synthetic
burlap. I didn’t even know that existed. It turns out nurseries have quit using
it because it does not rot. He removed as much as he could reach and cut up what
he could get to. Rob said it looks like the trees were planted by three groups of
volunteers because some were too high and some too deep. Jody has had our crew put
mulch around the base of each tree as Rob Swanson recommended.
→ ECG workshop – I attended an ECG (Electric Cities of Georgia) workshop on electric
rates held in Forsyth Tuesday morning (December 4). When it’s available I will send
you a copy of some of the PowerPoint slides they used today. In the meantime, here
are several factoids I picked up.
• Last winter was the warmest winter ever; followed by a mild summer. And that’s
a recipe making it hard for electric distributors like us to accumulate any
kind of income.
• The reduction in the cost of natural gas has reduced the price for off-system sales
of our excess power. Utilities can make their own using natural gas
cheaper than we can sell it to them.
• We have so much natural gas available in the USA that we are considering ways to
export it. There are 11 licenses being considered for LNG (liquefied natural
gas) export ports. It wasn’t too many years ago that the US imported LNG.
• Most of the excess new found gas supply is being used by power companies to make
electricity.
• Lots of coal plants around the country are being shut down.
→ Getting Ready for Christmas – The clerk’s office worked Saturday morning (December 1) to
put up and decorate our city hall Christmas trees. They also spent some time filling up
the new shelves we have had installed in the upstairs storage closet.
→ Public Works – this is what was accomplished during the last week:
• Repaired 4 street signs.
• Mulched 14 trees along Whatcoat Street.
• Planted grass and put down wheat straw for cover on Airport water line project. 440 feet.
• Repaired several street lights.
• Worked normal weekly work orders.
• Worked with grave movers Tuesday in cemetery.{This is a long story, and I’ll get you a summary
from Lauran soon.}