From Bob Schwartz, City Manager
→ Travels – I will be out of the office all next week except for Thursday. I will be attending the
MEAG annual conference and meeting Monday through Wednesday. And we are taking our
vacation beginning Friday, July 19 through July 26. We’re going to take AMTRAK from
Chicago to San Francisco over the Rockies so I ought to have one or two photos to show you
when I get back.
→ LMIG – We budgeted $14,000 in the FY2014 budget to be received from Georgia DOT as
part of the Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant program. We received the attached letter
from DOT announcing that our LMIG allocation for FY2014 is $17,613.12(here). Last year we used
the funds for street patching. The deadline to send the project list to DOT is January 1, 2014.
We will be discussing recommendations with Council in a couple of months. Our local matching
fund requirement is 30% so the total project will be $25,161.60 with our share being $7,548.48.
→ Public Works Schedules– We have attached a copy of the public works schedule for next
week(here) along with completed list for this week. We’ve made the form a little wider.
→ Myra Frady – Myra Frady, executive associate dean for resource planning and chief financial
officer at Oxford College was the subject of a good story recently on the Emory University web
site. We have attached a copy here.
→ High School Bands – Continuing a long tradition Oxford College will host two band camps in
the next two weeks. Next week it’s Decatur High School and the week after it’s Norcross.
You may hear them in the mornings and evenings practicing on the soccer field.
→ Police Department– Here’s a copy of an article from page 2 of the Covington News for
Wednesday, July 10, 2013. This copy is from the web site – the article in the newspaper
used a different photo.
Oxford police force nabbing speeder
Submitted photo
Oxford Police Chief Dave Harvey said his force is larger and more active than in year's past.
Drivers speeding through Oxford – or performing other illegal driving acts – are more likely
to be pulled over in 2013, with the city’s police department back at full strength. Oxford police
officers have handed out 267 speeding tickets through June of 2013, compared with 200 during
all of 2012, and other driving citations, including seat-belt violations and citations for driving on a
suspended or revoked license, are also trending up significantly. Police Chief Dave Harvey said the
increase isn’t the result of any strategy but is due to the addition of a fourth full-time officer (including
the chief) and overall more active officers. "We have a full department now, and officers who want
to get out and patrol and be seen and do their job," Harvey said. "We have somebody who likes to
get out there and work and be proactive and try to deter crime before it happens. We have more
visibility." According to City Manager Bob Schwartz, the average speed cited on the 27 tickets written
in the city’s 35 mph zones this year was 54 mph, with a high of 59 mph. In the 25 mph zone, the city
had 18 tickets with an average speed of 46.2 mph and a high of 56 mph. (Harvey said the highest
speed he’s seen cited in his time with the department is a 68 mph driver in the 35 mph zone of Ga.
Highway 81.) The increase in citations – and a slight increase in the pace of arrests – has been
accompanied by a decline in calls for service. Through June 30, there have been 512 calls for service,
compared with 1,170 in 2012. "Anytime you have more visibility and more enforcement, that makes
for a decrease in calls, because it’s more of a deterrent – that’s how I look at it," Harvey said. The
police department also has been patrolling later in the evening, up until 2 a.m. When the staff was
shorthanded, the city’s officers generally stopped patrolling around 11 p.m. or midnight, when the
Newton County Sheriff’s Office would take over. "When you have more visibility, people go
somewhere else (to commit crimes)," Harvey said. "We have more officers on the evening watch,
so one can be patrolling the city while the other one is enforcing traffic laws." The city hired a fourth
officer in November 2012, but then lost a different officer at the end of January. Another officer was
sworn in March 30. Harvey said the two new hires – Eric Almond and Dave Stewart – along with
officer James Pilgrim have been committed to actively patrolling and enforcing the law. The officers
also are giving out plenty of warnings, as they’ve issued 122 so far, in line with 2012’s 256 warnings.
The police department’s 2013-2014 budget is $317,263, according to Harvey. To view more crime
stats, find this story on CovNews.com.