Defunct Fountain To Be Replaced

The water fountain that has called the downtown Powder Springs square home since the 1980s will soon be saying goodbye to the city.

The defunct fountain hasn’t worked for several years, said Director Pam Conner. The City Council voted it as a surplus item at Monday’s council meeting so it can be auctioned on the GovDeals website.

But the sound of trickling water downtown will soon return: “A boy scout is going to replace it with another water feature,” Conner said.

The project will be the scout’s passage in becoming an eagle scout, she said. 

The only thing that will be auctioned off is the fountain itself, while the base will remain for the new project, Conner said. 

Also at Monday’s meeting, the council voted to allow Pucket EMS to use 3931 Old Austell Road as an ambulance service facility. This location has been used by the company in the past. 

“We sure are glad to have you back in the city,” Mayor Pat Vaughn said before the crowd of around a dozen at the meeting.

“I’m glad to be here,” Steve Puckett responded from his seat. 

The council also adopted the Cobb County Emergency Management Agency Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan. The plan is revised every five years, with 2005 being the first year it went into effect. 

The plan includes local, state and federal mandates about natural and man-made disasters, Lanita Lloyd, deputy director for the Cobb Emergency Management Agency, told the council. 

Lloyd said the original plan from 2005 required the county to look back at disasters from the 10 years prior, but the county actually went back 50 years. The county worked closely with Cobb’s six incorporated cities to develop the plan, she added. 

“We were working with the water department, we were working with the code enforcement folks—anybody that would have a role in assisting in the mitigation efforts in our planning,” she said. 

For Cobb County to obtain disaster funding from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, all six of the county’s incorporated cities must adopt the plan, Vaughn after Wednesday’s work session. 

The parts of the plan about flooding at the work session.  

The plan includes items like purchasing residential properties that are in flood plains and building tornado warning sirens, Lloyd said.

While she recognized that all aspects of the plan will not immediately come to fruition, Lloyd said it’s still necessary to develop future courses of action. 

“If we don’t list these goals and objectives and what we hope to do in the future in this plan,” she said, “then when we have a disaster … we have no hope of obtaining funds that will help us secure and accomplish the goals that we have set.

William Higgins, manager for Cobb County Water System’s Stormwater Management Division, described how GEMA helps purchase residential properties in flood plains. The agency typically funds 75 percent of purchases and demolitions, while local governments absorb the remaining 25 percent.

“Legally, it’s a tremendous value for us,” he said. 

Following flooding in September 2009, 50 homes in flood plains have been purchased in Cobb through GEMA funding, with 16 of those in Powder Springs, Higgins said. Applications for 33 more homes have been turned over to the state, he added.  

Near the end of the meeting, Councilwoman Cheryl Sarvis mentioned the for she is helping with. 

“If we had 100 citizens to bring in 10 books each … we will make our drive because we have a lot of children at Powder Springs Elementary and we would like to give books to each one of those children,” she said. 

Also approved at the meeting:

• A resolution dedicating one of the two buildings at the to the late Bill “Papa” Morris, a longtime member of the center.
• A contract to allow Cobb County to run November’s city elections. The cost of the contract is typically between $10,000 and $11,000, said City Clerk Dawn Davis. 
• A contract with Deltacom to provide data communication between and the new police station.
• A contract with Comcast for Internet at the new police station. 
• A permit for push rods to be allowed downtown for car shows on April 30, July 30 and Oct. 29.
• The de-annexation of 3655 Sharon Drive and 2860 Macland Road and the annexation of 5455 Powder Springs-Dallas Road. 

After the public meeting, the council went into a private meeting to discuss a personnel matter. City officials said they couldn’t comment on what the meeting was about, but it possibly pertained to the city’s police chief, L. Rick Richardson, who since late November.