City set to OK school bonds tonight

♦ Public hearings also are planned at the meeting rescheduled from Memorial Day.

The Rome City Commission is slated to sign off tonight on resolutions clearing the way for work to start on the school system’s College and Career Academy.

Commissioners also have several public hearings, a presentation of Rome City Schools’ proposed budget and an intergovernmental agreement with their Floyd County counterparts on the agenda.

The board would normally meet on May 27 but the city’s administrative offices will be closed for the Memorial Day holiday. Garbage, recycling and yard waste that would normally be collected that Monday will be collected May 28 and that Tuesday’s collections will be pushed back to Wednesday, May 29.

Commissioners caucus at 5 p.m. and start their regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall, 601 Broad St. Both sessions are public.

First up, however, is a 4:30 p.m. meeting of the Rome Building Authority. The newly created entity – made up of the mayor, city manager and superintendent – has the power to issue bonds backed by the education local option sales tax.

ELOST collections just started April 1 and the city and county school systems are expected to net about $80 million over a five-year period. However, Rome school officials want to jump-start several projects, including the College and Career Academy and technology and security improvements at various schools.

Building Authority resolutions scheduled to go before the full City Commission are expected to call for up to $23.3 million in bonds backed by the city schools’ $31.2 million share of the ELOST collection.

Commissioners are also slated to get a presentation of the school system’s proposed budget tonight. The spending plan went through the commission’s Finance Committee last week.

A public hearing – and decision – also is scheduled on a rezoning request from Dr. Stephen LaPointe. He wants to build a medical office at 1100 Martha Berry Blvd. and move his practice there.

The 0.37-acre former car lot across from

Cottis Inn is currently vacant. It’s zoned for heavy commercial use and LaPointe is asking for neighborhood-office-commercial zoning.

Commissioners also will hold two public hearings on changes to the Unified Land Development Code connected with recent amendments to the city’s regulation of sexually oriented businesses.

City Attorney Andy Davis said the ordinance amendment set new distance requirements between a sexually oriented business and churches, schools, daycares, residential zones and pouring establishments.

“You have to incorporate them into the ULDC now,” he told the board during a discussion last week.

Commissioners also are expected to approve an intergovernmental agreement with the Floyd County Commission that spells out how tax money will be funneled back into the East Bend retail center project.

Ledbetter Properties is redeveloping the old Kmart site on Hicks Drive with the help of tax allocation district financing. Under a TAD, the increased property taxes due to the development are used to offset some of the costs for a set period of time.

The County Commission is slated to take up the agreement at its May 28 meeting.