Norris raises fees for use of city building, pavilion; seeks bids for sewer work
The Norris City Council last week approved new rates for private use of Norris city facilities in the Community Building and the downtown Lions Club Pavilion, and those changes took place as of March 5.
In a resolution approved 4-0, with Councilman Chuck Nicholson absent, the council OK’d a rate increase to $125 for a five-hour period, up from the previous $60, for use of the Community Room or gymnasium in the Norris Community Building, plus $20 an hour for each additional hour.
And, although the base rate for use of the Lions Club Pavilion on Norris Square will remain at $60, the resolution allows that to cover only the first five hours, then adds $20 an hour charge for additional time.
“I feel comfortable with trying it,” Mayor Chris Mitchell said. “It doesn’t culturally change Norris.”
But Mitchell said he would like the city staff to come back to the council in six months with an assessment of how the changes are working.
Increases in the rental fees were proposed by City Manager Adam Ledford in November, but his initial suggestion was to raise the base rate to $150.
Ledford said the increases would help the city cover its costs for renting out the facilities, including cleanup. City staff checked with other area cities that have similar facilities for rent, and found that even the $150 rate would have been a bargain.
Councilman Will Grinder said at that time, during the November council meeting, that he believed the $150 fee was “not too expensive.”
“We need that to cover our costs,” he said.
But Nicholson wanted action to be delayed “to get public input,” and suggested that the city staff publish a notice requesting comments from citizens.
The council held a public workshop on the proposed changes on Monday, Feb. 12, just prior to the monthly council meeting, then discussed the changes again during the meeting.
Although no vote was taken then, the council indicated its favor of the proposals, and asked Ledford to put the changes into a resolution for the council to approve at the March meeting.
That meeting was held Tuesday, March 4, six days earlier than the usual council meeting date of the second Monday of the month, because Mitchell and Nicholson were not going to be available for the March 12 meeting.
As the policy now stands, the rental charges apply only to private use of the facilities, such as for birthday parties and such, and not for use by Norris community clubs or official city functions.
Ledford said the city regularly rents out the facilities, and that many users come in from out of town, and are not Norris residents.
No charges would be assessed to approved community groups, which mostly would include only those with federal tax exemptions as nonprofits (so-called 501(c) organizations.
There also are no requirements that renters be residents of Norris, and there are no special rates applicable only to residents. Ledford said state law does not allow cities to discriminate against outsiders in use of city facilities, which, he said, is why people outside Clinton can use city parks and other facilities there the same as residents can.
The rules also make clear that the City Council’s boardroom in the Community Building is not available for public use.
Community Room and gym rentals will require a $100 refundable deposit by cash or check to ensure that those using the facilities leave them clean after their events conclude. If city staff has to clean up afterward, the deposit would be forfeited.
Ledford said the new rate is what the city was charging “before COVID anyway.”
In other business March 4, the council:
*Approved going out for bids for a multi-million-dollar project to upgrade the city’s sanitary sewer system to help prevent rainwater from entering the system and over-burdening the city’s wastewater treatment plant. That has led to discharge of untreated wastewater into nearby Buffalo Creek.
Since early 2022, Norris has been under a “director’s order” from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to clean up its discharge of sewage into the creek, since the department found the city in violation of water-quality regulations concerning those discharges bypassing the sewage-treatment plant.
During periods of heavy rain, stormwater infiltrates the city’s sanitary sewer lines, causing an unmanageable flow to the wastewater treatment plant, along East Norris Road.
There, the excess stormwater mixes with raw sewage, and because it can quickly overwhelm the treatment facility, this combination of sewage and stormwater ends up in the creek.
The city hired Cannon & Cannon Consulting Engineers of Knoxville to create the plan to remedy the violations. That plan, submitted to the council in May 2022, called for making the required repairs beginning as soon as possible, with an estimated completion date of late 2028.
Under the engineers’ plan, the price for the bulk of the work was estimated to be $5.488 million, with a potential bill as high as $6.6 million.
That does not include the possibility the city might need to install a 750,000-gallon holding tank for stormwater runoff, at an additional cost of more than $2.1 million.
*Declined a request from the Anderson County Assessor’s Office to pass a resolution approving the change in the time frame for county property reappraisals from the current five-year interval to a new four-year cycle.
Mitchell said he would not be in favor of changing the reappraisal process to every four years instead of five, if it meant that it would cost the city more money. The city is required to pay the county Assessor’s Office for the reappraisals each time they are done.
No council member made a motion to approve the resolution proposed by the county, so no action was taken.
*Approved a request from the Norris Fire Department to seek bids for purchase of a side-by-side, four-wheel-drive off-road vehicle to be used primarily for rescues in the Norris Municipal Watershed.
