Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

During the Monday meeting of the West Point city council, the 2025 budget was approved unanimously. 

The $29.8 million city budget will include a 4 percent COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment). For residents, costs of city services will be going up slightly due to country-wide increases in prices. The increase will cost the average residential customer around $2.90 per month.

 A full breakdown of the budget can be found here or on the city of West Point’s website under the meeting agenda notes.

The city also confirmed Kristin Lester as the new city clerk. Lester has served as Assistant Clerk for many years, under long-time clerk, Richard McCoy. McCoy recently retired after nearly thirty years. 

Monthly reports from the department heads were presented. The first to present was Sammy Inman of the Utilities department. 

“We’re going to be mailing out some letters and I would like to give y’all a little bit of information because you’ll be getting some phone calls,” Inman said. 

“In 2011 Congress passed the Reduction in Lead in Drinking Water Act, amended the Safe Drinking Water Act, it reduces the allowable amount of lead and piping fittings, things like that for water systems,” he stated. 

Inman added that a key component of this act was a nationwide lead service line inventory, to identify possible sources of lead in the water systems. 

“Historically in Georgia, the southeast in general, if you have a galvanized water service, [it] was connected to the water main with a lead gooseneck fitting….. So now we have to notify the customers that are being fed through those,” Inman said

His department has been doing the inventory for the past three years and has identified 44 customers that could have this lead fitting. The letters will only be sent to the affected customers.

Council member, Joe Downs, asked if the department was still identifying customers that would have to have lines replaced. 

“No, we’ve already checked and identified what [the pipes] are made out of,” Inman said. “We’ve done that over the last three years.”

Citizens affected will have gotten letters on Tuesday, Dec. 10. 

City manager Ed Moon discussed construction updates. 

He also had a correction from the Oct. 29 work session, in which he discussed the Homestead Exemption Act. Moon said the FLOST does collect on the same sales tax as the SPLOST and LOST.

“I said it was on specific items, that was not correct…The FLOST collects on all sales tax items, so that would certainly increase the revenue that could be generated by FLOST.”

Moon reported on the progress of the Exit 2 roundabouts, saying GDOT has pushed the completion date for the project to late February or early March of next year. The anticipated paving to KIA Parkway will not begin until around April, as the same contractors are being used for both projects. The KIA Parkway project must be completed within 90 days of the start of work. 

Council approved the annexation and then rezoning of the Warner Road property. The 25-acre plot will be owned by Safe Truck Parking Solutions LLC and is now zoned for a multi-use property should other businesses come in. 

Other items approved during the meeting were enrollment in the Georgia First Responder PTSD program, which provides benefits to first responders diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Allocation of ARPA funds and the appointment of Carter Brown to the West Point Development Authority board for a five-year term.