Statesboro’s mayor and council are slated to hold three public meetings Tuesday, one after another, at 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, 50 East Main St.

Topics include final adoption of the “Food Truck Ordinance” after recent revisions, steps toward making $4 million worth of improvements to two parks and the city government establishing an Urban Redevelopment Agency.

The first meeting, at 4 p.m., is a work session, now a standard occurrence before City Council’s second regular meeting of each month, which follows at 5:30 p.m.

For Tuesday’s work session, the only topics listed, other than a routine quarterly financial report, are related to plans for renovations of Luetta Moore Park on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and the Rev. W.D. Kent Park on Grady Street. Consultants with Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions delivered sketch plans, along with a combined $3.98 million cost estimate for updating the two parks with new amenities, last June.

Now, City Manager Charles Penny is slated to bring the elected officials information about a schedule for receiving bids and awarding contracts on the park projects, and also about a financing schedule. These parks and another initially looked at, Memorial Park at Fair Road, are owned by the city but managed by the Statesboro-Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department, which receives its operating funds from the county.

After county commissioners agreed to commit $1 million of sales tax revenue for improvements to parks inside Statesboro’s city limits, the county paid the Wood firm for the initial $22,500 needs assessment that began in early 2020. But the city picked up the cost of more detailed planning.

The city also earmarked $1.1 million from five years of the current Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, but will need to obtain up-front financing and repay with SPLOST revenue from additional years.

New ‘agency’

Related to financing the park and neighborhood revitalization, the mayor and council members will convene an organizational meeting at 5 p.m. as the City of Statesboro Urban Redevelopment Agency. They are slated to hear an “organizational overview” from Jonathan Pannell, a Savannah lawyer specializing in municipal finance, and then formally name the agency officers.

During the last regular City Council meeting Jan. 5, the council unanimously voted to establish the agency and to designate the five council members and the mayor, and their future successors in office, as a its board.

They did this after creating an Urban Redevelopment Plan targeting neighborhoods for housing improvements, as well as for the park renovations.

"The Urban Redevelopment Agency is able to exercise all powers set up now under Georgia urban redevelopment law," City Attorney Cain Smith said Jan. 5.

As a URA board, the mayor and council can contract services, and the agency can incur debt for the projects, Smith explained.

Food trucks final?

Finally, the council will start its regular meeting at 5:30 p.m., and its agenda is short compared to many other regular meetings. There were no zoning matters or proposed ordinance first-readings requiring formal hearings.

But the Mobile Food Service Ordinance is slated for a second reading and “consideration of a motion to approve.” Interest in food trucks has prompted all of the discussion, but this city law will also regulate food and floral pushcarts.

The ordinance has previously been through two first-reading hearings. The version originally voted forward by the council Dec. 1, 2020, would have allowed food trucks in all zoning districts. But when city staff members realized that this could allow vendors to operate continually in residential areas, they recommended significant changes.

The new version voted forward Jan. 5 allows food trucks in all of Statesboro’s commercial zones, but food truck vendors will be prohibited from making direct sales to customers in residential areas except with a special limited variance that can be granted by the city planning and development director.

Without location approval, residents who own or lease a home may also hire a licensed food truck for an event lasting not more than eight hours and not more than once in any 60-day period. Intended for events such as birthday parties, this will be allowed only if the vendor does not conduct any “point of sale transactions” at the residence.