In its first meeting of 2019, the Midway City Council Monday named Naceta Hayes as utilities supervisor and put two new workers on the building and grounds crew.

Robert Brown and Donald Robinson are the new fulltime utility workers. Midway is apparently looking for a finance director since the city ended its one-year 2018 contract with Norton Consulting Services for performing city finance and budget work.

The employment decisions were voted on after a closed-door session with the city attorney, Reginald Martin. Longtime Midway City Clerk Lynette G. Cook-Osborne was asked to leave a portion of the closed session. In Georgia, meetings of government bodies like city councils are open to the public but executive sessions are closed to discuss personnel, litigation, and real estate. All votes must be taken in public.

Alan Seifert of the Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission reported that progress on Midway’s city hall project had been slow during the holiday season; “We need some good weather so the contractors can get back to rocking and rolling.”

Tyrone Benton, a Midway resident, attended Monday’s meeting. Benton is seeking a solution to drainage and maintenance problems near his home where a fence was constructed across an area intended to be a street.

Benton wants Midway to maintain the area as it does other subdivisions but the city has said it does not own the property originally platted as a street and it does not have authority to work on the site.

In continuing discussions Benton has reluctantly said he might buy the problem area so that he could maintain it himself. Midway officials rejected this, saying the city could not sell the plot in question because it did not own it.

Benton said he had done due diligence by questioning officials and the successors of the subdivision developers but had found no solution. Martin reported he had done some legal research and found no answer.

Mayor Levern Clancy Jr. said, “I cannot imagine that any property in Liberty County is not being taxed,” and it was decided to investigate the tax status of the site. The LCPC is also checking for possibly helpful information.

The Midway council’s next regular meeting is set for Feb. 11. No work session is planned in January.   

 Parker can be contacted by email at joeparkerjr@hotmail.com.