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The Vienna City Council, in its May 11 meeting, approved an ordinance allowing residents to use their personal vehicles such as golf carts on city streets. Acceptable vehicles must have a top speed of 20 miles per hour or less, weigh no more than 1,375 pounds, and seat no more than eight riders.

Councilman Randall Almond asked what the reason was for the ordinance.

“This ordinance allows the use of personal transportation vehicles such as golf carts, “ City Administrator Michael Bowens said. “It does not include 4-wheelers — those things go a lot faster than 20 miles per hour — and doesn’t allow ATVs. They are not to be driven on state roads.”

The ordinance takes effect July 1.

Community Development director Janet Joiner noted the brevity of her Main Street report.

“It has been very slow in our community development,” Joiner said. “All of our community events that we had scheduled have been canceled due to COVID-19. Also all training sessions were canceled, too.”

She reported that the multi-housing development project is moving forward and that the plans have been submitted and are being reviewed. After approval, the county will issue building permits.

Joiner said the Gregory Street project was almost complete one more double wide mobile home to be replaced and should be ready in June.

“The 2019 Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP) grant we are ready to move forward on that,” she said. “We have a number of houses lined up but we had to wait for the contractors to get back to work.”

The CHIP program, funded with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HOME Investment Partnership Program, is designed to provide safe, decent and affordable housing in Georgia by granting funds to city and county governments, public housing authorities and nonprofits to rehabilitate owner-occupied homes and build and renovate affordable single family homes for sale to eligible homebuyers.

Joiner said the city’s designation as a “Georgia Initiative for Community Housing” had been recertified.

“Every two years, we have to resubmit and be recertified,” she explained. “We got involved in 2009 through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to promote suitable and affordable housing in communities.”

Finally Joiner issued a plea to return their 2020 census forms.

“Dooly County is lagging way behind on our response,” she said. “We are No. 150 out of 159 counties. Encourage everybody you run into to please respond to the census.”

In other business, the council:

• Heard about the police’s attempts to regulate the 10-person rule regarding COVID-19. Also learned that a volunteer joined the force as a part-time officer
• Heard from City Clerk Margaret Shelley that revenue has slowed “a lot.”

Vienna City Council is scheduled to next meet on Monday, May 25 at 6pm at City Hall.