Lavonia Mayor, City Council Meet with Springview Heights Residents

Residents of the Springview Heights neighborhood in Lavonia now have a better understanding of what the City plans to do to make improvements in their community.

Dozens of residents turned out last Thursday evening for a special town hall meeting with Mayor Courtney Umbehant, City Council members, and City staff.

The mayor first went over the issue of cleaning up blighted properties in the city, which he said involves developing a code enforcement department.

Umbehant said former City Manager Gary Fesperman is helping the City craft that new department.

“The City of Lavonia does not have a Code Enforcement Department. …Our goal with it is this, to help everybody be able to make their properties better. And I understand sometimes it’s a physical thing. Some people can’t physically be able to do what they need to do to clean up their property. Our goal is not to fine you, our goal is to help you be able to clean it up. If it’s a money thing, we want to work with you and help you find a solution to clean up your property,” Umbehant explained.

The Mayor indicated the City is planning to expand its annual clean-up day by placing dumpsters at various locations around town, including in the Springview Heights neighborhood.

Another major issue addressed by the Mayor and Council is the renovation and updating of Spring St. Park. Aerial photos of the eight acres of the park were on display for attendees to view.

He said now that the City Park is about complete, the City is turning its attention to Spring St. Park.

The Mayor pointed out however it takes time to order new equipment, which includes funding, ordering, delivery, and set up noting that it took over a year to buy and install the special needs equipment at the City Park.

However, Umbehant said the City has a short-term plan to fix the current playground and make it useable again until the new equipment arrives.

“So what we’re going to do is we’re going to clean up the playground. We’re going to paint, we’re going to change the swings out and we want to change out the metal slides. So we’re going to do some beautification to that. We’re going to fix the grills in the park and try to fix up what’s here so it’s at least useable,” he said.

In addition to new park amenities, Umbehant said one long-range plan is to have historical murals painted on the Spring St. Gym building.

Both the Mayor and the City Council asked residents to write down their ideas for what they would like to see in the new Spring St. Park and to be very specific.

Mayor Umbehant and the Council appeared to have gotten a good response from those in attendance with some asking how they could get involved in the park and neighborhood clean up process.