Lavonia, Royston, Issue Support of Governor’s Executive Order

Mayor Umbehant speaks with Councilman Michael Schulman after Friday’s open-air called meeting

Both the Cities of Lavonia and Royston on Friday announced support for the Governor’s mandate to shelter in place for the next 10 days.

In an open-air meeting Friday in the Lavonia City Hall parking lot, Mayor Courtney Umbehant announced an emergency declaration for Lavonia residents.

Umbehant emphasized the emergency declaration is not a change in the City’s code of ordinances.

“The declaration itself is in line with the Governor’s executive order,” Umbehant said. “He has limited our ability to do anything more restrictive than what he’s done. So, our declaration lines up with his saying that we need social distancing and the shelter-in-place that he ordered.”

Umbehant said, however, the City’s emergency order will allow City Manager Charles Cawthon to come up with a way to hold public meetings virtually.

“The only thing we’ve added is in Section 14, which says, ‘It is further ordered that the City Manager is authorized to establish a procedure for the meetings that are subject to the Open Meetings Act. The City of Lavonia and any agency subject to the Open Meetings Act are directed and authorized to conduct meetings by teleconference provided the public has access. The City Manager is authorized to facilitate and publish a protocol to provide public access to all meetings and to give notice of the availability and procedure by which the public is allowed to attend said  meetings remotely.'”

Umbehant said people attending the virtual City Council meetings are advised to submit their comments and questions to the City Manager via email prior to the meeting.

“So when we have our meetings we will allow a little extra time to answer questions to help allay the concern that some of our citizens have. We want to be able to address those things,” the Mayor explained.

After hearing from Umbehant the City Council voted unanimously to adopt the emergency declaration.

Umbehant said the April City Council meeting is tentatively scheduled for next Monday, April 13.

Once the online information for the meeting is released, WLHR News will bring that information to you.