Perry Council discuss big moves for the city

On Monday, February 1, Perry City Council held their first meeting of the month, where they discussed a number of reports and plans that could bring changes, big and small, to Perry.

Council began their meeting with an extensive discussion about the redistricting the city of Perry, led by Laura Mathis, Executive Director at the Middle Georgia Regional Commission. As explained by Mathis, this process is done to make sure that each councilmember’s district has the same concentration of the population, essentially making sure that each person’s vote has the same impact across the board. Mathis also explained that this process relies heavily on the State’s release of census data. This process however does take into consideration more than just simple population, it also deals with racial demographics of an area, the voting age population, and housing units.

“My gut says that you’re probably going to do redistricting again,” Mathis stated. The last time Perry was redistricted was in 2011. Due to the amount of land that has been gained by the city, as well as it’s census participation, it looks like the process needs to take place again, 10 years later.

However, a key issue is that without Perry’s census data, redistricting cannot take place. According to Mathis, Perry should have had this data in November, and were told they would receive it in March. Now, with March only a month away, the city of Perry is being told they have to wait until July for their census data.

City Manager Lee Gilmour also mentioned that when the council finally is given the chance to go forward with redistricting, “the Black population for the city percentage-wise has remained pretty much the same. However, I believe the data is going to show that the Black residents are much more diversified around the city between all the different districts than they were in previous years. That is going to potentially make it more difficult for council to follow what historically was done, [which] was to line up the census blocks so we have the ‘one person, one vote,’ and as much as possible, you have the chances for a majorly Black district.”

As the meeting progressed, council members moved on to speak about the renovation of Perry City Hall. These renovations, done by JMA Architecture, focuses majorly on creating easier flow of traffic through the building, a courtroom for Council meeting and municipal court, as well as court support functions. These renovations will also update the buildings standards and bring up to code in many areas.

As this process is still in the planning phase, there is not a budget laid out for the project; however, when completed, this building will house the Perry Council and Municipal Court, both of which currently meet at the Perry Arts Center. It would also house storage for the city clerk, and bring the building as a whole to code, with updates to electrical and structural systems.

The council approved JMA Architecture to move forward with this project.

Chief Lynn also brought forward reports containing crime statistics in Perry.

“Our crime statistics have actually been trending down, instead of up,” Lynn explained. This information comes from the Part I Crimes report for Perry, a report that numbers violent crimes such as murder or assault as well as other crimes like theft or burglary. These are the same crimes the FBI uses to publish its annual crime report. In 2020, this report showed that there were 445 such crimes in Perry. This number in 2019 was higher, settling at 486, and the year before that in 2018, the report totaled at 576. Calls for Service have risen, rising from 27,140 in 2019, to 28,649 in 2020. Interestingly, although the crime rate in Perry is dropping, the population is rising. In 2019, the population sat at 18,654. In 2020, the population was calculated to be 19,929.

“I know there’s a lot of traffic from time to time on Facebook when we might have an incident here in the city, but when you actually look at the work that our Police Department is doing, it’s very good,” commented Mayor Randall Walker.

Finally, the council discussed member items, and then the meeting was adjourned.

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