During 1998, the city of Senoia started experiencing growing pains like the rest of the county.

The year started off with new mayor Joan Trammell taking the reins. Trammell kicked off her administration with a bang as she asked for a six-month moratorium on any new building in the city.

The mayor wanted the moratorium in place to allow the town's newly appointed planning commission to review the city's zoning ordinances and make any revisions before any further building permits were issued. But as the planning commission started work on the ordinances, planning commission chairman Jack Merrick asked the council to extend the moratorium. Merrick said the additional time was necessary to make sure the commission had enough time to do a thorough exam of the ordinances.

The moratorium was extended through the end of Jan. 1999 and Merrick expects to make his final recommendations on changes to the ordinances later this month.

The year also saw the town's first Downtown Development Authority start work. The authority was created in 1997 as a way to try and make the town's central business area more viable. In its first year of operation, the authority worked on creating a cohesive group that would be able to work together in trying to lure businesses and residents to the central area and also work on obtaining grants for beautifying the area.

One of the group's early goals was trying to move the city's utilities underground and off the poles that currently line downtown. After learning the total cost for moving the poles would be $600,000, authority members decided to look for grants to pay for the costs.

The two most complex issues the city debated during the year was water and sewerage.

After the floods of 1994, the city's water supply at Hutchinson's lake was destroyed. For the last four years, the city has been purchasing water from Coweta County. The lake was recently rebuilt and city leaders are grappling with the idea of putting the water plant back into operation.

But leaders are reluctant about jumping in immediately and starting to provide water for the residents because of changing conditions since the city last produced water. The EPA and EPD regulations are considerably more stringent and the city is looking at spending over $200,000 to determine if the plant is operational.

Another condition that has changed occurred late in the year when Coweta County decided to lower the rate it charges the city for water by 14 percent. The city has scheduled a public hearing later this month to gather public input on what direction the city should take.

On the sewerage side of the equation, city leaders established a committee to study the possibility of purchasing the Southern Mills treatment facility that is currently unused in the city.

Two years ago, the city received a $500,000 community block grant to provide sewerage to the city's low income residents. But without a sewerage system, the grant has gone unused and city officials tried to determine the most cost-effective septic system.

By year's end, the city was seriously considering buying the Southern Mills facility, but was still waiting on further figures to see if the plant would be able to accommodate the city's future growth.