Sep. 14—EFFINGHAM — The Effingham Water Authority is considering allowing food trucks to operate in the Lake Sara beach area and a commercial building elsewhere that could house businesses such as a hair salon, gym and laundromat.
EWA Chairman Rob Brown said during a meeting this week that the EWA had inquires from food trucks operators who would like to provide their services.
"I'm not opposed to allowing this, but we've got to put together an ordinance and regulations that would allow this," Brown said. "I don't want to get too many out there."
"I think it would be a great idea," said EWA Secretary Mike Boos.
Lake Sara Forever Committee Chairman Tom Ryan has also had inquires from food truck vendors.
"We've told them they would have to wait for the ordinance to come," Ryan said.
Brown wanted to evaluate contracts vendors use when providing vendor services in parks and recreational areas along with current food vendor regulations and ordinances set by the City of Effingham and Effingham County before creating their own ordinance.
"I talked with both the city and the county as far as regulations concerning food trucks," Lake Superintendent Mike Dirks said. "The city is a lot stricter. The PD does a background check and the fire department comes out and inspects the food truck rigs."
Dirks said the food truck operators also have guidelines and requirements they must follow from the Effingham County Health Department.
Brown said he would like to move the idea of allowing food trucks forward.
Meanwhile, the operator of the Lakeside Marina, Noah Brandenburger, discussed putting a new building on the property they are currently leasing commercially.
"If we are going to continue as a commercial lease, additional avenues of revenue need to be explored. Based on a second season of operation, we will double down on our stagnant boating consumer base. Fuel sales were down almost 4,000 gallons as compared to last year," Brandenburger said.
He said due to the lack of business his first year he was only open weekends this year. Brandenburger said he adjusted his gallons-sold figures accordingly, not counting weekday sales from last year.
Brandenburger would like to add a facility to attract other commercial revenue. He'd like to construct a 96-by-40-foot building to house multiple businesses.
"It would be open to a variety of retail clients," he said. "We would pursue customers such as a hair salon, small accounting firm, insurance company, real estate agency, possibly a gym, laundromat — those types of facilities," he said.