DALTON, Ga. — Dalton Mayor Dennis Mock says council members want to get a better grasp on what it costs taxpayers when outside groups use City Hall after hours.

“We’ve had issues with people not cleaning up afterwards and we want to develop some parameters, a clear policy for when outside groups use City Hall,” he said.

Mock said he did not have data yet on what it costs the city for clean up and security for after-hours events.

Council members are set to discuss its after-hours use policy in their work session today at 5 p.m. in the third-floor conference room at City Hall. The meeting is open to the public.

A resolution has been prepared for the council which says “budget constraints require the city to terminate the use of the council chambers after normal business hours by non-government entities or persons.”

But the council is not slated to vote on that resolution at its business session, which starts at 6 p.m.

Mock says it “may be a bit premature” to talk about closing the building completely to non-government groups after hours.

Council member Gary Crews said he has no desire to close the building.

“But we have had some groups come in that have left us with some issues that required extra clean up and maintenance. Off the top of my head, I can’t tell you who they were,” he said. “And unfortunately, we have to be more concerned about security these days. Once someone is in the building, they can go up to the second or third floor (where city and Dalton Public Schools offices are located). There are documents there we need to protect. We need to make sure that no one does anything destructive up there. We’ll probably be looking at whether we need to require a maintenance deposit or a security fee or something like that.”

Council member Tyree Goodlett said council members aren’t looking to “shut down” City Hall after business hours.

“But we do want to make sure that we have the proper policies in place,” he said. “We have to look at it from all sides.”

Virgelia Meek, secretary of the League of Women Voters of the Dalton Area, says she does not want City Hall closed to non-government groups after business hours. The League has hosted a number of candidates’ forums in council chambers, often in partnership with The Daily Citizen.

“We always clean up after our events. It’s a simple matter of going around and picking up programs or things that people may have left behind,” she said. “And we close the building ourselves.”

In their regular business meeting following the work session, council members are scheduled to vote to:

• Accept an agreement with the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia in which the foundation agrees to provide $300,000 to convert the site of the old Lee Printing building into a performance venue, to create a $500,000 endowment and $200,000 for support of the site. In return, the city agrees to make the site a permanent park and to name it Burr Park after Jeanne Burr, the Dalton resident who provided donation to the Community Foundation to create and fund the performance venue.

After the City Council meeting concludes at 6:30 tonight, there will be a public presentation on plans for the park at Haig Mill reservoir. The project will be funded with $5 million from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) that voters approved in 2015.