Zoning Review Board - Special Meeting

All right, we are at 8, so we're going to get started. Good afternoon, everyone. It's June 24, 2026. This is a special call meeting by the Atlanta City Council. I am your president, Marcy Collier-Overstreet. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Good afternoon, Madam President and members of Council. We have Council President Marcy Culler-Overstreet. Present. Council Member Michael Julian Bond, Post 1 at large. Council Member Matt Westmoreland, Post 2 at large. Council Member Isha Collins, Post 3 at large. Council Member Jason H. Winston, District 1. Council Member Kelsey Bond, District 2. Council Member Byron D. Amos, District 3. Council Member Jason Doza, District 4. Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari, District 5. Councilmember Alex Wan, District 6. Councilmember Thomas Worthy, District 7. Councilmember Mary Norwood, District 8. Councilmember Destin Hills, District 9. Councilmember Andrea L. Boone, District 10. Councilmember Wayne Martin, District 11.

I am here.

Councilmember Antonio Lewis, District 12. Madam President, we do have a quorum of eight members present.

Thank you. And I'll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved by Juan, second by Bakhtiari. Madam Clerk, we can do this by unanimous consent, please.

Eight yays, zero nays.

Eight yays, zero nays. This is done by unanimous consent. The adoption of the agenda. The agenda is adopted. In lieu of our invocation today, we'll just observe a moment of silence. Does anyone have anything they'd like to share? No, in that case, we'll just take a moment of silence. We're silent. We're silent. Thank you. Will everyone please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, we've been joined by Councilmember Worthy.

Thank you, Madam President. Noted. All right. That brings us to communications.

Madam Clerk. This is 26C-5058. This is a communication from Council President Marcia Keller-Overstreet calling a special call meeting of the Atlanta City Council on Wednesday, June 24, 2026 at 1230 p.m. for 260-1315, 260-1317, 260-1374, and 260-1375.

I'll entertain a motion to accept and file this item. So moved by Worthy, second by Hillis. Madam Clerk, please prepare the vote. The vote is open. The vote's closed, nine yeas, zero nays. Nine yeas, zero nays. Item 26-C-5058 has been accepted and filed.

Remarks by the public. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? We do not, Madam President.

No speakers. No speakers in person. All right. In that case, we will move on for the... Let's... Well... Now, do we move now to, because right here it says that we're going to move to the finance.

With the chair?

Yeah. Can Chair Winston please come forward? Thank you. Chair Winston, it's all yours.

Thank you, Madam President. I have four items that I would like to read in as a block.

Yes, please.

Item number one, 26-01315, an ordinance to amend the seat of Atlanta fiscal year 2027 budget by an ordinance to amend budget by anticipating and appropriating bond proceeds in the amount of up to $4 million and zero cents, an aggregate principal amount and related- I'm sorry, just a second.

First, we're going to need to adopt the items because we're going to need to make a motion to adopt these items and then we'll read them in. Okay. Substitute. According to here, it says that we need to make, we need to motion to adopt these items first.

So I have four items, 26-0, 13, 15, 26-0, 13, 17, 26-0, 13, 74, and 26-0, 13, 75. I'd like to make a motion to adopt.

Motion to adopt by Winston. Is there a second? Second by Juan. Please prepare the vote.

Substitute.

Motion to bring forth the substitute.

I will second that motion to bring forth the substitute.

I can't make the motion. Juan is making a motion to bring forth the substitute, second by Winston. Please prepare that vote.

The vote is open.

Will everyone please vote? The vote is closed, nine yays, zero nays. Nine yays, zero nays. The item, the substitute is before us.

All right, so without any objection, I would like to read in the captions as a block.

No objection.

First one, 26-0-1315, an ordinance to amend the City of Atlanta fiscal year 2027 budget by anticipating and appropriating bond proceeds in the amount of up to $4 million and zero cents in aggregate principal amount and related expenses in the amount of $150,000 and zero cents for the issuance of the City of Atlanta general obligation bond pursuant to Ordinance 26-0-1269, the series 2027 general obligation bond ordinance and Ordinance 26-0-1375, the series 2027 general obligation bond, supplemental pricing ordinance, and for other purposes. Item number two, 26-0-1317, an ordinance to amend the City of Atlanta fiscal year 2026 budget by anticipating and appropriating bond proceeds in the amount of up to $4 million and zero cents, an aggregate principal amount and related expenses, any amount of $150,000 and zero cents for the issuance of the City of Atlanta general obligation bonds pursuant to ordinance 26-0-1268, the series 2026 general obligation bond ordinance in ordinance 26-0-1374, The series 2026 general obligation bond supplemental pricing ordinance and for other purposes. Item number three, 26-0-1374, an ordinance supplementing that certain ordinance 26-0-1268 adopted by the Atlanta City Council on May 18th, 2026 and approved by the mayor on May 19th, 2026 to, among other things, provide for the sale during fiscal year 2026 of up to $4 million and zero cents, an aggregate principal amount of the city of Atlanta general obligation bond, the series 2026 bond through a direct placement to the Huntington National Bank to authorize the execution and delivery of said Series 2026 bond, to authorize the naming of a bond registrar and paying agent for said Series 2026 bond, to authorize the adoption of a form to which said Series 2026 bond shall adhere, to authorize the preparation of a tax digest and the levy of a tax sufficient to pay the principal of and premium if, any and interest on said series 2026 bond to authorize the chief financial officer to deposit the proceeds of the series 2026 bond into a fund to be created by the city, the ratification of the distribution of a solicitation of bids, and for other related purposes. Item number four, 26-0-1375, an ordinance supplementing that certain ordinance 26-0-1269 adopted by an ordinance supplementing, sorry, adopted by the Atlanta City Council on May 18th, 2026 and approved by the mayor on May 19th, 2026 to among other things, provide for the sale during fiscal year 2027 of up to $4 million and zero cents in aggregate principal amount of city of Atlanta general obligation bond, the series 2027 bond through direct placement to the Huntington National Bank to authorize the execution and delivery of said 2027 bond to authorize the naming of a bond registrar and paying agent for said Series 2027 bond, to authorize the adoption of a farm to which said Series 2027 bond shall adhere, to authorize the preparation of a tax digest and the levy of a tax sufficient to pay the principal of and premium, if any, and interest on said 2020 Series 2027 bond, to authorize the chief financial officer to deposit the proceeds of the series 2027 bond into a fund to be created by the city, the ratification of the distribution of a solicitations of bids and for other related purposes.

Thank you. And right before our motion, is there a way we can do our presentation now? It's a good time.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Mohammed Bala, Chief Financial Officer, City of Atlanta. And today we'll be going over the summary of the series 2026-2027 general obligation bonds. Next slide, please. We'll be going over the financing overview, the financing team results, the final transaction terms, as well as the debt service schedule for both series 2026 and 2027. Next slide, please. For the financing overview, on June 4th, 2026, PFM and Terminus, our co-financial advisors circulated an RFP for the issuance of general obligation bonds series 2026 and 2027 for $4 million each. These are statutory allowable bonds. for the City of Atlanta to issue these bonds up to $4 million annually. So we did them across two fiscal years for FY 26 and 27. The proceeds will be applied towards the cost of acquiring sites and constructing improvements for the municipal buildings owned by Deem, as well as ADA consent decree sidewalks. The series 2026 and 2027 general obligation bonds are secured by the monies in the bond sinking fund, which is levied against the bond mill. On June 22nd, 2026, the co-advisors received proposals from nine different financial institutions and the institution with the lowest all-in-interest bid was Huntington Bank. Next slide, please. The next slide shows for both series 2026 and 2027, the all interest for both of those at 3.79 and 3.81 respectively. The purchasers council was Womble, Bond, Dickinson, and co-financial advisors, as mentioned before, is PFM Financial and Terminus Municipal Advisors. Co-bond council was McGuire Woods, and the paying agent is Regions Bank. The next slide shows the financial transaction terms. Again, the power amount for both the issuances is $4 million. These were tax exempt issuances. And the delivery date is on June 30th for the 2026 and July 1st for the 2027 bonds. Again, these are for a period of 10 years on a final maturity of December 1, 2036 and December 1, 2037 respectively. The next two slides show the debt service schedule for the 2026 bonds as well as the 2027 bonds, including principal, coupon, and interest, total debt service. And then finally, I just want to take time to thank everybody who worked on this transaction. I wanted to thank our Treasury team, Courtney Knight, our FAs, as well as bond counsel who worked diligently on this transaction. Also, thank you to the city law team who always helps us in coordinating and making sure that we have all our legislative items and everything ready for you to consider today. So thank you, everybody.

Thank you, CFO Bala. Any questions? Councilmember Juan, I mean, Martin. I know.

So close. Councilmember Martin. Juan, Wayne, it's all the same.

Juan, Wayne, yeah.

A couple questions. Thank you so much, CFO Bala, for providing us with this overview. Huntington Bank, can you tell me a little bit more about where they're located? Of course, the other big names on here, I'm familiar with all of them, with the exception of Webster Bank. But where is their principal office located, and kind of where are they, and... Do they have an Atlanta office? Those are things that I'm just curious about.

Yeah, Huntington actually has a large, significant Atlanta presence. They just bought Cadence Bank, the headquarters for Huntington. Mr. Knight might know exactly off the top of his head, but I think it's in Alabama.

Columbus, Ohio. Okay, okay. I've got a lot of familiarity with Cadence, and I did realize, I did know that they were acquired recently, but I didn't know by whom. So the RFP process, this is sort of a learning exercise for me, and the first one of these GO bonds that I'm experiencing as a new council member. What does the RFP process entail? You know, we don't have to go into the entire process, but like the 60-second version of what does an RFP for a GO bond look like? Who's going to give us the cheapest interest rate? That's a big process. All right. All right. And so the process, we put it on the street, and folks are kind of notified through the process, and we look at interest rates, and that's kind of how we make our determination.

Yep. It's competitive, and it's based purely on financial term sheets, and customarily the person with the lowest interest wins.

All right. I think that's all I have, Madam President. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. CFO. Anyone else?

Move approval of items one through four.

Move approval.

On substitute. Second.

Move approval by Worthy, second by Martin. Please prepare the vote, Madam Clark. The vote is open. The votes close. Nine yays, zero nays. Nine yays, zero nays. Those four items are adopted as substituted.

Madam President, I'd like to make a motion to send these items to the mayor post haste.

Okay. Motion by Winston to send these to the mayor post haste. This can be done by unanimous consent, Madam Clerk. Sound that count? Nine yays, zero nays. Nine yays, zero nays. The items, all four items are sent to the mayor's office post haste. Thank you, Chair Winston. Are there any remarks by the council members? Council Member Martin, did you mean to? No? OK. Council Member Winston.

Just quickly, I'd just like to send a happy birthday shout out to Deputy Chief of Staff Gabrielle Slade, who's in the building. Nice.

Happy birthday. Happy birthday. That's wonderful. Anyone else? With seeing no more general remarks, Madam Clerk, if you can call the adjourning roll call.

Thank you, Madam President. We have Council President Marcy Culler-Overstreet. Council Member Jason H. Winston, District 1.

Here.

Council Member Byron D. Amos, District 3. Here. Council Member Leniana Bakhtiari, District 5.

Here.

Council Member Alex Wan, District 6. Council Member Thomas Worthy, District 7. Present. Council Member Mary Norrie, District 8. Council Member Dustin Hill, District 9. Council Member Andrew L. Boone, District 10. Council Member Wayne Martin, District 11.

You still say 12. You didn't do 12.

Oh, but they were absent.

OK. You only did the ones that are here? All right. Well, in that case, we are adjourned.