Commission - Regular Meeting

Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Wednesday edition of the Augusta Richmond County Commission meeting. Today is March 18th, the day after St. Patrick's Day. Hope you had a great one. Madame Clerk, before I call this meeting to order, I just want to say um yesterday we had a great St. Patrick's Day parade by grand marshall. This year's grand marshall was Mr. Worth Andrews. We thank him and his family for their commitment to Augusta and their strong Irish American Heritage Society history. And uh we all had a great time and we're ready to get down to the people's business. Madam clerk, I call this meeting to order.

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, at this time we will have our invocation shared with us today by Elder Darren McKinnon, pastor of the words of life ministry of the apostolic faith. After which we would like to ask our deputy finance director interim. She's wears it all. If she would lead us in our pledge of allegiance, Miss Maddie Sue Stevens. Thank you.

Good afternoon, uh, Mr. Mayor and commissioners. Thank you all for inviting me to do this invocation. Let us bow our heads. Father, in the name of Jesus, Father, we thank you for your presence here today in this meeting. We give you honor. We give you glory and praise because you are deserving of it all. Jesus, I ask you to look on every member of this meeting on today. Lord Jesus, I ask you to give them knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to make the right decisions for our city of Augusta. Lord Jesus, I ask that you would unify the uh members of this meeting on today. We release the spirit of peace and unity here on today. Give them a peace that surpasses all understanding that would keep our hearts and mind. Lord Jesus, help us to stay focused on today. Lord Jesus, help us to uh uh if we come across any issues, let them know, God, they can look to you for the solution. We thank you and we praise you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. And amen.

Amen. 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.

Pastor McKinnon, would you please stand? Thank you for praying on our behalf. Of course, Jesus, he he often said, "Pray for those that are in authority so that they may do good." So, we appreciate you bringing that to our remembrance. By these presents, be it known that Elder Darren McKinnon, pastor of the Words of Life Ministry of the Apostolic Faith, is our chaplain of the day. May your dedication and faithfilled leadership continue to positively impact and strengthen the citizens of Augusta. Given under my hand this day, 18th of March, 2026, Garnett L. Johnson, Mayor. Thank you so very, very much.

Pastor McKennon, thank you so much for that prayer. Thank you for being here today. Your prayer is wellreceived and much needed. Madame Clerk. Yes, sir. I think that takes us to the delegation portion of our meeting. Our first delegation, A, Miss Bridget R. Lynch, requesting a waiver of rental fees for the stage stage fee at the Augusta Common for an event scheduled for August 15, 2026 Garden City's Wine Spritzer. Miss Lynch.

Miss Lynch, are you here? Miss Lynch. Second call if you're outside our doors. Miss Lynch, third and final call. Let's see. The door just opened. Is that not Mr. Lynch? M. Madame Clerk, let's move on to the next delegation, please. Okay. Item B, Mr. Clarence Tomkins regarding the Augusta Port Authority. Mr. Tomkins, are you in the chambers? Come on up, sir. Pick a side you have. Okay. Mr. Tomkins. Welcome to today's commission.

Commission meeting. If you will, for the record, please take your name and address, sir. Uh name's Clarence Tomkins, 2710 Wheeler Road, Augusta, Georgia. Thank you, sir. Uh we're going to give you five minutes. We're going to make sure we get these these documents in hand before we start the clock. Okay. I go this way.

All right, Mr. Tomkins, you have five minutes. Okay.

Uh, thank you. The documents we're passing out I'm passing out right now is just a quick synopsis of the for the Augusta Port Authority. It goes over property ownership uh pre-litigation memorandum for the fifth street marina and it talks about the 1993 agreement between the city council and the port authority. Also in that packet is deed searches letting you know who what property belongs to us in the city. And then we also have the antiliton notice from Ed Tarver our previous lawyer who passed away. And back then in 2017, it was found that the city of Augusta owes the Port Authority $622,000 for the marina for mismanagement of funds and violating the 1993 agreement with the city. Also, we want to talk about too the money that's been missing from the marina. We like to find out what it does it comes. Does it come on the Port Authority property when the city collects the money from the marina or does it come on the Richmond County property?

Mr. Tomkins, uh, can you clarify money that's missing? And can we get someone here? Can you clarify when you say money that's missing?

Well, the lawyers found that the agreement was violated in the 1993 agreement. It was when they built the marina. When the marina was rented out, the money for the rent would go directly to the port authority. Any money over that would go to the city. But since 1993, the city has kept everything. And still to this day, they're collecting thousands of dollars from the Port Authority every month, and we don't see a penny of it. And they're not doing any work on the marina. The marina, you can't get gas down there. The docks are falling apart. So, we'd like to find out what's going on with the money and and where is it and what are they using it for and what does it come under. And secondly, the boat house. The boat house belongs to the city. The land it sits on belongs to the Gusta Port Authority. And what we were trying to do when we had the previous administration is get rent because it's sitting on property. We can't do anything with it. And the boat house has been condemned. So it's just a big structure sitting on our property. We can't rent the property. We can't do anything. We're not making any money from it. And when we tried to talk to this city about it, they just ignores us. So now we did talk to the city's attorney, James Manton, which he's trying to set up an agreement. will set up a talk with us so we can sit down and try to figure out how we can come to terms with this. But we would like to know as far as the money for the marina and the agreements that we made with the city council years ago and we got a letter from James Manton saying that they wanted to buy the marina for a dollar because of an agreement. Well, if the city violated the agreement since 1993 to now and as of this month they collected the money from the marina and we still didn't get a quarter from it. So they still violating the agreement. So, all right. I I understand your position on the marina, but help me clarify. You're stating that the land that the boat house sits on belongs to the port authority and that the city should have been paying the port authority

rent. Rent? Yes. You own. Do you have that? Do you have that agreement? The agreement? Yes. The one from 1993. But no, we talked to the mayor. He wouldn't talk back to us, the last mayor. And but you should have an agreement that says that the city should be paying you rent based on the usage. Well, that's what we came up in the meeting, the last meeting, and we're going to make up a contract for the city. So again, you're making accusations that the rent that's been paid for the use of the boat house that has been in operations, what was in operation for decades, we're asking for five and a half years back for rent for the boat house on the Port Authority property. Was that in Was that in an agreement form though?

No, it wasn't. We had Oh, so that's that's a request. So that's a request. That's our request. That's your request. Okay. All right. Just getting clarification. It is our property. All right. Okay. That's your request. All right. So that there's not an agreement. That's your request, though. All right. All right. Continue, sir. Okay. And so now we're waiting for Mr. Manton, the city's attorney, to set up a meeting for us with the port authority and the city.

Continue, sir. Okay. And pretty much right now we're waiting on the meeting to be set up with the city and that's pretty much all I have other than the fact that we're trying to figure out where our money is going for the marina and there's no repairs being done on the marina. Uh when Miss D was in office, they came down and did a walk through and decided that the marina was needed $8,000 worth of repairs. Mind you though, this the recreation department has been managing the marina for years. So they take the money every month, but they do no repairs on the marina. So the marina's basically falling apart.

Okay. All right. We got some colleagues in the queue, but I'm going to go to our general counsel first. Attorney Plunkett, the questions being asked considering that this may be pending litigation. Should we be discussing this matter openly on the floor? My advice to you would be not to be discussed and it's on the floor. Okay. Um Mr. Tomkins, colleagues, uh, under the council of our interim general counsel has been advised that we not discuss this matter publicly. Okay. I would imagine that you do have an attorney. Yes. And we're waiting on Mr. Manton to set up a date that he said he was going to set for us to sit down and talk. All right. Mr. Manton, can you make sure you get that date on the calendar and this is a very important matter before the city? Yes, sir. For us to resolve.

Said them several dates and times and had gotten no response from the port authorities. You need to come to the mic for that to be on the record, please. Uh just I'll give you a second. Just just let him. Attorney Madden, let me turn this one on. Yes. Okay, great. Sure. Uh so I actually got several dates from the administrator's office uh after last month's meeting at the Port Authority. forwarded those dates to the Port Authority on several occasions to the group that was supposed to meet and have not yet gotten a response other than from the attorney who was supposedly represent the Port Authority, but he did respond and said he does not represent the Port Authority. So, we're kind of back at Mr. Tomkins, who's your attorney that for record

and he didn't say that. And Mr. Mandon hadn't called me, hadn't sent us anything. What's What's the attorney's name? Hammad Shik. Hammad Shik. Yes, he knows who he is, but he hadn't contacted. Is that the gentleman who say he no longer represents the Port Authority? That is correct. Can you get him to send a letter to that fact so that I have an email from him saying that you have an email? Do you have it printed so we can put it on the screen? I didn't know I needed that today. No, he doesn't have it cuz it never happened. Okay. Well, um, Mr. Tommpkins, we we're going to ask that Mr. Mattton produce that email and under the advice of our general counsel, we can't discuss this any further. We thank you for being here today, sir. Oh, okay.

All right. We'll be in touch. Make sure I'll make sure that you clarify with your attorney that there's a connection established with Mr. Man and our inner house general counsel. Okay. Okay. Well, we we we have Mr. Plunkett as well as backup. Attorney Plunkett, can you make sure that this matter gets resolved and gets scheduled with the general counsel for the port authority? We will endeavor to do that, sir. Thank you so much, Attorney Plunkett. Madam Clerk, let's move on to the next delegation item. Item C. Oh, Mr. Mayor, if we could. Miss Lynch is now in the chamber. Get Miss Lynch, are you here? Come on up, madam. We apologize. We're a little late, too. We're a little late getting started, but thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. Yes, ma'am. If you will, for the record, please state your name and address. Bridget Lynch, 3412 Crane Ferry Road, Augusta, Georgia, 30907. Thank you, ma'am. You have the floor in five minutes.

Yes, sir. I've come to you all once again uh asking that the fees be waved for the Augusta Commons. Um I have a 501c3 organization. It is for HIV AIDS awareness called the Fatty Marshia Foundation. And over the years we have had to cancel a lot of events because of lack of support for an HIV program. People hear HIV they tend to run away instead of coming in and to support. So I came up with the wine festival in order to pull people in over here because people like to have fun. If I pull them in over here, then I can tell them about this. So last year we had the weather uh against us. There were a lot of homecomings that was against us, but we still had a great turnout. um well pleasable turnout. So I'm here again because I have done my homework. I'm not uh going to be clashing with any homecomings. Um I have a lot more people coming out to help because of what they saw on last year. Uh and we were able to help a lot of families uh for Christmas. And what we do for Christmas uh is um sponsor the women and children that have HIV in the CSR.

All right, Miss Lynch. Do you have a monetary value on your ask? I think the ask is just to wage the rental fees, wave the rental and the stage fee. I will um once again be responsible for the insurance uh marshals, fire department, police department, y'all security, electricians. Okay. Well, I I I think we need to direct this to our our administrator. Administrator Allen, I hate to put you on the on the spot, but we need to Well, you know what? You know what? Let's go to parks and recck. The parks and recck director,

come on down. You can stay right there. I'll ask director Williams to come to the other side. I just want to make sure that that we're being fair and equitable to the to the city's resources as it as it relates to requests for waving of uh rental fees and a stage. Director Williams, thank you so much. Uh historically, have we done this the ra the the waving of rental fees and stage fees? Has this been done in the past?

Uh, yes. And last year this was um request came from the um Miss Lynch and it was back in October that it was um the event supposed took place and so last year around March um was when she came and asked the first time and so I guess as she stated she relooked at the dates and um planning to do August.

Yes. Um and so it was approved by commission the first time. Um however we have I think the latter part of last year because we know that we have actually a fee waiver policy in our department um that we have for the a couple of events have then used that policy that's already in place um and the approval would be at my level. Okay. Um, so it would just be I guess because she came today if you determine if you want to approve it or if you want to just do it through the fee waver policy in our department.

All right. So I guess my my question for the governing body is it okay that we put this at the discretion of the department director or is this something that we want to we want to involve ourselves in? So move. All right. You got to put that in the form of a motion sir. So, you put it in the form of a motion to let this be decided by the department director and not the commission. Commissioner, I I move that we put this at the discretion of the uh the department director using their policy. Thank you so much. Is there a second? Second.

There's a second by the commissioner from the 6th. All right, colleagues. Madam clerk, do we have to do a vote? I I just have to see if there's any objection. All right, we got a vote. Let's vote. colleagues. And while we're voting, uh, Director Williams, I guess you would review the calendar to make sure that there are no conflicts, things in that. Okay, you got it.

What's the policy? And director, can you clarify the policy if you don't mind? How do you determine because I could imagine it's a fee waver policy. they um fill out um application forms to give you all details on on the event. Um we actually have a committee that comes together, review it, make sure everything is good, and then we contact the individual approval of the night. Okay. All right, madam clerk, you want to publish a vote, please? That motion carries 7 to one with Mr. Garrett voting no. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mr. Johnson, Miss Pullium, and Miss Scott out.

Miss Lance, best of luck to you with your event this year. Thank you so much. All right. You have a great day. You're welcome. Thank you. All right, Madam Clerk, let's move on. I think that takes us to uh delegation C, please. Mr. Lawrence Brandon relative to resolution discuss and interaction during the March 10th, 2026 special call meeting. Mr. Brandon, this is a special kind of delegation today, buddy. stuff. All right. Are you prepared? You ready? Or you need us to move you down a little bit? Are you prepared now? You want to you prepared? All right, sir. Yeah, we No. Um,

I need to put this up. All right, let's get it on the screen. Going to give you a few minutes before we get that on the screen to get you started. I see you have an assistant with you today. Oh, yes. Yeah, he was at our meeting Monday. Okay. There's the ticket. I think this is the youngest delegation we've had in the history of the city of Augusta, Georgia.

Mr. Brandon, if you will state your name and address. Okay. Uh Lawrence Brandon uh 445 Finwood Street, Augusta, Georgia 30901. You have the floor, sir.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And may I please the commission? During last week's special call meeting, I learned that a charter review committ uh committee member sought to restructure the language of section 140 of article 5, chapter one of the charter and laws of local application within the Augusta Richmond County Code. a section I know well. Last year, I stood in this very chamber on two separate occasions requesting an amendment to the same section. Yet, no action was taken. Both times, I was instructed to take the issue to CRC. When I finally brought the matter to CRC, a representative from uh Carl Vincent informed the committee that section 140 was a policy issue. In good faith, I accepted that explanation. But last week raised a serious question. If section 140 is merely a policy issue, then why are CRC members attempting to rewrite it? But that is neither here nor there. Because actually, I did agree with them on some of it. Because the moment the rewriting of section 140 was placed on the table, it opened the door for me to bring forward the amendment I am presenting today. Now, Mr. Mayor, let us not forget that since setting out on this mission to bring justice involved persons within a protective realm, I have been forced to navigate a series of delay and diversion tactics. A mayor who withdrew his support. I'm not a mayor. I'm sorry. I don't want to get you like that. I'm sorry. A commissioner who withdrew his support after conversations with the well-known Atlanta based group. a local delegate of that same group, stopping me right outside the chamber, urging me to step aside so they could take over, attending a jail population committee meeting on this very issue that felt more like being behind enemy lines rather than walking into a good faith discussion. Taking the matter to CRC only to be told it was a policy issue. And then no sooner than I left that meeting watching the same commissioner who had gone behind my back attempt to seize control of the process

by placing the matter on the agenda before I could bring before I could present the very amendment I am bringing today. Mr. Mayor, you ain't paying me no attention. Mr. Mayor, this body has done everything possible to wear me down by placing roadblock after roadblock in my path. Yet, I am still here. That should tell you something. But the game ends today. I am going on record to declare that section 140 of article 5, chapter one of the chart and laws of local application within the Augusta Richmond County code violate constitutional guarantees and must be corrected. In short, this policy is unconstitutional. And I will tell you why. After months of studying, I am convinced that this policy would not survive a true and thorough rational basis constitutional challenge. In City of Cleborn v Clebborn Living uh Center, the Supreme Court held that the government may not treat one group differently from others without a rational basis for doing so and that it cannot rely on mere negative attitudes, fears, or stereotypes to justify exclusion. The court also held that laws that are overinclusive or underinclusive in ways unrelated to legitimate government objectives violate the equal protection clause because the constitution forbids arbitrary and irrational classifications. Justin Byron Scott writing for the majority and I'm almost done y'all. I know y'all probably don't care to hear it, but I got to get it out cuz it's my last time presenting. Justice Byron Scott uh writing for the majority wrote that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment commands that no state shall deny to any person within this jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws which is essentially a direction that all persons similarly similarly situated should be treated alike. I submit to you today that when section 140 extends protections to certain traditional traditionally disadvantaged groups while excluding justice involved individuals

who face the same if not more severe structural barriers, then these policies are doing exactly what Clelebourne forbids. They are denying to some what they freely grant to others without any rational basis. That is the very definition of an arbitrary and underinclusive classification. And under the equal protection clause, it cannot stand. And just as importantly, the court made clear that the government cannot justify exclusion by leaning on mere negative attitudes of fear because prejudice, whether dressed up as caution, discomfort, or political convenience, can never serve as a legitimate governmental interest under the equal protection clause. Please understand what I am telling you today. This policy is unconstitutional. I made a declaration long ago that I will see this fight through and I intend to honor that commitment. What began as a simple request for fairness has now evolved into a full constitutional challenge and I am fully prepared to advance this matter into the next phase of the legal process. I have spent months studying rational basis analysis examining how courts evaluate arbitrary underinclusive classifications. I am confident in my ability to present this issue before judiciary if that becomes necessary. I have played this humiliating game long enough and and we can't deny that I got humiliated throughout this process. We can't deny that it is it is time to official cut bait. Under under section 141 of the current charter, this commission possesses clear authority to amend section 140 by 2/3 vote. And that is the the request I am making today. Now I'm about to close out. I want to speak briefly on Monday's band the box workg group. I had the pleasure of attending the band the box workg group with four commissioners present. Unfortunately, and he I'm I assume he ain't here for a reason. Unfortunately, District One forgot that this commission insisted and agreed that I would serve and act as co-chair on this matter. Yet, once

again, I was not involved in any of the planning or discussions leading up to the meeting. In fact, had it not been for you, Mr. Mayor, or Mayor Pro Tim, I would not have known that meeting was happening at all at all. I'm closing out. I'm closing. I got a couple paragraphs left. you you're up against the clock. Okay.

Now, we in good faith cannot continue down this path. However, there there was some good that came out of the meeting. The three other commissioners that attended appear genuinely engaged and willing to support the development of a meaningful second chance policy. The concern, however, is whether that attendance reflected genuine commitment or election year options, particularly for districts two and six who are up for reelection. Now, I sincerely hope that is not the case because I like everybody up here. I sincerely hope that is not the case. Therefore, as co-chair of Bander Box, because I got to reclaim my position cuz they ain't going to give it to me. Therefore, as co-chair, that's all I got.

I heard Mr. Brown. Therefore, as co-chair of the bander box and second chance policy work group and after hearing the affecting story shared by Monday speakers, I call on districts 2 and district 6 specifically to put the motion on the floor and second their motion to make sure we ain't playing politics. I further call on my co-chair who ain't here for obvious reasons. Mr. Tom, Mr. Brandon, Mr. Tomkins, I think our attorney may have Oh, okay. I see you moving. All right. All right. All right. Continue, sir.

Okay. Okay. I f if he was here I call on him to support the motion but I call on everybody to support it right I mean if we having the meetings they conveniently having the meetings now uh not doing so sends a strong signal that at Monday's work group the cameras matter more than the policy and that the identity of the person bringing the proposal carries more weight than the substance of the proposal itself Mr. Brown I got one sentence left Mr. one sentence. Districts two and six choose not to act and I respectfully request that any member of this body face the motion on the floor. I welcome the commission's questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Brandon. And first, let me congratulate you, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Brandon has been accepted to law school.

Thank you. You you you already uh sound like an attorney, so you're well on your way. So, um, first I want you to clarify section 130 because you you said you wanted a motion and you wanted to vote 2/3 majority, ladies and gentlemen, that requires a charter change. Are you stating that this requires a charter change? Is that what you're stating the reason for your motion?

Right. It will require a charter change and this is based on what happened last week, what I saw happen last week. I I feel like I know it can happen. It will require a charter change, but what it does, it protects the government. I specific I work hard on this link. I I worked hard on this language to protect the government to place discretion solely at the government's hand and keep them protected from any frivolous litigation, any litigation uh by placing nonviolent criminal histories and prior justice system. The language is specifically written for this purpose to protect the government and while also opening the doors substantial rehabilitation. Now, let me explain what substantial rehabilitation is. I've been to today, right? Matter of fact, today is my six years clean. Now, six years in my sobriety, where am I now? That's substantial rehabilitation. 6 years, that's good enough. Two years, if you decide that's not good enough, well, that's fine. Now, when we start getting alone, four or five years, no criminal involvement and and a substantial show of rehabilitation. Well, that person might need some guarantees.

You know, that person might need some guarantees. Thank you, Mr. Brandon. Hold this tight. Uh, Commissioner Don Clark from the fifth, you have the floor, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, Mr. Brandon, um, first of all, thanks for the presentation. This particular topic is going before the charter review committee. Correct. Are they still discussing this? I wouldn't know, but I do know that under section 140, this body can accept it today. All right. Give me a second. Uh, Mr. Mayor, can I ask the attorney question? Yes, sir. Proceed, please. Attorney Plunkett, can you clarify that, sir?

The issue was it it was brought before as a possibly as a speaker at a workshop, and I think Mr. Brandon was correct, is that it was considered more of a policy issue as opposed to a a procedural issue, which is most what the charter review of whether or not to create an additional protected class. And so they were saying that's a policy that this body would need to incorporate as opposed to charter review kind of I don't mean to sound negative but slide something in like that that was a major alteration of what y'all's policy has been in the past.

Yeah. What's our normal policy or our normal procedural uh steps that we take before we make uh policy changes? Don't we usually send it through legal for you all to vet and determine um everything is in order? Be quite honest, Mr. Commissioner, we have not had to have something this magnitude to be discussed before. Um I think that's a it's a major deviation from what you're what your

um you know federal laws and state laws in that regard. Um, I do want to caution the amount of conversation you'll have about this because I'm not sure if Mr. Brandon was being, you know, talking or serious, but he said that he was going to take this to the next level of judiciary review. So, that's in my world that's a pending threaten litigation there if we don't take some action. So, um, I would just urge caution as as we discuss this matter today.

All right. Um, I appreciate that, Attorney Plunkett. Um, Mr. Brandon, um, as always, appreciate you doing your due diligence and your homework on this. Um, we want to definitely make sure if there's going to be a change of this magnitude that we do all levels of verification and validation in that regard. So, um, now as far as I want to go back to the, uh, the co-chair piece. I know when we first talked about doing some level of u workshop or otherwise I know initially we had brought it up and we stated that hey we want you to be a part of this and so on. I know initially you were opposed to it at that time. Um so I'm assuming now you're you're open to the opportunity of being included in it but I don't think we ever stated about a co-chair role. I know we said we wanted you to be a part of it. But I don't think we ever stated uh a particular role.

All right, I'm going to push back on you a little bit. I really suggest you go back and watch the September 30th uh meeting and the October 7th meeting because you were one of the ones that said it because remember I was animated that day. You was like, "No, you no, no, you should have a part in this." I absolutely said you should have a part. I didn't say co-chair. I just said you should have a part in it for sure. You would say it. It was okay. So, we'll check that piece of it out. But I think um I still stand on what I stated for the reasons that I stated that you should absolutely be a part of it. Okay. Um bottom line, right? Um you've brought this issue up to us numerous times. You've been very very passionate about it. You've shown your due diligence in in numerous ways

with ensuring that this is a prioritized topic for us. Two plus years. Yep. So we're just now having a workshop, right? two two months out from election. Well, I'm just looking for a vote.

Yeah. All right. So, I know you're making that point, but I'm not. I'm just trying to stay fixed on I'm trying to stay fixed on the point that you're bringing up that this is an important topic. We need to make sure that you're included in it. We need to make sure also that our legal team and our department has the opportunity to go through the specifics for this policy change. For sure. Um but I think if there has been any exclusion of you from that um that uh workshop then we need to rectify that um as well and we'll do that for sure. So I don't think we need to make a vote um or make a motion for that. I just think we need to make sure that it's on the record that Lawrence Brandon is stating that he wants to be a part of that workshop and wants to be a part of whatever happens with um bringing some uh uh remediation towards this policy.

Right. Thank you. Correct. And that's what you're saying on the record today that you absolutely want to be a part of that. That is not what I'm saying on the record today. I was supposed to be a part of it. I am about to leave. This thing was conveniently started. I'm not coming all the way back from Atlanta from law school just to attend a workshop.

Mr. Clark, Mr. Commissioner, this could have been taken. I presented this issue respectfully. I've presented this issue two plus years. We got to stop using the delay and diversion tactics. When Mr. Fuche brought that up here last last week last week, that was on the spot. Why can't it be on the spot today? You see, there's a level of fairness that has to play out. I I really wish this commission respectfully would stop thinking I am stupid. I really wish this body I really I think that's what's going on, man. No one thinks that, Mr. Brandon. I really do. I mean, it's clear. All right. All right. All right. We're going to All right.

All right. The commissioner from the fifth yields. Chair recognizes commissioner. I don't I don't yield yet, Mr. Mayor. I think the biggest thing is I guess we're kind of confused on what we're really talking about because Mr. Brandon saying he wants to be the co-chair, but he's saying he can't be available for the meeting. I want to make sure he's a part of it. So, our I mean, it's no motion for us to make. I mean, it's it's simple. If if we have a constituent that wants to be a part of something that we're doing, we include him in it. But he's telling us that he can't be a part of it because he's about to leave. Um, and that's what I was trying to get some clarity on.

Right. Let me clarify that real quick. Mr. Mayor, I did not say I wanted to be a part of it going forward. I said I was supposed to be co-chair prior to that meeting. That's what I was saying. Just to clear that up. And for the record, Mr. Brandon is asking for a vote. That's all I want. If you're going to vote no, vote no. This section 130,

right? Section uh the amendment to section 140 because this body has the power and all. If you vote no, just vote no. What? Cuz see what I think is going on, Mr. Mayor, I think people don't want to vote because they faking because there's a little faint figning interest, but there's no real interest. And so there's no vote because you have to show your hand when you vote. That's classic politics. Now, I don't I I I really like this body up here. I really do. But two years, all I'm asking for is a vote. If you don't want to do it, just put just vote no. I'm not bringing it back. I can't bring it back because I'm about to go. Thank you, sir. Chair recognizes Mayor Pro Tim Wayne Gilmore. Mr. Lawrence,

thank you. Thank you for two years coming before us. Um, I'm going to get to this in a minute. But as far as people behind the st thinking you're stupid, we know. I don't. You ought to know that more than anything. I'll still retain your letter that you sent me. Um, but I do wish you well. on your new um enrollment to the law school in Atlanta. As I said in privately, I'll say it in publicly. Anything I could do, I will be there for you. I'll be there for your little girl and your family. I believe you. That's coming from my heart. I believe you.

I want to see you succeed. A lot of people do. I believe that um with what you bringing before us today, that's a charter change. We all know what that is. It's a charter change in a simple majority. It takes eight out of 11 of us to support it. In order for us to change it, one there's probably people behind the dis commissioners. It's not people commissioners behind the dis going exactly what are we changing? We see the highlighted words. Is that what you want? in or out? Yeah, I didn't take anything out. I just put that in. I didn't take anything out. I just added it.

Oh, you added the ones and highlighted. I didn't take anything out. What's highlighted is what I I added to it. Okay. Um can I ask the attorney something, Mr. Mayor? Yes, sir. Proceed. Attorney Plunkett.

Attorney, you see the uh draft that um Mr. Lawrence Brennan had presented before us. Is this um doable or normally before we do something this magnitude, we at least had time to sit there and study it to make sure and I think you know that as well as I do. Um but if it's something that the attorney says, "Hey, yeah, absolutely. We could support it." I'll be want to make a motion.

So, Mr. Mayor, I think there's a couple different issues. Mr. Brandon, I've actually spoke one time about some issues in terms of the second chance issues. The issue that was in the charter review was not charter review, but the workshop on on Monday is um basically creating protected classes which expands the potential for discrimination cases. Um, I would say that if somebody was being discriminated, I don't think it actually has to be in this document for them to to assert that. I think there's some concern about creating an additional pro protected class and I've shared that with Mr. Brandon before and I think that's kind of the issue here is does this body want to expand the potential cases that could be brought against the county and um you know and I my recommendation would be to minimize the number of cases that could be brought against you not expand the number of cases that could. So, if a court compelled you to expand it because of federal law, by all means, you could put it there, but you wouldn't have to because federal law would control. But, um, as far as, you know, Mr. Brandon saying that he's been here for two and a half years. I can appreciate the frustration, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's up to the commission to decide when they want to bring things to a vote. It is not necessarily a speaker's decision to when y'all bring something to a vote. And if you wish to just simply accept his his speech for information purposes, that's perfectly fine. You could also say, I want to have a motion to add this as a protected class or the the negative that I don't want to do it. But, you know, I appreciate his frustration and I would be as well if I was as passionate with

something as he is. But you don't have to vote. That's not a requirement of y'all to do that today. I have a question for inter general counsel. Yes, sir.

Okay. Interal council, where where what in that language would open the door for litigation by taking the discretion solely at the hand of the human resources department. I sent interim general counsel a copy of the policy in Atlanta and I showed him where that policy would open up litigation because it has simple language. Criminal uh his criminal whatever his criminal history status that opens the door. That opens the door. This right here, read the language. Citizens who have faced documented barriers to employment such as nonviolent criminal histories or prior justice system involvement. That's discretionary. In furtherance of this policy, the commission shall also encourage equitable participation by qualified citizens with documented justice system involvement who can demonstrate substantial rehabilitation and who meet all necessary requirements for contracting or procurement. That's discretionary. That's not saying you have to do it. That leaves it into the hands of human resources. And I get it. Inter general counsel wants to shut me down. I look up I like I don't think he wants to shut you down. I get it. But I was very very careful with this language. I spent hours on this when not hours probably days on this trying to get this language right. It is nothing like that policy they passed in Atlanta. Nothing like it. And I think I I I I really really think that's known. Uh but if you don't want to pass it, fine. I want to vote. That's all I want. If it's if it's

I'm fine with that.

Okay, I can understand that. I did speak with uh Mr. Brandon um after that workshop that they had and he was telling me about the gentleman who was speaking. I guess it was gentleman that was speaking but the conversation that was being had in the workshop was copied after the um Fton County. I guess it was but there it Mr. Brandon is trying to do is protect us, protect our city, protect this organization from lawsuits. And where he's talking about the, you know, documented justice service system involvement or demonstrate substantial rehabilitation, what Mr. Brandon had brought us before is where you could show 5 years of clean and it's not felon or felonies. I think these were misdemeanors which he was bringing forward to us in the past, but not the big criminal. Cuz the last thing I want to do is put somebody that has a criminal history next to one of our ladies or employees that's not aware of it. And that's a that's a big that's a big issue because something went wrong

and the commission was you know was aware of it that we did put somebody with a felony or ex etc and they caused harm and I'll never forget that in North Augusta um the janitorial company had hired a convicted felon on the doight program but he ended up killing one of the employees and shove her in the dumpster. Well, ever since that moment, that man's out of business. That's a shame. But that family lost his mother, sister, aunt, whoever. But I do understand. So, Mr. Attorney, if we put this word in just to protect our organization, can we do so?

Mr. Commissioner, I don't know that necessarily that it's necessary. I do find that the language the last sentence of a creates a new class and so that's where your litigation comes from potentially. Okay.

And so you know we we classically know sex, religion, gender, things of that nature is being protected classes. So now that someone who was previously just as impacted is now someone who could claim that they were not hired for discriminary purposes. Whether or not they can they win or not win on the suit. You're now defending the suit and you're taking HR's time in that regard. As far as the vote or no vote, you know, I think that it's that's y'all's call. But if you wish me to try to incorporate or review some type of language or policy that would address justice impacted people and work with the workshop, I am more than happy to do that. But I'm I'm would advise you from taking a quick response to create a uh a new protected class in today's meeting. I I I would the direction is fine, but don't don't just so quickly, and I realize maybe it's been two years, but we're talking about a 10-minute vote to create a whole new protected class. I would not do that. Mhm.

Can we um delegate you to actually look at this and see what you could bring back that actually protects uh this city, this organization, and as well as the employees that works within it. It is our job to do what y'all direct us to do. So, if you want us to look at it and come up with language, we're more than happy to suggest language to you and then advise you whether or not we think it's appropriate to adopt it. But we're more than happy to to look at it. We've done some of this previously based on these prior conversations. Um, you know, so I'm I'm expecting that as a byproduct of your workshop that we'll be directed to do that anyway. So, I'm happy to go ahead and get a head start on it.

Why don't we do that, Mr. Attorney? My motion is to go ahead and um delegate the attorney to move forward with this doc to where it could be rewritten to protect this city, this organization as well as the employees. There's a motion second. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Don Clark. Got one. Commissioner Wimbley. The floor is yours. Commissioner from the fourth.

You're right. Madam clerk, we have a motion and a second that we direct our attorney to look at language that protects the city. And I mean I mean y'all know, let me get this out. How long is this going to take? Really, how long is this going to take? This is another latex. How long is this one going to take? You know, are we going to do this? And then a month later when I'm really got one foot foot out the door to to head off and we're going to come back in here and then nothing is done and we're going to go through this whole process. This is only delay tactics and I'm not upset with this body but I just want this body to understand that I see what is going on. If you don't want to do it, just don't do it. I know interim general counsel don't really want to do it.

Well, that's an assumption, Mr. Mr. Brown. Okay. I'm sorry. I won't assume I won't assume on on in public on open on public on open floor. I won't I won't do that. My apologies. Well, I I I'll tell you I'll speak on behalf of the body of the action that was just taken. This body has actually put out a motion with a proper second to have their attorney to look at it. So there it could have easily been received as information and no action been taken. But in this case, at least it's moving the other way where we will have a deliverable back to you in a timely manner from the attorney on what actions can be taken. I think that's a win today. I believe that's a win because Okay.

All right, Madame Clerk, I see you are busy multitasking. All right, so we're we're ready. We're ready to vote. Okay. All right. All right.

And ladies and gentlemen, I I I really appreciate your patience. It's just been about a 30-minute conversation, but it's a very important one. As you know, so many people has had their lives impacted by mistakes they've made in in their younger days, and they deserve the opportunity to reh rehabilitate themselves and have gainful access to to paying jobs to where they can support themselves and their families. And Mr. Brandon obviously is very passionate about that and we certainly understand that and uh thank him for being here today. Uh let's vote, please. That motion carries with Mr. Jordan Johnson out.

Thank you so much, Madame Clerk. Mr. Brandon, thank you for being here. Thank you for bringing the beautiful baby. Please tell the mother we said hello. Madame clerk, let's move to the next item, please. Yes, sir. Item D, Mr. Dan Scott, Glendale Historic Preservation Committee's consolidated follow-up progress report from residents to Commissioner Jordan Johnson and the commission. Welcome, Mr. Scott. Good day, sir. How are you? Well, for the record, please take your name and address, please. Yes, I reserve the right not to uh state my address on the uh agenda item request form. Yes, sir. You can do that. Your name? Uh Dan Scott. You got it. You have five minutes, sir.

Yes, sir. Um, I came to give a follow-up report to Commissioner Jordan Johnson and the rest of the commission. Um, also Commissioner Scott in regards to Commissioner Johnson's, uh, last visit to the community. Um, it was on October the 8th, 2025, but Commissioner Johnson came through and he did a a wellness check and a uh, assessment. Um, he went to I accompanied him. It was raining that day. He had his umbrella still came out. Um we went to a few neighbors houses, sat down and had some discussions in regards to some positive and constructive things they feel we can move forward with in the community. Uh out of that report since then um Commissioner Scott uh we the residents that Commissioner Johnson met with and some more individuals we uh decided to form uh an association under OCGA Georgia code 2-6-9. That was one of the outcomes because we needed infrastructure in order to move forward with some things. Um the other thing that came out of it was that we uh formally decided that we want to move forward with the uh with historic preservation uh status uh national level and we may possibly looking at local level but this is for uh national level and I wanted to know how we how could we move forward now working with the commi the commission and getting the Glendale community to that uh stage. There are other things that we saw as far as infrastructure, storm water mitigation uh issues that need to be uh addressed. Uh Commissioner Johnson since then has had some crews in the community. Uh the old the older uh residents have seen that and notice some of those things are happening. We have one major issue with 2234 uh White Road. It's on the back of Glendale. I have sent several uh emails to particular parties of the commission in regards to how that wet land is

invading um several houses on Wharton Drive, the whole strip and it's invading their yards. So, um, at this moment, we just basically we're notifying the commission that we, uh, in Jordan that we formed under OCGA2-6-9 for an association and we also now want to move forward with our historic preservation uh, status. Does that conclude your presentation, Mr. Scott? Yes, sir. That is all that I u had to state. All right. Chair recognizes Commissioner Francine Scott from Renee.

Good afternoon, Mr. Scott. Um, have you all been in touch with the historic society? About a couple of years ago, we reached out. Uh, but since No, you guys have two historic You have one that's separate, a nonprofit that's not under the city. The one that's the committee that's associated with the city of Augusta, we have not. and we wanted some help and assistance with that. Okay. Yes, ma'am. You have my number. I'll give you my card and let me see if how we can go forward with that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you much, Commissioner Scott. That's it.

That's it, sir. We don't have any. Mr. Scott, we don't have any more colleagues in the queue. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for giving us an update on your work. Madame clerk, that takes us to uh I think the final delegation item for today, please. Item E, Miss Zakia Marberry, regarding update from the mayor relative to the implementation of following residents allowing residents to state only their name for the record before speaking during public meetings. Thank you so much, Madam Clerk. Miss Mary, welcome back. Happy Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday to you. Apologies for my voice. I've been under the weather. these algaes in Georgia, I tell you. For the record, my name is Zakiyia Mabberry. And um I'll be brief today. So, good afternoon, mayor, commissioners, staff, this room or watching virtually. Remember September 11th, 2001. Some may not, some may not have even been alive, but I certainly remember that day. At that time, I was living in Northern Virginia in Arlington, a few miles from the Pentagon. And I want to be very clear about what that means to me and what it means hopefully to you. From my balcony in my condo, I can see smoke. I felt the building shake. couldn't use my cell phone because the systems I believe were every it stopped because of the Pentagon being hit. I watched the traffic on I 95 go all directions south moments later, well probably about an hour later, people walking on the side of I 95 on the interstate. That experience is something that stays with you. I'm not going to go into all the details about what my position was at that time or my family members. That's a time for another discussion. But what I want to talk about is what followed as a country. What was not just a simply a reflection. It was action. See, as a country, we assessed the risk. We identified the gaps and we modifi modernize systems to better protect the people. That's why we have TSA. That is why we have the Department of Homeland

Security. That is why they exist because when you know better, you're supposed to do better. And that brings me to why I am here today again. At previous meetings, this commission indicated that time was needed by the attorney to research what the topic I came to talk about repeatedly. So, it was asked for two weeks. It's been two weeks. I'm here and I'm here respectfully to ask for an update on that review of the policy because as it as it stands today, there's a humongous gap. A gap that needs to be addressed. If a resident chooses not to state their personal information, PII, public I mean um public identifiable information for those who don't know what PI is that same information is later published in publicly accessible documents then the expo exposure still exists. This is not a different outcome. It is the same exposure just differently presented. And I want to acknowledge I understand very well Georgia's open records framework and the importance of transparency and democracy. I get it. I agree with it. But transparency does not require unnecessary publication of PII. Even with open records, within the open records processes, there is room for discretion and that's hopefully what our um legal team can use their judgment to do, including the ability to redact sensitive information. They do that all the time within the federal government when there's sensitive information.

So, this is not simply a question on whether information can be accessed through a request. Of course, people can request a foyer. Um, you call it something different here. I can't remember what it is at the moment. But the question is whether we are proactively publishing more than is necessary when we have already have the ability to limit that exposure. I enjoyed the discussion that we had a few minutes ago with the gentleman that was before us and the commissioner from the six talked about he wanted to limit risk exposure for individuals who have been re rehabilitated and so you need more time to discuss what that may look like. Okay. But um what steps are being taken to address and what is the anticipated timeline for implementation because we do not need a negative incentive to occur here in the CSA particularly Augusta um because you refuse to implement a solution for a modern government um system. We already have information. We need to act. We have the information. We just heard as I mentioned the concern from Mr. Lawrence. The commissioner mentioned protecting staff during um from nonviolent persons who have been rehabilitated. But the question, the big question, the big pink elephant in the room is why does that same level of protection not be extended to the residents that you're supposed to serve? those that want to engage in this process to not have to put themselves in danger. Access upon request is not the same as automatic exposure. And if additional strategy or implementation support is needed, you

have local talent right here who can help you. I encourage the commission to engage the appropriate expertise to move this forward efficiently, effectively, and immediately. That expertise does not extend to just the networks that you're used to dealing with Carl Vincent Institute. Sometimes you have to look outside your small perfial box to get to make a meaningful impact. That's all I have for today and I look forward to the update and knowing what the strategy looks like for a forward motion. Thank you for your time.

All right, Miss Mabry, thank you so much. Just for clarity for the general public that may not have been here when you were here two weeks ago. You're stating your request is your name and address is given when you request to be a member and participate in the delegation that you don't want to publicly give your address and that it should be redacted from the records that's put out with the publication of the itinerary of the meeting. Is that your request? No, it's multi-prong request actually. Um sir, if I may sir, um it's not just that. It's Yes. Not just me, not just the Kia, but other people, the public. Yes, sir. So, that's one. Number two, it would be so when they come here,

they don't have to be asked again to speak it. If the if the clerk has it and it's on the record, there should be some type of a systematic process.

Can I finish? Yeah, go ahead. Answer the question. Yeah, sure. Okay. So there should be a systematic process where they don't it should be noted that they they've already given that information. Everyone is required to give that information when they complete the form. Maybe you should adjust. I mean I'm a consultant so I can help you solve the problem. The form you can have somewhere. I choose not to have it stated in public. You can have that updated on your form and I understand like I indicated in my email it may be a workflow issue. So you might need to strategize on how to fix that. And then the third is when you in um upload the entire package, if the information is still there that they submit it with their address and phone number, it should be redacted because that goes against like that's kind of counterintuitive. If they already said they want to say it publicly, but you're giving it to the whole public when you put your package up, it it doesn't make sense. Okay.

So, it's three things. All right. Madame Clerk, I have a question for you regarding identity. In your process of people requesting to be a member of the delegation at any point, do you have to require them to produce a driver's license or anything? No, sir. So, essentially, you can have someone to be someone else that and say anything. So, there's there's no validation of the person like Miss Mabberry could be someone else. How how do we provide and I understand what you're saying. We want to protect people's identity, but I think it has to be start from the beginning to where they have to verify their identity

before they can be given the opportunity to speak under and I'm going to go back to the attorney and I got to I don't see anybody else in the queue. Attorney Blankton, under Georgia open record laws, is it permissible to let individuals come speak in a public setting without verifying their identities? So the it's under our rules and procedures which we are in the process of there was a motion about two weeks ago to have us do that. We're in the process of it. Um part of the issue is as as the speaker and I apolog I can't pronounce your last name. Is it

it's Dr. Zakia Mabry? Mabberry, Dr. Mabberry. And so the issue is the redaction is a little bit of an issue under open records in terms of doing that. So if it's in the clerk's um data input, you know, I want to be a delegation and it's there. Theoretically, someone could do an open records request for all the speakers in the last 6 months and that data would be available because it can't that's not redactable information. The flip of it is is that what we're looking at is um getting y'all to consider whether or not do you really need that information other for communication purposes. So, and our our we're kind of giving you a little bit of a a cafeteria of the person is a speaker. Do you live in Richmond County or not? You know, kind of things like that. Um it it's so it's not something that um that we're just glossing over if that if if that may be. I I recognize that what Dr. Mabry is saying is some things are attached when a person doesn't want that to be attached. But the attachment to the agenda item is one issue, but ultimately it would be accessible through open records. and we're trying to figure out how to um address that concern that she brought and and and so we are looking at that we are close to having a a bundle of information to bring to y'all and I would think by the next committee cycle but I think the next committees are not till midappril if I'm so that's the our goal is to have it to y'all in advance of that and so that you can kind of look that, you know, we're looking at simple cleanups, but also some more substantive issues like that.

Okay. Uh, Miss Bravery, is that answer satisfactory? No. Okay. So, let me just say, and I'm not going to go off on a tangent, but do you realize that your information publicly is out there everywhere in our system? If you're a homeowner, especially if you're a homeowner, it's easy to find through GIS. So, should we redact all the information in GIS? Are you Is this a rhetorical or you No, I'm just asking a question. How do we do it? Because you could give your name and if you're a property owner, Augusta Richmond County, people can find you. There's ways you could be found without I'm So, I'm just asking if we're going to redact names. How do we protect truly protect your your your identity and what you're asking? How do we do that?

There's a way to do that. And again, if you want to have a conversation offline because it's going to take longer to try to explain the nuances of this than the time that's allotted right here. Um, we can have that conversation. Again, the Army Project Consulting is my organization or you can we can go into a business agreement so I can help you fix some of these gaps that are illuminating within the county. But I would be happy. I'm not being sarcastic at all. But if you want to have a conversation offline, we can have a Zoom. I can come in person and we can work and and we can to um share some thought processes on how to fix this. But at this moment right here, I'm not prepared or willing to go through how to fix the system when the attorney said he needed two weeks to um come back with an um actionable information and now he's saying he needs um another month. So, I'm I'm going to ask you as part of my homework, do you know another government agency, a government body that it works well? Can you give me an example so I can go look at their meetings and see how they do it? Have you

I can I can email that to you within um 24 hours, please. Because I I'd like to see how other communities do it to see how we can make it work. I agree. And thank you for asking and I'm not being sarcastic, but I appreciate your dialogue. You're willing to look at best practices for other organizations. I'm thankful and I I appreciate that. You got it. All right. All right. I don't see any colleagues in the queue, but thank you for being here today and uh the attorney and his team are working on it. And if you can get me those examples because I watch a lot of government meetings and I've done my most of them I see they give name and address or I reside at I haven't seen many where that information is not is withheld. I'll give you a list of at least um five.

All right. In Georgia hopefully in Georgia. Um, well, Georgia, I won't say that. Being a military family and the work that I've done, I travel across Konis, old Konis, but I can give you some within the United States where it works well. All right. Thank you so much for being here today. All right. Thank you. All right. All right, Madam Clerk. I think that uh that takes us out of our delegations, right? And now it's time to move on to the meat of this agenda, the consent agenda. Okay, Mr. Mayor, you And are there any addendums? Let's get the Yes, sir. You have them in front of you. I don't have And we have one additional one that

that uh we didn't get on the printed agenda. It came in right as I was leaving the office. We will put that on the screen. All right. Let's go ahead and read the addendums in just for the record if you don't mind, madam administrator. Okay. Madam clerk.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Item number one on the addendum agenda is a motion to approve Augusta Regional Airport, a standard car rental agreement with Avis Budget car rental in an amount not to exceed 43,846 for 2026 masters. This was approved by the Aviation Commission on January 29th, 2026. Item number two is a motion to approve an emergency request for Trinity Electrical Services, Inc. in the amount of 56,372 for direct boring and installation of new conduit. This was received as information by our public services committee on March 10th, 2026 and they need a formal vote from the commission. Item number three is to approve award of bid item number 26130 for the construction of the Augusta Reservoir Dams Improvements Project to Shear Mutmer Construction LLC requested by Commissioner Don Clark. Item number four is a motion to correct case number in a previously approved settlement of all claims of Cardis Cheetum against Kyla Firm to read case number one 25 CV00005 instead of case number 125 CV000096 requested by the law department. The next item is to approve the emergency request for placement of carrier rooftop unit at E91 emergency

services department in the amount of 32,50721. This was originally approved as receive as information. However, they realized they needed a formal vote from the commission to take action to approve or disapprove. They're recommending approval.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Those are our five agendum items. Colleagues, let's go through this consent agenda, please. All right. On under the planning portion of the agenda, if there are any objectors to our planning petitions, would you please signify your objection by raising your hand once the petition is read? Call your attention to item number two. It's a request for approval to amend conditions from zoning case Z2434 regarding property located at 30 2355 Windsor Spring Road. Are there any objectors?

Any objectors at 2355 Windsor Spring Road? None noted. Madame clerk, let's continue. Item number three is a request for a special exception for property located at 2500 Craraven Street, 2421 Windsor Spring Road, 3401 Lucy Street, and part of 2355 Windsor Spring Road, zone R1 family residential. Are there any objectors? Any objectors, madame clerk? He or seeing none, let's continue.

Item number four is a concurrence with the planning commission to approve a petition requesting a special exception to establish a family personal care home located at 3638 Stanton Court. Are there any objectors? 3630 Stanton Court. We have Hold. Keep your hands up. One, two, three, four objectives, madame clerk. So, we're going to have to pull that one. Four objectors. Okay. Number four.

Call your attention to the public service portion of our agenda. If there are any objectors to any of the Yakcoal petitions, would you please signify your objections by raising your hand once the petition is read? Item number five is a request for a retail package, beer, and wine license to be used in connection with the location at 1812 Lumpin Road. Are there any objectors? Any objections? 1812 Lumpin Road. Hearing CNN, let's continue.

Item number six, I'm sorry. Uh, number eight, it's a request for retail package be wine license to be used at 1959 Kissen Bower Road. Are there any objectors? Any objectors is 1959 Kinson B Road. Seeing or hearing none, let's continue. Item number nine is a request for a retail package being wine license to be used in connection with the location at 3317 Peach Orchard Road. Are there any objectors? Any objections? 3317 Peach Orchard Road. Hearing seeing none, let's move on.

Item number 10 is a request for on premise on premise consumption beer, wine, and Sunday sales in connection with the location at number eight James Brown Boulevard. Are there any objections? Number eight James Brown Boulevard. Seeing or hearing none, let's move on. Okay, Mr. Mayor, that concludes our planning and alcohol petition with objectors for item number four. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Chair recognizes Commissioner Brandon Garrett from the A.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to add items one and two from the addendum agenda to the consent agenda. One and two from the addendum as well as item 25, 26, and 30. 25 26 and 30 25 26 I think number 30. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Garrett. Chair recognizes Commissioner from the fifth Commissioner Don Clark. Hey, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to add from the addendum items three and four um for consent. Yeah.

Oh, the additional one is that from central services to approve replacement of carrier rooftop at E91 emergency services department in the amount of 30 32,5721 by Augusta Chiller Service. And that was one we received as information. Yes, sir. Okay. And we just need to vote for that one. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. I'd like to um add that to add that one to consent as well. Um uh I know commissioner from the ETH added number 25 for consent. I'd like to uh hear um the dialogue from the legal team for 25.

All right, madam clerk move 25. Move that. Okay. And I'd like to make companion items 27 and 28. I'd like to make those companion items since they're both related to the same thing. We can do that when that those come up. Pulled already. Yeah, it was pulled. 27 28. Yeah, 27 and 28. Those two um are related. So, let's just companion item those. Madam administrator, you have any issue with that? No, sir. Thank you. That's all I have, Madam Clerk. Thank you. Chair recognizes Mayor Pro Tim Wing Gil. I want to make sure item number four is pulled. Yes, sir. is pulled.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Commissioner from the second, Commissioner Stacy Pulling. Clarification on 25 is back on the agenda. Correct. Yes. Did Commissioner Clark just state that he Okay. All right. What number are you talking? 25. 25. So, we are discussing it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. Motion to approve as stated. Second.

Commissioner Brandon Garrett has called for a motion to approve as stated and seconded by Commissioner from the 5th, Commissioner Don Clark. Madam Clerk, see no colleagues in the queue for discussion. We're prepared to vote. That motion carries with Mr. Jordan Johnson out.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Top to bottom, let's start off with item four, please. Item number four is a request for concurrence with the planning commission to approve a petition by Linda Williams requesting a special exception to establish a personal care home affecting property located at 3638 Stanton Court. Thank you, ma'am. Folks, I'm planning and zoning All right. Hello, sir. How you doing today? Good. Good. Good afternoon.

All right. Let's go to it.

All right. Essentially, this is a uh approval of a special exception request for a family personal care home. The home itself is uh located on 0.19 acre parcel. Um it is um 1172 square ft. The applicant is proposing four clients. Uh home itself contains three bedrooms, two baths. Um and it is situated um there's no um existing family personal care homes within 12,200 ft of the property. Um and the planning commission approved this request from with 65 folk um with six conditions uh with the special exception. And that concludes the background uh request.

Thank you, sir. All right, we got Is the petitioner here? Is anybody represent representing the petitioner for this project? I know there's some objectors. Is a petitioner present? Don't I don't see her. You don't see her? All right. Uh objectors. Is there someone that wants to come up and speak on behalf of your group? Madam President, everyone knows you, but for the record, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Octavia Holloway Collins. I reside at 2711 Cardigan Court, Esa, Georgia 30815. I am the president of the Richmond County Neighborhood Association Alliance. I see you have a co-presenter for the record, please, sir. Yes, my name Yes. My name is John Cington. I live in 3562 Monte Carlo Drive, Augusta, Georgia. All right, you you guys have the floor on the reason for your objection, please.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, commissioners. Personal care homes. We've been here before and uh I know how some of you feel about it. However, this is in a neighborhood, Pepper Ridge subdivision. Also, there are currently, to the best of my knowledge, two active uh personal care homes in that subdivision and potentially four. Now, I know they said that there's not one within what was it 1,200 or whatever the distance, but that's not the issue. This is a subdivision. It is not a place where we normally want to have businesses and for some reason we seem to keep adding personal care homes and once again I'll state I have nothing against people that needs to be in personal care homes. That might be me one day. My issue is where we're locating the personal care homes. Now, um I would be sarcastic and say maybe it doesn't matter because it's not your neighborhood, but I'm not going to say that. What I will say is we need you to consider denying this request based on the fact that it's my understanding that there are other personal care homes in that subdivision and some of them are actually kind of undercover. So, having said that, I'm going to let the gentleman to my left speak further pertaining to that. But please consider not not approving this request based on the fact it is a neighborhood, personal care home. It's a business and we are not discriminating against anyone. But at some point in time, we have got to

understand that this is not a place for a business. is residential. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, sir.

Uh we oppose uh this u approval. Uh it's a R1C, it's the R1A, residential area. Uh we've had uh several personal care homes in our neighborhood and our neighborhood is one of the largest neighborhoods I have ever encountered uh in Georgia, Florida, Atlanta. People always refer about it how large Atlanta is, but normally their communities only exist of about 5 to 600 homes in that neighborhood. Our neighborhood consists of 1,267 homes and is approximately 95% occupied. We have enough trouble trying to keep our neighborhood safe and m and keeping up the standards as it is. When uh you approve, if you approve this uh personal care home, we are inviting businesses to also require a license to operate in a neighborhood. Now that puts another burden on the community, puts another burden uh of safety officers, personal care homes, uh let's understand something. Most personal care homes are not inspected. Uh the state of Georgia, they're governed by the state of Georgia. but they don't have enough people to go

around annually to make sure personal care homes are up to the standards that it's supposed to be. So, a lot of violations of care and only people that have to deal with it are the people in the neighborhood. Uh couple years ago, we had people from one of the personal care homes wandering around trying to find their their homes or where they reside because those personal care homes need to be uh guarded to make sure that the individuals in the personal care home are cared for. This caused a problem for the community. Now, like I said, we have over,267 homes in Pepperage. We only have two entrances or exits. This causes a problem with transportation. People driving down the street. As a matter of fact, we got some speed humps to slow down the traffic on uh some of the streets. Now you must realize that some of the streets in Pepperage are approximately a mile and a half long. We have two streets that length and several streets that are more than a mile. So this cause a risk for people driving their cars on the street and it's a risk for the people in the personal care home if uh they don't have an area that will maintain them in within the area uh by having a fence. And this home does not have a fence around it where the uh clients can come out and walk around and get some fresh air. If they don't have the fence,

now it's a problem for the individuals that are in that care. They're locked in a house. They can't go outside and they're regulated to about I think it's five feet by 8 ft person square uh space. So it it kind of keeps them confined. So you can understand why people want to go outside or get some fresh air and by a business. This is a business and they are required to allow people come and visit people in the personal care homes. So we have more traffic. And number two, or number three, uh the garbage is excessive. So now we have this problem with having one canister for trash for approximately four people, four adults. Once this is approved for four adults, actually by it having three bedrooms, uh that company can ask for upgrade and make that six uh clients. No one would inspect it because we are short on manpower on uh in the in the city to go out and inspect and make sure they're uh up to the standards. And the state is overwhelmed because this is a big business is is blooming up as a small entity but it expands because by the m multiply multiplicity

of the uh person care homes. So we do not wish to have this excessive burden. Thank you sir.

And once again um Mr. Mayor and commissioners as he stated it is a business and this is a residential area and I know sometime we feel compelled to approve these personal care homes and I can empathize with that. However, there should be a proper location and we're saying this is not the proper location for that personal care home and we want you to take that into consideration. Um, and I know some people will say, well, uh, as far as the trash, they can order additional receptacles or whatever. That's not the major issue. The major issue is this is a residential area and the um homeowners would prefer no personal care homes and as we stated before you already have some there and you don't want to continue to add additional ones to that subdivision.

Thank you. I just want to hear from the planning department because certain personal care homes are permissible and just give us the clear guidelines on those the ones that does not require them to come before this body. Three or less. Yeah, there's a tier of uh for personal care homes. Uh you have the uh personal care homes is which is three or less. through um that is not occupied by the resident. Then you have a family and personal care home which is four to six which this is and it is permissible through a special exception in the R1 zones. Okay.

Then you go up to a higher level uh group personal care home and congregate personal care homes and those require higher zoning than R1. And so the applicant in in the category that she's in, she is allowed to have up to six if the conditions are proper. In this case, she only has three bedrooms, so she's limited to four. And she's requesting four. She's requesting four. All right. Um, we're going to go through the colleagues, but keep in mind that the petitioner is not here, so I don't think it's appropriate we take action today and that they need to be present, but we're going to go through the process. I'm in total agreement with that because it would not be fair to them.

You're exactly right. All right. Chair recognizes Mayor Pro Tim Wayne Gilful. Thank you. And I would like to thank y'all for speaking up on behalf of the association, 1267 citizen or houses in that neighborhood. I swear y'all got a thousand stop signs in y'all's neighborhood. Y'all got more stop signs and that becomes a safety issue. Kevin Boyd. Yes.

Because um I got a good friend of mine that lives in Pepperage and I try to find them every time, but I got to use my ways and I have to call them say, "Give me your address again." Normally under the most circumstances you go to somebody's house, but in Pepperidge there's if you turn left or right when you ain't supposed to, you'll end up where you shouldn't be. Um I do realize that this doesn't stop the process. the owner could still occupy this house with three or less um people or care people that they taking care of. The only thing if we deny this it stops anything from four to six.

That's correct. Um but I think what you're going to find out is it's more of a concern on the safety. Um because them are going to be elderly. They're going to be in need. They going to need a health care and a familience comes down that road, they ain't going to be able to find it easily, shall I say. Um, if you went down Pepperage, you'll see. It's just you get lost so easily. But, um, Kevin, you had stated, I mean, Mr. Boyd, I apologize. No, you're fine.

Mr. Boyd, uh, you had stated, uh, it was, um, it came through plan zone and based on five contendants. Yeah, we we actually had uh six conditions and um to address one of the um citizens concern, one of the conditions of approval is that the backyard be fenced entirely with a sixoot privacy fence and there are five other conditions. Um

what are they? The very first one is that the home be limited to the four residents as uh uh applied for. Any lived in uh staff members will be included and that total occupancy count. Number two, as stated, the background uh the backyard is entirely um enclosed by six foot privacy fence. Number three is a successful code enforcement inspection is required prior to issuance of a business license. Number four is that the applicant must obtain a city of Augusta business license and maintain a valid license with the state of Georgia app proof of compliance with the minimum requirements per section um or chapter 2905-5.18 of the uh Georgia state code uh along with annual inspection reports number five uh that the home shall be staffed have and operated in accordance with all state reg state regulations. And then number six, no signing shall be permitted on the property.

Right. And the um the representative from the association said something that was very meaningful is the state's short-handed already for them to come out inspect. They could actually have five to six people and nobody would know it because once they come in the house, they don't go outside the house unless they got a doctor's appointment and all of them won't be in a van at the same time. Um, what can we are they required to have a business license for three or less?

Yes. All all personal care homes, personal care home establishments require a business license as well as any homebased business. Uh and that's generally done uh either through the commission approval or through the special use permit process at the front counter.

Okay. Um this is the second time that this has been before us um not the same applicant um over the past 3 months. How do we put a ordinance or policy or something in place to where it makes it harder for people to move into neighborhoods? What can we do? We we actually updated the codes and don't quote me on the date, but there's a whole design standards and criteria that's uh sort of referenced in your in your uh in your report. Um all of those didn't exist prior to 2018. So we have design standards that either are um that exceed the state level in terms of number of of occupants,

anything above three as far as state guidelines. But as far as the county guidelines, how can we put something in place, ordinance, policy, etc. to keep it from hitting all these neighborhoods? I mean, the spacing. So, we could address the spacing and and that is one of the things that we've been considering in the draft ordinance. So, currently there's a 1200 foot separation as the crows crow flies. Um, and that could be uh enlarged or you know, yeah, 1,200 foot is probably here for to the mayor's office, I would say. I think it's a bit more than that, but I get your point.

Um, I'm going to make a motion that we send this forward to the next commission meeting since the petitioner is not here. Um, Miss Williams. Um, if I could get a second, that'd be nice. Uh, all right. Still need a second. Still need a second for a motion to move this on to the next commission meeting. Traditionally, I think attorney Plunkett has mentioned that these decisions are made without a petitioner. Attorney Plunkett, can you clarify, please? We finished with I think historically we tend to push it to the next meeting so the petitioner can be there. All right. Thank you, Attorney.

All right. We're going to come we going to get through. I do want to make the point that uh with the change in the meeting date, we did notify the applicant of the meeting change. So, they were informed of this uh meeting dates. They were formed. It was formed. All right. Come on. Let's let's get through it. Chair recognizes Commissioner Katherine Smith Rice from the third. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I I was here two weeks. Well, and I see Yes.

Mr. Boyd over there shaking his head and I listened to this and I know that the vote was close but you know if the applicant knew two weeks ago that they were supposed to be here for this for for it to come before the uh full commission that um I'm going to say it shows a little irresponsibility. They were here two weeks ago but they can't be here today and they knew about it. that worries me about wanting to approve this. If they aren't responsible to be here, are they gonna be responsible with that personal care home? So, I say we vote on it today and uh and and move on with it because it, you know, this this just wastes time and it's not fair to the residents who did come out today and who were here last two weeks ago. So, um, I substitute to make a motion that we vote on it today. Do

I have to do a substitute? You don't have to substitute. There was no second to the original. I'll make a motion to vote on it today. Turn your mic on, please. Your mic. Your mic's off. All right. Make You say vote on it. What do you mean by that? Vote it up or down? Not. Well, I'm going to say I'll just say it right now. I'm not approving it. You want to approve it or deny it? I want to deny it. I'm not supporting it. All right. We have a motion from Commissioner Smith Rice from the third. Motion to deny, seconded by Commissioner from the ETH, Commissioner Brandon Garrett, Commissioner Stacy from the second. Madam, you're in the queue.

Thank you, Mayor Johnson. Um, I have a question just for um, I guess the situational awareness for everyone watching. When individuals purchase properties, because I know the last petition that came before us in another neighborhood, they had already purchased the property and then they were trying to move forward. Do they have the option of prior to purchasing the property going through certain steps to see whether or not they're going to get approved if in fact their intent is to be a personal care home.

In this case, uh the applicant is not the property owner and what we always stress stress to the applicants is that it it's no there's no guarantee. We could uh give you some uh foresight on what staff inclination is based on the conditions and what's being requested, but ultimately the board would make that decision and we can't give you, you know, hindsight on what the decision would be, but we could give you staff's recommendation or some sense of what where we stand on it. Okay? But you don't have to own the property and our systems are built in place to accommodate that.

Right? because you're not you don't know the intent of someone purchasing a property, but specifically if they come to you, what you're advising them is we don't know if they're going to vote in your favor or not. Absolutely. So, they have to go through the proper channels, right? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Johnson. Thank you, Commissioner from Second. Chair recognizes Commissioner Lonnie Wimberly from the fourth. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to address planning. Yes, sir. Please. um on personal care home. Um what's the percentage of them in South Augusta?

I wouldn't have a P percentage at this current moment, but that would be something we could follow up with you during the next meeting. Well, percentage was was uh quoted before. I can't give you the exact quote to it, but it was above 50%. Uh relative to the other locations. Yes, sir. and geog I mean you have to consider the geographic size of South Augusta and the predominance of the single family. So all of that has to be factored into it. But I would suspect there is a disproportionate higher rate in the South Dust Augusta area. Why is that?

Just but what where I mentioned there's it's a larger swath of land is spread out. It's a higher uh predominance of single family. it there's more neighborhoods and and and less clustering of n neighborhoods which makes it more conducive. So there's a lot of external factors that must be considered rather than the political aspects of South August Augusta versus West. So so that two what was it 200 not within 200 ft of 1200 ft 1200 ft

and these areing these are assessing homes that are four or or greater. It is not assessing this the three or less. Those are not family personal care homes. So that 1200 foot distance measures the condition the commission approved. Are both uh both the three and less and the four and above are they also businesses?

Yeah. So they're homebased businesses and we have a lenty of homebased businesses. We we approve business homebased businesses several a week, several a day. So it's a very active ongoing process that the city facilitates. But that doesn't apply to personal care homes and family care homes, however you want to name it. But that doesn't apply to that. You don't do that every day, right? We small scale, we do several uh every week. I guess it wouldn't be every day. We don't have a we don't receive them every day, but at least a couple a week or in I wouldn't say a week. Let's say this in a two week period, we have at least one request.

No. Okay. Uh we were just looking at listening to the the neighborhood and I was there when this petitioner uh first appeared before your board. Uh I was under the impression that that petitioner actually own that property because the lawyer said that she paid cash for it. Was was that a mistake on the lawyer part? Can you repeat repeat that again? I'm so sorry.

Okay, we'll try this one more time. I was there the day that this in in your meeting when this came up and she had a lawyer, female lawyer. Mhm. And one of the uh uh supporting reason that they made was that she had paid cash for the house. Meaning the petitioner the petition the petitioner does not own this home. This is uh so the lawyer made a mistake made must have because the petitioners never to draw sympathy from the board member I'm not aware of that conversation but if if go back go back and read your menace. Yes sir. It was stated in there.

Yes sir. She does not own the property. She received consent from the property owner to represent the property for this petition. That's not what the lawyer said. I'm just saying what I I I heard because I want because the next question was uh that was asked to her by one of your members was did she make contact with the neighborhood association? And it was said that she did not know that there were a neighborhood association. Correct. And I I do recall that uh there's not established homeowners association, but there's a there's a neighborhood association. Neighborhood association. She said she didn't know that

and and it's not a requirement for them to reach out to those groups but it is a good courtesy effort to ensure that you know you get some perspective from those members and groups. So a requirement by city code or state code to you know take those actions.

Okay. Um, so what you just said is because they have an association and it's not a and and really by law there's no different between ownership of a HOA or neighborhood association. It's about the resident and what the and what the uh covenant says, right? Mhm. I think I think if she knew more about it, she would have made those steps, but it seemed like she was not the awareness wasn't fully, you know, as if you go into Pepper Ridge, if you drive into Pepper Ridge from Peach Road,

there's a big column that advertised the neighborhood association. What I can tell you is we we generally recommend to applicants to reach out to the community, reach out to these associations. Um, sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't. It isn't required and if they do it it it is a courtesy effort. So we don't we don't have these kind of arguments in your update. Can that not be something that you ask them to do to try to make their their acceptance a little bit more easier?

Just keep in mind we we consider a wide range of requests. So we we do you know resonings for extended state hotels to you know a Walmart there they're different convenience stores and so one of the things we have been considering and with the data center uh issue certain uses having a certain procedure and set of guidelines to address you know what the community has concerns and and then the homeowners association including them in that process for particular requests that require commission approval. That is something we're working up in the new draft ordinance.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner Wimberly. Chair's going to recognize the objectors. Is something additional you need to add? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And uh planning, we do appreciate you and we're not trying to beat you down, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. Um Mr. mayor originally when I stated, you know, to be fair to the petitioner. Well, let me put it this way. That was before I was aware that he or she was already aware of this meeting. Okay.

Now, um when I got the call last night, I had to adjust my schedule to accommodate this meeting. That's what we do when something is important to us. I appreciate the commission and I'm hoping they're going to go ahead and vote because I'm of the same mindset. If you knew and you didn't show up, that speaks volumes. And you have no one to go around and validate that the circumstances have not changed from 3 to 8, 4 to 6, 6 to 10. So, I appreciate the commission and I appreciate whatever your decision is going to be. However, I'm hoping you decide to vote and that you vote no.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Uh we have a message board as you enter Pepper Ridge where we announce the meetings and the week prior to the meeting. We have little signs like election signs throughout the whole n the entrance and the back entrance of telling people where we when we're going to have the meeting and where we're going to have it. And it doesn't change. It's always the second Thursday at 700 p.m. at the uh center. So if the person was not aware that there was a neighborhood association either they're not reading the signs they don't have an interest didn't want to go.

Thank you sir. Chair recognizes mayor pro Tim Gilful. Thank you. You want to vote yes to deny. You don't want to vote to deny. You want to vote yes to deny to approve this right request. That's correct. So you're going to hit yes to deny. Yes, we want you to deny it. Yep. You were saying no and opposite going no. No, we want to hear yes to deny it. Oh, no. No. I want you to deny it. Yes, ma'am. I understand that. Thank you. One question being a homeowner um association. So, y'all got a HOA there? No. In Pepperage? A HOA is required to pay a certain amount of money. A neighborhood association is voluntarily

That's correct. Of the people that care about the community, right? Get together and we decide what our fee will be and our fee is very normal nominal which is uh $25 a year. That's right. and go I think is something like $60 a year, but they got a HOA which they uh do a lot of uh neighborhood meetings, but it also protects the HOA protects the neighborhood to where you can't, you know, people just can't have businesses come in. So, that might be an option in the future as well.

And they are incorporated. I I I appreciate that home owners, but like I said, there are,267 That's correct. And all of the homes are not owned by people that live there. That's right. I ran out and just tried to uh get 51% of the homeowners to vote on the HOA which is very limiting and it is confining and most people don't want to do that. I understand. Thank you. Um

excuse me. Since we've taken up enough of your time whenever you're ready to vote, Mr. Mayor, I don't mean overstep. I'm just saying, you know, we don't want to take up too much of your time. Right. Well, one Thank you, Madam President. Followup question. Mayor Pro Tim has a follow-up question. Uh, Mr. Boyd, as far as these businesses coming in, we got Airbnbs, we got um people that rents their houses out, etc. Are they required to have business license, Airbnbs, and all like that? So how do we how do we capture that in terms of the data

or how do we required to make sure that they get a have to have a license um the proper insurance etc. How is um our government notified that there's airbnbs out there? Um in terms of a a applicant just a citizen wanting to know we'll have this discussion later. I'm ready to vote to deny. All right, madame clerk, I think we're ready to vote, but as I understand the petitioner just the chambers. Do we want to give her She just entered the chambers. Mr. Boyd, is that the petitioner behind you? Just for clarity, clarification. All right, ma'am. Come on up. We're going to give you a few minutes to to to argue your case.

Okay. That's mom. So that's mom. So she's not uh she's on the way. She said she's on We getting ready to vote. Ma'am, you you Where else? She's I'm trying to get park. Oh, she's in the parking lot. You're trying to get the parking. She's downstairs. Ma'am, unfortunately, we've been at this for for for a bunch of time. Do Do you own the property or is it Yeah, I own the property. So, she owns the property, but her daughter is the applicant and her daughter is on her way up. So, I don't know she if you want her to

turn the plunket. There's been a call for the question. We've been at this for a while. What is our responsibility to wait? Unless this is Is this her? Yeah, she's here.

She is here. Oh, you better hurry up, man. We're getting ready to vote. Ma'am, there has been a motion to deny your petition for a change in um in this manner. and we're going to give you a few minutes to argue your case as to why it should not be changed and it should be approved for you to operate a elderly care home in this neighborhood. All right. Okay. All right. You got a few minutes. Okay. Uh for the record, please state your name and your address, please.

Uh my name uh is Linda Williams. And your address? Address is uh uh 263 6 uh Stanton Court. All right, ma'am. You got a few minutes.

Okay. Uh uh good afternoon, Mayor Johnson, Chair, and members of the commission. Uh thank you for allowing me to speak today. I just want to take a moment to address a few concerns. This isn't a uh commercial business. I'm not opening up a business here. I'm opening up a home. Okay? Um it's a small family style personal care home that will operate just like a s single family uh residence. The only difference is that the people living there will have the 24-hour care and supervision they need to stay safe. Uh this is personal for me. Uh before my father passed away, I cared for him and um with his uh I saw the struggle with him with just uh helping him dayto-day with his medications, his meals, and his errands. Um um and that experience really changed my life. You know, I I've been blessed and now that I'm in the pos position to give back. I want to provide a safe, supportive home for people who need that level of care and dignity. At the end of the day, this is not about make this is about making sure people are cared for in a safe home environment. I respectfully ask for your support. Thank you.

Thank you so much, ma'am. Chair recognizes Commissioner Francine Scott from Thank you. Um, Mayor Johnson, may I ask Miss Williams a question? Yes. May proceed. You said your address is 3638 Staten Court. Is that where you live? No, I don't live there. No. Is 3638 Staten Court? No, there's no one residing there at that property. So, what is your address, ma'am? My address is uh 2632 Cornin Street, Hepsa, Georgia 30815. I'm sorry for the discrepancy.

All right. Thank you. All right. Madam, this this body has received uh a motion with a proper second to deny your petition. So, uh we are prepared to vote. We've been discussing this for at length for a while. We've had a lot of questions. So, um we're getting ready to vote. Okay. Okay. Madame Clerk, there has been a motion to deny by the commissioner from the third, seconded by Commissioner Brandon Garrett. Commissioner Clark, I see you in the queue before we vote. Is there anything you need to add?

Yeah, I just have a question. Um, so I think this is I can't count how many we've had. Um, but we probably want to revisit how we're going to look at this going forward. Um, our team's doing their job based on the current policies. If we're going to make a change in that, we need to do that because right now folks are going through the process that is in place today and um we're making uh changes after the fact. So if our team who's following the policies, they're giving it to petitioners and applicants are doing that according to what we have. Um, I think we need to determine if we're going to look to change this, then we need to do that. Cuz right now a lot of folks are spending a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort going towards doing this. And for us to change it after the fact, it seems that we are really, really kind of circumventing how this process is supposed to go forward. Um, the petitioners are bringing forth applications based on Augusta Richmond County current policies and procedures. our staff is carrying it forward and having them go through all the steps accordingly, but we're changing this after the fact. And I think we're really kind of we're setting a pathway forward um that is is kind of disingenuous to the process. If it's something that we're saying we're going to make a change, we need to make a change. But um I've seen this one too many times and the staff spends a great deal of time, effort um in doing this. And the same thing with the petitioners as well. So I think we need to be fair with this process. I think just continuing to, you know, vote it up and down based on and I get it what the residents are saying. I get it what the neighborhood alliance is saying, but our petitioners,

our applicants are following Augusta Richmond County policies. Our staff is enforcing Augusta Richmond County policies. And I get it. Different folks have different issues and reasons why they don't want certain things. But if we're going to make a change to this, we need to make a change to this and not keep putting us as the commission in this situation. Because right now, we're in the situation where we're hearing all of the pleas cuz I'm going to tell you right now, she had a very great um stance on why she's doing it. She had a personal plea and a personal reason that is tied to why she is doing what she's doing. And the residents are saying they don't want it for the reasons that they have. It puts us in a terrible situation if we're not going to determine if we're going to make this a policy change. If we're not going to continue doing this, but I think this is my limit on me kind of dealing with this situation. If this is something we're not going to accept, then change the policy. If not, then if she fil fulfilled all of the obligations laid out in that, we got to stop doing this because the problem is they spent a lot of time and money on doing this. Our staff did the same thing and we keep doing this from up here. So, I I understand the residents don't want it. But if it's something that our residents don't want, then let's make a policy change and let's just stop doing it. But stop putting us in this situation where we have to keep doing this cuz this is this is not a it's not a good um situation for us to keep doing.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Katherine Smith Rice.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, moving forward, you know, we've voted on, since I've been on this das, we've voted some up, uh, and voted some down on these personal care homes, but as of today, and I know it got approved, barely through the um, this one did barely through planning and and zoning, but I I still and I appreciate you showing up today. Um, we've been talking about it for a while, but I just feel like that I'm I'm going to stick with my motion to deny this and then make moving forward work with planning and zoning somehow another to um to adjust and to work so that this doesn't come like this again. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Rice. Madam Clerk, let's vote. The motion is denied by Commissioner Rice, seconded by Commissioner Brandon Garrett. Let's vote. So, we're voting to deny. To deny. That's the motion. That motion carries 9 to one with Mr. Clark voting no.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Petitioners, objectives. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great day. Your motion has to deny has been approved. So, unfortunately, can't move forward at this point. You could talk to Mr. Board to see what your next steps are. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right, Madam Clerk, let's keep on moving. We've been seem like we've been stalled out for a little bit on number four. Let's move on to number 25. 24. Don't we have 24? 24. 24.

24, I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Item 24, update report from director Tama Williams, Augusta Recreation Department relative to pickle ball courts in West Augusta. You got it. All right, sir. I see you in the audience. You were here last time. We're right on time. I see you. Thank you for being here today. Director Williams, you had the floor.

Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon again, mayor and commissioners. I want to provide you an update um of several um inquiries that I had to come back to you for in reference to pickle ball. Um some of the inquiries were projects that we currently have that we're working on. Um any pickle ball access that we have um throughout the agency. also any estimate costs um that would be um towards Warren Road Park for the the existing tennis courts um and any um opportunities for indoor um gym the cost that would be related to that. So the recreation and parks department continues to expand and enhance pickle ball opportunities in response to growing community interest and participation in the sport. Current and planned initiatives focus on both indoor outdoor court development and indoor program accessibility to provide diverse and flexible play opportunities across the systems. As requested, a meeting was held with myself, ISM Commissioner Tina Lindek, and also Mayor Pro Tim Wayne Gilful on March 11th, 2026 to discuss pickle ball opportunities. We are currently um working on four park improvement projects and these projects will incorporate a total of 15 new outdoor pickle ball courts significantly enhancing pro asset access across the systems and these locations include BL Park which is for three courts, Das Park six courts, mbine park three courts and big oak park three courts. These additions represent a strategic investment in recreation amenities and will support both casual play and organized programming.

Pickupball programming is currently offered at five recreation centers through through shared gymnasium space with designated playing times. This approach maximizes existing facilities while maintaining flexible schedules in the site. So these sites include Henry Bigham Recreation Center, Robert Howard Recreation Center, Bernie Ward, May Park, and Warren Road. So where there are um where permanent courts striping is not available, temporary lines are installed using athletic tape. The estimated costs to install a permanent to install permanent pickle ball lines in the gym range from at least $1,000 to $4,000 per gym. And depending that depends on the floor condition, um the type of flooring, and then this also um provides a cost-effective opportunity to expand indoor capacity in reference to Warren Road facility. Um this site presents both challenges and opportunities. The three outdoor courts or tennis courts are in poor condition and require significant investment beyond just resurfacing. This method alone is not recommended due to underlying pavement deterior deteriorations. A full conversion of A full conversion of the three tennis courts to six dedicated pickle ball courts is estimated up to $542,000. And this is inclusive of demolition of current courts, construction, design, permitting, and any contingency costs along the way. So, at present, there's no funding to be allocated um right now for this particular project.

as a um interim solution. Right now um pickle ball programming um will continue indoors at Warren Road using temporary court markings because at that particular location is not um don't have painted lines for pickle ball. Um and so in addition to that um we were looking to do community engagement and have some meetings to conduct um in within the next couple of months to talk about gathering information and input from the public to guide future improvements and amenities for that particular site. Um the department is definitely trying to be proactive in addressing the growing demand for pickle ball throughout the strategic capital projects that we're working on. Um adapting to any of our indoor spaces that we have at our facilities and any communitydriven planning that we'll be implementing. The continued investment and stakeholder engagement will be crucial to ensuring that the long-term sustainability of our facilities, equitable access and alignment with the community um is our our priority. So that those were the inquiries that I had at the um last commission meeting. Uh I know that Mr. Hollis is here um and we actually briefly spoke um in the back, but I wanted to bring you that update. Um, and if you are interested, I did bring um some pictures for individuals who haven't gone out there and seeing actually what the court look like currently as today. Um, I did bring those if we need to add them, put them on the screen.

Thank you, Director Williams. So, what's the solution temporary solution to accommodate Warren Road? Are we going to put painted lines or tape lines or or does it require net? What what does it require and what's the cost of that? the the total cost to redo all of the not all of them. I mean the indoor because it's a half a million dollars to re redo all the outdoor court.

Oh outdoor. Yes. So temporary what we do now um is we use the athletic tape. So we have a time frame at um Warren Road currently they do Monday, Wednesday, Fridays from 10 to 12 they have pickle ball um playtime and so that location they put down the athletic tape and um take it up, you know, once it's once they're finished playing. Okay. So that's what we're temporarily doing now. That's what we're doing. How much does that cost? Is there any cost associated with that? Buying athletic tape. Buying athletic tape. Wow. I like that. Is that acceptable, sir, for for the interim? No. All right. Come on. You gotta come on up. We're gonna give you a second to come on up.

For the records, please state your name and address, please. Mike Hollis, 2215 Pleasant Drive, Augusta, Georgia.

All right. Um, no. Because I've been in those gyms and the flooring is horrible. The slipping is horrible. Um, the kids have um summer camp in those gyms. So, you can imagine what the floor looks like. If you haven't been there, I I um want you guys to go in there and see. And also, investing a half a million dollars in kids is not a bunch of money. It's not a lot of money. Um I think that um it's ways that we can get it done. Um it's been done in a lot of other places that has been less desirable and also at what's that other park? King Park over there on Troop I think it is

King. Yeah. And it's um it's a pickle ball court over there but there's no nets, there's no gates, there's no nothing. Am I right when I say that, Miss Williams? They have tennis tennis ball um tennis courts. Well, they change that's tennis courts and they're not in good shape either.

Okay. We played pickle ball on those courts, too. I played pickle ball on those courts. Um I brought out my pickle ball machine and we played over there, but we kept chasing the ball all the way through the park every time we go off the platform over there. And I'm with Miss Williams. I'm just I just want just like the people who live in that Montlair neighborhood, that private neighborhood, got that private pickle ball um club over there. I just want to be able to walk out my house when my grandkids visit to go play pickle ball and safely. And that's an investment I think in our community. some I I was a a member of that, but then things take place and stuff happens and people start talking about certain people they don't want in their community um and it drives down the um their property value and um they don't want certain people in their community and I think that plays a role too.

Okay. So, is it going to be your recommendation that we make the half a million dollar investment? Yes. All right. Gotcha. All right. We got a few colleagues in the queue. We're going to go through it. So, I don't know if they have any questions. Sit tight. Chair recognizes Mayor Pro Tim Wayne Gil.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We actually did meet with uh Miss Williams and AB Lansen as well as Mr. Tony Williams with ISM last week. We was trying to find some kind of amanable solution temporary till we could get this next passed u because the fun is just not there. And so you have some of these u groups that comes to the Warren Road and they actually put the striping down. Wasn't aware that slippery and all and all that. But um I think it's worse out there on that tennis courts. If you seen the pictures that we have seen, it's actually I think that would be dangerous. Um you talking about breaking ankle. But um Miss Williams is um AB Lancing right behind you.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Lance, Saturday I was riding um I had to go MC Bean and I was from my house. It's I went right by the Hetsa Community Center that they had built the community center at approximately $200 a foot which is amazing. beautiful building. It gets a lot of usage, but when I was riding by, I seen the family playing pickle ball. That's a good place for you to play, too. Um, they So, I called Robert Buckwitz, the mayor of Huba. I said, "Robert, tell me about these pickle ball courts." I said, "Because we're actually looking at doing Warren Road." And he said, "Well, they actually lo used a local vendor. They did the grading. They put in five pickle ball courts, put the fencing around it for about two and a quarter, 225,000. And I said, "What about the tennis courts down there?" He said, "Well, we didn't change the fencing around it. We was able to maintain that, but they what they did was retop it, restriped it, and that was approximately 40,000 using a local vendor. Can we try to reach out to Robert Buckwitz and try to find out what vendor he used?" Let's figure out how we could try to get the best use for our dollar. Um,

definitely, sir. Um, the the what you saw the other day was an estimate. It's an what you call an engineer. Oh, absolutely. You told me that. Yeah. Yeah. So, um it's a it's a it's a bit conservative, but normally um if um if you go through the um bidding process or even if you use um your current own call um for parks and wreck, all of them are local vendors. And so, um, um, that local vendor that you're talking about, I think it's possible that they can actually, uh, do the work through either through either a bidding process or through the on call.

So, I I can definitely contact um, Buckwitch. U, I have his contact. So, Yep. I I believe that might be some good resources and you could we could actually drive right out there and see the quality of work and if they able to you know they provide a product and um they local that's a plus um and they come in under budget that's a bigger plus for us. Oh yeah definitely. So I plea uh one I appreciate the meeting that you had set up for commissioner Slend and myself and the um director. Thank you.

Excuse me. Um, Hessa. I live in West Augusta. I'm not driving to Hessa to play pickle ball. Um, I want to just like the people at Montlair walk out of their house two blocks to their home. I want my tax dollars to go to a a public wait public pickle ball court. Well, I will tell you this. You know, is Monontlair is that private or is it public? I was a member for six years until they start having some talk that y'all don't want to hear about up here today. We ain't come and talk about that. I didn't come talk about that. I'm not I said that. I said that um until I um turned down my membership

and I started going to all these other communities. There's not one public pickle ball court in West Augusta where all these other c communities who you mentioned have public pickle ball courts. And for us to be denied a public pickle ball court in our community, there's more going on than you're denying a public pickle ball court.

I don't think we denying, sir, by any means. What we doing is trying to find a path forward. And as far as the funding, we not fluid in money. If you watch the budget session, you would see that what we are doing is finding a path forward and finding a funding stream, plain and simple. But we trying to help you get to your end point is have a place that you can walk to to play pickle ball. And if it's going to take time, it's not going to happen overnight. And that's going to be it. I mean, we try to come up with a solution of putting stripes in the gymnasium, but that's not suffice. But there's no way that we could start tomorrow redoing them courts, taking down that fence, finding $549,000 of property tax money that's not there. So, we are trying to we are working we trying to p find a path forward. And so we actually got the best director in ISM that actually does the design and actually does all the bidding to find the contractors.

And I want and I want to work with you guys and I want to trust you. And I wasn't privy to being on that meeting even though I brought up this. I'm sure some people came before me. I wasn't privy to that meeting. And if I'm not in on the meeting hearing what's being discussed, then I'm a little bit skeptical. I'm 70. I'm skeptical. Uh I'm tell I went in on the meeting. What you said, you know, it could be true. I'm hoping that it is. I want to trust you guys. And as far as me playing in Hessa, I can't walk to Hessa. Okay. You got that? All right, sir. All right. Commissioner Tina Slindac from the seven.

Thank you, Mayor. Um uh we did have a uh meeting um several days ago with um the parks and recck director and Mr. Gladson. And um I actually went over to look at the Warren Road tennis courts um one morning and took some pictures and I said, "Well, um somebody had said that they played pickle ball inside the Warren Road gym." So I walked in there. I was just going to ask somebody and at the time I walked in, they were playing pickle ball there. there was a pickle ball group there um with the nets that were set up and um I did speak to a man um I think his name was Mr. Hollingsworth. I'm not quite I don't have his name right in front of me, but anyway, he um you know, they had they have a pickle ball league that played there. And um you know, I I looked, like I said, I know zero about pickle ball. Um but I asked him, I said, "Could you show me if it's marked in this gym?" And he said, "Yes, it is." And he and it was taped. And I really kind of think maybe it might need to be retaped or something. Did you tell me um Director Williams that you got they take it up and down? They every day they go they tape those things off.

Yes. Cuz athletic tape is easily to take off. So every every day those people go in to play pickle ball they lay that tape down. Yes. Oh wow. Cuz it looked like it had been there for a while. But um um so you you also said you gave a price of a,000 to $4,000 to restripe. Is that with restriping the court with like paint or something or is that with tape? That's to redo the floor to add pickle ball lines or permanent pickup. Permanent a,000 to $4,000 depending on the the floor conditions um that need to be done for it.

And and the I think we touched on this the other day. The condition of that gym floor to your knowledge is okay or

it can always be better I'm sure. But I mean it would not cause any issues playing. it doesn't cause issues playing basketball or anything or I mean the m the the man I spoke to um that was playing pickle ball and um and there was probably eight of them there I think playing that day that morning uh he didn't mention having any issues with with that court uh inside. So um Mr. Hollis the the reason that the Hepso was brought up was simply um not suggesting you go to Hepa. It was um just the pricing difference on what they did their courts for versus the price that um Mr. Ladson had had given us the estimate. So um we we're not suggesting you get in your car and drive out HEPS, but it was just strictly they had a new facility and uh we wanted to see just why the big difference in price. So, um I mean the Big Oak Park on Wheeler, I mean they're going to have pickle ball courts and that would probably be done before you would redo Warren Road. Is that right?

The big for the outdoor courts, the big oak park will be completed that would probably be completed with pickle ball courts, right? Before you would redo Warren Road. Is that correct? We would have to find a funding source for to do more,

right? Okay. So, I mean, it looks like striping the inside would be the least the least expensive, most economical, if you want to put it that way, uh, method of having something that would be permanent, that wouldn't have to be ripped up every time. And, um, I mean, Mr. Hollis, right now that may be the best that we can do is putting them inside and then when the funding comes um looking at redoing Warren Road. And Miss Williams um told me that um Director Williams, excuse me, she said that she did want to have some community engagement. Um I mean, I know you want pickle ball, but there may be some others that might still want to keep tennis there. I don't know if there's a big vote for pickle ball then that would be great but she has promised to have some in community engagement sessions um for that. So, um you know that there was a meeting. It was a productive meeting and um I mean right now I think can do can we find money to in your budget to stripe there's nothing in your budget to stripe Warren Road with inside?

Oh yeah. Well, if you're talking about the gym, yeah, we can go back and look that but not the for the outdoor courts. No, no, just the in to stripe the inside of the gym so that there will be something permanent for pickle ball put down for people to go in. And I mean, granted, I know they're going to have to work around your other programming there, but Yes, that's something go back and look at. Yes. But no gym's going to be available 20 I mean all day. There's programming in all of them. So, you're just Okay. All right. That's all. Thank you. Oh, I heard you said something. She's going to have some community engagement

and the um bulk of the community engagement is the Montlair community. They sits right in the middle of it. Um I don't see them trying to go along with having a pickle ball public pickle ball court because of their private and they you should use what they have to beautify their community. I agree with that. I agree with that. But as far as the public and my tax dollars go, you know, that's what we did in that community cuz that's the only community in Augusta that don't have a public pickle ball court. That's the only thing I'm saying.

Uh I I understand you um and I also brought that up to Director Williams, too. Um, I sort of said that, you know, most of the people in Montlair that are into pickle ball probably are members already of of that um of that little club that goes. They don't want anything to rival that cuz they want to keep their money flowing.

Well, I'm not going to disparrage that group of people over there because they are good people and I'm I'm, you know, I'm I'm sorry you did not care to remain a member of that club. However, there are other neighborhoods. Uh that site sits right across Warren Road Briidge which connects to the Waverly Brenwood areas also that would be close to them. There are also people that don't live in Montlair that live down off Warren Road and in those areas and even right across Washington Road into some of those other residential areas. So, um, you know, I I think we need to leave the Montlair pickle ball group out of the whole conversation. I don't think so because

I do because it's a private sir. It's a private club. Wait a minute. Wait a second. Don't interrupt her. Wait a second. No, you didn't say that when she No, sir. Let her finish. I give you a chance to talk. Just let her finish. Okay. Just Just be Just let her finish.

No. You know, in in defense of Montlair, they they are run by a homeowners association at their expense. They refurnished uh refurbished those courts. They run that. It's not available for just members of Montlair. It's an open club to anybody, but you it's still a club. It's the courts aren't open all the time. So, you know, I I think we need to leave them out of that. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about public pickle ball courts. Okay? And it won't just have to be Montlair. Like I said, it there's there's no no pickle ball courts for people that live in Waverly and back up in uh Dorchester and all that. There's there's nothing there either, which would be convenient. Crossing that Warren Road bridge, you've got Warren Road Park there. So, um, you know, we did have a good meeting. We are trying to find a solution to this, but you know, like Commissioner Gilfoil said, you know, we just do not have the funding until we get SPLS money for that. So, um you know, I I think if we can at least get those indoor courts striped as as quickly as we can do it to give at least a place you can walk to and play indoors. I mean, the men that were playing pickle there, he teaches lessons and he had no complaints about the court whatsoever. And I can give you his name if you want to reach out and he plays they play all over the county. I know the group. I know who you talking about.

All right. I play in there with them sometime. We sliding all over the court. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, he never mentioned that to me and I watched them play. I did come up. Did you ask him about it? I certainly did. I had a probably a 20-minute conversation with with him about this. I've been playing.

I'm in your corner, Mr. Holler. I I'd love to have it, too. But you have to be understand that you we can't go in and just bulldoze a tennis court and build pickle ball courts like this. I mean, we're working on it. We're trying to bring pickle ball into these other uh parks that we're refurbishing and redoing. I'm just trying to find some solution for you to be able to go in there or go somewhere and play pickle ball at Warren Road. And you don't like anything that we're I didn't say telling you other than that. I didn't say that. I didn't say I didn't like it. I'm here because Yes, sir. I'm here.

I didn't never say I didn't like it. And as far as you know, you shouldn't bring Montlair group into and they do have a homeowner association. It's a private club and and I wasn't living in Montlair when I was a member, right? I was living in North Augusta, South Carolina. Then I moved over here where I live at now and um and they will play a role as far as if she brings the community in because they're right smack dab in the middle, right? They they play public taxes, too, right? They're at capacity. They're they're not going to care if Commissioner, you are not interrupting Mr. Hollis.

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mr. Holl. Mr. Hollis, you have the floor, sir. um they will play a role and they going to fight that with every fiber of their being because they do use their private club money and they HOH money to beautify their community and I don't have nothing against that. They should do that. They should but they should not affect what's going on. They have no control over the park district parks and wreck. Okay. All right. Well, I don't think you and I are going to reach a agreement about that and so we can um I guess just move on um receive

and to to any extent. I I think it's if pickle ball is that popular at Warren Road, I think it's probably worth our our effort to at least make permanent lines in the court if it's that popular. Wouldn't you agree? Wouldn't madam director I mean it would be improvement to the site. Um and in reference to you know having the community meeting I think that you know just the public self will be engaged because it will be public it is public property um and so whether it's Montlair or any other neighborhoods around there we invite everybody to come and get their input. Okay.

Um so then we can know um what direction that we will we will go and who what's the interest is the interest tennis is the interest pickle ball can we have both? Um, so that's that's one of the reasons why I'm um open to doing this. Okay. All right. Uh,

one last thing I want to know. How long do it take when y'all see a place that's declining like Warren Road Tennis Court? How long do y'all take to say, "Hey, this isn't going to be any good." Or y'all just let it continue to deteriorate. And then as you let it continue to deteriorate, the price goes up. How long do we um let that That's a long discussion. If you ride around any of our parks, you can see a lot of the deterioration. I can assure you. You can go to May Park. You can go to parks that's close by here. We have tennis courts that are not being utilized due to them being neglected for years. So, got a couple other colleagues in the queue. Just sit tight. We got Commissioner Wimbley from the fourth first. Commissioner Wimbley, you have the floor.

Ma'am, my first question is to the gentleman. Okay. Mr. Hollis. Mr. Hollis. Yes, sir. Uh, am I understanding you want this pickle ball court inside of Montlair or you saying you want one close to Montlair? The pickle ball court I'm talking about is close to Montlair. It's not in Montlair. It's about a block off less than a block off of Montlair. All right. And which one is that? At Warren Road. Oh, Warren Road. Yeah. Oh, okay. I got you. Uh, talk Is it Mont Cle off Jackson Road? No. No. Crane.

Uh Crane Fairy. Oh, okay. Okay. That's that other street. I I got I must have a mix. King Chapel, right off of Washington Road and Warren. Oh, okay. But anyway, uh you mentioned about the Warren Road outdoors courts. Yes. You said it was too expensive to upgrade those because of deterioration of the soil. No, I gave you the pricing um of about estimated up to 500 500,000. Yeah. And so that's the current three tennis courts that would then be changed to six pickup courts. And

that includes demolition, that includes um uh and then redoing the entire courts um for that project. Okay. Um so if you went if you tried to to implement all of the pickle ball courses you just talked about, what would that total price probably be? Um I'm not understanding your question. You you was naming the places that you wanted to put projects. The current projects. Current project. So you did all of them. How much would that be total? Yeah.

Estimate now. Yeah. I think you um those are projects that are already um under under design and pretty much Oh, okay. Yeah, those are projects that are actually uh will be bid this year. Some of them already um um in the process of letting it's um they already have a date for for let and procurement. Uh one of them I think is already let but uh the vast majority of those uh splice 8 projects and whatever was left off from splice 7 will be uh pretty much be bid this year. Okay.

Yeah. So the the total cost so the the basically when you're looking at just the cost for the pickle ball court I mean I don't have that number for you but I can get that for you but we can give you the the total cost of the um the estimated engineers estimate cost of the projects itself. That's all I want to know. Um so the one you want one road is not part of that estimate though. Am I correct? That's correct. That's uh one road is is not a splice project. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. Chair recognizes Commissioner from the 9th, Commissioner Francine Scott. Thank you, Mayor Johnson. May I ask um Director Williams a question?

Yes, ma'am. Proceed. Mr. Holland was saying that he plays pickle ball somewhere. Is is is that a indoor court? He's slipping inside. I think he mentioned he was at Warren Road. you have played in there. So, so it's probably the the flooring probably need better flooring and re flooring need to be redone. There's a couple dead spots, too.

So, um I know this is not my district, Miss Linda. I'm ask try to spend some money. So, we don't have the money to uh renovate or upgrade the floor at this time. So, we can have at least one place near um Mr. Hollands and that that community to play pickle ball other than in the private club. That's and that's what we said we would go back to look at because um adding pickle ball permanent pickle ball lines is anywhere from a,000 to 4,000 depending on the floor um conditions.

Well, first we have to repair the floors before we even or get a estimate of how much that's going to cost. So, can we not, Madame Administrator, find some money somewhere to to help them along the way until we can get those other projects that u Mr. Lassen was saying is in 08 in the splash 8 package to get done. I mean, cuz we keep going back and forth back and forth having meetings and that kind of stuff. They still not able to play pickle ball. So, is there is can we get a resolution?

Yes, ma'am. What I would recommend is that we do make contact with Mr. Buckawitz in Helsuff, get the respective details, then meet with our procurement director to make sure that we follow the process and see what funding we need to have available to go ahead and proceed to take care of this issue. So, when can we get get that meeting scheduled and go forward? I'm not saying to use that vendor that uh uh some other vendor. I think we need to go to the proper Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Definitely go through the process. Yes, ma'am. Um I I can contact him this this week.

So, we could come back to the next commission meeting. Commissioner Scott and the governing body. That works for me. Mr. Hall, is that all right with you? That works with me. All right. I'll be in town. Yeah. All right. Sounds great. All right. Don't see any anyone else in the queue. Thank y'all for your time today. Mr. Hollis, thank you for being here. Director Williams, thank you so much. Mr. Latson, thank you. Thank you. Let's move on to the night, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We're going to get to it. Madam Clerk, you have done a lot of work today. I got a lot of pictures of you taking care of an infant. That's a smiling. Let's move on to the next item. I think that takes us to 25.

Yes, sir. Um, item 25 is a motion to approve the extension of the engagement with Chair Beckett to provide accounting assistance to the housing and community development department and to approve associated budget transfers. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Clark, someone asked this be pulled. I see Commissioner. I did. Um, my question was already answered. I thought this was dealing with uh something else. So, I'm going to defer over to uh Commissioner from the second. All right. Thank you so much, Commissioner Bullion. Close yours. Thank you, Mayor Johnson. Um, may I direct my questions, I guess, to um, Deputy Administrator Jackson?

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Um, Deputy Administrator Jackson, um, has the payment ever been recaptured from the urban service fund before? The payment that we're giving to Cherry Beckard, has it been captured? Um, yes. It says that um we're recapturing it within HCD's current FY 2026 urban standpoint. Yes. Yes. Cost will be covered because of vacancies within the department. Um the director for a second for for instance and the deputy director and a couple other vacancies. That's where the money would come from for from a funding standpoint.

Yes, sir. Have we ever done that before? Is this where we typically pull this money from historical perspective? I'll turn it over to finance. Okay. Good afternoon. Yes. In the past years, it has been funded from the HCD budget. The reason that we're asking for this recapture this year is because the urban services fund is the backs stop for HCD in general if they have any overages that are not funded by their grant programs. And so we sometimes do spend urban services fund money to support HCD. Um we are expecting right now that we as Mr. Jackson indicated that we're going to be able to fund it within budget this year but if not we will have to make an additional allocation. So it it has been done that way in the past. Yes.

Okay. So we've specifically taken it from the urban service fund before. We we've taken it both from general fund and urban services in the past. This year during the budget process we really reduced the general fund allocation for HCD and so about a million dollars is budgeted from urban services for HCD this year. Okay. And what does um I guess either one of you they can answer this. What can you tell us about the urban service fund and what um services that fund supports?

Typically speaking and I got this information from finance. that supports annual budgets for HCD, fire protection, transit, environmental services, street lights, and the ACE program as well. Okay. And so, um, with that being said, are there any pending requests that where that money would actually need to be used in any of those departments for the services that they they have? Like you said, our transit department. What exactly do we use it for in transit? For transit. Yes, sir.

So, this amount that we're requesting is from just the contingency that's allocated from urban services. We don't allocate the full amount every year. We currently have about $575,000 in urban services contingency for situations just like this. Um, and that is a funding source that is used throughout the year um as unexpected expenses come up that are qualified for urban services funding. So, it's coming from contingency funds that are not allocated anywhere else. Okay. And how much is in that fund? Do we know? I I believe the number is about 575,000. I I can verify that. Okay. So, it'll be 575,000 minus the 150 if we need that. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you very much.

That was all of my questions. Mayor Johnson. Thank you, Commissioner Pion. Chair recognizes Commissioner Lonnie Wormly. I Mr. Ma'am, may I speak to the uh Yes, sir. Proceed. Deputy administrator. Uh uh not administrator. I'm sorry about that. The deputy uh deputy administrator. Uh yes. Yes, sir. I said that right there. I did. Okay. Gotcha. Uh we will this uh contract we we're doing with Cherry Rebecca to continue it. Will they be having their eyes on still trying to get this audit thing done?

Well, historically, this type of engagement has been used for things such as uh bank reconciliations and also preparing the uh schedule of expenditures for federal award grant money. U and this is pretty much the crux of this agreement as well to continue those activities. So, we through talking about the audit. Well, this agre this engagement letter is to help us prepare for the 2025 audit, the citywide audit as well. So, that's what these activities for, to help HCD to kind of prepare for the sort of compliance activities for the 2025 audit. Yes, sir. Yes. So, we finished the 2024.

Yes, sir. Now, from ACD standpoint, Miss uh Cox mentioned that last week that in terms of HCD and their preparation, that has been completed. She mentioned that last week. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner Wimberly. Chair recognized Commissioner from ETH, Commissioner Garrett. Motion to approve as stated. There's a motion. Is there a second? There's a second by Commissioner Don Clark. Madam Clerk, see no colleagues in the queue for discussion. We're voting.

That motion carries with Mr. Johnson, Miss Scott, and Commissioner Gil F out. All right, Madame Clerk, let's let's let's get this hopefully, Madam Administrator, before you move. We got one other item. Let's get item number uh let's get 29 out of the way first. Okay, let's just get that should be shouldn't be long, I hope. Item 29, discuss implementing solutions to address and help prevent dumping in areas that are continuously dumping grounds for towers, furniture, and bulk waste. All right, Commissioner Pullium, this is your item. Madam, you had floor.

Thank you so much, Mayor Johnson. Um, I actually have some pictures that are going to go along with this ask. Miss McFarley is going to bring those pictures up. Um, while she's bringing them up, um, I encourage my colleagues, um, and the citizens of Augusta to ride around the entire city, explore areas that you don't live in. And I want us to, if we could just go through picture by picture, that would be great. And then I'm going to um talk. So, these are pictures of areas in my district.

It's all over town. M

district two. Oh, no. It's it's it is all over town, but we haven't gotten to the worst yet. Um, so there are consistently trash bags, which I don't see this when I'm riding up and down some streets. Um, there's also tires. I think that's probably going to be the next picture. And these tires are being dumped in mass um mass numbers. Massive numbers. That's just that's one snapshot. But there's tires, mattresses. I rode through this morning. There was a couch.

That's nothing abnormal. There's furniture and I'm getting these calls and I've been getting these calls since I've been in office and those departments that get and that was just a few pictures. Those departments that are continuously CCD in they probably tell you in the past four years they may have gotten close to 50 plus emails. I see we have a representative from our marshall's department in here and he can attest to that. and our administrator who's CCD in on my emails from the time that she's been here, she can probably tell you you get a we get about this number of emails. So, yes, sir, it is Mayor Johnson, I would agree that the city needs to be cleaned up. But when I'm riding down some streets, I don't see furniture like this. I don't see tires. It's more prevalent in certain areas. And these are massive dumping grounds and there has to be something that's done about it. So I don't know what that discussion looks like. I don't know how we pull in um people on this discussion, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it may even possibly be companies that are doing these mass dumpings. Um, I was just informed a couple of weeks ago, and I hope my constituent is watching, that there was oil literally poured into like gallons of oil poured into the actual um water reservoir. And so this is happening. These are some of the streets. Nellyville and Sullivan, Steiner Avenue, the avenues in Tarpon Hill, Nixon Road, Dowy Road, Winter Road, Knox Avenue, and that's just some of those areas. And I am literally getting these pictures and these emails

on a weekly basis. So, my question is, what can we do about this? Um, I don't know if that means us having a work session to discuss um different um avenues that we can go down to help to try to prevent it. I do know that it takes us bringing in other departments. We've done that before as we talk about landscaping and lot maintenance, but this has to stop and we have to catch the people that are doing this. And the no dumping signs, they don't work. So, if you can go down Nellyville and Sullivan Road, because that's not that far from here. And again, it's all over District 2, but you will see this on a weekly basis. You're going to see tires lined up. This morning at a neighborhood association meeting, I was told that in one of the areas near Steiner, there were three commodes that were dumped. So imagine waking up in your neighborhood and that's what you have to look at on an ongoing basis. It's ridiculous and we have to do something about it. And again, I've been sending these emails over and over and over again. Thank you to the departments that go out on a consistent basis from code enforcement to the marshall's office. Um I truly appreciate that, but it has to stop. I um

and so my call to action, I'm sorry, Mayor Johnson. My call to action is we need to get together and if it's with the departments, so I don't want to work session us to death, but we have to do something to come up with some type of plan where we can help to stop preventing this because it's not just people in the neighborhood. It is people coming to the neighborhoods that are dumping this massive amount of stuff.

So I've been part of Operation City Cleanup for years now and I have gone out on a Saturday and cleaned up Lumbothan Road where for some reason people it's a dark road especially as that connects to Doug Bernard and we picked up couches and tires, mattresses, everything within two weeks is back again. I have gone down Boy Scout Road that is on the other side of town and seen entire bags of trash in the middle of the road and I can't understand it for the life of me. How does entire bags of trash end up in the middle of the road? Until we get serious about code enforcement, we're not going to solve this problem. Until we get serious about writing tickets for people that's doing this illegal dumping is not going to stop. Now, we have two two what do they call them? Two tunnels. One at what's the mill? The uh across from Enterprise Mill. The other mill, not King Mill. The other millise.

Nope. Across Southerntherland Mill that has a tunnel. You go through there, the homeless is basically turning into a landfill. You go to the 13th Street Bridge. I receive dozens of emails from visitors who say, "Mayor, maybe you're not aware of this, but your bridge looks like a landfill." I've heard from the departments and they say, "Well, we don't have the money because the last time we seen a crew out, it was $30,000 to clean it up." That's true. I've heard that. So, we need better enforcement. It makes no sense to clean it up and then two weeks later it's that way. Until we get enforcement or serious about enforcement, we're sitting here wasting our time. So, let's go through it. Let's talk about it. But I I don't recall I asked the Marshall's Department, when's the last time we've written violations for illegal dumping or or or any kind of violation for people throwing litter in the road? Let's let's find out because that's that's going to be the deterrent to stop people once you start hitting them in the pocketbooks

and say that's when it starts to stop. So, and Mayor Johnson, if I not to interrupt you, sir, and I hope I'm not out of order, but I would like to respond to what you said with part of I guess I should have given this solution is we find money to do other things. It's hard for code enforcement in the marshall's office unless someone is sitting unless someone is going to sit there and man that station 24 hours a day. Um, you don't know when the culprits are going to do what they do. So, I don't know what cameras in certain places look like, especially if we know where these areas are because they're the same. I get the same text messages and emails from these same streets. So, I know where it's going to happen if there are cameras in place, much like we catch other things such as speeding. I know the sheriff's office has cameras set up in other places. So, even as a body, I don't know where that money comes from. So, we can sit down. I just discovered this urban district fund, which that's I'm not saying the that's where the money is going to come from, but I'm sure we can dig somewhere. That is what's going to catch it. It's not just the marshall's department or code enforcement. Code enforcement is not open 24 hours a day. And so if this person decides to do this at 2 am in the morning because they know no one's out there, then who's going to catch them? I'm sleep at 2:00 a.m. I get up at about 4. So, you know what I mean? So, we actually need cameras in place. It's not just on those departments. It's not just on the Marshall's department because when I send messages, they respond. But I'm sending it because the trash is already there. So we need to catch them in the act.

You can sit at any intersection in Augusta long enough. You going to see people throwing trash out the window. I don't see trash on way. Mayor Johnson. Yeah, you do. You go there right now. I don't see mattresses and tires. I see a lot of buggies and a lot of trash. But here's the deal. We got to have some enforcement component. We're going to go through it. But until we get enforcement and writing tickets and people see that we take it seriously, it's not going to stop. And I've been at this for I've been the mayor today for three years, three months, and today is 18 days. And it's it's embarrassing on how people treat our city, how they roll their windows out, just throw out their fast food, their food, and stuff out the window. It's embarrassing. All right, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, commissioners.

So, just as a point of historical perspective, in 2024, the marshall's office actively worked 691 cases. 691 cases of which we made uh 19 state matter to court charges plus other tickets other charges lesser charges in 2025 we made 600 we worked 673 cases of which we did another 28 mag cases this year so far we worked 126 cases eight of which are in court um I think part of part of the frustration is that you know for probably I would say going back a couple years ago but for several years that ended a couple years ago um the marshall's office used to oversee a team the CNET C I mean the chronic nuisance enforcement team and there was a lot of success with that team we did a lot of things we had a lot of collaboration with many many of the uh city agencies uh that ceased a couple years ago uh just because of manpower issues and and obviously because as as you all are well aware with the constraints of last year's budget we lost five positions at the beginning of this year coming out of the administrator's office administrator Allen has um stoked this clean city initiative of which the marshall's office uh sits at that table and and I think that is probably u a good evolution of what we used to do with CNET and it's being driven by the administrator's office and it's going to take a a partnership. It's going to take a very active collaboration between us and and the SO and code enforcement and planning and everybody to to like the mayor says to get serious about this. You know, the other component of that is the uh is the court system. We have made

over 20 felony cases of dumping, which is very serious. Uh that's something that's that's not that's not very common in the state of Georgia, but we have gone out and and done felony cases. The cases that I mentioned earlier historically were not felony cases. Those were misdemeanor cases. All right, we're going to go to the queue. Commissioner Lennon Wimbleler from before and uh with my short tenure as a uh commissioner that that is one of my biggest complaint is dumping

uh I I I definitely don't want to beat up uh uh code enforcement and the marshall department because as I agree with uh uh commissioner from the second they can't be everywhere. all the time. So I I think a education okay program or something for the citizen of Augusta

to because we can't say they're bringing it from out of another county and dumping in here. It's it's it's us. It is the citizen of Richmond County that is doing this dumping now. Yep. That might be one or two that bring a truckload of stuff and just dump it. But overall, it's a citizen of Richmond County. I um was in one of my neighborhood yesterday. I was told it was cleaned up, but I went in to look, but it wasn't. Um, and it just it's just a shame because it's a busy roadway getting in and out of that subdivision and his tires, his mattresses, and it was so one of them, one of the areas just caught me so uh by surprise because the mattress was neatly stacked. They wasn't just dumped out of the back of the truck. They were neatly stacked. So, I think I think it's a we got to come up with an education program uh that that try to get the citizen of Augustus uh involved in this and and so we're not up here trying to beat our code enforcement and beat our marshall department. I I know we got one uh issue that the sheriff department is going to get in. We can't beat them up for for that same issue because the root cause of the problem even the sheriff is going to be uh facing got to be a citizens solution and not a law enforcement. So I I think we just got to educate uh and try to get get uh more citizen involved in keeping our community clean. Bishop Wimberly, you know, we might have

had that very rare litter or the OCD as far as stacking of the mattresses. Great piece. I tell you, they they ne they was neatly stacked now. They wasn't just thrown on top of each other. They were all right. Stack. Thank you.

Um, we have an administrator that wants to add some value to this conversation. Yes. Yes, ma'am. To uh Commissioner Pulliam's point, yes, she sends several because there are several incidents. We've found that probably district one and district 2 have the majority of the illegal dumping that that is done in the city um citywide. But as Mr. Provis has stated we have come together all the various departments um because CNET was a valuable resource a few years ago as he has already stated and I remember it when I was in the IT department of course we tried to utilize the technology our mapping and map out segments of the city to have you know people actually go in those areas and respectively address the the items that we had but of course the resources are not there in some cases. Um, so what we've done now because of the the number of complaints that we receive, we've come back together again and we call it under the clean city initiative and we have representatives from the marshall's office because of course the marshall is the one that's over illegal dumping. Um, we have representatives from the sheriff's office. We have representatives from code enforcement, the planning and development, um, and environmental services. all of us sit in the room and try to figure out as well as it information technology because we're bringing the technology into use as well and we're trying to figure out what's the best way to approach it. You the mayor is right. We have actually, you know, people have provided us updates on areas that they've cleaned in less than two days. It's it's the same way again. And it does cost the city a lot of money. I did not realize how much it costs to clean up certain areas. In some of the areas, it's because there's drug paraphernalia and certain things that you have to have specialized people to go and clean up those areas. You just can't have volunteers to go in those respective areas because it's dangerous

to them with needles and stuff being openly exposed. So, what we found it it's very costly to the city's budget. Um, and when they have to send somebody out, it has to go on, they have to be a contracted person that can handle those type of situations. So it is costly but we are working together as a team. To Provis's point, we have been getting together and trying to come up and strategize how can we deal with this effectively? How can we prevent this? But to Commissioner Wimbley's point, people in Augusta will have to continue to take pride or start taking pride in their own community. Um because a number of these things are people in our community throwing these things out and they may not throw it in their own respective neighborhood, but they may go to another neighborhood to do it. So, we have to to be more um involved in what we're doing in our own community. And that I think that's probably one of the the first places because when you continue to have this, it continues to impact our budget. And so, while we're trying to find additional dollars to do a lot of the other things that are necessary, they're not saying this is not necessary. If we can prevent these things from continuously happening over and over, when environmental services told me the number of times that they've gone to a certain area and the amount of money that has been invested in cleaning that same area,

it is just it's just horrendous the amount of money that we invest in cleaning up behind people. So, we are working together to try to come up with the solution. Um, and I do think it is some part of education. our community needs to be educated that we need to take care of our own community and we need to try to figure out how we can stop some of those um issues and I know the marshall's office is is you know it's going to be more on them to make sure that we get this illegal dumping and we cite these people and we utilize the technology such as the cameras because I think they have put cameras in certain spots certain areas that we know are problematic areas they have put cameras in place so we're looking at doing some more of that as well commissioner pullium All right, Commissioner Bully.

Thank you. Thank you for that um response, Administrator Allen, and I totally agree. Um I agree that it is going to be a collective effort and everyone is going to have to participate. Specifically, some of the areas that um that I am addressing because they are in my district and I I I see the city all over. So, I see trash. I drive around. But, and I wish we could go back. Can we go back to the tires where it's like 50 of them? It's not 50 for real, but the picture where where there's tires cuz there's been times though that there's been like 25 plus tires. And so my thing is for the bad actors and I get all of everything else um that it's going to take a collective effort and everybody's going to have to pitch in. I understand that. But the solution is in these areas or rather specifically let me ask that question. In the areas that I named are there cameras in those areas

currently? Yes sir. I'm I'm going to have to go back and check and see where we have our cameras deployed. I I don't I'm This is the first time I'm seeing these. Okay. Yes, sir. Give me So, that's not a problem. So, I'd like for us to come back with that piece of information first. Are there cameras in these specific areas? Because these are the specific areas that I send in on a continuous basis. Um, my next thing is if we're spending so much money to do the cleanups, can you give me like a ballpark figure as to how much we're spending with the cleanups? How much is it costing us?

I'm sorry. I It depends on the respective area. To Commissioner Wimbley's point, we have had some that's $7,000. We've had some, you know, the it it depends on the area and how much is to be cleaned up and how much the contractor tells us the pricing is for it, but I will get that from environmental services. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And how much do the cameras cost? The cameras are roughly $1,000 and then there's air fees, monthly air fees. Okay. So, a year about how much are we spending for that camera? I'd have to go back and look at our budget.

So, we could also have up to 10 cameras available at any given time. Yes, sir. And so what I'm trying to do is make sure I'm making a fiscally responsible um or giving a fiscally responsible solution in that if we're spending 7,000 every time they come out every two to 3 weeks, that multiplied over the course of a year versus just purchasing the cameras in the areas that are needed and actually finding those individuals and finding them. we'd be saving a lot of money. So, I think that would be a good solution is just to t get those targeted areas and I'm sure every commissioner is on board because we all really, you know, we're up here for a reason because we love what we do. We find those target areas and we turn in those target areas if we need someone to go out and take a look at them and we do a cost savings analysis. So, we're literally looking at right now we're spending two 7* 2 is 14,000 a month time 12 whatever that equals. I'm sure cameras would probably be a lot less than that and then we could actually start finding these people and we can recoup some of those funds to continue to pay for the cameras. So, that would be my solution. Um, so if we could get those numbers back, um, my ask would be that we find out how much it's costing us to clean up the area specifically, how much is costing, how much it would cost for us to um, have cameras, what that yearly cost would look like, and also to find out whether or not we have those at least in those target areas that I've named, and I can send that via email.

Thank you, ma'am. Yes, sir. And then anyone else that has areas where they're finding 25 plus tires, couches, and mattresses and commodes, three to four commodes. Um, and you know, it it is it's like, who would do that? Cuz if I woke up and I looked outside my window and there was three commodes and 25 tires, I would be livid. You know what I mean? But you may not see that as the marshall's office. The sheriff's office may not see it because maybe they already did their rounds before the person dumped it. So, we've got to get this fixed and I think that's a that's a start. I'm going to stay in the queue just in case.

Thank you, Commissioner Pull. I think we can start with something simpler. When we find these whole bags of trash, there used to be a time the Marshall Department would go investigate to find some mail or something in the trash. Why can't we even start that up? We still do. That's exactly the tactic that we use. All right. I like that idea. you know, if you, you know, somehow you're trashing up in the middle of the road, you got some mail in there. It's your trash. It's your fine.

And then, you know, some of you remember that, uh, we had a campaign for about two years where what would happen is a homeowner would need to get a remodel done or they were getting a trash cleanup. Commission, you remember this? And they would hire a company. They'd pay the guy after he cleaned up with the with the intent with the understanding that they were taking it to the landfill to pay the fees. And they were coming, they were dumping it straight out, keeping the entire fees. We'd find the trash. We go back to the original homeowner and say, "Hey, we found your trash way over here in an illegal dump." And then they just basically give us the person. Well, this is who I hired. We made a lot of arrests that way. And it is still a technique that we use.

That's good. All right. chair recognizes commissioner from the eth commissioner, Brandon Garrett.

Thank you, mayor. Um, chief, I know that the CNET I I used to come to those meetings when you had them and and they were always just amazingly informative but sad at the same time because of the, you know, just the the redundancy of the same things over and over and over again, especially in the same areas as Commissioner Pian was talking about. I mean, District 8, it has a lot of empty land and um, you know, that we have our typical dump sites. I know each year when Commissioner Gilful and I work city serve um 4H club road bick mill road um some of those out that way every single year same thing tires and mattresses and lord knows what else we've picked up um thankful we haven't picked up anything that's contagious but um in regards to the court cases that you mentioned and you you said you know the courts has to be part of this when these cases are making it to court what typically happens I know I I don't want to put on the line here. So, so if you wanted to do yes or no questions, I can ask you that way.

No, I mean I'll be I'll be quite honest with you. Um I know a lot I know a lot of times even in the CNET meetings that I attended, these are the things that I heard. Yes. taking these to court, judges give them another 30 or 60 days or take them to court. And so by that time, you got to start everything back over and right.

Um, so I I know that that was one of the biggest hindrances with getting anything through the system and and making it actually stick. So is that still the case? It it it still is on occasion uh where you have, you know, where you put a lot of time and you invest a lot of manpower and resources into going through exactly what the mayor's describing, going through an in a true investigation where you're hunting things down and you're using camera footage and you're capturing a tag at night on using your night vision capabilities of the camera and you're getting warrants and you're doing all this all this stuff.

You're really putting a lot of effort into this. And then you we we really hope as you would probably really hope that there's a very a stiff penalty for that. Maybe jail time, whatever the case may be. And uh the only time we really ever got jail time was on a an individual who had committed his second felony illegal dumping. Everything else tends to be something much lesser. And so yet it it is it is a point of frustration.

Well, and and and I think that you see that up here as well. Um, so in in reference to that, is there a way that we can urge the judges to, you know, be serious about this as as the rest of us are trying to come up with solutions to keep the city clean if nobody's going to truly hold them accountable when it, you know, when the fine can be uh in place or the jail time or whatever it takes. I mean, heck, I'd love to hear the judges say, "Nope, no jail time, but you're going to be with us for the next year on every Saturday cleaning up tires or you know, whatever it is." Right. Well, as the mayor knows, we we get that now uh with the uh with the probationers. So So that has that has begun to to work its way in.

Uh and I can't speak for the judiciary as far as what goes into their mindset. Um and and as far as the cameras, Yes, sir. I talked to the sheriff about some cameras a while back and he basically gave me the cost. It's $3,300 a year per camera because a lot of the like communities and neighborhoods that um are requesting cameras, their associations are paying for them. Sheriff just monitors them. So um just for reference out there once you figure cost and then and then air time. Yes. And then monitoring. Absolutely.

Um and and also I'm not sure if this is something you can answer or not. We used to have a tire program where nonprofit groups were able to collect tires, take them to the landfill and get paid for them. Do you know what happened to that program? uh truck used to truck Carlson used to used to handle that. Yeah, it was a riverkeeper and that Commissioner Clark was it something with vets? I'm sorry. Yeah, I was with the Savannah Rivereper team. Yeah. Y but but I was I was informed back when we were doing city serve this past time cuz truck was with us and he's like, you know, they did away with that program. I was not aware of that.

And so, um administrator, any ideas on why that program ended? Because truck truck said we don't we don't collect tires anymore. There's no incentive for us to do it cuz I think they used to get paid like 50 cent a tire or whatever and and so that they used to be who I would call hey there's a dump site and No sir I'm not aware of why they ended the program. So I believed used to reimburse. Is that correct? I think that's who it was. Um or the landfill at the time used to reimburse but I I do not know what happened to that program. I can get you that information.

Yeah. fact, you know, if we're going to get this workshop put together to discuss this, that I think that's just another weapon that we can use to help combat that is to reinstate that program. Commissioner Pul, I I appreciate you bringing this up because I mean, we we all could bring slideshows in here and show the crap that um gets dumped around our community and it's really it's really pathetic cuz um sometimes you want to think that it's people coming in from other parts of the community, but it's not. Thanks. Thank you, Commissioner Garrett. Mayor Pro Tim Wayne Gil. Thank you, Chief. You said back in 2024 when um y'all had lost employees, you lost five employees, so you stopped the program?

No, sir. We just have less people involved in the enforcement. Now, we went from from 8 to three. All right. So, is that program still active? Yes, sir. Absolutely. We still do enforcement. Okay. Because I know that when we did that city serve a little bit over a month ago, we normally the marshalss would be there in support on make sure that uh controlling traffic

and actually commissioner Garrett and his two boys and myself and truck was picking up the trash along Benill road um horseshoe and McNut road and but the cars were flying by and Mr. Garrett had reached out to the Marshall to see if we could get some support because my biggest worry about losing um life that day, but it never came to fruition that day. Um but as far as going out and putting out cameras, you no longer have them either. We no longer have the what, sir? Cameras. Oh, yes, sir. We have cameras. We We have some deployed as we speak.

Okay. So with this um attorney plunk it. So as far as um putting something in place to really put some teeth into it, I think what we ought to do if we capture or the law enforcement um catches people littering because we have it habitually throughout the entire Augusta. It's just not one prominent area. throughout Augusta Richmond County because there's some trashy people. Um, but I would like to figure out a way how we could put a fine fine or community service. Have them work 80 hours community service for one being caught throwing out can. Well, if that's the whole thing. We need to put some um attention on the judges if they be willing to do it because what we what we looking at is Barton Chopper Road. I hit it twice a day. The grass cutting people clean it, pick up all the trash. Next day looks same day, gum away. Uh G Deansbridgeidge Road going out from um Tobacco Road heading to the landfill. I've called the engineer and say, "Hey, can we get some people out here?" I mean, because people trash bags drop out and the people hit trash bags and it's threw out. Makes our city look bad. So, if there's any way that we could figure out a way to reach out to the judges, the honor honorable judges to say, "Hey, we need some help. We'd like to put them in community service." Do y'all have the capabilities of overseeing the community service? Um,

yeah, I think we already have a a system in place to handle anyone who who gets sentenced to that as a probationary item. We we'd love to We'd love for that. Right. Do y'all work on weekends? Absolutely. We would work on weekends. Um, city of Hetsbow will take some as well. Um, that way to clean up them back roads and everything. So, thank you. If you would let me know your attorney. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Mayor Prom. Mayor Johnson. I have the Yes, ma'am. I see you in the queue. You have the floor.

Thank you so much, Mayor Johnson. So, what I would like to do is I would like to um make a motion to have a I do want to have a work session and I want this to I want I would like for the work session to be entitled campaign stop illegal dumping. Um and that's for our city. And so at the table, I would like all the individuals that are a part of making this work. And if anyone else can think of anyone outside of who I'm going to say, it would be the marshall's office, sheriff's office, as well as the volunteers that our administrator's office has um gotten together as well. But for us to actually sit down and come up with solutions and a way

to to start doing this. Commissioner Pulling, we already have that. It's called Operation City Cleanup where all those teams are already engaged from the courts to the marshals to the sheriff's department to the probationers. And I would gladly have you to re-engage that group to try to get more folks to clean up this city. So, can we start there first? Um, yes, sir. But in that, are we going to be able to discuss the cameras and the layout of the cameras? I highly encourage you to do that, too. Okay, great. So, as long as we can have that conversation as well,

we got several judges. We got uh both municipal court, uh the solicitor general, superior court, we got everybody. So, we could schedule a meeting with everybody and uh and and let's talk about how we could get a little bit more serious about this. Okay. And when will that meeting be scheduled? Madame administrator, we meet. They meet. So that right now we have cleanup Saturdays every other Saturday. We were doing it every Saturday, but we had some struggles during the winter because people don't want to show up when it's cold.

Um and um we had some participation issues, but now I think the time and the weather is right, more conducive. So, madam administrator, can you help coordinate that meeting so we can get Commissioner Pulium involved and any other commissioner that wants to be a part of it? Because we've made an effort to clean up every corner of this county. Um, where the crews go out and they do they do good work between 8 and 12. They get credit for eight hours for 4 hours work and most people that do participate, they do a phenomenal job picking up tires and mattresses and sofas and toilets and just about everything else. Yes, sir. And I want I want to make it clear that I'm not just talking about the actual cleanup of the area. That is very important. But I'm talking about catching the bad actors. The marshals and sheriff's office is also

that is when when it's a meeting, I don't want it to just be a meeting where it's a cleanup. I want it to be a sit down meeting so that we can discuss um ways to catch the people that are doing this. Those people already at the table. I think wouldn't you agree, Chief? It'll be a good starting point. I absolutely agree. I was going to say that's that mechanism's in place. So, madame administrator, within two weeks, can you let us know when that next meeting and and let's try to get normally we meet virtually. Can we get an inerson meeting for this to kick this off?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. So, there are two as part of their operation cleanup. I know you work with the respective courts and things of that nature. Kind of the the internal piece is what we call the clean initiative. the you know clean initiative that the city is putting on those same some of the same participants outside of the judges and things of that nature are just the internal pieces that work together. So we just had a meeting and I think we delayed that meeting didn't we pro? We did.

So it's it's to make sure we taking care of all of it. This is just the internal operation the clean city initiative. It's not as much as again the judges and things of that nature just that part. So we can go ahead and reschedule that meeting, sir. And that's just the internal pieces that we talk about, the details that probably are not necessarily discussed with the the um the actual judges and things of that nature. I I think the judges are important because they're the ones that when we find these violators, they have to take it serious enough to find them accordingly. So at least for the initial meeting having the judges there okay

so we can quite you know understand what's their rationale and if someone dumps 25 tires that's a felony dump and it certainly doesn't warrant not having a fine and not having you know the ability of of you know of I guess sentencing them correctly. So I think the initial meeting because hopefully the judges see how serious we are trying to keep our city clean. Okay. Yes sir. All right. Is that okay? Yes. Thank you Mayor Johnson. Thank you, Administrator Allen, and thank you,

Provis. All right. Thank you so much, Madame Clerk. The last item for the day, and they have been companioned together, and it's item number 27 and 28. Item 27, administrators initial briefing on landscape department, requested by Commissioner Wimbley. 28 is to receive as information an update on the vegetation maintenance plan implementation by administration. Thank you so much, Administrator Allen.

Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor, members of the governing body. Good afternoon. The purpose of this item is for administration to actually provide you with an overview of our transition plan for the new standalone vegetation department the governing body approved last month. I have, just to let you know, met with all of the affected departments to actually review the same presentation that I'm presenting to you today. I've also reminded them that until they receive direct notification in regards to a change in staffing, they will still be accountable for their departmental staff performing out there in our community. We are not, of course, trying to disrupt any operations at this time. So just to to frame the discussion, here's the motion that was approved unanimously by the governing body on February the 17th. This motion approved moving forward with the new department. I agreed to come back with the transition plan, which I'm here today to do. And as you will see, we have been laying out the transition timeline with the goal of fully implementation by January 1st, as we originally discussed. So here's the transition at a high level um summary. I will explain each phase in more detail. But as you can see here, we are moving now from preparation into the service model evaluation phase. This phase will help us validate the data we have already gathered and with field observation and bringing more people into the process. That information will enable us to finalize the transition planning and to work with our legal team to rebid our current contracts this fall. Finally, we will move into full implementation in 2027. So, let's discuss step one preparation. First, I want to just recap the work we

have already done to date. We have done a lot a lot of work on paper data gather gathering with the help of central services recreation and parks engineering and environmental services and RCCI. This has been an iterative process as we receive information ask questions receive updates and repeat and repeat. I have provided highle summaries of this information to you. I've sent you some of the respective schedules that we have. I sent you some um actual the positions that we're looking at. I've also sent you some of the contractors that we currently work with. Um I think we have done everything that we can do through desk reviews and information gathering at the department director level. The next phase will be combining this data with fieldwork as we will cover on the next slide. We have also developed draft job descriptions for a new department director in one administrative manager position. The director position uses very similar education and experience requirements to the central services director position and is recommended at a salary grade 31 as previously presented. Administrative manager is of course an existing job title in the city's jobs library. Finally, we have developed a draft budget for the department based on the current expenditures and allocation of the additional funds added in 2026. The total budget expected for the new department is approximately 8.1 million, which let me state includes about 2.1 million in existing staff. So, when you take the 41 positions, we pay about $2.1 million for the staffing and 5.8 8 million that we currently spend on contracts. I'm going to wait to present the budget to you until we can answer some

outstanding questions about locations and equipment. Again, the majority of the funding for this department is already funding that we're utilizing. So, it is not a a big ask for new funding. All we're doing is shifting the funding that has already been allocated to those respective departments and moving it into this one department. I think this is a strong base for us to move forward. We are now ready to move from the paperwork level to the field level to to reality test our plan. Step two, model development. Over the spring and early summer, we are ready to move into more detailed development of our new service model. To spearhead this work, we need to bring more people into the process. First, we will proceed with the advertisement of the new department director position. And I'm hopeful that the commission will be able to find one and hire a great candidate. In the meantime, I'm going to appoint a transition lead through a temporary assignment for an existing employee who has significant experience with our current vegetation operations. This transition lead is going to be responsible for confirming all the data we have on paper by going out with our crews and contractors to actually observe them at work and inspect our current equipment. They will also review our citizen request to identify the needs and gaps in our current services. Based on this field observation, they will start mapping out the needed changes to our services delivery model and contracting. And while we're putting these key people in place, I'm also convening a series of meeting in late March and April. These include roundt meetings with our crew supervisors on uh all hands meeting with our frontline staff and a session with our current contractors. In addition, we

will reach out to our community stakeholders. We have some valuable community stakeholders like Destination Augusta, the Chamber of Commerce, our neighborhood association alliance, ACE, and others to hear about the needs that they see. Based on all of this information, we will finalize the organizational chart and budget for the 2027 budget process. Then we're looking at step three, transition between August and November. This fall, we can proceed to put all the pieces in place. Once we determine the right mix between contract and staff assignments, we'll be ready to transition both. Our new department director will work with procurement to rebid our existing vegetation contracts with an eye toward opportunities for increased frequency and high visibility areas. We will also finalize the updated job descriptions for the transitioning staff because we do realize that one person working in one department may be called something else in another department. During this phase, we will also begin lining up equipment and any physical location transfers for the new department. Based on the information I have today, I am not convinced that a brand new separate location is needed for this new department to operate, but there certainly will be moving pieces. I'm going to look to our transition lead, the person that I told you that we're going to utilize and new director to collaborate with them with central services on space planning this summer so that we can make those changes this fall. Finally, as we roll out service changes, we also need to develop information for the public so that they know what to expect from the city. We also know that quite a few of our service requests are for areas that are actually private property or are up to private owners to maintain and we need to make those responsibilities clear to all of our citizens.

And then we go into step four. We have a lot of work to do in 2026, but I believe that the proposed phasing I have just laid out will set us up to launch the new department and new contracts by January the 1st. Some of you may be feeling like this is too long to wait while others may be feeling like this is too aggressive. My desire is to move very quickly to finalize these changes and to complete this transition. However, I know that this is a complex operation and I want to ensure that we are setting this new department up for success. Uh ultimately moving forward realizing that we may have to pivot along the way and details will continue to be fleshed out as we move forward. And last but not least, the only outstanding item and I heard this from the last meeting is what do we need to do about the naming of the department? So here are some of the recommendations. Um we've looked at other agencies. Everybody has a gamut of various names. Um we could call it I know it was mentioned about landscaping. Um we call it vegetation and landscaping. Vegetation and grounds grounds and landscaping. There is beautifification department. Um I think is what they utilize in the cab. The city of Dicab. But um with this I will go ahead and and leave that up for an option for us to go ahead and determine the name so that we can go ahead and say what this department director who that department director is going to be working under the department what department name. I would then now let you know that I want to go ahead u once we receive the consensus on the naming of the department I will proceed with advertising the positions for hire. And with that, I will open it up for discussion and any questions that any of you may have.

Thank you so much, madam administrator, for putting this together. You left out one key component part of the naming trees. Trees need to be in there somewhere because ultimately we do have an internal tree crew. That comes under landscaping. Landscape is part of trees. Yes. Okay. All right. We're going to open it up to the colleagues for discussion. Chair recognizes Commissioner Brandon Garrett. Madam administrator, great work. Thank you so much for his presentation. Actually, mayor, uh, the companion author for one of these items was the commissioner from the fourth. So, I will yield to him and get in queue right behind him.

You got it. Commissioner Brandon Garrett has yielded to Commissioner Lonnie Wimbley. Commissioner Weimbley from the fourth. You had the floor, sir. Thank you, Mr. M. Thank you, uh, my colleague. Um um all that was was good. I'm not necessarily a number person. I'm just a um status person. Show me some stats. Uh we just the mayor just brought up trees. Uh, and that's a good point because we do have a urban forest and we need an arish to be able to help us manage that. So, in your staffing, is that part of your plan?

So, Commissioner Wimbley, right now they currently use out, you know, we have um on call providers. So we will still use utilize that for arubberous service needs on call. Yes, as we have been. Yes sir. Okay. So, um, am I just hearing that the main goal right now, other than we just brought to the attention about the trees, but our main goal for this new department is going to be to cut grass.

No, sir, not just to cut grass. is going to to to help beautify the city of Augusta, do some of the things that we've done. Thank you. Okay. That that's that's what I want to make sure. Yes, sir. That's the that is the primary goal is the beautifification. So, in doing that,

now that that there's some general leadership skills that some people could have and they could just they can leave pretty much anything. Uh even a horse to water and make him drink. But but my point is when you have you put any thought into this department head you want to hire? You said y'all start working on a job description? Yes, sir. We do have a draft job description. Yes, sir. Okay. What kind of skills? Not the full thing because you said you're working on it, but where you where you heading towards skills requirement?

I don't have that with me, but I can make sure that we send that out to you the draft. Right. Cuz I think that I think that's very important for that person to have some understanding of what it takes to really do some beautifification. Because it's not just a a matter of sticking a flower into the ground and saying, "I want you to beautify this area." It's knowing what you what's in that ground that's going to help that flower to beautify the area. So, I I think we should be looking at some skills sets inside of that person. I do have it with me, sir. Okay.

I'm sorry. I didn't I thought I put it in there. Um we're looking at someone who has um experience of course in landscaping, mowing, horiculture, outdoor maintenance operations. Um consistent maintenance programs, public spaces, rightways, outdoor areas of government. Look at contra contractor performance. Ensure service quality. Continuously evaluate service delivery models. develops and implements long and shortterm plans and goals for the department researchers. What's the best a good direction? You're going a good direction. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.

Uh uh because that that's I want this I want this person to be successful. So I want them to have the skill sets because I want us to be successful. So I want to make sure we're looking for somebody with the skill set. Now, we was talking about how we were going to staff, that's the workers, right? And a comment was made uh uh and I I don't want to I don't want to be here trying to quote directly, but it was made that we would bring those workers over from other departments. And I was under the impression that when we bring them over, we still going to have them to focus on the areas that they was once working on. Other words, if they was doing work for recreation that they might be focused on recreation, if they were doing work for uh environment, environmental service, well, engineering maintenance, if they were doing work for them, so they'll focus on that. It it did I understand that right or was I totally wrong? No sir, we're we're going to that's why we want to make sure we bring the director on board. We want to evaluate what everybody's skill set is so we can have people placed in the right position that's going to benefit not only us but benefit the employee as well.

Absolutely. Okay. And cuz that that's that's the point I want to make sure that when we bring the folks over that we have a plan for them uh as to where they going to work to because my my idea is when that when that worker come to work they should know 90% of what they going to be doing that day. That other 10% disruption is out of our control. It's just what we need somebody to do. But 90% of what they do when they come to work, they should already know what that's going to be. And so I don't want them to try to rely on what they used to do. I want to be able to rely on what they have to do.

Yes, sir. Okay. Um, now the $8 million you talked about that just based off current salaries and current uh contracts. Yes, sir. Okay. So, is that sufficient? That that's what we'll be evaluating, sir. As part of this transition, we'll be evaluating. So, you're going to be go ahead and look at that and see how that that that's going to work. Yes, sir.

All right. because it's it's it's a lot more than just bringing equipment over. There's a lot of support logistics that goes with that equipment.

And there's a lot of logistic goes with maintaining those grounds. And so I want to make sure we're taking that into consideration uh when we do that. Um and so we going to be funding this from general funds. Are we are we going to be using as splice? You might not have gotten to that yet, but this is what I want to make sure you're considering. How are we going to fund this? Are we going to do it with general funds, SPLAS, or we going to try to get into grants for anything? Uh to to make it happen, grants for major tree project, planting project so forth. uh or is that is there room to put something under SPLS other than capital equipment? Uh what can we do with SPLS to to to help us out? Um we we going to be considering that as well.

Yes, sir. We'll be looking at any respective funding source because we want to take some of the pressure off general funds. Okay. All right. Um, so I'll be willing I'm I'm I'm really looking forward to especially when we get to that startup cost. I really want the details on that because that startup cost is also going to give you your long range cost as in your continue operation because what you start up with is what you got to operate with, right? Yes, sir.

Okay. So that that's that's that's one of my my big concern. All right. Thank you, Mr. Matthew. Thank you, Commissioner Wimbley, who yielded to the commissioner from the ETH, Commissioner Brandon Garrett. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Mayor. All right. So, in regards to this, I'm one of those in that section that said, "Man, this is taking a long time." So, I'm just going to throw that one out there cuz I really was hoping that we would be able to see some noticeable changes this year in in regards to how the city looks. I mean, especially after our conversation just before this about uh just the l litter and trash around the the county because that's going to be a big component of this as well. Um since we're talking department names, do we still have any leftover swag from Keep Augusta beautiful? We probably do.

I'm not I'm not sure how much if they do. I think administration may have some in one of the closets um because I think that was where they left it in one of the floors. That's beautiful. Um, and to your other point, Commissioner Garrett, um, we I I think you will see some improvement because now we're going to have this transition lead that's going to go out there and make the respective assessments and we're going to be looking at, you know, they will report directly to administration and we will be looking at mapping out what we're doing and making some shifts. So, we will be looking at that and and again, I think the meetings with the contractors as well as the respective staff that we have currently um will show some improvement.

Okay. Um but really in in regards to what the department name is going to be, it's got to be something simple. Um uh you know, you mentioned central services to people and that really doesn't describe anything. Um, so I I think that as we're looking at this, we need to make sure that we're encapsulating what this department truly is supposed to be so it doesn't uh lose it uh vision or focus farther down the road when none of us are still sitting up here. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, mayor. Thank you so much, Commissioner from the ETH. It's been recommended that the name be the grounds management department. So, that's something to ponder as we get through the queue. Let's see. Uh,

Commissioner from the second, Commissioner Stacy Bully. Thank you, Mayor Johnson. Thank you for your presentation, Administrator Allen. I was not here the day we voted for for um this move forward. But I do have a few questions and um some of it's just to clarify. You said that um the estimated cost was about 8.1 million. Well, that's merging everybody together right now. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then you mentioned 2.1 million was for existing staff. Um I missed the 5 something.

Yes, that is what we currently pay right now for contracts. Okay. And what was that number? I'm sorry. Uh uh 5.8 I think it is that we pay because we rounded it. I think it's 5.8 million. Okay. So about 7.9 million currently and we're going to increase it to 8.1 million. So 5.8 million is what we actually paid to the contractors and staffing is around 2.1 million. Okay. Yes, ma'am. So that comes out to be 7.9 million and we're saying that our estimated cost is going to be 8.1 million. Yes. At this time. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So, if the 5.8 million is currently what we're paying contractors, but we're going in for a rebid of contracts, um, when we go out for that rebid, are we going to put a firm fixed price on that rebid?

So, what we're going to look at doing is, and in some areas, it may be additional frequency. So, we may be increasing the frequency with some of them. So right now until we get that person on board to really do an assessment as well as the new department director, that's why we kind of waited till the fall so we can come up and it might be areas that need to have two frequencies because right now we have some of our contractors that go out and do one frequency cut and we know that's not sufficient. So that's what we're trying to do is develop this service model to make sure that we addressing those areas. Okay. So right now there's no there's no discussion about having a firm fixed price. That is correct. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So we don't know necessarily what our rebid is going to be for 2027. It could exceed this 8.1 million if if we're looking at doing additional frequencies and things of that nature. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Um, so to come up with the financials, are we going to, and I'm just asking for budget sake, because we always talk about budget and being fiscally responsible. Are we going to put out an RFI just to kind of get a feel for what's out there? Is that what we're planning on doing? We we would work with our procurement director. We'll probably put out an RFP, though, but there'll be several RFPs because there'd be different areas.

Okay. So, the RFI is a request for information. and RFP for the proposals? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. So, why would we why would we not do an RFI to get the information so we can kind of get a gauge or was that already done? So, we could get kind of a gauge.

Now, I'm not sure if that was done previously. I would have to get with the procurement director and I know these some most of these things were done prior to him coming on board. These are existing contracts. So, we'll have to look at those existing contracts. That's why why I stated we will have to get with our legal team to see how we would work with termination if possible um and what we can do to move forward with some of the agreements. Some of them may just be um renegotiating the respective agreements, not necessarily termination of the agreements, but expanding the needs for the agreements, expanding the areas.

Okay. So, is I I don't know if I would ask the administrator or the attorney this question, Mayor Johnson, but are we too late in the process to do the RF the request for information? Because these are this is my thought process on this. Um, if I understand we don't know because we don't know, we don't know a total cost because we don't know the frequency. However, um we don't want to see 15 million come come back, especially if we're not putting any type of firm fixed pricing in place. Um if we're now increasing some areas to three times a year, like where will our cap be? How will we determine that? I don't know who would answer that question. Mayor Johnson.

So, attorney Plunkett and Minister Allen, a question. Minister Allen, I don't necessarily know that the attorney needs to answer that, but Administrator Allen said, you know, we get with legal to determine certain things.

Yes, I I think I can address that. It would it will definitely be based on what we discover with our procurement department. It's going to be a major partnership and going out there and making sure that we actually procure the best prices. It it'll be competitive. It'll be a competitive process, I can assure you. and we're going to make sure we're going to look at what we currently getting from some of the contractors and see if they're willing to continue those respective services or even um modify the pricing for those respective services based on what we're going to be asking them. The the problem that we have at this current point which is I know you asked was it too late? I think it's probably a little early um is for us to really define what we need because we need to do a whole new look at what we currently are doing. It it's it's starting from you know scratch. What do we need to do? what areas, how do we need to do it? Because now we're merging these respective areas with these respective contractors. So, we may, you know, evaluate the land mass of what areas, what we're going to be doing in this area, what we're going to be doing in that area, and then those, you know, may be able to provide us with a lot of details. So, those details in itself is going to be a lot of work to gather together. So, to your point, Commissioner Pullium, it's not a bad idea to do a um request for information at all. Um and we probably can eventually do those as soon as we get the specifications on what we're going to be looking to get the information on.

Okay. Did we take into account um I know that um Dr. Malik, our engineering director, had come up with a schedule a couple of times to talk about the frequency that we actually needed in some of those areas. is and I know engineering is just one department but he came up with a schedule a few times and was saying because of the infrequency of cuts that's why a lot of them were on request or per per request. So, have we looked at some of those schedules to determine if we were only cutting I'm g say old Savannah Road. Um, if we were only cutting Old Savannah Road near the creek once a year or twice a year, but per his um recommendation, we should have actually been cutting it four times a year. Are we taking some of that and determining how much it's going to cost? Because it all comes down to budget and cost. That's what we're always talking about. Um, so was that done?

We have gotten that received that information from Dr. Malik and we that will be one of the things that will we'll incorporate when that person gets on board to start making the evaluation and then determining what we're looking for in the areas. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you, Mayor Johnson. Thank you so much, Commissioner Pulium. Chair recognizes Commissioner from the four, Commissioner Lang Wimberly.

Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. Uh this is for the administrator. Um now I will be revisiting this request again because uh I really want to know what problem we're trying to solve. And so I I think I think that need to be in in depth. We're not cuz what what I'm what I'm hearing we're not just trying to uh solve a grass cutting problem. We trying to also in the way we going to try to reorganize, we're going to have a reporting problem, a requirement. I put it like that. Uh like as you as you going out there and hitting those ditches and hitting that waterway, uh special uh uh and we going to be dealing with any kind of wetland that that's a requirement uh for certain reports. What are we going to be solving with this? are we and also um I'm glad it was brought up about the legal part because I I had a I I was asking about are we going to have to change in the ordinance? So we um is there any charter implication as to what we're going to take from any department uh that might have been spelled out in our charter as in how we wanted to to organize the departments. Is that that's part of legal wouldn't it be to check that out for you?

Yes sir. But we don't we don't anticipate that being any problem. And and procurement would definitely be something that we have to make sure we maintain understand. And now my my other my one last concern for today, but I got some more but I won't use them today. Okay.

C with nine life. I'm going to use one of them. Uh when a person reports to work, what they report to work has a huge impact on how they feel about coming to work. Now you mentioned they might be with central service. You going to have central service help you find a location. Which one is it? We will have central services help us to find a location. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Miss May. Thank you, Commissioner Wimbley. Commissioner Katherine Smith Rice.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I'm jumping in here late at the table. Um, talking about department names and all that. Um, I say we keep it simple and I'm going to let my uh colleague from the tent uh speak, but I mean something easy like Augusta grounds m management department or something like that for the citizens to be able to uh you know for it to um for them to refer to where it's not too long and too detailed. Anyway, I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. Commissioner, I'm gonna let Commissioner Gil jump in.

All right, Commissioner Mayor Pro Tim Wayne Gil. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for all my colleagues that had some good questions, good ideas, and good things pushed forward. Madame administrator, thank you for bringing us the schedule and not having it implemented in 30 days and subject to be critiqued, hit every dang on problem that we could hit. Nine months, you could mold this department. Um along the way you're going to have some of your directors, some of your procurement as well as the uh new director, assistant director will come up with different ideas as well.

Yes, sir.

Um and that that makes me feel better because the last thing I want to do is push something through and then it fails and then we'd be sitting there with egg on our face which is not a good place, not a good thing. Um so with that being said um I know that funding is coming out of three different departments the people the employees coming out of three departments going into one which uh makes sense instead of duplication redundant stuff uh especially behind this dis of who to call you know my only person that I've always known to call was Dr. Malik and he's always responded or the former warden which I didn't I tried not to bother him as much but he's retired now. He's been such a great asset for our organization. Um so funding that we got coming out of the U general fund. We got funding coming out of Splast. Um hopefully we're going to have the funding coming out of storm water because um the whole thing about the storm water became a grass cutting program as well as a uh employee program. It was generating 14 or $15 million when it was originally implemented and it was supposed to be only a small amount of employees and every district was supposed to have two contractors. That's the package that we were sold never came to fruition. But Dr. Malik as well as um Oscar Fle did the best what they had because everybody grabbed grabbed it and took what money they needed out of it or for employees um especially the from the finance department they actually moved money around to where the engineering actually had people going into the storm water etc which should never happen.

With that being said, we got to make sure that whatever we do, we do right. Fortunately, you have nine months to get this program right. Hopefully, we'll find a good director with good leadership skills, good experience at the horiculture experience, as well as um making sure that we holding these contractors accountable. um with the marshall's department with the clean program, we could have these um communities um citizens who's breaking the law clean up prior in the grass cutting. But I understand that my my colleague that was speaking from a second was talking how many times um to cut grass, you should have a base line right now on how many times we cut. I think it's twice a year. I think we need to use that as a standard. Anything above it, we got to figure out where the funding's coming from. But as long as we got a baseline, and I believe that's what you had implemented in in the beginning. The other thing is that um on Lumpin Road, he's out of business now. Mr. Penitent used to sell us weed eaters at 20 30 at a time or uh outdoor equipment on Highway 25 because we'll lose them as fast as we buy them. We got to have controls in place to where we don't lose our product or equipment. It ought to be a check in check out. That way we're not losing money and holding our employees accountable. So um I like I like the five different or four different names that you get put up. I think the simplest one is the ground management department. I think people will understand that people will uh grasp that better than vegetation ground

maintenance department. You know there's a lot of verbiage there but grounds management department is probably the best one. So, I like to make a motion that we call it the grounds management department and move forward with this program that you had set forth and that you put your time in and making sure that we have enough time be between now and when we imple implement it to make sure it's done right. So, I would like to thank you and your staff for going above and beyond and making sure that this program is going to be done right. Thank you, Commissioner Kilo. Uh and I must thank the team because they have been phenomenal in administration and and the department directors. They have been providing us the respective information. So it's been truly a team effort.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. The Augusta Grounds Management Department has been put up for a motion. Is there a second? Second. There's a second by Commissioner Katherine Smith Rice. Commissioner Wimberly from the fourth. Uh Mr. May, that I'm sorry. That is that is the name that's been proposed. the grounds management department, the Augusta grounds management department. I don't think that's captured what we're trying to do. Turn your mic on, please. And and I'll give you the floor. You have the floor. Yeah. I I don't think that captures what we're trying to do here. Would you like to make a substitute motion for another name?

I think landscape need to be in the name somewhere because that's what we just talked about we wanted to do. That's the beautifification part. All right. So, would you propose a name? And we're asking for a second vegetation and landscape. All right. So that's that's the the first item. So Commissioner Wimbleler, are you proposing a substitute motion? Substitute motion for vegetation and landscaping department. Is there a second to that? Probably not.

That motion fails to get a second. Madame clerk, we're moving forward with the original motion made by Mayor Pro Tim Wayne Gilfall, second by Commissioner Katherine Smith Rice to name the department the Augusta Grounds Management Department. We're prepared to vote. No. That motion carries 9 to one with Mr. Wimbley voting no. Thank you.

Thank you so much, madam administrator. Great work. Madame clerk, does that conclude our business for the day? Yes, sir. It does. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being to the Wednesday edition of the Augusta Richmond County Commission meeting. This meeting is hereby adjourned. Have a great afternoon.