Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

to look like your past, that your mistakes don't get the final word, that you can begin again. If a kid from a cotton mill village who graduated at the bottom of his class, who was known to deputies for all the wrong reasons, can become a Marine, a husband, a father, a business owner, and District 1 commissioner, then maybe the greatest thing about America isn't what we've already accomplished. Maybe it's what is still possible. So there's young people here tonight, and they're not. Kidding. This young person here listening, I want you to remember something. Don't let anybody convince you that your story has already been written. It hasn't. If you've made mistakes, learn from them. If you've been knocked down, get back up. And if somebody believes in you, honor that belief. And when success finally comes, and I hope it does, remember where you came from. Reach back, give somebody else the same chance that was given to you, because that's how America has always renewed herself, one life, one family, one community, one generation at a time. So before I get started tonight, I ask you to remember one thing, that the people who are sitting up here with me are just like me and you. We all have families. We have bills. We have good days and bad days. We have opinions, and we don't always agree with each other. But we have something in common, and that's that we all love Cherokee County. We're proud to live here, and we're proud to serve here. And none of us are perfect. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to disagree. And there will be times that you will not like decisions that we make. But I hope you'll always know that we're here because we care about this place and the people who call it home. So thank you all again for being here tonight. And with that, we'll start in with the presentation. So again, I'm Will Cagle. I represent District 1. This is the rest of the board of commissioners. Our chairman's here tonight. He is Harry Johnson. I believe he's on his third term as chairman. Served our great county for 22 years. And he's the second best looking commissioner that we have, I think. He's elected in a countywide election, so each and every one of y'all cast your vote for him. Your other districts are represented by the district commissioners, respectively. District 2, we have Richard Weatherby. District 3, we have Denny Carter. In District 4, we have Corey Ragsdale. And the county manager, who's retiring to spend more time with his kids, we're going to miss him. I'm sorry, his grandkids. He's an old guy like me, too. It's Jeff Morton, our county manager. And this is the map of your four commission districts. So as you can see, each commission district has about 75,000 people in it, and for a total population of about 300,000. District one is unique because even though it's only a quarter of the population, it's over half the square mileage. So I think that's very telling. That's indicative of a rural setting, and that's something that we're all working hard to keep. Uh, District 3 is, it's got some wild land too, but definitely not as much as what we do. Uh, District 2 and District 4 are on the south end of the county. Uh, and the responsibilities of the commissioners, the BOC performs two of the three functions of government. Legislative, which is policymaking, by enacting ordinances, regulations, and adopting an annual budget. The executive function, administration and operations, is executed through our county manager, who would be Mr. Morton, in a day-to-day operations. We also provide funding for the third function, which is judicial. And this is a breakdown of, we can get back more to this later. I'll pull the slide back up for questions at the end, but it's just a general breakdown of our 2027 budget expenditures by fund. And this is a breakdown of the 2027 proposed fire fund. We can get back to those too. Let's start off with this. So we came in with about $20 million uh... that we needed to cut a lot of that was from insurance just the cost of living goes up uh... here's some of the things that that we have cut we've got one point five million dollars off of our cola uh... which is our employee cost of living allowance uh... we made a million dollars in cuts to group insurance uh... sheriff has graciously cut some of his positions uh... i'll get the chief to talk about those here in a minute public works has cut two hundred eighty three thousand Elections has cut $310,000. Courts has cut $526,000. So everybody is trying hard to keep your tax bill as low as possible. And this is just more in detail about some of the cuts, like some of the sheriff's cuts for personnel. He's also delayed his jail management system. Is that correct, Chief? We've cut GIS imagery flights out for $110,000. What does that do, Mr. Day?

Yeah, the aerials.

Okay.

Okay.

All right. Well, I've got this. I'll pass it around as we go over them. And then just the rest of the cuts. Again, we can get back to this when we get into the questions phase. So another thing we've been working on is updating our fleet services. So right now, we've got 1,156 vehicles, trucks, and pieces of heavy equipment between all the county departments. That's fire trucks, patrol cars, roads and bridges, asphalt paving machines. And 66% of that fleet is over five years old, with 20% over 16 years old. So I think that shows that we're trying to get every dollar that we can out of every vehicle that y'all pay for before we even consider sending them to auction. But ways that we're looking to minimize cost is to standardize the fleet with Ford products. So instead of having 17 different varieties of vehicles and trying to find technicians and parts for each one of those, we focus on Ford products. We invested in a Ford OEM diagnostic software And we also now have the ability to perform forward warranty work with accounting getting reimbursed at dealership rates. So that means if we do buy a new vehicle, it blows an engine up and our mechanics fix it. They get reimbursed just like a Ford dealership would. So I think that's a huge benefit to us. We've also adopted new computerized fleet management information system, which will go live in a couple of weeks on October 1st, which will help us save money by determining when it is most appropriate to outsource services or supplies, especially for specialized equipment. One example of this would be Public Works, where our fleet's just not set up to be able to go to the job site and fix it, so fix some of these pieces of equipment. They looked elsewhere, found a company that, instead of it costing us $1.3 million to do their repairs, the technicians would actually come to the job site, wherever the piece of equipment was broke down, and end up charging us $460,000 a year. So I think that's a substantial savings, and that's something that I'm very proud of them for outsourcing. We're also updating job duties to match industry standards. and improve how departments are organized, and then also replacing old tools and equipment. So our technicians actually have to provide their own tools. Newer tools do allow them to get more work done in a timely manner. So this is how I can't take credit for this because I'm new to the board, but I do think it's something worth noting, especially with the chairman here. As far as responsible fiscal management goes, Cherokee County is the second lowest on taxes per capita. We're the lowest expenditures per capita, and this is in the metro Atlanta area, and then we're second lowest on long-term debt per capita. Property tax comparison, and this is the old numbers. They will be going up. We were third lowest just behind Fayette and Forsyth. And I don't know if y'all recall from our, what do you call it, the moratorium on the data centers. But the chairman pointed out that Fayette County actually had approved so many data centers that they were able to offset this. And this is a decision that I believe the chairman said it best, where we're happy to pay to keep the data centers out. And this is a breakdown of where your tax dollars go. So $0.69 of every dollar that we collect on your property tax bill goes to the cherokee county school district and the cherokee county school district is governed by the cherokee county board of education board of education sets the millage rate for the school district for educational other services for their 42 000 students in cherokee county they're a board they're elected just like we are they don't have any input on what we do we don't have any input on what they do 19 cents at every every dollar goes to Your county government, which is the unincorporated areas of Cherokee County, are governed by the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners. The Board of Commissioners sets the millage rate to provide services to the Cherokee County's nearly 300,000 residents, including law enforcement, judicial, recreational, parks, transportation, senior services, and more. And then $0.11 of every dollar on your tax bill goes to the Cherokee Fire and Emergency Services. They've received funding from the fire millage rate, which is a separate item on your bill if you live in unincorporated Cherokee. If you live in the city of Woodstock, you're unique. They have their own fire department, so you don't see this at all. If you live in Ballground, Canton, correct me if I'm wrong, but Ballground, it's rolled into your city bill, right? So if you live inside Ballground, Waleska, Holly Springs, or Canton, the fire fund is rolled into your city taxes. And then one cent out of every dollar is going to pay back the 2008... $90 million park bond, which is almost paid off, I believe. This is a breakdown of the property tax assessor's process. We had this listed up front, too. We can talk about that later with Mr. Swindell. But the way it works is January 1st of every year, tax assessors begin assessing all the real property using the previous year's sales data. And through the end of the appeal period, which is, is it April 30th or April 1st?

What slide are we talking about? Second slide? Second slide. Through the end of the appeal period, you can file for your exemption now, which is new. Okay. It used to be April 1st was the deadline. Then they said you could file during the appeal period. And now that it's opened up to where you've got...

The ability to appeal from when you buy your property up through the end of the appeal period. That usually lasts through the end of July.

Okay. Well, thank you for that. And then the second week of June, the Board of Assessors reviews and approves the list of assessments and values for the current year, and notices of those assessments are mailed out to the property owners. And if any of this is wrong, please hop in and correct me. Then you have a 45-day appeal process where the property owners wishing to appeal their assessed value must file a written appeal within 45 days of the mailing date of the assessment notice. Details and deadlines are posted on the assessment notice. And by July 15th of every year, tax assessors must provide the tax digest to the local tax commissioner by state law. The tax commissioner gathers all the pertinent information and delivers the tax digest to the Department of Revenue by September the 1st for its approval and the issuances of collection order. The tax digest is then handed down to all the taxing authorities, which we'll get to that on the next slide. which here they are. So for your big ones on your unincorporated Cherokee tax, your taxing authorities are simply the Board of Education and your Cherokee County Board of Commissioners. If you live inside the city limits, you add one of these other entities to that. And then the tax digest is then handed down to all taxing authorities to begin the billing process. And one thing I want to mention on this, and please correct me if I'm wrong, If you're over the age of 62 and you're married, make sure that your spouse is also on your homestead exemption because otherwise, God forbid you pass away, if your spouse isn't on there, you have to pay the school portion of your property taxes for five years until you can start getting that again. So that's why it's very important to make sure you're both on there.

I'd ask the commissioner if they have to survive the spouse provision. So that is in there, but that's still in there.

Can you tell us? I'm not familiar with that.

It just passed last year. And it was voted on.

So it changed the nature of the statewide float and our local .

Sorry to butt in.

No, that's OK. No, please. But so now you automatically, if you're the surviving spouse, the five-year rule should not apply to you. And we're making sure that that doesn't. And it also holds for the, well, it's only for the local school tax exemption. But they also made it for the statewide float and everything. Anytime there's any kind of issue with a surviving spouse or anything, you're automatically rolled into the exemption. You still have to come in to our office and apply. We need to know that it's you and your spouse has passed and all that stuff. But then there's no interruption in that exemption if you otherwise qualify, if you're also 62. As of January 1st that year, all is well. So that's a recent change. very advantageous to our folks, especially in context of the five-year rule. We knew that that was going to be an issue up front on that change, and they've gone ahead and changed it. But as Commissioner Cagle said, it's still a good idea to get in and get both names on the exemption. Never hurts.

I guess we have our county delegation to thank for that, which would be, just saw them walk in, thank you, Representative Ridley, for showing up. Thank you, Senator Dickerson, for showing up. And thank you, Representative Fincher, for showing up. And I really appreciate y'all being here. And then the exemptions themselves. And again, Mr. Swindell can probably speak more eloquently than I can on this. Since 2008, Cherokee County has had a homestead freeze in place. This is automatic when the homestead application is filed and approved. The exemption amount grows at the same rate as the power property value grows It means that the taxable value does not increase even when the fair market value does increase for the purposes of the county M&O millage rate. Also, the statewide homestead exemption, which was approved by the legislature and voters in 2024 and applied for 2025, the statewide exemption applies to the Cherokee County Fire District as well, as well as the taxable value on homestead properties in incorporated cities that do not have similar exemptions in place. And then the senior and disabled school tax exemption, which I apologize. Maybe I should have read this slide before I stuck it up here, because it's approved by the legislature and voters in 2024, applicable in 2025, like Mr. Swindell said. It eliminates 100% of the school tax for seniors 62 and older. Those who had their home state exemption in place and were eligible by the end of 2024 received benefits In the year 2025, any new application must have a homestead exemption for five years, but y'all, they fixed that.

Yeah, so that slide is, I mean, that was recent, so we need to update that slide too, but because that is a new thing.

But there again, it's always good policy to make sure everybody that's on the fee is also on the exemption.

No, thank you. And then tax bills. The duly elected tax commissioner is responsible for billing and collecting for all real and personal property taxes. The tax commissioner uses the tax digest to, or provided by the tax assessor and approved by the Georgia Department of Revenue and the millage rate set by each taxing jurisdiction to calculate and mail the tax bills, usually in September, October. Bills are due by November 15th of each year. And this is very District 1 specific, but Ashley here, Mr. Holcomb, he's graciously agreed to serve on our T. Splost Advisory Board. And they go around and they identify areas that are intersections that are dangerous, high traffic areas, and then just places that need to be fixed. And in August the 18th, the Board of Commissioners approved a contract with Kimberly Horn to study ways to improve the intersection of Fake Con Road, Green Circle, and Ball Ground Highway. And if you all know where this is, it's about two miles north of town. It's abysmal. And what's worse than the traffic is the fact that two people have lost their lives there in the past five years. So that's why that was a number one priority for us in District 1 for TSPLUS, which thank y'all for 61% of y'all voting to approve that. The study was funded through TSPLOST. That means money's totally from TSPLOST. And we'll look at current traffic issues, such as outdated layout, limited visibility, and congestion during busy hours, and the history of crashes. Kimberly Horner will analyze traffic patterns and create updated concept options based on initial ideas from county staff. These concepts will help guide future engineering and design work, which will be done later at a separate contracts. Now, Mr. Dakin also testified to this. And then this gentleman right here, Patrick, they're trying to do as much of this in-house as they can and make this a number one priority for District 1. So thank you all for the hard work that you all are putting in on that. This is the part that's unfortunate. The section of road. A section of Fake Con Road from the eastern side of the East Bridge over Interstate 575 to the intersection with Ball Ground Highway has now been named the Luke Thomas Burgess Memorial Roadway. I knew Luke when he was a small kid. He was a great kid. He was an Eagle Scout. He was killed last August, unfortunately. Just had graduated high school in May. um and unfortunately he was in a head-on collision with another driver and both drivers were were perished but we were blessed that his mother allowed us to rename that section of road you know the luke thomas burgess memorial roadway so we'll never forget him And your TSPLOST transportation investment in Cherokee County focuses on improving the safety, maintaining a state of good repair on our existing transportation facilities, and implementing target roadways expansions to reduce congestion and support job creations for our citizens. These investments are made possible by TSPLOST, TSPLOST, and other funding partners such as GDOT. Over the next year, nine planned safety and congestion relief improvements are moving into design along State Route 140 and Old Highway 5. Your previous roadway investment is being taken care of as well, with approximately 100 miles of roadway being resurfaced during the 2026 paving season. 32 of those miles are in District 1. We're trying to do as much of this in-house as possible. Public Works is expanding into a second crew now because every mile that we can do in-house is cheaper than what it would cost us to get a subcontractor to. It works out to be paid for three miles to get a fourth mile free, so having two crews allows us to get the taxpayers more bang for their buck. The Georgia Department of Transportation is also replacing the Shoal Creek Bridge on State Route 108 at Pincher Road. The new bridge will be about 220 feet long, and the road leading to the bridge will have a 12-foot lane in each direction, along with six-foot shoulders. The area needed for the project will vary between 100 and 175 feet. During construction traffic, During construction, traffic will be rerouted using an off-site detour starting in February for about 18 months. So unfortunately, what that means is if you look where I do and you're trying to go to the lake, you can't just cut down 108 anymore.

You've got to go all the way back around Walisca Highway to Marietta Highway out Knox Bridge Road.

But the truth is the bridge probably should have been redone 20 years ago. So better 18 months now than have a catastrophe happen next year. Construction will begin in early April. Right now, crews are clearing the site and putting erosion control measures in place. Paving work is expected to begin in mid-October. Project is planned to be finished in late spring of 2028. Again, that's totally with GDOT money, so thank you to our county delegation for that. And this is another thing I'm very proud of. We just unanimously passed Super AG, which is something that Mr. Day and I, first time we had lunch after I was elected, he took me to Longhorns and tried to pay. I wouldn't let him. He asked me what I wanted to see in District 1, and the Super AG residential category is... I mean, that's it. That's what I asked for. So he's put a lot of time and hard work into it. His staff has. And I'm very appreciative. So a little bit about that. Super AG, also my name, said it cooler than large lot residential anyway. allows for large lot rural subdivisions with parcels of five acres or greater while maintaining appropriate public safety and environmental protections. Now, what Super AG is designed to do is preserve Cherokee County, specifically District 1's, rural character and prevent the premature conversion of rural land into small lot subdivisions. What we found was if you were trying to develop a couple of lots in cherokee county it costs you the same to do a house on two acres as it did to do two houses on an acre so we had to find some kind of way to incentivize uh people who had these larger tracks of land to want to do larger lots and this is how we did it by reducing fire water requirements uh allowing gravel roads instead of paved roads and less cost storm water materials like, instead of reinforced concrete, you can have HDPE plastic piping, which is actually, I think they're coming out now, and it's just as good, if not better, as the reinforced concrete stuff. It's to encourage very low-density residential development with lots five acres or more, provide a permitting and platting process designed specifically for the rural development rather than applying urban or suburban development standards, and to allow greater design flexibility for properties with unique topography, environmental features, or other rural characteristics. also to protect watersheds floodplains in environmentally sensitive areas and ensure adequate access for emergency vehicles and appropriate public safety standards accommodate private rural subdivisions with minimal infrastructure and privately maintained improvements support properties that may rely on wells and septic systems where public water and sewer are unavailable and another benefit to this is as it stands now with a ag subdivision even If they build it to county standards, we have to take it over. That means that 25, 30 years from now, we're all chipping in to pay to repave it. This way, they're allowed to do gravel roads, but it's written into the deed where the county never has to take it over. So these are private roads that they're putting in that we're not responsible for. The goal is to give property owners more flexibility to develop rural land while preserving the large lots, open spaces, and rural character that makes these areas of Cherokee County unique. And this is a growth boundary. So we can get into this with Q&A, because I just got a bunch of questions about a recent development in Canton. But this shows the growth boundary between Cherokee County and Ball Ground. And that's why it's extremely critical that the BOC and the city councils work together, because the way it stands now, anywhere inside this growth boundary agreement, The ball ground comes to us and says, hey, we want to annex this piece of property. Then by law, we can offer comments. Us being the county, we can offer comments. And they don't really have to listen to them. But this is the agreement. If they decide to zone outside the boundary agreement, which I don't think they ever would, then there's legal recourse where we can contest it. And this is the growth boundary agreement with Walasca. This is the growth boundary agreement with Canton. You can see it goes out a little bit farther, all the way up to Sam Nelson Road and out Rampley Trail. So Canton's quite large and doesn't, I really don't know much about this growth boundary because it's on the other side of the county, but here's Woodstock. So again, thank you all for being here. I apologize if I took too long with the with opening remarks, but I'm going to open it up for questions. Any topic y'all would like. If I can't answer it, one of these gentlemen hopefully can. So are there any questions? Sure.

Highway 5, that will incorporate a light.

We know. Correct me if I'm wrong. We don't. I'll let you take that one.

It's a possibility. But what we're doing right now is doing an alternatives analysis to try to understand which concepts could possibly work. And we'll choose one of those concepts. We've got about a 60-day turnaround time on that. And then we'll take it to design. But right now, we want to get an engineering firm Commissioner Cagle mentioned we have Kim and Horne working on it. They're looking at things like safety, sight distance, design speed, things of that nature to make an improvement on that facility. And we'll take what they recommend internally, vet it, and then move forward with a preferred alternative straight into design for next year. Thank you, sir.

DAVID BURRAGE. Did I get another one? DAVID BURRAGE. Yeah, go ahead. DAVID BURRAGE. Right. On that same segment, that land that's been tossed back and forth about rezoning, about putting houses in.

Are you talking about on the southwest corner? Yeah, the corner. Okay.

What's the status of that?

So that passed, it was within the growth boundary that I just mentioned. So let me see if I can get that back up. So here's the city of Canton. Up here on the north end, if you look, it is actually inside the growth boundary agreement with Canton. So there was no way we could contest it. Canton voted recently to annex it and approve. I believe it was 196 houses. So it is coming. Well, it's approved now. I really can't say when it's happening. I can try to find out and let you know.

You got another one?

Where did I cut my hair?

This is not the county, and I'm not bashing the county. but the power company with all the outages. We live in Summit, which is part of Town Mill. And we lived in Woodstock before. We never lost power. Now, we had most of the cables underground. I get it. But now, the incident last week when the tractor trailer took out two poles and knocked out the power, that's not limbs. But it's like every couple of months. I mean, can't the power company, who controls telling them to come in and cut clean, trees off the lines?

That's a good question.

I really don't know. Everybody's always pointing fingers like, well, it's the fire company. It's the county. I'm like, well.

I'm sure it's not the county.

If you drive around on these roads, some of these limbs, I mean, they're just destined to any day. If they don't fall on the lines, they're going to fall on cars.

I'll look into it, but I can assure you it's not the county, you know, for lack of cutting. So where are they, Green Drive? Yeah. Where did you say, sir?

The powers are always going out because there's trees growing out the embankment, which is about two feet from the road, and they're leaning out.

Okay. What road?

Well, we're all fake on. Okay. So it's every two or three months we have outings. And a lot of times we do it on trees and whatever.

Okay. Well, I'll look into that and get back with you. Honestly, I don't know who to tell you to call now.

I can add to your list, too. The intersection of Longview Drive and Golf Course, we're down multiple times every few weeks. Are y'all amical over? And my calls to Georgia Power go unheard because it's cheaper for them just to fix the problem when it goes down rather than be proactive and send crews out to cut the stuff back. And I got told that point blank.

Okay. I'll look into that one as well. Are you Amicalola or Georgia Power? Amicalola. Amicalola, I'm assuming. I'm on Georgia Power. Okay.

Okay. Well, I appreciate you letting us know.

Well, I can't promise you I can't either, but I'll follow up.

Yeah, go ahead. Yes, ma'am.

I have like a three-prong.

Okay.

Okay. First off, I didn't understand what you were saying when it came to data centers. I don't know if the county is in favor of data centers or not in favor of data centers.

No, ma'am. We're not in favor of data centers at this time.

Not in favor of data centers. Okay. I'll give you a plus for that. Okay. I also wanted to know, how do you all decide what streets or roads in the county are selected for paving?

So Public Works, they go out once a year before paving starts and they give everything an assessment from like okay to poor and it's rated on that and it's a revolving system. So each year more roads are added and obviously they can't repave everything that's in need on one year. So they kind of prioritize it to the worst get fixed first and then it progressively goes from there. What roads do you have in mind and I'll have them come check them out.

Well, you are paving Pea Ridge. That was one of the areas, and I want to thank you for that. I understand that you were behind pushing that to be done, so we definitely do appreciate that because Pea Ridge has been there for years. That road has been there for years, and nobody there was all fit to pave it, so I want to give you my kudos on that.

I appreciate that.

The other thing, and I'm talking, I'm forgetting what I wanted to ask you about. I did the Dallas Center's, I did the road, oh, traffic lights on 140.

Yes, ma'am.

Is there anything that's going to be done with the state? I know it's a state road. But can the county and the state get together and look at the traffic and the flow of traffic on 140 and do something about traffic lights? I know I keep hearing this about roundabouts. I don't know if roundabouts is going to be advantageous to everybody because everybody don't know how to use a roundabout.

That's true.

So to me, traffic lights, it's red, you go green. I mean, red, you stop. Green, you go. Yellow is caution. So are you looking at working with the state regarding signaling on 140?

Patrick can speak more to that. Where are you, Patrick?

So there's a pretty deep planning basis for making investments on the 140 corridor. We did a corridor study from Little River all the way up past, I believe, all the way up to Northside Cherokee. Then we did another study with Canton on the north side of 140, so 140 around Pea Ridge and that area, all the way up almost to County Line. So in TSPLOST, we have about six or about eight different specific intersections that we're looking at on 140. The thing with traffic signals, you have to do a signal warrant analysis. And you've got to get that cleared through GDOT. And you've got to... prove that a signal is warranted there. And there's different analysis that they do. For instance, Stringer and 140, that signal just got turned on, I believe, last week. That was a multi-year process to jump through the hoops over at GDOT to show that that signal was warranted there. And I think the warrant that it met was for safety, because a lot of crashes have occurred at that intersection. So TSPLOST and our SPLOST program fund a lot of different intersection improvements that a signal could be one of the things that we look at. But I tell you, everybody's talking about the power going out. The wonderful thing about a roundabout is the power doesn't go out on a roundabout. Yeah, and you have less points of conflict. You only have to worry about turning right and seeing what traffic's coming that side. It keeps things moving a little bit further. But there's times where a traffic signal works better than a roundabout.

What criteria are you using to decide where the roundabouts will be placed?

So it's all a traffic study that's done on an individual basis.

I'm sorry, but I can just barely hear you.

I know. I just lost my voice all of a sudden. No, it's my hearing. I apologize. I apologize. But we do a traffic analysis. We'll bring in a firm, and they'll take traffic counts, and they'll run the numbers. They have various techniques they use. For GDOT, there's a specific analysis that you have to do. It's an intersection control evaluation, and it's very detailed and kind of rigid in terms of what they'll approve or deny on their system. So it is a little bit slower with county roads that aren't on the GDOT system. We don't have to do that coordination. So it's a little bit more convenient.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Tanish, real quick, did Mr. Dobson get with you about the speed bumps at the north end of Pea Ridge? Yes. OK. All right. Just want to make sure. Yes, sir.

I have a question related to the data centers that were brought up. We recently moved from Georgia 20 over by the military cemetery north between La Vesta and the ball ground. And I just want to ask about, is Clayton Corners a high crime area? uh... are you talking about the intersection of lower boris and land road yes it is no i'm kidding but no it's it's not not to my knowledge okay well i'm glad to hear that but because i was wondering if it was because there are two flock cameras right at that corner and i'm wondering if there is a you know a lot of people that the sheriff and the marshal are looking for in my area do i need to be concerned about Things happening in my area? Does someone answer that question?

So if you live in that area, that's probably one of the lowest crime rates in the county. I typically divide the county in half. Cumming Highway, Knox Bridge Highway, that's most of the commissioner's district. That's a more rural area. And that's where we tend to have less trouble. The southwest corner, more people, more trouble.

That's good to hear. So then why does the sheriff and why do the marshals need to know when I go to church, when I go to the grocery store, when I go to Clayton Corners to pick up something I forgot at the store? Why do you guys need to know that?

Sir, I don't care where you go and when you go. I'm not tracking you. We don't pull that information. I don't have someone sitting 24-7 to be able to watch every photograph that's taken by a flock camera.

Why is it there? I'll address that real quick.

Hi, my name is Frank Reynolds. I'm a sheriff. So let me address that real quick. There are a lot of people upset with Flock, and I get it. I understand. My wife has an Alexa about in every room of our house. She's got one that's in our bathroom, and I throw a towel over it. I get it. To answer your question, Flock cameras are placed strategically throughout the county in an effort to, in your case, people that are coming in from Pickens County or circumventing certain areas so they can travel through there. People that are stealing your cars, entering your shed and stealing your four-wheeler, burglarizing your house, selling drugs, and those type things. So it's an extra set of eyes in that area. Should we have your vehicle stolen, that we have a time stamp of a picture of a vehicle that we believe that may have been involved in that theft. So as far as tracking, nobody's tracking you. That information is ours. It belongs to the sheriff's office. And we keep it for 30 days. That information is purged out. Flock is going to a seven-day model. We have not added flock cameras in three years. And we're doing everything we can with the amount of people that we have. And again, it's a dormant piece of information that we can go to. Much like if you had somebody taking a Polaroid of a vehicle going by at that time, we can go to that Polaroid and see a vehicle that's similar in make and model and the tag number.

So are you saying to me that Cherokee County is a closed circuit flock system?

When you say closed circuit, just ours?

That means that the state patrol can't get into it, the FBI can't get into it, the federal government can't get into it. I'm telling you, Frank, they're looking in it.

There are opportunities for us to share with partners so that, again, if we need to identify somebody. I'll give you, for instance, the stabbing that we had at 92 and 75. That vehicle was located within one hour and like 10 minutes with our shared partners in that county. And the children were recovered. The person was arrested. And had they made it out of the state, we would have had the opportunity as well. So yes, we do share it. We're looking at revamping that. I'm meeting with a group tomorrow to say, what are safe practices? What are best practices when utilizing technology for force multipliers for law enforcement?

So that you know what the main concern with that is, is that, yes, you have good intentions. Marshall has good intentions. However, when you guys are gone and those data centers are put together, not everybody has good intentions. And George Orwell warned us about that.

Yes, sir. I hear you loud and clear. I think the issue that we had is this technology has been around for 20 plus years. And obviously, it was in the form of a different, it was on the trunk of a patrol car. And that vehicle was out of service for a long time. And then putting them in stationary mode in particular areas allowed for better opportunities should we have a crime in that area. So trust me, we're putting some pauses on what we're doing. We're doing audits every month. We are having conversations with people like I am tomorrow that are anti-flock and seeing if we can find common ground so that we can utilize and leverage technology and maintain your liberties as well. So I appreciate the question. My fear is moving forward. You know, what are the outcomes when we get rid of this technology? What replaces it? And does our crime rate go up? So our solvability factors have increased on certain crimes. And I'm sorry? I'll send it to you. We've made it available. We've got rapes, murders, robberies, auto thefts, hit and runs. We have, what, 242 hit and runs. to date in the past two years. So there's a lot of things that we use it for. And again, going back to your original question, allowing us an opportunity should something occur that we have a timestamp on a potential lead in that investigation. So I appreciate the question. I hear you loud and clear. And I take those very, very serious. And we're going to proceed very cautiously. And if we can find common ground, trust me, I want to find that. I don't want to be the one to say, Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate that. And any other questions on FLOC? Yes, sir. And I think what you're going to find, and I welcome the Supreme Court or a court ruling on that to give us some guidance, but I think what you're going to find is the First Amendment in this particular case and the Fourth Amendment having some conflict. Because there are, for instance, First Amendment auditors say, hey, I can go into a public setting. I can film you. I can film your vehicle. I can film all these things about you. and now you've got a private company doing the same thing, those things are going to clash. And I get it.

I mean, there's the- I don't have access to a data center to put the whole .

Sure. Well, thank you for your question. I really appreciate it. It does not fall on deaf ears.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Okay, thank you, Sheriff. My question goes back to Will, and it's about water supply and specifically City of Wawuska. Yes, sir.

If you don't mind, can we – I'm sure the Sheriff wouldn't want me to tell this, but it's his birthday, so he would like to get out of here. So if we've got any more flock questions, can we go ahead and do them now? Sheriff, is that okay with you? Yes, sir. Okay. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Sheriff. Thank you. All right, so what is it, water supplies?

So City of Waluska on Lower Burris Road, we've been noticing pressure has been decreasing, you know, over the last year or so. And I think there is a plan to put a new development around the 1,000 address on Lower Burris. They've probably hauled in 500 loads of dirt out that road up toward the back of the Great Sky development. And so my question is, are you and your team having some conversations with the city of Waluska to make sure that they do have the capability to continue to service the area with the appropriate water pressure?

A short answer, no, sir. We don't have anything to do with the water authorities. Waleska has their own water district, CCWSA. They have their own water district, which is what most district one's in. But we don't have any authority over dictating what they do or don't do with that. But I'm happy to look into it, and I will. And I'll see if Waleska is doing anything. Did you have an email? Do you have my email? Oh, I do, yes. OK. Well, if you would, shoot me an email, and that way I've got some kind of way to respond back to you. Go ahead.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you. First, I want to apologize for being a little bit late. You were showing a slide showing where different departments were having to cut in order to manage it. Yes, sir. So do you know which one it was? It was toward the beginning of your proposal. Yeah, right there.

Okay.

Okay, different things where they were having to cut the share for different organizations. I'm a simple guy. Why? How could this be possible with all the building and all the tax base that's coming into Cherokee County? How is that even possible?

The... We have a floating homestead exemption, so even when your property value goes up, the M&O portion of your property tax bill doesn't.

I understand it, but I'm just saying the sheer number of high density apartments.

Well, I think you're talking about impact fees, so we're limited to what we can charge people in the way of impact fees. They actually have to, I guess there's a formula, which they're working on it now, on updating it, that they're very specific what you can charge. what you can charge people who build new homes for, or developments for, and where that money is allocated. We don't get to decide that.

That's sort of where I'm taking this conversation, and thank you for doing that. But my question is, right now it seems like the horse has already gotten out of the barn with this stuff, with the impact fees. We all know our schools are overloaded. We're building new schools, trying to keep up. Services are being cut. Budgets are being cut. Meanwhile, I see apartments being built, high-density homes being built, different zonings for these houses. Look what they've done to Holly Springs. Look what they've done to Woodstock over the years. I don't understand how this could be possible. With all that increased tax revenue, people paying taxes every year, we're so far behind.

Well, like Woodstock and Holly Springs, for example, we're not the ones approving those. So that's... We're working on that now. I mean, we do have legal action pending against the city of Holly Springs. Woodstock, I don't really feel like they've overstepped their growth boundary like Holly Springs has. I mean, this has been going on for the last 30 years down there.

I mean, I remember when they were going to take 92-4A, and they did that, and all that growth along 92, and then I said,

So our population is on track to 500,000 by 2050. And that's why we're trying to incentivize some of these larger lots to get that number closer to 400,000.

Well, there's also a component of the overall tax digest that I think needs to be discussed in the context of this kind of thing. Our digest is, when you break it out by types of property, 70% is residential. 2% is industrial. Now, conversely, Bartow County has 50% industrial. Their taxpayers are paying mighty low rates over there because of that extra balance. It ends up being a political issue, but the residents in this county are paying the lion's share of the taxes.

And that's why I get a little heartburn when I hear this shut the door all the way down. Because I have family living in Baytown, and there's good and bad. But there's also some good that's coming. I mean, it should be a goal of this county. At some point, we need to pick a date in the future saying, by this date, we would like to have 40% of our residents not have to leave Cherokee County.

That is a goal of mine. I mean, if they don't have to lease Cherokee County and go to work, then it's less cars on the highway. It's less traffic. They're not going as far. Also, I want it to be able to where our children, who are born and raised here, can actually afford to live in the county that they grew up in. So I 100% agree with you. Go ahead. Yes, ma'am.

The city of Canton is currently considering on Bluffs Parkway allowing a Honda dealership to move into a 40-acre plot. They're requesting many exceptions to what has already been well established with good guidelines, seeking to have technology type buildings which would produce taxes. That would be more desirable, and I understand additional housing is not desirable right now down the parkway. This 40 acres, which I believe is pretty excessive, for a dealership, even if that should be allowed. What else is going in there? How would they advertise? I mean, this property is just a little bit south of where we are sitting today.

Just right over there, correct? Bottom of the hill?

Yes. Yes, ma'am. I'm pointing in the wrong direction. How would they advertise? They're talking about selling, just during the first year, 600 to 800 automobiles and trucks. So all of that has to be trucked in. And then if you're selling that many vehicles, There's going to be a lot of people who are going to want to test drive. And that's going to be up and down Bluffs Parkway. This is a beautiful area. I think lights on seven days a week, business going seven days a week, signage. And if you let one dealership in, why not another? I understand this would be a good thing for the county and for the city tax-wise. But I think what you're savaging isn't worth it. There certainly could be businesses that would be happy to have an educated employment pool, which Canton offers. And the kinds of regulations that are already in place by the city would benefit businesses as well as the folks who live here, as well as your stated goal of keeping the area rural.

I totally understand your concerns, ma'am. But again, that's the city of Canton.

Does the county support it?

We don't support or not support it. It's inside the city limits, so there's really nothing we can do about it.

But you could influence it.

I'm happy to reach out, yes, ma'am, on your behalf. Who is it? Ma'am, do you have my... Real quick, ma'am, I'm sorry. Do you have my email address? If you would, remind me, I'll give you a card before I leave, and if you'll email me, I'll reach out to the city. Okay.

Good idea.

Oh, well. Where was it?

Am I blind?

Apparently? Okay. I was looking for a QR code, like, sorry.

Yes, we wanted to add our address to the whole thing with the power issues. Yes, ma'am. We just moved to the area and it was so bad that we started tracking it. And this year, we've had 13. So we're in Georgia power. But if you just drive up the street, there's trees.

What was the road?

Shoal Creek Road. If you just drive up the street, there's trees all over the power lines. So it's not surprising. But it was so bad, we just started tracking it.

OK. I'll look into that as well.

And then I wanted to find out the growth boundaries for the different cities. Yes, ma'am. How is that determined?

Honestly, that's a little before my time. I don't really have a good answer on that. Yeah, go ahead. Brantley will answer that one.

But I believe that is Canton.

You want the mic, Brantley?

So the city of Canton growth boundary actually goes back to 2003. and never included an expiration date. So it runs right now through, we believe, 2053. Because typically, in Georgia, agreements can last up to 50 years. And so that's the premise we're operating with them. There were other growth boundary agreements back in the early 2000s at the same time Canton was approved. And they, with Holly Springs and Ball Ground and Woodstock, and those expired in 2006. Now, in 2022, 23, the Board of Commissioners and the cities kind of engaged each other to renew or to create new growth boundaries at the time. And so back then, Just a couple of years ago, Woodstock and Holly Springs both, let me just say, an agreement was negotiated based on kind of where roads are and certain breakpoints and area, I guess I'd call areas of influence and things like that with each city on completing an agreement. Both of those ended in 2028, so they'll have to be renegotiated. And then about the same time, May 2023, and Commissioner Cagle, I think, mentioned it, agreement was done with Waleska. That's a 10-year agreement. And the 25-year agreement was done with the city of Ball Ground. But basically what it took is staff, elected officials, other parties getting together and trying to draw sensible boundaries that made sense at the time. Also, a lot of that was also based on the early 2000s work that was done, if that helps.

Thank you, Brandon. OK. Yes, sir.

Good evening. Moving from a number of other areas, we were accustomed to school zone speed limits being the same throughout, for the most part, the entire state. Coming here, there are some that are 35, some that are 25. When you come south on 575 and get off at exit 19, you're making a right turn. You're trying to get into the flow of traffic coming down 20. And by the time you make that turn, you're hitting a school zone that's 25.

That one gets me every other year.

that there's no sidewalk there. I've never seen a child there. Is there, who decides what the speed limit? I mean, if it was 35 and you're trying to get into the flow of traffic, you'd probably be very safe with that. But there's no sidewalk there. No child is gonna be walking there. You don't even see the school because it's way in the woods. So who decides what the speed limit should be for a particular school?

Brantley, is that the, I mean, that is inside the city limits, but would that be the city of Canton, or would it be GDOT, or would it be the school board? Do you know?

Do any of y'all know?

City of Canton? OK.

Okay. Just a separate comment. We moved here about a year and a half. And it's very depressing when you go into the register for Homestead and the very lovely lady behind the window says, Thank you. Welcome to Canton. See you in five years because we missed it by 30 days as far as being relieved from the school tax. I know that was a general election that was in, but it would have seemed to be far less punitive, especially since the number of us that have come here are retired and stuff like that. to have said, OK, in the first year, you get no benefit. In the second year, you only get a 10%. In the third year, you get 20%. And then in your last year, the fifth year, you're fully vested, so to speak. So I don't know if that can ever be changed, if there's any influence that you find, gentlemen, have in bringing that to somebody's attention. But really, I think it could be something that could be revisited, I hope. Thank you.

We're privileged to have Senator Dickerson here, so can you offer any insight on the, I mean, is there a way to everybody who missed the 2024 cutoff?

Well, I think you appreciate that. So right now, the last time we heard, this just went into effect in 2024. And that's done county by county. And that's a lot of times that's done by the county delegation and the county commissioners as well. So you have some counties that have no exemption at all. Then you have other counties that have a full exemption. So as an example, and then Cherokee County here, you have a five-year waiting period to get out of your school board tax. In Forsyth County, there is no waiting limit. You can move in right now, and you get your exemption there right off the bat. So that is done county by county. And a lot of times what happens with that is whenever the counties specifically reach out to their state delegation, both in the state house and state senate, because we have to make that change on the state level in conjunction with your county commissioners as well. Again, that was done in 24. If the commissioners wanted to do a different change of that aspect of basically saying, hey, the first year you get a 20% deduction and third year 40%, et cetera, on up to 100, that would be something that they would want to talk to our delegation about on the State House and State Senate, and then we could look at that legislation and see if it made sense. But right now there is no – There is no extended period because, again, we've heard a lot of stories. I've had a lot of them reach out to my office. They may have missed a cutoff by, like I said, 30 days or 45 days. But one thing I will echo. is a lot of people think whenever you buy a property in most of the counties and you go through your mortgage company, that it's automatically, you're automatically put on the, that is your homestead exemption. That is not the case. Make sure that you go do that. And make sure, again, both spouses are on that. Because I had a situation. It was over on Hopewell Road in my district. And it was a very sad story, but there was nothing that we could do about it. It was a homestead. It was their homestead exemption. The gentleman was about 85. His wife was 80. And he passed away, and she had never been on the homestead exemption at all. And because it was after that time period, she has to, unfortunately, wait another five years before that to come into play. So make sure that you register it. Don't just assume that your mortgage company or the attorneys are filing that as your home state exemption, because a lot of times they may not know. You know, some people have your primary residence. You may have a second home or third home or whatever that case may be in different states. So just make sure you register that as your homestead property to make sure that you get all the proper exemptions that you can. And every county does have different exemptions. I mean, we have quite a few here in Cherokee County. Bartow County does not have nearly the amount of exemptions. And it's exactly because of what Brantley said. Whenever you have, it depends upon the tax digest. And Bartow County has an extreme amount of industrial properties over there and industrial properties and different businesses that are over there. And they do alleviate a lot of the tax burden from the taxpayers there as well. But here in Cherokee County, it's mainly residential. So most of the residents then take the entire tax burden. But again, my office is always here to help. If you need to reach out to us on the state level, state senate, state house, we're always here to help any way that we can. But thank you so much.

Thank you, Senator. Well, I'll tell you what, if you don't mind, and I hate to make this the line of the night, but please send me an email and I'll bring it up to the commission. We'll see what we can do.

We did have a capped, we hadn't really gotten into the background, but since you're new to the county, It used to be a cap, $500,000. It escalated every year based on Social Security index. And the vote was to eliminate the cap, 100% exemption, and impose the five-year wait. So it was an offset. If you're going to fully exempt everybody that's over 62, the schools, it had to be palatable and not a budget buster for the schools. And that was the compromise, basically, they came to. As the Senator said, there are these cases that have gotten caught in the middle on these things. As time goes on, those things become less and less, but for those of you who are moving in, you're going to have to pay into the system for a few years before being granted the exemption.

Thank you, Steve. Send me an email, please.

Somebody actually, this gentleman was next.

Thank you. I had only two questions.

Name for the record?

I'm kidding. I already have your email, so I don't need that. But I had only two questions, but now I have three based on somebody else's. So pardon me a second. I turned old this week. And so the first thing is somebody brought up signs and signage, especially around the car dealerships. So as I go up Upper Burris Road, I'm noticing more and more signage on private property, advertising signage. I almost feel like I'm going up I-75 with billboards everywhere. Is the county looking at anything on regulating that before we end up with a postage stamp you know, road as we go up the highways?

Mr. Dale, speak to that. He's actually working on something.

Let me ask you, are you seeing freestanding smaller billboard type signs?

That's right. Wooden posts. In fact, I saw one today just south of Clayton Crossroads, and it said advertise here. There wasn't even an advertisement on it yet. And it was about the size of a stop sign. And there's others that are bigger. There's others that are dual post. And they're popping up everywhere. And I noticed them specifically on Upper Burris Road.

Are they like advertising property for sale or just a variety of products? Just anything. OK. We'll do a sweep and take a look. Signage is a very touchy subject. I mean, it's a litigious subject. It's wrapped in the First Amendment. Cherokee County and many of the cities have had longstanding sign ordinances that are very effective. There's a reason you don't see any billboards on 575 north of Woodstock. And the reason for that is there's a trade-off on allowing smaller billboards or smaller freestanding signs. We don't even call them billboards anymore, but allowing smaller freestanding signs on any parcel instead of allowing or addressing billboards specifically, which of course are traditional billboards and much larger. But the trade-off with allowing a sign per parcel And we can always talk offline about this because I don't want to sound overly technical. But there's kind of a trade-off on allowing the smaller signs so you don't have to allow the monstrous signs. Having said that, there's a lot of illegal signs out there, maybe even on private property. So we can certainly do a sweep and take a look at that area.

OK. And I misspoke. It's lower births, not upper.

Lower births. Got it.

So it's between Clayton Crossroad and then down to 140. And there's a number of them. And so if it's a trend there, it's going to become a virus everywhere else. People start to realize they're going to be able to make income off of their property through signage. Next thing you know, we're just going to be looking at signage instead of scenery.

Yes, sir. And signage, you know, picking up that signage or assessing the signage, obviously it's on the right-of-way. It's automatically a legal sign. But signage that is not permitted or hasn't been permitted, that is something that we sweep for. So we'll take a look at that.

Okay. Thank you. So the next one, and I don't know if there's anybody from the financial team here tonight, specifically as we were going through the millage debates and discussions, one of the things in the budget was a line that was called intergovernmental charges. And so I went back and I asked this question. I haven't gotten any response.

You're probably talking about this one?

No, no, no. It was in the year over year, right? And it's a line item called intergovernmental charges. This one?

Is this one in?

So three years ago, it was $41 million. And in the new proposed budget, it was around $25, I think. And so the question is, why is that dropping? Because that's a big gap to try to fill.

I don't... I don't know. Was it on one of the other ones?

Yeah, it was in the millage budget proposal that the CFO presented. It wasn't on your slides here that I know of.

Okay.

It's a line item in the budget called intergovernmental And I thought it was something around fire services and municipalities paying for judicial services. And so the question is, why is that going down at a very substantial rate? And is that creating part of our budget problem in the county?

That's a good question. Yeah. Without having those numbers in front of me, I can't.

I don't expect you to answer it tonight.

I just want to raise it again as a concern. I'll get back with you on it. Absolutely. And the intergovernmental budget funds on here, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what's for Canton, Holly Springs, Ball Ground. That's their portion of the fire tax that's built into the city bill.

Yeah, that's on the fire side, but there was one on the general side as well.

I'll look into that.

Yeah, or whatever you guys call it, the operational expense side, I think. Okay. And so the last one is more of a strategic question, especially with some of the state representation here, the chairmen's here. Recently in the news, I've been seeing some rhetoric around a federally imposed property tax elimination. What would that do to this county if property taxes were eliminated from the federal leg of it? What are they going to replace it with? Right? So the question really to you guys is, are you looking at that and are you doing any kind of SWOT analysis, right, on that as a risk to the county?

Honestly, that's the first I've heard of a federal one. I know there has been.

There was a scan thing that was going around for a while. We've actually got a – We've got a little story on our website. Okay.

Okay.

Well, yeah, y'all come on up. Luckily, we've got far smarter men than me here, so.

Okay.

I'm Representative Jordan Ridley, I chair the Cherokee Legislative Delegation, which means I represent, we all represent part of the county, but I'm like the unifying voice to represent the county down at the capitol. We actually had a special session this year where we tried to eliminate the county property tax with a one cent sales tax. All the proposals put forward on the federal and the state level are sales tax replacements. When we tried it during special session in June, the Democrats voted against it because it took a two-thirds majority. But it was something we looked at. We looked at it for the school board portion two of doing sales tax. The county would need $0.01 to offset the property tax. The school board would need about $2.50. Some people argue that they prefer to pay property taxes. Some want the sales tax. But it is something that's been an ongoing conversation for years. And there have been attempts, again, as recently as June, where we tried to do that. Commissioner Cagle came down, Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Carter all came down. And we were working on eliminating it. We're going to work on it again next year. to eliminate the county M&O with the sales tax. So over time, it may happen, but it's just replacing one tax with another. And some people don't want to pay 10% when they go to the grocery store. And again, that would take an act from us, a 2 thirds vote from the General Assembly, signed by the governor, and then voted in by the voters of the county come November.

I'll add just a couple of things real quick.

So look, this has been a topic of discussion quite a bit over the last four to five years down the General Assembly. And a lot of this is because we've just seen exponential growth in terms of appraisal values of your properties. And it's not just here in Cherokee County. It's not in Georgia. It's for the entire nation for the most part. And with that, a lot of the, you know, when your appraisal value goes up means your assessed value goes up, which is the value that you're taxed on. And the check that you and I write every single November, for the most part, has been going up over the years. And so this has been a pretty hot topic. We know down at the General Assembly to where if we eliminate the property tax, That is one of the only mechanisms that the cities and the counties have for their budget inflow as far as revenues. And so we're just not going to eliminate the property tax without giving another option for the cities and counties to be able to raise that money in. Again, there's a big debate. Do you do it by some type of sales tax? Do you do it by reduction of property tax? If you took a poll of this room in here tonight, I would say probably... If I had to take a guess, I'd probably say about 40% would say, well, I would say for the most part that 40% of them would say do it as sales tax. And the vast bulk of everybody would say eliminate the property tax. What you wind up seeing most time from a demographic standpoint is usually people that are 60 years and older want the property tax to stay because they know that they're getting exemptions 62, 65, 70 years old, depending upon the county they're in. They usually don't want the sales tax because that's tax that they're going to have to pay every time that they go to the store. Usually, it's exactly the inverse on the younger demographic. So people that are 18 years old up to about 50 years old, they would much prefer to eliminate the property tax and have a sales tax. So it's a very big debate, national and here in the state of Georgia. And a lot of times what I tell everybody is even our own colleagues, So I'm in the Senate Republican Caucus. And we have 33 Republicans in the Senate out of 56. And in order to pass a bill in the Senate, we have to have 29 votes in favor of it. And so just because what's important to us here in Cherokee County when it comes to state legislation doesn't mean that every other Republican in the Senate agrees with that, because everybody's district is completely, completely different. So I know we had some conversations a little bit earlier about data centers. And, you know, while there's a lot of people opposed here in Cherokee County, and this has been a big debate that we've spoke about it on the state level, some of my colleagues in South Georgia, that is about the only way that they can get any increased revenue in for their cities and counties there. So really, in the Senate standpoint, what we're looking at probably this session coming in is trying to work on different ways to eliminate the – the tax credits that we give the data centers, and really give all that information and that option down to the counties and the cities and let them make their own determinations. If they want to create their own tax exemptions, they can do that for those data centers. But if they don't, then the data centers can come in and pay the full amount towards the tax digest as well. So I don't want to get off subject too much here, because I know this is Commissioner Cagle's time. So go ahead.

We typically answer that question affirmatively.

Hi. I live in Rock Creek Estates, which is this little tiny pocket of Canton.

I know where it's at. Yes, ma'am.

It's Cherokee County, but it's surrounded by the city of Canton. The only way that we have, basically, of getting out of our subdivision is Shoal Creek Road. Shoal Creek Road, I've lived there 14 years. It has gotten increasingly worse. I want to thank every resident here who allows us to get out of that road and get on our way, because it's only through the kindness of strangers that I get to go anywhere. My husband and I attended a lot of the sessions about improvements on that 140 corridor years ago. And things were supposedly being put in place. I haven't seen any improvements. All I've seen is more development, more cars, And that road backs up for miles. Is there any way there's any kind of improvement? I mean, I would love a light there, but it's 100 yards from the light at Riverstone. I know that's not going to happen. But it is.

I mean, I think we can throw a roundabout in there. That cures pretty much everything.

Not even any room for that.

I'm kidding. Actually, Patrick, yeah, he kind of spoke on that a little bit earlier with some of the stuff that we have going on on 140.

You want to touch on that again?

I know your dilemma.

Go ahead.

So real quick, just to go over the entire program that we have in T-splash, 10-splash for 140. We have start a circle at 140. 140 intersection improvements at Belletta and Pea Ridge. 140 at Darby Land Road. 140 at Hospital Road and Old Donaldson Road. 140 at Northside Cherokee Boulevard. 140 between Charles Cox and East Cherokee Drive, that sharp curve area. And I know I'm forgetting something else, but there are a number of projects that we're looking at specifically on the 140 corridor that these are all under construction with T-splash funds. But for the specific intersection that you were talking about, that was 140 and? Shoal Creek. Shoal Creek. We can have a look at that.

Yes, it may be involved in the city of Canton's T-SPLOTs.

That could be, yeah, you're right.

Well, he listed off as our county T-SPLOTs projects that we're addressing on 140. The city of Canton gets a big share of that money that comes in from T-SPLOTs, and they have their own projects. So that may be a city of T-SPLOTs. That may be something to coordinate with the city.

I will.

Now, I've heard for years, and I can believe it, that the intersection of Riverstone and 140 is the worst for traffic for accidents by the amount of traffic on that road. Is that still true? Does anybody know? I see an accident there four, five, sometimes six times a week. My own car was totaled. in that intersection. My stepdaughter was driving it. But it's a horrible, horrible intersection. There's too many cars, and it seems like the only solution is to throw more cars on it. When they put the high school up there, now we've got all the high school traffic. If you do the Pea Ridge development, if you allow that, that's another 400 cars on the road.

Yes, ma'am.

It's overcrowded now. It's been overcrowded. I'd like to know that something will be done. You mentioned Old Donaldson and Hospital Road.

Yes, ma'am.

What is being talked about being done there?

So I don't have the scope of work in front of me right now, but that's one that we'll, again, send to an engineer. They'll do a quick concept analysis, turnaround time probably about 60 days or so. They're going to look at a variety of different options. I know that there was a preliminary concept that I think realigned to offset intersections at that area and did a little bit of other work to make things flow a little bit better. to your point about Riverstone earlier in my career I worked at ARC and that's a agency that does a lot of multi-county transportation coordination and one of the things that we did there was dole out federal funds for transportation projects and I remember gosh it must have been eight or nine years ago seeing an application from the city of Canton to make improvements to that very specific intersection along with a little bit further north where Reinhart comes into 140 there. Both of those were funded by ARC. And federal money, it's somewhat slower. It takes staff resources also to stay on top of that process. So I do know that they're working on it. Those are both those projects I want to say went to City of Canton. So I know they're working towards getting those projects up and running, but it does take time sometimes.

Just hope it's done before I die.

Yes, ma'am. The Bells Ferry Road project took us some 34 years, so hopefully they can beat that.

Jason will touch on that. Yes.

Yeah, let me touch on the GDOT subject, because this has come up a couple times really quick. So in government, things move exceedingly slow, specifically on the state and federal level. Usually when GDOT, we're talking about Georgia Department of Transportation, and that usually covers all state highways. And we usually coordinate a lot of the federal dollars that come in as well. Your average GDOT project is a 20-year span from the time that it's come up to the time it's enacted and done. We do have some projects that will take about 10 years. Most of them are 15 or 20. If you look at the Highway 140 and Highway 20 project, those have been over 20 years that they've been in the works. It doesn't really help from the standpoint that a lot of our county and a lot of the cities grow at a much faster rate than when they originally did the study back 15 and 20 years ago. So what we have now is we're going to be widening Highway 20. You've seen it between Canton and basically Cumming at this particular point in time. By 2036, they're supposed to widen the rest of Highway 20 from Canton all the way over to Cartersville. You know, if you're thinking about it, if you're looking at I-75 and I-85, Highway 20 is one of the busiest state route highways in the state north of Atlanta, and that's for truck traffic. There's no other way to get from I-85 to I-75 unless you go downtown and go around the perimeter. So you can either come down to Gainesville and take 369 down to Canton and take Highway 20 to Cartersville, or you can come down to Beaufort and take Highway 20 from Beaufort to Cumming to Canton to Cartersville. There's an immense amount of truck traffic on Highway 20. We also have, when it comes to head-on collisions, there's more accidents and head-on collisions on Highway 20. It's one of the most dangerous state routes north of Atlanta. So by 2036, the plan is they're going to have that widened four lanes all the way from Canton to Cartersville. And I know that because I'm right in the middle of some easement issues right this minute. When you wind up having people that move in, a subdivision is being built. Most of the developers like using as much land as they can. They put the houses right up there next to the road. We have to come in with a certain amount of easement to be able to take that land to be able to widen these roads. And understandably so. It makes a lot of people upset because we want to try not to take their house if we can. We don't really want to take any of their property. But unfortunately, sometimes when those houses are built right up on the state highway, right on the edge of it, we have to have that extra roadway. So Highway 140, I hope, will be widened at some particular point in time. I would think it's slated for the mid-2030s right now. I think it's 2034, give or take a couple of years. Keep in mind how the process works with GDOT. They come out, they make an assessment. They look at it. They do all the valuations to see what's the traffic flow, where there's going to be red lights at, what's all the different impact to the community. And then what they'll do is they will start laying out a plan. A lot of times that survey plan will take anywhere between six and eight years to lay it into effect. From that, then they use another three or four years after that. So year 12, 13, or 14 is when they start buying the easements. And then they usually don't start actually grading and doing pavement work until you're 16 to 20, somewhere in that time frame. So again, it doesn't help a lot of the congestion issues. When you've got a great county, like we've got here in Cherokee County, and we've got a lot of the great cities here, a lot of people want to move here. Again, and I understand it. I've lived here my entire life. And I've seen a lot of change over that time period. Unfortunately, the roads with GDOT just don't stay at the same, they're not built and maintained at the same rate as the influx of people coming in. On top of that, when you have the state highways, when you have federal dollars coming in, and there's a lot of federal regulations that we have to look at. So one of the things that we're dealing with is when you look at federal dollars, and you're looking at a 55 or 60 mile per hour, 65 mile per hour speed limit, you have to have a certain sight distance. You can't just have a 100 yard or 200 yard sight distance. You may have to have a sight distance of 800 yards to 1,000 yards. So what that will determine is it takes out all the peaks and the valleys of the road. They have to try to level that out to as much sight distance as they can. They also have to limit the amount of turns in the road. They try to straighten out the roads as much as they can. Again, federal, that's a whole different process. But whenever state takes federal dollars and then counties take state dollars, there's a lot of boxes we have to check in that process. Again, I hate it. I mean, I see it every day. I went to school at Hickory Flat Elementary and Dean Russ Middle School and Sequoia High School, and I can tell you the vast amount of change I've seen there at Highway 140 and East Cherokee Drive. It's unbelievable. When I was in school, there used to be a pond right there, and you could go fishing. Right there where Publix is, that's exactly what used to be there. None of that was there at the intersection. And so again, they don't widen the roads as quickly as we need to. It will happen. It's just going to take a little bit of time. I'd ask for your patience on that. The commission works very well. All the commissioners do work very well with the Senate and the State House as well. as well the g-dot boards but and a lot of times when it comes to the speed here unfortunately a lot of times they're the commissioners to their to their benefit their hands are tied because they're waiting on state assessors to come out and federal guidelines to follow as well so hopefully that gave a little bit of context on why some things take exceedingly long whenever uh in in your mind in my mind hey we've got more people here let's pave the road let's uh get it paved let's you know wind it from a four lane to or from a two lane to a four lane it's not quite that easy in government. And I hate to say that, but honestly, that's exactly what it is. So thank you.

So if there's no more questions, we'll just, I'm kidding. Go ahead, Steve.

Hello, Commissioner Gagel, Steve Butler. Thanks for hosting us tonight. I have a question and I have a comment for the folks. It was for the sheriff, but I guess he left for his birthday. But maybe one of our law enforcement folks can confirm or deny. First off, I appreciate that we're standardizing on Ford vehicles, but Can someone confirm or deny the rumor that there are two Roush supercars?

They're not Roush supercars. Yes, I checked into that as soon as I heard it.

Okay, well, I just want to verify that. Yeah. So we didn't spend money on that. We're not going to spend money on that.

Yeah, they're just GTs. I don't know how Roush, Roush would be cool, but we can't afford it.

I'm just trying to quail any rumors, because obviously for those who don't know, the sheriff has the biggest budget, right, in this. So he had 85 million and he cut it down to 80.9. So we thank you for that. And I didn't want to see us spending on that. So another comment for the group is, for those interested in Flock, be aware that there is a class action suit against Flock. And you can follow that. It's Grace Schulte, S-C-H-U-L-T-E, versus the Flock Group. So be aware of that and follow that. It's a fellow citizen in Dahlonega. So be aware of that and watching that if you want to learn about some things about flock. I know our sheriff is big on that. There are some statements that we can talk about in a future thing. He has invited me to his private group, but I would like to see that in a public setting, actually. So maybe he's able to do that in a large setting like this instead of having a private. He called it anti-flock. I don't think people are so much anti-flock, but they're pro having their liberties. So anyway, that's my comment. Thank you.

Yeah, no problem. Is that it? OK. Well, thank you, Steve. Yeah, do not hand the microphone to that man.

He looks suspicious.

Steve just stole my thank you miss Cindy. I'm willing to do my part to cut costs So it's okay. I authorized you guys to park that Roush Mustang in my garage I would just have something simple very simple and that is I like to see more Transparency when it comes to things like addressing these property taxes The feeling is that we don't know what you guys really are working on and and how many of our ideas are really being explored, and the timing is inappropriate, we'd like, as citizens, to be able to get ahead of those decision making and to make sure that all avenues are addressed.

Well, I think we can all- That was easy, right, Will?

That was easy.

Yeah, it was. I'm shocked, actually. I was kind of speechless. No, seriously. I think we can all do a bit better job with transparency, and we'll definitely make that a priority going forward. Do you have my address?

Yes, sir. Will, I want to thank you for the Super Ag. I think that's going to be very protective for North Cherokee County as it goes on up. Protect a lot of that properties from the density that's out there. I do have another question for roadways. A lot of people in ball ground cut from East Cherokee up ball ground highway up to ball ground. It's always seemed to be a very congested with the railroad tracks and backed up in there. And I think that was on one of the plans for improvements and just seeing if that is and when that possibly would start.

Well luckily we have one of all ground zone, Mr. Ashley Holcomb here. We appreciate it.

We do.

Patrick, maybe you want to answer this question better, but I do have a list. And so I'm serving on the Teesplast as kind of a member at large for the whole county and post one has its own appointee that couldn't attend tonight, so I agreed to attend. So anyway, the intersection there at Highway 5 and East Cherokee, this project will add turn lane, signalize the intersection over Highway 5 and East Cherokee. That may not be signalized. I mean, they're exploring that. Do you want to speak further to that?

Basically, that signal warrant analysis contract I was talking about earlier, if it's warranted, we'll definitely look at that. But again, we just want to get a consultant in there, do an analysis of the room section, give us some alternatives, figure out what gives us the most benefit, but at least not cost, because again, we've got to keep an eye

But I can assure you that it is. And it's one of 21 projects of intersection improvements that's part of the TSPLOS. So we'll address that.

Is that it, Scott? Yes, who's next? Yes. Yes, sir.

This is a current status question. At one time, Hickory Flat, I mean, free home elementary school was being looked at for remodeling possibly to use as a library. What's the status of that?

Nothing right now that I know of. It's not on any of our immediate plans.

Okay, nothing in the immediate plans.

No, sir.

Okay, free home elementary. Northwest, Cherokee, Southwest, Southeast are all library services deserts. And there is a plan to look at that goes out Oh, 40, 20, 30 years. And so I was just wondering.

You had heard at the elementary school there would be the existing elementary school that the county purchased would be converted into a library?

Yes.

There's nothing on the plans that I'm aware of, but I'll look into it.

I understand there was some debate on whether the building was structurally sound enough to be remodeled if it might need to be demolished and started all over. And I don't know what the status was.

Did you know anything? I mean, y'all just looked at the outside, right?

Yes, so Recreation Park, we're taking over the gym. We actually are preparing to open it now, or I think it's in the next month. I, too, have heard the same thing, that I think the old school was targeted. It had a number of different ideas that were floating around, one of those being a small regional library, another one was a tax office, so residents in that area could go there. I think there was a number of ideas that were bouncing around, but I, too, have not heard any. I don't have a plan on the school building itself.

And I have heard that the buildings leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, sir. We need a lot of work. But I'll follow up. Yes, sir. Or yes, I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am.

Hey, Will. Thank you for the meeting. I'm excited to hear that the intersection of Pea Ridge and Valletta and 140 is being included in a T-SPLOST. My question is, should Pea Ridge, the new development, or all of Pea Ridge annex into the city of Canton, would we be removed from T-SPLOST? Those funds be removed? No, ma'am. Or will that intersection improvement still move forward?

It would still move forward.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Miles.

You're from Parks and Recreation? Yes. So my question is kind of geared toward you. I know we're building a lot of new parks and recreation facilities, and we've got a kayak launch going in up the river in Etowah. And my concern is, I'm getting concerned because for us that live on the river, we're starting to see a lot of people getting caught on the river at night because they're not aware how long it takes to get from these parks to Canton. Is there anybody looking at that? Because I've had quite a few trespassers come up at 10 o'clock at night and off the river.

Yes, sir. So it's not noon. I think that's been going on for years, if not decades. I wouldn't be surprised if a senator hasn't been out on that river as a young kid.

Yeah, we're starting to see way more kayakers.

I'm aware that from working with the sheriff's office over the years, just like you said, in the evening hours, somebody gets stranded out on the river because they decided they were going to float it instead of canoe or kayak it, and they're four hours down, and they didn't realize it was a 12-hour float. Moving at 0.3 miles an hour. Right. is Long Swamp, which is about an hour and a half paddle. But if you get in there on a tire tube or inner tube, it may take you six hours. We've got to do a better job of educating the public. If you're planning on getting on the river, the flow, you may need a full day. Next point, we've got several access points. Beech would be the next one further south there. And we've got property. And then I think eventually it climbs down to the city of Canton. It is our goal, much like Versailles and Dawson County, to put signage up at our access points. State A is a four-hour float from point A to point B. And cell phone coverage is also spotty out in the river because you're down in the valley. So as we build this out, we simply have to educate the public on it and get them out of your backyard and keep them in the river.

Yeah, because my concern is someone's going to get caught out there and get seriously injured.

Well, we need friendly reminders to bring more beer, because if you're stuck on the river that long.

I had one of them that had beer, pot. Yeah, that's not what we want. He had the whole gamut.

Thank you.

Does anyone know when the trail is going to be completed across from the mill? I know it's already gone under the highway.

And it goes about 100 yards and stops. No, sir, I don't. But I can try to find out.

It continues on on the other side of the dirt. And they're supposed to build a bridge across the river. Does anyone know about that?

I don't. I'm sorry. But I will try to find out. So between the mills and bowling, right? OK.

Thank you, Will. I thought it was a great meeting tonight. I wondered if the information that you're providing, the slides, would be available on the website?

Yes, ma'am. I can make sure it is.

OK.

Thank you, too. All right, this is normally, is this your question or Steve's?

It's mine. Okay. You know, I do come up with a few on my own.

I know you do, yes ma'am.

Okay, about the e-bikes. I know there's going to be a public hearing coming up on e-bike ordinance rules, whatever we want to call it. For a public hearing, the We only get like 10 minutes of input time. Is there any thought about putting together one of these with people that are concerned about e-bikes? We've seen being on the trail at Etowah River on a regular pedal bike, using my own little power, which isn't much power, almost get run over by people on an e-bike.

Well, I'm trying to actually allow class 3s just so I can run over Steve on the trail. But I don't think the rest of them... Well, I'll allow that.

I won't report you. But I would like to stay upright myself because the ground hurts. But are we going to do more than just the one public input for that?

I can find out. There's two. Yes, ma'am. There's actually two. So will it be on this next meeting and then? Okay. It's on the sixth and then the following one? Okay. Yes, ma'am. So it's on the, what are the dates again? I apologize. Let me pull it up. So September 15th and October 6th.

Yes, sir.

I think there's just a couple of points. I want to also encourage you to be more transparent, the whole county to be more transparent and informative. Like, we don't know what the status of the lawsuit with Holly Springs until, you know, you mentioned it. It's still ongoing. People forget about it. But you have to remind us once in a while. You know, things that are going on in the county. I know there's Facebook pages. Yeah. And guns and hoses, great to see. But we also need to have information of what's going on in the county.

Have you signed up for my District 1 newsletter? Yes, I have.

OK. Yeah. Which I thank you for. It's a very good newsletter. The second one is addressed to the state representatives here. If you all can get on the horses and get the SNAP air benefit rate reduction going so we don't have to pay a half a billion dollars in Medicaid in the next couple of years, I would definitely encourage you to pass that legislation that you attempted to do last year, and somehow it got caught up. So that's my point.

Which SNAP bill were you referencing?

The SNAP air benefit rate of 15.65% of the state of Georgia, which is way above the 7%. The federal law was just passed that the Medicaid will have to pick up like 20% portion of the Medicaid as a state of Georgia if that error rate doesn't come down to 7% or less. Is that a SNAP?

I'm not familiar with any legislation that we passed. The one bill we had on SNAP was to reduce what you could get by on SNAP, where you couldn't buy sodas or candy or things like that, and that failed to advance. I will look into that, and I can get your email. I completely understand.

And again, there was legislation last year. There was a couple of guys who are on WDUN that knew all about it. They said, yeah, we've got to pass it last year. I think the legislature tried to pass it. It may be caught in the Senate. So we can get that accomplished by, what, 27 or 28, if that makes sense.

Absolutely, I'll look into it.

I was going to say, obviously, you're pretty knowledgeable on that. Do you remember which state representative or which senator maybe proposed or introduced that bill?

And that would kind of give us a little bit of a guidance, maybe, of what it was. Yeah, I don't have that information, no. But I could probably dig it up somehow.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Any more?

Hey, Will, appreciate you doing this. This is all very new to me, so I've learned a lot tonight. My main concern is I've noticed lately on my commute home from work, I get off of exit 20 on the northbound lane on 575. An alarming amount of times recently, I've found myself stopped in the right lane of 575 trying to get off that exit ramp because there's so much traffic from 19 to 20 there in that little, I'm not sure what you would call that lane there. It's the one that continues from exit 19 to 20.

Yes, sir.

I'm wondering if there's any talks even started about the flow of traffic off that on-ramp. I understand that the government moves pretty slowly, and I don't think this county is going to be shrinking anytime soon.

No, you're right about that.

So if I'm already at this point being stopped in the right lane trying to get off the interstate, I mean, it's a very dangerous location. There's cars flying over that hill there. Is there any talk at all about that intersection and traffic right there at the exit 20 off ramp?

I believe we do have some stuff in T-Splice, but Patrick can fill you in with more detail than I can.

Yes, sir. So I applied for some funds on behalf of the county just to – Explore that exact situation because I commute in from East Cobb don't hold it against me I'm one of those people that commute into Cherokee and I know exactly what you're talking about You only have about 700 feet to merge in to make that movement You got all that traffic coming off a 19, you know, they're using as basically a cut through, you know to get to Riverstone And of course, you know some of the traffic coming in as a result of the new high school all that's exasperating just a bad situation. I applied for some funds last year through ARC. We didn't pay dirt on that. I'm working with the county manager, and we're going to look at putting together an extra addition to our county plan, our long-range plan. It's called our comprehensive transportation plan. see if we can bake it into the scope of that project, because we did get funding from that. We get funding from ARC about every five years to do a long-range transportation plan. And if we can't get a standalone, I'd like to bake it into that, and then hopefully work with GDOT to convince them to, yes, sir, yes, sir, it will be. Work with GDOT once we have some high-level idea of what the issues are to get some sort of assistance from GDOT, just like we did with – we did the same thing with Town Lake Parkway and a 575 and Ridgewalk and 575, where we did a little bit of upfront work ourselves, and that convinced GDOT and ARC to put big bucks in to actually make improvements to those interchanges.

Thank you.

Sir, I just looked up the SNAP thing you were talking about. It was House Bill 947 by Representative Martin Moptahan. On the one big, beautiful bill, it changed the requirements for SNAP. Georgia never updated the state law to comply with it, and that's why we have the error rate. We tried to pass the bill. It passed out of the House. The Democrats fully opposed it. Several Republicans opposed it and said the state just needs to pick up paying the extra. So until you can convince, like Senator Dickerson said, 91 House members are enough senators that the cost isn't worth it, It's not going to go anywhere, so I just figured I'd give you that update real quick. Anyone else?

I just got clarification. There's going to be one public hearing for me by October 6th.

Planned on October 6th?

One on October 6th. The other that we had originally planned to do the other day was month back to October 6th. But I'll see you through the afternoon.

Yeah, I just, I mean, I know what I want, but that's, you know.

I know what I want.

But if you would, send me what you want and I'll at least make sure that it's known.

As long as it doesn't outlaw my bike.

Yes, sir. Hey, just to add on to Casey's input about the congestion between 19 and 20, I've noticed that with the new Cherokee High School being where it's at, in the morning, that same area is backed up. So just to add that into your study as well. And then on another topic, on the billboards or the small signs, they're on Lower Burris and Land Road. And the gentleman that owns the company approached me about putting one in my yard. I don't remember his name. But he does do like a ground lease with the homeowner and then puts those little signs up. But yeah, they're springing up.

Thank you for that.

Anyone else? Anyone not wearing a green and white shirt?

Y'all did.

Thank you. Does the county have a policy on side-by-sides or... off-road vehicles as far as where you can go and where you can't?

The chief will have to correct me on this, but I believe as long as they're street legal.

So define street legal.

So there's state law that addresses it. You can't ride it on a state route. I don't think you can ride it on a city street either. So they have to have blinkers. They have to have headlights, stoplights. It has to be registered. It has to have a tag. It has to have insurance.

OK.

So kind of like a car.

Well, it's like when we go into Roswell, you'll see signage that say we are a golf cart community. Yes. Is there any of those in Cherokee County?

There are. There are subdivisions that are golf cart subdivisions, but that's a different action that they have to get approved.

But as far as unincorporated Cherokee County, if you're cruising down the road, you better have a tag on it.

And not be on a state route or a city street. OK.

We got anyone else? Going once, going twice. Well, I really appreciate everyone who took the time to come out tonight. I mean, it really means a lot to me to see so many people invested in the future of Cherokee County. So if you haven't got my email, Please do so. If you have any questions or concerns going forward, please feel free to reach out. I want to thank Mr. Stevenson, Mr. Day, Representative Ridley, Patrick, Senator Dickerson, Mr. Holcomb. Chief Pinion, Mr. Worley, and Chief Lanier, and, of course, the great Steve Swindell for coming out and lending us your expertise. So thanks again, gentlemen. Thank you all again for coming.