Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Are we ready to go? I'm ready. All right. We're all set then. Thank you all for coming. We will begin this evening, as we always do, with an invocation. Our fire chaplain's corps is back helping us again tonight, and we're proud to have fire chaplain Donna Williams here for that. Will you rise for that invocation and then remain standing for the pledge, please?

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you, Lord, for your many blessings. And Lord, we're taught in life, Lord, before entering into anything big or small, Lord, to invoke your blessings. And Lord, we invoke your blessings upon this meeting tonight. Lord, we pray for our commissioners and staff. Lord, that you would bless them. We pray for each one that's in attendance. Lord, we pray that each one, Lord, you'd give them their heart's desire with thee. And God, we pray that this meeting would be productive, it would be peaceful. And Lord, to help us to look to you, Lord, for which cometh all of our power. God, we pray, God, for our county. God, we thank you for such a great place to live, God. And we thank you for... Cherokee County and what it means to our heart. God, we pray that each one, God, that speaks tonight would do so, God, with peace in their heart. And God, that the message, Lord, that they're trying to convey tonight, God, would be not only peaceful, God, but would come to a peaceful resolution. Lord, again, we thank you, Lord, for being here. And we want to ask you, God, to bless this meeting and that everything that's done would be in accordance to your will. And we thank you. We give you praise and honor and glory because you're worthy of our praise. In your name, I humbly pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Chaplain.

Would you all now join me in honoring our nation and our flag? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it Thank you. Please be seated. I will officially call to order this September 15th regular meeting of the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners. Let the record show that all commissioners are present. First order of business is to ratify closure of the recently completed executive session with nothing coming out of that meeting for action here tonight. Is there a motion to that effect?

Motion to close executive session.

A motion by Commissioner Ragsdale to close executive session. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Carter. Any discussion? All in favor of closure of executive session, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. We are officially back in open session. We do have one amendment to the agenda, and that is to add, it's on the printed agenda, some of us have, but it was not on the published one previously, to add item 6.1 under commission business, Commissioner Ragsdale, to make an appointment to the TSPLOS committee. Is there a motion to make that amendment to the agenda?

Motion to amend the agenda to add item 6.1.

Motion by Commissioner Ragsdale to amend the agenda as stated. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and the agenda is amended. We have two special presentations and proclamations. And before I get into that, I really should just mention some guests of honor we have with us. For one of those, we have two of our current state reps representing parts of Cherokee County with us. And they will be presenting an item that comes up second in this list. Rick Jaspers of Jasper, but he also represents part of North Cherokee County. And Bill Fincher, longtime Cherokee County citizen, represents Central Cherokee County. We're glad to have them with us. And you notice former state rep and current citizen representative to the ARC, Steve Stancils here with his wife, Crystal. Thank you guys for being here. Proud to have you. And I'm probably leaving out other people I'd like to name, but I see these folks, and we're just proud to have you. So first item up is something we've done annually for several years now. And it's to recognize the birthday of our US Constitution. And this is, day after tomorrow, will be the 239th birthday of our Constitution. We just got through having a 250th celebration for our nation. But for the first 11 years, our nation was not under the Constitution as we know it today. It was under the Articles of Confederation, which really was just a loose consortium of the states. for national defense and a few other purposes. Some people might like to go back to that, I think. But we wouldn't be the great nation we were today in that arrangement. So that Constitution has held us for 239 years, and it's a great thing. And coupled with that, the state of Georgia has added Senate Bill 29, 1029. for, I may be saying that number wrong. Richard will correct me in a moment, that defines the All-American Citizen Team Plan. And the goal is to promote civic reasoning across all segments of our society and government business and education. And what a great thing, what a great goal that really is. So all of us are going to, let's all step down to the front. Richard, you and others who may be here for this, please come forward. We've got a resolution that I will read and then we will sign. And then we'll give you a minute to tell us a little more if you wish. the resolution and then we'll sign it those of us here will sign it and then richard will have a few comments i'm sure so this is the resolution for the all-american citizens team plan whereas cherokee county board of commissioners one of cherokee county's vital patriotic organizations hereby adopt and support the all-american citizens team plan for the betterment of good government on the city county state and federal levels as enacted through georgia resolution 529 for the purpose of defeating civic illiteracy and protecting the next generation of America's youth. And whereas our American Republic Walk explains why all Americans must take positions on the All-American Citizen Team Plan each year for planned bi-annual and bipartisan annual birthday celebrations, recognizing the duly elected executive, legislative, and judicial officials for city, county, state, and federal government entities. Whereas the history, the story, and the legacy of each officially incorporated jurisdiction will be told and retold. The products, businesses, and leaders will be celebrated and promoted along with the inspiring stories of heroism, patriotism, generosity, leadership, and examples to the children and examples of the children. whereas the seven patriotic organizations within every community are known as the Magnificent Seven, and they include business, government, church, education, media, law enforcement, and service organizations. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners hereby joins together in support of the Magnificent Seven patriotic organizations within the county by inviting their respective members to celebrate nonpartisan events and to participate in our Cherokee County Civic Reasoning Forum for the 239th Constitution birthday, September 7, 1787, right on the heels of our 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and coming up on the 194th anniversary of charting of Cherokee County. Duly signed and authorized by the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners this 15th day of September, 2026, I'm going to be proud to be the first one to sign and invite my fellow commissioners to come forward and do the same. Mr. Carter? As we began this, I noticed another guest that we need to recognize. Senator Kay Kirkpatrick is here with us. She represents the western part of Cherokee County in the Georgia Senate. Glad to have her here with us. So the local sponsor of this annual birthday celebration and the whole All-American Citizens Team plan has been Richard Jordan. And I invite him to take a moment and give us just a minute about what this means to you and what it should mean to us. Yes, yes. Present you with this proclamation. Yes. All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A grassroots national movement beginning in 1981 among we the people who serve as community leaders within our constitutional republic and are represented by approximately 511,000 elected officials at the municipal, county, state, and federal levels of the United States of America. The Georgia General Assembly, one of the 13 original and 50 current framers of the state and United States Constitution, resolved that a plan be put together to protect we the people and defeat civic illiteracy to protect all future generations of America's youth. And I might mention we have Club America here from representing the homeschools. Y'all come on up if you would, Angela. And they just started a club. And I wanted them to be in the photograph, if we could, at the end. And anyone else with my group that wanted to come. But basically, it says, therefore, all the best thinking of magnificent seven systems of government, education, business, religion, law enforcement, service organizations, and media responded to develop our Republic Walk. That's what it's called. From these community organizations, loyal patriots, constitutional scholars, history researchers, civic teachers, spiritual advisors, governmental representatives, and great educators have gathered to debate, discuss, and determine the foundational root cause of America's deterioration as the beacon to the world of light, hope, freedom, and liberty. So the determinations were made that the problem is civic illiteracy. The solution is civic reasoning. So it's not that people don't want to be engaged in the process of self-government. They just sometimes don't know what to do. So this is a display, an exercise in civic reasoning that you're all involved in tonight. And I might mention, we have a family resolution. And those were passed out at the beginning. And you're even welcome to get one of those. I've signed mine for the umpteenth. anniversary, and we frame that. We put it on the wall of our home. We make photographs of it, put it in our social media. It's my family's stand, and I have seven children and 18 grandchildren. We have 30 people in my immediate family, so we take a photograph on the front porch on the steps every Thanksgiving or Christmas, and we make a statement that we stand with Senate Resolution 529 to defeat civic illiteracy and protect the next generation of America's youth.

So that's it.

Here we go.

This next item is a big honor for our state representatives to bring to us here. It's their action, not really ours, but we're very proud of it. And that is to designate the naming of an expressway intersection interchange for a very great lady and a very effective former state rep, Mandy Ballinger. So I'm going to call on Representatives Fincher and Jasper to come forward and present that. And you take it from here. Oh, we have Representative Parsons. Yes, sir. Thank you for being here. I'm sorry if I missed you earlier. I did, obviously. Thank you for being here. Senator Kaye, I mentioned her.

I get to start off. I'm Rick Jaspers. I represent Ball Ground in Cherokee County. and been the chairman of the Transportation Committee. And one of the honors that we get to do as legislators and through my committee is to recognize great Georgians, either maybe post-hoc, you know, after their death, or even before. And, well, we're sitting in my office, and I looked at Bill Fincher. I said, we have got to do one for Mandy Ballinger. Mandy was very special to me. I was very fortunate that Mandy and I shared an office for many years. And you get to know somebody very well in the legislature over the 40 days that you're there for 16, 17 hours a day, and throughout the year when we share secretaries and all this good stuff. So I got to know her very well. I got to know Henry from when Henry was a very young fella. I want to talk about two things about Mandy. Her dedication to the children of the state is unmatched. When she became the chairman of the Juvenile Justice Committee, it was kind of not a very highly thought of committee, though it did great work. She really rose the stature of that committee. And this past year in the House, or two years ago, got it created as a juvenile justice, a judiciary committee. We have two. She got a third one added. Because that's what that committee does. It works about the laws, protecting children across our state. And Mandy... every day at work to do that. The other thing she did is, with me and a fellow called Alan Powell, who's the representative over at Hartwell We worked on Second Amendment issues. You don't know that about Mandy Ballinger, but she and I and her changed the landscape of what you can do with your weapon in self-defense across the state. She was great. She's pretty hard to argue with, especially on something when she's got the bit in her teeth, to argue with about something like that. And Mandy was wonderful at working together on those two things. But I miss her. I've got another lady who's doing her work, who's taken what I call her Chairman Ballinger did in protecting youth. And that's her legacy in that building, and we appreciate her for it. I want to turn it over to my cohort in crime, Representative Fincher.

Thanks, everybody, for coming tonight. I want to introduce to you Don Parsons, who's one of our state legislators. And I want to reintroduce to you Kay Kirkpatrick, who's a senator. You don't do things in the legislature without cooperation across the aisles. We're very fortunate to have this lady. She broke some glass ceilings. Mandy broke some glass ceilings. I often wonder, when I'm down there, sometimes I think, gosh, I wish I could go to Mandy and she could tell me what to do next. Because she knew it inside and out. She knew all the dots, where to cross the T's and dot the I's. When we did this resolution, this is how we presented it. Whereas the Honorable Mandy Leah Ballinger has long been recognized by the citizens of the state for the vital role that she has played in leadership and her deep personal commitment to the welfare of the citizens of Georgia. And whereas Representative Ballinger was born on April 14, 1975, and grew up in Forsyth County, and whereas she serves as a victim advocate with the district attorney's offices in Cherokee and Forsyth counties before founding and directing the Child Advocacy Center. And whereas she was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 2012, representing the citizens of the 23rd District, she was a tireless advocate for justice, children, and survivors of domestic violence, served as the chairperson of the House Judiciary Juvenile Committee, as Rick Jaspers mentioned, whereas Representative Ballinger was a staunch advocate for the Second Amendment and was recognized and commended as a Defender of Freedom. She received the Defender of Freedom Award from the National Rifle Association and was named Legislator of the Year from Georgia Cary. whereas it is abundantly fitting and proper that this remarkable and distinguished Georgian be recognized appropriately by dedicating an interchange in her memory. Now, therefore, be it resolved and enacted by the General Assembly of Georgia that the interchange of I-575 and State Route 5 Riverstone Parkway in Cherokee County is now dedicated as the Representative Mandy L. Ballinger Memorial Interchange.

You're here.

We are also honored to have Dee Morris, her husband. He wants to introduce the family, Mandy's family.

Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Please, please. I can't tell you how much this means to our family. and the commission for hosting this. Representative Jasper, I've heard about you since you first took office and was the seat mate next to you. And all the work she's done with you, Senator, it's just, I really miss the backstage pass of being able to see how the sausage is actually made down in the state legislature. I miss the debates and conversations about upcoming legislation or pending legislation with Mandy at the dinner table. Most of all, I miss my wife and best friend. We miss her as a mother, sister, and daughter. Her dad, Earl, generally, is here with us. Her sister, Cindy Nolan, and nephew, Connor. Most importantly, Henry, our son. And my daughter, our daughter, Alex, and Cam, her husband. We are so pleased and appreciative of the recognition. Like you said, Manny had a couple of things that made her effective in the legislature. One of them you mentioned was the determination. I've never seen anybody as determined as she was. There were many days when she woke up and she was in a great deal of pain, but absolutely refused to not go to work. And you couldn't talk her out of it. The other thing was selflessness. She didn't really care who got the credit for the bill as long as the right thing got passed. I think that's unusual in life today and probably even more so in what some of us do for a living. We miss her and we again thank you for the recognition.

As you take the pictures, I'll say that that's a very popular interchange, as measured by the amount of traffic that uses it, so much so that we all recognize it's going to have to have some major upgrades over the coming years. And it's a good thing. We'll look for Mandy to look down on us as we plan that and improve that interchange. We're lucky to have... Representative Jaspers here, he is a chair of the State House Transportation Committee, so he can have something to do with that, too. Thank you.

No, no, her name's Claire.

She thinks it's good.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Representatives, Senator, Judge Myers, for also being here. We've got about three hours of public hearings and other meetings that you may or may not want to stay and enjoy with us. So we offer you this opportunity to escape if that's your preference. Thank you so much for letting us be included in this great honor. All right. Next on our agenda is announcements. I have none. Any of you have any? Seeing none, we'll move on. We do have the one item that we added by amendment, and that is an appointment to the TSPLOS committee by Commissioner Ragsdale.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. This evening, I'd like to appoint Rob Hogan to the TSPLOS committee.

Rob Hogan, and that's an individual appointment. We don't need to vote on that. Excellent choice, I would say. I think we would all agree. All right, item seven, minutes from September 1st. We've had a chance to review those for the work session, executive session, and regular meeting for that day. Is there a motion on those minutes? Any corrections?

Motion to approve minutes.

Motion by Commissioner Cagle to approve the minutes from September 1st. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Weatherby. Any comments? Discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously, and the minutes from September 1st are approved. All right. That brings us to the first of 13 public hearings we have tonight. 13. That's a bad number in more than one way. It's a big number, and it's sometimes unlucky. But maybe we'll beat the lucky part. First one is probably the one that will take the most of our time, and that is a hearing on our fiscal year 2027 budget. We've got our chief financial officer, Lonnie Dinkins, to lead us through that. It is a hearing, though, so we need to open the hearing.

Make a motion to open the public hearing.

Motion by Commissioner Carter to open the public hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open. Mr. Dinkins, take us through the proposed budget for 2027 fiscal year.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be as quick as I can on it. Just to start out, a few of the key financial assumptions that underpin the budget. We're looking at an inflation trend of a little over 2% with revenues other than property taxes running nearly flat. We have significant modifications to the health plan, which I believe we'll go over a little later. 2% COLA, which would be effective in January, the beginning of the calendar year, one quarter into the fiscal year. 18 new headcount to the Sheriff's Office. This would be the only headcount additions that we're seeing in the general fund, with, again, no additional headcount additions for two years in a row, along with no new vehicles funded from the general fund for the second year in a row.

And that means that we do replace some vehicles. We're just not adding any new vehicles to the fleet.

Correct. No net additions to the fleet. Here are the 27 proposed sources of funds. As you kind of look down some of the significant items to look at, there you see that gap at ARPA. Those funds are exhausted, and so there's no more to come from that basket. You see a significant decrease in the CATS funding, which is the result of a reduction in grant reimbursements for large capital that will not be repeated this year. Group Medical experienced a significant increase in budgeted revenues. That's the flip side of the increase in charges to the other funds that we'll cover in a slide. And as you can see, total revenues for the year are projected to increase approximately 25%. The driver of that is the TSPLOST collections. That is a new item for 27. We did have some 26 collections. But this will be the first year in which there is a budget for those collections, because it was an added item in 26. And so TSPLOST collections account for almost 18% of the total increase, which means the organic increase would be about 7.5%. If you look at your other funds, you have a large growth in E911. But the vast majority of that, about $660,000 increase, an increase in funding from the general fund. That is significant because some of these smaller funds are depleting their own fund balance and are becoming increasingly reliant on the general fund. You see the date fund as well. I have flagged that one. a fund that funds through transfer some of your judicial functions. It is beginning to exhaust its fund balance. And so while that fund itself doesn't have its own operations, the funds that depend on it, your accountability courts, will become increasingly dependent on the general fund. And so there are new drains on the general fund in the coming years. All right, if we look at our proposed inflows, overall you see Taxes make up roughly 2 thirds of it, with property tax being the single largest item there, followed by SPLOST and TSPLOST. Then TAFT, which is your title ad valorem tax, along with your insurance premium taxes. And the remaining taxes make up about $9.2 million of that 351.7. Licenses and fees make up about 95 and 1 half. Your intergovernmental revenues are about 35.6. As you can see detailed in the arrow to the side, the largest single item there would be payments from the other cities, primarily to the fire fund. And then you have a basket of... Smaller other items, the one that I'd kind of like to point out of the smaller there are those transfers of about 19.1. Those are expenditures that a fund is incurring, if you will, for operations that belong to another fund, primarily general fund, would be the source of those. And the other funds would be the recipients.

I sometimes like to point out that those dollars are sort of double counted in our budget. They're counted once as it comes into the general fund, and again when it goes out and comes into a second fund. Yes, sir. We saw 518 million, 19 million of that is double count, so to speak. So you could say it's just under 500 would be the grand total budget.

Yes, sir. Yeah, you've got actually three instances of that. The one you just pointed out, and the revenues for the two internal service funds, the group insurance fund and the fleet fund. Here are the proposed uses of funds across the county. And kind of going down the list again, ARPA was exhausted, and so it goes away. It's 100% reduction. Again, you see CATS. This is the flip side of the item we talked about a moment ago. There's no reimbursement because the capital expenditure won't be repeated. Group insurance, a group medical there experienced a significant increase. A substantial piece of that increase is due to the need to eliminate some of the true-ups that we've had in prior years. In other words, The fund has not been adequately budgeted in some cases in prior years. The total increase in expenditures comes to about 20%, 19.5%. And again, TSPLOST accounts for a significant portion of that at 14.75%. So organic growth, if you will, is about 4.8%. Here are the other funds as we're going. The one I'd like to kind of flag for your attention there is the DATE Fund. Transfers out in the date fund are down But in large part that is because it is beginning to exhaust its fund balance and so while that is a reduction to the date fund it is also kind of a Storm on the horizon if you will because this is something that general fund is going to have to pick up in future years and so that is a item to bear in mind for 28 Ford and As you look at the proposed uses, you can see roughly half of it is personnel at about $258.2 million, with public safety being about $140 million of that, judicial being $26.2 million, the balance of the county being $51.3 million roughly, and group insurance and your various benefits making up the balance of that. We have operating costs. Those are your supplies, small tools, that sort of thing, coming in at $68.9 million. Capital coming in at $104.2 million, that being largely in your capital funds, such as SPLOST and TSPLOST. We have outside government agencies coming in at $56.8 million. A significant portion of that, at almost $47 million, are the payments to the cities for their SPLOST and TSPLOST portions, as you can see detailed in the arrow to the side there. And again, to point out the transfers, the flip side at $19.1 million used by the various funds. These are the proposed sources of funds, almost identical to the revenue pie we saw a couple of slides ago. The difference is the use of reserves, that slightly exploded wedge there. I just thought this was important to point out that While revenues cover the bulk of it, we are dipping into the piggy bank to the tune of about $13.4 million countywide, not just general fund, but across the entire county. We are dipping into the piggy bank a little bit.

And that's been an intentional use of reserves that we've had over and above what we prudently need. But as it winds down, and it is winding down, we'll have less and less of that flexibility to do that. Probably only about half that much next year. So if you can only use half of $13 million next year, it means you've got to come up with $6.5 million from some other source. Just a sobering thought for next year's budget.

Yes, sir. I think there are a number of items in here, particularly where you've seen those yellow arrows that are concerns, not so much for FY27, but for FY28. These are the proposed changes across the county. General fund being the primary operating fund of the county is targeting a use of about $4 million. I'm sorry, about $5.1 million, which is $4 million less than in the prior year. As the chairman mentioned, there's been a deliberate strategy. to use some of the reserves in place. The county's employed what's been called a half-life strategy, meaning half of the difference between where we are and where we want to be in this case, a 90-day fund balance. and that again is dwindling for two reasons one because we're spending down the fund and Two because with inflation as the budget goes up the cost of a day Is getting higher which means a 90-day reserve gets to be a bigger and bigger number? So you're talking about a larger piece of a smaller pie if you will and We are budgeting for almost $1.6 million excess in the fire fund, coming off an $800,000 use of reserves in FY26. That's significant because the fire fund, as an accredited institution, an accredited department, has a standard to maintain a 15% fund balance reserve. And we are beginning to get very close to that 15%. And so that $1.6 million is necessary not only to provide a little bit of cushion there, but also to account for an increased budget. Again, as the budget increases, 15% of that budget also increases. And so the amount needed in fund balance is growing as well. You can see Parks and Rec intending to use about $1.2 million. The next ARPA, Transportation, are looking to break even. We're looking to use a little under $1.5 million in various other governmental funds. The conference center is looking to use about $376. EMS is about $1.6 million. We're going to have a very slight profit in debt service. That one is not one to worry about. It's a very predictable fund. About 99% of its revenues come from property taxes. And its only real expenditure is servicing debt. So it's very predictable. And there's not really a need for a lot of reserve in that particular fund. And then you see impact fees and SPLOST are both budgeted for significant use of reserves. Again, these are capital project funds, so that is their purpose as you save up the money for capital projects and then you build the capital project. And then you see TSPLOST with an almost $8 million surplus there. And again, TSPLOST is a new fund. With these type of funds, typically you want to see a surplus very early in the referendum so that you kind of build up some liquidity as you're going through these projects. And then you would spend it down at the end. So in the case of TSPLOST, this is what you want to see. Here you have the changes in the various smaller governmental funds. The two I want to call your attention to are E911 and DATE. E911 is beginning to exhaust its fund balance. And as a significant level of expenditures are currently funded from its own fund balance, you're looking at a potential drain on the general fund again years beyond FY27. So again, this is more of a storm on the horizon than an FY27 problem, but I do think it's worth pointing out. And I know there have been a number of cases where we've tried to get additional funding, many statewide. But this assumes that there will be no new funding for E911's own source revenues. The date we've already talked about, you know, exhausting its funds. So, again, another potential drain on the general fund in future years. Let's see. Here is your county-wide budget summary, just to kind of give you an idea of the sources, uses, change in fund balance, where we're starting and where we're looking to end. Again, kind of along the right-hand edge of the slide there, you see general funds, kind of a cause for concern. We're approaching that 90-day target. So as we approach that, there's less and less room to draw from reserves. The fire fund, as we talked about, has that 15% accreditation standard. This would put it at approximately 16.9%. So a little bit of a cushion and a little bit of room for growth next year. But again, very tight on that. DATE and E911 we just talked about. And the group insurance, we're showing an increase there, largely to eliminate the true ups that we discussed earlier. All right. Just to focus on the general fund for a minute, it's looking for about $185.7 million in inflows, as you see detailed out there, with about $107.9 of that $185.7 coming from property taxes, with about $190.8 or $9 million in uses. And if you look there, you can see the uses The largest item is the Sheriff's Department of about 82.4. But as I point out to the side there, little over a third of that is attributable to the jail and is largely beyond their control. That's a function of inmate population. The BOC services, meaning those departments directly under the board's control, which we'll go over in a minute, is about $42.5 million. The court's at 35. And your fourth largest item there at 18.1 are transfers, meaning things that the general fund is funding that actually belong to other funds. Then we have our other agencies detailed off in the bracket to the right there. And then some of your constitutional officers and your economic development. As you can see, we're looking at a change in fund balance of about 5.1 based on a beginning fund balance of about just under $56 million. That leaves us about $50.9 million with a cost per day of $522,000, almost $523,000. That's about 97 days of fund balance based on the new budget, the FY27 budget. Here are your BOC services, just detailed out a little more. Public Works being the largest, followed by IT and Tax Assessor, Property Management, and then a large number of smaller services, as you can see, totaling $42.5 million. $42.5 million. Here are the courts, as we discussed. Quite a few courts and court-related functions. So the judicial sector of the county comes in at about $35.4 million. Looking at general fund inflows, we see property taxes coming in at well over half of that, at $107.9. Your other taxes coming in at about $45.9. with TAVD and insurance premium making up the majority of that 45.9. Licenses and permits making up 20.2. You can see the details in the arrow to the side there. And as you can see, if you'll remember from the slide before, general fund transfers out about $18 million. It gets transfers in of about $390,000. So it's very much a donor fund. And again, sort of the same slide, but with the use of reserves included, just to kind of see how that compares to revenues versus uses. And again, you see that exploded pie wedge off to the side there for your use of reserves at about $5.1 million. again the general fund uses just kind of served up as a pie so you can see rate relative sizes and with the sheriff being the largest pie but again remembering roughly a third of that number a little over a third of that number belongs to the jail If you look over to the transfers, you can see the largest transfer out is EMS, followed by some smaller transfers. But as we discussed earlier, in the case of 911 and Quartz, those may have a significant additional reliance on general fund in future years. So that transfer wedge is kind of one to keep your eye on. You can see the general fund uses, again, by type of expenditure, personnel being well over half, pushing 2 thirds of that with operating costs coming in next. You have some allocated costs, such as utilities and that sort. But after operating costs and personnel, again, that next biggest wedge is transfers. This just shows you a little bit of the progress of the original requests. Kind of the first departmental requests that we got in were $199.4 million. And that's kind of before we had to add in some of the items that we had to add in. You see from there we've cut about $1.2 million in personnel, $3 million in operating changes. We cut or moved to SPLOST about $3.4 million of capital, a variety of other changes and allocated costs and things of that nature of about $900,000. So in total, we cut roughly $8.5 million from the original general fund request, leaving us with a budget of about $190.8 million. which is roughly $12.3 million above the FY26 revised budget. You kind of look out to the side here. You can see that we have a lot of personnel cuts. The single largest contributor in this area, again, being the Sheriff's Department. We had one position transfer from Sheriff to IT. It's listed separately, so you can see offsetting adjustments there, and then a variety of cuts in your other departments, along with a $1.5 million, almost $1.6 million increase to take the COLA to 2%, as well as some increased funding for the group insurance fund. Here you see the cuts to the operations and capital requests, as well as some of the other charges that were cut. And again, we're coming up in total about $8.5 million. Here's your projected fund balance. And we covered this in part a few slides ago. But just to kind of go over the half-life, if you will, a 90-day reserve at that level of expenditures would be about $47. Our excess reserve, therefore, at 55.9 would be the 8.9 million, leaving us about 4.5 for our target usage. And of course, at 5.1, we're a little over that, but fairly close to the targeted half-life usage. Just to kind of give you an idea of where we are, you can see back in 18, FY18, the general fund fund balance was about 146 days through FY20 and 21, 22. It climbed up to the 200-day range, triggering what the chairman was referring to earlier as the need to kind of spin down some of those reserves. And you can see that it has declined since FY23. But we are kind of now in the target zone, if you will. So we need to level off the shape of this curve. This is the proposed budget for a fire fund. kind of your next most important fund, also funded by property taxes, and also very conscious of its reserve levels. As you can see here, we're calling for a budget of 47.7 of property taxes and 15.4 of intergovernmental, which are the city's contributions to the fund based on their digest. So as you can see, the vast majority of this is not technically property taxes, but digest determined. Your uses, primarily personnel and operating costs. We're looking at a change in fund balance of about $1.5 million. Your projected fund balance at the end of next budget year would be 10.6. This yields a cost per day of $162,000. Days of fund balance would be about 62. For reference, a 15% reserve would be approximately 55 days. So you've got 62 days, but kind of roughly seven days above your floor there. Here's your curve for the fire fund, very similar to what we saw a few slides ago for general fund. Not identical, but very similar in shape. And as you can see right here, we're looking to, we're toying with a 56-day reserve, whereas 55 is our floor. So we're very close to minimum here before we kind of head back up to 16.9% reserves at 62 days. Here are our SPLOST funds. Currently, two separate SPLOSTs being spent down. The old SPLOST, which we have not exhausted, we're projecting almost $10.8 million. The current SPLOST, one passed in 24, we're looking at about $59.7 million in expenditures. And the city's portion of those collections would come to about $20.7. So a total budget in the SPLOST fund of about $91.1 million. Here are the various SPLOST projects in the 2018 SPLOST. And as you can see, this budget would exhaust all the projects remaining with the exception of the airport. Here's the 24 SPLOST. And again, as you can see, about $59.7 million in requests. But we do have roughly $25 million worth of revenues coming in in form of grants, state payments, and that sort of thing. Just a summary of all the SPLOST projects for the coming year. Here's the TSPLOST fund. TSPLOST, of course, being entirely dedicated to roadway and transportation projects. We're looking to do about $39.5 million worth of roadway projects with about $26 million being the city's portion, so about $65.5 million for the upcoming TSPLOST budget. As you can see, we have an original SPLOST budget, I apologize for the T being shaved there, of about $275.5 million. Net of the additional revenues we're looking at, that will leave us, at the end of the year, about $238.8 million of T-SPLOST budget remaining for the referendum. Here are the impact fee projects. As you can see, it's largely fire and parks at this point There are two parks in there along with some upgrades to some of fire facilities Kind of the breakdown of those again buildings and equipment for fire we have about 2.2 million dollars budgeted for Yellow Creek Park and the same for Woodworth Park and Just really quickly to go over the unincorporated expenditures for the service delivery strategy agreement. You see here sort of the history of it. And as you can see, expenditures covered by the SDS account for about half of the revenues that are dedicated specifically to unincorporated sources. You have about 25.7 in revenue in the budget. with about 13 in expenditures, the majority of that of the revenues being the insurance premium taxes. So we're in good shape. The only point of concern being how many eggs we have in one basket on the revenue schedule there.

And that fund really is Mostly relevant for the service delivery strategy negotiation with the cities.

Yes, sir. This is not an official fund it is not reported in the financial statements in its own right it is it is just sort of a almost unofficial tally of Which revenues are coming from which side of the county?

And the goal is just that the revenues that come in countywide from all taxpayers in the county, including those that live in the cities, would fund the services that the county provides that are for the entire county, including city areas. Whereas revenues that come exclusively from unincorporated areas of the county would fund the services that are provided only in unincorporated areas. That's the point of this. It's never perfect, but the goal is to make it balance as closely as possible.

Yes, sir. Right. And to make sure we cover, which we do. As you can see here, looking just at the insurance premium tax, even after the allocation of some of the other expenditures, which we'll cover in a couple of slides, we're still to the good. Even looking at the IPT revenue, insurance premium tax revenue, we're going to have about $1.9 million left over. Allocating some of the expenses. so that we can use up a little bit of those other revenues that we talked about a minute ago. You see some of the county-wide functions here with the general operating expenditures coming down here, this being the total. You can see we're looking at about 3.6% of the general fund and about 17% of the fire fund going. And so we would allocate a piece of that in those relative percentages back to the unincorporated area. Here's kind of your allocation for the tax assessor and commissioner along with the clerk of the magistrate court, with magistrate court being considered more your unincorporated judicial body. And so we would allocate that amount of the overall judicial services, such as the clerk, back to the magistrate bucket. Just sort of some key dates, all of which have passed except for October 6th. We are currently on the budget public hearing, and on October 6th, we will have the budget adoption. I'll be happy to take any questions you may have. Any questions for Chuck?

All right. We'll hear from the public. Thank you, sir. We have just one person signed up to speak, and that's Mr. Weaver, Thomas Weaver. By the way, while he's coming up, if you want to see this presentation and other budget information, go to the county's website, CherokeeGA.com. Click on, at the top of the screen, click on Departments, and then click on Finance, and you'll see a link to budget information. So it's CherokeeGA.com. departments, finance, budget information. We'll take you to this and other budget information for this year and past years.

Mr. Weaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing me to speak. My name's Thomas Weaver. And just a couple of quick comments. I'm not going to reiterate what has already been shared, but I do want to state again uh publicly that i'm asking the county board of commissioners to be strict fiduciary conservatives as you always have been with the budget i know that future budget years are looking more dismal in approbation of the fact that you're continuing to exhaust your reserves that i've warned about for years but we're not going to reiterate that any further The one thing that I would like to reiterate, however, that was shared with the commission about a month ago was, again, the chair spoke about this from the dais, but the county has been estimated to have crossed that 300,000 census estimate. by the Atlanta Regional Commission. And even though the Georgia Department of Community Affairs has not validated that yet, to the best of my knowledge, and we're not yet to the 2030 Descentennial Census, every single elected official, should that 300,000 plus estimate be true, would be bumped up into the next highest compensation bracket that the county would be required to pay. I had to pass by Sheriff Reynolds on the way up here that I'm just going to use his office as an example. Pursuant to Georgia Code section 15-16-20, when you reach that $300,000 limit, he alone would receive a roughly $12,000 to $13,000 raise. That's just one elected official. You've got to think of all your superior court judges, all your state court judges, your magistrate, your probate court, your clerk of courts. I mean, it goes on and on. So it's a lot of money that you're going to have to come up with. And you're going to have to weigh that against the fact that the well is running dry. Not to mention, as was stated, the date funds and the E911, which is going to be a bigger anchor against your general fund. Plus, your accreditation has reached that bare minimum threshold for the fire department. So I'm just asking you all to really, and I'll speak more about this in public comment, but I know we have a lengthy meeting, Mr. Chairman.

Very good. Great observations. Thank you. No one else has signed up to speak. We have a lot of things tonight. But if somebody else wishes to speak, we'll give you a few minutes now. Somebody else wish to speak on this subject? All right. Seeing none, we can close the hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Carter to close the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. Any discussion on that? All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and the public hearing is closed. So we plan to act on this three weeks from tonight. That would be October 6 at our next meeting. Of course, there's still the opportunity to make final adjustments before we implement the budget. But we have this framework for us to work from. So that brings us to our next public hearing, which is on updates to the soil erosion and sedimentation control ordinance. Our staff attorney, Ms. Jack, will lead us through that. We need to open this hearing.

Motion to open the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Carter to open this hearing.

Second. Second by Commissioner Ragsdale. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open. Ms. Jack, tell us what's proposed.

Thank you, Commissioner and Chairman. Right now, we are proposing a change to the current soil erosion ordinance to add a criminal component to the ordinance in the enforcement section of the ordinance. During work session, there were some questions about why we are adding this component. I did, during the break, have a chance to speak with Todd Hayes and David McElwee in the solicitor's office. The reason the criminal component is being added is because one matter came before the solicitor Earlier this year, and there was not a criminal component to the ordinance that the solicitor could actually enforce in state court. There are still the civil penalties that can be enforced, but the solicitor could not enforce them. The solicitor is solely a criminal prosecution arm of the state court.

So if I understand this right, it's sort of a catch-22 that we were facing, and that is that A citizen who has been assessed a fine by our administrative personnel has the right to a jury trial. I think. And that jury trial cannot be formed in magistrate court. But if they appeal, that has to go to state court. And yet the state court, under some law in Georgia, cannot hear a case that does not have a criminal possibility to it.

No, that's not right.

We've got a different view of it. Help us understand.

So what happened in the underlying case was that the issue was brought to the solicitor to prosecute. Because under Georgia statutory law, it's section 1.12. And that's how you interpret a statute that the penalties in 1.12 could be criminal if the statute that you're talking about makes a place for that. under the ordinance and the statute that we have here in the county. So what happened was under Georgia law, 1.12 had the ability to assess criminal penalties. However, that was not translated into our ordinance. And so when it was given to the solicitor to enforce criminally, The judge couldn't do that because there was nothing in the statute to allow for criminal penalties. The civil penalties are still there. You are correct. If someone went to magistrate court and wanted a jury trial, they would have to go to state court, but it wouldn't be on the criminal side. It would be on the civil side in state court to have a jury trial. So that was the disconnect that I had this afternoon. I didn't have all that background information, but

So there's some legal technicalities, and there's also the desire to add a kind of a, for the most egregious cases, repeat offenders, the possibility, more a threat than a reality, hopefully, but at least that possibility of criminal consequences.

To have criminal enforcement attached to that statute, because there is a loophole in that statute at this point.

But just so I understand now, there is, If we had filed in that one situation, if we had filed that in the magistrate court, then they could have enforced the civil penalties and offered them a trial in the state court, even though it would be on the civil side.

It would have been totally on the civil side. But it was brought as a criminal action okay and once it was dismissed it ended up that it's actually in Superior Court now under a different rubric and this county's not involved in that it's a private action so it's a little different than we thought we understood it earlier today thank you for clarifying yes sir all right

Is that all you have for us on this one?

Yes, sir.

OK. We have one person signed up to speak, and that's Ms. Cox, Ursula Cox.

Can you hear me? Yes. All right. I'm Ursula Cox. And first of all, I really wish when we advertise for a hearing, we have at least most of the draft, or we have what people are going to see. We advertise. I don't want to waste much time on this, but this goes for all these hearings this time. We advertise there's a hearing. We say, come to the Bluffs, and you can come look at the information, or you can go to Cherokee Status or City View, or you can come. And the information's not there. Now, I know I'm pretty dogged about this stuff, and the staff's been wonderful, because you all do provide for me or anybody who's going to be tenacious enough to find out this last draft. But you don't find it out, really, in total until it's on the agenda. And that's maybe 48 hours before the draft. The hearing, I wish there's a way around that. I know the agenda has to be by 24 hours. But we in the state of Georgia, we advertise a hearing. That information should be there. I'm not going to fuss at you about that anymore right now. I've got three more hearings to go. We'll look forward to that later then. OK. There you go. Anyway, I know that the emphasis is on this criminal component and on enforcement. But I can tell you, and I've read thoroughly, and I think all of you should read our stormwater, our ordinance, we do not apply and we do not in this county enforce it equally. We just don't. And currently, I mean, you read here, and by the way, it says the director. Who is the director? I'm not fussing. I just don't know who is the director in this. I know who the local issuing authority is. But who is the director when they refer to that? I seriously want to know.

We're going to have to look to Ms. Jackson to see who that's intended to be.

OK.

The agency director we're referring to.

So that's meaning the community development director. OK. Yeah. OK. That's good. That's an answer to that.

We do have other positions that use that term, but he would be the most senior director in this function.

OK, right. But I did not know when it was. And I kept thinking, who could that be? I mean, we're already wanting to give Margaret arrest powers, so I don't know who to say. But anyway, we are so uneven about applying these rules. And they're important. And like it says, a stop work order, and you get five days. Well, our own personnel in the county, stormwater wise, engineering, Planning, all kinds of people step up and they do these ad hoc variances, you know, for the LIA. And that's not right. And someone says, well, five days. Well, I'll just give them another five days and another five days. There's no— You're at three minutes.

We're not going to cut you off right now.

Do you see what I'm saying about that? And we're worried about the criminal component. We need to look about the internal day-to-day enforcement of this because it's not even. It's not equal opportunity.

Thank you, Ms. Cox. No one else has signed up, but if somebody else has input on this action item, you're welcome to come forward. All right, seeing none, we can close this hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Carter to close the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed. Now, we're prepared to act on this tonight. Is that correct, Ms. Jack? So is there a... Discussion?

Question. Sure. Can you just remind us, sort of the conversation we had earlier, who will be issuing these citations, specifically the criminal citation?

The criminal citation would come from the post-certified officer, which is either the marshal or the sheriff.

Okay.

My understanding is that it would be a marshal function.

At the request of an inspector?

It would be at the request of the soil erosion personnel in Brantley's group.

Okay.

Yes, after, and of course, as we spoke about, it's not going to be in the first instance. It would have to be an accumulated either ignoring or not repairing the issue.

I think part of the intent here is that These developments have gotten so big and have so much money at stake that the maximum fine we can assess, it's a lot of money to you and me, but to the development corporation, it's almost just the cost of doing business. So it's not enough. It doesn't do enough. And so the threat that if you don't actually get this straightened out, The person who's requested this permit can actually go to jail. Now, we hope nobody ever does. But the intent, I think, is to get the attention of some folks for whom the maximum fine we are legally allowed to impose just isn't enough to bring them to correct the problem.

Right, because stopping work is probably more expensive than paying the fine. And so to ignore the fine and go forward is something that we've run into.

Well, I guess, Mr. Chairman, my concern is it sounds like we already do on the civil side. We just have to make sure that we file it in the correct court so it goes through the correct procedures. There already is a $1,000 a day maximum fine. I just don't feel good about giving Anybody risking jail. I know that it was an egregious case out there. I do think that people were trying to an extent, maybe just not as hard as they should have. But I just can't support the possibility of somebody going to jail for that, especially when we've already got an avenue to pursue that I guess we didn't know about at the time.

I have a little confusion as far as the initial point that would go to the result in a citation, that is initiated by a staff member? DEVOLOPMENT INSPECTOR. OK. And then that staff member would send that to the marshal?

Well, it would eventually end up the staff member and the marshal meeting and the marshal accompanying the staff member to the site to issue the warrant.

Okay. I guess I have an issue with just if a staff member's got that kind of authority.

Well, I have that today. That's just like always.

It seems to me that maybe the staff member, if you're talking about doing criminal charges, maybe he should go from the staff member to the director and then pass on.

I think it's fair to say this Felton inspector is not going to go out and file a criminal warrant without touching base with his boss.

Well, that may be, but I'm saying

And we could cure that with an internal process.

Yeah.

A policy process.

I feel better about it.

I'm sorry, Richard. No, go ahead. But it sounds like we've already got a process to cure it now. We already realize that. And this is something we didn't know that we had before in dealing with this particular case. Me personally, I'd like to see if that works before we go to this more severe option.

Well, I think the concern is that the measures in place have not been enough. At any rate, I guess we may have some difference of opinion on that. Any thoughts before we call a question?

So my question at work session was, It's not just, hey, you violated this ordinance. You're going to jail. You were warned. You continued. You were asked to get a permit. You didn't get a permit. You continued. You were asked to do erosion control. You didn't. You continued. You were issued a stop work order. You kept working. So there's like four or five or six actions at least that this person continues to violate, continues to violate, continues to violate. At that point, they would get this criminal punishment. Leading up to that is Brantley's team going, hey, you need to come file for a permit. Here's a stop work order. You've got to stop. So it's not an immediate action. This is going to be, OK, this has been weeks or months of warnings and coaching and trying to get you into compliance. You're still not. That's when they would issue this.

Including now the threat of this could become a criminal matter. We've never even been able to have that threat before.

Correct.

So I think the hope is that that threat would be enough to move the applicant to take corrective actions.

Yeah, I think everyone's goal here is to never use it, right? But if it's there and it's known that it's there, OK, I cannot get a permit today. It costs me $1,000 a day. But to Jenny's point, stopping the work could cost $50,000 a day. I'm going to keep working. But now it's going to cost me $1,000 a day, and I could go to jail. I better go get a permit. So it's a tool.

Well, from here, it looks like at the fourth offense, is that it? So it looks like from the first and second violation of the ordinance that they have five days to correct the work. What if it's raining? I mean, what if it's the weekend? Does that play into that?

Yes, I mean, we're going to use the reasonableness standard and we understand that things happen. I mean, they could have had a family emergency and they couldn't have communicated with the rest of their team. There are things that, yeah, that do come into play.

And I get this team would, you know, love this team in the future. I mean, I think that's something to consider, too, that in theory, you could get a first and second violation. And so really, in 10 days, you're up to the third and subsequent violation if you haven't managed to get it fixed. And you've got to stop work order. And then if you still don't have the necessary corrective actions in place by the time it gets to the fourth one, that's when you can That's when you go, right? Am I reading this correctly?

You could possibly, yes. But we could also go the civil route as well. I guess my thing is. Go to magistrate court. And then if that still doesn't work, we could come back to the criminal side. I mean, there are lots of, as Commissioner Ragsdale said, there are lots of stops along the way. And you would hope that people don't push you to the very end.

Well, could we word this to where after this, as a minimum, as a compromise, after the civil route fails, because we've Sounds like we haven't executed that on our end correctly yet. Sure.

We could add. We don't know that it doesn't work. It will not be enforced until all civil remedies have been attempted. That could be a rewording if you want to look at this again, maybe table the vote.

Are there not many ways to stall a civil proceeding?

Oh, there's a ton of ways to solve a civil proceeding.

I mean, that could take a year. I could imagine. I don't know about a year. There's a ton of ways. Certainly multiple months before it even comes to magistrate court. And then.

You could ask for a continuance. You could ask for, you know. An appeal. You can appeal. Yes, sir. There's a lot of ways.

We could be into months or an endless, almost endless loop of the legal cycle.

Sure.

OK, I mean, there are many sides to this. And it's kind of a harder call than we thought it was going to be.

Well, I was going to say, I see a need for this option. But I think also maybe we need some continued work on it. Maybe there are some steps that we need to put in place before that's there. I'm going to recommend we postpone a decision on this until a later date and continue to work on the wording that we want. Because I do see a need for it. But let's get it right. We have a motion to postpone action on this to... I'll second that. Let's go for 30 days to the second meeting in October.

Second to postpone action to our second October meeting. I'll second that. Yes, sir. I have a second. So there's a motion by Commissioner Carter, second by Commissioner Cagle. And I think the spirit of this is to look for mitigation so that it's not inviting just to throw you in jail because you didn't get the stormwater silt fences put back up.

Understood, Chairman.

All right. So we have that motion and second. Any discussion on that? All in favor of the motion to postpone, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. We'll take it back up second meeting in October. Thank you, Ms. Jack. I think you're still with us for the next one, right? This one is update to the noise ordinance regarding consumer fireworks. We need to open this hearing.

Motion to open the public hearing.

Motion by Commissioner Carter to open the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open. Miss Jack, tell us what we have in mind here.

Yes, sir. This is an amendment to 26-4 under Article 2 of the noise ordinance. Under the old section A subsection 6, it was just a small paragraph about consumer fireworks that didn't explain or define what consumer fireworks were. It didn't talk about specific timing for the noise. It didn't also give a definition for what equine means, what facility means, especially as it relates to the new state change last year about setting off consumer fireworks close to an equine facility and close is within 200 yards and so i met with the marshall's office and We talked through revising this ordinance, creating a new section, 26-40.1, just focusing on consumer fireworks, giving real definitions and real timelines for when the noise from fireworks would be allowed and when it would not be also talking about the setbacks from the facility we spoke about the 200 yards from the facility being a challenge because marshals would be out on a call at night trying to use their measuring tapes to figure out what's 200 yards So we figured that we would talk to GIS and have a map for the marshals to use GIS setting the boundaries at 250 feet because GIS is plus or minus 250 feet and actually have something for the marshals to use once things were being called out or Complaints were being made so that they could effectively enforce the fireworks ordinance as it relates to the equine requirement by the state that was passed in 2025 as we talked about in work session we talked about enclosure and I believe enclosure means the fence so if there is a fence it would be 200 yards from the fence not necessarily just a structure or a building.

As we discussed at the work session, a lot of the substance of this change would be to invite people who have horses to register their property so that a GPS-based boundary around it at the 200. Actually, you said we would mark it at 250.

Because it's plus or minus, right?

So we would be able to create a GPS-defined boundary around it so that the marshals would have access to know those parcels that have registered and the and where those boundaries are they could I guess look on their phones or somehow know where they are and that they're inside that boundary make it a little easier to enforce the ordinance yes and it would be really helpful for the public to give us that information so that we could protect their animals And except for that, I'm not seeing really big changes of substance. In other words, the fireworks in these equine areas adjacent to equine facilities, it's already prohibited as per the ordinance. This just really allows for that registration component and defines the boundary in a way that makes it easier for the marshals to know that they're actually within the boundary or not.

Correct, and it helps the marshals. It defines what a consumer firework is, what an equine is, because it's not just a horse and those kind of things. Yes, sir.

All right, anything else before we invite the public? Other questions or comments? Okay, we do have a few people signed up to speak for this one. Ms. Cox, again, we're anxious to hear what you have to say about this one.

Well, I know horses and I know fireworks. Most people know that in Cherokee County.

Can you put that microphone down just a little bit?

Is that good?

That's better, yeah.

Okay, okay. And I would move my horses halfway to Univeta so they couldn't come up to the fence or anything. I mean, they were by the railroad tracks and in the bottoms and they were way far away on my own property. Now, you surely are talking about pastures as well, not just, we say paddocks, we're talking about enclosures.

Well, it says paddocks here.

What?

But it also says confined area.

Yeah, right, an enclosure. And I have a neighbor that, not recently, but has a lot of fireworks, and he has horses on there. It's Mr. Lombara. And I don't know what you're going to do. This is just a thought. If you have horses... And I guess it's up to you to protect them and move them away or whatever. But you're on your own property, and you're setting off fireworks, and it's too close. That's just a thought. And is this from the edge of the property line or just the enclosure, the pasture?

We've discussed that a good bit.

I was resting up to come tonight, so I didn't come at 3.

The enclosure would be the fence, I think was our consensus.

The pasture and the paddocks.

The fenced area of the paddock or pasture.

Okay. Okay. Well, what about people who, on their own property, they still have to comply and have them? away from this, correct?

Not if you're on your own property.

No, really? So they could have the fireworks right next to it? Yeah, that's their property. Yeah, I'm just curious as to. I mean, mine, I have a lot of property. I moved mine away, so it wasn't a big deal. But you can't come on someone else's property if they're having fireworks and they're too close to their horses, correct?

But to clarify, in case there's any misunderstanding here, you could be cited for firing, for shooting fireworks on your own property if you're within 200 yards.

But only if another, like only if your neighbor had horses, right? Right, right. So if they're your own horses, you don't have a neighbor within 200 yards, then... Unless you called the marshals and said, I'm breaking the law, I don't think they'd come get you.

Right.

I mean, you might be in violation.

You're talking to the woman whose horse is grazed at the firing range.

My kids shoot off theirs.

Thank you, Ms. Cox. Mr. Weaver has comments on this one. Thomas Weaver.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to be brief, after listening to the commentary amongst yourselves during the work session, I don't know which way the commission is leaning as a whole and as a body looking at the work structure, looking at the proposed definitions of the ordinance, which is cabined out to the new subpart. You do include the word paddock, but I just don't know. I'm waiting to see if y'all are going to include the entire fenced-in property or if you're just talking about the actual facility, the actual structure itself. Whatever which one you choose until the legislature says otherwise, I believe, is your public policy preference. I'm just curious to learn more. Although, I did want to share that I am glad that this is the only proposed revision to the noise ordinance as a whole, and that every other part of the noise ordinance, every other section within current county code is left intact and unchanged.

Thank you, sir. The third and last one signed up is Kai Savinias.

Chairman, I will move the plan.

Very good. Anyone else wish to speak on this subject? If not, let's close this hearing.

Motion to close the public hearing.

Motion to close the hearing made by Commissioner Carter. Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed. And this item is before us for action.

Mr. Chairman, I. We talked about the pasture, the fence, the paddock, whatever it may be, at work session this afternoon. I remember, I'm assuming it was a year ago. Gosh, it may have been longer. But when we hashed this out the last time, I'm 99% sure our intent was to include the pasture, all fenced in area of the property where a horse may be, right?

Yeah, I mean, I read definition D, setback from equine facilities, says, a facility housing equines in a confined area. I think a pasture qualifies for that, if it's got a fence around it.

Sure. So I don't know if we need to further clarify that, or if that's good enough. But that's what I remember from the last time.

And there are no special occasions, like if it's 4th of July, New Year's Eve?

They can request a permit, either if it's from us or from the fire department, from the fire marshal. So they can request.

I thought the hours were extended on 4th of July. There's nothing, no.

So the hours are extended. The distance still applies no matter what, unless you have a permit as an exception.

But the hours, quiet hours, that

That the hours fluctuate on certain holidays.

Yeah. Yeah. Got it.

So if that's clear enough to everyone, then I would make a motion that we adopt these changes to item 8.3. So that's a motion to approve the changes as presented.

That motion made by Commissioner Ragsdale. Is there a second?

Second.

I have a second by Commissioner Weatherby. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none, we'll call the question. All in favor of the changes to this ordinance as presented, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. So the motion passes four to one with Commissioner Cagle dissenting. All right. So we have at least one more with Ms. Jack, maybe a couple more. So this one is a public hearing regarding updates to the zoning ordinances, Articles 4 and 7, regarding animal production and sawmills. And we need to open this hearing. Motion to open the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Carter to open the public hearing. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open. Ms. Jack is going to introduce the changes involving animal production and sawmills to Articles 4 and 7 of the zoning ordinance.

Thank you, Commissioner and Chairman. Earlier this year, the Georgia General Assembly amended OCGA 2-1-6, and it amended agricultural activity and the use of mobile sawmills on agricultural land. The first thing I want to address is that this change did have us change the definitions in article 4 and so under 4.3 definitions in article 4 we needed to revise the definition of livestock and then we also needed to add a definition regarding poultry and fowl and we're using the state definitions of those two things those two animals the first Amendment is under 7.7-8, manufacturing uses. And we're looking specifically at section E, mobile or portable sawmills. Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. We did discuss at work session some of the changes in four were just language sections. And then we also talked about Section 5, that a machine used in a sawmill operation shall be located No machine used in a sawmill operation shall be located closer than 200 feet to any property line. And then any machinery used in the sawmill operation, such as the portable sawmill, shall be set back no less than 500 feet from a residential structure on an adjoining property. So we spoke about that. And then we did add Section 7 just as the state preemption savings clause for the mobile sawmills following the actual statute that was amended in the General Assembly.

And what's the gist of that?

It's just that under the savings clause, the standards in this subsection do meet the standards set out by state statute. And this section has to be read in conjunction with sections 7.724 and 7.725. Twenty four point one which is the animal production and livestock section that we're going to talk about next So what the state legislature did was they combined two things in this one bill? They relate sort of but not really so okay, we needed to address that so we needed to follow what the state had asked us to do and Are we making any changes other than what state has those are the only changes that we've made but are those the state changes? Yes, sir. Yeah, we didn't add anything else for the county The next section is seven point seven dash two four which is animal production and And we changed this. So what this did was section C, which is on page two of four of that ordinance, the raising and keeping of livestock for non-commercial purposes, personal pleasure, shall be allowed in all residential districts on tracks of two acres or more so that was a change from the state and then we got into on page three of four we got into the definitions of chickens and hens and the confinement of hens. The enclosure should be at least 25 feet from any property line and 50 feet from any residential structure on an adjacent property. And it shall enclose an area of not less than 10 square feet per hen. That was in our ordinance before, but the state also re-emphasized that. So we put that in a new section to make sure that that was understood. And then section D, livestock and husbandry standards. This is what changed the most. Talking about sections two and three, all livestock shall be properly housed with adequate food and water, confined within a fenced enclosure, and then no person shall tie, stake, or fasten any livestock within any street, highway, road, alley, sidewalk, right-of-way, et cetera. And then under Section E, I made the change to the error that I found in Section 2 and deleted the word does under that last sentence there so it reads correctly. And I did give you all a revised – I did that change between work session and now. So I gave you all a revised – statute or ordinance. Also, this section with the animal husbandry created a change that affects our IGAs with all of the cities, and it relates to the impoundment of animals and the enforcement by the animal control officers and the marshals. and so what the change is is that the animal control officers can go out and this is where this is where we get into the other hearing so but anyway what this does this changed our igas with the cities and so we had to send amended documents to them based on the impoundment of Changes that were made in this statute, but it also affects our next public hearing on article 14 and the enforcement arm of that impoundment So I don't want to get into that But I just wanted you to be aware that it did change Something with our IGA and all the cities have those changes and the county manager is going to bring those to the board probably in the October 6th OK.

I may have misheard you, but looking back at the space required for backyard chickens, I see it's on page three of four in the draft we have. It says two square feet, I thought, per bird. I thought I heard you say 10. Maybe I misunderstood.

Just to clarify. I'm talking about section four. The enclosure can't be less than 10 square feet per hen. And then the next one talks about

Within. So the coop within the enclosure. Yes, sir. So the overall space that the birds are in has to be 10 feet per bird. And a coop inside that has to be, too. Correct.

Yes.

Very good. All right. Other questions for Ms. Jack?

So where we captain these things out and I'm assuming this is this isn't the blind AG, right? No This is just like an R80. So this is resident Okay, so somebody is already, you know, and we do have some areas where They got eight acres How many birds can they keep on eight acres?

Well in residential zoning, they'd still be limited

It's still limited, right? AG is different, but if it's a residential zone, no more than eight hens are kept on a residential lot as a non-commercial accessory use. Residential lots greater than eight acres may keep one additional hen per every whole acre over eight acres.

There you go.

No roosters.

And that is the state standard.

OK. All right. Other questions or comments? OK. So we'll open for public input, Ms. Cox.

Ursula Cox. You know who I am, Ursula Cox. Is this good? Can you hear me?

Okay. Keep it down close to you. About sawmills. I know you, but I want to hear you.

Okay, good. Well, that's gracious. Anyway, about the sawmills, zoning came to this county in 1966, and there were two forms of agriculture, rural estate, which became R80 and 93, and straight ag, and people One of the reasons why they took our rural estate was they didn't want industrial uses. They didn't want a mine next to them. They didn't want a slaughterhouse. Didn't want a sawmill. And so you see the sawmills just in ag or light industrial. But I see this in here. It says you can have a portable sawmill, but you can only process trees from your property. What are you going to do, just cut all your trees and process them?

I think that's the idea.

There's not a whole lot of people. I mean, I've sold timber. That's how I got through George Tech. I paid for it selling timber. I'm aware. But it just seems that there ought to be something for personal use. I have a lot of good specimen trees. I have sold some. I have given them to people who would want to make a hope chest or a bench or a baby crib or something. and they process it themselves. I understand, like, okay, you don't have agriculture property. You're not zoned ag. You're zoned maybe R80. This is kind of the antithesis of why there was rural estate. Didn't want sawmills. But you want to process wood, but it's not wood you have. Is there any way there can be some, I don't know, codicil, something that says for personal use or craft or something? I just understand you don't want a sawmill next to you. In fact, Gateway Industrial Park, why it left rural estate zoning was it was owned by family that were related to. And they wanted to sell it. And Mr. Dunn wanted to buy it for a sawmill. So it had to get rezoned back in the day to LI to have his sawmill. And then down the line, it was on LI. And he sold it to be here. industrial park. But I was just wondering, there are a lot of people who do their own wood. I mean, is there some way that for personal craft or something like that? Because who's going to cut every tree on their property to work it up for a sawmill if it's not ag?

A developer.

Pardon?

A developer would bring in a portable sawmill when they're clearing the property.

But I mean, if you... But Ursula just gave you a beautiful black walnut tree to process. It didn't come from your property. Do you see what I'm saying, if it's not ag?

I think the clarification here is that this is only for mobile or portable sawmills. So the idea is you would bring the sawmill to your house, cut it up, and go back home.

No.

Well, that's the way it reads, is what I'm saying.

Well, it reads that it can only be taken. People don't do that. They buy the log. And they take it to a sawmill or they own one and use it. And anymore, you see portable sawmills. Rarely does someone have a big sawmill set up. And I can understand why you don't want that next to you. But people who do craft, I want to say projects, with these nice woods and stuff, they have a little portable sawmill. but they don't cut every tree on their lot. You know what I'm saying?

You're right. I mean, you can't get cypress anywhere in Cherokee County anymore, so you have to bring it in. You can't get cypress anywhere in Cherokee County anymore, so you have to bring it in. So she is right for personal use. Yeah, you can't.

There's a lot of woods. Take an under advisement. OK, I want to be real quick about what the animals.

You are over the three minutes. Try to wrap it up.

Well, there's a lot of people did not get this and did not understand about the animals. And I think you ought to wait and have another hearing about it. Because again, the information isn't there at the county for the people who are notified about a public hearing. I handed out some stuff just tonight and heard about it all week. So please keep that in mind.

Thank you. Mr. Bennett, John Bennett.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you commissioners and county manager here. I'm signed up on this one simply because I don't know what's going on. I plead ignorance on this one. I just found out about this about three hours ago. And someone gave me a call and said it was something about agriculture. If it's anything to do with agriculture in Cherokee County, I want to know about it because there's so little left. Most people today don't know Cherokee County was always an agricultural county. We did corn and cotton. We grew the last cotton grown in Cherokee County. My dad ginned the last cotton that was grown in Cherokee County. We were the last operating gin. We went from row cropping to poultry, from poultry to cattle. We still have cattle, raised cattle on the farm. Anything that we're talking about that's making restrictions on any kind of agricultural activities in the county, I think we just need to make sure we have plenty of time for people to know about it. And any of the few of us that are still left in agriculture today, You need to have an opportunity to know about it and realize what's going on. We're talking about chickens and how many chickens can be in this. Most people don't realize it. In the 1950s, when you entered Cherokee County, there was a big sign that said, welcome to Cherokee County, the poultry capital of the world. There's more poultry grown in Cherokee County than anywhere else in the world in the 1950s. We had three poultry processing plants, numerous feed mills, feed dealers, hatcheries. Today, there are eight chicken houses left in Cherokee County. We've gone from an agricultural county to suburban Atlanta. What little agriculture is left, we need to give it the opportunity to remain agriculture. So I don't know when you're planning on making a decision on this, but if there's opportunity for a little more input other people to know about it and have input, it might be good. I do want to commend you, commissioners, for this super AG that you have, ordinance that you brought in. That's going to be great, I think, for the areas that are left that are not already developed heavily. I've talked to all the larger landowners out in the Silicon Valley, and we're all going to change, ask to be changed from regular ag to super ag. None of us are wanting to sell our property and it be developed, but we want you folks to know that we like that super ag, and we appreciate you doing that. People talk about coming to Selco and say how beautiful it is out there. 50 years ago, that's what Hicker Flat looked like. So change has come to the county, but we appreciate you folks trying to keep it in control. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And just to be clear for everybody's understanding and even our own, we're not proposing to limit the number of chickens or any other animals in agricultural property, just in residential property. It's the only place these limits apply. And then on the sawmill, that's really just saying you can't use a portable sawmill at all in residential property. And in agricultural property, you can use it for harvesting trees on that property. Other than that, sawmills should be in industrial areas.

That's really the gist of this.

So let's see. Mr. Weaver, Thomas Weaver. And we'll give you a chance, sir, if you want to come forward. You go ahead, and then we'll invite him.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I recall, under Section 6 of House Bill 413, being Public Act 379 of the 2026 Georgia General Assembly convened, I believe that there was verbiage in the underlining statute modifications providing that cities and counties and other political subdivisions of this state strictly shall not regulate livestock on private property or in public roads. I was reading the proposed redlined ordinance modifications that was presented by your county manager's in-house staff attorney. That does include language pertaining to livestock and public roads. I note that it's part of the zoning ordinance. And under the existing statutory provisions of Georgia Code Section 2-1-6, there are two exceptions to the general preemption clause under subsection A, B, and C. B provides that you can regulate livestock on private property for zoning, but not any other ordinance. And then C is the application of human, not animal waste, just human waste. So says the legislature. So I worry when you talk about application of animal waste, because it's not human waste, although you fashion it under the zoning. And then you also put roads in zoning. But roads I don't believe really is zoning. We don't talk about zoning roads the same way we talk about zoning parcels. So I do think that in the current rendition of the statute, there may be room for a judge to potentially interpret your proposed ordinance modifications as ultra vires to the statutory provisions. Although I don't own any livestock, so I don't stand to benefit from this. I was just aware of it. And like I said before, when I shared this with you initially, it did catch me by surprise the legislature did what they did. But such is the way with preemption. I would ask that this commission, in consultation with your legal team, consider whether it is an overreach or, as they say in military colloquialism, a bridge too far. for you to consider public roads. In light of the flat ban, there is no exception for public roads. It's just a flat preemption. Livestock are allowed in public roads. And they're not zoning matters. So I just don't see how you can win there. And in regards to the application of animal waste, that's not human waste. It doesn't say human and or animal waste. It just says human waste under subsection C. So I think that a judge might find that the ordinance could potentially be vulnerable, perhaps, should the right litigant or the right petitioner emerge withstanding the challenge on the merits.

So I'm looking for, I see the definition in this proposed edit to define public roads, but what is the requirement?

If you scroll down, Mr. Chairman, and I I did hear the three-minute timer. It's towards the bottom. I didn't bring my phone up with me, but it's in there.

And what's the gist of that?

It says the way that it's fashioned under the zoning ordinance proposal, and I don't provide legal advice to this commission. Your attorneys do. But it says that the owner shall not fasten or tie or stake They're animal. And I know that there's general statutory provisions under other titles of the official code of Georgia.

Within a street or highway.

Right. But the Georgia legislature says livestock can be in a public road. It's completely preempted. So says our General Assembly.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

That's everybody signed up. I saw one other person who wished to speak. Please come forward. Tell us your name when you get here, and we'll invite others within reason.

Paul Coverstone is concerning the saw mills. If I understand correctly, you only can cut the trees on your property. Now, a lot of people, if there's wind damage or something, they'll call somebody up and say, hey, I got a tree here. Do you need any wood? So I would be very careful how you word that, because a lot of those portable sawmill owners take care of other people's trees or neighbors' trees or whatever that gets blown down in storms. And they use them for their own use. So I would be careful about limiting it to your own personal property. And that's my primary concern.

Just to be sure we're communicating, I don't think there's any attempt to prevent somebody from cutting trees on their own property. It's about sawmilling them, cutting them into boards and planks.

But that's the thing. With the portable sawmills, people call... portable sawmill owners and say, I got a tree. Can you take it? And stuff. So they may even take the sawmill over to their property to cut it up. Now, I understand why you don't want developers and stuff sawing up wood. But for private owners, a lot of times we're helping each other out.

This would say that you've got to cut it into logs and then haul those logs to the sawmill, rather than bring the sawmill to the logs.

Well, that's fine. But as long as it doesn't state that it has to be your own wood,

If you're going to cut it into boards on your own property, it has to be your own wood, unless you're in light industrial or industrial property.

You can cut the tree down. Just so I'm clear, correct me if I'm wrong, what you're talking about are the sawmills. You actually set them up on the tree, and you cut the logs as you go. These things are a lot smaller.

Most of the sawmills are only 24-inch wide trees. You can't cut a big tree on it anyhow. They're not for commercial purposes.

You might get 200 board feet a day out of it if you're lucky. Yeah. I mean, a lot of them actually run on chainsaws. You know, you can buy them at Northern for $5,000, $7,000.

Yeah, exactly. And there's a lot of people that need to define what a sawmill is. It might be something of such a small scale that it would be.

I mean, a 24-inch or 30-inch sawmill, you're not going to be cutting any big trees. And certainly most of them are band saws anymore anyhow. So you're not going to be cutting them fast. And they don't make a lot of them are electric. And a lot of them are gas, but they don't make a whole lot of noise.

So that's my concern. I hear you. I mean, I think the intent is that you can cut trees on your property, but then you need to haul the logs elsewhere to have them milled into lumber, unless you're an ag property. And then you can bring a sawmill in to do it there.

Well, this even does it. Well, you can only do your own trees on ag. Exactly. Yeah. So to Ursula's point, which, I mean, me and my brother had done it before.

I think there's a clarification needed here. Ag, you can process any tree. Yeah. It doesn't have to be your property. Yes. It can be from any property. Exactly. On residential property, you're not allowed to have a sawmill, period.

Right. And I understand that.

I agree with that. So this idea of... Well, a tree fell on my property. I want a guy to come in and cut it up. He can't. If it's residential property, you cannot.

Right.

You would have to come and get a temporary permit.

Right.

But as the rules are written, that's not even a possibility to begin with.

I should be able to cut it up for him. He may want the lumber.

So he would need to take that to his ag property if he has a sawmill, which he can do. He could take your tree to his property that's ag and cut it up all he wants. So this is really restrictive on residential zone property, R20, 40, 80, all those things. So I think we're talking about something that's not even a possibility. It's not even a possibility to take a portable sawmill into a subdivision where your tree fell and cut it up.

You can't do that.

You can cut the log and take it to somebody's house who has a sawmill that's on ag, and they can cut it up all they want. I totally get that.

Exactly. Like to Ursula's case, you are zoned R80, right? Where you are, how many acres do you have? You've got, what, 40, 50 acres in R-80? So even in that situation, she's not in the neighborhood. She's just on R-80. Because it was pre-1992, she couldn't do anything on hers. So I think we need to think about this some more myself.

I agree.

And I think another intent here, and sorry to interrupt you, is we don't want commercial activities on a residential property. You don't want someone setting up a sawmill on their R40 property, and people hauling in logs, and they're running a . Oh, I absolutely agree. So maybe we do it personally. It's also a limitation here. Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry, we didn't mean to steal your .

Yeah, well, I think you've got us focused. So we're studying what you've said. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? I saw another hand. A couple more. Kai, you come first, and then the gentleman behind, Mr. Fiennes. OK. Come and tell us your name, if you don't mind.

I'm in district. To your point, Mr. Cagle, Alaska mill is what you're looking for, for the chainsaw model. And if I'm allowed to cut a board If I'm allowed to bisect a board, why can't I cut it this way with a chainsaw is really the question. As a hobbyist, as a woodworker, if I'm running a router, that thing's just about as noisy and just about as annoying to anybody around me as a chainsaw is going to be running an Alaska mill. If somebody gives me a pretty log and I want to rip it down into some boards with an Alaska mill, That log didn't necessarily come from my property, but it would be really nice to be able to work with it and not have to carry that log that somebody just gave me back to some mill. And they're not going to run it for a little bit of chunk. They're just not going to do it. So I don't see a remedy for my situation.

I don't think this contemplates a chainsaw mill. We're talking about a portable mill.

It's a portable mill. I'm a hobbyist.

Got it. And most of them do, like if you do take it to a big mill, they have like a minimum, a board foot minimum, right? Yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Miller. Mr. Savinias.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Kaisa Venius. I'll be real quick. Two things I want to bring up to your attention. One is that this is limited to if you have five acres or less of a property, you cannot have a sawmill on there. I'm just bringing this scenario up to you, that if I would have a 4.9-acre property and there would be storm damage, trees would come down and I'd like to cut some, some lumber out of those trees, I would be prohibited doing that. So if you could perhaps think of some asking for, you know, apply for a permit to do that because as has been mentioned before, These are portable mills. You hook them up to your truck, and you can rent them. You take it to your property. They are not very long. I'm actually going to buy one myself for our property. So they are definitely portable. So you could rent one, take it and cut lumber over the weekend, and bring it back to the store. So I'm just asking if there's five acres. lot restriction and I'm thinking you know maybe have something included there in the language and that you could do it after a storm you have a tree fall down you could do that but but anyway that's the first one the second one is that the language intermixes AG and agricultural land when I was reading it And that's kind of confusing, because I'd like to have a definition. What is the difference between AG and agricultural land? Because it kind of keeps on flipping and flopping.

I think the intent is they mean the same, but that's a good point. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. So I'm looking back at the language, and I think I misinterpreted it at the beginning. This item 1 on page 1 says, a mobile or portable sawmill shall only be permitted on a property of not less than five acres. So it has to be more than five acres, five acres or more. Provided that on agricultural land, which we probably need to define, this minimum acreage standard shall apply only as a development standard and shall not be enforced to prevent the use of a mobile sawmill in a manner preempted by the code.

So to that, I mean, you can be AG with two acres, but this would ban everything. I think that's right.

That's the way I think I read it now. Would you agree, Ms. Jack?

Yes, and this is exactly what the state statute says.

OK. So really, it's five acres or more, but in agricultural, it doesn't have to be five acres.

Correct, if you're AG zoning.

And where did I get that you could only cut your own trees? And now I can't find it.

Well, that's further on. It is definitely a confusing.

On non-ag property, you can only cut your own trees.

OK, that's the next page, item four.

Well, can we put something in there for like R-80 for situations like that where you can do it for personal use? Well, I think that's where the special use permit comes in. Maybe we just ban commercial saw mills on residential.

So section E3 says you can come get a temporary use permit for up to six months. So I would say that that covers all other categories of land other than ag.

So if you're going to do it on a smaller than five acre lot, and it's not ag, then you need a special use permit, or you need a permit.

Well, I think the five-acre applies no matter what. Yeah. It has to be five no matter what the zoning is. Even if it's AG.

Well, when I look at the page before that, item one on the page before that one, I think I read it say it doesn't matter in ag.

I mean, would you all object to tabling this? Do we have more time to, we all feel good about it? No, I think we're going to. We keep tabling all these or we'll have a big agenda next time. So I don't fully understand it. I don't feel good about it as it is now.

What do we think it should be? What do you think it should be? Because if we're going to ask her to work on it, tell her what we need to do.

In this form, turn it down. But it ought to be OK on AG. I think it should be OK for personal use on R80.

Personal use means I build.

I mean, these mills are tiny. I think you're thinking these big. Or maybe we need to find a chainsaw level of saw. Well, they're not all chainsaws, but they're not big bandsaws. I mean, the blade on the bandsaw ones are this big around. I mean, with an Alaska saw, you can cut as long as you want because it's not limited. But most of your bandsaws are limited to, I don't know, 16, 20 feet. I mean, these are not big, running off a tractor diesel engine. These are...

If you're going to cut a tree down and it's on your property, you may want to cut it up into boards if you're going to make rough, if you've got a horse fence. Yeah. Rough cut lumber for, because I have it. That's what I have. Rough cut lumber.

And would you want that any, doesn't matter where, town lake, it's OK?

In a planted, I think it's ordered. There's something in there about it.

Well, I know. We were talking about opening this back up. revision. So where would we draw the line? What do you think?

Well, let's table it and think about it for a little bit. I mean, we've tabled other stuff before.

We're going to table it. I'm confident.

Mr. Chairman, I'll give you my input on that.

So I think we clarify what a portable sawmill is. To me, this does not cover the chain sawmill we're talking about. That should be allowed on your own property if you want to cut up one little tree. I don't see an issue with that at all. As Kai said, you hook it to your truck. It's portable. It's got a trailer hitch on it, right? This is a system. It's not just a chainsaw. So we need to better define what a portable sawmill is. But then as far as the ag, the property size, getting a permit, I think this is OK. Because you can still do it on other property. It's allowed. You just have to get a permit if you want to do it on anything other than ag. Because we add R-80, then someone comes in and says, well, I got R-60, and I got 10 acres. Why not me? So then you just keep adding. If we just blanket cover, OK, ag is fine. Everything else, just come get a permit if you want to use it. That's already there. So my thing would be clearly defined what a portable sawmill is, and this should be fine. Well, an Alaska mill is a portable sawmill. So I'm able to, that's the. I get that. I'm not arguing that, Will. I'm saying what this is defining, this ordinance is defining that machine. That's what we're trying to control.

But it's still not that big of a machine. So it's not that much bigger than Alaska.

Well, I mean. We could go round and round about it for an hour, an hour and a half, or two hours, whatever. Well, let's just table it. We are going to table it.

Well, then we'll table it and we all send our suggestions.

We're giving staff direction on what we want to revise. That's what we're doing here. Okay. Do you all need it tonight or can I get it to you this week?

Well, this is helpful, and anything else is helpful as well.

Well, if it's OK, I'd like to not send my input right now. If you want to do it, that's great. You can send it whenever you want. We're having a discussion.

That's what we're doing here. So again, I would define portable sawmill. The rest is fine to me. If you get input from others, that's fine. But again, I think the intent of this ordinance is not what everyone thinks it is right now. We're defining one thing, and we're trying to open it up to all these other items. That's not what it is. So anyway.

I feel like it does kind of limit some stuff.

Well, it does. It absolutely does limit. That's the point of it. And I think there are places where we probably want it limited. Maybe there are places where it's okay, and that's I think one of the things we need to pursue Because we're still officially in public here, and we do need to close it motion to close the public hearing We got another another input okay guys got to us just in time coming this be as brief as you can and We want to hear from Tell us your name, too

Allen Krebs.

I've been in the county for four years. Krebs? K-R-E-B? K-R-E-B-S. Thank you. And I have some acreage. And we did have trees that fell down. And they were walnut trees. And there's a fireman that works for Cherokee County that came out there and had a portable saw mill. He cut them up. We used them in building the house in mantles and planks and benches and things like that. What I see, I came from Fulton County. I don't know how many people here were in Fulton County, but You guys are very conservative. I appreciate that. I'm just letting you know this is nothing like Fulton County commissioner meetings, OK? I'm glad to see that people are looking at balanced ideas. I just wanted to mention that to you, OK? It's what I'm hearing from everyone here. And let me just say, too, when we come down to pull permits, these people are fantastic. I go get my tag paid. We are in shock at how we get in and out of here and get things done in Cherokee County. So I want to praise you all for that and for those people that do that. And we love it here in Cherokee County.

Thank you, sir. And just so we understand your situation, what's the size of the property that you live on?

Luckily, it seems like I have a little over five acres. I probably would have been in some kind of violence. I'm saying you'd be OK. But I don't know what my zoning is out there. I'm up in River Run on the river up that way. But these trees fell. And they were cut up, and we used them. So the whole ordinance, is it about noise? I don't understand what is the problem. I think it's mostly noise. OK, well, this gentleman brought up wood chippers are allowed. And I understand you don't want a commercial sawmill next to Joe Smith or my house. I get it. I think there has to be. And it seems like you guys use that wisdom here where you're saying, hey, let's use some kind of constraint here. But at the same token, you're looking at individual owners and understanding what our needs are. So I see that in what y'all are doing. It's a tough job that you have. You can't please everybody. It's like a condo. You're not going to win on everything.

Think I think is if I understand what we're proposing here correctly we wouldn't have prevented you doing what you're doing anyway Well, that's good. Both on two counts. One, it's your own trees. Yes. And two, you had more than five acres.

Right. But I was trying to understand why. I guess it was a noise issue. I can understand. I wouldn't want a commercial, you know, a guy setting up a – it's portable and mobile and he's coming over there and it's running, you know, seven days a week for whatever. That's – That's not what we're talking about here. That's not what I'm talking about.

Right.

Okay. And so, anyway, I appreciate you letting me speak, and we love it here in the county. And I moved from Cobb, and Cobb started like this, and it changed. I just hope that, you know, you guys continue to uphold and use conservative values and listen to people that live here, and we'll have a great county, you know, like it is now. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right. So I think we can, we got another? All right. Let's hear them all. Oh, yes. Mr. Grizzle. Okay. We got, I know you're signed up on another one. I saw your name, but yeah, the next one. When you finish here, you can have a seat at the front, because you're first up on the next one.

I think I got signed on the wrong one.

Oh, OK. William Rills of the Cherokee County Farm Bureau. Main thing we wanted, we didn't find out about these ordinances until after lunch, and I didn't even get to see anything on them until after 3 o'clock. What we're asking is that you postpone them and give us a chance to review them to make sure that you're not opening a can of worms that we don't want opened. because we want to maintain farming in the county, and sometimes some of these ordinances run people off. So I'm just asking if you will postpone this thing, give us a chance to review it. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

And for us to do that, we would have to pause the public hearing. If we're going to hear from the public, would we not?

Well, you could close the public hearing. I think we've heard enough from the public hearing. Anyone else?

I think we can close the public hearing now. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Carter to close this hearing.

Second.

Second by Commissioner Cagle. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously, and the public hearing is closed.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we postpone action on this until the first meeting in November, which would be, I believe, November the 3rd.

Okay. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to postpone action on this item until the first regular BOC meeting in November. Is there a second to that motion? Got a second by Commissioner Weatherby.

We have a question, Mr. Chairman.

Yes. Mr. Chairman, I apologize. So because this is portable sawmills and the livestock, these are together, I want to make sure we're postponing the whole thing.

The whole thing. I intended ill it being the whole thing. I just wanted to be clear. It was one action item.

I think, is that how we all understood it? Yes.

I think so.

OK. So we have the motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK. So the vote is 5-0 in favor of postponement to the first meeting in November. And I think we've got some updates that we've given Ms. Jack and some more coming. All right. Thank you. So that brings us to our fifth public hearing. This is to the administration aspects of the zoning ordinance. So we need to open this hearing. Motion to open the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Carter to open the hearing defined in item 8.5. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Ragsdale. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open. This is Ms. Jack's last item of the night, your swan song. And this one, you'll describe to us what you're proposing.

Thank you, Chairman and Commissioners. This is a proposed revision to Zoning Ordinance Article 14, Administration 14.1. We would like to add a section allowing the zoning administrator to appoint a senior code compliance officer and one or more additional code compliance officers to assist in the administration and enforcement of the zoning ordinance. The person shall serve under the direction and supervision of the zoning administrator and have the enforcement authority that we have set forth in section 14.10 of this article, and that is a new section. And section 14.10 would allow the zoning administrator, the senior code compliance officer, other code compliance officers of the county, and Cherokee County animal control officers But as to the control officer, animal control officer, they could only write and enforce citation, not enforce, but issue citations related to section 7.24d, which is a part of what we just tabled regarding animal production. So this ordinance would allow Margaret to allow Margaret to appoint Beau, who is our current compliance officer, and the animal control officers in limited authority to issue citations for zoning violations. Currently, Bo would go out on a zoning violation call, assess the situation, and then have to coordinate with a marshal to have the marshal come out and then issue the citation. This does not give any arrest authority to anyone as an administrator, compliance officer, or animal control officer. The only authority it would give them is to issue the ticket. The person would then have to, if they were issued a ticket, the fine would be enforced by the magistrate court. There is no arrest power at all under this provision. It is merely to have the ability to write the citation. And the marshal is here. The marshal is here and was wanting to speak as well as to how this helps her group facilitate and coordinate their jobs as well. Thank you, Marshall.

Absolutely. Thank you. I just want to reiterate what she said. We've worked closely together in this. And Bo helps us on a daily basis. We help each other. This does nothing but multiply the abilities of our department. He goes out and gives people chance after chance after chance. And then he gets to a point where a citation needs to be issued. He calls one of our marshals. Then we have to coordinate to get out there If we're tied up, then we've got to arrange with that person to go back out there again and write the citation when Bo could just take care of it right then. I know it's not exactly the same, but you may be familiar in cities that the code compliance officer does this in all the cities. So it's really just formality that we're asking for to help us be bigger and more efficient, really, in our operations. But if you have any questions about it, just let us know. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Lloyd. So we're ready to hear from the public on this one. And Mr. Grizzle, did I hear you say you actually don't wish to speak on this one? OK. Ms. Cox.

Can you hear me? Is that good? Keep it down.

There you go.

Is that good? Okay. I was joking that all emphasis is going to be on arrest powers for Margaret, but not really. They best explained it. And it has been kind of frustrating over the years. And even recently, nobody enforces anything. I mean, she said it right. Bo goes out there again and again and again. And the county gives the impression we want compliance. But yet nothing gets done. And the people who are being harmed by it, we still absorb the negative impact. And then the guy who's supposed to be compliant can apply. It takes forever. So they may be on to something with this. But what I noticed, first of all, I want to ask you, did you all get an email from my neighbor, John Lally? You did? OK. Good. Good. OK. One thing he noticed and many of us have noticed about this permitting procedure, I know this is a hearing about quote-unquote police powers or about enforcement, but it opens the whole ordinance to scrutiny. And I'd like to see also, by the way, before I forget, there's a typo in this. There's LOP and LDP. So it's all LDP, right? Land Disturbance Permit. I think so. And also at 14.7, talks about Board of Appeals, only an appeal from such an official. Is that meaning zoning Board of Appeals? Go to 14.7. Just like I want Brantley to get his proper title so you know who's This is on 14.7. It says the Board of Appeals. They're talking about the Zoning Board of Appeals, correct? We want to add that. Let's go into this EBA, because there's no other board of appeals, correct? Right.

OK. Well, there are a few boards of appeals. Impact fee, board of appeals.

I asked, and I was told, well, it's a zoning board, so we need to.

I mean, that's existing language, though. Pardon? That's existing language in the ordinance. It's not.

Well, we might want to make it zoning board of appeals. Anyway, I noticed here about the permit procedure, and we actually have cases of staff telling applicants that if they get an expired permit, and some of it's like an expired septic permit. That's not as bad as you think. I mean, you pay money, you have the soil sampled, you see if it perks, and you get a building permit comes from that, can come from it. And it's kind of... dicey this transfer of documents. People ought to get their own documents, not borrow from someone else. I understand if I bought a project and it was getting, I bought the project and I'm about to finish up that subdivision, you could transfer everything to my name. But people are abusing this as far as expired septic permits, expired building permits. That needs some scrutiny. And you did receive that from John Lally. And then I have here for Article 14, I can give this to Christy and she can distribute it to you, about the building permit will be issued on the approved septic permit. And this required information, there's these nebulous comments like, Well, you can get this transferred with the required information. Well, what is it?

Thank you, Ms. Cox. John Bennett, you'd sign up on this one. Did you? Is John here? He's left. Yes, he did not want to speak on this one. And Thomas Weaver.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing me to speak. I understand and appreciate the fact that you have the statutory authority to do this. And based on what your Chief Marshal said, it would help her and her team. My initial thought was whether or not it really and truly should be a post-certified peace officer writing the citations. But again, because the legislature leaves that as a discretionary function and decision to yourselves, I'll agree with whatever sentiment you choose on that. But one thing that crossed my mind is, what would that citation look like? Because my first thought was the same traffic citation, accusation, and summons form, the DDS 32. that's used during traffic stops. And then I thought to myself, well, no, those couldn't be used. It would have to be a different form. So I don't know if the county would create its own form or if there was a form that was already in existence that I was not aware of. It was just a thought that passed my mind. But it's just something that I was thinking about while I was sitting there contemplating as you were speaking about the issue.

I would imagine that in this case, the code enforcement officer would use a similar form as the marshal who would have written the same citation.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. And if they already had a citation form that they already use, I'm sure they do. I just didn't know if it would be the same form or a different form in-house.

Reasonable question. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on this topic? All right. We can close this here. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Carter to close this hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. OK. This one is before us for action. Do we feel like we can move forward to this one? Somebody willing to take this one forward?

Well, I expressed my concerns at the work session. I think those were cleared up. And thank you for clarifying, Dana, on that. So with that, I would make a motion that we approve the updates to Article 14 out of 8.5. All right.

We have a motion by Commissioner Ragsdale for approval of this change as presented. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. Discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously, and the updates to Article 14, Administration, are approved. All right, that brings us to a new set of hearings, or another one anyway. This one is on the extension of the existing short-term moratorium for apartments and multifamily rental projects. Mr. Day will describe this for us. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

We need to. We've got a public hearing, don't we?

Let me make a motion to open a public hearing.

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Carter, second by Commissioner Ragsdale to open the hearing. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open.

Thank you, Mr. Day. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. Back on August 18th, you approved a 30-day moratorium pausing applications for apartments and multifamily in the two zones we have that include that use, RM-10 and RM-16. And before you tonight is a 180-day moratorium to extend that moratorium. to March 14th to continue it in an effort to allow staff to research and study multifamily and the multifamily and apartment use, and then determine if any amendments to the zoning code should be recommended by staff. And so at this time, we would ask, obviously receiving comment tonight on the public hearing, being allowed to continue this moratorium, 180 days, to allow staff to be able to continue to review and study the issue and come back to you with recommendations. Thank you.

All right. No one has signed up. Well, yeah, we do have one signed up to speak, Mr. Savinias, Kai Savinias.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be really quick. So two words came to my mind when I heard about this. The first one is absolutely, and then the other one is definitely. We have boundary agreements with cities, and I think apartments belong in the cities. any kind of moratorium on the county side, I am looking very positively on that. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Anyone else wish to speak on this? If not, we can close this hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Cagle. Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby to close the hearing on the extension of this moratorium. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed, and the item is for us for action.

Mr. Chairman, these folks are working hard to gather data that I had requested, and really just starting to get their feet wet and getting their direction. So I'm going to make a motion that we extend the moratorium for 180 days.

DAVID BURRAGE, Motion by Commissioner Weatherby to extend the moratorium for the 180 days. Second. DAVID BURRAGE, Second by Commissioner Cagle. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. DAVID BURRAGE, Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and the apartment and multifamily rental moratorium is extended for an additional 180 days. All right, that brings us to the first of a long series of hearings that all involve the de-annexation of certain parcels.

Mr. Chairman, we have one more, 8.7.

This one? Well, this one really relates to that, too. So it's kind of in that category. This one is unique from the others. But they all relate to parcels that have been de-annexed from Holly Springs and are anticipated to come back into unincorporated Cherokee. The first one involves a required update to the alcoholic beverages ordinance in order to accommodate an alcoholic package store that is in the city of Holly Springs on a parcel that's being de-annexed. That's the item in 8.7. Is there a motion to open that hearing?

Motion to open public hearing.

Motion by Commissioner Cagle.

Second.

Second by Commissioner Weatherby to open the hearing. All in favor of opening that hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. Mr. Day, tell us what you have in mind there.

Yes, sir. So there is currently a package store located at 6115 Hickory Flat Highway in the city of Holly Springs, licensed by the city of Holly Springs, known as Hickory Liquor and Wine Company. It is on, at that location, that property will transfer to Cherokee County on January 1st by way of House Bill 1029 that was adopted by the General Assembly during this past session in 2026. And as you mentioned, more cases to come related to that bill. So proposed is an amendment to the Cherokee County Alcohol Code, specifically addressing 6-83. of the alcoholic beverage code to allow an additional store in the Hickory Flat distilled spirits district. And so this store would be inherited by Cherokee County. We would be able to go ahead and start working with the owner to be licensed. That way, that January 1, they would be able to kind of roll into that new license and not have a gap in their licensing. And essentially, we currently do not have a package or distilled spirits retail dealer in Hickory Flat in that district. We would inherit this one, but this also leaves open the possibility that you could approve another package store in that district. in the future if you open the district back up. If you recall, in the alcohol code, we said that only one package store was allowed per district. So with us inheriting this store on January 1, we needed to reconcile the ability for an additional store to be approved in the future if you chose to do that. And under the county manager's portion, Jeff mentioned it earlier, He's got item 12.8. And the reason for that resolution to adopt the revised administrative policy related to distilled spirits is because, if you recall, when we initiated the process several years ago, we included the lottery. We included a process for applying. So we had to reconcile that process to allow our staff to be able to license this new store and then leave open the possibility that you could always come back and open a Hickory Flat district again if you wanted to entertain. I guess, a traditional unincorporated store in that district, if that makes sense. So because of the bill and inheriting the store, we needed to go ahead and do this and wanted to provide great customer service to this owner, go ahead and have our staff work with him, get his license squared away with the Georgia Department of Revenue, and have him ready to go on January 1st.

All right. So we don't have anyone signed up to speak on this. Does anyone wish to speak about it? The gist of it is that we anticipated having only one unincorporated packaged store in this area, but we knew that we were going to have that in addition to this one city store in the area. We don't want to put them out of business, but we do want to leave open the possibility of the second store. So that takes a change to allow the licensing of both of them now. We didn't anticipate inheriting this store. Anyone wish to speak on it? All right. We can close this hearing.

Motion to close the public hearing.

Motion by Commissioner Weatherby to close this hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Cagle. All in favor of the motion to close the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and public hearing is closed. We have the draft before us on our screens, so it's ready for action.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion. We approve 8.7 related to the alcohol beverage, distilled spirits, retail districts.

Motion by Commissioner Carter to approve this item 8.7, which is the amendment to this chapter 6, alcoholic beverages. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and this amendment to the alcoholic beverage ordinance is approved. So that brings us to the one that is a series of very similar handling individual parcels as they come back into the county's unincorporated area. We have to assign them zoning. And perhaps in some cases, there are other complications. But we're going to take these one at a time. These are neighborhoods or groups of parcels that are similarly zoned. And we're going to try to bring them back in and determine what zoning should apply to them as they come back into the county. We have to do that because if it comes back without that, then they're unzoned, which really means anything can be built on it. So a residential area could apply for a commercial permit, and we really wouldn't have a basis to say no. So first one involves Park Terrace subdivision. It is a public hearing. Is there a motion to open that hearing?

A motion to open the public hearing.

Motion by Commissioner Cagle to open the public hearing on the Park Terrace case 8.8. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Carter. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Ms. Stallings, zoning administrator and planning and zoning director, will take us through what she proposes for this.

So I'm going to do the first three, and then Catherine's going to take over the last three. But this process that we're going through is really, we're preloading it so that it'll have zoning. The zoning is going to be effective that January 1. I just want to make that clear that it's not happening tonight, since we don't actually have the property in our jurisdiction at this time. So this Park Terrace subdivision was annexed in July of 2020. Some people know it as the Nesbitt property. It's right near the Sixes Road interchange. There's a racetrack here that's staying in the city. And it's this turquoise boundary area just on the north side of Sixes Road. So this is kind of a location map. You can kind of see what's around it. What you see in gray is in the city. And then you've got some areas that are within the growth boundary in the purple. And then the areas that you just see in aerial photo, those are unincorporated areas. Nothing's changing. So here's a little closer view. It's a pretty dense neighborhood with one entrance. It has some R40 and some R20 around it. This is what it looked like when we produced the annexation report back in 2020. It was originally R40. And this is what the plat looks like. You can see a stream on the eastern side of the property that goes under Sixes Road and continues across the street. So here's kind of a summary. We're proposing to rezone that property to our T&D zoning district and using the neighborhood general zone. And that's kind of the best fit that we could find for the existing parameters that are on that property. The NG allows the maximum density of five units per acre. This subdivision has a four unit per acre density on it. Our intent is really to package the zoning with the plat that's already been recorded and anything that's on that plat already becomes part of the zoning. It's almost like having a master plan with the zoning and everything is confined to what's already on that plat. That was the simplest way that we could find to incorporate any variances or kind of nuances of each of these residential neighborhoods. Do you have any questions?

Can't think of any. Is that what you have for us on this one?

That's what I have. I'm trying to keep it super simple.

Thank you for that. So yeah, this is one that would likely not have been zoned in unincorporated counties. This board would probably have turned this zoning down. Nonetheless, it's there. The homes are there. People own them. They live in them. We have to play the hand that we are now dealt. The legislature has seen fit to shift this property back into unincorporated Cherokee County. And we really just have to accommodate it as is.

We can't make it go away. We really don't want the people to go away.

They're good people, I'm sure. So we just try to have to treat them as carefully as we can. So you're proposing that we would rezone it as it comes back in using the neighborhood general designation of the TND zoning?

That's correct. That's the closest fit in terms of lot size, setbacks, all that kind of thing.

Any other discussion, thoughts, questions, or is there a motion? Is it a public hearing? It's a public hearing. Oh, we've got a public hearing. Yeah, nobody signed up, so I'm not thinking of it. So we really should have already opened that. Did we not do that? Nope. We opened it. We opened it. OK, we did. Sorry, I didn't. I should have asked, even though nobody had signed up. Does anyone wish to speak about it? OK, good. Thank you. We don't. Motion to close public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to close the public hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Carter. All in favor of closing the public hearing, please say aye. Aye. That motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed. So now we are open for a motion on this or further discussion or questions.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we accept this de-annexation and rezoning as presented.

Motion by Commissioner Carter to accept the rezoning as recommended and presented by Ms. Stallings. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. Any discussion now? All in favor of that motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and the rezoning of this property to TND neighborhood general is approved when it comes back into Cherokee County, effective January 1, 2027. Yes.

Thank you.

So that brings us to 8.9, another similar case, this one involving Woodhaven Court.

Motion to open the public hearing.

Motion by Commissioner Cagle to open this public hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of opening the public hearing, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open.

So this case is actually a little bit farther back, because this was part of some of the 2007 annexations that Holly Springs did. This is a subdivision that is accessed off of Hickory Road. Yes. And it also has frontage on East Cherokee. We're proposing to rezone the whole subdivision, 30 acres, to RZL. Because that's a little bit better fit for this particular neighborhood. So here's kind of the vicinity map for that. Like I said, it's right across the street from the library on Hickory Road. But it's kind of an L shape and kind of backs up to East Cherokee. Here's a closer view. My understanding, it was an age-targeted neighborhood. I don't know that it has an age restriction on it. But this is kind of their layout for the subdivision. This is what the surrounding zoning looks like. You'll notice that there is some RZL here that's part of the original Orchards group neighborhood. But there's also some RA, which is residential attached, where the quads are, as well as across the street, there's some RA. And there's really kind of a wide variety of development in this area. But there is generally similar development Yes, it is very similar to that back section of the orchards at East Cherokee I think that's the official name of that subdivision the first orchards that we had in this area We have a recorded plat for that as well and We really don't have anything special to feature about this one. It fits within that RZL zoning district. And as I mentioned before, we'll be incorporating the recorded plat with the resolution so that whatever is in the recorded plat as well governs any future development of the property. We want to make sure that these property owners can pull permits and improve their homes right off the bat so that they're not stuck in limbo or considered non-conforming or something crazy like that.

All right. No one signed up to speak for this one. Does anyone wish to? If not, we can close this hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to close the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed. We have a recommendation from Ms. Stallings that we bring it in as RZL with the same conditions listed on the plat for Woodhaven subdivision, as will be the case on all of them.

Mr. Chairman, I recommend that we accept the de-anxiation and that we rezone that to RZL and adopt the same conditions and restrictions. Excuse me. We're listed on the platform, the Woodhaven subdivision.

Motion by Commissioner Weatherby to rezone the property as RZL with the conditions existing for it when it comes back in effective January 1st of 27. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Carter. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. We will rezone that for RZL with conditions as it comes back into the county. Next one is our item 8.10, Charlotte's Ridge.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to open the public hearing on 8.10.

Motion by Commissioner Cagle to open this hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Carter. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open.

All right. This one is a much smaller piece of property. When it was annexed, it wasn't the whole thing. And you'll see in a minute, it's kind of an island off of Marble Quarry Road, very close to their downtown area. And we're recommending rezoning this to T&D. Let me double check. I thought we did it for neighborhood general as well. So here's the map of that area. We're not going to get all of it back. We're going to get part of it. which is just kind of the way this House bill has come about and what the impacts are going to be. So we've highlighted everything, but when we get to the lines, I don't know if we've got a map in here that shows it, but it cuts through buildings. It cuts through parcels. It's kind of interesting. I think we're going to wind up with about half of these homes in our jurisdiction and two and a half of these lots that are out on Marble Quarry Road.

I think two more slides that shows that.

Yeah, so this is what the map looked like in 2019 when this annexation was going on. These pieces were all one parcel, but only the colored portions were actually annexed. Now, the city has subsequently found a resolution that annexed the whole thing much earlier in the 60s, but that was not ever in the DCA's database for the map that was used to make the one that goes with the House bill. So we're kind of stuck. And the areas that you see colored are the ones that we would get back. So I was wrong. It's actually the western side of the horseshoe that we're going to be getting back, and then a couple parts of these lots down here.

And from looking at the map on your slide, too, it looks like this will create an unincorporated island surrounded by a city of Hollywood.

Right. I mean, we were ecstatic that they were filling in this island, and now it's coming back to us.

We're in discussions with Holly Springs on a number of things, a new enforceable and agreeable growth boundary being one, but another being perhaps agreement with them on recommending corrective re-annexation of some of these parcels that don't really make sense to be de-annexed. This would be a prime candidate for that. Nonetheless, that can't happen until well after January 1st, even if we can find a path to do that. Correct. So we've still got to rezone it, so it'll have some zoning when it comes out of Holly Springs, which it will on January 1st. So there we are. We don't have anyone signed up to speak on this one. Anybody wish to? Seeing none, we can close this hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to close the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Carter. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed, and this item is open for action.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a recommendation that we accept this de-annexation and rezone it as presented to T&D.

Motion by Commissioner Carter to rezone this as TND, and I presume that would be TND neighborhood general with the conditions.

This one says neighborhood center, so that's kind of different from what I was thinking.

Okay, neighborhood center.

Yes, general.

That must have been an updated.

Ours says general.

Oh, really?

Just to clarify.

Catherine, do you know which one we were going for on this one? It might have been center because there were some very narrow lots that we were really concerned about in the horseshoe part. But we could certainly make sure that it's limited in the density.

Center is higher density?

Center is higher density. I believe it's eight. So it's outside of the Bells Ferry, so there's actually lower densities.

Yeah.

Do you know what general is?

General is five. I want to say it's three, five, and eight between the three zones.

Do you have the ad in the packet to know how you advertised it?

Neighborhood? We did advertise it as neighborhood center. I apologize for the confusion.

I'll modify my motion to rezone this to T and D, N, C.

So TND neighborhood center with the conditions.

With conditions, yes.

So that's amendment to the motion by Commissioner Carter. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second now, Commissioner Weatherby. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. So this one, that motion carries unanimously, and it will come back in as TND neighborhood center. Did that always say? Yes. Neighborhood center. Neighborhood center with conditions per the plat. All right. Thank you. That brings us to item 8.11.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to open the public hearing on 8.11.

Motion by Commissioner Cagle to open this hearing.

Second.

Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and this hearing is open. This is for the neighborhood known as Crestbrook. I remember this is a pretty large neighborhood.

Yes, this is a quite large neighborhood known as Crestbrook. It's 50.70 acres. Again, this is the city of Holly Springs has this zoned as PDR, the planned development residential, and we are recommending county RZL. Here's the vicinity of the Crestbrook subdivision. It was actually annexed into the city of Holly Springs in 2007 and rezoned to PDR. It was formerly AG, GC, R20, and OI to build this neighborhood. It was completed and platted in 2020. The neighborhood contains 161 lots with 154 homes with a density of 3.04. Here's a close-up version. The surrounding zoning. And then here's the plat. So we are recommending it be rezoned to RZL. when he comes in on January 1st of 2027. All right.

Anyone wish to speak on this one? Seeing none, we can close the hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to close the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of closing the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed. So we can act on this one with the recommendation from staff to make it RZL with the conditions per the plat.

Yes, Chairman. I make a motion to reason on this to RZL and adopting the same conditions and restrictions as listed on the plat for Crestbrook.

All right. A motion by Commissioner Weatherby, RZL with conditions. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Carter. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. And this neighborhood will come back in at RZL with conditions per the plan. That brings us to 8.12, Hickory Road Residential.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to open the public hearing on 8.12.

Motion by Commissioner Cagle to open this hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of opening the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open. Ms. Long, what do you propose for this one?

All right, so this includes several residential properties. It's a total of 10.49 acres, and these were annexed into Holly Springs in 2021. Three of the homes located were built prior to the annexation, while the others were built between 2023 and 2025. So here are the parcels that we're reviewing. Here's the plat. And we are recommending rezoning these from R40, single family residential for the city of Holly Springs, to R40. All right.

Anyone wish to speak on this one? Seeing none, we can close the hearing. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to close the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. All in favor of the motion to close the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and the public hearing is closed.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we rezone that to R40 for county zoning.

don't see the usual comment about conditions per the plat. Maybe those don't apply in this case.

There's not any, but if there are any, I would recommend that we adhere to any conditions.

So maybe we'll call that a motion to bring it in as zoned R40 with any conditions that may exist per the plat. That exists, yeah. OK. So that's a motion by Commissioner Weatherby. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Ragsdale. Any discussion now? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and this property will come back in as R-40 with any conditions that may exist for the plot. That brings us to 813. This one is identified as 423 Holly Lane. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to open the public hearing on 8.13. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to open this hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Ragsdale. All in favor of the motion to open the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is open.

This parcel is 423 Holly Lane. It is 0.48 acres. It's this parcel right here. So this parcel was originally annexed into Holly Springs in the mid-1980s along with the Indian Springs subdivision. So close up there. This is the annexation map showing what was annexed at that time, back in the 1980s. The parcel currently has an easement and road running through its middle, accessing parcels east of Holly Lane. It has not been giving a zoning designation, according to what staff was able to locate. We think the annexation was between 1981 and 1986.

So it really doesn't even have a home on it?

It looks like we're going to rezone it from, it was finally zoned R20, the city of Holly Springs. So we are proposing R15.

Too small to be R20, I guess.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Well. It doesn't look like it has a home on it. OK.

OK, anyone wish to speak about this one? Was that a yes? Oh, you're just saying hello. OK. OK, if no one wishes to speak, we can close this hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Cagle to close the hearing. Second. Second by Commissioner Carter. All in favor of the motion to close the hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. The public hearing is closed. So you're proposing R-15 for this?

Yes. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion. We accept this de-annexation and rezone this property to an R-15 county zoning.

Motion by Commissioner Carter to rezone it as R15. Are we aware of any conditions that should apply? Maybe that's not necessary in this case. So motion for R15 by Commissioner Carter. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Weatherby. Any discussion on that motion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The motion carries unanimously, and this property will be rezoned as R15 when it comes back into the county effective first of the year. All right, so that finishes the first six. We've got a few hundred more. Twenty-five in total, the way you've grouped them together. So that's a fourth of the way done. All right, not bad. Okay, so that brings us to the county manager's portion of the agenda, right? Public comment. Yes, we do have public comment. We do have some people to speak. Aubrey Johnson. Sorry you've had to wait so long.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Aubrey Johnson, and I am 19 years old and born and raised Cherokee County resident. I was even born at the old Cherokee hospital before the new one was built. So I'm not new around here. But I am here tonight to speak about a zoning issue affecting my farm stand and several others who received notices. I graduated high school early, and I've always believed in working hard, going the extra mile, and creating opportunities for myself. My stand, the homemade stand, grew from my love of baking. Everything I personally sell is produced by me, and I take pride and time and care in the hard work that goes into it. I want to begin by saying I'm not here to blame or attack anyone who works for Cherokee County. When I first started, when I first shared what was happening on my social medias, many people were understandably upset. However, I recognize that the county has rules, and those rules exist for a reason. I want to cooperate and do things the right way. I'm simply asking whether some of those rules could be reconsidered or updated to better fit small stands like mine. Although this began with a notice involving my stand, I do not want tonight to be all about me. Other local produce stands, bake stands, and small honor system stands are facing the same difficulties. Some are in neighborhoods while others are not. We are all very different, but many of us are simply local people trying to use our talents to serve our community. I understand that the difficult question is where to draw the line, and I agree that there should be a line. However, that line can still fall within the county's rules without treating a small stand like a large retail store. Many local stands already have a pull-through driveway or designated areas where customers can park safely without blocking the road or interfering with neighboring properties. The products we personally sell are made, baked, or grown by us, not shipped in by outside suppliers for resale. These stands do not have delivery trucks, employees' working shifts, or the amount of daily traffic created by a traditional retail business. I believe requirements addressing safe parking and actual impact on surrounding properties would create a fair distinction while still allowing small stands to operate responsibly. Cherokee County already recognizes that certain small accessory structures have a different impact than larger buildings. For example, detached accessory storage structures under 200 square foot generally do not require a building permit. although zoning requirements still apply. I understand that operating a stand involves separate considerations, but I believe that this shows that the county can create reasonable distinctions based on a structure's size, use, and local impact. I am asking for the same kind of reasonable distinction to be considered for a small honor system stand like mine. The homemade stand is not my full-time job, and I did not begin expecting it to become one. I started as a side hobby, and I continue it because baking is something I genuinely love. I have never wanted this effort to be selfish or competitive. I support other stands, shop with them when I can, and give them shout-outs to encourage others to support them too. My stand has also given me opportunities to give back. I've donated baked goods to local fire stations, helped homeless ministries and food banks, and supported people and causes throughout our community. This stand may have my name on it, but its impact reaches far beyond me. Some of the people sitting behind me, along with many residents who have written letters and offered their support, show that these stands mean something to Cherokee County. They create connections, encourage hard work, support local families, and preserve the neighbor-to-neighbor spirit that makes this county feel like home. I respectfully ask you to work with us to create reasonable exemptions, updated zoning regulations, or another clear path that allows small stands to continue operating responsibly. We are not asking for no rules. We are asking for rules that recognize the difference between a small community stand and a large commercial business. I love Cherokee County. This is my home, and I want to continue contributing to it in a positive way. I hope we can work together to protect these small businesses while still respecting the county's responsibility to keep our community safe. I have also gathered a folder full of letters from members of our community, and I would like to be able to hand those over to you for your consideration. Thank you for your time and for hearing not only my voice, but the voices of the community members who support these stands.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson. So we have another speaker on this subject. And then I would like to pause and just have a very brief discussion as to what, if anything, we can do to be responsive. I admit, I got some inquiries about this. I started trying to answer. I realized I was getting a little out of my depth. So I thank you for bringing this to us. So you have something to give us, you're saying?

I did. I collected some letters from the county, or the community, so all over the county.

You want to just bring them to us here? Yeah. Thank you. Just stand with me.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. And we will look at them. Thank you. So we have another speaker on this subject, Allie Hammonds.

I'm also going to read so I get out all my thoughts on one page. My name is Allison Hammonds, and I'm a fifth-generation Cherokee County resident. I currently live in Hickory Flat on a portion of my grandfather's old chicken farm. I'm a stay-at-home mom who homeschools three elementary-age kids who open the farms and the intent of teaching my children about running a business, managing money, and most importantly, how to be a good neighbor. I along with other farm stand owners in Cherokee County are asking that you consider rewriting the rules regarding farm stands in our county. The blanket rule of agriculture only seems to be outdated and leaves lack of opportunity for others who have ample space for parking, would not impede traffic, and have a safe and secure location for their farm stands. Many of us are able to meet these requirements with properties that are less than two acres and may be zoned residential. What I'm proposing is a shift from a flat agricultural only rule to a small home-based business model that allows farm stand owners to apply for a permit to operate based on their individual property and location. The size of a property alone does not determine how much traffic a business may create, how large the stand is, what hours it operates, or what products are being sold. Those are things that should be regulated. Our farm stands are not commercial retail stores, grocery stores, or large agricultural operations. They are small businesses operated by families, many of us who have watched this county grow and change for decades. We are mom and dads trying to teach our children how to be entrepreneurs as well as good neighbors. Products we bake fall under Georgia cottage food laws. Produce we grow in our backyard gardens and eggs from chickens that we raise. The farm stand model simply gives us a convenient way to share the fruits of our labors with our neighbors and communities and keep our dollars right here in Cherokee County. This is the kind of small scale entrepreneurship that builds community. The people that I have met over the last few weeks, the support we have gained on social media, and the neighbors we have heard from wanting to know how they can make a change is something I cannot ignore. I'm not asking for unlimited commercial activity in residential areas. I'm asking for a reasonable pathway for low-impact home-based businesses. I am proposing we regulate the impact of these businesses without prohibiting the business simply because the property does not meet a one-size-does-not-fit-all acreage requirement.

Thank you, Ms. Hammonds.

Thank you.

Unless the board objects, I'd like to put Ms. Stalling's on the spot here. And just help us understand. I know you're just talking off the top of your head now. Would these kind of businesses fit as home-based occupations? Or is there a way to accommodate them? Where are we on something like a farm stand? What is the rule?

Well, our ordinances, they have provisions for larger scale farm stands in a G. We don't have provisions for them in our residential zoning districts. And the other stumbling block that we've hit with these is that... home occupation business license, they're not supposed to have any products on display. And people coming to their property are supposed to be coming by appointment only. Those are kind of the challenges we've been trying to figure out a strategy to how to accommodate these. We may need to look at some of our other types of business licenses for what we call itinerant merchants. So those are the people that are set up in food trucks, at gas stations. We need to kind of combine a few different things, I think, to address this issue.

And they're talking about selling food products. That could run into some environmental health questions, I guess.

So there's been a kind of a change in state law concerning cottage foods. And most of what they've been talking about, the baked goods, there's some jams and jellies that fit in that category. Those are considered cottage foods. And the state has basically deregulated that. And so they're able to leave them alone.

Yes, as long as they meet all the requirements. I mean, if the board had the appetite, just create a homestead ordinance on anything like R40 and up.

Perhaps. We could probably do it within the home-based business occupations, it seems like. Just create a carve out there.

Yeah, we kind of need some direction on kind of what parameters we're thinking about. You know, is there a size that we need to aim to kind of max out at? You know, is there some arrangement?

I was thinking it was 100 square feet. That didn't require it. Is that up to... a building no more than 200 square feet to trigger a building permit?

Yes. So it used to be 120 square feet was the starting point for building permits. And then the building code changed, and it became 200 square feet. And we've changed our ordinance to mirror that.

You're not going to want to have a building code conforming structure in most cases. These stands are small.

Usually, you're not even able to step into it. So it's not really, it's more of a display.

These stands are small, and I think they're great. They teach kids commerce.

And there's actually also a state law that exempts ones that are operated by children. Anybody who is up to graduating high school, it's a lemonade stand law. But that also leaves everybody else out. So it's kind of a complicated mess.

You've got chickens. I mean, somebody's got free, I don't want to say free range chickens, but chickens run around their yard and stuff, and they gather the eggs, sell the eggs, bake goods, and whatever, vegetables, tomatoes.

Yeah, produce has always been exempt. So produce itself, the state law exempts anybody selling just produce from needing a business license.

Just produce that they've produced, you mean? Correct. You can sell your own farm produce. Yeah.

With no regulations.

And that's what these folks are doing. Well, if they're doing that, they're OK. But some of them. The baked goods, do they count? I don't think they count as produce.

We wouldn't consider that.

And in some cases, they're bringing in. They're buying a bushel of corn and selling bags of corn.

They may. They may be bringing in a small amount.

It's not stuff they produce.

I mean, I think we want to find a way to accommodate.

I'm just asking for the best way.

We don't consider baked goods right now, but could we consider them? You didn't say that they've been exempted, right? The health department's exempted those.

The Department of Ag has exempted them from all their regulations.

And that's about the health inspectors that inspect restaurants. They would leave them alone. We've got some other people. We'll let you talk in a minute.

And just to let you know, we've already started working on this, but this is a good opportunity to get citizen input and feedback from you as well.

What's the appetite about having to have a business license? Would we think you have to have a business license? I wouldn't. We think the rule, as it stands, you'd need a business license, wouldn't you?

Yeah, any time you're having a transaction on your property that's part of a business, you need a business license.

So there's a question, would we waive that? And if so, at what level? How would you define a business license?

Whether we carve out something in home occupations or whether it's a separate animal, that's something we need to figure out.

And what's the resisting on getting a business license?

It's $30. Business license is $30.

That's pretty easy to get if that's a major stumbling block.

I think that the issue with the, because I was at BiFacto compliance, that we could apply for a home occupations certificate, but the farm premium would have to be A, in our garage, which my husband's not going to let any of us in the garage, or we could put it on our front porch. But I don't really, like mine is mobile, it's on wheels, and when code compliance, when I talked with him about it, he didn't even know I had FarmSan, he was out of sight. So it's not about applying for the money, it's more so the home occupation certificate says it has to be part of the home. So it's really just a technicality of where the FarmSan sits on the property versus whether or not it's allowed. But I do think that the county regulation also says

But that's in the AG exception for produce stands, the larger produce stands.

Well, could we just extend the AG exemption down to R-40? Would that be the easiest thing to do?

That's another option. So we have a lot of options.

And then I thought we'd amended the home-based occupation to allow it in an outbuilding.

Yeah, you can have an accessory structure. But most of these, they're mobile situations. I've seen people with just card tables under a canopy that are portable.

Yeah, and an accessory structure is going to be behind the house.

Yeah, it's going to have to be at least in line with the facade. Oh, yeah.

These would need to be out front.

Okay, so those are some. Okay. We've heard a lot. Let's fish for some ideas to make this work.

We've also started looking at surrounding jurisdictions and how they handle this use. Thank you. Thank you for that.

All right. I'm sorry to put you off, but we've got one other person signed up, and then we'll come back to you. This may be a different subject, so the flow might get broken. Cindy Jaffe.

Do you want to go first, since it's on the same subject?

If that's OK with you. Yes, sir. Well, you come first, and then we'll come back to Cindy. And tell us your name, please.

I'm Rob Miller with TreeFoil Gardens in Woodstock, Georgia. Rob Miller. Rob Miller with TreeFoil Gardens in Woodstock, Georgia. We are in an R20 subdivision, and I'm growing enough food in a cooperative sense with my neighbors that we're growing enough food there to feed all 43 homes in my neighborhood, proteins included. My neighbors don't partake in that most of them the ones that are letting me put gardens in their yard They get food every week. They're they're all about it. But most of the other folks aren't really concerned with it I take my food to the farmers market to the Woodstock farmers market and that's where I make a living doing this at the farmers market The produce is exempt, like you guys said. And then there's a whole host of cottage foods that are allowed there. I would recommend, as you guys consider how you're going to manage this, that you bring it down to R20, first of all, because I'm in R20 and I want to serve my neighbors. So that would be the first recommendation. And the second recommendation is basically look at how farmers markets operate. And those guys are compliant with ag. And so if you model your allowances for these farm stands as far as the products that we're allowed to offer there to that, then that will keep you guys in compliance with state regulations. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, sir. All right, Cindy.

Last month when we were talking about data centers and at the same meeting there was a rezoning request that said, oh, we wanted to add data centers to the proffered conditions. Was that... It sort of hit me funny. So this evening, I am asking the board to consider changing the way we address proper conditions when we write them and they are presented in rezoning cases. Too often, the conditions tell the public what we cannot build or what cannot happen on a property. We see lists of prohibited uses, such as no gas stations, no self-storage, no drive-throughs, and so on. These lists do not expand when other things are introduced, such as if or when Georgia decided to make dispensaries a legal entity in Georgia. Would we want a drive-through dispensary in our local shopping centers. I believe there is a better and more transparent approach. When a property is rezoned, the public should be able to look at the final zoning decision and clearly understand what the property is actually being approved for. Instead of primarily saying what cannot be done, I am asking that proffered conditions clearly state what is permitted. for that particular property. For example, what types of businesses will be allowed? How many buildings can be on that property? What is the maximum intensity or density? Where will the buildings be located on the property? What is the height? the access, the buffering and other significant limitations. This would give residents a much clearer picture of what they are agreeing to or objecting to when a rezoning comes before the board. It would also make the board's final decision easier for residents, neighboring property owners future property owners, developers, and county staff to understand many years later. I'm not suggesting that we eliminate restrictions that protect neighboring properties or the communities. Those protections are also important. I am asking that the final conditions provide a clear, positive description of what has been approved, rather than requiring citizens to piece together that information by reading through a list of things that are prohibited. In fact, Cherokee County's current zoning ordinance already says that conditions may include restrictions on what land uses or activities shall be permitted. I'm asking the board to consider using that authority more clearly in consistency. So the request is simple. When approving a rezoning, tell the public clearly what it is we are approving. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Jaffe. And I will say that the zoning ordinance itself and the table of allowed uses does tell you per zoning class what can go in there. Now, it's often a lot, general commercial, hundreds of different uses.

Exactly. But as new things are added, those are not considered part of the exclusions in the proffered conditions that get approved.

I think I'm hearing you say you would prefer that we We specify what can be approved.

Exactly.