City Council - Regular Meeting

Glover, bow heads, please. Heavenly Father, we come before you unity of purpose and compassion in our decisions. Help us to lead with integrity, fairness, and humility, always mindful of the needs of our citizens. Let our work be a testament to your grace and a blessing to those we represent. Bless this meeting, our city, citizens, and all that call Fedville home. Amen. Amen. Please stand for the pledge to the Statue of Liberty. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you again, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome all of you to to the meeting this evening, especially uh our citizens, but also I see we've got a contining of uh staff members here here. And I know it makes for a long day, but uh it is always good to have uh this gathering so that you can see your city council members uh governing the city the way hopefully that you'll be satisfied with. At this time, we have the agenda that has been presented. Council members, what is your uh pleasure with the agenda? Move to approve. Second. Probably move and second that we approve the agenda. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposers? Nay. the approval of the minutes of the May 15th regular city council meeting. What is your pleasure? Move to approve. Second. Properly moved and second. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposers? Nay. Recognitions and presentations. Before we go on what's on the agenda, uh we always glad to acknowledge uh new employees. And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to our city manager who's going to recognize uh some of our new employees. Yeah, thank you, mayor and councel. Uh, first of all, I do want to welcome aboard our new communications

director, Glennetta Griffin. She comes to us from Georgia Media Academy. Uh, uh, yeah, Georgia Media Academy and also has 10 years as a communications manager at Clayton County. So, we welcome her aboard if she wants to come up and say a few words. Good evening. Oh, that works better. I'll do it again. Good evening, Mayor Council. Yeah, that was a test. That was a test. Okay, I passed. Good evening, you all. Um, first of all, I want to say that it is an absolute honor to be selected as the director of communications. I take this job very seriously because this is also where I chose to raise my family. This is my home. So, I want not only the citizens and the employees and everyone around here to know how amazing the city is, but beyond. I want the world to know how amazing we are. And I plan to do that and to make you all very proud. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome aboard. Thank you. Just remember that's Hoffman with an H. She's been busy the first two weeks, that's for sure. All right. Also, now I want to call up uh interim chief police chief Robert Mask to lead the rest of the uh recognitions. Good evening, sir. There you go. You and I wanted to see if you were paying attention. I know. Uh we have nine employees we'd like to recognize. Uh I'm going to introduce the first three um as as part of our employee appreciation and rec recognition uh program. First, we would like to take a moment to recognize three employees of the Federal Police Department. Captain Mike Francis of the Criminal

Investigations Division. He's our commander in that division. Sergeant Dylan Bell, he's in the sergeant of criminal investigations. and Sergeant Zack Campbell who is in uniform patrol and he oversees our traffic division as well uh for their accomp accomplishment in graduating from the Northwestern School of Police Staff and Command. Um, the Northwestern School of Police Staff Command, SPSSC, is an intensive leadership and management education program that helps prepare experienced law enforcement professionals uh for success in senior command positions. Um since their uh start in 1983, law enforcement agencies throughout the US and around the globe um have recognized the importance of the impact of SPC education um that makes their leadership and management teams uh through an innovative combination of academic principles and practical applications. The SPSSC curriculum zeros in such critical command level content as planning policies, media relationships, organizational behavior, budgeting, uh resource allocation, human resources, and contemporary policing that occurs nowadays in this time. Um I know this course is is very intense. I participated in it. My class was 569. Um, these guys, they were part of class 601. Um, it is a strenuous class. It requires a lot of studying, a lot of research, um, writing papers and such. And what I have gotten out of the class, it is a true proven leadership course for uh, our command staff to go to. So I would like to say let's please join in

congratulating these officers who completed the most challenging and rewarding law enforcement management program in the nation despite the FBI SPI um advancing advancing e excellence and public safety and a legacy uh that each of you should cherish. These officers now join a distinguished group of alumni representing senior law enforcement leaders around the globe which brings a wealth of knowledge uh to share not only with our department but also the community. So I would like to recognize these three guys at this time. If they come on up, we'd love to come down and congratulate them. The FBI. The FBI and the SBI. That's a joke. Yeah, we got we got that. Yeah. Hey, Chief. Do you want to say their names? Okay. Yeah. Captain Mike Francis, Sergeant Zack Campbell, and Sergeant Dylan Bell. [Applause] I have six

more. Um, at this time, I'd like to bring up Captain Myers, and he's going to introduce our new graduates in law enforcement. Y'all can stay if you'd like. Good evening, mayor and council. As part of this recognition program, we would also like to ask or I would like to ask our three newest certified police officers to come join me up here at the podium. Officer Jeremiah Johnson, Officer Cameron Gay, and Officer Seth Edger. Back on January 27th of this year, these three candidates embarked on a new journey as members of the inaugural class. Go ahead. The inaugural class of the Faget County Sheriff's Office Regional Training Academy. They spent 809 hours. Let's see if they left face. Which way they turn? They're going to turn different ways. They spent over 809 hours and 20 weeks in rigorous training that included both classroom work and practical exercises. On June 2nd, we celebrated as they graduated from the training academy and are set to hit the streets in the coming days. Newest members of our uniform patrol division. Um they're going to have another 12 weeks program coming up. So some more regular in the next few weeks with their assigned field training officers. But we would like to congratulate them on this achievement and welcome them as officially being sworn in as city of Fateville police officers. Congratulations. [Applause]

That's good. [Applause] All right. Next, I'd like to bring up Captain Dunn. He's over our office of professional standards. He's going to introduce our new candidates who will be attending the same academy. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Y'all three, if you join me, please. Uh I want to introduce our three newest members of the department. They all joined within the last month. Um they will be as we discussed going to the next academy starting in July. Uh they come from a step up here a diverse background um employment and location. Uh Mr. Caleb McDonald, he joined us last month and he decided to move from Maryland and after only applying with our department uh after hearing about our department from a current employee, uh he currently serves as in the army as a military police officer. Uh Miss Destiny Langford, she spent most of her career before joining us in child care. Um so we're excited to have her as well. and Miss Nikki Gravante and she's originally from New York um but moved to Georgia recently and has spent most of her career active duty in the Marine Corps and small stint in a different field but decided she wanted to enter service again and serve locally. So, we're excited to have them here with us. They're already doing great things academy program and like we talked about in just a few short weeks they'll be in the official academy. We're excited for the great things they'll do for our community. [Applause]

[Applause] Mayor and Council, City Manager, thanks for your time. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it, Chief. Let me commend you guys for your hiring of diverse uh group of people to serve the Fedville Police Department. And I'm glad you hired somebody with some childc care experience to make sure she babysit with some of you guys. Okay. But thank you so much for the quality work that you guys are doing in representing our citizens. Okay, we're going to move on to public hearings. Item number three, second hearings for ordinance number 2512, city of Fedville Charter Amendment presented by our city attorney, Miss Pria. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. Um, this is the second hearing for the proposed charter amendments for the city of Fagville. The proposed charter amendments are an increase for the salary for the mayor and city council. Um, I'm happy to answer any questions, but if not, then um, Mr. Mayor, I would request that you open this up for public comment. Okay. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to open the floor for any public comments on this item. This item was presented at the last meeting. Uh it is uh an ordinance that allows with the next round after the elections to uh increase the salary of the city council members and the mayor. There are any questions on this item? Please come forward. Seeing in hearing none, council members, what is your pleasure with uh 2512? We don't vote on that. We'll vote during new business. Okay. Thank you

very much for correcting me. Moving on to uh ordinance number 2513, amendment development agreement for the Rosewood mixeduse de development to located on West Linear Avenue presented by our director of community development, Mr. David Rest. Good evening. Evening sir. Uh, as you recall, uh, the Rosewood development, uh, came before council back in 2023. Uh, the initial development agreement was approved on February 2nd of, uh, 23. Since that time, the applicant has come forward and requested uh, some amit to the plan that was initially presented. uh one of the um introducing a hotel component to the project. Uh we did bring that to council uh in April of this year. If you recall, we also had to amend the ordinance to allow that as a conditional use. and the applicant. This is the next uh step in that is to formalize the uh plan with with the hotel. There are a couple other items that uh we're incorporating into the amendment. Uh one is the hotel one another is to remove one of the mixeduse buildings and several of the condominium units adjacent to um West Lair Avenue. uh remove the parking structure and replace that with surface parking and then to amend the preliminary plat to incorporate these changes. The preliminary plat was approved by the planning and zoning commission at their last

meeting. Uh to kind of give you some brief highlights of of some of the items that are included in the amended development agreement. One is the uh approved uses the table of uses as you can see the retail office commercial and restaurant component that actually decreased from 31,000 square ft to 13,000 square ft. Uh we included the hotel which is up to 125 rooms. The condominiums uh the total number reduced from 65 to 24. And then the town home units reduced from 17 to 18. Uh we added language as it relates to the hotel itself. Uh the applicant is working with the um hotel company to finalize some details of theations and the site plan. but we wanted to incorporate language within the development agreement specific to the hotel. Uh and then as I mentioned the preliminary plat uh which in the development agreement is referred to as a schematic master concept plan that we're replacing that uh from what was initially presented. So with that, we took the preliminary plaque to the planning and zoning commission. We took the development agreement, the amended development agreement to the planning commission. They voted 3 to2 in of approving both of those documents. Uh we are bringing the amended development

agreement to city council with a recommendation that it be approved. And the applicant is here and the architect. Do we have any questions? David, can you go back a couple slides, please? I will try that right there. Uh, no. Well, there too. Question there is I can't read the name of that hotel. What is it? Place. Yes, sir. Okay. And go to the uh plat, please. How many parking spaces are there? Um, believe 130. 126. And how many rooms in the hotel are there? 125. And there's also there there's a lot of there's not a whole lot of parking space here that I'm seeing is okay if the applicant responds to yes just a second uh David let me uh make sure council members have no more questions of you. Okay. Any council members have any other question for Mr. Ras before we ask the applicant to come? Okay. Thanks, David. Thank you, Mr. Kendall and the architects if you want to come forward. Anything you want to add or answer question for uh council member Scott Stacy? I have um Cheryl McAfee here, the architect.

Um on our plan we have service parking in actually three different locations. One is behind the hotel. I think that one is 119 I believe and then there's parking over on the east side behind one of the buildings. I think there's 17. And then there's parking in the middle behind the surface parking. And I think if I'm not mistaken I and I have some documentation with the exact numbers, but um I think that's about 12. So each one of our single family lots has a garage with two parking spaces in in the garage for those 10 single family lots. And then these 15 town home lots each have a garage with two parking spaces for the residents in the town homes. And then in that middle space there, there's parking for any guests uh of those um town home residents. Um with regards to the hotel, we computed and I computed and a chart that I like to give that an approach. That's okay. Julie, if you bring those to the council members, [Music] you can color them. While it's being passed out, I'd like to state that Fedville has a maximum parking requirement. We meet that maximum parking requirement. And if you read the UDO,

that is the policy that Fed City of Fedville has adopted is to have a maximum parking requirement. In other words, the the the policy of the city is not to be over overly inundated with huge parking lots that basically are unused. The idea is to effectuate new urbanism. New urbanism postulates that we want to keep parking to a minimum. We don't want these huge parking fields that have uh an opportunity for cars to leak gasoline, oil, antifreeze, which ends up in creeks and streams and become toxic to the environment. So, the city has adopted a policy to have maximum parking requirements. We meet those maximum parking requirements. we are under those maximum parking requirements. So from the city standpoint, way we see it is that the city's policy is being effectuated by our parking on this site. Uh if a site is so-called underparked, then that is a market issue for the developer and not a city issue in terms of city policy. So what we try to do is adhere to city policy by having the parking be adequate from a market standpoint from a standpoint of what is going to be required by our users that is the hotel the residents and the uh single family homes and the town homes and the retail users. We try to accommodate those people. So if there's a problem with parking, then it's on our side of the ledger as a developer and not on the

city's side of the ledger in terms of a violation of city policy. So we adhere to the city's policy as expressed in its UDO, which says that we don't want these huge massive parkings. And if you read the parking ordinance, that's exactly what it says by the city of Fedville. Now in terms of what we have designed, we ran that by the people at Hyatt. Hyatt owns and oper well not owns but brands 1,350 hotels around the world in 69 countries. They have no problem with our site plan. We ran this site plan by our operating company, Hotel Equities. Hotel Equities operates over 300 hotels in the United States. They have over 11,000 employees. They have no issue with our site plan and our parking requirements. We ran this by HVS Consulting who hired required us to use as a marketing study company. They issued a hund and some odd page report that I had to pay $9,000 for. Uh and they have no issue with our parking requirements. They are the experts. I'm not an expert at parking on hotels. Neither is my architect. Neither is my engineer. We designed it. We ran it by them. They are experts. There's no way Hyatt would approve this site plan and have their patrons come to a hotel and and not be able to adequately park their cars. They don't want that problem.

Hotel Equity is the operator. The people who will be in the driver's seat operating this hotel on a day-to-day basis don't want that problem. If they had a problem with our site plan, they would have told us that. They would have said, "This is inadequate. We don't want to deal with you with this site plan. Change it." They didn't do that. We meet the city's ordinance. We meet the requirements of everybody that's a stakeholder in terms of the hotel operator, the brand, and us as a developer owners and sponsors, we don't have an issue with it either. And it's on side of the ledger. If there is a problem, then that's going to be a market problem that we have to deal with as a developer and not the city's issue. Nobody's going to come here and not find a parking space and call Ray Gibson with that problem. They're going to call us. They going to call Hyatt and they going to call the people at hotel who who is who are our operators. So if there's a problem, it's our problem. Uh we've looked at other stuff around. All this parking is underutilized. Even across the street at the at the Hampton, they have 84 keys in that hotel. They have 85 parking spaces. I went out there before the planning and zoning commission meeting at 5:00. They had 30 cars in the parking lot. I went and looked at a a aerial photograph from uh Google Maps. They had 43 cars in the parking lot. These massive parking fields, generally speaking, are underutilized. I

go up to Fay Pavilion all the time. Huge, huge, huge underutilization of parking. That's a relic of the 80s and 90s is not what we do in development today. M Kendall, I I do understand what you're saying. The assumption is that for a hotel uh the majority of the occupants of the hotel will not be having vehicles but you have at least one uh parking spot for every room. So I can see that that would be adequate especially if it meets the city's uh requirement. So I have no objection with it. One other issue I thing I want to point out is that when HVS did our um marketing study, they projected what our occupancy would be. They compared us to the other hotels in the market which was Holiday Inn Express and Trilith Guest House and the Hampton across the street. None of those hotels have an average occupancy greater than 66%. Average. So when you average out the number of people that are going to be there on a regular basis, you're at much less than you're at much less than a one to one utilization per room. And when you further delve into actual utilization as to how many people in that occupancy category are actually going to be driving cars, you're probably down to about 80% of that. And based on real utilization figures, we don't think we have a problem. And as this chart shows, uh we have analyzed it from each one of the uses and we think that we have a on

average surplus. If there was ever a time when we were at 100% occupancy and 100% of the people were driving, then we would work out something with some adjoining property owners for overflow lot. If that were the case question, yes. uh on the site plan on the front where the dark lines are. Is that on street parking the way it's indented there on Laneir Lane Avenue? That's that's an amenity. That's just an amenity. It's not parking. Green space and walking path. Yeah. Okay. That's not parking. No. And is there consideration for the employee parking, the people that'll be working in the hotel and the retail locations? Yeah, I as Wayne has has indicated, we have one, we have a we have basically almost a room count, but we won't need that. We won't need that much for the occupancy. So, as Wayne indicated, in terms of the analysis of the managing company, there's there's more than sufficient parking. And I appreciate the ordinance that the city has adopted because that is moving Fagatville forward in terms of creating large black tops that are basically become heat sinks and that's not what we want to do. We want a green we want to keep our we want to keep fay it like I say fade it forward. And let me one other point. We have a site that uh as designed has about two acres of green space. Uh we could have easily utilized some of that. All the all the back side of the property has a challenging topography. Not all of that is a challenging topography. We could have

used some of that space for parking had we so decided to go that route, but we'd rather trade off parking for green space because that amenitizes the site to a point where it makes the site more desirable for the people that live there and for the people who would visit there. Thank you, Mr. Kendall. Um, any other questions from council for Mr. Kendall or his architect? I I just have one. Uh, Mr. Kendall, what's your timeline? Um, well, Hyatt did a site visit and approved the site about three weeks ago. They issued us a letter of intent almost immediately. I signed the letter of intent. They issued us a term sheet. I signed that. They issued us an application um last week. Uh, and I've been getting emails about when I'm going to sign that application. So, I'm planning to sign told her that I was this senior development director. I signed it this weekend. They are presenting our application for approval on the 13th, which is next week. Uh, she told me that by the end of the month they will have it approved. Uh, and we are in the process of finalizing uh some equity considerations. We have several debt offers on this site up to $20 million. And I have uh been on the phone. I was at a hotel conference, investors conference in New York Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. And I got PE people calling about investing. So we hope that we'll have all this put together by the end of the year and that we will be uh breaking ground before the end of the year. And if that happens, then we expect that uh this hotel will open

first quarter of 2027. All right. Thank you. Are there any citizens who have any questions on this item? Comments. Seeing hearing none, council members, what is your pleasure with ordinance 2513? Move to approve. Second. Robly moved and second. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposers? Nay. Thank you very much. Moving on to item number five. Consider ordinance number 2514, amendments to the city council meeting schedule by presented by our city manager, Mr. Ray Gibson. Thank you, mayor. This uh ordinance, as you stated, amends our city council meeting schedule basically to uh amend our work session times, moving them from Tuesday of every month at 9:00 a.m. to the fourth Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m. Um I think we've talked about this. I think we're in support. So, we seek your support of this ordinance. Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Council members, any questions, comments? Is there anything from the citizens hearing? None. What is your pleasure with ordinance 2514? Move to approve. Second. Probably moved and seconded. Any unreiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposers? Nay. New business. Ladies and gentlemen, consider adoption of ordinance number 2512, city of Fedville Charter. City attorney, do you want to add anything? I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions from the council? Hearing none. Do I have a motion to

adopt ordinance number 2512? Move to approve. Second. Probably moved and second. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposers? Nay. And item number seven, consider resolution number R2535, the con to convey property to the city of Fedville to the downtown development authority for the purpose of completing a real estate transaction. Once again, our city attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, mayor and councel, this is for the property located at 335 Grady Avenue. It's the 38.15 acres, um, also known as the SJ Collins property. Um, as you're aware, we are under contract to sell this property. However, to complete that transaction, we do need to put the property in the name of the DDA. Um, this resolution does state that if the transaction does not occur, the property reverts back to the city of Fagatville. Um, there will be a sister resolution that the DEDA also um will vote on accepting the property. And so, um, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have on this, but this is just a formality so that we can complete the closing. I was just wondering if we could, if it doesn't happen that we just leave it with DDA because we'll have to come back and do that again anyways. So, can we just tweak that clause in there? Did Wouldn't you all want to leave it with DDA rather than having to come back and do this again in case the deal doesn't work? The only reason why it would revert is if we ask it to be reverted. You're right. If we So, the way it's stated in the resolution is that it reverts back to the city of Fedville automatically. Okay. All right. Can we change the language? We can change the language. Um, if the council wants to, I would say approve the resolution with the amendment. Okay. They can't sell it unless we allow them to. Are there any questions from council?

Are there any questions from the citizens on this? Council members, what is your pleasure with the amendment? Move to approve resolution R-2535 convey conveyance of property from the city of Fville to the downtown development authority with the amendment. With the amendment. With the amendment. Okay. All right. You hear the motion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I'm sorry. Do we get a second on the I second. Thank you. You're a little quiet there, Councilman Spacy. All righty. Any opposers? Nay. Consent agenda items. Ladies and gentlemen, item number 25 R34, self-funded medical plan summary and item 25R36, lease agreement with tri copy office equipment. Council members, what is your pleasure with this agenda items? Move to approve. Second. Properly moved and second. Any unreiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. Hi. Any opposers? Name. Moving on to reports and comments. City manager. Thank you, mayor. I'm not going to do we have all these. There we go. The upcoming events. I'm not going to walk through them all. Um there's quite a few on there as always. We have a lot going on during the summer months here at the city of Fyville. We do have a concert tomorrow. Uh actually Saturday, 99X big day out. That will be the next concert. And on June 21st, we also have a concert, the Jazzfest. But I do want to add on uh Friday, June the 13th, our 2025 Junior Firefighter Camp graduation will be held. Next week is also Municipal Court Clerk's Week, which is June 9th to 13th. So, if you have a chance, please go by the court and just commend them for the wonderful job that they do. And then our

June work session has been rescheduled to Tuesday, June the 17th at 6 pm. Thank you, city manager. Anything else? No, sir. City council members, anything to share report? No committee reports. Okay. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Um, just wanted to uh again say thank you for being here. I don't know if the council members are all aware that tomorrow that there's the topping out ceremony for the um soccer federation training facility. I'm not aware, mayor. At 11:00, you sent it to me. Yeah, I'll send it to you. I wasn't clear on the invite if it was us or the council or Okay. Yeah, I'll send the copy to the council. It should have been everybody, but Okay. Sometimes overlook us. You got it? Okay. All right. So, if you all can, it would be nice to have city council members there. Ladies and gentlemen, we open the floor for any public comments at this time. There's anybody who wish to come to address the council, um, please come up to the microphone, give us your name and your address, and speak what's on your mind. Anyone? Buler. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I understand we do need to go to executive session. We need uh when we go to executive session, we will meet and come back and let you know with action that's taken. You're welcome to stay if you like. There's no guarantee how long we're going to be in the executive session. And if you have to leave, we understand. Thank you so much for being here. This time, I'll entertain a motion that we go into executive session. Move to approve. Second. Probably move in. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All righty. Thank you.