City Council - Regular Meeting

we love you we thank you as always we magnify you we give you glory god we ask on tonight that you would allow your Holy Spirit to come down in this place to lead and guide us in the way that you'll have us to go God we understand that we can't conduct any business without you at least not the right way so we're asking for your power God we thank you now and ask that you'll look over God this city of Greensboro not just the city of greensbor we ask God that you'll look over this whole world bring our hearts and our minds together no matter what color of our skin God no matter what state we live in what city we live in we just ask that you Bond us together with love and God we thank you now for everything for already answering our prayers God it's in your son Jesus name that we do pray amen and thank God ask now that we approve thisel obain a motion a second to approve this agenda Mo it's been second any further discussion no further discussion all those in favor Let It Be know by right hand I give you time now councel we move right along to item number four the approval of the minutes and obain a motion in a second to approve by December 2nd 2024 reg session minut we'll just run this together as well as our December 2nd 2024 executive session minutes ask that you assign those executive session minutes and pass them to your left and I ask for a motion to approve the regular session and executive session minut and a second as well at the same time motion to approve regular

and second it's been second any further discussion further discussion all those in favor let it be known by raising your right hand unanimous decision thank you so much pass those exec here you go brings us down to item number five new business Mr Josh new 202 East Broad Street Greensboro Georgia asking for a alcohol permit request the address is wrong it's wrong yes C and the address has been swapped see you later so 202 is me the 202 is who okay we're 212 11222 so you are Josh I am Josh yes sir so your address is 212 East Broad Street 112 112 East bro Street West Broad Street sorry 12 West Broad Street West Broad Street right than no problem come on Mr J you would take ask you would introduce yourself to Mayor and counsel to our audience how are you wh best day of my life I'm Whitney partners with scratcher Street we just purchased the former R so come for lunch we're back up for lunch so the plans uh we you plan on retail sales of beer and wine and then also po license for beer and wine um won't be late night 9:00 at the latest it will be more of a

cafe style you know sit outside and have something to eat more of a relaxed Miss B yes sir do we have a background check yes sir counc any question coming from you no question coming from the councel thank you motion second to approve this permit motion to approve second it's been second any further discussion no further discussion all those in favor that you know I raise your right hand thank you so much awesome good evening mayor and Council um I have quite a few items uh tonight that the uh Planning Commission heard um last Thursday evening so they held a public hearing um last Thursday the first one is a preliminary plat request um from Capstone Land Development and this is the property out on Martin Martin Luther King Jr Drive and Bey Road this property was annexed into the city um the official annexation took place last December um but it started about um a year and a half ago so um it took a little process to get their drri their development of Regal impact and everything approved but that property council did approve that annexation back last December and so now they're submitting their preliminary plat um

it'll be in phases so this is the preliminary plat for phase one only um phase one will have 139 single family homes and 52 town homes and it is recommended for approval the the Planning Commission also recomended it for approval coun any questions coming from no question you've heard the request I the motion and second to approve motion to approve second it's been second further discussion no further discussion all those in favor let be known I raise your right hand see thank you so much okay um our next request is for a rezone and this is at 1131 planning M Road um the property is currently zoned um office institutional Zone um and previously there was a personal care home at this property um but the applicants have not been able to have any um clients there for over a year so they would like to reson it to R1 single family and sell the homes as single family residences property this particular property is adjacent to R1 um property to the West um so they would like to have that reson and the Planning Commission made a um recommendation to approve it and your CL does as well this first reading this is the first reading yes sir the next one is 1141 planning Mill Road and this is adjacent to 1131 also zoned institutional Zone and they would like to reone it to R1 as well and if both properties are rezoned um they

will be continuous with R1 property and they would like to um sell this one as a single family home as well this is the first reading for this one also um the next one is uh 1361 West Broad Street this property is owned by Amanda and Martin Mor and um the adjacent property on West Broad Street is on by on the green LLC um these two are kind of hand in hand um the north are resoning their property a small portion of it 6.11 Acres from A2 to p and then on the green wants to reone 3.56 acres of his property to um A2 and then the U the Norse and on the green are going to swap some properties it will give the Norse more Road Frontage on West Broad Street and it'll give um the owner of on the green access to his property off of Laurel Street okay and our last one is a variance request for 205 South Walnut Street um this is on the corner of Walnut Street and Bush Street and and the house sits right in the middle of the property um greens Spur's current ordinances requires that any accessory structures must meet the setbacks for um single family homes or the primary structure so he cannot meet any setbacks um to put an accessory building on his property the way the house is currently um situated on the property and there is an existing metal shed already kind of in the back corner where he wants to put the um accessory structure and he will be removing that structure if the variance is approved and replacing it

with this structure it wased by approval request barri at 205 sou Street ENT motion to approve the bar motion to approve second it's been second any further discussion F discussion all know your right thank you Marissa Nala correct request for alcohol permit 202 West BR street it's 202 I'm sorry first of all good evening everybody I'm representing this is power so we have two properties two gas stations one on two on you're presenting for Marissa n so you're not Marissa no so I'm what we've done in in the past is asked that the owner that's requested alcohol perit to actually show up um as a sign of respect she was not keeping well so I already spoke to the other day you know make it uh I can call speak who prefer that she be we prefer that the so coun at this time I uh a motion to table item D to table

F discussion disc man thank you so much the city manager benefit retirement plan or where that be coming from mam councel um in your package you have the um Georgia Municipal Employee benefits um our defined benefit plan um restatement which comes in annually um it's a requirement from the internal revenue Ser service in order to keep our plan um taxes in so we don't have to pay any taxes or anything on it so we have you have to restate it there has not been no changes to the plan or anything it's just that we need to restated at this time am am I right Mr attorney right it's an Aris requirement so allows us to continue totip a motion at this time to approve the reinstatement of our retirement plan motion to approve second it's been second any further discussion no further discussion all those in fav right unanimous decision thank you so much brings us down to e you back up city manager May councel um this um November we had an election on the balot theide president you had some other um Constitutional Amendments one of them was um has to do with House Bill 581 I saying the number correct off Bill 581 property tax assessment um what this

does um kind of changes the property tax assessments here inside here here in in the community I think the city of Columbus if I'm not mistaken already operates on this where you have um a floating um I guess assessment and whereas um the property that you own if you live in it um the assessment is is kind of Frozen and um I know first thing we said oh that's good that's a you got a homestead um in actually by researching and looking at it this bill is mainly most geared towards your Urban big counties that where property assessment go Skyhigh out of the roof if I'm not mistaken right now I think um talking to the county manager Green County has one there here out inside the county but the city doesn't have one I think they opt out or whatever and in their wisdom with them op they did they did a good thing a lot of cities are opting out I'm here making a recommendation that the city does opt out because this bill is mainly for big Urban counties with I mean what you what in essence to me I call um it sort of nibbles at your businesses and your apartment owners where the tax burden shifts to them shifts to them um because for instance I can live in a house for 20 years and my assess value might be 40% might be 5 10 15,000 whereas a new owner could move in and buy something that buy something and their assess value is going to be way high it's going to be it's going to be a marketed real difference and I don't think um it's really made um based upon my you know looking at and observation that it would

be good for Green County um Greensboro so I would recommend that the city opt out of it um it is a process kind of like when you um raise the taxes raise the millage rate you just have to have three public hearings to opt out um of it if you look in your package your packet um you'll see some of the the um some of the um cons and um the pros and cons of well really in my view the cons um um of um this or whatever um opting out um I I I think that um I would rather for us in essence to control our milit rate than um we're um letting the um um Revenue Department do state revenue commission a question from the councel one question is not to the m mostly to uh the attorney Mr Nelson have you looked over this for us yes sir so every when the legis when the legisl put on the ballot in November the state approved it and this goes live throughout the entire state so every city or county that that has a homestead exemption and that has property taxes will be affected by this um what Mr Hayes is is describing is correct intention is to freeze homestead exemption um for or excuse me tax assessment value for Homestead Properties and it would basically your tax digest is a certain number your homesteaded properties will remain the same as long as they maintain ownership and then everything else would would continue its increased assessment just

like normal assessment would work the reality is it's I think coun Mr Hayes has described it correctly it does sh the bur from Homestead Properties to um commercial agriculture industrial and residential and like if you if you rent property or whatever it shifts that but I think um for here in greenber I think the best course of action is to op and continue on as we doing now and like I said earlier the county has a sort of floating homestead exemption but the city is opt out of I mean but Mr point I say this the timing on this if you want to consider opting out you have a 60-day window that basically starts January first so what I would suggest is you know Mr h g you the recommendation of opting out it will not be effective until you go through the procedure that we talked about if you don't start the process now you're not even going to have the option to opt out later so what Mr Hayes is suggesting is start your opt out he's G the packet you can look and research and make your own decision but if you don't start now you can't now you can always pull off later you can parachute out of it if you want to along the way because you're required to publicly have all these hearings and then eventually vote topped out um they only giving you too much yeah the legislator drafted this in a way that makes a very very tight window so my my choices is kind of like this there is an exit ramp if you want to take it but you don't have to but if you start the process now you're you'll already have driven past that exit room um there's a lot of impact this is going to have um I think Mr Hayes naed it there's some jurisdictions that's going to affect differently than others and for y'all I can't really tell you exactly which way it's going to hit of my clients more

than more than not are considering the opt out although no one can do it until they actually put their hands up in in February to do it but majority are considering not all I do have some that are going to stick with it but and I can y'all want to catch me afterwards I'll tell you all what I think about it and why we got where we are um but I know this it requires you to make a decision fast and if you don't do it you're stuck in it let raise our taxes hold on after I'll you so what what I'm hearing is I heard two things I heard that if you if you're renting proper this may have an effect on you yeah if you're not a homestead um exemption you you won't even see an effect of this um Flo you're not going to see the effect of it it's going to sh it's going to but if you have rental properties I'm sorry yeah that's that's n Homestead so you you won't see you won't really feel the effect it's going to more than likely shift the burdens to those property commercials um nonresidential agriculture it's only residential Homestead exemp Property that that will probably benefit but the thing about as a Gover body when you get ready to do your budget every year you got to make sure that's sufficient general fund revenues and where this where we how we set the millage rate it's going to change that whole procedure it's going to change that to something unfamiliar and I I I think with us operating the way we have with familiarity and keeping control of your millage rate and things of that nature I think it's best we opt out and continue on what we currently have that you said we also have February before March you have March you have to do three public hearings and and the public hearings as you kind of have to advertise them like you do a property tax increase and also the public hearing can come on a Monday

and then you have another one on the Tuesday it has to have so many we so many weeks apart and everything I would suggest that if we going to opt out we do it in Janu start in January and M Mar I'll say this too the purpose of these period is to give the public an opportunity to their research do their own research and then reach conclusions with you about whether not it's going to be a property tax increase or not I don't think this thing hits the same way everywhere I think I think certain jurisdictions are dep on Val of the property in the in the jurisdiction um my personal opinion and I I'll talk to you afterwards too if if you want me to I don't see you're changing the way we assess our taxes and I don't see how it's going to ra taxes for every Mone um the way I see it um some jurisdictions are going to be hit just right and it may not have an impact but the reality is it's going to shift the burden and we can only work year to year and even if when you start moving the numbers around and changing the tax digest I don't think we're going to have a choice but to have an increase for some people but I think it's probably going to increase for everybody that's a different conversation for the future the biggest thing is it does creates a lot of uncertainty in in a way we normally do our assessment and our property taxes so I'm I have my hesitancy on it however I say this repeatedly you're getting the process started to even have an option yes or no it is not a yes or no you don't start now you won't be able to even make an option you saying we don't start tonight or can we start January janary well that's you couldn't start till January one under the law I'm just you know want to know just you know permission we can start that in January but this would give Mr Hayes the ability to go ahead and get started your first meeting is January 6 this would allow him to go

ahead and start scheduling those adver and advertising because not only you have to have the hearings but you got to advertise in the newspaper so and if we had any hiccups in the newspaper doesn't run right or something gets misprinted this gives us enough time to make up if you don't do that you might have any question from C I just have one question um I know you said we get ball rolling tonight on giving Mr Hayes the permission to keep you know to move forward but we do have a final vote it March actually finalize it okay better feel better so people I know you know meeting being stream and we have people here I don't want them saying that leaving here we F to raise the taxes give him the opportunity to start the paperwork and then we may come back between the hearings and hear from the community on actually the do and don'ts on you have to advertise the date you're going to make that decision too okay so it's it this allows staff to schedule and then if anytime on the process you decide that you don't want to do this as the coun you you want to stay in then you don't have to move forward this happens unless you locked out if you do nothing then it's in place okay coun you heard the request coming from city manager entertain a motion and a second to Gran's request Mo second it's been second in further discussion no further discussion all those in favor that be know I ra your right hand that decision if anybody in the audience or anybody want to know I do have a p right here um that has a frequent ask question

so um we'll I I'll go ahead and give it to but we put it on our website and have a link to it so they can look and see what it there thank you so much I don't see any pleas comment or I don't have any uh clothing comments at this time at this time I entertain a motion I'm second toour the Mee motion toour second it's been second discussion discuss let us pray gra God again we just thank you we thank you God for allowing us the opportunity to come and sit around this table and fund over the vendage for this your city we pray God that the decision that we made here this even for the betterment of your people and your city we ask you God to make us no stronger than the weakest L You' been good to us You Keep On Blessing us over and over again and God I'm so grateful God for who you are you a awesome God you're a mighty God you hearing God thank you God bless this city bless the peop around this table God bind us together God Like Only You Can we need you God and we can't do nothing without you this is my prayer that you be SE in Christ's name we pray amen We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year