City Council - Regular Meeting

And you never did that. Yeah, right.

So, the only Maybe this.

Okay. Okay, I'll hang it back. May

I have your attention, please? There it is. It is now 5:30 and I will call our April the 7, 2026 worst section meeting to order. And first on the agenda is a presentation by Dr. Kevin Davis, superintendent of Opaaka City School.

Thank you, Mr. President. city council mayor. And I may have to back up just a hair where I can see this, but essentially tonight we want to talk about just some things going on in Opalaka City. Can everybody hear me? Well, everybody good. Uh, you know, I think it's no uh mistake or it's not hard to see that we're growing very rapidly in Lee County and especially Opaikica because it's such a great place to live. So, just wanted to point out a few things about some of our needs as we grow. All right. So, just to give everybody a general idea, we're right at 53 to 5,400 kids, give or take a few, or you know, because of our proximity to the interstate, we have kids enrolling every single day. Uh, you know, between Lee County and Auburn and the proximity to to the beach, to Atlanta, to everywhere we live, we have a lot of folks that want to come live here in Opalikica. Over the past five years, since 2020, we're up right at 10% growth. Um, and we're looking at in the next 10 years, we're going to be around 7,500 students. So, here's the problem with that. As of today, we're completely out of room in all of our schools. We're at max capacity. We have students that are we have some classes, some resource classes that are in hallways, that are in stairwells. We have uh triple capacity with some of our uh resource classes that have three teachers in one classroom. We have teachers on rolling carts. We have teachers teaching those stages. So I want to talk to you about and you can just kind of take the 95 the 90 to 95 portables and hold that in your mind for a few moments. So this just gives you an idea of the chart that we've had. This is just a visual over the past five years. You know we went gained 154 then 33 then 99 then 176 last school year. the trends that we currently have. So

over the past few years, South View, North Side, and Jeter have showed just the the strongest the strongest trend to gain students every year. They're they're continuously gaining students. And you know, with those schools, you'll have other schools gaining as well. South View is currently our largest elementary school and is at max capacity right now. Carver Morris Avenue has also showed a a a growth, but it's a little more moderate. I'll talk about come back to Morris Avenue in just a second. Uh West Forest is probably if we say have the has the most room. So West Forest probably has the most room of any elementary school right now, but they only have one spare classroom to spare. And I feel that this week with a addition we're adding next year. Fox Run of course is our newest addition and it's already over max capacity and you know that we've already signed an agreement. actually uh did a bond or did did a bid last week and come in $3.5 million under budget on that. We will start the groundbreaking on Fox Run, which will add a grade level to it on May the 4th. Now, this chart gives you a visual and just some just some numbers of what class sizes look like in our elementary schools across our district. Carver at 435 students, Jeter at 477, South View at 513. And you can see the the per teacher student ratio in all these grade levels. So, you know, I know I've got some I talked to gentleman here tonight that was former elementary teacher and principal for a long time, but you know, in an elementary setting, 16's kind of the perfect number. 18, you're okay. But when you start getting into the small kids in the 20s and especially up in the 24s and 25s, you just got way too many in the classroom. It's too many to handle. It's too many to address, especially with the literacy and numeracy act that's been passed and how we have to address those students. Now, Morris Avenue, let's come back to it for

just a second. North side, you see you've got and this is with our current population. if next year's school year started tomorrow. This does not add any students that may be new enroles for the new housing or anything like that. So you see north side, you know, they're 21 22 and 21 for each class size. West Forest is a little more manageable with 18 and 19 in one of them. Go back to Morris Avenue 20 23 and 24 if we started tomorrow in every single classroom. Uh so this enrollment trend I wanted to provide everybody with some information on what just a simplified enrollment trend looks like without doing anything. If we didn't do anything, if we didn't build anything, and we still sustain the amount of growth that we're gaining over the next five years, and this is just a simplified growth over the next five years, we'd gain about 500 students, which is what we've experienced already. Over the next 10 years, you're looking at 1,00 to,00 students. Now, if we're already out of room and we don't have any additional room in our schools, where do we put 500 students in five years? where we put a thousand students in 10 years. So what I wanted to do was run an assumption on what moderate growth levels would look like. So you know I think you could go into this and say hey the typical family has two kids in every household. You don't always assume that because you're going to have retirees move here. You're going to have folks move to Opaikica that may not have children. So, I run a very simplified moderate growth schedule for our school system. So, as you know, you know, we've approved in our city about 12,000 housing units that's either, you know, going to be built in the future or under construction. Right now, I think you can

drive almost anywhere in Opal and see a neighborhood going up, which is good. I think that shows that our economy is strong here and people want to live here. So, and I put a very moderate over 10 to 15 years. We know those houses are going to get built much sooner than that. But just say if something happened and somebody backed out, I just put that number of a 10 to 15 years, which was all these would be built. So I wanted a yield of about for each single family, I put 025. That's not a reasonable number. So for every other household, you're going to gain one student. For every four apartments or town houses, you can combine those together, you're going to gain one student. And I also assume that some of these students won't go to Opaikica. They could be homeschooled. They could go to a private school. Um they could be out of district in another school district. So I said, "All right, let's just come up with a number of about 60% of these children come to Opalaka City Schools." And you see the number we come up with at the very bottom there. That gains us about 2160 kids on a moderate level. If if we start gaining higher than that, you know, we're up in the three and 4,000 range. All right. So, over the next five years, let's look at what that would look like in the next 10 years. Now, I mentioned the portable issue earlier, and I want everybody to understand what that is. A portable unit, which is a trailer you have to bring on site, you have to put on your schools, and you have to have those provided for your students to be in. I'm gonna give you a number and it is mind-blowing but it is what it is. Probably a good time to be in the portable business for some school districts but I know we don't want that here. So by 2029 2030 if we if we keep growing at 1.8% 2% basically and every uh delivery accounts for 25 or 30% of the projected impact. The estimated

amount of students in housing in five years is about 500. So, here's what 500 does. If you start adding portables, you'd have to have 36 to 40 portables within this school district. Now, we have room to set portables. Here's what I don't like about a portable unit. The lowest estimated cost that we got from our engineers and architects is about $400,000. Now, we all know that doesn't cost $400,000. But these people that make portable units to set them up correctly for ADA compliance, to set them up for water, to set them up for sewer, to set them up for power, they're going to get their biggest bang for their buck after they come up and set them up. Well, 36 to 40 portals all around their district, that's at 500 kids. Well, you had 900 kids, you know, you're you're looking at a bigger number. Or you had 2,000 kids, you're looking at a much bigger number. So you take 90 if you add 2,000 kids over the next 10 years and that's 90 to 95 portables low number on that's about $36 million. Now once you buy a portable and you put it on site and you use it you can't give it away. Nobody wants it. I mean you you may get a tenth of your money back at the end of the day. So, we thought as a school district, we want to use our money and as a city, we want to use our money in the the most impactful way as possible. And it is not putting it on something that you won't get any money back from. When you build permanent buildings, they're there. You're typically building a permanent building for a 50 to 70year process that you will be in that building. That's the average use of that building. All right. So, the 10-year outlook, we talked about that earlier, that that gives you about 90 to 95 portables across our district. And that's at an average of about 22 kids per classroom. Now, you take 22 big kids in a portable

versus 22 small kids in a portable. You might can manage manage this with 22 smaller elementary kids. 22 12th graders, that's a large number. What do we do? What does this look like? Here's another example of what our growth currently looks like over the next 10 years. So, I believe Auburn City Schools, our neighbors, they're at about 9,400 to 10,000 somewhere in that range. They're one of the largest school districts in the entire state of Alabama. Also, one thing I didn't mention earlier, last year, this this report come from Eric Mackey, there were 16 school districts in the entire state that did not lose students. We're one of them. So, we gain students. We're one of the 16 districts that gain. If you look at the chart on the right, 71% is our current enrollment. And if you look at the projections over the next 10 years, we look to gain about 11.3% in five and 16 almost 17% in 10 years. Now, what can we do? We've already started this process. As you know, you've saw the news. You heard it in city council. You probably saw the news reports. We think it would be most appropriate as we done an evaluation of all of our schools. We had some architects and engineers and come in and go through every single building top to bottom. What does it look like? What can we add on to? Fox Run was the easiest building to add on to. I know it's our newest. I hate it was built three years ago, but it's our easiest building to add on to and act add mass capacity to that building. As I said earlier, that that bid come in last week. We were $3.5 million under budget. We're going to be right at 29.5 million dollars to do this. That adds 71,000 square feet to the building. That also adds 30 classrooms. That adds a gym. That building does not have a gym right now. That increases your cafeteria and your media center in that building as well.

That doesn't sustain us for the growth that we're looking at over the next few years. You know, we're building not just for right now, but we're building for the future. So, as I talked with these architects and our architects of Turner Bastion out of Birmingham, been very over-the-top pleased with them. They designed the Foxrun School. They said, "We believe you could gain the or get the biggest bang for your buck by building a middle school." Now, I've had questions about a high school. And just to give you an example of of a high school, you're going to need about a 100 acres of land. Pot Road's building one right now. I think they've got 80 to 100 acres of land. And to max out our mass capacity to build athletic fields and everything that will go along with that, you're probably looking at about 225 to $250 million to build a new high school. Now, I don't know of a lot of 100 acre plots lying around in Opalaka that's readily available to build a high school on. We do own 38 acres right at 38 acres across from the sports plex. So if you're in the driveway of the sports plex and you turn directly around, all of that green field in that green area belongs to Opaikica City Schools. It's paid for.

So what do we do? I'm hoping is there any way we can adjust that down just a little bit? Just to see the fox run. No, that's that's the slide they have. All right. So this picture has has what Fox Room would look like once we finish it. So the picture on the left the question in red would be the addition, right?

Yeah. And the bottom picture which on my monitor would scroll up. Everything in red is what we're adding on to Fox Run. So, if you're looking at Fox Run, uh, standing in front of and you're looking at it, everything to the left in red will be added. And then that additional C gym area in the back will be added as well. And this would be the new middle school. This will be one of the largest middle schools in the states. 262,000 square foot, 102 classrooms, three stories. Uh, one of the most innovative class uh, middle schools that you would find. But I think this would sustain our growth for many, many years down the road. Now, I get asked about the size on this a lot and and and at first it will probably you'll probably go, "Oh, that's a lot of kids." So, this will house 1,800 kids. We're over 400 kids and I'm almost every grade level right now. And if we look at the amount of growth that's coming, you know, 65 to 7,500 kids in 10 years, you know, this will allow us to have uh 1,800 kids, which is about 600 of grade level, which I think is very very doable and I think we will see that number in the next few years. Now, I always get this question and we'll talk about what's it cost and all that good stuff. I don't set the price. Trust me, I wish it did. I'd love to build a lot cheaper. Uh, but we own the land, so we won't have to worry about that. It will it will house up to 1,800 kids. You see the square footage, you see the classrooms, and you know, if we get everything approved like we would want to, this process, you know, we're underway in the development process, the the pre-planning process, the programming of this, by the time you contract with architect and you start all the drawings and all the programming, this takes a long time. Fox Run we've worked on since July of this year and we finished that process, you know, essentially in early February and

then put it out to bid. Had to stay up to bid for a long time and then we closed that out last week. Uh Bailey Harris, a local contractor, was a low bidder on that. They will start that on May 4th. Same thing here. We're in about the 30 to 30 to 40% range of the programming needs on this building. So there's a lot of trips. I took a a Friday trip to hit about four different school systems and looked at new schools last Friday to get some ideas on what interiors look like, what's the dos, what's the don'ts, what works, what doesn't works. Because, you know, the biggest thing I want to do, and I think our board wants to do as well, you know, we want to be conservative with our money. And I know this price tag looks like a lot of money, but if you're averaging $400 to $500 a square foot on a commercial building, it is what it is at that point. Uh we do want to do a pull out process on our soft cost and I get asked that question a lot about what soft cost are. Your furniture, your technology, you know, anything if you could take that building and you turn the building upside down. That's the things that we want to do oursel and try to bid out oursel as much as possible because I'll be honest with you, y'all know this in government. There's a lot of meat on the bone for a lot of things and I think you're able to bid those processes out yourself and save money while you're doing that. So, what's the cost? $109 million uh total cost, and that's with contingency cost. What happens if we run into a major issue uh with the geotechnical work out there? We don't think we will because we'll have that process done beforehand, but we always like to include the soft cost and any other contingency cost. We may get into the building and go, "Oh, we didn't think about XYZ." We don't think we will because we'll worked on this almost a year before it starts. But 140 million would be the total cost on this process. And just going back, just want to give you an example to look at that. You know, if you one thing I think is

very recognizable with a large 7A system like Opaaka and we are considered a large 7A system. You know, they reclassified this year. Although we're still classified as 6A, there's only six classifications and a private school pla classification now. So, we're still a 7A system in all theory. But we have one football field to play all soccer, all football, and that's seventh grade football, eighth grade football, junior high football, freshman football, and varsity football and flag football. We have one field to play all those sports on. So, we wanted a multi-use facility that we could play soccer on, that we could play junior high football games on, middle school football games on. That's not an athletic facility. That's a covered athletic I call it a dome, but really a covered athletic area that the band could use. You could have drop down batting cages for baseball and softball. So, as we thought about this, we p we took some trips to some schools in Georgia. We took some trips to some schools in Birmingham. And we wanted to think through this because I've been a part or I've been in school systems where over the years they've built everything and then they got to the end of it and said, "Oh, I wish we'd have thrown in this." Oh, I wish we'd have done that. We want to build this school. We want to build it right. We want to build it for the innovation of our students for years to come. Now, couple more things that go into this. What does this do? Now, this timeline is it may seem complicated, but it's really not. Next year, we've got to make do with what we have. We have no other options. Technically, I need two to three trailers or two to three uh modular homes at Morris Avenue next year. That's going to cost anywhere from a range of about one 400,000 to $1.2 million. I do not want to throw away that money on something that we can't use but a few years and somebody gives me5 or$10 thousand dollars for. So next year I've

talked with the principal out there. We feel like we can make do with the amount of space next year alone. If everything goes to plan, Fox Run will start. They will break ground on May 4th. It will take approximately 14 to 15 months. I've got a construction management group, Scout Construction Management. They have a full-time person on staff. They're in my office every day, report to me directly every day. They give the board reports every week. They do a board meeting every month as well. So, what we hope we can do is get this Fox Run edition built before school opens on the 2728 school year. Not next year, but the 2728. Fox Run in 2728. Our goal would be for it to be a fifth and sixth grade school until the new middle school would open. Now these next lines is perfect scenario. I think I will know by December maybe even uh November of next year what the transition of other grades and other schools will look like. The biggest thing I did not want to do is allow people to buy homes assuming they were going to XYZ school and then say guess what we're reszoning everybody. So what we wanted to do was transition our grade levels where we maximize the space. Carer, Jeter, and Southview in the perfect scenario that this school was done in the 2728 year would go ahead and move prek through first grade in those primary schools. North Side Morris Avenue and West Forest would serve 2 through fourth grades. Opa High School, which currently houses our prek, would have that additional space and those six classrooms available to them. That would be for 27, 28, 28, 29 because we think it's going to be about by the time we start uh tearing ground up and doing all that geotechnical work, it's going to be almost a 36-month build on this middle school.

2029 2030, if everything works out, the new middle school's done and we feel like we're where we should be. Here would be the new transition and permanent transition of our grades. Fox Run will be a grade four, five school. The new middle school would be sixth, seventh, and eth. You'd have a level for sixth grade, a level for seventh grade, and a level for eighth grade. Opaikica High School would be grades nine through 12. And then, of course, going back to where on the perfect scenario, Jeter, Carver, and South View would be preK through first grade. Now, I do want to discuss North Side. I'm not from here. I moved here last year. It's been fantastic. And as I was interviewing and driving through this city, when I drove up to North Side, I was I was just smiled. I was like, "Man, what a pretty building." And I do love the pretty building. But that pretty building has a lot of maintenance issues. Maintenance. U my head of maintenance come to me yesterday with $8,000 PO. I said, "What's it for?" Just to patch holes in one small area. I need a new roof on it. the Sixth Avenue part, which is the oldest part of that building, needs to be tore out. And I don't know how else to say it. I don't, you know, I'd love to just say, "Hey, let's go in there and fix it." But our architects tell me you're going to spend more millions of dollars fixing the entire Sixth Avenue part than you can tear the Sixth Avenue part down and rebuild it to AR architecturally tie back into the existing what is called the newer part. So, we've got to decide as a district, what would we do? I want to save that building. And I want everybody to hear that. I think it's one of the prettiest buildings in town, but do you want to spend and they're they're you know, this is I've got some drawings on what it would look like. I didn't bring those tonight, but their low estimate on fix the north side, which would be to tear Sixth Avenue part down and renovate the entire building, is $25 million. That's a low estimate. Now, you

can build a school for $25 million depending on how much square feet you want to put into it. So, here's what I thought about. Our current middle school has some usable parts. It has some parts that's obsolete that needs a lot of work, a lot of bad maintenance issues that we have to fix. There's going to have to be some money put into that that current middle school. It was built in 1959. It's one of our other oldest buildings. Can we fix it? Just like Bob the Builder says, yes, we can. But we're going to have to put some money into it as well. Now, my suggestion would be the parts of the middle school that's going to cost more money to fix, let's delete those. Let's fix the parts of the current middle school that we can fix. Move north side students to that building until we can figure out what we want to do with North Side. Here's some possibilities as we grow as a district. What do we also not have enough of? Office space. I have folks that do not have office space. none of my technology guys. I've got one technology office for them. I've got nurses. I've got instructional coaches. I've got all these other folks that the state provides us that I do not have obligated office space for. So, I think in the future you could probably save Northside, move your central office to there, use it as a general meeting space where you could have an auditorium because it's got a small auditorium in it. You can use it for a multitude of things and then keep your current central office as an annex. You know guys, we run a lot of bus routes every day. We have a lot of technology. We have a lot of servers and I need to store those in certain places. So that's some ideas as we move and we progress forward that we would have to decide how we wanted and how we needed to spend that money. Now I know this seems like a lot and I will tell you that I'm a extreme financially conservative and don't look at the hundred million dollars and say, "Oh, that guy's crazy."

So, you know, personal life, I hate spending money, but in schoolwise, I I don't think Chris is here tonight or CFSO. I look at every PO that comes to me and I want to know, are we spending our money in the best way? But I think for longterm sustained growth for our district and for our city, we have got to do something. So saying all that questions, it's a lot of information, but I wanted to be as thorough as I can. So you could ask questions if you have. I have a question.

Yes, ma'am. So with the 140 million that will be for the new school that that's coming through the bond, the 25 million that you would possibly need to renovate um North Side or demolish it. Where would those um funds come from as well as the funds that you would need to um make Opalaka Middle School what it needs to be? Opalaka Middle School, let's start with it first. We do get a a a small amount of money from the state department of education every year. It's called ENT fund, advancement technology fund. We're doing a renovation uh this summer of Morris Avenue. And we're also doing a renovation of

what's my other

Jeter. I'm sorry. Jeter. I'm sorry. Lost my train of thought there. So, you know, those schools, you know, pretty much since they've been built, they've had the same fixtures in them. They have the same paint, same carpet. We're going to do renovations of them. We do get some money for that type of stuff. I feel like over the next few years while these school schools are being built with the ENT money that we're getting, we could probably do the renovation of the middle school. Now, $25 million of North Side, we would have to figure out as a district, as a city, what do we want to do with that building? I think it's too pretty to tear down myself. So, I'd love to see that building utilized for something else. you know, could you fix it enough to where you could move into it to a central office? Or if we saw the growth was uh even larger than we thought, you know, we may have to renovate that and use it for another type of dedicated prek or a dedicated school for our students. So, I don't have a great answer for that 25 million. I think we would have some funds available and hopefully by the time our economy grew during that time, you know, we have would have other funds available from, you know, possibly partner with you guys as well.

Yeah. And I think that I mean, you've presented a a phased approach of, you know, looking at it. I think that obviously the the middle school the the old middle school renovation and the north side uh work would be down the road a little ways and so we've got some time. Um I I wanted you just to mention real quick about you know we had at one point we were looking at putting an elementary school at that on that uh property at the out by the sportslex and just the rules about uh a singlestory school versus a multi-story school.

Sure. So your your earlier elementary grades for a new building, they they won't allow you to build up your your middle school grades and your high school grades, they will allow you to build up. So as our architects come in and they looked at that space, they pulled it up on the GIS map and and you know, he just basically told us, he said, "You're going to utilize more of that space building a larger secondary building than you would building that entire building out building an elementary building. to me, you get more bang for your buck. So, also the thing to think about it with with your elementary schools, you're zoned for certain places. So, if you put all first graders, all preK, and all kindergarten at one school, that totally changes up all your transportation. That takes everybody out of their local schools that they thought they were going to. You're going to have a lot of parents dropping preK students off. you're going to have a lot of parents dropping first and you know kindergarten and first graders off as well. So I think it puts a traffic constraint on that area as well as eats up every inch of that area where you could utilize it better to fit 1,800 kids versus 6 to 700 kids.

And I also one last question for me. So I know that we have looked at what will happen in 2029 and 2030. Um, how soon do you think is there a way that we can possibly just see a rough estimate of where we would be? Um, if we have to come back and figure out the total cost of renovating the middle school, what you're going to do with North Side because what we don't want to see is the 140 million and then in two three years we come back and saying this still is not um sufficient for what we need to for the district. Absolutely. I

I think our construction management group that's working with us right now could start that process. what a true estimate of the middle school renovation would look like in in a partial deletion of some of that and a true estimate of the north side. Our architects love the north side building. They love the architecture of it. They love the history of it. And he's actually told me, he said, "Man, I would love to be a part of that project." But he said, "I'm going to tell you." He said, "There's so much I don't want to use the word right, but there's there's so many issues with this building right now." He said, "You're going to twice as much money trying to fix this Sixth Avenue park. You know, essentially in 1929, I don't know if they they didn't think about the drip coverage of what an overhang looks like. So, every time it rains on that that side of the building, the rain runs down in that wall and what's it doing to the walls? It's it's rotten inside the walls out. We've had to repair it once. It needs all new windows through the whole thing. I think the estimate we got on the windows was about, you know, about two to three million dollars. HVAC systems, if you've priced those for a complete building uh in an existing building is astronomical. I think even in 2020 or 2021 when they priced the middle school out, the new HVAC for that building alone was over $8 million.

And Dr. would you u address the fact that that to answer uh Janica's question is we've got to accumulate some cash to be able to do that because there is a limit a borrowing limit that's based on our uh tax appraised value of our homes. Right.

That's right. So in our in our community right now, the tax appraised value of our homes, all of our homes is somewhere around $160 million. So as you can see, the $140 million is all we would be able to borrow u and be safe. Uh so the the thing that Dr. U Davis referred to about other sources uh will be what we'll be looking for. the address. All right. Sure. Excuse me. Dr. Dav, we appreciate you coming and sharing all this information with us, and we will invite you to come back again as an update.

I have a question. Well, we like to try to end them, but I would allow you to ask your question. We try to end it so we can start our regular meeting at six o'clock. But go ahead, Dr. Dr. Davis, whenever you're talking about the current middle school in North Side and knowing that that's going to be later on down the road, um can you explain the current conditions and the safety requirements of those and the students that we have in there? Are there is there enough time within that timeline that we can push that down the road, but also still keep up to the safety requirements of having those students in those buildings? I

I think so. I think the middle school there there is enough space in it that would be usable for the north side students. Um you know you look at a renovations like we're doing to uh Jeter and Morris Avenue this this year. Both of those buildings is going to be about $1.9 million and that's exactly what we estimated it to be. You know you're probably going to get into another5 to $600,000 in my guesstimate on just a renovation of that building. that does not take a deletion and then where you would have to seal up unused spaces. But know our architects as they went through that building, you know, you've got two usable gyms, you've got a cafeteria and what I call the front part of that building, I think is still very usable and we can probably make work for our north side kids.

I just want to make sure for all the parents and students that are going to be in those buildings that those buildings are still perfectly safe. They're safe. Um I would say north side anytime it rains, we have almost two to three maintenance guys out there trying to fix that building. And you know, I like yesterday comes to me with a 8 to10,000 quote on the roof. And I'm like, "Oh man, let's get a let's get a quote on what just the roof will cost." You know, because you got a flat part of that roof that you can't put traditional shingles on. You've got to put a TPO type roof, which is three to four times the money. And you know, if you get an intrusion in it, you've got to tear the whole thing up to make it to make it look right. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And we will invite you back. Thank you so very much. We'll take a two-minut break and start our regular meeting. and we will never Yeah. That part is important. You think

for somebody? Yeah. We Well, he he want to make a statement. Now, what what we'll do when we when we get ready to adopt the agenda and ask if anything need to be added to it, we going to add Matt just before the uh the public here. Yeah. I see pictures. I'm asking be helping us out.

Yeah. Well, listen. We need all of it. You did such a great job.

I know that's I was looking over at Ally and I was like, "Are you That was fun for you. That's why he was up here. Now he's getting right there. I was trying to get my student I guess so.

I'm just going to Get Bradley stuff down tonight. We'll get Bradley stuff done tonight.

May I have your attention, please? May I have your attention, please? We now call our April the 7th, 2026 Opalaka City Council meeting to order. Call the role. Mr. Trice, Miss Holmes here. Miss Watley here. Mr. Beams here. Mr. Rout here. Mr. Allen here. I will now entertain a motion to appoint Mr. Jury Mley to serve as our clerk pro team for tonight's meeting. So move. Second any discussion having none. Call the role. Mr. Trice.

Miss Holmes. Hi. Miss Watley. Hi. Mr. Beams. Hi. Mr. Rout. Hi. Mr. Allen. I take your role. Mr. Mley. Miss Holmes. No. We're good right now. At this we're very pleased to have our Craig Lee from Oak Hills Church to do our invocation and Kaylee White to lead us with in our pledge. May we all stand here?

No. No. Is Craig Lee here? If not, let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you with gratitude for the opportunity to serve our community. We thank you for the trust placed in us and for the privilege of gathering here tonight to deliberate and make decisions that affect the lives of our citizens. Grant us wisdom as we consider the matters before us. Give us clarity of thought, fairness and judgment, and integrity in our actions. Help us listen with open minds to speak with respect and act with confidence and courage for the good of all. Guide this council to seek unity where there may be division, solutions where there are challenges and progress that benefit every me member of our city. May our work reflect compassion, responsibility, and commitment to justice. bless this community, protect our first responders and all other city employees and watch over our families and that all of us represent these and all of the bless your son Jesus name. Amen. I pledge alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And at this time we would adopt our

agenda. Or are there any items that need to be added to removed from a change to the order of our presented agenda? Well, the fact that we did not have an opportunity to listen to uh Matt Mosley, we will add him as part of our regular agenda. He will speak just before the public hearing number seven. So add that to your agenda, please. Just before public hearing number seven. Any other additions? If not, we we would I would ask for a motion to accept the agenda with the added item.

So move second. Any discussion having call the role Mr. Bartley I watley I Mr. Beam I Mr. Rout I Mr. I all I approval of the minutes. Council members, you received a copy of the minutes from our last regular meeting on March 17, 2026. Is there a motion for approval? So move.

We have a motion and a second. Any are there any correction, addition or deletions? If not, the minutes will stand approved as presented. Mayor comments. Yes, sir. U if I can get you, Mr. President, to come down with me. Okay.

Uh we got a couple of u of proclamations that we would like to do and then we got several employees that we want to recognize for their service years. And also, Mr. President, as we roll over here, we have Matt Battle with us. And that is a is in charge of empty bowls. That's hard money.

Uh are the empty bowls that u that is part of our parks wreck program at Densson Drive. Uh Matt, you got some good news for us? Yes, sir.

If you are a potter and and contributed to the event this year, if you would stand up and come up here and then Miss Martha, if you would come from the food bank and anybody that you brought with you, that'd be great. So, while they're coming up, uh, so for the past 12 years now, Auburn and Opaikica have a partnership with a program called Empty Bowls, and it solely benefits the Food Bank of East Alabama. And uh so every year the potters of each pottery or ceramic studio uh contributes their time, their money, their uh their skills uh and come together and make bowls and those bowls are sold uh every year in the spring and it's supposed to represent uh an empty bowl for those who in need. So, you come to the event and most of the times you get an empty bowl, we fill it with soup, uh some bread, and some water. So, that's just a representation of uh the needy in our in our community. And Miss Martha here does a great job with the food bank. And if you haven't visited the new community market, I suggest you go visit it. It is an awesome uh establishment. And so, uh this year, uh we finished up February 28th. Isn't that

Yep. 28th we had our uh event and this some of the potters are here. This is the Potter from the Dson Drive studio and Rashard Tal is the director. Uh, so this year we would like to present Miss Martha a check for $23,876.

Some of them come around this way. All right. Ready? One, two, three. Perfect. That is amazing. I have to thank you so much. Appreciate what you do. And

thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you.

The next thing we want to do is is you all know if you uh come to council meetings on a regular basis that that once a month uh we present a character e of excellence award to a individual that is chosen by a ward member. We go through wards one through five and they choose someone and the character council is does a wonderful job of reminding us of the importance of being a city with character. So if I could invite the rest of the character council to come join me. I'd like to read and and present you with this proclamation. Uh you will want to reread it when you get it because I'm going to skip some lines. So whereas the city of Opaikica knows the importance of having citizens with honorable character quality based on the moral standards upon which our nation and legal system are established. We desire to build our heritage and make an opal place where families are strong, neighbors are caring, homes and streets are safe, education effective, businesses productive, and citizens free to make wise choices for their lives and their families. And whereas we recognize that individuals are responsible for their actions and that daily decisions should be based upon s sound timeless values and are the basis of the universally recognized character qualities including kindness, courage, loyalty, diligence, generosity, truthfulness, honesty, and obedience. And whereas our children learn and develop best in a safe school atmosphere, we heard it from the pre uh

the uh superintendent uh in which character is exemplified, taught, and strengthened. Research shows that workplace morale, employee safety, productivity, and corporate performance are significantly improved where positive character qualities are expected and recognized. And such actions are essential in comp in competition in a global market. And whereas the character council opa has been organized for promoting, developing and reinforcing a strong character environment in all aspects that touch the lives of our opala citizens will identify and recognize the best practices and resource that build and reinforce positive character attributes and facilitate access coordination and implementation of these resources and best practices to continue Opaikica's recognition as a city of character. Now I therefore I Eddie Smith, mayor of the city of Opaikica, proclaim the week of April the 20th through 24th, 2026 is character week in Opaikica and will call upon all citizens in Opaikica to extend the hand of fellowship to their neighbors and unite in service to our community this 7th day of April 2026. All right. Ready? One, two, three. Okay, thank you.

May I invite Vicky During uh up here? Vicki, you have anybody you want to bring with you? You may. So Vicki uh we met several years ago and started looking at this proclamation and felt that it was a a necessary and good thing for us to to be a part of. And so I'm going to uh again skip some parts, but I'm going to read uh some of this proclamation and Vicki and her people will continue to do and you'll you'll get the idea of of what they're doing and working on. Whereas April marks sexual assault awareness month, parentheses Sam, a time to honor 25 years of progress and recommmit to creating safer communities for all. This year's theme, 25 years strong, looking back, looking forward. And whereas for 25 years, SAM has supported survivors, raised awareness, and inspired action to prevent sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. As we reflect on how far we have come, we also recognize that work lies ahead. Whereas prevention starts with all of us, it is how we support one another, practice consent, and create spaces rooted in care and respect. When we act with intention, we move closer to a future free from violence. And whereas we honor the survivors who have shared their stories and the advocates that have led the way. The courage reminds us that prevention is possible and that each of us has a role to play. Whereas we look the next 25 years, we renew our commitment to building a future free from sexual violence, together we can continue to strengthen prevention, support healing, and create communities where everyone feels safe and valued. And therefore, I Eddie Smith, mayor of

the city of Opaikica, do hereby proclaim April 2026 as sexual assault awareness month in Opaikica. Mr. Dian, thank you for what you all are doing. Now, if I invite Terra, okay, we're going to uh recognize some service awards. Uh not call your name, if you would uh come forward and and we will uh we'll recognize the number of years. We're going to start with our fire department. Uh, Lieutenant Michael Patterson, 10 years.

Captain Blake Smith, 10 years. Sergeant Terara Vanilla, five years. And Sergeant Jameson Fallen, five years. Thank you, gentlemen. from the Opalaka Police Department. Sergeant Daniel Metavier. I I practice on that. Captain Rodney Vickers, 20 years. Major John Hester, 15 years.

James Bloom, five years. Sergeant Jonathan Glover, five years. Patrick Grimes, five years.

And Nicholas Salomno Salomna, I worked on that one, too. Thank you gentlemen for your service. We we are very appreciative.

Stay hurt when I'm done. She wants to cure. One, two, three. Daddy. Thank you, gentlemen.

Opalaga Power Services. Adam Pierce, 10 years.

Thank you. Who you got with you? This is my granddaughter. Granddaughter. She is beautiful. Is that it? Just admiring.

Thank you. Opaikica parks and wreck. Cornelius pink five years. Thought that was Where'd he go? There it goes.

Thank you for point. Ladies and gentlemen, we we got uh after Cornelius, we have several others that are not here tonight, but we are, as you know, indebted to Cornelius and everybody that we've recognized and everybody that we have not because they make this thing safe. Makes us all feel good to get up in the morning, know that uh that the trash is being picked up, that that the parks and recck going to be working, and that the police and fire department out there. We are living in a blessed community and I hope that we all are aware of it and we remember that. public hearing. Mr. Moffy, we have a um several public hearings tonight. Uh the first one is on the project development agreement with GMD USA. Anyone like to speak for or against this? Come to the podium and just with this time. I declare this public hearing open. If anyone want to speak for or against this

item, please come to the podium to my left. State your name and address. And remember, you have three minutes to speak. Having none number move on, Mr. Mley. The second public hearing concerns the demolition at 203 Darden Street.

I declare this public hearing open. Anyone want to speak for or against this item, please come to the podium to my left, state your name and address, and remember you have three minutes to speak. Having none, move on, Mr. M. The next public hearing concerns the demolition of 1904 Triple Street. I declare this public hearing open. Anyone anyone wants to speak for or against this item, please come to the podium to my left and state your name and address. And remember, you have three minutes to speak.

Hello, my name is Emily Key. I live at 2025th Avenue. Um, so 1904 Trimble Street, the legal notices have been going to someone who is not the legal owner of the property. Um, and also that house is going up to the tax sale, the Lee County Revenue Commissioner's tax sale on May 6th. So, I'm wondering about the legality of it being scheduled for demolition in the midst of it being sold to a new owner. So, that's the concern I have. I spoke to uh Janatica and Todd last night about it. So, Good evening,

Jeff Coppel, building official. We did title search on this property. uh and the abstractor came up with the correct name. We did a list pendance on this property, but if they go and turn and do quick claim deed, we can't keep up with them fast enough. They turn around and sell them or they do title search on them and they transfer title without going doing title search. So that may have been what happened. We have one uh has changed properties of quick claim deeds about three times in a year. So and that was 1904. Okay.

So, um, Mr. Kerman, I don't know if you would have the qu answer to this question. So, once it has been up scheduled for demolition and is being sold at the tax, um, property, who is responsible for those fees um or who will assess be assessed those fees? Um, once once the property has been sold and the demolition cost is added to that land, well, if the incorrect people have not been notified, I'll turn it over to our attorney, but sounds me like we'd start all the way over on it again. Okay. So, the demolition is going to be put on a hold for now. I believe that's correct. All right. Thank you. Can you explain that you were talking about the quick claim deed? Yes. Can you explain that?

So, we we put a a le penance which is a lean at the tax assessor's office on the first last assess the property owner coming up with the tax uh information. We have a title search done on the properties. We send it to the person that's uh last shown on the taxes or even the most current owner. But if they turn around and don't do title search when they sell the property, it doesn't come up that the city's got a hold on it. So that must been what happened in this case and which is means we start all the way over. So when would the demolition happen?

We can't do it if the proper people have not been notified. I believe that'd be our city attorney's opinion. But uh if I've got knowledge that the improper people were notified, I don't believe the city can go forward. So would this be something that we would have to table? We would have to start our way over. There's a 45day notification after the letter. We have to set these five about three months in advance. So it's a long process and um it just happens sometimes these cases.

So would this be the official notice that the wrong party has been notified? I mean, we would have to determine the the current owner and give them the same legal dues and processes that we gave the the one we had on Senate letters too. So, Mr. City attorney, would this be something that we would have to take off this agenda because of that? Well, this is for public hearing for this particular um and just for public hearing at this stage. Um so, no is the short answer to that question. Okay. But when we get to the consent agenda, if it's part of the consent agenda and if you want to take it off, we would do so at that time.

That that's why I was asking like if we if because it's not something that we can just really decide whether we take it off the consent agenda at your request and then we would deal with it later. We on our regular agenda. We would be would become part of our regular agenda. we can discuss it and decide what you want to do. One say

my suggestion would be to leave it on the agenda and approve it and if we do find that it is in fact changed ownership, we will not do the demolition. We will start over with a new owner. But we need to make sure that it does have a new owner just as was presented to us tonight. But based on what we have now, uh I I we can do that and then we won't have to if it doesn't have a new owner for some reason, then we won't have to start over.

Well, normally in our under our last administration, that's how we would handle it and Mr. Copperman and his group would work with them to see what need to be done. But normally we would uh approve the demolition, but he'll make sure he does his due diligence to find out if it's the the right thing to do. We would just re request that the current property owner contact us. Okay. One one question. The the process you're talking about with the quick claim deed, is there some maybe this is a question for you. Is there something we can do to to protect ourselves so that we don't get behind on that? I mean, is there a process? What's

this is the state approved legal process. We put a hold on the deed at the courthouse, right? There's a document that we record on the deed to keep if they tried to transfer the title and do title search instead of doing quick claim deeds, the attorney will find this and it will hold up any transfer of title. We just can't help it that they're not doing title search on it, right? That's what you're saying. I mean, they they don't do title search on quick claim deeds, right? Any further questions? Thank you.

Subject of our next public hearing is for demolition at 1905 Treble Street. I declare this public hearing open. Anyone wants to speak for or against this item, please come to the podium to my left, state your name and address, and remember, you have three minutes to speak.

Having none, move on, Mr. Mah. Uh, our fifth public hearing is to amend the zoning ordinance and map of the 4600 block of Birmingham Highway 113.4 acres from R2 to C3GCP. I declare this public hearing open. Anyone wants to speak for against this item, please come to the podium to my left, state your name and address, and remember, you have three minutes to speak. Having none, move on. Mr. M. Sixth public hearing is to amend the zoning ordinance and map of the 1500 block of Century Boulevard, 42.73 acres from R3 to R5.

I declare this public hearing open. Anyone wants to speak for or against this item, please come to the podium to my left and state your name and address. Remember you have three minutes to speak. Having none, I declare this public hearing closed. And before number seven, we had an item on our work session that we did not have an opportunity to discuss. So I ask M. Mosley to come up and make his statement at this time.

Uh yes, sir. Good evening, council members. Mayor uh wanted to just briefly touch base on this item. I think there's been some confusion back and forth because it is there are multiple moving parts through this. So before you tonight, you have a request for resoning on Dunlop uh Drive and and White Road. Uh the request is to reszone approximately 21 acres from R1 with a portion of it, smaller portion going to R3 uh that is adjacent to Dunlop Drive. and then the other portion going to an R2 which is the portion that would front along White Road. U the plat you they submitted a plat with the resoning which was their somewhat I guess intended plan to develop. Uh they have since gone back before the planning commission with a different plat that would be just for the preliminary plat which is the actual process they would have to go through to approve a a subdivision and start the construction. The resoning itself uh which was heard in uh the fe at the February planning commission meeting received a negative recommendation from the Opac planning commission. Uh that was a split vote of I believe uh three in favor of the resoning request for against uh the uh subdivision plat because of of the way it was designed did receive a favorable uh request from the planning commission at that time. However, uh that is all pending this this council's action on the zoning. So, uh, one thing I think if you can go to the next slide, uh, that is, uh, this is the wanted to provide this exhibit. This is

Waverly Woods, the subdivision that this would tie into. That was approved, I believe, in October of 2024. Uh, the that development had a stub going to the south and then also had a connection directly onto White Road. Now, if you go to the next slide with this new resoning. The applicant is proposing to basically take the connection from that that was connecting out to Waverly to White Road from Waverly Woods and turns it down directly into this which would come down to uh Dunlop Drive and then eventually where Dunlop and uh Waverly Parkway meet. Uh that would remove some of the proposed traffic off White Road would would which most of that would have likely come this way anyway because uh the city is working on putting in a traffic signal. Uh if you go to the next slide quick.

Okay, this is just kind of general overview of the the entire area with some of the proposed developments there. You see Harwell Hills, McDonald Downs, Waverly Place or excuse me, Waverly Park and then the area in red which is uh this proposed I think it's proposed resoning up in the yellow kind of the center. Next slide. Um wanted to show the kind of two exhibits showing the proposed improvements on Dunlop that was a topic of discussion at planning commission. This shows the addition of some left turn lanes which the engineering department is working through now. I believe those are uh largely designed. If you go to the next slide, uh showing where a future traffic light will be. And then the other question which came out which is a little bit further away was about access to uh 280 and and Dunlop drive where they connect which it is part of an Alabama Department of Transportation project to limit left turns at that location would would allow right turns and then a U-turn maneuver which keeps you from having to cross both sides of traffic to get out right there if you're turning back towards Tiger Town. Can you go to the next slide? just showing that maneuver. So, there are some up ongoing traffic improvements uh that were the subject of some discussion at planning commission. I wanted to let council know that are in process and I believe that's all of them. So, that's just kind of a final portion of the plat. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I know there's a a lot of people here that'd probably like to speak to this as well. Matt, can you

tell us where the second where it's coming? It's coming out to out of Waverly Place, the other entrance.

Yes, ma'am. So, uh if you go back, uh so basically if you look at the original Waverly, uh Woods development that was approved previously. Uh one more back. So, you can see where it connects back into Waverly uh park off of uh the connection of the single family homes in that neighborhood. And so this the development, not the development that is being proposed today, but the previous development would connect off an existing what we call stub street where there was a proposed future connection in uh Waverly Park would connect up and then would come back down and and depending on uh however the zoning goes would either connect both to White Road and Dunlop Drive or just to Dunlop. And also, can you clarify if an R3 can have town houses and duplexes?

Uh, yes ma'am. R3 zone is is kind of what we start as the kind of the beginning of medium zoning. That zone allows uh primarily single family houses and then allows uh duplexes and then would allow basically not full town houses but what we call basically a twin home. a duplex that is split down the middle. It's pretty much the same as a duplex. It's just a difference of the the uh ownership configuration, but it's allowed in R3 without a conditional use. Like it No, ma'am. It does require conditional use. Okay, that's what I thought. Okay.

Yes, the only thing allowed by right in the R3 zone pretty much is single family homes. Anything else would have to go back through the planning commission process for approval. Thank you. And what was the recommendation from the planning department? Um I know you said that the it was a split vote planning commission. What was the planning department?

Well, the the the initial uh zoning request when we reviewed it from the planning department staff looking at the the uh surrounding zoning and the uh future land use plan. We did provide a positive recommendation based on that uh uh based on the zoning and the the single family nature of the future land use plan. I believe the planning commission's concerns dealt primarily with character of of lots and particularly those along the uh white road uh area. But the initial approval from staff was or recommendation from staff was a positive recommendation to the planning commission. Matt, another question. Have we ever done this before where we've approved a plat before the zoning's been approved? How has this been done before?

Yes, ma'am. It it it does happen quite a bit where the plat is approved contingent to the zoning. What doesn't happen very often and we'll we'll look at changing our policies of how we address this is we don't often have a plat get a approval with a negative recommendation from the zoning. That is something that I'm not aware that we've which was done at this time. Yes, ma'am. Can Can you say that one more time? I know I know that's that's important. Say that one more time.

So, we often have uh requests where they'll bring in a zoning request, reszone a property from one zone to another and then they will bring in a plant together at the same time. uh so that you the planning commission and sees both what the zoning change would be and then what the intended layout of that property would be. Uh and in most cases if that happens and and there are no issues with it, the plat is approved because it doesn't have to go to the city council. It's only stops at the planning commission. The plat is approved subject to the city council's final approval of the zoning. In most cases that I'm aware of, and I can't think of another case, we haven't had one where the zoning received a negative recommendation from the the planning commission where the plat was subsequently approved subject to that. So, uh what would happen basically is if the zoning were not approved, the plat is no longer meets the minimum requirements of the zoning ordinance. So Matt, the reason why this is all important, right, is because we're trying to beat a timeline for the moratorum.

Uh to a degree, yes sir, that that is correct. I mean, they're trying to get it prior to the the moratorum. So the plat was presented at the planning comm the last planning commission. Yes. And was it favorable? Uh it would be our our recommendation to the planning commission was it would be favorable pending the ultimate zoning approval. The planning commission did recommend or did approve the plan subject to that uh with a split vote again. I believe it was uh six to two six to two.

Yes. Then the planning commission and this this is where we will we will change our policies is the planning commission was in somewhat of a difficult position because plants under state law are automatically approved 30 days after the public hearing if they are not approved or denied. And so because the next planning commission meeting was longer than 30 days, the planning commission at that point either had to approve or deny it uh based on what they had. So the the planning commission approved the plat. Yes. Did was the plat changed at all that would

So they they did change a few things on the plat. I believe they adjusted some of the lots slightly and then on the white road section. What they did was showed a an extra buffer. Uh and they they showed some some buffering along the uh Dunlop Drive section against some of the existing homes. But on the White Road side, they showed a little extra buffer along the White Road section. And then they also put in notes that there would be shared driveways for lots. So I believe there are 11 10 total lots on that front on White Road and they would have five driveways uh between the 10 lots. They would have to share between two two lots

because we have, you know, concerned citizens that came and spoke out um part of this on both the planning commission at and at the last city council meeting. Um, would you interpret that change of plat as an attempt to compromise so that there would be a favorable further zoning?

I I do think that was that was intent. They were hoping to uh get some favorable uh feel from at least a portion of the the residents because really you have two sets of different residents with different uh perspectives. the White Road people have are are most concerned about those on White Road that Dunlop Drive are are similarly looking at those that directly front them, I would think. And can we interpret from the planning commission making a favorable opinion on the plat that even though they voted had a negative recommendation on the zoning resoning that some of those compromises were favorable?

I I would assume that would be the case. Now again I I don't know what each planning commissioner thought directly but that is uh yeah I mean that that would be I think they they were favorable to the changes. Now whether the changes were completely sufficient for what was desired that's uh again there were some that voted against it still but it did receive a a re a positive approval on that. Thank you,

Matt. One question from me. Um I did see that the um I did get the chance to drive White Road and I do see that that's a very low density um as of now. And so the 10 homes that will be facing on White Road, that will be the max and that is the plan um for approval. Is it already in stone about how many homes and that there can be no more once approved um to this R2? Uh no ma'am. So the way right now that would be what is approved. Uh R2 allows lots of 15,000 square ft or greater. The way zoning works in general is you know once a lot is divided there's nothing unless there if it still meets the the requirements that prevents it from being divided again. It would just have to go through the process again. So they could They could continue just the the same way that anybody on White Road or any anywhere else in the city, provided it meets the subdivision regulations, you can continue to subdivide your lots, but they would have to go back through a a public process.

Yeah. Because I guess my my concern is that once it's approved and the what we're seeing as far as the diagram of what it looks like and then if we come if it's approved on that R2 and it's 10 homes, because your lot size is able to be divided again. Now you have 20 homes which goes totally against what? No ma'am they could it it's not like they could get 20 homes based on that but just it would be uh and for the time being of course with the mortorium starting in May none of that could really change within the next year.

Yeah. Just want to make sure that we're able to be in stone about what's been approved and that we're looking at from our standpoint or even voting that we're saying 10 homes, but if it comes back and now it's 13 14 homes, that's kind of not what we originally voted for so that we can move it and move the resoning.

Yes, ma'am. I understand what you're saying. Basically, and that's Casey. I don't think there would be a way they could come back in and add uh three or four more homes through that section. What I do want to make sure is clear is that you're looking at the zoning itself, not necessarily the plat that they submitted. The plat is the jurisdiction of the planning commission. And so what you you somewhat have to consider when you're doing a change to zoning is you're considering the uses and densities that are allowed within that zone because there there is often the opportunity to come back. It may not be in six months, but five years down the road, they could come back and request some of those lots be amended through a public hearing process to be smaller.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Number public hear number seven, Mr. Mley. Yes. Public hearing number seven is to amend the zoning ordinance and mount 598 Dunlop drive for 21.11 acres from R1 to R2 and R3. I declare this public hearing open. Anyone wants to speak for against this item. Please come to the podium to my left. State your name and address. And remember, you have three minutes to speak.

Thank you, Mr. President. Buddy Bruce, 505 White Road. I'm also speaking for Chuck and Carolyn Reed at 512 White Road. Mr. Mayor, Mr. President, council appreciate the opportunity to speak. At the previous public hearing, we came out in opposition of the zoning change. Tonight, we're here to withdraw our opposition to the zoning change after we met with the developers all did and did get some compromise on things, Mr. Out, and so we worked things out. So, we withdraw withdrawing our opposition to the zoning change at this time. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I'm probably a little confused after all that professional talk there, but we are My name's Arman Crowd and I live at 601 Waverly Place. Uh we've been back in Opala seven years. I've been here, this is the fourth time on Waverly Place. The the stub, he called it on that road. Uh that was it was supposed to go through the McDonald at one time. For some reason the McDonald stubs got a house on it. So I don't know how that happened and but if I had known how we would put a st we would put a house on that one. So it' been resolved a long time ago. But we uh I'm ready representing the residents of Waverly Place and Dunlop. Would y'all stand up for people that's that's concerned about this is with me. Just want you to know. Okay. Thank you. Most of all the people on Wavely Place are over 65 and that's being real nice. Most of them over 75. I did not know I would be back up here speaking again after two years. We talked about this and we talked about the the bridge that would have to be built there on that stub and how much it would cost the developers and also when they got in there drilling they found granite all over that hill. They said, "We backing off." So, they backed out of doing it. So, we thought it was over. We had thought that several times, but anyway, it keeps coming back toward us and and uh we we're just really concerned. Uh several weeks ago, I got a call and some of the neighbors down the street were seeing trees falling down their backyard. Not in the backyard, but behind their house. They were not on their property. So, uh they they were real concerned with what was going on. So they called me and and uh so I I I didn't know what to do. So I called someone to see what what was happening and then they told me that you know all this was going on and our area there our

community is is composed of single family dwellings and we want to both that both here and on McDonald and Dunlop all have single family dwellings. We don't want to change our zoning. And the reason we don't want to change our zoning is because of the integrity of our neighborhoods. And we want to preserve the community character that we have there. We want to preserve our property value and we want to and our neighborhood stability. We want to prevent population growth from overburdening the infrastructure. And you know, Wavely Wavely Highway Parkway is unbelievable. right now they're working on it. We can't hardly get out there now uh because of this uh work that's going on there. And if whether you if you've ridden through there and I appreciate so much the council counselors that came and visited with me and we rode through trying to figure it out, they was confused as I was. We're all confused. We don't know what's going on. We're still not 100% sure. And uh they they saw what we were all talking about. We don't know. None of us. And uh it's a narrow road that was built through that and it's not made to handle all this traffic that possibly I don't know what the traffic's going to be. I don't know what they're going to build that behind and that's what we'd like to know. And in the past they've shown us diagrams of what what was to be built but we have the condominiums as you come in there. Most of those people are most of them are women but they're they're in wheelchairs. They're on walkers and they have to go across the road to get there to the trash cans. They dump their trash across that road. They have to go across that road to get their mail. And I see them all the time when people turn off Waverly, they're flying and uh or when they're coming up the hill and somebody's going to get killed. They almost have before. But but it it's a dangerous safety is always I when I see Dr. Davis up here, I'm just glad I'm retired administrator because I I see

the problems that he has. But, you know, safety was always first in most people's mind and and it is mine because there's a lot of good old folks. I carry the trash trash can for them a lot of days. They ask me because they're not able to do it. But we we love that community and we we're concerned about that. And uh we just we're asking that you please abide by the moratorum you passed earlier. No new developments for one year and please vote against the resoning until we know exactly what will be built in our backyards. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Lesie Phillips and I live at 409 Waverly Place and my house was on that map. And um have you been to Auburn lately? I was there today and it was so crowded I could hardly drive anywhere I wanted to go. And I'm urging you to please don't do to that our be to our little beautiful city Opaikica. They ruined the fairest village on the plane in Auburn by overcrowded uh apartment buildings and etc. Don't do that to our city, please. And please don't do that to our neighborhood. Thank you.

Darla Gibbs, 701 Waverly Place. I oppose the changing of the zoning because of the potential for for multiple housing units of either apartments, town houses or duplexes because our neighborhood does not have that kind of thing in it and because of the amount of traffic that can come from high density type of housing and I don't know why we have to have it in that neighborhood when we've got it going up in so many other places that are being approved right and left. So I oppose it just for that very reason and also for the fact of uh that I happen to live right where the road will come through for for the uh Waverly onto Waverly Place. Um and there are no sidewalks in our area. I walk my dogs twice a day. I have to walk in the street. Uh and it is dangerous as it is because we do have UPS and all the others as well as uh visitors or even residents that go too fast down our road. 30 m an hour in residential areas is far too high. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Susan Jones. I live at 905 Waverly Court and I am the president of the Waverly Park Woodridge. Um, it's two different HOAs. The condos is one, the houses are another. I'm the houses. Um I am asking you to not let

them slide Waverly Woods in with these other two subdivisions. Uh they seem to number one that map was not a current map. That map was at least two years old that he presented up here because if you remember McDonald Street goes there and then now they come back this way. That was not on that map. those houses that come back to the east were not on that map and those houses have been there two years or more. So that that is something to consider. I don't know why they proposed a map that was not that current. But um the average age in our neighborhood is 76 years old. And as Darla said, we don't have sidewalks. And if you will come and visit our street, you will probably see an elderly person walking in the street because that's what we do. We don't go to the gym and lift weights. We walk. And we have a lot of people on the street. And the people that live there drive slower. the people that live next to the street, they're going to put in one of Miss Darla and you're 82 three and then on the other side is 60 and she's 82 or three and the lady across the street is in her 90s. I'm just kind of giving you an idea of the the age of the people that live there that bought their houses 20 years ago thinking this is going to be a quiet safe neighborhood for me to grow old in. That's what I did. I bought my home thinking this is going to be a quiet and it is. I love walking. I love seeing my neighbors. We know I know everybody on my street. And we are just blessed to have a very good and caring neighborhood. and I invite you to come and ride down our street and check it

out before you agree to let some condos or condominiums attached to our roads. Thank you for your time.

Hello, I'm Linda Wilkins Klein. I'm at 601 Rustic Street and um I appreciate Buddy Bruce. It sounds like they really did straighten out the White Street PR. I think maybe I should move over there now because I live on Rustic and where the stub out of Dunlop is and so all that traffic is going to come by my house down Dunlop and one of the problems I've lived there 30 years and I love where I live but I knew change would happen and I appreciate y'all because especially Lee brought people by. y'all are trying to make the best decisions you can to make people happy with a lot of stuff that has to be done. So, I understand that there there needs to be change. The problem I have is every time I come it gets worse. I'm just going, "Oh my god." Um, part of the issue is we only get the adjacent property owners parts. Okay. So, when I first came in February, I didn't even know all that Waverly part was done. it was already approved. So now I get to see how my part attaches to that and I'm horrified um because the traffic has just more than quadrupled down Dunlop which I was already worried about 22 houses being built. Now it's a lot worse. Um it may be speed bumps, you know, could help uh if we got to have this done. Um, they took out the white street ass access, which I I I don't blame them. White Street's a beautiful place. It's not even It's graveled that I didn't like that anyway. So, that's much better for them, but it's much worse for us. Um, now I see the I was worried about the traffic coming out. They're going to put a light. They need one. There's It's dangerous there coming on Waverly anyway. a lot of blind spots, but I worried about going out on 280 because

that's the way I go to work. And now they're going to close out the access going to the left, which is where everybody goes. How many people hit that at the Honda place and go to to go to Birmingham. So, I don't know how I'm supposed to get to Tiger Town. My my business is right across from the Walmart over there in in the Pero Mill village. and I guess I got to go right and then go up to a U-turn and come back, which that's what your traffic's going to be doing. So, that part to me is still confusing and I know they're trying to work with it. The other issue I haven't heard addressed um was the drainage. We had big concerns about the drainage. Our house at the corner of Rustic and Dunlop where the stubout is is six feet lower than our neighbor's house. So, it all comes down the hill to our house. And you're probably going to hear for our neighbor who across the street from us is even six feet lower than we are. And all the water runs down from the woods and the woods absorb the water. So, when you take the woods away, there's going to be a big big problem there. I also, my husband brought up last meeting, which I thought was a very good thing. What's going to feed the pond? This is called pond view. You don't see it on your map, but there's a pond. They're building all these houses around and there's ravines that are that are taking the water into the pond. So, I'm kind of wondering what's going to happen with that, too. But I haven't heard the drainage address. That's another big issue. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor and members of the council, I'm John William Klein. I live at 601

Rustic Street, right where Dunlop and Rustic come together. This is going to increase the traffic flow on our street immeasurably. I don't know how much, four or five or six times. That's going to create safety issues. It's going to change the character of the neighborhood. This is a very quiet, very safe, beautiful neighborhood, and that's going to change everything. I'm also concerned and a little confused whether R2 and R3 allow duplexes and townhouse. Maybe you can answer that. We thought these were only single family dwellings that we would have in the Dunlop edition, but as soon as you add this in to the Waverly edition, you have dramatically expanded, you know, all of the houses, all of the traffic flow. This is going to change the whole character of our neighborhood. And we're right there at the uh ground zero, if you will. We're at Dunlop and Rust Extreme. I oppose this change and I urge you to do the same. Thank you for listening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Stephanie Thompson, 702 Rustic Street. Uh, first I'd like to commend the city of Opaikica staff, particularly the planning department, uh the planning commission, and you all for hearing all of the additional cases that are being um kind of dropped in because of this moratorum and kind of increasing this flow and these quick decisions that you're having to make um and with all of this. And I appreciate that we can still come up and and speak to you all during this time um and you're still interested in hearing the citizens um even under that great pressure. So, um thank you all. um staff and planning commission and council. So um I'm echoing most of the concerns that have already been spoken. I live on Rustic Street. I regularly walk up Dunlop um to Gross Street. I would say the primary concern with the increased density would be the lack of sidewalks. Um as stated, we're pretty much forced to walk in the street. Um, so I walk my dog regularly in the street, but I've seen families out with strollers. They're also walking in the street. We have children who um, the bus stop is currently at Waverly Place where that light will go in. So all children from our neighborhood walk from wherever they live to that location. Again, they're having to walk in the street. Um, so I recommend that you do not approve this resoning just so um all of those plans that we're looking at to improve vehicular traffic, maybe we could look at improving pedestrian traffic and and getting some sidewalk set in if if the ultimate goal is to provide um connectivity and things like that. I know development um while we can kind of hold it off as much as we can, a lot of it is inevitable. Um but if we

can try and build it to where it's it's safe um at least and if we are doing connectivity in roads, let's design the roads um to be able to be both um pedestrian and vehicularly safe. Um, I guess to echo as well, the terrain of that area back there does present a lot of issues that could lead to some serious drainage and um flood damage concerns for a lot of those lowering lots on um the opposite side of Rustic of Dunlop as well as all of those lots that are backing up to where that new development is. Um, I'm not sure what the zoning ordinance for city of Opalikica is, but assuming that some sort of maybe vegetative buffer would be in place for those lots that already have been exposed to woods behind them for forever. I think that that if um if the plat is, you know, the purview of the planning commission and is already set or something and hopefully we can hold off of this zoning, but um just try and make it a little bit more um in character with the rest of the neighborhood, but like I said, the primary concern for me would be the sidewalks and the ability for people that have to now walk in the street could walk and not Thank you. My name is Deborah Pow. I live in Wavely Park uh in one of the condos. My daughter lives in one of the houses. So, we can walk through each other's house. Um I would ask you to ask yourself this. If you have a mother or a grandmother

and you found the neighborhood like Waverly Park, when I went there, I thank God every night for where I live. It's peaceful. We look out for one another. There's mo mostly just ladies there. Um, is it and I know everything's about money. I worked in customer service for 50 years. But I would ask you to ask yourself right over there, look at that neighborhood and say, would I want my mother or my grandmother to live here with people that care about one another, that look out for one another? Would I want to put her through all of this noise, all of this traffic where I couldn't walk to get my mail? Um, is it really worth it? I mean, is there another way to get a road out that would not touch our little precious neighborhood? I just I I just want you to think about that and vote your conscience.

Thank you. My name is David Barnes. I live at 531 Rustic. I am right on the corner of Dunlop and Rustic. And Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, I appreciate your time. Uh, my concern is primarily topographical as my neighbor explained that everything drains downhill. Well, I'm at the bottom of his hill. So, everything that he sees, it's going to come to me. And right now, there's already a ditch washing away heading to the east. And if they disturb that landscape, it's going to get a lot worse. U I do have a suggestion. Possibly if they reszoned that part to two where they had to have larger lots with bigger houses, it would give prospective land owners the opportunity to select cut trees, build their house, and end up with a beautiful wooded lot. These small lots, they're going to be scalped off. And then the existing root structure of the natural vegetation, the trees is going to be gone and the all the barriers that I have now to prevent my backyard from getting flooded will disappear. So that's my speech and I'm sticking to it. Thank you very much for your time.

Hello, I'm Brandon Rice, office address 724 North. I guess you could say that I'm technically representing or speaking for the current land owner, the per proposed purchaser, and the ultimately proposed builder. Um, so I guess if I can speak to a couple of concerns, the first is Horble Hills, McDonald Downs, Waverly Park are all zone R3. You heard from the one you heard from the one resident of White Road, Dr. Buddy Bruce. They have withdrawn their objection to this. Um, I think there's a misunderstanding. Is there any way that we can get the current approved plat up on the up on the screen? Was that one of the ones that was in Mr. Mosley's presentation? It's this one. I can pass these out, but I think it might be beneficial. Everybody audience Okay, this is already approved. This is what's going to be built if zoning the the new plat has been approved by the planning commission pending zoning approval by this council. This is what is going to be built if the zoning doesn't change. So the connections to Waverly Park, they're already made. They're already there. This is what's going to happen there. Nothing changes that. Can we see the next one?

So this is proposed change and it does affect Orville. It does affect Dun Drive. Dunham drive also gets a light as as Mr. Mos explained. So the traffic that was going to come out on White Road now comes out to the light. So if you're concerned about a safety issue, this is the safe way. If these people come out to the light instead of coming out on White Road, they can also come out to the light instead of dumping on Wavelin Park. There were concerns about buffers. They're in the new subdivision. There's concerns about sidewalks. They're in the new subdivision. All of those are already approved. They're in there. So, the previous one where everything comes out to where everything comes out to White Road, that's what's going to be built if the zoning doesn't change. I don't think I have anything else to say other than that. I even beat my time.

I just have a question. Um, it's zone three, but if you do the math on a lot of those lots, and I'm not I need to be careful with my words here. Not a lot on the people who live in McDonald Downs and close to Rustic Street. Most of those lots are 14,000 square feet, which don't quite make the minimum of R2. R2 is 15,000 square feet, but they are not 10,000 square feet. Okay, just just to but he's correct. This is some dark threat. Now the concerns here compromise needs to be the word of the night. Um like the guy that Mr. Rice who just stood up and said he said this is a done deal. Okay. Well, the folks that are concerned here are concerned about the traffic. Why can't this? There's a stub out on over to your right. Are y'all looking at the same thing? I don't know what y'all are looking at on that side on the R2 on the proposed R2 there's a out on it's I don't know the name of the street.

No, it's not McDonald. It's the one over here to the right. There's a 3 acre lot. There's a 3acre lot. Whoever's the developer here, there's a 3.49 acre lot. It's lot number one. Why aren't you coming out there? Why can't Why can't traffic come out there on the way to the park? It would help with it would help relieve the traffic from the other from a question. It would help a lot.

Do y'all know what I'm Can y'all see what I'm looking at? Let me let me try here. I think if you go back one p one

see see right see your black No that's you lost it now. Okay. Go over to your see the black arrow where Waverly hit where this the road comes out of Waverly. You've got your stoplight. Go. Okay. You've got your the little Move your mouse down. Move it down. Right there. You see that? See that? That's a threeacre lot. It comes out and I don't know why there's another there's a street there though that comes out of Waverly Parkway. You know where I'm talking about. It's the first one you get to before you get to that main intersection. It's a huge opening right there. I mean, you're not just talking about 90 ft. You're talking about three acres of access to that road. Why can't we Why can't we redraw a little bit of that plat and put some of that traffic? I guarantee you some of the even the new people that would buy lights back in here would go, "Hey, there too many people sitting at the light. I'm going to go down here because I need to get to work. I need to get my kids to school. I got to have another way out." Safety reasons, too. Look at all that stuff back in there. There's one way in, one way out. And y'all don't want to put them on White Road. So, let's give them another access on Wavely Parkway. I I don't know. I It's just a question. I'm just trying to

I know the developer probably hates me, but I I mean I I just part of the problem here tonight is access to way. Oh, sorry. And please, before you leave, state your name and address.

Oh, Robin White. I live on Shelby Avenue. I was asked to stand up for a couple of people. He live Bill Perry 1611 Jim is in place. Two points of clarification I want to make. The the subdivision, the already approved subdivision and the one that has just recently been through planning. These are all 100% single family dwellings, no condominiums, no duplexes, nothing like that. The reason why that reroute is there is for safety reasons only. That's the that's that's the best alternative for this development and it again it comes out to a stoplight. That's that's the whole purpose of this. Thank you.

The first man said there were going to be duplexes. The first man that spoke there's absolutely no duplexes in the already approved development and none in Pine View. They're all single family. Well, the first

Okay. Just just and that's the point of clarification. Thank you. Daniel Richardson, 603 Rustic Street. I am the neighbor of the Kleines. I'm the hire people that feed them the water. I had five trees cut down in my yard for safety reasons to my house and I probably made that problem worse. Um, the man said that those it's drawn this way for safety reasons and I cannot fathom that. The only map that I have seen before tonight are the 22 homes that were highlighted in light blue. Um, they're those first homes that the road the highlighted in black road is being proposed to R2. Those are the only homes that I have seen on a map given to me so far until I showed up here tonight. I was already concerned about traffic coming into Dun coming down Dunlop onto Waverly Waverly with just those homes. On my way here, I drove past a family of seven that again are walking in the street. A husband, a wife, two kids walking in the yards, two more kids in strollers, and a grandfather. All of on the street. People are parking on the street because we don't have garages and that's fine. There's enough room with how it is right now. I don't know how many houses are actually back there. I don't see any way that Dunlop can carry all of that with the current infrastructure. Um I'm not sure the name of the developer that was just talking up here that said all the new development does have sidewalks. Great. Happy for them. That doesn't help us out. We need Washington.

Any others? Having none, other declaring closed number eight.

Excuse me. If y'all need to discuss that, would y'all mind going out and disturbing the people around you? Public hearing number eight is to amend the zoning ordinance amount at 3310 Society Hill Road for 18.1 acres from R1 to C2 GCP. I declare this public hearing open. Anyone wants to speak for against this item, please come to the podium to my left. State your name and address. And remember, you have three minutes to speak. Having none, I declare this public hearing closed. Agenda related public comments. Mr. Mley, now's the time if you'd like to speak about any item that is on the agenda tonight. Feel free to come to the podium uh and speak. You have three minutes. Make sure that you sign your name, state your name and address, and make sure you sign in. Thank you. Emily Key, 2025th Avenue. Um, I do just want to make it publicly known that I am pursuing the purchase of 1904 treble at the tax sale and I would like to potentially get with Jeff afterwards or over the next few weeks and just ensure that I don't May 6th purchase something that May 7th at 8 a.m. gets demolished. So, that would be very unfortunate. I just wanted to make that public. Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to the adoption of the consent agenda. Does any council member wish to remove any item from the consent agenda and address it as part of our regular agenda? Yes, Mr. President, I would like to move resolution remove resolution 15, resolution number 16, and resolution So, what's the first one?

Resolution number 15. Resolution number 16 and resolution number 18. We will remove our resolution number 15, 16, and 18 and make it part of our regular agenda. Any others? If not, I entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda with the removal of these three resolutions. Moved second.

Been moved and properly second. Any discussion having on call the role Mr. Mley Holmes I Watley Irph business Mr. The only item under general business that is not under the consent agenda is a request for specialty license from TopShelf Alternatives LLC Specialty Retailer uh of consumable health products and this motion has been tabled.

Is there a motion to remove this item from the table? So moved. Second any discussion having none call the role. Mr. Mley S I swatley I mean I I voted I now is there a motion to approve for approval? We have a motion in a sec. Any discussion?

I'll just take a moment of discussion, Mr. President. Um I think this um I received several calls, several um several calls. I was surprised by the calls. I'm assuming that the folks had had read the article in the newspaper in the Observer. Um, all the all the feedback that I got from from the concerned citizens that that reached out to me were um supportive of not having consumable hemp sales in the gateway corridor. And I, you know, I just want to make that I want that on the record. And uh, I think their concerns were valid and those are my comments. I mean the discussion Mr. President. Um I know that dealing with this issue since we um put a moratorum on new hemp licenses during um the last term and understanding the procedures that the state was taking up um in the legislature to um stipulate new regulations and guidelines through the ABC board and setting up a um an oversight uh organization. through the state that would regulate the um sale and um purchasing of these items and understanding that top shelf has been a business in the city of Opaikica um before the moratorium was put into place and is currently going on. Um, I believe that understanding what the state laws are and what they do and how they're regulated that as a city, we should understand those laws and

understand that oversight and be permissible of a business that's already been existing in our city because as we say at every single ribbon cutting that we are a businessfriendly city. So, I'm very much in supportive of this and I wish that we could have done it sooner for them.

Thank you. I also want to say I know that there are concerns but as of right now there is not an ordinance for him in the gateway corridor which allows us to be able to approve because there is not an ordinance that would not um that would be go against we have an alcohol ordinance in the gateway corridor but we do not have anything as of now on the books for hemp in the gateway corridor for the record as well. Um, I go along with Chuck Beans. I've had multiple phone calls. It's the Gateway Corridor is not a place to sell hemp. There's a library not far, children in the presence, and um I've just feel strongly that it's not the right thing to do for Opaikica and be in the gateway corridor.

Oh, we have to understand that it's not before us where it's located. is before us to issue a license. One question, Mr. Trice. Um when we issued the original license to um Topshelf Alternative LLC, did the ABC board regulate hemp, consumable hemp sales? Not that I know of. No, sir. Okay. And does the ABC board would in your opinion would you say that the ABC board is treating the consumable hemp sales as alcohol? Well, they are the alcohol

regulating it like it's alcohol. Yes, that's what they do for alcohol. That's the name of their board actually.

Okay. Um, my point with this is that when we wrote the gateway corridor overlay many years ago, we included alcohol because it was regulated by the ABC board and we felt like the gateway corridor was something precious to us that we wanted um to maintain. And my point is is that hemp wasn't a thing then. It is now. And um it is my opinion that we if given the chance would include hemp in the gateway corridor overlay. And so that's that's that's my my thoughts.

And once we would do that though, that would go back to a future um well the ordinance would be in place not dealing with this particular license and this particular date. So even if we do an ordinance, I feel like it would be fair and the right decision to grant the license based off of was there ordinance at the time that his license were uh that his application was put in. And as of now, there's not an ordinance that goes against him in the gateway corridor before um as of now. And so if we do put one in place, I feel like it still has to start the day of that we do it in any license that has already been um put in. I just feel like that we don't need to put those license under those same conditions because of the date. So you can't just put an ordinance in and backdated and licenses already been in there.

Well, we wouldn't we wouldn't be backdating the the ordinance. We would if our cho we have a choice here tonight. We have a choice to keep it on the T. Well, it's off the table now. We have a choice to approve or deny it. If we if we deny the license, we we have the right to deny the license. The state has given us the ability to choose, right, Mr. Trice? That's correct.

Okay. So, we we're given the ability as a council to to to to make a choice. Um, and so if we deny the license tonight, then we can work on the ordinance and we can make the ordinance like I believe most Opalakians want it to be and then we would um and then we would have the ordinance like we want. If we choose to approve the license tonight, we'll have we'll have um TopShelf Alternative LLC in this location. Um and they'll be grandfathered in and they'll Mr. Trees, they would be able to stay there as long as they choose and could have hemp sales there for as long as the state and the federal government allows it. Right.

Correct. Okay. And as of right now, um, in the gateway corridor, there are, um, convenience stores that are in the gateway corridor that has ABC license, has alcohol license because they've already been in, um, for that time. So,

I I believe that's a faulty argument because if we're going to make anything that the ABC board regulates within the gateway corridor, they also regulate cigarettes. Are you saying that cigarettes are similar to alcohol? Because we got to be careful because we have this organization that oversees a lot of oversight, regulatory oversight for our state. So to say that we don't want this because it's associated with the ABC board, then you have to include cigarettes in that argument. I understand your argument, but the constituents that have called me in the last couple weeks are not talking to me about cigarettes. They're talking to me about consumable hemp,

but you're talking about the ABC and hemp being related because they are overseeing it. That's your argument. I understand. I understand your point there. But my opinion is the vast majority of Opalakians would not want consumable hemp sold in the Gateway Corridor.

Right. I still I still see the the purpose that this has been an existing um this has been an existing business within the gateway corridor before the regulations before the oversight before the state legisl and understanding that we did create a zoning ordinance for medicinal marijuana last term and that is not to be confused with hemp. We do not have a zoning ordinance in the gateway corridor for hemp. So for us to temporarily pause something to put something into effect that is going to affect a business that has already been in business before the state got involved with it and now we're putting things into motion to limit that business. That's government getting in its own way. And so right now just the question on the table is so we um we're going with the question of do we approve the license?

You you you have an opportunity to approve or disapprove. Right, Mr. President? I call for the question. Pardon me. I call for the question. You call for the question. That means we vote discussion. No, no, no other discussion. No other discussion. Discussion. All in favor? Let it be known by saying I'm sorry I'm you got me all when you call for the question it stopped all I'll just discuss it. I got you. You ready for me to call? Yeah. Call the roll. I miss nay. Mr. Beans. Nay. Mr. Ralph. I.

Mr. All I two carries. Okay. The catch up here. Where are we? Awarding of bids. Resolution number 15. We must do the resolutions. Resolutions are Mr. T the ones we pulled off. Yeah. 15. Res resolution number one is number 15. Resolution number two would be 16 and resolution number three would be 17. Right. So

will you 18 I'm sorry. Will you introduce those for us Mr. Trice? Yes sir. Thank you Mr. President. Resolution number one, formerly number 15, is an a resolution to approve certain tax abatements and exemptions for Cartek LLC from the economic development department. Is there a motion for approval? So moved. Is that second? Second. Any discussion?

Discussion. Mr. president had several uh residents that um have asked questions about economic development and with I'm assuming um some of these organizations be here, I wanted to invite Mr. John Swatman, our director of economic development to come up here and tell us some more about um the resolution that we're going to be voting on on the uh tax abatement. Good evening. John Sweban, economic development for the city of Opaikica, mayor, council members. Um, Cartekch is u proposing a major expansion of their operations, one of many they've done over the years after their initial investment. This will be a $20 million investment creating 75 new jobs. Um, happy to answer any questions you might have.

Are they here tonight? No. Anyone here? Okay. I I'm going to ask another question on the other resolutions so don't go too far. Okay. Any other discussion? Is there a motion for motion for approval? So move. Second. We already have a motion to second. Pardon me. We already have a motion in second. Have a motion to second. Call. Call. Call the RO. Miss Holmes. I. Miss Wat. Hi. Mr. Bean. Hi. Mr. Rout. Hi. Mr. Allen. I,

Mr. President, resolution number two is to approve the project development agreement with GMBBUSA Alabama, Inc. from the economic development department. Is there a motion for approval? Second. Is that second? Second. Any discussion? Discussion. Mr. President, um, same reason Mr. John Swatman, would you come up here and tell us some more about this? We got a a brochure that, um, Jonathan handed out to us. So excited to hear more about it.

Uh this is a uh new company that went on a a multi-state search for their first North American manufacturing operation. We were very fortunate to be chosen. Uh very thankful for that. So they're going to come and occupy one of our newer buildings in the or industrial park, invest almost $10 million and create 75 jobs, bringing a new manufacturing process for the automotive sector. John, we talked before um I think it might have been at the special session last time we talked about city um and economic development incentives or is that incorporated into into this as well? Yes. So what is typically what does that include for a business that specifically to this project?

Yes sir.

Okay. So in this project we are doing a jobs performance incentive that uh over 10 years uh gives a portion of the uh income that comes into the city back about 35 to 40% of that over 10 years of tooling $137,000. We'll do some of our typical uh city incentives like shop opa first the amount of $15,000 that u re reim is a reimbursement to the company when they spend money with opaikica vendors on whether it's office equipment desk things of that nature. Um, they will also offer them a $5,000 reimbursement for Sports Flex memberships. Uh, they'll be bringing expats over from South Korea. They'll be moving to our community living here for one, two, three years, and we want them to get plugged in and get to know us. And the Sports Plus is a great place to do that. So, we always try to include that. Uh, relocation incentive. Same for the same reason. We have a $15,000 relocation incentive uh for up to three of their employees to buy a home in the city of Limits of Opal at 5,000. And we'll do a reimbursement if they do so. uh at $5,000. And then the OIDA is um also offering a $10,000 tuition reimbursement for Southern Union for additional training that the company would need down the road. Other than that, we have the u the 10-year tax payments and sales tax payments.

Do we have anyone here from GMBB here tonight? Yes, we have uh the C CEO of GMBB USA, Mr. Lee and his his team and we're very thankful for them to be here and for their investment in Opaikica. Thank you. Thank you. John, can you tell them what city we were complete competing with to get them here? We were complete competing against two cities in Georgia and one other city in Alabama. So this was it was a highly competitive situation and we were again very fortunate to be chosen. Go dogs.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other call the role? Mr. Mley Holmes. Hi. Mr. Watley. Hi. Mr. Bean. Hi. Mr. Rout. I. Mr. Allen. I. Mr. President. Resolution number three formerly resolution number 18 is for demolition at 1904 Treble Street. I have a motion for approval. So moved. Second. Second. Okay. Any discussion?

Discussion, Mr. President. Um, you know, we had talked a little bit during the public hearing and understanding that, um, you know, we had had some conversation there, but it wasn't the proper place to have conversation, um, I wanted to, um, ask about what Miss Key had talked about with the tax sale and the demolition of this and understanding that we have what Mr. Montley had talked about was possibly approving this tonight and checking into the ownership of the home and everything. Um, doing with the tax sale, I want to make sure that that exact situation doesn't happen where the tax sale someone buys the property and then 24, 48, 72 hours later that without them knowing that the property is going to be demolished because we've already approved it. Okay,

that would allow sufficient time saying for the tax sale to happen. This we're approving the demolition. Okay. So the So what I mean what is what is that would we if that were the if someone were to buy that property and wanting to fix that you come up here to the microphone so we can all hear why I'm asking this. But um what would be the process then with the demolition of someone purchasing a property from a tax sale and then it coming to bid with possibly getting demolished? Would we just

We're always willing to work with the property owner. We have new property owner willing to invest the money and repair the property. That's the best case scenario. We have never torn one down if somebody's trying to improve it. Okay? We're always willing to work with them. What we want is occupied homes that are repaired. So, and uh just scenario, not saying that this would happen, but if Miss Key were to buy the property during the tax sale and her wanting to improve it, you would be willing to work with her or anyone else that buys it to as we always have. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

I like to let it be known that that's the way we've always done it. even even though it was different administration, we would vote to demolish it or not to and give him the opportunity to work with the uh land owners to make sure that uh we will not do anything to harm any land owners. Right. And I just like to clarify, Mr. President, the reason I was asking that question is because of the tax sale. Okay? So, it wouldn't be just anyone. It could be a new owner that's buying this and just the willingness to work with them is the most important thing because I agree with you that we should be looking into keeping as many existing buildings as possible because one thing that we don't have in the city as much as we need is affordable housing.

Thank you. Call the roll. One note. Okay. Can I Yeah, of course. You'll notice tonight, I'm sure you did, that uh there was a public hearing for the demolition on Darden Street, but there's not a resolution for Darden Street because they came and got a building permit. So, we're not asking to be demolished, but since we had advertised a public hearing, we went ahead and had the public hearing. So, we do everything we can do to make sure that houses not torn down when they can be repaired. Thank you, Miss Mley. Call the role. Mr. Mley, Miss Holmes, I. Miss Watley. I. Mr. Bean. I Mr. Ralph I Mr. I

ordinances Mr. Trice. Thank you Mr. President. First ordinance is for second reading to amend the zoning ordinance and map at 1550 and 1570 North Uni Royal Road 12.5 acres from R2 to C2 GCP. Excuse me. Did we skip the consent agenda? We already did it first. We did consent agenda approved the agenda. We approved it. Then we went to resolution one, two, and three. Russell does this. We did. I'm sorry. I just That's why we removed the one, two, and three. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. No problem.

Read that. You want me to go back through this? Please do. All right. First ordinance is to amend the zoning ordinance. This is second reading to amend the zoning ordinance and map at 1550 and 1570 North Uni Royo Road for 12.5 acres from R2 to C2GCP. Is there a motion for approval? So move says is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Having none call the roles. Mr. Mley, Miss Holmes, I Miss Watley. I Mr. Beans I Mr. M I Mr. Al I voted I

second ordinance tonight Mr. President is to for second reading is to amend the zoning ordinance and map for the 4600 block of Birmingham Highway 113.4 acres from R2 to C3 GCP. Is there a motion for approval? So moved. It's a second. Second. Any discussion having none call a role. Mr. Mley, Miss Holmes, I missley. I Mr. Beam I. Mr. Ralph I. Mr. Allen I. All voted I.

Ordinance number three, Mr. President, is to amend the zoning ordinance and map the 1500 block of Century Boulevard consisting of 42.73 acres from R3 to R5. This is a second reading. Is there a motion for approval? So move. Second. Second. Any discussion having an uncall the role Mr. Mley miss Holmes I miss Watley I Mr. Beans I Mr. Rout I I the fourth ordinance Mr. President for second reading is to amend the zoning ordinance and map for 598 Dunlop drive 21.11 acres from R1 to R2 and R3 again the second reading. Is that a motion for approval?

So moved. Second. second in a discussion.

Um, of course, this has been a major issue. This is my board and um, I have people on both sides, but the majority are against this. Um, I want to explain why they're against it. I think a lot of people think they're against it because they don't want it in their backyard and people have that mentality, but they're not saying that. They know it's an R1 and things can be developed, but they want to keep it R1 and that means it would be low density, no chance of duplexes, town houses, although there is not a plan. I want to make sure that was clarified in an R3. It is allowed with a conditional use. They'd have to come back and get that approved. So, that is not in the original plan right now to like the um developer said, but um but it's a possibility. We don't know what's going back there. And I think that's we all know that things change. It's got to be developed, but we and people say, "Well, we got to have growth." But we can keep it R1 and have growth. It does not have to be R3. Even like some of you said, I think R2 might be a compromise with some of you all. But this has seemed like it's been done willy-nellied. We're pushing it through for the moratorum. It's not done right. It hasn't been We have not We've been confused. A lot of us have been confused. And I think we're pushing this through. And I think when I knocked on doors, everybody was about we need smart growth. And that doesn't mean stop growth. It just means let's have productive growth. And let's think about the traffic and all the traffic pouring into Waverly and the concerns of the K. I travel that road every day and it's already bad. And I know I I just and we already approved a neighborhood across the street. Um, and so we have got to really think through this and I think the moratorum and being so close, there is no reason for us to rush that rush this. I know that the gentleman said that one neighborhood's already coming. That's a done deal. But two wrongs don't make a right and we don't need to continue to do the wrong thing. And I don't think that that neighborhood was the right thing to do back there. And

but that doesn't mean we got to keep doing the wrong thing for everybody else. Um, like Robin said, most of those lots, even though it is R R3, they are considered they're bigger and they're more like an R2. So, I just think there's a lot of homework to be done. We can do it better. We can take our time with this moratorum and really look through. I did not hear, but one resident opaque speak for this. Everybody else that was for it is has some kind of, you know, they're in the business side of it. And I think I have to I think you all need to look at who's here. I think a lot more people if they knew in Harwell Hill a lot of people if they knew what was going on, they would show up. I think we represent our residents and not people that don't live here and want to develop in our backyard. And like I said, I want to make it clear. I don't think they're saying never no development. They just want it to be done right and to stay our one. So that is my bleed. and others.

I I have a question, Mr. President. So, I'm kind of confused with the one the one neighborhood that's a done deal and the one that is possibly coming. Would you be able to explain that a little bit more to me? Yeah, sure. You You said you have a hand out, right? Let me see my

Oh, that's great. Just pass them down. I'm good. I'm good. Right here. Right here. She gave me hers.

I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. This is I can't really see it, but the the one that's up there now, this is already done. So, it has Oh, it has a um it has a connection to Waverly Park. It has a connection to White Road. It's already approved. This is what's going to be built. We do have a moratorium in place which is part of the issue with this because these guys can't come back two months from now. They have to wait to come back and do this and they can't wait 18 months to come back and do this. They that's that's money. That's that's development. That's time. So they either have to do it like this or they have to do it with the new proposal. The new proposal is the red. So what you have in front of you, you can go to the next one. So the new proposal is the red. It still has the same connection to Waverly Park. Instead of the stub out coming into the White Road, it comes out on Dunwap, which this this change does not affect the Waverly Park residence whatsoever. Not one bit. Except for instead of most of the traffic coming on White Road where there is no light, the traffic will come on to Dunlop where there is going to be a light. The light's already approved as I understand it. The mayor can probably correct me. I think it's going to be in by the end of the year. some sometime in that area. So, if you're concerned about a safety issue, you're diverting all of that traffic that would be going onto White Road and probably a significant amount of it that would be going onto Waverly Park into Waverly Park. You're diverting it to a light on Waverly Parkway. So, instead of it coming onto White Road and coming and coming into Waverly Park, it's going to

be diverted to Dunlop where it affects the Dunlop residents. True. They get the light. They get the widening of Waverly Parkway. So, what you see in front of you, that's the blue, it's already approved. And because these guys can't wait 18 months to come back with this, it's either going to be built this way or it's going to be built according to the red. So, if you're concerned about a safety issue, the red is the way to go. Everything comes out to a light. If you're if I mean, they can't wait to do this. As far as the as far as the concerns, I spoke to this earlier about the sidewalk. The new subdivision that's already approved, it has sidewalks. It has buffers. You have it in front of you. So, this is the right way to do it. Everything around here, Orwell Hills, McDonald Downs, Waverly Park, it's all R3. If you're concerned with the consistency of character of the surrounding the surrounding property, it's all R3. We're asking for this to be R3. This 22 lots that connects that diverts that traffic from White Road to Dunlop Drive where there's the light. So, one of these two is going to be done. The blue is where we are right now.

Okay. Can I ask you a question? Sure. So, okay. So the sidewalks don't help the existing people. You know, you know the complaint. The sidewalks that you're talking about don't help the people that are complaining. So you know that. So that's kind of null and void point. All right. There's no children on White Road. Okay. So, and you're saying that we're going to you're kind of telling us to vote a certain way because this original way is not safe. So we're the city's going to let you all do something that's really you're trying to talk us into because this is safer than the first way. Well, of course this is safer than the first way. I know. But then why did we okay the I mean it seems like I can't speak to that. I'm just saying that you're kind of bringing this up and it seems like okay we're we're you know but don't do this what is in front of you is the blue is already approved.

I know that. So that's not stopped. The red is the safer way. The the red is where you get a light. The the light is already approved. It's going in on Waverly Parkway. The road is going to be widened there. How do you say that's a safer way? There's people walking and kids. There's a bus stop with multiple children. How do you say that's safer even with the light? Because you have 117 lots that are either going out Waverly Parkway and out on White Road, neither of which have a light, or you're coming out down a lot where there is one. And it gives an option if the Waverly Park residents are concerned about this. Where I mean, where do you go? Do you do you come out to to a stop sign where you have no light or do you come out to a light? I come out to a light.

But if we don't vote for this, you're not you're not coming out to the light. You're right. You're coming out white road is what you're saying. Well, some of them are coming out white road. Some of them are some of them are coming out Waverly Park. Yeah. But you won't come to the light, right? So, if you don't if you don't I mean, if you don't vote vote for this, if you don't vote to reszone this and approve the plat that's already been approved by the planning commission, then there's no connection to Dunlop where there is a light. Everybody either comes out White Road or or they come out Waverly Parkway or they come out Waverly Park. Those are the only two options. because there's no connection to Dunlop at that point in time.

Two questions. Um what what in the in the current approved U blue map, what is the um the future signalized intersection with Lake Wly Parkway? Is it coming regardless? Yes, Matt. Okay. Um I was looking for Scott. Um, and then in the future, I mean, in the current approved blue map, what is happening to White Road? Uh, like Janatica, I wrote out there and it's it's a it's a little dirt road. Yes.

Um, what what happens to that? I mean, is that going to be paid? What are we are we going to keep it dirt or what in the current plan that's approved right now? Yes, sir. So, one of the conditions of the original approval for Waverly Woods, the the previous section that has been approved is part of that approval requires that White Road be paved up to where that would connect. So that would be a condition of approval on the previous approved plan if it were uh if that were to stay that way. Okay. So on this drawing it looks like there's curb and gutter up to a certain point like maybe halfway between the in where the road comes out on on white between there and the Waverly Parkway intersection. is that

so the city has has had some discussions with the developer about potentially uh working to improve that with them because White Road is one of our few remaining dirt roads. I don't believe there's a a development agreement in place. Uh but that is one thing we have looked at possibility of improving White Road just because it is one of our last remaining gravel roads. Road. Yes. I mean there are others but I mean there there are not many. I just want to reiterate we approved a plat before we we've approved the zoning and this is not the usual order for how we do things. Correct. Right. We you stayed that earlier. Correct.

Yes ma'am. That is correct. It was done contingent on on this board approving it which of course is is still at your discretion. Matt, when was Waverly Woods subdivision approved? Uh Waverly Woods was approved in October of 2024. The most recent Waverly Place the or park uh the the existing development that has many of the residents came from I believe that was approved in the 2000s early 2000s. I believe it's about 20 years old.

Do you remember the vote? I know that I'm asking a lot of you. Um do you remember the vote on Waverly Wood subdivision? Uh it was not unanimous. I I believe I remember that. But it it did receive a positive. It it was approved by the planning commission. Was there a lot of contention with that subdivision coming in? Yes. Yeah. The neighbors were here too. Most of the times we we've dealt with that area and it's come up multiple times. Uh the neighbors have spoken out against it. So even with either or White Road only gets built out to a certain point.

Uh that is the requirement of the previous approval. We we have not said that they need to extend White Road beyond this where this current intersection would come in. Got because again there's only about five or six homes past that point.

So actually we have two options. option one which is already approved. Option two if we accept the re uh submitted. So ba basically what you have is is if the uh if the zoning is is not approved tonight, it's my understanding the developer would go ahead and build to what has previously been approved. Option one. Option one. Yeah. If the zoning is approved tonight, they would remove the access off of White Road and turn it down uh Dunlop to come out uh at that location.

And and I think what what might be uh a question is why option two would not present it first if it's safer. What? Uh, yeah. So, there there are different land owners through this whole section. This is putting together, I think, two or three different land owners. And so, it it's my understanding that they acquired this last piece or acquired an option on this last piece within the last six months to year. It was not on the table at that time.

Okay. It was not an option at that time. I mean it it may have been an option provided the they could work out agreement. It's not something that was presented to the city because they they didn't have the land at that time. Okay.

So Matt, I understand that you know um Councilwoman Watley was talking about the planning the proving the plat before the resoning. Traditionally, let's say we take the mortorium out of this and we put that into the normal timeline. Has would that would we be following the correct timeline if we would going through that process and we were trying to get this done? Uh so typically we the city has allowed uh people to submit even annexation reszoning and subdivision at the same meeting to planning commission. In most cases that's done when they have a fairly good idea that they're going to get approval on the resoning. uh when they did not in this case uh this was actually just the zoning that that came up first then the plat uh and I it is not common that we we've had one where there is a negative recommendation that's the that's the only difference in this instance

so we we have a posit a negative recommendation for the reasonzoning but a positive recommendation for the plan

the planning commission has approved approve the the subdivision plat and again that is within their jurisdiction. Y'all unfortunately don't have any say on on the plat itself but by approving the zoning if you do you would basically be kind of to some degree consenting to the plat that has been submitted because there is not enough time for them to resubmit a new plat or new zoning application before the moratorum. The other thing just to to make one clarification is when we have a zoning application that comes before the city council like this, there is a requirement in the subdivision regulations that you can't bring another zoning property owners or whoever cannot bring another zoning application for that same property within 12 months. So whether there was a moratorum or not, if you deny this or even if if it came in and and was approved one way and then they decided they wanted a different zone, they would not be allowed to bring that back up for an additional 12 months.

So the but the moratorum being within that span is kind of moot at that to some degree. Yes, sir. It wouldn't would some degree. Well, I mean it it wouldn't wouldn't affect it. We're one month difference. Okay, I get what you're saying. The what is the maximum timeline that this has to get approved by to make that deadline? Would it be the next meeting?

So, for this to be uh to be approved prior to the the mortorium taking effect. Yes, sir. This would have to be approved prior to May 1st. So, it would have to be at your next regularly scheduled meeting at the very latest unless the council called a special meeting. Thank you. Call the role. Mr. Martin, I swat I Are we saying you called roll? I'm sorry. Did I vote? Are we voting? It's on the reading. Okay. On the reading. Okay. Nay. Sorry. Start over. Miss Hall. Yes. Hi.

Miss Watley. Nay. Mr. Bean. Hi. Mr. Rout.

Mr. Rout. Hi. Mr. Adam. Nay. Ordinance number five for second reading is to amend the zoning ordinance and map at 3310 Society Hill Road 6.5 R1 to C2 GCP. Is that a motion for approval? So move. Is that second? Second. Any discussion? Call the role. Miss Holmes, I miss Watley. I be I

Mr. Rout I. Mr. Allen I. Ordinance number six for first reading is to amend chapter 17 article five of the city code of ordinances for pre-trial divers for the pre-trial diversion program. Again, first reading. I'd like to ask ask a member of the council introduce this audience for ordinance for first reading. My pleasure. Thank you. We're all hungry.

Ordinance number seven is to amend the development plan for the Cedar Creek PUD. This is first reading. I'd like to ask a member of the council to introduce this or for first reading. My pleasure. Thank you so very much. Now we're getting there. I now entertain a motion for adjournment. So move to second roster of public comments. Oh wow. I'm trying to man. We're trying to get through, aren't we? Well, and I'd just like to note that there was two appointments under the consent agenda. Yeah.

Uh Mr. Jackson to the We did approve that. Yes. Just don't want it to get lost in the second roster of public comments. Now's the time for anything that you'd like to say. Feel free to come to the podium to do so. Be sure to state your name, address, and be sure to sign.

Hello. Uh Bradley Haden 1805 Archer Court. Uh I'm the owner of Top Shelf. I just want to say thank you guys for bearing with us, for asking the questions, um for seeking information. Uh I know this has been a long arduous process for everybody um at a great expense to to everybody here. Uh but we are dedicated to doing this the right way, showing people that there are uh new avenues, there are safer alternatives uh out there and just thank you for giving us the opportunity to show this community that. Thank you. and others. Character trait of the month, kindness, the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. And at this time, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So move. This is the longest one. Call the role. Mr. Mley. M. I. M. Watley. I. Mr. Bean. Hi, Mr. Rout. I miss