Board of Commissioners Agendas and Minutes - Regular Meeting

I order the Bear with the County Board of Commissioners February 9th, 2026 meeting at 6 PM. If you would please silence your cell phones and other electronic devices and stand for our commission word give them invitation to follow the legs. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to come in and do work to serve each other and serve this community and to to glorify and honor you in that process. We ask that you give us an open mind and open hearts to work together as a team, seeking the betterment of the community and to further your will. You would guide us in every decision we make and how we make it that it's compiled in your love and your will and follows the law. If we need to change the law that we'll be so minded to do so, if we can, but always put you first and the community and the people first. We ask that you be with the citizens that are here, the ones that are watch it over on on the internet and by phone and just guide and bless each every one of us to be able to work together to improve our lives here in this beautiful county. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Next on list is adopt the agenda. Do we have any changes to the agenda?

We do. I have three changes. The first change is if you look on your agenda under public hearings where it says this was tabled. That needs to state this was continued. So change the word tabled to continued. The second change will also be on the agenda to add above report from county administrator, report from ACCG legislative coordinator. And the last change will be to add number seven under new business and that's going to be John you want to give them the title? That will be theou for EM grants manager. Theouou for em grants manager.

Will you go back to what you said before that report administrator county commission? What all was it that? Oh, okay. So before the report from the county administrator, we need to add report from ACCG legislative coordinator. Okay. And that'll be number of what? I'm going to have to reumber that. So, you're going to make that that Roman numeral and then I'll number it down from there. Yeah.

Okay. No other addition to the agenda. Need a motion to adopt agenda. So, move second. All in favor presentations. That's a finance report.

Yes, sir. Uh, commissioners, these are the bank balances as of this afternoon. Uh, the investment earnings have been updated as well. Listed below are the loss floss and two SPLOs distributions received in January. On the second page, the SPLOS balance is negative 280,000 as no advances have been made from the general fund yet. The TLOS balance is 960,000 questions on finance. Yes, but we we're covering something with that later, right?

Correct. Okay. I'll wait until the finance department heads. Department heads. We have several in attendance. Who wants to go first? Fire chief and EMS director Danny Stevens.

All right. Just found some numbers from last year, I guess, and go over some of the stuff that's going on in fire rescue. Um 2025. I wanted to kind of touch on some of our turnout times and u some information with that cuz I know a lot of times we feel like um man of stations could be an issue but this is an example of what we work to do every single day. So uh on a turnout time that means from the time we get to college we can get in the truck and be in route on a national average 90% of the time is 5 minutes and 58 seconds. We're at 2 minutes and 32 seconds as a count on average. Travel time from the time we get the call to we get on scene. Um you're looking at I mean uh the median travel time is 14 minutes on national average. We're at 7 minutes as a county. Our total response time first apparatus on the scene and these are for fire calls. Um alarm to arrival 90% of the time on national average 17 minutes and 9 seconds. remember the county's time is 10 minutes and 9 seconds. Um, just kind of touch on some of our fire breakdown. Our calls, uh, we've got about five. They're not really hot spots, but it's the areas that we manage on a daily basis and try to have people at um, as as a department. And overall, our our first area that has the most responses is the Warm Springs area with 860 responses. uh Greenville is second at 780. I can remember in years where uh Warm Springs was double of what you know the other parts of the county are. So that just shows where how the how the county is changing uh you know in this area and where our where our responses are. Um

Woodbury is at 567. Um Lutherville is at 423 and then Lawn Oak is at 295. So that's my top five areas of, you know, the how we're breaking down. Our call types overall as a department, um, fire calls make up 3.37% of our responses. 3.37

3.37%. Our EMS or rescue calls is 82.3% of what we respond to on a daily basis. Our cancel or good intent calls, the way they break them down in far as our reporting system is 6.46. Our false alarms is 2.12. Severe weather is 0.92%. Service cost whether that's you know somebody had a beam smoke alarm or you know something like that. We just went out and done a service or routine call is 5.6% and then other is less than 1% at 96%. for January on those call types. Uh we averaged 12.8 calls per day. That's total 397 calls for the month of January. 88% of those this year were EMS calls. 350 EMS and we transported over 215 of those transports. And that's going to be important when I get to this other. Our busiest days are Tuesday and Thursday. And our peak hours are 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. during the day. So that's and that's really when we got all of our admin staff is around. We respond to those calls as well uh as on an as needed basis. Uh EMS times the following times are calculated to the average. Our turnout times for EMS if we just went over fire is 2.4 minutes. Our uh response time is 11.8 minutes and our time on scene is 17.8 minutes. This is where it's important. From the scene to the hospital is 29.5 minutes. So that's a 30 minute ride to any facility we go to. So that takes that provider out of our county for 30 minutes and then a 20 20 or so minute ride back. And then if you look at that the patient offload time and this reflects on some of the way our hospitals are and and some of the

crowding and it it goes with flu and COVID but uh 90% of the time we're 39 minute offload time and that's from the time that the patient gets to the hospital until we transfer that patient over to uh that facility. We can't just leave the patient, we have to transfer it to somebody. Okay. uh 2025 stats, 62% of EMS were transported there. Again, our busiest hours on those was 4 to 5:00 p.m. Our busiest days on those was Mondays and Thursdays. Um so our total shifts per year, and that's with fully stout is 5,475 shifts. All right, the open shifts for 2025 was 1,084 open shifts. So less than 19% or 19.8% less than 20% were open shifts that we didn't have somebody on that shift. Less than 20%. All right. With that being said, we also increased our revenue to 1.4 million approximately last year, up from $800,000. And John will be more than glad to elaborate on that. Um that's that's in in part to do with we changed the way we do some of our capturing of information. We changed our billing company and stuff like that. So that's where that's come from. And we're also we're set to exceed that this year. Correct.

Correct.

I mean with what we've been averaging coming in where we should we should exceed that 1.1 million this year. Um just the stuff I'm doing of course I've been teaching by recruit class. Uh we're in the process right now of interviewing for some of the training chief to replace a position that we had and I moved somebody over to operations. We're getting that position filled. Um been working, you know, trying to get the specs on additional remount for an ambulance cuz there again we're 8 months out on that. We get the mileage on some of the other ones that were remounted. So we just kind of want to stay in that cycle, present that to y'all. Our two tankers, I talked with the guy uh this building those today. They're still scheduled. They'll be here around the mid of April. Um, so that's still pretty much he's got chassis ordered and when those ordered, he said they were probably start March doing the fabrication on the tanks. When the chassis come, tanks should be ready. They merge together in a couple weeks, we should have our trucks, those two 4,000galon tankers. Uh, fire recruit class. Like I said, I've been working, you know, very, very hard on that, getting that done. Uh, we got seven students in that. We started with seven, we still got seven. Uh we had two that didn't show up immediately. We hired nine, made several job offers. We went through a bunch of applications, but we we ended up with a group of seven. That's that's where we at that. Um we completed our EMS research in January. That's where the state office of EMS comes down inspects every one of our apparatus, our EMS apparatus. Uh no problems with that whatsoever. Um we got EMS certification renewal. Uh this year we have certain EMS uh certain EMTs and providers that are re renew every two years. So every year we have a different group by 50/50 that have to renew. Um that'll be up in on March the 31st. You know they're getting their hours and things like that getting that renewal

going. Uh we've also got several applications for the next recruit class. So, you know, we've already trying to get this thing get everybody trained up where they need to be and and fill the rest of the remainder of these stations. Uh we got new radios. We got 20 of them in. 20 are on the way. They've already been ordered from from my new budget year. Um with those 20, we had we've inventoried those and placed numbers and asset IDs on every one of the infrared radios. Uh we're developing a training class on how those operate because they'll be completely different from what we're used to and uh they should be deployed really this week. So um and that's pretty much that's pretty much what I got.

You you have open positions and once you have these seven in the academy, you're going to get like about seven more again, right? I hope more than that. I mean, we shoot for 15, but you know, I'll take them as if I can get up to seven or 10, we'll go ahead and start another class. Try to get those guys trained. So, basically, we do have the open positions. You're going to keep going once these roll out. Okay. Thank you. There's some great information. Where do we stand on hiring some more EMS? Cuz I see like there's a lot that are that's what the calls are. So, do we have job openings for those posted so that we can bring some in for the ones who don't want to be a fireman? Do we have some in process for that? Uh, nobody's applied. I got open positions, but I haven't had an application for that yet. Okay.

Um, but there's uh these recruits once they complete the fire class, they'll actually be in the advanced EMT class as well. So, two of them are already EMTs. Uh, you know, so we're utilizing them, you know, as well. So, they're they're getting their fire search while they're also an EMT. So, two of them are already that. So you know I want to say on what you said about the ambulance travel time almost 30 minutes one way 30 minutes back but until you transfer that patient it could be an additional 30 to two hours that's an hour and a half two hours on a transfer right so if you have a person there in the ER until you can do the transfer that time just adds to that that the unit's out

and it's mileage too guys I mean it racks up mileage on these apparatus you go to Columbus you know 12.8 eight times in fact we don't go to Columbus every time but if you have to go down there that's 40 45 mile ride you know and then on the range 30 miles just depends on where you transfer from so that's why we rack up so much miles on our apparatus you've mentioned once before about the telmed and the ambulances have you looked more into that yeah it's still very new to the state of Georgia I think there's two departments and I really wait to see what uh the city of well not city of fat county gets back as far as feedback on that so it's It's a relatively new concept.

One of my classes that I just did was public safety and they were talking some about that told me that we had been looking into it and that's just a good, you know, it's just making sure the billing gets done.

Yeah. I love to, you know, it's it's pretty much the you take your uh tablet when you come in contact with a patient because a lot of these not necessarily need be transferred to an ER. A lot of them have um uh transportation issues or daycare issues and they end up calling us as a last resort to get to a hospital where and you know if they activate 911 system and they say they want to go to the hospital we got to take them to the hospital you know cuz we can't diagnose them so to speak in the back of the ambulance whereas with this tele medicine they will do social work all the way through the process to get them you know if they need they need food I mean It's that it's that in depth to where they'll get them the resources to them to schedule a doctor's appointment, get them take them to a doctor's appointment versus you know flying up our

So is the tellah health only social work or is it MDs and all too? It's yeah it's all it's MDs. uh he'll be social worker. He'll also be when you do the tele medicine, we'll do the vitals, right? The doctor will evaluate them, right? Look at our monitor strips and all that stuff and say, "Hey, we think we can schedule this with a primary care physician versus going to the ER." It helps us, but it also helps the ER to keep it from becoming, you know, jammed up. Um because a lot of times it's just it's cold and things like that that maybe just progressed over time because they didn't get the right appropriate care. Is there a company that Faget County uses?

Uh, Msite insight, I think that's what it's called. He needs what is your name? Okay. And that's always a discussion in our region for EMS council meeting. Um, but we've had a lot of people trying to slow you. There's a lot of bugs that need to be worked out and make sure the legalities of it are meeting what needs to be. You know, you have a presentation or something like that I like to sit in on. Absolutely. when the sheriff had tell, he took me to Atlanta with him to look at it. Okay. So, yeah, absolutely. I'd probably get them come in and, you know, talk to you guys if that's something that you're really interested in. They probably come in on one night and give you just a short glimpse and presentation of what they do. Yeah, I'd like to see it. Okay.

Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Like we're moving in the right direction. Yeah. Recreation Director Alan Forum.

Good evening. Uh want to bring you up to date on some things going on with the recreation. Uh this past year has been a positive and production productive one for the Mar County Recreation Department. While significant improvements have been made, we recognize there's the need to address more and we're excited to continue working to make those goals a reality. We would like to thank the board of commissioners for their continued support of the recreation program. Your financial support, volunteer efforts, and participation in events have been instrumental to the department success. I'm going to read off to you now a couple of the uh most recent summary of the recent improvements and accomplishments and including several items you may or may not have already been aware of. Department improvements. Uh we've created the sponsorship program uh by with the banners and other ways to uh sponsor the rec department which has helped uh meet some of the departmental needs as well as provide some scholarships for participants that are are in need. Uh we appreciate the purchase of the concessions trailer. This proven to be a valuable asset and has already been utilized from multiple locations including at Lake Merryweather and uh at the ball field uh and a couple other events that we've had. The decaling for the trailer uh is scheduled to be installed soon uh with a design we expect to be finalized this week. Uh the rep desk program has been implemented and is currently promoted being promoted for registration event scheduling and uh point of sale transactions. This is a new system and has required some adjustments but we're confident

that it will become one of the most useful tools in our toolkit. Uh the recreation advisory board has been established and is making gradual process due to several challenges the past uh couple of months. The meetings haven't been able to take place. Uh but we look forward to continuing collaborating with them to strengthen recreational opportunities throughout the county. Equipment and facilities. Uh there's been several items purchased uh to support the improved uh participant experience including new freezers uh one of the old refrigerators just did not have enough room for our products. We have uh one in the uh gym concession stand and one in the uh a smaller one in the concession trailer. Uh each concession uh area has Coke coolers. now. Uh, and we'll place our orders through the Coca-Cola company so that we get a better rate on purchases. Uh, the flat top griddle we've got. We uh got new football equipment with shoulder pads and helmets at a good deal uh this past season. We've got a portable scoreboard for our flag football games and then can use them for baseball or basketball if something happens to one of our other uh scoreboards. Uh we've had got an an inflatable uh tunnel for the teams to run through. A lot of the departments have gone to those. That was a reasonable purchase that didn't really cost that much for us. And we also had breakaway banners made for them to run through instead of constantly having to have somebody do paper ones. Uh and the kids are are eating it up. Uh they're really enjoying both of those and that's what we want to

do. Make the kids happy and want to come back. Uh most recently, we've acquired wall padding to go behind the basketball goals in the gym. Uh the railing to put those up has just come in. and we hope to have those uh up this week. Uh during the past year, we've hosted uh numerous events. Most have been successful, but not all. These include the GRPA district baseball and softball tournaments, Dizzy Dean baseball district tournament, GRPA state baseball tournaments, uh multiple professional wrestling events, uh AA travel uh basketball team games, of course the Harlem Legends game event, uh and we're scheduled to host uh coming up uh the CGYSA, which is our local league. The girls basketball tournament for 10 girls will be February 13th and 14th. So, you know, going to ruin some people's Valentine's Day. Uh the 12 boys basketball district tournament for GRPA will be held February 27th and 28th. We are hosting the GRPA 14U boys basketball class C state tournament March the 6th and 7th. and we're looking forward to also hosting the GRPA men's open basketball tournament March 13th and 14th. Uh we've had team achievements that I know all of you are aware of. The Digid Dean tenu boys done was the uh district champion and finished as a state tournament runner up. Uh the AU girls uh coach pitch softball team. We've already recognized them. They were district four champions and the class C

state champions. The 10U girls softball team was district four runner up. The 8U football team uh reached the semifinals in the local league and the 9U football team was crowned the CGYSA 9 champion this year. uh basketball so far has gone well. Um many of the teams experienced success either even if they're not winning, they're they're learning the fundamentals, learning to have fun and love the game and and with a hope they have a positive influence on for the season. As far as goals for the department, our short-term goals will be to successfully host these upcoming tournaments, increase overall participation, increase the rep usage among staff and participants, and complete the installation of the trailer decals. Our long-term goals could be expand the number of activities offered, add more adult focused programming, increase participation rates, and improve the facilities that the staff and participants use. Want to thank you again and look forward to working with all of you to keep improving the recreation quality.

Thank you. Thank you. We should have Director Bren Jones online. But can't see y'all on.

All right. Can y'all hear me? Yes. Is 911 E 911 director EMA director Bren Jones. Can y'all can y'all hear me? Okay. Yes. Okay. Uh, good evening. No, we can't.

Okay. Uh, that was Bella. She said hello. Um, so I just wanted to give you just like I guess like Danny uh just some some statistics to start out with. Uh uh back in 2025 from uh January to the end of December, 91 on the non one side answered uh 13,73 calls. Now, that could be multiple calls for the same incident. Um, hold on just sorry, I had to yell at my dog. Um, on the as far far as the of those calls, what I'm one of the things I'm I'm really proud of is national average for uh starting a 911 call is 10 seconds. Uh, we're we're able to do that and have been continuously able to do that. Uh, average time is 3.2 2 seconds and that's from the time that we take the call. Um it takes us an average of 2 minutes to handle the call. Um but normally dispatched within 45 seconds. Uh and that's the kind of the rule of thumb is if you have a serious call, it needs to get out within 45 seconds. And that's basically you'd be surprised how hard that is sometimes with trying to get uh the information out of somebody who's who's hysterical. Um, additionally, uh, we feel we handled 27,443 admin calls and that's like non-emergency calls, people calling, wanting information on stuff, um, you know, and so forth. Uh, for a total of 41,749 calls that came in. Now again, I want to say this is that's not the number of calls of course, but that is the number of I'm sorry when I say calls, I'm talking about a documented CAD computer assisted dispatch where they go to an address so forth. Sometimes that's multiple calls, people calling back or uh multiple people calling for the same incident.

Um there's something called an abandoned call basically and that's when somebody calls 911 and they hang up right away. Um we capture that information and we call them back to see if there's an actual emergency. Uh we had about we had 603 of those uh in 2025 uh that were handled. Um but the the percentage within goal was 99.89%. 8 n% uh which you know I'm pretty proud of that and then some of those calls we had 14 that were outside of that with under 12 seconds and that basically when we had multiple calls coming at the same time with limited you know uh dispatchers. So uh that's I mean as far as that goes that's if unless anybody has any questions about that. Um, as far as dispatch times, number of calls, I'll I'll go ahead and move on. Moving on. Um, throughout 2025, uh, we had some, uh, some key staff changes. Um, and one of the goals was to improve the morale of our 911 center, uh, the employee experience, as well as the training system. Um, and we've been able to do that um through the uh the use of a a program system called virtual academy. Um, we've been able to capture our training program and get it into the system to where we're able to track trainees when they come in, where they're at, how they're doing, daily observation reports with them. Um, and and basically it just it it it helps us help them if that makes sense. Additionally, the system also allows our dispatchers that

are there to get their required hours in. And by doing this now with their with a huge catalog of classes that they can take, they can self-register for these. Um, I've got I got some people that have over 100 hours of continuized training. Um, which, you know, they're only required to have 12, but um, most everybody has got over 40 hours. um with some of them, you know, deciding to take more classes as as they come available. Um D doing so um again has allowed us to track our trainees that we have. Now I'll say this, currently we have eight openings. Um this past year, we lost two very good people that came out of training last year. Um uh one went to another center for more money and the other one she left and went to Colorado for another job not having anything to do with 911. Um but we've already got them replaced and we have the new trainee in place. We have we have uh three trainees right now and we're we're looking to hire a fourth because we can only train four at a time but currently we have eight openings um and uh we're looking to fill those as we can train people. Um, any questions about that?

Yes. Why can we only train four at a time? What's the bottom?

I only have four I only have four shifts and that shift can only handle one trainee at a time. Um, basically because a trainee it cost us about $28,000 to train somebody. That's basically paying them for 6 months to be there. and learn. You know, it isn't like we can send them to school somewhere and they come back ready to go. I mean, this is on the job training. It's the only department in Mary with the county that everything is 100% on the job training. They do have a week-long class that they go to and foresight. Um, and they usually we send them after 3 months after their probation. And of course the probation 6 months as far as our department goes, but with the county probation them starting benefits is is 90 days. Once they've achieved that, then we'll send them to foresight for a week for their uh communication basic communication officer training. Um so yes, that's that's why it only takes that's why we can only train four at a time. Um because basically that train that trainer is basically married to that trainee. Um and I'll be honest with you, I mean a lot of my people are are new still um and they're not at the level yet to be able to train. Um does that answer your question, Commissioner Worley?

Parts of it. Yeah, it it led I have multiple more questions now, but I'll I'll do I'll put those answers separately. Okay. Yes. Thank you.

Um, you're welcome. No problem. Uh, let's see. As far as that goes, that's I'll I don't want to drag that out. I mean, you know, I'm just trying to be as quickly as quick as possible with y'all. We have instituted the new radio system, and I'd like to thank you guys uh for uh making that happen. Um, we still have some issues with it. Um, we uh we're trying to get that that right, but right now the SO's using it. They seem to like it. Um, and we're we still we're still trying to get that implemented into our old radio system to where both these will work together. And that's kind of the key of this new system to do that. But, um, the deputies have been all, I think, distributed their radios and they're using them for right now. We are still having a little bit of issues that we're trying to work out with Harris and Williams and get those uh issues taken care of. Um other than that, I mean, you know, uh good radio system, great. Looking forward to see um you know, what we can make it make happen with it. Any questions on that? All right. um EMA. Last year we we brought uh back about $140ome,000 uh worth of uh grant I mean uh yeah, grant money uh that uh we got back from the uh uh storms in 2023. Um and I guess that we used that for a lot of the the radio stuff which that's what it was from. Um, as far as that goes, I mean, you know, uh, a lot of my people are, you know, they're they're tired just because we're running a little short, but other than that, um, that's pretty much what I got for y'all. I mean, unless you guys have a question for me or anything, uh, Commissioner Worsley, you know, you

wanted if you wanted to get into some of the other stuff. No, I'm not going to do it at this time. I'll have go through John and you and it's yeah probably be pretty boring and generic for most everyone else. So that's if we'll do it in the emails and text. Yeah, I'll be in contact with you. Brian, any other questions? All right. No, no thanks. Thank you, Brian. All right. Thank you. I have planning zoning director Cassandra Jones. I got one more after that one and we're done. Pardon me.

Mine's going to be short and sweet. I just want to let you guys know that and I went first part of last week to do our soil erosion red card class and we found out today that we both passed. So that was kind of good because that was a tough class. Um and then the latter part of the week I was in my zoning administrator's conference and got some really good information that I'll be using forward and that uh my department's now fully staffed and we're running very smoothly. So that was it. Thank you very corner and Mr. David Boyd

report they had last year in 2025 we had handled 120 death calls in this county which we had to store 32 of them in the Marwood County morg which is not really a morg it's just a body cooler in the IP department and we're having problems with that uh and I before I gave all the county commissioners uh the same from the hospital about what we can do and what we can't do at the Morgan uh we've had uh uh three bodies we had to store out at the C County Morris because it wasn't allowed to put them in that morg because of demp issues. And the last one I had, I had to carried down the funeral home because uh Patty County didn't have no space for them. And uh there's some other things I'll bring up later on about some equipment we need. I got with John on that

and Jennifer knows about the situation at the moral tooth. Well, that's all I've got now. Any questions? I think I have. Thank you. That's all for department. Yes. Citizen comment. No, sir. All right. Let's move to the minutes. Uh minutes January 27th, 2026 regular meeting 6 p.m. Made a couple of typo corrections. Um y'all probably don't have the updated because I've done it after they were printed, but those have been corrected. Yes, that's it. Yes. I'll make a motion to adopt the minutes. Second. All in favor.

Public hearing case number PC25-14 request from James Floy located at 140 Sherry Lane partial number 074-02 for the special use of three lots in his manufactured home park allow for recreation vehicle. This was continued from 2027 26 regular meetings.

Make a motion to open public hear.

We need a motion to open the public hearing. Second third all invited.

Okay. So, we've you guys have continued Mr. Fluino's um application because he's wanting to do three RVs in his mobile home park. Um since that meeting, we actually Leslie was able to reach out to a resource that we have. Her name is Sharon Bowen and she works with veterans and she said that she actually has three manufactured homes that she would give Mr. Fluenoid to put on these three spot. Um the only thing would be no charge to him. They actually cover the fees for that. He just has to come into resilience to do it. Um he is not here tonight and I'm not get be able to get in touch with him today. So I do not know what his wishes are at this point.

Well, so I mean he he's he's allowed to have uh mobile homes, correct? Yes, he is allowed to have under the current ordinance. Under the current ordinance, he is u it was my understanding that because that he originally had the mobile home and RVs, but then he went strictly to mobile homes that now has put him strictly into the current ordinance, which is mobile homes only. Yeah. Do we know if these three mobile homes that you spoke about meet state and federal requirements to be on the highways and transit? They will have to be, right? Yes, they will have to be. That's one of the things that um the state requires them to be.

Yeah. No, I just didn't know. I mean, if we said that something and she's done that before in the county. Okay. Um and throughout the counties, so she's aware of the regulations that have to be met. And then we have to make sure that I in our inspector inspects them as well. That's completely irrelevant to what he's asking for us, right? He's asking us for a special use permit to allow RV parking. That's what he don't matter whether they bring him trailered or not. Then we can reinspect after that. Right. The question before us is are we going to allow RV parking on this property? No, I know what the question is. I just want to make sure. Sorry. Okay. I didn't want us to get down to road, but he's not here to

So, if we made the decision tonight to not allow the RVs, then he could come. Would he even have to come back to have mobile homes put on or since those were there? Then he could just come to you because you need to make sure that the power changed over from the 50 amp to what? And they said he put in 50 amp breakers on the power poles. We need to make sure we check those and get those upgraded. Correct. They would have to get building permits to put in the Right. Well, how long would it need to get it cleaned up? You think? How long should we give to clean up the existing things? 120 days. It's up to you guys. I'll do what you guys would wish.

Do we have an ordinance in place already that indicates a time frame? What do we have a ordinance in place that already dictates a time frame? Do we normally give someone a 30-day warning? Correct. And then it depends on how if they're working with us during that warning, we may give them 30 more days. So, a total of 60. Well, that's like the house over there close to where I live. Yes. Y'all been working with him. Then they were involved with that same group. Then that group backed out and I think it's going on eight or nine months now. We're still trying to That one actually I believe port date. That one now has a port date. It does. Yes.

Yep. But at night on RVs at night for special use permit to place RVs. So that's your city, right? I understand that. But I'm talking about to move them. How much time can we give him to move them? Don't we whatever you want. So we don't know. I mean most counties and cities have some kind of it's usually like a junk property or unsafe structure. Yeah. But that's an that's a code enforcement thing which was what that's different than this is to have Sony can he put RVs or not that's a separate issue according to Cassandra he's allowed to have

mobile homes but RV that's the only issue before this board is whether y'all will grant him special use permit well it's in my district I'll make a motion well first of all you need to see if anybody else yeah we got to close the public hearing anyway and you need to see if anybody else wants to speak anybody want to speak in favor or get. All right. Hey, close. If you want to or you continue, I make a motion we close the public hearing. Second. All in favor. All right. All right. Well, it's in my D. Yes, sir. I'll make a motion that we uh deny this request.

Second. All in favor? Thank you. Okay. Move on to appointment of the three rivers RDNC board. This is a one-year appointment that will expire December 1st, 2026. This is a board appointment. Mr. Chairman means skip number one. The first one. Look back. I think Lake Mayweather's first. Oh, I'm sure. That's okay. Appointment to the Lake Mayweather Valley, District 2. This is two-year term. It expired January 28th, 2028. This one table from the January 27th, 2026 regular meeting. I'd like to make a motion we appoint Chip Walton to Lake Near weather advisory board. I'll second. All in favor?

Now appointment to the Blue Rivers RDC board. This is a one-year appointment that will expire on December 31st, 2026. This is a board appointment. Commissioners, this appointment um there's two appointments for this board. One is being currently held by Miss Faith. She's a non-public member and one would need to be a board member. So I'll leave that up to you guys on who y'all want to Yeah, I was on it last year. A lot of times the chairman, but anybody on the board can do it. So if you wanted to do it, you're welcome, too. If you'd like someone else to do it, somebody else could speak. I'll be glad to do it.

I'll make a motion to appoint in it. Second. All in favor? There you go. Oh, I abstain. Thank you. Thank you. I got you.

Unfinished business. Consideration of engineering services for the administration of the 2026 LMI bid process. This will table for at the January 27th, 2026 regul EMC Engineering Services has submitted a proposal in amount of $62,810 to administer the 2026 LME process which is estimated at 1.675 million. Chris Brazil with EMC Services is here to answer any questions that you may have. If this item is approved, it would require the chair vice chair to sign. How much did this cost last year? 40,000. And who was it for last year?

EMC went up that much. Oh, so this is a a percent construction job. So it's actually went down because last year's percent was 4%. And after speaking with Mr. Gorton and the chairman, u we're at 3.75% now of total construction. So it will be based off of uh the actual contractor's bid. Uh the estimate that we came up with was based off of Kings Road, Holden Creek Surf and then two miles on All Road. Uh so this would all be sub to what the BI number but our percentage is the same regardless of what it is. This is based off of staff's proposal 1.675.

That's correct. We haven't we haven't looked at the road yet. We haven't been happening. And that that fee proposal, just to clarify, that includes the assessments, the bid documents, and preparing all the engineering for that, handling the the bid process, recommendations for award, coming to meetings, and then doing full-time construction management and construction administration. We'll have inspectors on site. We'll be working with very county staff uh as with the contractors on site uh handling all the vocation to really be an extension of the county. How many projects does EMC currently cover for us?

The 2025 Elmeig and the courthouse they are the engineer architect over the courthouse with River City being the contract or construction manager and we're also doing a on call plan review services with be honest. Anything that y'all come in, we're we're viewing the entire technical draw on some Mr. County account engineer. We certainly appreciate that and want to grow that relationship with

what about the time frame on doing this 2026? So based off of my conversation, Mr. important. Uh we plan to have these documents uh on the street by the end of March and hopefully come to an award. The pay depends on y'all schedule April May of this year. We'll definitely try to work that in this payment season. I think there's some advantages when we already have a contractor in the vicinity. I know we're moved over to Stall Roadville and Melvin Harris is already complete with deceptions can punch those items. So, uh, you know, we we've got the opportunity to really get these contractors re-engaged while we're hitting another paving season. I don't want it to carry over into the fall if we don't have to. So,

yeah, they're going to be done with stove before we can get this process. I mean, they can commit that, but yes, it I know it kind of slow out the gate, but I'm very pleased and hopefully the citizens of Mara County are pleased with the work that the Conra has done and looking forward to get another product out. Yeah, I've heard nothing but positive comments. Take one second. Uh so that then there is anticipated funds left over from what we're currently doing. Correct. Yes, sir. And then you guys are deciding where to go with that. Correct. All board recommendations pending with staff and working with EMC. Okay.

And that's so that's kind of two things I want to tell. We have the opportunity to amend the current contract if we want to and we've got a contract will do that. We've already added Rville Road. Uh we need to find that out sooner or later because as you mentioned we'll be done with all of our weather holds out for probably this week. Yeah.

And then uh the other option is to increase the uh the budget on the 2026 element if we can do that. You can stack three years in a row. So we might can add another road or extend All or something like that. I know Dr. Bry, but you know I really want to dig in with your staff with that pavement assessment. We don't want to do worst and first. That's a bad program. But I think if we can get this project out the door and spend some time together, we can really do a comprehensive management plan which most of municipalities are striving to do. Let's preserve and not always rebuild, right?

Any other pastors? What's the staff recommendation here is to move forward with them and advice or chairman or chairman sign. We either go with them under professional services or we can put it out for bid 64,000. I don't have a staff that can oversee this type of work. We have Bill Cawthorne who was here when I got here that oversaw this work. Well, I'll make a motion we move forward as proposed here and allow the chair vice chair to sign a second. All in favor? We'll do all that favor, but I'd also like to see if we can't put out or hireing someone that can do that internal as well.

Yes, sir. Write the bids like move right on to new business. Set work session for 2026 goals and objective. Commissioner staff is requesting the board of commissioners schedule a work session to discuss the county's 2026 goals and objectives. Participants would include department heads from public works, animal shelter, E91, recreation, finance, and administration. This is just to get an outlook of what the board of commissioners would like to see the county grow in 2026 and give some guidance.

So, the earlier we can do that, the more we can get done. And typically we do it before a board meeting or we do it on a standalone day. Yeah. So I mean I know I'm one of the most difficult ones with work travel. So but I'm traveling around every week we have a meeting. I will not be out of town. So whatever y'all afternoon is the only thing that works for me later afternoon. I'd also like to see fire and EMS come. I saw those weren't included on here. I apologize. I meant to have them on.

Thank you. make a suggestion to maybe have it before one of your night meetings coming up. I mean, you could actually do it um I think March 9th would be the first meeting in March. Yes, correct. Um you know, we start at 6. You might want to start at 4. Yeah. If I make I'll make that informal motion in the work session in March 9th at 4 p.m. I second. I'll f you. Yeah, I'll make it approve.

Consideration and approval of a grant study. Commissioners, we had a meeting held on Monday, February 2nd with Miss I'm probably mispronounced her last name, Ky Co. uh with myself, Chairman Collins, Vice Chairman Snelson during which Miss Code discussed grant writing services for the county. She's prepared a proposal. I've received that today. has been sent to legal to review um to pursue grant opportunities on the county's behalf. I believe we'll also need a resolution for her to be an acting agent for the county if we went that route. I will double check that with legal. Um Miss Co advised that initial study will be required to assist the county's demographics and identify eligible grant opportunities. This study will also support the finance department's efforts in applying for the GFOA award for excellence in government finance. The study will be funded through a grant and no county funds are anticipated to be used. Um the services will likewise be funded through the grant. Should the county funds be necessary, the item will come back to the board of commissioners for consideration. Staff recommends approval from Miss Coy

Co to apply for the grant and complete the study and authorize the chair vice chair to execute the grant per uh paperwork prior to submission. This is the first step that we need very dearly in Milway County for us to move forward with grants. Make a motion to approve. All in favor?

Approval of roads proposed for in-house paving. Director Brian Griffin. Commissioners Brian Griffin has a list of 20 roads that covers across five districts. The total mileage is 8.98 miles with an estimated cost of 1,88,93 to be funded through Teslas. If approved, the finance department will bring a budget amendment before the board at the next meeting to appropriate the funds for expense tracking. The only thing that changed from the prior package that you saw was that we took out Riceville Road and we added added Dallas Mill Road since they're already going to be in that area. Um Brian Griffin has assists Dallas Mills and it needs to be paid as well because due to the many potholes on it.

So how much how much is Dallas meals then? Cuz estimated cost of that one is 185,000. That will bring the total up to 1,8893. 1 million. All right. Okay. And we're almost at nine miles total. Yeah. I was just checking the math. That's why they didn't match. Okay. It was about 1022,000 increasement ju just because it's 1.2 miles. It's the longest stretch of road that in-house paving will be doing. And and did you find out for sure that we budgeted a certain amount for asphalt paving? Right.

We have 1.5 1.8 Eight. What was in the what was in that one? Roughly I think it was 1.5 we had for road improvement or site improvements which included up to a million dollars for in-house paving and 500,000 for gravel. Okay. So of the million8 that you're saying it'll take to do this list, we've already approved in the budget the line item 4 million. We put in side improvements. We just need to reclass it the paving just so we can track financially.

So this is not committing any additional funds that we have. We've already budgeted for this. It's no additional tastes specially approving the jobs right that selected. If I I'm doing two things. I'm I'm getting after you and working on getting something for, you know, to make sure we understand some financial part to Yes. When the board approved the the purchase of the equipment, the lease, that's when we allocate about a million dollars for in-house paving. Okay. And you're still comfortable with that be what right at 9 miles now?

If you're Okay. I make a motion we approve the roads pay proposed for in-house paving with it estimated cost of 1,88,93 be funded through T- spl

that's what we Okay is transportation that's I know okay sorry that's my fault I'll advise them second Jean Jean do and if anybody wants to see the process beginning we're going to 911 park tomorrow be interested in free come on by sis. Thank you. Thank you. Getting ahead of myself. Consideration of additional funding for road paving.

Commissioner staff has been asked to research whether the county could feasibly provide additional $1 million toward the road paving project. Funding options will be presented at the meeting and may include a use of general fund and advancing funds to Tesplas to be reimbursed within one year through monthly Teslas allocations or determine whether a general fun could support the full amount independently. Should also note that EMC charges, you know, roughly 3.5 and here I got this 3.7. So you're looking at a 35 375 administration fee if we went with additional million dollars. You should have a action paper, agenda paper for you. The FY24 financial statement reflects a fund balance of uncommitted funds of 11,382 351. The county's total annual budget for this year is a little over 24 million, which requires approximately 12 million to maintain a six-month operating reserve. Based on these figures, the current fund balance is slightly below the recommended reserve level. The 2025 surplus or deficit cannot be determined till the annual audit is completed. That's underway. The deadline is March 31st to 26. The additional 1 million from the general fund has been designated as a potential advance of supplies for the courthouse project should it be needed. Any funds advanced will be subject to repayment within a year. The total estimated T-splash revenue for this year will be $3.1 million which the following commitments have already been identified. the 2025 Lmeig and previously lease committed $328,82044 1 million roughly for in-house paving which was just approved for the 2026 LMIG $732,955 will be coming from Teslas. Um an anticipated LMIG funding was $942,4452. We're required a 30% match brings it to about 270ish

and then it's additional 400,000 for additional paving coming out of T-spos. After these commitments, approximately 1 million estimated to be remain available for equipment purchases, gravel, and related needs. Based on this financial information, I recommend waiting until the FY25 audit is complete before allocating any additional funding. It's important to note that the 2025 L funds are already committed to covert and bridge repairs and the board will need to discuss and prioritize which project should be completed. For reference, in-house paving estimated to cover over 8.98 miles at a total cost slightly over close to 1.1 million, which equate to an estimated 122,494 per mile. And you add the 7.28 for the 26 Lmeig and 8.98, that's 16.26 26 miles that we'll be doing out of 2026. And if you had Stovall, Rightsville, and I forget that Melvin Harris, you're looking at know 20 plus miles that'll be paid in roughly 2026.

No, we can't count those. They should have been done last year. Stovall, Melvin Harris, and Rice was all supposed to be last year. Yeah, it 25. So, but I mean, I get your point. Yeah.

I think some of what we're trying to look at is that we need a lot done. This this will be the most miles in a lot of years, I assume. Right. I mean, I only know the last three to get 16 miles is we're doing something right. Hopefully, the in-house paving works out. And not to be critical to him, I I think um we need to see how that goes before we commit another million dollars to do it in house. Uh I have full faith in him if it wouldn't have been behind him at this point. But let's prove it out before we dump more money in there. I would like to see if we're going to do it. Let's go with something that like them gentlemen was speaking of earlier that we can combine sites and locations and drop down the cost per mile of what we're currently already going to be doing if we could. The reason it comes up in my mind I think didn't we this a million dollars designated to the courthouse comes out of spl

but it's coming out of the special project fund until if and when needed if spl is not fully funded. Correct. Not general fund. Yes, a special project separated. If we're receiving receiving LGIP interest off of that 3.6 million, but it's not. You can use SP funds for roads. You just can't use T- splash funds for other correct. No, what I was saying is that I could remember we have a certain amount of money in general fund. We have certain amount of special projects. We discussed doing that pulling ahead from there and if we needed to advance the splash and get this courthouse done. Is that we prove it out of general fund or out of special products? and they didn't call that out here.

It's a special projects. It's still part of the general fund. We just allocated that to a separate line because it was the ARPA money. Um I will note the total balance on the fund balance is 14 million. But out of that 3 million of it is restricted. That's from the aud 2025 L money um which is listed on the finance report here.

Correct. and 500,000 of that from 2025 was designated to the LMIG 2020 2024 I'm sorry 517,000 88510 is for LIIG and 2025 L is a little over a million we have not um approved any projects for that amount yet sounds like to me we don't really have any choice with the mandate on the fund bal until we get this audit done to determine so we don't go in the hole so I make a recommendation and a motion that we wait until the fiscal year 2025 audits complete. I second that. If it needs to be in a motion all in favor,

as soon as that's done, I'll bring it back to the commission. We just don't know what a surplus or deficit is for FY25, but this this work session we're doing definitely needs to be outlined as 2025 L. Yeah, guys. I mean, I think we should be just still sitting on 2024 L. That's $1.5 million of stuff we can get done, right? Yeah. 24 only 500,000 that's been designated to Elme 2025 LME. So the balance of it can we need to identify where it's going. The 24 has already been allocated. 25 is what the board needs to set to projects.

The 24 was for the bridges and covers. Correct. Five half a million of that left over is for the 2025 element projects. That's ongoing now. It's on your commitment. I see that. So we added that to Lumig last. Correct. So the 25 L money has not been touched allocated out any way form. Got it. Okay. We need that needs to be part of our work session. Yes sir. It will be and we'll look back and see what we reported at G do as possible projects. More covers and I think it was more coverts and a

couple bridges and I can pull that. All right, move along. Number five, consideration of approval and change order number one, courthouse roof project.

Commissioners, River City Contracting, Inc. has submitted change order number one for the courthouse roof project reflecting a change in the roof type from a tpo coding to a metal roof. The change results in a cost savings of $25,000. This is already brought back to the board and mentioned, but the board has not approved it and signed the change order. Approval of a change order is required for the alternate roof selection and the AIA document will require signature from Commissioner Worley who was serving as chairman at the time as a change order was issued. The change order to a dark bronze roofing instead of a TVO will need to be signed by the chair or vice chair and this is a cost savings of $25,000. I make a motion to approve. Second.

All in favor consideration and approval of change order number two. Commissioner River City contract has issued and submitted a change order number two for the courthouse roof project which removes the 4-in base layer of insulation at the roof gutter and changes the coping from pre-manufactured.5 aluminum to shop form coping. The modification results in a cost savings of $7,200. Approval of this change is required for the revised scope of work and require the chair vice chair to sign. M I'm proud to bring to you savings for change instead of spending. Fantastic. Yeah. You see, when I was chairman, I was saving money.

You know, that's good power right there. I make a motion we approve the change order required for the revis. Thank you. And commissioner, I'm no engineers. But I couldn't tell you what any of that means. It's just changing the room type, I guess. Number seven, MOM grants manage the commission coordinator. No, the agenda item for EM grants manager. Number seven is going to be the EMO.

Eight is not eight. No, we're gonna change number them down. Change the Roman numeral and number them down. We're gonna have a new title on the agenda.

All right. Commissioners, to attain access to the Georgia EM grants manager system, aou must be approved and signed by the chair. Pending legal review. Michael's already reviewed it. He's fine with it. Um once approved, the county administrator and the finance director will be granted access to georgia.com. Um this is needed. Um, everybody who has access has left the county. I think Brent is the only one who has access to EM grants and we got to have more staff in there be able to pull the grants out. We have a cyber grant in there and then auditors need a copy of the FEMA grant. We just receive payment for only way I can gain access is a formal vote by the board and signature. I'll

make a motion to approve and chair sign legal review five. legal review.

N report AC report from your ACCG legislative report ACCG coordinator legislative coordinator. I'm sorry.

Good evening, sir. So, I just want to let you know a few of the bills that are progressing through the legislation right now. I've been attending the um the Zoom calls every Friday and they go through some of the ones that seem to be pretty important to me. So, one is there's a uh Senate Bill 462. It's ensuring compensation for the out of network ambulance service. And I know this is important. It's going to require insurance companies to cover the out of network ambulance transportation services. Right now, local governments are having to pay upfront cost. And so this will ensure even with um Medicaid, they're going to be reimbursed. So that is progressing through the legislation right now. There's also House Bill 244 that's a local government audit extension act. It's allowing county governing authorities a 90-day extension on their audit if the failure to complete the audit is because of a constitutional officer or others that are that are not providing the appropriate information. Um, this requires all public officers and employees serving the county and state officers and employees to cooperate with the county. So, if we have a constitutional officer that causing delay, we can get an extension. There's Senate Bill 437 that is going to allow third-party inspections and permitting, and that makes timeline revisions. This would allow builders to use qualified private professionals for building plan reviews and inspections and then requires the county to accept those reviews. So, that's something that we need to watch out for. It would shorten the permit decision timeline from 30 to 10 days and then the permits would be approved and if the counties um failed to issue a timely written denial. A new bill that was just presented that's getting a slow start is to establish industrial use and data centers as a separate class of property. This is Senate Bill 668. It would be a constitutional amendment allowing the

general assembly to establish industrial use property and data centers as a separate class for ad valorum purposes. Local governments could then levy a unique militaryrate on those properties. And one more that I found that I thought might impact us is House Resolution 1243. This resolution is introduced to create the Georgia NextGen 911 Fund. So um the general assembly through future legislation may prescribe the dedication and deposit of revenues raised from specified sources into that fund to help counties out become NextG 911 compliant.

Well done. Thank you. Thank you. County, I'm let Miss Stevens give a couple of updates that she has first, Mr. Chairman. All right, bear with me. Got to find my sheet.

Okay. Well, I had a sheet that was going to make this a lot easier, but just want to give some announcement um so everyone in the community is aware. We received notice that the city um around the city of Manchester, Georgia Power will be in the area. They're going to be doing some vegetative management as far as clearing the rightway on the power lines and stuff. They did send a notification. So, I just wanted to make everyone aware of that. Um if there is something wrong or something, they will there's a phone number that they can reach out to and they'll be reaching out to them. They're not using the helicopters again, are they?

I don't know. They didn't say anything about a helicopter or no drones. I didn't see that. Um, also the tax assessor's office, um, in an attempt to assist homeowners who may not be able to get to the office, um, before the deadline, um, to qualify for some homestead exemptions or stuff like that, they're going to be out in the areas in the different communities on February the 10th. They will be at Lutherville City Hall from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. So, public can members can come in and sign up for some exemptions if they, you know, are not able to get there um, to the office during working hours. Um they will continue to stay open on February 17th at the tax office um tax assessor's office at building A right up the hill from 3 to 7 that night. Manchester um library we are changing that location undetermined at this point but there will be another um open session for them February the 26th from 3 to 7. And as soon as I find out the location, I will post it on the county website. Make sure that the county knows, citizens know. Also, um Rhonda Fuller sent out an email regarding from Marwa County Family Connection and a partnership with the collaborative partners. They are sponsoring the spring annual health fair on Saturday, April 18th. That's from 10 to 1 at the Manchester recreation department on Perry Street. Um they are seeking uh vendors and sponsorships for the event. That's all I have.

Mr. Chairman, we have the is it Lahi? Is that LA? Yes, Lahi is currently ongoing. It'll be going on for the next three weeks. They have been in the office last week. They will be here um this week, Tuesday through Friday. Um next week, Tuesday through Friday, and then I think they will be taking a break until April. So, that's been running pretty well. Yeah. And for my update, commissioners, I met with Miss Tara. I'm not gonna try to say her last name again for about grant writing.

Renewed our SAM.gov, so we're all set on that end for grants. Um, we installed cameras at the bridge with signage. The picture quality is coming in pretty good. We just need to tweak the settings a little bit. Be doing late Merryweather this week. The audit is up and going and it's moving very quickly. They're almost at a a pause waiting on our um third party help to come in with the fixed asset schedules. The core house is progressing with exterior work beginning shortly. They should be up at the Koopa building that this week I believe. Um the Mlac station doors I've reached out to G do. They have been concrete has been scraped clean. I took pictures of it, sent it back to them, told them it still needs to be cleaned, possibly repainted. Claim has been submitted for that. They are having the contractors go back out there and look and see what can be done on that one. um met with IDA and a water sewer had their meeting and then we had clarity IT come in and fix the sound and to the public I hope they can hear a lot more clear now it's not echoing and we tested in the house on Friday everything worked fine so hopefully the people that are listening it's very clear on that end

that's all very loud tonight and that's good yeah we was able to with director Jones through the speakers that's an improvement I don't think we've had that before then that's all I have Mr. Chairman report from county commissioners Mr. pray. I don't have anything to add words. I don't have much. I just thank everybody for what they do and keep moving forward. Thank you,

Commissioner Sn. I just want to say that I saw some citizens out the other day and they told me that they were grateful that we had um director Brian Griffith in public works because they live near the mechanical concrete scrap tire project and finally their road does not flood and they were grateful to the county for accepting that grant and moving forward with it and so I was excited to hear that and hear I'm hearing a lot of good things right now positive about the county and that makes me happy. So thank you all. Mr. came.

Uh like always, I'm just grateful for the staff and what everybody's doing. And I think these meetings seem to get a little bit better each time we come in every two weeks. It seems like the teams come together. We're working together. People are seeing changes throughout the county. And I think we're all in the right direction. It's great to finally see something like that. But I thank the citizens for encouraging helping us do it. And all I'd like to add, I'd just like to thank the staff and all the work for us for the all the department heads for the county and thank all the constituents for bearing with us. And like Mr. King said, we finally coming together and getting, you know, more roads paved and getting the courthouse fixed and stuff such as that. That's all I have. The support from county attorney.

Mr. Chairman, I don't have anything. Each meeting notice is closed on in observance of present day bail on Monday, February the 16th, 2026. Tuesday, February 24th, 2026, a regular meeting at 6:00 p.m. Monday, March the 9th, 2026, regular meeting at 6:00 p.m. And Tuesday, March 24th, 2026, regular meeting at 6:00 p.m., but we will add a work session to that on March 9th. Yes. Right. On March 9th, we'll also have a work session at 4 pm followed by a regular meeting. Any need for executive sessions? Yes, sir. For litigation, personnel, and real estate.

I make a look. We go in executive sessions. She all you just said. I have a motion to move. Hallelujah.