City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is 6 o'clock on January 26th. Um, and I call this regularly scheduled meeting to order. Uh, Councilman Seconder, can you lead us in the invocation and the pledge, please?

Please rise for those who are able. At this meeting, help us to make decisions which keep us faithful to our mission and reflect our values. Give us strength to hold to our purpose, wisdom to guide us, and a keen perception to lead us, and above all, keep us charitable as we deliberate. Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance public comment. Um, each person will have three minutes. If you haven't put in a card and you'd like to speak, they're on the music stand uh behind and you can bring them to Eric right here and they'll get to me. And we have a section now and a session at the end of the meeting. Uh uh Ali, I saw you when I walked in. You're in here. Okay. Behind the poll. You'll have three minutes, sir.

Uh thank you, mayor. Um, happy New Year's for everyone involved. Uh, so on a good note, when thinking about what to speak about today, I realized that I have literally nothing to complain about. So I, so I had to go hunting for how we could innovate pretty much. Um, and that's kind of what I looked into. So as always, I kind of review a couple of different things when it comes to the cities. I look at some of our anti-lightum notices to see if we're getting any trouble for anything. Some of the active lawsuits on risk, as well as some of the monies, as well as some of just the general news we're getting. Um, pretty much what I kind of looked into a little bit more was a little bit of our um I I put a lot of pressure on I think the city to kind of be better stewards of the money if possible. I know we're under certain limitations. So, I did review our recent kind of CD holdings investment holdings. Um, they look decently okay right now. I guess what I would mention is um as the city and the finance department review different type of investments in the future, as you might notice from virtually uh I guess the media and whatnot is that there's a lot of pressure for interest rates to drop and drop and drop. So of course that comes with its advantages if when we look into what we want to do with our money, maybe looking into a longerterm CD with some of these banks or longer term investments that can lock in that rate. Um, in addition, what we could also maybe consider potentially pivoting to is I I think some cities will buy like oil um options for like their fleet of vehicles or police cars. I don't know, as oil prices right now are a little bit low, if maybe some of the money that we would consider putting in the CDs or different cash investments, maybe we could just purchase some of that in advance and maybe kind of hedge our bets with oil. And then of course as interest rates dropped down, I believe it was what a year or two ago, we were trying to look at potentially getting [snorts] bonds out there to do different uh innovations and renovations around the city, more than likely than not, maybe we should explore that option towards the tail end of the year. Um that is when there's a lot of speculation and estimations that these interest rates might settle out because at some point in times they have to hit bottom. They

can't they can't go to 1%, they can't go to 2%. There's massive inflation issues there, but more than likely than not, what they're kind of looking at is probably one or two more rate cuts and then they'll just have to sizzle down somewhere. I mean, nobody knows, right? We when you turn on the TV, there's a lot of weird things going on. So, but um more than likely than not, I I guess my advice or recommendation or um request at least to the city is that we review our investment options a little bit more closely when they come due, see if there's better options to lock in this money for a little longer. to kind of grab that rate as well as potentially look at pivoting to other type of investments or other items that we can use to kind of get the most squeeze out of our reserves. Thanks.

Thank you. Um Jason, you'll just come up. You'll have three minutes, sir. And if you could just spell your last name for the clerk, please. Hu n y a r. Sorry about my handwriting. That's okay.

All right. Uh good evening. I want to focus tonight on two closely related issues. Who currently has access to Dunwhaty surveillance data and why that matters for the decisions before you tonight. Based on Dunwoody's own flock network sharing configuration, the Dunwhaty Police Department is currently sharing access to its camera system with almost 1,800 external agencies. The agencies include federal agencies, airports, and universities across the country. Some organizations are even labeled as delete and do not use. This is not hypothetical. These were the network sharing settings as of January 21st. Each shared network allows outside agencies to search Dunwhaty camera data, including real-time video, license plates, locations, and movement patterns without residents knowing when, why, or by whom these searches occur. This often is called collaboration, but the reality is simple. Every additional agency increases risk. Here's why. Access is granted at the agency level, not the case level. Dunwhaty does not control how many users another author another another agency authorizes. Dunwhaty cannot meaningfully supervise or discipline those users and misuse nationwide has come from authorized insiders not hackers. Misuse does not require a breach. It only requires access. Once Duny Dunwy residents data leaves Dunwy network, local accountability ends but local liability does not. That brings me to the memorandums before you tonight. They note that this contract was reviewed by legal. I respectfully point out that the previous Flock contracts were also reviewed by legal and that those contracts still allowed Flock at their sole discretion to expand license plate readers into broader video and audio surveillance, retain and control surveillance dwood data from Dunwy residents and build and implement systems capable of identifying and tracking people based on race and behavior. These risks are contractual, not theoretical. What has changed is that Flock has now moved the core terms of its contracts onto its own websites whose where those terms are explicitly

subject to change. Under Flock's updated terms, cities no longer clearly own the raw video, images, or audio captured by the Cambridge by the cameras. The footage, the actual surveillance of us living our daily lives is no longer explicitly ours. Even more concerning, these terms can be silently replaced if the city signs any new order form without a new public vote. So the question tonight is not whether thisou was legally permissible. The question is whether it protects Dunwy residents from the risks we had already been seeing. Before approving any new agreement with this vendor, I respectfully ask that the council confirms that the terms one restrict surveillance expansion without council approval, two clearly limit data sharing and retention. Three, prever uh preserve meaningful auditability and public records compliance, and are not governed by web hosted terms that could change at any time. Until that happens, my request is simple. First, please pause all out of network data sharing now. And second, pause approval of this agreement until Dunwy's control over its data and residents rights is confirmed in writing and in the contract itself. Surveillance data collected in Dunwy should be governed in Dunwy. Thank you.

Thank you. That's all the car, excuse me, that's all the cards I have for this session. Like I said, there'll be another session at the end of the meeting. Um, next up I think Michael Starling, this is both of these are you? No. Okay, but who's gonna introduce Nikki? Sorry. Okay, Ann's gonna introduce Nikki. Sorry. And you should introduce yourself, too.

Absolutely. Uh, thank you, mayor. Uh, good evening, everyone. My name is Anne Hanland. I'm the executive director of the perimeter community improvement districts. Uh, the PCID is a special tax district. We're actually two districts under one roof. We have a special tax district in Dunwoody and Brook Haven on the Dicab County side of the line. Also one in Sandy Springs on the Fulton County side of the line. Um we've asked Nikki to come give you a presentation tonight. The C has started doing surveys of all of the employees in the district and so we we thought that you might want to hear some of the feedback. Um this was especially valuable like after COVID when we were all trying to understand um employee patterns like their commute patterns were people coming back into the office were they staying home and what were all the big companies doing in the perimeter market. So I think that you'll enjoy uh her her presentation. Nikki runs Pimeter Connects. Perimeter Connects is our transportation management association. So within the C we have a program that's a TMA. We get funding from the Atlanta Regional Commission to do that work. Um, among other things, we sell discounted MARTA passes and we help employers un employers and employees understand how they can like get into the CI and use public transit. So, I'm going to introduce Nikki. She can come up here and share our survey results.

Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me. Nikki Washington. I'm the program manager for Perimeter Connects. Um, so I'm going to pull up I have too many slides. I originally had 50. I cut it down to 28. So you're welcome. Um, there's a lot there's a lot of data in here though, so I'm going to run through them relatively quickly so we have time um for any questions that anybody might have. But just, you know, if there's something else you want to see or something we don't have in this presentation, that doesn't mean we we definitely don't have it. So, if there's something particular you're interested in, we'd be happy to look into that and see if I can pull something else for you. So, jumping in, just quick overview of kind of what we did. We do this every other year. So, this is the 2025 survey. We ran this uh March and April of 2025. We did 22 outreach events for this. Um those are focused at employers and properties. That's really who the PCID serves, right? property owners and employers in our district here. Um, we also did mall outreach this year. We went door todoor to over 100 retailers in there. We did dedicated emails and uh two newsletter promos to our newsletter list. Important note here, we don't do social media outreach for this survey. um we have done that in the past and if anybody's um dealt with that recently, we do have like an incentive for taking this survey and the bots online if you get this on social media are unfortunately crazy. So, we did our best to share it um in a variety of ways. The city shared it out to the city employees here. Um so, yeah, if we have other questions about that, let me know. Here's kind of an overview of who we ended up with. um about 14,000 responses. We did end up with 202 residents. Um 150 of these. You can see that piece in the middle. I don't know. Can everybody see this?

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Um or employees and also residents. So, they self-indicated if they consider themselves to live in the perimeter. Uh you can see their age and household income here. Just some general info about the particularly the employers. You can see some Dunwy heavy hitters here. IHG State Farm Insight global um significant responses from them and like quick uh biggest thing takeaway from the residents this is why do you choose to live in the perimeter area you can see close to work is a huge one um and you'll see this kind of like these same themes throughout the presentation here close to work um and workrelated super high affordable place to live and affordability continues to be something we struggle with in the perimeter and um I think will be a great thing for us to collaborate with the city in the future. This is generally our commute statistics. You can see kind of our work from home stats here. This is Monday through Friday. Pretty much what you would expect, right? Mondays and Fridays are big work from home days. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, people are more in the office. We have a lot of people driving alone here. Um on the next slide you can see kind of how this has moved from 2023 to 2025. We are seeing a continued dip in work from home. It's our biggest dip here and we're seeing train come back. Um for reference when we did this in 2019 precoid um our train was sitting train ridership between eight and 10% pretty consistently. Um up till 2019 when we you know obviously no one was riding public transit. uh during the during 2020 2021. So, we're seeing that kind of come back as our work from home is dropping. This is general commute info. Um probably no surprise to anybody, but traffic is in fact back. Um we're seeing numbers very similar to our 2019 numbers

here. Here you can see our AM commute times at 42 minutes. Same as 2019 and then our uh evening PM commute times uh getting up to 53 minutes there. So what we really want to decrease here is anything over an hour and a half is we think too long. Um that 7% o in the evening there uh over an hour and a half commuting to perimeter. uh we see people, you know, that starts to be a retention issue when we get over at that point. Uh for employees here, work from home in general, uh 61% of permanent employees work from home at least one day a week. Um we're seeing this kind of shift back towards the office, though. We're up to from 2.2 days per week, that was like um a 2023 number, and now we're up to 2.7 on average. So, we're kind of seeing that inch back further and further towards three days a week in the office. It's um a trend that we continue to see. We had an employer round table with some of our our bigger employers in December uh most recently and and same story. They're the the policies are shifting. They continue to shift to be our policy is three days a week, our policy is four days a week. So, they're shifting towards that. It's been a slow process for them as far as return to office goes, but um some interesting insights there. This is arrival departure times. I think this is also pretty interesting as these uh AM commutes and PM commutes really are the um expanding I guess is the word. Right? So now we have people these peak hours from 7:30 to 9:30 whereas before we saw those way more condensed, right? People had to be at work at 9. We're starting to see that uh come out further and further. Same thing with when do you typically leave work. You can see anywhere from like three all the way till 6:00 p.m. We're

kind of seeing it spread out further and further. Home locations, we're all over the place. Um you can see there's a concentration of course in Sandy Springs and Duny up here for people coming to perimeter and also a concentration in Atlanta there. But all of this blue here are commuters that took this survey. So really quite a bit um of range. And you can see here these are popular home locations with the longest commute times. That would be over an hour and a half. That's where these people are living um for one reason or another. Uh and commuting to perimeter. These are areas we probably want to uh focus on and let people know about uh options closer to this is um a stat that we pulled out. 88% of respons respondents agree perimeter is a nice place to work, but satisfaction declines with longer commute times. So you can kind of see this trend uh by percentage from less than 20 minutes all the way to over an hour and a half on how likely they are to respond. the perimeter is a nice place to work. So naturally, if it's taking you an hour and a half to get here, you think it's less of a nicer place to work um than someone's taking 20 minutes. And same thing with uh turning point for retention. So over 10 miles, if you live further than 10 miles or further away, um this is have you have you ever considered leaving your current job? So uh people that are over 30 miles, you see this at the bottom that that dark purple is yes. frequently and then that uh other blue there is yes occasionally. So those are people that we are um worried about obviously right we want them to keep their jobs here in perimeter. Um so over anybody over those 10 miles that uh yes frequently and yes occasionally starts to be the norm.

Okay so these are some general perceptions. So we ask perception questions as well. Get out of the commute for a minute. Um this is 88% of respondents agree perimeter is a nice place to work. So that's great, right? So that's the second one there. These are in order. So at the top you see perimeter is a nice place to live. Perimeter is a nice place to work. Perimeter is safe. Perimeter has appetizing dining options. Those are all we're doing really well. Um towards the bottom here you see perimeter is an affordable place to live. Perimeter has enjoy enjoyable recreational options. Perimeter has enjoyable entertainment options. Walkable. um easy to get around, easy to get to. Uh doing a little a little less there. This is notable changes on what we've increased on from 2023 to 2025, which pretty good, right? So, um towards the left, is it the left of this slide? The left of this slide is easy to get around, easy to get to. Those have went way up, which is great. We would attribute that to some of the transportation improvements that have been made um and finished in the past couple years here. Um and you'll see again uh towards the end these are the ones that haven't improved as much. Um we do think like perimeter is a nice place to work 87 to 88% like you know how much how much better are we going to get there. Um but some of these other ones it's you it's great to see that we're doing a better job in some of these areas. Top 10 words used to describe um clean, busy, traffic, safe. So, we have some good ones here. Busy, I think busy is good, right? We want it to feel active. Um traffic, we don't, you know, we want we don't want that to be the first thing people think of, but what are you going to do, right? Who don't like working here, traffic, sub one, busy, congested. Um things for us to consider for sure as we invest in projects here. Um this is the comparison compared to Midtown. They

do a very similar survey, so we're able to pull some stuff out. Um, I just think it's interesting as two main business districts. Uh, you can see they they have us beat in walkable and uh we have them beat in safe and shopping options. Um, clean and attractive dining options. People pretty much agree, but an interesting comparison on kind of why people or businesses might choose uh different places to locate. This is a word cloud. Three words you'd use to describe perimeter. You can see traffic's in there, but also clean, safe, nice. Some nice words. Activities. This is how often do you frequently do you do each of the following in the perimeter district? So, most popular things are at the top. So, go out to lunch, buy groceries, super popular, and then at the bottom, food delivery, buy clothing. We do wonder if uh food delivery when people were answering this if they were misled by this question because we would expect that to be higher. Um if they think that this is like if they were ordering if like not for lunch if they're thinking order food delivery for something else. Um what types of business would you like to see added to the perimeter district? So, this is um some stuff for us to consider as we're thinking about projects and thinking about um companies coming in, restaurants and food. Um retail shopping. You can see people are on the this kick, right? They want uh healthy options, casual options, more ethnic variety. Um retail shopping, everybody wants a Trader Joe's. It's always on the list. um and uh specialty stores, kind of this craft shops, bookshops sort of thing was a popular response. This is just fillins from people. So, this is people literally typing stuff in and us kind of conglomerating them together. Um entertainment and recreation was a big

one, too. People are bowling was listed so often. Um we're not sure why. I think maybe people are just generally interested in um some more entertainment options and bowling is something that comes to mind for them to type in. Um lifestyle walkable districts like Avalon or Belt Line of course people are always on um those two the pet friendly areas and third places. So, we had a lot of people put in um kind of what what we would see as spaces for um hangouts or gathering spaces and uh co-working options. This is a building satisfaction probably not as as interesting, but just as a note for for us as we think about uh development and kind of what's popular here. So, Cox, the collective at concourse 1224, people are super pleased with those buildings. they like working there. And then um you could kind of see they go down here. So just looking at what those buildings offer and why people might think that they're more interesting or uh or or better to work at. And then some key takeaways here. So improved district mobility since 2023. We're super excited about this. There's big jumps and easy to get to and easy to get around. um that signals were our access improvements are working and awareness campaigns around those are working. Commute durations are a lever for uh area success. So that's what I'm talking about when people are living more than 10 miles away or traveling more than an hour and a half to get here. That's a retention um flag for us that we want to stay focused on. Retail and dining option requests. um people continue to, you know, look for look for dining options, entertainment options for the area. And then activity center comparisons offer a positioning advantage. So, we think that

we're doing we're doing pretty well in comparison to Midtown and other business districts in the area. So, we want to stay focused on that and highlight some of those um [clears throat] marketed marketing that we already do. So, safe, convenient alternative. Um, and the only thing uh walkability could be something we can look for in our future. Okay. So, sorry. I know that was a ton of info that I ran through, but there's any questions, comments, anything else you'd like to see on this. Go ahead, Catherine. Stacy. So I go back to the slide with the average building satisfaction rate.

Yes. So I'm just a little curious like most of those are actually not in Dunwy. And are we talking like the North Side Hospital, the one like way down an exit in Sandy Springs? Yes, it is. It's actually technically in Brook Haven, I believe. North Side. No side of Sandy Springs. Pill of Sandy Springs. Hill Springs. So, I'm just curious like what R is like Dunwy should take away because or is there any way to extrapolate Dunwhaty answers and office buildings versus Sandy Springs and Brook Haven?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I could pull out just like just the Dunwhaty office buildings out of this cuz with all due respect like I don't really care if people are happy working in North Side Hospital and of course it's not walkable, right? It's Pill Hill. But I want to know like do people perceive that the Rivvenia and the and and Dumby is walkable and and are we doing enough to make our half our part of perimeter as much as we can? Does that make sense? Yeah. I can't pull out people. We don't like keep identifying. But you would know like if you're doing like their employer I could pull out their building.

Yeah. They're building. So, I would be more interested in dialing it down a little bit more on what how people who work in Dunwy feel about the perimeter and are we doing enough to make it walkable? Because there are certainly a lot more food options here than there is at Pill Hill or King and Queen, right? So, like is it not enough food options a king and queen problem or you know I mean you see you see what I'm getting at? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's I was just kind of like okay well that's great that people like to work but and so I'm like but what can we do like for the done way part? Sure. Yeah we can drill it down similar.

Go ahead.

Thank you Nikki. Um and this is a just open-ended question. you know, um I always have uh 30 things I can be working on on the council and one of the things is and if we have a retreat fill up three days worth of an agenda on a strategic planning receipt, but it's collaboration and so it's thank the PID, thank Perimeter Connects for being a partner here. Um, I want to have an open-ended question to make sure that we can have whether it's an annual or semianual check-in and say, "What do we want to partner on together?" That's, you know, in the next there's always the long term. I get the plans, but okay, now we're going to put some funding in some budget. What are we going to do with the next like 12 to 24 months or 36 months together? So I' I'd love to know how we can keep the conversation moving forward on these filling the gaps and unmet needs and other initiatives in general as well.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that we're we have several opportunities for collaboration a few different areas moving forward. Thank you. It's all about the followup. So yeah, appreciate it. Thanks. Hi. Um, I'm just going to ask a question. Can you give us an estimate of what percentage of the survey participants live in Dunwy and work at Perimeter? Do you have that data or is that too in the weeds?

I do. I do. Um, and I could get it more accurate for you, but I would say um, we're at about 60% of these respondents live or work in Duny. Sandy Springs 60 60. So that I'm not Okay, I believe you. That's a lot. That's a high number cuz Yeah, it's most of our It's It's most of our outreach. Yeah. Okay, that's awesome. Okay. Yeah. um it's a it's a higher percentage of the perimeter than you know even even if um so even just you know IHG state farm insight global right

alone would be about 30% there right and then when we talk about commutes earlier last year the state did away with the buses and PCID and you I think stepped in to fill the void of the people that were using the buses to commute from outside of Martyr's footprint. So where are we with that project and like how is ridership? It's it's Go ahead. Maybe explain what I'm talking about than I do.

Yeah, happy to. So, we started a program um called Rapid Ride, which is a van pool program that we're offering. Um it is a we're subsizing the cost of a traditional van pool down to a flat rate to provide an another transportation option, particularly in the wake of uh those canceled bus routes. We had two two of those bus routes um eliminated in as a route into perimeter. So, we have we we've been doing a ton of outreach um around that. We're seeing that the we we have several partial vans um in the works and really the problem is scheduling because of this scheduling that we're having where people can come in at 7 a.m. 8 a.m. 9:00 a.m. 10 a.m. Um we just need more people in order to serve each of those time slots. So, as we're as we're working on getting the density for that, um, but that option, you know, is available and it's available to anyone coming to work in the perimeter district. So, um, getting the word continuing to get the word out about that. And, you know, any any additional

questions pieces? Did you say more? Does anybody have a question? No. Okay. Thank you very much. That was very interesting. Thank you.

Yep. Did Katherine Lbucker get on Jay or No. Okay, she's Okay, that's fine. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing her. Ready? Right. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, so interesting sort of um secondary presentation to what Nikki talked about. I'm here to give a quick um comparison contrast between perimeter and Dunwy Village. This um comes out of last year's it's my last to-do item from last year's city council retreat. There's a lot of conversation about downtown Dunwy. What is downtown Dunwy? Do we even need to talk about a downtown Dunwy? Um and so at the retreat, council asked for us to go back and do a little bit of um comparing. So since that time, the comp plan was was completed and the comp plan had a lot of conversation and a little bit of debate about downtown Dunwy in it. So what I've done is taken some Placer AI data as well as the comp plan and tried to put together um a story about these two very different but also very important places in Dunwy. Um, again, the comp plan, you know, really focused on three specific areas of the city. Our neighborhoods, which is about 70% of the community, uh, perimeter specifically, and then our other four commercial districts. I know that I've mentioned this before, but we have a very unique economic geography around our commercial areas. We don't have a large arterial road like Roswell Road or Peach Tree, right? All of our commercial areas are contained. have pretty um strong boundaries around them. Um so we have a real opportunity to um

build upon that um and we don't have the issue of you know the commercial development just following and and and and going for miles and miles and miles. So Placer AI uh looked at at both areas. Um obviously perimeter has a lot more visitors and this is visitors who have spent at least 10 minutes in the area. This is not residents, it's not employees, it is specifically visitors. I do have some data on people who spend less than 10 minutes as well and I'll I'll give that to you after this. But over 21 million people um visited there are 21 million visits to perimeter Duny's portion of perimeter last year 2025 um and almost 500 unique visitors averaged to all time

almost I just I hate to interrupt but almost 5 million you said 500 sorry 4.9 million um unique visitors um over two hour uh dwell time so they're here quite a long time uh Black Friday going all the way back to 2017 which is where the place for AI data starts. Uh Black Friday is always the busiest day of the year uh in perimeter as well as uh Dunwy and Saturday is almost always the busiest day of the week. If you look at Dunwy Village, three and a half million um visits almost 500,000 unique visitors. Dwell time the average dwell time is much less so 55 minutes. Uh, April 26 of last year was the busiest day in Dunwood Village. Anybody guess what day that was? Yep. Green Eggs and Kegs. So that was 14 and a half thousand people uh visited. And Saturday is also the busiest day. So if you include the number of people who only who spend less than 10 minutes. So these are people who are going through drive-throughs who are stopping in very quickly in perimeter. That number goes up to 24 a.5 million. And the unique unique visitors is 5.2 million. So a slight increase of about 14%. In the village, the number of visits goes up to 4.8 million and unique unique visitors um 526,000 which is a much larger increase. So these two areas, people who come to perimeter, they're staying longer. Uh Dunwy Village really is a sort of a convenient shopping center. other areas uh other times uh of the of the year that have been busy the two Saturdays before Christmas as you can imagine and then August 2nd which is the last Saturday before school. So Perimeter Mall is is cannot it is so

important to visitation and to our economy. Uh visits peak right before lunch in perimeter and stay very steady until 8 o'clock when it starts trailing off. And uh you can look on place about loyalty. You can choose how many visits you consider loyal. So visitors to perimeter are not very loyal. Certainly not compared to what they are in Dunwy Village. Over 60% of people who visit Dunwy Village go at least 30 times a year. Uh in Dunwy Villages peak at lunch and then they they trail off and then they peak again uh around six o'clock. and a couple of other busy times in the village. Um, November 26, uh, two days before Christmas, and then, um, May 11th, and May 11th was Mother's Day. This is a heat map of where visitors come from. And this is perimeter. So, if you if we if we spread this out and took in the entire region, there would be blue almost everywhere. So, people are coming to perimeter from all over the region. um with a heat map certainly right around Dunwy and Sandy Springs but also inside the city of Atlanta. It looks similar to the heat map that that Nikki had in her presentation about people coming into perimeter Dunwy Village much tighter heat map. The majority of people who come to the village come from Dunwoody and parts of Sandy Springs and then some from Brook Haven and Shambley. looked at employees and residents. Uh Placer uh says there's 30,000 employees in our portion of of perimeter that there is a discrepancy in other places if you look. So that number is a little different. Uh over,200 businesses. You

can see we have 5,200 housing units and over 10,000 people live in our section of perimeter. If you look at Dumby Village, 6,400 employees, which is way more employees than I would have thought. Um, I looked at it multiple times. Most of these employees are part-time. So, I think that is some of the discrepancy, but it still surprised me that there's that many employees in Dunwy Village. Um, and as you can see, very few housing units in population. So if you look at perimeter, not only do we get a lot of visitors, but we have a daytime population in and employees as well as a nighttime population to that drives that economy. So the comp plan gave us a lot of good information um about both perimeter and uh the village. Um we also have ed city 2.0 that gave us a lot of data. Um this is the village and we also had uli recommendations. So, I took all of that and looked through it and created a a a SWAT analysis. Obviously, highway access is important to perimeter. Um, the weaknesses, office headwinds are are are sort of pulling our economy back quite a bit. Um, opportunities are that office to housing conversion. Um, and office vacancies, even though we don't like to see vacancies, they certainly are an opportunity when we're recruiting companies. uh threats uh the macro office correction. If we if that continues or gets worse, it's certainly going to impact um our economy. And we compete with other mixeduse areas like Avalon, like the battery, Buckhead, and Midtown. For the village, identity and loyalty um is is very important. uh weaknesses, the the out parcels, the number of out parcels, the small parcels

themselves, and then the autooriented or suburban design of the area. Um but on a flip side of that, if we're able to create more walkability and more green spaces, we seen uh people in Dunwoody are drawn to that. That's a real opportunity. And then a threat, it is always perimeter. When companies are looking to invest in the village, you've got perimeter right next door. and oftentimes people will invest there instead of in the village and other uh nearby main streets. So to sort of look at the economic roles obviously perimeter is our economic engine. It produces the majority of our tax revenue and you can look at it more like our central business district. So if you sort of not use the downtown nomenclature but you look at that's our CBD. If you think of Manhattan, it's the Midtown Manhattan area of the city. And then Dunwy Village, it's our community town center. Uh it's where people socialize. It's local commerce and it really is Dunwy's main street. So both of these areas are very important, but important in in different ways. And so when we talk about downtown, if we just change the the terminology a little bit, I think it becomes clear that we've got a central business district and then we've got our sort of main street. um in the village. So that's the end of my presentation. Be happy to answer questions.

Thank you. Does anyone have questions? Does anybody have questions? Oh, Joe. Okay. Just Yeah. You Michael, um you had one slide on the ULI recommendations and I know we're going to be going into that in much granular detail, right? Yeah, well certainly certainly are planning that. So right now the the development authority has taken on

going through every one of those recommendations and they've started sort of at the top the vision and narrative. We're we're looking at redevelopment and future development opportunities and our plan is to bring those to council whether that's at your retreat or at a council meeting later on but we're going to they're planning to work through every one of those recommendations over time.

Yeah, I'm super super excited about achievable things we can do. right the uli um and what tools we can use in the toolbox i.e. Um, I've got thoughts as well, but um I I yeah, let's just keep that moving forward. It goes without saying. Um, do we need a C and maybe not, but when maybe we can find figure out a funding mechanism to to like you say, it's gain strategic control property, etc. on those things just Yeah. Yeah. Looking into [clears throat] the C. I did have a brief conversation with Ann about that right after the uli was done and it is something we've talked to a number of the property owners about. So that's probably number three or four on the development authorities list of at least looking into it.

Yeah. When we get to it, it's like what what's the instate? What what on the right if we want to acquire properties, I don't think we need a C to acquire properties, but we want to invest in infrastructure and keep things going on a sustainable basis. And it also is a is an organization that brings the property owners together on a regular basis to talk about common issues, infrastructure, and then it creates a potential partner with the city. Yeah.

Obviously to work with. So it's it's something it's it's it's a it's a complicated process, but we're we're certainly going to look into it. And is the development authority are you um are they do they have like so are they doing in between meetings coming back and then they're presenting at the end of Yeah, we're doing we're doing a little bit of that. There's there's some some of the development authority board members have taken on different parts of it and then they come back and present to the whole development authority. We talked at the January meeting um about sort of vision and narrative and at the next meeting the February meeting we're going to talk a little bit about potential development opportunities. We are meeting with the larger uh property owners now to talk about that. Okay. Great. All right. Thank you, Michael. Y go ahead.

I just you had mentioned that this is your last one after based on our city council retreat. I just want to say thank you because I know it's been quarterly but honestly like you do a really good presentation and I the way I don't know I just I very much appreciated these quarterly reports from you. Thank you. Well, if there's anything specifically you want to hear about, just email me and we can do a little bit of research. Um, the village is probably would be the the next one, but but we'll see. Thank you, uh, Tom.

Uh, yeah, thank you, Mike, for the information. Uh, it's a good report. It's always kind of good to kind of check where you are, and sometimes the numbers aren't like you think you're somewhere, like you said, you know, with the with the employment numbers in the village and everything. Sometimes there's some surprises. Uh but the the only the only comment I wanted to make is um obviously we all understand the importance of the perimeter and the village to the city. Um and they're two very unique areas and different characters. Um I'd like us as we continue to move forward is not forget about our other character areas and I'm not I'm not suggesting we are but I'd like us to really dial up our efforts to to maybe invigorate those. I know we're doing a small area study for Georgetown right now. I think there'll be a lot of good information that comes out of that from the community. Uh but I also don't want us to forget about uh Jet Ferry, Winter's Chapel. I think there's a lot of untapped potential there. Um and you know, and again, we're not trying to uh create a new village or a new perimeter. Obviously, those are but I think having different areas in different parts of town with their own character um uh could go a long way for the city as well. So, uh, I know I'm working with, um, one of the city councilmen in, uh, Peach Tree Corners to kind of work on some stuff in on the Winter's Chapel corridor. Uh, and would love to get you and the economic development team involved in that as well.

Absolutely. I I think the [clears throat] our work that we did with ULI and the village can help us sort of frame the way we look at some of our other areas. Georgetown obviously will have a whole plan um, to look at, but um, definitely we'll we'll focus on Jet Fairy. It sounds like there's a real opportunity with the bowling to now just open over Jeff Ferry. Didn't know bowling was such a big thing, but we'll have to we'll have to market big play to uh to perimeter companies. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.

I have a really nitpicky question. Um so, thank you for presentation. I'll echo everything everyone else has said. Um, just a [clears throat] little bit more insight on how Placer Eye determines who an employee is because my back of the envelope for both those numbers seems out of whack with the reality of those areas. So they they about 10% 8 n% of all cell phones in the US are tracked by by Placer

or they share information. So obviously none of this is 100% accurate because then they have to uh create an algorithm that then builds that in. Um I agree that the 6,400 employees in in the village seemed extremely high. The 30,000 is not um that off low to me honestly. Yeah. Well, it it um I think historically we we have thought that there were were were maybe more jobs in that in that part and we do have about 26% vacancy in in our office.

Um but then then there there are quirks to the data. There is absolutely no that was going to be my my suggestion is more just let's take those numbers with a grain of salt, right? I I don't think there's 80 employees per business in the the village except for maybe at the Publix. That's one business. Yeah. Um and then the other number is 23 per business and we've got you know Insight Global and um State Farm and some big employer. So just what's that even base even so just my just in general to the world when we're we're using an aggregator like placer AI we we need to understand that there are limits to what that data can show us

well and just to keep that in mind for everything we're pulling out of it right it's one data set pulled from cell phone usage so I think it's a great tool I really appreciate you putting this together um I just like I said those numbers just kind of felt a little a little hanky to me yeah I I agree certainly the village I checked multiple times times and it kept coming up and we'll we meet with them every two weeks. We have a call with them and so we'll we'll ask them if they can even do a little deep dive into it. It's not super critical to me. I'm just in in general whenever we're using data if some of it's off just need to make sure we we're aware for all that. Anyway, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Um Nikki, I don't know if I thank you for your presentation, but I actually thought of another question. Do you mind? Because it ties into what I want to talk to Michael about which is as you compared us to uh Midtown because they do a similar survey. Does Avalon, Cumberland down Buckhead, do they do anything? There is one in there is one in Buckhead. Um the questions don't match up quite as well, but there are a few if you're I could pull it for you. And even if it's not word for word the same, but that the concept is the same. I mean, you don't have to do apples to apple comparison. If you could just provide that data. Yeah.

Um, I'd love I can only speak for myself, but I' if it's not too much trouble, I'd really like to see that. Sure. Yeah, we can. Yeah, we can definitely. Unfortunately, there's there's not anything for Avalon or Cumberland right now. They don't survey. Okay. But we do have Yeah, but I can pull Buckhead. Okay. Thank you. All right, Michael. Which leads me to when you talked about your weaknesses and opportunities for perimeter, starting with perimeter, focusing on perimeter because of the previous report.

Um I think I'd like us to laser focus on us. I realize that in so many ways we're not really like Midtown, but sometimes we're competing for uh potential tenants or big relocations. And so I'd like and if we can get whatever information we can get about Buckhead too because one of the things that I took away from um the previous presentation is is that walkability is which was is a big priority of mine in perimeter is remains challenging and maybe one day we can laser down on what people really want or maybe we already know from this study. And then also um a lot of what people are asking for in entertainment exists and some like Petack is here and I don't know if people just sometimes feel like with an open-ended question they just write or legitimately we're missing an opportunity because people don't know. And so that that was a little bit of my takeaway um from uh the previous survey because um and that's why I'm curious about what we're hearing from other districts. Um so that's it.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Um all right. Next is consent agenda. Move to approve. Second. Moved by Stacy. Second by Rob. Any questions or discussion? Seeing none, I call the question. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? No. Okay. I don't actually think you can vote no on a consent agenda. Is that right? You have to pull the Is that right? I think you can. Oh, you can.

You can vote no on a consent agenda. He could have objected to it being on the consent agenda. He did not. But it can be voted on either way. Okay, that's six to one. Oh, wait. Oh, five to one because Katherine's not here. Sorry. Thank you, PCID. All right. Next up, there's actually not a name on this one, but it's you, Michelle. It's the North Beach Street, right? Yes. Yep.

Good evening. So, um, based on the January 12th, uh, meeting and the feedback I received, I am here to present a final design contract, um, for the North Peace Tree Road sidewalk, um, for the safe routes to school sidewalk from Dunwy Crossing at the Village Apartments to the Chestnut Elementary. So, um, the city contracted with KCI in June of 25 for the concept design of this, um, sidewalk along the corridor. And so now we're ready to do the um to advance the project to final design. Um the final design budget is 181,500 which would include KCI's design. Oops. I'm sorry I did not advance the slides. There you go. Here's a map for you. Um so this is from Dunwitty Crossing at the um village apartments and it's about point4 miles um up to Chestnut Elementary. So the final design budget is 181,500 which includes KCI's design fee. Um it's 165,000 with a 10% design contingency. Um the rideway and construction is um estimated at 960,000 um which we would need to budget in 2027 and 2028. Um if the project is extended to Kings Point Drive, which is the ele uh the middle school, Petri um Charter Middle School, um the rideway and construction estimate would be an additional 546,000. Um so that would be a total of 1.5 million for our rideway and construction. So we currently have um 460,000 in the safety funding. Um so we can

apply that to the design contract um and a good portion of the rideway. Um and so then the remainder would need to be um assessed funding in 27 for rideway and then 28 for construction. Okay. This is an action item. I have a question. So wait or questions. Sorry. Um, so if we were to fund this project from the federal grant that we received, we wouldn't have to spend any of this. Is this is that correct? We would need to do a match, the 20% match to the federal funds.

Okay. So So not the whole thing, but a portion of it. Okay. So all we're voting on tonight is the design. It's a design contract. Can this so and so this design contract um if could that then be used with the federal grant? No, it could not there the process is completely different. Um so when you use federal money you have to follow the what you call the PDP process. Um and so we would we don't do that for local projects because it's very long and very um costly.

Okay. Thank you. Uh Tom, uh yes, I'm just kind of following up on that question. So that so that so we're this design is just for whatever we decide the the scale of it is. So we're not looking at the west side at all.

It be just on the east side. Um will the design uh consider or you know take into consideration the fact that that is also in the future for for the city so that so that we're not doing anything that precludes us from moving forward with what we've already got the federal uh money for. Um, so that was why we did the concepts and we had them lay out the um the the path, the shared use path on the west side and see where the sidewalk would need to be on the east side.

And so the the original concept, if I remember correctly, I'm having trouble pulling up my things. My mouse isn't working, but anyway. Um, so I'm going from memory here, but it uh I believe on the east side it went actually all the way up to like the crosswalk at Barlay, if I'm correct, just north of uh river crossing there. Yeah, for the concept we went from from Canilian to Barklay. Yeah.

Um but for this project um we only looked at the um Dunwy Crossing to Chestnut to the middle school and then um we have if we want to go from Chestnut up to the um the middle school. Are there any logistical considerations for doing a small portion versus doing one whole side of the street at the same time? Are we doing anything with storm water or any or curbs or anything like that that are is is it going to be disjointed if we do it in in too far apart on one side of the street?

Um we would be able to make transitions if we just went to the um elementary school. there would be I mean we are moving curbs um but we would account for that and make a transition between um the improvement to the existing and but we would want to come back at some point because we're taking we're looking at the bike lane that's out there and repurposing that area. So

is it possible because I know we're approving a design contract tonight. Um, is it possible to have that design contract consider the whole east side up what was in the con what was in the original concept the the design contract go all the way up to uh the crosswalk at Barlay um and then once we determine where the money is coming from because we I don't you know other than that $400 and something thousands which half of it's going to the design uh it isn't really funded yet so that we could then have a deeper discussion on how far up we're because I'd like to go as far as we can, but I also appreciate that we have to find the money in order to do that. So,

um I believe um that we would be able to take that design, this um final design budget, the 181, and we could design all the way up on the east side. I would prefer to do that. And then if if we can only get to a certain point because of budgets for construction, that's fine. But then we've kind of got something that we can I guess transfer over when we do the other side. Correct. Or would that still be a separate project? It would still have to be a separate project. So even if we use that money now, it would still have to go through the design process if we wanted to construct it with federal funds. Okay.

So we would it would be better to know if we wanted to use the local funds now to design it. Otherwise, it's money that we could put to other areas. Okay. Okay. I think that's it for now. Sure. All right. Thanks, Michelle. Um, going back to this design, um, are you're saying on the east side, uh, the what's going to happen to the bike lane that is there now?

Um, I think we are we would be repurposing. So, we would have to be shifting the um the carbon gutter in um to take the bike lane. So, that would be part of the the sidewalk design. I didn't read that in the memo. I'm only hearing that verbally um or either in the last week's uh presentation. I didn't know that. So, as part of the full design of the shared use path, because we would have a shared use path on the west side for the bikes to use.

Yeah, I get that. But we haven't funded that and we haven't prioritized that. The uh the west side, are we going to I'm sorry, let me pause. That's part of the federal project. Are we still concurrent? Okay, let's back up then. So, you're concurrently still going to move forward on the west side seeking federal funds. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I need to hear it a couple times. Got it sunk in. Thank you. Okay. All right. I appreciate that. Thanks. Um cuz I thought maybe it's going to be 15 years out or something. Whatever. Um

what's I think I mentioned I asked Michael before, but I'm obviously right now it's just a one foot wide landscape buffer. There's just a little you know, you have the four foot wide sidewalk, it's one foot wide buffer. So, what's the ideal uh that we're going to try to have for a buffer on that east side for the sidewalk? We have anywhere from 2 to 5t. Two to five. Yeah, buffer. That's nice. It's a nice adding the grass in between the curb and in addition to the curb. So, yes, exactly. At least two, I hope. At least. Yes. And that is when we have pinch pinch points. I believe that there might be one area because we have some um uh short walls that we're having to put in.

Right. Huge fan of having that buffer, right? Because you stand there and you can feel the cars blowing by you even with today. And of course, we have sidewalks that have no buffers at Yeah. But just Yeah. Um also, you know, support you at least going to Kings Point. Hi, Veronica. We're sitting there having coffee the same time the agenda was posted. and here's a parent in the audience, Veronica Lopez, and she's like, "Oh, well, you know, we just live up here, and I think it would be more convenient." So, I do agree, you know, like with Tom, let's look at the concept of paying that all the way, and then we look at the funding, right? And I came with, let's just figure things out. Um, so the separate conversation I believe we all still need to have is just doing a complete review of the CIP for the next five years as that's floating and here's another project and look at different funding sources and so on. U so I think I thinking I'm just again going down the next level our 2027 budget cycle that's going to start in the summer. We pretty much need to have a funding source identified because we're going to be looking at cash flows in 2027 to start paying for the construction and right away. Yeah. So, we have, you know, what do we have five months or so to figure out a funding source for this, right? Pretty much.

Yes. I mean, we did take a a look at the options for funding this and right now we did not identify any uh money and lost. So we would need to look at potentially some unallocated reserves in 27 or 28. Um I would just like to make a forward proactive conver comment that we have gotten um I I I'll separate conversation with with our paving budget. I'll hold that for the paving conversation. But if we the last couple years we've gotten some surplus additional funding from the states. I think it's Lmeg additional Lmeg. Yes.

So that's unbudgeted. We get extra. So I would say I'm just one of seven. If we got anything that's unbudgeted and all of a sudden we're getting some more money from the state that hasn't budgeted, I' I'd support setting that aside for this project. You know, there's Yes, I understand. And sometimes there are restrictions as part of that funding um that are more maintenance related. So um that would need to be assessed

of course. Yeah, I know. I believe like oh Mike you can do sidewalks but anyway I'm I'm definitely wanting to let's get obviously we have to find the funding source and I'd like to have a complete you know good top to bottom bottom to top review of the CIP. So I I do know that we had um this year we had budgeted um some money out of the un like the unallocated reserve for some sidewalk improvements. Um so that is one option too that we could look at if we wanted to rep prioritize sidewalks. Um we could make that shift also. Yeah, I I'll let the mayor chime in on that one. I thought we kind of committed to some projects already in that. So, just thinking, brainstorming.

All right, but um we the citizens really need this and the parents are really looking forward to this. Um um so I I'm I'm looking forward to this happening. Thank you, John.

Yeah, this is a sidewalk project. It's the first of many that we probably should have done in the past. We have really prioritized, this council has prioritized paths, paths 12 feet wide, lit, needing storm water improvements underneath them. And those paths were where walkers are theoretically going to be someday in the future. This sidewalk project is where students, young children walk every day. This is the highest priority that I can think of for the projects that we have done and spent millions on. Whether it be the four oaks uh sidewalk path, the winner's chapel path. I think this is a priority that's much higher and that we could we really need to fund. Unfortunately, we have already spent much of our capital funding in other places on those paths. Um, I am totally in agreement that this path that this sidewalk go all the way from the Dunwy Crossing uh community up to Brook Run at the crosswalk at Barlay. It needs to happen. The sidewalk that is currently in place is literally three feet in places. It is so overgrown. It in little children, you know, fivey olds to uh got to remember it was my son that was almost hit by a car in front of Chestnut Elementary. And one of the reasons that I uh am passionate about putting the improvements in front of Chestnut. Um I'm glad that the lights got put in. I'm happy to talk to the police department and see we've received a bunch of complaints regarding Peachford and what improvements can be made. But as far as children walking up and down North Peach Tree Road, fifth graders goofing around on the way to school might not always stay in the sidewalk, right? I mean, it's it's three feet wide. They can't walk side by side. Um there is no more important project

than the one in front of us. Um I was the one who raised it at the retreat. This is the only thing I can think of that's really important that needs to get done this year. Something like this needs needs to get done. We have put this on the back burner for years and um I think it's a priority. Now, I I know, you know, there's different funding mechanisms that we're going to look at, but we need to make this a priority, and I'd like to fund it all the way from the uh uh apartment complex, the Peach Tree uh apartment complex, all the way up to Brook Run. I think it's a priority. This council needs to move forward with something to support the parents of Chestnut Elementary, the parents of Peach Tree School, as well as the thousands of people that use that crosswalk going to Brook Run. That sidewalk gets used every day today, and I think it's imperative that we move forward. Thank you.

So, I think the consent Oh, sorry, Stacy. Go ahead.

I just um have a couple more comments. Um, first of all, with all due respect, Councilman Henigan, this project was actually on the parks bond that we had. That was one of the ones that we wanted to build out. Whether you call it a sidewalk or a path, it was actually on the bond. So, it was brought up before the uh council retreat last week and the city citizens voted it down. So, that was not the first time that it's been. Um, I just I do this this this this obviously safe routes to school is a priority. I was a safe rout to school person for Austin Elementary. We also have other sidewalk projects that have been defunded in the city. We've also spent 300 over $300,000 on this. If we didn't fund this, this project is completely funded by a federal grant that we that we've received with the matching city or where where are we with the federal funding for this entire project so that we don't have to do it peacemeal so that we're not ripping up a sidewalk one year and the next year we're ripping up the other side. So, if you could kind of remind me because it's actually I was trying to pull it up in the agenda from last time. It's actually not the I couldn't pull up the item. So, if you could just please remind me where we were with the funding with the project in its entirety and what our matching is just because I couldn't find it.

Um, so unfortunately I can't remember those exact numbers from um the previous meeting, but um I we did receive a grant um and it was for uh pulling trying to pull from my memory. is difficult, but it's like I think it was like 2.5 million um total for design and ride of way. Um and so then we'd have to have a match for that. Um 20% match and then we would request additional construction federal funding. Um and so that was um kind of an estimate that we put in there. But we do have design money uh and rideway money to fund both the path and and the sidewalk. Yes,

I I have the um packet from last month up if you'd like. So, thank you. Um and I'm going to read it through here just so we can see. So, uh

2.55 million for preliminary engineering and rightaway for the entire project with a $640,000 local match. And then we talked about two different options. um one that would use 400,000 from the city's budget with an additional 1.6 million um match uh to meet the required match. Um let me see if I can find a summary here. Option one, estimated cost was $8 million. 6 and a half of that was the federal share. 1.6 was the city share. Um option two was where we broke it out into two projects. The cost for that was 8.765. So about 750,000 more. Uh federal share was 4.9. So just under 5 million, about a million and a half less federal funding. Um city share was 3.8 million. So um more than double um city cost with that. Uh the benefit of that option was that we would be able to get construction um at least for the sidewalk done by 2028 instead of 2032. So we're paying a premium to fix a safety issue. uh about four years earlier just by my quick read of our packet from last time.

Is that what you wanted to know? Is that it? Um okay, here's the thing. And I said it two weeks ago and I'm not changing my mind and with all due respect to everyone, I have brought this up repeatedly for many years at this point. And the Councilman Harris's point, it was in the bond. The bond failed. We paused. We have to fix this segment. Whether we fix it today to cover I think the design ought to be down to bar play that crosswalk the crosswalk. Um I think it should be down to there. I think there's some consensus about that and whoever makes the motion will need to amend it. I think um or do you need to pull it and come back?

No. For the design be I will not

No, this is action. Um and I love the idea of federal funds for some projects. I do. I'm just not sure we're ever going to see this one anytime soon. and those children will be done with Chestnut and probably with Peach Tree um some of the kids and this we just have to we'll have to figure out the funding that's on us, right? We'll have to make some decisions. It's not up to staff can make recommendations, but it's up if we have to change things around or delay other things or figure it out. We'll have to figure it out. But we ought to get this project started so that it can get completed. Um, and so I appreciate, you know, up until the pandemic, the mayors have been working on mass transit for the top end project. And up until the pandemic, my colleagues didn't want to use federal funds for that project because it would take so long. Then the pandemic hit and our economies kind of got rocked. There is there are real benefits with federal dollars, but there are real challenges with federal dollars. And maybe we can find some state money or ARC money or something out there for something like this, but we just need to keep we got to get moving on it. We've got to get moving on it. So, uh, this is an action item.

Um, do I can point or just repres um if I want to amend, do I do we first make a motion for the action and then an amendment or can I make one motion with a with amendment? a dollar amount though and it it's just a design contract for um is it going to cost more to um No, they would it would the contingency part, right? Okay. So, we don't need to amend it because we're just approving and you heard what we said about where we'd like it to end. Would that be a part of the um vote that I mean it can be. That's what we're trying to

just for clarification. I'd appreciate um benefit of the doubt of of of of amending the the staff memo where it says the design is ending at Peace Street, I mean at at Chestnut to say that it will end at the full length across from Brook Run at the crossing uh north of Barclay. All right. So, is that your motion? Yes. All right. So, we have uh a motion on the floor. Uh second by John. Any further discussion? One quick clarification. This is for the design. We could still conceivably the construction if we had to. Absolutely. Absolutely. Point the vote. Can I clarify is the motion to approve this with that added language?

Yeah. Okay. So, it's just one motion. You don't need the amending. That's fine. Go ahead. Discussion point. Just just from a funding perspective can just clarify the mayor said one thing, but we're moving forward on the east side using local dollars with the sidewalk. We're just getting the design. Getting the design. Oh, then we'll look at Okay. So, we need to figure out Okay, never mind. Start. Right. Thank you. My question is, uh, what's the Del deliverable with a design contract? Will it have a, um, um, construction estimate? Yes.

With also the, um, rightway estimate like it'll come back with everything. Well, we would it would come back with everything and we would have to come we would have be we purchase right away also before we we came with a construction agreement. Right? So the design is going to say here's like everything. Here's our potential cost. Here's the rightway. Here's what we think it is. Everything for this for this project. Okay. And will it be phased? Can you ask them to phase it for you that if we do what phase financial part? Yes. I mean, oh yes, we can like for construction

like for the estimates. I'm sorry. For the estimates. So, we don't need I mean we we can have one price but also break it down in logical manners. Yes. Okay. Sorry. All right. There's a a motion on the floor. Mayor Mayor, I'm sorry. Yes. Could I have uh council member seconder restate the motion? Um move to approve the staff's uh recommendation. In addition to ensure that the concept design goes all the way north extending to north of Barklay to the crossing uh uh north of Barklay Drive. There's a pedestrian crossing in the street. Thank you. Thank you. It starts at the I think it's Chestnut. Yes, North

that's already up there. Dumb crossing, right? Yeah, they're doing that. Yeah, it starts at Yes, it's been seconded. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Uh, that's unanimous. I guess heard everybody, but that's fine. Okay. Um, all right. Michael Smith paving. I'm in the wrong agenda.

All right. Good evening. the uh last year we uh had Steuart Brothers uh did our paving last year through they they won the bid through a bid process. Uh the contract that we had with them included two optional annual renewals. Um since that time, Blunt actually, who's done a lot of paving for the city, bought Stewart Brothers. Blunt was the second low bidder last year, but they bought Stewart Brothers and assumed all their contractual obligations. And so we worked with Blunt to negotiate a uh cost for this year's paving. The the memo includes a list of the streets, and there's a map in there, too, with the streets that are planned for paving this year. And the sub the cost estimate is $3,281,57 to pave 13.8 lane miles on on 33 32 streets. [clears throat] Um so that that's the recommendation to do a contract extension with blunt construction. Um the couple of other things with that. Last year we had originally included jet ferry in last year's paving list and council asked us to go back and delay it till this year and look at some additional improvements on jet ferry. We've done that. Um we we can add we'll have to shift the center line of the road, but there is room to narrow the lanes and add a bicycle climbing lane on the uphill side of Jet Ferry and add a crosswalk near the bus stop that's out there. um near the Chick-fil-A. So that's the recommendation on Jet [clears throat] Ferry. Uh also since last year we we learned that and DAB is

out there now putting in a water man on Shamley Dunwy. The cab is going to pave the half of the road that they've put the water man in. Um but the other half is never with the city's never paved it. So, we added that to this year's paving plan to go ahead and get the entire road resurfaced north of Roberts. Um, in accordance with the city's complete streets policy, we also looked at what accommodations could be made on Shambly Dumy. A lot of that section of the road is not wide enough for bike lanes on both sides. Particularly considering, you know, the latest guidance on bike lanes is above a certain speed and traffic level that they really should be buffered or separated. Um, so there's not enough room to do that. But if if the council would like to, we could also add climbing lanes. There's one hill on that section of Shamley Dunwy. So, we could add climbing lanes in each direction that would be buffered. Um, it would require shifting the center line. So, it would require a little bit additional paving quantities. Uh, that would increase the cost a little bit, but it would all just be through the unit prices in the contract.

Uh, okay. This is just a discussion item question. Stacy, I'm sorry. So, this is a huge water mane project and and they're they're only going to pave I'm sorry I mean in a lot of places I think the county would if it was their road a lot of times I think they would just patch the water man say thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for paving half the road right now. the full lane. But John, go ahead.

Hopefully, is there any possibility that Dicap County could let us pave the entire road all at once and reimburse us for their half of the road? I mean, it's one project. I would rather us do it. I would trust our quality control measures. Um, does [clears throat] it open us up to liability if it's not compacted? Is there other issues that come into play? But I would rather that we do the work if we trust that the line was compacted and it's not going to cause other liability issues to us. Yeah. David's been working with the county a lot on their projects. I'm going to let him answer that.

Yeah. Uh uh I think there's a company uh that's doing this that we work pretty well with. I do not know who their paving contractor is going to be, but we we have a pretty good working relationship with them. for symmetry. I think it would be best if it was all paved at one time and we handled the paving, but it's not our obligation as far as, you know, it's not our financial obligation to pay their part and that's built into their project. Uh, I think what we could do is uh begin a discussion with them and see if we could work with them or see if they'd be willing to reimburse us if we handled the whole project for them. And I think that's a valid point. Well, again, it's a great idea until I'm just questioning myself now, the liability aspect. There have been projects in the past where a water line or some work was done under the road by some agency that rhymes with the cab county that maybe was not compacted enough and therefore there was potholes and there was quality of that top layer. We would put the top layer on, but we can't guarantee the work below. If they were to then pave their half of the road with all of their work below it, what's their liability? They would take on the liability of that and would the quality control. Would that be under their guys or would it fall back to us?

I believe that would be something we'd have to negotiate with them. But I I would see how any of the subsurface would be their responsibility. That that would certainly be the way we'd want to approach it to make sure that we're protected on any of their work. I will say that uh we we do go out there and monitor their quality from time to time. We have uh they're required to uh perform uh subsurface testing uh and and we are receiving those reports. Uh we've we've seen good quality work as opposed to some others that we've seen that they've done. Uh this particular section the contractor is doing a a good job. Uh, but we would like to see how the paving could be worked out.

Well, I I appreciate that and again, I'm looking back historical. I don't mean to belittle anybody who's doing the work for us and there the current contractor might be doing a great job. That being said, I also have a historical background of everything we've handled previously and we've had had issues in the past. I can see it benefits on both sides and I trust your judgment, Eric. I'm just trying to understand what's best from a citizen perspective. If we could get it all done at once, it would be great. But if there's liabilities, I fully understand that as well. We will uh enter in a discussion with them to see if they would like to do it through our contractor and it may actually save them some money as well. Yeah. So,

is is that project on schedule? We even know the schedule. But I'm talking about the PL piping project, the cab. I believe it is. Uh, so they're going to they give us like a year and a half to complete that and they're almost through with the well they're actually through with the shammy done. Okay, that was my question. They haven't done the paving but the sham done portion of it and they've completed pretty significant portion of the roads that are off of Shamlin Dunwy. Okay, great. Yeah. Now Robert's hasn't started yet. So,

right. Go ahead. Just another question with that. With Michael mentioned um potentially climbing lanes with the county doing half the road and us doing half the road, what kind of complication does that throw into that that idea? If the county does their half, they would just go ahead and pave like it is now to do the climbing lanes. We have to shift the center line anyway. And I we [clears throat] couldn't really task them with that. So that that's going to fall on us regardless to to do the extra work that would be needed to to shift. So

So we we would probably end up redoing, you know, a few feet of what they've done kind of putting it together. So could could you just narrow the the driving lane through striping to they wouldn't be true bike lanes but to create a a wider shoulder as a middle ground. We I mean we could just say well what I would say is so in places the roads only there's only 27 feet of asphalt. So we could go to 10ft lanes and that would leave us seven feet which is really not enough for bike lanes. I mean, we can stripe it at 10 feet and just not mark the rest of it.

That was kind of what I'm saying. Maybe they're not bike lanes, but it's just a wider shoulder that's a little bit gives cyclists a little bit of room to to kind of get out of the way a little bit easier. I don't know. Just a thought. Yeah. I mean, John, I also regarding the bike lanes, tell me about the separated versus non-separated and tell me what is a separated bike lane? What's going to be sticking up? How is it separated? explain it to me if um what we're recommend well we what we would propose on both of these streets would be a what I call buffered bike lane so it would be separated from traffic by striping okay um there's a section of peeler that's like that

there's no ballards there's no there's no grass there's no median there's no no separate a separated bike lane is I would consider something that's has a physical barrier between the road and the bike lane. This would be buffered. So there would be just a space that's striped out. I'm just trying to think if trucks were to go down the road would so they're rolling over paint. They're not rolling over ballards of some sort. Um is does this contract include striping? And more importantly, does it include reflective um road markings or reflectors on streets over 35 miles an hour?

Yeah. Yes. All of our well all anytime we repave a road that has striping it includes re redoing the striping and then on roads like Shamley Dunwy it would include putting the raised pavement mark the reflectors. Okay. I think that's real important to make sure that that's identified if not in the contract. It might be our standard operating procedure. Wasn't always but it is now though. So thank you. I just think it's so important in the rain, in the dark, um, that that be part of the safety implications of the improvements that we're doing. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, they're pretty cheap. Thank you, Joe.

Um, thanks, Michael. Um, appreciate the section on jet ferry, the uphill one. That'll also just add it as a traffic calming. That's a pretty much people driving very fast through there and that makes sense. Um the Shambly Dunwy portion I didn't put two and two together not knowing the segment that we're paving versus TCAB. Um I kind of go to the um side of you know the last time we paved Mount Vernon east of the village whatever that was se and uh John Gerbles I think was your number two guy and you had the striping plan and then the guys out there didn't stripe it but then we did stripe it officially but

I'm not I don't I would rather look at the analogy of what you did uh in Ashford Dunwy. It's it's just the white line and it's not marked as a MUTCD uh facility. There's no signage, but it's just that line over there and then there's a space. So, I I'm going to leave it to I I would like just to to have the uh this allow the discretion for you all to say, okay, here's the center line. If you stripe outside lines at 10 and 1/2 ft and then it is what it is, uh then it's just kind of equal the whole way. and you know, whatever. It's kind of a balance and it's I called it I don't want to say cheap and cheerful, but then you're just not dealing with having to modify the crown of the road or anything

and that's that'll get us to a little bit. Yeah. And that's you know because again we have all these other competing priorities. Yeah. That that's the easiest and cheapest thing.

So for me I'd be just like just center line and then outside stripe leave it. So yeah, of course. And then um and then okay, that so that's the Shambly one. Um I just want to ask you a couple other ones. Mount Vernon Way is on the paving plan and that's a that's a that's a speed speed route as well. You know, that's residential. It's signposted at 25 miles an hour. Um, I was trying to get pavement widths and I didn't feel I did not feel like going out with my old thing this weekend and and tape rule and measuring curb to curb and I have done it in the past. Um, are we looking at, you know, that is that pavement width as wide as North Peach Kingsley even? Because it's a dragway, right? It's flat. We have that one stop in the middle. I know it's it's it's a minor thing, but a I know we don't legally have to put in a a yellow t yellow center line. You don't have to paint a yellow center line. Vermach didn't have one years ago and then we did it. And people have to pay attention. And if we bring in just restripe, I know we're not moving curb gutter, but I think that's pretty wide in there. Any Just think about Mount Vernon Way. What can we do with this paving project for traffic calming? Yeah, we I mean we didn't I didn't look at wits on Mount Vernon specifically. It doesn't have striping now. So that would be new. Um and there's you know I guess there's two ways to look at that really. You you put the striping in and

narrow the feel of the road. Maybe that slows some people down. But then there's also a thought that adding striping makes it feel like less of a residential street and more of a a throughway. But I mean, so there's no Is there a center line on there? There might be a center line right at Mount Vernon at the signal. Okay. But but north once you get away from Mount Vernon, it's just a it's like a residential street. All right. Well, I guess we just have this on the uh list of priorities of residential streets that we're trying to calm traffic a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, we we did add a like a raised crosswalk up at the north end a few years ago when we finished the sidewalk up there before you go down the hill to try to slow people down. Um, so a little bit. Yeah. Okay.

And just I I two more things. Uh, the uh I looked at the paving plan that's the uh posted online on the website. It's it's for four 20 it says 2024 to 2028. That's what's posted. And that whole analysis was done in 2023, right? Um I know from time to time you'll add new you'll add like we'll get extra funds or they below budget and you add the future streets into the current planning. So with that said, this is sort of related to North Peach Tree local funding um Elme, whatever. Do we know how accurate the uh let's leaprog to 2027 and 2028, those last two years in this paving plan that's been advertised to the citizens? Do we know if uh we're going to get them done even sooner potentially um as is without needing additional Lmeg where where are we on on the you know further down? Can we can because that that there I can't there's a color code on that map and and there's I I don't the colors are hard to read so it's hard for me to extract an update.

Yeah. Of what's left for the next for those 27 the 27 and 28 years.

Right. Yeah. We have it tentatively mapped out and and I'd say that we're going to be right at that 20 year mark. What what happens as we get closer is we're there's more more and more streets that that are going to come on to the list that have been paved before, but it but they're big roads that they they won't last 20 years. Um Mount Vernon west of of the um of Ashford Dunwy is a a good example where we paved it almost 14 years ago now and it's still in pretty decent shape. But in another few years, you're probably gonna start noticing that it's deteriorating. So, so as those kind of streets come back on the list, there'll be less new streets we're doing, if that makes sense. So, um, what we're projecting is that it's we're going to hit right around that 20-y year mark with the current funding we have. And the way the way the way it's budgeted is we're we're just we're relying on Lmeg to supplement the local what we budget locally to get us into that range of what is recommended to keep the paving where it is.

What was that second funding that we've got in the last couple years? Yeah, that with the when the state has run a surplus and they've you know divvied that money up part of what they've done is we call it supplemental elme funds that when we've gotten that you know a couple of years ago we used it for pave paving last year we used a lot of it we used some for paving but we used some for sign replacement and striping um so we we don't I mean we feel pretty good unless we you know the the economy tanks that LMIG, the base LMIG is going to stay pretty consistent. Yeah.

But the supplemental L-meig is really just up to whether the state has a surplus and whether that's what they want to allocate it to. So we don't really count on that. It just it's kind of extra money and usually we hear about that in March, April time frame, I think. So

um and last one just on paving in general, Winter's Chapel it the map again that that's crosses over to Gwynette over in front from Peeler to PIB on that segment that's been paved in recent that's been paved in the last 10 years. I I I know that and but when we do that the center line you know is is over right. So that segment might be putting you on the spot here, but is that Gwynette helping? What what do we do when we when we look at Winter's Chapel in that segment Peeler PIB?

Well, Winter Chapel, there's a segment where it goes out of the city completely and we we don't pave that. When you go south of Peeler by by the reservoir, um the roadway is completely within Dunwy. So we last time we paved it, we paved to the south end of the reservoir and then once you go past that the right all of the rightway including the road is in Peach Street Corners even though the houses on the west side of the road are in Dunwy but the rightways in Peachree Corners. So we so we only pave the parts that are in Dunwy up till about the end of the reservoir about the south end of the reserv.

Okay. Whenever we get to that ever again, I really want to look at a road diet on there. We have these huge right turn del hashmark area. There's just so much ashvault there. There's four lanes in some areas. Can shift things over, make it make it linear park, move the curb and gutter. I think it'd be a transformational thing for those folks out there. Been trying to get a little park pocket park created for those people in front of the waterworks for for a few years. But anyway, I don't know when that's in the cycle or that. Well, since since we're talking about it, it was originally on the list for this year and we we decided to move it back because since that list was well, at some point Peach Tree Corners put in that uh a crosswalk out there and they re they as part of that repaved a good section of it. So, we looked at it and it's it's not in bad shape for the most part.

So, we pushed it back a little bit. Thanks, John.

I could just jump in right there. I was trying to compare all of your maps. You didn't. The latest packet doesn't show color code for each year where you've added in extra paving last year. I'd love to get an updated map someday just to stay current. But what I did notice, I was trying to figure out what we have scheduled for paving this year versus what we had scheduled last year as well as the additional. And I think I did see that Winter's Chapel was promised to the citizens to be paved in a certain year. And I'm not sure it was. I was going to ask about it. So, you're saying that little section of Winter Chapel did not get paved. My question really was, is there any other streets that we made promises for 2526 that are not on the list? Because again, you didn't give us a really good color-coded map to know exactly every street that was promised previously to what is scheduled to be done,

right? But Winter's Chapel, I did see was one section that jumped kind of jumped out at me and I was going to ask about it, so thank you for that. But is there anything else that you can think of?

Well, I know that there aren't any neighborhood streets that were moved back because what what we've done as long as I can remember is that the main roads we do tend to kind of shift around based on capital or other things or but we feel like if we say we're going to pave your the house the street, you know, your neighborhood street this year, we we stick with that. So, there weren't any neighborhood streets that were moved off the list for this year. Winter's Chapel is the only one other than that that I can think of that we moved back just because of the condition it was in. [clears throat] And okay, I when I saw that, so thank you. But again, lots of changes with those colors and those maps.

I think we can have that by the next meeting. That would be great for Yeah. for us for approval. That'd be good. So, thank you very much. Appreciate that. Did you have a question? Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. Uh, Ridge View, that's the one that's basically unpaved and that's right. It's we're doing the There's two ridge views really. There's one over here in perimeter and then we're doing the north one. You're doing the north one and that that's the one that like when they put it in like they just stopped the pavement and it's a dirt road. So, they finally get to not live on a dirt road. We Yeah, we have a But wasn't there a lot of storm water in that too? Has that been done or is that part of this project? taking care of the storm water and we're putting in a standard width road and a sidewalk before we paved. And was that a public road? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. And it was there before they put the subdivisions in or that's the issue. I mean, it was pretty hood. What happened is pretty hood. Yeah. There there's a the first section of the road Bill Grant built houses on. That got all got improved. It has a sidewalk and everything. And then the very end of the road there was a little five house neighborhood built. They improved that part of it under the cab county, but there's 300 feet in the county didn't require them to connect. Okay.

Um All right. Anybody else? So, I have a question. I have a question. Um you know, we've we have this 20-year promise that everybody's road will be paved once. I understand that there are roads we have to go back to. That's the way it works. the roads that are busy roads, but where are we on like where are we on the roads that need to be touched once? Does that make sense? Yeah. Like I don't I like in like could we possibly be finished with the year? So this is year 18, right? Or something.

This will be year 17. Okay. But Could we possibly be finished with touching um every road once by 18 or 19? Um I think the way we're projecting it right now, we would finish in year 20, but it wouldn't take a full

like a lot of year 20 would be maybe some repaves and not all new paving. So, I think that I'll be gone, but I think that there will be a time to talk about what paving looks like 3 years from now and how we manage and prioritize those projects because I'm going to presume that though we have to repave, we're not going to have to repave all these neighborhood streets that don't get as much traffic. And what' you say?

Well, but yours is a busy street. But I just I I would think there'd be some shifting. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe every street that was touched once in the first 20 years will have to be touched on its 20th anniversary. But I'd like to think like the culde-sacs and other things maybe have a longer life than 20 years. So I guess at some point we'll do the laser truck again and pro probably, you know, in year 19,

right? And figure it out. I'll be gone. It's not going to be mine to figure out. But I just think that I think that there's a real discussion on what infrastructure needs, how you prioritize what that looks like moving forward. So I mean I want us to have good roads, right, for sure. Um but that's it. Um okay. Uh we will see this again. You bringing it back in two weeks? Yes. Okay. [clears throat] If we had the map, we could probably say consent, but we'll look at it with the map. Thank you. All right. And mayor, I'll [clears throat] do the first three.

Oh, right. An ordinance to amend chapter 22 of the city of Dun Woody Code of ordinances to prohibit burning of yard waste. Somebody can make it.

Good. Good evening, mayor. Good evening, council. This tax amendment was requested by council member Hennean based on citizen complaints and I will present to you all today a first draft for for your consideration tonight. Um I want to uh go into a little bit of background on the current situation as it comes to outdoor burning of yard waste. Um and then uh present what we're proposing tonight and what some of our neighbors are doing on this topic. Uh currently outdoor burning we don't have a specific language of it in our code uh but statewide rules for the Atlanta region are applying uh which restrict outdoor burning between May 1st and September 30th. So in the summer months when ozone levels are highest. So it's a um it's a air it's a um air quality type regulation that applies here. But burning is allowed in anything that is not those summer months. So between October 1st and April 30th of every year. Um outdoor burning leads to uh we receive a few complaints uh every year because it can produce if if leaves are burned or like if if organic material is burned, it can produce a lot of uh smoke and we get complaints about the the smoke. Um and then from a both environmental and health type aspect um there is the particulate matter that goes with this as well. Um there is in Decap County um a good alternative to this um which is Decap County Sanitation does yard waste pickup uh on normal on normal days. So

residents can uh pack up their yard waste in these uh paper bags and leave it out at the curb for pickup. Um the ordinance that we have as part of the package um prohibits so in in a first section section A it prohibits generally it prohibits burning unless specifically exempted uh which is under B and there it allows typical residential uses. So it allows um and you can see in the ordinance under one it um allows outdoor burning for preparation of food. Um number two um it's general type of construction equipment that has open flames is exempted here too. Blow torches, welding torches, portable heaters and and so forth. Under three, it is what you consider typically as a as a fire pit. as long as specified um items are burned. Um there are requirements for distancing of those fire pits which is 25 ft from all structures, 10 ft from all property lines and there's a maximum size with this which is 5 ft in diameter. So this is trying to regulate what is a fire pit and what is not a fire pit to make it easier from an enforcement standpoint. And then under uh number four down here, it's it's almost like a catchall. That's if there's a different type of fire for recreational or ceremon ceremonial occasions. This could be on special holidays or for um religious purposes. Those can be allowed if the Cap County Fire Department is notified and uh has approved this. So other fires are allowed with this caveat that it needs

to go through approval process with the county. Um this is uh in line with neighboring communities and we've looked at Sandy Springs, Procave, Alfreda, Decada and Roswell which all prohibit outdoor burning of yard waste. The ordinances are a little bit uh different. Sandy Springs procar um allow outdoor burning for spec for specified purposes which is somewhat similar to what we're proposing um and outdoor burning of yard waste is just not one of the specified uses while decayed on ros will uh specifically prohibit the burning of yard waste. So there's there's a few different ways to go about it amongst our neighboring communities. Um, overall we're recommending adoption. This is a discussion item tonight. Um, and and if you all desire, we'll bring it back on February 9th for uh for adoption.

Okay. John,

thank you for Thank you, Coun. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, council, for reviewing this with me. Um, again, I was very surprised when a large leaf fire was happening in a residential yard with a large amount of smoke going over a person's house and our police department said, "Sorry, fully legal. Can't do nothing about it." So, uh, to me that was, uh, I did the research, looked at the cab, look at other ordinances, and, um, tried to find a, with staff's help, an ordinance that would be workable that Here's the tricky part. I still want to roast marshmallows, right? I I I still want to have campfires with our families in the driveway where possible. So, it's not outlawing all fires. Um there's a couple uh the public has weighed in on some of this. Some people have gotten back to me. For example, um 10 foot from property lines. Paul, I'd love to take that out. And the reason is is that we have a number of homes where two driveways come close to each other and they come they have it in the driveway section and they don't want to be illegal by having it too close to a property line.

Yeah.

Um there's no definition that your definition of fire pit in number three doesn't have a portable fire pit. You only have inground fire pits. So, I'd love to add um you know, a fire pit is defined as a portable fire enclosure or a pit that's dug in and all the rest. So, I'd love to add the words, you know, defined as a portable fire enclosure or and then keep going with your definition. Those are two things that I saw that I'd like to get uh modified if I could. People had questions regarded uh in section B all of the things that cannot be burnt treated wood. So I'm guessing that's pressuret treated with chemicals. That's one of the things that's not allowed to be burned. Right.

Correct. Yep. Okay. I just they weren't people weren't sure what that meant. And I believe it's the pressuret treated aspect of it. But you're not allowed to burn leaves and grass and rubbish or garbage and other clippings. Um, there's probably a thousand ways to get around this. I mean, our goal is to have a reasonable ordinance that most people would be able to comply with. I think this uh sets a pretty good bar for us. I'm happy for council to review and make suggestions or your thoughts. Thank you. Uh, Rob,

a couple different things. One is just a general question of um how much seasonal burning of yard waste occurs in the city. I mean we have a a particular example of a complaint. Is this widespread? Um is this a one-off? What kind of complaints have we gotten? John mentioned he got a few. Just a sense for the the scope of the issue I think would be useful. Um, and then the second, you know, if we move forward with this, um, I'm in agreement with John about adding a need for a temporary fire pit. And I think honestly the 25 ft from the house, if you bring a temporary pit in, um, potentially becomes an issue as well. If you have a small operation sitting on a back porch, that may only be, you know, 15 feet from your your house. So, just just some some nuances if we decide to move forward. But the first question is just kind of a sense for for the issue itself, I guess.

Yeah. And and the tricky part with that is always if something is not prohibited, we're not tracking it in a systematic manner. So I have anecdotal, you know, I talk to the code officers and we receive a few calls a year, sort of the the best I can offer. Um police chief may have sort of like additional insight if if he gets some of those calls from time to time, but it's a few cases a year. I'm sure it happens more and people just hold their nose um and and uh get get on with their day, but um it that that's that's the best I can offer. Yeah. Um sorry. Thank you.

Uh thank you Paul. Yeah. Um John and Rob kind of touched on my big concern like the definition of fire pit, the way it's written, it seems like it has to be a permanent structure like in the ground. And I would venture to guess that the majority of fire pits in the city are are portable ones. Uh so and I also had the question about the distancing. I actually know two neighbors that literally share a fire pit right on their property line when they sit around and together. So uh I I wouldn't want that to be uh prohibited as well. Um the one thing that hasn't been addressed yet is outdoor fireplaces. Uh which is something that is different than a fire pit. It's enclosed. Um, I know of several homes that have outdoor fireplaces either on a deck or a patio. Um, but I don't see uh I would like some framework around that and obviously allowing that because um and then I also if there's if there's a permanent structure already there. So

Yep. Yep.

Ciao. Thanks. Um, yeah, I was I also talked about the portable fire pit, too, right? I But, um, I I I I like the the the way the intent is that John expressed that let's just kind of address and not go micromanage and how people live here. Um, it's really the smoky fires that we're trying to um have for quality of life here. Um, do we need to also just make sure we're clarifying some other terms for definitions here? Um, for instance, residential properties. Um, and because does it are we excluding apartment complexes, multifamily, uh, home HOA common areas, um, at a swim and tennis clubhouse, u, mixeduse developments with residential units. Um so just kind of take that as a consideration. Um and then the uh let me see let me see. Yeah the definition of recreational fire but do we need to define I I looked at like Brooks whatever it seems like people are throwing out campfire and bonfire. I'm seeing those terms, but I don't want to again overly complicate this, but when I'm reading fire pit, I don't under I want to really make sure, you know, like Brook Haven says there's a bonfire, but what that implies something else. So, just I I don't know, just clarifying some of these questions. Um, the enforcement ones um as well, there's a allow city staff to issue citations with for any unauthorized outdoor burning. So, um, is there a fine schedule listed to that? Um, and what what the penalty would be? Do we know what that would be?

It's in it's it's in the general code. It's like the the typical citation that we can issue. Okay. Which is uh up to uh $1,000 per per day. Right. Right. Um, and then just before this were ever to come online, I'd like to have a phase in period where we have an educational outreach when it goes live uh date and so on that we have a social media website, eblast, um, whatever we're doing there for letting people know. Um,

and I'd also like to have it in addition to just this let's let's take it up a notch as far as saying educational outreach awareness is saying, you know, lawn leaves you can do other good things with it too, natural mulch uh, and and and things as well. So just if we could uh when when this goes live uh educating folks on on on the full picture of it. Thank you. Okay. I see. Um I guess my first question I was really surprised that this is a first read as a discussion item because I was under the impression that it was going to be discussion item but now apparently it's going to be going to a vote in the next one. What happens with discussion items generally? But it's a Okay. But this is the first time this is just the way ordinances work. I don't

Well, no, but usually it's a business item and now it's under discussion item.

The way we don't vote to um I to me this is if you're saying you've can kind of remember a few phone calls. This to me this is a very HOA issue and not a city council issue. Like I am do not want our police and our code enforcement officers to be tracing through somebody's backyard to measure if the fire pit is five feet or six feet. And if it's six feet then they have to sight them. Have your HOA take care of it. If you don't live in a HOA well then that one day a year that you make your neighbors mad or are we burning something and it smells but it's actually a campfire that's 5t wide and is perfectly legal. Like I don't think that we need to be regulating people's campfires in their backyard or their fire pits that they move all around their house depending on whether they're sharing with their neighbors or not. And now all of a sudden we have outdoor fireplaces that we have to make legal and they're legal today. I just don't understand why we are doing this because I myself that I've been on council for what six years, I've never received a complaint uh about outdoor burning. So, I'm just I I understand that there was an issue apparently somewhere this year, but I've never heard of it before. And to have to enforce this and measure fire pits and we're deciding how far they're going to be from the house and are they burning untreated wood or treated wood. Really, I just don't think that this is a necessary step for uh the city to have to enforce.

Um, okay. So to clarify a couple things, I think we should just ban leaf burning and have a definition and be done with all the other stuff because people move their fire pits. We have small lot houses like Joe's second door. I'm not sure you have 25 ft from your wall to your back door. I know.

And so I'm not sure I have 25 feet from my wall, my back door now that I think about it. But I want to be clear that normally I am not a fan of responding to one complaint with a policy. The reason I'm okay with this is is that when we became a city, Dicab County did not have a rule against it and they've since evolved. It's the same way I feel about that dreaded tree ordinance that we can't seem to get done when everybody else but us has one. And so I think that because if Dicab had had a tree ordinance when we became a city, we'd have a tree ordinance. If they had had a burning leaves ordinance, we'd have a burning leaves ordinance. I think strip this down. Just make it illegal to burn. This is a complaint driven system. Someone has to pick up the phone or send an email to call code. Don't worry about telling people when or when they cannot. um it's not very many people and generally speak speaking people want to comply and so if they're told they can't burn leaves they just won't burn leaves the three people that may be doing it. That's my take. I'm one person but I think that's kind of what I took from this conversation like that

is that we're overthinking it. Yeah. And I apologize because I read it multiple times and I didn't think about that until I started thinking about the distances. Okay. So we'll see this again. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh I don't think there's anything here for you to read because this is just chief.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um the first [clears throat] uh that I'm going to uh discuss is about the renewal of our technology partnership with the PCID. Um [clears throat] we have we partnered with them two years ago and our contract is up for renewal for equipment that we're already using. Uh they're also funding uh an additional drone um as a part of this agreement. So this additional drone which we've discussed in the past will cover the other side of the city. So we'll get full coverage now uh if this is approved. This is at no cost to the city. This is fully funded by PCID. Okay. This is a discussion item. Does anybody have questions? I do.

Yes ma'am. So, I just want to clarify that we're going to have a big picture discussion with Flock and you and Eric. When is that? On the 23rd, the 23rd of February that they're coming in or they're here and you're going to be here and Belle, right, Belle's on to answer some of these questions, a lot of these questions that some of us have about data safety and everything else.

Correct. And I also want to point out that I know that there is a balance here and that just recently our drone essentially saved a person because the police were able to locate her. They would not have been able to locate her without the drone. So I this is a fine line we're walking and I appreciate that. But we do have it planned for February 23rd. That's correct. I apologize. I thought I don't know where my brain was when I said do it that late but that's when we're doing it. I thought I was doing it earlier. I don't know. Okay. be a brief presentation then obviously open it up

right questions and answers and perhaps it would be helpful if we have questions to submit them some ahead to Eric if somebody has specifics all right um does anybody have any comments or questions on this one on the [snorts] 10 go ahead madam mayor based on the discussion regarding flock on the 23rd but yet this item is up for approval on the 9th does it make sense to push the approval to the 29th after the discussion of flock or would you like to possibly approve or deny this on the 9th prior to the flock discussion? Can you wait till the 23rd or we Okay, that's up to you.

We can wait till the 23rd. I think that makes sense. Yeah. Um All right. And then the next one.

So this is the um the Flock OS 911 technology. We have been testing and evaluating this system. Uh essentially what this is is when uh the 911 call comes into chat, it actually comes straight into uh our real-time crime center in there. So we're actually dispatching officers before dispatch can dispatch us. So this [clears throat] is just um we've had it free. Um but this is for uh this year. Um we were using live 911. However, being keeping it all under one system, under one technology platform is smarter. Uh, and it has been working flawless and, uh, we've got many, many, uh, success stories with this walk 911 system. So, I ask that the city council approve this as well.

We'll do the same thing with this one, but I have a question. Can you tell us the difference between live 911 data storage potentially? Do you know? Okay. All right. We'll find out. All right. Go ahead, Rob. Oh, that I guess my question, it sounds like we're just going to wait anyway, is is just the kind of metadata that's associated with these calls. I mean, it would be the same that 911 would have. Correct. And so, we're this is just a system to get us that 911 information earlier.

That's correct, sir. So, I'm wondering, is there a need to defer this item because it really is just a 911 issue and not a, you know, data capture in terms of like license plate numbers or pictures or or gunshots or things like that. Um, I I I'm fine with for simplicity sake, but what happens with open records calls now for so when when I have an when when I ask y'all to look into a 911 call with with the record of an emergency call that hasn't gone the way we would like it to and we go through Dicab County to get the reporting check for the well yeah for our CAD and 911 calls we'll we'll just file an open records with Chatcon that's how we pull the report even with the system in place.

Correct. Okay. And I guess if it's an ambulance or fire, we still have to go to the cab. That doesn't change. Okay. All right. It's fine. We don't have to defer it. I just Well, Go ahead, John. Just one quick question regarding this being a 911 issue and I'm not seeing the word chatcom anywhere in the document. What type of agreement do they need to have? What's the correlation? What's the interaction? Tell me the difference between this and uh Chatcom, the work that they do. Is there anything that needs to be done on the Chatcom side of the house? I believe Ken, it has already been through there. I'll have to get back to you on that, sir. I would like that to be part of the packet as far as the pros, the cons, the the yes, the no.

I know I know we had to work something out obviously for it to come to get through that firewall into our real-time crime center. I'll find out the specifics and get back to you in the packet. Thank you. Do I have any other questions? Okay. Thank you. All right. Public comments. I think I just have one card. Uh Veronica, you'll approach the microphone and you'll have three minutes. Thank you.

You Veronica Lopez. I'm a Dumby North resident and a Chestnut parent. I'm also the chair of the Chestnut Pack. Um so I want to say thank you so much for your attention on the sidewalk project. It is desperately needed. We have 522 students currently enrolled in Chestnut and about a third of them walk every day. So that's about 175 kids. That's just the kids, that's not the parents, that's not the strollers, that's not the younger siblings on scooters. Um so this is a really really important project. Um I really appreciate Council Member Hennean. He came out uh in the dark in the morning with myself and another parent in 2024 to look at that area. Um lot of safety concerns. Um, specifically while you all are looking at that, I want to draw your attention to the intersection at Peachford Road with North Peach Tree. So that's right between the middle school and the elementary school. What we see a lot of times is parents will park at the middle school and walk their child over to Chestnut. So they're crossing that intersection frequently. We have over 50 walkers who will do that on a regular basis. Um, what we also see is that cars will blow through the stop sign and go straight into the pedestrian crosswalk without looking. Regularly, I have parents telling me that they are almost getting hit. Their child is almost getting hit specifically at that intersection. I am in full support. The Chestnut community is in full support of that east sidewalk. We desperately need that. But we also need some attention on that west side. Again, specifically at that Peachford intersection. If you're wa driving down Peachford, there's no signage between Barlay and Peachford that says that there's a school zone coming up. There's very poor lighting. I mean, we're in the middle of winter right now. It's really hard to see little kids in their Navy shirts, their Navy sweatshirts crossing that intersection. Um, there's no flashing lights to get people to pay attention as as parents are crossing. Um, no school zone flashing lights to let people know as they're coming up that road. If you're on North Peach Tree, you see

that, but if you're on Peachford, you do not see that. Right. So, would really love to see some extra attention there. Um, in general, the pack has been very concerned about some of the U-turns that happen on Peach Tree because if you're coming out of the Peach Tree, uh, the Chestnut drop off, you cannot make a left out of the chestnut drop off. So, if you're driving on North Peach Tree, you see those cones that the school has put up. That's because you can't make a left out of Chestnut, right? So often what we see is people will make really unsafe U-turns um as people are walking and things. It's just really really dangerous. Um would love to see more enforcement of looking at cars making U-turns in that area. Um and then if if at all possible, it would be great if we could have some don't block the box paint outside of where the school buses pull in. So, there's two entrances to Chestnut and the the entrance where the school buses pull in. We will frequently have people blocking uh that area blocking Peachford Road where we know the ambulances come in and out. Um we really need some extra attention there.

Thank you. Can you give me those numbers of walkers one more time? Yeah, we have about 175 walkers. That's what the administration estimates. And that includes the 50 kids that parents are parking, you think, or does not? Yes, that includes that. Okay. All right. All right. And I can also give you walk to school Wednesday days. But that doesn't count because [laughter] I was a parent for a long time. I know how. In fact, I don't love walk to school Wednesdays. Frankly, they cause more problems than I think they solve. Um Okay. Um that's all the cards I have. Um city manager comments.

Uh yes, mayor. Um I want to thank the staff again for all the ice prep that we had over the uh past several days. uh the dedication of both the police also tricapes our public works staff and all the other staff as well. We had the RTC up and staffed from the beginning through the entire piece. We had some people uh spending the night here at city hall. We did have some offices I mean some hotels for officers and also for tricapes people nearby. We did dodge a bullet. We're much more fortunate than states to our west to have heavy ice but we were prepared for that. We got the brine out early on the roads. Um, and our city, our communications department kept constant information to the public to let everybody know which roads were closed and thanks to the police for keeping us up to date on all that. That's my comments. Uh, thank you, mayor and council.

Anybody else? I wanted to also thank I wanted Oh, sorry, John. Go ahead.

Just something quick. A resident uh reached out to me regarding Dunwy High School wrestling. He was uh so proud of the fact that it's their third consecutive uh county and regional title and that that uh coach Luke Msorurly is working try to get everybody to the state championship. So a resident was really proud of that. So good luck Dun Woody High School uh as far as their wrestling program and um regarding the the issue that we just talked about in the sense of uh Chestnut Peach uh Peachford is a is a is a dangerous I go by there every day. I live right there. It we may want to Eric take a look at the lighting as far as you know the overhead street lighting if one extra light would make a difference there. You know if the uh if the rapid flashing beacons might be needed. I don't know that's down the road but that would need some analysis. But uh again the residents are calling for review of both technology as well as police oversight. So again, um I forwarded a bunch of emails this week and I would appreciate anything that staff could do to look at it, but again, thank you. Nothing further.

Um anybody else? So I wanted to uh second what Eric said, which is a huge thank you to our police department, our public works department, our Tricapes who works with our public works department. In one incident, there was a tree down and they responded within five minutes, which is really impressive. We did get lucky. We didn't have much of that. And uh but still uh it's always good to kind of practice and be ready just in case. And we were we showed that we were really ready. I also want to thank the staff for coming in tonight. City Hall was not open, but I felt like we should go ahead and have our meeting in person because Dumb Woody is very dry and um and so I appreciate everyone coming in um to accommodate this meeting and everyone from the public who came too. Um and with that, we do not have executive session and I need a motion for adjournment.

Move to adjurnn. Moved by Rob. Second. I almost want to stay. Um second by Tom. Any further discussion hearing? None. And I call the question. All in favor say I. Thank you all.