City Council - Regular Meeting

more prepared than

giving the invocation for us, please. Would you mind stepping forward and giving the invocation for us, please? Normally, I just pick random folks. He just happened to be sitting there, so I wouldn't be sure about that. Let's pray. Our heavenly father, we come tonight for this council meeting. Be with all of us and all the speakers tonight, oh Lord. Give the council what they need. Give the mayor what he needs. Oh Lord, we give you the honor and the praise. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Kent, for coming in. Let the record reflect. Ladies and gentlemen, call this meeting to order. Welcome to the Monroe City Council for the date of September 9th, 2025. Thank you. Uh, let the record reflect please that all members of council are present. I do have Mr. Thompson on the phone. Greg, are you there? Yes. Thank you for joining us. I need an approval of the agenda, please. And this is a motion for the regular approval of the agenda. Motion to approve. Have a motion by Miss Crawford. Is there a second? And a second by Miss Malcolm. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I.

All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. The consent agenda this month is the uh planning commission minutes from June, DDA minutes, CVB minutes from July, city council retreat minutes from July 13th, historic preservation commission me minutes of July 2025. Um called council minutes, called council minutes and called council minutes from August 5th, 12th and 12th. Council minutes from the 12th and executive session minutes from the 12th as well. Approval of the consent agenda, please. I need a motion. Move to approve. Have a motion by Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? I'm going give that one to Miss Crawford. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I.

All oppose. Sign.

Motion carries. That passes. Thank you. We have a few proclamations tonight. Um, see if I have these in the right order. First proclamation honoring Katherine Marian Bennett Wilson on the occasion of her 100th birthday. Whereas it's a privilege to recognize and honor the remarkable milestone of longevity and the extraordinary life of Marian Wilson who is celebrating her 100th birthday on September 17th, 2025. And whereas Mrs. Wilson was born at home and for Scythe County, Georgia in the year 1925 and has witnessed a century of history, innovation, and progress and has contributed to the fabric of of her family, community, and nation with strength, wisdom, and grace. And whereas throughout her life, she has been a source of inspiration to many, living a life marked by hard work, service, gardening, kindness, faith, and making a lasting impact on th those who have had the joy of knowing her. And whereas Mrs. Wilson was married to the late William Claude Wilson senior and has been blessed with three children, six grandchildren, nine great grandchildren, and one great great grandchild, leaving a legacy of love, perseverance in family, and whereas we join the family, friends, and the entire community in expressing our admiration, gratitude, and heartfelt congratulations to Marian on this joyful celebration. Now, therefore, I, John S. Howard, mayor of the city of Monroe, to hereby proclaim September 17th, 2025 is Marian Wilson 100th birth birthday celebration, and urge all citizens to join in celebrating the life and legacy of this extraordinary centinarian. In witness whereof, I have here to set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Monroe to be affixed this 9th day of September, 2025. John Stewart Howard. I will be uh taking this to Great Oaks. Uh, it will be a little bit more of a a party uh when I get there. I think at at 100 years old, Miss Wilson declined to come tonight. Um, but it's impressive nonetheless, and

there are a lot of fine folks at Great Oaks. Uh, and we just did one of these last week, so turning 100 is getting to be more common. Next, it's Constitution Week. I have some people here do daughter Daughters of the of the American Revolution. Um, thank you for coming. This proclamation of Constitution Week in the city of Monroe, Georgia. Whereas September 17th, 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention. And whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary and to the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate the occasion. And whereas public law 915 guarantees the issuing of proclamation each year by the president of the United States of America designating September 17th through 23rd as constitution week. Now therefore I John S. empowered by virtue of the authority vested in me as the mayor of the city of Monroe to hereby pro proclaim September 17th through 23rd 2025 as constitution week and ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals of the framers of the constitution had in 1787 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed us through the guardian of our liberties remembering that lost rights may never be regained in witness whereof I've here unto set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Monroe to be affixed this 9th day of September, 2025. John S. Howard. Interesting tidbit about the Constitution. It is the oldest and shortest Constitution in existence right now. There's my one fun fact. Uh would anybody ladies, would you like to come up and that would be great?

I'm sure somebody would volunteer. pictures. Yes, me next. Are the echoes here,

Mike? Sally, come on up. So, so ladies and gentlemen, uh my first meeting on the uh planning commission, I'm guessing was 15 years ago and the day I walked in. Uh Mike Eckles was up here with Johnny Sorl and Dick Hester. Uh Roslin and I think there might have been one more Mickey Langford.

Mickey Langford. Um, and I think you should remind him that I forgot him during this meeting so he can gripe at me at potluck next time I see him. Um, but Mike has been uh serving our community uh for decades uh partially by being married to one of the most wonderful people I've ever known. Um, Sally Eckles, who is my seventh grade science teacher. So for any scientific formulas that I forgotten, we're all going to blame it on her. Will you step forward, please? Um, this plaque is in recognition of Mike Eckles. The mayor and city council thanks you for 25 years of faithful service and dedication to the city of Monroe by serving on the Monroe Planning Commission from 2000 to 2025. Hang on one second. You got Lee.

Get me, John. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] retirement. Do I have anything for K9? Yeah, Major McClung will be uh Major McClung. Uh this is uh our public presentation for the retirement of K90. Uh that will as we'll do this now and and then we'll I think discuss later in the evening um that Sarah will be going home with Ryan G.

Yeah, we'll have that formality at the end.

All right, floor's yours. That that works fine. All right, mayor, council members, ladies and gentlemen, for those I haven't met yet, my name is Matt McClung, and I serve as the operations commander for the Monroe Police Department. Tonight, we gather to honor the service and retirement of K9 Zero, a Belgian Malwall, who has faithfully served the Monroe Police Department since completing his initial training with Sergeant Ryan G on June 4th, 2018. June 14th, 2018, excuse me. For more than six years, Sir has been a cornerstone for our K9 program and a trusted partner to Sergeant G. His impact on this department and our community cannot be overstated. Zero has deployed on hundreds of traffic stops, serving both as a deterrent and a protector. He has directly credited with over 42 felony drug arrests and the seizure of at least 32 illegal firearms. His work has led to the seizure of approximately $40,000 in illegal funds, removing dangerous resources from criminal organizations. He partnered in 27 search warrants and conducted 19 tracks with 10 successful apprehensions, including three bite apprehensions and four non-bite felony apprehensions. His service extended from beyond Monroe, assisting agencies such as DEA, US Marshalss, ATF, and Georgia State Patrol, and more than a dozen other sheriff's departments and police departments around the state of Georgia. Sierra has contributed to school safety, conducting 10 school searches as well as two jail searches and three assists at the Atlanta airport. Beyond enforcement, he carried out muzzle tracks for two suicidal individuals and one missing child where his skills directly safeguarded lives. These accomplishments are more than statistics. They represent lives protected, crimes prevented, and a community made safer because of his service. Sir retires. He will remain with Sergeant G and his family where he will enjoy the comfortable life he has earned after years of hard work and sacrifice. On behalf of the Monroe Police Department, the city of Monroe, I want

to extend our deepest gratitude to K9 for his outstanding service and discern G for his dedication and commitment as a handler. Please join me in recognizing K9 Zero for his distinguished career and in wishing him a long, healthy, and happy retirement [Applause] back. Everybody, if you want to get in, the dogs will show, but you smell something. Smells gator. Smells gator.

I think. Say that again. David. He smells gator. Okay. Kind of like South Florida Bulls. I get it. Congratulations. I think I have two people signed up for public comment. Um, Kent, you're in charge of turning around the podium first.

Thanks, man. All right, John. overwhelming deep trouble in the behalf of us as the cowboy ministry here in Walson County and city of Monroe. I am going to do something I thought we would never do in our lives. If I can, could I have the mayor step down here to the podium? Yes, sir. If you don't mind, we have two and a half more minutes. Oh, you're in charge.

Well, this I'm going to give us a little wish. She can know what she won't miss it. on on behalf of the Cowboys for Christ to present you with a great appreciation of your work. It says right here for your

for your seried leadership and unwaving support of the city of Monroe. May the Lord continue to bless you as you lead our community and shine his light in all that you do. It's given by the Cowboys for Christ, Reverend Camp Pratt, Reverend Linda Dillard, this year's 2025. [Applause]

Hang on. I think Sorry, Le got a picture. That's so nice. I appreciate put this in my office so when you come visit it'll be on the wall. Okay, that's awesome. Okay, moving on. Um, thank you again, Ken. I really certainly appreciate that. Moving to items of business of city administrator report, Logan Probes. Uh, I'll just be real quick here because we got a lot of business ahead of us. Um, I think we got the latest target date of October 31st for the opening of the long-awaited truck bypass. We'll see if that that holds. We hope it does, but that would came from a meeting last week with few G dot folks. Um, that was the original target date anyway of project completion. So hopefully um they're getting the traffic light finalized over there at Unicia Drive and then the other half of that roundabout down on 11 South finished up. So hopefully that will be operational in short order. Along with that, I think I've briefed you on SR11 US78 uh about signalizing that intersection up here, the bridge. We have submitted the permit to G DOT. They uh sent it back to our engineers for a few comments. Those have been resubmitted, so hopefully I'll have a timeline to build and uh once they give us the official green light on that permit. So, we're going as fast as we can on it. It's just simply a a G dot issue at this point. Uh on the budget, we have started the budget with Miss

Thompson. She may report a little bit on that, but uh we've pretty much given the instructions that we want 2026 to kind of be a a maintenance year. We're finishing a lot of our capex projects. Huge slew of projects over the last few years. We're trying to wind down the majority of them in 2025 so that we can get to a more of a maintenance posture in 2026. So that should see, you know, hopefully some reduction in those capex expenditures. Um I think Mr. Bailey is going to touch on our uh tap streetscape here in a minute. Um and lastly I just I wanted to note you know economic cycles have been up and down and we get a lot of bad news uh nationally right on uh inflation that we all feel and uh you know the economic cycle is kind of strange sometimes but man we are getting just covered up with economic development interest here at Piedmont Industrial Park and also of course down there at the southern end of Walton County. Um, some of these are so large that we're all looking for ways to collaborate among city and counties. Um, and some of them are just very local, but the interest has not waned at all. So, that's still exciting times here in Monroe. That's the balance of my report right now.

Perfect. Are there any questions for Logan? Thank you, Mr. Propes, Mr. Bailey. Yeah, and I'm going to cover mine, central services, and elements of street, too. So, it'll knock out three in one. Okay. Thank you.

Um, we had our uh annual CIP meeting with GMC, our consultants, and uh the Department of Transportation this afternoon for about three and a half hours to discuss everything that we've got coming at the airport in the next 5 to 10 years. Um, the next two years is going to be, as we've stated, obstruction removal. Um, Mr. Croy has done an excellent job of having about 90% of our obstructions that are on property removed. Uh so we're getting there and we're very early in the stages of anything that's off property, but we have everything worked out through uh state and federal grant funding. So it should only cost us about 5% of a total $580,000 project um estimated over the next year or so. Um, as a reminder, September 20th, we will have, I think, our 12th or 13th rendition of our ESP um, Big Jump Fall Fest at the airport. Uh, so be sure and attend that. We usually have two to three,000 people that show up and then you can jump out of a plane if you would like to and donate money to the organization. Um, kind of jumping ahead to parks. Uh, you'll have a resolution before you tonight on the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program Grant that we're applying for again this year. And then, uh, Logan had mentioned TAP grant. I fired out an email uh this morning. We met with uh the construction company, our engineers, uh, G DOT this past week. Uh we're planning on starting construction which I assume will be just mobilization on September 22nd. So that'll be your Lumpin Street, your North Lumpin, your East Highland, and North Broad Street from Highland to Marble. And that project is slated for 540 days. So I mean, we're looking at the better part of a year and a half to two years on construction of that. that it'll be for streetscapes, lighting,

pedestrian crossings, um additional sidewalks on Lumpkin Highland area. Um it will essentially match what we've done on South Broad, North Broad, and then West Spring. Um so that'll be an in-depth project uh that we will all be involved in. Um on the street side of things, our LRA and Elmeig projects and grants are underway. Uh Breedlove Drive, not 100% sure if they finished striping today. Hey, I know they started this morning. So, that street will be completely done. Um, next Monday we will see the milling of Davis Street start where we replace sidewalks uh the length of it uh to Harris Street I believe and then um following that they will jump over to Sorrel Street and start milling and then we will jump to East Marble and we will mill from Broad Street to the bridge at which point paving will follow each street after it's milled and we will get through that hopefully in the next three to four weeks. So, we'll have some nice newly paved streets. I think it's a little over eight lane miles that we're doing this year uh for a total of 520,000 in grant funds. Um, a lot of downtown items. First, uh, Friday concert, the last of the season was this past Friday night and we had almost 4,000 people in attendance. They were there for almost three and a half hours was the average stay. So, uh, good attendance. Our farmers market, our fall season opened back up this past Saturday. That'll go through November 22nd. Fall Fest will be October 11th, which will take place before we have our next council meeting. The way dates fall, um farmtotable tickets are on sale October 26th. That'll be at the town green. Uh we have 200 tickets available. I think we've sold just over a hundred so far and it's only been open for about a

week. Um Christmas parade this year the uh applications opened yesterday uh for participants. Um we will be accepting 75 participants at which point we'll probably get 100 plus and then we'll go through and vet as best we can. Um dino day is this coming Saturday. Yes, we will have dinosaurs in downtown Monra. Um, and then I wanted to let you guys know that the GDA conference or Georgia Downtown Association conference was this past week. And while Georgia or Monroe's downtown did not win downtown of the year, we were in the five finalist throughout the state. So, still a bit of an award and a bit of a recognition just to be listed with the group of cities in the entire state that were recognized. And I will be glad to take any questions if you have.

You know, I think that's pretty impressive. We we won it just a few years ago. For them to even allow us to be back in the running so quickly is pretty impressive. Are there any questions for Mr. Bailey? Thank you, Chris. I'm moving to department reports, Mr. Calendarer.

Uh thank you, mayor. Uh just want to touch over what's in your code report for you this evening. Uh planning commission activity and historic preservation commission activity. We did have items for those uh both those commissions this past month. They're both pretty steady. Um the code department permits, they're up substantially this month. They were up by 19 permits. That's reflective of some of the new subdivisions that have been recently platted. Uh a lot of the ongoing products in the city are just pretty steady right now. And I've got some new preliminary plats and final plats submitted into the building that you'll be seeing here soon. At least the final plats that I had here recently. They just kind of sloughed off for the past month. Part of that's because we had some staff out of the office and things like that. Other than that, I didn't have any specific details to cover. Um, other than that, that's all that I had. Mr. Mayor,

are there any questions for Brad? Thank you, Mr. Calendarer. Miss Thompson, finance.

Thank you, mayor. Um, you have before you the finance report as of July. Um, some highlights I'll point out as of that report. Um, and the general fund local option sales tax collections are tracking slightly below budget. Um, just about 20,000 off where we should be for this time of year. Um overall general fund expenses are exceeding projections by about 113,000 overall. Um in the utility fund year-to- date revenues are exceeding budget while expenses are trending below budget. Um in the solid waste fund as of July revenues and expenses are both trending about $400,000 below budget. Um as Mr. Popes pointed out, we're currently working on the 26 capital and operating budget um with projections with department directors. Um, as a part of the planning and review process, we'll have a budget meeting scheduled over the next couple of months. Um, and we will be um, reaching out to council um, to go over that. Um, probably late October or early November. Um, if you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

Any questions? Miss Thompson. Thank you, Beth. Chief Dice.

Thank you, Mayor. You have before you in your packet the incident data from July. Couple things I'd like to hit as highlights. July was actually down, which I will take a down month, especially in the heat of summer anytime. We had 196 uh calls uh for response, and that was down about 20 from our previous four-year average of 215. However, as of August 1st of this year, we were within four call we were four calls higher than we were at August 1st of last year. So, we're trending uh to to stay on track to exceed 2500 incident responses for this current year. A few of the highlights there you will see in your packet that we received aid four times uh last that in July. Three for fires and one for a pretty significant auto extrication and we gave aid to the county six times. So that continues to be a very good working relationship that's very well balanced. Uh lot of training going on right now. July we had the state come in and teach an acting officer in charge class with uh and we sponsored that with Walton and had folks from multiple departments. Next week we're doing an instructor one class and then next month we'll be doing apparatus operator pumper. All of those are 40 plus hour classes that a lot of our folks are really excited about taking and it's a good opportunity that we're able to do those here. Um and as many of you know there was a loud boom Saturday night. I heard from a lot of folks in town but there was no explosion in Monroe. So that's the main thing. No damage and no people injured. U my phone literally blew up about five minutes after my windows and roof shook at home. But uh other than that, we're just maintaining staying on track and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have

with any questions for Chief Dyes. Thank you, Andrew. Uh Major McClone, please. I'll be uh I'm speaking tonight for the chief. It's his 25th wedding anniversary, so that's why he's not here this evening.

Excuses, excuses. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it brief, though. I'm going to go over our July activity to year to date versus last year. Uh, calls for service, we've had about 2,294 calls for service this year. That's down 308 for the year. Uh, our area checks, we've had 9,483. That's patrolling your neighborhoods, making sure everything's good. We're down on that though, about 2771. Training hours are up significantly, though. We're at 971 training hours with our officers this year. as compared to last year at this time. That's increased by 434. Our part A crimes, which would be your more serious crimes, your murders, your robberies, your kidnappings, uh those are equal to last year at 74 this time. And our part B crimes, which are your DUIs, your more minor crimes, um those would be we're up 10 on those. So, we're 33 on the year right now. Our arrest rate for adults right now, we're down from last year at 37. That's down 12. and our juvenile arrests are up by two with four so far this year. Anybody has any questions, be happy to answer.

Thank you, major. Are there any questions? Thank you. Soloise, Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, only thing I have, I just wanted to report on mattress collection. Uh, uh, for the month of June, we picked up our 178 curbside. Uh, we were able to recoup 86% of them. we build out 146. So that's a pretty good gap. Uh so that means we've kind of reducing the amount of random uh matches that's being dumped on us all over the city. But uh uh that's pretty much all I have other than uh Chinese report for the transfer station. We still trending right about 33% um since the increase over the last three years. So pretty much steady. that that's the the race to kind of drive those um prices.

Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. Are there any questions? Mr. Smith, hear none. Chris, did you have anything to add to streets? Okay. Okay. Uh telecom logan,

I'm going to take Mr. Magcguire's report. He's at Fiber Network Alliance Conference right now. Um, just to kind of piggyback on what I was saying earlier about us winding down a lot of the projects, uh, on the bond project, the 2020 bond project. Um, we are kind of finishing up the West Walton area that we, it's outside the city, but we serve a lot of those areas um, for fiber. We're also wrapping up the East Marble Street area this week. We should have most of that done. So that leaves kind of the uh just a few small areas in South Broad and a couple of uh other areas just outside the city that we currently serve to be fully converted over to fiber. So right now that means that we have less than a thousand customers on the old cable coax plant which is great. So we can start the decommissioning process of it. What that means is that saves us a little bit of money, a lot of maintenance costs on this old coax plant. So that's a good thing. Um, we are also still running new fiber services to uh some new subdivisions. We have about five out of seven that have come in recently uh in some form of installation. So, that's great for the business. Um, and then we're also working on the major redundancy project we mentioned a few months ago. You know, we had that one strange outage that was just completely out of our hands. And so, it hit at the wrong time. We were already working on this project, but what that means is if we have a major hit somewhere way outside our network, we have full redundancy other ways out um so that nobody in Monroe loses any services. So, it's a fairly expensive project, but we're going to get that wrapped up uh by the end of the year hopefully.

Thank you, Logan. Any questions, Mr. Pro? Mr. Middle Brooks. Thank you, Mayor. I've been waiting six years to say this. Uh, actually three. The 2022 CDBG is officially wrapped up. Yally, [Music]

uh, because we like the punishment so much, we put in for another one. And, uh, we was awarded uh, the 2025 CDBG of $1 million uh, two weeks ago, I think it was. Uh this will replace uh sewer and storm uh improvements along West Marble and Nile Street. So uh got that one coming up. As far as the water projects go, uh the 16 inch everything's paved along Maraban Union, finish laying finishing up laying on the Cherry Hill side of the project. Um then we'll start chlorination process and get that ready to go for the new tank. The raw water line is completed. Uh it's being tested this week. We expected the raw water, I'm sorry, the raw water's finished. We were expecting the finished water to be ready this week and we ran into some issues down at the creek with some rock. So, uh that's going to be a little bit longer, but uh expecting all uh all three water projects to be wrapped up in October. So, it's coming to an end. That's all I got.

Perfect. Are there any questions for Rodney? Thank you, Mr. Middle Brooks. Uh, is there any old business I'm missing? That'll work. Moving to new business. Um, have a public hearing for conditional use number 3904, 1108 East Church Street for a self-service laundromat. Mr. Calendarer.

Thank you, mayor. Yeah, this is for 1108 East Church Street and this is currently inside a smallcale shopping center at that location. Go. So, you can see there, this is uh the existing plat of that property there on East Church Street next to an existing gas station. Uh the property is currently zoned B1 and in B1 selfservice laundromats are in fact uh a conditional use. And you can see this is an existing shopping center here. There's a photograph there, the sign on top of the space that they wish to do this. You can see it says Coin Laundry, but they are not currently operating there now and they haven't been for some time. And in your ordinance, when they're not operating for more than six months, they're holding a license for that period of time. They have to come back before you to renew their conditional use. And that's the request before you this evening. It's very straightforward. They're proposing a floor plan. Basically, it's your traditional self-service laundromat layout. you know, dryers, washers, restrooms, facilities, seats, and things of that nature, and folding tables. So, the planning commission has taken a look at this along with staff and has made a recommendation for approval without uh conditions.

Thank you. There any questions for Brad? Hearing none, I'll declare this portion of the meeting open for the purpose of public input. Is there anyone here who would like to speak uh in favor of this conditional use? Is there anyone here who would like to speak against this conditional use? I think this is going to be a slam dunk. Would you like to say something? Is Yes, sir. You had that that look. Look, you're ready. Come on. Mr. Mayor and members of the council, I'm Jonathan Freeland. This is my wife, Christina. We're Yeah.

business and looking to reopen this laundry. Couple things to point out. Um, it really is trying to improve service to the community. um the current providers um don't provide AC um the units are smaller etc. So we're looking to upgrade the equipment, modernize the space, add AC to the space and really provide a better value to the community. At the same time, we've done market analysis to show that reopening this laundromat um still allows for plenty of market potential. So, we don't anticipate having a negative or adverse impact to the two local providers, Spring Street Laundry and Sunshine Laundry, who have been operating in this market for some time. So, that's something that we were at least conscious of to make sure that, you know, reopening doesn't negatively impact them or cause them to, you know, not be able to be viable. Um, other than that, I'll just answer any questions anybody may have.

Does anyone have any questions? I think we're pretty good. Thank you so much for coming in. We'll revisit this in just a couple of minutes. Okay. Thank you. I'll declare this portion of the meeting closed. Um we're moving to the adoption of the development impact fee ordinance. Mr. Calendarer. Uh thank you, mayor. This is your second reading and adoption this evening. I don't have much to cover other than uh I'm here to answer any questions that you have. Uh this is the presentation of your second reading. But basically, we covered all the details of this last month. I I don't have anything to offer this evening to the council. If they have any questions, I'm here to answer them now. And I'm sure Paul also is here if we can answer any questions for the council. Thank you, Mr. Calendar. Are there any questions for Brad?

Just implementation dates when when will we once we effective to effective moment it's adopted? Okay.

Effective tonight. So, adoption of the development impact fee ordinance. Uh this is a public hearing. I'll declare this portion of the meeting open for the purpose of public input. Is there anyone here who would like to speak in favor of the impact fees? Is there anyone here who would like to speak against the impact fees? Hear none. I'll declare that portion of the meeting closed and we we will revisit that in just a moment. Um and now we are new business. The conditional use number 3904 of 1108 East Church Street self-service laundromat. Normally it says refer to Brad. He's just told us about this. I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I move to approve. Motion by Mr. Dickinson. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Brown. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to ordinance to add chapter 56 impact fees also that we just discussed. Are there any questions for Brad? This will go into effect tonight. I'll entertain a motion, please. Mr. Mayor, I move to adopt the ordinance.

Thank you, Mr. Dickson. There is there a second Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to Oakrove landfill disposal agreement approval. Danny or Chris? I'm I'm going to take that

and then uh I'll holler at Danny if I need any extra. Um this is something that we have not had in a while. We had a 10-year agreement with uh Oak Grove, I believe, for You've had agreements with them. I know you had a 10-year agreement where they guaranteed like the rate increase that went up. Then that expired and they went up on us the one year. I believe it was 58% on our landfill costs, which is what has put us in a situation of having to really study rates and trying to catch up along the way. Um, and then after about three, four years finally kind of talking with them, they've settled and are going to give us a offering us a three-year agreement at 4% increase each year. So, that helps us kind of stabilize and be able to watch kind of how our expenses are going to go up because the landfill cost represents about 40% of the entire uh solid waste expense budget. So asking for approval of the agreement to enter in with Oak Grove uh three years for 4% increase each year.

Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Are there any questions? Danny, did he miss anything? Uh the only thing on there that special instructions about the mattress pickup. I just want to clarify that's for the haulers and not not for curbside pickup. The rate went up uh is going to go up $57.32. So anything go into our transfer station. Uh that's what that charge is. And at this point, we are turn we're um that cost is passed on to the uh to the hall or whoever uh brings it up there. So we're we're good. It's not curbside. Got it. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion, please. So move.

Motion by Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Second by Miss Sam. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. All those like sign motion carries. That passes move to the appointment of the planning commission, Mr. Calendarer. Thank you. I'm sorry. We were covering something about those impact fees. Sorry about that, Mr. Mayor. All right. So, I'm pleased to present the after interviewing some of the candidates we had for planning commission, uh the we are pleased to recommend Bonnie Rosser to our planning commission. I believe Bonnie's here this evening if y'all don't know Bonnie, but um hey Bonnie, thank you for being here. That's our recommendation for our appointment to planning commission and that will satisfy all of our commission appointments. Mr. Mayor,

that sounds perfect. Are there any questions? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Motion to approve Mr. Roser in addition to the planning commission for a five-year term. Correct. And I need a second, please. Second. And a second by Miss Malcolm. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Thank you, Mr. Ross. I appreciate it. Moving to alcohol, excuse me, alcohol application. Beer and wine, distilled spirits, and Sunday sales consumption on premise license at Applebees. Mr. Rosenthal, that application is in order. Mayor,

thank you, sir. Are there any questions for Paul? I'll entertain a motion, please. Move to approve. A motion by Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Second. Second by Miss Crawford. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the ordinance for moratorium extension. Uh Logan, you want this one?

Sure. Um you know we have to renew this every six months per the current state law. So uh we are extending basically verbatim our uh previous moratorum on accepting of preliminary plat um and general for units of uh nine or more outside of the uh city core. So that will remain in effect as we finish out our engineering and eventual construction on our expanded wastewater treatment plant. And again that's going from 3.6 6 million gallons a day to 6.8. So uh again this mainly impacts our residential development larger residential developments but we have to maintain the existing capacity for what we have coming online right now.

Thank you Logan. Are there any questions? Mr. Propes just to clarify this is an identical ordinance with just an extension of what we had before but it's not only preliminary plat approval for outside the city core. It's also for any multif family or town home projects greater than nine anywhere uh in the city as well. Okay. Thank you, Paul. I'll entertain a motion, please. Greg, thank you, Mr. Thompson. I'm going give the second to Tyler. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. I'm moving to the resolution for the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Stewardship Program Grant. Uh, Mr. Bailey.

Thank you. Uh, this is a required resolution by the city of Monroe that gives us support and I guess the approval to apply for the grant with the uh, DNR and the Georgia outdoor stewardship program uh, for a 26.8% 8% match uh to that uh project that we are applying for which we're applying for a $3 million grant and then it's a $1.1 million um local match and this goes towards the application which is a pointbased system and we are giving it another go this year. Um I think we should be in far better standing uh with letters of support. We also have outside funding uh partnership that has kind of jumped in hopefully and will join us and then if we uh approve this we will make the application by October 17th and here sometime in early spring of 2026.

Thank you Mr. Bailey. Are there any questions for Chris? I'll entertain a motion. Move to adopt the resolution. Thank you Mr. Dickinson. Is there a second? Thank you Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to J Creek Wastewater Reimbursement Resolution. Mr. Middlebrooks.

I'll be happy to take that one, Mayor. Uh, so what we have before you is a resolution that we need to get in place uh long before we issue any further bonds for the expanded wastewater treatment plant. What this does is allow us to recoup any monies spent now uh from the bond proceeds that we may get in the next year. Um but once we activate this resolution, we can go ahead and start counting the dollars spent as of tonight, tomorrow. Perfect. Thank you, Logan. Are there any questions? I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Mayor, thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there a second?

Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. Major McClung, we're coming back to you for the ordinance to release K90. Did you have the ordinance you wanted to read? I'll take care of that. Okay.

So K90 is uh technically city property. So we have to do an abandonment of K90 as surplus property. That certainly doesn't belittle his value in any way, shape, or form. But you got two documents that y'all need to pass. One is an ordinance to surplus uh the dog and the second is in conjunction with and that is a release agreement with uh Sergeant G who is going to take ownership of the dog and indemnify the city for any future um ownership of the dog moving forward so that he can live out his days uh in good comfort. So we need an a motion to adopt the ordinance uh to surplus and then a motion to adopt the uh release agreement. These are the formalities of what y'all have already done. Okay. So, we need

together. Uh, that's fine. I'll make the motion to adopt both the ordinance and the release agreement. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose sign. Motion carries. That passes. Uh, that is a beautiful dog. I'm glad Ryan's kind of had to keep him. U moving to district items. Miss Malcolm,

just thank you to the roads crew for a seamless repaving of Breo. It looks great and um I know it was inconvenient for few days during the last couple of weeks, but it's certainly well worth it. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Mr. Crawford. No, I don't have anything. Thank you, Mr. Boyce. District three is good per usual, but I did have a couple of business owners off of North Hammond reach out. They expressed their displeasure of how long the road work is taking on Marble and they they showed up tonight. U Christy Crawford, Lricia Bird, and Darren Cooper. And uh Rodney, I know you touched on it a little bit, but you can just give them a little bit more clarification about what's going on and timeline if possible.

So, all all the paving was finished up this week. Uh the only thing left to do on Union would be the striping. Um, so Union would be completely finished up. Uh, Marble, they'll be paving, city will be paving what, few weeks, I guess. But yeah, we'll come back in after um I think y'all have gotten everything situated with a cap. Yeah. Everything to put on the water line. So, we'll come back in and as you mill and pave streets, we'll we'll mill it and then repave everything, restripe it, so it'll be brand new street. Yes, ma'am. Please. and we thank you for your patience and and I know and I know it hadn't been fun.

How y'all doing?

And and before before I ask you to introduce yourselves, please um I want to do what you know, I don't know if you've seen Breedlove Drive that took, you know, we we did the deep patching and then we went in and paved and then striped and it seemed like it's gosh, that one's easy and this one this one's not the same. This is water lines, gas lines. So, so that's why it's a whole bit more different. But anyway, if you would please go and concerns about it. This is um Kisha Bird. She owns 77 um Omoke own JJ Beauty. And then you have um he actually owns Cuts Amazing. And us as revenue businesses, we lost a lot of money in regards to the street being built and everything like that. No one I don't remember even anyone even telling us that these things was being taken place. This is our livelihood. This is what we used to pay our bills. And yesterday for a prime example, we couldn't even open because they were paving the street. People ride by. And yeah, I'm getting teeyed because we got to live too, right?

We're entrepreneurs. We've been working hard to stay an entrepreneur. But when things like this is taking place, what are we supposed to do? Especially when you don't get no notice. Um, none of that type of stuff. And we pissed off. I'm being honest. So, this is why we're here today to see if the city can help us um compensate us. I don't know if if that can be done, but we're asking because it took money out of our pockets, our kids pockets, our house, things of that nature. So, that's why we're here. We can you need paperwork. we can show you the pay cuts that we took, all of that type of stuff. So, we're just asking could can we get help?

That's going to some be something that we have to look into. We've never done something uh directly before. Um, I will say this, uh, and and I and I hope you'll agree that once we're done, uh, when we're done with with Union, but when the entire, uh, Hammond and Marble project is complete, uh, which I see being done, you know, by the first week in October with the milling and the repaving of everything, um, you are going to be decades away from having any more disruption. Um, I know that doesn't mean that the last couple of months make that any easier. That's just uh a promise to you for the future. Um, and and and we will also be better about notification. Um, so if you would stay in touch with Chaz and me and we'll talk with Logan

and Adrian is also she been helping us tremendously as well. Chaz and you've been helping us out tremendously. And I also wanted to speak for the owner too. I'm here for the owner um which is Peter and also Phelps. I told Jason that I was going to come and speak. I'm not sure if any I don't know if the the nonrevenue loss business per se, but the damage of maybe their trucks and stuff like that. And then the owner of that whole strip mall, he lost three people behind that because they couldn't pay their bills, right? Because of the paid people going elsewhere other than continue on being our customers because of the street, right? on both sides. So sometimes even close to the police had to go all the way around, right?

We're driving in the grass and just to be able to park in front of the plaza. And I know me, the type of person that I am, if something is going on, construction is going on like that, I'll just go the other way. I'll just go to a different store until they can fix that. Which means that the customers that we do have coming to the business are now going elsewhere. And who's to say that we're going to be able to get them back, right? I I I understand and and sympathize. That's going to be something that we have to talk about. Okay. Thank you. We just wanted to bring it to to the forefront just to let the city know what we're going through. I I I I definitely appreciate it and and uh and it has been painful for all of us. It seems a little more painful for you though.

Um but thank you for coming in. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for hearing us. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. You too. Miss Sams. Miss Brown, Mr. Gregory. Um, while we're talking about tap grants and those kind of things, um, I know we're excited about hopefully something happening with 11. Um, a lot of folks in District 6 want the sidewalks sorted out through there. And I know that we've all talked about it before, but just as a as a reminder, hopefully one of these days when that becomes ours, we can we can do that. Or if a tap grant, if that doesn't happen, then maybe a tap grant just putting it back, putting a pin on it. And uh also you know the possibility on Walker Drive.

Those were two requests that I was asked to make. Here I am making them. What was that on Walker Drive again? Yeah. On Walker just sidewalks. Sidewalks. Yeah. Sidewalks. You know, everybody loves walking. Everybody loves the walkability. Yeah. And uh I recently had the conversations with GOT about taking ownership, local ownership of State Route 11 and eventually part of Spring Street. And uh it'll be much easier and much cheaper to put sidewalks in once we have that ownership. That's what I've been that's what I've been expressing and just not making any promises it'll happen old G dot. But yeah, so we're we're all excited about that. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Mr. Thompson, are you there?

I just want to echo what Miss Malcolm said about McDaniel Street. It really drives good now. Uh, I don't have any requests from from my district. All right. Thank you, Greg. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Dickinson.

Uh, yeah, Mr. Mayor, just a request sort of following up on what these folks were saying about their businesses being disrupted. Um, my neighbors on Davis Street need to get notice like quickly that that milling operation is going to take place. because people are not going to be able to get in and out over there. So, I just want to make sure that somebody goes through there, lets every residents know what's about to happen, and it'll be great once it's done, but it's going to be disruptive until it is. And we got notification about sidewalks that I think went very well. I just want to make sure because the milling is going to be disruptive to both sides. You know, the sidewalk wasn't. It was only on one side,

but just make sure everybody gets notice about it. I'll do it. Thank you. I have one more question. Yes, ma'am. Did we get an update on the traffic study on Alco yet? I know that they pulled up, but they put some more down. Yeah. Okay.

And then uh my update um Julie Sams and Adrien Brown will be receiving certificates of rec recognition from GMA for uh that first level goal of training hours and I appreciate you're both putting the nose to the grindstone. Mr. Dickinson has had a little bit while a little while longer to get to the certificate of achievement. Yeah, it only took me about 25 years.

And I think uh Mr. Thompson is gunning for the 400 Club, which is the uh Wayne Adcock of awards. So, um that's pretty impressive. Um wanted to keep you in the loop uh on the the meeting that we had with uh the county uh tax assessor. Um there were representatives from uh Loganville, uh Social Circle, um Walnut Grove mayor was in attendance and and then Logan and I were there with with the city side and then uh John Ward and uh the team and the team from the county uh with um with the tax assessor and and the county attorney. Um I thought the meeting was fruitful. Um we have agreed that we need to dig a little bit further into some particular properties in advance. Uh see what kind of discrepancies uh we really really have and then um we'll find a way to move forward. But this can be something that that I think benefits Walton County uh as a whole and in the city of Monroe specifically and it should really benefit us for a long time. Um, so anyway, the meeting went well and I appreciate Tommy's uh cooperation. Um, and the last thing that I thought was today, but apparently it was last week. Uh, and I'm not going to start any singing, but happy birthday, Russell Preston.

He's put up with us a long time. You want to make a speech? Okay. Um, and I did have one more thing. Uh Les Russell was just uh appointed to the Georgia Municipal Association's Municipal Workforce Advisory Council uh for this year by uh Regina McDuffy and Pete Pzinski with GMA and the city of Brunswick. So way to go less. Congratulate him when you see him. That being said, I need a motion to adjurnn, please. Second. We give that one to Miss Boyce. I'm give the second to Miss Brown. Y'all aren't talking a lot tonight. All in favor signify by saying I. I

all oppose like sign. Motion carries. Meeting adjourned.