City Council - Regular Meeting

songwriter. I do believe in the lyrical quality of my material to be significant, dynamic, intriguing, sophisticated, expressively emerging, interesting, and important. We need something to stand for positive and productive change. Song one, survival of the fittest. Song two. As presently being internally equipped and able essentially to pract behavior in being considerate to build big better business through a foundation, intentional and genuine excellent customer service skill. By making the consumer count first in order to exhibit the quality of ability to effectively serve my individual purpose with power is profitable for long-term stability for home and work. In ancient day, the most influential interest that is important and significant concerning music throughout human history is communication that has been used for a variety of purposes as well. can also be a powerful tool for social change that can help to develop the mind and soul in a positive, productive and beneficial manner. The grip get one wo n. Thank y'all. I've

been out promoting this. It's a piece that I wrote in a drawing. I just got a t-shirt made and uh I'm just trying to get on my feet financially in between jobs and actually go legit without getting in somebody else's trouble. Are you going to be at at David's Thursday night, sir? You going to be at David's Thursday night? Well, I need to pay my light bill and I can't just keep running around doing everything for free. So, I'm doing what I can, but I was trying to call David recently, right? But my phone is off and blah blah blah. I just don't want, you know, not having any money really for me to distract me from learning,

you know, how to develop the skill to to meet the right market financially instead of, you know, being cluttered by selfish people who just want to, you know, make a mess, right? And I wanted to as an individual potential legitimate business owner. I appreciate you coming in. Thank you. And if you perform at Davids again, let us know. Let us know. Hopefully next hopefully next Thursday. I'm trying to go official, y'all. I'm tired. I I need an outfit or something. Well, well, thank you so much for coming in, Joy. Glad to see you.

Um, we are going uh to skip over city administrator report. I'll talk to you about that on on my report and move straight to assistant. Uh, Mr. Bailey.

I feel like I should skip mine now, too. Um, no. Uh quick like u we just finished a a rather large storm water project at the airport. Mr. Croy uh took care of that over the last couple of months that we had to deal with on a pretty good wash out where our fence joins on the uh on runway 21. Um I wanted to hit um leaf season is coming to an end. I actually think it's went fairly well this year. Um, and then we're also we're waiting on uh plans from engineers for um streetscape improvements on another little section of Midland that we've been working on um to improve that area all the way from what is Highland to Spring Street. Um let's see if you see I think Danny had sent out uh I think to the directors and whatnot or we mentioned it actually in director's meeting that's where it was um that if you see rolloff systems uh cruising through town they are actually currently contracted and helping us uh complete the commercial routes because uh we are down several operators on that end of things and they're going to continue until we're able to um repurpose our drivers and operators. Uh the TAP grant project is, knock on wood, moving along fairly well at this point. They're they're making good progress. Uh they have uh the one side uh curbing done on the west side of 11 from Walton um what Walton Street all the way to Marble and they're currently working on that east side of it. Uh REBC grant on 78 East and the 11 exit has been completed. Mark Harrison handled that for us. I know uh Mr. Middlebrook's water tank is uh standing um and uh what we have a couple months I think of welding whatnot to go and then I saw a Facebook post I

believe online where they were talking about it looked old. Well, they they haven't painted it yet. So, it will eventually look new and uh once we get that stood up. Um I did want to point out that auditors are here. They started yesterday on Miss Thompson's birthday. So, uh, just, uh, kind of throwing that out there. Happy birthday, Beth. Um, car shows coming up March 21st. It'll be our 21st annual. Um, we've done well with sponsorships as always. That will be a crowded, um, happened quick from about 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and you you survive that event. Um, and then, uh, this past Saturday, we had the Love Your City event, which was well attended. And then I believe in January we had a couple of winter storms. So I was going to give you all a couple of numbers from that. The ice storm that we had January 24th 25th weekend, we used 7 tons of 89 stone, four tons of salt and we had 191 electric outages called in over the course of that. Um then the snow event that we had on January 31st, we actually put down 15 tons of 89 stone, eight tons of salt. Uh we were a little more fortunate. We only had 37 electric outages and 21 uh calls for frozen pipes. So that was a I don't know, it seemed like January was a very long month and then it came then it went. Um, no more uh no more snow, no more ice, uh green grass, um is what we're kind of hoping for. But credit to all city staff who was here basically for the period of, you know, three solid days over that weekend and then the next weekend they were here for two straight days uh keeping everything uh passable and keeping the power on. So, and I'll be glad to take any questions.

Are there any questions for Mr. Bailey? Um, I I will say and while I certainly appreciate uh the entire team uh being here through the snow days and through the ice days, I also uh want to commend Mr. Magcguire for his work with dealing with a couple of surprise fiber issues uh that have sped up. I'm going to say probably about 50 folks who were having the same issue. So, whatever y'all did, you pushed the big onoff button twice or banged it on the side. Um, it's it's made a real difference and I appreciate it. Um, as we have no old business, we have no public hearing. The only new business we have, I'm coming back to you, Chris, is the Downtown Development Authority, Convention and Visitors Bureau Authority, and Urban Redevelopment Agency. We have two appointments.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Um, and these are one will be a reappoint uh request of uh Lisa Anderson who requested to renew her three-year um appointment to those three different various boards. And then the uh one vacated seat was Whit Holder um whose term came to an end and he did not choose to um be reappointed. I think he's retiring kind of from that uh that specific element. and we put the um job posting out for the period of time and Bethany Haywood um submitted her application. We interviewed her and that's the recommendation from staff and Meredith Malcolm and Sandy Daniels. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Are there any questions for Chris? Um I'll entertain a motion uh is it okay if we do two at the same time? uh to appoint Bethany Haywood and Lisa Anderson for three-year terms beginning today and expiring December 31st, 2028.

Move to approve the appointments. Thank you, Mr. Dix. Is there a second, Mr. Gregory? Thank you. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to district items. Um Miss Crawford, no other. Great. Thank you, Mr. Bradley.

I have one on Drive. creates

probably not. It will be taken care of through our our code compliance uh methods. we'll take care of. Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Bradley. Miss Sams, um other than just a big thank you to all the staff that has worked hard over the last few weekends. Thank you, Miss Brown. Um just wanted to say thank you to public works for all that they do. And um also to um City of Monroe Utilities for making sure that our lights stayed on. Went off for like three minutes. That was the longest three minutes of my life, but they came back on and I'm always bragging about the city of Monroe because I don't lose power.

Thank you. And um also um thank you Chris Bailey for following up and making sure that the paving happened right outside middle because there was some congestion there with the school traffic and turning into the subdivision and there were was a couple of head-on collisions that were about to happen. So, um, just wanted to thank you for that. And that's all I have. Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Gregory.

Same. Thanks to the city, all staff, uh, for keeping everything up and running. Excited about our electric grants and our new substations and some of those things that are coming into play that's going to make us even better. Um, and, uh, thanks to Mr. Haley and other staff who have responded some requests that citizens have made in my district to help out with traffic and some other concerns. So really appreciate it. You guys know who you are. You know what you did. Thank you. Bless Mr. Thompson.

Uh pretty much same thing. Just u riding to keep the tree trimming going. You know, you get fussed at for 11 months. When you have a snowstorm and electricity don't go out, they don't say anything. But it does really help. And um thank goodness hopefully the cold weather's over with and I'm ready to see some green grass and go swimming. Better not be jinxing us, man. Mr. Dickson,

uh just one thing. I've had a couple of constituents inquire about the center line and getting it repainted on South Hammond Drive. It is fading considerably and that is a heavily traveled street. So, if we could do something about that, the folks over there would appreciate.

Thank you, Mr. Dixon. Um, and my report, I had just just a few things. Um, last month, uh, it may have been earlier this month, we had the shooting over at George Washington Carver. Um, and I talked to Sheriff Brooks on, uh, on our Walton County day. I'll get to in just a minute. Um, and he said he was reviewing the the camera footage and wanted to uh specifically point out that Holiday just came up on the scene, took charge, and handled it like a real pro. So, u, thanks to your whole department, but specifically for this event, please pass along our our thanks. Um, next, uh, we had George Reed's day. Uh, I spent I think I was in four different schools that week on this and what we call the same day, but uh spent some time at HD8 uh one night and um just had a ball with the kids. And if y'all ever want to get involved with any of our SP specifically elementary schools, everything that that we can do personally and as a community to to help lift our literacy rates is going to pay long-term dividends. So, I'd appreciate any help that that you want to offer those schools. Uh, next, uh, we did have Walton County Day, uh, at the capital. Um Shane Short uh and Shane put it together with uh with Terry from the chamber and we had uh leadership Walton, youth leadership Walton, um council members from uh I believe the only only city not represented might have been this year was social circle. Um but we had about 50 folks uh made some pretty good noise. got uh called to the principal's office with a bunch of other mayors to talk

about the uh property tax exempt bill that the speaker is dropping. So that's house resolution 1114 and house bill 116. Uh since then I've been in meetings with uh GMA and legislative policy. Um, and frankly, right now there's no uh I don't have any idea whether they're going to come out in favor of the bill or against it. ACCG has a lot of questions. GMA has a lot of questions. The state school board has a lot of questions. So, I'll kind of keep you apprised of of everything. That would uh eliminate uh all property taxes for homesteaded properties up to five acres. Um and what that would do would share the burden to uh rentals and small businesses and it would also uh give us opportunity to have uh sales tax up to 9%. Uh three cents would be going to uh the city and county to be split. However, that's agreed upon. Uh two cents would be going to the school board which is one more than they get right now. um not enough as it is and then I think three go back to the state. So um I'm sure there's another four go back to the state. So um I'll keep you I'll keep you breast of what happens. Um next Logan and I had the opportunity to go spend some time also at the capital the next week um with DOT. Uh we went up with um with Shane uh sorry Shane Short, David Thompson, uh John Ward, um precision planning, Logan I were there, Bill Cowzer, um Bruce Williamson and the team from DOT, their chief planner, and and Russell McMurray, their CEO. So we're talking about the Northern Arc. We came

in with a $75 million proposal. We explained that we've come up with five million commitment. The county's come up with five million commitment. We're also committing the extra elme dollars that we got uh this year from the city and the county that I think takes us to about $12 million. So, it's about 14 or 15% of the project. They helped us with our uh with our route. They made some recommendations where we could cut some cost, go ahead and get into some planning and engineering work. And uh it's on it's on about as much go as I could have possibly expected. It's going to be a longterm u a long-term project, but wanted to let you know about that. Is there anything I'm missing on that?

Uh that's the main thing. We end up breaking it into four different phases just to kind of make it work. Um to weave it kind of through the bureaucracy, but G dot was very receptive to it. Um, so at least we were happy that we had a warm recommendation warm recommendation on it to move it forward. Um, I also discussed the signal permit for 11 and 78 up here with Commissioner McMurray and you he was all about it and u said we probably needed it yesterday. So I said the permits sitting there in your office just waiting to be signed. So, I hope to hear back on that fairly soon so we can start designing engineering what that signal will look like.

And while he mentioned the light uh and the and the need for the northern loop, uh Janine Miller, the their chief planner, pulled out the the numbers and said, "Absolutely, we need both." So, we're all on the same page. It's just finding the time and the money. So, we're we're on it. This is the third time we've met with them in two years and three days. So, uh, we'll we'll continue to stay on it's that important for us. We had some valuable outcomes, so we'll keep it going.

Um, that being said, I need a motion to adjourn to executive session, please. Thank you, Mr. Bradley. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Thompson. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose, like carry. Motion carries. Thank you. Um, does anybody need