Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

All right, ladies and gentlemen, it is 4 o'clock, so we'll go ahead and get the meeting called to order for the August meeting. I want to thank everybody for being here. I know we've just got two of us sitting here in person. We've got Commissioner Tippins connected by phone. He had a last-minute work trip that he had to take off and go out of town for, so he's connected by phone. You can also see that because there's two presentations here in the work session that are going to be done, he's going But we'll get things kicked off here at 4 o'clock.

And as we get ready to

of people at the EOC to monitor just in case later this evening, but hopefully this is one of those that just misses all of us completely. But with that, since I've already talked about our EMA director, Dr. Robbie Westbrook, I want to have Dr. Westbrook do our invocation and prayer, and then after that, maybe the weather's a little bit better.

all pray with me father god we thank you so much for the honor to serve this county lord god we just ask you to be with us as we make decisions and do the things for the good people of this county lord god we ask you to be with the people that we know and love that have lost loved ones or friends over the last few weeks lord we know so many of them and we just ask you to keep their hearts full of uh Peace and love, Lord, as they navigate these waters.

God, go with us. Keep us all safe.

And in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. I always want to make a joke when I ask somebody.

each month when we started. I do it each month as we go through there. If you can look at the agenda, The first item on there is the Director of Internal Operations report. It's kind of humorous that I asked the Director of Internal Operations to be in another meeting at 4 o'clock, so because of that, she's not in here. The Development Authority has a meeting that got called at 4 o'clock, so she's there on behalf of the county. So I'm going to go through and attempt to do what Ms. McDowell would do for you, just on an update to a couple of the other projects that are going on.

One that's not on here, but it's relevant.

When we approved the moving forward, the purchase of property for the Public Safety Center, that property closed on Friday. So we now have the land that's there. The awnings are finally back up. We've had some wind damage to the canvas awnings that were there before. They've been replaced with metal. They finalized a little bit of caulking today, and I think that we're finally finished with that one. Airport FBO building construction is still moving along. Stacey's looking forward to being back in space where she has some room to move. So he's got that. Fire station, Talking Rock, station number seven, work's continuing to be finished with the curb installation, the power and fiber connections, radio tower preparation, water service signs, and the low-voltage infrastructure. It is also on target for mid-September. Last week, they're working through trying I'll open it up for questions for the Director of Internal Operations, and I'll do my best because I meet with her regularly to answer them. But if you've got any questions or any other items. I'm good.

I'm good. All right.

Well, we'll move from that on into our public safety operations report. We've got Director Elrod here, so he can kind of give us an update on what's going on in the public safety world.

I know you're not going to believe this, but I'm the one that's still using it. I don't believe it. Still have a call volume. On the EMA side, we had a multi-jurisdictional full-scale exercise on July 30th. The Army School had an active shooter trainer. That entailed the county, the city, and state resources. A full action or after action report should be submitted in 45 days. We need to do full-scale operations every few years. We have to turn it in the state. The Wildcat Community evacuation plan is near completion. Emergency management through County Fire and the Wildcat Community Association has been working for several months to not only develop the plan to provide training to residents when completed, The plan to bring the community volunteer agencies together during disaster recovery has been completed. The Pickens Family Connection, led by Leslie Long, has agreed to be the primary agency working with emergency management to prepare for the coordination of shelters, donated goods, other affiliated volunteers, and filling The gap for other unmet human needs. Other major contributors have been Pickens Collective and the Sheriff's Office. Pickens County Fire, I know that's hard to believe, they've also been busy. But they did do a lot of training last month, about 600% of that I always complain of, between vehicle extrication We've also started a paramedic class with nine students in it, really through Faithful Guardian, which will be a big asset for the county and surrounding counties. There's a few surrounding counties also involved. AEMT class, they're wrapping up. I'm going to go wood right now. We've got our engines, houses, stuff is running good. So, I'll go wood. Y'all got the real wood up there. You actually made the statement. I did. I did. Well, that's why I said I'll go wood.

Any questions for the director, y'all ready? The wildcat community, being at the high elevation, the evacuation plan, you almost won't say, just go downhill and you're going to work your way out somehow or another. Clayton's here. I shouldn't make that a joke because it is a serious matter, but it's always a challenge when you get into some of those higher elevation areas and how to set those evacuation plans depending on where an incident occurs. They're worried about the fire coming up. Yeah. Not going down.

Yeah.

That's why I regretted my joke as I said it, but if it was too late, I'd already let the words come out. So we actually have a guest here with us today. We've been working closely with DCCM engineering firm that's been working with us on a variety of projects, but one of the projects we kind of tasked them with is to bring in somebody that was outside independent from either the county's water system or the city's water system, we could go back a few months where the city had requested to take off service delivery negotiations and made a request here in that time for us to consider or to look into the consideration of acquisition of portions of their territory that were outside the city limits. In an effort to do due diligence, we have requested ECCM to kind of help us with identifying what that process should look like, could look like, what the challenges were, what the opportunities were. They have got one of the most recognized individuals in the state of Georgia that's working with them, Mr. Chris Quigley, in the water system, highly regarded as one of the best And we've got the honor tonight of having Mr. Quigley here with us. So Chris, I'm going to turn the floor over to you and allow you to give an update as to what's going on with the process in step four.

Thank you, sir. So I'm a water engineer. I've done this for 40 years. This is all I've ever done. So you have the accumulation of a lot of mistakes and errors and a bent nose and some gray hair. Our role, just to be clear, is to give good advice. They have a much harder job is you all have to make a decision. In my mind's eye, there are two, you could go either way, decisions and they're both hard. It reminds me of my grandmother's old house right before she died. And you go in and you look at the house and you go, oh my God, what are we gonna do with this? And what we're about to do reminds me of that experience. This is the story. This is Pickens County. The blue lines on the perimeter are the county's water mains. The red lines in the center and towards the bottom are the city's water mains. The pink is the service area of the city. So in the service delivery strategy, that's their area. The green is the city limits. I just want to say there's draft on every one of these. This is a snapshot of our work in time. It's based on information coming from a lot of different people. We try to be as accurate as possible. And after all these years, I'm pretty good, but we're not perfect. So if you see something that is not 100% right, please let us know and we'll correct it. This graph freaks me out a little bit. I love it is we put monthly bill on the left side and we put water usage on the bottom. And all we did was graph who sells water in the county and how much is it. We put a rectangle around 5,000 gallons. That's about average. And if we go from lowest to highest, Jasper inside the city, and then it's up to Pickens County, and then there's Jasper outside. I always put, what does a cell service, your cell phone, how much does that cost? In Georgia, it's about $90 for an individual. And the reason why I put that on there, your cell phone's real important, but water is the number one important thing in your life. Seven days, you're done. So I put that on there just to give reference to it. Look at the two private water systems, Bent Tree and Big Canoe. Those are some big waves. What does that mean in dollar amounts? So Jasper inside the city is about 50, Pickens County is about 60, Jasper outside 70, the cell phone's at 90, but look at Ventry, 122, and Big Canoe's about 160. Those are significant bills. I show you the money because there's rumors that the city is going to privatize their water system. Privatize means profit. Somebody gets a profit. I am all for privatization if the municipality is dysfunctional. Because we're talking about water and what you pay for it. My preference, though, is to fix the municipality and get it to run locally. Because there's no shareholders getting money. They just plow the excess funds back into the system and make it as good as it can be. So that graph shows all that. I'm sorry for how wordy it is, but that's a neat graph to do. When I started, just so you know, it was about $1, 1,000 gallons and a $10 initiation fee. So you were talking about $15. And now we're talking, what, $160? I'm sorry for all the words, but I put a rectangle around the most important thing. This is the Jaspers water audit highlights. And what it shows is they're losing about 50% of their water. So they'll make 100 gallons and they'll lose 50 of them, which is absolutely crazy. In the state of Georgia, a normal water system will lose 10 to 12%. They say if it's less than 10%, they're not really telling the truth. And a lot of systems are at the 15%. So that's when we walk around into a system and say, hey, are we in good shape? This would be alarm, alarm, alarm. Something needs to be done right quick. And look, it's been going on. I don't have any data before 2019, but this has been going on a long time. Ouch. So we got with our understanding is the city wants to get rid of the areas outside the city limits. We put areas that made sense and we number them. And then what we did is we just looked at area two. Let's keep life simple and let's see what area two says. This is the Cove Road area. You can see the limits of the county water in blue. and then the city is in red. And what does that look like? Well, there's a master meter with Pickens County, which is in the bottom right-hand corner. There's only 47 customers. That blew my mind. There's two pump stations, booster pump stations, So what happens, water's at this level, and when you go up a hill and you go too far, you gotta pump up to it. And then this area goes so much higher, you gotta pump up to that one. So you're double pumping. Water mains, there's about 51,000 linear feet. There's 34 hydrants, and there's about 40 valves. That's what we could find. We did a quick inventory. On the left-hand side is the master meter with Pickens County. And then these are just water meters that we ran by and took a picture. I always thought what your water meter looks like, what folks can see generally says, how am I maintaining my system? Pump stations. So there's two pump stations. There's the bigger one on the left in the point where it is, and it pumps up to the upper system, and then the little ones on the right, and then there's a bladder tank somewhere in the upper system that's used to store a little bit of water. These facilities are not the greatest. I would not want to go around and show everybody my great pump stations. This stuff needs some work to be brought up to date. I always tell people stuff like this is like a giraffe taking a drink of water. You know how vulnerable they are? This is a giraffe taking a drink of water. This is going to happen at 2 o'clock in the morning, Christmas Eve, and the superintendent is going to get a call from folks, we have no water. The pipe, the 51,000 feet, I got 1,000 feet of galvanized, don't want it. Uh, polyethylene 2000, I got 3000 feet of two inch. I don't even know what it is. I have six inch, uh, some C 900 PVC and eight inch C 900 PVC. That is great pipe if it's installed correctly. It'll last a long time. It's a good product. Um, I, I don't like galvanized. In my mind, where's 50% of the water going? I mean, so alarm, alarm. That two inch pipe is where I would focus on. And then we got 34 hydrants. Hydrants to me are like the meter boxes. What do they look like? The left one is a little messed up. The middle one's tilted back. The fire chief probably wouldn't even connect to that. That's a little dangerous having one so and then the right one, I got the valve in front that's popped up off the ground. The 40 valves on the one, we've got valves hanging up. I got just a PVC pipe, and I got ones surrounded by cones. What are some concerns we see? I got low customer count. There's only five per mile. There's a lot of issues with that. It is a is could this thing pay for itself at five people per mile? And then when you treat water at the water plane, you put chlorine in it. And the chlorine you want to get to the tap. Because chlorine means there's disinfection. Do I really think five customers per mile is going to be... So just alarm bells are going off of, hey, that's a little bit concerning. There's definitely limited fire protection, especially on those small lines. And to me, significant improvements are needed to this infrastructure to keep it in good working order. And what does that mean? I would install a new master meter at the Jasper city limit. So I would keep this one here, but I would put a new one way over here if I was gonna take over this system. I would put a master meter in there, and then I could still sell water to the city as they needed it. The customer meters, I would replace their meters and make sure they're on ours. I would fix the meter boxes. I would make sure they look good and everybody's reassured. The booster pump stations, obviously they need to be renovated. Water main replacement, I'd go right after the galvanized and the unknown. Hydrants, I would put some hydrants in on the dead end line so I could flush them. Remember we talked about that chlorine issue. I would do valve maintenance. I would, there's I think a lot out there, they're just paved over. And I would put some valve markers so our operations folks could find them easily. And then I would put in valves so that I could isolate little areas. So if I had a water main break here, say here, we can have a valve here and just close that line and just those folks get impacted. All right, so I'm like an animal on four big things. I love good funding. I love grants and really, really low interest loans. I like to grow the customer base on it, it's cheaper to run it per customer. I like to make improvements that reduce operating costs. So what are things that we can do to make the operations easier and lower those costs? And focus, focus, focus, how do I reduce water loss and improve the efficiency of the system? So everything I talk about, I want to do those four things as much as possible. This is an interim report, but I'm a funding animal. And the way the grants work, I tell people it's like going to the senior prom in high school. I had to ask for girls, but I finally got one to say yes. Grants are like that too. You have to ask and ask and ask, and you might get a no, but eventually you'll get a yes. Last year, our company hit the mother load of grants, like once in a generation. My advice to all our clients is submit, submit, submit. Ask, ask, ask. Why am I bringing that up? There's a deadline for a planning grant. And the first thing the grant people want to know is what's wrong and what are you going to do about it? And what's it cost? Well, to put that planning document together, they've just come out with a grant that they'll cover 90% of the cost. So if the commissioners are going to take any action, I think you should authorize the grant submittal for the planning document. Let me keep going. The other thing on number two, I love a water service petition. So what we do is we send a note to everybody in that number two area and say, hey, the county's thinking about working with the city, taking over this area. Would you be interested in tying on to the water system? And the county wants to make improvements so the system's more reliable and more efficient. Are you on board? What that tells us is, hey, maybe we can double how many people we serve and reduce the cost for everybody. I need to complete the project planning documents. I need to finalize cost estimates to do that work. That planning document gets submitted to, I think it's seven agencies. And they do this. And what they do is they give you a coupon that says, you have environmental clearance to do all that work, and you can do it in the next five years. Why do I want that? When we go to submit for grants to do the work, they give you points for having your environmental clearance. So I want to play the game as fast as I can and get that in my back pocket ready to go. And then what we do is we submit for the grant application for the work that needs to be done. Can we do everything at once? The funding people want you to do everything at once. They hate me. Because I don't want to do everything at once. I want to do the most critical things now and get the biggest grant I can. Then I come back later. And then I do the most important things and I get the biggest grant I can. They only want to give you one grant and have you do a giant project. And I want to do projects in increments of the grant, the maximum grant amount. Does that make sense? So it takes a little bit of time, but we get pointed in a good direction, and we just take steps and move forward. Number three, the number one thing that I think is the hardest thing we're going to talk about is we need to negotiate system operation ownership with the city. Are they going to just give it to us and say, you take it over? Are they going to try to charge us an arm and a leg for it? I have helped people purchase water since before. You know, I told the chairman before, you know, when Sandy Springs became a city, Fulton County tried to charge them for the police stations and the fire stations and the parks. And people said, does that make any sense? The people who lived in those areas already paid for those facilities. And I would Argue the same thing here. The people in Area 2 have already paid for those improvements. So whoever operates it really should take over ownership. That's my opinion. If I was on the city side, I might argue differently, but I'm on this side. So I want to be honest. And then implement priority improvements as favorable funding becomes available. Remember, that's the prom date. It might not happen today. It might happen next year. But we just have to be ready, and we have to ask. That's all I have. This is just a snapshot in time of where we are. And the only action I ask the county to take is authorize us to submit to that planning grant. And let's keep focused and try to proceed with it. with all of this as quickly as possible. Any questions there?

So I'll open it up to you and Josh. I don't think so at the moment. I probably will come up with something as I look over. As we're sitting here.

Well, since I went out of order in the agenda and I've got to call Bill up afterwards because he thought he got out of it, he can blame Ashley for pointing out that I didn't bypass him. So if he gets upset.

Oh.

Attendance, do you have any questions for Mr. Clayton to do?

I don't think so right now. I'm going to take them.

I'll probably have some as I think on this. There you go. I know with that deadline being on the 31st, that will require us making an amendment to the agenda that if we're going to get into the voting portion of the meeting that we would need to amend the agenda. to authorize the submittal of that grant application for a planning grant through GFIP. I believe it was GFIP. Yes, sir. Okay. So that that could be met by the deadline. That would be the only thing that I can see that we would need to take action to be able to do would be an amendment to the agenda as we move forward. And I know Mr. Quigley kind of introduced and stated and even had this draft in the format. We've been in discussions back and forth, and they've had a couple of different meetings with the city to try to pull some information over. It is preliminary, but at the same time, we wanted everybody to understand, and especially for you two as the two post commissioners to understand each step has been working through so that as we kind of get closer to the next meetings and the next steps as this progresses or as the news continues to go, then it shows these steps are being taken. I do think that getting that funding grant will give the ability to truly have a game plan together because anybody we get to to request funding from a grant is going to want to see a solid plan in place and not just a need help statement. Anything further? Thank you. We really appreciate you coming and making that presentation. As I mentioned just a moment ago, I did skip over our Director of External Operations report inadvertently as I was doing the prior one. So I'm going to have Bill give the report to the Director of External Operations before we move to public hearing.

All right, so last month, because we were in payment season, we focused on public works on Friday, so all those are complete. The payment's complete, the striking's complete. So what we thought we would do today is talk a little bit about sort of quasi-growth-oriented things and then also compliance and enforcement. So first, from quasi-growth, looking at some things that are going on in planning and development. So far in August, we have 25 building permits that have been issued, one commercial. That's behind the July pace, which ended the month with 61 building permits and 40 commercial. Business licenses in August so far, there's been 11 that have been issued. That's on pace with July where 22 were issued for the entire month. In the Pickens County water service areas that are serviced by the county water department, and so far in August there have been five meters that have been installed. July there were seven, so it's ahead of pace on that. So that's sort of what's going on from the standpoint of what's happening with regard to new things that are going up and being done. From a compliance and enforcement standpoint, so far, as of about 1 o'clock today, we've had 25 formal written complaints this month that have been formally filed. Some of those have been cleared. Some of those are still in process. And some are simple. Some are fairly complex. But everyone that's working together on this, led by Brandy, our chief enforcement officer, is really, really, really doing a good job on this. They're of different types. Some involve animals, not dogs and cats, but other kinds of animals. There's a lot involved. soil erosion and sedimentation. And we've gotten a couple that have tried to get the county to enforce neighborhood covenants inside subdivisions. We can't do that. As a matter of fact, we've got an ordinance that prevents us from doing it. But nonetheless, they do come up. Sometimes you may get calls from people that say we can't Why can't the staff do this? Basically, we can't. And then lastly, on the enforcement standpoint, we do have a lot of soil erosion and sedimentation items. It comes up frequently. Probably in addition to illegal camping and accumulation, this is what we get the most of. And some of it's minor, some of it's pretty serious. Emily Grant and Brandon Hampton just received their red cards from Georgia Soil and Water Erosion. And that brings our red card total inside to eight. That's a lot for a government this size. And what a red card does is allow people to go and formally inspect situations like this and take whatever action is provided for to correct the situation.

the reason it made it humorous is internet went out in his office earlier today and kept telling me that meant he couldn't provide a report but then we got the internet back up and said we're preparing the report and I still skipped it so that was why I was trying to get back to it the assistant director of

Do you have any questions for Greg? I'll get cue cards.

John, great job, Bill, as always. Thank you. Thank you. Next item on our agenda is to open up a public hearing. One of the things within our ordinance, anytime there's a down zone that's going to a lower density, it gives a faster process to be able to come before the Board of Commissioners straight for that public hearing and not having to go and wait the extra months for the Planning Commission. So I'm going to turn the floor over to Charles and let Charles take on the down zone. See if he wants me to be as quick here as he wants to be. I'll turn it over to you to introduce, and then we can open up for any comments that you have.

Good afternoon or good evening, commissioners. The case before you is referenced as DDZ-191196, Tom Lee Petrestle Farm and Ranch LLC. The location of the property is 786 4 Mile Church Road. The applicant is requesting a down zone from rural residential to agricultural. The approximate acreage is 6.12 acres. The parcel is identified as 068071. And the applicant is requesting to combine that particular tract into two neighboring tracts. Here you find the location map. and that is the aerial of the subject property. This property is located within the Crossroad Community, Marble Hill character area. If I may read our staff analysis. The purpose of the rezoning is to allow the parcel to be combined with adjoining agricultural parcels, creating one larger farming tract for continued residential, or I'm sorry, continued agricultural use. The request qualifies as a lower density amendment under section 67-691 of the Pickens County Code of Ordinances. which encourages rezoning to lower density land use classifications. The proposed downzoning reduces future residential development potential while preserving farmland and open space, thereby promoting the public health, safety, and general welfare. Staff finds that the proposed rezoning is compatible with the surrounding area, which is primarily agricultural, rural residential, and open space. The request also supports the Crossroads Community Marble Hill Character Area by preserving farmland, maintaining rural character, and encouraging lower density land use. In addition, the zoning request is encouraged, as I said earlier, under Section 67-691 of the Pickens County Code of Ordinances. Because the request reduces potential residential development intensity, no additional impacts to roads, utilities, schools, emergency services, or other public facilities are anticipated. Therefore, staff's recommendation is approval of the rezoning request from rural residential to agricultural. Thank you, Mr. Reese.

Any questions for Mr. Reese before we open up the session? All sounds good to me. So with that, I'll ask if Mr. Fleming, I don't know if you've got something you'd like to add or say, to give you the opportunity to speak first? No, sir.

I'm his oldest son, so I'm just here on behalf of him. Okay, all right.

Any other individuals that might speak for or against, we'll open up the public hearing portion for any public comments, 314 or against. None of you said that you had any. I don't have to explain the rules of the public comment, so we can move on.

Mr. Chairman?

Yes, sir.

Pending approval or assuming this is approved, is that contingent upon that parcel being adjoined with the...

The neighboring AG tract?

No. It is not. It would just move into AG so that it makes it possible for the two to be joined together.

OK. But that would be a non-conforming AG lot if it's not joined after re-approval? Correct. Correct. So I guess my question is, is that part of the recommendation from the planning office? Or is that the stipulation we need to include if we make that motion?

You can include that as a stipulation. But the intent was to combine that track to the two neighboring tracks.

Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Does that change your thoughts as to any comments? That's okay.

I just want to double check.

With that, then I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. I'll second the motion. I'll move in a second. All in favor? Aye. none opposed. We'll close the public hearing at this time. As is indicated on the agenda, what we're going to do is go into a recess until 5.30 so that we can move into the voting meeting portion and I'll give the public authority time for their meeting to be finalized and we can then move into our 5.30 meeting and get through the agenda. So if you're hungry, go grab a bite if you've got time and we'll meet you back here at 5.30. Thank you. All right, ladies and gentlemen, it is 5.30, so we'll go ahead and get the meeting called back to order coming out of three minutes. So thank you for being here with us again. If you weren't here for the work session, thank you for coming. We're going to go straight into our agenda. Before we do so, I know that one of the discussions I'll make a motion that we do that. Do I have a second? I'll second. Motion and a second. Any discussion or questions related to that? All in favor?

Aye. None opposed?

That motion carries. We will have item E on the agenda. It will not be on the screen, so I will apologize in advance as we go through. That will be one I will call out, and Lisa will probably have to correct me where I miss it, and she will make sure that I stop and come back. One of the favorite parts of our meetings is to get through and do our employee recognition. We do have a couple of very valuable employee recognitions today. The first is one that we want to make sure she understands that she's an incredible employee of our water department because unfortunately she's an incredible baker as well and makes cakes and buys and cuts

to be successful at that. But Ms.

Crystal Schatz has got 10 years of service with the county, so I'd like to ask Crystal and Phillip if y'all would come up. Sorry. No, you're good. You're good. Fiber pun. Where do I go to get anything? The water park.

Okay, now here.

So the next thing we actually have employee recognitions to make is one that we don't get to make very often.

And fortunately, sometimes people get hired on when they're very, very young and they stay with the county for a long time.

And unfortunately for him, even though he gets to celebrate his 30 years, he's still too young to retire. So we do have Captain Shane Patrick with the Sheriff's Office here. He has now been with the county for 30 years serving and serving in the law enforcement issues and things on behalf of the Sheriff's Office. I've worked with him for many, many years. Probably the most dangerous thing you will ever see me do in a board meeting is about to occur, but I'm going to ask Chief Deputy Jeff Hall to speak and say a couple words about Captain Page.

We're here to talk about water. Let me tell everyone here and anybody that's gonna watch here, every employer should strive to have, number one, someone as great as Shane Padgett to work for them, number two, stay. Because when you have employees who stay, they become vested in the community, vested in the agency, vested in whatever it is. And when you have that, you have a well-rounded employee like we did with Shane. I was there when he was hired in 1996. He has stayed here consecutively. I did not. I left and came back. He's probably the longest-running employee ever for the sheriff's office. 30 years it was an elected official. And for that is a lot. And for us, we are proud. He's been a pleasure and a friend, and I thank you. One, two, three.

Gotta get a little closer.

Don't get that side, it doesn't look good. Way to go, Shane. Way to go, Shaney.

Thank y'all so much. Thank you. So we have one more that's not necessarily an employee recognition. It's actually a recognition of the county. We referenced it two weeks ago right after the award was presented. Anastasia had attended a meeting with Georgia Department of Transportation where two different individuals with DDOT had actually submitted picking to be able to present her show. So because she didn't show up two weeks ago, I'm going to make her stand up for a minute or a second to hold the plaque and get her picture back. And she's so excited to do this that she's never going to talk to me again. Stacey, if you wouldn't please come up. You get to get this presented to you one more time.

But in all realities work

I didn't want to move past that if there was anybody else. Next item is our consent agenda. We did have one proclamation since we met last, and that was a proclamation for So we'll move on to our new business with no old business. New business, the first item on the agenda is to consider the adoption of a resolution authorizing the execution of various documents related to the issuance of the Pickens County Development Authority's Taxable Revenue Refunding Bonds for Airport Project Series 2026, including a bond purchase agreement and the intergovernmental We do have bond counsel that's here with us tonight, Mr. Tommy Ratchford. So I'm going to have Tommy go through just a brief explanation of the documents that the board has put away. Thank you for the introduction. Tommy Ratchford with Murray Barnes Minister.

for the airport project series 2026. And so what those bonds are being issued for is to refund bonds that were issued in 2018 and 2021 by the development employee. And the reason that refunding is being pursued is Stiefel, the county's investment banker, has been monitoring put some sort of numbers behind those statements. The bonds we're refunding are the series 2018 bond and series And what that means net to the county is the debt service payments in aggregate are $575,000 lower than they would have been if you were to leave those bonds outstanding. So a little bit earlier this evening, the Development Authority adopted a resolution, supplementing a resolution from July 6th that provided for the terms that the bonds would carry in acknowledges receipt of that resolution and the terms of said resolution and authorizes execution of the collateral documents necessary to complete the bond transaction. And most importantly, those are the intergovernmental contract pursuant to which the county agrees to make payments on those bonds and the bond purchase agreement, which authorizes the sale of the bonds to people who then in turn sell them to the public. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions at this time.

So just the rate was 6%? Yes, sir. And the one in 21, the rate was 7.5? That's correct. And then you're thinking the rate we'll get will be around 5.36, is that what you said?

So we're not a math guy, but the way the numbers work is essentially there's a fixed coupon blend those all together, it's 5.36% is the blended yield on those bonds.

So in any event, each one is lower than the corresponding coupon. And even on that one that's 6%, it would still save us money to do it versus just paying it off, correct? That's still the better choice with it?

Yes, sir. You are saving money in each of those years.

I had thought that that document was in ARDA, but that was actually in the Development Authority the hangers that were there, and then also motion and a second any discussion or questions with none all in favor on there as well next item on the agenda is the Gregory Phelps. Do I have a second? I'll second. Motion and a second. Any discussion or questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is consideration and approval of HO2 land lease at the Pickens County Airport. We do have Joel and Sherry Little submitting their application. Lessor is Living to Fly LLC is the name of the LLC, and that's going to be one of the hangers in 22 cents per square foot, which would generate $236.72 annually for the land use of that hanger. With that, I'll entertain a motion for approval based on the staff's recommendation to approve. Motion to approve. Next item on the agenda is consideration and approval of an A traditional fence, like you would see, it's got four rows looking at the language there that would connect to the gate where you access. All right, then our amended item that we've put on the agenda, E, which somehow I actually caught before I advanced the slide to go forward, and that is, as we discussed during the board session earlier, the authorization of the chairman Next item on the agenda is the approval of our minutes. We do have a handful of minutes because we did have a regular meeting on July the 20th that had an executive session. Motion second. Discussion or questions? All in favor? None. Opposed? Motion carries. And then the next would be our call meeting on August the The next item on our agenda is to go through our rezones. We do have a handful of rezones that we will go through. We'll start with RZ191163. Then J. Heater, 86 Highway 136 Connector, a request to move a 13.32-acre track from ag to highway business. The application was received for the intended After receiving the application and the staff recommendation for approval, the Planning Commission voted 3 yes, 1 no to recommend approval to the Board of Commissioners. With that, I'll entertain a motion from either of you on which way you'd like to proceed.

I make a motion to approve with the following condition. If the property is used for a gas station or other retail store, there must be a minimum of six 3-inch trees planted around the park. a storage facility it must be surrounded all sides by planting a large evergreen shrubs six foot tall planting on 10 foot sitters and all lighting must be downward facing i'm hoping you have that in writing absolutely we have that motion correctly identified uh there is a motion on the floor do i have a second answer presented i'll second the motion there's a motion and a second

any other discussion questions none all in favor none opposed that motion carries approval condition does present next item on the agenda is a reason request 1911 to the rezone if approved was to create billable lots. Public hearing was held on July the 13th where staff recommended approval and the Planning Commission voted for yes, zero no, to recommend approval before the board as well. I would like to make a motion if we follow the staff and the Planning Commission's recommendation for approval. Do I have a second? I have a motion, second, and we'll bring it to the floor for discussion and questions. All in favor? opposed? No. In the event of the tie, it brings me to the tiebreak, so I will vote in favor as well. So that would be a two to one in favor for approval following that recommendation. Next item on the agenda is RZ the intended purpose Next is the one that we had during the earlier part of our meeting when we had the public hearings, is the word I'm trying to think of, for the down zone request from Tumlin, Trestle Farm, and Ranch. There was an application received at 786.4. motion from the board. A motion to approve. A second motion.

A motion and a second. Any discussion or questions? Do we need to make a condition of the motion that they do combine it or do we not need to do that? Is there a plan to make it as part of the motion? I think we should.

So do I need to amend my motion? So Commissioner Tatum has now amended his motion to a motion to approve Do I have a second on motion? Next item on the agenda is a resolution to reappoint Mr. Tim Fowler and Pat Holmes to serve on the Planning Commission. They continue to serve. This would put their expiration for their terms to December 31, 2029. Do I have a motion for reappointing Mr. Fowler and Ms. Holmes? Motion to reappoint. Next item on the agenda is for the appointment of Ms. Denise Owen.

and Mr. Nitzel,

All right, so that brings us to the portion of our meeting for public comments. raise your hand and that way once you get called on, then we'll give you an opportunity.

Yes, sir. First of all, the chairs are too short. They can get you super tall.

I'm going to have you fall down.

My name is Bill Scurry. I own a business in Jasper and I live in Jasper. One day, business was doing good and coming in the door, people were spending money, and then all of a sudden it stopped. And usually when it stops, there's an accident out there at Mark Whitfield and Church Street, those people trying to turn left at a right-hand lane. So I walked out there, and that wasn't the case. There were a couple of guys drilling holes in the street to set up posts to block off my street at any time they wanted to. I asked them, I said, well, who approved this? They said, well, you need to call and give me the phone number of the individual. I won't say his name. And you need to call him. I called him. He said, you need to go to DDA. I went to the DDA. DDA said it was the county's responsibility. Finally, I went back to the DDA, did some homework, found out on their charter online, it said, Every business, well, the city will give every business a 30-day notice and a set time when they're open to close the street and when they're open. Now, you could tell from the DDA board they didn't know that. I went to another meeting, and the mayor was in there. I said, Mayor, I said, I hope you all follow along with these rules that you had in your charter. He says, oh, we've changed those. But don't worry, Bill. We'll give you plenty of time. Notice. That's like saying my check's in the mail. But, you know, it's just unfortunate from all the back and forth and going around and other things I've run into, I kind of feel like Pickens, Cherokee, I'm not sure, Pickens, Jasper, I mean, there needs to be a change-up of whoever's in charge, because it's not doing well. For example, Army's being shut down on their opening day.

I see a hand in the back. I don't see a head. I don't think you suffer from the same thing he suffers from. No, I do not. I do not.

My name is Denise Owen, and I am a resident here in Piggins County. Y'all just heard my name a few minutes ago. First, I want to thank you guys for the opportunity to work with the election board, and that's quite an honor. But that's not why I'm here tonight. So I came bearing a different hat this time. This is the chair of the Republican Party here in Dickens County. So once a year, we do a fundraiser. It's normally the tomato sandwich picnic. This year, we're doing something a little different. We upped our game just a little bit. So we're doing a barbecue supper where you can buy plates. You can go through the drive-through if you want. If you can't stay or you can eat there with us, you can order plates ahead of time through our website. We're also going to have bingo and have prizes with that. But the one thing I'm looking the most forward to is our pie for purpose. So some of y'all may have seen a little bit about that on the Facebook today. So we've issued a challenge out there for all of our elected officials, anybody that serves in a civic capacity that would like to get on our leaderboard to raise money for the kids that are seniors at Pickens High School. So the way this pie for purpose works is if you decide you want to get out there and raise some money, whoever raises the most money will get a pie in the face. So we have plenty of room on our leaderboard for anybody else, fellas. So Mr. Josh Timmons has already taken us up on this offer. Thank you, Josh. So we appreciate that. So here's the beauty of this thing. So there's lots of people that want on this board. So there's QR codes on Facebook where you can go. Everybody's got an individual QR code and you can donate to their cause. So whoever gets it and whoever raises the most is up for donation. pie king or pie queen, because we do have a chick on the board too. So, already. So, whoever the winner is, it doesn't mean that you get a pie in the face, because we're going to give you an out. Well, if you decide to take it, if you decide to take the pie in the face, we're going to let whoever you choose do the pie. So, it could be your wife, it could be your kids, it could be your grandkids.

Or,

If you really don't want cold whip to get in your hair, we're gonna give you an out. So however much money was raised to get you in the hot seat, you can pay your way out. The fun part of that is, all right, you match that, but you gotta pay a little more. So you gotta go over what was collected for you. Then you get to choose the next one. So you can choose somebody else to be in the hot seat. So because we're reasonable people.

All right, your time got cut off.

All right.

When you made a hair comment. And that's August the 29th, by the way, at Hensley Plaza.

11 a.m. to 3 p.m. We'll have the band out there playing too. 60 students from the high school will be out there playing, and we'll have a lot of stuff going on, so y'all should come out.

Any other comments? Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. No, no, no. You actually can't. Do you hear where that was going? I have a motion and a second.