Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to City Hall. It's Wednesday, May 20th, 2026. And we are here for both a special called session that will include our Taxpayer Bill of Rights hearing number one and our regularly scheduled agenda setting session, which of course is due to the election of last night. was moved to two-night. I'll begin with our civility pledge, and that indicates that the way we govern ourselves is often as important as the positions we take, that our collective decisions will be better when different views have had the opportunity to be fully vetted and considered, that all people have the right to be treated with respect, courtesy, and openness, that we value all input and commit to conduct ourselves at all times with civility and courtesy to each other. And speaking of courtesy, I do want to thank our great staff who gifted me with this cap indicating that this is Public Works Week here around the country. And so they were six great employees who received honorary awards today for their fine work in a number of our departments. And so I just want us to be thinking about them through the evening as we sit here in these comfortable seats with the air conditioning cranking. There are a lot of folks out there who are maintaining those facilities and elements of infrastructure, who are working on our vehicles and who are paving our roads and mowing our fields and repairing things all over Athens-Clarke County. So kudos to them all. It does say Public Works Week 2026. And then there are all these little icons representing some of that stuff I just described. And I'll bet they've got an extra if you'd like one, Commissioner Hamby. I know you're a hat fan. And so Grandpa Gertz was a hat collector. I feel like I've turned into him here in this era of my life. Madam Clerk, we're going to go ahead and begin with a roll call.

All right, thank you madam clerk

All right, so the purpose of our gathering tonight is to conduct a public hearing on the proposed FY27 budget, which will include our Taxpayer Bill of Rights hearing number one. Public input on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights hearing will mimic that of our later public input. Public input on each segment tonight, which will be our taxpayer Bill of Rights hearing, and then later our consent agenda, our old and new business, and several planning and zoning items will include a three-minute opportunity per meeting segment per individual. There's a light in front of the clerk that, again, one of our great employees built about 35 years ago. and it will turn green when you provide your name and place of residence it will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds of your three minute time remaining it will turn red when your three minutes is concluded and i'll thank you for your time with us tonight as we need to move on to the next speaker So, to the first order of business. As is the case, we always have an upcoming budget to prepare that will be approved this year on June 9th, and we have three state required opportunities for members of the public to speak to the budget. And so I'd like to call on any members of the public to line up at the podium now if you'd like to speak to our fiscal year 27 budget, which will take effect on July 1st. Some years we have a line out the door, some years not so much. Good to see you, and again, just provide your name and place of residence for us.

Hello, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners. My name is Patrick Sheridan, and I live at 134 Ashley Circle in Athens. I just had a couple of things after looking at the budget that I wanted to talk about. The first one was the library budget. I noted that The recommended budget approved the library request in full, but I wanted to make you all aware that If you didn't know, the library recently announced that they would be cutting a platform called Hoopla, which provides audio books and streaming services for patrons. And they said this was due to cost, and I just wanted you all to consider would it be possible to maybe increase some funding to the library to keep This platform going, you know, I know relying on it for books and streaming is very important to me as a patron of the library. So I would encourage you all to consider looking into that. I believe they said they would have to eliminate it at the end of June due to funding again, as I said. The second one is related to the budget, I guess, but I saw the article today about the mayor's recent proposal on sales taxes. And I just wanted to encourage you all, as someone on a limited budget, I'm a grad student, The rising inflation of gasoline, grocery prices has really hurt me. And adding another sales tax for someone like me is kind of not something that I wouldn't be the most pleased with. I understand that there's a lot of concern with property taxes as well, but I think you should also consider, you know, people who aren't making as much and are being hurt more by sales taxes, you know, how is that gonna affect them, you know, compared to someone who has a house maybe making a substantial income as well. So I just had those two things. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Sheridan. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to our FY27 budget? All right, for members of the public, we'll have a meeting tomorrow evening where we hear from our independent agencies like the library. That will be Thursday the 21st. And then we'll have a series of meetings in days that follow. I'm about to give you those. I apologize, I've got them right here on my phone. We'll have a meeting June 2nd at 6 p.m., June 4th at 6 p.m., and June 9th at 6 p.m. Two of the three of those are the formal Taxpayer Bill of Rights hearing nights, but public input will be taken at all of those. So looking forward to that discussion. Any Commission input on the budget tonight? Just any thoughts you want to provide, knowing, of course, we've got the kind of coming opportunities that I just described?

I do want the commission to, I guess, know that I would be asking for us to look for funds for an investigator for the public defender's office. That will probably be my only ask.

I know. We've got to find one, Mike.

Find us some dollars. Um, um, but that, that's it for me.

Thanks. Commissioner Taylor. Uh, commissioner Fisher.

I thought it was in the budget though.

We don't have a, uh, Oh, that's right. That's right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My, my, my ask also about, um, um, yeah.

I really think they should be on equal balance with the prosecutor. The only other thing that I wanted to think about is the medical expenses for the sheriff's office. that we learned a lot about how we end up paying for services when someone is ill and has to be hospitalized that impacts their budget. So those were the two things that I wanted to mention.

Thank you, Commissioner. And of course, staff is always diligent in tracking down any questions. So if you do have anything else, please communicate via email, and they'll go ahead and do any research for you that you need. Commissioner Myers?

Yeah, just a quick comment for our one speaker tonight. I will ask the librarian about Hoopla. I'm a big supporter and user of the Libby and there's a lot of uses and services that the library gives to a lot of different people and I hate hearing that there's something like that being cut. I also wanted to mention something about the floss tax that was referred to here because I open up the flagpole and I see something on in there and I want to make it really clear to the person who spoke tonight and anyone else who's talking about it that this is a discussion point that would, have to be voted on by the public. And this is not something that we can just do here behind the rail. So I want to make that clear in that we're not talking about doing that this year if it even gets on there. I think we have to approve it before it gets on there, right? So is that correct, Mayor, that we would have to?

It would be in the bills, I believe, that people receive in the fall of 28 that it would formally become implemented.

Right, but to even get it to have the referendum, do we take a vote on it here?

We take a vote here, and then that would place the referendum on the November ballot.

Right, and so that has a lot of, there's a lot of opportunities for public input and discussion and the pros and cons of that. So I'm not convinced one way or another myself.

Anyone else before I return to Commissioner Thornton?

One more. Oh, one more. Did you want to go? The other thing I remember, my notebook is in my other car, so that's why I'm kind of memorizing here. The other thing, I don't remember if we were going to, and maybe we did, maybe we did, receive the actual interest rates, interest,

from... Earned interest.

Okay, just our, well, I guess it's all of it, but yeah. And my thought there is some of the cuts that, one of the cuts or a decrease in the budget, I was wondering if we could use some of the interest rate it probably doesn't matter six and one hand and half a dozen other if we're putting the interest rate in the general fund but i would like to pull it out and consider and see that see that difference commissioner fisher no no okay all right anyone else all right lots of opportunity down the road i'll entertain a motion to adjourn the special called session at this point

So moved. Second.

All right. I've got a motion from Commissioner Taylor, second from Commissioner Davenport. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Hearing none, motion carries. All right. We're moving on to our regularly scheduled agenda-setting session. Oh yeah, I think Ms. Howard's able to take care of that. Thank you. All right, so in our agenda setting session, we of course have several items that were pre-planned to be on the consent agenda. Presently, those are items one through 13. All right, so presently consent agenda items are 1 through 13. Would any commissioner like to remove any of those items from the consent agenda for discussion? Commissioner Myers?

I want to remove 11. And Commissioner Link sent us all a text, and she had 4 and 8 on there. I think 17 is on the, that's not on the consent agenda.

It's on discussion already.

She had 4 and 8 on the.

Okay. All right. I've got 4, 8, 11. Any others? All right. So we'll have some discussion about those. All right. We're going to move on to those planning and zoning items. I'm going to relocate, and Planning Director Bruce Lonnie is going to come join us.

All right. Apologize for the delay. So the first item from the Planning Commission coming to you for consideration is a special use request. It's from 145 Hayward Island Parkway. Both items tonight are coming from the May 7th Planning Commission meeting. This is a special use that is being requested to allow for ground floor residential in the commercial general zone. The overall proposal is a mixed use residential community. A variety of housing types are proposed. The density is consistent with commercial general density allowances. There is a modest amount of commercial that's proposed that is largely intended to serve the residents of this. But in this location, which you'll see in a second, could also serve some of the adjacent multifamily that's nearby. There are four variance requests associated with this special use as well. One for conserved canopy, one regarding parking, one regarding plaza space that is a requirement of large development requirements like this, and then the fact that it has a single access point. And if anybody's visited this site, you know this road takes a steep grade up, so it's very difficult to get a second roadway in. so aerial view of this property in the lower left hand corner you see the hayward allen toyota dealership so this is the property just to the north east of the hayward allen dealership on hayward allen parkway current future land use is general business that would remain the request is a rezone well not a rezone i'm sorry for the special use so the zoning would stay the same commercial general Environmental areas are in the vicinity, but on this property, really nothing worth mentioning. The little bit of blue on the screen there is actually an improvement that was made for some stormwater. The proposed site plan that would become binding upon adoption is on the screen. This is what was submitted to us. And in the course of deliberation with the Planning Commission, the applicant submitted a subsequent site plan that is this image. This is the site plan that would become binding as part of this submittal, should you choose to adopt it. You see the mix of footprints indicate the variety of housing types, and on the lower edge of the screen, the area that's in gray is the area that would be the commercial node for the development. architecture that would also be binding is represented here so we have multi-story we have single story uh... we have some detached but predominantly attached housing units some photographs of the site this is looking back across the property to the south and there you see the hayward allen parkway building i mean hayward allen toyota building uh... this is looking to kind of the west And the tree line off on the right is where we have that large topographical change that is making it difficult to get a second driveway. This is the view to the Preserve Drive, which is an existing public road that would in time be connected through to Hayward-Allen Parkway, which would help serve this area. So analysis of the request is that it is compatible with the 2023 comprehensive plan. It does provide opportunity for infill and redevelopment and a variety of housing in a single proposal. It's compatible with the future land use map, zoning map, and ordinance. Special use criteria were met. And what was found to be interesting about this was it's a transitional piece between existing commercial on Atlanta Highway and the residential areas on the preserved drive. So this kind of bridges the area between those and provides connectivity. Planning Commission's recommendation is approval, approval of that site plan that was submitted during the course of their meeting. And they did find that all four requested variances were approvable. So the elimination of conserved canopy, wanted to make it clear that overall tree canopy will be met with the development, it just won't be conserving canopy. So the total amount of canopy is not being reduced, it will just all be new plantings that would be part of the proposal. The reduction in plaza space, they're asking for an offset to use public green space. And the way the ordinance is worded, plaza areas are meant to be improved, have a mix of hardscape predominantly with some plantings. What they're asking to do is open up some of the green space to kind of help meet that plaza requirement, but not have the hardscape associated with it, because it's going to help them with stormwater and some other design considerations. The single access point, that request has been reviewed very closely by Transportation and Public Works and our fire marshal. Both of those departments have found it to be acceptable with the design that's proposed. So the need for two access drives for fire and emergency access is not necessary given the current design. and then the required parking, this kind of mix would normally require 213 spaces. The applicant is interested in an age-restricted type development, not to the point of having that as a binding feature of the submittal, but they are confident that 177 spaces would adequately serve the unit mix that they're anticipating and the intended occupants that they're trying to market to. So that concludes the staff report.

Logan Waters, 840 Cleveland Road. As Bruce mentioned, we are requesting a special use approval specifically for residential units on the ground floor in the commercial zone. We feel that this is a... a well-suited development for this area. One, because as Bruce mentioned, the transition, but also the proximity to local amenities and shopping centers, restaurants on that side. The target demographic is going to be older individuals that are full-time residents. I think with our unit mix and housing type, that is pretty apparent. We have a lot of two bedrooms and one bedroom units. uh... specifically geared towards empty nesters and we think having some of the on-site amenities such as pickleball you know a small neighborhood commercial retail component as well as an indoor amenity area be very well suited for you know older aging populations here in athens uh... I did want to just point out, as Bruce mentioned, the new plan that we submitted that was voted into the record by Planning Commission a few weeks ago, that was due to the topography in the northeast corner. We were going to have a wall that was problematic with Georgia Power, so that's what caused us to shift everything over and condense a little bit. But we were able to keep a very similar unit mix, just went to a few more attached units. Just speaking very quickly to a couple of the variances. Conserved canopy, obviously the site was pad graded, I think, 20 years ago. With the canopy being consolidated in that northeast corner where we have significant topography, it actually looks like an old stockpile of topsoil. We just don't feel that it's reasonable for us to keep that. So we'd rather ask for the variance now. As Bruce mentioned, parking, we think the target demographic, this shouldn't be an issue. We think there will likely be multiple two-bedroom units that are only occupying one bedroom. So we don't foresee that being an issue. The two access drives, that is also part of zoning code, completely acceptable from a fire marshal standpoint. And the large development design standards, we just thought it wasn't proportional to have that much plaza space in a development like this. Overall, we think this is very well suited for the area. I'll do my best to answer any questions you have, but no guarantees. Thank you.

We build more housing for our senior citizens. That's great. I always ask, what's the price point for us? It's going to be rent or are they going to be able to buy?

It's intended to be for rent.

And what's the price point of those?

I'm not sure. I know they're still doing some market analysis. Okay. And that's, you know, one of the hurdles they're looking at right now is if they do an age restriction. There's several other hurdles, you know, third-party company.

Could you let me know before I adjourn the second vote?

I will happily pass that along and let them fill you in.

Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Commissioner Myers.

Yeah, I'm just interested in the reduced parking from your perspective as a developer here. How many, so it's 200, reducing it from 213 spaces to 177. How many front doors are there?

So there's 103 dwelling units. That's including the two dense, or sorry, the one dense building on the right-hand side of the plan, and then I believe it's 34 attached and detached units. And I'll also just point out the 213 space is required. After discussions with staff, we think that may be an overestimate of what's actually required. I was accounting for indoor amenity space, so I had to assume I think it was one per 400 square feet. So realistically, that number should probably be a little bit lower, which would reduce the ask.

And as someone getting into that aging category myself, the fact that there's a three-story building, I'm kind of curious about, because that's another story.

Yeah, so we will have an elevator in that central portion. Okay, okay.

I thought it said walk-up somewhere, that it was just...

So there will be some ground-level units. So that was the walk-up, okay. Yes, yeah.

Okay, got it. Fine.

All right, good. Thank you.

Anyone else? All right, we're going to go on to our next edition.

All right, the next application is a special use permit request for 735 South Millage Avenue. This is also for ground floor residential, this time in the commercial office zone. What the applicant is looking to do with this purpose-built residential structure is to be able to have a unit on the main floor, but then also to have the opportunity for a residential unit in the balance of the rest of the house, whether that's above or in the basement or at the rear. There was a clarification that was provided by the applicant that the property will be used as a long-term rental. Here's an aerial view of the property. So right now, the improvement out there is a shared, what almost feels like a shared, it is a shared curb cut, but it is not a shared driveway. And there's a gravel parking area to the rear. This had been a law office in the past and also a residence. Mixed density residential future land use would remain the same. Commercial office would remain the same with the special use designation applied. And here's some photographs. of the property the proposal does not involve any changes physical changes to the structure or to the site site plan this would become binding upon approval so planning commission's analysis was it was compatible with the comp plan and also compatible with all applicable ordinances in the future land use map and their recommendation is approval as submitted

All right, and this is in Commissioner Haney's district. I know he's not here, but is there any member of the public here to speak to this?

Yes, my name is Tyler Davis. I live at 644 Milledge Circle in Athens, Georgia. Thanks, Bruce, for presenting that and for Mayor and Commissioner for listening, but the owners of the house could not be here today, and they just basically had a statement they'd like me to read This building has been in our family for almost 40 years, and it's something we plan on owning and taking care of for many years to come. My mother lives around the corner at Henderson Avenue, and this building at 735 Milledge is something she takes pride in and loves as much as her historic home that she has lived in for over 50 years. She loves this home not only for the memories that were made here, the many years my father operated his law office out of this building, but also for the beautiful historic elements that it possesses. Our family loves it so much we've spent time and money to properly name it the Gallus Building, as you can see from the permanent sign that currently stands out front. I want to assure you that we're going to do the right thing and maintain the beautiful house so it can continue to be an asset to the neighborhood. As the house currently sits, we are allowed residential on the second floor and we do not want to disturb the historic integrity by adding a kitchen to that floor. I ask that you please approve our special use permit request to allow residential on the main floor so the kitchen on the first floor can be used by the bedrooms upstairs. Thanks for your time.

Is there anyone else here to speak to this submission? Remarks from any commissioners?

Can you repeat what you said before about the short-term rental?

The applicants indicated they want to use it as a long-term.

Okay. Because I'm seeing something in the summary about it had been a short-term rental, but now there's... And, of course, under Code by Right, you could have a short-term rental. If there's someone living there. Oh, and it's commercial? Yeah, it's a commercial office. Okay. Okay.

Anyone else? All right. And Bruce, I'll note that I understand that old business item 16 is intended to be withdrawn.

Is that correct? So I'm meeting with the applicant Friday. My understanding is they're willing to pull that off. But obviously, we need that in writing. So we'll communicate that to you. But we have not received any changes to the plan since you last considered that item. So there's nothing new to report.

OK, I appreciate it a whole lot. Thank you very much. All right. Apologies, everybody. I actually failed to take public input on the consent agenda earlier. So I'll go ahead and open up public input at that point to all items 1 through 29, with the exception of those two that we just heard, with the exception of 14 and 15. So any public input on any items 1 through 29? Let us know the item to which you're speaking, your name and place of residence.

I'm not sure what your items are, but I just wanted to speak on flock cameras.

So we don't have that on the agenda, and at our agenda setting meeting tonight, we only take input on the items that are on the agenda. The first Tuesday of the month, we take kind of general input.

What is it?

The first Tuesday of the month at the conclusion of the meeting, we take general input at the close of the meeting.

There's nothing that it would fit under?

Not really. Sorry. Sorry.

It wouldn't go under the budget?

We've already done that. All right. All right. So we're going to go ahead and move on to those consent agenda items that folks wanted to have some further discussion on. Commissioner Link, I believe you asked that item four be removed. That's the aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle and equipment bid and award.

Yeah, I just had a couple of quick questions about that. The agenda report indicates that we have to request a special permission or category from the FAA regarding our status as a Class A airport and this is Class B equipment. Can can staff expound upon that a little bit and explain that that discrepancy there?

We have with us in the chamber Airport Director Mike Matthews. Mr. Matthews, good to see you, sir.

Good to see you, too.

So what that was all about is that we are an Index A airport, which means that we do not accept, we do not have more than five large type aircraft in a day. That's more Index B type airports. So since we are considered an Index A, but we wanted an Index B truck because we do have Index B aircraft that come in, but it's not on a daily basis, we might get probably I would say probably three to four in a week. So we do need an index B truck and we currently have an index B truck which was kind of confusing because we've had an index B truck for 20 years now, 20 years plus. But what the FAA required us to do was to get um authorization once again to get index b truck uh so we did um and so that's that was the difference between the index a and the index b truck but they did approve us to get it okay yeah um so those those larger planes those charter planes do those um typically have to do with uga charters They do. A lot of them do. We recently had the vice president here. He had a 737. But, yes, normally they are. We have 737s that come in, Airbus A320s, A321s. Those are the type aircraft that would be Index B. Thanks, Mr. Matthews.

And they're often related to university charters, chartering athletic teams and things like that?

That's correct. And then also some of the corporate aircraft do also use those type aircraft. But I would say most of them are UGA related.

Okay. Yeah, I appreciate it. That was just my question. Mayor, I also requested item 4, 6, and 11 from the consent agenda. I sent a text earlier. I'm not sure if you got it.

I think I didn't get the text earlier, and we can go back to four.

Okay. Yeah, I'm happy to put eight on the consent agenda. I just wanted to clarify.

All right. That's back on consent. Number eight. Okay. Please make a note of that. and we'll go down to four um four is the revised public art concept for the linen town walk of recognition something that um the memory and justice team and staff have been working on for quite some time so very eager to see this see the light of day uh commissioner lake what's your question about that i just wanted to offer accolades um you know first of all to you for for pushing this forward and to um all the folks who have been

involved in the activism around Linnentown and the Justice in Memory Project committee members. I know we did hit some walls along the way, kind of sort of literally, you know, and UGA did offer some objections to the original proposed placement. So I'm glad to see this project finally moving forward, and we're going to have some real public accessible, publicly accessible recognition of that community. So yes, with that, I'm happy to see this go back on the agenda as well.

Any other questions about that before we put it back on consent? All right, please note four is back on consent. All right, I think Commissioner Myers, you asked that number 11 be...

Right. And item number six.

Item number six. Commissioner Link.

Yeah, I wanted item number six too. Mostly for the same thing. Accolades for the public art. We have a local artist who was awarded this project, Will Eskridge. Some folks might recognize him as the artist who did the artwork for last year's Ask Fest. He did a bunch of... possums and raccoons and armadillos and so he is um certainly appropriate for this beautiful mural on our uh our animal shelter so i just wanted to point that out we have a local artist who was awarded this project and um we will um i'm looking forward to it and i'm happy to see this go back on consent all right i've seen all these critters on my block um any uh any other input on this fort goes back on consent

All right. Commissioner Myers, number 11, the GOC report regarding rental protections and resources.

Yeah, it looks to me like you guys are passing this out without action except for the recommendation of $6,000 for the budget for, I believe, for... Actually, I wanted to ask what that was specifically for, because it seemed like quite a specific number. But also, and while we're on that, I'm assuming that you all came to the conclusion that there's no further local rental protections that can be applied locally in ACC since you had people come in and talk to you and did you in the midst of that did you talk about any and fork I mean I remember actually Commissioner Taylor last year when we added something into the budget for Saturday code enforcement was there a discussion of code enforcement in when you were discussing this in your meetings as it applies to rental properties

So the $6,000 is for education for code enforcement when they go out for tenant information of their rights and what their position is.

So, I mean, is that like $6,000 of pamphlets? I mean, is there anything else?

I think Assistant Manager Saunders can offer some guidance.

Yeah, and was there anything also about, like, in just terms of policies, in terms of code enforcement, doing any more enhanced code enforcing? Did you guys talk about that? What was the conclusion there before this gets put to sleep? Pass it to Saunders.

So the $6,000 was benchmarked off of the approximate cost to do up to two water bill inserts a year, which would align with one focused on code enforcement type issues on renter protection, our best avenue to help with any kind of quality of building concerns that renters have is to actually be invited in. And so getting that knowledge into renters' hands is the best way to do that. And then the second would be to continue to accent fair housing activities, even though the federal government has walked those back a bit, still very important to renter protections for things like race, age, gender, and so on. That doesn't mean that there necessarily would be two water bill inserts every year. It could be that one year that money is used for tabling fees and materials to go take part in something like Hot Corner or another community event, just to have an enhanced presence.

Are we able to, coming out of campaign season and very careful sorting one could do with addresses, do we do sorting of water bill addresses so that it's going to rental, not home? I guess it would be pulling out the homestead exemption, having a different.

Yeah, and there could be code issues that somebody wants to address, even an owner occupied, where maybe they have a small rental within it. The way our water bills work is they're actually done in bulk by a third party vendor. And so we submit the information and then our inserts we actually have to hand deliver to a venue in Atlanta in order to have them folded in. So no, they would not be targeted. It would hit everybody who receives a water sewer or trash bill in the community. And then one note about that is, and it is covered in the report, this is not currently held in the FY27 proposed budget. So if this body chooses to accept it and implement it, that is something you would need to account for when finalizing the budget or we would address it next year.

Okay, that's helpful. And I always look forward to those water inserts. They're very helpful.

compelling reading yes lunchtime reading all right okay with that back on consent everybody i i had a couple comments about that as well go right ahead commissioner um so yeah i i'm on gov ops um and a lot of the discussion we had about this issue overlapped with um code enforcement of our single family housing ordinance and um you know what part of the request coming out of the committee was that the mayor assign a reevaluation of that issue, which I believe has been assigned to LRC, to the Legislative Review Commission. So I'd be happy to talk with some of the folks in LRC about, you know, where our conversation went and of course you can watch that meeting on YouTube because Commissioner Taylor and I specifically deal with this a lot and just massive gentrification of particularly East Athens and the student housing that is actually moved into some of our single family zoned neighborhoods and how it's really driven up pricing rental pricing so i i really would love to chat with a couple lrc members about the discussion that we had and you know some of the experiences i hear about from my constituents and i'm sure commissioner taylor could say a few things as well thank you commissioner appreciate that

All right, that'll go back on consent. All right, y'all, we're gonna move forward again. Item 16, you know, we generally understand will be withdrawn. Commissioner Davenport, was there anything else you wanted to note about that? Nope. Okay, all right, so 17, thanks to staff and thanks to Commission for kind of riding herd on something that we've desired for a long time, a Leisure Services Comprehensive Master Plan. This is acceptance of that plan. Any input on this?

I do have a question because there were a lot of long plans on this agenda in addition to so so this one I did not get to and I was wondering I mean I skimmed it very skimmed like skim didn't go past finding where the beginning was is there anything that the managers office would want to highlight about that came through here that is of importance, would be of importance for us to note.

I would mention two things, and then Alex is back there. I'll have Alex, who was involved through the whole development of it, give more detail. The two things that I would highlight the most are, throughout the document, there is clearly communicated from the consultants of the need for us to match operating dollars with capital expenses that we've been very good at being able to add capital elements to our parks and recreation programs but have not been able to keep pace with the operation side and that's in people equipment those kinds of things and that's Bishop Park pools probably the most recent example that constrains what we can actually do with these capital items. So I'd highlight that as one. The second thing I would highlight is this will be a, and this is true with most of our plans we adopt as well, this will be an excellent resource as we go into developing the next SPLOSS initiative and looking in here for projects that have already gone through an extensive community process to identify projects that could potentially be included in those. Those are two things that are more kind of policy oriented that come out of here. and I'll let Alex highlight any specific projects or anything that you think of importance.

Thanks for the opportunity. So the executive summary, which is a separate document, it's about 22 pages, is made just for you. You guys can read that and hopefully glean all the Cliff's notes. Thank you. 150 pages, 22 pages, same info. Not only the matching the ops dollars, that's a big one. When we talk about growth, there is a nice walkability study, a nice drivability study. It highlights three areas of the community that are in the greatest need. Luckily, there's a line with several already funded projects, which is nice. Outside the loop on extreme West Athens is priority number one, and luckily there's already a SPLOST project

2020 project to acquire land and work on that we hope you know so to address that need so highlighting that kind of access to current services I think would be the only other thing to add to what the manager mentioned it's kind of just touched on there too is another product that came out of this is a kind of an assessment of our facilities that exist and their accessibility from really from an advantage of being able to look at compliance with a DA and other things another area that we really have in all of our facilities not kept pace with where we should be and there is not a dedicated source of funding when we do sploss projects or t-sploss projects we incorporate those but that's another area that we really need to be focused on trying to advance and some of those are very simple it may be that the doors that we have going into a facility aren't in compliance others are more complex the the drive or access or slope going up to them doesn't meet those standards so So that product is a very valuable product with this also and kind of dovetails nicely with some of the changes we're making on, if approved, on kind of restructuring and one of those restructuring is a more specific focus on this inside central services and certainly this will be a part of that as well. So I'd highlight that also. Any other questions?

I noted that I wanted to speak on this but mostly because I just want to make sure it stays off the consent agenda It's a pretty large document and I just want to make sure I absorb it thoroughly.

Okay. We'll leave that off consent.

Thank you.

Thank you all. I appreciate it, Alex. All right. 18 is the ACC Affordable Housing Fund Administrative Structure Recommendations. We, of course, had a work session about this. I encourage anybody who had questions maybe to reach out to founding Envision Board member Rick Parker. He's done some work on this as well. It might be a good resource for you. Any input on this? i i would rather afford to be off with consent leave it off consent yeah okay anyone else all right uh item number 19 is the 2025 update to the public utilities department service delivery plan and this the infrastructure and capital improvement element and again we've had a lot of discussion about this

And I would say I think it's even larger than the Leisure Services Parks and Recreation Master Plan. But you have had quite a bit of discussion. One thing I do think that, two things I would note with this is one of the important documents that accompanies the actual plan, of course, is the fiscal assessment. And from that fiscal assessment, what that does is tell sort of what the dollar needs are to actually implement the plan and therefore what the associated rate increase would be. If you recall, when this was presented some months ago at work session, the expectation was that it would require a 10% rate increase. We had some adjustments made in the plan to be, in my opinion, a little more realistic in what could get done in the time frame that we have available, and so the proposed rate increases in it are at 3%, which is more aligned with what had been talked about in past years with it. Obviously, as you all know, and we said this at the recent work session, any improvements in the Sandy Creek Basin are not incorporated in this yet because we're not there yet. That's further conversation. So I just wanted to kind of highlight those. Otherwise, this is a continuation of 20 years' worth of planning of which All said, there's about literally half a billion dollars worth of projects over a 20-year period that's included in this. Obviously, this is the five-year increment of that as well. Half a billion here, half a billion there.

So you're talking real money. Commissioner Fisher.

So anytime in the future... Could we use SPLOST dollars to speed up this process?

Yeah, you all, I mean, typically with an enterprise, you want the enterprise to find its way. But you all have used SPLOST dollars once before to accelerate the replacement of water lines, I believe, in downtown. Right. And it is absolutely appropriate. The other direction is not appropriate, where you take money from the enterprise and apply it to what should otherwise be covered in general fund or SPLOST kinds of dollars and stuff with it. But certainly on any number of things, you could use general fund dollars also as well as SPLOST to accelerate aspects of this plan if it's appropriate. Thank you. And I should have mentioned that Hugh and team are back there as well if there's any specific questions out of the plan as well.

Commissioner Thornton. Could we pull this one off too?

Yeah, it's off consent presently. Commissioner Myers?

Yeah, this one I did spend a little more time with. Not that I have any more questions with it, but there's a stated goal in here, and I don't know if that's still the goal of to provide a 90% provide wastewater collection treatment to 90% of the ACC residents. And I'm never, reading through there again, could have spent a few more hours on it, but does that 90% goal include safe septic, or is that the goal would be in the land 90% on sewer and 10% on septic? Because somewhere else it said that we have, I think, 25% on septic. Yeah, I'm gonna...

You all want to talk about it, but it is essentially that it recognizes there are portions of the county that you have planned through the future land use plan for very low density, so the Greenbelt, and it just economically is not likely or practical to have sewer service in those areas. There are other areas that are environmentally sensitive that also you may not have sewer extension in it, but it is good to point out because this is, as has been talked about before, a point of departure where you had the unification document saying, sewer everything and then subsequently after that that very first service delivery plan had this language in it which said one way in which you meet that obligation is actually recognizing that safe operational septic systems are a way in which sewer service could be provided as far as the percentages i'm gonna let let you all talk about that if you if you remember kind of what the language is in there uh i'm not

Entirely sure what the specific language is in there, to be honest.

Typically when we're talking about – It does use – I mean, I copied and pasted it to the – it does use the phrase 90% in there.

Well, typically when we're talking about percentages of service, we're talking about, like you mentioned. So, for example, we have 99% of the county on water service. That's 99% of parcels on water service. So this would be something similar to that. It would be 90% of the county on sanitary sewer service.

And what I wanted to make sure, and I'll look at this and follow up with you. Sometimes it's referring to land area and sometimes it's referring to population. So I want to make sure which of those it's kind of capturing.

Yeah, and actually now I did find it because there's a really – There's two really, well, there's many, many, many good diagrams and graphics in here. Let me just chart. Many, many good ones. But on 466, Um, it's interesting to look at that because it shows the, uh, the pump septic tank locations. Um, and I guess as a heat map and it makes it really clear. I mean, we've, we've talked about it over in north Athens, but there's a whole lot over on the east side of Athens and then on the west side. So it needs to be clear. that this is not a, this is a county-wide issue in different places here. And then I was reading how it was like, you're really supposed to replace your septic tank every 25 years or so? And I was like, oh my goodness, I better call the septic people right away. So that was a good chart. Do you know that other chart that we've had recently that shows where the water, is it the water lines or the sewer lines where they're at capacity? I guess it was the, like the Homewood Hills, that was the sewer.

Sewer.

Sewer lines. Is that graphic in here anywhere or would it be in here?

It is not because it's, it is... changing, thankfully, consistently as improvements are being made in the system. So what we would be doing is periodically we should be bringing you updates, if you will, that are showing how that map is changing as those investments are made. So it's referring to, if you remember, there was kind of almost similarly kind of a heat map where it was showing lines that were either green or they were yellow or red, and we were really tackling the yellow and red and trying to get those fixed. Much of what's in this plan is actually geared to addressing those issues. Whether it's not about, there's very little in the plan that's actually about expanding service, much more of it is about actually taking care of what we have, getting those problem areas fixed, and then filling in the gaps where there's services aren't being provided, on sewer again, the water area's a little bit different.

I believe that there was, for wastewater, there's a number of $319 million worth of projects on one of those lists.

And I think well over 70% of that expenditure is for existing lines and trying to deal with known capacity issues, or just age.

Thank you.

Commissioner Thornton?

Bob, you had, just when you were describing, when you said the documentation, the early documentation from unification said safe and, safe and, safe septic tanks, I guess. Who is responsible for safe septic tanks? Since I have been involved in North Athens concerns, who is responsible? Who maintains that? Who records it? Where does that come from?

And this is one of those areas where there's kind of this This is a unified government plan, and yet there's an element of our system that we all rely on that is actually regulated by the state. And so the design of those systems are permitted by the Health Department. The inspection of those or enforcement of those would be also. It doesn't mean, and there are utility systems that do take a role. You talked, for example, about the ability to use loss dollars to advance on on our plan there are communities that also look at cdbg dollars or other dollars to aid those of limited means to try to address their septic systems we have not done that here um in in athens clark county and is something i think as the conversation continues on the sandy creek basin that we may want to to look at because otherwise you really are wholly dependent on individual property owners and the health department basically as the sort of parties in that we don't have a role we don't inspect them

Jump on in here. So everything Manager Cal said is correct, which is the state has ownership of septic. From time to time in my career coming from the environmental side, somebody might have a failing septic system that is then flowing into their neighbor's yard or into a creek or somewhere like that. If that happens, staff could contact code enforcement because working plumbing is needed so we can address that with probable cause and similarly if it was going into the waterway there's a storm water could be involved so unfortunately we don't be proactive but we can help on the reactive side and i guess that was where i was kind of heading or my question was directed to about being is there anything proactively in place is that

Yeah, I would say not necessarily in place. I think that part of, there's no reason why there can't be us looking at some proactive opportunities. And again, I go back to the CDBG example with those and there are others. We just historically, I think as a community, we have, the answer has been extend sewer service to where you can extend sewer service and that's still happening, but it Embedded in the plan is also an understanding that there are going to be areas of our community that will not benefit from that sewer extension It's just not practical or possible. And so I do think it's appropriate Not necessarily in this document, but through other conversations Is there a desire to take a more proactive approach and what's the correct way or the best way to do that? And again, I think I think that will naturally need to be a part of the discussion of the sandy creek basin if we're not going to be There's not ultimately going to be an interest in extending services, or there's not the ability to extend it. I think Commissioner Thornton, you said this at one of the meetings, that the conversation can't end there. That if there are concerns about the appropriateness of the septics in that watershed, then we need to have an adjacent conversation with that as well, which would be more proactive than what we've, I think, historically done.

And I guess my thought is because, and I'll just This is why the charter needs to be revisited. This is one good reason. But Mayor, while you are pondering things that go to committees, maybe we need to have a septic in a committee somewhere along the line. I had no idea that until I think Andrew sent me the map, I had no idea how many septic tanks are in Athens. And I do think that that would be a very productive, because I'm not advocating sewer everywhere for all the reasons that our county manager is suggesting. I'm not recommending that, but I do think The charter says safe already. We haven't revised the charter, so let's be proactive or start talking about how we can be proactive to address the many septic tanks that are in Clark County. Even knowing that CDBG funds could be a consideration. I think that...

we could if you mayor would put that on your thoughtless i recall that um maybe about five years ago actually it was a little longer ago than that because i know it was pre-covered i think commissioners link and wright did some engagement as members of the board of the local board of health and talked to staff about this let me dust that off kind of as a first cut, because as, of course, you heard from Bob and Andrew, you know, there's this unusual regulatory environment where, you know, we deal with the stuff that goes through pipes, and the state deals with the things that stay on site, septic systems. But I remember some engagement happened between staff and the health department around that. And so let me dust that off. I'll make sure I send that to you. And then we can talk about what a good assignment would be. I always think about the world we wish we were in rather than the world we're actually in. And under some other arrangement, it'd be great if public utilities was the regulatory power around septic, and then we could probably be much more proactive than if we've got this arm's length relationship. Certainly, a function that public utilities does provide at the waste reclamation facilities is that those folks who do pump septic take that waste to our facilities to have treated. So there's already some.

Dovetailing there, but but I think in an ideal world we're doing a lot better than we are now for sure Well, I do think that you know if this goes to a Committee to come back with recommendations. There's all types of possibilities that are all good. It would not be just one thing. I think even contracting with, or RFPs going out to different septic companies. Because a lot of people, by the time they call one, And if you do that after calling, but if there's a list of recommended septic folks that people can engage with. But I do think that this is a really important issue. And I do remember Commissioner Link and Myers, but they really... That was Ray.

I'm sorry.

I really think that we as a body here needs to step up and you can dust off what you need to dust off, but we need to be proactive as a body since we know this is a Absolutely. A hot issue. Anyone else? Commissioner Myers.

I just want to add my voice to that. So, you know, sometimes we hear, like, oh, we need to have more than one, a couple commissioners on this. And seeing that 25%, and that's a large number of the community, including, you know, some of us up here, And I just, you know, I just did two minutes of research while we were talking here about what local communities do. And there are various things, whether or not we can do them here in Georgia. You know, there's things that we can do going forward, like if you can have permitting structure going forward not backwards but where someone would have to show proof of something every five years you know that they were doing things using things correctly but there's other things as well and I think even just information about it because I I find I think of myself as fairly well informed but I'm learning a lot about this my own personal septic tank because I am here and so I need there are many people who are not here who need to know these things in terms of just taking care of them so I just want to add my my voice to your voice and say I think that this is a community concern overall and the environmental consequences that are there

and i think when you put it under environmental you can get more attention that word just lights up folk but the presentation that um public utilities did at um but that was probably the best presentation and that i you know i think that when they come before us hopefully it could be very similar but it was very eye-opening And they broke it down. It wasn't all the technical jargon. But the other thing, for me, it really enforced the fact that this is an area, environmentally, that we have not paid too much attention to.

All right, so more discussion ahead for sure. And again, I'll dig up some of that earlier work as a good starting point for a potential committee assignment. Moving on to item 20. Item 20 regards sort of pivoting around the North Avenue corridor raise grant. We, of course, have gotten the great news that we've got an extension now. It's not a limitless extension. We don't have forever and a day. um but but we have a little more time which is great and that time has given both our staff and our engineering partners at aecom the opportunity to go back and look at some options and find an optimal solution both for safety and aesthetics that meets the original goal of that raise grant that of course we applied for for several years before we finally received so appreciate commissioner thornton and commissioner link meeting last week so that we can begin to advance this Commissioner Thornton.

Can I ask the CDO, I guess it would be Madam Clerk, the CDO that I did for the RAISE grant, could you email it to me and anybody else that wants it?

It's in the agenda pack.

Okay.

Because I thought it was like a new CDO.

No, it's the same one. Okay, well then I'm good. Gotcha.

And that's what I'm in here going through right now. You've been busy.

Anyone else on that?

Yeah, can I weigh in on that, Mayor?

Please, Commissioner, go right ahead.

Yeah, thank you for the meeting last week. I feel like it was really, really productive, and we had a lot of different folks called into it to explain the nuances of the grant requirements and the limitations of the right-of-way. It's crucial that we get this corridor made more safe. We're averaging at least a fatality a year, it seems. We had one over Christmas time. Sometimes pedestrians, sometimes drivers. And we've got to slow that traffic down, especially coming downhill. And, you know, we do have a design that can do that and accommodate cyclists and pedestrians and, you know, the mamas pushing baby carriages. You know, we need more safe crossing. Every time I go down North Avenue or through the North Avenue intersection on MLK, I witness some kind of scary situation. So it is crucial for the safety and for, you know, to save lives in our community. We have more and more residences going up along that corridor, dense residences, as well as, you know, there's more and more single family going up in the neighborhoods along the corridor. So we really need to do whatever it takes to get this community safe. And we've got a golden egg with this $25 million grant. So I hope that we'll move forward rationally and do our best to engage the community and present the data and the fact that we just got to slow traffic and make this safe.

Thanks, Commissioner. All right, we'll see a little bit more about Commissioner Myers.

Yeah, this one I did spend some time with because I actually had, it was interesting because a lot of the things that are brought in here, and there's a lot of documents in here, and the ACOM response to the CDO, which is somewhere in there, is actually, it was very helpful. in terms of going through and talking specifically about the costs of the right-of-way acquisition for a four lane versus five lane, the safety, kind of the safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and cars that can be given in each one of those ones, the costs, and meeting the timeline as well seem to be still a big issue because the five lane requires a lot more right of way. But I found it, there were a lot of specifics that were in here and were very helpful. And interestingly, I was reading this right after Transportation Public Works came out and talked to some east side leaders who were looking at how the Vision Zero grants that are being put forth might match with the T-Splust program from some of the projects on the east side. And so a lot of things they were talking about in this document for North Avenue happened to be, which I was reading maybe on Tuesday, were what Transportation Public Works were talking to the Eastside neighbors about on Monday in terms of Barnett Shoals between Research Drive and the movie theater down there, because that's a big, wide, wide road. So I was seeing the connection there. But anyway, I appreciate all the work that goes in here, and I hope we can move ahead with this.

Thanks, Commissioner. Appreciate everybody working on this a whole bunch. I'm glad it's alive. 21 actually intersects with that project, and it is design services for the Greenway segment that will go from effectively the intersection of North Avenue and Willow Street, or excuse me, rather North Avenue and MLK to MLK at East Broad Street. So any questions about this?

I have some questions and comments.

Yeah, Commissioner.

yeah i mean i i did mention that that intersection with north avenue and how that desperately needs some attention um but this segment of mlk i've long requested some speed enforcement or actually i feel like we really need to reduce the speed limit it's got a 35 mile an hour speed limit and folks take that as just like the vegas suggestion um especially around those those curves um does this Would this project trigger any potential traffic calming and crosswalks along that corridor? I see people crossing, you know, dashing across MLK all the time, you know, near a blind curve to get to Greenway access, and this is just going to demand more of that. Who would like to tackle that on staff? Take a closer look at this segment to see. To determine some of that?

Yeah, I think probably the only place that would likely fall into the scope of this, and Josh can help, is where there would be actual crossings of the road, which there's a couple of those in there. Beyond that, it probably falls outside of the scope of the design of the project.

That's exactly what I was going to say. You can see in the design there are a couple of crosswalks, and traffic comment would be limited to those sorts of features. All right, so at least a couple of crosswalks.

Have we done any proper speed analysis of this? Because I did put it on my list. We were requested to list a handful of roads for speed analysis sometime last year. Have we seen that analysis of this? Because I really feel like that 35 miles per hour is just inappropriate for this road.

We've got folks from Public Works in the room. Give them an opportunity either to respond or say, hey, we'll get back to you later.

Sure, good evening, and I'll add that a part of the project is also reducing the existing lanes some, so if they are too wide, wider than 12 feet or 11 1⁄2 feet, they'll be reduced to take advantage of finding room to build that greenway. So that's part of the project that I'm aware of.

Okay.

In terms of speed management.

I'll look forward to seeing how that moves along, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Thanks, Ronnie, I appreciate it. Anyone else on the greenway segment? All right, moving on to item 22. This is an intergovernmental agreement with the University of Georgia for North Oconee Access Road extension to Bailey Street. So this is a kind of road segment, kind of effectively parallel to the outer loop in between College Station Road and the segment of Barnett-Scholes Road that dumps out near the movie theater. Mr. Myers?

Yeah, I did have two questions which I submitted just so that you'd know that I was gonna ask them. If you don't have the answers, it's fine right now, because this is just the agenda setting meeting. Basically, this is a big connector. It goes through parking lots, and I guess the future is where we'll see how it's used. But it would be a way to get from Bailey Street at the bottom close to the B&B theaters across the street all the way over to College Station without going up to Research Drive or over to the bypass off of Bailey Street. So one of the things I wanted to ask if we can get this included in the agenda report is something that shows where it actually comes out on Bailey Street. so that if I, you know, I'm looking on it and I'm kind of guessing, but I don't know if my guess is quite accurate. And the second thing is, this is a UGA, I mean, UGA is doing the building, we're trading some land or right of ways and things like that. Is that how I understand it? So, I mean, who would be, you know, I'm just thinking to myself, if I was living on that street and I went through and looked at Kew Public and found about seven people, homeowners on there, who've been there forever. There's a lot more rentals, the neighborhood's changed, but there's a lot of people, well, there's seven or eight homeowners there who've been there who I assume are older folks because you can't even find where the houses were bought. And they're gonna have this happening here. I'd love to somehow notify those people at least that something is happening. I think it's just a respectful thing to do. I know that it's not necessarily something that we can change. Can you talk to that?

Yeah, we've had some conversations. I think we can give you kind of a quick update on sort of where things are. I don't know if you want to do that, or Steven.

So first of all, we will update it with a map. Generally, if you're familiar with Bailey Street, it's gonna exit at the north end of where the water treatment plant is, so close to 300 Bailey Street. But a map for kind of regional context will be added. We've reached out to the university, and they're certainly discussing some options for outreach. I think it would be helpful if you all have expectations, if you wanted to share those, we could relay those along. Because ultimately, you're right, this is a project they've proposed, they would construct and project manage, and at the end of the day, they would then, we would accept the asset as a public street. But ultimately, they're our residents, our community, and jointly, So not catching people off guard is certainly an acceptable approach.

Yeah, I mean, what I think I would wanna know as a homeowner who was there is I would like to get something that says, hey, this is something that's going on with UGA. They have these parking lots down there. They've expanded them. This is a way out. And I'm not sure if they're, and that's what, they're saying in the documents, well, we're not gonna use this as a way out for football games, but is this, Is this the anticipation that this is going to be like a parking lot? Are a lot of people going to be going in there? I guess all the people from Barnett-Scholes who wanted to park would be get closer, would go in that way, because why would they go all the way around to Research Drive? So there's gonna be a lot more people going in there. So just sort of what the plan is, what it's gonna look like. I just think the more information people have, and of course, I could take this whole agenda report, but it's not really written for, I mean, what would help me, I mean, I could do this, but I'd rather, it would come from someone else, I could put something there or check in with the people, but there's something that sort of summed up what was going on and what the expectations and the timeline would be.

Just as a... And given the timeline, certainly while you could do something like postcards and that might still be appropriate, usually like a community meeting, at the water treatment plant or a public space nearby where there would be staff from UGA and Athens-Clarke County, design information, information about the use. That all can certainly be relayed to UGA as something we'd like to see, and I think based on our early conversations, they'd be happy to do it.

Yeah, I think that would be wonderful, and I would follow up, especially with those homestead people, but I would like to follow up with something that you all are putting together, or UGA.

Anyone else on 22? Of course, leave this off consent, obviously, given this discussion. Back to 21, everybody okay with 21, the Greenway segment on consent?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, move 21 to consent. 23 is the lead reduction capacity building grant program amendment. Any input on this? Consent. Consent, okay with that? Yeah. All right, 23 is consent. All right, 24 is the FY27 to 28 ACC UGA transportation agreement, sort of an update of what we do recurrently. Any questions about that? Not, well, sort of in that this defines how we split the federal funds. Right, okay.

I'd like to leave this off consent so I can look at it and ask questions if needed, or you can leave it on and I can take it off at the beginning of the next one.

No, we can leave it off and we can just approve it very quickly next time. Yeah, that's good. That's an option.

Yeah. So with this agreement, we've talked for a couple years about the fare free and going away from that.

How does this agreement affect that? Yeah, so staff has addressed that. I'll go ahead and turn it over to y'all.

So the agreement states that we are fair free at the time of the agreement and that we will be so through the end of June because that's what the prior agreement committed us to. It also acknowledges that we're doing a fair study and that this body may choose to reinstitute fairs. And it says that if we do that, both parties agree to come back and revisit the funding mechanisms in the agreement. To more closely, we would like to reflect what was happening before where the university was compensating for ridership directly. Commissioner Fisher, the funding ratios are shown on the very last page of 15 under how we allocate that federal funding now. It's about 52% to the university.

Any follow-up, John?

So where are we? You said we're in the middle of doing a fair study. Where are we with that?

So the task order has been issued. The consultants have been reviewing our financial documents and setting up a public outreach plan, which is part of our policy for any fair changes. We anticipate that they would come back before this body in spring of 2027. Anything else?

All right, 25 is the Intergovernmental Agreement between Coney County and ACC to provide funding for a records clerk. Questions about this, or everybody okay with this on consent? All right, 25 is consent. All right, 26 is the Judicial Center. We had a conversation about this. Any follow-up questions?

Commissioner Fisher so I Think We need to really really look at this and I know we looked at the six stories and from that perspective, but I Thought about this after we did the work session Were there any thoughts? and just making it smaller than the six. Bob, I know you're not talking about, but was there any thought making it not as big as six stories?

Not on, you know, once we got to the point of which site made the most sense, then what the architect tried to do is, through the program, try to maximize the efficiency associated with it. So there's two thoughts I have with it, which is, One is anything that wasn't structured the way that this is would make it less efficient, meaning you're likely to have either courtrooms from different courts on different floors, which of course is what we're trying to avoid, or you would have staff areas which also would be not as efficient with it. That's one thought is that this is, while not perfect, this is certainly probably the most efficient way in which it's laid out. is if you did bring it down, what you're probably gonna do is spread it out. So in order to actually retain the square footage that you need, you probably would end up having to use all of the site. Whereas right now, we're able to, by going higher, we're able to retain that surface parking lot, keep that distance away from the adjacent church property, and actually provide some additional parking on site that would still serve some aspect of the courthouse. And even if you did that, I'm purely guessing here, if you picked up one floor of reduction, that would probably be the extent of it. And you still are going to lose some of the efficiencies that the current design has. So none of that was looked at specifically, so that's just... loosely kind of my speculation of if you went in that direction, what would happen?

Yeah, I guess the other thing is the price tag that I just concerned about. As we go through this project, the cost, and I know there's some different funding mechanisms that we could use, but one thing we talked about maybe raising the millage and some other stuff, so I just think maybe we, and again, I think this is needed, so I want to be clear to the public that I'm not against the project, but I just think we really need to think through I'm talking about moving forward with this and the public understanding what could happen as we move forward.

Yeah, I think it's been important to us that we share with you all that as the project moves forward, what the intent is on how you would be able to pay for this. The intent is use money that's on hand, put that forward with a debt issuance. The debt issuance, through the mechanism that we've identified, is still backed by the local government. Ultimately, the plan would be that a project could be included as a SPLOST. If approved, it would retire. If not approved, we've shared with you not the absolute potential millage increase would be because there's different ways you could fund that also, but at least give you a sense that those are the paths that we would take. There's, of course, a third path, which is you wouldn't do a millage increase. Instead, you would reduce substantially the services that are provided currently so that you didn't have to do that kind of increase. Obviously, we didn't include that one because we felt like that really was not a path that would make any sense. But yeah, I think it's important. I mean, it's important that everyone understand two things which we all know already because we've been talking about this for ten years is that if anything else we know the cost will go up uh... as we go forward in time and then the second is what it cost to do this in terms of and how it would be paid for those are important uh... for folks to understand as we move forward because it is uh... it would be i think we all think it's that would be the largest uh... capital project we've undertaken uh... it's a building that we would all hope to be successfully using seventy five years from now so This is not a short-term, low-cost kind of project. Thank you.

Commissioner Culpepper.

Yeah, I agree with Commissioner Fisher about the cost, but we're using actual land that we own versus going out and trying to purchase something. When we were looking at the other pieces of property, it was stuff that we didn't own. I think that's a huge benefit, because if we weren't, we were actually buying the land, the cost would even go up higher. That's, if you look at how many, the square footage and the total price tag, it's about $972 a foot, which Class A office space, that's in the right range of what that costs. And usually you have to include the cost of the land, and we're not including that. So, I mean, I think we're in line, Yeah, that's a lot of money, but I feel like we're doing the right thing by using existing land, and we need to be diligent about selling property that we don't need. So would Satula become a building that we can sell, or what are we going to do with the existing courthouse? Are we keeping that, or is that something to sell? I think we wanted to keep it, but what's the cost in that? But other ways to generate revenue to offset this cost would be selling property that we don't use. Yeah.

And I think, you know, and we've shared with you all that, you know, as you've gone through the iterations of this, you got down to a point a couple of years ago where we were to look at only the publicly owned properties in downtown and there were four or five of them that were looked at. That's what the full expectation that by settling on this one, those other properties are then available for other use. So those become most likely properties we would look to sell or make available for other use. Purposes that generate tax revenue associated with those so all of those properties have kind of been held in you know, just held while we went through this process of figuring out where's the right place to put this, and you really couldn't advance on those others. I'm thinking, for example, the lots in front of Hotel Indigo, for example, are two of those. Certainly, if we reuse the courthouse, then there, as mentioned, there are other properties that we're currently using, which we could vacate and make available for other purposes as well. All of that's several years down the line, but still is all a part of the mix, or could be a part of the mix. Commissioner Myers.

I just think it's so important for us to be as clear and think in terms of educating the public on this as possible every step of the way and repeating it. I think when I look through here, the public comment, I could have missed something there, was like three years ago. So this, with the exception of a handful of people that we've heard from, this is out of people's minds. And right now, we just had a T-splash vote last night, which had the lowest percent passage of any TSPLOST or SPLOST that we've had, well, since one didn't pass in the beginning, but in my memory of passing SPLOST since 2005, I think. And so here we're talking about this, and we're talking about paying the bond back a lot of money. I mean, isn't it like 100 and whatever, what?

48-ish.

40, right. But if you read in here, it also says, hey, another project for that splast should be the renovation of the card house and another one could be paying for the parking deck that uses a lot of that splast program and so you know having those even if they're they're drafts of that financing out there as we're going along I think is really important for all of us to know because we're we might not be here all of the same crowd when the financing of this has to be done and people don't vote for it because they're like you said you want you know like it just the numbers are going down so I'm a real I'm concerned that we're just real straightforward and I think even getting back to and it's probably in here but in terms of public documents like why we're doing this because the average person doesn't go into the courthouse and doesn't know and why putting that down in some nice digestible reason why you know we have to do this I know why now but you know before when I was looking at the SPLOST program in 2020 and trying to get you know I wasn't on the Commission I was like oh there's a courthouse again I just want some money for that courthouse so but people don't know it so I mean thinking that we have to get a SPLOST pass to pay part of this some of it or else it's going to be on the millage rate we got to be doing our education now and repeating it and repeating it and thinking about what people need to know this is a little like this makes the doesn't this make the arena price tag look small

yes to your point commissioner um you know it'll be calendar year 2027 when the entire next sploss package is right is assembled so you know we're we're moving down the tracks fairly very fast and we've um but but i think to everybody's understanding um you know our current courthouse very dramatically underserves our entire entire legal apparatus and uh and again i think It was Bob who said earlier that this is something that at least 75 years from now is going to be able to be effectively used, so it's a multi-generational project.

And we do, as I said at the work session, Jeff and his team have been working with us on creating and replacing some of the old FAQs that we'll be doing, and we'll continue to add to those to try to keep it as simple. We've talked about even including some videos to actually show both current conditions as well as having some of the folks that have to use and rely on and frankly keep the courthouse safe and operational talking about that because well i completely convince you all understand the need for the replacement of the courthouse i'm not sure that everybody in our community understands that completely and so it's important for us to be able to convey that along with the specifics of the project as it moves forward.

Yeah, especially if we want a chance of getting them to vote for it. Can I add to that?

Commissioner Link, and then I'll return to Commissioner Culpepper.

Melissa.

Commissioner Link.

Oh, OK. I'm sorry. I can't hear very well. Yeah, I mean, I agree. This is definitely a necessary project and the price tag hurts, but the price tag of everything hurts these days. I mean, try renovating your bathroom or putting on a new roof. This is an absolutely necessary facility. You know, we've been hearing from our judges and you know all the folks who use the sheriff for years about um the dismal conditions in our aging courthouse and the deep need for a larger modern facility considering we're a vastly grown community since that original courthouse was built um my question you know of course commissioner myers brings up the communication with the public and i feel like that is essential that we like get the message out there and tell the story and the facts and figures of why we're doing this project. I asked a question during the work session about the moon tree and was told that that tree will have to come out in this. But it looks like on the site plan that the parking lot will be retained and that tree sits kind of projecting into the parking lot. Is there some specific reason why that tree would come out? Is the construction going to impede on its roots? Is it an aging tree? I mean, I know pine trees don't necessarily live that long.

We are very lucky because we have a former arborist for this government who's in the manager's office. So, Andrew Saunders, I'm going to turn to you to talk a little bit about pine root systems. Sure.

I think the public will want to know up front what the deal is.

So, Commissioner Link, you're correct that the building does not directly sit on top of the moon tree. It's best we can approximate moon tree adjacent. Pine trees are not known to be very tolerant of construction damage. Even driving over the root system and not actually digging it up or disrupting it can be enough to cause a pine to decline or die. And so we can give more specifics as we get into that schematic design phase, but I'll just tell you now, I bet I'd lunch for all of you that we won't land on a design that will provide enough space for any arborist to say, yeah, there's a high chance this tree will survive. And so instead, we focused our efforts on how we might preserve offspring of the moon tree and also had some discussions on if it does in fact go, how we might use the wood in the project itself.

And I also think that even though the plan at the stage we're at right now shows that service parking lot essentially in its same configuration, same location, as the design actually evolves, I fully expect nothing else. The parking lot's going to be reconstructed. stay as it is so construction will be all across the entirety of that of that site which would make it even less likely that the tree would would actually survive so I don't you know right now we're working off of blocks and you know kind of massing in different areas it's still very conceptual and I genuinely do believe that while the building won't encroach construction will encroach on it I appreciate staff propagating an entire moon family for us so Andrew what is the

The expected lifespan of a loblolly pine in an urban environment, do you have anything?

Well, in college, they used to tell me that the average urban tree lived eight years, but I think that accounts for the fact that a ton of people kill baby trees. A loblolly pine in an urban environment usually is going to go between 40 and 50 years, depending on how much soil it has and how much disturbance it sees. And 70 to 80 years would be an exceptionally long-lived pine tree. We've got tree-a-pea here tonight.

And this guy's pushing 55 at this point, right? Yeah. Was it planted in what, 72, 74, something like that?

It was in the Apollo mission, so definitely in the 70s.

Yeah, okay.

71, a very good year.

Okay. I also, during the work session, you know, we talked about the actual design of the building, you know, the skin of the structure itself. and the need for some kind of upfront stakeholder involvement in that. I just want to reiterate that need. We really need, this building is going to be a real focal point and centerpiece of our community and probably symbolic of our community. Often courthouses are, they show up on the postcards. So I just want to make sure that we have that stakeholder community and that includes not only neighbors to the property, but folks with some expertise in design, historic preservation, something like that, that understand urban design and the need for a real iconic structure that blends in with the vibe of Athens.

Yeah, and we will definitely, as a part of this effort, once it is clear that we're proceeding in this direction, we will put together kind of the community engagement component of this, which will include those kinds of stakeholder involvements, as well as general community, as well as how we're going to update through the website and others. And as I mentioned, I think in the work session, I would also anticipate that will shift when we move from design into construction because the folks that will be most interested in construction might be a bit different than those that would be interested in design. But, yes, that will be a work product as we proceed forward with everything as well.

Great.

Thanks to both of you. John, you had another question.

I just had a comment. We were talking about the arena. I hope we – look at the lessons we learned with the construction of the arena, and we're clear on contracts and one person within the government who's overseeing that and holding them accountable. So we all know what's going on along the way, because there's a lot of money.

DAVID BURRAGE. One very real example of that is there's a healthy amount of funding in the contingency and anticipation of there being rock that we need to deal with in the area, which I think Both is something that was experienced at the arena, but also experienced with our neighboring property with the Bethel redevelopment where they're currently blasting. Fortunately, the way the site works, we don't have to go very deep because it drops down, but there will be some of that. So I think that's one of those examples.

I think that's a great point.

Who's on first? We need to know.

All right.

All right, item number 27 is title only, but it's acceptance of the Harold Rittenberry signature piece that's going to be the sculpture placed in College Square. Downtown Development Authority has been the liaison there, and we're going to go ahead and get that donation agreement parallel with those that we normally have. 28, also title only, but that's the dedication of this block. It reads the Costa Park, but it's going to be the entire block that we're currently in as a park, so changing the designation from G to P. And then item 29 is our budget, and again, given that the schedule we're on needed to be slightly longer than it is some years, we'll have the voting meeting on June 2nd. We'll have the budget approval on June 9th. Oh, I love it.

I would love it.

Have we gotten the final tax digester? Is that still coming into focus? I do not think it's been finalized yet.

I know we've got a ballpark.

Yeah, and I still feel pretty good about that number that we've shared with you all.

So this will not be on the agenda next Tuesday?

So it will actually be on the agenda, but the recommendation will be for approval on June 9th.

But for the budget, Carol.

Yeah.

But it will be listed. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, because you also have meetings on the 2nd, 4th, and 9th. 2nd, 4th, and 9th.

We've got those hearings.

That's right. All right, everybody. Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor? We'll be good. Thanks, everybody. Good job tonight.

There's food.

There is food.