City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you to the City of Fayetteville City Council meeting for June the 18th. Again, we thank you, if you are citizens who have gathered here to See the city council working with our staff to set policy and procedures and guide our city into a more progressive future. Again, here in the city of Fayetteville, we open up our meetings with an invocation or a prayer. Then we ask if you would stand and cite our Pledge of Allegiance. Tonight, I've asked Councilman Spurlock to give us our invocation. And if you don't mind, I'm turning it over to him.

Thank you, Mayor. Let us take a moment to pause and reflect. May we approach this session with clarity, humility, and a spirit of service to the people of Fayetteville. Grant us the wisdom to make decisions that promote fairness, unity, and the well-being of our community. May our words be thoughtful and our actions guided by integrity.

Amen.

Amen. Please stand. Side House Pledge of Allegiance. 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, Councilman Spurlock. And ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here again here for the city council meeting. The agenda has been prepared. And if you want a hard copy of the agenda, you can see our city clerk or assistant city clerk can get one. but it is also displayed on the monitors behind us so you can follow along. At this time, I'm going to ask if there's any motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Properly moved and seconded. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposers, nay. Also, we'd like to approve the minutes of several meetings, the approval of the minutes for the May 21st, 2026 City Council meeting. What is your pleasure? Second. Properly moved and second. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Abstainers have the same privilege. The approval of the minutes for the June 2nd, 2026 City Council meeting. What is your pleasure? Properly moved and seconded. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposers? Nay. And the approval of the minutes of the June 4th City Council Work Session. What is your pleasure? Second. Moved and seconded. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposers? Nay. All right, ladies and gentlemen, as always, we always love to do recognitions and presentations, and today we have a special presentation. I'm going to ask the council members to come from the dears, and we're going to ask our own Senator Kenya Wicks to come and stand up. after having served not only in the United States Army for almost 30 years, but also when she served by serving her predecessor who was . And we are so proud because of the work that she's already done in the second year, right? Second year under the legislation operating under Nicole Doan. She has earned the respect of many under the Gold Dome, as well as in our community. It is good to recognize that the VFW, Veterans of the Foreign War, have instituted their inaugural, the Department of Georgia State Legislature of the Year Award. And Senator Kenya Wicks, even in her only the second The city of Fayetteville will let you know how proud we are of you. You represent us well under the dome. And we say thank you so much for your certain leadership. This is truly deserving of a just reward.

Let's give a hard round of applause. I just want to thank the city of Fayetteville and all of my colleagues for All right.

All right, we have some additional acknowledgements. New employees and employee promotions representing the municipal court. Our municipal court manager, Ms. Whitney Houston, is going to come forward. And then after that, representing our police department, Captain David Cable is going to come and make a presentation on behalf of the police department. Whitney? Hi.

Hi. Mayor, council, citizens. I just love saying that name. Whitney Houston. I'm Whitney Houston. I'm the Municipal Court Manager of the wonderful Municipal Court of Fayetteville. I wanted to introduce our new team members. We have Diamond Corbett. She is the Administrative Clerk. And Steven Williams. He's our Pretrial Services Clerk. This is Diamond. This is Steven. Thank you all. They are doing wonderful, and we're happy to have them.

So welcome. Did you get in on the municipal clerk's recognition last week?

Yes, she did. Get free lunch? She did.

All right. How about that?

She has to get her shakes.

All right, Captain David Cagle, Police Department.

Evening, Mayor, Council, City Manager, guests, citizens.

I am proud to announce the hiring of a bunch of new officers that the city has so graciously allowed us to. After a careful vetting process and background investigation on all of them, we're proud to announce that we hired or from other agencies that came to us with previous experience. So, word is out there, we're the place to be now. So, we didn't go out and actively recruit, they came and sought us. So, they know we have a support city council, blessed to work in this community, and we have a strong culture here that they want to become a part of, and we're glad to bring them aboard. One of them is Officer Boyd King, she's actually still out working a call right now, but the other ones stand up. Got Tevin Jones, Nelson Pierre Lewis, and Nathaniel Sandrich. They're coming to us with previous experience from a jurisdiction just north of us. I'd like to welcome them aboard. Also, in the hiring process, we decided to go ahead and put two recruits into the academy that were not certified. Stand up, Mr. Max Almanza, Mr. Marion Browning, and they come to us, and we're going to put them in the academy in July, and they'll graduate sometime toward the end of this year, and then go right into an FTO process there.

Outstanding.

Yes, and we also have some promotions to announce as well.

I like how you said jurisdiction, just the north of us.

Yeah, just north of us.

Why don't you guys, the new guys, come on down, and we're going to take a picture of all of you, our public information folks will do that, along with our local media. Just welcome. You come and shake council members' hands. We'd love to get to at least say thank you and welcome.

Again, let's welcome them to the...

So I've got a letter from the chief that he wanted me to read to you guys. Good evening, Mayor and Council, members, city manager, fellow directors, and citizens. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support for the Fayetteville Police Department, as well as all city employees and citizens who we proudly serve. I hate that I had to miss this council meeting for two important reasons. First, I want to personally acknowledge the promotions of Lieutenant Darius Lett. Throughout his tenure with the police department, Lieutenant Lett has faced adversity on several occasions. Rather than allowing these experiences to define him, he has used these opportunities for growth. He has been willing to be vulnerable with fellow employees by sharing both his challenges and lessons learned. Lieutenant Lett is truly one of a kind and a well-rounded law enforcement professional. He always carries a smile, remains calm in critical situations, and demonstrates a genuine passion for serving others in this profession. On a lighter note, do not leave any unclaimed sweets around because he will claim them in a heartbeat. I would also like to congratulate Sergeant Georgie, Vanessa Georgie, Corporal Charles Bush, and Corporal Cedric Cothran on a well-deserved promotions. I'll get to them in just a minute. Again, I apologize for missing tonight's council meeting. Major Dunn and I are in Quantico, Virginia, attending the graduation of Major Chad Myers from the FBI National Academy. We are honored to be here supporting him as he completes this prestigious achievement. As always, thank you for your continued support for the Fayetteville Police Department and the city of Fayetteville. So that's kind of echoed throughout our agency, as Captain Cagle just mentioned. Just to mention really quick to keep this brief, Charles Bush. Charles Bush came from Clayton County Police Department with prior experience, of course. December of 2019, he came here in October of 2024. He's done a phenomenal job. He has an excellent work ethic, takes pride in everything he does. He shows tremendous leadership. for the younger officers that have recently come on with the agency. His experience has shown and continues to show each day. He is very humble. He accepts constructive criticism, whether it's good or bad, extremely well. Officer Bush is now assisting our training division with the defensive tactics portion of our in-service class, which is the Tracy survival stuff. And that's now Corporal Bush. Cedric Hawthorne, he has a little bit more experience. He started with Faribault back in 2015, left the city of Faribault and went to Coweta County Sheriff's Department where he spent some years there. He got out of law enforcement for a few years and decided that he still had the itch. And he decided that Fayetteville was the place. Just to mimic what Captain Cagle said, we are now the agency that people want to come to, which is what we have wanted for a long time. It's been well-deserved. Corporal Cawthorn is tremendous leadership, has qualities, tremendous qualities as leadership, works great with the younger officers. He's driven, he's focused, he's goal-oriented, and he knows, and he set himself up to be where he is now and progress. Sergeant Vanessa Georgie.

Come on up here.

Come on up here with her, Lett. So Sergeant Georgie started her career here with the city of Fayetteville as a non-certified officer, like the two that we're gonna send to the academy. She started here a long time ago. She went to the Georgia Public Safety Training Center where she graduated in June of 2019. After she graduated, she finished a 12-week FTO program, and she decided that she wanted to try some or broaden her horizon. So she spent 12 very long hours of treacherous training to become a member of my SWAT team. So she is now currently a SWAT team member. She's the only female that is on my team, and to be quite honest, she's one of the better shots. So I commend her for that. She has to be. Sergeant Georgie received her FTO certification in August. She was promoted to or got her FTO in April of 2024, promoted to corporal in August of the same year, and has trained several different people who are currently progressing very well with the agency. And then we have Lieutenant Lett. I'm just gonna say this and then I'm gonna try to get something off my chest. Started his career with the police department as a non-certified officer as well back in 2016. He attended and graduated the basic mandate program at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in June of 2017. I started the Georgia Public Trafficking Center in March of 2017, so I was one of his training lieutenants as a coordinator there. That's where I first met Lieutenant Lead. And I have to say, it's been a real honor to be around this young man the length of time that I have. Anyway, September 2020, he obtained a field training certifications where he could train other officers. Two years after that, in October, he was promoted to the rank of corporal. He trained several officers that now hold rank and are attached to specialty units. During that same month, Darius II spent 12 very long, treacherous hours to become part of the SWAT team, which he did. He did great. It is my honor to be able to look at Lieutenant Lead and call him a lieutenant. He has come through numerous adversities, and for him to come out the way that he's come out is a mark on his character. He's a truly, truly wonderful young man. So I'm very, very proud of him. I'm very, very proud to call Sergeant Vanessa Georgie a sergeant, Charles Bush, and Cedric Hawthorne.

Thank you very much, Captain. I appreciate you. Listen, one of the things I have found in my 30 years living here in Fayetteville is that, to say it many times, we have the best police department in the state of Georgia. And it's reflective of that, as you can see, not only do we promote from within high quality officers, we also recruit high quality officers because they know this is the place to come where we take good care of the officers and give them everything that they need to be the professionals that they must be to encounter and to interact with the citizens of the city of Fayetteville. To protect and serve is just a small, a statement of what they do. They go beyond. So I think every one of these officers, the new ones, as well as those being promoted, deserves a thunderous round of applause for the work they do.

I just wanted to say, don't be fooled by Sergeant Georgie's height. She and I, several years back, used to lift some very weights together, doing CrossFit, throwing the heaviest weights, dead lifting over 300 pounds together, really grunting. So I know that she's more than capable, and I've known her for many years.

Thank you very much. Let's get a picture of everyone who's gotten promoted, who's here.

Let's have you all stand one more time, please. On the count of three. One, two, and three. And hold one more.

Last three. One, two, three. Thank you all. Congratulations.

Lieutenant Lett makes all of us look like a midget, George.

He's a monster.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we need to move on to conduct the business, and now we're shifting to public hearings. Tonight, we'll be having the first hearing of ordinance number 26019, our fiscal year 2027 budget, presented by our county manager, Austin.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Good evening, Karen.

We're here to present you the first reading of the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget. This is going to be the first reading of the budget, and then we will meet again on July 16th to read the second reading of the budget following the voting to potentially adopt the budget. We've met with city staff, department heads, and you all several times to collaborate and develop this budget, and I feel like we've came in here with a conservative budget that is meeting the priorities and the needs of the citizens of Fayetteville. So in developing the fiscal year 2027 budget, at the end of fiscal year 25, council met with city manager and department head and staff to develop some priorities that wanted to see move forward in the city of Fayetteville. And from that meeting, 15 projects came about. Of those 15 projects, we've completed several projects, but a lot of these have really taken shape and will be implemented in fiscal year 2027. Of these projects, we have a total estimated cost of $79 million of infrastructure that we're going to be improving throughout the city. This includes Fire Station 93, the development of the 38 acres, the building of the police and municipal headquarters, Developing multi-use trails throughout the city along with city center parkway. We're gonna be expanding and renovating public works headquarters. And then also putting gateway signage throughout the city to update our signs to be more current. As well as the beer garden and the alleyway project in downtown Fayetteville. Of these projects, we have different funding mechanisms that we'll be utilizing to fund these projects. We have 2017 SPLOST, our 2023 SPLOST, impact fees, fund balance, as well as we're going to be issuing some bonds in fiscal year 27. Moving on to all fund summary, fiscal year 2026 we adopted a budget of $55 million and $595,000. We're proposing tonight for fiscal year 2027 a budget of $66,484,000. This is a net change of 19.5% from fiscal year 26. The largest budgets that you'll see in this proposed budget is going to be the operating budget of General Fund, Capital Projects Fund, and our Enterprise Fund Water and Sewer. Moving to General Fund, fiscal year 2026 adopted budget was $29,450,000. Tonight we're proposing a fiscal year 27 budget of $36,997,000. That is a variance of $7.5 million. And then going into the revenue sources, taxes account for 71.5% of our budget, and that's a variance of $3.2 million. License and permitting accounts for 17.98% in the budget, which is $6.65 million for fiscal year 27. We had some reductions in intergovernmental receivable revenues, as well as funds and forfeitures and investment income. You'll see that large drop in investment income for fiscal year 27 due to, we'll be utilizing a lot of fund balance in fiscal year 27, so our reserves will be dropping and we won't have that cash in the bank to earn that interest revenue from. So when you see that we have 71.5% of taxes, this is not all derived from property tax. On this slide here, you'll see that there's different funding mechanisms that make up property tax. You have your real property, personal property, ad valorem, franchise fees, local option sales tax, and business taxes. Of the property taxes, only 24% of that is your property tax. We're proposing $8.9 million with a variance of $226,000 from fiscal year 26, and that is a 3% increase, which we expected to see on our tax digest for 2026. The next largest income that you'll see is gonna be our franchise fees, is with our electricity. And we did see a large increase in this due to power usage from the west side. So we anticipate that that revenue will just grow larger in fiscal year 27 as more buildings come online at QTS. We also saw a large growth in business and occupational tax. In fiscal year 26, we adopted a budget of $1.75 million for occupational tax. In fiscal year 27, we're proposing to adopt the budget for $3.9 million. And this, as well as the development of the Westside and business license that are being generated from the properties that are out, including QTS.

Question. Where exactly is our reserve shown in this report, or is it shown?

It is not shown, but as our fiscal year 2025 audited financial statements, we have $30 million in reserves. But as you all know, when we develop a budget, you have to account for 25% of fund balance to be appropriated to fund this balance. So of that $30 million, $9.2 million has to be set aside to fund budget in case of an emergency or anything. And then on the slide that you saw before we're going to be utilizing about 13 million dollars of fund balance so we'll have about 7 million dollars once some of the projects are finished and we complete fiscal year 26. So we asked departments going into fiscal year 27 what are our major priorities we want to accomplish in fiscal year 27. We met with departments several times, and this is a kind of an outlay what was designed and when they developed their expenditures. In general government, the key priority we wanted to see was some public art initiatives in City Hall. We also wanted to enhance our cybersecurity for internal control for protecting the city, as well as a city beautification program to keep Bethel beautiful and help the community get involved in that strategy and keep Bethel clean. In public safety, we really focus on crime suppression unit, a traffic control unit, and then a squad rescue vehicle options for the public, as well as doing a community outreach program and expanding code enforcement and then increasing staff levels in public safety to serve the public. In housing and economic development, some big priorities that we're going to accomplish is the Highway 85 corridor study, a sports feasibility study, and then the comp plan, UDO, and annexation strategy. In public services in our parks and rec areas, you're going to see improvements to Church Street Park bathrooms and the basketball courts. You're gonna see some upgrades in the city center park with a splash pad and some other features that we're gonna be putting in a permanent stage, as well as multi-use trail program. When going into fiscal year 27, we knew that we were gonna be kind of limiting hiring positions due to all the capital that was gonna be taking place, but we knew that there were some areas that needed some filling of positions, so we have hired the deputy city clerk, municipal court clerk, a full-time warrant bailiff, a director for community development, a planner, tourism manager, compliance officer, code enforcement officer, and then 12 public safety positions. So after discussing all that, expenses by division, the general government were proposing a $6.2 million budget with a variance of $956,000. from fiscal year 26 to 27. We've accounted for, in this budget, a lot of costs that touch citywide that multiple departments use, so we've put that budget in one place so we can account for it and track for it better. In judicial services, we're asking to propose a budget of $1,076,000. This is a variance from fiscal year 26 of $219,000, and that is just the additional staff that we've hired in court, as well as some professional service increased costs we're gonna see in fiscal year 27. Public safety, in fiscal year 26, we had adopted a budget of $15.3 million. In 27, we're proposing $18.3 million, which is a variance of $3 million. The largest cost of that is to staff 12 public safety officers in the department, and the associated costs that were to bring on additional staff. In recreation, we saw an increase of $24,000 from an adopted budget of $283,000 in the school year of 26 to $308,000. This is to maintain the parks and the staff that we pay for. budget is housing and development. This is where we pay for our QTS, like our Safe Built services. We adopted a budget of $2.5 million in 26 as in 4.9. And this is just the offset of the revenues that we collect in for the building permits. We have that contract with Safe Built that we pay the expenditures on. And other financing uses, we adopted a budget of 3.1 in 26, and in 27, we're at $4,013,000. Of that increase of $901,000, that's going to be just your debt service payments that are going to fund the bond proceeds that we're going to be issuing March of 2026. So of that budget, 62.1% of the budget is personal services and benefits, so salary, wages, payable. 23% is contract services, 5% supplies, 8.8% debt service, and then 0.3% for other financing uses. Moving on to our capital projects fund, we have an adopted budget in fiscal year 26 of $5,040,000. We're proposing in fiscal year 27, $6,415,000. Of those differences in capital projects, we're funding a million dollars of fund balance here or property taxes to do some projects out at the beer garden and in any other infrastructure that we need to update in our capital outlay. We did not increase anything in an impact fee fund. We're going to have an adopted budget from fiscal year 26 of $1,350,000. Then our TADD fund was $900,000 in fiscal year 26. We're proposing in fiscal year 27 $1,265,000 with a variance of $365,000. That budget increase is we're seeing a collection of TADD revenues of property taxes that are allocated Special revenue funds, this is our confiscated asset fund, hotel, motel, vehicle rental, downtown development, and main street tourism fund. We had a adopted budget in fiscal year 26 of $3,283,000. We're proposing tonight $4,814,000 with a variance of $1,531,000. Other special revenue changes. Priorities and changes that happen with the hotel motel fund, we saw an increased amount of collections in our hotel motel revenues, and so those revenues will offset our Main Street tourism fund. Same with the vehicle excise tax, we've seen a little bit of collections there, and those funds fund our downtown development fund. In the DDA, some of the priorities that were talked about and discussed is the development of some downtown properties and removal of existing businesses, buildings. And then in Main Street Tourism Fund, we had new staffing for our tourism manager. And then we're gonna be relocating Main Street Economic Development to the Walton property down in the city. We also have some place-making public art initiatives for downtown and in our city's center park, as well as maintaining the downtown lighting poles for the Christmas lights and everything that's gonna go on in the downtown square. Moving on to our enterprise funds, we had an adopted budget at fiscal year 26 of $17,820,000. We're proposing $18,255,000 with a variance of $434,000 for fiscal year 27. The largest increase is going to be our solid waste fund. We are going to be seeing a rate increase as well as fuel charges in that fund, as well as our self-funded insurance plan. We saw an increase of costs here just due to the additional staffing from fiscal year 26 to 27. And that's all I have if anybody has any questions.

All right. Excellent job, Karen. Thank you very much. Questions from the council for Ms. Austin?

We've seen it before, but at this time, we really appreciate it. Are there any questions from any of the citizens? Please give us your name.

Scott Stacy, 330 Virginia Highlands. I do live within the city limits. The question that I have is on the stormwater. Is that $12 million strictly for stormwater?

No, that's water, sewer, and stormwater. So the enterprise fund is a compilation of all those.

Because there's a $40 million time bomb out there. And with this extra money that you have this year from QTS, I would say that that's probably a good allocation is to start chipping away at that. Just a suggestion.

Thank you, Mr. Stacey. Appreciate it. Thought you were going to offer to pay for it. Any other questions from the citizens? Hearing none, we'll move on. This is first hearing. We'll have two more additional hearings before we bring it before adoption. Moving on to the next item, consider resolution number 26R22, the adoption of the 2026 Downtown Fayetteville Creative Placemaking Livable Centers Initiative, LCI. Presented by our senior planner, Ms. Marissa Jackson.

I don't know what's going on.

There's a new microphone.

They changed things around on me. Good evening. You will recall that we discussed this item at the work session on June 4th. So this resolution is to officially adopt the downtown Fayetteville creative placemaking plan. I won't go through the whole presentation again here since we went through it last time. But to summarize, this project was initiated in 2024 in partnership with the Atlanta Regional Commission. The main focuses are public art process for downtown with additional emphasis and focus on pedestrian comfort. Adopting it includes the establishment of the Fayetteville Arts District Public Arts Committee. It has locations for public art, types of public art recommendations. Shade, including trees and structures, benches and resting places. It has some really important pedestrian improvements that will make it more comfortable to move around downtown. Ray finding recommendations and proposed funding sources. And I am here to answer any questions that you may have.

Let me comment first and say that after reading, trying to read through all of that, it's an exhaustive document. But you guys did a very good job of prioritizing. And I think Mr. Stacy came up and talked about the stormwater. We'll make sure that we can allocate the funds that you need to make some of these things happen. Not all of them, because there's a competing, you know, for the funds that are available. Any other comments from council members?

Exciting. I think it formally, is that correct? It formally designates the Fayetteville Arts District, right? Yes. Yeah.

Questions from council are there any questions from the citizens on this matter? Seeing and hearing none ladies gentlemen council members. What is your pleasure with resolution 26 R 22? Properly moved and second any unreadiness call for the vote all those in favor signify by saying aye Any opposers nay? job well done Make it happen. Consider resolution number 26R31, the adoption of the Capital Improvement Element, or CIE, 2026 annual update, presented by Ms. Paige Hently. How you doing, Paige?

I'm fine, thank you, Mayor. Good to have you back again. Thank you, I appreciate it, Mayor and Council. I was here not too long ago to present the draft annual update to your Capital Improvements Element before it was transmitted to the Department of Community Affairs for review. They have approved it, and so now tonight is just the final step of adoption. Just as a reminder, the annual update report is required of all communities that collect impact fees. So it is an important annual maintenance requirement as far as collecting and spending impact fees. And for Fayetteville, that's projects pertaining to police, fire, parks, and road improvements. So the annual update provides a status to the state as to where those projects are, where the projects specifically that were identified in your 2018 capital.

It's getting exciting.

It's such a stimulating topic. Status of projects that were originally identified in the master CIE capital improvements element that was adopted in 2018 and is still in effect. Your long range document that identifies capital projects that are needed to support development over the coming decades. The annual update tells the state what's the status of those projects. Have there been any changes in terms of dates or project costs estimates. And then for the last fiscal year, what was spent, what was collected and then what was spent in terms of impact fees. So again, this is the final step until we do this again next year. There is no public hearing that's required for adoption. And once the adoption resolution is approved, that will be moved on with the final annual update to DCA so that they can extend the city's qualified local government status for another year. in advance of the June 30th deadline that D.C. establishes for you all each year.

Thank you, Ms. Hadlick. Thank you.

Questions for Ms. Hadlick from the council? Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to come and be with us again. You're from North Atlanta, right? Yes. Okay.

Good luck. Exactly. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Council members, what is your pleasure of Resolution 26R31? Properly moved and seconded. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposers, name. And consider resolution number 26R36, local act of local home option sales tax or L-host referendum to provide a homesteading from Fayetteville ad valorem taxes presented by our city manager, Mr. Ray Gibson.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. How do I get the presentation up? Oh, here it is. Must be a rookie at this. Well good evening mayor and council good evening as you're all aware the governor called the special special special session To hear a number of items and one of those items was the L host the local homestead option sales tax And what this local option local homestead option sales tax is is a 1% local option sales tax authorized by Senate bill 33 we all remember Senate bill 33 from the 2026 legislative session So it requires the General Assembly to pass the Elhos. Apparently, in talking to Senator Wicks, who I greatly appreciate her efforts to move this bill for us at the legislature, will probably be heard tomorrow. Not tomorrow, on Monday. But I'm hearing on Monday of next week. And what it is, is the Fay County has to have one, and all the municipalities have to have a resolution passed. And that's what we're talking about tonight for this document. And so what it is, is that the residents would be eligible for a tax break on their property taxes, their homestead property taxes. And that's for owner-occupied residents. Now if we collect enough to pay the entire homestead property tax, we will pay that. And if there's additional money left over, we will use those funds to help offset the millage rate for non-homestead. properties. So I think this is going to be a good bill. The I think will work for us. We haven't run a lot of numbers on it just yet, but we think it will be beneficial for the city of Fayetteville. And so there has to be a referendum. And so tonight you're going to be we're asking you to adopt the resolution to pass the referendum, which we will automatically forward or quickly forward to our legislative delegation at the Capitol for support. If you have any questions, I'm here to answer those. And I know it's been kind of a rushed process. Came up with the last moment. And I think, Patrick, there's 150 different bills up there for this LHOS currently.

We have to find a way to offset the potential loss. This is the best way to do it. It's a no-brainer. Comments from the council? Questions from the citizens on this? Hearing none, council members, what is your pleasure with resolution number 26R36?

Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any unreadiness? Call for the vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposers, nay. Thank you, City Manager, Mr. Gibson. New business, consider resolution 25R33, 2027 Comprehensive Plan Consultant Bid Award, presented by Ms. Catherine Prickett.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. How are you? At the end of April, the City issued a request for proposals for seeking qualified firms for performing professional planning services, specifically for comprehensive plans. We received three competitive bids. The staff evaluation committee reviewed and scored each of the proposals with evaluation criteria in the RFP. Based on the evaluation scores and interviews that were conducted, Blue Cypress Consulting was identified as the most qualified firm. Blue Cypress has submitted to the city a scope of services with a fee proposal in the amount of $131,560. The staff recommends adoption of Resolution 26R33. awarding the Comprehensive Plan Update Contract to Blue Cypress Consulting.

Thank you, Catherine.

Questions for Ms. Prickett?

Ms. Bittawood? Mayor, I just want to add that the Fay County is also looking to coordinate with, I believe, with Blue Cypress to enter into a contract with them so we can work together on the document.

Let's see, we can work with the county. Any questions from the citizen?

Hearing none.

Council members, what is your pleasure with 26R33?

Move it in second year. Any readiness? All those in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposers, nay. Thank you, Catherine. Consent agenda items, ladies and gentlemen. 26R04, excuse me. City of Fayetteville lease agreement would walk Fayetteville LLC, and 26R35 Trillith Live Hotel Motel Tax Agreement. What is your pleasure with this consent agenda items, council members?

Move. Move and second. Any unreadiness?

Call for the vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposers, nay. As we close out, ladies and gentlemen, reports and comments. City Manager?

thank you mayor council um i have a number of them tonight first and foremost uh happy belated birthday to council member emma stirlock celebrated his i'm not going to say his age june 13th his birthday on june 13th um i do i also want to send our sincere condolences to the family of harlan shirley former council member who passed last week um i believe over the weekend and his services will be this saturday at two o'clock um Municipal Court Clerk's Week was last week, so let's thank the municipal court clerks for all the wonderful work they do to keep this forward. And then Friday, tomorrow is a holiday, so we'll be closed in honor of Juneteenth. And June 30th, Tuesday, June 30th, will be our next webinar for mental health, advisory board webinar. Topic's gonna be men's mental health, breaking the silence. And then Friday, July 3rd was in honor of July 4th holiday. And on July 4th, we'll be having our big celebration here at City Center from 5 to 9 p.m. And one last item, I do want to recognize our fire department for their excellent work with the Youth Fire Academy last week. And we have a video to share with the community.

Thank you so much, and God bless each and every one of you.

21 students participate in the program this year, so great work. I'm going to ask Chris to come forward, Chris Hyman. I want to embarrass him a little bit. Someone brought up the other day, you know, we want to celebrate our victories. And Chris, you all know we opened, well, we didn't open, but U.S. Soccer opened a couple months ago.

Thanks, KJ.

U.S. Soccer opened a couple months ago. And in order for U.S. Soccer to open, we had to get sewer to that project. And I want to give kudos to Chris for his oversight and project management over that project because it got delivered on time.

and other issues here and there but he did a wonderful job and i want to give him kudos thank you for that for that excellent work don't bring out the other project i'm going to thank you chris chris i actually went to a special event and they actually complimented that well good i'm glad yes they did i'm glad it's being noticed because without the sewer they would not be there

we're talking a lot more as a team though we we you know there's some negative press out there on us sometimes we want to make sure that we celebrate our victories that move the city forward on a weekly basis so a lot to acknowledge at this time city council members anything to report nothing to report just want to say happy father's day to all of us out here thank you dr

There is a June 19th celebration. It starts at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning on the square. And they've got a full day of activities there. As a matter of fact, I think our council member.

Council Member Spurlock is keynote speaker.

I'd like to say I'm so looking forward to the 250th celebration of our nation. So looking forward to the event here out on the lawn.

city center park that our city is putting anyone else anything else to report mayor's comments i just wanted to acknowledge the junior firefighting summer camp um i was uh here for the graduation 21 that's the largest class, I think, that we've had over the years. So these young people were excited, and I know they learned a lot, and they had a lot of fun. So thank you for the city for supporting them. And I guess the VFW supported them with the purchasing the T-shirt and some of the food. So I want to thank any member of the VFW for doing that. And Juneteenth, again, we hope that you will come out tomorrow and celebrate on the square. Okay? Lots of activities, lots of vendors, and we hope that we come and celebrate the richness of the diversity of the city of Fayetteville. At this time, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to open up for citizens' comments. If you want to come forward and address the council, constructive criticism, complaints, or accommodations, we accept them all. No one has anything to bring forward for the council today? City Manager, do we need to go to executive session? We do.

We need real estate and litigation.

Okay. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here. We need to go to executive session for litigation and real estate. And at this point, I'm going to entertain a motion to do so.

So moved. Second.

Properly moved and seconded. Have a wonderful evening. We will report back out. You don't have to stay around if you do not have the time. Thank you so much for being here.