City Council - Regular Meeting

It's really just a map. Hey,

Um, does anybody see Beacon Ivy out there for those of us who are not wearing my glasses? Okay. Um, that being said, please bow your heads. Dear Lord, thank you so much for allowing us to come in uh tonight to to serve you and to serve the fine citizens of the city of Monroe. Please let us, Lord, act in their best interest at all times. Please be with us and guide us to make the proper decisions that you would have us to make for the betterment of our people. Please be with us as we act in a manner that's pleasing in your sight. We thank you for listening to our prayer. Amen. I'm going to call this meeting to order of the March 11th, uh, 2025 city council meeting for the city of Monroe. Um, let the record reflect that all members of council are present. We are missing Mr. Boyce. Uh, he works out of town, so we're hoping he kind of comes in on two wheels. I need a motion of the approval of the agenda, please. So, move. Have a motion by Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Second by Miss Crawford. All in favor signify by saying I. I all oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Uh the the consent agenda this month is council minutes from November January February 11th uh February 11th executive session minutes. Uh November 19th planning commission and January 28th historic preservation commission minutes. I need an approval of the consent agenda, please. I like that motion, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Um, next I have uh a proclamation to read and a and a presentation. Um, anybody know the song by Bruce Springsteen? Uh, sits his son

up in his lap and he sings about, you know, showing his his hometown. He said, "This is this is where we live and this is why we behave in the manner that we do." You know, everybody has a Facebook persona, right? You have the the negative. You have the cynical. You have uh the I call it the Jesus Jesus Jesus. It's like, "Oh, pray for me." You have the vague where folks say, "Why does it have to be so hard?" And everybody reaches out like, "Oh, what are you doing? You know, you're acting for asking for attention." Well, in the in the John Howard Facebook realm, it is Mr. Happy Positive, apparently. So, I uh decided that I would put a put a note on Facebook and say, "Why do you love Monroe?" And uh, "Welcome, Mr. Boyce." And I had some really, really cool answers. And one um happened to marry a good friend of mine um that her husband and I were in kindergarten together. We went all the way through 11th grade at George Walton until he left me. and he met this cute girl named Stacy Lowe who is now Stacy McCullers and she works with Miss Malcolm and I've asked Lee to read um read what she wrote. You want to go to the front or you do it here? I'll go to the front. Ask Stacy to join Stacy. Thank you for coming. Yes, ma'am. I am quite honored to be asked to read this precious rendering of what is Monroe. Um, not only is TR Stacy a true friend, she's a successful realator and she's a ray of sunshine to everybody she

meets. And I just want you to know that um she's a joy in every realm of my relationship with her. And I know that if you got to know her, you'd feel the same way. She wrote this. She told me as she was sitting drinking her coffee that morning. And it is truly from the heart. What is Monroe? It is my first day of kindergarten. I can remember so vividly the drive from Baker Street to Monroe Primary. Mrs. Smith was waiting. It's Monroe Elementary where the black top seemed like the best gathering place for a fifth grader to skip with friends and forget her worries. It was the lunch lady who saw that little girl and pretended to need her to help make lunches. That lunch lady was my best friend's grandmother and she knew that that little girl with a big smile needed her. It's the place that I see, the parking lot where my friends gathered on any given night. It's our football field, our hallways filled with friends at school. Laughter and bonds that still stand strong today. It's the place where I see my parents and grandparents in my dreams. The grocery store is long gone, but I see my dad unloading milk at the milk truck when he was a young man. the alleyway where the crosswalk is on Court Street. Milaner AOX is now a shiny new business, but it's the place I went with my grandmother to buy those new shoes I wanted. Just out the back door of my office is a four-way stop that I saw my mom on her lunch break. I was in the car with my sitter. She's still 24 every single time I stop at that stop sign. It's the furniture store where my

granddaddy sold his apples and on any given day he would have a story to tell about Mr. Pete. It's Baker Street where my mother's mother always had a ladle of cold water and a clothesline with crisp white sheets. Her rocker on her front porch was always ready for a visitor. It's the place where my church is now. the church where Don and I took our family so they would always look know to look for faith, family, and friends. The place where you find God, but also learn that God is in you once you ask him. Monroe is home. It's the place my family lives. It's the place we said goodbye for now. Monroe is a place that welcomes new people. A promise that if you invite friends, they will come. Monroe is where at any given time you see the people that you've always known, the people that you've just met. Monroe is home and we as a council would like to present you with a Monroe pen and we thank you. Thank you. Would you like to say anything? I would just like to say thank you. question right on time. Well, it was and thank you so much. And I didn't listen to a word she said because I read it this morning and got all teeyed. So, I read the first sentence of this next proclamation while she was reading because here I am putting a sentence together. Thank you so much. And by the way, nobody ever comes in just to see us. So, all these folks here are here to support you. Thank you for coming. Now, if you folks would bear with me for one minute, I have a proclamation to read. Then everybody can head for the head for

the doors. Um we have tonight uh fundraising dinners at Europa for a child's voice and then run over to Scoops to fund an MS awareness group that I'll be talking about right now. So Denise, would you like to step forward please? Denise Neers is a a teacher third grade, correct? At George Walton Academy, uh has been diagnosed with MS last year. Last year, tomorrow. Okay. Um and she has now uh taken it upon herself to be very active uh nationally with with multiple sclerosis awareness. She has uh two daughters, one at Kentucky, right? Both at Kentucky. Graduated from Kentucky two years ago and then a junior at LSU. Okay. South Eastern Conference is well represented uh with a lot of Georgia fans in here uh the University of Florida and uh we're bringing another another couple. So glad y'all are here. Uh would you like to introduce your sidekick? So this is Scott Grimes. Scott also has MS. Um he was the only person outside of myself um that I knew and was actually the first phone call I made that to say okay um you know I I was just diagnosed. what do I need to know? And um so he was my sounding board and um also an educator. So as educators and coaches, the things we do is we lead and we help others. And so I became I've become very involved with the National MS Society. I have my MSW walk team and currently I think I'm at about $2,400 raised for that team for the MS walk here in Atlanta April 5th. Then I'm

doing the MS leadership challenge which is a group to raise awareness bring businesses in to support the National MS Society. Um, so been involved with that and then I'm doing a finish MS in Anaheim, California in September. And I think collectively I've raised at this point for this year $4,500 looking to raise more. A cure is on the line. That is outstanding and thank you for doing that. Uh, so you've jumped in with both feet. Yes, that's what you do. Scott, who's your team? Uh, good. Good answer story. She was she reached out to me and be honest with you taking a couple of blows throughout the years and had kind of way a little bit out and anybody knows her passion and just positive attitude you Great. I owe her. She has she's That is great. Um I'm going to read this proclamation then if somebody has questions if you don't mind answering a couple. Um and if they don't, I think you have something to pass out. So I'll read. Um, I don't do it as well as as Mr. Rosenthal over there, but I'll try my best to do it very quickly. Proclamation with City Monroe, Georgia. Whereas multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease of the central nervous system affecting over 1 million people in the United States alone. And whereas multiple sclerosis generally strikes people in the prime of life between ages 20 and 50. And the cause

and course of the often debilitating symptoms of MS remain unknown and no cure currently exists. And whereas the National Multiple Multiple Sclerosis Society is committed to a world free of MS, heightening public knowledge about an insight into the disease. Whereas together we've transformed what it means to live with MS and provided global leadership to achie help achieve our vision of a world free of MS. And whereas since 1946, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society has been a driving force of MS research, relentlessly pursuing prevention, treatments, and a cure. It has invested more than1 billion dollars in groundbreaking research. And whereas funds raised through the national multiple sclerosis society fuel research on pathways to MS cures and invest in the MS research workforce at the best medical centers, universities, and other institutions throughout the United States and abroad, leading to many breakthroughs in the treatment of MS. And whereas the mission of the National Multiple Scorosis Society is a cure is to cure MS while empowering people affected by MS to live their best lives and one that all Americans in Georgia should support. And whereas the state of Georgia recognized the importance of finding the cause and cure of MS and expresses its appreciation for the dedication of the national national multiple sclerosis society Georgia chapter has shown toward creating a world free of MS. That therefore I John S. Howard by virtue of the authority vested in me as the mayor of the city of Monroe to hereby proclaim March 9th through the 15 2025 as MS awareness week in the city of Monroe. I encourage all citizens to learn about multiple scerosis and what they can do to support individuals with the MS and their families. In witness whereof, I adhere to set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Monroe, Georgia to be a fixed this 11th day of March, 2025. Thank you. This is for you. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions of Denise? I have a comment if I might, Mr. Mayor.

Uh, I know a lot of you know this, but my youngest daughter has MS and has fought it for a decade. The good news is uh she's currently in remission and I truly believe that the cure is close. the medications that uh are coming along now have really changed changed it. Uh you know 15 20 years ago it wasn't exactly a death sentence but it was about that ground. That's no longer uh the scenario. U but we need to find a cure and uh the research needs to be supported. It doesn't need to be cut back. um through government cuts. Um we're just so close to having that that cure. So, and it I know hits home, right? It does. Um thank you for being here, Mr. Mayor. I'd also like to make a comment. I'm sorry. My sister-in-law also has MS. So you can see it's not a disease that is just sporadic. It's it hits a lot of families. I admire you. I appreciate your fight. She has good days and bad days. Uh we've tried to help her as much as we can. And thank you for the proclamation. And I pray for you. Thank you. You too.

[Applause] Now, I don't know uh if any of you or many of you in particular want to sit through how the sausage gets made. You're more than happy more than happy to have you. If you'd like to leave, please feel free. Um, but before you all get up and scatter, there two there are some folks that I do need to to mention. Um, in this room, Mac and Sumors, would y'all please stand? These are Stacy's Stacy's in-laws. I've known these folks since I was four years old. The most wonderful people in the world. Gabe on the front far my far right, your far left is is Donna Stacy's son. Dory Lord right here in the middle, she's my birthday twin. Um, apparently not all people were made looking like this. And on January 24th, one of the prettiest, nicest, sweetest girls I know. So, great for y'all. I'm not finished. Uh, Don Holder and Kim McCull's Holder, Don's older sister and brother-in-law. Um, they were the ones that I looked up to when I was at George Walton Academy in kindergarten and they were, you know, they were like adults. They were the cool kids. So, I'm so glad y'all came tonight and thank you so much. Now, you may go. Thank y'all. Good to see you. Thank you for coming. Thank you, Scott, for coming. We'll be praying for you. Think we'll go ahead and start on

this and I'll speak very slowly. We can move to uh business items. the city administrator report. Thank you, mayor. Um, I'll just bring up one item for your attention. Um, you know, we all went through a lot of work and a lot of explanation, etc. on House Bill 581 and whether we opt in or opt out. um met last week with um Representative Bruce Williamson and uh Representative Ray Martinez who have uh sponsored a bill, House Bill 746 that we just got. It was just dropped yesterday and still kind of evaluating all all the features of it, but um basically it's going to force us into a House Bill 581 opt-in type of provision uh for Walton County municipalities. Um there the only, you know, major change that we kind of negotiated out, this kind of came up while we were at the capital, by the way. Um mayor and I were down there on some other business. um the 3% valuation cap is gone and replaced with just CPI plus an additional um 0.25% or 25 basis point um increase to the to the assessment factor um if that makes any sense. So you can go CPI plus 0.25% 25% um on an annual assessment increase. That's what we would see. Um still trying to kind of go through the rest of this bill and see if there's any any other heartburn items. Um we'll be evaluating that and be in contact with Representative Williamson um as this kind of makes its way through the rest of this session.

This is a piece of local legislation. So, um it is very well sponsored by our local delegation, our entire delegation. Um senators included. I think they're going to take reciprocal action on their side of the house. So, um again, not exactly what we were hoping for, but uh you have to remember too, next year will be the the second year of uh the session. So there's there's two years in each, you know, basically session. And um there was a bill that could have basically forced everybody into uh an opt-in just as it was written and that died, but it could be revived next year with some more draconian provisions. So, we kind of have to to judge whether, you know, this is a a good thing in in some regards um or if it's still just general overreach. Um it's not what we would had hoped for because we do believe it will still provide for long-term inequity um amongst taxpayers here, particularly with renters and homeowners and even with homeowners on the same street over time. there's just going to be a lot of inequity um as the years move forward. Um it is going to be cumbersome on the tax assessments. It's going to be really hard to get you guys a a good I guess a good fiveyear history like we look at on the digest each year before we move into the budget season. It's just going to make things tighten up and be a little bit harder to process uh as we are forced into to an optin basically. So again, uh, we're still evaluating. This just hit yesterday as a a final drop bill and I'll keep you guys ab breast as we move forward.

Thank you, Logan. Any questions? Mr. Bailey, assistant city administrator report, please. Thank you, sir. And I'm going to combine uh central services into this, too. Uh, Mr. Croy is not here with us tonight. Um, I wanted to give kudos to six of his guys that uh religiously cut grass, clear out our parks, keep our uh grounds in order um monthly, daily, weekly, all the time. We have events weekends um work after hours. They uh picked up a little over 6,100 pounds of trash in our parks, rideaways, and from downtown over the past uh month. So, it's just what they do. It's I swear it's like they had a competition uh when I saw the number uh during the month of February. But um hats off to those guys and how hard they work uh rain or shine. Um if you have been by uh the park formerly known as Hammock Park, we've discussed that our Monroe sign is now up. Uh it's lit. It is uh is a very cool addition to our city. Um that was a fun project. weather finally cooperated for us and we were able to get that going. Um airport, we have a state inspection on March 27th. This is a byanual inspection that we go through every other year. Uh everything should be in in good working order. Uh we still have the obstruction uh elephant in the room that we have to remove over the next couple of years. a lot of trees and whatnot on the property and offsite, but that process has started. Um, from procurement side, our TAP grant for North Lumpin, East Highland, and North Broad is currently out to bid. Uh, that closes April 10th. Um, so we should have that back before council. I'm not sure if in April,

probably in May, uh, for acceptance and approval. Uh the hotel RFQ uh the bid close date was moved to May the 5th. So that'll be out for another couple of weeks uh past the original deadline. And now weather. Um car show is scheduled for uh this Saturday. And right now does not look uh very promising uh with bad storms coming in sometime Saturday, which appears to be Saturday afternoon, Saturday later into Sunday morning. Um obviously if you have higher rain percent chances you don't have cars. If you don't have cars you don't have a car show. So um we will try to make a decision so that we can let uh registrants attendees vendors uh business owners downtown know as quickly as we can. Maybe Thursday evening if not uh the last minute we will hold out to is Friday morning first thing. So fingers crossed. Um, everybody do a do not rain dance, please, as often as you can. Um, but the, uh, the rescheduled date, it'll be the following Saturday. And should we get Georgia weather that Saturday, we will pick a day in April and we'll have a 20th annual car show at some point here in the next month, I guess. Um, so yeah, and I'll be glad to take any questions should you have them. Are there any questions, Mr. Bailey? I do have a comment. Yes, sir. appreciate those guys picking up all that trash. Unfortunately, it got there somehow. Yeah. And you know, I I don't know what what the answer is, but uh I just hate to see people throw trash out of their cars and you know, this is a pretty town and it cost a lot of money to pick that trash up. So, you know, I don't know. It's kind of hard to enforce it by law because you got to see them throw it out to write a ticket. So, I just wish folks

would keep the trash in their cars until they get home. Yeah, I totally agree. And and some of these businesses need to be more cognizant as well of the winds and the trash that blows to these detention pond fences and stops, right? Um talked with a group of kids today and the pride that that they're showing in the city right now is so refreshing. And I just wish everybody would share that because you know what? You're not going to throw the letter out if you're respecting your town. Um, so I agree with you, Greg. I think anything we can do to help combat that, we should. Um, any other questions for Chris? Moving to department reports. Um, let's go to code. Mr. Calendarer. Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, I'll be brief just to recap the report that we provided to you this evening. Uh there were no uh planning commission items for the February planning commission hearing that comes on the tail end of the moratorum for the reszones and other public hearing items for COA. So uh there weren't any items to be uh presented to uh the council this evening, but the historic preservation committee uh commission met at the end of the month. There was one request that was heard and approved and then the commission and the staff met u and discussed some of the uh the new um formbbased code and the adoption of the zoning ordinance from December and got some clarification on some of the things that were going on with HPC and how to move forward with some things like signs inside the historic districts in the city. Uh department statistics uh you had some things uh at all increase from the month before like uh permits had gone up. I think there was an increase in some uh amounts that were collected for permits and the inspections were also up. The biggest thing I'll note from the code office last month was the amount of pre-application meetings that we continue to have even though there's no public hearings coming before you guys. That is certainly not indicative

of what's going on behind the scenes. Uh I had eight uh pre-lication meetings for major projects this past month. It doesn't stop regardless of whether or not you have a sewer mortorium. It's irrelevant. People are still wanting to build inside the city of Monroe. And so every single property in this city that is not being developed or currently being developed is got some inquiry or some level of interest on it. It's kind of amazing. So, but that's that's all I have from the code office. Are there any questions for Brad? Thank you, Mr. Calendarer. Mr. Wilson, evening. I will be brief as well. The um not a whole lot of change with the hotel feasibility or sorry, hotel RFQ. Uh that is still open. And I feel like I'm going to say that a few more times and I definitely am because we did extend it. Uh the original close date, I believe, was April 3rd. I didn't write that down here, but uh we extended on on February 26th uh to May 15th. So it'll stay open till 2 p.m. on May 15th for people to um uh submit their their proposals or their intent to propose, but by then they got to submit the proposal. So um and as of right now, we're up to two. So last month we had one, we have two, we now have competition. And so we got a couple of groups that are interested or showing interest and uh and and have let us know that they do officially intend to submit a proposal. So that's good. Um and hopefully that'll continue to grow. We still have a lot that have inquired about it, asked questions that we've actually met with that are actually not part of those two. So we'll see how that goes. Um economic development uh social media I should say it's Facebook now it's social media. Uh but currently as it or as of the time of this report was 2,000 plus followers. So that was up from 1,700 at the last report. So about an 18% increase. Uh had 20 individual posts and then one ongoing ad campaign for the month. Um and then I have established the Instagram page. So it's there. There is an account. There's nothing on it yet. So you don't have to run out and grab it just yet. Uh but it's bring it to Monroe GA number two in there instead of two. Uh so if you want to go look it up and follow, please do. I got a lot of folks that are already doing it. So

that's great. a lot of the the downtown businesses are already f following which is awesome. Um and just trying to to figure out how to best use that. But again, once we get some more buildings available and we got a few that I'm going to go take a look at the next few days, uh get some pictures up on Facebook and we'll probably do the same thing. There'll be individual pictures of course on Instagram the way that works. Uh but we'll start using that uh here pretty soon. So now we can say social media. Um city and downtown business activities. So we had uh seven business edition additions, license editions. uh none of those in the DDA this time. And number of jobs added was 12. Uh again, none of those in the DDA uh by default. And then business license deletions, we had seven. Two of those were in the DDA. Uh and number of jobs lost were 15. And and two of those again were in the DDA. That's all I have. Anybody has any questions? Any questions for Mr. Wilson? Thank you, Brian. Good night. Miss Thompson, finance. Thank you, Mayor. um you have before you the um financial report as of January 2025. Um I won't go over it in detail. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Um just a few things in the finance department. We are still working on the um annual audit with our external auditors Maldin and Jenkins. Um we hope to have final numbers to you um in the next month or so um where they present those financials to you for the 2024 um audit. Um everything has been going really well. Um, we've also got um our new assistant finance director on staff. Um, she came on board about three weeks ago. Um, she's hit the ground running. Um, I know she's bothered a lot of the department heads already trying to get information from them. So, um, she's um, I'm teaching her well. Um, but we're excited to have her. Um, and she's um, going to be a good fit um, for our staff. Um, and also I'd like to point out um, and give kudos to our customer service team and our billing department. Um, anytime there's a big shift in the weather, um, we have a lot of calls come in about changes in consumption and

which therefore is a change in people's utility bills. So, um, just want to give kudos to them that they've handled it very well. Um, and hopefully we won't have any more big shifts in the weather um, going over in the next month or so. But, um, if you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Are there any questions? Finance, audit, employees. Thank you, Beth. Chief Dyes, fire. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, you have before you the incident data from January, which already seems like it was so long ago. We have started out the year extremely busy, especially in comparison to previous years. And happy to answer any questions on anything in that packet if you have them. Uh just some a couple things that we have going on right now. Currently, we're doing uh joint live fire training this week at the training center uh for our personnel and for one of the districts in Walton County with um for our personnel. Walton County EMA has reached out to the FAA and was able to schedule an aircraft emergencies class and we will be hosting one of those here next month in the council chambers which in my career I've never taken an FAA class. So that will be it'll be very interesting and and much needed. Um so that will be good and that will be open up that will be open to all uh jurisdictions around us. Speaking of EMA, the second date for hazard mitigation planning is the 18th just to verify with you on that. And we had a very good turnout uh for from the city and all the different departments at the first meeting which was great. And one last thing, we've already had a few fires this year. One structure fire, one grass fire that led to a uh outbuilding fire and so forth. It originated from folks burning in a burn barrel. And although technically burn barrel burning uh is allowed under the current forestry

regulations, in both instances they were left unattended and we ended up with one house fire and like I said, another brush fire. thankful that we're getting some rain, but I did just want to remind everyone um that Georgia Forestry did away with the requirement for residential burning to require a permit a couple years ago. There's a lot of pros and cons to that. I personally preferred them folks to have to call to get a permit because it also required them to go through a safety checklist. But just to go over that, if you're burning, it can only be um handpiled vegetation. So the idea of burning your trash and everything else, you're not supposed to do that. And on top of that, we're in the city. We have a great department that goes and handles all that. So we shouldn't be doing that anyway. But uh needs to be 25 feet from uh woodlands, at least 50 feet between structures and the fire. Can only be done between sunrise and sunset. has to be staffed the entire time and it also has to have some type of containment including a water hose. So, if all those things had always been in effect, we wouldn't have had a couple of those instances, but just did want to reiterate that. And we will be dealing with this until the burn ban goes into effect uh May 1st. So, and if you run into anything uh questions about that or you see some things that you feel are unsafe, please don't hesitate to call us because it's much easier for us to go out and have a conversation with folks before things are burning. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions for the chief? Thank you, Andrew. Chief Watts. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to highlight some numbers here for the month of January. Uh our calls for service were up uh to 2310. Our officers made a total of 74 arrests. Uh we have year to date

recovered 18 guns off the street. Uh we've conducted 1,140 traffic stops. Uh our traffic units worked uh 66 traffic accidents themselves. Uh and we've done a total of 11,28 area checks. Uh January we did our annual awards banquet. I just kind of want to highlight some of our uh employees on that. Our admin employee of the year was uh Corporal Steven Rutled who's also on our traffic unit. Our detective of detective of the year was Detective Shay Miller. Uh our patrol officer of the year was officer Chris Ashmore. And the overall MPD employee of the year was officer Isaac Ariaza. And I got a letter of accommodation here from one of the actions Araza actually has done this year. So I wanted to read that if you just endear me here for a second. On January the 8th, 2025, Monro Police Department received a bolo from a neighboring agency, Social Circle PD, in reference to a kidnapping. They were able to provide the tag to officers that were on shift. Immediately, offer Ariaza began utilizing the flock camera system, scanning the city for any information pertaining to the truck involved. He was also able to locate a family member who lived inside the city limits. Offer officer Ariaza used the above resources to locate the vehicle and the juvenile that was kidnapped. The suspect was taken into custody without incident and the juvenile was returned to its mother. This was a great use of departmental resources in order to locate and arrest the suspect in a quick manner. And the chief of police personally called me from so circle and said, "I just want to commend you and your guys on your efforts." And he said it was like a total of 97 minutes from the time that the juvenile was uh kidnapped to the time we were able to locate and make the arrest. So that that's another just the resource that we've implemented with those flot cameras. I think we got a total of 26 in the city. That just shows you how technology has become just uh instrumental in us doing our jobs in law enforcement and how quickly we're able to turn things around. So be happy to

answer any questions if you have any. Amazing RV. Any questions? Um 18 guns taken off the streets. Is that average? Is that good? We average, if you look over the years of the department, we average about six guns a month. So it's a little up. Uh but I mean guns are becoming more and more prevalent in our church more stuff uh and interactions with criminal activities. In fact, just today I was just talking to Sarg they they had a stolen gun today. Correct. So it happens all the time. Got it. Thank you, Chief. Uh Danny Smith. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I'll be brief. Um, just want to let you know we're picking up where we left off on the mattress update. So, we picked up 139 mattresses in January. Um, however, we did recover over over half of them. We did were able to build more of them out. Um, other than that, uh, I just want to acknowledge we do had we have two promotion within the department. Um, Mr. Robin Gordon um has been promoted to solidway supervisor. He'll handle day-to-day collection operations. So um unfortunately he is not here tonight or Cody uh Cecil Johnson. He'll be um managing the transfer station operation. They're both um had other obligations. Uh but we believe it's going to really improve our uh service delivery and customer service. we have more eyes on um the stuff that's going around town and we'll be able to respond a lot quicker and uh I take any questions you might have. And y'all do an excellent job. Thank you. Well, walking the other night, I saw a mattress in kind of no man's land. I was like, I have no idea how that's going to turn out. Who's who's getting the bill for that? Um are

there any questions? Mr. Smith. Thank you, Danny. Uh Mr. Still. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. um you have a report for the month of January in front of you and unless you got specifics on that. I'll just highlight quickly what we've been doing uh this month. We've actually got a really big head start on the 2025 Elme program. Um starting to we got a couple of days where we could get some hot mix. So on top of the utility cuts and potholes, we were able to do some patching on Marble, which is part of the program for the Elmeig this time. Um, and we've done some significant work out of the airport at some of the the new hangar sites out there. Um, and we are like everybody else praying for good weather. Um, good temps of faster those temps rise, the more asphalt we can get in this prime time to do um, a lot of that stuff for as far as you keeping up with utility cuts and and doing good bit of patching right now. So, I'll be glad to take any questions. Are there any questions for Jeremiah? Thank you, sir. Telecom Mike Magcguire. Thank you, Mayor. We had a 1% shift increase from fiber to cable modems over over the uh last month there. So, we're currently at 65% fiber and 35% cable modems. Um that shift may not seem big, but I'm going to highlight a point right out here at the end that that goes along with that. Um we are now officially under the 2,000 mark for registered cable modems. So from the time we started the big push for fiber, that's that's 55% of that cable modem has been reduced in two years. So good progress. We still got a little bit to go there. U we're still working hard on it. Our GTC project that we've been working on for a long time is just about completed. The physical build is done. It stretches all the way from Gratis Road all the way down to Old Mill Run near I20. It's it's

a very long circuit. Uh when we got into this project at the start of last year, it turned out to be a lot bigger than we originally thought it was. But Brandon Brown and his teams have been working his his contractors been working really hard to get that completed as quickly as possible. And so they're in the testing phase now. So the physical build is done. They're shooting it to make sure everything's clean, everything's good, and we're hoping in the next week or two we'll be able to turn that over to GTC. That's that'll be one thing we can check off of our list. So we're really excited about that. um the Arista project for replacing our core infrastructure gear. It is fixing to take off. We got our finalized quote from our provider and we hope to have a PO issued this week and so we'll be ordering that to come in and you know how excited I am about that because I've talked about it before. Um we got a couple subdivisions that we're working on. The um River Point out there off Cedar Ridge. We're joint trenching with gas department now to put the infrastructure in and that one will be uh ready to go once that's completed. We got two more in the wings. Hamburg Station and the vines of Monroe are are getting ready to go. But the the big thing I want to touch on right here at the end is even though we only had a 1% shift from fiber to cable modems, David Garcia and his team came up with a plan and executed it literally within about a week to get all of the apartments that are ready, four different buildings out at the jacks pre-installed. I talked about it once before, but they literally had boots on the ground last week and four of those buildings have been completed. It's 168. It's 168 potential customers that are pre-wired and ready to go. And we've already activated 21 of those customers in those buildings. We didn't even have to roll a truck out for that. That's huge for us. It makes it easy for the customer and it makes it it makes it easy for us because we don't have to dispatch additional resources. There are still uh three more buildings out there that we're waiting on to get

inside to be pre-wired once they're complete. So that that's still an additional 126 potential customers out there for us. So my hats off to him and and his team for for the hard work that they put in. They have literally spent several days in a row out there getting it all wired up and physically testing each one by one to make sure it's delivering the speeds out there that we're saying that we're able to do. It's a lot of work has gone into that. Nobody sees that. That's all behind the scenes, but but hats off to him for that. So, even though it's a 1% shift, we still had a a large number of pre-installs. And that's not to that's not to forgetting to mention that we are just fixing to start uh the conversion and pre-installs for the Ashton Point apartments as well. So, there's a lot of potential that's fixing to hit in a in a small time frame there. So, I'm hoping to see those numbers, those percentages get a little bit further stretched out as we go along in this in the next several months there. So, fingers crossed. So, but anybody has any questions, I'll be glad to glad to answer them. Any questions for Yeah. Thank you so much. This is like light years ahead. I mean, just y'all jumped on it. And tell Mr. Garcia we appreciate we'll do we'll do doing for us, too. Hey, real quick, I wanted to note something. Uh, so Mike was talking about some of the subdivisions outside of the city that we're serving. You may ask why. Well, again, it's a joint drench project with gas, right? So, if we're if we're providing services and we can easily get to some of these areas, I mean, what a great business move for the city because there's no other competition in some of these areas. So, tremendous ROI for you all. And um, you know, that's transferred back to help keep our taxes down as well. And and thanks to Rodney and his team, you know, for allowing us to work with them. Teamwork makes dream work, right? Yeah. Uh, Mr. Middlebrooks. Thank you, Mayor. Uh just a real quick update on all our bond projects that are

remaining. Uh the 16inch transmission main and the 24 and the 20inch raw and finish uh main. Uh they're currently grubbing, clearing, getting ready for for the material delivery. Expecting that sometime late this month, maybe 1 of April. Uh so you'll see those. But uh apparently on the six on the 16inch line, they've got Marble Street Cut and got I think they started Union yesterday or today uh getting the street cuts done on the 24 in and the 20 in. Um everything's cleared from 78 to Cedar Ridge Road. So the uh started the bore under the transcodes line yesterday. So they'll have all the boards in and be ready to to go as soon as the material gets here. Uh water tank, same thing. Waiting on material. So hopefully we'll see that before too long. Now for the heartbreaker, the 22 CDBG. It's paved, but it's got to be milled and paved again. Uh the contractor decided to not abide by what they had agreed on. Uh the paving company got there, the engineers representative was there. He stopped them. Uh explained to them it wasn't what they had agreed on. Uh pavement company decided to proceed uh knowing that it could possibly be not accepted. But basically Jeremiah can speak on it if he needs to, but they just hadn't left us much drainage as far as the sidewalk height. Edwards is the worst what, less than an inch in some places. So,

uh, they'll be remilling and or they'll re they'll mill this time, but then repave. So, but on their time just Yes. And how will how will that affect the heights at the sidewalk? It'll give us back to our original original height we had when this project started. There's a an additional inch and a quarter of asphalt put down which was the unauthorized event on this to to make it the way it rides now. That will be taken down. So, we'll gain that back um and be at the original grade and scope of the project. Okay. fairly soon. We'll update everybody. We'll what be summer before any of that can hope not. I hope it's not that long. Okay. I hope not. I was thinking, too. Um, is that it? That's all I got. Are there any questions for Mr. Mbrooks? Thank you, Ronnie. Thank you for Thank you for staying on them. I know the folks over in Edwards and Sters and Glenn hours and Brian are going to be happy to see you. Um, Miss Thompson, uh, renewal of PNC. Thank you, mayor. Um, so this is our annual renewal of our property and casualty um, insurance renew the renewal of the insurance. Um, it's effective April 2025 through April 2026. Um, this is a little more than what we had anticipated in the budget. Um, I have a budget amendment for the 2025 budget later on in this meeting. Um, but for right now, um, I will turn it over to Bob Seville with Seville Insurance. Y'all probably know him from previous years who will give a rundown on the, um, increases and the, um, changes and you were passed this out, um, the green and white paper that gives a detail of

the, um, renewal. Thank you, Beth. And I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Danielle on everything she's done. She's been a just a godsend. And uh you know, I work all hours of the night and I'll call her at 10:00 or text her and she'll respond. And I think I think we need to recognize that. Um so, uh I have to use my glasses. You may have to as well with this little type on here. Uh but the green columns are our renewal and um uh the white column is what we had last year. So uh what I've tried to do is is highlight the most significant parts that have changed. And um down at the bottom you'll see it's not highlighted but uh the increase is 23.73%. So, we started out uh this and and y'all may have read Georgia's they've been declared the worst state in the union for insurance and you've probably seen that on your homeowners. Uh I know I have. And so, um, that's that's put a lot of pressure on the whole insurance market. And, uh, that's that's why, uh, Governor Kemp has introduced this to legislation that we've just passed and that'll be helpful, but it, you know, it takes a while for that to get implemented. Uh, and it's probably not the end of it. I I know that we'll probably have another version of it in uh next year's session. But uh with that said, the uh we went out to the insurance market to see what other carriers would do and what it looked like. And we've made a few changes on

here as a result of that. um travelers was on everything last year and and so uh the other carriers came in and they were almost a 45% increase. So it was dramatically higher and what we're seeing is is the all the carriers that are in the marketplace those that are left are driving the losses have been have a major impact on the rates. So, we went to work and uh we worked with travelers some and then we pulled the law and the public official liability out. If you look down towards the bottom there, you'll see in the carrier column, you'll see Green Witch down there. And uh that's a quality company like we have for travelers. They have good claims service. And so we've done this in a number of cases where we're able to pull the law and public officials out and isolate those and avoid the increase that they're taking across the board. So you'll see the premiums on the law actually dropped uh went down quite a bit and a little bit on the public official and employment practices. So highlighted out to the side of those you'll see in red the limits. Uh, so we have two million limits. We had to take it off this umbrella that's down a couple of spots below that. And so the traveler's umbrella doesn't go over the law and public officials. We just increase those individual limits to give us the same thing there. So that's why that's highlighted in red. Um, and then if you move up the sheet a little bit to where the auto, that's the second matrix up there, you'll see out to the right that I've highlighted the deductible on the auto liability to $25,000. It was $10,000. That's fairly common uh when

cities get this size and the premium gets this size. But, uh, really, as our premium continues to grow, we'll look at self- insurance at some point in time. And this is a a mid-range step towards that. We're still on a deductible program, lower numbers, but eventually we'll we'll be big enough that we'll self-insure like pretty much like the workers comp is. And u uh but that's not this year. And so that's you'll see those two deductibles went up a little bit. We also took on the property section, which is right about the middle. You'll see a red number there. And uh the property went up uh about $8 million. Most of that is in the utilities. We took the um we haven't increased the value of the plants uh water and sewer plants at all in quite a few years. So mo I would say I would say 90% of that's loaded into those plants and we'll probably increase that a little bit more next year depending on we we value that based on the gallons per day it produces and it's a little hard to back into all those numbers but they have standards they use for that. Um the other ch the only other change that I wanted to mention was on the uh public official in law again and that is we took that deductible up from 25 to 35,000. We don't have much frequency on those lines and that's an area where it makes more sense to take that up a little bit uh and and achieve the premium savings. uh if we had stayed with travelers, this would have probably been $50,000 higher in that section. So, uh that's a just a brief synopsis of of

u of this sheet and there's a lot of numbers on there if y'all have any questions. Uh Mayor, you have Yeah, Bob, I I do. Um looking at law enforcement liability, is there a reason that we doubled those limits? You might have said it, but I Yeah, it's a little confusing there. We, if you look down right below it, the umbrella last year we had the uh that umbrella went over that law enforcement liability. So we had that million down there to be over top of the million. So since we had a different carrier, we had to pull it out individually and we just uh loaded loaded that in there. So it's equivalently the same. Is there any questions? Bob or for Beth? Um, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. Thank you. Can I have a motion to approve by Mr. Gregor? Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Brown. Is there any discussion? Thank you. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Thank you for coming in. Thank you. Good to see you all again. Yes, sir. I appreciate your you being here. It's been a challenging year, I know, for the renewal. I appreciate your work. Yeah. Cracks a mean whip. Um, moving to the utilities, the approval for the base fee for multifamily projects. Uh, Logan, Rodney, Rodney, thank you, mayor. Um, so we recently discovered that our shared

meter policy dating back to August of 2010 didn't u take consideration for master meter accounts. It's usually a multif family like apartments. Give you an example, the one on 78 with 282 units. Um, if you can imagine 282 meters sitting out there, it be impossible to keep up with them, much less make sure each one of them's tied together, right? So, what they do is they master meter and then inside a meter room in the building, they have the individual meters, but they belong to the owner, not or the developer, not the city. But our policy for for the base charges for water and sewer uh we didn't have an option for it. So we're asking you tonight to to add option three which is at the bottom of the form there. It says multif family properties or all or any properties that have multiple residential units supplied by one master water meter. This would include apartment complexes where individual meters are not feasible. We're proposing a base charge for these properties at $15 per month each water and sewer and it'll be build to the master meter account. Any questions? Are there any questions? I'll make that motion. Thank you, sir. Motion to approve by Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Dickinson. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the water connection fee for multifamily properties. Rodney. This is also another recent discovery. Uh when I did

the sewer and water and sewer uh tap and connection fee study, uh I failed to change the multif family residential uh connection fees. U the old one is at the bottom of the page there. U I didn't change it to match the new rate. So uh I'm asking you to change it to So, it would be the number of units multiplied by the $2,300, which is the residential connection fee. Thank you, Rodney. Are there any questions for Rodney? I'll entertain a motion. I'll make that motion, Mr. Mayor. A motion to approve by Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Dickinson. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the resolution for GIFA drinking water state revolving loan fund DW2021017 modification. Who wants it? Logan. Beth. I'll take it. Thank you. Um so this is a resolution just to modify the um loan agreement that we have with GEIFA. Um this is for the funding of the new 500,000galon elevated water storage tank um that is going out on Cherry Hill Road. Um this modification um was a requirement from JIFA. All it is an extension of the loan schedule um and it extends it out to January 1, 2027. Um this is due to some um some schedule changes in the construction. Um I think there were some um what was it? easements that we were trying to get um that kind of pushed us

back um and therefore this just changes the schedule of that construction. So, and the loan. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Beth. Are there any questions? Miss Thompson. I'll entertain a motion. I'll make that motion. Mr. Mayor, a motion to approve by Miss Sams. I'm going to give that a second to Mr. Thompson. Okay. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. move into the 2024 budget amendment resolution. Miss Thompson. Thank you, Mayor. Um this is um the 2024 budget amendments and the general fund. Um I'll give you a brief overview. Um these were mailed out emailed out to you um yesterday. Um this is increasing our general fund budget. Um $975,919 in revenues and expenses. Um, this is because our revenues um and expenses came in um a little higher than we had anticipated. Um, as you all know, Logan and I are very conservative when we um go into our budget year um not knowing what it's going to look like. Our um actual increase in expenses um was $969,185. So, this um revenues were more than that and more than well covered that. So, um, this is just to, um, finalize some of the financials that we need for our, um, audit. Thank you, Miss Thompson. Are there any questions, Beth? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Motion to approve by Mr. Dickinson. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes budget amendment 2025 resolution. Miss Thompson. Um so this is an amendment for the current year budget. Um this is to um help cover the cost of that general um casualty and

property insurance that we just had the renewal on that came in higher than what we anticipated. Um it is um going to take $61,500 um from the contingency in the general fund to move to cover those expenses and then 61,500 in the utility contingency um to cover the expenses on that because it's a 50-50 split um and that will be for the 2025 budget. Thank you, Miss Thompson. Is there are there any questions? I'll entertain a motion. That motion, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Second reading of the preliminary plat moratorum extension ordinance. Paul. Uh yeah, mayor. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. This is your second reading. Your first reading was last month in February. This will be your second reading on March the 12th. Logan can add any other color that he wants to on this. Basically, this is a moratorum to prevent the uh acceptance of preliminary plat applications outside of the city core uh for residential major projects through September 30th, 2024. Uh major residential project is defined as basically 10 units or larger. Um Brad or myself or Logan can answer any questions. Uh this is similar to the ordinances that have been in the moratoriums that have been in place prior. So um with that a motion to accept the ordinance after second reading uh would be appropriate should you be so considered to do it. Thank you. And we can wave the second reading. Correct. Uh well this is the second read. This is the second reading and as long as nobody asks for it to be read. I know we changed some wording last month. I just want to make sure. Yeah. And we're about to do that next too.

Anybody have any questions, comments? Motion move to approve the extension. A motion. Anything less than 10 more than 10. Correct. Outside the city core. Have a motion to approve by Mr. Gregory. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Dickinson. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Uh moving to the second readance of the ordinance amendment of the legisl legislation administration. Thank you mayor. I'll take this one. And this one sube uh legislation administration edits to chapter two of your code of ordinances is in conjunction with edits to your charter a charter amendment which will come up next in section 2.12. And this is to clean up a couple of things. Number one, it's to make it very clear um that what any action y'all take, regardless of the nomenclature we put to it, is y'all's action and it is it is the law of the land as it as it would be as it relates to city Monroe. So, it clarifies and makes it clear that either ordinance or resolution has the effect of law. Um there was some dis there was some ambiguity on that prior. The other thing it does is it makes it clear on what you were asking for before. So, number one is ordinances moving forward. Should you adopt both this uh ordinance and the charter change ordinance amendment, you won't have to have second reading, meaning a matter can be presented and then passed at that meeting. Um and it can be passed either by ordinance or legislation unless law requires otherwise. And it spells out that once we have published the ordinance on um online and made it available and staff has provided a summary of it, then the actual literal word reading of the ordinance is not necessary and does not even have to be waved. but instead it's the alternative. If any one of you wants the ordinance to be uh read, then just one of you has to say I want it to read. I want it to be read and then I will sit here and talk for a long time and read it for you. Um

so that's what this does in conjunction with the edits to section 212 of your charter. So, if you're so inclined to do this cleanup, it would be uh an ordinance a motion to approve the ordinance amendments to chapter 2 as presented after this your second reading. Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. Any questions? I'll entertain a motion to approve. Thank you, Miss Sams. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the charter amendment, second reading. City legislation. Mr. Rosenthal. Thank you, mayor. This is the conjoined uh ordinance to change a charter to clean up that very issue within the charter. Same exact thing. Makes it clear that whether you pass a resolution or you pass an ordinance, you're providing the effect of law as to issues that are within your governance here in the city of Monroe. Um, this will conduct this will constitute the second reading of the ordinance and should you so choose to make a motion to adopt the ordinance that will change your charter and then we'll appropriately notify the secretary of state of that change in due course. Mr. Rosenthal, any questions? I'll entertain a motion to approve. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Crawford. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the second reading of the alcohol excise tax ordinance. Thank you, mayor. I'll take this one and Logan can appine if he wants to. We just cleaned up your excise taxation provisions to specifically delineate what the actual tax amount is as opposed to referencing the maximum allowed under Georgia law. There's just some school of thought that that's a little cleaner and

it rem removes all ambiguity. It's a $6 per barrel or keg uh charge on the malt beverages or beer. It's 22 cents per liter on the wine and 22 cents per liter on the distilled spirits. Um and so this will be your second reading of the amendments to this portion of chapter 90 of your taxation relating to alcohol beverage excise taxes should you so want to adopt the same. Any questions for Mr. Rosenthal? Is this for breweries or what? No, this is for retail. This is this is for retail sales providers. So, package sales at uh beer and wine uh sales. And should you uh pass the um liquor store ordinance next, it will apply there as well. So, convenience stores, grocery stores, and other retailers of package sales of beer, wine, and assuming eventually liquor. It doesn't really change what you're paying right now to the state. It just codifies exactly what you're paying to the state. I'll entertain a motion to Miss Malcolm with a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second by Miss Sams. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. Moving to the second reading of the retail package sales ordinance. Mr. Rosenthal. Thank you, mayor. I'll take this one, too. Um, and then I'll be happy to answer any questions, and I know that Logan can appine as well. This is the second reading of the amendment to your chapter 6 alcohol ordinance for the purpose of cleaning up a few little sections that relate and primarily for dropping in a brand new section, article 4, retail package sales of distilled spirits. This is being passed in accordance with the referendum that passed at the election last year. Uh answering in the

affirmative for the sale of distilled spirits by the package. Um I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. I went through sort of the structure of how it will ultimately work, but essentially you're looking at two licenses in the city limits of city of Monroe until such time as the official census count takes the population over 25,000 residents. Um those licenses will be issued by lottery system in accordance with this ordinance as drafted. And with that, additionally, the uh package sales of liquor um requirements are uh a little more heightened and have additional requirements above and beyond the package sales uh requirements for beer and wine. They have additional financial obligations they have to apply um uh comply with and additional aesthetics and location controls as well. So, with all of that being said, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. And should you wish to adopt this ordinance that amends your chapter 6 um alcoholic beverage to allow for package sales in the city limits, then this will cond be considered the second reading of the same and it will be passed by an affirmative motion of the mayor and council. Thank you, sir. Are there any questions, Mr. Rosenthal? I'll entertain a motion. We're at 16 plus thousand right now. Yes, ma'am. I do want to note that um upon passage of this, it'll take about a month, maybe 30 daysish u for me to work with the code office on creating that proper application, right? And so we'll issue a press release once that's available and make sure that's up on our website. Yeah. Access to it. Yeah. And there's just there's a process. So once Logan um places that out there, there's advertisement in the paper. I think it's for two weeks. Um and then the application process will be open for a

period of time. Then once applications are in, then he and staff have a structure whereby they analyze those applications, determine which ones uh comport with the requirements of the statute. And if it is determined that more than one application complies with the statute, then at that point, that's when the lottery system uh process is triggered under the statute will bring in a third-party uh group, most likely a large name, a CPA firm out of the Atlanta market. It's completely disassociated with anybody and everybody with the name Monroe connected to their address. And they will conduct a third-party lottery system. there's only one at a time. Meaning, um, in theory, let's just say that everything worked perfectly and there were no delays. Sometime in late summer, you would be seeing that first application applicant having been processed through and coming to y'all for approval of their license. You still will approve their license after the lottery system occurs. Then the statute calls for basically a 120day cooling period until the next application process begins. So then in theory one application would be issued sometime in calendar year 2025 and then another applicant would be selected by lottery in sometime probably in Q1 or Q2 of 2026 assuming there are no hiccups along the way. Thank you. Even though this map shows all the possible locations, it would be difficult to put it in some of those locations because of zoning and that correct? Yeah, this is just the general corridor elements here shown on a map. Um there's going to have to be more study done on what's applicable by zoning, whether it's whether it meets egress requirements from 6136 and so on and so forth. Just wanted to make sure because once that map got popped up, I was wait a second. I mean the last time and I just never asked a question. Yeah. Just in general, those are your primary corridors we're looking at. Are there any?

Um, you know, that's a Brad question. I can answer that. I can tell you that in 636 uh 136B uh there are no properties in downtown that are zoned that would comport to allowing a liquor store because you in the section that precedes the one that identifies these corridors, you've identified specific zoning districts that would allow liquor stores and there are no zoning districts within downtown that would permit one. Seems like to me that we it is more out towards our commercial areas that would be more amenable to that. Yeah. Right. I mean that's generally where the proper zoning is right and then generally away from your neighborhood neighborhood. So a couple of things we did a deep dive analysis of all other cities. Not all other cities, that's not true, but a lot of other cities and determine what would be the most appropriate type of limitations. And one of the restrictions that's almost, not always, but almost all certainly very frequently sort of not let a downtown product work is a minimum square footage requirement of 10,000 square feet. Um, for several reasons. Also, it has to be a separate freestanding building. Um lots of different reasons for that, but basically just sort of a single site, single source to make sure that you know you may not have some other business uh businesses open up next door that may not be conducive. So, so going towards sort of as as high tier, high quality single site um uh package store that you can get. The example that most people have brought up sort of in our neck of the woods is I believe it's the Grayson package store. It's sort of its own freestanding uh um people regard as an as as an ice package store and and that was one of the models we looked at Roswell several others but freestanding single buildings of a larger size

generally you're not going to see it you know in downtown any other questions or comments I'll entertain a motion motion to approve by Miss Sams. Is there a second? Give that one to Miss Crawford. I think that was you motion, right? Um any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to district reports. Miss Malcolm, don't really have anything other than glad to see the sunshine. Get'll get used to it. Miss Crawford. No, I don't have anything. Mr. Boyce, I don't have um I will tell you I ran into a lady out in the middle of the street last week. She said that family was specifically here so you could coach her brother in the AAOU team. I won't tell you who it is because I don't mean to be playing favorites, but word about your coaching abilities getting around, Miss Sams. Miss Brown, Mr. Gregory, Mr. Thompson, I don't have any district news. I do want to let everybody know that uh was at the capital yesterday for MAG's 50 years of being in existence. We were both on the uh both on the floors for for the Senate and the House for a proclamation. Uh so glad this city has been a part of MAG for almost 50 years. And folks just don't realize how lucky we are to have them as a electric

provider. Uh almost 60% non-emitting with nuclear, hydro and solar. and we will get better as federal mandates mandate the power companies to get better. So, you know, for forefathers here in the city of Monroe that join MAG, one of the best things that they could have done and just saying on their annual convention, if y'all if we make it down there, they'll be hyping that up a lot. But I was honored to be on the House and Senate floor for that uh reading. And and I think most of you know, I know all of you know, but somebody might be watching us online. Uh Greg's been on that board for almost 15 years. Well, okay. That's a lot more than nine. Um 15 years. Uh got us through uh the opening of of Vogle, especially three and four. That was real difficult. So appreciate your Thank you. Honored to serve for the city. Well, we we appreciate you. Uh Mr. Dickinson, nothing further. Um I do imagine that. Um Logan Logan had mentioned that we were at the capital last week um talking with Bruce about the house bill, but we were initially there uh with uh Chairman Thompson, uh John Ward, uh Jimmy Parker from Precision Planning, Shane Short from Wal County Development Authority, uh to discuss with G DOT, um Janine Miller and and her team of of engineers, um the northern arc of the truck route. Um, second time we've done it. This time, uh, Logan came with a lot more a lot more backup and, uh, as we left the meeting, I felt really good about it. It's not been

given a project number and not been given an automatic go-ahhead. U, but they were very amendable to the facts that we presented. Um, and she said as much before we left. She said, you know, a lot of folks come in and and ask us for money, but they don't come in with their entire delegation. They don't come in with with information readily available. So, we feel very confident that that's going to be moving forward. Uh and and it won't won't take us 38 years. I'm not even going to guess, but it's moving forward and the and they definitely know the ball is is in play. Um, secondly, we recognized Stacy tonight because just a a wonderful person, longtime person from Monroe. And, you know, I try to bring in folks at the beginning of every meeting, whether it's the YMCA or a church or a youth group. um anything that's going to positively impact our city. Uh and we've got a lot of folks and a lot of things that that deserve that recognition. That being said, if y'all ever have anybody you want me to bring in, I'm more than happy. We got a lot of things happening here. Um and and uh two things. Finally, kudosh Mr. Bailey and DVA for getting that Monroe sign up. pretty awesome. Um, been very, very wellreceived. And three, I know the amount of love that you have for this city to actually take the time to serve the people of Monroe and I I certainly appreciate it. So, thank you. That being said, anyone make the motion? Move to approve. Move to approve. I move to get out. Is there a second? Second. Second. I'm give that one to Miss Crawford, too. All in favor signify by saying I. I I oppose

like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Thank you everybody.