City Council - Regular Meeting

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I've heard a lot of wonderful things about you. Um when when you have Dustin Morris and Susan Sykes on your team, you've you've got a good you got a good start. Um so I'm glad you're here and leave it up to you. Let us pray. Almighty God, we assemble this day with grateful hearts for the manifold blessings bestowed upon our city. We give thanks for the gift of community, the bonds of friendship that unite us and the occasions to serve one another in charity. Bestow upon our city council the wisdom and discernment to govern with integrity and justice that every decision may be made here may promote the common good. Grant them the grace to deliberate in concord they may find unity of purpose and pursue what is right for all citizens. We pray your continued favor upon our city, its leaders, and all who dwell within it. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate you being here. And you don't have to stay. Good evening everybody. I'll call this meeting to order of the city council Monroe. It is April 14th and let the record reflect that all members of council are present with the exception of Miss Brown and Adrien. Are you on the phone? I think Adrien is supposed to be coming in on the phone. So, we'll keep an eye on that. Thank you. Um, moving forward, I need a motion to the approval of the agenda, please. So, move.

Have a motion by Mr. Bradley. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Crawford. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. The consent agenda this month are the uh minutes from February meetings of the DDA, the CVB, the planning commission and historic preservation and the March city council minutes and the city council retreat minutes from the 10th and the 12th. Need a motion to approve the consent agenda, please. Thank you, Miss Sams. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I.

All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. I don't think we have any public comment tonight, but I will um ask does anybody have anything to say? You may have missed the public comment sheet. Okay. I think we probably have some for for other presentations. So, moving to business items, city administrator report. Mr. ropes.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh it's been a pretty robust uh first quarter. A lot of what we are doing is kind of uh winding down some projects and teeing up uh others as we talked about in our retreat last month. And uh that's pretty much what we're going to be doing uh the remainder of this month and into May. Um not a whole lot of new, but a lot of the a lot of the same stuff that we've been working on for a long time. Um, I did want to note if you will pencil in on your calendars May 5th for a work session. It's the first Tuesday of May. Um, I'll follow up with some more details on that meeting. Um, but just wanted to put that on your calendars while I had you. Um, have a meeting tomorrow with with Mike with a Celicom. Hopefully we can get some additional um, fiber redundancies in place. I know we've had a couple hiccups. A lot of that's been well beyond our control, but we want to make sure that that's uh taken care of in the future and we have redundancy on top of redundancy on top of redundancy. Um so we just don't see these really uh cascading oneoffs anymore, but we're going to work hard on that. A good uh meeting set up for tomorrow. And uh I know uh Mr. Bailey probably has a few things to update on as well, but if you guys have any questions on anything we've been working on uh that we've updated on recently, please let me know.

Are there any questions? Mr. Propes. Thank you, Logan. Mr. Bailey.

Yeah. Sorry, running back to my seat. Um couple of quick things. uh our Georgia outdoor stewardship uh program grant as I'd let you guys know and it feels like it's been like three months since we actually met and uh at our retreat and I got the news that afternoon as we'd left and sent it to y'all. But we were awarded the phase one uh portion of that grant um which is for $3 million. It's a $4.1 million project. We were one of 14 uh entities in the state of Georgia that were awarded the grant um from about a $21 million pot this year. We had the third highest award and we were the only the eighth uh municipality government related entity that was awarded. So we're now into the phase two process which there'll be an item on the agenda uh for uh the engineering services for the environmental portion of that that we'll discuss later. Um, our tap grant for Broad Highland Lumpkin is moving along. Windstream is on again, off again. When it comes to moving the utilities um on the uh east side of Broad Street, they've got some gone. Some is obviously still there. We are waiting. Lumpin right now is where the construction activity is going. They uh did the uh first portion of the sidewalks on what would be the west side of Lumpin Street last night and they'll finish the remainder tonight. Um I will give Shiv credit that they have communicated very well with the property owners. Um we've done it kind of in partnership u and and let them know what's coming, what nights, what's happening, the different businesses and whatnot. They've been uh very cooperative and uh very easy to work with when it comes to that 11 pm to 11:00 a.m. U working time frame that way that we're not interrupting businesses

and uh they're still getting their normal flow of traffic during the day. So have been appreciative of that. Um car show was a pretty good one. Uh we had uh 21,000 people was what our numbers uh capped out at because that's what they always cap out at. Um so we had a little over 500 cars that were actually registered for the show. And uh if you do an aerial of kind of where I think I walked 72 times uh that day and looked down, we cap out at about 900 places to actually put a show car in this town and those uh actual physical limits. And I would say we had something in every single one of them. So very successful show. It was a beautiful day. Um the awards uh trophies were well done. Mark Harrison really stepped up to helped me out on that the company that we used and got those. I think uh people were very pleased with those. Um Unicorn Day this past uh Friday uh we had 6 point let's see 6,500 people um in town. And then I figure, you know, little kids from a toddler to five, six year old probably aren't going to have cell phones this day and time. And for every adult you have, you probably had about 1.5 to two kids. So there were a lot of people. I know sidewalks were packed, businesses were busy. Um, and it was a good day. Uh, that's one of those that's put on primarily by the businesses in collaboration with the city and we kind of fall into support mechanism with them. Um, and then I'd seen uh social media uh too. And then I'd put something on there for Georgia C's week is next week and it's also our great American cleanup week at which point our transfer station will be open the 20th through the 24th uh to accept um you know I guess some of the household items, trash, different things that people are doing spring cleaning efforts uh during the week and they have to be a resident

of the city. Um Danny always does a fantastic job running that. Cleanup day is Saturday. Looking for lots of volunteers to help us walk around and we'll clean up the little bits of uh trash and whatnot throughout the town, cemeteries, parks, outskirts, um church organizations, other nonprofits, uh typically uh jump in with us and communicate throughout and we'll our guys will go out and pick up whatever they collect. I am happy to say that year after year after year it's always less because I feel like our town's a little bit cleaner because we make a focus on that with our staff residents. They do a great job too. Um first Friday night concert will happen before we have our next uh council meeting May 2nd. Um so looking forward to that. I'm sure it'll finally start raining by then even though we've had beautiful weather but hope not. And our farmers market started the heavy part of their season April 5th. Uh, it's 9:00 am to 1 pm every Saturday on Court Street. And provided any questions, that's my report.

Are there any questions, Mr. Bailey?

Chris, um, and this goes to to you and and Danny um, and Chris Croy and Mark Harrison. Uh, the cleanliness of our downtown and our parks uh, is better than I've ever seen. And I just appreciate uh everybody who's involved in that. And community cleanup day on the 25th, a lot of them will be here uh helping. Um but it's helping those of us who are going to be actually volunteering that day. So uh when you're out picking up trash that morning, just make sure to give a little extra love to those guys who are going to be in an airond conditioned cab of a truck while you're out sweating.

Correct. Um, moving to uh public hearings. Uh, I'm showing none, but I'm showing a special exception variance. 4390100 Cherry Hill. Brad,

thank you, mayor. This is 100 Cherry Hill Road. This is at the uh, basically intersection across the intersection from Highway 78 Cherry Hill Road. This is a M1 industrial property. Hasn't been developed in the history of the city, but it is proposed to be developed at this time for a lot of industrial use. So the request in front of the uh city council this evening they are proposing to develop the site. We are thrilled about that and it's going to be a proposed light industrial use for a cold steel manufacturing facility. The building is going to be approximately 26,750 square ft. But they need to increase the parking beyond our maximum 120 square feet excuse me 120% and that's going to be a total of 32 spaces. Right now your manufacturing parking is one per uh one per three employees per shift and that's pretty pretty restrictive. So they want to uh increase that to 355% which is basically 32 uh employees per shift. So it's not a whole lot of parking. Uh the recommendation for that is approval without any conditions by the planning commission. Mayor, that's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Calendarer. I'll declare this portion of the meeting open for the purpose of public input. Is there anyone here who'd like to speak uh in favor? Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. Please. Your name?

Well, I'm a little bit new to all of this. So, I'm uh Yuron Vanderplu. I'm actually u part of San Hand Truck. So, we'll be the one building that facility down there. Um honestly, we're a little little thrilled to get this actually going. And uh yeah, a little bit of I guess a little bit of a history. We started in the 90s. We're a European company. We have a very high quality, high-end product and we're now focusing here in the US and that lot is it's I don't know city is nice. It's a we'll try to look forward to get this going.

Great. Well, we are so glad you're here and and thank you for thank you for being in Monroe. Thank you for coming tonight. Um we'll zip through this part. Um I might call you back up in just a minute. Um but I think Yeah, that's good. I appreciate you being here. Um do I hear anyone here who'd like to speak against the expansion of parking. Uh hearing none, we'll move to the actual reszone of number 15 to cover this separately. Yeah, this is this is for 150 H drive. 150 H, sorry.

Yeah, this is property currently zone B1. There's been some commercial use in the past. The request before you this evening is to reszone the property to B3 and the use is for a proposed office for contractor facilities which is basically an office uh for contractor that has a warehouse space in the back. I believe this was a Dollar General or something to that effect at some point in the past. Building is existing is 9,000 square feet. There's existing 27 spaces on the site. Staff believe this is a good reuse of the property itself. It has been vacant for some time. This is on the east side of Hammond Drive there, just north of the 1025 church. This does not create a conflict with the uh the comprehensive plan. And while B3 zoning is something that is uh a zoning district for uses that are oriented on the highway and it is something that is considered basically more intense conditional, excuse me, a more intense zoning district for those types of uses on highways. We are proposing to limit the uses on this property to the contractor office with facilities from the B3 zoning district and all B1 and B2 uses so that way they don't, you know, if the property owner sells that it doesn't shift into some other uh and more intense B3 use and it's limited to that that's being asked for this evening. And that's all that I have, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Thank you so much, Brad. Uh that being said, we'll declare this portion of meeting open for the purpose of public input. Is there anyone here who would like to speak in favor of the reszone at 150 North Hammond? Yes, sir. You're you're just giving a thumbs up of town and all we're going to do is like resurface the parking lot, give it a new facade, just make it nicer on that side.

That's That's perfect. Thank you so much. Uh is there anywhere one here who'd like to speak against this reszone hearing? None. We'll declare that portion of the meeting closed and we'll be back to revisit in just a second. U moving uh to new business now. The special exception variance 4390 at 100 Cherry Hill Road to increase the maximum amount of allowed parking. Um are there any questions for Brad? Any discussion among council? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. I have a motion to approve by Mr. Dickinson and a second by Mr. Thompson. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I.

All like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Thank you so much. You're good to go and we'll be just as quick with you. Um this is reszone number 449 at 150 North Hammond reszone to B3. Brad just discussed it. Are there any questions for Brad or any comments among council? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve with special condition as stated. Thank you, Mr. Dickson. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I.

All those like sign. Welcome, Adrian. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to code uh planning and zoning fee schedule, Mr. Calendar for April 2026.

All right. Um so this is just a quick uh change to the fee schedule. I think we had an update here uh early last year. So, just quickly, just two changes. Uh we're asking to reduce the current sign fee, which is kind of extreme extreme. We were charging $100 per sign. And I had done a policy change here last year. That was a lot. Someone came in for a couple signs on their site. It was ridiculous to look at someone in the face and say, "You need to pay $100 per sign when you have three signs at one site." So, I was only charging them $100 for all their signs. So, we're going to drop that down to $50. And then if you have more than one sign on your site, we'll just charge $25 per each additional sign on the site. And then if you weren't aware, the DDA did approve a mural and public art program uh here recently. And so we need to add a fee for that for an application for that. It's going to be $50. And that's the two this is the two additions to the fee program or the fee fee schedule.

Thank you, Mr. Calendar. Any questions for Brad? I'll entertain a motion, please. Thank you, M. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. Those like sign.

Motion carries. That passes. Uh tap grant project fee proposal. Mr. Bailey. Thank you, sir. This is for we just discussed one tap project going on on Broad Highland Lumpin. This is for another TAP project that we've been working on that's on McDaniel Street that goes from Children's Park to the edge of the city limits there at Michael Etches. Back in September of 24, I believe it was, we approved the first three phases of this project, which obviously were one, two, and three. And then this is for the subsequent approval of phases four, five and six which cover the environmental preliminary design and utility coordination and the request is for 284 897 of which 80% of that is reimbursement. So be glad to take any questions.

Thank you Chris. Are there any questions for Mr. Bailey? I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve by Mr. Gregory. Is there a second? Ross, Mr. Bradley. In any discussion, all in favor signify by saying I. I. All those like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the application for package license for beer and wine 7 Hills Monroe LLC. Mr. Rosenthal. That application is in order. Mayor sir, there any questions for Paul? I'll entertain a motion. Second. Thank you, Mr. Bradley and we'll get that one to Miss Sams. All in favor?

All oppose like sign. Let's try that again. Yeah, let's do it. All in favor, please. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Thank you everybody. Uh, distilled spirits beer and wine package sales license at 1100 North Broad. Mr. Rosenthal. Is that in order? Mr. Mayor, that application is in order. Thank you. Uh, is there any discussion? I'll entertain a motion, please. Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I.

All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. I'm moving to the Royal Water and Treatment Master Plan update. Mr. Middlebrooks.

Thank you, Mayor. asking for your uh council's approval tonight to update our uh current uh raw water master plan. One thing we're doing a little different this this go around, we're adding a treatment side to it so we can start looking at uh the water plant itself and what it looks like for the next 30 well to 2050. U as you know now that the raw water line's in now we can get up to 16 million a day to the plant. The plant only treat 10 million. So, we've got some time. Uh, so I want to do this update to get it kind of get us a path forward looking over the next 25 years or so. Uh, so make some smart moves with our capital improvements and stuff like that. But, uh, to just be good stewards of the water that we have left. Uh, weman Singleton uh, proposal was at $44,390. you got any questions on

that's in the capital improvement budget. It'll be coming out of that. We didn't specifically earmark this at the beginning of the year, but with everything that we've got going on on water and wastewater, we thought we needed to go ahead and start that planning because as we start the next bond process, if we need to tuck a little bit of money in there for improvements at the water treatment plant as well, now's the time to do that. So, we wanted to go ahead and kind of the study now. Thank you, Mr. Pro. Are there any any other questions for Logan or Rodney? I'll entertain a motion, please. Move, Mr. Mayor. Second.

Uh, I got motion. Motion, Mr. Thompson. Second, Mr. Gregory. Any discussion, please. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Move into Alcoy River Park phase 2 environmental proposal. Mr. Bailey.

And as discussed earlier, this is the item uh to move forward with the phase two portion of the uh Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program grant that we have been awarded. Phase two is non-competitive. Um which is great. You just have to check the boxes. So, we have to have a third party perform environmental studies of the property. Um, we're going to update our master plan document which will lay out kind of based on what we submitted the actual details of the park property to submit and then it's the support of the application process that Kekkenwood has to actually perform and then they're using environmental company. So the request is uh for $35,800 to perform those three tasks and to proceed.

Thank you Chris. Are there any questions for Mr. Bailey? Any discussion? I'll entertain a motion, please. Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Dickensson. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Bradley. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose, like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Um, moving to uh district items. Miss Malcolm, know it's it's wonderful seeing everything green up and um certainly appreciate all the efforts after the car show um and the immediate turnaround to have our city back looking pristine. Be commended.

Um I'm I'm in I'm seeing that our police are really monitoring our speed limit in town and I'm seeing people stopped for exceeding the speed limit. And I think that's something we all said we needed more to be more aware of and I appreciate that. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Miss Crawford, thank you, Mr. Crawford. Mr. Bradley, I don't have anything for you tonight, Miss Sams.

Um, yep. Cara was great. Uh, we left and went to dinner and came back and it looked like nothing had ever happened in town and it was like 7 o'clock, so that was great. Um, I also would like to give kudos to our police department. I read the police reports that we get and there were several just general acts of kindness that our officers performed and I just really was nice to see that. Thank you, Miss Brown. Hello everyone, and I'm looking forward to cleanup day. So, I hope that everyone participates and gets involved. And that's all I've got for my district right now. Thank you, Miss Brown. Mr. Gregory,

we had a lot of family come in for Easter and they, you know, none of them from around here stay around here and they just mentioned about how not coordination with anybody here, but how clean everything was. They just were like, "Every time we come here, there's not a piece of trash on the ground. There's nothing going." So, I just wanted to add to the fact that these folks every time they come in, you guys do a great job at keeping everything sp and span, including the crime. And uh we appreciate all you do. Thank you, Tyler. Mr. Thompson, just want to echo what everybody said. I can't talk much tonight. Yes, sir. You feeling okay? Probably a blessing.

Mr. Dickinson, further.

Um I just have a few things. Uh I put a legislative report at each of your seats. Uh probably the largest thing that came out of uh this past session was uh the property tax uh issue and it went from House Bill 114 to House Bill 116 which was killed on the Senate floor about three hours before the end of San Die and it popped back up as Senate Bill 33. uh and you have uh details uh at at your seat. Um we did local legislation last year on our homestead exemption. Uh so this year we'll be eligible for a floss unless we wanted to do an L-host next year. We're in conversations uh with the county with that or will be over the next few days. Uh and we'll come back with more information for you. Um next uh our next strong town meeting May 7th. Is there anything else we need to say about that? Is it Grizzle? Okay. Um I was at the district um district 5 meeting last night in Athens. Um and we're all fighting the affordability crisis and the number one topic was cost and taxes and property tax and how we get across to our homeowners uh and citizens. um why costs have been increasing and it's pretty easy for me to say you have the 10 naysayers all the time but to come out and say look you know you have concrete that goes up 40% a year rise and I think our our citizens understand that but uh it's something that that is being battled all over the state uh so far at every district listening session it's all been about uh cost and affordability of taxes

Um, and utilities, which leads me to Greg, thank you for what MAG does. Um, there's a candidate running for office, I think, in Covington. Uh, he posted last week, he said, "Look, you you're barking up the wrong tree when you're talking about rates, and he posted the rates of Covington, but he also posted the rates of Monroe, Mansfield, Madison." Um right now the three power companies that serve Monroe and Walton County uh George Power is about 30% higher uh than us. Walton EMC is running a little bit about 10% higher. So we're uh 11 and a half cents a kilowatt hour and that is outstanding. So thank you for

thank the forefathers. We're just keeping it going. But it's but it's exactly the reason that people with knowledge need to be in those seats, right? Um so I appreciate your you're staying on top of that. That being said, I need a motion to adjurnn, please. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Thank you, Mr. Bradley. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose, like sign. Motion carries. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.