City Council - Regular Meeting

in his name.

All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Um the approval of the consent agenda this month is the uh April minutes from the planning commission and HPC. uh May called session minutes, city council session, executive session, called session, and the executive session of May 28th. I need a motion for the approval of the consent agenda, please. Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. Okay. Um that passes. Thank you. Ladies, would you please come forward for me? We stand you right here behind this podium. Okay. I love the fact that y'all are here and congratulations. Um, this team is our six and under team that plays for the Walton County Recck Department. They played 15 games this year. Did not lose one. Anybody have a championship ring that you can show? Look at that. Congratulations. But but the other reason I wanted to come in tonight, Marcus and Blair Blair Kilgore are our coaches, parents. Did you have two teams or three teams between you this time? Two. Three last season, right? Okay. what it takes in our community to build just frankly to build community whether it's in soccer or basketball or baseball or or whatever or parents who have the heart to spend time not only with their kids but with others. My my own father wouldn't coach me but he always coached against me. I don't want to hear about his coaching techniques at the dinner table. I

promise. Um, you also have the soccer skills camp that you do weekly during the summer. We've had what, 60, 70 kids there, right? Oh my. 100 kids last week. And this is all this is all parents and volunteers. We also have two club teams that are all really getting traction as well. So, um, I just appreciate you're coming in. I appreciate you're investing your time in these kids and congratulations. And this is for you. Way to go, girls. [Applause] Thank you. Way to go, ladies. Appreciate it. Thank you for coming. And you're also the cutest team I've ever seen. Hey, Marcus. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Moving next to the star readers. Are Kaden Kaden Cohen here? Did I pronounce the names correctly? Okay, boys, could you come up, please? Um, as you know, oh, y'all are just so impressive. I'm so glad you're here. We have um had a really really strong literacy push um that that we've worked with our impact team. We've worked with Monroe Elementary, the library. Um we have the partnership for families and children and we have never had one child read a thousand books before kindergarten in our in our district. Um, and we had one two weeks ago and then we got the second one last week. So, this is a proclamation honoring Cohen I'm

going to read them together. Cohen Een and Kate Een for extraordinary achievement and early literacy. Whereas the ability to read is one of the most vital skills for lifelong learning, critical thinking, and personal growth. And whereas fostering a love for books at an early age builds the foundation for academic success, creativity, and imagination. And whereas the 10,00 Books Before Kindergarten initiative encourages families to read together and prepare young children for a strong start in school. And whereas Cohen Een and Kate Een through dedication, curiosity, and extraordinary love of stories has achieved the remarkable milestone of reading 10,000 books before entering kindergarten. And whereas Cohen and Cade are the second and third children in the region to accomplish this outstanding feat, setting an inspiring example for other children and families to follow. Now therefore, be it resolved that we recognize and celebrate Cohen and Katiesen for their exceptional accomplishments, your commitment to literacy, and bright promise as lifelong learners. May your achievements encourage others to embrace the joy and power of reading and witness whereof. This proclamation is issued with great pride and admiration on this day the 10th of June 2025. John S. Howard one and two. Thank you all so much. That is really really impressive. Like you got your job on that one. I'm so proud of you. How awesome. Congratulations. Oh, you want to come with me? The baby whisperer, right? So proud of you. That was excellent. You want to send them? Send them home. You can hang with us. [Music]

Don't think so. Come back and visit soon. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. I appreciate you being here. Then have Monro Monroe State's volunteer recognition. Do I have anybody here from Monroe States from from the the team? The team. Adrien. Yes. Beers. Okay. So, Mrs. Beers, thank you. Let me get to your note. You come on up. I just I just have something for you. Oh, thank you. I'm great. Thank you. Um we're talking about always building community, whether it's with a sports team, whether it's with literacy rates, or whether it's just maintaining an area that has kind of been neglected. Uh the area around Monroe States had a developer that went bankrupt in the early 2000s. Uh, and you all have been living and working on streets and common areas that were never deed to the city, so they weren't taken care of. So, Miss Brown uh got together with a group of you and a bunch of the residents and started taking care of it every day. I've seen before and after pictures. They You're just doing an amazing job and and I appreciate it. Did you not bring anybody else? Come on, y'all. Y'all come on up. [Applause] Miss Brown has something for you. Thank you. Appreciate you being here. Um see Miss Brown has something for you. Thank you. Appreciate you coming in. And we've got you coming. No, you're just gonna make them do all the work. All right.

Yes, ma'am. I have some friends out in social circle, uh, Dave and Penny. Yes, ma'am. And they said I told them I was going to meet with you. They said to be sure you tell him that we don't like him one bit. And she and she and she asked me again when I saw the next week, did you tell him? And I said, I haven't seen him yet. It's the next week. But she said, you tell John Howard that we don't like him one bit. So that's the message from Kenny and that you came by. And my name is Brenda Fears. I live 926 Yes, ma'am. Old Mill Point. Yes, ma'am. In Monroe Estates. My husband and I bought the house 5 years ago. And we've made it quite lovely. It looks like better homes and gardens inside. It's this gorgeous, you know, white plush furniture cuz we're seniors and we're retired. Beautiful designer blue walls and it's it's that's lovely. But then you step outside and it's like a ghetto and it's over kept and my husband along with Mr. Johnson there. They got together, got a riding lawn mower. Other lawnmowers, they didn't just do our little square. They went all the way down. There's eight units attached front and back. And they ride the whole neighborhood. And they've encouraged other residents to do likewise to help it look better. And my church, the gathering, Brian Brock is the pastor. The men's group there got together one of the Saturdays with the prayer and they said, because we work for the community, they Yes, ma'am. do with Carver and the bridge schools. We do different things. They said, "Well, let's do something over at Monroa Estates." And they got one of those zero turns or whatever you call because you couldn't see when you were leaving the subdivision. If something was coming down the hill, the overgrowth was so high, you couldn't see what was coming. You had to creep. I'm from up north. It reminded me of snow drift, snow banks, because when you come out of your driveway, the snowbanks were so high. Up in Syracuse, New York, you couldn't see a car, and you had to inch and peek. That's how it was in Georgia. But it was

just overgrown grass and limbs. And when we reached out and we asked, "Can something done?" I mean, this was potholes that tear up my car. You had to go around it. And then finally found someone who had some concrete two years later that could level it out a little bit. But I mean, we pay taxes. My taxes went up like $3,000 when those investors came and paid twice as much I paid for my house or what what they were worth and they made the taxes rise and we complained and we show pictures. I paid for an assessment didn't matter because he came and he bought multiple units at extraordinary cost. It made our taxes rise. And for us to be told that it doesn't matter that we're paying taxes and nothing can be done, that it's privately owned, but the owners have abandoned the place. They're boarded up. There's no one there. So, you can't say it's owned. We own our area, but we don't own the sidewalks in all of the areas. And some of it is is abhorren actually. And we try our best. My husband, they brought swings to put in the area and basketball hoops. And the kids like it. and we try to deter crime in the area, but we really need help. We really need help. I see other parts of Monroe where lots of things are being done and it just seems like we're forgotten, but we pay taxes, too, and we would appreciate a little assistance in maintaining the common areas. Well, I I understand what you're saying. Um fact is legally we can't touch those common areas. They're they're not ours, but they're not ours either. Well, well, I understand. But the good part about it and the reason we've having you here is because you've taken pride in it. Legally, people can volunteer to do it. Legally, we cannot do it as a city. That's that's somebody else owns the property. That's just it. I need to know who owns it. I want to write them a letter. I want to give them a call. All those vacant landlords and

the slump tenants that they have and they just there taking up space and making the place look. I would like to contact them. And also, isn't there a way for you guys to contact the owners? I don't know if they're out of state, out of the country, out of area or down the street, but all of the owners who don't keep their property up and the windows are broken and they just leave it like that. And they should be fined. All the trash that's outside, if they're fined for all the different things, we could use the money from those fines to ameliorate the situation. I would think we do. God bless you. Uh we do have a code department and we will send our code guys over there. Okay. Um when it but when it comes to when it comes to maintaining common areas, that's going to be have that there's a long list of things that are going to have to be done before we would ever be able to do that. Um but we'll talk we'll talk further and I'll get our code guys over there. Okay. Well, we appreciate I mean we put up lights because the lights went out the street that's dark. So, we put up the ones around our property and now it's like a beacon as you turn that corner. But other than that, it's it's bad. But thank you. Tell David and Penny I've had enough of them. I will. Thank you. Thank Moving to public comments. Do we have anybody sign up? Chris. Oh, this one that's right here. Um Joy Wilson. Joy. Dan, you want to grab that camera? That's That's fine. If you want to stand over in front of Tyler, you want to stand right here in front of Mr. Gregory. All right, Joy, you have five minutes.

Yes, you're on camera. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joy Wilson and um I'm very grateful to be back in the building. I'm trying to calm down from an emotional threat and handle my business. Um this is actually a official request for grant funding toward long-term stability for home and work. Goal initiative personal safety in order to protect health spiritually, mentally, physically and financially. Thesis this piece is called music is medicine and money. What on earth am I here for? founder of the Grip Industries Entertainment. Breaking the spell of ignorance within communities primarily and deliberately through literature, volunteer charity work, and entertainment as a professional inspirational songwriter. Introduction. What is power? The ability as in to perform a task or to make a decision, to do something or act in a particular way, especially as equality, specifically and deliberately. The standard of something as measured in comparison or against other things of a

similar kind or the degree of excellence of something. A distinctive attribute or characteristic intentionally. The capacity or amount that something can contain or produce to direct or influence the behavior of self and or the course of events moving with great speed or force which is assertiveness of a person. This includes cognitive abilities such as problem solving and critical thinking as well as emotional abilities such as empathy and selfawareness like giving from oneself being equipped to do so specifically and deliberately effective strategy that is beneficial even outside of one's own self aim to be equipped power. I'm trying to get on my feet financially as an inspirational songwriter and I'm needing a breakthrough from somebody that's basically not a pig and is a good Samaritan instead of politicking me through several different guys. And I thought communication is very essential. And so I'm going to get more specific about why I'm here because I don't waste breath. I'm trying to get on my feet financially and uh someone's playing me for stupid and I don't have time. The project is called We Need Something to Stand For. You can find the music video on YouTube by Joy Wilson and the theme is positive and productive change. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Joy. I appreciate you coming in. Something to stand for. We need something to stand for and the theme is positive and productive change. Thank you for

listening. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for coming in. Get one W. Let's make banking easier by Wells Fargo. Thank y'all. Thank you, Joy. Um, and I'm sorry I can't pronounce uh this name Alamari U zone change. Come on. Come forward. Yes, sir. Cool. Got it. Thank you for coming in. Could you uh knock the microphone down so we can so it'll be able to get you on on camera? Better. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I've been there 35 years working very hard to fix that place up and uh everybody in town knows that I have done a lot of work in that place there was hardly making money there and I slowly build a place up. I just have rented it out to a gentleman that he was supposed to start a business and he goes and try to get a business license. and they tell him that they have changed the zoning on the property without somebody telling me that they have changed zone or anything like that and uh trying to find out I was not informed of that change and all of that. So I have leased a property to him and uh he come to try to get a license they would not give him license. I would like to see what what I what can I do you know can they reverse that decision. It was a B2 they have changed

it to a different kind of zoning that does not allow other repair shop and I have been there 35 years doing it myself times also really doubt so okay u Logan normally I would leave I mean I can just give you this in a nutshell when we adopted formbbased code at the beginning of the year we had a full year of public notices and so on and so forth uh leading up to the formbbased code in that time uh the existing auto repair shop had closed up there on North Broad. And so what happened is we created a new zone classification called CD4 which um kind of overlaid over these existing properties in the formbbased code zone. And so one of those conditions under that zoning of CD4 is auto repair shops, auto sales brokers, things like that are not uh allowed in there anymore. Had the business not the previous business not closed, it would have been an existing non-conforming issue. But as it stands now, that business had the previous business there had closed. Then we went on to form based code adoption and now um that is a prohibited land use in the CD4. So that's in a nutshell. Okay. Does anyone have any comments or you understand? Yes. But uh what happened the business closed because the person that was I had rented a place to uh he had been start doing shady works and uh was taking money from people and I had to force him out because he had written bad check felony check you know closing the account writing a check right he owed me over $12,000 and I have a five favor on him and it was it took took us a long time to put him out of there and after that I I put it for rent again and another

person took over. So that that was the reason. Actually, I've had three three tenants that they actually did, you know, submit and decide to, you know, force them out. I have like over $45,000 5ay and that's about it in them. Well, as as it was clo it was a it was a closed business and and that's when the zoning changes. So the zoning didn't change while the business was was in effect. And that's that's the reason you're going through what you're going through. It's no longer an acceptable use. What can I do now? Because I need to I need to, you know, there there are several acceptable uses for that property that that I I can't go with you right now, but more than happy to discuss that in the next couple of days, and I can put you in touch with our with our team of development. They will go over that with you. Yeah, I'd like to know what to do really because Okay, I have I have a really good client right now, right? He has signed up with me and they actually gave him a utility and everything. He's all hooked up, right? Didn't question him. All of a sudden, you know, this thing happened, right? I understand that and I and I apologize for for the inconvenience because I know it's not an an easy an easy issue to t to tackle, but if you'll go over that in the next couple of days, just reach back out to city hall um and we'll put you in touch with the right person. Yeah, that's it. We'll get a meeting set up with you so that we can kind of go through some of the appropriate uses of the property and next steps. And I have and I have your phone number right here. Yeah. Like like to talk to you and see what I can do. That'd be great. Thank you for coming in. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Franklin Johnson.

We just thought about this. Go ahead. Listen, uh, Miss Brenda touched on some stuff earlier. One, uh, here recently, we have had so many, uh, want to be contractors, they're not contractors, out there doing work. They're putting the stuff outside, toilets, couches, all kinds of stuff. Just sitting it outside and it's sitting there for months. Not just a day or two, it's sitting there for months. is we're trying to uh myself and a few others in the in the neighborhood are trying to you make it livable around there, make it a place where somebody would want to live. So, we got these contractors out there that's that's doing this stuff. And I called the code enforcement, myself personally. And the code enforcement told me that they had no way of contacting the owner of this uh said property. So, what do we do when they can't I mean, I thought you guys know everybody out there that that own. So if they if they don't know and we can't find out, what do we do about that? So this is the most complicated property in the city of Monroe probably in Walton County. Um this is a longer conversation than right here in the council meeting. So I know the mayor and I will be happy to meet with you and some of the residents that that do have concerns and want to make it better, but it's not an easy answer. There are not a lot of easy answers. So Mr. propes if we could. That's part of my super district. It's part of Miss Brown's little district. What he's telling you, that mess out there never should have been approved in the first place, but it was done a long, long time ago.

Contractor that did it originally went bankrupt, fled. It's a mess. And what we've had, as you said, is since then a bunch of speculators come in, buy up various pieces of it, say they were going to fix it, transform it. That's never happened. What the mayor was saying earlier about those common areas, essentially, they belong to nobody at this point. and the legal way to fix that. Uh, it's a nightmare. We But but I agree with you. Something needs to be done. I didn't realize we had people going over there now and just sticking stuff out. It's a lot of stuff that's I'm aware of a lot of the other problems, but I didn't know about that. So, we we don't have any problem about maintaining uh common areas uh because we know we don't have an association. Well, let's do this. I want to be in that meeting when you meet Okay. with these folks. I'm sure Miss Brown does, too, because those are our constituents. So, so it needs to be fixed. It It does. Thank you. Let me give you uh the best way to get me. Give me a shout tomorrow and we'll set up a meeting. Okay. All right. Sounds great. Yes, sir. Thank you. Appreciate you coming in. Uh need the videographer, Miss Sinclair. Um, I want to address to you, um, I want to start out by saying that I appreciate y'all everything that you do. I'm grateful you put your lives on the line

for us every day. But that being said, on Highway 78 between where you get on to 78 at West Spring going east, there's one speed limit sign of 55 on 78. You don't see another one until you get to Walton EMC. And according to Georgia DOT, which I feel like since we're benefiting from stopping all the people that we have some responsibility in getting Georgia DOT to put up speed limit signs. I see people stopped between West Spring and Walton EMC multiple times a day. Not only city, but the state patrol, the county. And it's like it's a speed trap. And we've got people coming in from UN, you know, for University of Georgia games, people that don't know that 78 is a 55 mile per hour zone. And I feel like, well, there's supposed to be a a speed limit sign at every junction of a state road going into 78. So that would mean Highway 138, Highway 11, Spring Street, east side of Spring Street, and 83. So, there should be that many speed limit signs going down through there. And I haven't been stopped myself, but I see it every day because I travel that section every day. And it's just annoying because you know that the police know that there are no speed limit signs and that's just not fair. I want people to come through Monroe to stop and love our city. I don't want them coming through thinking they're going to get into a speed trap. So, I'm

hoping that y'all can get in touch with Georgia DOT put up sign. Thank you. And that is not RV. Actually, I'm sorry. I said that would not be RV. Um, but Jeremiah, could you please look into that? Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. I appreciate you coming in. Um, moving Thank you to business items. Uh Logan Propes, city administrator report. Um I'll be very brief and just say that uh we're kind of hitting on all cylinders just uh you see the reports u the package tonight. We've got just a plethora of projects that we're trying to put to bed from our 2020 bond u fun bond projects. um economic development has really heated up whether it be um certain industries looking or we'll have some announcements in downtown soon hopefully leave that to them to decide but things are not slowing down in Monroe contrary to what you see elsewhere in the country um other economic conditions in other states but um we're full tilt ahead and we have a lot of work ahead of us in all departments I'm really proud of all of our departments for maintaining maintaining the service levels that they have been over the past year. Um, with the current staffing that we have and then throw in all these storms and everything else that we have on on top of it, it seems like every month or so, um, they're all doing a phenomenal job. So, really, I just want to use my report to to brag on everybody for just getting the job done on all these projects, the day-to-day services, and then the special occasions. So, thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Propes, Mr. Bailey, and I'm going to piggyback on that just a little bit based on recent storm that came through uh Saturday evening. I know that uh I was here for quite a while, too. But

all the way to Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, I don't think I didn't see a person from or every single department that we have here represented uh cleaning up the streets uh getting power back situated um in the middle of a chaotic situation. It was like I told someone, I come through downtown when I first come into town about 7:30, 8:00 that evening. When I got here, there wasn't a leaf on the street in downtown. I mean, it didn't look like anything happened. And then you hit pockets of the city, uh, Springdale, South Madison, Reed Street, Armisted Circle, obviously Highway 78, 138 was just a disaster. Uh, Holly Hill in there, too. Uh, several other places, but electric, telecom, I mean, they they were busy and every line truck, every bucket truck we had hooking things back up. We had contractors, uh, we had the city of Griffin, Coington, if I'm not mistaken, Rodney, uh, here helping us out. And then water, sewer, gas. I saw every one of those departments had crews in helping clean streets. Pretty much our entire streets department was in uh central services as well. Uh just helping um you know, all hands on deck. So kudos to what those guys do while leaving their homes that I'm sure were also damaged uh with trees down in certain areas. Um, so it's just a testament to what we are as a city and how well we come together as a team. Um, so thank you to everybody that was out there that night and everything that everybody does. And then the only other couple of things I wanted to hit are uh associated with with Main Street downtown uh our concert this past Friday night. Uh, happier times, right? Uh we had uh right at 5,000 people at the town green for uh Fly Betty and the performance that we had there. And then there were just over 10,000 people in town uh that afternoon and that evening

total. Um Crate Myrtle Festival is coming up uh this Saturday. Right now looks like we got about a 60 70% chance of storms. Um as long as it's a little rain, little wind, we might still uh go on as planned. Uh hopefully no lightning. Uh the hours are 9 to 2. Um I was going to ask for volunteers. We do have a dunking booth. Um so if anybody would like to sit in there for an hour or so, I might uh do it myself. So uh we'll have a little bit of fun. And then uh today our uh various uh I guess various accomplishments over the last year have been nominated for state awards. Our monument park is nominated with the Georgia Downtown Association this year. Um uh the welcome center also which is rehab to a historic building uh which was originally built I believe through um FDR's new deal uh way back in 1939 in the 30s and we've refurbished that and kind of brought it back to what it originally looked like outside and then inside with the museum. We'll be moving our main street offices down there starting next week. Um and then the 1821 shop and then our uh sculptures were nominated for a um promotional um implementation by the city this year as well. Our uh downtown is nominated for downtown of the year. And then I will submit the uh nomination tomorrow for our entire staff for an inspirational leader uh award for uh the Georgia Downtown Association simply because it doesn't happen without our entire staff uh that participate in events and keeping our downtown and our city as a whole looking like it does. So it's no one person, it's everyone. So and I'll be glad to take any questions. Chris, we hosted Swany two or three months ago. How many people do they have on their main street department, I

think, has somewhere between about seven and 10 employees, I think, full-time. Logan, yeah, just their main street. And we have how many? We have one. All right. Just wanted people to know. And then I knew the answer. And that's where we I mean, we peel off from everybody. It's it's a team effort. U Sometimes there's a little more pride in that aspect of what we do with what we have. as opposed to I see what others don't do with what they have, right? So, it's a little bit of pride. Well, granted, we'll take more people. I certainly appreciate how much how much it means to you and it's clearly clear to see. Are there any questions for Mr. Bailey? Hearing none, we'll move to department reports. Mr. Croy, central services. Thank you, mayor. I really just have two quick uh really kind of happy things. Uh over Memorial Day weekend, if if you didn't see it, um we had Miss Kim No come to our uh airport. She is 86 years old and she did her 800 784th skydive jump with Monroe Skydive. Uh Channel 5 came out, uh did a little article on it, so you can actually go online, read it, watch their um their report. But uh yeah, it was quite amazing. She uh started back in 1959 skydiving. U she earned a golden medal in 1962 at the world championships and she was inducted into the international skydiving hall of fame in 2013. So she is traveling around the United States trying to uh make it to a thousand. Uh so we were lucky enough to have her here and let her jump. She had a safe jump, landed good and um everybody was happy. So, yeah, guess is always happy to Yeah. not die. That's right. So, yeah, go uh go watch the video on uh look it up on channel 5. But outside of that, the only other

thing I want to add this um afternoon is the splash pad is back open. I'm sure most of you have been by there. It is packed. Um everybody's happy. It's It's a nice uh thing with the weather getting warmer, but um it's open 7 days a week from uh 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Croy. Are there any questions for Chris? Move into this one to you. Code report. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um just tonight, we have a couple things. Well, really just one thing um for your approval and then we've uh just recently preliminary approval for Tokyo business which is commercial. Okay. Um that's the main items and then we have the alcohol license. Got it. Any additional questions for Logan? Thank you, Mr. Probes. Mr. Wilson. Good evening, ma'am. So, this is the one I think everybody's kind of waiting on. um with the regard to the hotel RFQS. So that uh officially did close May 15th. I think we were 2 days before that. The last time we met, maybe three. Um but at any rate, the uh final update on that, we had still two intent to submit. That was what we we were expecting. Um we did unfortunately we waited at the last minute there and we did unfortunately not get more than the one that we had already had that I think everybody already knew about. Um the good news on that one though, it is somebody that uh and I don't know, we won't go too far into details and there's still a lot to be determined on how we're uh going to proceed with that, but the one we did receive um was from the developer who is responsible for uh I think the one we looked at uh that's a good model that uh that I think we all liked uh was the Thomasville Downtown Hotel. So the courtyard there. Um so I think aesthetically that's that's uh very similar to kind of what we we would like

to see. Um so we we've got a good one. We just have a lot of details now to work through and and I know Logan and I and some others will be meeting later to figure out how to uh best proceed with that and get it get get the ball rolling. So don't know what that time frame looks like at this point as far as getting this done. I think the original um uh feasibility study we were looking at like two years maybe three um from the point of where we're at right now. So hopefully a little little earlier than that. Um city and downtown business activity. So, we had eight business license additions uh in all and then uh three that were in the DDA and then we had f I'm sorry, eight also deletions and one of those was in the DDA. But I did want to mention that the caveat to that is that three of those were changes of ownership. So, not necessarily deletions and additions. They're still there. Um so, it's actually five uh additions for for uh an accurate number. five additions in uh in all and then two additions in the DDA and then five deletions and zero in the DDA for uh for that side of things. So that's all I have. Anybody has any questions? Any questions for Mr. Wilson? Thank you, Brian. Chief Dice Fire. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You have our incident data from April in front of you and I will take a few moments to go over a few recent events. First of all, uh I do want to brag and say thank you to all our other city crews, but also to our B shift which is have was working Saturday and they are back on again today. And as the joke, this is deja vu all over again right before council tonight is the storm rolled in and the first tree down versus with versus power line call came out. Thankfully, that was it. that uh Saturday evening our first incident came in that was storm related at 6:13 and by midnight we had been dispatched to 22 incidents. Obviously that is much more than we are equipped to handle. We did do a department recall. We were able to put up an additional fire engine. Uh

Social Circle was spared. They were able to send us a fire engine to assist with our calls. So all of our relationships really paid off and we are very appreciative of that. do want to hit on uh one thing I've been asked a couple of times about the nature of the storm. It was straight line winds. our weather station on top of the fire station uh clocked a peak wind of 67 miles an hour during that storm. And I met with EMA today who had been in touch with the National Weather Service and they actually have Doppler and velocity radar pictures and it showed a very strong cluster of straight line winds above our 67 miles per hour in that Highway 78, Highway 138 corridor, which we're very much aware of because that's where the transmission lines and everything else were down. So, uh, very strong straight line winds. Uh it's a good opportunity just to remind everybody that it doesn't have to be a tornado for it to cause a lot of damage and to take severe thunderstorm warnings just as serious and to stay away from windows come in and so forth. Um thankfully don't I don't think that we had any injuries to uh the public during this. I did talking with Carl with EMA today. He said that this by far was the most significant in terms of the number of damaged structures from a thunder summer thunderstorm uh event in terms of trees on houses. The other thing I was going to touch on is that tomorrow will be our third offering of a NYOSH line of duty class uh that's that we're hosting at the municipal court. So we're thankful to have that and we will have uh provided that class to over aundred firefighters from a bunch of local departments. But, uh, Chief Rodney Wiggins from Green County is presenting this class and it is about the, um, the death, line of duty death of Battalion Chief, um, Chris Eddie that occurred back in September on a tractor trailer

fire that involved a refrigerated reefer uh, that had frozen chickens that exploded. And these are the same types of trailers that we have lining up and down uh the cold food storage at Walmart distribution. And thankfully these are not regularly occurring events. However, there's not a lot of information known on this. So this has been a very eyeopening and beneficial class. So if you go by PD in the court and see a bunch of fire trucks from a bunch of different jurisdictions, that's what's going on. And if you want to learn about something that you probably have uh no knowledge of, feel free to come in. We'll be there at nine o'clock tomorrow. I'd be more than happy to have you and I'll answer any questions. Are there any questions for Chief Tikes? Chief Watts, I'm going to come back to you because I decided to skip over Beth on the last one. Miss Thompson finance. I was just over here wondering if I'm just like invisible or what. I know we have I know here last month, but um you have before you the finance report as of April. Um if you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer those. Um a couple months ago, you'll remember that the city was awarded a million-doll redevelopment fund grant under the community development block grant program through DCA. Um this will be used to eliminate blight conditions to the historic Old Ford building in downtown Monroe. And we have a post-awward public hearing on this award later on in the agenda tonight. Um our external auditing firm Malden and Jenkins has completed um the 2024 annual audit and we are very proud of the fact that we had no findings in our audit this year. Um a representative with Molden and Jenkins is here tonight to represent the final report to you later um in the meeting on this agenda tonight. Um Jeremiah and I had um a federal compliance audit with G DOT today for our North B North broadtap project. I'm glad to say that all went well with that and our next step on that

project will a pre-construction meeting which will be later um this year. Um and finally I want to um introduce you all know um a couple months ago we finally um after a long year and a half um hired an assistant finance director. Um if Miss Rose will stand up. This is Rose Kiselita. Um she comes to us with a lot of knowledge um and a lot of experience from um Athens, Clark County, Barrow County. She's been finance director. Um she's also a CPA. So um if you see Miss Rose around, please welcome her and we're glad to have her on board. Glad you're here, Rose. And that's all I have. Mayor, and she is nose to the grindstoneone. I know you you work your fingers to the bone. I appreciate it. Um all right, Chief Wise, you ready? I guess so. Thank you, mayor. Um just some highlights of what we did back in April. Um one of the first things I want to highlight is we have a great partnership with Pedmont Walton Hospital and uh they do this uh awards for heroes awards for uh individuals throughout the community. And so they recognized two of our officers. Uh one being Corporal Kaine where she um found a unresponsive female in Monroe Church of Christ one afternoon and she was able to uh extract the individual out of the car, apply AED and administer that until other medical help could get there and and the lady was able to survive that. And then the second one was for the actions of officer Ariaza. And I've told this story once before in here where uh so circle had a kidnapping and they were able to track the vehicle through Flock and was able to make an arrest on that and recover the child and return it back to home. So uh kudos for Pedmont Walton for recognizing those two officers. Um other thing I want to talk about was you know Mike Newsome and how Evan Newsome and they they shoot ski. So I used to be on the boys and girls club and then after I

came off Captain Tracy Henson uh fills that role on that uh board as well. And so we actually sponsored Mike Nuome's team to represent us, the city, the city of Monroe Police Department, and they shot the Clays for Kids at Boys and Girls Club, and they actually took the first place in that. So they were able to raise a lot of money for the Boys and Girls Club here in Walton County. Um, also back in April, we had the uh sobriety checkpoint with the Governor's Office, Highway Safety. You probably see this from time to time. We had George State Patrol, Walton County Sheriff's Office, Snailville Police, Morgan County Sheriff's Office, Milligville Police Department, Conjur Police Department, Department of Corrections, and Newton County Sheriff's Office. They will come in, we usually feed them at the police department. Uh we'll teach a class and then they'll go out various checkpoints in the city uh and conduct these uh license checks. They had 48 contacts that night. They were able to make four DUI arrests and one drug arrest. So, it was an effective night for sure. Um, one other case that an officer's made in the city was uh, one officer made a traffic stop and uh, recovered 48 pounds of marijuana off one traffic stop in itself. Uh, our total calls for service for the month of April was 2,34 traffic stops was 316 with issue of 394 warnings. We only wrote 65 citations on that. So, that's a positive. uh traffic crashes. We worked a total of 56 traffic uh crashes with only one fatality. Um our officers recovered a total of eight handguns and one long gun. And year to date total we've we've recovered 46 guns off the streets within the city. Uh we had a total of 57 adult arrest, one juvenile arrest, and uh I think that just about does it. If you should have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Like you had a busy month. Are there any questions?

Thank you, RV. Um, moving to Mr. Smith, Solid Waste. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'll be brief. Uh, we had an increase in mattress collection for the month of April. Uh, we picked up 166 off the curb. Uh, we were able to bill out a little over half of them, 89, but uh, we still can't identify all of them. We're not getting 100% yet. uh attaches tonnage report just to show our um trend from month to month on our tonnage report from the transfer station and what we collect uh curbside. Uh next week is June 10th holiday. Uh every everyone be on schedule. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday on schedule. Thursday we're going to push it back to Friday. So on the 20th uh so Thursday customers will be picked up on uh June 20th and uh just want to mention that our uh one of our capital uh equipment uh came in. It was delivered this week and it's online uh real loaded garbage truck. Um got here a little sooner than we thought, but um it came under budget. The budget was u $243,000. uh came in at 242 and uh it's going to replace the U recycling truck. Uh we'll be making trips to West Rock uh to deliver our recycling. We have a vehicle that's reliable. That helps. Uh and the last thing um of course is obviously the limb pickup. It's going to be bit of a challenge, but we're gonna be running all three boom trucks and we just ask the citizens just to be patient. Um, when they call in, we're going to get everybody. We're not charging. Uh, we're going to clean it up and it's probably going to take a good

two weeks before we get everybody taken care of. You good? I'm good. Any questions? Are there any questions for for Mr. Smith? Thank you, Danny. Yeah, you've uh you're gonna be busy. I I appreciate you. Uh Jeremiah, transportation. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll start by saying that if we could get about two more of those straight line storms, don't think we'd have rightaway issues. I think everything within the rightway would be handled and it might take us a little bit longer to get it up, but then the next one could come and I think we'd be we'd be all right as far as what you wish for. I joke, but it I want to give my guys a shout out as well, like everybody else, for the work they put in uh over the weekend getting things passable. And we're still, you know, there it's it's still a mess in some of those areas Chris highlighted earlier. U but kudos to those guys for getting out middle of the night getting the stuff cleared up and picked up. Um and I will reiterate because I I hear the phone calls that come in, please be patient uh with the lamb pickup. It's going it's I don't know that two weeks is going to get it. It's going to be a minute um before that stuff comes in. Only thing I got um really is that we're we're a couple of week we're tying up loose ends on a couple of projects and we're we're two good weather weeks away from being ready to pave or getting the contractors in here to do the milling and then get the county in here to to do our paving for the summer. Um, so we just we we need some good weather to finish up and then we need about two weeks of patching and we'll be ready to go for for payment. Um, I'm not going to take any more of your time, but I will entertain any questions. Thank you, Jeremiah. Are there any questions for Mr. Still? Appreciate it, man. Uh, Mr. Magcguire, you've been busy. Yes, Mayor, I have. Thank you. Um I instead of going over

the the report and say hey we've installed this and that I I want to take this opportunity to kind of just touch on what's happened within the last 24 hours in the telecommunications department just to make everybody aware as far as what's going on. We had the storm hit which was which was bad enough in itself and as everybody has reiterated there's been several different areas that were hit pretty hard. Carwood Drive and Etn Drive, Armistad, Holly Hill, a bunch of those places got tore up pretty bad. And in fact, there are some of those areas that still have wire down on the ground. Hopefully, fingers crossed by tomorrow, most of our mainline outages and stuff should be repaired. But on top of that storm and everything that went on, uh, yesterday at about 7:00, we discovered that our main backhole provider had a fiber cut or fiber damage of some sort of at a facility in Forythe. And we have a primary circuit where most of all of our traffic goes through. We have a couple of spare circuits that some of our traffic goes through. And in times past when this happens, we're able to kind of manipulate that traffic and push them over here if we need to push them over here. Well, those circuits though be different from they are are by the same back hall provider because up until about a month ago, that's the only back hall provider that we physically can connect to and and send our traffic to. Unfortunately, that cut was so severe it affected our alternate circuits as well. So, the best way I can put as far as what happened was you you live in Monroe, you work in Atlanta, you wake up and jump in the car and cut on the radio and found out that they have shut down 285, 85, and 78, and you're trying to get to Atlanta. I mean, that's that's basically uh what happened. So, the fiber repair itself, I just know it was near a railroad and some damaged conduit under

a railroad. If you've ever done any any workings or dealings with the railroads, it's it's very it's very difficult. Put in a temporary solution that that was repaired about 4 in the morning. But when they did that, uh we our services did not come back up properly like it should have been. So they dispatched some engineers and texts to Monroe today and about about 12:45 I would sayish, services finally restored and and got back to way it should be. Now, why am I telling everybody this? Up until about a month ago, we haven't had an ability to have a redundant circuit provider. But once we completed the GTC circuit that we finished about a month, two months ago, this gives us the ability to avoid this disaster moving forward. If anything like this should happen automatically, our traffic should route through a network that is completely independent of our current circuit provider, a different direction even, you know, outside of some tragic disaster that might be for us befall us that would take everything down. We hope this situation will not happen again in the future. Uh that process is already underway. Unfortunately, it's not like flicking a switch. You can't just have a a circuit delivered to your building by saying, "Hey, I'd like to get one tomorrow." There's a lot of puzzle pieces that have to go in place, but they are getting there. This unfortunate incident probably came about two months too early and and uh in my tenure here in 23 years. It's probably one of the worst outages we've ever experienced. Thankfully, it's resolved. The commanding storms did not help with that. But I want to give a kudos to the telecommunications team. We had guys that came in on Saturday after the storm came through at six o'clock and didn't go home to 5:00 a.m. the next morning. Went home and got a couple hours of sleep, got back up, came back in Sunday. And and and they have they have worked their tails off. I'm sure we're not the only ones. Other departments have worked

just as hard. And I I I just want the other departments to know from my perspective, public safety, police, fire, electric, public works. I'm sure I'm missing some. even if it is, it's it's not intentional. How much we appreciate you guys and everything that you do in assisting with road clearing and getting stuff out of here. Uh it has made our job a lot easier in trying to get services and stuff restored. But the good news is hopefully by tomorrow the bulk of this should be put back together from a damage perspective and the big problems that we had over the past 18 hours were resolved this afternoon. So, I have if anybody has any questions or anything, I'll be glad to answer that. But, I just wanted to give an update as far as what happened and how did we get to where we're at. Thank you, Mr. McGuire. Any questions for Mike? I know you asleep well tonight. Um, and really, thank you for what y'all done. Uh, Mr. Middle Brooks, you were gas, electric. Uh, I started as well as uh want to tell all the departments thank you for their help in the storm. That was uh that was seemed like they're getting worse and worse every time they come. So, hope this ain't something we can hope we don't expect this every year. But uh thanks to Coington, thanks to Griffin, Kendall, and UT both sending crews in uh over the weekend uh and all the crews here. Much appreciated. Uh want to give an update on the two large bond projects. Uh, one being the 16inch water man that's going down Marble in Union. Now it's headed to once it gets to the curve at Union, it'll cross under 478 and then it'll continue down Remish Lane to Cherry Hill uh to the public works site and that's where the new half

a million gallon tank will be installed. Uh they've got the peers poured for the tank. Those have been installed. Now, it'll be a waiting game. Uh the metal for the tank is expected later this year. So, I don't think we'll see construction till probably January, uh if we're lucky, but that one's moving on. And the 24 in and the 20-in main that's going along 78, uh they've started installing the pipe now. They've got two crews here. One starting at Cedar Ridge, working this way. One starting at Sorrows and Cook Street, and they're going to be headed the opposite way. Uh, it's going good. We just get the rain out of here and the storms. And I think they counted along the easement. They they they've cleared I think they counted over 30 trees that have failed across the easement that they've already had cleared. So, now we got to do some more clearing, but it's moving along. And then uh wanted to recognize electric crew. They recently received the uh Jeff Cook safety uh diamond award. It's second year in a row. So wanted to uh give them a shout out for that as well. That's all I got. Thank you, Rodney. There any questions, Mr. Middle Brooks? I know you've been you've been wearing it out, too. Thank you. Um, and I'm coming back to you with the approval of the J Creek Wastewater Treatment Engineering. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, asking for your your approval to proceed with the engineering services uh with Weedleman and Singleton for the uh design and uh bidding out of the wastewater sewer plant expansion. As you know, we'll we'll this will double our capacity at the plant.

and it's uh in the amount of 1,619,665 funding source on that I'm going to recommend we use ourility capital reserve tap fees primarily and then later on as we get into some of that back but this will at least get us kick started so we have to wait around We are going forward with the full 42 million project. Well, that's the Yeah, the the cost estimate right there. So, um instead of the 38 or whatever. Yeah, the the full the 6.8 MD. I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Dickensson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? Hear none. All in favor signify by saying I. I all oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. I'm moving a new business of public hearing post award RDF hearing. M. Thompson. Thank you, mayor. Um, this is the public hearing I had spoke of earlier for the post award for the redevelopment loan from um, DCA. Um, I'm going to introduce Gabe Morris. Um, he is with our grant administrator, Carter and Sloop. Um, he will go over this and then um, answer any questions that you may have. Gabe, thank you. I think Wendy's been great. Yeah, I she has been patiently waiting for ice cream. She keeps tapping me on the shoulder every two minutes. Every time one of y'all started speaking, she was like, "Is it time now? Is it time?" And thank you so much, Winnie. And the ice cream is just right there. So, we'll be quick. Okay, I will I will move as quickly as I can. So, this is the uh official post award public hearing for the redevelopment fund application that was submitted and awarded. The award date that's associated with that from DCA is April

1st. Um even though a lot of it was initiated prior to that. That is the official date that was on the award packet that came out. So technically we're supposed to have the meeting within 30 days of that. We're a little bit late. It's okay. Um DCA uh took a few minutes to get us the paperwork. So we'll call it even on that one. But this is the redevelopment fund project that is for uh rehabilitation of the old Ford building uh 208 South Broad Street. Um that's being handled by uh JEC Development uh Chad Draper and his crew. Um, I know that there are a couple of other folks on the agenda that I believe are going to be tenants in that building that are going to be talking to you all later, but um, the old Ford building is being rehabilitated with a million in well $940,000 in uh, loan assistance from DCA. Um, it was a total million dollar award. uh 60,000 of it is for the administrative um purposes and then the other 940 is going to supplement the additional assistance Mr. Draper got for rehabilitation of that building. Uh it's going to be split between two tenants. Um I believe it's well underway. Uh, I will tell you that I have reviewed all of the financial paperwork so far and by the time the loan documents are fully executed at, I believe the next meeting, um, we probably will have everything to be able to submit one and only one draw down and get all of that funds released at one time. Uh, which should help make the paperwork process a lot simpler, quicker. Um, but this award is a little bit different than your standard CDBGs that y'all are used to. Uh, because it is, uh, a redevelopment

process. It was a grant to the city that is then being loaned out to the developer. Um, it still has all of the federal regulations with it. So, we are still complying with Davis Bacon provisions for any contract that they're executing that's over $100,000. We are still complying with Babba. Uh we're still complying with fair housing, equal opportunity requirements, section three requirements, uh every aspect that normally comes with a CDBG project is being handled. It's just it's it's not y'all's headache this time. This time it's the developers headache. So um I have been working very diligently with him to make sure that all of his subcontractors, contractors, everybody who's associated with the project is checking all those boxes and meeting all those thresholds. Um, we have an official meeting with DCA staff for the kickoff. Uh, that'll be upcoming uh, next week. Um, and so that will be them reviewing everything that has been submitted so far and making sure that our paperwork is off to a good start. After that, like I said, it should be pretty smooth sailing. But that is the long and short of it. Um, I'm here to make sure that all the compliance stuff stays in in check. Um, it's going pretty well so far. Um, it's interesting, but uh, it's it's well, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for that explanation. Are there any questions for Gabe? Give me one minute. I'll declare this portion of the meeting open for the purpose of public input. Is there anyone here who would like to speak in favor of the redevelopment fund? Is there anyone here who would like to speak against redevelopment fund? Uh thank you for your input. Um thank you Gabe. Uh go ahead and take her. Glad you're here man. Appreciate it. Um moving to environmental variance number 3757311

Stoke Street. Uh Mr. Probes. Uh I'll take that mayor. Um, so this is coming from Brad Calendar's uh report as you know he's up at the CNU conference. Um, so an administrative special exception variance has been granted to the property owner to reduce the principal uh front building setback and accessory building setback by 20%. That's allowable under our code rules. However, um there's been an additional uh petition to make the project uh feasible. Um it's an environmental variance that will reduce uh the 25 foot imperous setback to a ify or setback from the 50 foot stream buffer. So um the owner proposes to raise an existing uh single family uh dwelling and replace it with a new single family dwelling but the environmental buffer is necessary due to just how topography lays there. So, uh, the owner applicants been working extremely well with us and we're just trying to make this project a reality. Thank you. Um, are there any questions for Logan? I'll declare this portion of the meeting open for the purpose of public input. Is there anyone here who would like to speak for or against the variance 311 Stoke Street? Hearing none, we'll move that immediately to new business. Uh, I'm gonna say Logan, you go ahead and take it. But there it is. Not here. They're not here. They are. Uh, are there any are there any questions for Logan? I'll entertain a motion. Move to grant variance. I'm going give that one to Mr. Dickson. Did I hear a second coming from you, Tyler? Second.

Thank you. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes fair is granted. I'm moving to the Mold and Jenkins 2024 financial report. Miss Thompson. Thank you, mayor. Um, as you all know, annually we are required to engage in when an external auditor to audit the city's um financials. Um you each have before you um this big report for your reading pleasure and then you have these other two small reports. Um will with Molden and Jenkins um we'll present those to you and go over that. Um thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me. Thank you Seth. Is that good? Yes, sir. You might want to straighten it up a little bit. You're a little bit tall. There we go. Uh yes. Thank you for having me, mayor and council. So, as Beth mentioned, uh my name is Will Dersis. I'm a director with Malden and Jenkins. I've been a part of the city's audit for more than a few years at this point. And my presentation tonight on the um most recent financial audit and and results of 2024 will be based on the auditor's discussion and analysis. So just jumping right in u on page two you can read and and see a little bit more of the profile of Maldon and Jenkins and and its governmental practice. Um Adam Freley is the engagement lead partner. Um so my name is Will and we had an engagement quality control review partner uh whose name is Josh Carroll. On page three, you can find a little bit more of additional information, other industries and services provided by author and Jen. All right. On page four, a few things I'm required to communicate to those charged with governance, that's all of you. Um, our auditor's responsibility is to express an opinion on the statements. uh we conduct our

audit in accordance with standards uh accepted within the United States of America as well as standards um applicable to to local governments referred to as government auditing standards which are um uniquely applicable to the city. Uh I'm pleased to share we've issued an unmodified audit report which is a clean opinion and that just means that we think the city's financial statements present uh its results and financial standing fairly in all material respects. On page five, this is a review of the annual comprehensive financial report which is referred to as an acter. It goes um it's it's something the city finance prepares that is above and beyond the state required financial statements including uh an introductory section some statistical information on demographic and other non-financial data within the city. So kudos to city finance for putting together that report. All right, jumping in page seven. I'll touch on some of the financial highlights of the city. So from the city's um not the utility or solid waste operations just the city's uh governmental perspective uh total assets were approximately 246 million at the end of December offset by liabilities of about 82 million and that results in net position or you can think of as equity of a total of about 165 million. of that about 135 is comprised of um the city's investment in its fixed and capital assets net of any debt that might encumber those assets. So that just speaks to the fact the city's invested heavily in its infrastructure and its assets over time and there's some amounts that are restricted by external parties, creditors, grant agencies. Uh and the end result is that there's unrestricted

net position that would be considered available of about uh 21 million. On page eight, you can find some some graphics, some information on the city's general fund, a revenue profile, and as you might expect, taxes, including property, vehicle, sales, uh, business and occupation, everything that makes up about 75% of the total general fund revenues in 2024. On page nine, a breakdown of expenditures um of which public safety is is the leader making up about 50% of just general fund based expenditures of 2024. Page 10, some more graphs just showing a a visual of the revenues and expenditures of the general fund in the past five years. Revenues have outpaced expenses over the past five years. although it was fairly close to a break even in 2024, but there's been a positive net change in in the general fund equity in the past five years. And on page 11, this just discloses that uh in kind of a ratio format that indicates the city has available fund balance at the end of 24 2024 to cover about 159 days, which is um considered healthy as other common benchmarks say 75 to 90 days is what you is what you look for there. All right. On page 12, I'll briefly touch on the results of the utilities fun. The solid waste fund total assets of of the city's business type activities is about 177 million at the end of 2024 offset by liabilities of about 67 million and again that results in in its equity position of about 110

million um a large part of which is invested in capital and fixed assets. operating revenues of the city's business type activities increased from 2023 about 6% and um expense operating expenses increased as well not quite at that same rate. Uh the end result was that the city's operating income doubled from 2023 to 2024 for its utilities and solid waste activity. And on page 13, you can see um just a quick breakdown of the cash flows. Operating cash flows are the are the main um element in the in the statement of cash flows. And um the city's cash flows doubled for those operations from 2023 to 2024 from about 5 million to 10.6 million. All right, page 14. This is uh just presents all the footnotes that you can find within city's aer which just provide kind of a narrative of the financial information. A little more background. Page 15 discloses the two compliance reports applicable to the city. One being reporting um for all local governments. The second being a single audit report in which uh the city has uh we perform tests of its um major federal programs and compliance with uniform guidance standards. Um and and as Beth mentioned earlier that end result was um we had no findings reported during 2024. So good work by the city. All right, almost there. Page 16. Um we did not identify any significant or unusual transactions. Just a few more required communications I need to share with you. On page 17, uh we had no difficulties with city management uh or any disagreements. And at the conclusion of our audit, we requested certain written representations that we received

without any issue. On page 18, there were some audit adjustments proposed and posted to the city's funds by the auditors and city staff, uh, including one past adjustment that was uncorrected at the end of the year, but not considered to be material in any in any way. And then lastly, uh, Alden Jenkins, we are independent of the city and it's any of its related organizations. And as you might imagine, being independent is kind of the cornerstone of an effective audit. Page 19 just discloses some other matters for communication to the board, to management. Um to anyone who dares to read up on this just summarizes some future pronouncements that may be in effect for the city based on the upcoming changes enacted by the uh standard setting board called the Gazsby. So they keep us and Beth's team very busy um over the years and even if you're not involved in the the process directly, it's good to read up and have a little bit of a stay current on some of these upcoming changes. But that concludes my presentation and um I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone has. Thank you. Will, are there any questions? Look, I know you poured your heart and soul into this and it's not easy. So, thank you for for coming in and and talking with us. Thanks for having me. Yes, sir. Thank you. Are there um any questions for Beth? I'll entertain a motion, please. Move to approve. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there any discussion? Hear none. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the application for beer and wine on premise consumption at your pie. Mr. Rosenthal. Yes, mayor. That application is in order. Thank you. Are there any

questions for Paul? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. Move that one to Miss Sams. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Brown. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the application for spiritless liquors and beer and wine on premise consumption at the Red Crawfish. Mr. Rosenthal. Yes, Mayor. That application is also in order. Are there any questions for Paul? Hear none. I'll enter a motion. Move to approve. Motion by Miss Malcolm. 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. Moving to beer and wine package sales at 914 Broad Street. Mr. Rosenthal. Mr. Mayor, that application is also in order. Are there any questions for Paul? I'll entertain a motion, please. Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the application for the brewery at Grizzlebeer. Mr. Rosenthal. Yes, Mayor. And again, that application is in order. Any questions for Paul? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, signify by saying I. Opposed like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to district items. Uh, Miss Malcolm. Um, just again, thank you to the city workers and all the coordination, top tier level leadership all the way

through. I don't I didn't hear many complaints other than West Spring Street still without and they're they're still waiting trying to run their businesses. You said tomorrow that'd be great. But they were they were all very respectful and understood. But I rode around Sunday afternoon and it was amazing what we saw. It was pretty awful. Miss Samsy getting everything cleaned up and this weekend city over time just appreciate everybody's effort. Thank you, Miss Brown. Thank you. also wanted to thank the Monroe Estates delegation for coming in and um talking about what's going on in their community. I really appreciate everything that they have done. They have really stepped up and shown what community really is and I really appreciate them. I call them my community ambassadors over there because they will pick up the phone and they'll call me even if it's on a Saturday night. So, um I really appreciate them. Also want to remind everybody about Habitat for Humanity. They have their um book bag and health fair that's coming up on Saturday, July 26. It will be um a book bag giveaway, health fair, and estate planning over at the Boys and Girls Club. That information would have gone out in the utility bill. So, thank you again to the city for supporting them again. And also on July 19th, Shepherd's House over on at 710 Harris Street, we'll have a uh family funday and a book bag giveaway as well from 12 to 4. And

that was 710 Harris Street. Yes. 710 Harris Street. Okay. And that's with Michael and Gloria Reese. make him a slow rider. Mr. Gregory, same as with everybody else, thanks to everybody in the city, especially the streets. I'd like to make sure and say uh last time when we were covering all the cleanup crews and who was handling what I I made the terrible mistake of not including streets even though I did the same thing as Mr. Maguire and included a catchall. Streets in particular I want to say I think did a fantastic job. Yeah, Mr. Thompson. Uh, I do have a couple questions and just, uh, I'm starting to get some questions about traffic through downtown. Could y'all give us just a seems like it's backing up further and further. Could y'all give us just a short synopsis on the connector or bypass or whatever you want to call it. Uh, is on track, ahead of schedule. Well, we're on track and ahead of schedule if that's the case. Um there there are three numbers, three dates. U Mr. Brisco with the arsenal said his portion will be ready by the end of summer. Um and I said, well, I'd feel more comfortable just saying, you know, maybe September, but DOT say October. Um the one fly in the ointment uh is Windstream. They need they need to move some of their their things, but uh but regarding the the the roadway and the bridges,

it'll be done. Um and I know that can't get here fast enough, but we do have a lovely town that they can look at all the sites while they're traffic. Well, they get a chance to because it's deadlocked. I I know it's it's way past your store. I know. Rodney's got a bulldozer he can take care of windstream real quick. I know that's that would serve two purposes. Say what, Rodney? They what? Oh, good. Thank you. Thanks for that information. It's just passing it on to everybody because like I said, it looks to me like traffic's getting Oh, it's it's getting tough. Well, and and pedestrians are very careless and not using the crosswalks correctly. There's a reason that you wait for a figure that is white to cross. You do not cross on red. These people that are turning right or left, you're going to get hit if you do not follow the arrows. It's dangerous. Pay attention because drivers don't pay attention. That's right. He knows. Mr. Dickson. Uh, nothing further other than I second Mr. Thompson's bulldozer motion. Hey, one one other thing I wanted to piggyback off Mr. Thompson's question. Um, the second critical piece of the bypass is the signalization project we're working on at 11 and 78. That's been a long slow go just getting G dot to understand the metrics that are about to happen. Um and and I think they're they're almost there. So anyway, our engineers uh just this week submitted to

them a permit for the signal and a couple other modifications at the intersection that we will have to do. I don't have full cost estimates of what everything is right now because it really depends on what type of equipment is permitted by GD do, but I'll get an idea of that very soon. As soon as we get that, we're going to go as fast as we can to get that installed. Thank you, Logan. Um, my report, just a couple things. Uh, yesterday at the University of Liverpool students, uh, came to town and and they learned about Southern Hospitality. They absolutely loved being in Monroe. Um, had a great time with them. Gave them a tour of, uh, downtown Children's Park. Logan and Chris and I stayed here and talked with them for about 45 minutes before we walked around. Um they wanted an authentic American coffee shop. So took them to coffee camper. Um what's interesting over the last few years we've had the Nelson Ben Mandela fellows from subsaharan Africa uh farmers from Northern England um all through UG Global Studies uh and the Georgia Historic Trust. And the comments that we always get are really, really interesting. Um, number one, how how nice people are. Number two, how clean the town is. Number three, they love the statues. This group yesterday thought it was just wonderful. Uh, and the Georgia Historic Trust, we were described as very healthy. Um, so we've got a good thing going and let's keep it up. Um, and I also want to recognize our uh, future city clerk sitting here in the back on her own valition. She hasn't even started yet. Um, so Laura Powell, we're glad you're here. Um, that being said, I need a motion to adjourn to executive session, please. Motion to adjurnn. Thank you, Mr. Thompson's. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Brown. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All

oppose, like sign. Motion carried. Meeting meeting adjourns to executive session.