City Council - Regular Meeting

Am I coming forward, please? Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I've asked Randy, uh, who's a friend of mine who goes to Annie Mary Baptist, uh, to give the invocation. Uh, you might remember Buster from a few months ago. uh quite eloquent, I might add. Um he is the lead pastor of the church. Ry's kind of the boss, so I've asked him to take a shot at it for us tonight. If you don't mind, please take the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the invite. Yes, sir. Third time's a charm. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you for this day. Lord, we thank you for this time. Lord, we thank you for this meeting. Lord, we thank you for uh the United States of America. God, we thank you for the city of Monroe. Lord, we just ask you to be with each member, the mayor and the city council, men and women that make up this city council. God, we ask you that, Lord, that you'll be in their thoughts when they make the decisions that they need to make. And Lord, that those decisions may honor and glorify you. God, we thank you for the police, the firemen, and the first responders and every member that makes up this community. Lord, we thank you again and we ask for your blessings to continue upon Monroe in your son's Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming in. You sure you don't want to stick around? Thank you. I'll call this meeting to order of the this Monroe City Council July 8th, 2025. It is uh now 6 pm. That clock is three minutes fast. Um let the record reflect that all members of council are present. I need a motion for the approval of the agenda, please. I'll move.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Is there 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 minutes from downtown development and convention and visitors bureau from May, city council, and executive session from June. I need a motion for the approval of the consent agenda, please. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Brown. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose, like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Um, we don't have a public presentation tonight. Um, but I do have a few signed up for public comments. Uh, Miss Wilcox, Canton Hawker Road Group. Okay. So, when we come come to that, I'll come to you. Thank you. Uh Gareth Finley. Thank you for coming in. Hi, good evening. Um I'm Gareth Finley. I've been living in Monroe or near Monroe, just outside the city limits for seven years. and I'm a customer of the city of Monroe and a shopper in the city and a person who um often uses the public restaurants here. Um I'm here tonight to oppose the application for an alcohol consumption license for a business called Catch22. The application is by a man named Richard Miley. And um I have distributed to y'all a uh packet of information which is public information.

Mr. Miley was arrested in Clark County uh July 3rd for reckless driving. He's had other arrests as well. Um including Let me make sure I get it exactly right. Simple battery family violence. Um I have a letter here. um from Katherine Bailey who is a former employee of Mr. Miley and she said, "I regret that I could not be in attendance tonight, but I will ask that you deny his request for a liquor license in your community." Um I Mr. Miley first came to my attention um on page two of this little packet through Facebook. I admit that I do some social media and um have a good number of friends in Watkinsville and Athens and the Monroe area on Facebook and saw this very obscene um comment that was posted by Mr. Miley and it caught my attention because it was so obscene and so offensive. Um and that's how I stepped into this. I am not comfortable um representing people who are former customers or employees of Mr. Miley, but I'm the one who could make it today and I'm the one who's here in Monroe. And I value how our city is a city of decency, civility, um bipartisanship, um a city where people can get along. And I think that this person is not uh of the character that we want to bring into our business community. Um there were a whole lot of other

allegations and things said about this man that I could not substantiate, so I'm not going to repeat them. But the information that's in this packet is what I was able to publicly uh substantiate. So, I ask that you oppose or at least reconsider, defer until you've looked more into this man. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Finley. Appreciate you coming in, Jeff Russell. Got it. Well, I'm appreciate you both being here. We'll come back to you in just a couple minutes. Um, moving to business items. Mr. Probe, city administrator update. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of uh items here for your attention. Um House Bill 746, you remember Representative Williamson dropped that bill earlier this year regarding the floating homestead optin uh for all the cities in Walton County. And that one specifically for the city of Monroe. Um there will be a referendum in November on that that calls for the referendum for folks to uh vote whether to opt in or opt out. But we're trying to get some clarity from the Secretary of State's office and uh or the Legislative Council's office at the Capitol um to see how about we need to go through that resolution process. Regardless, it will probably be before you in August so we can get that to the elections office in Walton County. Secondly, we just got the tax digest in hand from the property appraisals office at the county. Uh I really haven't had a chance to do a deep dive into it. I just got it Thursday afternoon, I believe. A little late, a little a lot later than usual, but um they've had some hiccups dealing with a lot of state law changes, too. So, I'm going to be going through that. I'll get with y'all over the next couple weeks, and we need to make a

determination pretty soon as to what we're going to do on the mill rate. And um we'll have to adopt in August in order for the tax commissioner to uh get the tax bills out on time. So, um, allow me to do some analysis on it and get get some of that information to you. Short order. Thank you, Mr. Pro. Do any questions for Logan? Mr. Bailey, um, I think you're going to be talking a lot. You're going to be tonight uh, central services and transport streets, right? Yeah. I'm going to knock out mine, uh, central services, solid waste, and streets. and I can do it all at once and then we that'll help us move on to to the business of the meeting. Um, great. Thank you. First thing, uh, I've talked about it for a couple of months. Our main street offices have moved to the welcome center. Um, so if you get a chance, uh, swing by their welcome center museum, uh, the 1821 shop and say hand hey to uh, Sandy and Laura Beth and Audrey if she's there. Um it's it's been a big change for them, but I think one that's going to work out great for everyone going forward. Um airport, we've talked about clearing uh that we've got to do at the uh ends of runway 2, one, and three. And right now, we're making pretty good progress on runway three end just through some kind of some natural growth in the area of um of change and whatnot. And we've been able to talk to a couple of property owners about doing some things for us. So, we should come out great in that aspect. Um, Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program, um, applications due August 1st, so that's right around the corner. That's, uh, if you remember this past year, we applied, uh, uh, the River Park for that grant. Right now, we have Hall and Associates and Keken Wood both working with us to help uh, beef that up a little bit, and we'll see how it goes. um tap grants. Um Miss Thompson will

have a uh contract uh request from you guys here in a little bit for the the High and Broad Lumpin Street um agreement that we um where we awarded Shiv construction. I believe it was last month or month before with a low bid, but this will be the officials of the contracts. Um, first Friday concert we had June 6, we had 4,500 people in attendance. And then our crate myrtle festival that returned to us after 15 years in hiatus, uh, we had 13,400 people that day in attendance. So, uh, good numbers. Then jumping over to Mr. Croy's report. Um just wanted to hit um central services uh guys it's you know 90 95 degrees outside heat index is 95 to 100 plus um between contractors and our crew members they average cutting about 290 acres a month. So that's quite a bit. They also picked up two tons of trash over this past month. Um and then the airport, we actually had the highest uh number of transactions and fuel sales that we've had in the last 24 months. So, uh more activity, obviously, hanger being finished, more aircraft moving in. Um that's that's great for the growth of the airport. And then we have a couple other items coming before you later. Um I already covered the tree stuff. We'll jump to solid waste. I did want to point out that over the last four months, our tonnage at the transfer station has actually went up from uh 2023 and 2024. So, that's good numbers. I think our rates are settling out well um and tracking with others around us uh too. And I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't mention how many mattresses we picked up in the month of May. So, we collected 103, which is down the lowest month we've had. and uh we were able to bill for 87

of them. So, percentage-wise, we actually came out pretty good uh this past month. Um but it's still an ongoing problem. Uh something that we're trying to get to kind of get under control, working with the marshalss uh and communicating with them to try to help us out a little bit. Um, and I did want to point out too, the month of May, just to give you guys some rough numbers, um, commercial industrial, uh, collection, uh, garbage trucks, we collected 670 tons of trash just out of our large dumpsters in town. That's just in Monroe. Uh, residential was 500 tons. That's your daily routes through houses, whatnot, customers. Um, and then we recycled 131 tons. Um, so that'll knock out solid waste. Streets, they've been a little bit all over the place here lately. Our um our LRA grant uh funds I believe that we have to have spent I think by the end of August is where you've seen the deep patching on Breedlove and they will continue the half from McDaniel to Alcoi here in the weeks to come. Uh at which point once they're done with that it'll be paved. Davis Street will actually be mil and repaved and then we will do a a rather large section of sidewalk demo and then replacement down Davis Street as well. Um and then the Elme will take place once the utility contractors are done on Marble and then we will jump on to our section that's included into the Elme project this year. Street crews have done uh a lot of paving at the airport for us uh with some hangers. Uh they've if you've been up and down North Broad Street, South Broad um East Spring, you've noticed that the trees have been pruned back nicely. Um they've been working too on this Wayne Street parking lot expansion that we're doing, removing some of the trees there. Kind of in a little bit of catchup days. And

then uh we're constantly mowing rightways. So that goes back to the original numbers that I mentioned. That is it for four reports and I'll be glad to take any questions if you have them. Are there any questions for Chris about central services and transportation? Thank you, Chris. Moving to code, Mr. Calendarer. Thank you, mayor. Uh just wanted to touch briefly on our code report. Hopefully, you had a chance to read through that this month and uh you noticed that we had our planning commission and our historic preservation meeting this month. Hopefully you noticed that there were unable to have a quorum at our historic preservation meeting. We are a member short uh right now, but that's due to, you know, congratulations to Laura Pal. She was appointed to be your city clerk. So, we did lose a a good member on our uh historic preservation committee. But right now, we are currently two members short. So, we do need some members of our community to step up and hopefully um join and volunteer to join that committee so we can um not have that situation happen again. Um, and if you notice through the report too, things were kind of down this month when it came to licensing, permitting, and whatnot. I guess it's just the beginning of summertime. Some activities gone down. Preliminary uh application meetings and some future project discussions are still consistent. Uh, we're still having plenty of discussions with uh new projects that are going to be coming into the city. So, that that doesn't stop. Uh, and if you notice too, I added a little bit of, you know, blurb in there about going to Providence, Rhode Island, and there. Just the main thing to take away from that is that we have a presence nationally when it comes to the city of Monroe. People know what we're doing here. Uh I have a lot of conversations with a lot of people that are asking what you know what are we doing differently than our cities around this part of Georgia and it's you know a lot of them like the fact that we adopted a form-based code and it does create some pathways to a lot of ability to have affordable housing. So that's something that people have an interest here in the city of Monroe. That's all that I have Mr. Mayor. Thank you Mr. Keller. Any questions for Brad?

None. and we'll move to Mr. Wilson, economic development. Good evening. Um, real quick, uh, I'll be brief just the business license additions and deletions and Brad already touched on this a little bit. Uh, it's kind of slow for the summer starting out for June. Um, it's had four additions. Only one of those was in the DDA and two of those are actually a change of ownership. The biggest of those um, I think are the most notable one being Amichi and that was u, uh, for the jobs added. The total for for the for the month was 40. Um, and Amichi counted for 34 of those. Uh but again going back down to the deletions, there were three of those total. One of those was in the DDA and again 42 jobs lost but 37 of those were Amichi. So kind of a trade-off there. Um maybe a little skewed. So uh but anyway, as far as the uh you know, the quarter ended of course and and just in totals as far and this is in your packet too. Um right now we're at 52 additions. We're at 51 deletions in total for the city. Uh and then there's nine additions and 14 deletions for just DDA only. Again, some of those numbers are made up by change of ownership. That's all I have. Thank you. Are there any questions for Mr. Wilson? Thank you, Brian. I appreciate it. Miss Thompson, finance. Thank you, mayor. Um, you have the report in front of you. Um, from May on the finances, I'll go over some quick numbers um for the general fund comparative year-over-year to 24. As of May, we're trending um as we were last this time last year. um and utility fund. Although year-over-year revenues and expensive have increased uh substantially, the May revenues are above budget and expenses are at budget. Um with solid waste, um both revenues and expenses are well below budget for May. Um in comparative to this time last year, um two things I want to touch on, and Chris alluded to this about the temperature. This time of year, we all know it's summertime it gets hot. Um utility bills tend to increase. Um air conditions are running. Um, and just want to point out two things to the public that we have available to help

them with their utility bills. And we have what's called average monthly payment. It's um, similar to what's called what some people think of budget billing. And we have about 200 customers now signed up for that. We rolled this out back in um, 2020. Um, it's easy to sign up. You can do it on our website under the utility services forms under utility department page. um is available to all residential customers as long as you've had a minimum of 12 months of uninterrupted service. Um if you have any questions, please contact our customer service department or go on our website. There's a frequently asked questions page regarding that and how um how it works. Um it kind of levelizes your bill every 12 months. So that way you're paying about the same thing every month and so you don't get hit with those big bills in the summertime or the big ones in the winter time and it kind of levels out. Um, another program that we have is the utility payment extension program. Um, if you're eligible, you can get this every single month. And what this does is extended extends your utility payment past your cuto off date for seven full calendar days. Um, you will still incur a late fee past your due date, but this goes past your cut off date and you won't be charged a cut off fee unless you your services are actually cut off if you default on that payment extension. Um, that is also available on our website. I mean, you can actually sign up for both of those on our website. Um, but just wanted to point that out. This time of year, we get a lot of questions about high utility bills and um that we do have some programs available to people um if it's needed. And I will answer any questions you might have. Any questions for Miss Thompson? Uh I will say the budget billing uh I'm on it and um it helps, but I also looked at the last rate study from public service commission. We are almost 30% lower than George Power and we're close to 15 or 16% lower than the EMC. So, uh,

kudos to the entire team for that. Moving to let's go to fire chief Dikes. Thank you, Mayor. You have our May incident data in your packet and I will answer any questions that you have on that. But just to touch base on a few things since our last meeting. First of all, we were able to complete the NYOSH line of duty death class that was presented by Green County's fire chief at the municipal court building. Uh had over a 100 firefighters from neighboring departments um and some of and some state employees that came and took part of that excellent training and also for the folks that designed that facility. That is a great multi-use room there at the municipal court and we hope to use that in the future again for some additional multi-jurisdictional uh classroom style training. Um all three of our shifts have been conducting active shooter training with our law enforcement partners. Uh that's an unfortunate um type of training that we have to do, but we are are doing that multiple times annually. And we had a couple of our members attend the uh fire safety symposium down at Gipstick two weeks ago for inspector, educator, and investigator continuing education. And lastly, happy to announce that on July 1st, we uh had we welcomed Cody Marchbanks to the department. So that filled our vacant full-time firefighter position. So all full-time positions are now filled, which is great. And lastly, a little safety message talking about the heat that everyone is well aware of. Um, just make it a point to please stay hydrated, whether it's our our city workers on on this team or folks out in the public. Um, already today I heard one call go out at a manufacturing facility in social circle for a worker that was had altermental status due to heat exhaustion. So, we are in that time time of season and once you start feeling laded, it's a little late. So,

uh, let's make sure that everybody is staying well hydrated with water. I know that's that's hard because I'm a constant coffee drinker all day, but definitely definitely want to get that out there and make sure all of our folks are safe. Answer any questions if you have. Any questions for Chief Dyes? Watts. Thank you, Mayor. I'll keep it brief. Um, our numbers look good this time of year uh for May. Our calls for service were actually down by about a couple hundred calls. Our area checks are down. Um, our part A and part B crimes are definitely down from last year. At this time, we made a total of 38 adult arrests and two juvenile. Our traffic units have made a total of 449 traffic stops with the issuance of 405 warnings. Uh, 93 of those were downtown. Uh, they've issued um 109 citations and we had a total of 59 accidents, 22 of those with injuries. Uh and some significant cases we had in May was uh one of the canon officers made a traffic stop for uh crossing the Gorine. They seized illegal drugs and a seizure of $10,000 in cash. Uh you also may remember back on May 6, we had the homicide on Lacy Street where the 17 year of age male was shot and killed there. Uh we were able to close that case out with two arrests from individuals that were actually were not from Walton County. They were from Covington. So glad to have that case closed and resolved. Uh our officers have recovered a total of three guns off the street for the month of May, which makes a total of 49 for the year. And I'll be happy to answer any questions if you should have any. Thank you, Chief Watts. With any questions, Harvey, appreciate it. Um let's go to Telecom. Thank you, Mayor. Just real quick, want to point out on the on the report there that you get every month. We're kind of changing the metric this month moving forward. So with our bond project wrapping up and and kind of the cable modems being phased out, we're running in a lot of

instances where fiber installations are being done at places where fiber are already installed. So rather than keeping track of the number of fiber installations we've been doing, we're actually kind of changing that metric to the number of online registered fiber devices. So when you look at the report this month and it says we did 30 installs, that's not really correct there. We did a lot more installs than that, but we figured it would be a lot more accurate to try to track the number of actual online devices moving forward. So, we noted all that in the report. I just want to point that out so there's no confusion as to why that number looks a lot smaller than it normally does. Um, but then obviously next month it'll probably look better, too. Our gear is here. Uh, it's big project for us replacing infrastructure, network infrastructure that's probably been 10 plus years that's been installed here. This is a big big undertaking by us. We're very excited. All of the gear has actually been mounted and put in place and is being configured now. So, over the next several weeks, we will actually start moving connections and services over to this new gear. Um, gives us a really good ability to look at things in real time. Rather than having to wait 30 seconds or a minute for things to pull and get back to us, we can actually see this stuff happen in real time. So, it's going to be really good for us in terms of proactive being able to work on things when things go down or be able to see things that transpire a lot quicker than we have been. So, we're pretty excited about that. You recall last month when I met with you guys, I mentioned that, you know, we we had an issue with our back hall provider that caused some some issues back uh of several weeks ago. The good news is is our secondary back hall provider that we partner with, the agreement has been signed and I reached out to them earlier this week and said, "Hey, you know what do we need to do to get rolling on this?" And they let me know there's nothing you need to do. We're in the process of bringing it to your facility where we're going to meet with you to get that spun up. So, that is great news. We're one step closer and actually having full redundancy for our back hall

providers here in the city of Monroe. Um, I just want to say hats off to everybody who dealt with all the storm damage back in June. I know I mentioned it at the last meeting, but we we have had some more activity. It literally took us almost two full weeks to recover from everything that we had to deal with. And I included some pictures even the report. There was down lines and trees everywhere you looked. Those guys worked really hard to get that stuff back up. And then last but not least, congratulations to Eli Yer. He passed his CCNA testing which makes him a C Cisco certified network associate. It is not an easy test. It is a very difficult test and Mr. Gator's actually already started taking some of that stuff that he has learned through that process and has started to apply that knowledge in configuring our Arista gear and across our network. So, we're really excited for that and hats off to him for passing that. I know that was that was a long time of studying and it was a very difficult test to do. So, if anybody has any questions, I'll be glad to answer them for you. Is Eli here? He is behind the wall. He is. Eli, come out, please. Eli was an Eagle Scout for us at Monroe Country Day School. Congratulations. Thank you. Don't be hiding. Congratulations, Eli. Are there any questions for Mr. McGuire? All hearing none, we'll move to Mr. Middlebrooks. Thank you, Mayor. Uh we finished up all our utility relocations now on the bypass. Uh now we're privileged enough to get to do three more. Uh we got bridge replacements. We're in our second submission on all three. Uh the 186 bridge is going to require some gas relocation. 138 bridge is going to require water and sewer relocation and the 78 bridge is going to require uh a water only. Um the 2022 CDBG are finally

wrapping that thing up. Uh we got one item to finish and that's the manhole on Edward Street. Uh the ring and covers happen to be specially made. Uh so hopefully that's that's coming to an end before our our next meeting. Uh the update on the Mara Street water line. We finally have a paving schedule. Uh I think this set for the last week of July. finally get that one capped and paved or and and then they'll go up uh Union Street as well. Uh the 24 inch raw water man, that project's moving along really well. Uh two crews currently, third crew moving in this week. Uh they're uh basically all the Cedar Ridge is laid everything from the water plant out Sorrows Cook under 78 and they're coming up the ramp now from side of 78 to 11. So it's moving really well. And in electric department, we've uh continued our pole replacements with UTC crew and also the city's electric crew. Um, we're probably somewhere approaching 140 145 poles now replaced. Those a lot of them been on the list for 10 to 15 years. So, getting those finished up. And the townless project's moving along. We're uh nearing 400 meters installed now with another 1,400 ordered. So, getting that one wrapped up as well. Got any questions? I'll be more than happy to try to answer those. Anyone have any questions? Mr. Middle Brooks. Thank you, Rodney. I know that just going to be thrilled with we're counting counting the days to the first week in August for that marble project and I know you are too. Thank you. U moving to new business public hearing at 1521 South Broadzone.

Uh Mr. Calendarer. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. request before city council this evening is a reszone and a conditional use and if it may please the mayor I will present the reszone and conditional use information together but you have to act on them separately you'll have the public hearing separately but just as an ease you know for ease of information I'm going to present them at the same time that's fine okay uh so this is a reasonzoning conditional use at the same location 1521 South Broad Street it's approximately 6 acres And the property is currently zoned M1. So what is being asked of city council this evening is a reszone to B3 and a conditional use. The conditional use is for a convenience store with fuel pumps. And there are proposing on the site plan they submitted with their conditional use and reszone plan. It's got a convenience store on there with access off Highway 11 or South Broad Street. two three lots to their convenience store and this property fronts on our corridor design overlay district. They have one access they're showing off South Broad Street into the site and that will provide access to the development itself. Give you a little bit of background on this site. So this has already been approved by the city once uh back in 2021. They came to the city. They obtained a CDO COA approval. A certificate of appropriateness was approved by the planning commission in 2021 for this very project. And then is not clicking too well tonight. There we go. So the city, they went through the engineering process for review. They got our site development plans approved back in March of 2024. We issued them an LDP. They didn't start any work. So six

months went by and that expired. Well, according to your development regulations, no work in six months. Uh, basically the vesting is all stripped away and removed and they basically start over. So, they didn't have any ability to start over and they didn't submit anything to us at that time. And we changed our zoning ordinance back in December and made convenience stores with fuel pumps a conditional use. So, they came to us in springtime and met with the owner and told them the good news. They have to go through a reszone and a conditional use. So, that's why they're here before you this evening is asking for this approval. So, the planning commission has already made a recommendation on this. They saw it last month. They're making a recommendation of approval to both the reszone and the conditional use as submitted without conditions. Uh, I did want to mention that the entrance way, they've already been approved for that because they went through their engineering. So, they have a substantial entrance plan and permit that's been approved by GOTO. Uh, just going back to that plan real quick, that that's already been done. So, a lot of the heavy lifting has been done by the applicant, but happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you. Are there any questions for Mr. Calendarer? Miss Wilcox, Mr. Russell, is there anything that you would like to add or say? Good evening. My name is Nam Wilcox. I'm with Carter Hawker Group. We're the civil engineering firm that have assisted Mr. Russell who is the owner and developer for this Monroe Center LLC property. Um as u Mr. Calendarer mentioned we have gone through the whole COA process. We had obtained all permits uh from Georgia DOT posted a go uh G dot bond um and we just ran into some material issues. um we just it became cost prohibitive to do this project and so um as things have uh have have kind of settled down in the area we are recommitted to the project um we have

worked extensively with having traffic studies uh the road work is quite extensive that's been required by G do DOT um and we have spoken with G do DOT and they said we go through the process with the city and come back to us we'll work with you again on that. And we feel very confident that they will support uh the road improvements that we have originally designed. Um this uh what we plan to do is to have the convenience store and two retail. You'll have retail on each end uh with the five pumps. Um and um uh we're very established uh developer. We've done several sites through the metro Atlanta area. U Mr. Russell has has been very committed to this type development. Um, so we're very excited to join the city. If you have any questions, we'd be happy to answer. Are there any questions for Miss Wilcox? Are there any questions for Mr. Russell? I think we're fine. Thank you. 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 this reszone? Is there anyone here who'd like to speak against this reason? Is there anyone here who'd like to speak in favor of this conditional use? Is there anyone here who'd like to speak against the conditional use? Hearing none, I'll declare that portion of our uh public input closed. Um and we will revisit that in about 3 seconds. Moving to new business, 1521 South Broadway zone. Mr. calendars just discussed it. Did you have anything else you want to add, Brad? Nothing. Are there any questions from councel? I'll entertain a motion, please. Move to approve of the resone. Have a motion to approve the reszone by Mr.

Dickinson. Is there a second? Second by Miss Sams. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the 1521 South Broad conditional use that Mr. Calendarer just discussed that we just approved the reszone. Mr. Dickinson move to grant the conditional use. Have a motion by Mr. Dickinson to grant the reuse to grant the use. Sorry, conditional use. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Thank you folks. You don't have to sit through this if you don't want. Y'all have a great night. Be careful going home. Move for the application for beer and wine on premise consumption and restaurant distilled spirits for Amichi Monroe. Mr. Rosenthal. Yes, Mayor. That application is in order. Great. Thank you. Are there any questions for Paul? I'll entertain a motion. I'll make that motion, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Thank you, M. Malcolm. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the application for beer and wine distilled spirits and Sunday sales consumption on premise license at catch 22. Mr. Rosenthal. Yes, mayor. That application is also in order. Thank you. Is there any discussion? I'll entertain a motion, please. hearing none. I have a question. Yes, sir.

Um I assume everybody's kind of quiet about it because of uh points um that were raised earlier. So my question is to the legal department. Um, is there anything in that information that would cause concern? Um, Councilman Member Dickinson, the application was received. The application contained the required information specifically relating to any uh criminal convictions of the applicant. And just like with all other alcohol applications, our office reviews those to make sure that they are compliant with your ordinance. And so the application is in order and is in compliance with the ordinance. And specifically, I can say as it relates to any issues of any outstanding criminal convictions that may be held by the applicant. So there are no convictions that would bar. That is correct. I'll entertain a motion and I let me provide further just since this has come up. What your ordinance requires is that there be no convictions for certain types of crimes within the last 10 years and that there be no convictions for any felonies within the last 15 years of the applicant. And this application is in order and complies with those mandates. Well, if it complies with the law, I don't think we have a basis to legally deny it. So, I'll make the motion to approve it. Thank you, Mr. Dickensson. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Crawford. Is there any discussion?

Hear none. All in favor signify by saying I. How about this? All in favor, signify by raising your hand, please. All oppose, signify by raising your hand, please. Two, three, four, five, six. Motion fails. Six to two. The application for the beer and wine license broad street 1312. Mr. Rosenthal. That application is also in order. Mayor, thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. Is there any discussion? Are there any questions for Paul? I'll entertain a motion, please. I'll make that motion, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the construction agreement for the TAP project. Miss Thompson. Thank you, mayor. Um this is just recommend recommendation of approval um the attached construction agreement with G dot. Um this is for the construction phase of the um and Chris correct me if I'm wrong. North Broad Street, East Highland, and North Lumpin Streets um for the transportation um sidewalk and enhancement grant. Um, this is for Omiv construction for 3,879,11525 and to 10 $10,000 to G DOT. And this is a construction agreement with G DOT for um shift construction. Thank you, Miss Thompson. Are there any questions for Beth? I'll entertain a motion, please. Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Brown. Is there any

discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes for the resolution for the amicus brief to the Georgia Supreme Court. Mr. Rosenthal. Uh yes, Mayor. So, as I think several of y'all are aware, the city of Milton case is going is going up to the Supreme Court on several raised questions on CERT and City of Milton has reached out to several cities asking for your support via signing off on the amicus brief that is being drafted on behalf of several cities um in conjunction with City of Milton. So, this resolution would be a show of support for the amicus brief that's being filed on behalf of many cities, including the city of Monroe, should you so would choose, uh, in support of the issues being raised by the city of Milton at the Georgia Supreme Court in the case Chang versus City of Milton, which for those of you may or may not remember, it was a um, jury verdict that was returned against City of Milton for $35 million as a result of uh, essentially a planter tree being located in the rightway of the city of Milton's uh local streets that resulted in a very um tragic death of a young gentleman. Um and there are several issues of sovereign immunity and the like. Um there's currently legislation pending at the Georgia at the dome that didn't make it out of this session that hopefully will the next session. But basically um this resolution would be the city of Monroe showing support for the city of Milton's legal efforts to uh ask the Georgia Supreme Court to answer some very important questions about sovereign immunity and the like as it relates to local municipal roadways. I'll be happy to answer any questions, but um your counties have a much better go of it

with sovereign immunity than y'all do. And if this case or the legislation doesn't change, then there's going to be some very significant um financial exposure not only to the city of Milton, but potentially all cities across the state of Georgia. Your counties get a much better free pass, and y'all simply do not. Um I think the number is 20 million if I recall that the city of Milton's operating budget is about 20 25 million. So this single judgment is about a year and a half worth of their entire operational budget. So if you're so interested in supporting this resolution, we need a motion to approve it. That would allow the city of Monroe to be listed as one of the Amicus brief um cities in support of the city of Milton. And and two things about that. one that tree had been there before they annexed before they became a city. Uh it's my understanding that that tree planter had been there for I think 20 plus years. Right. That is correct. Okay. And two, the state and the county have a maximum amount. Correct. And we have no limit. That's correct. So, the state has the Georgia Tors Claims Act, which is going to be a $3 million cap. And then the counties are going to have a cyber immunity up to the level of their insurance. Um, which is generally you're going to see a one or a $2 million cap. And the cities currently do not, as a result of this case and some of the case law, currently do not have that same protection. And that's sort of the basis of the issue of not only the appellet litigation of the chain uh Milton case but also the basis of the legislation that is currently pending in between sessions now at Gold Dome. Thank you Paul. Are there any questions or comments? David,

just a comment. I have never understood why cities don't have the same sovereign immunity that counties have. Um, we need to and I think we need to join uh in the amus brief. So, I'm I'll make the motion to adopt the resolution. We have a motion to adopt by Mr. Dickinson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there any discussion? Any questions about it? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes Dr. Horton development agreement. Mr. Rosenthal. Um Brad, do you want to take that or you want me to take it? I'm I'm happy to take it, but you probably I'll take as much as I can remember. But this is about this is in relation to uh a stormwater pond that Dr. Horton had taken uh well they had taken possession of the development after the final plat was approved last October. Uh that was approved by the city council. They had bought the property from McKinley Homes and they had gone out there and done some work without a permit and city caught them. So we, you know, we'd asked them to re return that pond back to its previous state, but they worked with the city and asked that they keep the pond as it is to deal with some sediment control problems. Their concern was about sediment runoff while they're building their homes. So we worked with them and during that time frame, we basically had to draft up a new development agreement to deal with this issue. And that's what's before you this evening is to allow them to keep that pond they have placed on the property uh until a certain period of time where they can remove it and place the previous storm water uh infrastructure back in place. And that's what this development agreement addresses. And just as a reminder for everybody, um, uh, especially those of us that have been sitting up here for quite a while, this is the Brooklyn Commons development that I think I remember when it was reszoned the first time back in I don't think I've mentioned

2004 or five. So there's houses being built out there right now. So this is to just to fix some issues on the storm water sort of at the end of their development. Um, I think Brad will speak to the staff and I'll speak to the legal. They've been very accommodating and and worked with us on the issues. And so, this is just to allow them to keep building and then at the end sort of as they get to the end, they're going to have to refix some uh some storm water detention issues. I'll be happy to answer any questions. They have a certain number of lots, correct? At 80% of lots, they've got to have it finished by the time they get to 80% of lots. Are there any questions or I'll entertain a motion? Move to adopt the agreement. Thank you, Mr. Dickensson. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the capital improvement element and impact fee study adoption. Brad. All right. So, let's have a quick recap here. We'll go back through some impact fees. It's been a minute. Uh last January was the last time anything's been in front of you regarding this topic, but I'm gonna give you a quick brief summary just to get us back up to speed. So back in 2022 in our comprehensive plan, we adopted uh you know some work programs and in those work programs was to explore the adoption of impact fees. In 23 we hired Hall Consulting and Marilyn Hall if you recall her giving you some presentations. The first one was on April 11th. She came in here and gave you the first public hearing where she described the methodology for creating impact fees and she described the methodology process and then the city council at her at her direction we had created a five member committee. That committee met twice, once in June and once in August of 23. And that committee

reviewed her draft capital impact element and the impact fee study and both meetings. And she they recommended at that August meeting that impact fees would be a benefit to the city and they further recommended that city council uh proceed with the adoption of impact fees. So in January of last year, you did approve the transmittal of that capital improvement element and impact fee study to the Department of Community Affairs and the Northeast Georgia Regional Center for Review and Approval. It did take some time for them to uh go back and forth with Maryland. she did, she was able to refine based on their review and comments and they were ultimately able to approve our capital improvement element and impact fee study and it was approved on July 30th last year. And so basically that approval from the state uh now enables city council to move forward to the next steps in the adoption of impact fees. So this is where we're at tonight. I know it's been some time since July 30th of last year. Uh we were going through several other things last year like rewriting our zoning ordinance and other things too that kind of took precedent. So the next step which is before you this evening is to adopt that capital improvement element and impact fee study that was approved by the state. And once that is adopted then you will go through some public hearings to actually adopt impact fees. Now we haven't those haven't been set but I want to be clear that you're not adopting impact fees this evening. That will happen at a later date. Thank you, Mr. Calendar. Are there any questions for Brad? Are there any questions for Paul? I'll entertain a motion, please. Move to adopt. Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Thank you. I know that's a lot of work. Space operator in lease agreement, Mr.

Bailey. Thank you. Uh this is a request for the mutual termination of our current lease agreement with Fairw Weather Flights uh who has served as our FBO I believe since 2019 or no 2018. And it was automatically situated to terminate December 31st of 2026. Are there any questions for Mr. Bailey? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Is there any discussion? None. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Moving to the lease agreement portion. Chris, thank you. And that was not an easy one um for obvious reasons. This is a request to enter into lease agreement um subject to our approval of a couple or I think some final details that we're working out with the um with the proposed um company Fellowship Aviation to take over the FBO at the airport. Uh we're going back and forth with a couple of little minor details. Um, so this is requesting approval that they assume the lease uh through the end of December 2026 and then a subsequent lease for the next five years from January 2027 to December of 2031. Thank you, Chris. Are there any questions? I'll entertain a motion. And if that motion would just be moved to approve subject to my office's final approval because we are just tweaking a few little minor details. Yes, sir. I entertain a motion. Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there

Thank you. Second. Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. Moving to the first final plat of River Point, I'm sorry, the final plat for Riverpoint phase one. Thank you, mayor. Calendar. Yeah, the project before you is the final plat River Point phase one. It's approximately 48 and a half acres. Property is currently zoned R1. And what is before you is the final plat for that phase. It is a single family residential subdivision. And then just to orient you that is out there on Double Springs Church Road on the southwest corner of that road and Cedar Ridge Road. So what is before you is the first phase. They are asking for a final plat approval. You can see in the gray here. We'll zoom in on that for you just a second. But the preliminary plat for this project was uh approved back in February 14, 2023 for 200 total acres with four total phases. And the total project is 297 lots. But what you're considering this evening is just for phase one. 48 and a half acres, 47 lots. And that quicker you kind of kind of see those lots in yellow on the screen here barely. Um so it's just a little street network there kind of in the center of the development. It will be accessed from one street at its southernmost entrance there on Cedar Ridge. And so that will go into the site there to a public road dedicated to that first phase. They are they've constructed the lift station that will service the sewer for the project and that will be easements dedicated for that purpose and then there are easements throughout the project that will be serviced until they dedicate future roadways and the rest of the project. They've already constructed most of the rest of that as you can see in the aerial photographs and those will be coming before council in the near future. But this is just the first phase

that they're asking for approval of the final plat. Recommendation is approval of the final plat for recording. There are no corrections required. They have been through the review process. Thank you, Mr. Calendar. Are there any questions for Brad? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Gregor. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Sams. Any discussion? She snuck it in under the wire. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Um, school resource officers for Foothills, George Walton, and Monro area high school. Chief Watts. Thank you, Mayor. Um, this is just our uh renewal of our school resource officer contracts for the upcoming 2025 2026 school year for Foothills Mona High School and George Walton Academy. Just seeking council's approval. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Any questions for the chief? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. That one to Mr. Dickinson and I'm going to give the second to you, Miss Brown. All right. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Um and thank you. That means the world to those schools and it does to us. Um discussion for the approval um intergovernmental agreement with downtown development authority for the 208 South Broad Street CDBG RDF loan grant. Mr. Thank you, mayor. Um before you is the IGA for the CDBG RDF loan grant that is between you and the city and the city DDA. This will allow this project to move forward. Um, I won't get into all the details except to the extent that you want me to, but basically y'all already approved this application. Y'all were awarded this grant. Y'all had two

or three other public hearings to do some other required uh uh elements of the grant. And now we're ready um subject to DCA's final review and approval of docs to get this thing closed for the developer, which we expect to happen later this month, subject to this IGA being entered into and agreed upon. Um, and then this is going before your DDA for their review and approval as well on Thursday. So, with this approval and then subject to final approval from DCA, which we're waiting on and expect to get back sometime hopefully middle to the end of next week, we'll be ready to get this to the closing table for the developer and keep that one moving along. And then the next two are related to it, of course. So be happy to answer any questions that you have, but this is uh your IGA to allow this loan package to move forward from the CDBR G grant that you were previously awarded. Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. Are there any questions for Paul? Any comments or motion? Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. like sign. Motion carries. That passes discussion approval um resolution authorizing city of Monroe RLF loan to JEC development for $140,000 for 208 South Broad Street. Mr. Rosenthal. Thank you, Mayor. Um so this is related to that. This has already been through the pipeline with DDA, who is your RLF loan approval committee. Uh and they have recommended this approval. But now y'all need to adopt this resolution very similar to the resolutions you adopted on the RDF grant. This is your RLF grant. Um and this is a loan of $140,000 under the terms of your RLF loan underwriting policies that you approved back in 2016. For those of you who can remember that was from the Livery Stable that initially started all this. So this

is where these RLF programs are starting to pay their way forward. The livery stable grant now has put money into this fund and y'all are able to relo it to other projects and it'll all continue to keep paying forward. So this item and the next item are to approve to authorize the 140 to go to this loan to JEC 428 South Broad and then the next will be the IG to control that loan agreement with the DDA. Be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for hitting both of those. Uh Paul, are there any questions or comments? This would first be for the authorizing the city revolving loan fund loan to JC for 140,000 for 208 South Broad Street. I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, Tyler. Thank you, Greg. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes this portion that Paul just discussed. This is the the intergovernmental agreement with the DDA for the city's revolving loan fund to JD for JEC development for 140,000. I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, Mr. Gregory. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Is there any discussion? All in favor signify signify by saying I. All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. That was quick and painless. Uh district items. Miss Malcolm, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Boyce, I don't know if we mentioned this. Uh, you took the job at Mon area. You're coaching basketball, too. Congratulations. Those are lucky kids. You're a good coach. Miss Sams. I just want to say the fireworks show was amazing. We hung out on the corner of Fel Spring with several hundreds of other people and it was It's a nice evening.

Was involved. Miss Brown, um just want to remind everybody of two events that are going on this month. Shepard's House will have their back to school event on Saturday, July the 19th from 12 to 4 and Habitat for Humanity will have theirs on July 26th at the Boys and Girls Club. Um it's called invest in health protect your wealth from 10 to 2. There will be health fairs at both and the one at the Boys and Girls Club is uh partnered with Tuscan community services and just want to bring to everyone's attention about Tuscan community services. They um actually help people that are um have food insecurities. They started out Yes. Pierce J. Pierce J. you came in and spoke a few months ago. Um they started out kind of helping anywhere from 35 to 40 families. This past week they've served over 107 families. That is what's uh going on. Want to give a big shout out to Mike helping me out with the server problem that I was having after hours. And um thank you for the police department for slowing down us speedy drivers that drew do drive safe, but we have fast cars. We like to drive. Thank you. Did you get a ticket? I got a warning. I was one I was one of those warnings. Thank you very much, Mr. Mr. Gregory. Uh so I was curious then, Councilman Boyce, do we start uh referring to you as Councilman Coach? Coach, Councilman, how do we whichever work on that one? Okay. All right. Uh, I'd also like to say thanks to Mike. Uh, he he and his team recently went out and uh worked with a group, a nonprofit that's close to my heart, a Child's Voice. Nothing but rave reviews. Just

wanted to just give him props again. And uh, thanks. I'm glad that the festival went so well that we're we're back in action with that one. Um, and u, just appreciate everything everybody does. Thanks, Mr. Thompson. I want to echo what Miss Sam says about the city with fireworks and everything. Heard a lot of comments about them. It was very good and I think we had a fairly safe 4th of July just city staff what y'all do every day. Special holidays is what makes people enjoy being here. Got it. Mr. Dickinson, nothing further. Um, I have just a couple of things. Um, over the previous 12 months, you might have seen the article in the Walton Trabune. We did a looked at the numbers for the Town Green who've enjoyed it. Um, we've had 113,600 guests over the previous 12 months. Um obviously those big dates are are you know for concerts and things but about an average use of 500 people um through the week and the hours are generally uh most packed right around 5 to 7. Um but your investment uh has paid huge dividends for that area and I certainly appreciate it. Um, next, Logan gave us books uh last year for Strong Towns. I hope you read them. Um, if you did not, I read I just read another one um over the weekend. It's a quick read. It's an easy read. It is all about what's happening out here. Um, and I appreciate Brad with working with us to to explain formbbased

code so we can move that move forward with that. Um, and like he said, he was at that conference, uh, New Jersey, Providence, Rhode Island. So, one of those name states with two names. Um, but it's the right thing and the more you read it and the more common sense it makes, I think it's easier for for all of us to explain to our constituents. So, um, if you've not, it's a 48 hour read. You get it done like that. You handed out five books. Strong towns. Yeah, there's there's a couple more in my office. So anyway, great books. And now I need a motion to adjurnn, please. Thank you, Miss Malcolm. Is there a second? Thank you, Miss Crawford. All in favor? Signify by saying I, please. I All oppose like sign. Motion carries. That passes. Good night and thank you.