City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call the City of North Dakota City Council meeting for August the 17th, 2026 to order. It's great to see everybody. Thank each of y'all for being here. You are welcome to join me in prayer. Dear God, thank you for your blessings on our town, our council, and each citizen. I ask that you give each of us discernment as we make decisions for our entire community as we honor you. Amen. If you're able, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I'll start my roll call from my left.

John Felak. Robert Freitas.

Pat Carpenter.

Britton Williams. Kevin Toole. David Buck. Dennis Prattiker.

Okay, item four, minutes. Are there any corrections, at least in additions, to the regular city council meeting minutes of August the 3rd, 2026? I believe there is. Mr. Felak?

Yes, it was noted that Ms. Carpenter was at the meeting, but unfortunately she was not.

So we will correct that to show her as an absent versus being there. So we're going to need a motion to approve that correction. Is there a motion to approve the correction of the regular city council meeting minutes of August the 3rd, 2026?

So moved.

OK, that was Mr. Freitas. Second was Ms. Buradico. Thank you. All in favor? And that's unanimous. Very good. Thank you for picking that out, Councilman. And then as far as... Are there any corrections, deletions, or additions to the study session minutes of August 10, 2026? Hearing none, they stand approved as distributed. Thank you all very much. OK. All right, we're going to ask. We have two of our friends with us. I'm going to ask Ms. Tawanda Bateman and Ms. Juliet Green if y'all would meet me at 10. These ladies are from Tri Development Center, and we love Tri Development Center. Y'all had a big fundraiser the other night, right? Councilman Freitas, he spent some money, didn't he? Yeah. All right. I'd like to read a proclamation. And we always try to read that also on site, but also here in a council meeting. So whereas our direct support professionals, including direct care workers, personal assistants, personal attendants, in-home support workers, and paraprofessionals are key to providing publicly funded long-term support and services for millions of individuals with disabilities, And whereas direct support professionals arrive for work every day ready to do all they can do to ensure the health and safety of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism, providing essential support that ensures all individuals are included as a valued part of their community, supported at home, at work, and in their communities, and empowered to live with dignity that all people deserve. And whereas direct support professionals ensure that individuals with disabilities thrive through connections to their families, friends, and communities, thereby avoiding more costly institutional care. Whereas providing a broad range of individualized supports from navigating the routines of daily home life, job training, financial matters, medical appointments, and personal interests to providing transportation to school, work, religious and recreational activities, and keeping people with disabilities safe and healthy. Direct support professionals must build close, respectful, and trusting relationships with the people they serve to empower them to fully participate in their communities. And whereas increased awareness and recognition of direct support professionals can help alleviate the critical and growing shortage of these important health care workers in the Palmetto State, now therefore I, Britton S. Williams, Mayor of the City of North Augusta, South Carolina, do hereby proclaim September the 13th through the 19th, 2026, as Direct Support Professionals Recognition Week. And the City of North Augusta and all our citizens honor our direct support professional for the dedication, contribution that enhance the lives of individuals of all ages with disabilities. And we're reading this early because of the next two weeks and Labor Day, we won't be meeting until afterwards. So we're giving it to you early. But anyway, thank you for what you do. And Tawanda, I'm going to let you, Ms. Juliette, if you would, I want you to tell a little bit about what y'all are doing because you're doing amazing things. You're a great value to our community, and you know that.

Yes, thank you. Thank you for this recognition. Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council, for recognizing Tri Development Center. We are a nonprofit agency that works with adults who have disabilities. We are so blessed to serve people who are just amazing and awesome, and we assist them every day so they can live their best lives. So on behalf of our executive director, Heather Waddell, And the over 300 team members that we have, which includes Juliette, who was one of our jewels of our agency, we thank North Augusta for being a true friend to Tri Development Center. So we thank you. Thank you.

Good to see you, darling. You too. All right. All right, we're going to jump right into new business administration resolution.

Excuse me.

Item six, administration resolution number 2026-38, authorizing the mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement between the city of North Augusta, South Carolina, and Edgefield County, South Carolina, for the collection of development impact fees. Do I have a motion to approve this resolution? Motion. Ms. Carpenter? Second. Second. Was Mr. Bratica?

Or was that good? Okay. Okay.

Anything you'd like to share about this, Mr. Clifford?

Mr. Mayor and Council, this is kind of a refresher for folks in the audience and for you as well. This was discussed at the study session, and ultimately what you have before you on Resolution No. 2026-S38 is an intergovernmental agreement between the City of North Augusta and Edgefield County. As you all know, the City of North Augusta levies an impact fee for developments that mostly go to parks and rec, but there are some other aspects that go there, and Edgefield County likewise wanted to levy an impact fee Or EMS services specific to the mayor weather district, the southern part of edgefield county, uh, with to build an EMS substation and have that manned and equipped. As my understanding and so what this agreement basically says is that we would collect impact fees and edgefield county within the city limits of North Augusta and turn those fees over to the. Uh, county personnel for them to use for their impact fee. So. anything inside north augusta that's in aiken county gets an impact fee that's strictly city of north augusta impact fee if it's in the edgefield county part and we're looking at some new development and you know that came through the planning commission for potential development east of keystone landing there's a large property there that will likely go under development and this that property would then fall into this requirement for impact fees for both edgefield county and the city of north augusta and those impact fees are for two different purposes. So really this is an agreement between the city and Edgefield County that we'll collect on their behalf and turn those fees over to them, just the Edgefield County portion of the fees, not the North Augusta portion of the fees.

Okay, very good. Are there any questions for Mr. Kluge? Any citizen comments? Any council discussion? All right, hearing none, I'm going to ask for a vote all in favor. And that is unanimous, thank you. Okay, item seven. Resolution number 2026-39, authorizing the city of North Augusta to enter into, onto a contract with PCI Municipal Services, LLC, for Riverside Village Parking Management Services. Do we have a motion to approve this resolution? Ms. Carpenter, is there a second? Second. That was Mr. Freitasen.

Can I motion to table this? It's already on there.

OK. Sorry. Oh, you can't still? Oh, yeah.

OK. You can't once it's already done that part?

Oh, we don't.

OK. Well, we haven't had that before. All right. There's a motion to table by Mr. Bradico. Is there a second? OK. Not hearing a second, then it dies.

Is that correct? OK.

all right uh let's move anything you want to share about this mr clifford or jd whoever's going to be so for resolution number 20 26 39 based on guidance from the mayor's office jd and i've got a powerpoint and jd's going to come through this really just more of a history lesson of how we got to where we are today within riverside village parking this should answer some of the questions up front about kind of this Action is part of a holistic plan. It's not just doing parking services It's nested within a number of other actions that the council has already taken and that's some future actions that will be for you to consider Going forward in the next several months. So with that I'm going to turn it over to citizen administrator JD McCauley to walk through the slides Good evening mayor and council.

That's a beautiful picture right there.

We got that from Jen and a drone shot of Riverside Village and

What I'm going to do, if I go to the next slide, just kind of give a timeline of how we got to where we are today. A little bit of a history lesson predates me a little bit. So, on April 24th, 2017, the city council entered into the master parking agreement. That's where paid parking began. That was the resolution 2017 dash 14. we've had 4 revisions to that since that time. Then you move forward to March 28, 2025, kind of a fast forward. This is when we started to kind of pick up the ball and move forward with looking into parking in Riverside village. We initiated a quarterly Riverside village stakeholder group meetings. Down in the village, we look to continue those moving forward. On June 30th, 2025, I presented to city council, the pedestrian, I'm sorry, Riverside village, parking and pedestrian safety update plan that included majority of these parking things that I'm going to get into here next. And in that presentation, we took a 3 phased approach. It wasn't in order. They kind of a little some of them overlap. But I'll take it phase by phase here. And phase one was what we would consider an immediate low cost, high impact fix to what we consider to be a parking problem in Riverside Village of congestion and confusion. So on July 7th, 2025, City Mayor and Council passed Resolution 2025-22, which authorized us to begin work on vehicular and pedestrian safety improvements. That was specifically for bollards, sidewalk ramps, crosswalks, painted curbs, and additional signage in Riverside Village. august 22nd 2025 we launched the seasonal trolley service which we're still doing today for third thursdays as well as fridays and saturdays remember to download explore north augusta app so you can track the trolley i just thought i'd throw a plug in there when i can um And, of course, that, again, November 3rd, 2025, city council pass ordinance, 2025 dash 26 that is designating a high enforcement tow ways on Riverside village for illegally parked vehicles. On January 5th, 2026, we had resolution 2026 dash 2. Which authorized a valet services contract. May 21st, 2026 golf cart parking license agreement for parcel D golf cart parking. That's why we have the golf cart parking we do today about 55 spaces. So phase two, again, some of these overlap. This is what we call vendor deployment policy standardization in updating Riverside Village Parking. So on January 9th, 2026, the towing contract was awarded and we did a notice and warning period from February 19th, 2026 to March 17th, 2026 and began towing on March 18th, 2026. On February 5th, 2026, valet services contract was awarded and service began on March 18th, 2026. On May 21st, 2026, resolution 2026-29, the city purchased the stadium parking deck. July 6th, 2026, resolution 2026-35 designated the valet service areas within Riverside Village. And that brings us to today in phase 2, which would be August 17th, where we look at resolution 2026 dash 39, which would authorize a riverside village parking management services agreement. Uh, not to forget, uh, phase 3, which is looking forward to the future and a few of these things we've touched on before. But 1 of the big items is master parking agreement and related documents. I'm sorry, phase 3 is an agreement and ordinance updates. So, updating existing agreements are entering into new ones, ordinances and policies that dictate what we do for parking in Riverside village. So that would be primarily the master parking agreement. There's joiners that are involved. Um, there's also looking at, um, a few other, uh, related documents, but that would all come from recommendations with the parking consultant with, uh, collaboration and confirmation from city council. Again, this would be something like, for example, employee parking down riverside village. It's not. Well, taken care of through the master parking agreement or existing leases is something we need to look at to address. Uh, the 2nd item in the long term, uh, is long term golf cart parking as we know parcel D is a short term solution. They'll start construction on the, uh. What I believe is town homes in that area. We presented the option, which would be a plan B for a median option, which would include a golf cart parking and we did that on June 29th, 2026. And then finally in phase three, and this is an ongoing thing, we evaluate and address the impacts that these projects will have on our neighbors, Hammonds Ferry downtown and the River Club. So that's an ongoing issue that we're looking at making sure that the impacts that we have are minimal and then what can we do to mitigate those as best as possible. That brings us to what's the current parking facility map just want to give you an overview. What we have is city owned parking facilities in the Riverside village corridor. And then we've also identified where the handicap parking is for each. Each 1 of our parking facilities. and the red area is the valet parking area that we've just recently designated then you have the pedestrian only area which is we had a little bit of a time getting cars and golf carts out of that area and the purple area is the newly added golf cart corral and as you can see the green area that goes all the way down from front street to lafayette which is what borders the hemisphere neighborhood that's where this high enforcement our high enforcement tow zone and also the parking management services, that's where it would terminate at that location as of right now. But obviously looking into the future, that can be expanded. We also have our space count here listed for you just as a quick reference guide. Next slide, please. Okay, so funding for Riverside Village Parking Management Services that's part of this resolution, it's tagged as the Northwest Public Facilities Corporation, but just wanted to let you know that we organized many of the things that we did in Riverside Village in order to pay for themselves was our goal. So this is set up as a fee-for-service, so the operations are going to be financed through the users and not from the taxpayer is the goal. So how this is set up, and it'll be in the contract as well that we'll go over with the vendor as we go. if authorized to proceed 100 of the revenue collected up to their per month amount to conduct these services would be retained by the vendor as a payment for their services after that uh that amount is collected we roll into a revenue share so 25 is retained by the vendor for profit and then 75 percent is returned to the city's north augusta public facilities corporation fund Uh, what those funds will be used for something that's already budgeted for. So it goes in per the financial model. Uh, it goes 1, 1 thing that's not stipulated in the financial model is that obviously we need to earmark funds for potential future shortfalls for these monthly payments. If 1 month is better than the other. Then this would also fund repairs that aren't in the contract, so bigger repairs like elevator O&M, security and fire alarm systems, utilities, major capital maintenance. And then as per the financial model, these funds from this account go to our debt service for our 2017 B debt service payments. The big question is, so if the revenue falls below the $12,500, so we have a bad month, this is when we would dip into that fund, the North Guest Public Facilities Corporation Fund. And other revenue sources that feed into that already are parking revenues, again, this is by the financial model, the stadium revenues, which include the admissions tax, performance license fees, stadium retail rent, corporate naming rights, stadium rent payments, and also the Riverfront Central Core flows through this fund, again, for debt service payments. This comes from H&A Tax and then the TIF district, the Tax Increment Fund is also what finances and funds this account. All right. So the next slide is I've asked our vendors to come, uh, and back me up with any, uh, answers. If you guys have any detailed questions as I'm not the parking expert, I'm looking to hire parking experts. That's our request before you this evening. So I'll pause here, um, for, uh, questions. Um, and maybe I'll ask our vendor to come up when it's appropriate.

J. D. How's this gonna work for brick pond parking? Do I gotta do I gotta pay to park at the brick ponds now?

So this would be part of the two hours that are free in Brick Pond Park. So that would be, if you go down to the deck, it would be two hours free. And then if you look back, if you go back a couple slides, Ricky, to our map, When you say big brick on park, you're talking about that little island that's back there. Council member. That one. Yes. That is the, that would be considered we would manage that as brick pond parking and we could manage that. However, the council sees fit. But right now would be part of the arrangement is we have 2 hours at least guarantee.

So, councilman, if I can jump in here, the recommendation we're probably going to have is what we were concerned about, at least in that parking lot. Also is that if there are no rules associated that parking lot, we're going to have. you know, apartment dwellers or whoever folks are just going to park it down there. So, you know, what I suspect is going to happen is we're going to have to put some signage there that reflects no overnight parking or else you're going to get apartment dwellers. And so what overnight looks like is really up to the council. That could be dust to dawn. It could be 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Could be any number of different combinations. I know some people are early risers like to get out of the ponds and some late night people. But if you don't put some stipulations on that lot, it's going to turn into free overnight parking for, you know, parcel K.

I agree with that because right now we have lots of people parking there and walking to the ball game and people that want to go to the brick pond can't go to the brick pond.

Correct.

But as of now, we're saying that that space, if you're there longer than two hours, you're paying.

Well, we haven't set those policies. That would be working with the consultant to put those rules forth.

Okay, but we would rule that out because if you want to visit the brick pond, as a taxpayer, you're already paying taxes for the brick pond, correct?

I think as the elected body, you can give us the rules that you'd like for us to put on that parking lot as you see fit, and we would execute those.

A lot of this is taxpayer-funded space. So isn't charging the citizens of North Augusta to go down there and park kind of like double taxing them for the same space?

So if we could go to the next slide where we talk about the funding source for this. So the intent is to have folks that use the parking facilities pay for the service to manage it. So if we don't charge for parking, The funding for this service or managing our parking that we currently have will have to come from somewhere. And that essentially would be your tax. So you'd have to come from an account that the city has, which we get all of our funds from taxes. So we would have to then pay for our parking system from taxpaying citizens, not the users of the facilities, which is what we're intending to do.

Okay, I understand. But still, we're having to charge people. Is there a way that we can exclude citizens of North Augusta from having to pay to park down there at all?

that wouldn't be a staff recommendation councilman so you know again what you can do is you know vote for something within the council but from a staff recommendation that's not what we're recommending you have the ability to park for free in what we used to call the med act deck over here by city hall which you're paying for essentially as a convenience uh if you're going to be there for more than two hours so for somebody that has a dinner plan uh or want to do something else aside from the ball game uh two hours normally is about right to get you to do what you need to do if you want to stay longer hey that's fine but there's also Be for service involved in the apartment parking and it's going to be. I can't imagine what that would look like to have to have. And manage, you know, North Augusta residents versus non North Augusta residents. How are you going to do that? You can do that through license plates. We're going to do a registration system. And if you did something on those lines, that would cost money to manage that.

Understood well, Dennis, let me say, remember, not the best part recreation or taxpayers. Hey, that. But when we have our programs, you have to pay extra. I mean, and that's to run that program. So it's the same thing down here. I mean, taxpayers are taxpayers.

So I'm a non-event person. I'm a non-event person. I'm just going down on my leisure to enjoy the brick pond or the riverfront longer than two hours. I'm going to have a picnic. I'm going to play with my family.

I think that's wonderful that we offer that, that you can do that for a small fee.

Pay property taxes, already pay taxes to the city. Now I've got to pay another tax to park.

Well, just park in downtown North Augusta, ride the trolley down, you got it covered.

All right. I just don't agree with that. How is the enforcement mechanism on this going to work?

so the question on enforcement is i know there's some chatter about for outsourcing enforcement to a third party and that's not the intent of this this is a group that's helping us manage parking like admin as well as hardware and software and so if if um if you if you found something either in the proposal or presentation that we provided you that says otherwise please let me know but our intention with this rfp was not to outsource the police function of

Well, let me ask you this with what information are the police can enforce the parking lots who's going to how does that work is is that information that the police are gathering themselves.

So through the technology of who we know is parking in our parking deck and violating, if someone has a violation, that would go through public safety for them to authorize some sort of action. That would be a penalty.

It is through the parking contract that the enforcement is imposed. Because without the information that the parking contract provides, there's nothing for the police to enforce. Which makes the people who are doing the parking contract part of the enforcement. The Attorney General said in 2014, via the Assistant Secretary General, parking enforcement involves the exercise of a municipality's police powers. Based on prior opinions of this office, police power may not be delegated to private entities absent legislative or constitutional authorities. Finding no such authority, we do not believe a municipality may delegate parking enforcement to a private entity. They're gathering information and giving it to police. They're part of the enforcement process. The state attorney general said, but we can't do that. You can't say, well, the police are just going to issue tickets on nothing.

This would be a great opportunity for the city attorney to opine on what he thinks, since JD, nor myself, nor any of the council members are attorneys.

Well, we discussed this and dealt with this issue when we were doing the towing. We can certainly... Uh, deal with companies like this to assist us with administrative matters. When it comes to issuing a ticket. charging somebody with a violation, that is something that we will do, not someone that we sent it out to. Now, I will tell you, I think the three cases that are pending along the coast where those were done, I don't think any of those have been decided yet, and I know there's not been anything through the state Supreme Court yet, The opinion of the Attorney General is probably the highest respected opinion that you can get, but it is still just an opinion. It is not a decision by a court. But we, going back to when we were dealing with towing and with this too, we're aware of that and we're making sure that the way that we handle it appears to take us out of that situation. You know, I think maybe in one of this or something else I read that they even say a way to get by it, and we're not doing that, is you can appoint additional code enforcement officers who would be able to issue tickets. But I don't think that's not the way we're planning to do it. We're totally having this private – agency assist us administratively if it comes to a point of issuing a ticket charging somebody that's going to be something that the city will do under its police power.

I understand but Does not gathering the information and making the referral to the police department make them part of the enforcement process?

I don't think so. I don't think that. That is not. Of course, they provide that material. We review it and make a determination whether we think it's sufficient and proper for us to make a charge on. And I think that's a very customary type thing. I don't see that. That is the ultimate decision as to whether or not someone, and it's a very minor thing when we're talking about parking, but technically it's still on the criminal side of the court, and it is a violation of an ordinance or something of that nature. We're not letting somebody else make the final decision with that.

Would you not advise us to wait until some of these lawsuits come back and see where the dust settles?

That may be in about four years. I mean, you know, that is one way to go about it, but at the same time, we can protect ourselves by seeing the issues that have been raised in all of the litigation and making sure that we couch what we're doing in a manner that avoids those pitfalls.

Did you see the city of Beaufort? Did you look at that one? The city of Beaufort is being sued by its residents just for entering into the contract. And I know you can sue anybody for anything. But again, the way these people make money is quantity, not quality. and it puts us on a slippery slope, and that opens us up to lawsuits.

I'd say most anything we do opens us up for a lawsuit, and our job is to make sure we're the best prepared and make a determination if there's something we feel like needs to be done and we want to do, that we do it in the best manner possible, certainly not trying to draw a lawsuit. In this case, I say we have the benefit of... I think three, maybe more than that, cases that have been filed now, and each of those, the attorneys have gone through everything and pointed out what they believe are the pitfalls and the violations, and that gives us the ability to make sure we don't do that. Yes, sir, but there are pitfalls, so we still have them. Oh, yeah, with everything.

I just would be more comfortable, and I won't go into this because this is a question period, and I want to make my statement on the statement period. But based on what the Attorney General is telling me, to me it seems like they cannot write a ticket without being part of the, like, there's no way our police department can write a ticket without them being part of the process to give them the referral to write the ticket, which makes them part of the enforcement process. If there's no referral, there's nothing to enforce. That's just where I'm going to leave it.

Well, one of the biggest problems in Riverside Village, what did everybody tell us? Parking. Do we not remember that? Parking, parking, parking?

1,000% agree it's a parking problem.

Yeah, but here we are trying to solve this solution with help. to make it better for everybody. Now, Dennis, you was talking about the other group possibly saying this person violated. Junior over there, a lot of times he might not know where a drug house is, but I might. So I go tell him. I can't write the ticket, but I can tell Junior, go check this out. I mean, that's everything in life. You cannot enforce it.

He still has to be the one to go check it out. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

We're going to do that. That's what I'm saying.

We're not going to have that.

But I just think this is going to be a solution that's going to help everybody down there and just make life simple.

Listen, without getting too much, because I don't want to go into more.

Yeah, let's do it. Right now, we're having a discussion. We're just going to do it at the end. Right now, questions for, let's have questions. That was a question. Good question.

Let's ask one last question. Have you gotten any feedback on the valet services that we've already initiated from the business owners?

Yes, we have had feedback. And I believe the valet service gave a presentation that involved and included lots of the feedback from their local businesses as well as people that have used their service. So I believe there was a presentation on that, and we've gotten that feedback as well.

So we vote on this tonight and we pass it. When do we start collecting fees?

Well initially we talked about potentially a 60-day rollout but again we have to have a contract reviewed get that ironed out, agreed upon, and then we have to get the hardware ordered. There's a period of time before we would roll this out, and we also have to meet with all the stakeholders. We've started to talk to some, but we have to start talking to everybody to make sure this fits in as best as possible for the folks that are down there. And that's part of this process.

And if I may also, we're already generating some revenue, which is irrespective of the parking contract. So there's an arrangement that the city council entered into with South City Partners for parcel K for the charge per parking spot in the hotel parking deck. And so that revenue is also part of what's this model here. So we're not waiting on necessarily all the revenue. We've got some partial revenue coming in currently for that, the hotel, when they charge, wherever they charge, and the stadium for ballgame nights. So it's not contingent on having this contract. What this is going to do is make it feasible for us to be able to operate managed parking in the decks, which is not at a satisfactory level today, which we're not going to get to without

know parking experts being involved in the mix now when we initiated the towing we kind of gave a little grace period uh um yes before we rolled it out let's go back to the time people know that hey that's what we're going to start doing you know november 1st or whatever that looks like in every penalty thing that we have rolled out we have done a grace period a warning period and also that's recommended by the parking consultants to roll it out

to get everyone comfortable, where there's some mix-ups, some mistakes, we need to iron those out because we don't want somebody, again, with the towing service. We also had, we launched the valet service at the same time. One of the biggest fears we had was we were gonna tow somebody that was participating in the valet service. So we had to make sure that there's coordination going on there. And that's the biggest thing we have going on in Riverside Village. There's so many parties there that we need to coordinate. And this parking management service is gonna be one more to the plus side of helping us manage all those parties. Makes sense.

JD, let me ask you. So just to make sure I'm clear about this. So what we're doing tonight is we're approving the company, PCI. Yes, sir. And so if this passes tonight, nothing's happening. We now will, our staff will then work with PCI to say, OK, here's the aspect. They've got to create this website that Jack talked about. You know, we have to look at this. So I think people need to understand that we're hiring the company to then, because this is all driven off the master parking agreement. And if we want to make changes, for example, JD mentioned, I'm just going ahead and do it because I know someone's going to ask. If this council decides that the employees of the Riverside Village businesses If we say, you know what, we want to make a change where they are not charged, if this would count size, that's going to happen in the master parking agreement. And that's going to be several months down the road. It has nothing to do with this. So anything we vote on tonight with this company, nothing is set in stone. What we're setting in stone is that we're going to be with this company for the next, I guess, two years. Two years, yes, sir. Two years. And then the hard work really begins now for our staff to meet with PCI and say, OK, here's what we're looking at doing. Here's what we want, blah, blah. And they've given us an outline in this book here, which is really good. And they have an item on page 24 that everybody on council has. And it says, violation approval, when a file is created, it's passed over to your parking citation management system. That's our public safety. The record's now official, and we manage according to that practices. So in this book, there's several mentions of abiding by our policies and procedures. So once we get them on board, then our administration staff and chief can say, okay, here's what it is, here's what we're looking to do, and we'll be updated. I mean, that's probably a simple way, but is that kind of? That's correct. Am I thinking it out the right way? Yes, sir. Okay, good.

Now, can we look at the master parking agreement before we start levying fines and things like this, just so we're kind of all on the same page of what expectations are going forward?

Well, what we've assigned to this staff is to take the master parking agreement that already is in existence. Again, there's been four iterations of it to roll out what we have agreed upon already with everybody that's down there. And as we move forward, we can massage it and bring it back to council for consideration. So the timing of that, again, is up to us and up to the consultant what works best for the city as well as the businesses in Riverside Village. So we could potentially fold that in. And the folks that helped us with the master parking agreement before, the outside council, is ready to begin that process again very soon.

And JD, did you say the employees Have you worked on that, like not charging people who work in the businesses?

So that's something that has been completely missed by almost every single agreement that I've looked at since I've started here. Every stadium license agreement, master parking agreement, everyone just kind of left out the employees in terms of even the leases that the folks hold, they have left out where these employees park. That's usually a leasee-landlord issue, but if we're the city and we own all the parking, we can take on that responsibility and hopefully provide a solution for that situation, because that seems to be a very large issue for the village.

Can you go a little bit more detail, go on examples of ones that have that versus what we're trying to fix?

Oh yeah, for example, so the stadium license agreement in Green Jackets obviously thought through where their employees are going to park, and so that's baked into the stadium license agreement. Across the street, Augusta Oncology, when they have their agreement, it was previously the MED Act, in their lease agreement, they contemplated where their employees park and baked that into the lease and the easement agreement that has gone forward. Same thing with the apartments. Well, not their employees necessarily, but they have spaces that they can use for their employees, but for their tenants as well. What we are missing are primarily our folks that are in that Center Street and those out parcels. They aren't contemplated anywhere. It's kind of up to the businesses to provide that for their employees. And if that's something that we're hearing from our business owners down there that they would like us to take on and help them with, I think we'd be more than happy to look at that and bring that before council as something we could then include in the master parking agreement.

I think that makes sense. That's what we're trying to do. Any other questions for JD?

So JD, take me back to 2017 when this whole thing started. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was always the intent for the parking in the Riverside Village to be paid parking, correct?

Yes, sir. That was what was also in the financial model. It was part of the fees from that would go to help with pay for debt service. Again, I think Mr. Clifford and Linda have let you guys know the good news that all the other aspects of the financial model for Riverside Village have overperformed and parking hasn't been... issue other financially i should say other than an issue for uh... you know your citizen experience which is when we looked at this problem not to go on too long here. But when we were assigned to solve the solution, provide a solution for this problem, the mayor made sure that our focus was citizen experience. It's not that we're trying to make money. It's not that we're trying to hassle folks for parking when they're not supposed to park. We want the folks that come down to Riverside Village who want to do the right thing, not pay for parking, but park in the right spot. have a nice dinner, have a great event at a ballpark or at the Sharon Jones Amphitheater for them to have a great experience and not to be hindered by, oh, parking is a mess. This is the whole idea of why we're going through these RFPs and RFQs and all these actions we're taking is to have our visitor experience be enhanced. It's all about quality of life. It's what we do with tourism, what we're doing with everything right now in North Augusta. We're really trying to improve quality of life. And sometimes that doesn't go hand-in-hand with parking, but we're trying.

Go to Robert's point. I mean, in a nutshell, I mean, it's kind of, I hate to have to say this, but this was all going to be done way prior to now. the delay of river side abilities did this. So really what we're doing in the very near future when we do the master parking agreement is we're codifying officially for the first time the true master park agreement that was approved in 2017. We're actually making that, we're actually finally truly implementing it. Because up until now, we hadn't had all the buildings built. We had no valet. We had no body running the program. We didn't own the decks. So it's literally taken all these years. And it's been very difficult for citizens. We get it. We all live in the city. I have issues, too. I park down there and I walk. So it's not. It has been a mess at times. Like Pat says, that was always, what are y'all going to do about Riverside Village? So we're now officially getting to the point where we are making the master parking agreement work. But what citizens need to understand, and we are hearing our business owners. We are hearing our citizens. If there are things we need to be aware of, Dennis brought up a great point about Brick Pond.

Absolutely.

There's no reason, in my opinion, we're not making that decision tonight, but there should be no reason. That ought to be free for people. Thank you for bringing that up. I didn't really look at that, but that makes sense. and if we decide that we value our businesses at Riverside Village, which we do, I think that's been proven, but if we want to say, hey, you know what, let's work with them to address not making employees park, we can do that. But that has nothing really to do about what we're going to vote on tonight. We're going to address that, which we're going to have to address on the master parking agreement. So I think it's all doable. I don't really think we need to make this work. But it doesn't happen if we don't hire the company to put it in place. So what other questions for Mr. McCauley? This is the time for citizens.

Are there any citizen comments?

Come on down, Mr. Bryant.

know you've been here before but state your name and address for the record and that thing works really good so you can stay in there okay my name is brian brittingham um i own southbound smokehouse um thank you mr mayor thank you council for letting me speak um y'all just covered a lot so i don't want to get super repetitive with a lot of this stuff i just want to say that i have talked to other business owners i've talked to greenstone who owns You know, they're the landlord for a lot of the properties and there's just concern that a lot of this is disjointed and not being rolled out super smoothly in a cohesive manner and we're kind of jamming a lot of things through real quick and real fast. And my opinion is that we should sit back, have some meetings, have some input. We did have some initial meetings, I agree, early on. But a lot of those just kind of went by the wayside. almost got quieted. And so I would like to say that we need to have a voice and we really, the business owners need to have a voice that is at least heard. And I would just ask that if you decide to pass this, That's fine. I originally was going to ask you all to table this for a couple of weeks so we can have a meeting, so we can get together. But it sounds like it's just the first step. And if it needs to pass tonight, that's fine. But I would ask that we have some serious meetings where we have an open forum and some good feedback from the businesses. And I do want to just say, if you can pull up that last slide, whoever's doing the slides. the one with phase 2 and phase 3. And I know we just touched on this a little, but it's just a little concerning to me that we're passing something in phase 2 and phase 3 was talking about employee parking. Well, we're about to move forward with something in phase 2 without figuring out that now. My thought is we know it's a problem. Y'all said if the businesses needed it. I have 50 employees. 50. They ask me all the time where to park. And just like the golf cart parking, I don't know, what week is it? I'm not sure. We got to figure out where to tell them. That's the other thing. We haven't had clear communication to even relay these pieces of information to customers. So I would ask for just clear communication and for us to be heard. And not just we hear you, but we're not doing anything about it. But I mean, I've been there for... We've been open for seven and a half years. I worked on that place for a year and a half. We've been down there for nine years. We've watched it come from dirt. to amphitheaters, to docks, to everything. And I have a lot of wisdom and a lot of good insight to what's going on there. As well as I see people parking, I get their input. I get to hear them complain. And so I would be a wealth of knowledge to speak on this. And I feel like sometimes the most obvious people that can give the best advice haven't been heard. So I would just ask you all to please...

um you know listen to the business centers as a whole and we really appreciate what y'all are doing yes sir brian let me tell you so maybe he might not send it out or not but what you can do is help with on is it september 22nd okay so i've asked them september 22nd to have yourself your your supervisors the brinkley's we need the hotel everybody everyone who needs to know JD is going to do an in-depth breakdown about a lot of what we've done tonight to make sure that everybody knows that, you know, hey, there are 55 parking spaces. Here's what we voted to do that. Here's what that's set up for. So you and I agreed on this when we talked, right? Yes. I don't have a Zoom call. We had a lazy call. So I hear you, and I promise you, we are going to communicate with you. And we are, because like Jay said, once this gets passed and they start moving, then y'all are going to have even more impact as far as input of us listening. So we will do that. Okay. I promise you.

This feels a little like that famous politician that said, we got to pass this so we can figure out what's in it.

Well, no, I mean, we ought to pass this. But regardless, before we had passed it on Friday, what I tell JD, I gave JD and Jim guidance, we need to set this meeting up with all your people who are important, the supervisors. And all of y'all, sit down so we can go through from A to Z. So if you've got somebody, a supervisor, that came in four months ago, they don't know what's happening, they're going to know from 2017 what's going to happen. Fair enough. So if nothing else, at the end of the day, on September 22nd, the guidance I gave our administration is, I don't know what everybody's going to agree with, but everybody who's a partner down there will at least understand what this council has voted on, what we are making them administer, So we're at least on the same page. Because I agree with you. There probably has maybe been some disconnect, but we're going to make sure going forward that we're all on the same page.

Thank you. We may not agree, but we'll be on the same page. OK. Thank you.

Is that fair? Thank you, guys. Thank you, Brian. Who else we got? Yes, ma'am. Miss Sandy, come on up.

Sandy Zanko, 400 West Forest Avenue. Good evening, everybody. If you can bear with me, my printer broke, so I'm trying to read it from my phone. That's OK. And some may have been covered, and I concur a lot with the gentleman from Southbound just said. So I have questions regarding the proposed Riverside Village parking management contract, and specifically how it will affect access to Brick Pond Park. I actually raised this issue with you, Mayor, back in April. At that time, we were finding baseball patriots were already using the limited brick parking to avoid paid event parking, leaving us park visitors without any spaces and creating particular concerns for seniors and people with mobility or accessibility needs. You responded that the city was aware of the problem and that it had been included among the areas the new parking management service would address. You also indicated that more details would be available as the proposal moved forward. Now that the parking management contract is before Council for approval, I would simply like to know what the solution is. How will the designated Brick Pond parking be handled? Will it remain free for people accessing the park? If so, how will these spaces be protected from people attending baseball games, be protected from people attending baseball games or visiting Riverside Village businesses simply to avoid paid parking? We also need to make sure there is adequate accessible parking. Many seniors and people with mobility limitations visit Brick Pond, and they need reasonable access close to the park. And this question extends beyond Brick Park. How will the system accommodate people accessing the Greenway and the public riverfront park? A legitimate park visit can easily last longer than two hours. know i might seem like i'm a rare case but my visits at brick pond can go you know all day long so it could be six to eight hours down there a day so that two hour limit you know impacts me greatly as well as the small group that comes in the morning i understand this isn't a simple problem we need to address the concern of hammond's ferry residents businesses and employees by also preventing event parking from taking over spaces intended for other uses. But because public park access was identified as something this new parking management service would address, I think the public should understand exactly how it will work before the contract is approved. I don't want us to solve one parking problem by unintentionally creating another. Public access to the brick pond, the greenway, and other public recreational spaces needs to remain part of the equation. And this is how I end at mine. If these questions cannot be clearly answered tonight, and I don't feel they can be, I hear like we're going to approve this contract and we'll figure out everything after the fact. My vote is also to table it until we have these issues fully addressed. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you.

Any other citizen comments?

Yes, ma'am.

Come on down.

Hello, my name is Carly Buchan. I'm the president of Hammonds Ferry HOA. And I'm here to give my full support in this initiative, this parking management initiative. There has been a parking issue, which we've all been discussing for this whole time. I do agree with the brick pond issue. But once you solve some of it, everyone's going to start parking in Hammonds Ferry. So I wanted to come up here to not only say that I support it, but we wanted to be included in the future of, you know, Hammonds Ferry residents don't want to be charged for their parking. But we also don't want all the apartment people parking on our streets day and night. So there has to be a solution to that as well. And I think for long-term success of the parking in this area, and for Brook Pond, and for Hammonds Ferry, I think this initiative is the way to go. So I just wanted to give my support. And thank you very much.

We've heard you. Yes. Thank you. Who else? Anybody else? Okay, now we're at council discussion.

Council discussion. I would like to say that after all the questions and all the discussions that we had, it reinforces our need for a professional to come in here and assist us. We have people asking for the solutions before we get into a contract with the professionals. And I don't think we can do that. I think that's putting the cart before the horse, if you will. I think that's why we are hiring a professional to do this. We are sensitive to the business owners at Southbound. We want you to be successful. We want Brinks to be successful. We want the Brown Plaza to be, we want everybody to be successful, but it can't be just an open pallet for anybody to come down there and park wherever you want. So we need a plan. We need our professionals to help us do this. And to me, this just reinforces the need to get into this contract to have them assist us. So I... I don't see any reason why we would not approve this contract. Let's get started. I wouldn't ask Kelly for his legal opinion and then pay him later after he gave me his opinion. We have to get into a contract with our parking professionals so that then they can do the job for us that we need.

Any other council discussion?

John kind of took the words out of my mouth. I think It's made two things apparent to me. One is exactly what John mentioned. And two, that we do have some issues with the master parking agreement that we've got to address, both from Brookline Park, from the business owners down there, Hammonds Ferry. I think all of those need to be accounted for in the master parking agreement. And I'm not sure if it was the mayor or someone else pointed out, what we're doing tonight is not mending the master parking agreement but as john said we're bringing in a professional to help us navigate that so part of the reason it's been so disjointed is because the parking's been disjointed you've had different owners you've had no one overseeing seeing it holistically and i think this gives us an opportunity to look at it holistically with one management company with a professional. As JD said earlier, he's not a parking professional. And to my knowledge, we don't have any parking professionals on staff. This allows us to bring a professional in with experience in doing this in other places that can help us manage this process and then answer those questions in a holistic way that works for the community. um but to john's point we need their help to have that conversation so it's not we got to vote to see what's in it we know what's in the contract we know what's in the market master parking agreement we just got to bring those things together now and make it work holistically and better for everybody and that's the value i see in this

Yeah, and I kind of want to piggyback on what you are talking about, but I want to make sure that we do, you know, get back to the master parking agreement before anything else kind of goes forward, even though we need the management company. I'm well aware of that, but I just want to make sure before we put some other policies in place that we look at that agreement before we do anything else.

I just want to agree with David. I mean, I've been talking about employee parking since I got on council and I've known that that's been an issue and I think we need to address the master parking agreement as soon as possible

So I think we've heard. So here's what I would tell you. I think what this council's heard from citizens, from business owners, our own, is with the massive parking, there's three things I think. We're not voting on this, but I think there's agreement that we need to figure out the Brick Pond Park piece. I think we're all in agreement. Sandy's right. That doesn't need to be charged. That can be done. I think we need to address the Hammons Ferry piece. We can have them look at a proposal on that. We have a little bit of time. There's 80 spaces and nine houses, so we know things are building. But yes, if that's something we value, then we can have them look at that. And the third thing is with employees. I think we're all in agreement. Those are three priorities that when y'all get with this company, we vote tonight, then that's kind of what I think we're all hearing. I think if we address that and begin going down that road, I think we'll be in good shape. If that's doable, I think it's doable. So anyway, that was my comments. I know you were going to say something.

I have some things I want to add. First, I'll do this briefly. This is a statement of opposition for Riverside Village parking management and valet expansion from Brinkley's Chophouse, Edward DeFelice. Brinkley's Chophouse is formally issuing this statement to express our strong opposition to both the current valet parking situation at Riverside Village and the proposed expansion of the comprehensive paid parking management program. While we actively support the continued growth of North Augusta, in Riverside Village, the recent changes to the parking infrastructure have created a prohibitive environment for local businesses, our patrons, and our workforce. And I've given each one of you a copy of this statement. He goes into how the valet system is just not working for them. He goes into the complete lack of provision for employee parking. And the key thing that he asked is, respectfully ask that the city leadership work directly with Riverside Village business owners to develop a mutually beneficial parking strategy, one that restores efficient, cost-effective valet options for our patrons and establishes accessible, dedicated parking for the employees who drive our local economy. Please read his statement before you vote on this. Now I want to go into my own thing. All right. I do feel like we're putting the cart before the horse here because the what I agree with everything all of our saying it's detrimental we need parking we need parking. experts to help us. But the one thing we haven't discussed is, is this parking contractor the right parking contractor for North Augusta? There are currently like five seaside cities with litigation. To think the fact that we would even discuss entering into a contract with somebody who has so much litigation statewide versus nationwide is ludicrous to me. We don't fix our dysfunction by adding another layer of bureaucratic dysfunction. I think that we need to take a step back. We need to listen to the homeowners. We need to listen to the small businesses. We need to listen to Brick Pond, the park people. We need to get a representative Joey Bag of Donuts taxpayer. We need to have a city representative. And everybody needs to sit down at a table before we do anything else. Because here, Mr. Dave at Lee's Brinkley's Chop House is telling us The valet parking that you just contracted and voted on isn't working. Well, we really don't know that we want the package that PCI is offering. And I think it's fair that everybody gets to sit down at the table and has a voice, instead of us just making the unilateral decision. And that's what we're doing here. And here's just a little fact. In one season, Olive Palm, which residents got 5,600 tickets in four months, summer of 2024, under PCI enforcement. More than the entire prior year. Locals have called that extortionate and have urged more oversight. If you haven't looked into this company and you're about to vote yes on this, you're not doing your due diligence for the citizens of North Augusta. You need to take the time to look into this company. Who is going to handle the backlog of appeals? We just hired another magistrate judge for 5,600 tickets. We don't even have the infrastructure in place to put this in, to handle it through the courts. I mean, the way these companies make money, again, is off of quantity, not quality. I think putting the cart before the horse is not allowing everybody to have a say-so on who we contract with. tell us what are the best parking practices for Riverside Village. I think that we've already heard that one of the contracts we've already set up is hurting our local businesses. I don't think that's okay. Next to the average citizen of North Augusta, our small businesses should be our next most important lookout. They're the lifeblood of our community. I think everybody deserves a seat at the table. And to the Mayor's point, the Mayor just stated that it's in the book to follow all procedures for parking for this company. The State Attorney General said that we are not to delegate to anybody to follow our procedures for parking or to help enforce that in their statement. So you can't tell me there's no way we have the greatest law enforcement body in the CSRA as far as I'm concerned. But Chief Johnson cannot issue tickets through clairvoyance. There's got to be somebody there to tell him, this car, here's your picture, here's their information, you issue the ticket. And that makes them part of the enforcement process, which we are clearly being told not to do. And I respect Kelly's legal opinion. He has the greatest 50 years of experience with this city. But I just do not agree with going forth with this right now. And that's part of the overall bigger picture, is we just be doing things in North Augusta. We need to take the time to sit down with the business owners, the citizens, the people that love our parks, and the homeowners associations, and include everybody in what happens here. It shouldn't just happen by us seven. We should listen to everybody's voice and take that in and then make our decision. Here we have everybody saying, whoa, maybe we should talk about this. But we're like, no, we're just going to push this contractor through. My biggest question is, is this even the right contractor for us? We're about to make a huge decision that's going to affect these guys. It's going to affect the Brinkley's. It's going to affect Hamas Ferry. It's going to affect River North. It's going to affect people living west of Martintown Road. It's going to affect the people that love our parks. But we can't even say, hey, we need to take a break from this. We need to sit down and talk about it. I mean, what is the big rush here? What is it going to hurt us to say no and come back to this? That's all I got.

Well, Dennis, I'm going to respond. First of all, we went this out to bid. Kevin was on the committee. So we do like everything. We had a number of companies. And the thing you got to understand, Dennis, is we are a representative democracy. So those citizens, their number one way they vote, their voice is how they elect us. Now, what we do in this city that other communities don't do is we have something called, we allow them public comment period two times before ordinance and one time before resolution, along with the public power and other things. And it's working exactly what it should be. We are hearing Sandy's right. You are right about Brick Pod. Brian is saying that. So they are telling us, hey, council, these are things we need to listen and adhere to. Now, it is our job. We are the elected officials. We're not a form of committee. Let's agree like we're in school or something. It's now our responsibility to heed their voice. And they told us these are the three areas. And it's our job as council to tell this administration Figure out a way to make that work. We've heard them. I don't need to know 20 ideas of how to make Great Pond Park. We are the elected officials. They voted on me and y'all to trust that we would make decisions for them. So I hear what you're saying. I disagree. You and I disagree to disagree on that. We don't need a committee. We are the elected voice of policy, and I am telling them that we are hearing them. We're all saying it. But it is our responsibility now through our administration to address those three things. And they're going to have an opportunity to speak further because JD is going to be meeting with all of the vested, all those entities to talk about all of this. So I think it's working. So I disagree. That's OK.

I hear what you're saying.

We disagree.

We're still going to vote yes on this before we discuss with them whether or not this is going to hurt their business.

I don't know how to nurse a business.

Whether or not this company's particular practices is going to have a negative effect on both the homeowners, the business owners, the brick pond people, the people that just want to go down and have a .

I don't know how it impacts the homeowners. I mean, huh? How's it impacting the homeowners?

The HOA, they've already got people parking in their parking space. What if this...

Right now, there are six houses on Lafayette, three on Blue Clay, and two more on Blue Clay, and he's going to be the fourth one. Those are nine houses between... There are nine houses, I went and counted, from Heirloom all the way to Lafayette. There are nine houses as of today that are built. There are 80 public parking spaces. Eighty. Eighty. OK? We are going to address it, but we don't have to wait on that. We have 80 public parking. If I want to park in Mayor Bob Pettit's, in front of his house, every day of the rest of my life, and leave my car in front of his house, I have the legal right to do that because it's a public parking.

I have that right.

I'm not going to do it. But what I'm saying is, right now, I hear what Hammonds Ferry is saying. But 80 public parking spaces are available right now, and only nine houses. So I think by the time we get through this in the next couple months, we'll solve Hammonds Ferry issue. I just believe that we will. So we agree to disagree. That's OK.

I think that everybody involved should have the opportunity to review this company, come back to the table, and let's all discuss if this is the best way forward. Fair enough.

All right. Any other council discussion? All right. I'm going to ask for a motion. I've already done that. All in favor? All right. That is 36. Opposed? 1. 6 to 1. OK. That passes 6 to 1.

All right, we're jumping along here.

Item eight, resolution, engineering and public works, resolution number 2026-40, authorizing the city of North Guston to enter into a contract for the stadium parking deck power washing.

Do I have a motion to approve this resolution?

I move.

Second. All right, Mayor Pro Tempore. And second is Mr. Freitas.

Thank you.

Anything you want to share about this, Mr. Clifford?

Mr. Mayor and Council, this is a request for a one-time contract to power wash the newly purchased stadium deck across from SRP Park. Obviously, the city has been in ownership of the Med-Act deck and the hotel deck, and so this would allow us to get up to a baseline standard for cleanliness, and so as we go into the contract that has just been approved with PCI. They'll be in charge of managing it from there on out, but we've got to get it at least to a baseline level. And what's attached in there, as you can see, the bid tabulations, we did a request for proposals, not qualifications, so it goes to the low bid, and the low bidder is listed there in your resolution, and so that's what's for consideration.

Any questions from Council?

Mr. Clifford.

Are there any citizen comments?

Council discussion.

Okay.

Here and now I'm going to ask for a vote. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. And we are at item nine, plan development. Resolution number 2026-41, authorizing the city administrator to execute a professional service contract for the preparation of the city's 10-year comprehensive plan. Do I have a motion to approve this resolution?

So moved.

All right. That is Mr. Buck. Thank you, sir. Ms. Carpenter. Anything you want to share about this, Ms. Clifford?

Mr. Mayor, Council, this was a process, again, following our procurement code, and this went out through a request for qualifications and proposals. And so ultimately, this is to do the comprehensive plan, which is due by state law every 10 years. This is originated between the Planning Commission and the Planning Director. So there was a... A process to go through that and number of folks sat on the selection panel and we had a total of. 5 firms compete, which is a pretty good number, considering the size of our town and ultimately the best of those was selected as M. K. S. K. And so we're also requesting some additional funding for that. MOSTLY FOR ADDITIONAL CITIZEN INPUT. I KNOW CITIZEN INPUT IS IMPORTANT FOR THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO HELP MAP OUT WHAT'S IMPORTANT TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC, AND SO THAT HELPS PAY FOR ADDITIONAL PUBLIC INPUT SESSIONS THAT'S MANAGED BY MKSK IF THEY'RE AWARDED THIS CONTRACT. SO THIS IS THE FIRM THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND THE City staff had collaborated on and so that's a recommendation for you today for approving this contract and We have to have a comprehensive plan filed by August of 2027 to be in compliance So it gives us a full year to go through the process So, mr. Clifford, I know we've talked about having some public hearing sessions and and whatnot and

What does the process look like for council and what is our involvement in this process so that we're just making sure that We're involved in key decisions and not just looking at a finalized plan that a consultant did and signing off on it.

So I can base that strictly off of the experience we have at the five-year plan, which we did through the COG, not through a private body, but all the council members were polled by that group to get their inputs as well, specifically as they mapped out the comprehensive plan. And my recollection is that that was given individually to the council members, or at least that opportunity, but I've also seen council members in the past go down to one of the public hearings and also get their information captured that way as well.

Any other questions? Good question.

Okay.

Any citizen comments? All right. Any council discussion?

All right.

Hearing none, I'm going to ask for a vote. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. And finally, item 10. All right. Item 10, Finance Resolution Number 2026, authorized in CPST 15. CPST 4, Software and Technology Improvements. Do I have a motion to approve this resolution? I move. All right. Second. Ms. Carpenter, thank you. Anything you'd like to share about this, Ms. Clifford?

this is part of our staff update to council at the greenwood offsite back in february for capital project sales tax 4 and this is one of our recommended options i know many of you if not all have received feedback from our citizens about what they don't like about the current utility billing software and we've pulled a number of those citizens and also we've taken input that we've gotten directly from council members as well linda gave a pretty in-depth UPDATE LAST WEEK TO TALK ABOUT WHAT THE UPDATED CHANGES ARE GOING TO BE. AND SO THAT IS REFLECTED THERE IN THE CONTRACT CHANGE. CONTRACT CHANGE ORDER, NOT THE BASE CONTRACT. SO THIS IS STILL UNALLOWABLE USE UNDER CAPITAL PROJECT SALES TAX 4, EVEN THOUGH THE BASE CONTRACT WAS UNDER ARPA. AND SO THE BASE CONTRACT IS WHAT HAD TO BE DONE BY THE END OF THIS YEAR. BUT ULTIMATELY, THE VENDORS POSTURE TO MOVE FORWARD ON THESE ASKS, AND WE'RE ALREADY MOVING WITH OUR FINANCE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL TO WORK WITH WALLS FARGO IF THE COUNCIL APPROVES THIS ACTION TO CHANGE THE BILLING CYCLE IN SEPTEMBER, WHICH IS JUST ONE MONTH AWAY. If the council is amenable to this. And I also have some contingency built in there. So if there's something that we missed, that we have the ability to do a subsequent change order if it's required and is so guided by the council.

Very good. Any questions for Mr. Clifford?

All right. Any citizen comments?

Any council discussion? All right. Hearing none, I'll ask for a vote. All in favor? That's unanimous. Very good. Thank you. And then item 11. Public services resolution number 2026-43 to accept the grant award from the South Carolina Forestry Commission. Do we have a motion to approve this resolution? So moved. All right, Mr. Buck, a second? Mr. Carpenter?

Anything you'd like to share about this, Mr. Clifford?

Uh, this is a good news story for the city, North Augusta, and obviously Roy, who's a deep passion for, uh, trains and being a tree city. I was able to find this grant most grants just for general population here require some kind of match. Sometimes it's 15%. Sometimes it's 25, sometimes it's 50%. But we've been lucky in the last several years to get a few no match grants, the grant, which cleaned up some of the waterways and did some of the work there at the little apartments was a no match. Grant was 100% funded by the government, federal government, and was reimbursed to us. And likewise, this South Carolina forestry commission grant is a no match requirement grant. What is required and why this is before the council. is that the city has to fund the funds initially, and then we get reimbursed from this grant program. And so the fund source should be the capital projects fund, which is listed here in this resolution. The total amount should not exceed $430,849.84. And Roy has previously briefed the council on you know, what his plan looks like and where he's gonna move forward again You get a full three inch caliper tree as opposed to the little saplings or whatever So I think this will be a good good option and Roy's very excited to move forward on this project if the City Council approves it Any questions for mr. Clifford All these citizen comments any council discussion here now I'll ask for a vote all in favor.

I

That's unanimous. Very good. Okay.

Any administrative reports? Ms. Clifford.

I just have one update that's as effective as of today, and not to steal any Chief's thunder, but Public Safety has dispatched a fire engine with a crew of four to Fairfield County. There's evidently a large fire that's occurring in that county, and they've put out kind of an all-call across the state to get assistance where it could be mustered, and Chief is answering the call with one of his teams, and they are currently on the road heading out there right now.

Okay.

Let me, I want to say, Sharon Melton shared some concerns about Pretty Run Creek behind her house at the last council meeting. I've also gotten several other emails from citizens sharing their concerns and are really asking me to have a better understanding of the planning commission and council's role, but also about Pretty Run Creek. I very much appreciate each of their emails. They were politely written, expressed concerns, but also want to know more. It was very refreshing. As I reflected on this, I'd like to give guidance to our administration to have staff do an analysis of Pretty Run Creek as well as all our other natural creeks and stormwater areas in the city concerning their conditions since Hurricane Helene and the 50-year rainfall we had several weeks ago. Our focus has been on Hurricane Helene cleanup and with the RA grant has allowed us to do some work on Willowwick, which was a major issue mitigation risk. Some look pretty run, and a few other parcels that are downtown. I think this would be a good time to take a holistic look. I would ask staff to prioritize these and get a rough estimate of what the cost would be to fix these issues. If there are issues to be fixed, I know this will take some time. So Mr. Clifford, if you could present this to council. I had a study session either on September the 14th or October the 12th, depending on staff being able to gather that information analysis by one of those dates. We, of course, have not designated any funding source yet, since we don't know what the cost will be. But that will be our council discussion and decision, as well as what areas we want to prioritize once we hear all the information. So as mayor, Jim, I'd like to give you guidance to do that and get back to us either September or October study session, depending on what your time frame is.

Mr. Mayor, we've anticipated this request. I can tell you that the staff will have an update for the council at the September 14th city council study session.

Oh, very good. All right, great. Thank you. All right, item 13, presentation, communication to recognition of visitors. This is where citizens may speak to mayor or council regarding anything not on this agenda. So if you have something that we haven't talked about, this is your time to come on up. All right. Just three things on council comments before we move into executive session. One, there's no meet. Our next meeting is September the 14th. Right, Jamie? That's the study session. OK. Also, starting tomorrow, we're I did the Explore North Augusta podcast called Planning Perspective with Dr. Christine Crawford, who's the chair of the Planning Commission. We got so many questions about our Planning Commission. We got the 10-year plan coming up, the comprehensive plan coming up. So I sat down with Christine for about an hour on the podcast. It will be on YouTube. It's on any of our normal podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can watch on YouTube. That will be... posted today but you'll see it tomorrow if you're interested about the Planning Commission Christine does a great job we have a really good conversation talking about their role and I think would be very informative for citizens so hopefully we will take advantage of that and the last thing is out if y'all saw I didn't know this until I ran into him but last Thursday and Friday we had 150 freshmen from Augusta State University in North Augusta So the Merchants Alliance worked with Augusta State, and basically they came over and spent two days in North Augusta, downtown Riverside Village, and I had a chance to stick my head in one of the buses and just talk to them. They were excited about it, but, you know, they said, yeah, man, we're going to spend more time over here. So anyway, just a neat thing that we don't think about are young people wanting to come over here. So anyway, I thought that was really good. Okay, here we are. Item 14, legal executive session request of the city attorney. Mr. Williams. Do we have an update on the revised animal control policies yet?

City administration, let me see if I can get back to this real quick because I lost my place. Some of the citizens around Walnut Lane, Mill Branch, have reached out to me to want to know if we can get the subcontractor or contractor that's repaving their roads to give them more of a general time frame of when that's going to be done so they can coordinate moving cars in the area.

We've had a number of those citizens reach out to the administration as well, and we've directed our director of public works to let them know what we think the best timeline is. I'm not sure exactly what that time looks like yet, but I know it's coming up in the fall.

Thank you, sir.

OK. In compliance with section 30-4-70A2, the city attorney requests an executive session with the purpose of discussion specifically related to public safety facilities purchase and discussion specifically related to contractual arrangement. Do I have a motion to go into executive session? So moved. All right. Councilman Buck, is there a second?

Second.

All right. Mr. Freitas, all in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you. We will not be returning back here. Thank you all for being here. We stand adjourned.