Remarks by Bob Ellis
208 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 6 of 9
- Play at 2:44:55
“we could remove that portion. That's fine. Yeah, I think we should take that out. Let's separate, yeah.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 2:46:11
“Yeah, I think we can just strike the word, the first part of it, and move forward, Mr. Chair.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 2:46:22
“It would be everything I said except for the motion to accept the report. We would strike those three words. The motion to accept the report, be the motion to, and then the stuff that I just said. I'd be glad to repeat it at the end after we go through the discussion.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 3:09:01
“Make people listen here a little again. All right. Hopefully this reads very similar to what I read before. So the motion would be to... direct the county manager and county attorney to initiate discussions with MARTA regarding an IGA under which MARTA would participate in the funding of and potentially the operation of Fulton County Senior Transportation Program and to report back to the board within 90 days. And that the general principles of that IGA would follow, seeking that agreement would In pursuing the discussions, county staff should seek an agreement that reflects the following…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 3:44:45
“because you can get a really good deal on a dog commissioner ellis yeah and i just want to thank commissioner thorne for putting the motion on the floor and urging or not i just i do want to say at least for myself that what i want to be taken away from that is i think if we're voting to pass this This is more than urgent. We're making a statement that this is a priority that we get this addressed, right? We've heard about it. We're kinda all tired of hearing about it and wanna see a plan put together, developed, and put in place and acted upon. Is that a fair statement? Okay, so.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 4:06:09
“unless folks have questions, I'll be just real brief on it. Special appropriation fund is just a fund where funds from a particular revenue source get restricted for a particular purpose. These two things were a product of our own creation, our being Board of Commissioners creation, so we created it so we also have the ability to abolish it. Special appropriation funds in general from a financial control standpoint are not recommended by, The GFOA, which is the Government Finance Officers Association, there's a host of reasons for that, but they're generally to, they encourage local…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 4:21:25
“Again, just would ask for everybody's support on this. Obviously, the reasons in there are multifold. They're not just cybersecurity. They're not just control-oriented. They're just the whole nature of how you go about and approach stuff. It's just... This particular one is growing in nature. Some of these things that are out there, yes, we have too many of them, but some of them, quite frankly, are immaterial, and many of them are restricted by law in terms of the way that they were structured and they were put forth. This one is not. This was a function of our own creation. It's not needed.…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 4:28:04
“Yeah, I'll be real brief on this. Tend to be real brief on it. So we've got some people, you know, just to refresh, right, we've got this... pay for performance, KPI-type structure that we've had in place for a number of years, and that runs generally every two of each of the three years. It's not an insignificant program, the cost of our performance payments in 2024, 15.3 million, and 15.5 million in 2025. I think in many ways this has been a good program, but one of the things I do think is important for us is that ensure that as we've got these things structured that we're actually…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 19, 2026
- Play at 1:25:42
“All right, Commissioner Ellis. Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the update. Good to see you. Just a few questions to start with. Is there any... sort of consistent data or data dashboard that you all are publishing regularly or is it generally brought up more in the context of overall state data?”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:26:42
“So I know when you all are doing these community health assessments, health systems also generally do these as well, right? Which has sort of always sort of confused me because you've got multiple entities kind of doing the same work. So I'd be interested in terms of as you all are doing the assessments, and maybe this is sort of across the state, how is there coordination there with what those health systems are doing so that you got something that's sort of the most informed pieces of information?”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:28:01
“All right. Well, and continuing on sort of the coordination theme, sort of outside of even just assessment and all that, how do we in Fulton County, how are we coordinating with the various health systems? And I guess certainly we've got a lot of them within our footprint, but we have one that we have obviously a very tight tie with from a health standpoint being Grady. How does sort of that coordination working and can you give us some examples of kind of how we sort of concretely are partnering together specifically with Grady and or any other health system?”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:29:51
“Obviously, the concept and notion of food insecurity comes up frequently, and it's a it's a phrase that's sort of used kind of in many different ways. I guess sort of one of the concerns that I've had, can we look at or say we've got that aspect, right, of food insecurity, and there's some real true things that are there, right, that people are just lacking food, right? But the other end of the spectrum, we've got sort of this outlay of chronic disease, cardiovascular issues, and that sort of stuff. which underlying that many times is not food insecurity. It's the food that we're all…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:32:24
“I throw this out there in terms of just as we're on this, before I forget about it, and certainly we've got this... nice facility that's open in North Fulton where, you know, hopefully have a, you know, future facility of very similar nature and just as nice, maybe even nicer in South Fulton. You know, but within the frameworks of those, it's, you know, there are opportunities for us to do, you know, kind of promotion, outreach, bring people in, teach, right? And one of, in the concept of food as medicine, one of the, you know, good partners that we have had in Fulton County who has really…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:35:13
“Yeah, that's an excellent point. And I think on the communications piece, and I know we have sort of, you know, by our very nature, we have sort of our two different communication arms, but you know, you all stuff you do, and we have stuff within the county and I do, um, you know, more of an opportunity to do and engage with that and collaborate on that sort of particular component I think is, you know, is important, um, and critical and getting in a cadence of it. Right. You know, um, to where it's something like that. So I think that that's something I hope I'll reiterate to our external…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:51:52
“All right, I did actually, doctor, before y'all leave on the fees stuff, I'll ask a question while you're walking down. I know you had the slide in here, but I do think, it would be useful to talk about the methodology you went through in terms of how you arrived at these, how we say that these are fair, valid, and in line with other jurisdictions. These are fees that real people are having to pay real businesses and so forth, right? And so understanding that these are These are fair and in line with other jurisdictions and how you got there.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:53:10
“Are there any on here that you would deem to be material changes or these are more kind of on the margin type items?”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:54:19
“It just wasn't adding up. So that's a re-inspection, and then there were some tweaks where we had lowered a few items.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:54:53
“Can't have enough septic inspectors, right? Yeah. That's important. Yes. Okay. All right. So, that's helpful, just some background, so that we... have a little bit better insight in what we're actually voting on and approved here. Right, I understand.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 1:55:20
“No major deviations if you were to kind of present that and show that to us. Right, no major deviations, no sir. All right, thank you.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 2:12:11
“I mean, if there's something you want to pursue, I guess you would look at it. I just brought this up because the clerk had sent us a notification that they had met in several years and that the work was being handled by... you know, a different group. And yeah, I think somebody had also even recently made an appointment to it. So to sell, we just need to administratively close this. So I think clerk can provide you with information on any other ones. I don't, I'm not sure that there are a whole lot more recently made an appointment.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 2:13:09
“No, I just say, well, this is a process to do it. I mean, if there's something that administratively needs to be closed. I mean, I know we have some that haven't met, but they statutorily still have to exist. So we do have a few of those in the unincorporated area.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 2:14:23
“Just real brief, this is a procedural item too, just so we've had issues with this in the past where we've had use other measures, motions to deny, file, that sort of stuff, and just clarify that when they're clearly for no votes on an individual item, that the item's not gonna come back. If there's three votes or two votes or whatever, there's a non-conclusive one direction or the other, then obviously it would continue in that practice.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 2:15:33
“Yeah, just to quickly outline the bones of this resolution, we've operated with a budget commission for an extended period of time, for a certain portion of time that was CFO, chairman of the BOC and the county manager, The board at that time looked at that process and felt like that there was deficiencies around that and moved to another process where the proposed budget assimilation, obviously adoption of the budget all rests with us, where that budget commission was changed and that budget process development and so forth and presentation was just shifted back to, county manager or shifted…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 2:19:19
“Right, if we had multiple commissioners there, then that would require somebody to have to step out. We've always had that process.”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 2:19:44
“To bring geographic balance to it, I think we had a process where we just had, you know, a singular individual and I think that there were flaws with that in terms of just a view that there were not enough multiple perspectives that were brought to the table unless you would have parties from both sides. I mean obviously everybody is gonna have continued sort of engagement in the budget process and providing input. You're just gonna have two people that will be representative to sort of bring that forward into those discussions about hey, how do we wanna frame this up in terms of the ultimate…”
Board of Commissioners · Aug 5, 2026