Remarks by Carol Myers
37 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 21:48
“Yeah, I just want to say that I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about this today and listening to the the Planning Commission meeting as well and there were two members of the committee who voted to deny the rezoning really for a lot of the reasons that Commissioner Davenport brought up and I ended up getting to that point myself because I saw that there were other ways that the historic nature of the property could be preserved. And it seemed as if it was mostly from the landowner, from the homeowner, a concern about what could happen after they had the property. makes things a…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 26:26
“all right it's in commission district eight commissioner myers yes i'm i'm here and uh when i listen to this again i realized i just said the same thing to say that i had last week when i was two weeks ago when i was speaking from afar but since i'm here in the room and i have the you just said you'd take any questions um i had brought up the small detail providing shade on those on those tables like you do at other places and so I know I didn't make an amendment or anything but since I've just thought I'd ask you now for the people of the east side of Athens so we have some can use those…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 27:33
“That, that would be wonderful. That would be wonderful. But, um, But anyway, thanks a lot for that. That's the only thing I have. And in fact, for those of you who aren't over there, the change you made where you block the exit out onto the entry road has really made a tremendous difference in the flow of traffic. you would normally never think that customers were so loyal that they would go into an interior road to enter the fast-food restaurant but that seems to be the case and in this case I think having the green space rather than an abandoned building not changing the parking is is a…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 2:28:11
“Yeah, following up, I'm glad to support this. I am supportive of us moving forward with some of these zoning change options. These are things that I've been on the commission six years, and this has been referenced again and again year after year, addressing As one tool, the zoning changes that add one option, one way of increasing housing options, as we've talked about here before. We discuss this in a work session, and I know what happens. I mean, we all know it. People get... alerted to issues as they come up closer for a vote. But it's been out there. It's been out there to discuss. I…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 2:49:50
“Yeah, I just want to bring this back to a larger discussion away from the personal here in that this use of ADUs, and if we don't want it, we don't want it, and we can knock it down. But we also need to look at all the other things that were put forward by the committee and such. These are all things that are part of a, we could call this meeting up and spend all our time looking at all the affordable housing initiatives and studies online And we can all divvy that up and read them because there are tons and tons and tons of them on there. But I will tell you, there are local advocates here.…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 3:01:02
“No, I think this makes sense and allows more housing options.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:31:53
“Yeah, I'd like to make a substitute motion to approve. Second. And I just want to address this a little bit here in this. This did not come out of the blue. This was on the agenda in June. At that point, I asked for it to be tabled so that UGA, and asked UGA to reach out to all the residents. I believe they sent about 50, 60 letters to them all. In early July, I followed up and knocked on the doors of all the homeowners. as well, not every resident but all the homeowners, and talked to about four of those residents and left letters with copies of the UGA letter in case they had not received…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:38:19
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:38:37
“Right. I do want to say also that I did meet with the Neely family back in June, and that was a very helpful, productive conversation. I appreciate that. That was after I had made the motion to hold it and ask the university to reach out, and I did. Until tonight, I had not heard from any residents, and I had asked the Inner East Athens group to please communicate if there were things to reach, either send them to me directly or to give people my email addresses. So anyone who is in my district over there, I just sent out a newsletter, and I had a whole thing on there. I please ask you to…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:41:37
“Can I just add one more remark to you? If the situation does arise where there is a lot of traffic, there's also a process we have where we have neighborhood traffic management that we'd evaluate the data and that could go onto the list of projects to get some traffic calming if that does become an issue. I think that's perhaps what Commissioner Fischer was gonna add in there.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:44:17
“Yeah, I think just clarifying the language, perhaps someone who worked on it, because I thought in the resolution, in the agreement, game trade traffic would not be directed in that route. So, I mean, as a person who goes through there, with the RVs, that's the game day traffic. It wouldn't be routed that way.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:55:52
“I have a couple questions, clarification, because I listen to the business owners, and I know they're dealing with some issues downtown that they talked about. that there need to be boundaries put up because people are shooting up, they're being mistreated physically, prostituted with sex, offered sick mental health crises. What they didn't talk about was people camping downtown. And so I do want to ask our legal team here to um oh let me get the wrong glasses on to explain i'm assuming that the ordinance would be applied to the um i really want to know what it will and won't prevent downtown…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:58:30
“So if you're lying on a piece of cardboard downtown and sleeping in the middle of the day at night, it doesn't make a difference the time of day or anything? No, there's no difference. The time of day does not matter. That's correct. If you were on that piece of cardboard and sleeping, could it be applied?”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:58:54
“These are my questions. I guess I'll have to come back for my comment. In terms of the ordinance being enforced, and this is from the manager's office, really, so . . . Am I excused? In this case, there's a warning that goes first. If the warning is not, is there gonna have to be like a warning each separate time or like if I'm sleeping there today and then tomorrow night, I mean, there's that, but then when does it go to a citation and what happens if I don't pay it?”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:00:30
“Is it OK? Can I have one minute to finish this up? Yes. So these questions are there. I was on the committee. I'm glad it came to the larger floor, larger discussion and everything else. I'm not gonna support this because I don't think it really addresses the kind of problems that I'm hearing. And with the resolution, the resolution, as we've pointed out in resolutions before, they really don't have any teeth until there's specifics and funding. And so until we add this, and we have a place for people to go other than whack-a-mole. They go from one place to another. I really can't support…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:21:13
“I think that actually the second part of this therefore addresses both some of the things that Commissioner Link and Johnson referred to, it says, There's only two. There's not that much in the therefore part. And the second one says, Athens-Clarke County shall continue striking partnerships among governmental agencies, nonprofits, organizations, health care providers, behavioral health organizations, educational institutions, businesses, home developers, housing philanthropic organizations, faith communities, and residents, and will cooperate in defining local homeless reduction needs and…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:35:01
“comes and serves and devotes time to helping people for free and i forgot what the fourth item was so that's it commissioner no comment oh you're too fast um we i i want to um just uh say we had a great wonderful celebration on the east side with the library groundbreaking last week that was a really positive experience, and in case anyone hears this, that there will be a public groundbreaking, which won't be a groundbreaking, but a celebration on Saturday, August 22nd, 1 p.m. at Hillsman Middle School cafeteria. also want to thank all the people who came out we've been here a long time but…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:36:44
“Okay, I was hoping, well, I didn't think that was gonna happen, but I'll motion to go into, to adjourn and go into executive session, and then a motion, then we will adjourn after that for the evening.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 19:38
“Commissioner Myers let's go with it I think for those people who are listening or want to know there's an amendment to the to the to the mayor's budget and that's included in the agenda item And what's really good is that we had a lot of consensus on this as a group and we are moving through in a conflict-free, calm, responsible way.”
Commission · Jun 9, 2026
- Play at 30:50
“Yeah, I just want to kind of return the discussion, at least in my head, to what this budget is really doing and the responsibility that we're, sort of following through on on our commitment to the mission of Athens-Clarke County and to our employees because really the majority of the biggest probably funding is going to our staff and we are with the the amendment from the commissioners able to raise the market rate increase to 4% for our unified plan employees and the public safety plan has 3% plus they have all these bumps built in and then increased slightly our you know the initial the…”
Commission · Jun 9, 2026
- Play at 39:48
“Yeah, I'm going to be voting against this. I've thought a lot about it. I know it provides property tax relief, and we're getting revenue from outsiders. But I cannot get beyond the fact that it's a regressive tax, that 60% of the people in Athens are renters, that the people who don't vote are the ones who are going to be most impacted by this. So if we pass it and gets on the ballot, I can't see any way even with education, that it's not going to pass because of voter turnout and who turns out to vote. So I just have to do that. So I will be voting against it.”
Commission · Jun 9, 2026
- Play at 45:51
“No, I look forward to seeing what comes back to us. These are some significant changes, and I look forward to learning more after I see what they come up with.”
Commission · Jun 9, 2026
- Play at 26:16
“I'm curious, did the manager's office reach out to the public defenders, John Donnelly”
Commission · Jun 4, 2026
- Play at 30:34
“No, I think it's great. I think it's good. And just for those historical sake, I mean, the fund balance here, most of this is coming at the recommendation. of the recommendation of the manager's office. And so I think we did a really good job during our meetings to talk about things, listen to some of the offices, and especially in the courts, and address the issues there. So I feel really good about this.”
Commission · Jun 4, 2026
- Play at 37:49
“Yeah, I'd like to, you know, emphasize on that list, and Manager Cowell mentioned this, the hotel-motel tax. I think, I feel that's clearly a tax that would be on people coming to Athens, not on people's grocery bills as is the case with our possible FLOST tax. So the hotel motel tax, in terms of the process, and I think we have to get the state representatives involved in that and such, and hopefully this fall, we can, late fall, we can actually have a formal meeting with our state representatives again on this and see if they could help us with this and other issues.”
Commission · Jun 4, 2026