City Commission - Regular Meeting

6 30 welcome to the may 26th roman city commission meeting um and we start every meeting with invocation and a pledge to our flag and it happens to be me doing the invocation tonight so if you will please rise and um we'll do i'll do the invocation and then we will um do the pledge of the flag i was doing some reading this morning out of uh 1 Kings chapter 3 in my Bible, and this is where Solomon prays for wisdom. And in verse 3, he says, and this is Solomon speaking, he says, Give your servant an understanding mind to govern the people that I may discern between good and evil. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, God. We thank you for your love. We thank you for the patience you have with us. And Father, I just... I just thank you, all of us thank you, just for being by our side and taking care of us. Lord, as we go into this time of meeting, I pray that you will receive the glory. Everything that's done, everything that's said, we'll put a smile on your face. And, Father, as we leave this place tonight, be with us, take care of us. Grant everybody here safety. Father, just grant that we can do your will, and, Lord, that you'll protect us. Father, place a head of protection, not only around us in this room, but around this building. And Father, as we need wisdom, you'll grant it. As we need patience, you'll grant it. As we need just all the things that you'd have us have, grant it. Lord, I pray this in the name of your precious Son. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Yes, sir. Mayor Bojo? Here. Commissioner Robinson? Here. Brock? Here. Beeman? Here. Hickson? Here. Collins? Here. McDaniel? Here.

I will go ahead and announce right now since the roll call, Commissioner Fisher, Commissioner Cochran are both excused from tonight's meeting. They are on vacation. Not together, but they're on vacation. Everyone got a copy of the minutes from our May 11th meeting? Are there any additions, subtractions, whatever need to be made? Then we will accept them as they are printed. We have no proclamations tonight, but we do have a lot of special recognition. This is one of my favorite times, this recognition, and I'm going to turn it over to our city manager, Sammy Rich.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I agree with you. It is an awesome special occasion. We get to be here tonight for the 2026 Employee Scholarship Recipients. And so back in the good old days, back in 2005, we had an employee, Ms. Alleyne Mobs, who worked down in finance, and she had this great brainstorm idea. What if, what if the employees would start making a contribution and they would just let a dollar be deducted out of their paycheck and we create a fund and then employees children or grandchildren could then be eligible for scholarship and so that was such a simple idea but something that has just worked like clockwork and so in addition to the donations We've got a great group of employees that also does fundraising. So they're constantly working to raise even more money. So the amount of scholarships, it varies. The minimum is $500 and the maximum is $1,000 based on how much money is raised per year. And then it also depends on how many children are eligible or how many children apply. And so Kelly Ledford, who is here in the back, Kelly, if you will raise your hand and then Ms. Sarah Huffman, who's also here, they do a great job of administering this program for us. And so I will tell y'all, so the first scholarships awarded in 2006, 2007 school year, there have been 123 scholarships awarded prior to the tonight's awards, totaling $79,650. Tonight, we award seven $1,000 scholarships for 25, 26, it's gonna bring our total to $86,650. All of that will total 130 students after tonight. So quite an impressive feat for a group of employees who decided they wanna make our community better. And so with that, I'm gonna borrow a microphone and come around front and we're gonna make some recognition.

Mayor.

So kind of like a game show host, I get to announce the rules of engagement. Tonight's a little different for me. It's special because I get to recognize my favorite daughter who is going to be our first recipient tonight. And so normally I just ask when I call you up, tell us who you brought with you tonight. Even if you're embarrassed by them, you still have to tell us who they are. And then you got to tell us where you are going next. to school. And then the other most painful part is our official photographer back here, Doug Walker, is going to make you take a picture with the city manager. And if you just want to sing a song or something, maybe we could get into that. Any takers over here on this side? No? That's a hard one. Okay. Without further ado, our first recipient is Miss Addison Blanton. So come on up. You do have to tell us who's your favorite city manager. And then who's with you, and where are you going to school?

Okay, my favorite city manager is Sammy Rich. I'm here with my mom, Emily Rich, and I'm going to Jacksonville State University next year.

All right, if you'll just stand over here, there's going to be a group shot. Don't go far. Next up, Mariah Griffin. Come on. Did you hear that we had a revision? Where do you go to high school? Who'd you bring with you? And then where are you going to school?

So I went to high school at Rome High. I brought my mama, my step parents, my daddy, my sister. And I will be attending Georgia State.

All right.

See, you got off easy. I didn't ask you about your favorite city manager. You're welcome. All right, how about Corley Holder? Nope, no takers? All right, well, let's give a round of applause for Corley Holder. And I know Miss Addison Jenkins is here. Come on over. Everybody wants to know who's your favorite public works director.

Chris Jenkins. My mom, Krista Jenkins, is here with me and my dad. And I graduated from Rome High last year, class of 2025, and I'm going to Georgia Highlands College.

So go Wolves and go Chargers is what I hear you saying. All right, and how about Mr. Ryan Morgan? Come on.

Okay, there we go.

So do you have a favorite Rome City police officer? Tracy Morgan. I never saw that coming.

I went to Rome High School. I brought my girlfriend, my dad, my grandmother, and I'm going to Jacksonville State University.

All right, Jacksonville State. I'm seeing some numbers here. Congratulations. And so now, if y'all will all stand together, we're going to get a group photo with the Doug Walker. How about a round of applause? So good job, y'all, being here tonight. And I did not, I neglected to mention, because we're missing two, Riley Kines, who I don't think is here, and Kaylee McDaniels. So those were two other recipients running out seven. But just know we are proud of all of you guys, and so thank you for what you do. And we know you're going to go off to school, and you're going to study super hard, and you're going to make the community and your parents very proud, right? All right, great job. Thank y'all for being here tonight.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor.

Yeah. Can I say one thing? Sure.

I just want to congratulate you guys and the entire class of 2026. My son graduated this year as well. And parents, I know what you guys are feeling. I know you're a little soft-hearted. And the flashbacks of all the homework questions, all the things that you had to help him with coming up throughout the years, all of that is coming to a thought. And I told Jace that 2026 is a special group of kids. I don't know why, but just watching them, it's going to be you guys to go out and change your environment, your neighborhood, your community. Jace is headed to Morehouse, and I'm excited about that. He's probably going to keep tabs on some of you guys going to Georgia State. But just go out and be your best. And when you get your education, please come back to your community. Come back and help out. Pull someone else up and encourage them to do the same. And congratulations again, and congratulations to the parents. You guys did it as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Well, we too had a graduate in our house. Well, not in our house, but our granddaughter graduated this year, and she's going to the University of Georgia. We've got, it's everywhere. And like Commissioner Hickson said, come back.

We can use you. Can I share something too? Sure. I am a Georgia Highlands at a Jacksonville State University graduate. So y'all are going to the best, be the best, and bring it back home.

You're here. All right. Thank y'all for being here. For those of you that would like to slip out, I'm going to wait just a minute if you want to go. We would love for you to stay because we don't get a lot of people that want to stay and And I'm not talking about city employees.

They're the first two to hit the door. He's just a door opener. Good job, Chris. Thank you.

Bye, Ryan.

Umbrella behind.

Somebody left an umbrella.

Chris.

Pocketbook. Leave the money. I'm in too big a hurry. Chris, when I told them they could leave, I didn't know they were going to leave that fast. Leave everything behind. All right, we're going to move right along. We have no public comments on agenda items, but we do have a resolution tonight, and I'm going to call on John Giles of the Rome Police Department, and this deals with wrecker and towing fees.

Okay, Mr. Mayor. I was asked by Commissioner Collins to look at our record fees that had a slight adjustment back when you voted it in back in November of 24. But technically, you know, the record ordinance was ordained in August of 2010. So our fees had been unchanged for many, many years. We did have a slight bump that you voted in in 24. But I was asked to look at these fees again a couple of months ago due to the high cost of operating these wrecker services. So I used state guidelines that were approved in June of 24 to try to gauge what I thought was fair to raise our fees to to help out all the owners of the on-call wreckers. So our basic tow currently up to 10,000 pounds is um 125 and i have asked to be that be moved to 200 um the additional per hour charge after the first hour service of light duty um would change from uh 50 to 75 dollars and on medium record toes that's a gross vehicle weight over 10 000 pounds but less than 20 000 pounds That fee would change from 250 for the first hour to 325, and the additional per hour charge would remain at 125. For our large record service, which is Lloyd's, Floyd County, Rabbit's, and Sunrise, that's for vehicles that weigh over 26,000 pounds, that fee would change from 500 to 585. and the additional per hour charge would remain at $250. The supplies that are used by the record drivers on the scenes, the sand, the oil, dry, etc., would change from $50 to $75. The use of dollies, if needed, would change from $30 to $50. Our daily storage fees, I did quite a bit of adjustment here. We only had a storage fee of $18 a day no matter what size a vehicle was by state guidelines it gave me some help with that and the 10,000 pound vehicles would change from $18 a day to 30 So one of the comments that Planning Commission made is they wanted to maintain some sort of walkable access to the sidewalks down here on North Broad the applicant has gone back and added those and

graphic for it. They're PSI rated for it. So it's what they're designed for. This block is actually designed for big commercial and both residential. So it's going to handle all the stormwater that's behind it. It's going to handle anything. This is a lifetime block that's going to be there for the remainder of it. It's not like a normal block. If you're familiar with Big style block, they tend to have a lot of pressure and seismic pressure and hydraulic pressure against the back of it. This one is actually core filled with gravel and then it has geotextile fabric that actually is installed and helps hold the retaining wall back. It's fully engineered design for this project. I've engineered drawings if you'd like to see them. And I've got a couple pamphlets if y'all have any questions on what it would actually look like, the face structure of it, so. I think that's it.

Is that a decorative block exterior facing?

It's made to look like a wedge stone style mountain stony and our blocker actually being the region that ran with the mountains and the textures, it looks, we've actually added an acetone etching to it. So it actually looks like a mountain stone, gives it a really good decorative look instead of just having a big gray retaining wall.

That's similar to what Chick-fil-A has over here. Yes, sir.

Yeah, that they are a competitor of ours. They're a 5.75 square foot block. Ours are eight. and they're not core filled with gravel. So they handle, they don't handle hydraulic pressure and they don't handle vertical load as well as ours do. So.

Can we see that pamper while we- Absolutely.

Yes, sir.

I'll take one down on this end.

I believe there is a schematic breakdown of how the actual walls install, shows the geo, shows the fabric going in, shows the gravel, shows how the slope is cut back and everything like that.

I first started talking about 11-foot walls, I thought. Right, but you're the man, so you...

Well, and it's only 11 foot, so people freak out and see 11 foot. It's only 11 foot in that one little area. So it'll have a, but it's, people think 11 foot, I've got walls that are 52 foot tall. And you look at them and you're like, wow, that's actually a lot prettier than it really, you would imagine.

There is, if you want to see it, sir.

I've got these as well, y'all can look at them.

Can I ask a quick question? Are you the developer or just site?

I'm the developer. I work with them hand in hand. On my projects and my retaining walls, I've been installing retaining walls since I got out of the Air Force, so close to 18 years. I was recognized as one of the most... I've got many awards for retaining walls all over America for it. So I'm kind of one of the most experts in the area. So I'm very hands-on with my projects and all my salesmen, all my staff is very hands-on. So there will be somebody, not daily, but probably every other day down here just checking on the wall, making sure everything's going good, making sure that things are done correctly and everything. So one, y'all don't have anything to worry about. We can kind of catch anything if something happens.

You know, when you were talking about, everybody was telling me retaining wall, I could just see this big concrete blob stuck up there.

A lot of people see that.

I'm glad you showed me this.

Yes, sir. Because a lot of people think of a big 11-foot wall, and they're like, that's going to look like trash. Or they think about licking stick, where you see a big wall, and then you have licking stick and freeze stalls and a lot of moisture, a lot of rain. The veneer starts to fall off. You start to have issues due to continual maintenance over time. This is a set-and-forget product. You don't have to worry about it at all.

Are you going to be backfilled to the top of this wall from the building side?

Yes, sir. And then there'll be fall protection per code speculation. There'll be a fence, decorative, whichever they decide.

And you'll be renting these units once constructed?

Do you want to speak on that? Renting, is that correct?

Renting. I'm just curious. Can you give me a range in terms of the rent rates?

How many units? 14 total. How big are these units? They're about 900, a little less than 1,000 square feet.

Are they one-bedrooms too?

Two-bedrooms.

Your elevation, I know this isn't a zoning thing, but I'm just curious. It looked like the backside facing north broad was pretty generic. You don't have any kind of decorative.

No, we try to keep it plain, kind of go with the concept of the area, so that, you know, not to make it more cost effective for the develop.

That's the part that most people will see, though. Yes, sir.

renting these, will they have on-site management or you'll just be year-round?

I don't know that answer.

You know how far off that sidewalk the right-of-way is?

No. It would be, because I don't know the property line direction right there.

I didn't know if y'all had done that. No, they hadn't. Okay.

Finished the civil drawings that determined my life. Are you Mr.

Beard? Yes, sir. And what's your name? Frank, did I hear you say that the back side of the house would be facing north, bro? Or the front side?

Well, it'd be front side on the bottom, but back side on the upper side.

I think that, you know, the planning commission was pretty receptive of this. The only thing they wanted to make sure of was, I know one question they had was a retaining wall and then access to North Broad. Would it be in order to table this to allow them to go back in front of the planning committee? And Bryce, you could get them on the first meeting and then they'll be able to come back in front of the board by our next meeting for approval. to allow it to go back in front of the Planning Commission because it was denied without prejudice because of some questions that they wanted to have.

It would be voted on here, though, couldn't it?

That's correct. I know it. Right. If we vote to approve, it doesn't have to go back to the Planning Commission. It doesn't have to go back if we vote to approve it?

I understand that. and this is my fourth month on the board, and one committee meeting I was in, they said that it was good to go with the recommendation of that board. And so I am going with the recommendation of the Planning Commission that it come back in front of the Planning Commission. If you guys want to approve it, then that's okay too. I just would like to allow them time to look at it and get an official approval from the Planning Commission, and then it come back.

Mr. Mayor, let's finish the public hearing first.

That's where I'm headed here. All right. Has anybody got any other questions? You're good? All right. Is there anyone to speak against? All right. Then I will close the public hearing, and I need a motion and a second.

I'll make a motion. We'll approve it.

I'll second. We've got a motion and a second. Anybody? Well, we've had plenty of discussion.

Let me just ask, Bryce, of the things that were mentioned, things that were brought up by the Planning Commission, what of those have been addressed with what they've done?

So right off the bat, they did add in the staircase the gentleman discussed. They've given us more information about the size of the retaining wall. It's not as big as initially worried about. And this is still very much conceptual. It's still subject to change. For instance, the site plan provided would need a couple of variances, so it'll still go through multiple more approvals.

But as far as the zoning, I mean, that's basically all we're here for. We're not here for designs. Correct, yeah.

Commissioner Hickson was there anything else that the Planning Commission had concerns of that we have an address No, I just you know wanted to be fair stewards and be consistent on the things that we do There was an issue that came before us once before and it was said that we should go with the recommendation of the committee's and So I just wanted to give them I was there when you came and they loved the idea They just wanted to see what you wanted to do and I just wanted to give them that opportunity

Mr. Mayor, just a moment of clarification. It's just like you heard the commissioner say, he's only been here for about four months, and it's great that you work hard to try to make sure that everything is fair up front, but fairness to the whole commission, in the instance, it can come from the planning commission fully in favor of, and it still could be denied. And In instance, no different than it is today, Mr. Commissioner, that it could be said. But even with it being that, we all hope that what we've done here is fair and in good faith of what's before us. Okay? That's all I'm saying. I understand the consistency.

We just have to be consistent across the board.

You say that we have to be. We need to be. Sometimes it don't happen like that. I'm just saying.

Mr. Clerk, will you call the roll? We have a motion and a second. Sir.

Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Brock? Yes. Beaman? Yes. Hickson?

Yes. Collins? Yes. McDaniel? Yes. Good job. Thank you, Bryce. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Clerk, have you got anything today?

No report, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Manager?

I have no report, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Mr. Attorney? No report, Mr. Mayor.

All right, on my report today, I will tell you the Joint Services Committee will meet Tuesday, June 2nd, 9 o'clock at the Floyd County Administration Building. Water and Sewer will meet Thursday, June 4th, 9 o'clock in the Sam King Room. And at the last meeting, I mentioned to everyone that the International Committee has met and that we are going to have some delegates from the country of Japan visit the city of Rome, and that will be July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. And actually, the International Committee is going to meet this Thursday afternoon at 1.30 in the sam king room if anyone's interested in coming as we make plans for this and then anyone that wants to come back thursday evening at seven o'clock we will be uh on a zoom call with the japanese and um that will be entertaining i want to assure you but we will be on a zoom call with them and um try to work out all the details for their trip as as they come and um So if you're interested in any of that. Commissioner Robinson.

Who's on the committee?

I'm sorry.

I chair the committee. You chair the committee. Is any commissioner on there? Which is just yourself.

He's only a member of the committee. Okay. All right. That's all I need. But Meredith is working with him to help. Lisa Smith is also working to get the plans made. That's great. Okay. All right. Commissioner Robinson.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, the only thing I have is the Finance Committee will meet tomorrow at 10.30 in the Sam King room, and it is an open meeting. Anybody's welcome to come hear all the good numbers and stuff. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor.

Commissioner Brock. No report. Commissioner Cochran, as I said, is out of town, and I will just mention the Tourism Committee will meet Wednesday, May 27, 1145, at the Civic Center. Commissioner Beaman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. On May the 29th, from 8.30 a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m., Keep Wrong Float Beautiful will be partnered with Georgia Power to host the annual River Float and Clean Up event, and everything is free, free, free.

And also I wanted to share— Excuse me, when did you say that was?

On May the 29th.

That's this Saturday.

Yes, from 8.30 a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m. Thank you. And up under public safety, I wanted to share that now that school's out and summer has hit, there's a lot of activity in the public safety. All police officers are asking for everybody to be on board and just draw some attention to there's been a lot of citations on improper lane change, usage, speeding, traffic light violations of signs, and following too close. We're keeping our firefighters on the ground because they're having to assist with motor vehicle collisions. And I'm just asking now that everybody take it slow, start rushing, and let's give our public safety some support. And that concludes my report.

Thank you. Commissioner Hickson.

Yeah. So the Rome, Florida County Planning Commission will meet Thursday, June 4th at 2.30 p.m. here in the commission chambers. That's all the reports that I have. Commissioner Collins.

development will be Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the Sam King room in the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission met this past week and in fact turned 65 years old, the Regional Commission did. We had a big celebration up there. A great deal of information was had about the help and how you attain help if you're Companies laying all people, etc, etc. So be hopeful the Minutes to be getting to us and I can That's all I have Thank You Commissioner Commissioner McDaniel Thank You mayor.

We reached consensus in caucus Because we have two members of our Commission not here tonight that we will move the discussion on the appointments to the Rome Redevelopment Agency and the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority to our meeting two weeks from now. And that's all I have, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. I will say that we did go into private time while we were downstairs. One was to discuss the real estate matter and the other to discuss litigation. I didn't write down who took us in or out. Do you have it? Yes, sir. While he's looking up who made the motion to go in, do you have that?

Yes, sir. The motion to enter executive session was made by Commissioner Collins, seconded by Commissioner Robinson, and a unanimous vote. And the motion to exit executive session was made by Commissioner Robinson, seconded by Commissioner McDaniel, and a unanimous vote.

All right. Thank you, sir. And just so you'll know, there were no votes taken on either or any of the issues that we talked about. We do have one public comment on the non-agenda item. Christy Miner. You have three minutes, ma'am.

Okay. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, commissioners. My name is Christy Miner of Somerville Park. A frequent topic at these caucus and these meetings and caucus meetings is the coin operated gambling machines, especially the financial incentives they provide for expansion of gas stations. It's also been suggested that this co-ams increase city costs by way of poverty and crime. So I feel that it's important that the city is aware of and the people of Rome have an opportunity to understand where the city stands on the issue of legalized sports betting in Georgia currently against the Georgia constitution. This past primary election cycle, $10 million was spent on 34 legislative races by dark money coming from outside of Georgia, funded by the sports betting industry, most notably through the committee calling themselves American Conservative Fund Action Georgia. This was reported by David Wickert of the AJC this past weekend. However, several of us were blowing the whistle on this before the primary was held on May 19th. I refer people to my substack entitled Sword and Shield for the reference to the information I'm sharing this evening. Of concern should be the number of elected officials in Northwest Georgia that were targeted by this group to be considered a good investment. Lanny Thomas, the newly elected state senator for District 53, replacing the seat vacated by Colton Moore, was highlighted in the AJC article. I wish to point out that Eddie Lumsden's campaign, though running unopposed this May, spent over $17,000 last quarter. This is compared to Katie Dempsey, whom I opposed in the primary. Her campaign only spent $4,000 in the same time period. Where did Representative Lumsden's money go? It turns out that it was propping up, among others, the same Northwest Georgia candidates that the gambling dollars were propping up, namely Steve Tarvin, Casey Carpenter, Edward Horner, and Katie Dempsey. Now, I never saw anyone confront Representative Dempsey prior to the primary election on whether she was in favor of the TV ads or the half dozen texts and the one, two, three, four, five mailers that were sent by the American Conservative Fund on her behalf. But she clearly didn't see any reason to dip into her campaign finances the way Representative Lumsden did. Unless you were a discerning voter, you would not recognize the difference between these five mailers and the one that her campaign did fund. In closing, Commissioner McDaniel has stated previously that he isn't opposed to the Co-Am machines, just that the city doesn't get any revenue from them. The people of Rome deserve to know where each member of this body stands on the issue of bringing sports betting to Georgia, especially since our legislative delegation appears confused, believing they represent the government and not the people. Thank you so much.

Thank you. If there's no more business to come before this commission, we are adjourned.