City Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll see the commission meeting. As we get started here, we begin every meeting with an invitation and a pledge to our flag. And Commissioner Joe Fisher has got that honor tonight.

Walking into the room tonight to see such strong faith leadership in here, I'm so excited. And I want to yield my prayer time to Pastor Miller from New Victory Ministries.

God, Father, in Jesus' name, we honor you. We're thankful for you being the leader and the guide of our lives. We thank you for this opportunity to come and be a part of this meeting tonight. We pray for our leadership. We pray for those who are represented in the city of Rome, not for just some people, but for all people. We ask, oh God, that you would just have your way tonight.

And then we ask especially blessing upon the children, oh God, who are getting ready to go back to school. Bless them and watch over

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Bojo.

Here. Commissioner Robinson.

Here.

Brock is out.

I'm sorry, I should have announced earlier Commissioner Brock will not be with us tonight. He's on vacation.

Commissioner Cochran? Here. Beaman?

Here.

Fisher?

Here.

Hickson? Here. Collins? Here. McDaniel? Here.

Everyone got a copy of the minutes and they stand to be approved. Any corrections or additions need to be made? Then we will approve them as they are written. We have no proclamations. Tonight, we do have some special recognitions. I'm going to turn that over to Commissioner McDaniel.

When I call your name, if you will, come forward. The first one is a certificate of appreciation presented to Paula Blaylock for dedicated and outstanding service to the Rome Historic Preservation Commission, July 14th, 2020 to June 30, 2026. The next one is a certificate of appreciation presented to Taisha Lytle for dedicated and outstanding service to the Rome Historic Preservation Commission, November 13th, 2023 to June 30, 2026. Is Taisha here? Taisha? Okay, we'll get that one to her. And the next one. Certificate of appreciation presented to Susie Twyman for dedicated and outstanding service to the Floyd County Health Board March 1st, 1999 to June 30, 2026. And I've had the pleasure of serving on the Health Board with Ms. Twyman, and I've known this lady for a long, long time, and it's an honor. We have three certificate of appointments. The first one, greetings be it known that Sarah McElrath has been appointed to serve as a member of the Rome Historic Preservation Commission. Sarah, if you will come forward for the term of July 13th, 2026 to June 30, 2029. This appointment is made because of your dedication to the cause of good government, your contributions to your community, and your willingness to serve your fellow man. It's signed by Mayor Jim Bojo. The next one is a certificate of appointment to Renalpha Houston. She has been appointed to serve as a member of the Floyd County Health Board, and she's going to be replacing Ms. Twyman for the term of July 13, 2026, to June 30, 2032. This appointment is made because of your dedication to the cause of good government your contributions to your community, and your willingness to serve your fellow man, signed by our Mayor Jim Bojo. And you came highly recommended by Miss Susie Twyman, and that's all it took. And the last one is, be it known that Ben Levy has been appointed to serve as a member of the Rome Historic Preservation Commission for the term of July 13, 2026 to June 30, 2029. This appointment is made because of your dedication to the cause of good government, your contributions to your community, and your willingness to serve your fellow man assigned by our Mayor Jim Bocha.

Congratulations.

For those of you that came tonight to watch these people get these recognitions, we appreciate it very, very much. And if you would like to leave at this time, we will give you a few minutes to slip out. And if you want to stay, the more the merrier.

She was undeterred.

We have no public comments regarding agenda items tonight. We have no resolutions, nothing on first reading, nothing on second reading, nothing continued on first reading, nothing or no, excuse me, no public hearings. Mr. Clerk.

No report, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Manager. No report, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Attorney. Under my time, I've got a couple of things here. First of all, the Rome City Commission will hold called meetings here right here in the commission chambers on Monday August the 3rd which is next Monday at 6 30 p.m and on Monday August the 10th at 10 a.m for the purpose of conducting the 2026 tax increase public hearings. A final hearing will take place during the regular meeting on Monday August the 10th right here at 6 30. Also joint service committee will meet on Tuesday August 4th 9 a.m. in the Sam King Room. Water and Sewer Committee will meet Thursday, August 6th, at 9 a.m. in the Sam King Room. And that concludes my report. Commissioner Robinson.

Mr. Mayor, I only have one thing to report from the Finance Committee. In caucus, we heard from Mr. Will Derzis. Thank you. From Malden and Jenkins, he did the presentation on our audit, our 2025 audit, and I think you're going to speak on that now if you'd like. Thank you.

Sir, if you'll go to the podium.

All right, good evening, commissioners. Thank you for having me this evening. So my name is Will Dersis. I'm a director with Malden and Jenkins, here to present the results of the 2025 financial audit for the city. My presentation this evening is based off of this document here. It's the auditor's discussion and analysis to give an overview of kind of a snapshot of the city's audit results, its operations, and some other things. Without further ado, I'll jump in. All right, on page two, There's a graphic depiction detailing a little bit more about Malden and Jenkins, some of the governments we serve, a little bit of a snapshot of our government profile at the moment, as well as the engagement team leaders for the city's audit, which comprise myself, Christopher McKellar, and Jay Patel as our engagement team manager. On page three, there's just some additional services you can read up on that are offered by Malden and Jenkins. All right, page four. Just a brief overview of the independent auditor's report, its purpose. So our responsibility as the external auditor is to express an opinion regarding the financial statements. We conduct our audit in accordance with standards promulgated by the AICPA, by government auditing standards, by other standard-setting bodies. And the goal is to obtain reasonable rather than absolute assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free of material misstatement. i'm pleased to share we did issue an unmodified opinion you can think of as a clean clean report and again that just indicates that the um that the statements present fairly the financial position and results of operations for the year ended december 31st 2025. on page five um there's some information on the annual comprehensive financial report that's the act for which the city issues as its financial statements. So the state requires a set of statements, and ACFER goes above and beyond that minimum level requirement with some enhanced introductory section, including a letter of transmittal, as well as statistics regarding operating financial state trends, information, debt capacity, demographic data, other things pertinent and relative to the city itself. So kudos to the finance team for going above and beyond and issuing an AG for it. And on the next page, part of the goal of reporting in ACRA is to obtain a GFOA, or Government Finance Officers Association certificate for excellence in financial reporting, meaning that the ACRA passes their prescribed checklist for things they're looking for. So the prior year's certificates made part of the current year's submission, and Lord willing, then the 2025 ACRA will receive its certificate as well. On page seven. So down towards the bottom, I'll speak a little bit on the city's general fund, the results of its revenues and expenditures and a profile of it. And on page eight, there's a graphic depiction that breaks down what makes up the general fund revenues. As you can see, taxes make up the overwhelming majority of the revenues that flow through the general fund, not just in 2025, but pretty much in every year. Of that $35.8 million in taxes, about $13 million is comprised of current... property taxes, about $16 million, so about half of that $35 million is ad valorem taxes, not including franchise, business, other taxes, local option sales tax, that type of thing. Total revenues for the general fund were about $42 million, an increase of about $2 million from the prior year. And on the next page, a breakdown of the expenditures, and this indicates Public safety, which this is just police when this 12.7 million Makes up about 39% of the total expenditures of the general fund for 2025 Followed by general government and then public works. So those three categories round out About 95% of the total the total expenditures which did increase from 30 million up to 33 million So in line with expenditures if not slightly outpacing those On page 10 again another graph depicting the relationship with the general fund revenues and its expenditures so so the revenues exceed or have exceeded expenditures on a five-year basis and so there's a bit of a surplus in the way this graph depicts it what this doesn't show is transfers out specifically the general fund subsidizes the fire fund the fire operations and so an annual transfer out is more or less a recurring annual expenditure that the general fund, again, subsidizes the fire fund for. When you factor that into the equation, the result is, at least over the past three years, that that surplus dwindles down to a deficit of about $870,000 or so in 2023, $950,000 in 2024, and about 2.2 million in 2025. So the fund balance, which is the equity, or you can think of like the savings account of the general fund, it's been kind of drawn down on the past several years and has decreased over the past several years. And the fire subsidy is part of that. General cost of goods, personnel expense increases all contribute to that. That's very common amongst local governments, particularly in the past several years, again, in the more inflationary environment. On page 11, towards the bottom, the financial reporting package includes a government auditing standards report, which is also codenamed the Yellow Book Report. That's one of the Again, the compliance reports that accompanies the city statements, that's required in every year because the city is a local government. And on the second page, also a single audit report was issued for 2025 due to the city expending over a million dollars of federal expenditures and thereby triggering the need for a single audit of a major federal program. All right, just a couple more things on page 13 for some items I'm required to communicate to you all. We encounter no disagreements with management over the application of accounting principles, significant estimates, that type of thing. At conclusion of our audit, we requested some written representations from management concerning the accuracy and completeness of the financial statements. We received those with no issue. We're not aware of any other consultations, engagements, or anything like that that management has with other CPA firms regarding accounting matters, auditing matters, or the application of any of those matters. Moving on to page 14. Over the course of the audit, management, and in some cases, Malden Jenkins, there were some audit adjustments proposed and posted to the city's general ledgers. A detail of that can be found at the back of this document. And all of those adjustments, of course, were discussed with management. There was one past adjustment that would have resulted in the beginning year balances being adjusted for one of the city's opinion units. However, rather than going through that process due to the immaterial nature of this item, management elected to account for that through 2025's audit. And so at the end of 2025, there's no longer an issue. There's no misstatement. It is just the way it went about being corrected. And we at Malden and Jenkins, we are independent of the city. So I'm on page 14. We're independent of the city and all of its related organizations. That is the cornerstone for an effective audit. On page 15, some... accounting recommendations and related matters to communicate to you all. So we reported no findings, that is to say no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies were discovered during our audit, during the test of the city's balances. However, there were some recommendations that we encountered that are just management recommendations for improvement. One being a special revenue fund, the city's hotel-motel fund, in which the final adopted budget budgeted to exceed more savings, more fund balance than the fund had to offer. So the result was a budgeted deficit, which the state considers to be a matter of noncompliance. Fortunately for the city, that amount is not a material amount relative to the opinion unit relative to the hotel-motel fund, but therefore we have provided that as a written recommendation. There was no other budgetary noncompliance noted during 2025. On the next page, some old accounts receivable. Again, overall the balances are deemed immaterial, but some old Receivables that are two plus years old not allowed for and haven't been written off So they're kind of grossing up overstating the the receivables balance of the city a little bit and we recommend they either Fully allow for or assess the the estimate for allowability Or estimate for doubtful accounts related to those receivables or write them off entirely and then lastly I the city's op-ed plan its other post-employment benefits which subsidizes its retirees medical dental and in general health care costs after they've retired um the the amount that was reported as a plan benefit payment in 2024's audit and financial statements did not quite match up to what the actuary of that plan provided during 2025. And so that was something we've looked at before and have tried to kind of reconcile what the difference is, what's going on there. But we recommend that either the city be in contact with the actuary or really keep a detailed review of what its contributions each year to the OPEC plan are for its retirees. At the bottom of page 16, I'm almost done, the GASB, which is the standard setting body for the city's audit for its financial reporting. They're always coming up with new pronouncements, which will go into effect in future years. I will let you read up on any of those statements that are kind of in the in the pipeline and potentially might apply to the city. They may not, but they keep us very busy. So we just like to keep you all abreast of those matters. Otherwise, I have no other specific points to go through within the remainder of the document. I'll let you read the rest of that on your own time. I'm happy to take any questions that anyone has. Otherwise, that will conclude my presentation. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor? Yes, sir.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Derzis. A few questions, kind of continuing off what we were discussing downstairs in caucus. So Georgia law defines the legal level of control as the lowest level of budgetary detail at which management or the budget officer may not reassign resources without approval of the governing authority. Do you agree that this is the controlling definition that is applicable to Rome?

If that's the definition, I would agree.

Okay, thank you. In your professional interpretation, do the words control, reassign, and without approval carry a time requirement? More specifically, does approval have to occur before management reassigns the resources, or may management reassign or spend the resources first and seek approval afterwards?

I guess my professional opinion, I think picking up from where we were talking previously, I think the thing you might be looking for is monitoring in which you, provided the example, well, on a 12-month calendar year, that we have to keep an eye out for our budget during those 12 months. But what if we're at 50% early on? And OK, budget's only as good as if you can stay within it, right? Or it doesn't mean anything if it's not really adhered to. And again, I provided examples in which, well, there's instances where unforecasted expenses, they come in. That's reality sometimes, especially with local governments. But monitoring availability, maybe on a monthly basis, throughout the year, that to me is where the kind of level of control that you're speaking about, I think that's where that lies. That's where commission and management keep an eye on the departments and monitor for changes that may be needed towards the end of the year that may be required. But as a matter of professional opinion, internal policies drive that more than any audit standards or audit requirements do. So again, we're looking at, was there an originally adopted budget? Were there any final amendments made that state law allows for such that the total expenditures by department, by whatever the city's legal level of control is, did not exceed the final amended budget. And that's pretty much what we're doing.

So then, what's the practical difference between legal control and after-the-fact ratification?

I think it's what the state allows for its municipalities to do as far as making amendments, basically making adjustments.

At what point do you believe resources have been reassigned when management moves budget authority, when a purchase order is issued, when a contract is executed, when a liability is incurred, so on and so forth? When do you? What's your professional opinion of when it's reassigned?

I might have to research that a little bit more. That's fine. That's fine. I always think the purchase order process is kind of an integral part as far as getting everyone who's involved on board with, hey, here's what I have left in my department's budget. We're going to issue this purchase order At that point, you should have an idea of what's remaining, what I'm proposing, and, you know, what the consequences of that would be.

Sure. And the only reason I ask that is it's the word reassigned, you know, should not be an abstraction, right? It should all be a definable point where maybe that's an internal policy where we all agree. Once the resources have already been reassigned, obligated, or spent, Can the commission still prohibit, reduce, redirect, or stop that expenditure from occurring?

I think that's a matter of the commission's charter more than anything. Again, I'd have to do a little more. Okay, that's fine.

And so in your opinion, the later budget amendment would take care of some of those issues.

Yeah. At least from the audit perspective.

Okay. Let's skip that one. When Malden and Jenkins evaluates compliance with a legal level of control, do you compare expenditures to the budget that was legally in effect when the expenditures were incurred? or only to the final budget after all later amendments have been adopted?

The final budget after all amendments. So actuals may, and they a lot of times exceed that original adopted originally appropriated amount, but that's not the standpoint that we're looking at through the state law requirements.

So does the procedure test whether the governing authority exercised control when the spending occurred, or does it only test whether the final budget column was adjusted before the audit report was issued?

We're looking at the final budget.

Okay. In evaluating Rome's 25 budget compliance, did your firm determine the month in which each department first exceeded its originally adopted appropriation?

The specific month?

No.

Okay. Did your firm determine when management first knew or reasonably should have known that each department would exceed its appropriation?

I mean, again, that's kind of back to the monitoring aspect. I mean, my understanding, the Finance Committee, they go over these areas and these issues during its monthly meetings or whenever the meetings are held. We review the minutes of those. We might look for... know amendments that are made at certain points throughout the year but i'm not looking at it necessarily a detail of you know at this exact time is when the budget was exceeded again for the audit it's the fiscal year as a whole point in time december 31st okay uh roams 2024

annual comprehensive financial report says the legal level of budgetary control is at the departmental level and that amendments affecting departmental appropriations must be authorized by the city commission and that all appropriations lapse at year end. It also describes the city amendments as having been made and approved during the year. How do you reconcile that language with amending the 2025 appropriations in June of 2026?

So the amendments are made effective for the 2025 year, just subsequent to the fiscal year end?

No. We voted on no amendments in 2025.

Well, I'd have to look into it probably a little bit more.

Okay. The Georgia attorney general opinion 99 three explains that the formal amendment requires requirement promotes accountability, disclosure, and public knowledge of budget changes and quotes the statutory language, authorizing amendments to address changing needs during the budget period. How are those purposes served when the governing authority is not asked to approve the change until after the budget period has ended and the spending has already occurred.

Well, a lot of times you don't know what position you're in until subsequent to the year end. Invoices trickle in, accruals take place, that type of thing. Unexpected expenses come in.

Unexpected, okay. Suppose a department knowingly exceeded its adopted budget by 50% in October, continued spending for the rest of the year, and the governing authority was not asked to approve an amendment until the following June. Under, in your professional opinion, would that June amendment fully cure the budget compliance issue and eliminate an audit finding?

I mean, knowing no other context, anything else? I think from the audit standpoint, if the amendment takes place and the actual is less or in line with amended budget, then yeah.

Okay. What limiting principle prevents the management from exceeding a departmental appropriation by any amount so long as the commission later approves a sufficiently large amendment before the audit is issued?

What prevents it? Again, I think it comes back to just monitoring the internal policy.

Leaving aside late accruals or closed-out entries, that could not reasonably have been known before year end. Management knew during the 2025 the department had exceeded or would exceed its adopted appropriation was commission approval required before management crossed that departmental level appropriation.

I think I'd have to look at the charter outline. to give you the appropriate answer.

Okay. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Thank you, Will. Appreciate your time. Mr. Durst, we do appreciate your time. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Yeah, that's all I have, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Speaking for Commissioner Brock, he had no committee announcements. Commissioner Cox? No committees. Thank you.

I don't have any committee reports, but I did have a concern about the public safety meeting. I understand that there was some discussion about our police officers being understaffed and some other concerns. Is there anything that we need to address from the public safety meeting? Yes, from our public safety meeting? Commissioner Collins, you represented, and you were there.

I would say to you that, and I know Sammy can follow up, I had a question for the chief. At one point in time, our department was about 15 officers down, And it was due to the fact that our surrounding counties were paying a lot more money than we were for hiring them, et cetera. And this commission addressed that in a big way. And so we got our funds up. And that's not the problem anymore. We still are short on officers. We find ourselves short on officers again. I said to the chief, well, at that point in time, we had a two where we could come back up to standards and get our officers back, you know, up to staff. I said, but this kind of time around, kind of puzzling because I asked the chief and the chief said, Dana's sitting back there, but I said, is it because the reason we short that mothers don't want their sons to grow up to be police officers or is that the fact that it's a lot of different scenarios going on these days and time that you really quite don't understand, and puts our personnel in harm's way in a great way. And so it's tough. You know what profession you're in, isn't it, Craig? They go to lunch, and they don't show back up. Employers do nowadays. And so I was listening to the chief this morning and wishing our school system well. Jill, you was there, and Laina Young was there, and she said, listen, I need these young men to be all they can be because when they get out of this high school here, I want to hire them. I want them to become good, productive citizens and train them and be good officers.

But

right now it's tough finding the answers as to why people don't want to get into police work and so it's a struggle for us sammy mr manager commissioner i would just suggest if you anybody turns on the evening news it doesn't take very long to figure out why it is a very difficult job to work in police. And so I just, I thank God that we've got a very dedicated agency and we've got a great leadership in our police department that they get up every day and strap on the uniform. But, you know, you're right. You said a lot of things, but going back, y'all, just six short years ago, we had a starting salary of around $32,000. And that is now, after we've implemented the pay plan, that new starting salary is over 54,000. It is, and that's just to stay in the conversation. And so this has played out all over the country that folks are, you know, basically you rob Peter to pay Paul, and so one agency steals employees from the next agency. And so it's tough. It is tough. And I do think it's harder to be a police officer today than it was 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. And what we've tried to do is we've tried to invest in our people. We try to invest in our employees, and we try to give our employees the best equipment that we can afford that's within reason. That equipment has also gone up, whereas a Ford Explorer used to be $50,000 outfitted. Now it's over $64,000. And so everything we touch is expensive. And so I will say what I'm proud of, and you all should be proud of, is that you put your money where your mouth is, and we supported our public safety for police and fire. And so By doing the pay raises, the pay increases, we don't have folks that are leaving us to go next door to make a dollar or two or three dollars more. So that's the beauty of what we've been able to do. That still doesn't make it an easier job. The good news is I think we're winning the retention war, but now it's just a matter of recruiting. And I'm a big believer that the best recruitment is somebody that does that job. If they're happy in what they do, By word of mouth, they're most likely going to be the best person to go and recruit, but we continue. This is an ongoing conversation. It's an ongoing conversation I have all over the state with my peers and the city and county managers, and so it's not unique to Rome, Georgia, unfortunately.

If I could just chip in, I serve on the Public Safety Committee, and while those numbers are down, the command staff and the chief were there, and the The crime numbers are down. They're really doing a good job. Our law enforcement, city law enforcement, are doing a good job in some areas, and they work well, I think, with their other agencies. We ask questions about, do you have the right equipment? Do you have everything you need? Money is not the issue right now. We address the money. It's just, as Commissioner Collins said, it's hard to get young people to go to law enforcement and put yourself in harm's way. It's a different, we went to the auditorium this morning and you saw those young teachers and people want to go into education right now. Bright, shiny faces, making good money. But those, it's a lot safer job than being a law enforcement officer. But I'm proud of our law enforcement department. I think the Rome City Police Department and the Joint Fire Department that we have with the county, I think they're excellent. I'm really proud of what we've got.

But I can tell you, Commissioner Beaman, we left there feeling really good about from the chief and what we heard, and that was the fact that even though we downed officers, now the shift that goes by is lacking the necessary manpower that it needs to to work that area. They do the overtime and whatever it takes them is allow these officers and the management team to do exactly what they're supposed to do, and that's keeping you guys a nice environment to work, play, and raise your family.

And the reason why I wanted to bring that up is that if you Google us, it says that we're one of the highest crime-rated cities, but people don't hear the work that's actually done and the protection that's done and the resources that we have within to serve crimes, so that's why I wanted to share that up under public safety. Although we're 16 officers down, we still got boots on the ground. That concludes my report, or my comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Fisher.

No report for Public Works, Traffic, Transit, or Trails Committee, but for Solid Waste Commission, we do have a meeting tomorrow at 8.30 in the Sam King Room. I suggested about a month ago that we arrange a time for city and county commissioners to do a tour of our recycling center. It's something we talk a lot about at Solid Waste Commission, so I still would like to find a time to do that. As a new commissioner, I think just important just have your eyes on the important topics but this one especially would be nice to tour so I'm hoping to get that on the calendar soon mr. Hickson yeah under ACC there were two applications approved this past week one for first watch and

and one for a convenience store on in North Rome and one was postponed. Um, the planning commission will plan to meet this Thursday, August 6th here in the commission chambers at two 30. Um, I also, while I got time, um, want to speak about, you know, this summer and wrapping up this summer and getting, uh, kids ready to go back to school. Um, there were a few, um, events that I took part in over the past couple of weeks. One was height for site, um, Terrence height and his organization. They partnered with the Boys and Girls Club and provided clinical eyesight and had a back-to-school badge, providing book bags and things of that nature. Also, we just got finished talking about crime, and I think one of the things that we can do or make a conscious effort as a community to continue to try to reduce crime They just had a Stop the Violence rally this weekend over in South Rome, and that was a very successful event. And those are things that we can kind of try to do periodically to reduce crime to make a environment to where it would be easier to recruit police officers. And the last thing I want to mention is Dr. Holland and the back to school bash that he provided this past Saturday. It was probably one of the largest back to school rallies that I've ever attended. And it shows what happens when community partner with each other. They had about eight or nine barbers giving free haircuts. They had a few stylists for the young ladies doing hair braids. They gave out numerous amounts of paper, pen, book bags. And it was just an exciting event to be a part of. I don't have a list of all the community partners that engaged in that event, but I think those are the type things that we should continue to do going into the school year and as we plan on you know going back into uh next summer um one other thing um a couple of weeks ago a mr russell mccalligan came and spoke to us about um roland hayes resolution and i don't know where we stand with that as a commission but i would want to re-address that and um you know he I took time out to do some research in regards to Roland Hayes. And Rome is all in his biography. And he's a national, international, renowned tenor singer from this area. And what Mr. McCalligan proposed was a resolution acknowledging the events that took place downtown 1942. Roland Hayes, that event was big to make the national news, Times Magazine, to the point where Langston Hughes wrote a story about it and put it in a poem. And I just want the committee to revisit that and see if we can come up with a resolution to acknowledge that event. It's in all the national news, but it's not in any of Rome's city paperwork or system. And if we could just come up with a resolution just to acknowledge that event happened and the impact that it had on he and his family. That's my report. Mr. Collins.

Let's see here, here. Good report. Land Bank is asking for approval for a piece of land that's on Hardy Avenue. To be taken off the, I don't know how the city of Rome came about that land. We tried to research that, et cetera. But anyway, it's been a request to remove it and put it back to the land bank. So the land bank has a process for someone that's actually, the signs will go up that it can be bidded on and become property that will go back on the tax road. And I'm putting that in the form of a motion to see if that might could happen. I'll second.

All right, we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? To my left. How about this one? To my right. Mr. Clerk, call the roll.

Sir. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Cochran? Yes. Beaman? Yes. Fisher?

Yes. Hickson?

Yes. Collins? Yes.

McDaniel?

Yes.

Also, during the time on community development, there was a, Jeremy Gray, a consultant with Mossau Community Planning, presented the Burwell Creek area to serve as framework for the opportunity for improvement in the northeast rung. His client, Mr. Stovall, owns that property in that area. and is looking to possibly create senior housing. And this is a tight process they go through that helps get comments from people that live in those areas. And I think it also lends opportunity for tax credits and things of that nature to be used to develop these type projects. Meredith, while you was gone, Sammy did a great job. Would you like to comment on that, Meredith, about the gentleman that came to us about the... land that's over near, to give you an idea of where it was, I don't think we have a map to put that up.

No, sure we don't.

But anyway, it's over near the Bray Stadium out in that area, coming all the way around on Loop 1. Would you like to comment, Meredith?

Sure, absolutely. There's going to be a community workshop coming up at Ashland Park Apartments, 10 Ashland Park Boulevard, Thursday, July 30th at 1.30. So we encourage all of y'all to participate. Thank you.

Oh, thank you. That is my report, Mr. Mayor, and thank you.

Commissioner McDaniel. I have no report. We have three people who would like to speak on non-agenda items. Ronnie Baker. All right. Ron Swinford. Please state your name and address. You have three minutes.

My name's Ron Swinford. I live out in Salonese. A little over two years before the Batty Data Center was announced, the zoning of the land was changed. Now, it was done so because Missy Kendrick and the Rome Floyd County Development Authority asked for it to be changed to make it more attractive to whoever might want to buy that property. And during that time, there was no pushback on it. Because why would there be? You don't know what's going to be in there. Hard to push back when you don't know what's going to be there. During that time, Missy Kendrick also said that if they didn't get any offers, that they could change it back. Well, citizens in the city never got a say on the Batty property. And that may not be a big deal to y'all, but it is to a lot of other people. They never got a chance to voice an opinion to the planning commission about it. They never got a chance to come up here and talk to y'all about it because it was done before the deal was ever done. So what I'm asking is a little different, but I think it would work. It wouldn't hurt your contract with Atlas, wouldn't do anything like that. Change it back. Not permanently, I'm not asking for that. change it back and run it through the process just like every other parcel would have. Let it go to the zoning commission, let the citizens show up now that we're informed, now that we know what it is and actually talk to them about it. It'll probably pass again and then it'll come to y'all. And then for the first time, we will have a vote on it in the city commission, a recorded vote. Recorded votes are important. That's all I'm here to ask about. I think it's too good of an idea not to at least think about. And at the very least, once you go through all that, if your decision is exactly the same, then at least you've jumped through all the hoops, and some of the community will at least respect you for that. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Mr. Swanson, please give us your name, address, and you also have three minutes, sir.

Good evening. My name is Mark Swanson, a resident and registered voter of the city of Rome. On July 21st, I filed a formal verified ethics complaint with the city clerk against Commissioner Wayne Robinson under the city's own code of ethics. I want the public and this commission to know why. It begins with the sale of the Bill Collins Village. Public records show that Commissioner Robinson's own company, DuRob Properties, made a $1.8 million offer to buy Bill Collins Village from the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority. And the records indicate that DuRob was organized by the housing authority's own attorney, the very lawyer whose duty it is to protect the authority and the public. That places one attorney on both sides of the same deal. Commissioner Robinson had also earlier voted to place a business associate onto that same Housing Authority's board. The complaint also concerns his sworn financial disclosure. Every year, the city officials sign a form under oath listing their businesses, properties, and financial interests so the public can see conflicts of interest. The complaint alleges that Commissioner Robinson's form is both inaccurate and incomplete. Public records appear to show that the companies he listed that do not match any business registered with the state, including companies that the state dissolved years ago, and real property and businesses he did not report at all, together worth well over a million dollars. I want to be clear about two things. First, every fact in my complaint comes straight from public records, his own sworn forms, Georgia Secretary of State filings, and Floyd County property records. I'm not asking anyone to take my word for it. Second, I'm not asking this commission to be judge and jury tonight. The ordinance provides for an independent hearing officer to review the complaint. All I ask is that the process of the code of ethics be followed fully, fairly, and without delay, and that no one at this table treat a documented sworn complaint as though it doesn't exist. The public is watching. how this is handled. Accountability only works when the rules apply to everyone including those that sit at your table. Thank you.

I have one more reminder for this for the commission for this week, Saturday, August 1st, there will be what is being called a college send-off. It will be held at the Forum on Saturday from 10.30 to 2 o'clock, and this is involving Rome City Schools, Floyd County Schools, and our two private high schools here in Rome, and what they are doing is they've invited everyone that graduated last year from any of the high schools, local high schools, to come back and meet who may be going to the same schools that they're going to. And that's a great idea. And again, that will be, it's called College Send-Off. That will be Saturday, 10.30 to 2 o'clock at the forum. And I'm asking the commission, please, if you can, they're going to need some help just directing people and stuff, things of that nature. So if you're interested, please let me know, and I'll get you all the full information on that. There's no more business.

Mayor, you had a... It's opening this morning. You want to tell us a little bit about what happened in the auditorium this morning?

What?

The auditorium this morning. Can you tell us a little bit about how that went? Rome City School.

Oh, the auditorium? Yeah. We had, they had a pep rally down there for all the teachers that were coming back in the Rome City Schools and if the kids act that way this year in school, we got a real problem. But they did, the teachers were excited and they asked me to say a few words and I just told the teachers I hope they were this excited the middle of May as they are today and I don't think that'll happen and

Yeah, those kids was great. They had a good speaker.

I was going to say the speaker, Willie Spears. He's out of Panama City, Florida. You need to look him up. The guy's phenomenal. And the way he – one thing he did, and I thought this was kind of ingenious, he had a pack of seeds. I don't know what they were, the flower seeds. And he used those as illustrations that those seeds were the kids. And you plant them.

you nurture them and you water them and you grow them and that's what he challenged the teachers in rome city schools to do and i thought that was that was really really good but i also added uh he asked it once it had been in the wrong system teaching for over 20 years and you would not have believed how many students there's a lot of great number and we also had a great number of teachers to come from outside our community to come to Rome to teach this year. I mean, a great number. It was well over 100. We miss you this morning, Sammy. But it was a great morning for Rome City School.

There were 66 new teachers in the Rome City School system this year. Now, how many did we decide? There were almost 700 teachers. And the 66, I think, included administrative, and everybody's just not teachers. But... But I liked it when the speaker told him, he said, I got good news and bad news. He said, the good news is you got kids coming on Friday, and the bad news is you got kids coming on Friday. So he was really good.

Mr. Mayor, also one thing he spoke about was how his teachers poured into him. That's right. as a kid and there is one who is sitting here who poured into me as a kid and probably taught over 30 years herself. Ms. Hilda Curtis, could you please stand up please? That's part of that watering experience, and one of the things that we need to continue to do to our youth, and that'll help contribute to minimizing a lot of crime. Thank you, Ms. Curtis.

If there's nothing else for the commission, we are adjourned.

All right. Thank you.