City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the city of Roswell Mayor and City Council first open forum on Monday, March March 31st for the year 2026. This is the fifth Monday which means it's open mic night. I am Mary Mayor Mary Roisho and I would like to introduce my colleagues and council members present. Mayor Prom and Council Member Sarah Bon, Council Member Erin Brumley, Council Member Christine Hall, Council Member Jennifer Philippy, Council Member Alan Cells, and Council Member Chris Zack. I will now turn it over to city administrator Randy Knighton to explain how the meeting is run. Mr. Knighton.

Thank you, Mayor Robasho, and good evening and thank you for joining us uh tonight to everyone who is in attendance and uh watching uh via live stream. Uh this, of course, is the city of Roswell's open forum meeting, which is a dedicated space uh for residents to speak directly, residents and business owners to speak directly to the mayor and city council on any matter of interest. and we certainly welcome your engagement and appreciate your participation. To ensure respectful, efficient, and civil environment for everyone, we will follow a structured format this evening. We want to make sure that uh anyone speaking tonight will uh please fill out a comment card. We do have staff members in the back with the comment cards. They're located in the back. We want to make sure that we have your name and additional information. Uh yes, there's Karen Zitimemer there with comment cards if you would like to speak tonight. wanted to ensure um an accurate record of the meeting um and your name and additional uh relevant information. Excuse me. Each speaker uh will be given up to five minutes total to speak uh which may cover one or several topics. Uh time may not be transferred or donated to another speaker and everyone wishing to speak must do so during that allotted time. Uh the city clerk will call speakers to the podium and during your five-minute comment period we ask that you would direct your comments to the mayor and council who are seated on the dis. Um the mayor and council and these meetings simply do not engage in uh questions at this time uh to ensure fairness and accuracy um and and to ensure that every speaker is heard without interruption. And we want to make sure that um everyone is given an opportunity to speak. Um so we want to refrain from any interruptions or any other forms of behavior that would impair someone from being heard as they are speaking. And we ask that everyone of course respect the

rights of others um as they do speak and we encourage those in attendance and those watching from home uh to engage our online platforms for calendar of events and department information. I'll also mention um that I'm sure that several questions will be posed tonight and what we are uh committed to doing is ensuring that those questions are recorded and then we will place them online. We'll place those answers online um to or responses, excuse me, uh to those questions that are posed um this evening and we'll do that as quickly as we can um to ensure that um those responses are made available to everyone. Thank you for again for being here tonight and thank you for your interest of course in the city of Roswell and uh we appreciate the opportunity to serve you, Mayor Robashelle.

Thank you, Mr. Knight. And as we said, please uh again if we will ask if we clarification to make sure we understand your questions and then we will post answers. If you are here for a matter that is a little bit more um private to your living situation or such as a pothole on your street that you would like fixed, one of our staff people will also contact you directly as long as we have like an email um account or a way in which we can contact and our staff will work with you after that. So at this time I would like to call Reverend Sha Thomas Smith, senior pastor of North Minister Presbyterian Church to the front for the invocation and moment of silence.

Thank you, Madame Mayor and Councilmen and women. Let us take a moment of prayerful reflection. We lift our gratitude for the city of Roswell and her inhabitants, for young and old, for new residents and longtime residents, for our schools and their teachers and administration, for business leaders and relationships, for a strong community of support. We lift our gratitude for dialogue and reconciliation, for governance and community. May this open forum be a place of welcome. As we gather, may we seek wisdom, guidance. May kindness and gratitude weave into our conversations. May we affirm each other in our differences and celebrate our commonalities as residents of the great state of Georgia and united as Americans. May justice and liberty rain down now and forever more. May it be so. Amen. Thank you.

Thank you. I would now, if everyone would please stay standing, I would now like to invite um Ashley, one of my predecessors, Mayor Jerry Wood. Would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance, please? The flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. I will I will now open the the meeting for public comment. City Clerk Nancy Long. How many speakers do we have for public comment tonight? Uh, mayor, at this point we have 29 public speakers. Okay, please call the first speaker. Uh, Janet Russell.

Good evening. My name Can you hear me? Yep. Good evening. Uh, this month marks 53 years I've been coming to city council because I believe you have a government of the people, by the people, for the people who actually show up. Some good news. MARTA, the number 85 bus route, which starts at North Springs MARTA station, comes down place, comes all the way down Highway 9, turns right on Mansell to the park and ride on is changing the route. When it gets to Hulcom Bridge, where Chick-fil-A is, instead of continuing straight, it will make a left onto Crossville and make a right on Mansel. It will now have a stop for the Kroger going that way and a stop for Aldi's if you're coming back. It will continue around and make another stop so that if you have to go to Sprouts or any of the shops in there, you will have bus transportation. Most of the people in this room drove here, but we have many people who use Marta public transportation. So, if you have any friends that use it, please advise them of the change. It's coming up in April, midappril. I think that's great news. Uh, my other concern or information is we have the Rosal Farmers Market coming up and everybody is so excited about it because it's growing and growing again after slowly dying for a while. But I was concerned because I was heard that the city wants to charge them $12,000 to use the city hall property for the season to have the farmers market. I find that a little offensive. Uh so I contacted Woodstock, which has approximately the same number of vendors, approximately 51, and then I contacted Alpharetta, which has 151 vendors, to see what they charge, and they charge zero. I've been told that you need to charge because we have to have a police officer there. So do they. We have volunteers who clean up. So I would kindly suggest that you not charge the Rosal Farmers Market $12,000 to use the city hall

parking lot. Uh go down where it is. Okay. Uh I know most everybody is here about parking. Who knew? Uh parking's been a problem. I found a newspaper from the 80s about parking in Roswell. People have been complaining about parking. I get it. However, everybody complains and nobody comes up with a real doable solution. But I did. I've spent the last 40 years traveling around the world parking all over the world. And I can assure you that we can charge for visitors and not for residents without having a license plate specific identification. Anybody here go to Title Wave Car Wash? I do. I'm a member of the car wash club. A lot of women here belong to tennis clubs and maong clubs. I belong to the car wash club. You get a little sticker on your window. When you drive up, they have two entrances. One, you know those things that go up and down. You got the sticker, banging, it goes up and you get in the line to go through the car wash. If you don't have the sticker, you get in the other side and you get a ticket and you go through or you pay the guy. Okay? You both go through the same line and you both exit the same way. That's what you do in a parking lot. The visitors of Ro uh residents of Roswell get the sticker. If you got five cars, you show that they're proof of pos ownership in the city of Roswell. They get the sticker. If you don't, you go through the other way. You get it. $5 flat rate all day. After six o'clock, it doubles to 10. You put your sticker on, you put your ticket on, it says you owe $10 if you're a visitor. You're not getting out without paying. It's that simple. You don't need to hire a consultant and pay them $200,000 to tell you what to do. It works all over the world. It works in Sandy Springs. They have signs that say parking may be free, but not until you

sign in. And the first two hours are free on the streets everywhere. And then you pay incrementally, but it's much more than a flat rate of $5. Starts at 8, goes to 10, maximum I think is 15 or 18. Okay. Uh, if you start charging at this city hall, that means people that attend concerts on the hill are going to pay to park. People that go to the farmers market are going to pay to park. I don't think so. I'm going to pay here pay to park to park to pay my property taxes. I don't think so. Um, no. City Hall should not. The parking that's on Canton Street, all those private lots, those are private property owners making money. End of subject. They're making money. You aren't. Now, the parking garage, I'm not ups not too happy. I just found out they cut down 12 trees on the city hall side by Hill Street Saturday. Took them about 30 minutes. They're going to put in diagonal parking to accommodate hills. They're also going to remove the sidewalks

because we're all about walkability here, right? So, we want you to dodge diagonally parked cars to walk around. End of subject. City clerk long. Next speaker, Richard Arena.

Good evening, mayor and council. Uh, I am uh Richard Arena, a 52-year resident of Rosal and a former transportation advisory commission member. I rise to advocate for the adoption of a policy that when implemented will bring the city of Roswell into conformance with its paramount constitutional duty. Eight years ago, Amazon cancelled plans to locate a second headquarters in metro Atlanta because of traffic congestion, mostly in the suburbs. It was in this time frame that Roswell and other northern Arc cities formally signed on to an ARC North Fulton CD plan, presumably in response to the issue. The plan called for metro Atlanta municipalities to facilitate the use of their local collectors effectively as intra regional highways. Thus, pass through traffic was prioritized over the safety and comfort of residents living along those collectors. While it goes without saying that traffic flow is necessary to daily life and commerce in this day and time, as a nation of laws, it should also go without saying that how that need is addressed must be exercised within constitutional parameters. Article 1, section 1, paragraph 2 of the Georgia Bill of Rights establishes protection to person, which is singular, and property as government's paramount duty. That means safety comes first and it cannot rightfully be diminished by any other government responsibility. When Roswell agreed to have its local collectors running through residential areas become part of an intra regional highway network, these roads should have been modified to protect residents from the added risks and discomforts

accompanying the anticipated increase in traffic flow. The opposite happened. They were widened and striped to look like what they have become, highways. ARDOT is on record in Transportation Advisory Commission meetings stating these roads are designed for speeds 10 miles an hour above the posted limit. Not surprisingly, speeding is now the norm in these roads. In the area where I live, large groups of children walk home from school mere inches from vehicles traveling at speeds that virtually guarantee a fatality should a youngster inadvertently or in playful exuberance step from the curb. If this council is truly committed to the elimination of dangerous speeding in Roswell's residential zones, the most effective place to start is within local roads that have higher volumes of pass through traffic. That's because that's where the greatest number of pass through drivers are and therefore can be reached with a message that speeding in Roswell's residential areas is neither comfortable nor tolerated. These roads can be cost-effectively and relatively quickly reconfigured so that the comfort speed for drivers is also safe and comfortable for pedestrians, cyclists, and children walking to and from school, as well as for area residents when they go to their mailbox, pull out of their driveway, or from a connecting neighborhood. Methods for cost-effectively achieving this result are widely known and employed. For example, midlock refuge islands that narrow roadways are a proven method for slowing traffic and adding a layer of safety for pedestrians all while maintaining uninterrupted traffic flow without the teeth rattling thump thump of speed bumps. For these reasons, I urgently call upon you to

honor your solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of Georgia and implement measures that will protect your constituents residing along local roads that have been transformed into crossjurisdictional highways. Thank you.

Thank you, clerk. Sir, sir, I'm sorry. No, we we No, I'm sorry, sir. We call names. If your name is there, we'll be happy when your turn when your name is called. I'm I'm sorry, sir. City Clerk Long, could you call the next speaker?

Yes. Cameron Hoodree. Good evening. My name is Cameron Hoodree. I am a lifelong Roswell resident. I am here to speak about the of a lifelong Roswell resident of 25 for 25 years. And I am here to speak about the future of transportation in our city. Over the past decade, the city has made meaningful progress in improving walkability through site walks and multi-use trails. Those investments matter and they've helped make Roswell a better place to live. But walkability doesn't only include um building sidewalks and bike lanes. It also depends on reliable public transportation. Today, many residents still lack practical alternatives to driving. I encourage the city to prioritize expanding the current bus service, especially along busy corridors like Highway 92. Even the modest pro improvements in frequency, reliability, and coverage can make a real difference in people's liv daily daily lives. Better transit is not just about convenience. It's also about opportunity. Expanding service can support local businesses along the bus routes, reduce traffic congestion, and lower emissions as our city continues to grow. It also ensures that Roswell works for everyone. Students not students, seniors, people with disabilities and working families all are pe are among those who rely on afford and working families who rely on affordable transportation options. All are among those who ride. Please consider working in partnership with the state legislature, Fulton County government, and Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, as well as neighboring cities and counties to make meaningful improvements to our transit service in our city in North

Fulton. Um, and um, as Roswell grows, we have a choice. We can continue to rely solely on cars and sit in traffic, or we can build a build a more connected, accessible city for everyone. Thank you for your time. But I have a few more things to say. Um I amum I'm I'm graduating college and originally I was kind of not protransit but I but as I got to college I I I started using the bus system since I don't have a car and at Kennesaw State University and that and even they have a better bus system than Roswell does. So um so I would would like to say a ride share service and a and a bus service would be enough for now and we could wait we could still wait. We don't need to extend the rail now. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker, Douglas Quatt.

Good evening, mayor and council. Uh, my name is Douglas Quatt. I have been a resident of Roswell since 1997 and I'm here tonight because like a lot of the previous speakers I would I thought I was going to go last. So can you like a lot of the speakers that are here tonight uh I'm angry uh I'm not angry at you guys but I'm angry that we were even having we have to have this debate over parking. I blame our previous mayor and his highly paid consultants for putting us in this terrible predicament. Politics aside though, they promised us that if we voted for the $20 million referendum, they would give us free parking for Roswell residents. We we approved that. We took them at their word. But now we know that the $20 million that we approved isn't nearly enough to cover construction costs and operating expenses every year. So, I want to thank this administration for having the gumption to bring the correct and accurate information before the public. We know you didn't create this mess. We But I for one appreciate the fact that you're addressing it head-on and that you're trying to come up with the best solution for the city. And yet, we still want free parking. But if that's not feasible, um, we are going to have to compromise. You know, it's been said that, um, in a true compromise, not everybody gets whatever they want, but everybody gets enough to move forward. So, as we try to move forward, there are a few things that I want to leave here with the crowd and with uh, with you tonight. And and the first is I hope we can keep our debate as we go over the next few months civil. Now, we just tossed out mayor and three members of the council because we didn't like the

way Roswell was being run. So, let So, I I what I'm saying here tonight is let's give this new administration a chance to do what we elected you to do. I'm urging people don't shoot the messenger. It's okay to be critical and to have some concerns and not agree, but don't shoot them because they're just they're trying to they're listening and they're trying to do the best they can. I also think we need to just kind of calm down a little bit. I I know this is emotional, but I know we have a pilot project that's uh going to be starting when the garage open. And I think it's really important that we let this pilot project play out. Once we have some uh hard facts and real numbers, then we can make some decisions based on that, not based on estimated numbers and what some people thought would be politically expedient. And and finally, let's not lose sight of the big picture. This is a good thing. We're getting a new garage. We're getting 375 parking spaces, and that's a positive, but let's not let this positive uh overshadow be overshadowed by uh some of the discord that we know is going to occur and and some of the uh um maybe disinformation that might be out there. Uh regardless of how this is resolved, we need to promote this as a vital resource for the city, for the local businesses, and for the community at large. Now, I know we all want free parking. I certainly do. I'm wearing the sticker. But I have to say that if it turns out that free parking for Roswell residents isn't feasible, I won't mind shelling out a few dollars to park in a municipal garage when my wife and I come downtown to go out for the evening. I still think that's a much better alternative than paying at least $10 to park in a private lot or driving

around in circles around and around trying to find a place to park or especially going to Alpharetta or Woodstock instead of doing our business here in Roswell. Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, Paty Van Paty Vanpelt. I'm back. The placement of fire station number 27 inside of East Roswell Park is an epic failure by Roswell city officials and staff, both past and present. City staff and officials ignored the recommendation of their million-doll CIP program manager, Jacob's Engineering, to place the fire station on the land owned by Eglacia Pentecost Church because it might require condemnation. No one talked to the church. They were interested. The city failed to get the Roswell Development Authority involved in the site selection for East Roswell for fire station 27 like RDA was at Bowen Road and 92 for fire station 23. Why doesn't RDA work east of 400? Why has the relocation of fire station 27 jumped from mid to long-term project slated for 3 to 10year time frame to an immediate need? Wouldn't it make more sense to build the new fire station 28 where there is a lack of coverage first? Why are city and fire officials willing to put a fire station on a residential

road that is narrower in width than the length of a fire engine? A site with access to only one street. a road that has no unobstructed secondary routes and where the engine lights will shine directly into residents homes at a distance of less than 30 feet on the 3.4 times per day that the engines are called out. And why is everyone suddenly talking about saving lives when the East Roswell Park site still fe fails to meet the gold standard of four minutes even with traffic preeemption projections? And why is there no analysis showing what the potential cost would be if construction was delayed by a year to a year and a half to find a more suitable and safe site? We've already waited three years to meet this urgent need to save lives. How did the city fail to understand that there was no way that $52 million in bonds would pay for a new public safety headquarters, full-time fire staffing with new training programs, equipment and apparatus replacement, traffic preeemption, the replacement and relocation of four stations, and the addition of one new station? But most of all, why have you all failed to raise your hand and say no, we cannot accept a bad decision just to save money? Because

that is what the selection of this site was all about. Not saving lives or travel time, but saving money. I honestly believe that somebody said, "Uhoh, we're running out of money. Let's put it in the park so we don't have to pay for the land. East Roswell Park is not a safe site for a fire station. It is not a suitable site for a fire station. It is the worst site of the three that were presented. I am no longer surprised that this park gets decimated once again. Couple acres here, a couple acres there. It has always been the red-headed stepchild of the Roswell City Park system. And sadly, I'm not surprised that not one person elected to office raised their hand to protest the loss of parkland when this site was first proposed. But this issue goes beyond just the loss of parkland. You are making Fouch Road and our neighborhoods on that road less safe and still not solving the original problem of travel time. You still have time to acknowledge that a huge mistake has been made and you can correct it. Leadership is not about pointing to the past as the problem. It's about putting your hand up and saying this is not right and we are going to fix it. That's why you were elected. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Renee Zwigle.

Good evening everybody. Thank you for letting me speak. Um, we live in Martins's Landing at the corner of Hulenbridge Road and the entrance to Martins's Landing. Over the past few months, Sonnie has been coming in taking down trees from the entrance to Martins's Landing going west towards 400. Both my husband and myself have been out there talking to different people and they said, "Oh, they have lots of permission. They also have a rideway." The noise level, they just came in and literally bulldozed 50 years of trees. We've been living in the same house for 48 years. So, we can tell you the difference in the sound and actually the quality of life, the pollution, the uh all the trees were bulldozed. They were not uh and oh, going back one second. Um some people here at the city of Roswell, Dan Weasel and Miss Caroline were very helpful. They expressed that if I needed to come here and speak, I should as long as as well as our HOA. Uh, however, Sony says, Roswell says, HOA says, Roswell says, Roswell says, HOA says that they had um permission to take down three trees. If somebody comes by, not just by our house, because Sony said they're going to go all the way west. And the reason for this is they don't want any power outages. We had way more power outages 48 years ago, 40 48 years ago than we do now. Yes, we had one not that long ago when we had the big storm that took out 149 homes for power. What we are asking for is to please put up some kind of

barrier, some kind of fence to all along from the entrance to Martins's Landing going west. And they're not quite done bulldozing according to Sony. Now, let me just see my notes. Our HOA says they gave permission for three trees to go down. Well, if you go in the back there, there must have been already 40 trees that they have taken down all along Hulkcombridge Road. So, according to our HOA on a meeting last Tuesday evening on Zoom, they claim that Roswell is planning to put in another sidewalk. There is a short sidewalk probably for about three houses along uh maybe it's 840 50 60 and 70ish um along that road. And when I spoke to Roswell last week who was very very kind, they got back to me. They said there's no design plan, nothing yet in the works. So, I'm asking for the city for somebody to please come out and take a look what I'm talking about. It's not just my house. It's probably going to be another dozen houses going west. Nothing's going east. And we have the same uh power lines going east that we have going west. So, I'm just asking for somebody to think about and think about this putting up a barrier that helps all the people along Hok Road. I thank you for your time. Thank you.

Ma'am, do we we have your contact information correct on your card? Yes. Okay, thank you. Next speaker,

Ben McIntyre. Good evening, council and mayor Robasha. Thank you for having an open forum tonight to actually bring these issues forward to you. We appreciate your receptivity. The case against paid parking at the Green Street deck. Paid parking at the Green Street parking deck is not just a policy disagreement. It's a breach of trust between the city of Roswell and its residents. I live in East Roswell. So, you could say I actually represent all of Roswell. We have free parking for most of our locations. We welcome you to come over to the other side. I do not have a business interest here, nor do I own property in downtown Roswell, but I'm here very often to attend meetings, worship, fraternize, and partake of the events and amenities that all of us enjoy so much. My church, Roswell Methodist Church, has a nice new sign that says, "Thank God for free parking." This decision breaks a clear promise to voters. Residents were explicitly promised that parking at the Green Street deck would be free. That promise was made publicly by the former mayor and form the basis for public support of the project. Changing elected officials does not absolve the city of its commitments. Trust in government depends on honoring promises even when they are inconvenient or not legally binding. The council acted without all of the information. And for this, we have to say we know you're in a tough spot. You need to have your staff completely

informing you of all the details. City staff proposed paid parking without rem recommending any specific fees or hours or enforcement details. Council was asked to approve a major policy shift while critical facts were missing, including how and when the fees would be charged at the gravel lot. for instance, citizens and council alike were left in the dark, and we're still waiting for these answers. The process is what we're questioning. The process is backward. The city approved the concept of paid parking before establishing cost, operational needs, or baseline for parking demand. Council has not approved expenditures yet for maintenance, staffing, enforcement, or fee collection. Yet we hear a contractor and system may already have been purchased. This is the definition of putting the cart before the horse. There is no demonstrated need for the revenue. The cost to operate the parking deck is a tiny fraction of Roswell's approximately $200 million annual budget. Before charging and angering pre residents to park at their own public facility, the city should look for other revenue sources or modest expense reductions. If the city truly tries, it can find the money without taxing access to downtown. The city has acquired several real property assets that are not serving the community, and these should be inventoried and prioritized, then possibly sold to provide alternative resources. Paid parking will hurt local businesses. Downtown Roswell thrives because it is welcoming, accessible, pedestrianfriendly, and community oriented. Charging residents to park undermines local businesses, especially

those that are maintaining historic buildings by discouraging visits and reducing the sense that downtown is a shared community space. Roswell's identity as a pedestrianfriendly destination is at risk. The spirit of the community can be damaged with this shift in priorities. This rushed pilot program will produce bad data. We do not yet know how much demand there is for the parking deck until we actually have a baseline going forward with the pilot project is premature. The citizens were not heard. Consulting with the downtown businesses is yet to happen. Public asset should serve the public, not be monetized. Not every city asset should be treated as a revenue generator. The city of Roswell exists to serve the community community, not to maximize profit. Monetizing basic access to downtown sends the wrong message about our priorities. We are asking that we pause the process until all facts and figures are known, honor the promise of free parking, establish a true baseline of demand, protect local businesses and downtown vitality and listen to residents, not just staff recommendations. Trust once broken is hard to restore. The city can still make the right choice by taking its time

evaluating its procedures carefully. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Mary Barwick.

Good evening. Hi, I'm Mary Barwick. I go by Liza. Um, I'll keep it brief. I, um, have been living in Roswell for about 5 years now. Uh, my husband and I moved into the, uh, Glenns of Crab Apple neighborhood up on 92. Um, you know, I'm a um, I'm a voter. I vote in every single election. I, including the primaries. I do my research. I voted for several of y'all sitting up there. um because I believed that you would um do right by your constituents. And uh part of that was holding the promise of free parking in downtown. Um I voted for the free parking. I was so excited, you know, because downtown Roswell has a parking problem. Uh you know, my family, they live in Lilburn. they have to drive all the way over here and they don't want to come visit me in downtown because there's nowhere to park and you know sometimes when I want to go out and uh with my husband on the town you know we make our a decision to go elsewhere other than downtown uh instead of patronizing those businesses um you know we um we take our business to Woodstock and Alfreda because they do have free parking uh they both of those cities have a free parking deck if they can do it, why can't we? Um, again, I'm a voter, uh, vote in every election, and, you know, I I won't forget and, um, I'll hold you all to it and hopefully we'll be feeling confident for voting y'all back in your seats come next cycle. Uh, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker, Steven Wagel.

Thank you. Next speaker, David Bailey. Hi, I'm David Bailey. Uh, I own Naylor Hall on Canton Street. And, um, I think everybody would like free parking, but I get the impression that the council and the mayor and whoever feel like we just don't understand. And there may be a little bit of truth to that because there is some money involved here. However, what I would like to suggest is that maybe we could do something besides just increasing revenues. For example, we might actually think about reducing expenses. Just a thought. Uh, but we always seem to have to increase revenue to fill the budget holes that have been created by spending too much money. And I'm here to tell you, I've got a solution. If we can make Roswell a businessfriendly destination and promote it, it is my opinion that we will see revenues soar because more people want to be here. In that same vein, I would also suggest that Roswell's businessfriendly uh reputation is not very good. Now, it's kind of a two-edged sword.

It's not bad, but it depends on who you talk to. If you talk to the cuttingedge startups, bars, and restaurants, it's not good at all. If you talk to national chains, it's pretty good. Unfortunately, what's going to happen is the national chains are going to begin to push out these cuttingedge startups, bars, restaurants that we all love. Look up and down Canton Street. Look at some of the people here tonight. These are our favorite places. And and make no mistake, paid parking is a cost of doing business. and that among other things will help push businesses elsewhere. Um, many business owners actually believe that this move toward national change is one of the goals of government. Now, I'm not suggesting this new government, that's y'all's goal. But there has been a lot of talk about that, that let's face it, uh, a Starbucks or a Chili's or one of those companies can more easily afford the cost of doing business than a new startup of a 25year-old chef that wants to start his new restaurant here on Canton Street. And if you don't believe me, go talk to some of them and they'll tell you. Well, I put my brewery over here. I put my restaurant over here. I put my startup in Alpharetta. They'll tell you that if you talk to them. Last thing I would suggest uh that I'm very disappointed in is communication. My wife built Naylor Hall and ran it for over 30 years. We've owned it, the property and the

business for 17 years. We own two acres on Canton Street and Green Street. I can count on one hand the times I have been contacted by government for my opinion. Now, I don't I don't I don't think I have got all the answers, but I've been around probably longer than almost any business in Roswell and and and and nobody cares. Um, when the new mayor was elected, I sent an email about some of my concerns and I was extremely pleased to get be contacted by somebody in her office. However, after that, I was assured, I'm your guy. You call me, you text me, you communicate with me, any concerns you have. And I was like, man, that's fantastic. I I I I don't remember this ever happening. Except that after that, when I texted, emailed, and tried to speak to this person, crickets, nothing. Nada. So, it all sounded really good, and I got one call. And after that, nothing. Now, I know y'all are busy, but so am I. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Matthew Curling.

Mayor, council, how are you guys? Um, there's a sea of green behind me, so I won't take up a ton of your time. Um, but I am Matthew Curling. I'm a Rosal resident. I was born and raised here. I own and operate Varian Brewing, uh, just across the street. So, obviously, a, uh, paid proposal for parking in city hall and all around Roswell is drastically going to affect my business. It infects my employees that rely on free parking to come to work. Um, and I strongly oppose it and urge everyone to explore all options uh before we move forward with that. That's all. Thank you.

Next speaker, Brian Longacre.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Brian Longacre. I'm the director of operations for RO hospitality. We have two restaurants on Canton Street, Table in Maine and Oria Maton. Um, between those two restaurants, we have over a 100red employees. Um, and to put things in perspective, the average wage for a restaurant worker in the state of Georgia is $2.15 an hour. Right? I'll repeat that. $2.15 an hour. All right. So, my concern is obviously we've already got six restaurants that are vacant in in uh the city of Roswell. One of which has been vacant on Canton Street for over four years. We know of six other restaurants that are probably dying to get out of their lease agreements. All right. So, what's this paid for parking is going to do? It's going to constrict our talent pool. We need people to operate our businesses. All right. If the parking deck was built to draw in more guests and also residents to come in and dine at our restaurants, that's not going to happen. If a person making that amount of money has to give up 10% of their wages to come and work for us in Roswell, it's going to be an easy decision for them to go to Alpharetta, John's Creek, or Sandy Springs and make the same amount of money without having to pay for parking. All that make sense? Um, I think there's a there's an answer. There's a solution for this. Um, but once again, we've got to look deeper at

the impact of your decision because you can't say that Roswell is a great place to do business. It's a beautiful city, but if this happens, it's going to change the landscape of the hospitality industry in Roswell. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker,

Bill Ray. Hello. Uh, Bill Ray, 470 Shelley Lane, Roswell Place neighborhood. Uh, spoken to y'all before. Let's rewind the tape, but let's start with the vitality of Canton Street along with our park systems are the definition of Roswell. Parking is not a new topic, but it it's rapidly accelerating. The last couple years have been at light speed versus what it's been before. The parking as a revenue source, to my knowledge, started in the 2024 uh budget, and the plan was put together to monetize all the available city-owned property into parking, and $2.2 million was put into the revenue budget for that. So, the money was supposed to be made. Now, uh Green Street was not included in the Green Street parking garage wasn't included. It was it was approved, but not not built yet. So, it wasn't in that inventory. So, this is just the available lots, city hall, cultural arts center, available street parking. This initiative caught the business owners and uh citizens offguard. And starting in late 2024, early 2025, there was significant resident and business opposition. Much like the audience today, except for mayor and counsel, no one wanted this plan. The mayor and council in paused the program for further evaluation, committing to a further community discussion. Midway through 2025, the 2.2 million was pulled out of the budget. The discussion of Green Street Garage was postponed with with further discussion and community sensing to occur. Then uh then the mayor during its groundbreaking

committed to be free parking again silence. Then the 2026 budget comes out and it was issued and approved and countered a prior commitment to further discussion. The Green Street garage was budgeted at $420,000 of revenue, but Roswell residents residents would have free access. Once again, the decision on parking was made without open discussion, but hey, we got free parking. March 9th, 2026, resolution 10331 effectively re-resurrects the 2024 parking as a revenue source again. And all previously free city spaces including city hall, cultural arts center, Mimosa Street, Gravel Lot, the new Green Street uh garage, all paid parking plus the addition of all the Hillrose obligations. Again, without community discussion, 2024 has come full circle. Council person Brumley successfully proposed a modification to remove the discussions about the city hall, cultural arts center, and the Hillrose complex, concentrating just on the downtown area that we're talking about now. So, what is what do we as taxpayers know about the direction our civic leaders are taking? We know parking as a revenue source keeps coming back. It's back in budgets. It's back in resolutions. It's back everywhere except as a discussion with the constituents it affects. We know the cost of maintaining the new Green Street garage was given at $500,000. However, that was convoluted because it added in all the other parking that's previously been paid for, uh the gravel lots and everything. So, it distorted that number. There's been no clean standalone incremental costs just for the Green Street uh garage. In addition, the pay system that has to be

installed is not including the capital cost of the garage. And that's another cost that needs to be added to this overall project. I've not seen where that cost is offset by the the O andM cost that that it's going to to uh to alleviate. And we know that parking fees range from $2 to $5 an hour as yet to be defined. Um we know that the the competing private providers they charge $5 to $10 a stay. So that sets the top end. The gravel lot supposed to be transitioned into an employee lot. But we don't know the necessary the details are there. And we know that none of our sister cities, Alvaretta, Woodstock, Sandy Springs, have the 100% pay model outlined in resolution 10331. Those that do charge are doing to solicit an outcome such as turnover in storefront uh locations or encourage use but not abuse, such as the first two hours free. Even Southern Post gave up and bagged their paid parking idea. We know our civic leaders and staff are sprinting down a path that fundamentally could change Canton Street without the discussion on this very big decision to make. Thank you. Next speaker, Mindy Smitty.

Good evening. Uh, for the record, that's Mindy Smith. I think Mr. Wood misspelled my name inadvertently when he sent in the list to you. Um, good afternoon, uh, council members and mayor. I'm a local lawyer, a trial lawyer, and a resident of Roswell. And I'm also a patron of many of the established on Canton Street, which I enjoy and where I've I'm proud to say that I've made many friends and and spent quite some time over the years. Um, as a trial lawyer, it's usually my job to ask the tough questions that make a witness squirm. Well, I the questions I'm going to ask you tonight aren't really tough and I really don't want to make you squirm. I speak on behalf of a lot of the residents here. We just want the answers. We're entitled to the information. We want transparency. It is a hallmark of government to um provide transparency to citizens and that's what we're asking for here. So, I'm going to ask some questions. It's also my understanding that the questions are not going to be answered this evening, but that you're going to record them and that they are going to be posted on the website. Uh, and we expect to see them and get the information very soon. So, here are the questions regarding the Green Street deck with 395 spaces. What has it cost the citizens of Roswell to purchase the land for the Green Street deck? We really want to know the exact numbers. What was the total cost to build this the Green Street deck? What will it cost to purchase and install the system to collect parking fees at the Green Street deck? And what will it actually cost to collect the fees at the deck? What will the fee be to park at the Green Street deck after 400 p.m.? What will the fee

be on weekends? Will it change or will it increase as the day as the day progresses during the weekend? How much money do you estimate the city will raise from parking fees at the green street deck? And have you considered other revenue streams and sources to cover the maintenance uh and of the of the parking deck? So, let's talk about the gravel lot that's behind the fire station on Green Street. It has 66 spaces. Okay. What does it cost to lease the gravel lot? Uh what does it cost to uh currently cost to maintain and operate the gravel lot? Do you know how many cars and what days and hours do cars park at the gravel lot? Um why should Roswell taxpayers and residents have to pay for parking when employees get the parking for free? How will the city ID uh employees of Canton Street businesses allowed to park at the gravel lot? Uh have you considered a parking tag or some sort of identification for local residents to maybe exempt them from parking? How will the city allocate employee parking given that the gravel lot only accommodates 66 cars and the number of employees we know is many times that and growing as the businesses grow in this area. So right now there's free parking at 108 spaces on West Alley and City Hall. So, why is there free parking closer in and you're contemplating making the Green Street deck, which is actually further out, paid parking? Another question, have you studied the city parking fees in other cities? Alpha, Sandy Springs, Woodstock parking decks, uh, Alpharetta parking decks,

there's no charge. The Southern Post parking deck, there's no charge. The Woodstock parking deck, there's no charge. The Sandy Springs parking deck, there's no charge for the first two hours. Hours two through three are $4 per hour and hours three, four, and beyond are $6. And then Hagen a lot, there's 100 spaces. Parking after 5:00 p.m. is up $5 and on Saturday and Sunday, that's $10. Have you considered the entire area and the parking when you're considering what should be what if anything should be charged on Green Street? And again, the question is, why can't you have free parking? Uh, as one other commenter said, the the city has revenue streams that would certainly cover the maintenance. regarding the um the green street deck. Uh regarding the pilot program, what is the rush to pass a pilot program before this you provide the residents and citizens of Roswell the answers to these questions? If the city can't wait and if that's your position, then why haven't you brought forward a resolution to set prices and allow this to be voted on? Um we expect the answers to be posted at roswell.go roswwell.com with the pertinent links to the document that supports these responses. Thank you.

Next speaker, Lynn McIntyre. Sir, next speaker, Gary Wood. Thank you, Mayor Wood. Hello.

Thank you for changing the policy to allow businesses to speak. I think that's a great beginning. I think we're looking at this the wrong way. The Canton Street we've been looking at as a business district. It's much more than a dis business district. It's the heart of Roswell. It's just as much important a civic asset as the Chatti, the historic districts, the rest of our parks. I submit to you that Canton Street should be treated like a park, not just a business district. My office is at the the north end of Canton Street and I get to walk on that street many days. Fortunately, I can have my own free parking. Ask people all the time. I see more people walking down Canton Street than I ever see on the Chaduchi Riverwalk or I ever see at Lita Thompson Park. Look at this Canton Street and what it really is. It's not just a business district. It's the heart of Roswell. It's a park and we should treat it like a park. If we're going to start charging for parking, why don't you, you know, this is like charging for parking at the river, at Roswell Area Park, at all these other parks. If you really need the money, bite the bullet, and charge everybody for parking. But that's not going to happen because the people would rise up. And they're rising up now because they recognize that this is a park. I've spoken to a lot of the people on K Street. I'm I'm I'm still a little political. I like to talk to people. Most of the people walking up down the street have their dogs. They're not going to a restaurant when they're walking their dog.

I talked to them and to a person. No one is believes that charging for parking at the Green Street deck is a good idea. They voted for a parking deck so that they could walk down the park and use their park, Canton Street, without having to pay for it. They voted to build a parking deck in the Can Street because they value Can Street just as much as they do the river and the rest of their parks. They did not vote $20 million for economic development, as some council members believe that was for. They voted to approve a park, parking where they could go and enjoy a park without having to pay for it. Listen to the citizens of Roswell. Treat Canton Street like a park. Don't charge us to park at any of our parks, and that includes the historic district, and that includes Canton Street. Look for other sources of revenue for parking. You've got a $200 million budget. Find someplace else to cut the expenses. I'm sure as this creative group you'll find the money. Uh I'm not opposed to charging for parking along the in the on street parking. I'm not opposed to charging for parking on those convenient lots. But if somebody wants is willing to walk from the green street lot, let them park there for free. Let them use their park for free. And don't charge us for everything we do. Don't try to monetize everything. This is not a business. It's a service. And people want to walk in their parks and Canton Street should be treated just like every other park and not like some commercial district. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker,

Brian Perise. Evening, mayor and council. Thank you again for providing this opportunity and a forum for us to discuss this matter. I've been looking forward to this. I bought a new parking shirt for the occasion. Downtown Roswell, its vibrant businesses, its activating citizens are not revenue opportunities to leverage, tax, and monetize. Downtown Roswell is itself an economic engine. It's the pride and joy of Roswell. I know so because the city advertises its Canton Street as part of the quality of life of this town. The city does not come out ahead by trying to nickel and dime and take a little more parking revenue. If that decision makes it harder for people to come downtown, stay downtown, enjoy downtown, and spend money downtown. And what we do as small businesses with that money is we create jobs. We generate tax revenue. We preserve historic buildings. and we make this district worth visiting. Paid parking changes the message, not just the math. The moment people feel nickel and dimed for choosing Roswell, we introduce friction into an experience that is supposed to feel welcoming, easy, and repeatable. I am in the hospitality business and I think you should be too. And when we charge for parking, we do not send that message.

Roswell businesses compete every day with other downtowns. Alpharetta, Woodstock, and others are options in the consumer's mind. And everyone knows that they've figured out how to offer free parking. Roswell adding a parking charge makes Roswell less competitive at the exact moment we should be celebrating that we finally got this right. But true to form, Roswell continues to get in its own way. Charging Canton Street employees to park is the wrong burden for the city to place on the wrong people. They're the very people who make our downtown world go round. I once heard someone say, "Where's Roswell's affordable housing?" And the answer from an elected official at the time was Roswell's affordable housing is Woodstock. Now, that's another problem to solve. But this is one way we can show that we're all pulling on the same rope for the people who make our world go round. These are hosts, servers, bartenders, cooks, retail staff, and hourly workers. They are not the problem, and they should not be asked to subsidize a parking system simply for showing up to work. And no, imposing a fee structure on the Green Street gravel lot is not a sufficient solution. That lot has, by the city's own accounting, 66 spots, and we've already understood there are far more employees on the businesses on Can Street. City Hall frames this issue, the parking issue, in terms of staff recommendations and fee schedules and bond obligations and revenue potential. Small business owners and our employees phrase it in livelihoods and in paychecks. We think about whether guests will come less often, whether staff feels

squeezed, whether sales soften, and whether another avoidable obstacle gets placed in an already fragile ecosystem. I want spec specifically to speak to the criticism that people who don't frequent Canton Street shouldn't have to pay via their taxes to support free parking here. That's the wrong framework because public infrastructure is not judged solely by whether every taxpayer uses every asset equally or personally. I may never use a park in East Roswell and my kids won't go to school in East Roswell and a fire engine from East Roswell may not come to my home to put out a fire. But I still support my taxes paying for those things because that's what a community does. It invests in shared assets that strengthen the city as a whole. All boats rise with the tide. A downtown parking deck should be viewed the same way as public infrastructure that supports jobs, commerce, taxes, and the overall health of Roswell. So again, when government sees parking spaces, it sees inventory, an asset to leverage, a staff note on a spreadsheet. When small businesses and our employees look at parking, we see access, opportunity, and a paycheck. Free app proximate parking is oxygen to businesses and our employees livelihoods. Keep downtown Roswell parking free. Next speaker,

Doug Curling. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Doug Curling. I'm a 37 or 38 year Roswell resident. Uh my family owns a number of properties here, commercial and residential, and we also own a number of businesses. You've heard one of my kids talk today. Um I have some prepared comments, but I'm actually going to skip most of those and I'm going to just make two points. The first one, I'm going to read a letter. I read a lot of I don't come to a lot of meetings. There are some people that come to all the meetings. Janet gets the award for every meeting that's ever been had, I think, at city hall. All the lines are there.

She Yeah, but I I I I have a deep file on parking. That's for sure. And so I think part of the reason I was invited to speak tonight was because I have a deep file on parking. And I'm going to read from a letter I wrote to the mayor and council following an election similar time to this a decade ago. All right. So I just want to read that part of it to you. It starts like this. I hate it when I walk into the office and everybody's mad. Then I feel like I'm in trouble yet have no clue why everybody's mad about. That's how some of you feel about the free public parking issue. The advocacy being led then by the HRBA, but now by uh free parking. Now, don't worry. No one thinks you're part of the problem, but everyone does hope you're champions of solutions. You've heard several people say that tonight, right? We care about this deeply. And it's not about whether the city collects a dollar in parking revenue. It's about paychecks and payrolls. People, you know, the city is not doesn't have clean hands here. We've issued building permits and cos for a long time in historic properties at the at the north end of Canton Street or the south end of Canton Street with no parking requirements. Simply saying the city will provide parking. Don't worry about it. Well, those investments have yielded success here and we have economic development. We have we have an economic investment by a lot of the people you've heard from today. But we need that parking and now we're not only taking parking away and we've been incrementally taking parking away for a decade, free parking, but now we're just going to convert everything to paid. Nobody's done that. Rod Woodstock has what appears to be the most thoughtful plan we've seen and they have only uh 300 of their 2,000 parking spaces are paid. 70% of their public parking is free. Let's compare that metric to Roswell's metric that you were proposing in here. So, you know, it's a big issue and it's an important issue and it's not that people are emotional about parking. It's it's it's about economic vitality and people that have invested a lot of money and time here and we got a lot of payrolls here. So, that's from a memo that is well over a decade ago. Jerry

asked me what I wanted and I really said I wanted three things. One, I want to slow down. Some of you proposed that last time, but it didn't it didn't stick. And we moved forward with some things. And you've heard comments tonight, which I agree with that, you know, it's really not a pilot if you don't have success parameters laid out. It's really not a plan if you don't have pricing and stuff laid out. And we really haven't really done much to try and get u you know, that that idea data put out there. So, one thing I want to do is slow down. The second thing I want to do is get better data. I want to I don't this we're acting in a lot of cases like we're having to invent data and prepare new spreadsheets. But this is not a new problem. I laughed when Janet talked about the car wash today. I went to the car wash yesterday and thought the same thing. I drove in. They knew I had already paid. I didn't pay anything. I I got my car washed for free. They were not sending things to space. This is an easy problem to solve, but I don't really sense we're that interested in solving it. It feels like we solved it already and we're now just trying to get it behind us and implement it. And that concerns me. So, I want better data. But the third and most important thing, regardless of whether we have paid parking or not, I want to feel like we're included in the discussion. And that didn't happen. And I'm really disappointed about that. You know, the reason one of the big reasons the the election turned out the way it did was not just because of financial transparency and we were spending a lot of money and not feeling like we were getting the exact, you know, accountability we wanted on it, but we didn't feel like we were included in things. We were informed of things but not included in discussions. No one talked to the businesses about paid parking before we had the meeting on March 9th. No one. That's just not that's not right. We need to do better than that. And you guys can do better than that. So, I'll read the last lines of my memo from 10 years ago. We're all tired of waiting. We need free public parking. As commercial property owners and retail business operators, we pay business taxes here and we need this infrastructure. You have fresh eyes and you see the same things we do. Let's

commit to add more free public parking to our downtown retail district and then let's start doing things to make that a reality. We need free public parking downtown. We had it. We lost it. We need it back. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker,

Daryl O'Hare. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Daryl O'Hare. I've been living in Roswell 28 years this month. Same house. Love my city. Love where I live. Um, wish I could say I love being here tonight. Um, on the 9th when we were y'all were going up for a vote about parking, I had a little deja vu and a little I was triggered a little bit because the presentation I watched was very similar to December 9th, 2024 where there was this parking plan based on the number of available spaces and the ways in which we can monetize all of those which we all know turned into a bit of a disaster because at that time it was based on flawed data. And the same presentation that I saw this month looked almost the same as what I saw in December of 2024. And we already had a speaker go through sort of what that process looked like for many of us. Now I attend city hall meetings as a citizen. I don't know it's a hobby but I've actually enjoyed being part of the process of being here and watching the work that you do. I have a great admiration for anybody who signs up for public service. So being here and frustrated tonight for me is more I feel like the Hill Street I'm going to call it Hill Street because that's what it was called back then. Hill Street project came up on the agenda throughout the year over and over again and was tabled and passed on forward. So, I had opportunities to actually look at this

plan and I even saw one. Um, I know that each time it came up and there was a drawing, I actually stood up and I know parking was part of what I was asking about because to me it seemed really odd that we had a paid parking deck right across the street from the free parking at city hall. I didn't know I was asking the right questions, but I realized that nobody was giving me the answers. And that really upsets me. Three people on this council know the deal that they did. The new people that came in and our new mayor have had to catch up. I have tried to follow the ball myself and I cannot. What I want, what I think everybody here wants, transparency, data. But first, you start with us. We have asked over and over again for you to consult with the residents because they have ideas. I have suggested that that we should follow something that the city of Atlanta, believe it or not, they do a better job than we do. Sundays you can park for free and there is a resident pass for people inside the city for $20 a year. It c it solves a lot of the problems. And I don't know what the cost of it is, but I know I've brought all these things up before and nobody seems to listen to it. It's always like when I watched the presentation in March, it was like, "Oh, everything's so hard." And I'm going, "Who's doing the research? Where is the data coming from? And why haven't we had enough push back?" Sorry to say from the three that were there, why wasn't there push back or an questions or answers or even coming up to somebody like myself who does ask you the questions and give me an explanation

for it? I don't know the reason for that, but I do hope that the new mayor and council will be able to find a way to make sacred city hall parking. That's our space. Cultural arts center. We have a history museum up in the second floor. We have all of those programs with youth coming in. Um there is a bridge from the cultural arts center to the city hall parking. We have a farmers market that I want to continue coming to um and and supporting, but I do not want to have to figure out how to pay my way in or come to this meeting and get a code to be able to, you know, all of these different things need to be taken care of before you decide to do what you're doing. I know that there are some contracts that have been signed and I know maybe you cannot possibly get out of it, but I think you should try. The businesses in this city deserve our patronage. We They deserve us going to them and being excited about it and using that wonderful new deck without having to pay additional than what we already paid. Thank you very much for your time tonight. Next speaker,

Michael Delero. Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Michael Delero. I live in Herssham Downs, Roswell resident and Roswell business owner. First of all, I want to thank every single one of you for being here this evening. The mayor and council, the majority are in a difficult position. They're hard at work and a good number came in just three months ago. Just a few of the things that I've been able to to capture. They have inherited a number of things. Parking. Yes. And I'll get to that. There are certain things such as dealing with the aftermath of Mimosa Hall and the clear cutting of trees. trying to shoulder next steps as it regards to what I feel is an anti-b businessiness culture by the previous mayor and council. I alone my business fees went up more than 500%. There's also the mysterious entertainment and soccer stadium for East Roswell. There's $180 million of bond projects approved. Implementation, I imagine, is massive. There's the move at the fire station in East Roswell. the parking situation. I'll get to the Hill Rose deals like HillRose, which

like to I like to call Hill Street Blues and Bowen and 92 right next to my neighborhood. What is going on? So, the parking situation, let me just kind of touch on the bond itself. One, the messaging for the road show by previous mayor and councel was unclear. Many people seemed to believe that the parking was going to be free. Now it's not. Or maybe not. The second thing is the budget. $20 million was approved. I went I remember streaming that meeting economic development director Daryl Connelly shared some of the information. So possibly $20 million could have been enough, but the previous mayor and council decided to go an extra step and acquire land and the Masonic Lodge unnecessarily. Why? There goes $3 million right there. of your 20. Also, previous mayor at the groundbreaking talked about free parking. That's a headscratcher. Also, we heard time again that Roswell is going to the parking business and that also it seemed like we're going to the real estate business. So to fast forward to more of the present with this hot potato on March 9th there was a pilot proposed with a split vote.

It's my humble request to please please pause this. The pilot is for less than seven months. That's the operative word less than to please take a step back. We can do this a process reset engage the businesses further. I also politely demand seir to come to that meeting free of charge and deliver this parking study. I also ask for staff to be there and all of economic development. I certainly love to see this worked out for free parking. I believe there is a way. There has got to be. And may I finish with don't Atlanta my Roswell. There is a reason why we don't live in Midtown and downtown. Let's get free parking. Thank you. Next speaker,

Marlene Sidden. Marlene Siden, Chris Reed.

Uh, good evening, council and mayor. Um, first off, I'd like to start by saying thank you for hearing my voice as I'm not a current Roswell resident. I'm not a current Rosal resident, but I have been a former res resident of downtown Rozle and I've been a hospitality employee of the Canton Street area for almost 13 years now, approaching 20 if you add up all the different years I've worked in the Rouseville area. A lot of the things I want to say today have already been addressed by people who are more eloquent than I. Um, but in addition to being a waiter, I'm also an improviser. So, I'll just say yes and and continue on. Paid parking for the employees of the Roswell district is an unnecessary burden upon the employee that can have a sweeping effect across the entire businesses. Um, let alone the tax revenue generated for the city by the food and alcohol sales. I can speak for myself that I sold nearly a quarter million dollars in food and alcohol last year. That should come to about $20,000 give or take that I've contributed through the work that I do. And there are countless other people. You see all the green in here tonight. To start your shift with a deficit of approximately 10% to 20% of what you're going to earn that shift is going to make Roswell an undesirable place for people to work who can easily just hop the next city over, apply their skills in another restaurant, another bar, another retail establishment. I couldn't find any hard data on how much tax revenue was generated by the historic downtown Roswell restaurants and bars, but what I could find looked like it was close to $25 million in 2024. Will the paid parking that is going to be levied on the employees of Roswell offset the loss of revenue when these

restaurants and bars can no longer find staff because they don't want to play 20 or $30 to work a shift, waiting tables, working the front door, washing dishes. That's something that I think you should look into. I've been working in Roswell long enough to remember when we tried to make the gravel lot parking paid. Do you all remember what happened? Nobody parked there. We're going to see the same thing. Uh what is it? Post parking. Nobody parked there. So now they're free. Do not charge the residents of Roswell. Do not charge the employees of Roswell. And it can only benefit y'all by making it a desirable place for people to want to work and provide reasons for people that don't live in Roswell, for the residents of Roswell, to want to come to the restaurants and bars where we provide services that make downtown Roswell great. Thank you. break.

Um, I'm going to ask council, do do y'all want to take a 10-minute break or just Okay, next speaker. Um, how many speakers do we have left? This long? We have approximately 15.

We're going to take a five minute break.

If everyone would please take their seat. We'd like to get started. Oh, NY's not there. City Kurt Long, please call the next speaker. Susan Broadhurst. Susan Broadhurst. Next speaker, Jim Douly. Well, hello. My name is Jim Douly. They saved me until after the intermission and everybody went home and went to bed, but it's good to see you. And I want to say again, like everybody else has, thank you for listening to us tonight. We do appreciate it. I've been a 38-year resident of Roswell, and I know this is one of your favorite meetings. But if you could be the crowd out here looking at your faces versus you looking at our faces, you'd see a lot more emotion out here. Um, this is a long time topic. You know that. You've all known that for a long time. I remember when this went up for the bond referendum and that bond referendum was a vote of what do the citizens of Roswell want? The parking was one point of that and we voted for it overwhelmingly. but not with the understanding that it was going to be paid parking. We're already paying through the bonds.

So, this is not about free parking. It's about we're already paying for parking. We are here and the city adopted it. And understanding the general obligation bond at the time there was no mention of paid parking to pay again. To pay again is ridiculous. I understand the need for money. I'm a CPA. I'm an accounting guy. You got to have money somewhere, but this is awfully late to the game to be having that conversation. And you're coming into seats that had these conversations, and they've been going on, as you've heard, for a long time. There's a right way, and there's a wrong way. Free parking for Roswell residents is not about free parking. We're kicking the can down the road. I'm sorry for your problem. There are a lot of contributing factors to the position we're all in right now. But to charge us to park is ridiculous. Fiscal responsibility would have been to have all this figured out before we broke ground, before we did any of this. Back at the bond referendum, approving the bond, breaking ground. We're all wearing green. I submit we should be wearing red. Stop. This is insane. We're all asking good questions, but it's the wrong timing. Has anybody considered in all this pilot if we go to paid parking what are all the private parking spots going to start charging? I would suggest less. So the projections that you're getting are wrong. Figure it out. Make it free for Roswell at a minimum, but hopefully

for all. This might be the only reason you were elected to be in the seat you're in today. This was probably going to be the reason that you are or are not reelected next time. Again, please stop. Next speaker, Robert Paradise. Hello. Um I'm a Roswell resident. I live right behind the new um um food hall uh 30 Kamara and uh I'm here tonight to speak more as a urban designer and planner. Uh I'm a architect and urban designer and um I'm not going to repeat basically all the issues that that have been brought up but I would like to ask any of you uh do you know how many square feet of food and beverage or retail space is available in the count street historic uh area. Do you know what is the demand for parking based on the number of square feet that

are currently um occupied or the projected demand of future space uh for the next let's say 5 10 year? Do you know how do you arrive to a parking study that defines exactly how many spaces needed to be charged for versus how many spaces should be free. This is the kind of data that any planner, urban designer, if a parking study is going to be produced, especially for a public agency, these are facts that we should be entitled to know. Just as in the projected cost of the parking deck, what was the projected cost for space? What is the projected cost to maintain each space? We never heard that. I think this is the kind of data that you need to communicate to us in order to either support your decision or not support it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker,

Andy Piper.

Andy Piper. Michael Martin. Good evening. I'm Michael J. Martin. I've been a 34 year resident of Roswell, a 34 year voter in the city of Roswell, and a 34y year payer of taxes in the city of Roswell. I remember all of the communications at varying times about the parking deck and everything and I certainly never heard the word that it was going to be paid. I think that's a classic case of bait and switch and I really believe I was lied to by some people. I am very concerned about the effect of paid parking on the employees of all of the great restaurants and bars and the small businesses we have in the Canton Street area. I'm concerned about the viability of the small businesses we have. We have a number of restaurants that are vacant. One has been vacant for four years now. There are reasons for that. Paid parking is not going to help the situation. I'm not very articulate. I didn't prepare speech. I was brought here on an impromptu basis. My work is directed, by the way. That's a key to 50 years of successful marriage. Okay. But I felt it was important to be here and speak my mind one time about only one subject. I object to paid parking. I have been in many places where in Europe where they have in the municipal areas they have paid parking.

If you're not a resident of that small town or city of Hamburg or what other the places in Germany that I've been to, it works there. It's worked there for a long time. It could work here. That's all I have. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker,

Jay Littton. Hello, mayor and council. My name is Jay Littton and everybody's talking about what they're doing. I just went to semi-retirement last year and I just spent a lot of time helping people get jobs at RUMC job networking and we've had a couple of you there. So, thank you for that. If anybody knows anybody out of work, just come see me. So, with that said, um I've had the opportunity to speak to a couple of the council members since the March 9th meeting. One voted in favor of the pilot and one v voted against. And uh I asked, you know, what's really behind this? What tell me why we have to go the paid parking route? And what I heard was we need to take care of low-income people. We can't raise their taxes. And I countered with kind of what Ryan did. What about the employees that have to work at Canton Street? And then the second point that came up was, what about the people that can't that don't use they they don't even go to Canton Street. They live in East Roswell. They live somewhere else. They just don't use Canton Street. And I equate that to there's many parks that I don't use. There's many roads I don't use. Going back to what one speaker said, we're a community. That's the cost of having a community. And then about the revenue, well, we need the revenue. But we didn't seem to have any problem getting the revenue for $2 million when Sears had their hand out looking for money. It doesn't matter who you voted for this last election, but I think it's easy to say that the the reason we have a new council and new mayor is because they were not listening. And I would just say they weren't reading the room. And it's really easy to read this room. Very easy to do that. And I think last Thursday I had the

opportunity to share this with somebody that's under city employment. I'll leave their name out. I said, you know, you you just would you just wouldn't listen. And this person said, no, I listen, but I disagree. I don't agree with you. And tonight I had the opportunity to speak to this person again. I said, you remember that conversation? And this person said, yes. I said, well, I think we do agree. We agree you don't have the numbers to make a decision on what to do with parking. There was silence. So my question is, what is the cost of free? You know, we had an attorney. I'm sorry I didn't remember her name, but she gave a whole list of questions that she once answered. I can just boil it down to one thing. What's the cost of free? Let's go get those numbers to find out what the cost of free is. And then no matter what the cost is, let's make it free. Imagine this new sign. Mayor, I know as as you become mayor, one of the fringe benefits is you get a sign every road that comes into Roswell, right? Welcome to Roswell. You got the mayor's name and underneath the mayor's name, if you vote properly, it could say, "We have free parking." Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Katie Belaloo. Katie Belaloo, Carrie Robinson, Carrie Robinson. Hello, mayor and council members. Um, I

do want to kind of echo my colleague from Naylor Hall that referenced that um, cost reduction should be considered. I spent a lot of years in accounting and finance. Actually worked with Doug Curling who was here earlier. Um, so I I I think it's worth considering that every parking dollar charge does not necessarily translate into profit. Um, especially if it'll affect tax payments and businesses and all of the things everyone has echoed before me. I think those things should be heavily considered. Um, before coming here, um, I am a property owner and a business owner on Cam Street. I own this savory gourmet in the building that it's in and I was heavily pursued even my husband tried to talk me into it to go to Southern Post and I couldn't fathom the idea of asking hourly employees to pay to park to come to work but also because we're a market I couldn't think about customers like walking around with big grocery bags and going too far. So I was looking for a property that had parking. Parking is such a problem in our area that it quickly became a oh Savior Gourmet has free parking and I had to put up some signs to deter people from parking at our space to go other places. So, it's a problem already. I think with the Green Street paid parking that'll exacerbate the issue um because of the whole parking issue. That is why I ended up at uh purchasing the property on Canton Street. um because of parking specifically. And as a resident of the city of Alpharetta for years and also a business owner in Alpharetta for years, I have experienced the differences um in Alpharetta and Roswell. I love Al I love Roswell, by the way. Um but there was a point in time where the city of

Alpharetta was trying to decide what to do with downtown Alpharetta and it was a mess. I mean, downtown Roswell is beautiful, but downtown Alfredo was a dilapidated disaster and they pulled us and they asked us what we would like to see done and then they executed it beautifully. Um it I it's one one city government experience that I can say was just wonderful. It's wonderful having a business there. It's wonderful the way that it drove activity there. And so I guess what this boils down to for me is that um they found a way to create multiple free parking decks. A lot of them are hidden. One's across the street from my store there. You would never even know it was a parking deck, but they found a way to do it. And the amount of activity that it's driven to that area is just exponential. So, I would just echo everyone before me and encourage all of you to try to find a way to continue to drive business to our area. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Madame Mayor and Council, um I thank you for your service. Um another important topic, April 22nd is coming. My daughter was born on April 22nd. And I love that girl with all my heart. But even more important, what is happening on April 22nd is the one day of the year that we pay attention to the earth. June 1st is the beginning of the hurricane season, and not even the weatherman knows which way the wind blows these days. Climate change is here. and we're not paying attention every time. Has there ever been a time when we needed solar energy more than than we need it now? And how much have we all paid the fossil fuel energy industry on a monthly basis uh for uh for the fuel that we get? traveling 400 these days breaks my heart. But also the tree canopy that we have lost even in Roswell is is heartbreaking as well. So I ask

for your help. I ask that you take a small important step and join me in beginning a campaign to regenerate our tree canopy. Let's plant some trees together. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Jason Y.

Hello. Uh, Jason Yao, in case you didn't know who I was. Um, so I I I'd like to to put this in economic terms. Um, if you want to inhibit economic activity, you introduce friction. If you want to accelerate economic activity, you take the things that create friction out of the equation. And it's not just the money to pay for parking. It's the friction of the whole ordeal of it. And if you want to en enhance the historic district, you can't have the you can't have paid parking. But you need money. So for starters, there's $50,000 that you're paying for the gravel lot. Boom. Stop leasing the gravel lot because you just built the parking deck across the street. uh if you if you have paid parking in that parking deck, it is going to be so under utilized you won't make any money. It's going to be a money losing proposition. I sure hope the city hasn't spent the money already for the equipment to monitor and and process the paid parking because if you have that was a really dumb thing to do. Um the the uh you know I know LA was it last week or two weeks ago you approved uh a million dollars more in a fake revenue bond for the parking deck which I assume is for the equipment to make the parking paid. Uh if this is the case the the the whole temporary thing doesn't work because you're going to have the sunk cost of having bought the equipment.

Hopefully, you haven't done that yet. Um, it's just it it I I I sometimes wonder if anybody in in in city hall has the wherewithal to, you know, do simple arithmetic because it's a money losing proposition to make it paid. I mean, a million dollars for the equipment. We're right there. There's another $50,000 a year in interest. So, wham, I just sold saved you $100,000 uh a year for free parking and the administration of it is going to be another hundred $200,000. You're not going to make money in this. People aren't going to park in that deck. It's going to sit empty. And as long as we're also talking about friction, there's friction to get to the historic district. There is a stop sign that a former council person had put up at Pinerove and North Coleman that jams the traffic up. The uh previous transportation U director said there's no there no statistics there no accidents there to justify the stop sign. But that particular council person really didn't care about the convenience or the friction that it caused cuz he lives on the other side of 400. It's a horrible, horrible situation. I got to drive through it every day, multiple times a day. Please take the stop sign out. Uh it's the dumbest thing that could have been done this side of paid parking. Um, if you want to have paid parking, the place to introduce that particular kind of friction would be in our parks,

particularly the Mill Village. Now, we could have the residents get stickers for their cars to park at the parks to park at the Mill Village, and it can be paid parking by Parkmobile for everybody else. Um, if you go down to uh Aelia Park, um, a third to a half the car cars parked in Aelia Park have cobb plates. If you go to the far western lot at the cob border, it's almost 100% cobb plates. Uh, I I hate that. Um, there are a lot of out of state plates that park in the parks, but people use our parks that don't pay the taxes. That's where you want to introduce the friction of paid parking because we need to get money for them to come and use our parks because we got to pay to maintain them. I'm going to leave few seconds on the board. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Neil Gasawal.

Hello, Neil Gazway here. I was on the DRB for like 10 years. I feel your pain. Thank you for what you're doing. I've sat there till midnight nights discussing development here in our fine town, which somehow is always been bit behind the curve for the last 20 years. I don't know why. And I hope maybe you guys can make it better because all the other towns around here, we got free parking. That's a fact. And for us to suddenly introduce that, it's just not a good business sense decision. It makes no sense. I don't know what you guys going to do. You do have a problem, but it's a bad decision. And I hope to God you're not talking about charging parking down on Sloan Street and Mil Street in his historic district where I live. Simple anecdote that's a true fact. I'd base my business here out of Roswell. My business license years ago just used to be five 600 bucks. Last year was eight grand. This year it's five grand. And I'm sure any other business owners out there in Roswell have been through the same thing. And guess what? I'm trying to figure out how to do my business elsewhere. That's just how business works. And I've heard a lot of folks talk about the same thing with their restaurants and whatnot. You're making a mistake if you charge for parking. Simple as that. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker,

Mike. I do not know how to pronounce the last name. SCI. Mayor Council, congratulations on some of your wins there. Good job. Uh my name is Mike Shei and uh my wife and I have been living in Roswell since 1997. Uh back when we moved here on Canton Street, there was Mid East T-room. That was about the extent of it. Um there really wasn't much going on. Antique stores and shops. Very quaint, beautiful city. And my wife and I fell in love with Roswell. We raised our two children. They're now 25 and 23. Time is flying. But now we've made it out the other end. And um we've got money to spend and we want to go out and have a good time and uh go to bars and restaurants and really enjoy Roswell. And we love Roswell. Has so many great qualities, but you really have to have it designed to make it to other people's point frictionless. You need to make it easy for people to want to go out and spend money. So, let's talk about Mike and Jackie's psychology. It's Friday night. We're like, hey, let's go out. Sure, let's do this. Where do you want to go? Well, wife's like, I love can't treat social. It's really great place. But the problem is parking, right? You can never find a spot. It's not easy. So, sometimes you go other places that are more convenient and easy. So, I know living in Roswell for the time I've lived here, it has been a little tougher businesses, there's more friction. It's harder to do things. We need to make it easier. We need to be strategic and think smart, right? Not to short-term game game uh gain of getting some additional revenue from parking. Really, let's look at big picture. Let's grow the city. Let's be smart about it. Let's look at other revenue sources and think about all the revenue that comes in. If

businesses want to come here, there's going to be more revenue down the road. So, be strategic, be smart. I love the city and I trust I do trust in you guys that you're going to do the right thing. It's really important for our city and future growth. It's not about free parking. It's not about free parking. That's not the right word. We already paid for the deck, right? And it's not just the deck. It's parking all throughout the city of Roswell, right? I'm seeing all these things pop up. I hate that they pop up. I got to get my phone out. I got to go up there. I got to figure out the code. I got to pay. It's annoying. It makes me think twice about spending our money. You don't want that. That's not a strategic. It's not a smart move. Thank you for your time. Good evening.

Thank you. Next speaker, Teresa Lynn. Terresa Lynn. Brittany Taylor. All right. Um, hi Mayor and Council. Thanks for having me today. Um, I wanted to kind of provide a perspective that really piggybacks on the employee struggle, but also the perspective of a an engaged constituent who is feeling sort of stopped at her efforts to participate in solving these issues. Right? I didn't plan anything because I didn't have a voice yesterday. And as you can hear in my voice, it's barely here now. So, I'm going to try to be succinct and well spoken, but forgive me if I'm not. Um, I found out about this decision for the pilot program on the morning of March 10th when I logged into Facebook and saw a post on the Roswell Moms Network. And I got curious because as a former long-term employee of Canton Street, I instantly was taken back to the times in my car where I was crying and trying to pull off to text my boss to say I would be late because I couldn't find parking. I would have to resort to parking over a mile away knowing I wouldn't get off work till at least 11 p.m. and I'd have to walk rain or shine to my car that night because I had no other option. Now granted, when I was hired on Canton Street, I was hired under the impression that paying for parking was an option.

So, when I chose to pay 12 Oaks parking or whatnot, I knew it was by choice that I was choosing the convenience of a lot close by, right? This decision changes that for employees who already exist on Canton Street and did not agree to those terms when they were employed or hired. Had they known that that was coming, it may have informed them to move out into Alpharetta, which is now getting a new little alley, or Woodstock, which has Salt and Ceviche and Spirited Boutiques. I mean, you've got these competitive uh stores that are the same name going into a sister city with free parking. So when I found out about this on the Facebook page and I emotionally was drawn to this issue from the perspective of an employee. Um I hyperfixated for about eight hours. Okay. And eight hours later, I had a 10page proposal that not only evaluated Woodstock's model, reading California's employee model, um the developer accountability model in Alpharetta, Alpharetta's own data with the Southern Post president, Donald Chup's framework that he taught at UCLA for paid parking should we have to go that route, and then the procurement concerns for how this all came to be as an overall issue that we're facing today. And I know that this whole council and mayor, you are not responsible for the decisions that were previously made that have caused these headaches. However, you are responsible for how you move forward and the constituents that you serve and how they feel about it, right? And so I presented this and I sent it to all of you. The

general the general email and one wonderful council member met with me for an hour and that was council member Brumley. And when I met with her, I wanted to be prepared. I wanted to be the person that comes to you with solutions, not complaints. And so I developed 48 pages of implementation and Gora records requests and uh and a checklist for activists who want to get on this bandwagon to fight this issue because we see so many so many issues with this one decision. And I know that you can't control how we got here. That's already in the past. But if you have a willing participant who is in the city of Roswell, I rent here. I'm a single mother. I worked on Canton Street for 4 and a half years. I managed and I served. I know the struggle inside and out. And I presented 48 pages because I didn't want to be a person who came up here to tell you all the things that were wrong. I wanted to say, "Hey, I put a lot of thought into this. I not only put a lot of thought into it, I shared it with the people that you see here and I asked them to critique it. I wanted to stress test my ideas because they're not worth anything if I don't hear the critique. Much like you guys, none of these ideas are worth anything if we can't critique them and be trusted that our critiques are both heard and implemented. And so I'm asking in earnest, what do you need from your constituents who are willing and able and passionate about solving these problems? What do you need from us to be able to participate in a transparent and

forwardthinking conversation about where we go next? Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Avery Luchi. Good evening, mayor and council. Thank you for having this forum for us to speak and share our opinions. There's been a lot of business owners and employers speaking about the Canton Street parking situation. But I come to you with a new perspective. My name is Avery Loose and I'm a lifelong resident of Roswell as well as a public policy student at Georgia Tech and I am a an employee on that works on Canton Street that was hurt by this pilot project. I was upset and frustrated when the city of Roswell went back on their word and announced this new pilot project. I am upset with the lack of communication which many previous speakers have expressed, but I'm also the most upset about how these employees are being treated. Employees are the reason that businesses are able to run all day and we attract tourism to this amazing city that we call home. The solution you have presented for us employees is very vague and it's from the March 9th presentation earlier this month and it says uh that you will you plan on transitioning Green Street Gravel Lot to monthly parking pass model to support downtown employee parking which I will note was very difficult to even find and that is all that was said about how you will handle the parking situation for employees that work on Can Street. Why should employees have to pay when

they are the ones are that are working to keep Roswell alive, productive, lively, and a good city to live in? Some of these employee employees cannot afford to spend their wages on parking fees and a parking pass. Parking is already difficult enough to find. And with paid parking, it will be even worse. It's going to be chaotic. Avalon and downtown Alpharetta have free parking and are just as successful. They have thriving businesses. So clearly it is very possible to have free parking and successful businesses. This proposal is going to push business away from Roswell and will hurt businesses and restaurants. The whole reason Roswell needs a whole new parking deck is because businesses are bringing in tourism. Our work brings in people from all over Atlanta to come to these shops and restaurants on Can Street. I don't have all the answers to this complex parking problem and I do know that not one solution is going to please everyone and make everyone happy. I don't know everything about how business is run. But I certainly know that there is not enough information that the city of Roswell has given us to have all the answers. And I know that if the city of Roswell is making a decision that allows people who know so little about this issue to be so angry, then I think you did something wrong. These businesses and employees have done so much for the city of Roswell. And we have contributed to Can Street thriving and being a place where people from all around Roswell and all around the metro Atlanta area can come together in community. And you are choosing to repay the employees by hurting their guests and their employees. It's immoral and unethical to go back on your word and not be transparent with the process of coming to this decision. And it is outrageous to ask the employees who make Roswell an amazing city to have a place to have to pay to do their job. Thank you.

Next speaker, Priscilla Wheeler. Hi council, my name is Priscilla. I'm not going to talk too much about numbers or revenue or throw out solutions that I have no personal scope of what the ramifications for that would be. I'm just an employee on Kenton Street. I grew up on Canton Street and I've watched it flourish, a fact of which I'm proud. Hospitality, which I'm in, can be a very demanding job. I spend most of my time on Kent Street with other people who spend the same amount of time there, too. Some of us don't live in Roswell, but surprisingly, Roswell has found a way to take money from people who decided to just work here and help your city continue to flourish by maintaining high traffic to your streets and maintaining highquality services and food and beverage. To me, to us, paid parking looks like a bill, a punishment, almost an hourly, daily, weekly, yearly bill to a city I love. and yet can't afford to live in. It becomes something I have to account for and stress about just to work to provide comfort and leisure to those yes who might not mind the couple of extra dollars but I do. The employees do. We care. I don't know how you could look at the smiling faces of the host who asks if they can help you today. The server trying to help you find a perfect wine with your meal. The bartender who will

listen to you after a hard day and not have much to say back about it. And most importantly, the smiling faces who are heavy hitters when it comes to providing tourism and revenue for the city to make them pay to do that for their this city that they don't live in. I hope some of the words the people have said today make you think about the needs of the people not only living but working in your jurisdiction and not solely on the needs of budgets and deadlines. Because out of all the tedious details of your job that I could never possibly understand, the one thing I do understand fully and truly is that we both serve people. That requires honesty. It requires trust. and a whole lot of hard work. I'm sure you know that. Thank you.

Thank you, Nancy. Roman Persac.

Well, I think I'm the last one. Uh I heard about the parking since the campaign. It was few years ago and explained to us why we needed parking. It was a council member the dentist I call him and he explained that we may have in Roswell 600 visitors per year. I said this parking lot it will be too small. No will you okay? So how many spaces? Nobody knew. I basically found found out how many spaces in the parking lot. Yes. Several months ago I was asking some of the members do you know how many parking lots will be? Still not know when you will know because it depend how much it cost. Is the parking free? It's not free. I am park paying for the parking by taxes and everyone who's paying taxes for Roswell is paying for the parking 24 hours 7 as I'm taking talking by taxes. I'm paying for parking and that's what it is basically maintaining some several business people here said we want free parking because we need to customers so what I hear about maintaining the parking lot will cost about $50,000 a year which is and this is number that I got which is basically $4,000 a month And this is correct me if this is number is higher Ellen. How much

maintain

I don't know what but anyway because we all resident is paying for the parking for the bonds and the interest we even we are not parking we are paying for parking so I want what I'm paying for next 20 years or 30 years bond is I giving my parking for free for everyone who wants to park over there because I will pay for parking for the next 20 or 30 years forever the bond is and this supposed to be the calculation now it's for free then we know we don't need all the machines calculated how much money and everything we can save we need to just maintain whatever needs to maintain to clean it electricity and so on so This you can save a lot of money without using all the accounts, the companies that will collect the monies and everything. It cut the cost down. We don't have all sophistication that we need. lot of stuff people are saying what I want to say but I'm saying this stuff that the business can pay part of the maintenance and somewhere you can find money for the rest I don't believe it's 500 because we don't need all the accounting all the measurements and everything it's parking free which is not free because I'm paying for it even probably I'll never park there so I would like for you to take into into consideration that we are 90,000 residents of Roswell. We all paying already the bonds, the interest for the parking and will pay longer. So please consider to your calculation and see that it's possible to done with less less money for maintenance

because a lot of the maintenance would not need if you give free parking. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Monica Higwood.

Hello again. Thank you so much. I've sat where you are, not in council, but on the DDA and the DRB and spent many late nights and I've been a witness to the effort and so many that wanted free parking. and I've worked on deals trying to make it work. I'm a commercial real estate advisor and since my sabbatical is kind of breathing easy, I spend every day researching small towns and what critical factors make them successful. And I will tell you the frictionless the cities that are a partner with their businesses, they're the ones that are detracting the best people into town and the best businesses. we need to pause and take a minute and remove this friction and partner on this. Um, when I'm looking at it, one of the things, and I'm kind of a little late to the parking game, so I'm not going to too many people have the um details, but you're sitting there looking at proformas that clearly from what I've heard have real data problems. Proformas look so sexy and they're so great and there's probably not one that's ever been accurate. They're either too much or are sandbagged. They're just they're guesses and they are they they are only as good as the data that goes into them. And data on a parking revenue source without taking into account what's happening in your competitive markets is foolishness. All of our competit competing markets have free parking. And I can tell you about towns all over the country. But it's a it is an economic driver that attracts it makes frictionless for the people who want to do business here. And so you guys are here for four eight years. Is it 12 longest? Here's what happens in so many cities. And this is from a long time ago is you'll be thinking everything's rocking. We get a little bit full of ourselves because Roswell's always been the it place. It has been. We, my husband and

I, raised our four children here and we moved here intentionally paying Fulton County taxes because we wanted to be in Roswell. We wanted to be a part of this community. Um, 26 years. And what happens though is um something like this starts to impact your economy and you don't really notice it. You think, "Oh yeah, well they just couldn't make it. They just they spent too much on this or too much on that." And it happens slowly, probably years after you all are out of office, but it's slowly and then it happens really fast. And at that point, it costs so much money and so much effort and it's often impossible to turn that boat around. So right now, you have a minute to embrace the business community. There's so much so much talent in this town that would come and sit with you guys and come up with a solution. And I just encourage you to reach out to all those. You can't be at opposition with your business community, much less your constituents and citizens. So, thank you. It's hard and I know you guys are tired. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Denise Woodall.

Hi. Um, I feel I've been talking to y'all a lot lately. I usually don't make this much noise. Um, but uh, so I'm Denise Woodall. I live at 162 Oxbow Road. Um, I've been a resident here since 2018. Um, moved here. Um, I I'm uh, pretty poor. Um, but I really love the town and I love everything about Roswell. I looked all over the metro Atlanta area and found nothing like it. nothing where that's so walkable with the trails, with the town, with the city, with the fun. It's like everything's right here. So, I don't have to go anywhere. Um, and I really want that in my life. And so, I came here with that. So, I think you've been hearing from me a little bit about kind of freaking out about uh these massive changes. Um, and it's it's just it's really um breaks my heart a little bit because all of this is why I came here. I came here because I can just pull in, walk my dog. Me and always, it's always talking about my dog. Um, you know, and I bring I organize meetups. So, I have people come, my friends, my family, everybody's it's like uh I I used to live in Miami. And what I noticed when I learned when I when I moved to Miami is that everybody will come visit you when you live in a really cool place. Um, so that was kind of the logic here. And it works. Everybody's like, "Denise lives in Roswell. just go there and let's just all hang out and like somehow I'll get an appetizer or a drink somehow it will all work out. Um but with the paid parking it's just not going to work out. Um I feel like I don't know if I'm going to have visitors if I'm not. Sometimes um I don't drink actually. Um and so friends will come and I'm usually DD or something and they'll like leave their car and I'm just thinking how are they going to leave their car? How's all this going to work out? Um so that's that piece. Um another piece is I work four jobs. I hold a doctorate. I am a teacher

is pathetic. I don't uh so I have to piece all my jobs together to try to make it and I'm tired and I'm exhausted and I don't have time for this. So that part is annoying too is that I heard about um something about paid parking but residents would be free. So I'm like well okay I I don't have time to fight this now. I was here for the last public um public hearing and and what I heard is that well we don't really know how to implement it and it's like I know that's just so irresponsible like why would you make a decision on something and you don't know how you're going to implement it. Um so here we are and I do not have solutions because I have four jobs and that would be five jobs to try to figure out the solutions. I can't do that. Um but I have uh access to AI and I'm plugging it into AI. I'm like, can we not solve this problem with like artificial intelligence or something? I mean, one of the the things that came up which I like is I I don't know like I can get credit cards with no interest. I don't know. Can we like cover some of the cost and then kick the can down the road a bit for future developers and add fees? I don't know. This is not my job. Um, but I would like to at least see solid numbers on a costbenefit analysis of this whole thing. I think that's really missing here. I'm not seeing how we're going to profit. I also have a friend that works at Park Mobile and I kind of understand a little bit about how these private companies work. So, I don't know where we going to try to have, you know, a private company cover some of this stuff. And I heard earlier someone say this is not all profit. Um, and I think we need to know like what those numbers are before we make decisions. But honestly, I feel like we have enough people here that are just saying, can we just figure out how to make it free? And I know that's pie in the sky kind of sounding, but with all the money that I see around here, I feel

like somehow we can make it work. I also heard someone say maybe there's just I don't I don't remember what we called it, but something like a screw it fee. Just like whatever the fee is to just like just get it done and we don't have to come back. Somebody mentioned that before. I kind of like that at this point because I'm tired of coming here. people are trying to come in here. Maybe we could just find something um to just a small fee based on, you know, property values or something. I don't know. I don't love it, but I really really don't want to see us all having to uh pay for parking and all the kind of downward spiral I think that's going to be for our town and our community. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker,

mayor. There are no other speakers.

Thank you. So again, please, you know, appreciate everyone who came and thank you for being part of this open mic evening and for your continued involvement in the city of Roswell. We are looking at Aubry things. Um, as we said, we will all the questions have been recorded as well as any of the statements made. So, please make sure you're following on our multiple sites that we will be posting all of the answers and information that have been asked for um hopefully within a week, maximum two weeks. Thank you. And this open forum for March 30th, 2026 is adjourned. So all the people party on another