City Council - Regular Meeting

Amen. All right. Thank you.

The time for convening has arrived, so we'll start this evening's work session. Item one is the data strategy analytics and AI integration update by Mr. Keith McMillan.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thanks for the opportunity to speak this evening and provide an update on the data, AI, and innovation efforts we've been working on. So I'll share some current projects, modernization of Lucidity, and some of our next steps. Okay, doesn't appear. Okay, there we go. Okay, sorry about that. So late in 2025, we ran a pilot for 20 users to begin using AI. And as word got out, it quickly expanded and we now have about 37. But we wanted to, rather than let users run free with AI, we chose to license everyone. The benefits included that prompts weren't used for model training. We were in our own space. We can share our content to support queries and provide more curated answers. We could also turn off some features like certain connectors or models that would be deemed dangerous. We also did a customized orientation class for all users on how to more effectively use AI, what a bad prompt is, what is a good one, what you can safely share or not. And don't ask it for legal advice. That's what Dan's for. We chose perplexity, which is one of the large commercially available models. It's a blend of options. It has its own, but it'll default to pick the best one based on your prompt. We also implemented what's called retrieval augmented generation, if you hear the term RAG, using external sources to generate answers. We loaded some of our own information, like policy documents, Muni code, some HR policies, and so on. so that users could ask detailed questions about ordinances or summarize meetings or validate policy and procedures and receive sourced answers. However, the downside of that was it was actually a very manual process. But these are some of the outcomes that we found. A benefit of having that structured pilot was we were able to run performance management against it. We sent out surveys at the 30, 60, and 90-day mark. The picture on the right is actually from the dashboard I created to track this. We tracked perception, how often people were using it, and if it was saving them time. The 28-hour stat has been reported previously, but it's worth noting again. We projected that based off the pilot group for a full year based off their survey feedback. Document review, content creation, and data analysis were the most common uses. Examples included reviewing RFP responses. Others used it to refine and create presentation or other documents. But it was kind of weak in the area of creating like pictures or images we found. But these founding taught us that we could scale this across the city, which leads us to enterprise AI. So we wanted to scale up that success. We're implementing in the process right now of making Gov AI available to all staff. Part of our enterprise agreement is training, introductory and advanced each one hour sessions. Basic training actually started yesterday. We had our first one over about 100 people attended. We actually ran out of room in the WebEx. The next one is Friday, and then we have two advanced scheduled in early July. We're already seeing great engagement. Yesterday morning, we only had 28 active users. By the end of the day, that jumped to 68, and we went from 34 to 167 prompts in one day. So we're seeing a 25... INCREASE IN TERMS OF USAGE OVER THE PAST COUPLE WEEKS, AND THAT'S ACTUALLY JUMPED 100% THIS WEEK. We're also going to have some office hours for more one-on-one interaction. So if somebody has an idea or wants to flesh it out or how to use features, we'll do that. We evaluated, the reason we chose GovAI is we evaluated multiple options, commercial and government-based. And after talking with multiple cities and doing some demos, we found this was the best fit. It also picks up your context from your profile, like title, seniority, areas to help it tailor its answers. Some other key features that it has, I talked about RAG earlier. This is similar to that, but with some additional options. A folio is a container for content. This content can be documents, a connection to another system, or the result of a crawl of the website. Those folios are attached to assistants which can automate tasks, combine content into one location, or surface information through search. Some of the examples are what you see on the screen. Municode has a direct integration to that which makes it really easy. We connected it to ours as well as some of the surrounding cities so you can ask it to compare an ordinance of ours to say another city. We're working on a grants assistant which is a web crawler that hits multiple federal and state websites and grabs information so we can ask about grant opportunities and requirements. we're also hitting our own city website hopefully to enhance search areas in that it also just added evaluations which is a cool new feature or at least i think it's a cool new feature which we can set up tests and evaluate the performances of these assistants and fine-tune instructions and sets to improve results so if you watch the news much You probably heard the words agentic AI. This is actually something we're, again, in the process of council meeting minutes. What it does is it goes out and downloads the transcript of, say, tonight's meeting from YouTube via its API. It also hits Civic Clerk for the agenda, downloads that. And we'll process the transcript. It also has some reference information for names since YouTube has a tendency to misspell multiple names of yours, for instance, and corrects that. And then the output is basically a clerk-ready minutes for them to review. We insert the list of resolutions and ordinances that go along the way. We've been testing it, it's been doing very well. Eventually we may switch over to the AI version. and when we're done we're going to make it open source as well and allow any other city to use it in the interest of sharing another thing we're working on is the chat bot that is going to be launched we're going to do a soft launch tomorrow on our public website and with the official launch next week we've been testing it since early february It'll answer info about our website, whether it's events, contact information, service-related questions. It's not a replacement for the call center, but questions like when is the next Sparkle Sandy Springs, 4th of July fireworks, who do I contact for trash service, can be handled by the chat bot so that the call center can focus on more complicated requests. We do, just from a monitoring and safety perspective, we do not get the chat details. There are no logins. There are no IP addresses to identify individuals. So what the city can't tell us you, it's me or anybody else in the public. We only see a chat summary, which can be vary from a sentence or two up to a paragraph. and that highlights the interest areas that the user was asking about. We see an aggregate number of conversations and also average sentiment scores around satisfaction and resolution to monitor for issues, and we can help tune the model. It'll get this refreshed look at deployment where the fonts match ours, the colors do. We're also delineating the... The user is blue and the actual bot is white, so you can follow along the conversation a little bit easier. We're also implementing a content management system that any updated content on the website, so if a user updates a page, within five minutes, it'll be available for the chatbot. A great example of that is, say there's a rain delay for fireworks, It'll be available in here within five minutes. So there's no waiting for deployment or the next day. We worked really hard on that one. And the vendor that we're working with, we are the only customer that's even capable of pulling this off. So next one, AI and permitting. We've been working with OpenGov, our permitting licensing platform. They've added AI intake for residential building permits. It checks on construction plan set completeness and affidavit verification. These two combine for about 40% of early stage change requests. Staff can view the findings and explanations and provide feedback on the results so that they can continue to be refined. Right now, it's an internal validation and additional permit types and broader functionality are coming soon. Next up, Lucidity Modernization. The current state, worth mentioning is that we've had Lucidi a long time. It hasn't really changed that much in about the 10 years that we've had it. We put a great deal of effort into customizing it to our liking. Consequently, we also do not have a citywide CRM. It makes it hard to understand the frequency of requests in an area or by an individual, or if we're seeing clusters of requests. It's all anecdotal right now. You see challenges when information about tickets are emailed. I'm sure you guys all see that already. Then residents may get a ticket number that isn't necessarily easy to remember, and it's hard to get updates on status if anything has changed. It also doesn't have any AI predictive analytic features. Because of this, it creates friction, which is not always the easiest to find or share information. So where we are in this process, an RFP went out. We realized the scope, timeline, and budget were just not feasible. We removed several parts of the scope. We're talking currently with targeted vendors on what we're looking for. All the relevant departments have been included in the evaluation process. Priority has been to preserve and or migrate the historical data from Lucidi if we move to a new platform. But the question we keep asking ourselves as we delve further is, does this actually make service delivery better? And is it helping residents? And of course, we have to balance cost, time, and benefit. Yeah, we can modernize what benefit will the residents see, how will we communicate that, and how will they feel that is the direction we're going. And there's also continual monitoring through performance management is another goal that we want, because we see that lacking in our current state. So from what we want, we want an easy to use interface for staff, yourselves, residents and businesses, not siloed but integrated. Data from a ticket should flow from the call center to public works or facilities or communications and back, the public should be able to easily see the status of their request or submit a request. With the integration and sharing of data, these are all the enablers of performance management, analytics, and AI. And reducing those silos reduces the friction that I talked about. So what's up next? So the Lucidity modernization, getting closer to a platform decision and moving towards implementation here as we kind of move into the new fiscal year. Gov AI. AI is help desk. We want to leverage our knowledge base from the service desk. for tech support questions, because more people are now looking to AI rather than putting in a ticket. This is actually an industry-wide thing, not just confined to us. As we collect more data, we continue to monitor and improve governance. We're going to begin beta testing some new features. They're providing MCP support, which is It's a context protocol, so it provides a new way for us to communicate with our applications and do more natural language querying. Permitting phases two and three of AI support, which are the plan and the data quality and substantive review support, should be coming later this summer. And then on the chat bot, the feature updates are frequent. Where we started to where we are today is night and day. That content management system will also provide voice support. That has improved greatly. Actually, the answer's different quite a bit from between text to voice. It's our own brains, actually. We don't have the attention span to listen to the full answer versus reading it on the screen. So it has to selectively edit when it voices it back to you, which that's it. You may also want to selectively edit what I just said, but that's okay. So with that, I'll take questions if you have any.

All right. Keith, thank you. Questions? Ms. Mueller.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yep.

Come a long way since you joined us. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Just a question. So on that upcoming, one of the last slides, is there like an overall timeline that you could provide, kind of high level, even if it's big by quarter? Yeah, I can do that. I'm just saying, because I think that would be helpful. And I don't know if any of those that were displayed are there dependencies between them. So do they need to be sequenced or are they all separate?

They are all separate. The Lucidity one, I'll try and cover this in 30 seconds, but yeah, Lucidity one, we're hoping to select a platform very soon and get going here. Thanks for the drum roll. Yeah, and Gov.ai, all those features are coming here kind of this summer, and we're already working on all this stuff. So some of the stuff that I've already talked about. should be within the next couple months. And then the chat bot, like I said, we're deploying tomorrow. I'm not sure how quickly we'll turn on the voice one. We weren't crazy about, because like I said, it kind of selectively edits and it affects the quality of the answer we feel. So to be determined.

And then on the Lucidity upgrade, it didn't explicitly state it, but will there be self-service so residents will be able to open tickets, see tickets, monitor tickets, so we don't have that call in and then they have to keep calling in to get the status?

Yeah, that was actually kind of number one on the list.

Okay. It didn't explicitly state that, so I just wanted to make sure because I think that's going to be a huge improvement. And then is there like an associated communications plan for for the public of all these things that we're going to be putting out and making available and improving? Have you thought about that?

Yes. Is there an official plan? No. But, yeah, we've been talking about more publicly putting it on the website of the stuff that we're doing. We have, like, that digital innovation page now, but we need to be feeding and caring for the content on it a little bit more frequently than we are today.

Yeah, I was just thinking, like, in the scoop or... on Facebook and then I don't know at what point we get to it but in the permitting I know that we have like the build seminars the different seminars so maybe just putting the thought out there are we going to have is it worthwhile to have a public session on how to come in and use some of these tools potentially actually you mentioned the scoop that's another agentic case that we're working on which is summarizing all of this into that one little paragraph

It already works, it's just a little too detailed.

So those are just some things from the communication. And I didn't know, in the Citizens Leadership Academy, is any of this covered as a topic in that?

Yeah, I spoke last year.

Okay, that's good. And then, I don't know how this fits in, but how will public records be handled for AI-generated outputs?

That's one we've been discussing a lot. I don't really want to go into too much detail now, but we've, like with this, on the GoveEye side, we've been talking about how long to keep threads, and a decision on that should be coming, I heard, in October. So, yeah.

Just something that, I mean, you're still thinking about it, because I know that's, when we pull public, you know, when Rocky gets a request and has to go through and get them, so now is this somewhere else we have to go and get things from? And then, let's see. So I think that we have a lot of measurements, right? You measured a lot of productivity. So it's really been a productivity tool. So are you thinking about the measurements that you'll put forward for how do we know this is successful for what we're releasing to the public? Like permitting would be a great, I'm sure it would be one we could track very easily. Some of these other things, I don't know. What kind of dashboards? Are you going to have dashboards to kind of monitor that or manage that?

So the permitting, like you said, a lot of that's already built in, so we don't really have to make a lot of effort around that to monitor its performance. The chatbot, same thing. Like I said, we get those aggregate sentiment numbers, so we are already monitoring how it's doing. So we're looking at Our numbers aren't so high now that I can actually look at the individual chat summaries and go, oh, yeah, that didn't answer that question, or it did type of thing. But, yeah, we continually look at it.

And then as we start, as you start, you know, normalizing the data, rolling this out across multiple, if you will, applications and breaking down the silos, how do you make sure that we don't get back into that silo mode?

Well, that's the $64,000 question, isn't it? But yeah, that's where a lot of, now that we'll be using more applications and using AI as kind of an integration point, it really does give us the opportunity to more properly govern, shape, control the data. So those are all things and part of my master plan.

All right. Well, thank you.

Yeah.

Any others?

Mayor Paul.

Ms. Ford.

Keith, thanks so much for these updates. All of this is great stuff. On the AI front, I'll just offer that I recognize that it is a fairly large change management initiative, right? And it takes constant reinforcement and training to help everybody sort of come along, right? So it sounds like there's been great progress already made. Just keep up the good work because not everybody moves along at the same pace. So it's a big change management thing.

You're 100% right. And to that end, like the recording from yesterday, some additional resources, we're posting those on Inside Sandy Springs for staff to be able to use. So, yeah, really to your point, trying to reinforce that. So we see this progress over time, not just right now.

Exactly. Then for the new ticketing system, as we get closer to being able to release that to the public, which I know we're still a ways from that, if we can think about the expectations or guidelines that we want to set for both the public and for staff around Frequency and, I guess, SLAs around updates, right? Because once it's so much easier for people to go in and check, they're going to think that, oh, my gosh, that should be immediate. But it won't be, right? And so those SLAs and timelines and then also expectations around sort of depth of responses and updates so that people feel like they are getting complete information through their tickets.

Yeah, this is a great opportunity for us to revisit a lot of processes and do exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.

Thank you.

Mr. Chensky.

So the pilot was using perplexity, but we're rolling out gov AI for the enterprise?

Mm-hmm.

Will council have access to enterprise accounts?

I will have to double check on that.

Okay. I'd be curious to be able to use it myself and see what it looks like.

It basically looks like ChatGPT.

Yeah. Because it is running their model behind the scenes. Can we use AI to help fulfill open records requests? Is that something you've looked at?

We haven't looked at it a lot, but it's one more of many potential applications.

Just thinking of repetitive tasks that may be helpful to have in AI. I mean, you need human eyes to look for sensitive information, but maybe something to look at. And on the data front, so what data is being connected to our AI platform? And how are you determining who has access to that behind the scenes?

So there is role-based access baked in. So we have full control over who gets access to what. More so, it's on the assistant side. When we create one, that's really where it comes in. Maybe like Munichode, that's something everybody can see. But, you know, HR policies, if it's something more sensitive than, say, the employee handbook, then we're going to tie it down. And, yeah, there have definitely been security conversations around, okay, yeah, we can connect this, but should we? And there's also been, just with the data that we are using, or if somebody wants to upload it in an Excel spreadsheet, let alone an application, the nice part, and this is part of why we went with GovAI, is it has... basically data detectors in it, it'll detect like a phone number or a social security number, which we've already set a certain number of, whether it redacts it, whether it blocks it, whether it just monitors it, and we are getting good feedback from the system of what's going in so we can identify those risks and address them.

Thank you. Mr. Paulson.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Fascinating world we live in these days, huh? So I guess some basic questions. We're talking about the user, the staff user community doing AI research on something. If staff user A researches this subject, does it reside somewhere within the AI universe of the city so that the next staffer that asks a similar question has access to it, does the answer to these things get stored as additional information that's really available, or does it have to start over again the next person that asks? How's that set up?

No, there's no real sharing, which is actually kind of a good thing in a way. So think of it, do you use like ChatGPT or Clot or anything like that today? Sure. Okay. So it looks pretty much the same. You know, obviously it organizes it by thread and your questions, but if Dr. Kelly is sitting next to you, she can't see your threads. And this is kind of by design. So to your point, I get where you're going with it, but no, we don't store it. And then it also becomes a records retention problem too.

Yeah, that's the other question is if everybody, if we store everything that everybody researches, Yeah, we need a bigger computer. Okay, well, it's just a thought. When you talk about putting things, making data and information and minutes of meetings and things like that available, how far back are you going? Like, are you going to do 2026 meeting minutes? Are you going to do 2025? Are you going to load those in 2024? What are your plans to go backwards and bring that stuff forward?

Not really going backwards, because we already did it. But it does become training signal, and it already has. We've taken advantage of some of the stuff in the past, mostly for format, length, how minutes read, and so on. We'll just do it mostly on a going forward basis, because there's no sense in having the AI reinvent the past.

Oh, that's fine. I know sometimes with our search engine on our website, I type in stuff that I know we did. I can't find it anywhere. So that's why I'm asking, should everything be available as we go forward? Hopefully it is, and we don't have to worry about this.

So potentially, yeah. So Gov.ai is working on more integrations with Civic Clerk.

Okay, then I'll bring a bunch of that in.

Yeah, we could just... basically pipe that in. Hopefully that's the direction that they're going. Yeah, that makes sense. Because downloading, I went through this with perplexity. Downloading it, putting it in there, making it available, it's a very manual process. So we don't want to really go through that again.

Well, that's fine. It's just anything to improve the ability to reach out, reach back into history and pull things out to make it easier would be fantastic. Talk about chat bot being open to the public soon. Tomorrow. Okay, so then here's another question came up about communication. When are we going to tell the citizenry that they have this tool? And there's a whole communication strategy around telling people what this even is and how you use it. And we have some that are not as smart about this stuff as others. So the communication part of this, otherwise... I can just picture my wife, I love her dearly, getting in the middle of this, and I'm going to get a call 10 minutes later, I can't do this, or how do I do this? So the more explanation we can give to the public so that they can more effectively use it, the better off we are. And I'm not picking on my wife. Sometimes this stuff takes a little longer for some people. But the communication strategy so that the public... knows what we're talking about and can use it smartly, to me that's a big deal. Aha, I got her to step up, here we go. Now we're gonna get the first group.

I'll defer to Carter, because her team has actually been super integral to this whole process.

How could you not?

Yeah, I can just touch on the communications plan for this. So obviously this is a big undertaking for the city and we're really excited for this launch. The plan is obviously to give this presentation tonight, soft launch tomorrow, and then early next week we'll be issuing a press release with the information, with all the information then presented on our website for more people to understand the work that's been going on and how we've gotten to this process and then how to use the tool moving forward. We'll also issue social media, newsletter updates, and we have a PR agency that's been working on more national media. So you've thought this through, haven't you?

Yes, sir. Okay, good. I figured you had. It's just important. We have new technology here, and I can see it being very powerful. But if it's not used correctly, I could just see the phone ringing off the hook.

Absolutely, which is kind of why we've wanted to do this more of a soft launch, working through the rest of this week and then a harder launch next week.

I don't care if it takes you a month. Okay, even more. Get it as clear as possible to folks. Sure. Okay, I got one more and then I'll let you go. There was a question about, I don't think so, but hang on a second. You have a system whereby the public can now generate their own ticket. So let's think that one through because I can see public sending in requests for Dan's shoe size. I mean, I could just see people doing this and if there's no control over what the request is, this can spiral out of control. How are we managing the reality of requests versus just crazy stuff?

That's a great question.

Did I explain that correctly?

Yeah, no, I understood what you meant. Yeah, so in this process, we've been talking with the vendors about how we manage that public side of, do they have to create accounts? Can they report anonymously? And we can see it happening potentially both ways. We haven't really talked as much about what you just asked, which is a very valid concern. So thanks for that, and

Size 11, by the way, I checked it earlier today. 12. 12, sorry, I missed about one. I should have asked AI that, actually. I can just see, we've just got to think it through, that's all, because otherwise it's going to run amok.

And Councilman, if I could chime in on that. Residents can already create a ticket within Lucidi. They just can't go back and check the status of the ticket, which is the big problem that we've had. Remember when we changed Sandy Springs Works a couple of years ago to be the more GIS-based tool? If you're out and about and you spot a pothole or if you're out walking and there's a sidewalk issue, you can go to our website, click on Sandy Springs Works, and then you can put the information in. The issue and what was my number one requirement for the new system is that residents need to be able to go back and look at that ticket and see what the status is.

Okay. So that's treated, that's a ticket treated the same as if you called in to ask them about something.

Yes, sir.

Okay. Okay. Good. Stay after it. This is fascinating stuff. Thank you. Dr. Kelly.

Thank you. I only have one question. So in a few minutes, we are at least going to be considering approving a budget that creates sort of a new office. I imagine that has implications for the presentation or your work. How do those relate? Will the creation of the new office impact what you've presented here, or will we just, is it, you know? It's more of a restructuring.

If you recall from the budget presentations earlier this year, Keith's position and the grants administrator will be moving into the new office of innovation and delivery.

With the addition of one other.

With the addition of the director of the office.

Oh, right. So mainly that person, which is. DO OVERSIGHT?

THE COORDINATION AND PUSHING FORWARD OF THE INNOVATION INITIATIVE OVERALL FOR THE CITY.

SO FOR EXAMPLE, WHAT WE'RE LOOKING AT SPECIFICALLY PROBABLY WON'T CHANGE MATERIALLY WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO DO. OKAY. THANK YOU.

CLEARLY SECURITY IS A BIG ISSUE.

And I know you spent a lot of time on that. You started with the guardrails and the amount of security. Kind of talk to me about what the challenges are in making sure that if you're asking for information, you're the right person to be asking for that information. And if you're the wrong person asking for that information, how we manage those situations.

with respect to which one?

Queries, I mean, just in general.

Okay, so I'll start with the GUM AI side. So you have to be, you have to have a SandySpringsGA.gov address. That's all controlled by our security and single sign-on so You know in theory you can't get in if you're not an employee on the chat bot side, that's a little bit more open, but You know in the sense of like anybody that can hit our website, but that's no different than today But that bot has no access to any system It doesn't touch anything. It sits on the website, but it doesn't have any means to authenticate to the website, so it's not a backdoor. The Lucidity replacement, modernization, whatever you want to call it. That security part will be integrated into whatever we do next, which will be a significant upgrade over where we are today. It'll just be a more modern architecture, more modern security practices. I talked a little bit about it just a few moments ago with respect to how are we going to handle authenticated users versus potentially anonymous reporters. It may depend on the situation. So we are considering all of those things. Does that answer your question, sir?

Yeah, no, I get it. You've come a long way from where we were, and in talking to other cities, there are very few, in fact, I don't know of any that I've talked to are anywhere close to where we are today. So we're kind of in the avant-garde in this whole area, which is great. We always want to be the leader. We're working with a number of vendors who are also trying to figure all this stuff out.

Mm-hmm.

And as we serve as alpha and beta test sites, we're giving them a lot of free access, free training, free knowledge, free product development. As we go forward, we should look for opportunities to be part of the licensing process for these systems so that whatever they're making, whatever our contribution was toward the final product, the citizens of sandy springs get some compensation from that process uh... because we're we're providing a lot of intellectual capital to a lot of different vendors as we go through this process and i just want to make sure we're looking at opportunities to capture some value in that as well because they're going to take what they learned from us and go out and probably make billions over years uh... we we just like to make sure that our contribution is recognized not only from the credit point of view, but from the debit point of view, that we get the benefit of that where it's appropriate. So I just want to put that on the table. We've always been big on public-private partnerships here. This is a real opportunity to get back in a big way in that public-private partnership because there are going to be a lot of vendors taking these ideas and these processes and trying to go to other cities who are not as far along as we are and get them caught up.

So with that, anybody else? Mayor Paul, you raise an interesting question here. So who owns the system improvements that you're talking about the city essentially building to enhance what the current software provides? Who owns that improvement? Do we do or do they?

It's actually a combination. It depends on which system you're talking about. When we talk about, say, OpenGov, they own it because they're the ones developing the AI. We're helping them test it and ultimately take it to market, to your point. The stuff about the agentic AI, we built that, so we own it. We can share it with other cities. That's kind of our intent of, hey, here's our code. We'd like to help you out. If we take it to market, I don't think...

There's no free lunch out there, boys and girls. And that's something for legal to be involved with, too, if licensing agreements or whatever... are appropriate, then we need to have legal working with us in that area. Mr. Lee.

I'm just going to add an anecdote to the discussion, and I think the staff's done an incredible job of bringing this forward, and once you get the IT part up together, this is going to shock everybody, but the legal world and the bodies that make laws are way behind, and so it'll take a lot of catching up. On the issue of ownership, it's interesting in the city's world While the city has some intellectual capital, as you put it, contributing to this, generally in this discussion you have the mechanism for using it, which is the vendor, and then the data. The data turns out to be mostly public record that doesn't belong to the entity of the city but belongs to the public. So it's very, very hard to monetize that. What it appears that these kinds of contracts are doing is that the participant, in this case the city, retains or gains some repayment through the lessening of the cost of the process. That's the way that the city can be rewarded. In the brief history we've had in this field, has been rewarded. It's going to be very hard to monetize the ownership of public property. That data is unique. And the manipulation of it is the vendor's patent, generally. So that part's going to be very hard. And just to talk a second about how far behind the legal world is, the legal world is just now deciding what a copy is. Real quickly, when somebody thinks they've been wronged and they want the one that wronged them to preserve all the documentation, you get what's called an expoliation letter, and it says you keep everything related to this subject. That happened in a case out of Columbus, and the case went on, and they were taking a deposition, and it just so happens this defendant was a company that was moving, so they took all their paper, like a lot of companies have done and are continuing to do, and they turn it into an electronic file. And so in taking the deposition of the person who keeps those records, the question came up, I want to see such and such document. I have it right here. Where's the original? This is it. This is a copy that I retained. You don't have the original. And it is the only one left because it was preserved. So the courts are having to decide, is that the retention of the document that was requested? It's going to take a while before the legal world can address some of these very, very intellectual and complicated issues.

Well, to the extent that we can help them catch up, I'm all for it. Mr. Chinsky.

Does the Gov. AI model train on our data? No.

That's the nice part about having the enterprise license.

I figured, but I think that's an important part of figuring out how this is getting monetized as well.

Well, some of it, I mean, some of the things we're doing, the code we developed. So that has value. Yes. That's the part I'm interested in.

But we own that part? Yeah, we would own our code, or at least we should. This is the data to Dan's point. Yeah, that's public.

Well, the code, I mean... To my knowledge, there's no barrier to us copywriting our code. Already did. Okay, good, smart. Thank you. All right, Ms. Mueller, we'll wrap it up.

The question on the OpenGov, I guess I didn't realize we were writing code. So we're writing code as part of that?

No, we are not writing code.

Okay, so we are not writing code as part of the OpenGov?

Correct.

Okay. But we are working with them to understand the permitting process and how that should work and the flow and the documents. The data is ours. So I think part of the, because I know, this is back when I first started my career, we designed, payment systems with vendors. I mean, it was our data. They designed it. We had negotiated. It's a different world because it's private sector. Exclusive use of those for a period of time because we didn't want our competitors to get it. And then once that expired, we had the ability to get royalties for how much they, you know, I don't know how it was staggered if it was by transactional-based or by sales-based. because we helped them develop that nose for a period of time. So, I mean, they've done this to the mayor's point for a long time, and that popped into my head earlier when we were talking about this, and I think if we could do that, we should.

All right. Keith, thank you. Great work. Keep going. We're on the cutting edge, and we're ahead of most cities, and we want to stay there. Thank you. We'll do. Moving on to the transportation master plan. Ms. Westcott.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. We are at a great point at this moment to present a synopsis of the draft Transportation Master Plan. With me this evening is Dave Cox from Modern Mobility Partners. He served as the project manager and he will give you a brief timeline and process and draft recommendations. And just as a preface to all of this, we have uploaded the full version of the draft to the city's website today for viewing.

Dave?

Well, good evening. Good evening. Again, my name's Dave Cox with Modern Mobility Partners. It's a pleasure to be here in front of you again. If you recall, I was at your city council retreat back in February to give you an update on the master plan at that time. So I'm glad to be back. So real quickly, I'll go over the project schedule, go over the project goals that were set previously, give a high-level overview of our public engagement and our public outreach effort that I thought was very successful. go over the project list, some of the methodology that went into that, get into the ultimately recommendations of the plan, and briefly touch on some potential policy considerations to be considered moving forward before we get into the next steps and action items. So to just kind of recap, we've been at it for a good nine months now. We kicked off back in October and plan development has been active ever since. and we're ultimately working towards adoption likely later in the summer, probably next month in July. We also did a lot of community engagement right out of the gate starting in November, which we're gonna talk about here in a few minutes. We talked about it again at your council retreat, and we had a bunch of public outreach in the month of February. And right around that time is when the project recommendations really started to take shape as that kind of fed into your TSPLOS project list that you diligently worked on a couple months ago. And we're working towards adoption again next month. So I want to talk about the plan goals. A lot of these came from your previously adopted master plan from 2021. These are pretty common in most transportation planning documents. A lot of emphasis is put on efficiency and optimization. That's a clever way of talking about congestion relief. and also safety. Obviously with any local government, public safety is paramount, and those obviously were kind of the two main goals that fed a lot of the project scoring and weighting. But all these goals did have a component in those metrics. The only new one I want to point out was the beautification. That was kind of a priority of city council to work into different project elements. We have some weighting and scoring based on projects that had that element. So I want to talk about our public outreach. Again, we started with a farmers market pop-up event in November. We engaged with about nearly 60 residents. We continued with an online survey through the winter months. And then ultimately that fed into our public outreach, which we had three listening sessions or public meetings. And late in the month of February, we had them scattered around the city in three geographic zones, north, central, and south. And then we had our online feedback that carried on into the month of March. We had a great interaction with your communications staff, working with social media, and we got a few things posted in some of the local media. So to give you the results of the public outreach, we interacted with just over 170 people. Their primary focus when they looked at the goals, and we did kind of a waiting exercise, their primary focus was again on traffic relief, talking about that efficiency and optimization goal, and obviously safety, so that was not a surprise. We also asked them what were some of their alternative modes that they would like to use in addition to their vehicular, their modes, because that was obviously the most common was automobile travel, but we asked them what are some of those other methods you'd like to try more regularly, and that's what that pie chart there on the right shows. And it's no surprise, obviously, people want to get out of their cars and they kind of would like to do more walking, biking, and use transit. But we also asked them a follow-up question about, well, what is the biggest barrier to you pursuing that? And obviously, 60% of the respondents said feeling unsafe was the biggest barrier to doing so. You know it's that's a very common response because people do want to do these things They want to walk to the park that may be a quarter mile or half mile road or down from their house But there might be a barrier there could be a busy roadway or there might not be a crosswalk Or they don't have they don't feel safe getting their children there So obviously some of the priorities they gave us were safer roads more facilities more bike ped facilities sidewalks side paths and obviously expanded transit service So over those three public meetings we had in February, it was an open house style format. I think some of you attended. And it was really great because we got to talk one-on-one with the residents. We got to interact with them directly, get to hear some of their stories. And we also encouraged them to fill out comments, which we received almost 50 comments either in person at the event or online during the online comment period that went after those public meetings. And I've highlighted a few of the comments on the screen. I hope you can read them. We got a pretty good representation of those projects, everything from improvements on Riverside Drive to address the congestion there, to a lot of the access management issues you find along Roswell Road. With all the curb cuts or driveways, you have a lot of automobiles going in and out of all those at businesses between 285 and City Springs. And we also received a lot of comments about safety, a lot about mid-block crossings and there's a lack of crosswalks, especially in the northern part of the city across Roswell Road. So we took all that into account and ultimately those comments did feed into the project scoring. So I want to talk about that a little bit because what the plan is basically outlining is there's two five-year windows of projects. We first have a short-term five-year window and an additional five-year window to round out the full 10. That was kind of done to outline what's coming up over the next decade, but we also looked at how that ties into the T-SPOS program, which we kind of worked hand-in-hand with earlier in the spring. But we looked at not only the projects and what the needs are for the city, but one of the other things we have to be mindful of is the financial resources that go into that. We have to make sure that revenues don't exceed the projects that we're trying to identify. we call that financial constraint, to make sure that we can adequately cover the project cost over the next five to 10 years. And we also looked at what some of these project funding sources might be, whether it's a TSPLOST allocation, or it's from the city general fund, or there might be opportunities to pursue federal or state grant opportunities using external needs. And we also want to talk to your staff. That's something we want to make sure that they have the capacity to do these projects, and we know how they can output these different projects over that timeframe. Because many of these projects, as you know, cannot be done in two years. There can be multiple years of design, there could be right-of-way acquisition, property acquisition, utility relocation, and ultimately construction. So we want to make sure we're mindful of all these things as we develop a project list. So without further delay, here is kind of the highlights of the short-term project list. I want to point out the ID numbers there on the left. The COR stands for corridor, the INT or intersection improvements, and BP is bicycle and pedestrian. Now one important thing I want to point out with the corridor projects, those are not entirely inclusive just for automobiles or relieving congestion. They are intended to improve safety, A LOT OF THESE PROJECTS INCLUDE BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN IMPROVEMENTS AS FAR AS ON TOP OF WHAT THE IMPROVEMENTS ARE TO THE ROADWAY THEMSELVES. SO DON'T ASSUME THE CORRIDOR PROJECT IS EXCLUSIVELY TO BENEFIT CONGESTION. multiple benefits that will cover all modes of transportation. And you can see there's a pretty good array of projects all across the city. You'll probably recognize many of them from the TSPLOS campaign. There are a couple of new projects on there you may not be familiar with, I'll draw your attention to briefly. That would be Intersection 4, that's Nesbitt Ferry Road at Spalding over in the Panhandle, and also BP3, that's that little red line there just north of City Springs. It's a Sandy Springs Circle project between Johnson Ferry and Roswell Road. This next slide here basically outlines the estimated cost for those projects and what phases would be included with them. In the early window here, in the first five years, you're gonna see a lot of concept work. PE stands for Preliminary Engineering and Design. So you'll see a lot of that, if it's not outlined as all phases. The other thing I want to draw your attention to is the program buckets. You probably saw a lot of that during the TSPLOS discussion. They do have these program buckets of funds for these various programs. And one thing I do want to point out is this has been done in the past, but one of the new features for this time around was the mid-block crossing program that has $4 million allocated to pursue new mid-block crossings at various locations around the city. So that's really exciting to see. Moving on to the mid-term projects, this is the second five-year window, looking out towards 2036. You're going to see a lot of those same projects repeat, and that is primarily because in the second five-year window, that's when a lot of these projects will be getting geared up for construction. They might have been doing design or engineering early on, but the construction time will be rapidly approaching in that second five-year window. So we have a good, you'll see a lot of those projects repeat, and a couple new ones as well. The main new one is number eight, the Roswell Road, that's an access management project immediately south of Sandy Springs, or City Springs, excuse me, to get that started. And then again, here are the anticipated costs for the second tier. It is a little bit higher, or noticeably higher, mainly because you're dealing with construction, some right-of-way, and utility relocations, and that is far more costly than a lot of the engineering and design work in the earlier stage. So it is a little bit higher. And then lastly, I'll touch on this. We did look at some policy considerations, and I want to be clear, by adopting this plan, the council would not be adopting these new policies. This is mainly just to kind of get the ball rolling to get the discussion started on some new ideas to move forward with in the next couple years ahead. So a couple of things that we identified were the rideshare services. I know you're very familiar with Uber and Lyft and how they operate. But one thing that a lot of cities struggle with is the pickup and drop off of these persons or passengers. Sometimes it can be problematic to your local streets as they just kind of stop in the middle of the road. It causes a little bit of congestion and frustration. So there may be opportunities to modify your design standards to maybe help local developers as they implement new projects to install little parking spaces that aren't for traditional parking long-term, but just for allow the rideshare services to utilize them. This could also be beneficial with the rise of Waymo and the autonomous vehicles that you see down in Atlanta and Midtown and Buckhead. As they may work their way up here, you want to be prepared for that, so there may be some opportunities to get those in. We also want to talk about micro mobility vehicles. These are most commonly like shareable resources like bike shares or scooters that you might see down on the Beltline and in Atlanta. As far as I know, they are not relevant or prevalent here in the city of Sandy Springs yet. But to avoid the city being caught flat footed if they do show up one day, it'd be good just to kind of have some standards in place or to get the conversation started of what those rules should be, whether where they're allowed, how they're stored, If you want to work with the operator to do some kind of geofencing to make sure they're confined to certain areas of the city. That's mainly just to make sure that you don't have these scooters or any of these other type of vehicles, you know, cluttering up your sidewalks. They get disposed of or left off and they're kind of unsightly if they're not. kept up by the operator. So that's just one of the other policies we're considering. And then lastly, this has to do with the functional classification. This is apparently the way that cities classify their roadways based on their characteristics or traffic volumes. What's important is a lot of local cities maintain their own functional class system. That is in addition to what GDOT does. GDOT has a statewide system of functionally classified roads. And it's very common for the city and GDOT's functional classes to part ways or get further and further apart. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but one of the things we wanted to do is make sure that at least there's a reminder or some kind of routine schedule that staff go back and revisit that just to make sure that those two functional class networks aren't getting too far apart over time, which they tend to do. So this is not really a major change, it's just more of a reminder for staff to revisit that as needed. So that was a lot to cover. I do want to specify that we are not going to be adopting the plan likely until for at least another month. There's still plenty of time to provide questions and comments to the team or to staff. So we don't have to have all the questions answered tonight. So there's plenty of time for the council or the public to review the document that Kristen said was posted online over the next coming days and weeks. So there's lots of good time for additional feedback to be provided, and we can discuss that later. But I guess with that, it's on the website, and just for the audience, you can get to the website by visiting spr.gs.tmp. That's a nice short abbreviated address. I want to thank the staff and IT for setting that up. so you can get to the document very quickly and provide any comments or questions. So, Mr. Mayor, with that, I'll yield for questions.

All right. Let me give you a little bit of information that I received today. I don't know whether you've gotten this or not. I just got some information from ARC about changes to the TIP and the recommendations that they're taking to the ARC board. The Peachtree-Dunwoody Road Operational and Safety Improvement Concept Study is not going to be funded. From ARC, anyway. The federal side, yes, sir. The good news is that the concept study for Northside Drive operational safety and multimodal improvements are being recommended to be added to the TIP and funded. Two projects are recommended to go forward and be funded. The Roswell Road Northeast Boulevard project and the Roberts Drive Side Path Phase 1 project. are supposed to be voted on by ARC board. So generally, those things happen. So that can be plugged into whatever planning we're doing right now. Also, you talk about rideshare. We have challenges too with other types of like DoorDash. or UPS and FedEx just parking in the street, blocking traffic while they deliver packages. So we need to take a look at some of those things that are happening out there that create bottlenecks and problems and safety issues as you're trying to get around And I don't want to be picking on one of our hometown companies. If you're trying to get around that big brown truck that's parked in the middle of the street on a double yellow line, that creates a safety issue. So we need to be thinking about what are some alternatives that we can do to manage that a little bit better. Absolutely. So any other input from any other members of the council? Mr. Paulson.

When are you, Eden, when are you planning on bringing this back to us?

Based on my interpretation, we'll be back next month. But if there's some significant change or comments we need to sort out, we can talk about that. Ms. Ford.

Dave, thank you for the presentation. Could we please go back one slide? Yeah. So in looking at this map in my district, I see there are two streets that are marked as a major collector. And can you help me understand what is the implication of GDOT classifying those streets that way?

They're primarily based on traffic volumes and what the utility of the street is. So a major collector is just basically gathering, feeding the traffic from the residential neighborhoods, the subdivisions, and help feeding it into the larger roads that ultimately flow into Roswell Road or Georgia 400. So collectors generally, I'm not sure which district is yours. I apologize if it's the purple lines you said, the major collector.

Yeah, I'm in District 5 down below. And I guess the reason I'm asking the question is I've recently had neighbors tell me that the maps software is directing people through what they would consider neighborhood streets, which are the two that are marked here, as opposed to directing them, say, towards Roswell Road. So when I see this, I am wondering if we're... encouraging more traffic on neighborhood streets with these classifications.

So the navigation systems that route you, whether you're using Google Maps or another application, they have their own assignments for these roads and they also, if there's traffic or some kind of impedance to them, it will reroute you on different roadways. I know when, several years ago, when they had the I-85 bridge collapse, It was a major problem with all those in-town neighborhoods where people were getting rerouted due to all the closure of I-85. And it became very problematic. It was so bad, in fact, that residents were falsifying blockages in their neighborhood, like saying a tree was down when it wasn't, to get the nav systems to route their vehicles another way. But they have their own independent routing system. It's not directly tied to GDOT's functional class network.

Okay.

Thank you.

Ms. Mueller.

So now that I saw today that the plan is online, are we going to be doing any announcements to the public that it's there for their review?

I believe staff will be working with the comms department to get that online as soon as possible, if not already.

Yeah, it's there, but I guess to make sure people know it's there. And then the second question is, is there an opportunity for people to provide input, like online input, once they see that whole plan?

I believe they can contact us by email. I want to say there's an email address on the website that they can email the team to provide that information. I do not believe there's a comment card that was in a previous round of public engagement, but they can still get in contact with staff.

So I would ask that when we have this, um, communication announcing that it's available, that if people have comments that it's very clear that they know how to submit their comments. about the plan. I don't know if anything would change, but I think that that's something that we should offer to the public so that we have that before we adopt it. And then I just had a question on the project ID. So we had like the COR and the IT or INT or whatever it was. And are we changing how we're numbering our projects or was that specific to this? Because we already have project numbers. This is trying to reconcile that in my head. What's the cross reference of that?

Yes, that is a very good question. Uh, we did this as to be simplified and for this, this effort only so that it's not affecting your traditional project scoring.

It is not going to update what is in our budget. And to your point about communicating with the public, we wanted to bring this to council first. This is the kickoff and now we will go out and announce it to the public. So we wanted you all to hear it and be able to comment on it first.

Understood. I just want to, because I know in the past we've had online comment cards and I didn't know if that was available and if we're going to do email. People just need to know how to get their comments in. Okay, that was it. Thank you.

Dr. Kelly.

All right, thank you. I have a couple of questions. There's a part in the plan toward the end of it where you have this list and it's titled, I guess, aspirational projects.

Yes.

So if one... had an interest in advocating for some of these aspirational projects to be elevated or prioritized, would now be the time to advocate for that?

Absolutely. We'll take any feedback.

All right. Good to know. Also, I do get occasional feedback from the public around car dealership unloadings. along Roswell Road. I do get that occasionally. So to add to the mayor's list, I'd like for you to think about that. Is it customary for us to, similar to our comp plan, do small area transportation plans typically come out of this effort or this is it, right? This is the master plan.

We haven't done those previously.

Got it. Also, something I always ask about is the extent to which we're looking at data for projects that we have completed in the past six years. So has that been factored in in any way or considered or discussed in this master plan? In other words, how the improvements we've made have worked out for us?

We've only been looking for it. We haven't been looking back at return on investment or any of those impacts or benefits.

Okay. Is that outside of the scope of this work?

I know that is outside the scope, but that staff retains that knowledge, and they're usually aware of all those benefits or positives that resulted in those projects that help guide the future discussion of these new ones.

Okay, so I do, well, let me just state that I do have an interest in that information. I'm not sure what the appropriate form is to look at that, but we've made, just since I've been sitting here, quite a few improvements, and I think enough time has passed to see crash data and all that stuff. Those are my questions. Thank you, Mayor.

Anybody else? Mr. Chinsky.

So thanks for putting this together. It's really a lot of work. I was struck a little bit by how much of our planning seems to be towards car-oriented travel versus others. So I take your point that the corridor projects do not necessarily mean car only. But I'm going to go back and look at the larger plan and see if there's more detail on that. I'M HESITANT TO KEEP SPENDING SO MUCH ON CAR-ORIENTED TRAVEL THINKING IT'S GOING TO SOLVE THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM WHEN IT'S NOT GOING TO. I MEAN, WE HAVE TO PROVIDE PEOPLE OTHER WAYS TO GET AROUND AND ALSO HELP PEOPLE STOP DRIVING THROUGH SANDY SPRINGS AND INSTEAD EITHER WALK OR PARK HERE OR DO SOMETHING HERE. THAT'S MORE OF A COMMENT THAN A QUESTION, BUT I'M CURIOUS IF THE MASTER PLAN WILL REFLECT THAT. THE PLAN AND LOOKING AT THE PROJECTS LIST AND EVEN LOOKING AT THIS, LIST OF MINOR ARTERIALS AND MAJOR COLLECTORS. SO I REPRESENT DISTRICT SIX, WHICH IS IN THE SOUTHWEST PART OF THE CITY. AND WE HAVE THREE SCHOOLS THAT ARE LOCATED VERY CLOSE TOGETHER AND THAT ARE NOT MOVING ANYTIME SOON. WE HAVE RIVERWOOD HIGH SCHOOL AND HERDS FERRY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND HOLY INNOCENCE EPISCOPAL SCHOOL. AND IF YOU ARE ANYWHERE NEAR THOSE SCHOOLS IN MORNING CARPOOL OR AFTERNOON CARPOOL, IT IS A PARKING LOT. I HAVE SEEN MOUNTAIN VERNON BACKED UP FOR TWO MILES, QUITE LITERALLY. I don't see any projects in here that is going to address those issues. And my constituents are going to be asking about that. So is there something we can do, or is there some other program we can look at to address those concerns? Because I hear about that almost as much as I hear about anything else.

So we take it into account during traffic counts and peak hour traffic, which is usually from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., which would include a lot of that. Those micro events during arrival and dismissal are a little more difficult to forecast, but we do know they're a problem, and that's one thing we do take into account when looking at intersection improvements, especially over there near Riverside Drive, whether it may not be a full capacity project, but there could be operational improvements to help mitigate some of that.

I hear you. There are There are not any projects at the intersections that are causing the issues here. Understood. And I'm going to have a hard time approving a transportation plan that doesn't consider that, considering how many thousands of people are impacted by this five days a week, every week during the school year. I'm just going to throw that out there. The other, I don't want to call it critique, but give me pause. I was looking at the goals in the transportation plan. And I think there's something missing here. There's not a direct link that I'm seeing here between the transportation plan and some of the housing issues we're talking about. I think they're related. I mean, in the executive summary, you note that the plan, this transportation master plan is meant to support a growing community, but we've actually lost population in the last five years. And part of that is because it's really expensive to live here and we need to figure that out. And we're talking about that with our comprehensive plan in the next year. I would love to see one of our goals for our transportation plan to enable new housing to be built so that new families can move here and buy into Sandy Springs. What that's gonna look like a year from now, I don't think any of us know yet. That's one of the main topics in the comprehensive plan. But I would love to see some sort of flexibility to address that because Suppose we wanna consider more dense housing in downtown Sandy Springs, which is certainly one of the things I think we'll be looking at. Traffic planning and transportation planning has to go hand in hand with that or else traffic is gonna be very bad. But when done right, it can reduce traffic and create a nice walkable downtown area where people are living here. So I think those two things have to be married a little bit more than I'm seeing so far. That was my initial reaction.

No, I agree. I know some cities have approved housing projects that do not allow parking. It's just the residents, and there's no parking spaces for them. So either they have to park off-site, or it forces them to take other options. So there's a great example of that in Phoenix that did a new project like that for housing. So it may not work everywhere, but it's just an idea.

Any other discussion? All right, well, thank you very much. Thank you. And that will close our work session. Uh, I would like to call this meeting of the Sandy spring city council to order for Tuesday, June 16th, 2026 with the city clerk, please make the announcements and call the roll.

Good evening, mayor and council. Just a reminder, everyone, please continue to keep all those cell phones and other electronic devices on silent, uh, individuals who would like to provide a public comment at a city council meeting are required to complete and submit those public comment cards in advance of the meeting. Public comment cards are always available online and at the chamber entrance. Those providing public comment may be allotted up to three minutes to speak on their single chosen topic. As I call roll, please confirm your attendance. Mayor Rusty Paul.

Present.

Council Member John Paulson. Here. Council Member Melody Kelly. Present. Council Member Melissa Mueller. Here. Council Member Frank Roberts.

Here.

Council Member Mary Ford. Present. Council Member Andrew Chensky. Here.

Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. Madam Clark, have we received any public comment cards?

Yes, we've received one public comment card this evening. Mr. Theodore Davis.

Mr. Davis.

Good evening, Mayor and Council, Theodore Davis III, 272 Summer Drive. As it turns out, Councilman Chensky, my public comment actually centers tonight on the lack of affordable housing supply. Obviously, you're not the only council member who's raised concerns about this problem to say nothing about the public as a whole, which is why I want to briefly discuss a possible tool for the city's toolbox, pre-approved building plans. By having a varied group of designs carefully vetted by city staff, they allow a more streamlined process to gain houses built and improving the supply of housing available to the city, which leads to notable time and cost savings for both the city and developers. While it's not the most widespread practice, a number of cities and towns across the country have started going this route to kickstart development of a more affordable housing supply, ranging from the small town of Claremore, Oklahoma to the large city of Seattle, Washington. In the latter case, an analysis by Pew Charitable Trusts estimated that the program could avoid up to $30,000 in price increases per unit simply due to approval delays. Plus, we're not just talking about one singular style of housing either, as some of the designs used by cities can range from smaller homes that are ideal for young professionals or older couples looking to downsize, to medium ones that are perfect for family looking to settle down, and even infill options containing two to six residential units each to address the supply of multifamily units. Now, obviously the first question is whether or not this idea works, but the good news is that evidence suggests it does for those cities that have implemented it, as the Washington Post highlighted in an article published just yesterday. And in the spirit of budget night and funding, it's worth noting that the Bipartisan Housing Bill in Congress contains federal grants specifically aimed towards cities implementing this type of program, where the Senate agreed just within the past few hours to consider the bill this week. Of course, it's not a silver bullet since there will still be cases that require a more specialized approach. As Councilman Roberts will recall from the last Board of Appeals meeting, The case they discussed involved a property with unique terrain and environmental concerns, and it's hardly been the first case where those have been factors. Plus, there are also factors worth considering that are entirely outside of the city's control, as Mayor Paul noted in February's retreat when discussing interest rates and homeowners' willingness to relocate. However, as Councilman Paulson noted at the time, It's important to see what other cities have done to alleviate their affordable housing crises. I'd say this is as good of a program as any to see if it can be reasonably implemented here. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Davis. We'll close the public comment period.

Is there a motion to approve the meeting agenda? Mayor Paul. Mr. Paulson. I move approval of a meeting agenda for Tuesday, June 16, 2026.

Motion by Mr. Paulson. Is there a second? Second. Motion by Mr. Paulson, seconded by Mr. Roberts. That we approve the meeting agenda. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on the meeting agenda. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The meeting agenda is approved. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Mayor Powell.

Ms. Mueller.

I move that we approve the consent agenda for Tuesday, June 16th, 2026.

We have a motion by Ms. Mueller. Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Ms. Ford. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on the consent agenda. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The consent agenda is approved. Moving to public hearings, will the clerk please read the first item?

This is agenda item number 2026-165. Consideration of an ordinance to provide for the adoption of a budget, its execution in effect for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2027. This is the second and final public hearing presented by City Manager Eden. Ms. Freeman.

Thank you, Mayor and members of Council. Tonight, I am pleased to have before you our final proposed and recommended FY2027 budget for the City of Sandy Springs. This budget is the culmination of a more than six-month process that began in January of this year, with the direction provided by the Chief Financial Officer and myself to our departments. I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to thank Tony Carlyle, Kristen Byer-Smith, Michael Valheeter, Tonya Yarbrough, Keith Sanders, Caroline Galvin, and all of our department heads for their hard work in putting this document together. In many ways, this is, I hate to say, a bit of a labor of love for those of us who are budget nerds and local government nerds. but we're always happy to have this budget process come to a conclusion. This budget is based upon our charter established tax rate of 4.731 mills. There are no tax or fee increases that are included in this budget. It is a total budget of $1.089 billion. and a general fund of $170.3 million. It fully funds our operations for fiscal year 27 and supports the work of 664 employees who provide exemplary service to our residents every day. I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have.

All right. Do we have any public comment about the budget?

No.

All right, we will close the public hearing aspect, and is there a motion to approve the budget?

Mayor Paul. Mr. Paulson. I move approval of Agenda Item 2026-165, an ordinance to provide for the adoption of a budget execution in effect for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026, ending June 30, 2027.

I have a motion by Mr. Paulson. Is there a second?

I'll support.

Motion by Mr. Paulson, seconded by Dr. Kelly, that we approve agenda item 2026-165, an ordinance to provide for the adoption of a budget, its execution in effect for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on agenda item 2026-165, an ordinance providing for the adoption of a budget. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The item is approved. Moving to item B.

This is agenda item number 2026-166. Consideration of a resolution to adopt the 2025 Capital Improvements Element Annual Update. Presented by Planning and Zoning Manager Michelle McIntosh-Ross.

Ms. McIntosh-Ross.

Yes. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Today before you is a request to approve a resolution to adopt the Capital Improvement Element, the CIE, the annual update for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. At the April 21st, 2026 public hearing, you approve the resolution to transmit the City's draft capital improvement element, CIE, to the Regional Review, ARC and DCA. I am pleased to report that on May 15th, 2026, the Atlanta Regional Commission informed the city that the CIE was approved by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs with minor edits, which were incorporated in the documents before you. Given the minor edits, DCA noted that we can proceed with adopting the CIE update. Provided in your packet are the documents prepared in accordance with the development impact fee compliance requirements and reviewed by Georgia DCA and the Atlanta Regional Commission. Staff recommends that the mayor and city council approve this resolution to adopt the CIE annual update.

Madam Clerk, have we received any public comment cards? All right, we will close the public hearing. You've heard the report of the planning and zoning manager. What's the desire of council?

Mayor Paul.

Mr. Paulson.

I move approval of agenda item 2026-166, resolution to adopt the 2025 capital improvement element annual update.

Motion by Mr. Paulson. Is there a second? Motion by Mr. Paulson, seconded by Dr. Kelly, that we approve agenda item 2026-166, a resolution to adopt the 2025 capital improvements element, annual update. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on agenda item 2026-166, the resolution adopting the 2025 capital improvement element. All in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, no.

Thank you.

The item is approved. Moving to new business, the clerk will please read the first item.

This is agenda item number 2026-167, consideration of a resolution to approve the city of Sandy Springs general liability and other risk policies insurance renewal for FY 2027. Presented by Human Resources Director Liz Aubrey.

Ms. Aubrey.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here this evening to present with Partners Risk Services that they have conducted some market research and an inventory of our city assets and our liabilities and provided a proposal that is attached. Our overall recommendation for these policies will show for fiscal year 27, which is when all of our policies actually coincide, starting July 1st, an increase of premiums of 5.59%. These also do increase some of our deductibles though, so I do want to point that out. They will increase as well, but we are also seeing those trends experienced in our peer municipalities as well. This is not something that just us are experiencing. So I have Mike Royal here as well from Partners Risk Services. We've seen him before. And he's here to assist in answering any questions. But I do ask that you are kind because today is his birthday.

That makes him a special target.

It is. And thank you for the red velvet cupcakes. Those are my favorite. I appreciate it very much. Mayor Paul, members of the council, it's, again, good to be with you this year. And I do want to thank the staff, your professional staff that we work with all the time, Ms. Aubrey, Ms. Carlisle over there and City Manager Freeman and Mr. Lee and so many of the folks that are in your procurement department that we talk with regularly about your contracts.

You're the only person I've ever heard that enjoyed working with Mr. Lee, but go ahead.

Most of the time, most of the time. We don't have to talk often, thank goodness, because when we do it's usually something serious and to the point, as you know. We've got a very professional relationship and you have a professional staff. And I'll get to that in a second. That's one of the reasons why you're in better shape on retention and deductibles than many of your peers that either touch you or immediately surround you. But with that, I'll get in and I'll just hit a few of the high points and, again, be glad to answer any of your questions and speak with you. Because we did do a very extensive market search outside of our current folks that we work with. We talked to many different vendors, many different other municipalities, many different other people in the market. Because from the general liability perspective, it is very difficult. Your budget's over a billion dollars and you have more than 100,000 residents. So that does take, from a first dollar standpoint, where you are, many of the markets out because of your sheer size and complexity. But of the ones we have, we did get a very good response from them. And the deductible did move for general liability and automobile liability, which are the two biggest, two of your biggest risks from 25 to $100,000 this year. However, there are cities that are one third of your size that are very, very close to you that have deductibles of $250,000 or $500,000. one had to go self-insured this year not because they wanted to because they didn't have a choice so This is this is very favorable For a city of your size and and your risk profile Going down a lot of it did not change where a positive this year. We did change the property It did go from travelers to Chubb Chubb was very aggressive, wanting to take on the risk this year, and it did come with some benefits. I will point out that we did have some increase in premium, but we did also in the review and looking at the valuations of some of your buildings, reviewing some of the replacement costs that have really soared over the last few years, the building total values, our TIVs as we call it, did increase substantially. as well, but one of the major benefits from going to Chubb this year, too, is we eliminated your percentage deductible for wind and hail, i.e., a tornado from 2%. That has gone to a straight deductible of $25,000 this year, which for a building of this size could be a quite significant bill for the city and the taxpayers if anything did happen. Cyber insurance has continued to go down. It wasn't too many years ago. I stood before you and we were having trouble getting limits of cyber. That has changed because of the work that's been done. And as a risk management partner, I was really glad to hear your discussion on AI. Mayor Paul, you're right. Y'all are leading the way, but I would rather be leading the way than your head in the dirt, like some of them head in the sand, like some of your peers are doing. And I was really, really glad to hear some of the questions because being deliberate, thoughtful, precise, and taking your time to try to get it right, I believe, is the best way to go about it. And you are because that's a huge, huge challenge for everyone, not just municipalities and governments, but you have a lot at stake with some of the data you have in that. And I'm happy to say we do have some very good news on cyber as well. So there were some peaks and valleys, but overall the city is in very good shape, particularly with some things you can't do anything about it in your risk profile. You have 285 and 400 going through your district and your proximity to Atlanta. Those are challenges. And like I said, we did a very extensive dive this year with your staff. And I'm very proud of the work that's been done and what we have in front of you here tonight for your consideration. So with that, I'll be glad to take any questions.

All right. You've heard the report of the human resources director and our partner. What's the desire of council?

Mayor Paul. Mr. Paulson. I move approval of agenda 2026-167 resolution to approve the city of Sandy Springs general liability and other risk policies insurance renewal for 2027.

Motion by Mr. Paulson. Is there a second? Motion by Mr. Paulson, seconded by Mr. Chinsky. that we approve agenda item 2026-167, a resolution to approve the city of Sandy Springs general liability and other risk policies and insurance renewal for FY27. Any discussion?

Mayor Paulson. Mr. Paulson. All last year we talked about this, the case in Milton. Yes. Where they had the liability and the courts have finally ruled on that. So hopefully that's been settled. And that went into your evaluation of all this and the insurance company's evaluation of where we are with insurance?

Well, Mr. Paulson, I was about to be happy about three weeks or a month ago to report it has been settled, but now it has been reopened. A portion of that case is headed back to the Supreme Court. So we're almost there. I think the big part of it has been settled. They are going to look at, again, a small piece of it, which has reopened Pandora's box again. And we are watching that very, very closely. But, no, it has not been settled. It was, but it's being kicked back and it's been reopened.

Okay. Well, it's just a very narrow piece of it. But, Mr. Lee, you may want to comment.

It says we discussed earlier the Supreme Court took an extraordinary measure and sent one question back to the Court of Appeals because if you'll remember we went through the trial court in Fulton County to the Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court overturned the biggest problem we had and that was expanding the roadway which diminished the area of sovereign immunity. It's gone back to the Court of Appeals solely on the issue of whether or not a nuisance, there's enough evidence there for a nuisance which cities can be sued for but counties cannot. And there's always been a great debate of that. But that sole issue, I would point out that the Supreme Court's analysis of it indicated and the record indicates that there was no evidence presented that there was a nuisance. So I hesitate to call it a formality, but hopefully I don't think it should be an issue in our insurance next year. Yes.

Good. Well. That's actually where I was going with the question because the uncertainty was going to drive the insurance markets crazy. I'm glad we're mostly settled. And if this is the case, a 5% interest increase.

And another good thing that's come out recently is the tort reform legislation that has gone. I'm actually surprised at how quickly we are seeing a calming effect of the insurance marketplace with that.

Good. All right. Thank you. Any other discussions? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on agenda item 2026-167, a resolution to approve the City of Sandy Springs general liability and other risk policies insurance renewal for FY2027. All in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, no. The item is approved. The clerk will please read the next item. Thanks, Mr. Royal.

This is agenda item number 2026-168, consideration of a resolution to approve a renewal to the existing agreement with American Facilities, Inc., for housekeeping janitorial services and to authorize the same manager to execute the contract. Presented by Facilities Capital Construction and Building Operations Director, Dave Wells.

Mr. Wells. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Staff is requesting approval to renew city's agreement with American Facilities Service, AFS, for a citywide housekeeping janitorial services contract for the period of July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. Since January 2019, the city has used American Facilities Service for their housekeeping through a piggyback procurement based on the city of Alpharetta's competitively awarded contract. The city manager executed a five-month agreement in January 2019, followed by council's approval of a consolidated citywide contract in December of 2019, which remained in effect through June 30th, 2023. In 2023, Council approved a renewed annual contract for $461,436 for two additional one-year renewal options. AFS has provided housekeeping and janitorial services for the City since 2019 and has demonstrated consistent, high-quality service under its existing agreement. The City of Alpharetta contract was competitively procured REMAINS ACTIVE THROUGH JUNE 30, 2027, AND SUPPORTS THE CITY'S REQUESTED FY27 RENEWAL TERM. BASED ON AFS'S PERFORMANCE HISTORY, THE COMPETITIVE BASIS OF THE SOURCE CONTRACT, AND THE CITY'S ABILITY TO PIGGYBACK PROCUREMENT UNDER THE PURCHASING POLICY, STAFF FINDS THAT THE RENEWAL OF THE UPDATED CONSOLIDATED PROPOSAL IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CITY. STAFF RECOMMENDS THE COUNCIL APPROVE THE RENEWAL of the city's existing consolidated agreement with American Facilities Services for the citywide housekeeping and janitorial services for the renewal term beginning July 1st, 2026, and ending in June 30th, 2027, and to authorize the city manager to execute the contract renewal documents subject to approval by the city attorney and the chief financial officer.

You've heard the report of the director of facilities, capital construction, and building operations. What's the desire of council?

Mayor Paul.

Mr. Paulson.

I move approval of agenda item 2026-168, resolution to approve a renewal to the existing agreement with American Facilities, Inc. for housekeeping and janitorial services to authorize the city manager to execute the contract.

Motion by Mr. Paulson. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Motion by Mr. Paulson and Secretary Bemis-Ford that we approve Agenda Item 2026.168, a renewal to the existing agreement with American Facilities, Inc. for housekeeping and janitorial services. Any discussion? Mayor Paul. Mr. Paulson.

So this agreement without piggybacking on Alpharetta, that agreement ends next year, so will we go out independently for next year? We probably will. We're good with this, but will we go out on our own? Yes, Councilman Paulson. Good, thanks.

Tell you, those folks clean. If you're here, you're tripping over them. They're everywhere cleaning. I mean, it is amazing to see them work. They've done a phenomenal job. All right, any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on agenda item 2026.168, the resolution approving renewal of the existing agreement with American Facilities for Housekeeping and Janitorial Services. All in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, no. The item is approved. The clerk will please read the next item.

This is agenda item number 2026169, consideration of a resolution to approve change order three to the existing contract with Backbone Infrastructure LLC as it relates to the Brandon Mill sidewalk project, that's project number S2187, and to authorize the city manager to execute the revised contract documents. Presented by Public Works Director Marty Martin.

Mr. Martin. Mayor and Council, good evening. Tonight I bring forward to you the third and final change order for the now completed Brandon Mill Road Sidewalk Project S2187, as previously noted. A little history on the project. September of 2024, the city awarded an initial contract to Backbone Infrastructure at that time, the low bidder on the project, at $1,692,376 to construct the project. Since that time, there have been two previous change orders, Change Orders 1 and 2, associated with the project. One was to extend the time of the project by 90 calendar days, as well as additional provisions to allow for two-way traffic to be maintained on Brandon Mill Road, while a significant amount of undercut was required to construct one of the major retaining walls on Brandon Mill Road. So barrier installation was required for that, as well as additional traffic control and flagging to render all of that work. Change order two associated with this work included additional quantity to cover overages and paving items. This was a roadway repaving project to finish the repaving of Brandon Mill Road, as well as some additional quantity in Class B pavement to provide a sound and solid roadway base underneath what had been believed to be a roadway constructed on a gravel roadway base, but instead was found to be soil. So instead Class B widening was installed there in order to provide a solid foundation. This change order that I bring to you tonight looks for costs for two additional items. One is additional granite wall cap. And if you're familiar with our granite veneer walls that we construct throughout the city, there's a concrete core underneath those. However, we arrive at that concrete. In this case, one kind of wall we built on this was termed a turn-up sidewalk, where it's reinforced concrete for both the sidewalk and the vertical part of the wall, then granite cladding on the wall. And then in this area that needed a granite wall cap was our parapet walls that were also constructed as associated with that so that all walls had a consistent and complete finish when all is said and done within the neighborhood. That's an additional $20,000 as per the bid items that were used for the granite wall cap that was envisioned and contemplated in the project. This particular detail didn't have that cap displayed on it, and the desire was to have a consistent wall appearance throughout the neighborhood as we constructed all things in the project. The other was for additional Class B concrete pavement wadding, as I just discussed a moment ago, whereas we... anticipated having roadway base underneath some portions of pavement as we got to the edge of it. We actually had to saw cut, then remove the soil that was there to provide class B base to provide a sufficient foundation underneath the roadway. That amount for this change order three was some $9,570.60. With all that said, this change order three is totaled at $29,565.63. as the final change order for the Brandon Mill Sidewalk project.

You've heard the report of the public works director. What's the desire of council?

Mayor Paul.

Ms. Mueller.

I move that we approve agenda item 2026-169, a resolution to approve change order 3. to the existing contract with Backbone Infrastructure LLC as it relates to the Brandon Mill Road sidewalk project, project number S2187, and authorize the city manager to execute the revised contract documents.

Motion by Ms. Mueller. Is there a second?

Second.

Motion by Ms. Mueller, seconded by Dr. Kelly, that we approve agenda item 2026169 resolution for change order three to the existing contract with Backbone Infrastructure. Any discussion? Mr. Paulson.

Congratulations, young man. Hallelujah. This has been a long time coming, and we're glad it's finally finished. Thank you, sir.

I'll pass that on to the folks that truly made it happen.

And the people who've lived through it.

Yes, sir.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on agenda item 2026-169. approving a change order, change order three for the existing contract with backbone infrastructure, LLC related to the Brandon mill sidewalk project. All in favor of the motion say aye.

Aye.

Opposed. No. The item is approved. Maybe the next item.

This is agenda. I'm number 20, 26, one 70 consideration of a resolution to prove an intergovernmental intergovernmental agreement by and between the city of Sandy Springs, Georgia and Cobb County, Georgia. for the restriping of Powers Ferry Road at the Powers Ferry Road Bridge approach. This is presented by Public Works Director Marty Martin.

Mr. Martin. Mayor and Council, in this case, I bring an IGA before you tonight between the city and Cobb County, Georgia. And this is in reference to the Powers Ferry Road Bridge over the Chattahoochee River. This is immediately south of I-285 over the Chattahoochee River. In this case, a little background on... the need for this IGA and what this partnership brings us. In 2023, the city developed an updated roadway striping plan for Powers Ferry Road between the Chattahoochee River and Northside Drive, which was undertaken with roadway resurfacing work the city performed in April of 2024. The resulting striping removed one of the westbound lanes for one westbound through lanes and reallocated roadway space for bicycle lanes and left turn lanes at the time of that resurfacing and restriping back in 2024. The Powers Ferry Mobility and Implementation Plan recommended bike ped improvements on the bridge to better accommodate non-motorized travel on Powers Ferry Road. Now moving forward, Cobb County in partnership with the Georgia Department of Transportation has developed plans for the maintenance and repair of the roadway bridge. If you look at how bridges are assigned here in the area, Sandy Springs, for instance, has responsibility for the Johnson Ferry Bridge between the city and Cobb County. By contrast, both of the two bridges over the Chattahoochee here at 285 Cobb County has assigned those responsibilities in GDOT's master database. So Cobb ultimately has the maintenance. They get the bridge report, the bridge deficiency report, for example, that GDOT renders every two years. It's their burden. So with that in partnership with GDOT, there's a planned maintenance project that's expected to take place here within the next couple of months. M006531 Interstate North Parkway and Powers Ferry Road at two locations for rehabilitation of the bridge. As a part of that rehabilitation work, Cobb has proposed that the striping on the bridge this Powers Ferry Road bridge, be modified to reflect the striping that the city implemented back in 2024 at the westernmost end of Powers Ferry as it approaches the bridge, effectively taking the bridge from now three lanes through traffic down to the same two lanes that we've striped on our portion and using that additional space available on the bridge deck to create room for bike lanes and as well provide that much-needed space pedestrian space. You know, we have very narrow sidewalks on the bridge right now, but at least this now provides that separation space that's so important to pedestrians when they're trying to navigate a bridge like that as well to enhance safety and that overall comfort and perspective of the pedestrians out there. Cobb has proposed that they also add a new bicycle ramp from westbound Powers Ferry bicycle lane to its off-street shared use path Those of you familiar with the area will know that Cobb has made significant bike pad improvements just west of the river over on their side of Powers Ferry. The resulting roadway cross section would include two 5-foot bicycle lanes, two 11-foot vehicular lanes to accommodate that future vision and tie in to the city's work that the city's already done on. But there is just a few feet. of restriping within the city of Sandy Springs that needs to take place in order to render that transition. That few feet will cost a striping amount of some $3,177.40. So this IGA is the transmit or move over $3,000 plus to Cobb in the interest of them being able to stripe in Sandy Springs and render this improvement on the bridge in conjunction with the rehabilitation project.

You've heard the report of the public works director was the desire of council.

Mayor Paul. Mr. Chinsky. I move approval of agenda item 2026-170, a resolution to approve an intergovernmental agreement by and between the city of Sandy Springs, Georgia and Cobb County, Georgia, for the restriping of Powers Ferry Road at the Powers Ferry Road Bridge approach.

Motion by Mr. Chinsky. Is there a second?

Second.

I got it in stereo, so I'm going to go with Ms. Ford. All right, any discussion?

Mayor Paul. Mr. Chensky. So this is low cost but potentially high impact. I'm really excited to see this. For my colleagues who may not know, you can get from this building to the Battery completely on sidewalk except in two places. One is right outside of Arlington Cemetery where some of the graves encroach where there's not a sidewalk on the road. And the other is just to the west of this bridge There's a small section where you have to walk on the grass or try to cut across the road to get onto some of the paths by 285 that eventually go under to the Chattahoochee River area and connect to the battery. So my dream is for one day to be able for this all to be connected. But Marty, my question, is there going to be some other... We'd love to walk to you to a Braves game one of these days too.

I would love to. Looking forward to it. Yes.

Anyhow, sorry to depart from... No, please, or bike or what have you. Is there going to be any additional crosswalks or ways for pedestrians to get from the south side of this path to the north side trails? Or is there something we can ask Cobb County to do to add some extra sidewalk on their side of the line?

Well, for the south side, you pointed out, the transition they have intended right now is to shift the bike lane traffic. the westbound side, but on east side or sidewalk. None right now, but we can certainly continue to partner. This was, as you pointed out, a very low-cost, effective way to provide so much needed, much desired improvements over there. Maybe at some point it's a bigger and better improvement that we can render over there. We'll work for that day. So we can work with them and see what the possibilities are.

If there's some ability to add a crosswalk that lights up when people walk across or some way for residents because because our residents who are walking across this bridge to go to the river like hundreds of them um one river place is a huge condominium complex and townhome complex that is down the block so if there's some way that we can have them be able to safely get to the north side of the street and i would i would love to and hats off to kristen west gotten go ahead did you have that i didn't see it but Okay, that would be tremendous. Keep me posted on that because I have a few hundred people who would love to know that.

But again, back to an earlier striping plan that Kristen and her team had developed and the persuasive way she has at times, she's been able to get some allies here and help us out with this. Thank you.

Mr. Martin, I assume that the work will not do anything to the bridge itself. Is that correct?

The work is truly maintenance and repair. It's refurbishment.

It's just updating and making sure that it remains structurally sound.

Yes, sir.

And then striping. But there's no plan to widen or replace?

Not in this particular project. No, sir. All right. Thank you. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question is on Agenda Item 2026-171, a resolution approving contract award to – no, I'm on the wrong one. I'm sorry. I jumped ahead, didn't I? Aha! A resolution to approve an intergovernmental agreement by and between the City of Sandy Springs, Georgia, and Cobb County, Georgia, for striping of Powers Ferry Road at Powers Ferry Road Bridge approach. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. It is approved. Clerk, will please read next item.

Agenda item number 2026-171. Consideration of a resolution to approve contract award to Gracie Gray Contractors, Inc. for guardrail with replacement and maintenance services and authorizing city manager to execute a contract. Presented by Public Works Director Marty Martin.

Mr. Martin. Mayor and Council, I bring before you tonight a contract award recommendation to Gracie Gray Contractors for the guardrail replacement and maintenance services contract with the City of Sandy Springs. And I authorize, please, the city manager to execute this contract with Gracie Gray. March 21, the city engaged an engineering firm to develop plans for replacement of guardrail that does not meet current Georgia Department of Transportation standards in multiple locations throughout the city. Following that effort, the city initiated a guardrail replacement program to address the identified deficiencies. Initial construction work was completed under a prior contract. However, nine locations remained that required upgrades to meet those current GDOT standards, as well as areas needed some additional work in terms of engineering, right of way, support, those kinds of things before they could be ready to execute. To continue this effort, the city issued a new ITB invitation to bid to establish a contract for guardrail replacement maintenance services. This contract will support the completion of those remaining nine locations, identified in the original engineering plans, and as well provide ongoing citywide guardrail maintenance and repair services over a five-year term. On February 2026, the city issued an invitation to bid, seeking bids from qualified contractors. On April 1st, 2026, the city received the following two bids, one from Gracie Gray Contractors, the low and successful bidder in this case, at $951,063.40, and another from Reynolds Fence and Guardrail Incorporated at $1,445,473.80. Staff evaluated those bids and determined that Gracie Gray provided the lowest responsive and responsible bid to the city, and with that, staff recommends award of this contract to Gracie Gray Contractors, in the amount of $951,063.40. The city has previously used Gracie Gray contractors successfully in guardrail maintenance and repair work throughout the city.

You've heard the report of the Public Works Director. What's the desire of council?

Mayor Paul.

Ms. Ford.

Move that we approve agenda item 2026-171, a resolution to approve contract award to Gracie Gray Contractors for guardrail replacement and maintenance services and authorizing the city manager to execute a contract.

Motion by Ms. Ford. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Roberts. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question is on agenda item 2026-171, a resolution approving contract award to Gracie Gray Contractors for guardrail replacement and maintenance. All in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, no. The item is approved. The clerk will please read the next item.

This is agenda item number 2026-172, consideration of a resolution to approve submission of an application to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, FY 2026, technology and equipment program for the chat com backup 911 emergency communication center project and to authorize the city manager to execute the grant agreement. This is presented by SSPD Major Forrest Bohannon.

Major Bohannon.

Mayor, members of council, good evening. This agenda item asks for your approval to submit a grant application to the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office Technology and Equipment Program FOR THE CHATCOM BACKUP 911 COMMUNICATION CENTER PROJECT. THANKS TO REPRESENTATIVES MCCORMICK AND MCBATH, THE CITY WAS ALREADY APPROVED FOR A LITTLE OVER $3 MILLION THROUGH THE CONGRESSIONAL DIRECTED SPENDING PROCESS, AND THIS COPS GRANT APPLICATION IS THE REQUIRED MECHANISM TO RECEIVE THOSE FUNDS. THERE IS NO LOCAL MATCH REQUIRED, ALTHOUGH THE CITY WILL PROVIDE STAFF RESOURCES TO SUPPORT PROJECT MANAGEMENT implementation and the ongoing operation of the facility staff recommend your approval tonight for the submission of an application to the U S department of justice cops office and authorize the city manager to execute the grant agreement.

You've heard the report of major Bohannon.

What's the desire of council mayor Paul, Mr. Roberts on agenda item 2026 dash one 72. I'll make a motion to approve this. Submission of an application to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, FY 2026 Technology and Equipment Program for the CHATCOM Backup 911 Emergency Communications Center Project, and to authorize the city manager to execute the grant agreement.

I have a motion by Mr. Roberts. Is there a second? I'll second. Motion by Mr. Roberts, seconded by Dr. Kelly. that we approve agenda item 2026-172, submission of an application to the U.S. Department of Justice Community-Oriented Policing Services Technology and Equipment Program for the CHATCOM Backup 911 Emergency Communications Center. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. Well, I take a breath in reading that whole sentence. All in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, no. You knew what you were voting on. I wasn't about to try that again. All right, the clerk will please read the next item.

This is agenda item number 2026-173, consideration to approve an intergovernmental agreement by and between the city of Sandy Springs, Georgia, and the city of Alpharetta, Georgia, to board and provide for the housing of inmates at the Alpharetta jail and to authorize the mayor to execute the same. Presented by SSPD Major Norman Vick.

Major Vick. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council. The agreement in front of you is going to be between the city of Sandy Springs and the city of Alpharetta, for jail services. Previous to this, we used the city of Smyrna for jail services. They have since shut down their jail, which required us to seek out new accommodations for our inmates. Alpharetta has come up with terms that we believe are going to be good for both cities. The contract would start July 1, of this year and go through june twenty uh... twenty twenty nine to three-year agreement that would renew every year uh... and then each agency would have the ability to cancel that contract with ninety days notice In the agreement, Alpharetta is going to provide 24-7 staffing. They're going to handle all the booking, housing for all of our inmates and make sure that inmates are food and sheltered and have proper clothing. Sandy Springs will be required to do the transports to and from Alpharetta for courts, booking. We also make sure that we're in compliance with first appearance through our city clerks or our court clerk's office. They will also make sure inmates are taken care of medically if there's any on-site issues, anything that can't be handled on-site, they would transport to a medical facility, presumably Northside Hospital. If it's anything emergent, they would take them to the closest facility, which is going to be North Fulton Hospital. As I previously said, we were using the city of Smyrna for our short-term housing and then Lumpkin County for our extended housing. We're going to continue to use Lumpkin County, but we would ask that you approve Alpharetta for us to move forward with our short-term housing for arrestees. Another contract that we had looked at or proposed proposal was Cherokee County, which you can see by the numbers are going to not be as well as Alpharetta's numbers. Some other contracts that we have seen or agreements that we have seen with other cities that we've reached out to, Roswell and Cherokee County, again, looking at those numbers compared to our cost per inmate per day, which on average we have 13 inmates, both of those were going to be more costly than looking at the city of Alpharetta. So with that, staff recommends that we move forward with the agreement with the city of Alpharetta. That way we have a place to house any individual that may need to be taken into custody by the city of Sandy Springs.

You've heard the report of the police major. What's the desire of counsel?

Mayor Paul.

Mr. Paulson.

Move approval of agenda of 2026, one 73 resolution to approve an intergovernmental agreement by and between city of Sandy Springs, Georgia, and the city of Alfreda, Georgia to board and provide board and provide for the housing of inmates at the Alfreda jail and authorized mayor to execute same motion by Mr. Paulson.

Is there a second second motion by Mr. Paulson, seconded by Mr. Roberts that we approve agenda item 2026, one 73. Approve an intergovernmental agreement by and between the City of Sandy Springs and the City of Alpharetta to board and provide for the housing of inmates at the Alpharetta Jail. Any discussion? I'm glad we got a good solution to this. Any other discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question is on Agenda Item 2026-173, a resolution approving an intergovernmental agreement with the city of Sandy Springs and the city of Alpharetta to board and provide for housing of inmates at the Alpharetta jail. All in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, no. The item is approved. Clerk will please read the next item. Thank you.

This is agenda item number 2026-174, consideration of a resolution to approve the First Amendment to Red Speed Agreement for the Automated Traffic Enforcement Safety Device Program for School Zone Speed Enforcement. This is presented by SSPD Major Michael Lindstrom.

Major Lindstrom. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here to recommend the approval for the First Amendment to Red Speed, the agreement for the automated traffic enforcement safety device program for school zone speed enforcement. Initially, we began this endeavor in 2021 with the relationship to end in 2022. And we had four additional renewals, which brings us to this point. As some of you have alluded to earlier this evening, one of the biggest problems in our city is traffic. Which spills over into the police department at times what red speed has been able to do for us is give us another tool to allow speed enforcement Specifically in school zones to help us with the safety in those areas and allow our officers to go on to other areas To do the speed enforcement there so we're asking for this new contract or the new amendment rather to begin July 1st and go through the following year. As you can see from the statistics, we are showing a great improvement in the adherence to the speed in those particular areas. However, one concern is that we do still have some people traveling up and around 60 miles per hour in those school zones. So it is something that we would like to continue on in the upcoming years. We also notice that many of our Violators are people from outside of the city and that we're not getting too many people to Contest the citations so we're noticing that people are Accepting or understanding the fact that they are in violation of those Speed infractions within those school zones if you want to go to the next from this bar graph you can you can clearly see that throughout the Months as we approach current time Many of the citations have lowered so it shows that people are starting to adhere and slow down in those school school zones Which is our goal? Going next this is some of the The citations that have been paid and the revenue that's associated with it, this is the total revenue that's received. So as you know, Red Speed, the company that we utilize, does get a portion of that. But it's certainly not our goal in this endeavor that we're having safety in the school zones as our first priority. So some of the amendment details, we're going to extend the agreement for one renewal period and continue on for additional three-year options to renewal next year, 30-day notice of termination. Red Speed does take on a lot of the responsibility as far as the equipment and doing the work that's required with the signage and the additional requests that we've had. So bottom line here is that it's working. The citations that have been issued out, we don't have a lot of contested to that and what we'd like to continue is this in the schools. In fact, we've had a couple additional requests at other area schools. So it is something that people are considering as an additional tool that we could utilize throughout the city.

All right, you've heard the report of the police major. What's the desire of counsel?

Mayor Paul.

Ms. Ford.

I move that we approve Agenda Item 2026-174, a resolution to approve the First Amendment to Red Speed Agreement for the Automated Traffic Enforcement Safety Device Program for School Zone Speed Enforcement.

Motion by Ms. Ford. Is there a second? Second.

Second.

Motion by Ms. Ford, seconded by Mr. Paulson, that we approve Agenda Item 2026-174, the First Amendment to Red Speed Agreement for the Automated Traffic Enforcement Safety Device Program. Any discussion?

Mayor Paul.

Ms. Ford.

Safety is one of the top priorities for our city, and all of us up here hear feedback from our constituents about their concerns regarding the amount of speeding that happens. The data behind this program shows that it's effective for reducing speeding and increasing safety, so thank you for supporting it.

Thank you. Any other discussion? Mr. Paulson. Thank you. In a perfect world, I'd like us to not receive any dollars from this because nobody's speeding. Hopefully we can move towards that goal, whether we're ever going to get to zero, I doubt it. But the more we can do to work it down makes everybody safer. I'm in favor of this. Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Dr. Kelly.

All right, guys. So I... I'm gonna be voting against this renewal, this contract renewal tonight. I wanna make a few things clear and kinda explain where I am on this for the public and my colleagues of course. I do value really any measures or most measures to protect vulnerable pedestrians. We started this exercise I guess March of last year I perceived it to be sort of a pilot, and so over the past year, I have developed a negative opinion around automatic ticketing in general. I cannot subscribe to the notion that because it works, it is the right mechanism. I think of an analogy like You can kill a bug with a sledgehammer. It works. It's effective. But it's also blunt. And in my opinion, automatic ticketing is a blunt instrument. It relies, to my taste, a bit too heavily on punishment. This notion of penalizing drivers after the fact, instead of actual prevention. I'm just not convinced that the measures, traffic calming and other law enforcement measures, that we take to address speeding in every other part of the city cannot work in these school areas. I've also developed a skepticism that deterrents tied to profit models are effective in the long term. So, for example, Councilman Paulson, you mentioned one day getting to zero. If we get to zero, we will no longer have the cameras because there will no longer be profit to support having the cameras. And so then, guess what? We're back in this cycle again. We remove the cameras, speeding starts, we start the cameras. I mean, it's just not, it doesn't, To me, it just doesn't work long-term if our aspiration is to get to zero or very, very, very little speed. And there seems to be an inherent tug to me of that. Let me ask you a question, Major. You showed us some numbers. I think it was like $600,000 we've made so far off tickets. Do you know the number that we would make if all the tickets were actually paid? I think we had a presentation.

Yeah, we'd have to get some updated numbers, but we could find that out. It's There's a number of different factors that come in. People that have been cited once and cited again, and now we're at the point in the program where we haven't even done this, but forwarding the information to the state for the suspension of the registrations. So we haven't even done that. But yeah, we could find that out. it's just breaking down a lot of different numbers that we would have to get from red speed and re and from court and who's paid and, and who's still delinquent. It's not like the difference between this and saying, running, running laser, or, you know, we talked about this. I think the first time I presented, if we went out there with, with our traffic officers and run laser, we could cite someone for going one mile per hour, the speed limit in the school zone. And then it amounts to a certain number of points on your license. And then if someone doesn't pay those tickets, we could go out and get and pull them out of their house or whatever for failure to appear at warrants. What this has been able to do is a lot of that without putting points on licenses. All our goal is just to try to get people to slow down in the area. That's it. Really, I understand your point. Absolutely. Absolutely understand your point. We've done a number of education classes within our police department over the 20 years that we've been in existence. We, if you notice on our social media, We try to do something every week on traffic enforcement, and it still doesn't work. So this was just another tool that came to our attention four years ago, four or five years ago, where we could utilize this just to get people to slow down in school zones, which was hugely important to us. And then it allowed our officers to get out there on 400 and 285, which Mr. Roberts alluded to last time we spoke that is hugely dangerous as well, trying to get out after speeders. So I don't know if I answered your question.

Yeah. And Madam City Manager, it looks like you were about to chime in also.

I was going to clarify on that slide, the city has not received $604,000. Caroline, if you can go to slide four, please. There at the bottom, there's the footnote. The contract with Red Speed is that 65% is received by the city and 35% is kept by the contract, by Red Speed. So the bottom line is we've received around $393,000. Yeah.

Okay, so workshop, I think it was budget workshop two, where I think toward the end of the presentation, we had questions and you addressed them. One of them was related to this. One of those slides had something to the effect of over a million dollars. worth of tickets issued this is the most current that has been paid so we'll have to find out what that latest issue right to the major's point but i remember seeing essentially over a million dollars of tickets issued and that's for two high schools so here's my next point and i'll I'll wrap up in just a second. What's next? I mean, my understanding is we have two private schools now in conversation. And I know that there's a mechanism to vet whether they can get cameras. But I guess theoretically, any school that qualifies can have these cameras, I guess.

Correct. The law changed this year. Prior to that, we needed the approval from the school, which kind of was the delay, if you think about it. 2021 was when we started this agreement. We were unable to get started until you said in March of 2025 because of our laboring to get the Fulton County school system to sign off and give us permission to utilize this program in their areas, in the school. So we got permission from Fulton County Schools. We never attempted to go anywhere else. And frankly, I don't, it's just another, like I said, it's a tool to be utilized. We haven't done any research to say which school would be the next one, but we do get constant requests complaints or concerns in these school areas. And we know that this tool is available. It's not like we want to go down there because of generating revenue. That's not our goal. Our goal is just to make sure that these areas are safe.

So what is our plan for how will we approach expansion? So, for example, two schools have already reached out. I guess you'll talk to them. You'll do some measurements.

Yeah, that's exactly right. We will do similar. What we did with red speed in the beginning to determine, excuse me, to determine that North Springs and Riverwood were the actual schools that we wanted to utilize. We did an extensive study with Red Speed to find out where were the most infractions taking place during those times when school was in session. And that's what we identified as the two schools. That's the only reason why, because those were the schools with the biggest amount of violators, for lack of a different way to explain it.

Okay, so I'll be keeping – I will have – I take an interest in the way we expand and how quickly we do it. So I'm just putting that out there. All right, so now let me go to the positives. So here's the great thing. July 1st of 2026, we have a new state law that will – and I just want to confirm this and put it on the record – it will – require us to only enforce an hour before and an hour after school. Is that correct? Do I understand that? Nope. Okay.

But that is what we're doing though. That's what you guys have discussed.

Yes, but it requires an ordinance from the city to set the hours of the operation.

Okay. And That's not this. So we're going to have a second piece of business at some point. Okay, cool. So our plan is to, and I'm asking my colleagues who are going to approve this is to only enforce an hour before and an hour after school. I do understand that much from, from us. Correct. That is the plan.

Madam councillor, Dr. Kelly, that would be an inappropriate question since there's nothing before the body at this time. And that's not a germane issue. for the subject that we're discussing.

Oh, okay. So we're discussing renewing the contract for the speed cameras.

Right, but asking them what they may do in the future would be inappropriate at this point. Because there's nothing before them at this point about the future. The only thing that we can discuss right now is the motion on the floor.

Okay, so the contract then... has nothing to do with the hours of enforcement.

No, that would be totally separate. That's a totally separate issue and not relevant to the item on the floor today.

Okay, because it seems like it would be a material interest to their bottom line.

It could be a matter of interest, but not necessarily debate right now.

Okay, so then in that case, allow me to encourage my colleagues to at the very least, you know, let's go an hour before, an hour after, and have the lights on at all times. I think that's a requirement. And also, I want to lastly say that I now recognize that the referendum piece won't be required until 2027. I would love for us to get that question on the ballot as soon as we are able to. And if there's a question of cost, I would hope that we would at least think about the amount of money that we make off of off of these cameras and factor that in somehow. I am complete. Thank you.

All right. Any other discussion?

May I clarify something?

Mr. Lee.

One of the purposes of this amendment is to try and match what we do with Red Speed and how the police department and their expertise believe that we need to enforce traffic laws in Sandy Springs. And as you know, and I think most of the council has been keeping up with the idea that Legislature has been, I'm trying to say it in a respectful way, all over the map in what they're going to do, will do, want to do, have been pressured to do about how to use the evidence from these cameras. And two things I always want to point out. Number one is that historically in Georgia, since we invented speed limits, the speed limit in a school zone, designated school zone, has always been lower, always. The second thing is the radar that the police use in their cars is licensed by the state. With that license comes a book of rules with which they must comply. One of them is you can't use it and charge a ticket under 10 miles an hour unless you're in a school zone. With this law, that is relaxed. So with all due respect, Councilperson Kelly, I disagree with you. This is much lighter on the driver. It is not a blunt instrument. It is much lighter. It is a civil action that is an attempt to limit the speed in these delicate areas. Two other things. And checking the status on the screen up there is all telling. More telling is of the challenges, and that number falls in that 191 category, 17 have been found to be unfounded. 17 out of almost 13,000 unheard of in this business of policing anything. of the traffic stops in Sandy Springs, our police department, a little known fact, of the traffic stops, about 41% result in a warning. That's an incredible stat, which I would challenge to be found anywhere. I think those facts apply themselves to this contract. Lastly, Mayor, and I appreciate this, this is just the contract with Red Speed, and And it gets a little confusing about what is our deal with red speed versus what is controlled by the statute. And the statute controls the authority of the city, which includes the hours of operation. And there's been some contest in the previous law, but come July 1, the city, that'd be the council, can decide what hours these cameras will be operated. And that's something you'll have to do after July 1 or you will have the authority to do after July 1. Thank you.

All right, Ms. Mueller.

So based on the discussion, I just have a couple clarifications. So if we approve this tonight. Based on the structure for the renewal, when would we be required under the new law to have a voter referendum? Is it 2027 or would it be?

You will not be required to have a voter referendum unless you create a new contract after July 1st.

But, I mean, so this is going to be a three-year with a renewal, right?

If after the three years you want. a new contract, then you will have to take it to a voter referendum.

So to sign a new one and create a new one, that's that point in time. So three years from now, we would be required, assuming no other changes from the legislature.

Yes, unless you terminate it. And there was a typo there, 60 days. The city has abilities to, within 60 days, terminate the contract. If you were to terminate it and then go a year, heaven forbid you change your mind, you would... That was a light comment I was making. Nobody got it. If you changed it and wanted to go back to it, you'd have to go to a referendum because you ended the contract.

And then if the discussion about adding schools, do we have to amend the contract or is that covered based on what's already there?

It's covered in the contract already, but under the city policy, city charter, you would determine if the police department came back to you and said, We need to, for these reasons, we need to add these schools. The decision would be with the council.

Okay, but we wouldn't have to change the contract. The contract would cover that if we were to decide to do that. And then based on the earlier discussion when we had the work session on AI, is there any, I believe that when I look this up, the cameras are not operating outside of the time they're set up to operate. but from a security standpoint, how is there, do we know if the data, where it's stored, is it encrypted, do they have hacking, I mean, I don't know, prevention, do we know anything about that?

Yeah, it's flock cameras, and it's like all the other flock cameras that we have in the city, so it's, I don't know how the security of it is, but it's our data, and it's there for 60 days.

Okay. So, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know how to answer that because I'm not just, we talked about data security and that just popped into my head as we were going through this. Can I speak to that?

Please. Then they do not keep the data after the use of it in court and make this, this is a point to be made to all the AI discussions in our, in our rules of justice. There is no AI conviction. Even in these cases, every single one of them is reviewed by an officer. Under our rules of justice in Georgia, that produces probable cause to believe that the person that had the tag number violated the speed. That notice is given to the violator. The violator, under the due process rules, has a right to challenge it. 191 of them have. 17 of them prevailed. 13,000 of them did not. challenge it. So AI is wonderful, but it will, it won't have a part in deciding who's guilty and who's innocent.

And to that point, uh, to Mr. Lee's point, uh, when officers are in doubt, it's, it's a, it's, we don't go forward with it. It's thrown out, so to speak.

Mr. Paulson. Thank you, Mayor Paul. So a couple of clarifications. I was being a bit facetious, the idea that we're going to go to zero. Your comment was when we finally get to zero, we remove the cameras, everybody starts speeding again. I'm not too sure that's going to happen, but we're never going to get to zero anyway. The point of this is if we can reduce speeding in the area, then that makes it worthwhile, and it appears that that's what it's doing. Number two, where does this money go, this $393,000 that we're getting here? What can we spend it on?

It can only be used for law enforcement purposes.

Okay.

But we have already been applying that logic that it can only be used for law enforcement purposes, and we've limited it to be for equipment, not for personnel, because we believe that personnel should be funded from our general revenue sources.

Okay. All right. And then I guess the final one is we have – How many license plate readers in Sandy Springs?

200, 200? It's probably closer to 300, 400.

So one of the benefits of license plate readers is if you have a bad guy with a bad plate drive through and an LPR picks him up and notifies the police, and the police go chasing after the guy because they know where he just was a few minutes ago. These are license plate reader cameras. So do they read license plates? All the time, just like every other LPR.

Yes, sir, just like every other LPR.

So if you've got a crook going through here with a bad play at 2 in the morning, he's going to get flagged.

Correct. Another important reason why it's important to have them in school zones because you certainly don't want bad behavior or people responsible for bad behavior or a missing person or anything like that in those areas if they, If they are, the license plate reader will pick it up and alert our officers, and they're always getting alerted to those things.

Perfect. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chansky.

Quick note for both you, Michael, and also the city attorney. So Section 3 of the terms and conditions of the contract applies to the size of signs, and it says the parties shall work together in good faith to increase the size of all required street signs, and obtain any permits or approvals, if any, for such increase. One comment I've gotten from some of my constituents, which I think is legitimate because I've experienced it myself, is that some of the signs can be hard to see, particularly depending on the time of year where the sun may shift its angle and sort of blind the driver. And I'm talking more specifically about the ones at Riverwood. So I would love to look into that and make sure that the signs are visible. because I think they make a difference, particularly if we're thinking about new schools. I think it's appropriate to give fair warning to drivers. And so let's make sure that the signs are fair and visible to the drivers.

That was one of the conversations we've had in detail with Red Speed to improve our signage to go above and beyond.

Up to and including additional signs, as you mentioned, giving prior warning that you're about to approach the area where the cameras are being used. Red Speed has a local attorney who happens to be the Brookhaven City Attorney and has heard the similar as I have. The only complaints I've had from those that would be innocent and those that acknowledge they were speeding is that if they'd have known sooner or better, they would not have done it. So the signage is a perfect way of addressing this.

Mr. Roberts. Well, the whole thing behind this agenda item is the safety of the children. It doesn't have anything to do with the people who are driving the cars. other than the fact that they're violating the law. And as one who's actually worked a fatality on a 10-year-old boy who was hit by a driver that was in a hurry and killed, of course, I'm for these cameras in the school zone, in every school we've got in the city, if it's an hour before and an hour after. I would like to call for the previous question and get on with the vote.

All right. We have a motion for a previous question. Is there a second for the previous question?

I second.

All right. We have a motion second with the previous question. All in favor calling the previous question. Say aye.

Aye.

Opposed. No. Okay. The matter on the floor is the, uh, agenda item 20, 26, one 74. a resolution to approve the First Amendment to Red Speed Agreement for the Automated Traffic Enforcement Safety Device Program. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

No.

The item is approved. Moving to council and mayor reports. I talked earlier about one of the reports, which I thought was some news that we got from ARC about the bad news is the Peachtree-Dunwoody Road Operational Safety Improvement Concept Study is not recommended for funding by the ARC staff, but The recommendation is that the board approve the concept study for Northside Drive operational safety and multimodal improvements, and also to fund the Roswell Road Northeast Boulevard project, and also the Roberts Drive side path phase one project. So that will be coming before the ARC board very soon, and those are projects that we've been working on for some time to be able to get approved in our area. Also, does anybody notice... We've got a soccer tournament going on around the world. I'm getting five or six games a day at my house because I've got a big soccer fan that spends a lot of time there. We were approved as a licensed viewing center for the tournament. And we had been planning for a long time and then didn't think we were going to get the license, so we sent all the equipment back. So we're scrambling to get it back here now so that we can have some viewing. The city bar is ready to go, and we can do viewing there. But anyway, we've got some free public watch parties going on Sunday, June 28th at 3 p.m., Saturday, July 11th at 5 p.m., Saturday, July 18th at 5 p.m., and Sunday, July 19th at 3 p.m., And as we said, the city bar and cafe patio will transform into the Visit Sandy Springs Clubhouse on every city green watch party date. And there'll be open air viewing space will contain a fan zone featuring a locker room inspired decor, exclusive Visit Sandy Springs merchandise, interactive halftime entertainment, including trivia jersey contests and fan competitions, giveaways and special activations, for the tournament. It's a great way to kind of get everybody who's enjoying the tournament to come here, particularly our local folks, but anybody from out of town who's want to come to the best viewing venue in the metropolitan Atlanta area, they can come here and enjoy it. We've our team with Bill Haggett's team with the pack and visit Sandy Springs have worked unbelievably well together. to try and put this on. That's a relationship that I believe will inure to the benefit of both those organizations going forward. And nothing new on SDS since we last reported. We've got the next conversation. Well, we're going into mediation. We'll talk about maybe some of that a little bit later. We're waiting on that process to move forward, and we'll have some reports a little bit later. Anybody else? Dr. Kelly.

So, and you mentioned, Mayor, on Friday, we are having a watch party for, I think, two matches. But we're also having our Juneteenth celebration. And I like to think of it like we're having company because our Juneteenth is one that four cities share. And so the cities of Dunwoody, Brookhaven, and Doraville are sort of trusting us with... their community celebration as well. So I'm very excited about it. And I just want to, ahead of time, give a huge thank you to everybody on the City of Sandy Springs staff who has been, I'll say, putting up with me and my stuff. I just appreciate you all. I just wanted to take a moment to say that. And see you all on Friday, 5 o'clock. Thanks.

Anybody else? All right. We do need an executive session for the purposes of real estate litigation.

Mayor.

Yes.

Hello.

Wait a minute. I switched over your page, didn't I? Ms. Carlisle, you've got some money talk to do, don't you?

Really quickly, thank you. My apologies. No problem. This is the review for the April 2026 unaudited financials. We are almost through the fiscal year. We're at 83.33% of the fiscal year. Revenues have achieved 102.14%, and operating expenditures are at 75.85%, which means the departments are continuing to operate within the approved budget, and that concludes the financial report for April 2026.

Any questions of the CFO about the budget? unaudited financials. All right. I apologize, Ms. Carlisle. Now, we do need an executive session for the purposes of real estate and litigation. Is there a motion?

Mayor Paul. Mr. Paulson. I move that we suspend regular order and move into executive session for the purposes of real estate and litigation.

We have a motion by Mr. Paulson. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Roberts. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. The question's on the executive session. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. We are in executive session. There will be no more business conducted this evening. We'll simply come back in the executive session, return to regular order, and adjourn. Thank you very much. Second. Seconded by Mr. Roberts. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Mr. Paulson? I move adjournment. Mr. Paulson moves adjournment. Second. Seconded by Mr. Roberts.