City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you for joining us live for the City of South Fulton City Council Meeting. We are proud to introduce the leadership entrusted with guiding our city forward. Mayor Carmelitha Gumbs. District 1 Councilwoman, Dr. Katherine Rall. District 2 Councilman, Aaron V. Johnson. District 3 Councilwoman, Latonya Toni Wright. District Four Councilman, Jaycee Sebastian. District Five Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem, Kyosha B. Bell. District Six Councilwoman, Natasha Williams-Brown. District 7 Councilwoman Linda Becker Pritchett. Supporting the work of this body and the operations of our city are City Clerk Corey Adams, City Manager Sharon D. Subedan, and Interim City Attorney Sarah Kelly. Thank you for being the best part of the City of South Fulton, a city on the rise.

All right. Good evening. And first, I want to welcome you all to our City Council work session for July 14th, 2026 at 4 p.m. We are back from summer recess, and I would like to welcome our newest council member to her first meeting, Councilwoman Latoya Toni Wright, representing District 3. Please give her a hand. Thank you for your service, and we are happy that you are here. With that being said, Mr. Clerk, please sound the roll.

Yes, good afternoon, Madam Mayor, members of council, and the general public at large. This is the roll call for today's work session. The Honorable Catherine F. Ryle, District 1.

Present.

The Honorable Aaron V. Johnson, District 2. Present. The Honorable Latonya Toni Wright, District 3.

Present.

The Honorable J.C. Sebastian, District 4.

Here.

The Honorable Kyosha B. Bell, District 5, is on Zoom. Present. Thank you. The Honorable Natasha Williams-Brown, District 6, is also on Zoom.

Present.

The Honorable Linda Becker Pritchett, District 7, is also on Zoom. And Madam Mayor, Carmelita Gumbs.

Okay.

You have a quorum.

We do. I didn't hear confirmation for Councilwoman Pritchett.

She's on Zoom, but...

I'm present. If y'all can hear me, I'm present.

We can hear you.

All right. Thank you. All right. Mr. Clerk, we have a quorum. At this point, I'll actually sound the next item, please.

That brings us to Roman numeral three, city manager report. will be presented by our City Manager, Sharon D. Subedan, the monthly report inclusive of Finance and Public Works reports.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. The City Manager's report has been provided to you and is available on the City's website. It highlights all of our, or many of our activities for the month, and I do want to take a moment. There's been a bit of a flurry around P-card usage and want to remind everybody that there's a P-card report that is included in my monthly report. We did see a little bit of a shift in some of our compliance. It's not significant. We've moved from 79 compliance a year ago to 93 compliance but you know me i'm a student i'm looking for 99 or 100 compliance um but i want the public to know that we report on that regularly and the compliance items we have an external auditor that audits every single mayor and council transaction and you work directly with them on correcting anything that's not accurate. And most of what we see are administrative errors, failure to upload supporting documents, nothing that is incorrect or improper. I'm not a next door. Will not get on next door. But several next door complaints were sent to me from members of the council. Those were reviewed by our auditor and he came back with no findings. And so I do feel like it's important to let the public know that we hear their complaints even when they're on next door even when we may not consider them to be all that valid. But we do take things seriously. We do investigate them. And I wanted to make sure that that was on the record. The other thing I wanted to say is our senior housing program, which is funded by CDBG, which is federal funding, has received an overwhelming response. As of Friday, we had almost 900 applicants. I want to manage expectations. We're going to be moving through those that are first come, first qualified, first served. We only have about, I say only, we have over 700,000 of our CDBG allocated to this program, but that's not going to fund anywhere close to the number of applicants that we've received. We didn't close the application process because I think it's important for us to be able to quantify the need in our community. And I think that can help us when pursuing other opportunities for funding because we're able to see how many seniors are in need of help in our community. So great response. You'll be hearing more about that program. But I felt like it was important of all the things we've been engaged in to put it on the record. to manage expectations. There's only so much money, but there's an incredible amount of need. And with that said, I'll go ahead and turn it over for any of your questions.

Okay. And you have a few in the queue. First, I see Councilwoman Natasha Williams-Brown. I'll recognize you at this time.

Thank you mayor and thank you for your report. I know and this is this is really a request for a future report perhaps.

But I know we just concluded our business amnesty program. And so I wanted to know if we could get a report on the results from the business amnesty program, how many businesses we were able to bring into compliance. And as well, I know that we have several 1000. Businesses that are still out of compliance. And so I would like to request that the. That. you bring a plan for how we're going to proceed with the, I believe it's 8,000 businesses that are still not in compliance in the city so that we can consider how we want to go about, you know, bringing them into compliance as well as recouping past year's taxes that have not been collected.

Absolutely. We'll have that done for you. Okay.

Thank you. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Councilwoman Rao.

The hard work on the senior rehab program, you know, I think we talked about this, of course, last year at our budget retreat. It's probably the number one call I get is from seniors who can't fix their homes. So while that number is a little staggering, I think it's like you said, it's really important that we understand how big a need it is in our community. So thank you for that. And I also think, you know, I don't know at what point we need to even come off the senior and just look at people who have limited economic means, who may not be seniors, who also have some of those same challenges. I think we all know everything costs more than it used to, and there's a real need in this area. So I did want to not take the opportunity to talk about other families who may be struggling financially. I did have a question about page six in your city manager's report. I know we have typically 20,000 budgeted per district, and I think in both D2 and D3, that number is for one 35,250 and the other one 30. How did this change? I just want to understand it from that original amount.

So it actually doesn't change. If you look at D2 Gums, it was $20,000, $4,750 was spent, and the remaining $15,250, that carried over to D2 Johnson at $15,250. And the same for D3 Willis. It started at $20,000. $9,310 was spent with a remaining balance of $10,690, which carried forward to, it says D3 vacant. Sorry, Councilwoman Wright, when we did this, you weren't in office. And so she has a starting balance of $10,690.

Thank you for that clarification because I didn't understand how they synced up. So thank you for that. So nobody has gone over, for the record, nobody has gone over the $20,000 for the money for events? No, the mayor. Okay.

The mayor is allocated $30,000 and her carry forward from Mayor Khalid to Mayor Gumbs was $22,604. So she has a grand total of $1,087.95 left. CHRISTIE WOODARD. Thank you. CHRISTIE WOODARD.

Are you done?

RICK MACLENNAN. Yeah, I did that for the edification of the book.

CHRISTIE WOODARD. OK. All right. Recognizing District 7, Councilwoman Linda Pritchard.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, for recognizing me. City Manager, you mentioned that you were dealing with applications on a first-come, first-served basis. You said that you're looking at based on their qualifications. But when I guess I looked at the application, it just asked for people's name, address, basic information. How did you qualify? Or how did you guys gather more information on the applicants than just the applications you've received?

great question so the first run is just the screening to ensure that their city of South Fulton residents what we didn't want is and now we really are glad we did it this way we didn't want seniors gathering all of their information and taking that time to do that and then find that the funding headaches was exhausted so the screening that has name address the number of members in your family, some basic information is our starting point. So the first 50 of those individuals will be asked to complete a thorough application and provide proof and documentation to support the complete application. So, it's a two-step process. One is just a basic screening to ensure they're in the city limits and that they're age qualified. And then from there, we go on to a more detailed application process, at which time they'll have to provide all of the supporting documents in the event that that first 50, for some reason, are not qualified, that we would go on to the next 50. But every pre-application that's been taken has been date and time stamped.

Okay. And a follow-up to that, just asking if you would consider, I know you talk about first-come, first-served, but my concern always is equity and if there's a way that you could first-come, first-served, but within. considering a few from this district, a few from that district, so that across the board, the recipients that you have kind of represent as much of an equal number of recipients across the city than just the first come, first serve, because some of the people from my district may not have received the notifications or may not have applied as quickly as other residents. And I don't want anybody's districts to be left out of that process. And I yield.

Thank you, Councilwoman Pritchett. Do we have any more speakers in a queue? Councilman Sebastian.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ms. Subban, thank you for the update on the senior assistance program. I am looking forward to that report that basically will give us a clearer picture as to the size of the problem. I was sharing with the mayor that that is an area which I was kind of dabbling into and someone had called me the other day and said, we think we may have a weatherization program that we could do in South Fulton. So that is something that I am personally working on before passing over to y'all. It's not in the city yet. Um, so I really would love that information cause I think that information could probably help. These are private funders who may want to do this, um, for us. That information could help when we get a little further down the road, I'll loop them over to you and you guys can take it from there. Um, I agree with Councilmember Pritchett, but I'm going to add a but to that. We're a large city, and we're a city that's very diverse sometimes in terms of our neighborhoods. So, there might be greater needs in certain areas, especially areas that have older homes. And so, while I agree that we should spread the wealth around, equity in all necessary means equal. Okay, so we have to work, in my estimation, on need. And as you said, we have to have some sort of way to do this. But I think it kind of highlights another question, which I will mention again, is this whole thing about informing our residents and communicating on a timely residents to everyone at the same time. So, you know, some people, they're just not going to get it. I mean, they refuse to use technology. And the reality is we're at a point now where technology is not going anywhere. So the least you can do is to get yourself an email And by the way, shout out to Mr. Chet Beasley that just finished the pilot program of teaching seniors how to use technology and how to be safer. I hope that is something that we can use and expand and keep going across our city so that as people get more educated and feel safer online, they can be more engaged in terms of using technology. But lastly, I know I have several things that I've been working with the staff with, um, for district four. The only thing that I see on the list here is the city growth community center. So I'll, I'll just send an email reminder, uh, probably pull up my little spreadsheet again and send it forward so that hopefully we can get some updates and probably present them or update them. So certain place in this report. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Sebastian. Councilwoman Bell.

Good evening, everyone. On page 10, To the city manager, I just had a question regarding the compliance overview. I know purchase card and the P-card program is a sensitive subject, but in the spirit of transparency, I'm noticing February, March, April, and May that has been reported. And I do see the differences of the percent for the departments as well as council. Can you speak to that a little bit? I know we've put a couple of things in place to have a deeper dive and a closer look on our P-Card. So can you just explain a little bit as it relates to the compliance rate?

Sure. What I was explaining earlier is every P-Card transaction is looked at for the council by our internal auditor and for staff, supervisors and the procurement department are looking at them. As I shared earlier, we've seen a little bit of a dip. I'm not too worried about that. I think I've been seeing the emails going out asking for supporting documentation to ensure that we have everything in compliance in accordance with our PCARD policy. So, I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but it's just a matter of a reminder for everybody to tighten up. And when you get those emails from the compliance auditor to send your documentation in timely, there is a cutoff. And so, once the cutoff has passed for the month, if you're still out of compliance, then it's going to drop the rate. But, you know, we're a long way from where we were, and oftentimes compliance comes in after the cutoff. But I'm not worried about the program. I feel like the program is operating within proper parameters. It's just a reminder that, you know, we have to follow the policy as it's written.

Thank you. Councilwoman Rao, for your second time.

Thank you. I couldn't help but notice when Councilwoman Bell pointed that out, that as leaders of this city, we should trend ahead of the department. So I hope we work on that percentage, generally speaking. So I think that's the first time I've seen it broken down like that. But I think if we all work really hard at making sure we get that in, we can lead by example. So I'll leave it at that. I also wanted to just make a general comment. See, federal money is nothing to play with. And so while we may want to select people from districts and the like, you cannot do that with federal money. And so I am very interested in seeing the magnitude of the problem because I will hope with our grant team that we can secure or pursue additional funding sources to tackle this over the next couple years. I think the biggest thing that we learned is when people are seeking help, when you send them to these other agencies, their wait lists are years because the demand is great. So hopefully we will begin to pursue some of that funding to knock that list down over time. And it may take us some years. So I think it's really important that we manage, like you said, expectations of the public about how much we are able to do. And hopefully, maybe we can stretch it more. Maybe everybody's house won't be $25,000, and so we can make those dollars go a little bit further.

Okay. Thank you. This was a robust conversation. As I do know, Fulton County just had their senior rehab program, and they were only able to serve, I think, about 40 seniors. The funding is extremely tight, and those are individuals that have been on the waiting list for two years. So we will probably see something like that in the future, but there is a great need, and I believe that we are attempting to address it. And I can't wait for that transparency model to be available so we can start moving on. All right, Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

That brings us to our first presentation for this afternoon, a Greenway and Trails Net Plan Update. It will be presented by Mr. Gregory Dyson, Director of General Services, along with Carlos Perez, Perez Planning and Design, LLC.

Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Council Members. I'm Greg Dyson, your General Services Director. General Services is working in conjunction with Parks and Recreation on the mastered the Green Ray Trail plan. You all can't hear me? Yes, Green. Maybe I need to get a little closer. all right so anyway we asked Carlos Perez or Perez planning and design to come by and give you all a very important update of where we are with that master plan for the Greenway and Trail Network and so also let you know where we're ready to go next and so without further ado I'll bring up Mr Perez

Thank you, Director Dyson. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Council Members. It's a pleasure to see all of you this afternoon and excited to give you an update on this Greenway and Trails Net Plan update. What we'll be discussing this afternoon is first to remind you of the project purpose and process. Then we'll show you where we are to date related to summary of existing conditions. And then where we're headed next, which is related to that collaborative plan update process that we hope to continue should Madam Mayor and council members decides to move forward and then next steps in and discussion. So just as a reminder, the purpose of this plan was really to update the trail net plan that was done by Fulton County before the city incorporated when we completed the parks and recreation master plan for the city. trails and greenways were a major priority. There's also a lot of federal funding and other funding sources in the region to support these types of projects. So this was an opportunity to update that plan, identify priority projects per council district, seek funding to implement those within the city. So based on that big picture, the first purpose was to leverage existing funding sources and projects and policies to identify rapid implementation strategies within the city. And then as we're doing that, it's doing this plan, inform residents of potential opportunities and get their input on this plan and then prioritize these projects per council district and then develop a phased implementation strategy for that effort. This is the next slide talks about our process and doing so starting with existing conditions analysis building a good strong foundation for the plan reviewing previously completed plans completing demographics analysis doing a series of quantitative analysis that you'll see this afternoon. and then segueing into that collaborative plan update that will include public engagement, ultimately leading to a phased implementation strategy, and then lastly, a final report for adoption for mayor and council members to consider. So I'm going to take you through a few highlights from what we've completed to date. And we'll start with looking at the existing conditions analysis, which we reviewed the plans that had been previously completed by the city, and extracted elements that may be related to this plan. And not only plans completed by the city, but also the region. And what we found is that there is a strong planning foundation for greenways and trails in the city, and a lot of policy support for greenways and trails within the city. Not only within the city, but also regionally as well. And then within that, a strong demand from residents about seeing more of these facilities, providing connections, important connections within the community. Also considering that there's an opportunity to use trails as multifunctional infrastructure, right? It's not only about connectivity, but it's also providing a whole series of additional benefits for the city, including economic development, health and wellness, access, environmental protection, enhancement, et cetera. And then a key part of this is the opportunity to create a unified prioritization implementation strategy for this effort. And we also looked at this within the context of transportation trends. And it's interesting to see what's happening not only in the region but also nationally where there is a shift to looking at networks of trails, right? Not only implementing a segment here or a segment over here but rather creating an interconnected network that shows that and benefits of that more broad connectivity and prioritizing that connectivity as a need. And then also looking at not only local alignments but how those trails may relate to more regional projects as well. In fact, as it relates to funding, usually when a project provides as part of a regional network, it scores higher from a funding strategy, which then facilitates dollars for that project. Another big shift that we're seeing is a really strong focus on safety, ensuring that facilities are designed for as most users as possible, creating a really great and comfortable experience. So once families and children and older adults use that facility, and they find it pleasant and comforting and fun, then they'll be able to continue to use it moving forward and ultimately encourage mode shift to help with congestion, at least as related to leisure trips. And then also the importance of greenways and trails as it relates to economic and community assets, right? Economic development and community infrastructure. So how are we doing in the city of South Fulton? We have about 3.6 miles of existing trails within the city that have been built. There's a little more than two and a half miles that are planned. And this is a great really congratulations to the city in getting grant funding for this. So these have been done through grants as well as through partnerships, which is fantastic. So the city has put some money towards it, but it also benefited from grant funding as well, which is really great to see. In terms of potential corridors, what we've laid out thus far, and this is taking content from the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, from the original Trail Net Plan. As you can see, there's over 200 potential corridors within the city, which is also a lot of opportunity as well. So the question then is, how will we prioritize these? And that's where the next series of analysis starts helping us develop the quantitative information that will combine with qualitative information, public engagement information to then help create a phase and implementation strategy. So that begins with looking at demographics analysis. And just a few things that we wanted to point out is that you will continue to grow as a city. And in certain areas, that means higher density, which may lead to additional traffic congestion in key areas, which then also bodes well for creating better pedestrian and bicycle connectivity in key areas. There's also pockets in the city where we have our ages under 19 and ages over 65, which are populations that can have a high propensity towards greenways and trails. So that becomes an element of prioritization. And then we also looked at zero car households. Where are those households in the city? And you can actually see a map of that here on the screen, and you start seeing some of that in district, between districts three and four, and then district six as well, and seven, or five rather. where some of these high density or higher populations with zero car households, which also can serve to enhance or can be used for prioritization as well. So this is a snapshot of that, but one of the opportunities is then to use a series of findings, a series of demographic characteristics that we combine to create what we call as a social economic opportunity or needs index. And that's an index that shows where is the highest need when we combine all these 10 factors that you see on the screen. So everything from population density, poverty, residents under 18, all the way to crime, educational level, and residents with disabilities and single parent households. And so those are combined to create an index, which you see on the screen. Lighter blue is a low social need or opportunity, while the darker magenta reddish color is a higher need. So you can start seeing where, just looking at these factors, there's areas within the city that have those higher opportunities or needs. So this is a factor that could be used for prioritization. We also looked at level of traffic stress analysis. So very simply what this says is what is the quality of a corridor to provide a comfortable experience for park users. Level of traffic stress one is one where it's okay to use the street for a bicycle facility, whereas level of traffic stress number four is more of a major road where you want to keep cars or bicycles and pedestrians separated as much as possible from vehicular traffic. So no surprise that a lot of the major corridors in the city are that level of traffic stress three or four, whereas more of the residential smaller roads are more of that level of traffic stress one, most are one and two, which again can help with prioritization. We also looked at what we call bicycle and pedestrian mobility propensity analysis or demand analysis. So purely looking at demographic and social economic factors. What are the areas in the city that may have the circumstances or the need where residents may be more apt to use a bicycle or a sidewalk per se versus a vehicle. And what that does is it combines all these 10 factors that you see here on the screen again. Similar to the demographics that we looked at before, but population density, no vehicular households, proximity to schools, trails, and parks, and then proximity to activity nodes. And that starts creating an index of where those pockets are. So the darker the color, the higher that propensity. And again, you can start seeing where some of those higher levels are in districts five, six, a little bit in three and four as well, and then even in district one as well. So again, these are additional factors that we would use for But the next step is really about going to the public and getting input, and not only the public but also from you as well. And that's part of this collaborative process. So to get us there, what we've done to date, and this is all draft, it has not been released yet, but we wanted to share it with you to get your permission to move forward, is we do have an online engagement tool that will allow residents to connect to the map that you see on the right of the screen, and then view these potential corridors and give us comments about some of these potential routes, as well as any needs or opportunities. So this is one tool. The next one is public engagement. So if okay with mayoring council members, we'd like to do public meetings, working closely with staff. And the idea is to do four public meetings in key areas throughout the city to collect input from residents on these corridors. So in terms of next steps, um, potential next steps is really to complete one-on-one interviews with you, uh, to get your comments, uh, to help us, uh, establish those next meetings, um, have a city staff review that online survey, make sure it's ready for public consumption, and then we'll release that, uh, schedule the public meetings. And then once we've collected all that public engagement, then we can get into the final phases, which is a prioritization. of these corridors. So that includes developing a list of projects as well as opinion of probable cost. And then what we'll do is for each high-ranking project per council district, we will take that to 10% design. And that will let us get more refined costs and then facilitate the information for those projects to move forward in whatever funding source may be applicable. And then ultimately create a funding implementation strategy that we bring before you for review and approval. And then city can begin to implement the plan over time. So with that, again, thank you for this opportunity to present this to you and we'll open up for discussion. Thank you.

Okay. Well, Mr. Perez, thank you. It's been a long time since we've had face to face, but I'm glad to see you and thanks for giving this update. Do we have any speakers in the queue? So I will recognize District 1 Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you for your presentation. I wanted to know if you looked at any of the, as a part of this trail system, private trails. I know we have at least two. The Southeast Trust for Parks and Land did that project at Butner and Camp Creek, and we also had a Camelton Nature Preserve. Did you look at those as a part of this?

Let me confirm that. I believe they are, but I need to confirm that.

Yeah, I think there's, and there may be some other privates across the city. I'm not totally sure, but I think it makes sense to make sure we incorporate that if not. That was my only, I'm very excited about this. We have a large biker community who's been asking for this for years. So this gets us one step closer. So thank you for your work. Thank you.

I appreciate that because every time I see them on our roads, I just start praying. It's just hard. So we need a space for them. I want to recognize Councilman Sebastian at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Perez, for your awesome report, as usual. Good data. I'm looking forward to the public engagement piece. I attended a meeting that Grady hosted, I think it was last Thursday, the Political Determinants of Health, I believe was the title of it. And one of the things that came up in that meeting, it was actually raised by Rick Ross, who owns the shoe store, I believe, in your district, Councilwoman Royal. And I was happy to share with the group the things that we are doing as a city to increase our trails. our areas where people can actually get out the house. And yes, we do host, I think, the Metro Atlanta Cycle Club. They have been here in District 4 before we were actually a city. This year is their 10th anniversary. So I know they would be very, very happy once we start to implement some of these things, because got a call the other day, for instance, how are we going to cross South Fulton Parkway now because of a GDOT development, right? And we have, of course, as you guys know, a lot of land out there in Ford. And so I'm looking forward to that next level of engagement, especially with our citizens, so that we can hear from them as to what we're doing and get the input. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Councilman Sebastian. I will recognize Councilwoman Bell.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm okay with my question. I appreciate it. But I'm excited about the walking trail, so I'm looking forward to the connectivity. So thank you.

All right. Well, Ms. Perez, that concludes all the comments in our queue. Thank you so much, and we look forward to your work.

Thank you.

Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

That brings us to our next presentation, which is the 2026-2027 Employee Benefits Renewal, presented by Ms. Tammy Starkey with Alliant and our, oh, Ms. Starkey with Alliant.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Our benefits for employees are up for renewal effective October 1st of this year. They do renew October 1st of each year. So this evening we're going to talk through the proposals for the new plan year and the plans for open enrollment and education for the employees. For the health plan, currently the health plan is partially self-funded through Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. That change was made October 1st of 2025. Last year we completed a full analysis and market review of the prior plan that was fully insured with Cigna and made the decision to change to Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield for a little over $2 million savings on the health plan cost. Part of that savings was generated by removing the fixed premiums that we were paying to an insurance carrier, and now the city is paying just an admin fee, a stop loss cap on maximum claims, and then the claims as they're incurred for the medical and pharmacy. So with that, that's given the city more flexibility within designing the plan, making sure that it services the employees and their dependents better, and managing the costs long term. So with that, as we look at components for renewal, the biggest piece of that is projecting what our claim's going to be into the next 12 months. So our actuarial team makes that projection based off of the experience on your plan, how it's utilized, um the cost that is incurred under your plan and projecting that forward based on what we know within health care trends prescription drug cost trends and what we expect to see in the coming 12 months of the plan so with that the analysis indicated that for our budget we needed to increase total health plan cost about eight and a half percent or six hundred fifty six thousand dollars So that would mean no changes, just next year we expect claims to cost 8.5% more. Again, majority of that is just due to healthcare trends, rising cost of care, rising cost of medications. So even without any catastrophic claims, just knowing that cost of our health coverage is going to be more into the next year. We also saw an impact positively of more employees participating on the plan. So in the last 24 months, we've seen a 26% increase in employees enrolled on the health plan, which is great news because we want them to see the value and the benefits that the city offer and take advantage of this valuable health insurance that they have available to them. So with that increase of about eight and a half percent, we then looked within the cost of the plan and benchmarked it against other municipality health benefits to determine what action can we take to help manage the cost and reduce that increase for the coming plan year. So we're going to talk through some of those cost-saving recommendations, the first being to increase the plan out-of-pocket maximum. And so that includes the deductible on each plan. It includes your co-pays for office visits, for prescriptions, and any coinsurance or percentage that you may pay for the cost of care. For a majority of care, when you're going in for an office visit to see a primary care physician or a specialist, you're paying a co-pay. For your prescriptions, you're typically paying a flat copay. Where a member or a patient would see deductible or coinsurance percentage is typically for inpatient and outpatient hospital services. So if you're having a surgery, you're having any radiology, those types of things would accumulate towards the deductible. So an out-of-pocket maximum just really caps out the most that a member can pay in any one plan year under the health insurance. And so what we're proposing is an increase of $1,000 for each individual on the plan in their maximum out-of-pocket exposure within the plan year. That would generate a savings of almost $136,000 to the budget for the health plan. When we compare to benchmarks, the average municipal plan, the out-of-pocket maximum for an individual, so just you as an individual on the plan, averages $6,900 a year, and for a family is averaging about $14,000 a year. The highest out of pocket maximum on the city of South Fulton plans today are 4,500 for an individual and 9,000 for a family. So much below benchmarks, the federal government does set the affordable care act, um, allowance for out of pocket maximums each year. And many employers keep pace with that. And, um, for current year, 2026, that maximum is 9,200 for an individual or 18,400 for a family. So even with the proposed increase of $1,000 for each member, we are well below benchmarks and well below federal regulations on that. And just as a gauge of how many members does this potentially impact, each year on the plan we see about 3% to 5% of members that hit that out-of-pocket maximum. So that's really for catastrophic claims, surgeries, a chronic condition that they've seen a lot of treatment for in that year. So it is not majorly impactful across the board to most participants. The other cost-saving recommendation when we looked at drivers within the health plan data is that we saw approximately half of emergency room visits in the last year have been qualified as avoidable, so really non-emergent care. The majority that we saw within that diagnosis was for flu, cold, back pain. So many of these things that could be redirected to urgent care, to primary care physicians. And when we look at the average savings, your average paid for an avoidable emergency room visit on the health plan was $2,500. When we look at our average cost for urgent care, it's about $200. And for a primary care physician office visit, $150. So what we're proposing is just to provide more education and exposure to the members on what the true cost of an emergency room visit is. So currently they pay a flat $150 copay for that visit that's averaging $2,500. We're proposing a plan design change that would add a 20% coinsurance so that they would pay also 20% of the cost. So it provides them, again, just some education, some exposure to what the true cost of that care is and sees a reduction in our health plan costs of projected $30,000 a year. Next we looked at some of the specific cost drivers and how do we offer enhanced care at a lower cost to the members within the health plan. One of those being offering radiology and outpatient services at quality providers with lower cost points. So, what we're looking at here is a program called Know the Cost that has many locations throughout metro Atlanta, and we work with a lot of our city and county government clients that take advantage of this program, where if a member goes in to receive their outpatient care, typically an MRI, a CAT scan that's going to go towards their deductible, then they would pay no cost for that radiology, for that scan. And the plan sees an average about 50% discount because those have been better negotiated rates. So you're benefiting the members within the population of going to a specialty facility and paying no cost for those high-cost radiology sessions and screenings, and then reducing the cost billed back to the health plan of about 50%. So we're projecting about $100,000 annual savings on that based on utilization. So there'll be communication to employees about the availability of this benefit and the locations that they have available throughout Metro Atlanta. And then lastly, one of the cost drivers we saw within the plan data that accounted for about 10% of our medical claims was musculoskeletal. So low back pain, knee and joint pain, these things that can require physical therapy, injections, we saw it in our emergency room utilization, or surgeries. And so providing them with a virtual physical therapy solution through Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, again, this is optional, just like the radiology, but providing them with this at a no cost to them, so they're not having to pay for the physical therapy, they don't have to go into an office, but they're able to do their physical therapy at home virtually. And what we see is an average savings on the health plan, we're projecting about 124,000. So that projection is based on reducing the needs for surgery likelihood, reducing pain, and reducing the cost of physical therapy. When you look at just the cost of physical therapy, and I went through this with my basketball playing daughter a lot, is that that first visit was costing us about $1,500 for evaluation, and all that's going towards my deductible. So with this plan, it's going to cost the member nothing and the health plan $250. So a large difference in the cost of the care and providing easy virtual access to that care for each member of your plan. So overall, with the projected increase, about 8.5%, we're providing these cost-saving recommendations with the out-of-pocket maximum increase, the emergency room change and coinsurance, the Know the Cost program for radiology, and then Hinge Health for Musculoskeletal reduces that by about 5%, so a reduction of almost $390,000, which takes our net projected increase to $267,911, or 3.46%. for the next plan year. So the proposal with that is no change to employee contributions. The only change that employees would see is their out-of-pocket maximum increasing if they do have those catastrophic events and now having the emergency room coinsurance. They have the option of the other programs, but none of those are mandatory. So no change to employee contributions and same plan design options that they have had. So for additional coverage outside of the medical and pharmacy plan, we've got our ancillary benefits. Our dental plan is currently with the Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield as well, and there is no change to that cost or coverage effective October 1st, 2026. Vision as well, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, no change to the cost or coverage for 2026. We did conduct a full market review, an RFP for the life and disability benefits and identified coverage with Symmetra would generate savings and improvement to the benefits offered to employees. So lower costs for the life insurance, the short-term disability, and the long-term disability that the city currently funds 100% of. So that would generate a savings of $110,000 to the city. Also increases the life insurance benefit for all public safety officers that If they are killed in the line of duty, their beneficiary would receive an additional benefit that equals their annual salary. Also offering on the voluntary term life, no health questions during this open enrollment period. So everyone is guaranteed coverage and increasing the guaranteed amount that they're able to purchase. Part of that is also enhancing the employee assistance program. So the counseling that's available for all members and their dependents. And then with the supplemental benefits that we did implement with Aflac effective October 1 2025. There's no change to those as well. So those are the accident plan critical illness plan that supplement the health insurance that the city provides to all employees. Our plans for open enrollment will be August 10th through August 21st. So that'll be the opportunity for all employees to receive education about their benefits, the changes that will be occurring, ask any questions. So we'll be onsite for educational webinars. We'll also provide them virtually. And then we'll have one-on-one education and enrollment assistance. So if employees want to sit down with an enrollment counselor and ask specific questions about how they utilize the coverage or any procedures or concerns that they have been experiencing, They can do so. We'll have a benefits fair. We also have call center support that employees can contact our team at any time to enroll or ask questions about their benefits as well as throughout the year if they're having an issue with their benefits. I got a bill from my doctor. Why do I owe this? Why didn't insurance pay this? Sending it back to our team. So, we'll have enrollment guides, we have an online benefit resource site, email campaigns. So, we're asking all employees to review their benefits during the open enrollment period, make any changes they would like by August 21st, and all of that will go into effect October 1st with the new plan year. And I will open it up for any questions.

Okay. Thank you for your presentation. Waiting for the queue. Any questions from council members? Okay. Well, that means you did an amazing job. All right, great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. We're looking forward to it. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, Tammy. All right. Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

That brings us to executive session, if necessary.

okay it's 4 52 so we are about to go into our five o'clock so uh if you all will indulge i will ask that we go ahead and adjourn the meeting and then open up our five o'clock so we can have a i guess some time if there's no objections we will move forward with adjourning the meeting at this time meetings adjourned at 4 53 p.m Are we ready to come back to order? Okay. You ready? You good? Ready to start. Okay. All right. Thank you all, and we will call this meeting to order, which is the Alcohol License and Zoning Public Hearing meeting for Tuesday, July 14, 2026, at 5 p.m. Mr. Clerk, please sound the roll.

This roll call for today's Alcohol License and Zoning Public Hearing. The Honorable Catherine F. Ryle, District 1.

Present.

The Honorable Aaron V. Johnson, District 2.

Present.

The Honorable Latonya Toni Wright, District 3.

Present.

The Honorable J.C. Sebastian, District 4.

Present.

The Honorable Keosha B. Bell, District 5, is available on Zoom.

Present.

The Honorable Natasha Williams Brown, District 6, is available on Zoom.

Present.

And the Honorable Linda Becker Pritchett, District 7. I do not see her present at this time. Last but not least, the Honorable Carmelita Gumbs, Mayor.

Here.

Madam Mayor, you have a quorum.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. It looks like on this agenda we have several items that are being requested for deferral, which are items A through E. There is a planning commission meeting tomorrow that is scheduled for July 15th. If there's no objection to these cases, if there's no objection from this council, these cases will be deferred to August the 11th. Is there any objections? All right. With that being said, Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

Okay, so that was Roman number three. Items A through E have been deferred. That brings us to Roman number four, alcohol license rezoning variants and modification cases for presentation and public hearing only. The first is a public hearing for an alcohol beverage license application for Southside Touche LLC, doing business at Southside Touche. has been submitted and is requesting approval for the consumption sales of wine, beer, and distilled beverages located at 5495 Old National Highway, Suite B15 in the city of South Fulton, 30349, and it's located in District 5.

Good evening.

Good evening.

The applicant for Southside Touche LLC, District 5, located at 5495 Old National Highway, Suite B15, South Fulton, Georgia, 30349, has met all requirements to obtain an alcohol license. This location will be operating as a new business. All fees and inspection have been paid in full and pass. This location is currently operating under a temporary alcohol license. A public safety plan was submitted and approved by staff staff recommendations to counsel on his approval.

Okay. At this time I am opening a public hearing for this item that is on the agenda. Is the applicant here?

Yes ma'am.

All right. Please come to the podium. all right ma'am you have a total of 10 minutes to give your presentation you do not have to use all of that time you may want to reserve any time for rebuttal also keep in mind any time that is allowed it for public comments for any citizens who are granted in favor of your application the same time is granted for those who are not in favor of your application you may proceed

Good evening, everyone. My name is Antonia Edwards. I am the owner of Southside Touche LLC. I am a restaurant. I moved from Virginia Ave. I'm sorry, I just got so nervous. But I moved from Virginia Ave. I'm excited to be on the Southside. I actually stay in Fayetteville. I'm a resident of Fayetteville. And most of my patrons that are customers that were coming to us on Virginia Ave have already followed us during the little time that we've been open and operating under a temporary license. So that's all I can really say. I'm really excited to be there and hopefully everything go well.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any people that are in favor or opposition? Did you, Mr. Clerk, did you get any?

We did not receive any comment cards in opposition or support of this application.

okay well with that being said i am going to move forward with closing public hearing and we will take questions from council starting with the district representative councilwoman bell thank you mayor and good evening miss edwards i am um miss edwards good evening how are you good evening um

I am the District 5 Councilwoman, and so I know I've been playing phone, or shall I say business, not through trying to reach out to you. But I have a couple of questions as it relates to the purpose of the business. Is this a restaurant, a lounge, or a nightclub? A restaurant. Okay, so it's a restaurant. What are your typical hours of operation?

Right now we're open from 6 p.m. to 2 p.m. Well, from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. We plan to open for lunch once we have our official license.

OK. And I know I'm familiar you had a location off of Haightville. Is it off of Virginia Avenue in Haightville, correct? Correct. OK. So I wanted to know, as it relates to the liquor license and serving liquor in this particular area, as you're familiar, the parking lot has been packed since you all have been there, which is great for businesses. We want to see businesses come to our city. that can thrive and grow. But I wanted to ask some questions as it relates to the serving of alcohol, your age range as far as your establishment, because I know that sometimes, hey, new businesses attract people of all ages. And so is there a specific age to be able to come in and patronize your business?

During our day hours, during our lunch hours, um, we're more family oriented and more at nighttime. I think as we switched over to after 10 PM, I'm thinking about raising the time, but right now it's after 10 PM is 21 and up.

Okay. And so this is for our City of South Fulton police officer as it relates to the safety plan that was approved. Have we received any complaints or concerns as it relates to this particular area? I want to say in the given time that this restaurant has been here. Have you received any type of complaints, concerns, particularly as it relates to maybe this area in the past few weeks?

At this time, no, ma'am. Okay.

All right. Thank you, Miss Edwards. My job is to get out and make sure I meet you. So thank you so much for joining the city of South Fulton. I expect great things in the old national corridor, and we definitely want to see businesses grow and thrive. So I will make my way once I return from conference to come out and meet you directly. Thank you.

Okay, do we have any additional speakers? Anyone in the queue? I do want to say Miss Edwards, I had the pleasure of actually attending. I think it was your first night opening and it was a very good experience. I celebrated my birthday at your location. So I want to welcome you to the city of South Fulton and continue to do great things as we continue to grow the city. So thank you for choosing South Fulton. And that concludes my comments. So, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

It brings us to the next case, which is a zoning case, Z26-009 and U26-005. This is a public hearing. The applicant, Brian T. Marks, requesting rezoning from R3 in the Cliftonville Overlay District to AG1. Requesting a special use permit for a country in at zero and four nine six five but in the road It's located in City Council District two Staff and the Planning Commission both recommend approval of the zoning case and the use permit case Okay, is mr. Marks here

Welcome, Dr. Marks. All right, so I have to read this to you. At this time, I will be opening public hearing for the item on the agenda. Sir, you have a total of 10 minutes to give your presentation. You do not have to use all of that time. You may want to reserve some time for rebuttal. Also, keep in mind, time allotted includes public comments for any of the citizens who also are in favor of your application, and the same time is granted for those who are not in favor of your application, if any. You may proceed with your presentation.

Okay. So I'm Dr. Brian Marks. I moved to the city of South Fulton about three years ago, purchased the property, my wife and I and our children, on 4965 Butner Road. And so we basically provide, uh, training and consulting across the country from, uh, organizations, nonprofits, city, county government. And we wanted our home, uh, to serve a dual purpose. We reside there. Uh, but also we, we have, uh, retreats. So one, two and three day retreats. So some of our clients, anywhere from 8 to 14, 15 folks from across the country who are able to come for a deeper dive on the content that we provide. So that's sort of the main purpose of supplying for the rezoning. The AG1, we're also going to have agritourism. So we have a vineyard on site, a muscadine grape vineyard on site, and so that's going to be part of our overall aesthetic. And so because that involves farming, agriculture, and the like, that's why we are applying for the AG1 rezoning. We're already slated in the future land use map for this type of zoning anyway, but the special use permit for the lodging is something in addition to the zoning targeted for our space. So I'll pause there and reserve the time for any questions from any stakeholders. Okay.

Thank you, Dr. Marks. Mr. Clerk, were there any in favor or opposition?

No, ma'am. We did not receive any cards in support or opposition to this case.

All right. Thank you so much. At this time, I am going to close the public hearing, and we will take questions from counsel, starting with the district representative, which is District 2, Aaron Councilman Johnson.

I like that. Aaron Councilman Johnson. It's a little different.

It's a little different.

I was going to think of something else, but...

I'm afraid.

Good afternoon, Dr. Marks. How are you? I'm well, sir. How are you? Great to see you. We've gotten a couple questions primarily about the application reads that you want to have a country in. Can you define that? Because there's a hotel called a country in as well, and there seems to be some confusion about Exactly. You gave a slight description, but I want to make sure it's clear what you're doing and are you trying to erect a hotel called the Country Inn on your property?

Gotcha. Appreciate the question. And that came up in our public participation meeting as well. So the Country Inn is actually a designation in the code, in the ordinance. It's called Country Inn. That's a section in the code. And it's different from an Airbnb. I'm sorry, from a bed and breakfast. So bed and breakfast anywhere from one to five units in a housing facility and a country in is six to 30. So our property has nine bedrooms. So that's why we fall into the country in category. Also the criteria for country and we must live on site, which we do and be on at least five acres, which we are. So those three criteria, number of bedrooms living on site and the acreage, uh, we check all those boxes and that's why we fall into that category of a country in. but we will not be a traditional hotel. You will not be able to go online and book a room for yourself individually. That is not the goal. Um, so we won't be, we will not be a hotel in that sense. Uh, but we will provide lodging for small groups selectively.

So you're doing things like weddings, um, no wild parties, right?

No wild parties. Even weddings will be selective if we do them. Uh, the goal is to be an asset for the community. So if we are in a situation where we don't have a retreat because our core business are the retreats for small groups, but if the facility is open and available and there's somebody who requests a wedding and there's a meeting of the minds and there's a smaller on the smaller side and so forth, we would consider it. But that's not going to be the main driver at all. But the property is on 16 acres. So in terms of parking and everything else, we are self-contained, no backup on Butner Road, nothing like that. We have two 500 foot driveways where people can come in so that we went through all of that research and, and those scenarios and make sure there was no disruption. Our neighbors immediately around us, we've had conversations with them. Everybody's on board. Everybody's actually very supportive.

That was actually my next question. I was going to give you that one too, but, uh, re truly appreciate you coming out. We think it could be a fantastic, uh, addition to the city, um, specifically district two. We had an opportunity to go out and tour the property and spend some time over there. And you are doing some amazing things with the property that had been there. And, you know, you've brought it up, so to speak. And I look forward to some great things happening over there.

Appreciate it, sir.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

You know I'm excited about this.

I am, too.

I know, right? I know. All right, Councilman Sebastian.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you so much, sir, for what you've done with this property. I know District 4 is across the street and we did have some conversations. Yes. And also some of my neighbors across the street did talk to me in support of your, of what you're doing over there. I also want to thank staff for working with you, both Carmen and our managing director of CDRA. I know they got involved in working with you to see that, you know, everything went the way that, you know, you wanted it to go, basically, within the rules, of course. So thank you for making that property not only someplace where you live, but something that's going to be beneficial and economically productive to the city. Thank you.

Okay, I don't see any other speakers in the queue. So, again, as I mentioned, I'm very excited about this. I'm really ready to see what else you're going to bring out to that area, but I do know the community is supportive, and I've supported you since you've come to South Fulton, and I'm looking forward to supporting this business further. So thank you for being here and choosing South Fulton.

Thank you so much.

All right. Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

That brings us to item C, zoning case Z26-011. It's a public hearing. Diane Lloyd requesting a rezoning from R6 and the Clifton Dale Overlay District to R6 with no conditions to subdivide the property into four lots for residential use. On ten point six eight acres at zero and seventy three ninety Cedar Grove Road It's located in City Council District four staff recommendation is denial Planning Commission recommendation is approval conditional to resolve from our six to AG one Thank You mr.

Clerk madam mayor if I may Reggie McClendon managing director of Community Development and regulatory affairs This case did have a public hearing at the Planning Commission meeting There were some changes that were requested by the Planning Commission and the applicant that they agreed on. However, what it did was that it is causing us to implement a change in the way that the case was advertised. So for legal purposes, we're gonna re-advertise this case to come back to you in August. So we're asking that the council defer this case to August 11th.

To August 11th as well? Yes. Okay. All right. Council, if there's no objections, we can defer this case as well to August the 11th. All right. And we have a question from Councilman Sebastian.

Thank you, Director, Marjorie Director Reginald. So this is being asked to be rezoned from R6 to AG1. Which of those category has the highest density by right? Is it R6 or AG1?

R6.

OK. And if the property was not rezoned by right, for the 10.8 acres, how many units could the owner put on that acreage, if they were to maximize it?

It's hard to say. R6 is our only zoning district that allows duplexes. So it really just depends on how many lots they could get onto that acreage. I think R6 allows fairly small lots, 13,000 or 14,000 square feet, if I remember correctly. Now, they wouldn't be able to get that many lots onto the property because it doesn't have that much street frontage unless they got very creative. But it's hard to know exactly how many units they could get onto that property with R6, but I'm assuming it would be somewhere in the 20 to 30 range.

So, in essence, they are... they are increasing or decreasing the amount of units that they could potentially put there by resigning it to A1, to AG1.

They are.

Okay. So, and the reason why I'm asking you these questions, I think there are some citizens who have misunderstood what's on the agenda and they're kind of claiming that we are attempting to put many units there, not understanding that the current designation really legally allows the owner to do a lot more than rezoning it to AG1 and just putting four units there.

Well, the current designation had conditions on it that would have prohibited them from building that amount of units, which was the reason for the application in the first place. The applicant needed to remove those conditions so that they could build the residences that they're trying to build. But rezoning it to AG1 instead of R6 would certainly allow for much less density.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. Madam Mayor. Yes. Council Member Pritchett said she had a question.

Okay. Council Member Pritchett, recognizing you at this time.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, Mr. McClendon, just to be, well, asking, AG1, under my impression of agriculture, you think of it as just the raw land that has no density. What is the number of allowable units, or is it a unit for agriculture?

Thank you. Most of our AG1 zoning is residential and not agricultural. But generally in AG1, the zoning allows for one unit per acre or at least one principal unit per acre. And I believe it also allows for a guest house. But lots in AG1 cannot be smaller than one acre. And so, um, generally you'll see one house per acre in AG one.

Okay. So in this particular case, would this be considered or characterized as a down zone?

It would.

Okay. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you. So as we have just mentioned, we will be deferring this to the August the 11th meeting. All right. Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

Next item is a public hearing. The City of South Fulton's five-year program year 2026-2030 Consolidated Plan and 2026 Annual Action Plan for the Community Development Block Grant Program. And this will be presented by Mr. George Mensah.

All right, welcome. So at this time, I am opening the public hearing for this item that is on the agenda. You will be granted at least, am I, let me pause for a second. So let me allow you to do the presentation and then I will open up the public hearing. All right, please proceed. Thank you. Sorry about that.

Good evening. Madam Mayor, my name is George Mensah from ACD Associates. And I'm here to, we are your consultants for the 2026-2030 Consultative Plan. So I'm going to go through the plan, the presentation that we provided. We were here in May 26 and provided presentation on this. I'm not going to go through everything since you've already mentioned it. What we'll talk about is mostly an overview of the HUD programs. We will talk about the strategic goals and priorities. And then we do some surveys. So we'll just look at some of the survey results and then the recommended activities and goals that we plan for this year and the next five years. So basically, the city runs the CDBG program, which is basically a program that's supposed to provide decent housing, suitable living environment, and expanded economic opportunities. There are other HUD programs also that's available. These are the Home Investment Partnership, the House Opportunities for People with AIDS, and then the Emergency Solutions Grants. Now, these programs are governed by or managed by other entities through the state and other regional partners. The city receives about 563,496 approximately this year, for 2026. So what is the concerted plan? It's practically a planning document. It's similar to what the city always does on an annual basis, provides a strategic plan on how the city intends to spend its CDBG funds. It also serves as an application for CDBG funding. Now, there's a process that we have to go through to be able to write this plan. And the process includes public participation. This is exactly one of them that we are doing right now. It also includes a needs assessment, where we review the housing and community development needs for low and moderate income residents of the city. We also look at market analysis, which examines the local housing market conditions and economic trends in the city. And obviously, we had a public hearing on May 26, and this is the second public hearing we are having. And then we will have a strategic plan, which we have included in this presentation for this year and then the next five years. So part of the public participation, including stakeholder engagement, we had meetings with the Fulton County Continuum of Care, House Authority of Fulton County, and some social service agencies. Like I said, we have a public hearing May 26, and this is our second public hearing. And then we also have public survey May 28 to June 11 of city residents. So these are our strategic goals. CDBG can be used for affordable housing, mostly housing rehab and down payment assistance, public facilities and improvement, which includes street, sidewalk, drainage, and facility improvements. Economic development area includes job training and small business assistance, and then public services, where we provide assistance to youth, senior, and homeless services. So these are the respondents, the information about the respondents of the survey. We have 48 residents responded, 98% African-American, 85% homeowners. 65% have incomes of $100,000 and above. So this is a sample of the type of individuals who responded to the survey. We asked them about what would be their needs, their community priority needs. As you all can see, public improvements seems to be the area that most residents thought should be their priority. And then we have economic development and affordable housing following through. then we look at public improvement and we say, okay, what do you think we should concentrate on? And their priority was sidewalk improvements. So that is something that the residents indicated in the survey. And then economic development activity, obviously job creation is what is important for residents. And then when it comes to affordable housing, you can see that most people prefer the rehab program. And then they also mention new construction of either rental or home ownership activities. And then on just the public facilities, you can see that community centers are something that residents were very much interested in. So these are some of the highest priority activities that resident told us that they are interested in. We have rehab of unoccupied housing, sidewalk improvement, multi-purpose community centers, and it can be senior, youth, or child care, and job creation. And we just want to let you know how much money we will expect in the next five years. Like I said earlier, Our allocation is about $563,000, and we assume that we will continue to receive that allocation. That will give us a total of $2.8 million for the five years. The city also has approximately $1.5 million that is available for prior CDBG funds. So what will happen is that in 2026, we're looking at 812,215 that will go into playground improvements at Crewe Park, Butter Park, and Old National Park. And then 743, approximately 1,000 will go into the senior homeowner rehabilitation programs. So this further explains what the activity is. The senior home rehab will be provided for homeowner-occupied housing rehab. And then we have expansion of public facility infrastructure. We improve capacity of public facilities. And then we also improve access to public facilities. Then there is also slum and bright, which is removal of slum and bright in residential areas. So for 2026, I know I mentioned this earlier, but we have prior year funds. For senior rehab of $734,631 plus DCS award, they will all go to rehab, and then the $812,000 will go to improving access to public facilities. So this is just a presentation. It's a public hearing, so if anybody has any comments or questions, they can submit it to a written comment to Anisha at City of South Fulton. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for your presentation. So at this time now, I will open up the public hearing for this item. If there are any speakers present, you will be allowed a total of two minutes for each and public comments will not exceed 30 minutes. Speakers will not be allowed to yield or donate their time to any other speakers, and speakers must identify themselves and their address prior to speaking. Speakers may only address the presiding officer and shall observe all rules of decorum. No debate, disrespect, or obscenities shall be tolerated. The presiding officer shall rule any such individuals out of order who fails to comply with the foregoing. With that being said, we are opening public hearing. Mr. Clerk, do you have any speakers?

No, ma'am. We did not receive any cards from the general public for this item.

All right. At this time, I will close the public hearing, and we will allow comments from our first counsel, but the representative for this particular district.

Was that you, Councilman Sebastian?

Oh, no, I'm sorry. Citywide. Citywide. I'm sorry. All right. But I will recognize the queue at this time. So, Councilman Sebastian, you're first, and then followed by Councilwoman Rao.

Thank you. Our citizens tend to be a little bit more engaged than what this data shows. And so, when I saw the engagement numbers, I'm asking myself why. No one's here, basically. And it looks like the only other public hearing happened on Memorial Day weekend, which I know people are not going to spend their Memorial Day weekend doing city surveys. And so I take a little comfort in the recommendations that were made even by 48 people. I saw it along the lines of some of the things that we kind of know from being on council here and from our residents. But I really would have liked to see a little bit more robust engagement with our population. Because I think for a city our size of 115,000 people plus, 48 is really, really low. If my math serves me correctly, that's less than half of 1%. Okay, so that's just my comment. Thank you.

Thank you. That was a concern of mine as well. Councilwoman Rao.

Well, I recognize that number is not high. We also was consistent with what we saw in terms of our senior rehab with that being the number one priority, and we clearly don't have enough money for it. But I also thought, which was very insightful, is the whole effort around workforce development. And although that doesn't directly fall under the purview, I know we have a workforce development program, you know, this is just for the staff, a city manager, that we look at trying to strengthen our partnership with Fulton County and Workforce Development, because question 13, 35.42 percent talked about job creation and retention, those kind of things. And we've seen, you know, the large number of people who have been laid off in this current economy. And so to the extent that we can kind of focus on that, even though we haven't earmarked money through partnerships, I would hope we would look at that. Another thing I observe is the new affordable rental or home ownership housing. So I want to say I'm excited about the Mayor's effort to do home buyer education. I know recently Councilwoman Beall also did a similar home buyer program. This is something we need to look at because affordability continues to be a challenge for a lot of people. So while we didn't get these numbers, it's also consistent, you know, a lot of what we hear. Just in general, people calling, asking for help. I do have a question about the recreational facilities. I know we were able to use the CDBG money for some playground replacements, primarily in the old national area. City Manager, do we have a plan to look at some of the other parks who also need to refresh their playground equipment?

We do. However, they're not in the distressed census tract, so they wouldn't qualify for CDBG funding. So, we are putting them in the program for our CIP using general funds. And of course, if we get any grants, we always take advantage of that.

Okay. Any more? All right. I will recognize Councilwoman Pritchett at this time.

Thank you again, Madam Mayor. So in the presentation, he talked about citizens wanting jobs to be created. But what I have noticed that although I'm not advocating for warehouses or anything like that, but I do recognize that we have a shortage, if not a complete deficit of office buildings. So my question or commentary really surrounds around the fact that People think I don't know what type of jobs people are thinking are going to exist in our city that I'm not saying it's a bedroom community because we have 2 large industrial corridors. But when you look at job creation, and then sometimes a lot of opposition to the type of industries that create job jobs. We need to have some type of education to widen that gap on the disconnect. And not widen, but to close the gap on the disconnects of what having a job in our city, what industries, do we create jobs in? I don't know if anyone has done an analysis of that, because a lot of the jobs that people may be thinking, or it might just be a general term, but we have to look at the type of jobs, or is there a list of the type of jobs that actually this city produces for people who are looking to move here so that they can live, work, and play in our city? Is there anyone that can answer that?

Councilwoman Pritchett, that may be just a puzzle look for many of us here. So maybe we'll have to research that information and get that back to you.

Okay, so in continuing with this commentary, the reason I say all of this is because we have a lot of engagement with residents, and we ask them questions, say, abstractly, but sometimes we have to be more narrow in our approach because, you know, it's just a general statement. We want more jobs. We want more... you know, homes. But then when a variety, a different variety of homes are offered, then we get resistance, you know, that type of thing. And also, even with our blighted communities where fencing may be a problem, you know, the exterior of homes, may need some freshening up, that type of thing. Sometimes people just have to be more educated on how they can keep it up even outside of these type of additional fundings in our city. So I'm just looking for maybe us creating a dialogue for residents so that they can have real expectations and we can train our communities to be sustainable in those type of areas. And with that, I yield.

Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. I don't see any additional speakers in the queue. I would like to thank you for your presentation at this time. Thank you. Mr. Clark, please, on the next item.

Madam Mayor, Roman numeral five, which is proclamation presentations. We do not have any this afternoon, so Roman numeral six is executive session, if necessary.

all right there are some items that we need to discuss in executive session so if there is no objections we will recess for executive session for personnel cyber security litigation and real estate there's no objections we will now recess thank you All right.

Mr.

Clerk, we will now, if there are no objections, we will reconvene from executive session. Were there any actions taken in executive session?

There was no action taken in executive session that requires a public vote.

All right. Awesome. At this time, there is no objection. We will go ahead and adjourn our alcohol license and zoning hearing, council meeting. If there's any objections? Hearing none, the meeting is adjourned. All right. We will move into our 7 o'clock meeting. Video. Yes.

Thank you for joining us live for the City of South Fulton City Council Meeting. We are proud to introduce the leadership entrusted with guiding our city forward. Mayor Carmelitha Gumbs. District 1 Councilwoman, Dr. Katherine Rall. District 2 Councilman, Aaron V. Johnson. District 3 Councilwoman Latonya Toni Wright. District 4 Councilman Jaycee Sebastian. District 5 Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Keosha B. Bell. District 6 Councilwoman Natasha Williams Brown. District 7 Councilwoman Linda Becker Pritchett. Supporting the work of this body in the operations of our city are City Clerk Corey Adams, City Manager Sharon D. Subedan, and Interim City Attorney Sarah Kelly. Thank you for being the best part of the City of South Fulton, a city on the rise.

all right good evening i am officially calling the council meeting regular meeting for tuesday july 14 2026 at 7 p.m to order i want to take a moment of personal privilege to welcome our newest council member latonya councilwoman latonya tony wright representing district 3. please give her a round of applause Service is not easy, and thank you for signing up to be a part of City of South Fulton, our movement. And also at this time, I will ask Councilman Sebastian from District 4 to read the Civility Pledge.

Thank you, Mayor. City of South Fulton Civility Pledge. The way we govern ourselves is often as important as the positions we take. Our collective decisions will be better when different views have had the opportunity to be fully vetted and considered. All people have the right to be treated with respect, courtesy, and openness. We value all input. We commit to conduct ourselves at all times with civility and courtesy to each other.

All right. Thank you, Councilman Sebastian. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

This is a roll call for the July 14th regular meeting of the City of South Fulton City Council. The Honorable Catherine F. Ryle, District 1.

Present.

The Honorable Aaron V. Johnson, District 2.

Present.

Thank you. The Honorable Latanya Tony Wright, District 3.

Present.

The Honorable J.C. Sebastian, District 4. Present. The Honorable Keosha B. Bell, District 5, is available via Zoom.

Present.

The Honorable Natasha Williams-Brown, District 6, available via Zoom.

Present.

And the Honorable Linda Becker Pritchett, District 7, available via Zoom.

Present.

And the Honorable Mayor Carmelita Gumbs.

Here.

Madam Mayor, you have a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Please sound the next item.

Next item is the invocation by the city chaplain.

Let us go before the throne of grace. Kind King, we thank you for this day, this season, and this start. We're grateful for your outlook on our amazing city. As we search through scripture, we find so many times of how you were concerned about the inner workings of a city. Whether it was to judge or to provide grace, you were concerned about what happened in the cities of your people. And God, we pray, God, that you continue to be concerned about what happens in the city of South Fulton. Continue to look over our leadership. Continue to watch over them to provide grace, wisdom, and guidance for them. Continue to watch over our citizens. Protect us. Keep us protected. provide for us and continue to allow us to lean into your wisdom and your guidance and your joy. We're so grateful for your presence and we pray that you continue even in our joy, our pain, our disbelief, and in our anger as we move forward together as a future that we are forging something that you will be proud of. In Christ's name we do pray. Amen. Let's go to the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you for that. Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

Madam Mayor, members of council, that brings us to Roman numeral number five, adoption of the council agenda. There are a number of corrections and additions that we'd like to read into the record regarding item number. Item number. 10 a b1 under public safety Councilman Aaron Johnson is being added as a co-sponsor for resolution Reducing the posted speed limit along West Stubbs Road from 45 miles per hour to 40 miles per hour Also on item the last item on the agenda which is item under procurement Number 15, the correct vendor to be awarded is Cornerstone Sports Group Care of Controlled Products instead of Xgrass slash Cornerstone Sports Group. Additionally, you have the following items that are being added to the agenda for approval. Approval the following events back to school community partnership with Siloam Church International on July 31st 2026 from 1 to 4 p.m. By district 3 Southside day back to school giveaway September 6 2026 Wolf Creek Amphitheater mayor gums salsa and South Fulton Saturday July 25th 2026 Southwest Arts Center from District 7. Back to School event, Saturday, August 1st, 2026, at Shock Fitness Studios, District 7. Mexico in Corazon, Marachis, Sunday, September 20th, 2026, Wolf Creek Amphitheater, District 7. An R&B event at Sandtown Recreation Center on July 31st, 2026, from 6 to 10 p.m. in District 1. And then the last item is a correction that Public Works wanted me to read into the record regarding item C3. It's under Public Works C3. And it's the, in short, the contract for the memorandum of agreement with GDOT for work at Cascade Road and Fulton Industrial. They wanted me to read for the edification and clear intent of the project. The Public Works Department requests approval to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Georgia Department of Transportation for SR 70 from CR 7549 slash Lakeview Court to CR 2036 West Park Place, SR 70 at CR 4176 Cascade Road. GDOT will manage the construction for both projects. Per the MOA, the city will contribute 20% local match for both projects in the amount of $462,000. $234.79 and 10% contingency for both projects in the amount of $315,563.40 for a total cost of $777,798.19. Madam Mayor, with those additions and corrections read into the record, that's all I have.

All right. If there's no objections to the agenda as amended with the noted changes, we can adopt this through unanimous consent. Okay, that is done. Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

Brings us to enrollment number six, approval of city council meeting minutes. Regular meeting minutes, May 26, 2026. Work session minutes, May 26, 2026. And alcohol zoning public hearing minutes, May 26, 2026.

All right. There is no objections to the minutes as sounded by the clerk. We can adopt this as approved with unanimous consent. Moving on.

It brings us to rule number seven, consent agenda items, items A through E.

Alright if there is no objections we can move forward with unanimous consent in regards to the consent agenda Mr.

Clerk, please sound the next item that brings us to public comments. I Comments regarding zoning cases will not be allowed. Speakers will be granted a total of two minutes each, and public comments will not exceed 30 minutes. Speakers will not be allowed to yield or donate their time to other speakers. Speakers must identify themselves and their addresses prior to speaking. Speakers may only address the presiding officer, shall observe all rules of decorum. No debate, disrespect, or obscenities shall be tolerated. The presiding officer shall rule any such individual out of order that fails to comply with the foregoing. With the rules read into the record, we did receive three public comment cards this evening. As I call your name, please approach the center microphone. You have two minutes. Please state your name, address, and the district that you reside in. Tonight's speakers are Mike Johnson, Richard Schnellings, and Keith Carlisle.

All right. Uh, Mike Johnson, district four, camera, the Fabbin road. Uh, first of all, I'd like to start out by saying, you know, madam city manager and council, can someone please explain to me and the citizens how and why was Carmelita Gums and Helen Zenobia Lewis Willis was allowed to bypass the city purchasing requisition process and abuse their city issued P cards for thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars. To my understanding, most of the charges that I have uncovered here should have went through an approval process, which includes a requisition form being completely filled out and approved by the proper authorities before this money was spent. I have noticed that the last thing Some people in power or position of power won't is an informed citizen or voter. The minute that that person or that citizen become informed, a lot of you guys that's in position of power and authority, you become offended. And you become offended because now that informed citizen or voter is not willing to go along with all the buffoonery. They're not willing to buck dance and bootleg and act as if it's a pleasure to be in your presence. These informed citizens now start to question how their tax dollars are being spent, and they expect real accountability. A couple of things here I noticed that all of a sudden since I started bringing it up, and this is more so for Madam City Manager. Why haven't we been doing a check and oversight of how this money was spent? We expect some results, and I come up here every week until we get them. I think it's a change for management here. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, and city staff. My name is Keith Carlisle. I'm here because I have been able to resolve a school zone speeding citation through the normal process for eight months. My concern is not only about the citation itself, but about the ability to receive due process that every citizen should have. I have repeatedly requested a hearing and a court date so I can present my case before a judge. Instead, I've been given a runaround after runaround. I've spoken to a lieutenant, Roland. uh, explained to me, um, and I'm not trying to get this resolved here, but, uh, and one of the school zones, they said, uh, they captured me speeding. But when I went back, took the pictures and did all the investigation myself, the times didn't match. And then I was informed that, uh, no, you didn't, you didn't get a ticket for speed. So our school zone, but you got a ticket for speeding. But within the last eight months, that same ticket that they said that they considered the speeding ticket, it have hindered me from receiving or getting my registration in the state of Georgia. I've sent countless emails out to, they gave me, what, Dr. Alexander? They gave me his email. I sent emails out to e-mail. This has been going on like eight months, and I'm trying to resolve what is the solution to get this fixed or whatever, because it's like eight months too long to just get a court date or get heard for a citation.

All right, Richard Snellings, 1980 Loch Lomond Trail, District 1. I took the day off of work to attend the council retreat to hear the excuses as to why it was okay for Helen Willis and them to abuse the PCAR with prepaid campaign-related expenses. But an update on the PCAR program was moved to executive session, so now I'll just have to follow up with Chris Carr's office on that. If my memory serves me correctly, standing in this very room a little over a year ago I reported these questionable charges about the former mayor. There was a lot of action taken about the former mayor, but then Councilwoman Gumbs, she had this fake outrage about his P-card and she took the lead on taking a lot of these actions. Um, now it was, it is, it's just a little strange to me how there's no action being taken when it's someone who was instrumental to her giving elected. Um, but when it was about someone that she had an issue with, uh, she was willing to take those, those, um, those actions. Now, um, previously she had spoke about an F about a raid, uh, coming in and a former employer that she worked for. Is that what it's gonna take here in South Fulton for us to get this right? Is it gonna take an FBI raid? Is it gonna take someone getting indicted? What's going to need to happen before the city manager and the city attorney takes the required action on this matter? With us going into budget season, the public is the one who has to pay these bills, right? So we're gonna be expecting something to happen as it relates to these fraudulent charges that Mayor Gumbs and former Councilwoman Helen Willis have put on their P-card. Thank you.

That completes the public comment for this evening's meeting. Thank you. Mr. Clerk, if there are no other speakers, can we sound the next item, please?

Next item is council comments.

All right. We can start as we have done in previous times with council district one.

Thank you. A couple of announcements. I want to encourage people to attend the district one town hall meeting which will be held on tomorrow from 6.30 to 8 p.m. at the Sandtown Recreation Center. We'll be providing a number of updates on the park improvements occurring at Sandtown Park. sewer expansion project is also occurring along New Hope Road in conjunction with the sidewalk project and also inform residents how they can participate in petitioning Fulton County for sewer expansion. So I want to encourage you to come out and Dr. Alexander will be present giving public safety updates for District 1. We also, um, I want to let everybody know in district one, if you haven't received, hopefully you'll be receiving over the next couple of days, the district one summer newsletter, which gives you updates about projects that have occurred across the city as well as, um, in district one. And for those who are here, you can pick it up in the lobby and the district one panel outside. And last but not least on seven 31 26, we'll have our R and B Southern. So, event from 6 to 10 at the Santown Rec Center. So I look forward to seeing you there. July 31st.

Thank you.

That concludes my comments.

Thank you, Councilwoman Rao. District 2, Councilman Johnson.

Good evening, everyone. The first thing I want to say is congratulations and welcome to our newest member. I'm no longer the newbie. I'm still kind of new. I hit six months, and then you came. So I truly appreciate you filling the seat. All right. I'm very excited about you being here. And speaking of, you were elected on a Tuesday, and then Thursday we went to our GMA conference, which I want to congratulate our colleagues on their accomplishments. I don't know if you all know, but several of our colleagues, including Dr. Rao, Councilman Sebastian, Councilwoman Williams-Brown, and Councilwoman Linda Pritchett, as well as Councilwoman Keosha Bell, all received accolades for their service and their hard work as elected officials over the years from the Georgia Municipal Association. it was a great day for the city of South Fulton in that. So I was really proud to be for my first one as a council member, uh, to have so much going on for us. I'm also excited about our, um, partnering with our library dads, uh, this Saturday on July 18th, they're having their second annual, um, ultimate library link up. And if you haven't heard about the Library Dads, it's an amazing organization of fathers who are working in the libraries and reading with their children, doing different activities with their children. Me and some of the other ones, as I used to be the chair of the All Pro Dads program at Stonewall Tell and Sandtown Middle School. It's very important for children to spend time with their fathers. We hear a lot about fathers not being around, and this is a great, great example of fathers taking, spending time with their children. And it's well over 200 fathers that show up to be a part of this event. And I'm really excited to be a part of that. Also, on July 25th, we have a Black Men's Mental Health Conference, which I'll serve as a panelist, which I'm a little concerned about why they chose me, but they did. but it's going to be a conference to talk about black men's health. One thing, mental health that is, that's one of the things that we as a community tend to overlook. And I think that this will be a great opportunity for us as a community to hear about some of the issues that black men are facing as it relates to mental health and then some of the resources that we have available to us. So that should be a great conference. And one last announcement is that Sheriff Pat Labott is having his town hall on Thursday, July 16th at Enon Baptist Church at 7 p.m. You hear a lot about the sheriff, but he wants an opportunity to come out and talk to the community. He's asking that folks come out and hear directly from him and if you have questions for him to be able to talk to him. And Madam Mayor, that is all I have for today.

All right. Thank you. And that library dads event is awesome. So. I'm glad you are getting that together and attending. To our newest Councilwoman, District 3, Councilwoman Wright. Let's go. Hey, everybody.

How you guys doing tonight? All right. So I'm excited to be here. I appreciate the warm welcome, the support from everyone. It means so much. And I'm excited to be here to bring the tea in District 3 to you all. It's a lot of good tea in District 3. Now, I'm a southern girl, so I do the cold tea. A lot of people have hot tea. Whatever the tea you like, we got it in District 3, and I'm honored to be able to bring that to you all. And so speaking of the tea that's going on in District 3, on Friday, February, I mean February, Lord, July the 18th, It's the finale of Food Truck Fridays in District 3, the Red Oak Board hosting that in Salome International. That is from 4 o'clock p.m. to 8 o'clock p.m. So join us for the best of barbecue finale. It's our last Food Truck Friday of the summer. Looking forward to see you all on Roosevelt Highway at Salome International for that. And I had the honor and the privilege to be with Councilwoman Raul, at Welcome All Part, where we were able to see all of the seniors, the program that we had, the senior rehabilitation program. It was a line outside the door, but it was so much fun to see everyone engaged and involved. So speaking of that, tomorrow is the last day for in-person registration and assistance for that. Of course, you have until July 31st for all the seniors to apply for this great program. to be able to access funds for rehabilitation of their homes. A lot of my seniors, I call them the WAG, welcome all gang. They've already texted me seven or eight and they're going to be there to assist one another if anyone has any issues accessing the laptop and completing the application. So please come on out to Welcome All Park tomorrow. That's the last day for in-person registration for the rehabilitation program for our seniors. And again, that is all that I have. Thank you all so much for having me represent you in District 3 and serving the city of South Fulton. And I will turn it over to you, Madam Mayor.

Awesome. You're going to do great things. What time at Welcome All tomorrow?

It's at 12 noon to 3 o'clock. A lot of people be there at night. They've been standing outside. But it starts at 12, 12 noon to 3 o'clock. So come on out to Welcome Wall to get assistance with completing your application. Any questions that you have, staff is on site to assist with that.

All right. Thank you. So Welcome Wall is the place to be tomorrow. District 4, Councilman Sebastian.

Thank you. Before I get into the district's specific things, I want to wish all the councillors in the room a happy birthday, starting with our Director Dyson in the back. He's the thorn among the roses, right? And also, coming up Friday, Madam Subedan, happy birthday in advance. And Mayor, I know you just had a birthday as well. And Councilwoman Keosha Bell just had a birthday as well. But if you're listening to the best councillor in the world, Mrs. Sebastian, today's her birthday, and she allowed me to be here. So, honey, if you're listening, happy birthday, and I hopefully will see you soon, and not at midnight. So, but happy birthday, guys. Seriously, happy birthday. There's just all these cancers around. Thank you all for what you all do. For District 4, I'm going to go back a little bit because we weren't here in June, and I want to thank those, both the resource people, Grady, Representative Lydia Glaze for partnering with me, and throwing the men's health event where we had free PSA testing at Fire Station 6. I know it's been a while. But thank you all for doing it, and we're hoping to make that an annual affair and making that even better. Jumping quickly to July, thank you guys for coming out to July's Farmers Market. And we have this every Thursdays in the district at 6,000 Lynnmark Way. So on the 23rd of this month, we'll be popping up again from 4 PM at 6,000 Lynnmark Way. Also, for those who attended Stinkfest, we had another remarkable year. Thank you to the organizers and those who managed to visit, bring a lot of tourism dollars to our city. And I just want to thank the organizers. And Ms. Sandy, if you're listening, thank you for bringing this home to our district as well. Coming up. This week, we have our school supplies giveaway. We're going to be preparing this Friday night at Fire Station 6. The giveaway is actually Saturday at 6,000 from noon until 3 or until supplies last. Thank you very much. And for those who supported our food giveaway yesterday, thank you for coming out. We fed about 400 plus families. Thank you all so much, especially the volunteers that came in district and from out of district, and especially to our public works heroes. They showed up last night. We generated a lot of trash guys. They showed up last night. They were the last on the scene. I was already at home. But I came back out just to thank them for coming by and cleaning up the trash. So Dr. Cooper, thank you very much for organizing that, because we didn't have to leave the place dirty. And again, to the men and women from the public works, another shout out for you all. Have you all been admiring those pretty roundabouts? I made a post recently about our pretty roundabouts in the city, and it became very, it's probably still trending. And I did it because I drove through another city on my way to GMA, of all places, and I saw a roundabout in the next door city, and it didn't look so good. And I said, this will never exist in the city of South Fulton. And so thank you all for engaging and talking about something positive that's happening in our city. So once again, thank you guys very much. And for those of you with kids, see you on Saturday at our school supplies giveaway. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, Councilman Sebastian. Moving on to District 5, Councilwoman Bale.

Hey and welcome back everyone back to our Council meeting. Thank you so much. We all missed you, but just to give some quick updates for District 5. We are gearing up for our second Dream Big Teen Girls lock-in, which is scheduled for July the 25th and 26th. Fortunately, we are at capacity, of course. We only take 20 to 25 young ladies so that we can pour into them as well as have an intimate time with each of our young adults. So if you are someone who was interested in registering and were unable to register successfully, we can look at the list. We will... Make some determinations to see if we will have any spots available, and then we can reach out to you at that time. The next event is our South Fulton Studios and Dreams to Reality Arts. This is an event that I am hosting along with our South Fulton Studios, which is a benefit dance concert that is scheduled for July the 30th, 2026. at 6 p.m. at the Southwest Arts Center. We encourage all residents to come out and support not only the Southwest Studios of Business in our city, they are also a city that focuses on motivating and empowering young women, and some men, but young women in the dance, in the area of dance. So I'm encouraging each of you to definitely log online. If you're receiving our newsletter, We will have that information as well. And we look forward to seeing you on July 30th at 6 p.m. That is all I have. And thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilwoman Bell. Moving on to District 6, Councilwoman Natasha Williams-Brown.

thank you mayor and salutations and greetings from the sensational six um we certainly do have a busy week coming up for district six on saturday we will begin with the annual back to school carnival at Creole Park. We will kick it off that morning with our annual senior legacy walk. So for all of my seasoned and special residents who join us every year to walk on Saturday morning, here is the opportunity to once again join us for that. And then we will follow that with the back to school carnival for the kids with the book bag and school supplies giveaway that will begin at 1 p.m. And as you know, Joan always does outdoes herself each and every year with planning and putting this event on and tonight and Tony certainly in Parks and Rec also put in a lot of work to ensure that we have a great event. And I appreciate all of their hard work to make that a success. We will follow that up on Tuesday the 21st with a town hall meeting with State Representative Deborah Bazemore, who is the representative for this area. We will be doing a special session recap so that she can share with you more about the special session. some of the wins that they were able to secure for the residents and for the voters in the state of Georgia. So please do come out six o'clock on Tuesday to the Economic Development Office for that town hall meeting. And then next Saturday at 10 a.m., we are back in business with the monthly District 6 food giveaway at Creole Park beginning at 10 a.m. while supplies last. As always, if you know of anyone who is in need of assistance with food or experiencing food insecurity in any type of way, please do send them over to Creole Park so that we can make sure we are helping our brothers and sisters and our neighbors with continuing to thrive here in a city that is definitely on the rise. if i were there i would look in the back and ask the hardest working man in politics if i got it all but since i'm virtual we're going to cross our fingers and hope that that's it um if not please do keep an eye out for my newsletter where i will continue to provide timely updates to the community about all of the things going on in the Sensational 6. And with that, Mayor, I yield.

Well, unfortunately, your guy in the back is shaking his head no, that you missed some things. But we'll make it up on the back end.

We'll make up for it on the back end.

All right. Thank you. Moving on to District 7, Councilwoman Pritchett.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. Good evening to everyone. I'm not there present because I'm in Los Angeles at the National Association of Latino elected officials, an organization that I'm a member of. And I so far in two days of this conference, I've had the pleasure of meeting the Honorable Rosario Marie. who was the first and only Latina U.S. treasurer who served under George W. Bush. I met the New Mexico Speaker of the House, Javier Martinez, former Congressman Tony Cardenas, and I had to step out of the work session because there was a meeting that I was invited to And it was to meet with Governor Gavin Newsom. And it was just a handful of us in the room. I think I got picked because I'm from Fulton County. And there's been a lot of conversations about elections, but we were able to get a lot of great information about different initiatives surrounding housing. communication strategies that are helpful for our communities, food affordability and local growing. So I'm really excited to be able to be in these spaces and also as a Hispanic elected local official on the board, the constituency group, for the National League of Cities tonight. I'm hosting a reception for the Latino leaders that are here that participate nationally. So these type of relationships are important because now Governor Newsom knows somebody from South Fulton and it just helps us understand different perspectives on policy. I do have a few announcements on upcoming events. This Saturday I will be here and hosting a shredding and recycling event at the Tri-County Plaza at 7490 Old National Highway. from sat um from 11 to 2 p.m uh bring your shredding bring your recyclable items we'll be glad to see you there uh on july the 25th which is a saturday at the southwest art center councilwoman rao and i will be hosting salsa in south fulton from 7 p.m to 10 30 p.m We'll have dancing, food trucks, vendors, just lots of fun so that everybody can brush up on their salsa. This is a free event, so I look forward to everyone participating. And then a back-to-school event on August the 1st at Shock Fitness Studios. And I have published that on my social media, and I believe that the city's putting that out as well. Make sure that you register your children to receive a colored book bag or a transparent plastic, I mean, yeah, clear book bag, whichever one. just make sure you register your children. We're intending to give out 150 backpacks and school supplies. So I just hope that everyone will register so your child will not be left behind. And the last thing I want to mention is I received a communication from one of my constituents in District 7 and they were mentioning that tomorrow is the Planning Commission meeting And she was asking if I would attend because this is an opportunity for residents to come out and fight for what they don't want in the community and stop gas stations and some other stuff that are being proposed on the agenda. And what I explained to her was, I really hope that residents start understanding that these meetings aren't for you to go fighting with people fighting with people who are applying for rezoning, developers, the planning commission, us. These are opportunities for you to hear what is happening or being proposed. And the planning commission are our fact finders. They evaluate the information that they've given. The staff also provides information as well. Citizens are more than welcome and we encourage you to make your public comment, but please don't go in there trying to fight nobody or trying to shut something down because this is just part of our zoning procedures process that's dictated by the zoning procedures law. It is not fight night. It is just not... what you think it is and just take it for what it's worth. It's information. And if you have an opinion or recommendation, email us on this council and let us know what you think. And we'll take your comments under advisement and in consideration. And with all of that, I yield and I appreciate the opportunity to greet you again.

Thank you, Councilwoman Pritchett. And I hope you're having a good time out there. Is it L.A.?

I think you said L.A.

So I will go through. The mayor's office has been extremely busy over our summer break. I've had the opportunity to attend the U.S. Mayor's Conference in Long Beach, California, and was able to see a lot of great things that they were doing in that city, made a lot of good connects, especially around for our P3, which is public-private partnerships to help to get some of our projects to fruition. So we really had a good time and actually was able to attend a meeting in the city of Richmond where we were able to tour some of their projects. That has been exciting. And for those who, I guess, put that message out, I did attend GMA. I just happened to miss the photo op with our illustrious council. So I do want to say congratulations to you all, as I've shared on social media. But I was there. making good relationships and attending meetings. We also had a grand opening in District 1, which was the Anthem 3 for our seniors. That is the newest senior living apartment community that is over off of West Crest Drive. So we have, I don't know if they are at capacity yet, but if you are a senior looking for a new high-rise, I think you've got to be 55. So I'm close, but not too close. Not too close yet, but it's very beautiful. Also, we had our talk around town, our first one. We will be having another one coming up at the end of this month. And we had swearing in of two judges, pro tems. So that is exciting as our municipal courts continue to grow. We had some of our interns attend the Grady Micro Internship Program Showcase. as well as we had the opportunity to attend Grady's AMI school opening. And just recently, the Thundercats senior basketball team, they competed at Sandtown over the weekend. The 40-plus seniors, the 50-plus seniors actually won gold medals. But it is a torturous... My gosh, they are very serious. So if you ever have an opportunity to attend they played the Atlanta Lady Hawks and they kind of whoo, it was rough but Well, I tell you it is a fun time and it is a lot of energy in the room for these younger but older people that are getting out and moving. It is a great thing to see. I do want to give congratulations to the RS Group LLC. They were just recently honored at the Georgia's Fast 40 Awards. That is a business that is right here in our city. It is the state's fastest growing company right here in our community. So I do want to give you all give them a round of applause for them actually growing that fast. They are right off of Fulton Industrial. I want to take a personal moment and give a shout out to all of the interns that have worked. Their last day is this coming. Friday, right? And we have one intern that is in the room. They have done exceptional. They have been very professional. They've been dedicated. They showed up every single day and they have a very strong work ethic. So I'm excited to see their contributions again to our community. And again, thank you so much. And hopefully we'll be able to have that program expand. Coming up, we have on July 18th, our Youth Pro Basketball Camp in partnership with Georgia Tech and CareSource. So that will also be more information for that. You can find that in the newsletter. July 30th will be our next Talk Around Town. And right now, I don't know if many of you have seen our code enforcement team all up and down Old National. They have been doing an amazing job. Please honk when you see them. But they are focused on cleaning up our corridors, especially when they started with OWN National. We want to restore pride, improve safety, and create a cleaner OWN National. So they are inspecting property maintenance, landscaping, parking, trash, and dumpsters as well. So please stay tuned for that. Other than that, we are moving and grooving. And thank you all. Oh, and we had a wonderful Juneteenth, even though it rained out. That was our first Juneteenth where we actually sold out, but it rained out. So hopefully we'll get it right the next time. But again, I love to see our community as we continue to come together. And with that being said, that concludes my comments. Mr. Clerk, can you please sound the next item?

Yes, ma'am, that brings us to roll number 10 under agenda items. Letter A, administration number one, second reading requests council approval of the ordinance of the city of South Fulton, Georgia to amend title 15, public safety and defenses, to prohibit unauthorized public camping, to define camping in related terms, to establish notice removal and storage procedures, to provide enforcement and documentation requirements to protect health, safety, and access to public spaces, sponsored by council member Williams-Brown.

All right. So, council, I'm going to do something a little bit different. You all have had the opportunity to read the agenda. I will, if there is no objections to any of the items from items A through D with the exception of D10, we can adopt that through unanimous gross consent. Are there any objections? I'm pulling out D10.

as a request.

Please make sure you mute your line. All right. If there is no objections, we will adopt that with unanimous consent. Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item, which is D10.

BRINGS US TO D10, THE PROCUREMENT DEPARTMENT REQUIRES COUNCIL APPROVAL TO AWARD RFP NUMBER 26-15 TO HEDLEY CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION FOR PROGRESSIVE DESIGN BUILD SERVICES FOR THE CEDAR GROVE PARK COMMUNITY BUILDING. The project will deliver a new multi-purpose community facility to support recreation, wellness, educational, cultural, and community programming. The base contract amount is $11,838,299.56. A 20% contingency in the amount of $2,367,659.91 is included for a total amount not to exceed $14,205,959.47. With that being said, Council, I will entertain a motion. I move to approve item D10.

And to award the contract number, RFP number 26-15 to Headlee Construction Corporation for Progressive Design Build Services for the Cedar Grove Community Building. The project will deliver a new multipurpose community facility to support recreation, wellness, education, culture, and community programming. Base contract will be for $11,838,299.50. 20% contingency in the amount of $2,367,659.91 is included for a total project amount not to exceed $14,205,959.47.

All right. It has been moved and properly seconded. Can I get this by a show of hands and confirmation online? Yes. Councilwoman Williams-Brown. All right. Yes. District 5?

Yes. Yes, 5.

All right. All right. That sounds like a unanimous vote. All right. Well, congratulations to the city of South Fulton. Give yourselves a hand. Do y'all know how big this is? I don't know. They seem a little light. Well, this is a wonderful project that is showing our commitment to this city, and we are moving forward. With that being said, Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

Brings us to first read ordinances. First read of the zoning ordinance Z26-009 slash U26-005. It's an application by Brian T. Marks requesting a rezoning from R3 in the Cliftondale Overlay District to AG1. Requesting a special use permit for Country Inn at 0 and 4965 Butner Road. It's located in Council District 2. And staff and planning commission recommended approval. This is the first read.

Okay. With that being said, Mr. Clerk, please sound the next item.

Next item is the walk-on items that were sounded earlier. We have the approval of the following events, back-to-school community partnership with Siloam Church International on July 31st, 2026, sponsored by District 3, Southside Day back-to-school giveaway, September 6th, 2026, Wolf Creek Amphitheater, sponsored by Mayor Gumbs, Salsa in South Fulton, Saturday July 25th Southwest Arts Center sponsored by district 7 back to school event Saturday August 1st 2026 at shock Fitness Studios sponsored by district 7 Mexican Mexico in Karazhan Marachi's Sunday September 20th 2026 at Wolf Creek Amphitheater sponsored by councilmember pitch it district 7 an R&B event at Sandtown Recreation Center on July 31st, 2026 from 6 to 10 p.m. at District 1, sponsored by Council Member Rao.

Mr. Clerk, we're going to have to get you brushed up on some of your Spanish.

Oh, my Spanish? Okay. Mariachis.

Mariachi, yes.

Corazon.

Very well, very well. All right. If there is no objection, we can adopt these with unanimous consent. No, this is the events. If there are no objections, that has been adopted with unanimous gross consent. Mr. Clark, please sound the next item.

Next item is executive session, if necessary.

I don't believe that we need executive session at this point. If we have no objections, I will move for adjournment. If there's any objections. With that being said, we are now adjourned at 8.06 p.m. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good night.