Commission Meeting Agendas - Regular Meeting

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, sir. I hereby approve the minutes from the July 16, 2026, channel meeting and the August 6, 2026, column meeting as they are presented. You have all been provided a copy of these minutes from the deal ending. First on the list is the presentation. The first item on the agenda this morning will be Chair John Dyer. John Dyer will be presenting life-saving, complimentary awards to some of our local public safety employees with Dyer.

First of all, I'd like to thank everybody for coming today. Everybody that's here that don't know, it's great to live in Union County and have some of the best first responders that anyone in the state, in my opinion. And as one of you, you're going to get to hear a few stories of how good they really are. And at this time, I'd like to thank the folks over at the police department for coming up and joining me over here. And I'll tell you that little story that happened. Back in, let's see, it was May. Saturday morning, we get a phone call that Mr. Stoller was at home having chest pains. And thank goodness his wife talked him into calling 911. And the EMS and fire department responded to his residence and they could see what they were having. They transported him to fire station 13 on Murphy Highway, where they began doing tests, and during that, Mr. Solder went into full cardiac arrest. Their quick actions and experience, they were able to start CPR, so they could get the proper life-saving equipment on him, and shock him back, and get him back. And without their, without that Station 13 meeting with them, where they were able to do this, and without all those mixed reflections, Mr. Trotter wouldn't be here today. And I'm really proud of that. At this time, I'd like for Albany, Travis Gibson, I think Adam Ponder is not here today. I think he's on vacation. But Eric Pryd and Amber Pryd, if you all please come up. Folks, this is the people that saved Mr. Sullivan's life, and when they're working, you can, you can, and anybody else that works in fire and gas, you can, you can make sure they're going to do everything they can do to keep you alive, and I'm, I'm really proud of that. And it's kind of wonderful to be presenting to them the life of Samuel Woods.

Well, there's not a whole lot I remember about it.

Actually, I want to understand that he had a shot in his life before I was on a helicopter. Once on a helicopter, and one more time. I don't know if he's story, but so that's the little poor guy that they brought me back to life. So, I'll always be...

I've got one more here, or two more that I want to recognize. Two of my deputies responded to a cardiac arrest on Track Rock Road, and when they got there, that kind of female that was in full cardiac arrest, one of the folks, or anything like that, Deputy Sue Day Townsend and Michael Kearns started life-saving techniques with CPR. Deputy Kearns started CPR before them. right before Deputy Townsend got there. And Deputy Townsend and Park Soul, they volunteered a firetruck. And in this patrol vehicle, not the one down there, in this patrol vehicle, he carries an A&E. And he retrieved that, got it in, got it in the female, and lit her a shot, and got her parts ordered back. And she's alive. and the life saving efforts of these two right here. One thing that's put on my top priority for next year's budget is I would like to have one of those that seems to never come right out because you never know what we might need or somebody might need that life saving equipment. And one of my goals is to get that never far of what we have and do what we can. And I really appreciate these guys on there. And then there was a tip, a lot of saving, and the metal about it for a lot of saving, you see that? I'd like to thank all of these people, and I appreciate everything y'all do. The paper says that they'd like to get a group photo before we all slip out. I want to thank everybody here that's

One, two, three.

One, two, three. One, two, three. The next on the list is automation. Emergency and disaster can occur unexpectedly over the significant breadth of life, property, and crime in the community of community services. Local emergency managers, public safety agencies, community partners, Volunteers, private sector organizations, state agencies, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency dedicate countless hours to developing and supporting preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation programs that protect the residents and community of Union County. The Union County Emergency Management Agency is charged coordinating with the capabilities, resources, plans, and partnerships necessary to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate emergency and disasters affecting the county. Emergency management professionals serve the public with commitment, compassion, and professionalism, often working behind the scenes before, during, and after emergencies to protect lives. property, and essential services in efforts of emergency management and their partners at residents, businesses, local governments, and community organizations to prepare, recover, rebuild, and become more resilient in the face of adversity. I have a talk to make here. That or Sean, I don't know. I don't think that.

I just want to talk a little bit about emergency management just for a second. This is the main group staff of the Emergency Management Department. Our department and Emergency Management Department are together in this county. But it's pretty common throughout Colorado and the United States. But emergency management is something that nobody ever really thinks about until, of course, there's an emergency.

Can we handle everything?

Everything from hurricanes that may happen here, winter storms, ice storms. flooding, any kind of things like that that would affect the whole of our county. So it's very important. There's a lot of hard work that goes involved in that. There's a lot of planning that goes in that that people really never see or know anything about. But there's a lot of plans that have to be put together so that when a disaster happens, we are able to respond and we are able to recover, which is a huge deal for our economy and for our county as a whole. And not only do we take care of these kinds of matters, but also things like the last group search we had, the OSH search, which happened last November. Everybody heard about all that. That is something that emergency management takes care of.

So, sort of an unsung hero, and you don't really see emergency management up front in a lot of things, but they're behind the scenes. I was working with something, so keep that in mind.

I also wanted to, while I'm up here, tell you a big thing about the emergency response. The vacation system that we have called RAID, if you were willing to go to the website, you can see that.

And I encourage everybody to sign up for that. Again, emergency alerts for any kind of disaster that may happen. I think I already mentioned them, so thank you to the staff. Also, I'll have an opportunity to thank you to the sheriff for recognizing our firefighters during a couple of the calls. Thank you. The next is proclamation. This next proclamation is very important to our community. John Harkins is going to come up and read the proclamation for National Retirement Month. Before Ms. John comes up here, before reading the proclamation, I would like to talk a little about volunteering. I would like to point out that this lady here should have her picture next to volunteering in the dictionary. I have gotten an old virgin taken off last year, and I am so impressed by her dedication and commitment to the recovery of the community. If there is every event to this day, I will only attend to having organized, planned, set up, and planned. If there is an individual that needs help starting their recovery journey, gaining mental health services, getting access to services and food from one place to stay, she is there. Not just there, she is helping with her whole heart any time of the day or night, weekdays or weekends, volunteering hours upon hours to help others in the recovery community in any way she can. Our recovery community would not be what it is without her. In addition to all of her volunteering activities, she worked more than a full-time job and additionally volunteered her free time serving on the Union County Development Public Board. She asked for no recognition for her volunteer commitments and shined a light of recognition for all that she gives to our community. It is all good for me to recognize Shawn for all she does for our community.

I was only standing up, so I appreciate that.

but hello, I am Shawn Harkins, and I can do a lot of different things in our community, but it's because I love my community. I have two volunteers here from Positive Pathways, and they're really what makes all the work happen. This is the proclamation for National Recovery Month. It is September 26th, in which we will be having a free Recovery Month event called Breaking the Mountains. This is our sixth year putting this on. And it's just a bunch of, here's our community, different organizations for treatment and just here to tell their stories. And we'll have free food, 12 pounds of everything that's free. It will be at News Park on September 12th from 4 to 7, 4 to 8. and the recovery tour bus will be there. So I encourage you all to come out and just see what we have to offer. I'll go ahead and read this proclamation. Whereas behavioral health is an essential part of what's overall health and well-being, and whereas recovery from the nation occurs every day through a variety of recovery support services and treatment options. Whereas prevention of substance use disorders work, treatment is effective, and people recover across Georgia and around the nation. And as millions of people across the United States are living happy, joyous, and free in long-term recovery, and as whereas the 2026 Georgia Recovers in Communities bus tour celebrates that recovery is real, and recognizes that we are never alone on this journey through recovery, and whereas the Georgia Recovery Community's bus tour will deliver 100 overdose aid kits to communities across Georgia to be accessible in local government buildings, and whereas education throughout our communities about recovery and addiction is essential to combating the stigma and discrimination faced by young people in recovery. And, where some healthier people experience and sustain long-term recovery, the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Elemental Disabilities, the Georgia Council for Recovery, Serve the RS, and the Georgia General Assembly agree on addiction and recovery. Invite all residents of the state of Georgia to participate in National Recovery Month. Now, therefore, Herman Collins, the recovery school commissioner, Thus here I proclaim the month of September 2026 as National Recovery Month in D.C. County, Georgia.

This will work hard.

But in remiss error, I have hereunto set my hand in cause the sale of the County of Union to be affixed this 20th day of August 2026. Once again, I would like to say that Recovery isn't a one-stop shop. It's continuous about life. It is a journey. And everyone walking in recovery, you're having one of the, a lot of people, you know, the same ones that are sharing with recovery, you just get through these patterns. But it's, if you think of anything like breaking your leg or having a mental emergency, you're still recovering. All of us can recover in some form or fashion. And overall, being a person is...

It's really none of us really know what kind of person he's going through.

So I appreciate you all.

Thank you. Thank you, John. And a little more on that. John will drive the race car. Thank you again, John. But number five is adoption. I hereby adopt the revised personal policies and procedures of Union County employees. This revision adds a top-time policy to the Union County employee handbook and goes into effect on August 30th, 2026 to align with the start of the next full pay period. Number six is agreement. I hereby accept this agreement between the Board of Engineering Consultants and Union of Georgia for topographical surveys, construction drawings, and specifications and structural design related to Kaliske Creek Road code repair. The total cost of this agreement is not due to exceed $18,000 with an effective date of July 23, 2026. Number seven is the agreement. I hereby accept this agreement between Glen Power LLC and Union County, Georgia for architectural and structural engineering design services for the canopy division at the Union County Lighthouse. The total cost for this agreement is $8,500, within the 50 days of August 6, 2026. We are adding a 26 by 18-foot covered canopy to the existing library building. The canopy will connect and blend with the existing registry building and provide more coverage on the outside of the building to allow more beautiful space. I hereby check this agreement between UT Solutions and Union County Corp. to amend the original agreement effective October 3, 2025 to change the provider of the new 911 center from AT&T to UT Solutions. There is no card in the Call for Disagreement, the book changed in the Call for Disagreement with it remaining at $699.95. From the 9th to 15th License, I hereby approve all federal licenses issued in Union County from July 14, 2026 to August 14, 2026. For the purpose of operating a short-term rental in Union County, the list of events, licenses, issues, and taxes will be passed and will be made a part of the units. Number 10 is Notice of Award. I hereby object this Notice of Award to Custom Truck and Body Works Incorporated, dated August 28, with Union County Fire Department rescue quick attack fire apparatus in the amount of $282,000. That's another big thing about it. If you guys would come up, please, and elaborate on that a little bit more.

The rescue truck for Station 13, we just talked about Station 13 in response to Mr. Spiller's medical emergency. This is the rescue truck that would be in that same area. It's replacing the rescue truck that we currently have, which is older and is kind of breaking down. So we're very happy with this. We're going to be probably 12 months out before this thing actually gets built. So we're very happy with that.

On the day of the notice of award, I hereby accept this day's award of the contract to Goldbury Credit Incorporated, made in August 20, 2026, for passed off research into the Department of Transportation, local maintenance, and improvement grant in the amount of $1,018,740.83. for the 2026 L.M.E.C. training, L.M.E.C. paving of the City of Clark, portion of our roadblock. If you were good at the May and June meeting, county meeting, you might remember that we accepted a notice of award, a contract, and then the contract of Colbert Crutton for me to perform the L.M.E.C. paving for Union County Roads. The bid process includes both the county and the city of Lara where they have made a payment project. The city needs to waive and revisit their $40 billion. They have completed that process. And we are now accepting the notice of award of contract, and the contract is going to be appropriated to a portion of those wages that are being paid in the city of Florida. And the city will re-advert to the county the cost of their payment.

Under that Act, companies cannot contract with certain military companies from China Um, so anyone in that chain, if they have a contract with certain military companies in China, they're not allowed to have it. And that's backed up by federal law. They have a bar from indirectly or directly being controlled by any company or associated with any company in the Department of Defense Section 126 of that same Act. That changes quite a bit, so there's a lot of companies with any affiliation, they can't be here. Also, Batteries cannot be sourced from any Chinese company. And that's any part of the battery. That's a battery itself. That's a component of the battery. That is all in Section 154 of that National Defense Act. And so that gets put in there. Also in the same sections, it goes down to computer parts. Computer parts made with certain elements. Those elements were mined, refined, or had anything to do with the countries listed in that act. Obviously, they're borrowed from Havoc. This is a big deal. We've talked about computer servers. Those parts come from overseas all the time. So everything would have to comply with the national defense authorization act in 2024 and also anyone in the there's certain countries and companies that are not allowed to have intellectual property associated with companies so consultants people that provide software, things like that. Those are barred under the National Defense Act, which we are also associating in this list. The setbacks got from half a mile to a mile. The acres went from 500 to 1,000 acres total. The setback from schools, farms, and churches now has to be five miles. There is a full breakdown before we have an action plan for spillages and recovery and anything of hazardous materials. There's a full action plan listed that that's a minimum of what they must comply with in this ordinance now. Also, we have several evaluations that had to take place prior to the permitting process, which would be your environmental evaluation, cultural heritage evaluation. We have outlined the minimum standards of what they have to show the county prior to permitting being in there. There is no tax abatements of any kind written in there. They also have written in there that when Not only do they have their tax statements, but any PHI club will be appraised on income approach year over year. Fulton County started this with their data centers, and I believe those data centers, taxes for each year went from somewhere to from like 20, 30, I can't remember, it was like 20, 30 million dollars to buildings. So we're going to use bear's anger for this if one decides to come here. Also, they'll have to be encouraged on their personal property and inventory or county census of the building on an annual basis on their act of order taxes each year. I'm not going to go over all the requirements of the environmental and cultural impacts. But you can read those in the copies that we provided. There's quite a few of them. Again, that's the minimum standard they have to meet in the proof. We did put in on the closure of cooling systems. You will notice that while we're only allowing the closure of the cooling systems, there's still another Water regulations in there, and you might not know why, but if you have a cold blue cooling system, when you need all the other water regulations, there's technology changes. That's exactly why. Technology changes and something can come out that could be technically called a closed blue cooling system and still have some sort of water for anything else. So we're just covering all the rest of the system. Only permanent structures are allowed beforehand. We've had different things for prefab structures, shipping containers, things like that. We've cut all that down. Only permanent structures are allowed. 50% of the power that they use are going to be required to come from solar power. So you would have to... They have to prove that 50% of their power usage is going to come from solar power on their own property. If they have to have 1,000 acres, they should have plenty of room for solar panels. We did add to the vegetative buffers about native plants, what native plants, if there's not a natural buffer already there, they can plant native plants, and what kind of plants you have to plant, what kind of plants you can't plant. Also, any no trees to be removed from 100 feet of any structure that is outside of that barrier that's already there, meaning if a building's there, a road's there, and they just don't clear cut all the way to the barrier, they have to keep the natural vegetation there at least 100 foot out from any building. Then, while we already had the majority of the dark sky standard already written in there, we just made it a little more clear that it shall equal or exceed dark sky standards with no more than 3, 2, 4K in light and color. So those were the additions. Yes, sir?

Point clarification. You said 1,000 continuous acres, but here it says 100,000.

Which section are you looking at? Page 715. Page 715. You can print me one of the copies if you get one. Page 715. That's a title.

Thank you for getting that. That should be 1,000 hours.

Oh, okay.

Well, I can catch that.

And it should be under... If you look at page 11 of 15 under section O, O2, the facility will only use ones with water proof. That's on page 11 under section O, that's true.

I started out on the drug department with all these pop-ups on that we've been having. We've got to pave it out to Valley Road and finish it up this week. Let's talk about the medicine service next week. Call the truck and get it down and back down on Back Harbor Road and finish it up down there. I do want to touch on that just a little bit, on how well Colton's is doing that, as I heard earlier, as well as L.D. What we do every year, we reach out a pipe or a grand L.D. grant. And what that grant's based off of is population of the county and mileage of roads. And they determine the amount of money that you receive through that elevated grant.

And the county has to match 30% of that.

Basically what it's been doing the past couple of years is we get set about seven and a half mile of road On our cost, it's about $300,000 to $300,000. And with the L.D., we're getting $700,000 a road, basically, for $300,000 to $300,000. On a normal basis, on a mile of road, a two-lane road, it costs about $200,000 to $200,000 a mile. So with the L.D. grant, it's great. We've got Scandiac initially on cost on roads. And on that, from last year, I I felt like the county was wasting some money on that highway, but that's not the case. What took place last year, we had three different roads that we've ever been on, and I think it was two, I like to go back and look, like it was two to two and a half mile on that highway, where all this gas ran over the surface and down The police got things on Pac-12 Road down to the stopping point, the stop. They had a certain amount of money, and that's all left over. Rather than just throw it to the wind, they left it going down the road. They actually went down the road and had a section of the road that was starting to get bad, and they landed a lot of that over to get us through the winter until this other big money came in this year and we finished the road.

So that's where that took place at. There was not no repayment.

They just kept that one little bad section to get us through the winter. But the Transportation Office, we're waiting on the training kids to come in on that, so we get that in, make the season good, and then a few weeks we'll get started on training the Transportation Office. New Dog Park, I had a lot of progress there in the past month, all the rain. Plenty of it has been inspected, waiting on concrete, the flooring. We're actually at a senior center. We are getting work with our apartment, the building apartment, and getting them to install our smoke detectors throughout the facility. We're looking at getting work done on that. Also looking at doing floor and upgrade. We're installing some new floor and that pretty soon. Farmer's market, trash and treasures. Billings and Port, Gunner, Antelope, Key Creek, Camp Graham, Fire and Herb Reefs, Mews Center, other offices. I've been really busy. Every idea I've got, I'm going to all the different facilities, going in, changing out, having to do different things. Throughout our red apartments, it is always a double-A softball team show. We have the following sports, we have a baseball, softball, cheerleading, football, and soccer. numbers that are quick. Baseball, we've got 40. Softball, 23, 243. Football, 142. Soccer, 243. For a total of 591 children at the HMAC. They use all our kids right now. Rational, boys, girls, basketball registration, which has some good solid numbers on that. Also, like yesterday, That's why.

Come on man, look at that. We have a lot of good comments from a lot of people that work in media. They like to hear what we've asked and have a question and answer. So we've got to find out the best answer As far as legally, you can have the same. You can turn it if you need to. Every time you need to leave your car, come question me. So we look at all of us and try to give you the honest and right answers to your questions. We have one more thing over at the end of Ms. Hamm's hospital. We'll be doing this. Ms. Hamm, Ms. Hamm.

I apologize, I didn't bring my reading license. I'll do my best. This is a resolution of the Commissioner of Union County, Georgia, authorizing the transmittal of an application to the State Road and Tollway Authority, SRTA, requesting a grant from the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank, GTME, to construct a roundabout on Blue Ridge Highway in Canadian to provide matching funds and committed to construct the roundabout with these GTIB funds expeditiously and for the purposes. The grant deadline for this GTIB service application is tomorrow, so I will make sure that we have the resolution to authorize the commissioner to sign this grant application. We have just a small concept design of what a grant ballot could look like if we get the grant money. We're asking for $2 million. We don't know if we'll get the grant, but if we do, we would commit $580,000 from the squads to complete that grant ballot. So that's what the resolution has to be written. A little phrase I just want. It's a large highway at the intersection of Palm Peak Gap and Cal Gatsby. That roundabout has been dated for a long time. We looked at it several times. The GTIA funding was what we used for the roundabout at the Pat Harris and the Excel Farm Road there at the hospital. So, you know, if we get the funding, we can look at putting the roundabout there, but those intersections are safer.

At this time, I'll adjourn the meeting and open the floor up to questions. I'll ask, does anybody have any questions for Mr. Mercer? Anybody have any questions for Mr. Mercer? I don't know if you have any questions for Mr. Mercer on anything. Yeah? Okay. I can certainly from you know,

In the June meeting, I thought it was several people have asked that any EIA take three miles from the nearest residence, not one? No, at the June meeting, it was a half a mile.

It was 500 continuous acres with a half a mile distance from the edge of the building to a property line. So they upped it now to... 1,000 continuous acres and one mile. Where you may be getting confused, sir, is we had a notification to every resident in a three-mile radius of the facility. That's still there.

I'm just wondering if the general public feels that one mile is not for their residents. Can there or will there be any protection from decreased property values? I don't think it can be. Um, the permit process violation says that, um, the decisions you call are canceled. The permit process, I'm not giving you why you're giving them out, that it can be or it will be treated or not. And if so, can you have a fine for persistent or violation?

There is a fine per incident violation in there. It's a county ordinance, so county ordinances can carry up to $1,000 fine per incident per day and up to 60 days in jail per incident per day. That's the maximum amount the county ordinance can carry.