Welcome everyone.

It is Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026, and you're here for the monthly voting meeting of the Athens Clark County Mayor and Commission.

We'll go ahead and begin with a roll call from the clerk.

Davenport here.

Link here, Taylor.

Here.

Right.

President Fisher.

Here.

Johnson.

Here.

Copper.

Myers.

Here.

Thornton.

Here.

Hambi.

Here.

We have a core.

All right.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We'll begin with a civility pledge provided to us by the Georgia Municipal Association.

And that indicates that as we work, we'll govern ourselves so that we recognize the importance of the decisions that we are making, that our collective decisions will be better when differing views have had the opportunity to be fully vetted and considered, that all people have the right to be treated with respect, courtesy, and openness, that we value all input and we commit to conduct ourselves at all times with civility and courtesy to one another.

Because we don't have all the appointments necessary for the uh land bank authority board members.

And so I just uh asked for a motion to revise the agenda to remove item 15, which you'll see again in just a couple of weeks.

Second, mayor.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right, uh, Madam Clerk.

Uh I believe we have uh minutes for the meetings of Tuesday, January 6th, Tuesday, January 20th, and non-voting meetings of Tuesday, January 13th, Tuesday, January 20th, and Friday, January 23rd.

There are any amendments to these minutes.

Yes.

Commissioner Johnson would like to amend the minutes of January the 6th and hold them for the March voting meeting if possible.

Do I hear a motion to that effect?

I motion.

I so moved.

All right, so uh motion is to hold uh the minutes until the next meeting.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Yeah, that was my question.

I I've noticed some errors or typos, and I just wanted to bring them to her attention, and I didn't get a chance to review them until late.

And it was just gonna it would have put undue burden on her to do it, you know, on the day of the meeting.

So I just wanted to um I thought I was gonna bring them to her on on paper, but I left it at home.

Um so I just wanted to update those for her submit them.

Okay.

So we'll enter those into the record of the first of the next month.

Um Madam Clerk, are there any written communications?

No, I'm not.

Uh the the motion was to hold the minutes generally uh until the next voting meeting.

And so uh at the next voting meeting we'll approve the minutes from both January and February.

And and I was a no vote.

Uh uh please note uh madam clerk, uh no vote from Commissioner Wright.

And uh any written communications, madam clerk?

No, sir, there are not.

All right.

Uh we do have one uh staff award, so I'm gonna come down to stand next to the clerk for a moment uh we have uh Suki Jansen and Nancy Flowers with us tonight.

Nancy Flowers gets stuff done.

All right, um thank you.

Uh right.

Uh I'm uh really happy to announce that in September 2025 at the Solid Waste Association of North America's Georgia chapter fall meeting on Jekyll Islands, Lance Rosario was recognized as the 2025 solid waste worker of the year in the recycling vision for the entire state of Georgia.

So uh it's good to see you, sir.

Um you were nominated by Director Jansen, uh, who wrote that you were considered a leader in the department because of good ideas, great work ethic, integrity, a positive personality, and a dedication to the solid waste department for over 35 years.

He started when he was a kindergarten friend.

Faye, come on.

Or vice versa.

Yes.

Long hours in solid waste, I can tell you that.

She probably can too.

And she keeps trying to get them to retire.

Thank you.

Great work.

All right.

Give it up for last.

Yes.

All right, friends.

We are going to have several opportunities for public input tonight.

The format of public input generally involves the kind of same protocol, and that's a three-minute opportunity for section of the meeting.

You do see a light to the left of the clerk to your right, and that light will turn green when you provide your name and place of residence and begin speaking yellow when you have 30 seconds remaining.

And that light will turn red when your three minutes has expired.

And I'll thank you for your time with us tonight so that we can move on to the next uh provider of some input.

There's going to be an opportunity for public input on the consent agenda.

There's going to be a separate opportunity for public input on each of the floor for planning and zoning items.

There's going to be an opportunity for public hearing and deliberation on the abandonment of two rights of way.

There's going to be a public input opportunity on old business.

And then at the conclusion of the meeting, because this is the voting meeting, we'll have an opportunity for public input on any item not on the agenda tonight.

That's our open mic night.

So Commissioners, would any commissioner like to remove an item from the consent agenda or should it remain as is.

As is.

As is.

Okay.

All right.

So now, members of the public, the consent agenda is comprised of items one through six, which will be handled in a single vote.

Is there any member of the public who would like to come to us now to speak to any of those items one through six?

And again, please state your name, place of residence, and let us know the item to which you're speaking.

Good evening, sir.

Good to see you.

You too.

My name is Benny Coleman.

And I'm in District 7, and I'm speaking on the item E5 by the Greenway.

And I still have the same opinion I had last time I stood here.

We need to hold off on anything to it, greenway until we get more employee things dealt with.

Example will happen in Claw County the last few days of an individual whose lives was taken because of the cold weather, that money that we've gone spending on Greenway to bring in partment housing as and other things like that.

It should be brought to help the whole community of adults who are unfortunate that we are.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Coleman.

And I did drop it in at it.

Thank you.

Yes, and Mr.

Coleman demonstrated that we have a slot where you can drop the card with your name, place of residence, and the item to which you were speaking.

That helps the clerk make sure we get your name correctly for the record.

Is there any other public input on the consent agenda?

Again, those are items one through six on the agenda in front of us tonight.

All right.

Do I hear from the commission a motion to accept and approve the consent agenda?

And then I'll have uh attorney Drake read the ordinances.

So move.

Second.

All right.

I've got a motion from Commissioner Davenport, second from Commissioner Fisher.

Attorney Drake, can you read the ordinances associated with this tonight?

The first agenda item.

There's I mean there are ordinances associated with agenda item number one and number two.

Agenda item number one, an ordinance to amend the FY 2026 operating capital budget for Athens Clark County, Georgia, so it's revive grant funding if awarded from the Riverview Foundation for expenses related to the redesign of Cook's Trail and for other purposes.

Agenda item number two, an ordinance to amend the FY 2026 operating capital budget for Athens Clark County, Georgia, so it's provide funding from operating contingency for an employee market increase in tax appeal administrator supplement and for other purposes.

All right.

Thank you, Attorney Drake.

All right.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Are there any opposed?

All right.

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh, we're moving on now to our first planning and zoning item.

Uh this regards 210 East Cloverhurst Avenue.

This is item 7 are on our agenda.

Is there any member of the public who would like to come speak to this this evening?

Good evening.

Hi.

Um, my name's Abby Lohman, and my address is 1062 Reedsboro Road, Williamson, Georgia.

My husband Wayne and I own the townhouse located located at 210 East Cloverhurst.

The property is their second home, which we purchased in 2010 while our daughters were attending UGA.

After they graduated, we chose to keep the townhouse because we, along with our daughters and families, love visiting Athens.

We've been using Airbnb since 2021, have maintained five-star reviews with no complaints.

We have several guests who have stayed at our home multiple times, which we believe reflects the positive experience we provide.

Our renters are primary adults visiting their children at UGA, families bringing young children to UGA camps, alumni, and professionals attending continuing education.

Renting the property on the long-term basis does not work for us as we frequently use our home ourselves, and need flexibility for family visits.

Owning a second home comes with ongoing expenses, and we appreciate the supplemental income Airbnb provides.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Lana.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number seven tonight?

Good evening.

Rita Kelly, 142 East Rutherford, Athens.

We are against the special use for an Airbnb in RM1.

For one reason, if the owner isn't present, then there's no one, despite the good reviews you've had and everything.

This is exactly what we're fighting across the city is not to have anything other than owner-occupied ADUs.

There's been so much trouble in five points with parking with noise with the number of people who come into these places.

But it's just to me, it's just going against everything that we're trying to work towards as in owner-occupied ADUs, so that the owner controls who's in there, knows about the noises, knows about the people, knows about the parking, and we don't have all this trouble with Airbnbs, which we've been trying to solve.

So we are against any variance, and we don't want a it to represent what can be done in RM1 because we don't want them all over just RM1 areas as well.

So we don't want it to set a precedent.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Kelly.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number seven tonight?

Seeing none, we'll come to deliberation.

This is in uh District 10, Commissioner Hamley.

Would you like to place a motion on the floor?

Sure, Mayor.

We'll make a motion to deny.

Second.

All right, I've got a motion to deny from Commissioner Hamby.

And a second from Commissioner Davenport.

Commissioner Hamby, any remarks?

Sure, I'll be glad to.

I I you know I just am trying to be consistent in my approach towards uh towards short-term rentals, and certainly certainly this is not a home owner-occupied uh uh short-term rental, uh, which could otherwise be a rental for somebody to rent long term.

Uh it's near campus, so a student could rent rent or somebody could rent it uh in long term and and um and it you know we certainly have an affordable housing problem, so um so I don't want you know I don't want to contribute to it.

Uh and by denying this, we we we allow and it's not home owner occupied, so um uh motions to deny.

Any further comments, Commissioner Davenport?

No, Mr.

Mayer.

Okay.

Uh any others from members of the body?

All right, we've got an ordinance.

I'm gonna have that uh read by attorney Drake.

One mixed NC residential district for warm parcel of land located at 210 East Cloverhurst Avenue Unit 2 and for other purposes.

All right, uh motion to deny on the floor and a second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Are there any opposed to the motion?

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right, we're gonna move on to item eight.

Is there any member of the public who'd like to speak to item eight, which is 420 East Clayton Street and 429 and 431 East Broad Street?

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is David Matheny and I live at 200 Mount Vernon Place, and I am here representing my partner Brett Thurman for the special use permit for uh Jason Dunn, who uh who uh occupies uh 431 and four I forgot the other one.

Anyway, Broad Street.

Thank you.

29, 429.

Um these are two existing uh bars who each are legally allowed to occupy uh one was 121, one was maybe 130 in those those numbers.

And uh Jason Dunn would who owns both of those bars would like to combine the bars to just one uh and have one name.

One is now double barrel bar and the other one is uh Buddha bar, and he basically wants to cut an opening, a single opening into the two spaces, and it will be known as uh double barrel bar.

Um other than that, there's no changes.

The occupancy will be the same.

There's no interior changes other than creating a cased opening between the two.

Um there's nothing structural that that was actually at one time one large space and it was divided up at one point into two spaces, so there's nothing structural going on there.

There's no changes to the exterior.

Is actually again no changes to the occupancy load.

Um, but because he wants to combine them that we did need to go through the special use permit.

Um I think it's uh good to warrant to note that um there actually would be no changes except uh the name will change from two different bars to one bar.

And if you have any further questions from me, I'm available.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Matheny.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number eight regarding Clayton Street and East Broad Street?

Seeing none, we'll come for discussion.

Uh Commissioner Wright, this is in district four.

Would you place a motion on the floor for the four like to make a motion to approve and just to clarify the addresses are 429 and 431 Broad Street?

All right.

Motion from Commissioner Wright to approve.

Is there second?

Second.

All right, I've got a second from Commissioner Fisher.

Commissioner Wright, any remarks?

Yeah, uh again, I think this is gonna modernize uh the fire marshal's uh criteria for this location.

I think it's really appropriate that the two sort of shotgun bar layouts are will be double barrel with this new configuration.

Um that just gets us down to one one liquor license and one bar, and that um this person has I have not had any complaints from them as uh one of our liquor licensed in the community, so I think that's a positive as well.

And then um Commissioner Link had had comments about wanting food service improv uh increases and I did learn last week at the Board of Health that last year we had 36 new service permits for food service in our community.

So coming soon, I'm not sure where all those are, but that's 36 more food service places coming.

So I just wanted to add that too, but you don't have to go hungry in Athens.

Uh uh there's a motion on the floor from Commissioner Wright, Commissioner Fisher, any further remarks?

Any others from members of the body?

All right, let me have attorney Drake read the ordinance for us.

In ordinance to amend the code of Athens, Clark County, Georgia respect to special use approval of a bar with non occupation exceeding 100 persons in the CD DHD commercial downtown downtown historic district located at 420 East Clayton Street and 429 East Broad Street and 431 East Broad Street and for other purposes.

Thank you, Attorney Drake.

All in favor of the motion to approve, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh we'll now have public input on item number nine.

Uh this is a uh proposed short-term rental at 249 5th street.

The planning commission recommendation was to deny.

Is there any member of the public who would like to speak to this tonight?

All right.

Uh seeing none, uh, this is in District 2.

Commissioner Link, would you like to place a motion on the floor?

Yeah, I move to deny.

Uh to deny.

To to deny the permit, thus upholding the planning commission's recommendations.

Yes.

Okay.

Second.

All right.

I've got a motion from Commissioner Link.

Second from Commissioner Hambee.

Commissioner Link, any further remarks?

I mean, I I brought this up during the agenda meeting.

This is effectively characteristically a single family neighborhood, and and it would be nice if that house could revert to that use.

Commissioner Amby, anything else?

Anything else from members of the body.

In order to amend the code of Athens, Clark County, Georgia, with respect to special use approval and RM-1 mixed instant residential district for one parcel of land located at 249 Fifth Street and for other purposes.

All right.

So uh the demo motion is to deny the um short-term rental.

All in favor.

Any opposed to the motion?

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh is there any member of the public who is here to speak to item number 10, which is the future land use map approval.

Good evening.

My name is Edward Kelly.

Uh I live at 142 East Rutherford, uh in Athens.

And in reading over the land use program, it's quite detailed and kind of a little hard to understand, but it seems like there may be a push to try to solve the affordability housing project by uh one of the aspects is to shoehorn more housing into areas by having people uh add on to their house or put a gr apartment over a garage or such.

And in reality, I don't think that's going to happen very much with just single family homeowners who've lived here a while.

It's it's gonna be uh investors, basically people from outside our area, not our electorate people who are looking to buy up properties with just the right mix of of uh aspects where they can uh shoehorn a bunch of of uh bedrooms into a property, and they're not looking at it from a standpoint of being affordable.

Uh look at the project which I spoke about months ago at uh 160 East Rutherford where they took a three-bedroom rental house and now there's four buildings and 14 bedrooms and 17 parking spaces, and that's uh the outside investors, and they're not looking to rent them for cheap.

And same with the uh approval for a rezoning on the condominiums across from the ballpark, the baseball stadium, um that they wanted a rezoning.

Uh those aren't going to be selling for less than about 1.5 million.

So I just wonder um how it's gonna be handled overall in this land use program to prevent if if we're gonna try to um solve maybe some of the affordable housing projects.

I we were walking out Broad Street going west away from downtown on Broad Street between Millage and uh or between Lumpkin and Millage, and you look at the properties there that so much more could be done with they're very close to downtown, they're very close to campus, and they're very close to the bus line.

Um let's use that.

Let's not try to shoehorn a new building into the backyard of somebody in a nice neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Kelly.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number 10?

Did I speak again for a second?

For a separate item, you certainly can't.

It's um designated on the future land use plan that our area now uh could be zoned the same as Millage and Lumpkin.

We live in RM1, East Rutherford.

We're mainly single family homes.

Some are rentals, some are uh some are owner occupied, like ours are.

Our next door neighbors are moving in as soon as they sell their home in Mississippi, they're moving in full time.

Um what we're scared of now is that it's been given the color of the same as Lumpkin and Millage so that there could be uh businesses, nurseries, offices.

Um we uh live on a very narrow one-way street right across from a school.

It is so busy between people uh parents walking their kids to school, buses, uh the parents circle around that way and come out after they've parked and picked up a child, they come down our street.

It is packed.

Can you imagine putting more offices, more buildings, four stories?

I mean, it would just it to me it just ruins five points.

Uh especially our area.

There's no way that ours should be the same as our Woodrow, Rutherford, um, Pinecrest, that should be uh the same color or zoning, whatever they're going to call it now, since it's not zoning, as as Lumpkin and Millage, and we're in the same color area.

I don't understand that.

And why that would be passed like that.

It's just ridiculous.

We're not we're a one-way street with residential.

How can that be?

Woodrow is the same.

It's got almost all single family homes other than a set of condominiums on this side.

I mean, it we can't have any more, we can't be any closer to our neighbors, and to put businesses on all of ours, offices, nurseries, whatever they want to do, office space, that's ridiculous.

And so we are totally against this future land use plan, um, let alone having five points look like any other, you know, downtown area.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Kelly.

Good evening.

Hi, sorry, this is my first time.

I don't have an input card.

That's okay.

You'll be able to get written afterwards in the hall, no worries.

Okay, perfect.

Um, my name is Diana Weiss, and I live on 118 Jarnigan Drive, and I'm a member of the Young Democrats UGA chapter.

I came here to try and urge and compel you for this new future land use map to include affordable housing and a strong structured plan for affordable housing for the future land use.

I can tell you, which I'm sure you already know that the poverty rate in Athens is 26%, double that of the state's average.

Meanwhile, market rent is more expensive than 92% of the state.

And in the past two years alone, the price of a two-bedroom home has increased by 23%.

These numbers are jarring, but I want to tell you what I've personally seen.

I've walked down the railroads of Athens and where there are no homes, just all the wild kutzu.

And just off the side of one railroad, there was this man.

And from afar I could see him drying clothes propped up on sticks, a makeshift fire as a kitchen, a tent as a sheltered bed, and blue tarp as walls.

In a county that failed to support him, that is the kind of home that he found himself in.

It's beautifully profitable for the private developers in Athens to continuously cater to wealthy college students.

But unless we want a man's home, this man's home to be the new norm, simply.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Weiss.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number 10 tonight?

Good evening.

My name is Barbara Daniel.

Um I think that land trust map should be for low income, low employment people that don't have anywhere to stay.

It hardened my heart so bad to know the incident that happened in Clark County of deaf from the weather.

But I can remember telling y'all from in 2022 that law is gonna show y'all something.

But it seemed to be the same thing over and over and over again.

He's coming, and he's letting y'all know, but you're taking it for granted.

And I feel so sorry that this stuff going on here in Athens.

I've been here all my life.

Everything y'all talk about.

You promised me in 2023 that y'all were gonna build no more student houses.

I'm finding out more and more student house economy.

Then you also promised you gonna do all you could do for the low-income people.

Now it don't got to be from the low-income people to the poor people.

And the same thing still going on and on.

And will build some low-income houses.

Now we sit here thinking that everything's gonna be fine, but I've been here three years.

And we got a new election coming up.

We are tired.

We are tired.

We've been promised this and we've been promised that.

We've been promised, promised, promised.

Now the problem is it's broken.

We are tired.

You all gonna have to make some decision on what y'all gonna do, or he will.

And when he does, it's gonna be awful.

So I'm asking all the election that go on around here now.

It's time for a new change.

It's gonna have to be a new change because I've been here three years fighting the same battle, and I still get the same smirk on the same people's faces.

So land trust should be affordable home for low income people.

Poor for we got poor people because we got a lot of rich people in Athens.

They got home.

These people that pass on in the snow and ice.

Y'all should be ashamed of y'all.

But God got you.

Thank you, Ms.

Daniel.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number 10 this evening?

My name's Lorraine Fuller.

I'll fill out that later.

I live at 145 Millage Terrace.

I was part of this committee that came up with these maps.

We worked, there's a lot of us here tonight.

We worked really hard on these maps.

We spent uh one to two days, uh what, every week, every every other week?

Lots.

We spent a lot of time on these maps.

And I I feel like I would like to thank you guys for letting the community, a community committee like this, spend as much time as we did developing these maps.

And I feel like we really tried to keep the character of the county to go into the future.

Um you notice the big green space.

We we try to keep as much of that as possible.

Uh we did a lot of ground truthing.

Um, and I would just like to thank you guys for letting us do that.

Um, and just keep telling people that this map is not zoning.

Um, and try to make that a little clearer what the next process is taking this map into zoning.

Um, and that's pretty much it.

Thank thanks a lot.

Thank you, Ms.

Fuller.

Thank you for your service.

Is there anyone else here tonight?

Good evening.

Hi, my name is Sam Stabler.

I was also a member of this uh future land use committee.

I live at uh 228 Cleveland Avenue.

Um I guess what I'd encourage the commissioners and and the public to really dive into, ask your commissioners who will hopefully uh hopefully have a grasp and will continue to sort of get a better grasp, ask your um come to the planning department and really understand what this map is.

It is not zoning, it is a roadmap for how we we expect and would like this the city to grow.

Um it is based on sort of the acknowledgement that Athens will grow.

Um and that was a point of constant discussion at the beginning.

Well, should it grow?

Can it grow?

It's growing, so this is an acknowledgement of that.

Where are we gonna put this growth in sort of uh uh uh a semi-planned way?

Um again emphasize this is not zoning.

This is a map to potentially guide zoning reform among other things.

So um I really uh encourage everyone to dive into it.

Um great um citizen council and uh a great deal of outside experts who really came and gave their time and their expertise to the things that we would make decisions on.

So um again, if if you're ever concerned with it and and what you think it is, please um seek out what it actually is because I mean just in in sort of the few speakers we've here heard here.

I've already heard some things that are like the perception of it is not what it is.

So yeah, that was just really dive into it, and and obviously they're gonna come to you guys, the commissioners for this, so uh to answer these questions.

So I really encourage you guys to um understand the nuances of of this future land use map.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Stabler.

Any others here to speak to item number 10 this evening.

Good evening.

Mr.

Mayor and uh Commissioners.

Uh my name is uh Kent Middleton.

I live in 195 Clyde Road in District 8, and I served also on the uh steering committee.

I want to thank the mayor and commission for creating a future land use process that includes considerable public input.

I particularly appreciate the language in the category designations for town centers, neighborhood centers, and minor corridors.

These designations will allow citizens and planners and developers and the mayor and commission itself to seek and expect moderate growth that retains a neighborhood scale and is not dominated by automobiles.

Town centers and neighborhood centers in many county locations are a mixed-use development of mid-level intensity.

Their design is supposed to be a cohesive to have a cohesive character compatible with surrounding neighborhoods.

Town centers and neighborhood centers are places where people are supposed to be able to live, work, and play.

And they are places designed for walking, biking, and access to transit.

Town centers should have dedicated open spaces.

Gas stations and drive-throughs and other auto-oriented uses are not included in these areas.

Similarly, the demon the designation of minor corridor foresees growth at a neighborhood scale.

One can expect uh main street storefronts and boulevards with cars and buses, and also pedestrians and bikers.

On minor corridors, one can expect perhaps some cafe seating, street trees, sidewalk furniture, and traffic calming measures.

Trees and open spaces were greatly favored in citizen surveys, although they weren't part of our working guidelines.

We have a long way to go across across all of Clark County to fulfill the promise of moderate growth at a neighborhood scale in our town centers, our neighborhood centers, and our minor corridors.

Just this year, a dozen gas pumps have been installed in the center of one of the proposed east side town centers within sight of three existing gas stations.

Soon the county will be updating its zoning code and rewriting its strategic plan to accommodate growth over the next 20 years.

The land use designations and the proposed future land use map give citizens across county the language and the government imprimitor to seek coherent design, neighborhood compatibility, and various forms of transportation.

Thank you, Mr.

Middleton.

Is there anyone else here tonight to speak to item number 10 before we begin commission discussion?

I have my card.

Sorry about that.

Good evening.

Hi, Leslie Senior, 710 Millage Circle.

I appreciate y'all's time on the on the land use map.

If anybody's been to Planning Commission meetings, it is being used for zoning decisions, one after another for very high density zoning.

I sat in the planning commission and saw things that were approved over and over last month.

The downtown student housing was approved.

High density without sewer without sewer support, without ingress egress, and to town support, and I get the ideas without cars, but people are going to have cars, whether we want them to use them or not.

So just know the map's great, but it is being used to approve high density, also in the name of affordable housing, that is not affordable.

And we see development after development, and that what they're charging per month is not affordable.

So we need to be remembering while this may be fine, it's not moderate growth.

It is one development after another after another.

Very high density.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Senior.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number 10 tonight?

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Alex Sams.

My uh address is 100 Tipperary Road, Athens, Georgia.

Uh I am the chair of the future land use steering committee, and uh I know you all know that, but I appreciate the input we're getting tonight on both sides of the issues, and I wanted to just clear a few things up as well.

Um, I want to thank the committee.

Y'all got to see some and hear some today, and it's great because uh they're the ones that did this.

I just, as I said, as chair, lean the canoe one way or the other to make sure we're hitting everything uh along the trip and along the journey.

Uh one of the best analogies uh that has come up in all of this is the map is basically just setting the table.

When you go to dinner, the table is set, and that's what this is.

Zoning is more of what you're eating, the ingredients that go into the food.

These are not the same things.

They are often hit uh in some of the same planning commission meetings.

I'm also on the planning commission.

We have days or some projects and issues where we vote on a change in the future land use and then we vote on zoning.

But they don't always get voted on at the same time.

A couple other little points that I do want to hit on.

This map doesn't include putting office buildings in residential areas or neighborhoods.

The market is the strongest designation of that.

Also, um this is our two-year anniversary on this committee.

We started February two years ago.

We have put a lot of time into this, and we take it very seriously.

I've said that in all of our meetings.

This map will possibly and probably change a little bit from the map that we uh offered to y'all.

That's fine.

This is the people's map.

It shouldn't just stop with a the people's committee.

It needs to go through the process.

The planning commission has already uh voted this forward, and uh and now it's all time to take each property and go forward with that.

Um I just wanted to uh hit on a couple of those things and let you know that again, and and remind y'all that this is basically setting the table.

It is what is going to encourage developers, builders, homeowners, and potential buyers when they come in the area, they see where these items are going and where the properties will be going.

Thank you, Mr.

Sam's.

Is there anyone else here to speak to item number 10 this evening?

All right.

Uh I know uh for commissioners uh that there's been uh series of small scale recommendations for changes.

Uh I want certainly commissioners to be able to kind of view those and absorb those kind of within the total context of the map.

And I know commissioners also were very interested in seeing how the future land use map overlays with the service delivery plan that we're gonna be speaking about a week from tonight, or in fact uh in the in the afternoon uh week from today at our work session.

Um certainly if the commissioner would would like to just place a motion on the floor to hold this until next month.

So moved uh accept that motion.

Second.

I'll second it.

Thornton second.

All right, got a motion from Commissioner Link and a second from Commissioner Thornton to hold.

Commissioner Link, any follow-up?

Um, I have incoming requests from constituents and we have more to talk about.

Commissioner Thorne.

Well, I I know that the recommendation is to hold for uh until next month.

Uh I think that Pat uh Commissioner Davenport uh maybe a month or two suggests it uh March or April promptly gave an option.

And but I would like to suggest until April, because after talking to my colleague um Commissioner Myers, she will not be here in March.

And I think this is such a um an important subject that all the commissioners should be here.

She's going to be out the country.

Is that a substitute?

Commissioner Link, would you like to kind of make a modification?

All right.

So uh motion and second is to hold till April.

Uh any further input?

Uh Commissioner Myers.

Yeah, um, I just want to follow up with a couple of uh comments and um requests for staff.

Um, one is that I shared with the commission the wonderful district eight version of this PDF of this map, and I hope that we could all get um PDFs of our specific districts.

There's wonderful technology when with these maps online, but you cannot zoom in, you cannot see them very well as commissioners, and of course, in my little computer at home, the fancy uh maps where you can slide between the old and the new don't appear at all.

So it's very hard to do that evaluation.

So I think it would help us all to do that.

Um I'd also ask staff if there's any way to facilitate a smoother process when we do have tweaks like um Mr.

Sam's mentioned.

He realizes there might be tweaks at the commission level.

Um, and I know we we did that in a slightly clumsy way this week.

And perhaps you could facilitate somehow getting those together in some smoother way.

I mean, I the the CDO that we're not following through on.

There's one parcel.

I mean, I in district eight that I wanted to look at change revised, and I don't even know if a thousand or two thousand would be a small number for how many parcels there are in my district.

So I'm not talking about major changes, but to have a smoother, smoother process where we can look a little more closely and make those tweaks if they're needed in there.

And then the other thing I just say is that we can all um up here among my colleagues be really respectful of the tweaks that we're suggesting and make sure that we're suggesting tweaks in our own districts, and if we have see something in someone else's, that we talk directly to that, those other commissioners about that so that we can have this process move smoothly.

I think the the the uh the future land use plan, I mean, I'm really appreciative of it, um, and I'm really appreciative of what's behind it.

It's taken me a long time to be able to understand it so I could explain it to my constituents in there, the difference between the future land use and the uh zoning.

I think that compatibility matrix that's in there is key to understanding the the difference between them.

So if there are any nerds out there like looking at it, make sure you you get to know that compatibility matrix really well.

Um anyway, that's uh that's just what I want to share.

It's Commissioner Myers, Commissioner Davenport.

Yes, so um, and this isn't not to we're not putting on hold because um of the fine work that the steering committee, y'all did an excellent job, and thank you for that hard work.

And I know it was stressful.

Um, but we did get some last-minute um additions or changes that I think it would be best for us to vap through the community and making sure that everybody's comfortable in everybody's district that um that their constituents are comfortable with those changes.

Um plus we need to educate our constituents as well as the difference between zoning and the future land use map.

Um I was hoping that we can get it done in March, but um I do ask my colleagues, please, for the love of God, please, please, please don't wait to the last minute.

Let's work on it now.

Um, let's, you know, whatever free time we got, let's just work together via email, you know, go back and forth over phone calls and um let's not do a Thursday night change that the Carker Commission got to produce to the public on Friday and then we gotta vote on Tuesday.

So that's we can do it.

Commissioner Fisher.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

I will also want to echo Commissioners Davenport opposition with the um stereotype because like I said earlier, do the yeoman's job, spent two years putting all this together, and I applaud you for that.

Um, I think one thing that's gonna come out of this is our service delivery plan.

We would consider sewer and water.

That's been one of my big um concerns.

We look at this um future land use.

We got to figure out sewer and water and what we're gonna look at trying to bill and where those houses are gonna go or apartments gonna go.

We need to make sure that we have adequate sewer and water in those places to make this happen.

Um, secondly, um I do want to echo my uh colleagues, Commissioner Myers, that I would like plan department to give each one of us our own district map, look at how that future land use looks, and then we can evaluate what we want to do within our own particular district.

You know, I look at district five.

We got I got three major single family um developments going on within district five right now.

So I gotta figure out in the future what that's gonna look like, and we're gonna make sure we got sewer and water to support if there's gonna be more on more of that type of building going on.

281 homes, 40 homes, and then right down the street from me with um Commissioner Um Thornton, uh 450 homes.

So that's critical for um you know what we're doing to our community, but sewing water gotta play a critical part in this and offer us to make this um future land use work.

So just want to put that in there.

Commissioner Wright.

Um Yeah, I I think that um having more time and us having the um service delivery plan coming forward and us having confidence.

I I trust that what manager um Bob had said last meeting about how staff has been putting it together, but um we need to make sure that we can speak uh about how that has uh been merging with what the committee's been doing as well.

And um I guess we probably need to have some clarity on the process of when a commissioner's making changes to this.

Um, as Commissioner Myers recommended, it would be you know appropriate to speak to the other commissioners who you're changing things in their district for.

Um, as Commissioner Myers recommended, it would be you know appropriate to speak to the other commissioners who you're changing things in their district for and um because changes in one are going to cause have ripple effects positive and negative to the other that changes the balance of all the math that the planning director has been teaching us about and uh the numbers and the percentages and all that sort of thing, and I'm just curious how we're gonna be talking about the hypothetical changes to understand if we want them to be more than hypothetical changes and the abundance of work that staff's gonna have to do to get us to understand the ripple effect of a hypothetical changing a yeah, I don't know, 100 parcels, I call that more than just a minor tweak.

So um so Kelly, maybe we can get some guidance over the next couple months so that staff's not doing work that is more involved than another way of it being processed could help.

I just don't want this to be a burden for staff.

I'll work with the manager to put a memo together around that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Commissioner Thorne.

Um first of all, I was so quick to make that motion.

Um I didn't thank the committee um for your work.

I do appreciate your work.

I just know what happened between Friday and today and yesterday that you may not be aware of.

So I do appreciate your work.

I think that you're going to appreciate the outcome after we have this conversation.

So like I said, I jumped out there like I came in here like thunder, but it wasn't that.

I just know what happened, what had happened over the weekend.

And I do I also would like the map for my district.

Um, and I also want to commend Commissioner Myers.

I went to her uh her future land town hall.

That was probably the best that was so good, and every district should have that kind of conversation.

It she broke it down, folk were comfortable, even I understood what was going on.

So again, I thank you guys.

Um, the affordability housing piece, I want to that's that's I need your number.

Uh that's that's my thing.

So, but again, thank you.

I appreciate you, but I think even this group for all the time that you've put into it, you will appreciate what's going to come out because we'll be doing it together.

Thanks, Commissioners.

And uh Commissioner Johnson.

Yes, thank you.

I also want to thank the committee, and um I know the work that you did.

I attended meetings every meeting from October until I think early January, and for Miss Fuller, you met every other Monday um for two and a half plus hours religiously, and you worked very hard, and I was there right behind you as you ruminated over the the decision making and and negotiating and understanding and working really hard to understand.

So I do appreciate the work.

I have a question about the itemized list of parcels.

I wanted to know how that was included, how that came about.

Someone could the manager's office commissioner.

I guess it's my understanding that uh commissioners who had uh some desires for modification sort of identified the general geography kind of within the map where they wanted some kind of finessing of future land use uh and and then drilled down to to the parcel level, you know, either by using probably Q public or some assistance of staff.

I think that's generally how that occurred.

Commissioner Myers, you may have to say that.

Yeah, I just want I think that we uh there had been a uh discussion of that mention of that at the agenda setting meeting, and because I remember you know, urging Commissioner Lincoln mentioned she had some parcels and she was concerned about, and I remember urging myself and others to look again at ours.

Um I looked back because there's in all these emails that have gone behind.

Uh like this specific list that came through was like on January 25th, and then I replied a couple of days later and said I got this one parcel.

And that's then the the uh planning commission, the planning director, I think made it into that chart.

Um so that's just a little bit of that's all that happened.

I think that's a neat summary.

Commissioner, Commissioner Johnson.

Yes, thank you so much.

I did some research on the Department of Community Fair Community Affairs website about the future land use map and the process, and according to DCA guidance, they view the future land use tool as or the comprehensive plan as a policy tool, and parcel level decisions, specific parcels are discouraged.

It was even stated that Athens was atypical for itemizing the parcels.

And it should be avoided because it blurs the it blurs the planning, the plan zoning line.

So the individuals that are here in opposition of this, they don't support it.

They they do for a very good reason.

According to DCA, zoning is a forceable land is zoning as enforceable land use regulation when parcels are itemized in a flu update.

Anyone opposed to this can argue the local governments have effectively pre-committed to rezoning outcomes without following zoning procedures.

So this is atypical for the state of Georgia.

And I was just I don't I don't want to open this up for you know liability down the line because we've listed specific parcels.

They they recommend general uh areas, noting general areas on a map, but not identifying parcels.

That's the Department of Community Affairs guidance on future land use planning maps.

Thank you, Commissioner Johnson.

So uh just want to make a couple notes.

Um appreciate everybody coming out.

Um appreciate Commissioner's input and uh attention to their districts and attention to wanting to get the best out of the future of Clark County.

Um, you may remember those uh science encyclopedias that included the anatomy transparencies of the human body.

You probably remember seeing the circulatory system and the bone structure and the musculature and the limbic system and everything uh kind of in these series of of plastic transparencies.

Uh in some ways, what we're doing with the future land use map as the foundation is putting together the anatomy of the community.

And so the future land use map is just one layer of that anatomy.

It's a kind of very generalized idea of saying generally speaking, these are the sorts of things that we expect to happen in different areas.

Um zoning is a different layer of the anatomy of the community.

It's saying much more specifically here are the sorts of buildings, the sorts of uses, uh, and those kind of aesthetic or structural components that we expect, you know, parcel by parcel, square foot by square foot.

Um and then what we're going to talk about in a week is the public service delivery plan, where we say that layer is here's where we have water lines, and here's where we have sewer lines, and here's generally speaking, how large they are and the capacity they have.

Um there are a lot of other things that can go on top of that, and sometimes that includes affordability components, tools that may be employed in a variety of places uh that may move around the community.

So uh I like to think about all the work we do in those terms.

Um that's what we're doing here.

We're in ensuring the health of the community in the same way that all those human systems that that we would see in those old science encyclopedias demonstrate how to maintain a healthy body.

So certainly challenging, I think, when uh when you don't have the day-in-day-out um touch points that that we have and that certainly our staff has, but uh appreciate everybody's diligence in this work.

Um certain that we're gonna move to a conclusion of this first Tuesday, April.

Um, but uh given our legal responsibility, I'm gonna have attorney Drake read the ordinance here that we're gonna hold until April.

In order to amend the code of Athens, Clark County George Georgia with respect to adoption of future development map and for other purposes.

All right.

We have a motion to hold till April and a second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

All right.

Hearing none, motion carries.

Thanks, everybody.

All right.

Um moving on, we've got uh a little bit of an unusual activity that we do, maybe a couple times a year, and that's uh public hearing and deliberation uh to adopt resolutions regarding abandonment uh and disposition of some uh rights of way uh that are no longer needed.

Um is there any member of the public now who would like to speak to either item 11 or 12?

These are two different uh public rights of way abandonments that we're gonna be completing tonight.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Uh my name is Buck Bacon.

Uh I am with uh WA Engineering.

Our office is located at 355 ONEITA Street, and I'm here speaking on behalf of item number twelve.

Uh we represent uh both Mallory and Evans and Core Spaces.

Uh those are the uh the buyer and seller of the respective tracks related to the core redevelopment and uh certainly had nothing else to add to the agenda item.

I just want to be here in case you have any questions or comments.

Thank you, Mr.

Banks.

I appreciate it.

Is there anyone else here to speak to either items 11 or 12 tonight?

Motion to approve item number 11.

All right, I've got a motion from Commissioner Hambey to approve item number 11.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

Excuse me.

Motion from Commissioner Hambey and second is from Commissioner Wright.

Commissioner Hambey, any remarks regarding item 11?

Number 11, too.

Yes.

Commissioner Hamby, any remarks?

No, no, sir.

I don't know.

Anything else, Commissioner Wright?

I'm ready to vote.

All right.

Yeah.

Anything else from any member of the body?

He's good.

Uh does this require an ordinance?

No.

All right.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Opposed.

All right.

All right.

Motion carries.

Uh could I get a motion regarding item 12?

Did you get the two opposed?

Oh, well, there is a budget ordinance.

For item number 11 regarding the right of way.

You're talking about 13, Judd?

No.

One second to pull it up.

It's 11 because there are proceeds that come from that right and advantage.

I see.

That will then get put into a budget.

I'll give us just a second.

We'll have attorney Drake read that.

An ordinance to amend the FY 2026 operating capital budget for Athens Clark County, Georgia.

So it's about funding from the sale of Pierre DN Lane Road and associated right away to fund local road improvement and for other purposes.

All right.

Thank you, Attorney Drake.

All right.

So the motion was from uh Commissioner Hamby.

Uh Madam Clerk, could you just do a roll call beginning with Commissioner Hamby?

Hamby.

Yes.

Yes.

Link?

Yes.

Taylor.

Taylor.

Now?

Yes.

Fisher?

Yeah.

Johnson?

No.

Call Powell Brook.

Myers?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Two no's.

Yes.

Seven, yes.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

All right.

Uh moving on to 12.

Uh, could a commissioner place an item on the uh motion on the floor, please?

I've got a motion from Commissioner Hambey.

Is there a second?

Second.

I've got a second from Commissioner Link.

Commissioner Hambey, any remarks?

Commissioner Link, anything?

Nope.

Anything else from members of the body?

All right.

I'll have uh attorney Drake read the ordinance regarding number 12.

There is not a there's no ordinance because the transfer happened in a prior item.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

Opposed.

Right.

Please note uh Commissioner Fisher, Commissioner Johnson, and Commissioner Taylor opposed to item number twelve.

Yes.

It's i it's okay.

I think it's just those three.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Three opposed.

Okay, we got that.

We open the repo.

Um now we have uh public input on uh old business items.

Uh those are 13 and 14.

Is there any member of the public here to speak to either those 13 and 14?

God damn it.

I seeing none, we'll uh come to Commission for deliberation.

Uh item 13 is uh prospective relocation of mill houses from 110 Puritan Lane and 1060 Macon Highway.

Uh staff recommendation is to to not provide expenditures toward this effect.

Is there a motion that Commissioner would like to place on the floor?

I'm uh I would like to make a motion to hold this and to for 30 days.

Um I have some new information that I would like to share second.

Okay.

All right.

Uh motion is to hold from Commissioner Thornton.

Second from Commissioner Link.

All right.

Uh anything else, Commissioner Thornton?

No, that that's anything else, Commissioner Link?

Um, I want to thank Commissioner Thornton for bringing me into this discussion because we did discover some new information about these homes and um and a possible solution that would bring the cost way down.

Um and I'm we I met on site with uh construction expert and um someone from historic Athens and also did a little research into the history and these homes could be 150 plus years old and they're built around shotgun shacks that are possibly very very old.

information about these homes and um and a possible solution that would bring the cost way down um and i'm we i met on site with uh construction expert and um someone from historic athens and also did a little research into the history and these homes could be 150 plus years old and they're built around shotgun shacks that are possibly very very old so we possibly could just relocate locate those original shotgun structures and and remove the expense of all the extraneous additions that have been added on so we we want to look more into it all right uh motion a second hold any further input all right all in favor of the whole please say aye aye any opposed all right uh item 14 is the parking prohibition on north pope street uh here a motion regarding this motion to approve motion to approve from commissioner wright is there a second second all right second from commissioner link all right commissioner right I want to apologize I did not look at this really good to see that it is solving a problem that I have wanted to have solved I had the wrong block in my mind because y'all were talking about the church so I appreciate staff answering a residence work request I put in a work request and basically picture the the road where uh on a section of Pope the first block where our park is and so the yellow curbing is going to be put on the side where the sidewalk is not so that the it frees up the ability to park safely on the park side where the sidewalk is and emergency vehicles can do what they need to do.

What I would like to know is if the fire hydrant on the corner of Pope and Reese is an active fire hydrant and if it is that the yellow curbing on the park side for that be only that 15 feet and if it's not an active fire hydrant it'd be great if it didn't have yellow curbing at all on the park side because that's the side where people are pulling up loading unloading for the park and the terrain on the side where the yellow curbing is you can't even open a door on the passenger side when you work.

So this is great I appreciate staff putting this together and I'm sorry that I didn't get to glow about how happy I was about this last time.

Follow up what you want I'm just trying to make sure we got it down yeah it's it's it's covering the what is yeah what it should be.

Okay.

It's a good and manager cow will follow up with you on those details about that yeah and that that's just a follow up it doesn't interfere with us putting this forward so it's motion um A and B with the ordinance is the motion.

Commissioner Link anything else I'm I'm just glad we got some more details and got some things clarified.

Anything else from members of the body all right uh motion is from Commissioner Wright second from Commissioner Link all in favor oh we need an ordinance ordinance for the establishment of yellow curving on North Pope Street between the intersections of Reef Street and West Broad Street and for other purposes.

Thanks attorney Drake all in favor please say aye aye any post all right hearing none motion carries all right uh now is the time for public input on any item that was not on tonight's agenda.

So the uh rules of public input are the same as previously discussed the three minute opportunity and uh now is your time if you have anything else to speak to us about there's one more word one more we we removed that in an earlier vote.

Yeah we removed 60 15 50 decoration we'll do public input now and then we'll do it afterwards that's that's how it's listed on here.

Yeah Benny could say ready okay I'm ready my name again is Benny Cova and I'm running for Disney Commissioner and I have been carefully thinking about this as we noted the uh protection of county is very important for everybody low rich or whatever you may be or whoever you may call yourself be.

And I never was against defunding the Polish department I never will so don't waste your time ask me about that part.

I think what we need to do to honor all the workforce that has put their lives time and money alpha online to give them a building so they can come together with their families.

They can come in and uh do training they can come in and help kids in the neighborhood all the family members like the fire department the uh the uh uh fire department the uh the police department uh the amulet disservice they all could come together as one unit and could edify themselves as one family we don't have anything to accomplish their lives to make sure that they know that we appreciate them so I propose that we could put together some kind of plan a building to donate to them so they can come together as one so their families can come together.

It's very important for families.

And we don't look at their families as families like we do.

Not just one, all four units could come together.

And thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Coleman.

Is there anyone else here to speak to any item that was not on the agenda tonight?

Good evening.

My name is Barbara Barnett, and I live at 330 Athens Road, Winterville, Georgia.

And I'm here to ask that you consider naming the East Athens Bridge after my mother, the late Jesse Barnett, who was one of the four trailblazers, along with Miss Evelyn Neely, Miss Miriam Moore, and Miss Virginia Walker, who was making differences in Clark County.

Over 50 years ago, my mother was out in the community knocking on doors on the east side, talking with the residents to see what kind of improvement that they needed in their community.

So when Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty, Athens was considered a model city.

And that was a grant in the amount of 117,230 from model city to reconstruct the East Broad Bridge.

It was replaced.

And the resident was really concerned about this.

And they said that that was one of their top priority.

So when that money came in from Model City, Ms.

Barnett wanted to make sure that the people, the residents on the East Side voices was heard, and that they uh reconstruct that bridge.

So back in 1971, that's what they did.

Ms.

Barnett served as the uh chairman of the environment and of the physical environment uh task force, and uh she uh worked many hours making sure that that bridge was reconstructed and the residents, you know, voices was heard.

She all they also made it possible if you're going down east broad from the uh downtown towards the east side, Ms.

Barnett was responsible for opening up that highway so that that traffic could go back and forth.

So I'm just here this evening to ask that you consider please uh naming the East Broad after her.

She spent so many hours, times, and just uh making sure that the residents on the east side got what they asked for.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Barnett.

Is there anyone else here to speak to any item tonight, not on our agenda?

All right, uh seeing none.

Uh a couple of things.

Um of those is uh affirmation of our declaration of local emergency regarding winter weather.

So I do need a motion uh for approval of our now ceased uh state of emergency.

Do I hear such a motion?

So move.

Second.

All right.

Uh any input.

No, just um I want to thank the staff.

I was gonna do that.

No, go out to thank them after we get rid of the staff for Yoman job they did doing the wonderful storm.

Yeah, I I'll echo that.

Um, Bob, I I really appreciate all your hard work and all our departments that work through the wind and snow and um kept folks safe.

Um they did a great job.

Anyone else?

All right, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Oh, we've got an ordinance.

Let me have attorney to rec read the ordinance.

In order for the declaration of local emergency related to winter weather precipitation and for other purposes.

All right, and again, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any post.

All right, hearing none motion carries.

All right, uh appreciate everybody coming out tonight.

Uh I think Miss Barnett uh may have left, but uh if you go over to the university, there are a bunch of documents that they possess at the special collections library about the era that she was talking about and the model cities program here.

Uh uh, a lot of the work that Mr.

De Niro and others in the community did are all archived there and it's voluminous records.

Um so I encourage everybody interested in that area to go check that out.

I think some of those are digitized and online too.

Um do have just one committee assignment.

Um it's been uh while since the property committee has met.

Um, but the property committee, committee, uh Commissioner Culpepper, Commissioner Wright, and uh newly named Commissioner Link have the assignment of developing a model for transfer of properties utilized by a sole nonprofit, such as the Prince Avenue Firehouse, Taylor Grady House, and town gown building to those nonprofits operating the facilities.

Uh and this work should include any landmark history property designation and facade easements necessary to ensure perpetual maintenance of the properties as well as a mechanism to return these properties to ACC ownership in the event that the operating organizations fold or are no longer able to utilize the properties.

So this um comes out a little bit of uh the the work that we have at the work session uh a couple months ago.

Um so that is it for me.

Uh I'm gonna uh ask the manager.

Do you have uh anything in your report tonight?

Um two items.

Um one of them is is listed on here, which deals with the uh Georgia County internship program grant from the association um county commissioners of Georgia Civic Affairs Foundation.

And the reason we're doing it this way is this is the twelfth year we've received this um internship grant, and the way they've structured it is rather than running it through an ordinance or any of those steps, as long as we introduce it at this item, then that is sufficient for them to process the uh the grant.

It it will um run from May 1st through September 30th, 2026, and it's to assist our communications department in the um documentation promotion um and programs that are done through videography, um including video editing, and so by me reading that into the record and the written part of it, we will have taken the steps necessary.

So that was one item.

Um and the second item was I just wanted to pick up on um what um commissioner Fisher and a couple of you had said.

I I want to acknowledge the the work of the staff during the two events that we had as is so often um it requires people to be planning well ahead of time, people responding and reacting to what is going on, and then even people cleaning up sort of afterwards um with it.

Um we were certainly fortunate that we had luck on our side in both of those um storms as well, and they did not turn out to be as um as severe as perhaps um anticipated, which is good.

We'll take the look um as we as we work our way through.

Um but as is often the case with these two, there you know, everybody knows these to be the ice storm and they know then to be a snowstorm.

Um there are all and that's what we were responding to, and that is what we were responding to, but inevitably through those, there are always things going on inside of those.

So, an example is at the peak of the snowstorm when the snow was coming down at its greatest intensity.

There also happened to be a water main break in five points.

And so not only did we have crews trying to figure out how to deal with snow, we had crews literally standing in the snow in water, um fixing water mains, and certainly want to acknowledge um those efforts.

And there were a lot of folks from public safety um all the way through others.

But I do want to call out two in particular, and I do this at risk of you know forgetting other folks, but these two folks I really want to highlight kind of the work that they um did.

And the first, of course, is Meredith Barnum, who is our emergency management coordinator.

So when we activate the EOC, it's Meredith that's actually running the ship.

Um she is the one that's in charge um who is actually coordinating with all of our other regional partners and coordinating staff.

The it the manager's office is really keeping you all informed as best we can and helping her solve problems where she hits barriers, but she's really the one running the show, and she did an outstanding job.

Um, I think the first storm had 40 hours that the EOC was open, and the second a little bit less than that.

So that's one person I want to acknowledge.

The other is Alex Bond, who's our interim leisure services director.

So just like we had to take care of that water main while ice and snow is going on.

We also have a lot of vulnerable um folks in our community that need to be kept safe.

Um and one of the ways we do that when it's um very cold and when there's an emergency um declared is to open up uh a shelter, and so certainly we did that.

Several of you actually volunteered for time in that shelter, and thank you for for doing that.

Um we were able to between the two events to shelter well over 300 people, which meant they were inside, not outside, um, in the conditions, and that was very much due to Alex's planning and physically, he was on site most of the time helping make sure that the shelter was operational.

So I certainly wanted to highlight the efforts of those two, but in doing so, don't want to diminish the work the streets and drainage crew did, the work the facilities did to keep things open, the uh public utilities, and many, many, many others as well.

I just think those two um earned kind of that specific call out.

So thank you.

And again, thank you all for for your help.

I do again a number of you actually um I I believe Commissioner Davenport actually said he had fun volunteering, so I appreciate the uh uh the pitching in.

It takes all of us to actually make that work.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Manager.

Uh anything from the auditor?

Uh no report, Mayor.

Anything for the attorney?

All right.

Uh we'll go ahead and uh begin with Commissioner Davenport and with Commissioner Hamby in adjournment.

Yes, I did have fun.

I was um and I do want to definitely give a shout out to Alex Bunn.

He he was God bless him.

He didn't sleep at all, but um it was phenomenal.

I thank all the staff, a lot of hard work.

Um let's work together on this um FLU, get this done.

Um Happy Black History Month, happy Black History Month, Happy Black History Month.

There are a lot of people out there who are like, you know, trying to do away with that.

And I was taken off the property committee.

That hurt my feelings.

You feeling one good.

It's all good.

That's it.

Um yeah, thanks again to staff for all the hard work through the past two weekends in the ice and snow.

Um and we did dodge a bullet there.

Um things are kind of a mess in places like Nashville and Mississippi and um, you know, even a little bit north of us, east of us in Georgia.

Um, and yes, happy Black History Month.

We need to say that over and over again.

Thank you.

Commissioner Taylor still with us.

I don't think so.

We'll move on to Commissioner Wright.

Um Yeah, I really don't have anything that can top um the thanks that need to go out to all the staff and everything that did kept everything um safe and and running during those incidents.

And I do believe that we have some improvements and details that are coming from the notification text.

If you click on it, they're actually jumping you to a wealth of information where sometimes it's just the same topic, but in relation to getting information out for the weather incident stuff.

Um I I thought that was helpful, and I'm I'm continuing to put in my newsletter trying to get our public to sign up for the notifications.

Front page of ACC.com, bottom left corner looks like a megaphone, and go in there, click on um how you want information communicated and which topics so that you're getting the information that staff is putting together all the time for us to understand and know what's going on.

But anyway, thanks to staff for all that.

Thank you, Mayor.

Again, all my colleagues have all said the same thing, and I want to echo that too.

And I'm amazed though when we have crisis situation, how this community comes together, try to really help one another, get things done.

And we we get critical a lot what we don't do.

Uh yes, we did lose three people, unfortunately, um, to the cold weather, but uh think about the hundreds of other people that got saved and was warm during that time.

So again, uh shout out to our staff for doing the work and for putting those warmest things together.

And I mentioned to Bob that you know, I'm always used to doing debriefing.

He said they'd done these briefing that we have our one-on-one on Monday.

I'm gonna um throw a couple other ideas at you, and maybe we can see how that works.

But um, but again, thanks for the community and for all the volunteers that stepped up to write and just want to um say with it being Black History Month.

Um, I think about the pioneers who um sit behind this rail in the past, who have given us the opportunity, myself, including some of my colleagues to sit behind this rail to try to do the people's business in this community.

I just want to send a shout out to those individuals who led the way for us to do that and to sit here tonight.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of the individuals that helped out over the two the ice storm as well as the snowstorm, everyone that served in those emergency capacities, the the stakeholders, the churches, our staff, and our volunteers.

Thank you so much for that.

Thank you, Bob, for the constant um updates.

They were pertinent and they were timely.

I appreciate that.

Um thank you, Meredith Barnett.

Barnum.

Is it Barnum?

Thank you very much, Meredith, because um my husband in his profession, he had to log on every four hours for those meetings, and they were quite organized.

And and even when he was called in or not, he did log in, and I would hear it in my periphery, not eavesdropping, but they they were on top of it, didn't waste time.

She led the team, you know, phenomenally.

And I just want to say thank you for that.

And um, happy back history month.

Yeah, like everyone else, I just want to thank everyone on staff, um, and especially impressed with all my colleagues and the staff who volunteered at that emergency shelter at Lake Park for those uh, you know, like 11 to 2 in the morning, two to five, and the time and getting there and um not being as uh fearful of driving in the snow and ice as I I might have been.

Um so thank you all on that.

Um I also want to thank um people tell my people in my neighboring district eight.

We're having a uh we had a meeting last night on a development um in that infamous little uh piece of property behind the Chevron stations at the end of college station, and it was a very positive interaction uh with uh neighbors there and with what's being proposed.

Um and uh so I I am hopeful that that's gonna come back before this body and not be a controversial thing, but something that's everyone is really uh happy with.

So I want to encourage people to come out to the next meeting that's there so their in-cook input can be received.

I definitely have to um thank Meredith and Alex and Bob, even though you were sending the information from them.

I sent the in information by text to my constituents in my district.

So I looked really smart.

Um but we know it was Meredith at the end of the day.

Um I did um have mixed emotions, and I think I sent it a text to my colleagues about my stay.

It was very rewarding.

Um I heard homeless people talk about faith and God.

Um they were playing Marvin Sapp in the gym and we who have a roof over our heads, we complain and whine, and these folk are making the best of a bad situation.

And they clean some cleaned up and we didn't even have to ask them to clean up.

Um it was really emotional.

I think the the saddest part for me were these two little girls, their mother and I sent this out.

These two little girls that stayed in the shelter and and had to leave by 12, but before a mother put them in the car to leave, they were playing in the snow.

And they didn't know they were homeless.

They look like average little well-to-do kids playing in the snow.

We've got to do a whole bunch better than what we're doing because while we were able to do that, I think Commissioner Fisher mentioned we also had three deaths during the snow season of homeless people.

Um, we can't put a price on life.

And I I really get bothered when we do kick the road uh the can down the road about housing and homelessness.

I do get bothered, so y'all know that because nobody should die in the snow by themselves because we're we getting caught up in bureaucracy um and policy.

Sometimes you got to step out your comfort zone.

Oh, I didn't have to drive.

Meredith arranged for me to be picked up.

They pick you up, they pick you up.

I had the police pick me up one night, and then the other time, um, leisure services picked me up.

My drivers came from Oglethorpe and Commerce.

So yeah, you ain't got no more excuse.

But it was an amazing experience, and um it just strengthened me more to do more.

Make a motion to adjourn, Mayor.

So I need uh well, it I just need uh a dual motion.

I need a motion to enter into executive session for discussion of real estate acquisition andor disposal and to adjourn upon conclusion of that.

So move on both of those.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

All right, everybody, thank you, members of the public.

We appreciate it.

We're entering executive session now.

Hope you have a beautiful night.