On October 28, 2025, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners convened for a work session to review and deliberate on a comprehensive slate of code amendments. The meeting focused on updating procurement thresholds, streamlining administrative processes for animal services, building regulations, and fire safety, while primarily dedicating significant time to discussing the creation of a new stormwater utility fee and the associated code changes. Presentations were delivered by county staff from the Attorney's Office, various departments, and the Water System.
Good afternoon and welcome to our Cobb County Board of Commissioners work session this October 28th, 2025. Today we have two presentations before us. The first one will be to provide our 2025 code amendments, and that will be brought by our county attorney Debbie Blair. So with that, Debbie, feel free to approach and help walk through the many updates and we do have many chapters are touched today. Um Debbie Blair with the county attorney's office, and I'll be presenting the uh code amendments. Actually, I'm really MCing only because we have subject matter experts that will be called forward. We're going to take the amendments in numeric order of the chapters, with the exception of the uh changes to chapters 50, 83, 110, and 122, which comprise the stormwater utility, and that will be presented by Judy Jones last. So if there are no questions on the process, I will ask Roger Ball to come forward and present the amendments to chapter two. Thank you. So I'll start with two dash one four one. Uh we're making uh uh ancillary minor changes uh to this uh section. Uh the first change we're changing our purchasing the uh procurement services, which reflects our official name that we uh made a couple years ago. We are adding a list of uh exceptions, and these exceptions, by the way, are already included in our procurement policy. So we're just bringing them over to the code, and that is uh come about as a recommendation from the uh county attorney's office. We're adding actually actual adding references to state law, and that is also uh a recommendation that is coming forth from the county attorney's office, and we uh we think that's a good recommendation. Um we'll go to section two hundred two. Uh these are ancillary changes as well, plus one change that is uh substantive in nature. Again, just like two-one four one, we'll change it per purchasing to procurement services. And this makes it easier for future modifications. This way, you know, as opposed to putting a dollar amount if we come to the board again with uh an increase dollar amount five years from now, we'll just change that uh in one area as opposed to having to change it throughout the document. So again, that's kind of a format thing that was uh recommended by uh the county attorney's office. And the last one, uh just like two one four two. I'm sorry, 2-141. It's the same thing. We're adding references uh to uh to relevant state law. And our actually our last one's that is our substantive revision. And this is the one that we're changing. Uh we want to change our seal bid threshold uh from 50,000 to 250,000, which is uh in line with the state of Georgia's public works construction law. Um that change was made this year through the Georgia State's legislative process and uh they revisited that threshold, moved it from uh I think it was a hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty. So we want to align ours with the 250 uh thousand threshold as well. And I would say um that we reached out to a number of comparator organizations to kind of look and see what their seal bid threshold uh uh thresholds were. Uh we looked at uh some leading edge uh organizations uh in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic area of the United States. We like to benchmark Fairfax County, Virginia on a number of different things. Uh they'll see a their seal bid threshold is 250,000. Uh the federal government uh just one October this year moved their sealed bid threshold to 250,000 dollars. While our comparative organizations here in the Greater Atlanta, about 90 percent of them at 100,000 already, they are pursuing through the through their legislative process to move it up to 250 as well to align with the uh Georgia State uh public works construction law. So I know it appears like a big jump from 50 to 250, but it's because we have not changed our seal bid threshold in 19 years. It's been 19 years since we've changed it. And uh $50,000 was an appropriate threshold 19 years ago based on the uh effects of uh inflation. Um hundred fifty thousand dollars is a new fifty thousand dollars based on the market uh that we're in. And um I just want to take about uh one minute to talk about key benefits of this uh change. Uh by moving the threshold from 50 to 250, it allows a greater number of number of purchases to be made using simpler, faster, and less burdensome procedures. Um, and this allows us to get goods and services to our user departments quickly and efficiently. Uh it also encourages encourages small business participation by reducing the complexity and administrative burden for routine purchases. Uh small businesses, they are working hard to keep their doors open. They're trying to grow their businesses, and so we want to create a procurement uh process that makes it easier for them to engage Cobb County without having without them having to develop burdensome complex requests for proposals, sealed bid responses based on goods and services that we consider routine. You know, $50,000, like I said, 19 years ago is a very appropriate number, but $250 is become the the uh the new benchmark. Um and the last benefit is certainly but not last but not least, it allows the board to apply greater focus on reviewing and and approving procurements with more strategic value and significance. So those are the uh changes that we are proposing through code amendment, and um at this time I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. And Stephanie, I've asked Stephanie Bryce to join me as well to assist.