Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Cobb County Board of Commissioners meeting this July 14th, 2026.

I'm pleased today that we have Pastor Chip Dean of First Baptist Church of Powder Springs with us.

He'll be providing our invitation.

And that will be followed by the pledge, which will be brought by firefighter Jan Fox, who I understand is retiring today.

After twenty-nine years of service, thank you for all that you've done for our county, and thank you for making our Board of Commissioners meetings one of your last acts of business.

It is your uniform will come off after this, and that's it.

Wow.

Hopefully that small won't.

All right, with that, um, Pastor Dean.

Please feel free to come forward, and for all of you who are willing and able, please stand for our invocation and our pledge.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father.

We come to you in the name of Jesus, your son.

And we just thank you for your Holy Spirit.

God, you are so good to us.

Lord, your word tells us that you love us, that you are generous to us.

You are gracious, Lord, over us, and God, we thank you for your mercy that is within us.

God, you are the God over everything.

And so, God, we give you all of the honor, all the glory, all the worship, and all of the praise.

Lord, we thank you that you have all the wisdom and you have invited us to request your wisdom from you.

Lord, I just want to thank you so much for this board of commissioners.

Lord, what an honor it is to live in Cobb County, Georgia.

What a wonderful community of people who love one another.

And God, I just pray that you would continue to give our citizens and this board and all of our uh all of our our officials here, Lord, your wisdom.

God, that you would help them to govern, help them to make the decisions that need to be made.

God, for the good of your people.

So, Lord, that Cobb County can continue to be a community that loves and serves one another, and that we are living together in unity.

Lord, that we love one another.

God, we pray against crime, we pray against division, we pray against hate, we pray against violence.

God, we pray against anything and everything the evil one wants to do to divide us because we believe that Jesus just wants to unite us.

So, Lord, we thank you for his cross.

We thank you for his resurrection, and Lord, today I pray as all of these decisions are being made with budgets and and uh and so many other things.

God, we just pray that your will would be done because we know that your will is good and it is best.

God, we love you.

Thank you for your love for us.

Thank you for our uh just our honored guest here, our first responder who's retiring today, and all of those first responders, Lord, that she represents today.

God, we thank you for their service.

We pray all these things in Jesus' name in all God's people's sin.

Amen.

And to the Republic where we just stand, one nation under that individual with liberty of justice for all.

Thank you.

Thank you, firefighter Fox, for being here.

Congratulations to you in your retirement.

And Pastor Dean, there have been multiple requests on the dias for you to come back.

My request is for you to stay to stay the whole meeting and just keep that spirit in here.

That was timely, fitting, appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

With that, our meeting is now called to order.

And we have one presentation before us, and that is to honor our delegation chair, um, state representative David Wilkerson with the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia.

So if you don't mind, if all of you who are here as a part of this presentation, please join me up front.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission, everyone who joined us today.

I'm Todd Edwards with ACCG Georgia's Counties Association.

Uh each year we're happy to provide our legislative service award to legislators, members of the General Assembly who go above and beyond the call of duty.

Uh over the years, uh Representative Wilkerson has been very instrumental.

He's very knowledgeable on tax policy, very complex issues that become before the General Assembly, not only on the floor, but in the House Ways and Means Committee.

He does a great job digesting it, explaining it to others.

Always his door is always open to ACCG.

We discuss it with him, and in the end, ultimately, it helps create sound public policy, not only for Georgia counties, but the citizens and taxpayers of Georgia.

So with that, I'm happy to present to you, Representative Wilkerson ACCG's legislative service award.

Okay.

Gotta be careful giving a microphone.

Thank you, uh Todd.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair, and to all the commissioners for letting this presentation happen today.

And as Todd said, uh, it is so important that we work together at the state level with our local elected officials to create sound policy because when I go down to the Capitol, not everybody across the state has the same things that we do.

We have challenges, we have opportunities.

But for example, two counties in 159 have a six percent sales tax rate.

Cobb is one of those.

We have a 62 and over senior exemption for all seniors from school taxes.

We have a floating homestead exemption in the county.

So the problems that we face are different than those across the state.

So there's 159 counties, 536 cities, and 180 school districts.

And so crafting policy is important that we talk to our local elected officials.

So I'm going to be getting on the road, leaving Cobb for a little bit.

We're going to start a tour across the state to talk about property taxes because it's on everybody's mind.

We'll be in Camilla, Georgia, for the first one.

But the importance is that we're working for you, and I appreciate the partnership with everyone here, the staff, the leadership, and Todd, and thank you for this award.

And I'm sorry, my wife Penny is here with me.

So you know, so I want to thank her because she she goes everywhere with me anyway.

So uh, but thank you.

Thank you, County Manager.

Thank you.

Yes.

Okay.

You don't mind us.

Do you guys want to come down, please?

Yes, we can all be together.

Okay.

Check your button.

Um, yeah, right back to the panel.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Sounds good.

I'd like to get it.

Okay.

You overlap.

Did you want to get another?

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

That takes us to our public hearing portion of this meeting, and I will turn things over to our CFO to walk us through this segment.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair, Commissioners, County Manager.

Before I request that we that you open today's public hearing on the proposed tax increase, I'd like to give a quick presentation if that's okay.

All right, so just a few slides.

Uh want to open up with our uh schedule for the millage rate.

So uh we've advertised and on July 2nd, uh July 9th, and it will once again be advertised on July 14th.

Today is our first public hearing.

We'll have a second public hearing at a special called meeting next Tuesday at 6 30, and we'll have our third and final public hearing July 28th at our regularly scheduled board meeting at 7 o'clock.

Uh after the public hearing, the millage rate uh will also be adopted uh at that time.

A quick overview of the county's millage rates.

We have currently three funds that have millage rates associated with them.

We have our general fund, which is our main fund.

Uh, and and let me first say that all millage rates are proposed to stay the same.

So no change between 26 uh and 25.

So let me start over with the general fund.

We're expecting to be uh say the same at 8.46 mills for the fire fund.

We're remaining the same at 2.97.

And for the Cumberland Special Service District, which again is a tax on commercial properties in the Cumberland Special Service District area.

Uh we're proposing to stay at 2.45 mills, and uh in 26, we will not have a millage rate for uh our six flag special service district uh because that is now entirely within the city of Mapleton.

So to get uh the bottom graph, just to touch on our net digest growth, we did have growth, although it is moderating.

Uh in years 23 and 24, we had digest growth net digest growth close to 10 or 6 percent.

Now we're uh closer to 5% net digest growth with the uh gross digest growth roughly at 5%.

I want to provide a little more context with the digest, comparing it from 26 to 25.

Where we really saw our bump this year was in commercial revaluations.

Last year it grew about 0.26 percent uh in the commercial digest.

Well, now we grew at 7.6 percent on the commercial digest.

Uh historically, we've averaged about six percent, so it's roughly uh a percent and a half above our long-term average, uh, again with the net digest growth coming in at 5.06 percent.

I'd like to provide some additional color to our uh millage rates and how they can impact your bill.

So on this chart, this is something we showed last year.

This is for a homesteaded property owner within Cobb County, their primary homestead.

What I want to show here uh in highlight is the blue bar, which is your general fund.

This chart highlights the importance of our floating homestead exemption.

So this is a real example of a home.

Uh in 2018, the fair market value of this home was roughly 250,000.

Uh and it's not atypical for the average home now to be closer to 450,000 uh from a fair market value.

So those are indicated by the growth in the gray bars over time.

What the floating homestead exemption essentially does is locks in the general fund portion of your property tax bill from the date of per purchase if you filed for your homestead exemption.

Okay, so again, if it is your primary homestead, your general fund millage rate will remain unchanged, unchanged despite the growth in your fair market value or your assessed value.

The only way that would change is if the a decision was made to change the millage rate in either direction.

Okay.

The red bar is indicative of the fire fund.

Again, that's at 2.97 mills.

The fire fund does not have the float, so you'll see how the steps increase with the fair market value.

Okay, so uh that is the one of the primary differences between the funds that we're in control of.

Again, we're in control of the school.

Um, I'm sorry, my bad, uh, the general fund, the fire fund, uh, and the Cumberland Special Service District Fund.

We do not uh set the millage rate or are in charge of the millage rate for the school board.

Uh so again, in this example, when the person purchased the home in 2018, their bill was approximately $609 for the general fund.

It would have been roughly $1,447.

That's a saving savings to that homeowner of $838.

Uh one thing, or actually, there's two things I want to point out.

In 2026, due to the homeowners relief grant for House Bill 973, there will be a credit on that bill.

Okay, so next year, if that credit is not reapplied, and that's a state uh law.

Uh, if it is not reapplied, you will see a decrease in your tax bill this year based on that credit.

Next year it will go back to what it originally was absent of the credit.

So I just want everyone to know that there is a credit being applied this year again, that's from the state.

Um, and if you'd like to see an estimate, I've provided the website there so you can plug in your address and look at your estimated property value and your tax bill.

Uh it is on our tax assessors or tax commissioner's website.

And I know it was brief, uh, but that wraps up the initial presentation.

So with that, I'm happy to take any questions, or we can open the public hearing.

Whatever you prefer.

Yes, we'll go ahead and open up the public hearing.

And this public hearing is initially for the proposed property tax increase as defined by Georgia law.

We will take an unlimited number of speakers.

You will have three minutes apiece to be able to address the board.

Please note that the next hearing following this one at this meeting will be with respect to the budget.

This one again is with respect to the proposed property tax increase where the digest for the county that will be collected is higher than it was last year.

We'll go ahead and open it up and we'll take our first speaker.

Good morning, Chair and Commissioners.

Um I know you've been here many times.

Oh, Christine Rossman, I'm sorry.

Um actually, I'm just talking because I think that I'm surprised that nobody is shown up for this because we're funding all of this, and it directly impacts our wallets.

And it's very sad that the apathy that's happened with citizens, because I talk to a lot of people and they're like, I showed up in meetings and I pushed back and I spoke, and they still did what they were gonna do anyway.

So then they stopped coming, which is like kind of ridiculous.

Um anyway, I'm uh I guess my point is is that houses have gone our our property values have like skyrocketed.

Um that just means that you get a bigger piece of the pie, doesn't it?

You know, I mean it's like if I say I'm gonna split a pizza with you, and you know, one year it's a personal size pizza, and then the next year it's this big of a pizza, then you're getting a lot more pizza, and I feel like you guys are getting a lot more of our pizza.

I don't know if that makes sense, but um anyway, it's really impacting people, very much so.

I met a young lady yesterday, 30 years old, she and her husband, two kids, a dog, and I was basically saying, Hey, if you go on vacation, I'll watch your dog for you, and she goes, Oh, there's no way we could go on vacation.

We're strapped.

And then I realized like, how in the heck are young people or elderly people on a fixed income being able to go with this people are leaving Cobb County?

I'm sure you know that they're like trying to get out of Cobb County because of our taxes, and because of the inflated house values, and it's just a vicious cycle circle, and I think a lot of us are just frustrated, and it becomes so big that nobody knows where to like we have this elephant, and it's like how how do you how do you combat this freaking elephant that has grown up here in Cobb County?

I don't know, but all I do know is when I look on the website and I see that there's this event going on, that event going on, it's like where the hell are our tax dollars going?

You know, infrastructure and public safety.

Beyond that, it's all frivolous.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

We'll take our next speaker as part of this public hearing.

And again, if you're new to the process, please state your name before providing your comments.

Good morning.

I'm David Musser, Living East Cobb.

I'd like to talk about microtransit.

Sir, I'm sorry.

This portion of the meeting is a public hearing to talk about specifically the millage rate or the proposed tax increase.

However, if you'd like to talk about microtransit, you can do so when we have public comment, it's different than the public hearing portion, and you can just sign up right there where that gentleman is, and they will take comments for an array of topics during that time.

Okay.

Are there any other speakers to speak about the proposed tax increase or millage rate for the county?

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name's Craig Harfoot.

I think you're well aware that we don't have affordable housing.

You know, we got homeless people, you're given money from the people you tax to various organizations for that.

And the inflation that causes the values to go up, it's all controlled by the bankers and the you know the Federal Reserve and all these players that own both parties.

They literally own Democrats and Republicans.

And it's like, so you know, we've had old white men up there, we've had young white men, we've had you know, women, black and white, and uh Eric, you're the groundbreaker, you know, first black man, and um, but the thing is, same result.

Who do you serve?

The people that live here.

Do you give lip service to them, or do you know all controls local, and what you do here, the only way to deal with this is to spend less money, quit building infrastructure that requires even more tax dollars, these road projects you put on SPLOS, they end up being added into the budget to maintain them.

And the ones like in the SPLOSS that put sidewalks and bike lanes in my thing.

We got all uneven sidewalks.

I mean, and they need fixed because people are gonna trip and fall.

And uh now the kids run down there on electric bikes at 35 miles an hour on the sidewalk.

You're gonna have to address that stuff next.

But anyhow, you gotta roll back the millage rate because you know, just a windfall tax.

You know, I kept saying, use the loss.

Nobody wants to use a loss, they want to keep building more infrastructure to bring in more people, but every city, New York's your prime example, highest taxes, highest population density, you build density, and it's gonna collapse.

You can't do it.

You gotta scale back.

Like uh town center, you're not getting any property tax off a foreclosed vacant structure.

It was just sold under foreclosure.

When you come back with the comprehensive plan, you're gonna say, Oh, what are we gonna put there?

You know, the only people that get a break in this world are the bankers that loan money to people for commercial or rental property.

Everybody else gets billed at full retail.

You gotta stop that because you know that's what's the whole problem, you know.

And it's like we just want you to serve us.

I don't care what your personal beliefs are.

Thank you.

Are there any other speakers as part of this public hearing?

Good morning, good morning.

My name is Myrna Cavan.

And this I'm not very familiar with these hearings the first time that I come.

Um I moved here to Cobb County in uh 2007.

And I was very lucky that there was a crush market, and I was able to acquire my house for a very low price of 108.

At that time, the price of the house was 148.

2009.

Now just two years later, it has been increased for 100,000 more dollars.

And I think that is a very inflated value.

And I think is it's unfair because if I I got a uh an investor's, I mean I get called by investor wanting to buy my house because I'm a location that is is very desirable.

Um also because of the uh people are looking for low price houses, and my house is is in that bracket, you know, it's low cost, but um the most I got an offer for 266, but you say that my house has a fair value of 350.

But this is just an offer without looking at the house.

Once they come in to look at the houses, the condition of the house, they're not gonna give me this amount.

They're gonna give me much less.

In order for them to uh make the uh upgrades and be able to get 350, but yet I'm paying taxes on this inflated value of 350 that I'm not gonna get.

I'm not gonna be able to I'm not gonna see that.

So I'm just going to present that that I think it's it's unfair.

I was looking at the uh prices that have the other houses in my same street that have sold recently.

And uh your time has run, ma'am.

Okay, thank you.

All right, yeah.

Thank you.

We'll take our next speaker.

My name is Christina White, and I live in East Cobb, and I understand everything is a trade-off trying to juggle income coming into the county to maintain the various services and and all that.

However, to kind of make a point similar to the last speaker, I get the ugly houses letters all the time, and of course they don't offer anywhere close to what you say the house is worth or even what I think the house is worth.

But it all goes back to you would actually have to sell the house to realize the value in the meantime.

We have to pay the taxes, and being a senior citizen on a fixed budget with employee inflation jumping.

I can tell you, I'm not on social security yet, but I can tell you that the money I do have is not increasing with the rate of inflation.

There's no adjustment for me.

So it gets very difficult to manage.

Okay.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Can you get her contact information also?

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

We now have an associated public hearing, and that will be with respect to our fiscal year 27 proposed budget.

Good morning again, uh, Chair, Commissioners County Manager.

Uh, before uh I ask that you open the public hearing for the 27 proposed budget, I would like to go over a very brief presentation.

Uh there are some additional slides on here for the sake of time.

I'm going to speed through them a little bit, but the June 23rd recording of this exact presentation will have a little bit more detail.

Um, I will highlight any of the changes that occurred between June 23rd and today during the course of the presentation.

And of course, if you have any questions throughout the presentation, I'd be happy to answer those as well.

So again, very quickly, we'll touch on the summary, which is gonna be the high level impacts of all the changes that occurred throughout all the funds within the county.

Uh we'll hit on our impact items, our budget recommendations, required, you know, in required adjustments, but then we'll spend some time on the additional items that are in this year's budget.

That's where some of the changes have occurred from June 23rd to today.

We also have a budget breakdown by fund.

Uh I I that's the slides that it will briefly touch on a few of the funds just to give some context, uh, but I'd be happy to entertain any questions uh that you have uh that I don't answer during the course of the presentation.

We'll wrap it up by touching on the budget schedule and then uh providing where uh you all and the citizens can find additional budget information.

So overall in 27, combining our governmental funds and our business type funds, the budget would be about 1.409 billion dollars.

That's an 84 million dollar increase over last year.

On the next slide, I will touch on uh the components that make up a majority of that 84 million dollars.

To be clear, that is not all within the general fund, that is countywide.

So that includes any funding from water, uh, the water fund, the capital you name it.

Uh it's all in there.

So again, I just want to highlight that that is not an 84 million dollar increase within the general fund.

That is for all funds countywide.

One of the changes I do want to highlight is the last time I gave this presentation.

We had 29 full-time positions being proposed in the 27 budget.

At the time uh fire positions were being discussed by the commission, and I have uh discussed this with each one of you, and the decision has been made to include the fire funds positions within this proposed budget.

That increased the total to the 59 you see here today.

So to give you a breakdown, the general fund has 23 proposed full-time positions, 27 full-time positions for fire, uh, six for the stormwater utility fund, and three for water and sewer.

So here's the highlights that make up the eighty-four million dollars at a high level.

Obviously, we have water and uh sewer capital.

It increased by 17.1 million dollars.

That is in the water and sewer fund.

It's a transfer over to uh provide water and sewer capital that has increased 17.1 million.

We have water and sewer operations, it's different from capital.

This is the purchase of water.

This is uh this is their the parts, the chemicals, the sludge uh handling, you name it, uh has increased 5.8 million.

We've added the stormwater utility fee to our list of adopted budgets.

The stormwater utility fund went live on June 1st.

Uh it was not in the FY26 proposed budget because it was not an active fund.

Now it's an active fund, so we have to have an adopted budget for it.

The budget that was shared with this commission during the stormwater utility fund process was 17 million dollars, and that's precisely where we are going to adopt the FY27 proposed budget uh at 17 million dollars, of which eight point I'm sorry, nine point six million dollars is for stormwater capital funding.

So in the general fund, 14.2 million dollars is for our roster update.

That is essentially taking the people we have on the roster today and updating that from where it was last year.

That includes the impact of last year's uh pay uh pay scale adjustment.

It includes the three percent up to three percent merit, so that would have been effective last year.

It includes increase to pension, health care, all the statutory payroll costs like workers' comp uh uh FICA, you name it, it's all in there, so it's an additional 14.2 million dollars just for the staff that we have today.

That includes I do want to mention standby uh standby pay and special pay for our public safety.

The budget also proposes an additional 2% pay scale adjustment or COLA this year.

Again, that goes into well, it would go into effect March of 27.

It also has up to a 3% merit being included again.

That would also take effect at the same time in March of 27.

One new increase from the last time we presented this budget was a 4% increase to the stipend and Medicare eligible retirees.

Certain retirees from this county are eligible to receive a stipend for uh a supplement for their insurance.

It was created 10 to 15 years ago and it saved the county million dollars at the time.

It has not been increased in over 10 years.

We're proposing a 4% increase, which amounts to roughly less than a quarter of a million dollars for this uh increase, but it is something again that hasn't been touched in over 15 years, and as you know, the price of all insurance and health care has gone up, which is a good segue into the claims fund.

Um not to belabor a point, but when you have transfers out of the general fund, that 14.2 million I discussed earlier, part of part of that is health care cost.

I don't want to say it's double counting, but we have to transfer those funds from the general fund into the claims fund.

So even though that's an 11 million dollar increase, it's essentially captured twice as an expense on the general fund side, but it's also captured as a transfer in to the claims side.

Um so again, that does tend to increase the total arbitrarily uh by capturing that data point twice, but that's how we have to keep our records.

Um we have in it inside the claims fund, we've had additional insurance for cybersecurity just for excess property.

Um you name it, uh, insurance costs have gone up.

We have uh the fire fund, it's an increase of $6.2 million spread out between their personnel operating capital.

But again, the fire fund includes those proposed new positions.

We have impact items of approximately $8.1 million dollars.

We will touch on those briefly on one of the slides.

Again, for the folks uh in the audience and those listening at home, an impact item is an agenda item approved by this board during this current fiscal year that would impact FY27.

So if we take an action uh, whether it be a contract or any recurring cost, we have to include that in preparation for the next year's annual budget.

So we keep a list of all items approved by this board in FY26 that would impact FY27, and that totals to 8.1 million.

I'll show a quick list on the next slide, but I just want to explain what those meant to the uh to everyone listening.

We have budget recommendations of approximately 3.5 million.

That is where finance takes a look at things that just have to be adjusted.

Um we look at things within the budget, one of the and and we'll touch on a separate slide, but just to give you an example, um, we have uh risk allocation where we pay for our claims.

We're essentially self-insured up to a certain point, and the cost of the claims has gone up, it's estimated to go up, and that burden is shared between every fund within the county, the general fund, fire fund, water fund, you name it.

Uh the general funds portion is going up slightly over a million dollars.

That's just something we have to do to make sure we can afford all any claims losses uh incurred.

And then lastly, I do want to highlight that this budget does propose, as I discussed earlier, uh keeping the millage rate flat at 8.46 mills.

This board will set the 27 millage rate next July, uh, but it does propose keeping the millage rate for the general fund and fire fund and CSSD fund flat for FY27.

Again, that will be a decision for next July, but that's uh what we're basing this budget on today.

Uh it does include a continued reduction in the water transfer.

This has been an effort uh by this board for many years.

It used to be at 10%, it now stands at 4%.

This budget would provide an additional 1% reduction.

We've been stepping down by 1% per year when possible.

Uh the 27 proposed budget would be at 3%.

So we're getting very close to eliminating the water transfer in its entirety.

And one reason that's important, it is a lot of money.

And so going from 10% to 0% in one year has been in it would be very difficult to do.

So this board made the conservative approach to go 1% per year as a way to step into this.

So again, that's all uh contemplated within the proposed FY27 budget very quickly for the sake of time.

Here are the list of the impact items that have been passed by this board or are likely to be passed by this board before the end of the year.

Um anything that is italicized, the board has not voted on yet, but our office does expect them to come forward between now and September.

So because we do expect them to come forward, I have to plan for them.

If we didn't plan for them, the budget would be upside down from the start.

So anything italicized again will likely be voted on before the end of FY26.

The total of these impact items is $8.1 million.

I'll touch briefly on these.

These are the budget recommendations, the things that we have to do.

We've identified some contingency adjustments throughout the way.

Um, and you'll see those highlighted in the reductions.

We've had reductions and transfers to other funds that we have identified, but along with anything that we've been able to reduce, there are things that step up as a, for instance, the contribution steps up every year contractually for House Bill 89, 489 by 500,000 a year.

We must do that.

It's a contractual obligation of the county, so we have to bake it in.

So just to give an example, um, that's one that we just have to incorporate every year in the budget, and we'll step up $500,000 a year for the next eight years.

Um, another example is the training center operations costs.

We went live with the training center operations, they have a new indoor firing range, it requires additional HVAC work, led mitigation, things like that nature that need to be contemplated.

So that is a recommendation from budget.

Totals to $3.5 million.

That takes us to our additional items, which are being proposed in the FY27 budget.

All of the ones that are not in italics, and I know, and I apologize, it might be hard to see the difference between the tile size font and non-etali size font.

Uh, but I will touch on those things that have changed since the June 23rd presentation and today.

The first change was a reduction in the Superior Court proposed positions from seven full-time positions to six full-time positions that lowered the amount from 664K to 569 K.

We also had a reduction in the expansion of on demand transit.

It's a grant grant match that was set to be $500,000 for a future on-demand transit grant.

That was lowered to $330,000 as indicated on the slide.

Uh we've added two probate court positions.

Uh we've added a state court judicial staff attorney.

There's been the proposal of one senior associate county attorney, contract focused.

There has been uh a proposal for the parks deputy director to be included in this operating budget.

There has been uh five thousand dollar increase in each of the commissioners' operating budgets being proposed in this operating budget, and finally, uh an application support analyst and ITS is also being proposed.

That is a zero dollar net impact.

The reason for that is we're currently contracting for that service.

We're bringing it in-house, and I think it equates to a very slight savings of two or three thousand dollars or essentially breaking even by shifting those dollars from operating for a contract versus internally uh housing that position.

Uh the total of those additional items is three point two million dollars.

So, in total, uh the change for the general fund was approximately 29 million, that's 4.5%.

Trailing rate of inflation was slightly over uh under 4%.

So we're just slightly over the rate of inflation, um, but pretty much in line with inflation.

Again, we have the impact items, the additional items uh proposed here today, and our budget recommendations.

Those are some of the things that we have to pay for.

Again, BOC impacts and budget recommendations are things we have to pay for, including our roster.

Uh, these are additional items being proposed.

That carries kind of the weight of the presentation here just for the sake of the crowd and those watching at home.

I am going to quickly run through the slides that show the various funds.

Each of these has a unique and designated purpose within the county.

Uh rather than me going through each uh and every one of these, um, I've already touched on general and claims.

I do want to tell anyone who's interested in what each of these funds do, how they operate.

I would encourage them to go online and look at our 25-26 biennial budget book.

And even though it's the 25-26 biannual budget book, it has context as to what each one of these funds does and what it's responsible for.

In addition, it talks about the department and services offered within the general fund.

So if you want to learn more about what makes up a certain department and what they do within the general fund, that book provides the context.

Now, later this year, the 2728 biennial will be available, but we obviously can't produce that until uh the board votes.

So until then, the 2526 would be your best resource to learn about the funds, not the numbers, right?

The numbers would be dated, they'd be 25 and 26, but you could learn about the context of the funds.

But just to highlight some, we had the general fund, which we walk through those increases uh for 29 million dollars.

We talked about the claims and liability fund at 11 million dollars.

Those were in the fire district fund, those were the three largest changes within our governmental funds.

Uh to round out the governmental funds, we have our parking deck uh grant fund, CSBG, law library, and our street light district fund.

That increase uh is essentially a result of the board's action to increase the street light rates that pays for the utilities.

That's all it does.

We had a million dollar loss in next year because utility rates have gone up.

We've added street lights.

And so at that point in time, we needed the rate increase to capture the amount of revenue necessary just to cover the utility cost.

So that's reflected in that budget.

Again, that amounts to a total of 45.8 million dollars for our governmental funds.

Walking through our uh business type funds, I want to touch on the top two, which we've already discussed.

The water fund, mainly capital and operating cost, stormwater utility fund again, 17.1 million is what was proposed to this board at the creation of the stormwater utility fund.

That's what we're adopting here today.

It's a large increase because it's going from zero dollars to 17 million dollars.

Um, and then to round it out our golf course fund remaining uh unchanged, transit fund slightly uh under a million, and then sustaining sustainability waste and beautification going down about a half million.

Touching on uh some of our grant funds.

One thing that always sticks out is the stadium capital maintenance fund.

I want to make sure that everyone knows that is a split obligation between the Atlanta Braves and the County.

We each put in 50% shares.

Uh so the county's obligations 1.5 million dollars uh in the Atlanta Brace is 1.5 million dollars as well, totaling to $3 million.

That is a contract that we are that we entered into at the time of the agreement.

It is being paid for by the revenues that come in uh from uh the various sources, whether it's rental car tax, CSS D1, CSS D2, or property taxes from the stadium area itself.

Um, but again, that is a split obligation, it goes for future capital maintenance on the stadium, such as elevators, uh large mechanical systems.

Um, and then as we work our way down the list, we have uh again our water capital funds, uh, but I don't want to take any more of uh this board's time or the public's time, so I'll round it out by uh showing the dates for the presentations.

We have the initial presentation.

We had the initial presentation on June 23rd.

We highlighted any changes here today at the July 14th presentation, which is now the second presentation, but technically uh the first public hearing, so not to cause confusion there.

We have our second public hearing on July 21st, which again is a special call meeting at 6 30, and then we have our third and final public hearing with this board considering the 27 proposed budget for adoption at the regularly scheduled meeting on July 28th.

Um, and again, for those at home, for more information, you can jump on to the Cobb County website in finance.

You can find the 2526 budget book I talked about.

You can find this presentation and uh the 27 proposed budget.

So, with that, I'm wrapping up my presentation.

And may I am I ask that you uh please open the public hearing?

Thank you.

We'll go ahead and open up the second public hearing for the gentleman that wanted to address microtransit.

That's part of this budget and a part of this hearing.

So you please you're encouraged to um speak during part of this hearing.

Similar to the last hearing, we'll take an unlimited number of speakers.

He'll have a total of three minutes to address the board, and we'll go ahead and take our first speaker.

Good morning, Chairwoman Cupid, commissioners, county manager, staff.

My name is Andy Kingry.

I am an Elizabeth 01, part of District 2.

I appreciate the detailed uh breakdown of what the budget is and what it's gonna become.

I'd like to address budget items for the Board of Elections and Registration.

I've had a pleasure to be observing a lot of operations at 995 Roswell for a few years now.

I'm happy to report to you that the staff there from top to bottom are very budget and cost conscious.

It really is surprising how expensive elections are.

Manpower to voter education, equipment, supplies.

It's a huge operation.

Multiple special elections and runoffs have further stressed their department.

Today I want to address one possible addition to their budget that may not have been in the budget presentation, and that would be um the creation of a new position of deputy director for the uh Board of Elections and Registration.

Cobb is the only big county in Georgia without at least one deputy director.

Some have several.

In fact, many smaller counties have already beaten us to the to the punch on that.

Currently, the duties of deputy are being pushed off to other departments and supervisors.

This pulls them away from their actual responsibilities.

I'm confident that the deputy director will give voters and the public at large better access to information, it'll promote better transparency, support election integrity, and enhance the overall operation by reducing scattered management attention and systemic stress in the department.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll take our next speaker.

Good morning, commissioners.

My name's Craig Harfoot.

Can I have a half hour?

But anyhow, he just lobbied for a bigger budget.

I can't believe it.

I know how to fix elections.

You go to one election day and you eliminate a whole lot of money spent on multiple weeks long early voting.

It's just stupid.

And then the um God, stormwater.

Oh, that was really good.

We're gonna add six more staff members, you know, and it so it gets even here we go.

Let's grow government.

You didn't need the stormwater.

That five dollar thing, yeah.

You probably could have raised that money just saving things, like don't do lawsuits about redistricting home rule and wasting millions of dollars and keeping people in office that shouldn't have been, and passing projects that like Lower Roswell, that last section.

The way they designed that, I don't know what she was thinking, but they totally screwed the Papa John's place by pushing the road way wide, it goes like this, and and then narrows at the intersection.

It's crazy.

But all that infrastructure moving now.

Then the actual gas charges are like nothing.

They're like $15.

And it's true, every month you you multiply these things with your SPLOSS projects.

You start moving infrastructure, they raise it up our bills, electric polls, all that stuff.

So, like I said, keep it within the existing right-of-way and do what you're gonna do, but don't go making it cost us more money and you know, utility bills, and then you then you put a spLOS tax on that, and you know, it's stupid, and it it's it's self-destructive to the people in this community.

The other stuff is like oh, you just gotta spend less money, you know.

Like if you cut, you know, if you cut 10% of your your spending, you'll be prepared for when the this whole gas thing, Russia don't have gas, you know, they they ban tariffs, so then suddenly we're paying more for gasoline again.

I've talked to you about gasoline.

That is the inflator of everything.

That is inflation, and and it it's the creator of it.

So you know, you can't control that, but you can control what you spend, and you need to spend less, like 10% less, lower the millage rate, Mr.

Hartman.

Well it'll be better.

Thank you.

Hey, Christine Rosman again.

So I think there's a common theme here.

Quit spending so much money, and a lot of people are on a fixed income or fixed budget, but sometimes it's like you guys are tone-deaf to the rest of the community that's funding everything because we're on a budget, but then it's like, oh no, and then we're gonna add people here, and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that.

And it's just like it's this scope creep that just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And I'm wondering if that doge, the department of government efficiency is something that chair that you might want to um put together citizens that would be willing to come in and be able to help with that.

Because you did have people that were basically doing that before Doge became like a common word or a common um acronym, and that was like Jan Barton, um, Larry Savage.

They would come here and they would spell it out.

Here's what's really going on, do spreadsheets and be able to have visuals for the other um citizens, but then we got quashed on our first amendment right, and then we didn't have they didn't have a vehicle to be able to present the facts.

So kind of maybe you didn't want the facts to be presented, so that we could just have what your ideas are, so that we had to gobble up what you were giving us instead of maybe some other truths or some other opinions.

And so it's really clear that there is a spending problem.

And it's also clear that you know what when you have a job and you got a pension coming up, and you kind of go along to get along to make sure that everybody stays happy.

Um that's not satisfying the citizens.

Okay.

And I appreciate that, buddy, that you kind of put it in very easy terms of understanding the logistics of this.

But the thing is is that all we hear is like, well, blah blah blah, blah, you know, want want wah, because it's so big and it's so we can't comprehend these amounts of oh, it's a it's it's only 10 million here, it's another whatever.

It's it's hard for people that are on like just a regular budget that aren't dealing with millions to be able to comprehend it, but I think that that works to your advantage, so that we you can kind of keep us in, it's like, oh, we're the experts, we'll be able to tell you what to do.

And it's like, no, we're really tiring of this overspending and the tone deafness.

Ms.

Rosman, thank you.

We'll take our next speaker.

Morning again.

David Musser, the Venice Cobb.

Um I'm opposed to the proposed expansion of uh Cobb microtransit.

Um this was part of the initiative that was defeated at the polls almost two years ago, and it seems proponents of the 15 billion dollar transit bill are attempting to implement the original initiative piecemeal.

Um microtransit, like the original transportation bill is a financially irresponsible measure aimed at supporting a small percentage of Cobb citizens, but it's not supported by any hard data or studies that show the county or its citizens will be better off as a result of this bill.

Instead, it seems the only supporting data for these measures is anecdotal at best.

Seems that the common theme with this board is to take try to take countywide tax revenue it's spended in selected areas of the county.

The indoor track in Mapleton is example of this, as are these transportation initiatives.

Instead, the goal of this board should be to govern in a financially and morally responsible manner.

Instead, we should should consider increased funding for things which help all residents, such as public safety parks, roads, and schools.

Thanks for your consideration.

Thank you.

We'll take our next speaker.

Hi, Kevin Janet.

Hi, Kevin.

Are you speaking with respect to our budget or are you in public comment?

Oh, we love that, but I don't know if that's part of this budget.

Are you signed up for our public comment?

Yes, ma'am.

So yeah, I'm signed up on the board, and let me just have a set of the district.

Okay.

Yes, if this is not with respect to our budget, let's hold off.

You public comments gonna follow shortly, and then you can be able to present.

And we look forward to your presentation.

Yeah, I saw the pause.

I didn't want to add that.

All right, you've been patient.

Thank you.

Yes, we'll be happy to call you up shortly.

Are there any other speakers with respect to the county budget?

Okay, not seeing any, we'll close the public hearing.

Do any commissioners have any comments or questions for our CFO?

I have a question.

Um it's probably actually more for the parts director, but I'll start with you, buddy.

I'm not sure if it's supposed to be to call Michael at this time.

Um thank you.

The additional items for 27.

Yes, there is a line item for a deputy parts director.

Yes.

Uh and I have not had any conversations with parts director.

I guess we can talk offline or with you regarding the position.

So I don't know if anyone's prepared to share a little bit on that now, or if we need to talk offline.

Okay.

That would be up to okay.

Yeah, no, that's fine.

And I'm not sure if any of the I don't want to speak on behalf of our parks director, so turn it over to him.

Oh, it's up to the chair.

Okay.

Well, I have a question though.

Go ahead.

Okay, thanks, Chair.

Yeah, just in generally, when we have requests for uh for positions, we usually typically walk the halls.

Um so for most that are on here, all that are on here I'm familiar with, but I'm just now seeing this for um the deputy parks director, and we hadn't had an opportunity to discuss it.

So just wanted to know a little bit more about it.

Sure.

So when we I think all departments were asked to put in their original request at the beginning of the budget process, so everyone did an agenda item-like uh request, and ours was for a deputy parks director and for an accreditation managers.

We're going through the accreditation process through the National Certification Board.

Uh so that was that was all that we did.

Um, and that was the last that I heard about it until uh Dr.

McMorse called me uh a few days ago and said that the deputy parts director had made its way back into the budget, and would I be okay with that?

And I said, Absolutely.

We put it in the budget, I believe the last uh three years or four years.

I can't exactly remember when.

Um but the deputy parks director essentially serve under me.

Um, and they would be, you know, just sort of our our our second in command or our go-to, probably handle a lot more of the day-to-day operations, so I can start looking at a little bit more of the strategic long-term goals.

Um I okay, I can add to so in our budget binder, there's a basis for a number of positions, and in reviewing it, uh of course my heart is always pricked when I work alongside all of us work alongside our departments and staff and see all of the opportunity to improve the level of service towards our citizens.

And I saw your request, and I know the parks department is a very busy department utilized by not only the commissioners and planning a number of events, but when people talk about how good Cobb County is, a lot of times they talk about how great our parks are.

That's one thing.

But another thing is our parks department is the largest department behind public safety, and they generally operate almost seven days a week, and it is a lot of responsibility for Michael to be able to manage, which he does very well with his team, but I think having a deputy director to be able to support him as he's um leading that department is not unreasonable given the size of the department, given the weight of the work of the department and the opportunity to make sure that we're continuing to provide services that are top notch for all of our citizens.

So I added that in the budget.

Um there was some money that became available, and I'm trying to remember how we ended up getting that 300,000 available now.

At the time when we had our meeting, there was still uh some additional funds that were available.

There were additional requests that came in after the June 23rd presentation.

A number of and we we worked on several different uh solutions, one of which was reducing some of the originally proposed items, such as the Superior Court uh positions and uh expand expanding on-demand transit local grant match.

We've reduced those uh in combination with some of the funding that we had uh available, and that's how uh we were able to uh fund those positions.

But again, for benefit of the board and those watching at home, the budget binder version one is online that contains um every request from the departments that was asked for in the FY27 proposed budget includes their top priorities, it includes their top two positions.

It includes every position request.

Um so if if anyone is interested, they can too uh go and take a look.

So no, and I am familiar with that, but you know, generally there still would be conversation with the commissioner with details, uh, particularly the scope of responsibilities for any new any new positions, and I had not had those conversations.

Understood.

Yes, ma'am, I understand.

Thank you.

And I appreciate that.

In fact, there's been a lot of discussion because after the first budget hearing, I started to get contact from a lot of different leaders across the organization who wanted to know why their requests were not in the budget, and I shared that I would like for us to modify our process next year to give more of them an opportunity to directly communicate with us because some of them were quite initiative.

And I shared that I would like for us to modify our process next year to give more of them an opportunity to directly communicate with us because some of them were quite initiative, I'll say in reaching out to commissioners much more than others and those that were able and and sought to advocate for themselves personally.

I think that theirs were more than likely to lift on the rise to the occasion and end up in the budget.

So I really just wanted to make sure to go back to the book and read all of the requests so that we don't have that imbalance because some staff thought they were being respectful by just submitting the memo and not coming and reaching out to commissioners because they did not want to bombard you with all of the requests, and they thought if you had their memo, then they would be considered in.

What I've learned is that the variation in communication of our leadership across the county is resulting in some having their interests and their needs reflected in the budget when others have needs, but just approach this differently.

So I've talked with our county manager, our CFO about how we approach that differently.

Michael just rose to the occasion, not from his advocacy, but from my book and recognizing the significance of the need and just how much work that we have put on that agency and knowing the size and the and the weight of interest that our citizens have that if it was overdue, it was overdue.

So that's on me.

It wasn't for Michael, it was it was for my um for my recognition of that need.

Yes, ma'am.

Go ahead, Ms.

Thank you.

Um Commissioner Sheffield, I met with Buddy yesterday to go over these new changes from the original list.

Um he has set up appointments and has walked in the halls uh to do this.

And initially, when the um budget was first shared with the board, there um we were asked for our priorities and listed all of those.

Um the departments had submitted all their requests, but a lot of them, as you heard from Mr.

Kingry today, didn't make the cut.

So um now things are being reconsidered, I guess.

And Buddy is walking the halls.

We're not hearing from each other or who's presenting.

So thank you, Buddy.

Well, let me just add, I met with Buddy as well yesterday, and once again, it's not a question of Buddy meeting with us.

It goes back to me not having a conversation with the parks director, although it was in the book.

There are several things that are in the book, but I have not had a one-on-one conversation, which is typically how things are done when requests are made, whether it's in the book or not.

It gives us an opportunity, as we all know, to ask additional questions, questions that I could have asked in advance of this hearing.

So that that's the only point that I that I'm making.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Gamble.

And Commissioner Sheffield, I share your frustration because and also with Buddy, um, because I met with him at 10 o'clock o'clock yesterday, right after our exec, and then met with him at 1 30, and then by three o'clock it had changed.

So in his efforts to present a budget to us, it changed three times yesterday, which is not only unfair to him and staff, but it's also unfair to us as a board.

And where I'm frustrated with this, and I've shared this with Buddy, is yes, we have a binder book full of positions, but we never sit as a board to discuss the priorities.

We leave it up to Buddy to have to walk the halls, keeping a spreadsheet of where each of us stands instead of having this open conversation dialogue here today.

Because again, I caught Michael last night and said, you know, what'd you do to rise to the top, right?

Because I also remember in some interviews we were doing of another deputy position that is requested and needed, and to me, that has a greater priority over parks because it has to do with public safety.

So again, where are our priorities?

I also struggle with increasing commissioner budgets.

Granted, now it's down to 5,000.

When a department has been asking since I've been in office, just to have $10,000 for an overtime budget.

Yet that department, which is critical, right, and has actually more power than our sheriff, is constantly denied.

$10,000.

Yet we have no problem giving ourselves an extra $5,000.

So this is where I struggle with the budget every single year.

Is because yes, Buddy has done a great job of explaining how we've absorbed, it's not 84 because I know it includes part of the fire fund, but essentially how that money gets absorbed, but we're still only have three thousand or three million to essentially allocate to new expending.

But we're still not addressing the fact that the sheriff continually goes over budget.

We're not discussing the fact that we've got departments that are creating programs that are outside of the scope of their responsibility to the citizens.

That is what the citizens want us to start discussing.

So I agree with you as far as prioritizing which positions get put in here because I do not support that, and Buddy's spreadsheet will support that statement.

But again, where are our priorities as a board?

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to thank you, buddy, as we move forward.

Just thank you for taking the time to put together the budget and to meet with commissioners.

Every year I've seen advancements in this process where there was no engagement from commissioners to now we have a budget book that walks through all of the requests from staff, which we did not receive before.

Personnel requests, capital requests.

Not only for us, but putting all of this information online for our citizens to weigh in.

Also want to thank you for being available for our town halls and yesterday and answering questions about the budget.

And even last year we had an all-in meeting with respect to the budget.

So again, it is our desire to make sure that this is an open process.

And unfortunately, the needs always outweigh the resources that we do have, but it is a difficult thing, but it is a great thing when we are able to at least do our best to meet people where their interest and where their needs are.

And we hope that for those agencies that did not arise to the occasion that we'll work with them not just in the next budget, but throughout the year to see where there may be some flexibility to consider some of the things that were shared today.

Well, thank you, ma'am.

It's always my pleasure, and I just thank you all for being available when needed.

I appreciate that.

And thanks to the great finance staff who uh helped put all this together, and thanks to all the folks uh in the agency heads, department heads, and all of their all the workers throughout Cobb County who have had had a part in this budget.

So thank you all for your efforts.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, and thank you to the citizens that spoke today, and your comments will be taken into consideration.

That now takes us to our first public comment.

Um, for those that signed up on our sheet here to my left, you're uh you'll have opportunity to address the board after the public hearings in this general public comment, and I'll turn things over to our county attorney good morning.

As the board provides the podium for public comment, it's appropriate to review the related meeting rules.

Please state your name and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization, all comments should be made to the commission as a body and addressed through the chair.

Public comment is not a dialogue with the board, but an opportunity for speakers to provide their comments to the board.

Comments should not be slanderous.

The board encourages, regardless of the topic, for the audience to be respectful and courteous to all speakers.

Everyone attending this meeting should give others the right to both listen and be heard by treating each other with civility.

Statements made during the public comment portion do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the board or the administration of Cobb County government, and a timer is available on the podium to track your three minutes.

Our first speaker this morning is Mr.

Kevin James.

Good morning.

Thank you.

I'd like to turn this towards you.

Thank you.

And if you can state your name before you begin your comments, that'd be appreciated.

Uh yes, ma'am.

Hi, Kevin James.

Today is Tuesday, July 14, 2026.

And I'm here on behalf.

Let me get my glasses, sorry.

The P State Drive for Good Foundation.

Good morning, County Missioners, County Manager.

And thank you for allowing me to speak this morning on July 14, 2026.

I'm the son of two naval officers that met during World War II.

They both served their 10 years.

Mother had us, you know, five kids, dad went to work for the substar company called Lockheed.

Found about two brothers, Bob and Kelly Johnson in Alameda, California.

I'm here today to present the idea for the 2050 comprehensive plan meeting to include a present for you for the county managers and the commissioners in the community, the Lockheed Heritage Innovation Center.

I am Kevin James, son of the upper management officers of Lockheed, Clarence William James, and a proposed initiative of the Peace State Drive for Good Foundation, a Georgia 501c nonprofit organization.

I recognize the City of Marietta and Cobb County is choked right here, and drowning cannot grow further in either direction.

It is necessary for City of Marietta to pivot.

We need the ability to be able to kind of expand this and pivot to another direction and pivot to where which direction that offered the county more income, you know, middle region sales tax.

Because you know everybody's worried about where's the money coming from.

We need more money.

Bragg Stadium bleepfrogged over the Lockheed Museum.

I get it.

You know, back when it happened, us Lockheed people were like, you know, that hurt.

So now is sales tax revenue was needed for the growth of Cobb County.

Okay, so now, but the timing is right now with Space Force, SpaceX, and Blue Verizon.

Okay, we can now preserve the history while also providing a revenue stream for Cobb County and the City of Marietta.

My idea for Cobb County City Marietta is to pivot from downtown City Mary Marietta here out to the end of the runway at Dobbins, where we'll hold the Lockheed Heritage and Innovation Center, a place where Georgia Aerospace stories inspire and connects with what is coming next.

For more than 80 years, the people of myriad and Cobb County have designed, built, tested, and flown some of the most incredible aircraft in American history.

The B-29 sitting out front on Cobb Parkway is a testimony, and as well as the other you hear.

A C130 flies over C5.

Everybody recognizes that whenever you hear that fly above us.

Thousands of Georgia families carry a personal connection to the history of the case.

Mr.

James, your time has run.

I'm sorry, there's only three minutes allotted, but what would like us uh for my chief assistant to connect with you and get your contact information given we can learn more about it?

Good, yes.

I think this is a great idea.

Thank you, sir.

Um really I just want to begin the conversation.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

You did too.

Got it.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Christine Rosman.

Hello again, Christine Rosman.

And I kind of said what I wanted to say already, but I just figured I'd follow up with saying thank you to Commissioner Sheffield.

Thank you to Commissioner Gambral.

And for pointing out the elephant in the room and having the courage to do so, because I know it's hard to keep everybody accountable, but we appreciate when you look at what our the citizens are going through and what we're spending our money on, and that you just can't be entitled to like throw something into a budget and then expect nobody to question it.

So thank you.

And I also wanted to thank Commissioner Gambrel for I'm sorry, Burrell.

Your names are too close.

Um Burrell for the meeting that you had last week over at Tim Lee and hosting that, um, which was very insightful about the 2050 plan.

And I just wanted to say, don't think that we were being disrespectful of pushing back, but in the same way that we want to push back in question, we have that right to do so.

And we also have the right to call things out.

Like when we see the Delphi method, modus operandi, whatever you say, um, in um in play.

And so we see that it's like, hey, we're going to paint this picture for you, and people are like, no, that's not what we want.

We want this, but then we're we keep being offered this, and it's a it's a manipulative uh technique that is used a lot in high-end sales.

So you'll find that a lot with like you know, Deloitte type companies.

I'm not saying that they use it, but uh mostly large companies that want to get a big agenda and give you uh preset decisions and outcomes without giving you the whole picture.

So we want the whole picture, and so that's what we were pushing for.

Um I appreciate you hosting that.

Um I think that we're finding out that the panacea of socialist kind of government where it's like, oh, we're gonna be everything to our citizens, has a big price on it, and we're seeing that in real time in New York City with mandamy, and everybody was like, yeah, we want socialism until it goes into effect, and people realize the reality that this panacea that was painted ain't really true.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Mr.

Thomas Bartlett.

Good morning.

My name is Thomas Xavier Bartlett, and I'm here today as a citizen of Marietta and Cobb advocating for the creation of more housing and stratagems to help the unhoused population here in Cobb County.

Thousands of people sleep outside in cars or in other untenable situations.

Volunteer reporting accounted for 1,000 unhoused people, along with the Department of Education accounted for over 2800 families lacking a quote, fixed regular and adequate nighttime residents, which comes from a newsbreak article.

Reports accounted for 283 unsheltered unhoused people in cob, which is 283 too many.

This issue often gets ignored or elided from agendas because the assumption is that Cobb is a well-off and affluent county that may not have unhoused people, and yet the data says otherwise.

Homelessness has not only worsened over time, but has specifically worsened in Cobb.

There are many, there are people paying as much for a hotel or motel that they could for an apartment.

However, because of deposit costs and credit requirements, they are not able to secure that more sustainable housing and are thus stuck in precarity.

With recent weather events such as the prolonged heat wave that we all experienced, the situation is only becoming more dire and emergent.

That is why I am speaking today.

I want to propose solutions to help people living in these conditions.

That same newsbreak article explains that housing costs are the main culprit behind this increased number of unhoused people.

Inflation has outpaced income increases, and long-term employment is increasingly becoming reserved to a bygone era.

A bygone economic era specifically.

Narratives around unhoused people and personal responsibility also abound when these conversations come up, leading to punitive policy that punishes those caught up in an unforgiving system.

I believe the solution for this is to construct more housing, specifically affordable and accessible housing.

Shelters are an amazing resource, but I believe shelters and other temporary emergency efforts must live alongside efforts like housing that allows people to build credit and plant roots in a more significant way.

The Cobb Homeless Alliance outlines their four-step process, including assessments and outreach to first get in contact with people and connect them with better resources, leading to, of course, emergency shelters, transitional housing, finally ending at more permanent housing.

I believe the Board of Commissioners and the Cobb government in general should follow these and other principles to reduce the unhoused populations and help people living in those conditions.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Mr.

Craig Harfoot.

Good morning, commissioners.

My name's Craig Harfoot.

The young gentleman just proved my point.

It's the county budgets that caused all the homelessness.

And then he talks about hometale motel tax people.

Guess what?

The unhoused people are paying for Brave Stadium, not parks.

It's all decisions that you've made that have brought us here.

And the only way out is when the housing collapses again, like it did in 2008.

So and that the bills the governor signed, there's no more we're gonna flip houses fixing them up.

They just legislated that into the ground to just drive the price up even higher on the house.

So you gotta understand it's only affordable.

I bought two houses in downters.

That's the only time housing's affordable in a downterm.

And you're not prepping for the downturn because you should be cutting your budget 10% a year and drop the millage rate just to make it not happen sooner, make it happen later.

Look at you, you know, you you used to say, oh, we had all this commercial tax base.

You've lost that.

People can come in there and argue the price down.

And and like town center, you're probably not getting any money out of that anymore.

And if you put housing on it, you just you're gonna run up the police, and uh the more dents you get, the more police and fire you need.

The taller you build, the more fire you need.

Look at downtown.

The Bell South was the first one of the first big buildings in downtown Atlanta when it came in the 70s.

They're gonna tear it down now.

I mean, I was in mid town yesterday.

It's a mess.

But make no doubt, um all these years I've come here.

The chair, the county manager, the department heads and finance get together, and the department heads ask for more money every year.

It's it's been going on in government for millennia.

I mean, it's like ask for more and hope you don't you get it.

But really, you need to back it off because of what's coming.

And it's like you cannot spend your way and tax your way out of homelessness.

You're never gonna do it.

He thinks you're gonna build affordable housing.

Any of it that's been built is not affordable.

And even with the tag name tag on it.

I checked it out and buckhead.

But um the thing is building materials.

I can't go in Home Depot without sticker shock.

I mean, it's like a five dollar sheet of plywood is 25 to 45 dollars.

So when that happens, you know you're not gonna build an affordable box anymore.

You know, and um you really need to cut the budget before you do it.

And the final speaker uh for this section is Lily Trotzier, and I'm sure she will correct me on the pronunciation.

Good morning.

My name is Lily Trottier.

You actually did pretty good.

I hear a lot of Trottier, Trotter, etc.

So thank you, actually.

That was very nice.

Um I'm speaking today on behalf of myself and also the organization I work for, the Borgan Project, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to alleviating poverty through advocacy.

And so during my time with the Borgham Project, I actually have learned quite a bit about how the government works with legislation, budget processing, et cetera, as the Borgins Project main focus is promoting the international affairs budget, which only makes up less than one percent of our annual budget, but applying that information to more of a local government standpoint and kind of make me makes me realize the lack of communication that happens usually.

It's not an intentional aspect.

Our bureaucracy is so big, our government is so expansive that it's very hard to meet with people in general.

But I think kind of just echoing and preaching to the choir, that there's just I get a lot, oh my goodness, my words, a stronger desire for more communication and accountability.

And I understand that all of you are very busy.

I I can't imagine what it is like being a government official.

It's very busy, but I think just coming together and kind of realizing we're all on the same team is very helpful.

Sometimes it feels like it's an us versus them.

I'm very young, I'm only 20, so I honestly don't have a lot of life experience or direct experience in government.

But just in the short time that I've had exposure and by working with the Borgan project, it just makes me realize like the lack of education and outreach I've had as a young person.

So I guess I can't really speak on budget matters, but focusing more so on that, just kind of making our budget, I guess, also less, but also more efficient.

And so by dedicating that ten thousand dollars to the overtime workers, that ten thousand dollars is taken from someone else, and that helps them realize what really matters to us.

Again, like in my short time of working in more public fronts, there's just not a lot of information about why these projects are happening.

Like with a lot of our budget being dedicated to water and sewage, there's I personally don't really understand the full why behind it.

It never feels like I've been explaining the why behind things.

So I think focusing more on condensing and being more efficient, also explaining, I guess, a more simpler terms.

All righty, welcome back to our Board of Commissioners meeting this July fourteenth, two thousand and twenty-six.

And those items have been scrolling on the screen prior to the meeting.

And I move that we approve the following non-agenda item addition, which is to authorize settlement of a workers' compensation claim on behalf of April Robinson.

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries.

Commissioner Sheffield.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay.

No problem.

The motion carries 5-0.

Thank you.

With that, just checking to see if we have any changes.

There has been a slight revision.

Are you still going to revision?

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, there's been a slight revision for the ARC contract.

And also, let me see the medical examiner.

And again, we've added April Robinson.

Yes.

Go ahead, Commissioner Burr.

Thank you.

Um, Madam Chair, I would like to ask that we pull item number 22.

Um, I'm sorry.

Item item number 34.

I'm sorry.

Number 34 from the consent and add it to regular for discussion.

Okay, we can do that.

Are there any other requests or comments or changes needed to the consent agenda?

Okay, I move that we approve the consent agenda as it has been revised and to authorize execution of the necessary documents by the appropriate county personnel, recognizing again that agenda item 34 has been pulled for regular agenda item consideration.

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

Yes.

Oh, go ahead.

Um, I do not support agenda item number five.

Again, this goes back to my earlier comments that I think we need to have policies surrounding these nonprofits that are setting being set up to supplement the general fund before doing so.

Okay.

Is there any other matter that someone would like to address on consent?

Okay.

Yes, and I don't support um item number 22.

Um other budgets, other um one-time money, roof repairs, whatever that come out of facilities management division.

Um, and this is coming out of public safeties rather than facilities when other departments share of all fall under facility management money.

Okay.

Are there any other matters that commissioners would like to address?

Okay, again, there is a motion to approve the items on consent as it has been revised.

Again, noting 21 and 35 were already revised.

We are pulling item 34 consideration, and commissioner Burl has noted that she is not supporting item 22, and Commissioner Gramble has noted she is not supporting item five.

There was a second already.

You're still seconding that okay.

Any other further comments?

We'll call the question.

The motion carries.

What is it carries five zero?

Yeah.

She won't call exactly.

Okay, so now that we have passed our consent agenda, we will go ahead and hear the item that was pulled.

That is agenda item 34 from human resources.

Good morning, gentlemen commissioners.

How are you?

Good.

How are you?

Good.

Uh, this particular item is to approve a fund balance appropriation for contingency.

So in the event that we would or the board would like for us to use a search firm for particular positions, the funding is appropriated.

Hallelujah.

So basically, it's to approve a fund balance appropriation within the general fund to establish a contingency for the use of an executive search firm as needed or desired.

Uh, as you can imagine, some positions are a little bit more difficult to fill than others, and so this uh appropriation would allow us to come back before the board to say we have perhaps gone out for uh our regular process of advertising a position through HR a couple of times, and we are struggling.

Sometimes we have issues with getting higher paid, more uh competitive positions in the private sector.

Uh, and so sometimes we have to go out and figure out how are we going to be competitive.

Uh, and so sometimes we have to go out and figure out how are we going to be competitive, and so this appropriation would allow us to to be able to come back to the board on a case-by-case basis to determine whether or not you know we need a search firm to help fill critical positions.

So the impact of this item uh this request would increase HR's budget by $60,000 with the fund balance appropriation and approval of this request will also increase the FY27 operating budget within HR.

Our interim HR director is here, and I'll just ask if she would like to add anything.

Uh, and if so, feel free to do so.

But if not, we're just asking the board to consider this appropriation.

I don't have anything to add.

Okay, thank you.

With that, commissioners, I move that we approve this agenda item as has been presented.

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

Yeah, I just have a quick question.

Um, for sixty thousand dollars, what would be the average cost for service, like for one transaction?

Okay, so it varies.

Okay, it would depend on um multiple factors.

So for example, if we wanted a firm to go from STEM to stern, so from the say from the inception of putting the position out for advertisement all the way through selection and providing the board with an analysis of a list of candidates that they think that the board should should interview.

So it just depends.

It depends on what we're asking a firm to do.

So it could be from just advertising it and then letting us take it, HR take it from there, and we go from there, or we could ask them to go all the way to to making a selection for uh myself, HR or whatever to take over to bring to you all.

So that's the reason that we're doing that, looking at it that way.

Aliyah, do you have anything?

I don't.

I do know that often the charge will also be a percentage of the salary, yes, of the higher candidate.

Okay, Commissioner Burl.

Thank you.

Um, well, let me piggyback on that first.

Um, would each position if we use a search firm, would each position um go out to several firms, or do we hire one firm that does all positions and would that be approved by the board before the process is started?

So typically what we would do is we would uh we what we would do is an informal request for firms to participate, which is kind of what we did before.

And so those firms would submit what they uh consider to be the scope of work because we provided them what we're looking for.

So a couple of firms, maybe three or four, would submit their bid on that scope of work.

We would bring that back, and based on like any other RFP rate, we would look at uh who's the best qualified firm to do the work that we're asking them to do for that particular position, and then we would make a selection of a particular firm.

So multiple firms could provide a quote for the work that we're asking them to do.

Then I will come back and I would let the board know that here's where we are.

Here's the why we are asking to go out for a search firm to begin with.

Here are the firms that have submitted it, here's the work that's going to be provided, here's the cost, to perhaps include a percentage of the salary if we use their service and choose someone that they have recommended.

Is that answer your question?

Yeah, okay.

But um, we do have a policy in place, a process through procurement, and a selection committee is formed.

They review the applications once they receive what um HR has, I guess narrowed it down to or made sure that they're qualified candidates and meet the requirements and send it to the selection committee, which then sends it to you, narrowed down a little more, and then you submit to the board your recommendation, and we interview two, three, whatever many you present.

Um, and then the chair brings forward a recommendation.

Um I know that the communications position, which is also hasn't been filled yet, um went out twice.

This is the second time it was opened up.

The HR never made it past the applications being submitted.

So I I think that we should have one more open it back up at least one more time before we engage in um hiring a search firm because all positions are critical that we have to decide um or vote on.

So I I just think we need to follow the process, and unless we change the process and policy, um, I don't support uh going outside to bid or search firms, ma'am.

Okay, Commissioner Gamble.

Commissioner Gample, go ahead.

No, I don't mind.

Oh, okay.

Oh, that's okay.

So I don't support this agenda item either, but it's because I support our county manager.

This is the role of the county manager to make sure that the county is properly staffed.

It even says so in our enabling legislation.

So to me, this is saying indirectly, and again, this is not directed at you, Jackie, that our county manager isn't doing the job she was hired to do.

Yet she is doing the job she is hired to do.

It's because the board is not sitting down as a board and having discussions to get these positions filled.

So to sit here and take $60,000 of taxpayer dollars to put it out to a firm to help them do the selection process, knowing that we're then gonna come back with the argument of, well, we don't pay market rate, so who's going to want to come and work for us?

So you're not gonna get the cream of the crop, you're going to get the ones that are going to be willing to take a lower paycheck because the government isn't going to pay.

Which argument are you going to use?

Which way are we going to go?

Just last night it was said that you know we don't pay our our employees market rate, and that's why we need to do another.

I think it was Everett study, the last one we did where we did the salaries in organization.

Evergreen, thank you.

And it was then proposed that we needed to have a 40 million dollar increase to adjust salaries to make it to meet the market.

Yet, if you look at our develop our economic development, our development authority, whenever they bring a new business in, one of the caveats is they have to bring those salaries in at 25% above market rate.

So again, we keep putting the taxpayers at the disadvantage because of these incentives we put out here to bring people in.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Okay.

I I just want to make sure we're not using hyperbole to over inflate the situation.

That a search firm is a tool that is used by HR directors, county managers all the time to help them, just like any other tool.

When they post a job, they are using a tool to post that job and put it out.

This is not about someone not being effective at their job.

Um, so I want to make sure you don't you both don't walk away because it is a tool, and as a HR professional myself, it's a tool in the toolbox.

This agenda item also is not a request to immediately go out and use a firm.

It is to make sure that the tool is available when the tool is needed.

So I think we need to make sure that we're having an honest conversation, not the hyperbole of this is a slap in the face, this is all this, no one is doing that.

What we're doing is the exact opposite.

We're just trying to make sure our staff has the tools that they need in order to be effective for these hard-to-fill positions.

There are counties and cities all over the country that are struggling to staff certain positions.

Pay is an element of it.

We can get to that bridge when we get to it, but we should not use that as an opportunity to strip away tools that can make our professionals better.

Yeah, and essentially, uh, you know, my comments are very similar, and that this is not a referendum against the process or the county manager or or the staff that sits on panels.

Uh it's not process or it's more about the pool of candidates.

A lot of our conversation today has been about the budget.

The truth of the matter is we are not competitive in our salaries.

How do we get there?

Pay more money, how do we get there?

Included in the budget.

Will we have the support of the board members to put it in the budget so Dr.

McMorris and her staff can effectively recruit talent?

So those are conversations we also need to have.

It's not about process, it's the pool of candidates that are being drawn.

So the recommendation was if we do not, if we cannot secure with the first round, let's go out again.

You probably will likely have the same pool of candidates, even in going out a second time.

Um so with with head hunters or search firms, they have a broader scope.

Um, they have a broader reach.

So as Commissioner Allen said, this is a tool that's in our toolbox that will pull out when needed.

So I am supportive of this agenda item.

Thank you.

Commissioner Gamble.

Go ahead.

So just a question for you, Dr.

Jackie.

When we send out um a position to be filled, do we limit to where that position goes, or how do how do we put it out in there for people to reach?

Is it only local to Georgia, or can anybody from anywhere access that information?

It's a national search.

And we depending on the position, uh, we certainly go out to associations that may be affiliated with a particular discipline.

So if it's an engineering uh position, we will make sure that we uh post a position in places where engineers will be looking for a job.

So it's not just um in a local uh newspaper or a local platform.

They are usually national, they're for two weeks.

If we don't get good candidates, we go back out for another week, um, and then we go from there and we will keep the board updated as to where we are with the department head searches.

Then and only then after we've gone out a couple of times and we look at the quality in that, we leave that to HR to determine men qualls minimum qualifications and or uh where we see we're just not getting the talent.

I also rely on the the subject matter experts, you know, uh my department heads to to to help screen out some of those so that they can tell us where we are.

It's hard to compete with the private sector, but at the end of the day, we do need to look at several factors that each of you has brought up, right?

We do we do need to do that.

This is a tool, it is one tool, but we also need to look at where we uh are not as competitive as uh our counterparts and determine how we want to move forward with being more competitive.

And the chair has asked us to look at that and we will do that.

But it also requires a commitment to um to funding it if we do that.

So that's another thing we have to talk about.

This is just one part of it if the board so chooses to approve it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

There are any other comments or questions.

I've reserved mine.

Um I'll go ahead and call the question.

Motion carries three two with Commissioner Brawl and Garble in opposition.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That now takes us to our transportation tab, and we'll hear from our director, Drew Wrestler.

Good morning, Chairman Commissioners, County Manager Drew Wrestler with DOT.

We have just 13 items to present to you on the right tab this morning.

Our first item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve a contract for acquisition of right-away with the Georgia Department of Transportation for Old 41 Highway, Cobb County Project Number X 2609, authorize the corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents to include necessary quick claim deeds to the Georgia Department of Transportation for right-of-way certification.

Commissioner Gambrill.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

Our next items to recommend the board of commissioners to approve supplemental agreement number one to the contract with Benning Construction Company and an amount not to exceed 186,000 44.48 cents for transportation management center upgrade.

Caleb County Project Number B 2583 authorize a corresponding budget transaction and further authorize the chairman to execute necessary documents.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve an assignment agreement with Parsons Transportation Group Incorporated for various contracts with BCC engineering doing business as Heath and Lineback.

Approve first and second amendments to the assigned contracts for engineering and design services.

Authorize the corresponding budget and accounting transactions and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

So moved.

Second.

Any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve a purchasing instrument with Computer Center United States Incorporated in the amount of 148,649 dollars and 76 cents for Mars Hill Road ITS Communications Phase 3B and 3C.

Project number B 2512, utilizing state contracts, authorizing corresponding budget transaction, and further authorize the procurement services director to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Gambrell.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners to authorize acceptance of awarded FY26 Section 5339 low or no admissions grant program funding in an amount not to exceed 7,734,526 for the Cumberland Autonomous Vehicle Circulator Pilot Project.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the formal submission of an FY26 F 5339 grant program application to FDA.

Authorize a corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairwoman or her designee to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Allen.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve a contract with Glosson Enterprises LLC in an amount not to exceed 143,397.67 cents for drainage system repairs on Seven Springs Circle.

Project number B 22194.

Authorize a corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Burl.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve a contract with Chatfield Contracting Incorporated and an amount not to exceed 173,372.35 cents for drainage system repairs on Jamie Way.

Project number B22177.

Authorize corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Burl.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners to approve a contract with Chaffield Contracting Incorporated in an amount not to exceed $85,180.72 for drainage system repairs on Salisboro Road.

Project number B 2246.

Authorise a corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Gambrel.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve a contract with Gloss and Enterprises LLC in an amount not to exceed $90,589 and 78 cents.

For drainage system repairs on Apache Court, project number B 22134.

Authorize a corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Gambrel.

So moved.

Second.

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve an assignment agreement with STV Incorporated for various contracts with American Engineers Incorporated.

Approve first amendments to the assigned contracts for engineering and design services.

Authorize corresponding budget and accounting transactions and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

So moved.

Second.

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners rescind project number X 2706 task order number one to the 2025 master task order contract with American Engineers Incorporated and amount not to exceed 250,740.

Approve project number X2706 task order number two to the 2025 master task order contract with SDV Incorporated in an amount not to exceed 250,740 for preliminary engineering design of Powder Springs Road Trail.

Authorize a corresponding budget transaction and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Gambrel.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Thank you.

Our next item is to recommend the board of commissioners approve project number B 2599 task order number one to the 2025 master task order contract with Gresham Smith and an amount not to exceed 43,462 dollars for bindings in Cumberland Area Traffic Study.

Authorize the corresponding budget transaction and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Allen.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

And our final item this morning is to recommend the board of commissioners approve supplemental agreement number one to the contract with DNH construction company incorporated in an amount not to exceed 123,654.50 cents for drainage system repairs on Woodlawn Drive.

Project number B 22114.

Authorize the corresponding budget transaction and further authorize the chairman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Burrow.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 50.

Great job, Chair.

Thank you.

That now takes us to the public services tab, and we'll hear from our parks director, Michael Brantley.

Good morning, Chairwoman, Commissioners, Mad Accounty Manager.

We have three items for consideration this morning.

Our first item is for the Board of Commissioners to approve change order number one to the contract with access infrastructure, LLC for the pedestrian bridge at Leone Hall Price Park under the 2016 Parks Plus program.

Additional design design fees are needed to meet this criteria.

We asked the Board of Commissioners to approve change order number one to the contract with access infrastructure for the pedestrian bridge in an amount not to exceed $9,208.50 under the 2016 Parks Plus program.

Authorizable corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairwoman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Gambrell.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Commissioner Burrow.

Um Michael, is will that affect the construction costs as far as adding the ADA or what whatever we're it'll affect the construction cost, but it's inside of the the cost of the construction.

Okay.

Yeah.

We haven't we haven't done the construction yet.

Right.

But we will have no, it it would not affect anything more than we have right now.

From what was received from revenue above well, there was original spLOS money and revenue above, but it won't it won't exceed that.

No.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Our second item is for the board of commissioners to approve a contract with HEC construction solutions LLC to provide construction services for a new restroom building and renovation of an existing restroom building at Noonday Park under the 2022 Park Splosh program.

Over the years, the current restroom facility on the Shallowford side of Noonday Park has struggled to keep up with the demand.

An identified project in the 2022 SPLOSS was to add a secondary restroom building to that location to alleviate capacity issues.

We asked the board of commissioners to approve a contract with HEC construction solutions to provide those construction services in an amount not to exceed $872,148 under the 2022 Park Splash program, authorize the corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairwoman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Burrell motion to approve.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zeros.

Thank you.

Our final item is for the board of commissioners to approve a contract with ABC concrete finishers to provide construction services for concrete cart path replacement at Cobblestone golf course under the 2022 park splash program.

The cart paths at Cobblestone are over 30 years old, and the wear and tear of the cart paths are causing issues of safety for patrons and quicker breakdowns of golf carts due to rough and uneven surfaces.

This is our second round of path replacement and renovation.

Once this project is finished, we will have replaced approximately 35% of the paths at Cobblestone.

Bids came in a little higher than expected, and several areas were taken out to stay within budget.

We asked the Board of Commissioners to approve a contract with ABC concrete finishers to provide construction services for concrete cart path replacement at Cobblestone in an amount not to exceed 249,998 dollars and 35 cents under the 2022 parks blush program.

Authorize the corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairwoman to execute the necessary documents.

So moved.

I'm sorry, let me go to Commissioner Gambrel.

Go ahead, Commissioner Gambrill.

So moved.

Second.

Any discussion?

Michael, can you tell me what the dollar amount was?

I don't know why I'm I'm sorry, ma'am.

Can you tell me the dollar amount that you just read?

249,000.

So if you look on the on the front page, that's the bid that came in.

But we we had to value engineer it down.

Okay.

So that we had to stay within budget, so we value engineered down.

We had to take certain areas off.

All right.

Any other comments?

All right, call the question.

Motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That now takes us to support services and we'll hear from facilities management.

Yes, ma'am.

Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, Commissioners, County Manager.

Facility has three items this morning.

Facilities management would like to request the Board of Commissioners approve a supplemental agreement number two and the contract amount of 28,371 dollars and 42 cents with John W.

Spratlin and Sons LLC for additional services associated with the replacement of Fire Station 12 to authorize the corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairwoman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Burl motion to approve.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

Facilities management would like to request the Board of Commissioners approve a contract with DaVinci Development Collaborative LLC for program management services for the pre-construction and contract management phase for the E911 Communications Center in the amount not to exceed $971,475 and 18 cents.

Authorize the corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairwoman to execute the necessary documents.

All right.

Commissioner Sheffield.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries five zero.

Thank you.

Facilities management would like to request the Board of Commissioners approve a contract for the pre-construction service phase with Hogan Construction Group LLC for construction management at risk services related to the new South Cobb Health Facility and the amount not to exceed $6,500 to authorize the corresponding budget transactions and further authorize the chairwoman to execute the necessary documents.

Commissioner Sheffield.

So moved.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Call the question.

The motion carries 5 zero.

Thank you, Lee.

That now takes us to our second public comment.

And there are no speakers for this segment.

Okay, thank you.

Then that now takes us to the appointment tab.

And we will begin with Commissioner Sheffield.

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to announce the appointment of Crystal Lynn Wigging Lambert to the Historic Preservation Commission.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Gamble has the next item.

I'd like to announce the appointment of Joan Kral to the neighborhood safety commission.

Thank you, Commissioner.

And finally, I'm announcing the appointment of Betty Smoot Madison to the Transit System Advisory Board.

That now concludes our appointments, and we are now at the Commissioner's public address.

We will begin with Commissioner Gamble once the slides are on the screen.

You can help shape Cobb County's future by providing input on the 2050 comprehensive plan, which will guide growth, transportation, housing, parks, and more over the next 20 years.

You can join the public meeting on Thursday, July 16th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

at the West Cobb Senior Center, which is located at 4915 Dallas Highway, Powder Springs.

You can take the survey, you can provide feedback by taking a community survey, which will remain open through August in my newsletter.

And lastly, white out a community basics drive.

Donate new underwear, socks, and undershirts to benefit must ministries from Friday, July 17th through Saturday, August 8th, in recognition of National Underwear Day.

Donation boxes will be available at Cobb County Precincts, Senior Centers, Libraries, First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, and the David Hankerson Building.

Clean underwear is one of the most needed yet least donated essentials for individuals and families experiencing homelessness or financial hardship.

Help us white out county.

Thank you, Commissioner.

We'll now go to Commissioner Allen.

Just want to remind District 2 residents that there will be two more hearings on the proposed 2027 budget.

Uh special called meeting next Tuesday at 6 30 p.m.

Then our regular meeting for adoption will be on July 28th at 7 p.m.

Also uh coming up on August 6th.

I will be having a town hall at Sweitzer Library.

This town hall will feature the three interns uh that have been working in my office with me this summer, uh, focused on homelessness, housing affordability, and economic and community development, uh specifically digging into the town center mall corridor.

So please come out, use the QR code.

We do have limited space to use the QR code to register and look forward to seeing you on August 6th.

Thank you, Commissioner.

We'll now hear from Commissioner Burrell.

Yes, and also I think we probably all are advertising the public hearings for the budget in Millage and thanks to those uh spoke today during the public hearing process.

And there are two more available.

Um so please come out.

Okay.

Residents are invited to attend the last two public meetings for the 2050 companies the one in District 3 was last Tuesday at the Tim Dealey Senior Center.

We had a great crowd of a hundred plus folks that came out, and as Commissioner Gambrel mentioned, hers is this Thursday, July 16th, and then we've also added a seventh meeting, which will be virtual on Thursday, July 23rd from 6 30 to 8 30.

And the link to join is on the community development website.

Last Friday I had the opportunity of cutting a ribbon at a improved regrand opening ceremony at the um Kroger at Shallford and Gordy Parkway, Sandy Plains.

So this two Fridays, the Friday, July 24th, will be another ribbon cutting for the Shalifer Falls Kroger at Shaliford and Johnson Ferry in District 3 for the Grand Regening.

So they've made some additional improvements inside and out, and the public is welcome to join us at 9 a.m.

Also the over the weekend on Saturday.

I had the opportunity and honor to join our National Guard at for the command senior enlisted leader of Georgia change of responsibility ceremony.

And it was well attended, and um the chain of command for General Wilson.

And there's some pictures there of the honorary commanders folks that came out and National Guard supporters.

So thank you.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Next, hear from Commissioner Sheffield.

Thank you, Chair.

District 4 news and updates.

Your voice matters.

Cobb DOT is seeking community input on the proposed expansion of the Cobb Link Go Microtransit Program.

Residents are invited to attend one of our upcoming public meetings to learn more about proposed South Cobb expansion and your and share your feedback.

Join in person on July 16th from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

at the South Cobb Community Center located at 620 Lions Club Drive in Mapleton or participate virtually on July 29th from 5.30 to 6.30 p.m.

To access the virtual meeting link, please visit Cobb County's website at CobbCount.gov.

The Kaiser Permanente Summer Movie Series has returned to the Mabel House Amphitheater.

Bring your family, friends, lawn chairs, and blankets for fun evening under the stars.

Admission is free, parking is free, and you're welcome to bring your own food and beverages.

Seating is first come, first serve, rain or shine.

Visit Cobb County.gov for movie lineup and show times.

And in case you were not aware, there have been additional meetings added for the comp plan.

You have an opportunity to help shape Cobb's future by attending one of the meetings.

The first will be on July 16th from 6:30 to 8:30 at the West Cobb Senior Center, or virtually on Thursday the 23rd from 6:30 to 8:30.

The link can also be found on the county's webpage.

And finally, join the Powder Springs Community Task Force for its 25th annual back to school bash on Saturday, July 26th from 1 p.m.

to 5 p.m.

at the Ron Anderson Recreation Center loaded located at 3820 Macedonia Road in Powder Springs.

This exciting community event will feature school supplies, community resources, fun activities, and much more to help students and families prepare for its successful school year.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, and thank you all of you for attending today's meeting and also tuning in.

So for the meanwhile, our meeting will have a brief break, and we'll come back in about fifteen minutes.

Hello, and welcome back to our Board of Commissioners meeting this July fourteenth, twenty twenty-six.

Before us today is a community development hearing.

And I will turn things over to our county attorney, Debbie Blair, who will walk us through today's hearing.

So you can ask any questions that you like as far as that goes.

And again, any you can question either any of the witnesses as you like, or wait until the end and proceed as you would.

Um Mr.

Sam Hensley will be presenting the county uh position.

Okay, thank you.

Before we get started, I it's not clear to me.

I understand there was a language is you.

Will there need to be more time for any communication between the applicant and whoever will be presenting?

Mr.

Yes, Mr.

Hensley and I spoke to the attorney for the applicant, and I will let um uh Mr.

Hensley put that on the record.

Perfect.

Thank you.

All right, turn things over to you.

Good morning, Madam Chairman, commissioners, madam county manager, and madam uh county attorney.

Again, for the record, I am Sam Hensley Jr.

I'm the attorney for the business license division of Cobb County.

In response to your question, Madam Chairwoman, uh we did have a license review board hearing previously on this matter.

There was an interpreter there, a mandor and interpreter.

I have spoken to Mr.

Nick Booth, who is the attorney for the licensee, and they have decided that the only witness he will be presenting does not need an interpreter.

So they're going to waive on the record their right to have an interpreter.

They have had the opportunity to retain an intern an interpreter and to have them here today, but have decided against that.

So I would like them to speak on the record to waive that so we have evidence of that.

Okay, thank you.

Let's get you a microphone so he can be here.

Excuse me, her more clearly.

And yes, please state your name as well.

Thank you.

My name is Nick Booth.

I represent the applicants.

I'm with the law firm of Odell, Hungerford, Blanchard and Booth.

Um I have here with me Yunjizin in the middle.

He is the owner of relaxing head spa.

Um Mr.

Jin's first language is Mandarin.

However, I don't expect to need to elicit any testimony from Mr.

Xin.

I do have his son here, Hai Jing Jin.

Hai Jing is the manager of Relaxing Head Spa.

Any information related to his father, I can ask questions of him.

I also have the proposed licensee, um, Mr.

Zintongmeng on the far end.

And yes, uh agree with Mr.

Hensley.

We are waiving the right to have an interpreter present.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh I want to make a brief opening statement, Madam Chairwoman, and I'll be uh succinct as Ms.

Uh Blair has uh pointed out we have uh limited time to uh hold these hearings, so we want to be concise.

Um I won't go into any of the details other than to say that our evidence is going to show there were two ordinances that were violated, and our witnesses will present evidence and testimony regarding that.

The first is section 7845 C2 of the Cobb County Code of Ordinances, which states that a business registration application or certificate under this chapter may be denied, suspended, or revoked only if one or more of the following exists.

And number two in that section states the applicant or licensee has supplied false information to the supervisor of the business license office.

And my witnesses will uh go into that in more detail.

Uh in brief, our evidence is going to show that the applicant and proposed licensee, Xing Tong Ming did not disclose his employment at another massage business and did not honestly uh disclose his arrest history.

Secondly, under section 78294, uh governing help spaws, it states as follows.

In addition to the causes for denial, suspension, or revocation of a license specified in section 7845, which I just cited to you.

Due cause for denial of a massage practice, practitioner or health spa license shall include the following.

The failure of the applicant or licensee to actively supervise and monitor the conduct of the employees, customers, and others on the premises in order to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the general public and the customers.

This came about because of the owner not being at this business very much by his own admission due to his employment or his job as a flight instructor.

But again, Detective Hughes will go into that in just a moment.

In addition, there were numerous aggravating factors that led to this decision, and those will be presented as well.

I do want to point out that these hearings are governed by 6-147D, which is actually in the alcohol code, but that governs the process for these hearings that we have before the licensed review board and the board of commissioners.

And in that section, uh it states that the hearing shall proceed as any due cause hearing and the board may consider mitigating and aggravating circumstances and reaching its determination.

That is why this type of testimony will be presented.

So I just want to put on the record how we handle these hearings, whether they involve alcohol or help spas.

It's specifically referred to in 7845A.

This matter came before the licensed review board on May 28, 2026, at which hearing the licensed review board voted unanimously to uphold the administrative denial of this application.

The applicant then filed a timely appeal to this board.

As we mentioned, the applicant is is represented by counsel.

They have waived their right to an interpreter.

And so at this point, I will uh let Mr.

Booth, if he wants to make a brief opening statement to do so, then I will swear in all of the witnesses at once so we can proceed.

Thank you, and may it please the commission.

Um I am here to appeal the denial of the business application for relaxing head spa ink.

Um, as Mr.

Hensley pointed out, there are two stated grounds in his opening for the denial.

Um the first is 78-45 C2, which states that a business registration application under this chapter may be denied, suspended, or revoked only if one of the more of the following exists.

Um section that was cited was the applicant or licensee is supplied false information to the supervisor of the business license office.

Uh we believe the evidence is going to show specifically those two issues where failure to disclose an arrest history and failure to disclose prior employment.

We believe that the evidence is going to show that on both of those issues there was a misunderstanding.

Mr.

Meng, the licensee, English is not his first language.

The arrest in question was a custodial detention on a bench warrant for failure to appear because of an expired registration.

It was quickly rectified.

Um, but that was the arrest.

It was a bench warrant for failure to appear.

And he, as soon as he was taken into custody, he had it worked out and resolved.

The other issue is failure to disclose employment history.

Um the employment in question was his mother's massage studio during the relevant period.

His mother was undergoing cancer treatment.

Um he would cover for her at times.

Um he did not maintain any regular scheduled hours, and he did not consider it his employer.

He was doing other things during this time.

He was merely helping his mother, and so there was a good faith misunderstanding.

He didn't realize he needed to put that on the application.

I mean, the other factors about failure to maintain a qualified individual at the massage studio.

I mean, obviously the license hasn't been granted, so I think it's arguable whether that applies.

Um Mr.

Hensley's referencing the intent to have them have somebody on site, but the county ordinances are very clear that the licensee is not necessarily the neither the owner nor the licensee are the people that have to be on premises at all times.

Those can be designated to a manager, and that is exactly who we have here, Mr.

Hai Xing Jin.

He is the manager who has the intent to be there on and oversee the day-to-day operations as permitted in the Cobb Code of Ordinances.

So as to the other aggravating factors, believe the evidence is going to show that those are not really supported by any evidence that carries with it an actual foundation.

We believe it's pursuant to a background check that makes tenuous associations with individuals who may or may not have a disciplinary or criminal history.

It makes investigations about other massage studios that have nothing to do with the massage studio in question, and we would we believe that those can be explained away or otherwise should not be considered because they lack foundation, which would be necessary to actually show that my clients are operating their business in a manner that would violate the code of ordinances.

And so for those reasons, we are going to ask that this appeal be granted and that the application of relaxing head spa ink be granted.

Thank you.

At this point, Madam Chairwoman, I'd like to swear in all of the witnesses.

If you're going to be testifying in this hearing or believe you may be testifying, please stand and raise your right hand.

Do you swear or affirm the testimony you'll be giving before this proceeding today shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

If so, say I do.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

I'd like to call Alicia Webb, Madam Chairwoman.

Okay, gotcha.

Sam, I and we had all three individuals stand with likelihood that not everyone understood what you were sharing.

Can that be interpreted if they were going to have to stand and attest to that open?

I will let you respond to that.

We can either wave his swearing in if he's not going to testify, or I can ask his son to interpret.

We'll wave the swearing for um Yunji Jin.

There were two.

There were two people there.

Oh that stood up, yes.

For both of them, you'll wave.

Mr.

May and Mr.

Hyjin Jin both speak English.

Okay, so it's just one individual.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Good morning.

Could you please introduce yourself for the record?

Alicia Webb, Cobb County Business License Division Manager.

And what are your uh uh duties in that position with Cobb County?

Um occupation tax collection and regulated license, such as health spas and alcohol licenses.

And are you familiar with relaxing head spa doing business as top massage?

Yes, sir.

And how are you familiar with that enterprise?

This application for relaxing head spa ink doing business has top massage at 3372 Canton Road was submitted to my office in attempt to obtain a health spa license.

And when that was submitted to your office, what did you do at that point?

Uh we review those and then we send them down to the Cobb County Police Department permits unit for their portion of the background investigation on the applicants and licensee of the business.

And were you informed of the result of that background check and any other information the police came up with in regard to top massage?

Yes, sir.

And what was the result of that?

Um as you stated, this application was denied based on the fact that Mr.

Ming, the licensee of the establishment did not disclose his employment at VB massage in Cartersville, and there was um an arrest that was not disclosed in the application.

Additionally, um in Detective Hughes' investigation, he discovered some other things that were listed in the denial letter as aggravating factors.

When you receive that information, what would you do with the application?

The application was denied based on the findings of the police department.

And was it then appealed to the license review board?

Yes, sir.

I have here a document, it's a certified copy of section 7845 and section 78294 of the Cobb County Code of Ordinances.

Did you obtain those as certified copies from the county?

Yes, sir.

I am would like to uh submit these for the record.

I don't believe there's any objection to this, madam chair.

No objection.

That's all the questions I have for this witness.

Uh no questions.

Thank you, Ms.

Webb.

Thank you.

Does the board have any questions for Mr.

before she leaves the question?

That you ask.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'd like to call Detective Brandon Hughes, Madam Chair.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Could you please state your full name for the record?

Detective Brandon Hughes, Cobb Police Regulatory Services Permits Unit.

And how long have you been with that unit, Detective?

Uh eight, nine months now, I think.

And what are your duties in that position?

So we regulate alcohol, we do alcohol permits, alcohol licenses, and also uh health spas, we regulate those, and I do the background investigation for anyone that wants to apply for a business license in their health spa.

And where were you employed and what were your positions prior to joining the permits unit?

Uh I was just a patrol officer on the road.

With Cobb County?

Correct.

Okay.

And are you familiar with uh the application for health spa license for top massage that is at issue today?

Yes, sir.

I am.

How are you familiar with that?

I did the background investigation on this back in March.

And was that at the request of the business license division?

Yes, sir, it was.

And what did you find in that background check, sir?

Um I started when I first received it, I started with a background, uh criminal history check.

The owner, Mr.

Jin Yunji Jin, uh he showed no criminal history.

Um looking into him, I was able to find that his phone number was associated with uh wellness massage, which is a Marietta and also professional body works in Duluth.

Um Mr.

Jin's son, Hai Jing Jin was listed as an employee on this application.

Um, but I did find that the owner Yunjij Jin is not state licensed, and he reported that he was employed at Hmart.

Um the licensee, Zen Tong Zentongming, did not initially show a criminal history.

However, I was I found that he was arrested by Duluth Police Department August 26th of 2025 for failure to appear on traffic citations.

Uh I called Duluth PD and verified this since I had found it online.

They told me he was arrested, and uh, it was based on some traffic tickets, so it was a bench warrant for failure to appear.

Um the application, he had indicated that he had never been arrested, which was found to be not truthful.

Um Mr.

Ming reported he was working as a flight instructor and at Wellness Massage, which is on Barrett Parkway in Marietta.

Um I also found doing further investigation that Mr.

Ming had previously been associated with China Massage in Ackworth and was likely the licensee in 2022.

That was not disclosed on the application.

He's also linked to uh a subject named Raymond Taylor and also Danky Chang as possible associates.

Uh he is a state licensed massage therapist.

Uh began a review of of the manager, this Mr.

Hai Jing Jin.

Uh since he stated he's a state licensed massage therapist.

I went to the state Secretary of State website, confirmed that he is.

However, his license is currently on probation through the state.

Uh I also found that he was also linked to Miss Danky Chang as a possible associate.

Um also connected him to a I don't know if I'm saying it right, Bao Tren.

He's the former owner of Full Moon Massage, which is in Cherokee County.

It was closed due to allowing unlicensed massage activity.

Uh Mr.

Trend was also a suspect in a reported sexual assault at that location in August 12th of 2022.

And it records indicated that Mr.

Trend paid for Zentong Ming's massage therapy license in 2022.

Uh March 20th, 26, myself and an officer from the business license office went out to wellness massage at 125 Barrett Parkway to attempt to contact Mr.

Ming uh to interview him.

He was not present.

Uh however, employees advised that Haijing Jin, uh, which is applying to be the manager at this location, was the manager for uh wellness massage and that he would return shortly.

During that inspection, we made contact with several employees, one including a Mr.

Tan.

I don't really know how to say his first name, but it is he goes by Andy.

He was identified as the owner of China Massage in Ackworth, uh, which was closed a few years ago.

Uh and it showed Mr.

Ming as the license.

Why was that closed, if I may interrupt you?

Uh Cobb Business License Office and also our office uh closed them for allowing unlicensed massage therapy and other issues.

Thank you.

I did not mean to interrupt your narrative.

That's fine.

Um I spoke with Hai Jing Jin by phone and arranged to meet him at Destination Relaxation, which is inside Town Center Mall.

It's another uh health spa.

He's also the manager there.

Um business license office uh issued some citations to some employees at wellness.

We left there.

We went to destination relaxation.

Uh where business license conducted an inspection again.

Mr.

Hai Jing Jin arrived and confirmed that Yunjin Jin, which is the owner of this application, is his father.

When questioned about the probation status of his massage therapy license, Hai Jing Jin stated that in 2016 he was cited in Gainesville, Georgia for allowing unlicensed massage therapy.

He also admitted that he knew Danke Chang and Bao D Trin.

So while we were on the scene, there was several citations for county ordinance violations issued at this this location too.

I was trying to talk to Mr.

Ming, but I was told he was out of the country, so I wasn't able to speak with him.

The following week, I responded out to Mr.

Ming's residence to try to make contact with him, in which he was there, made contact with him.

Speaking with him about his arrest history, he previous uh he admitted that he had been previously been arrested after initially denying on his application and went out and asked how he became the licensee.

He told me that Mr.

Hai Jing Jin asked him to serve in that role and that he does not know Yunji Jin personally, which is the applications owner of the property.

Mr.

Ming stated that he works primarily as a flight instructor and intended only to work at the spa occasionally for supplemental income.

When questioned about his employment history and his association with China Massage in Ackworth, Mr.

Ming appeared evasive despite evidence that he previously served as a licensee.

He stated that he had recently worked at Vivi Massage in Cartersville, which was not disclosed on his application.

And he also admitted knowing Raymond Taylor and stated that he had socialized with him and his wife.

Mr.

Ming ultimately expressed uncertainty about continuing as the licensee for the business while I was on scene with him.

So on April 1st, I had the owner, Mr.

Yunji Jin, come into my office so I could interview him.

Mandarin is his first language, so I had Patty Pan that works for Cherokee Sheriff's Office, come in and translate for me.

Mr.

Yunjijin stated he had no knowledge or experience in massage therapy and indicated that he provided funding for the business while his son Hai Jing managed the process.

He acknowledged that Hai Jing Jin completed and submitted the application.

He denied knowing the licensee personally, but acknowledged that his son is acquainted with him.

Yunji Jin confirmed that he is aware of his son's probation probationary license status and stated that this was the reason he applied as the owner.

He indicated that he trusted his son to operate the business in compliance with applicable laws and ordinances.

While I was there, Hai Jing Jin was also there.

I brought him in after I spoke spoke with his father and spoke to him separately again.

He acknowledged that his father was listed as the owner due to concerns that his probationary license status could negatively affect approval of the application.

Hai Jing Jin stated that his father is the owner on paper and that he would manage the business operations.

Excuse me, just a moment.

The 15 minutes has run board.

So would you allow them to have additional time?

And we will allocate the same amount of time to uh to the applicant.

If the applicant's amenable, we are.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um, based on Mr.

Ming telling me that he had recently worked at VB Massage in Cartersville.

I conducted further research into that business.

Online sources indicated that Vivi massage was listed on websites advertising illicit sexual services, including recent customer comments posted within the previous three weeks.

As a result, I conducted a site visit.

On April 7th, 2026, a deputy with the Bartow County Sheriff's Office zoning unit responded with me to Vivi Massage at 1015 that morning.

We observed surveillance cameras outside.

Upon entry, we were greeted by Rong Ling Su, which goes by Susan, who identified herself as the owner.

Miss Sue initially stated that she had no customers and only one employee working.

However, upon inspection of the premises, three additional employees were located inside.

Two rear rooms contained twin beds, vanities, and significant amounts of clothing.

A back area contained food preparation items and a fully stocked refrigerator suggesting individuals may be residing on site.

I had advised Miss Sue that I was conducting a background investigation related to a health spa application in Cobb County.

When asked about Xing Tong Ming, Miss Su stated that he is her son and that he sometimes operates the business on her behalf.

Miss Sue was the only state licensed massage therapist present.

The logbook reflected payments for at least two massages that morning, indicating that other individuals had performed massages without holding state licenses.

One female on site identified as Jun Kong stated that she was a friend of the owner.

I recognize Miss Kong as the current wife of Raymond Taylor and the former owner of Coco Massage, which had previously been closed by the Cobb Business License Office.

Two additional individuals were present who resided at the same address as the owner, which appears suspicious.

These individual individuals were identified as Fin Jai Zoo, goes by Coco, and Finn Juan Lu goes by Lisa.

Online postings associated with V V massage indicated that Susan and Coco were primarily identified as primary providers of the sexual services.

So Susan is the owner, which is Mr.

Ming's mother.

So Bartow County does not maintain strict ordinances like we do here in Cobb on these kinds of things, so they were unable to shut down the business immediately due to all the issues that they were there.

Bartow County could have arrested the owner for allowing unlicensed massage there, which they failed to do so, but they did call out Bartow County fire and shut the business down due to some fire marshal issues.

And I went by that business a couple days ago and it's completely shut down and gone now in Cartersville.

I have no further questions, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Commissioners, do you have any questions?

I'm sorry, we have to go to cross and then we'll hear them sorry.

That means ask a clarifying question.

I'm looking at the time.

For the cross, does that not count towards that does count towards the IRS?

Okay.

All right.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, sir.

Good to see you, Detective Hughes.

You too.

All right.

I'm sure we've been here before, so you know the question I'm gonna ask.

I'm sure you know.

You have family, extended relatives, friends, acquaintances, people you may have graduated from high school with.

Surely one of them has committed a crime, correct?

I'm gonna object to this and the relevance of this.

The only thing at issue are the people that are here applying for this business license and their associations, not the witnesses.

We just talked about five other massage parlors that are not the subject of this application.

I understand.

I'm trying to understand the context of your question.

I think you're gonna get to it, so I I'm not opposed to the question.

Do you know somebody who's been convicted of a crime?

Well, I mean, everybody knows someone convicted of a crime.

I'm gonna repeat my objection.

I do not associate with those people.

So I just the answer to my question was yes, you do know somebody who's been convicted of a crime.

It's not relevant to this case.

This is an appeal.

That's not my question, though.

I'm not asking whether it's relevant.

I'm asking whether the question is yes or no.

I'm just trying to he's trying to put something in context.

I would just ask that you get to your point of questioning, but I understand you're trying to set up probably a future.

The fact that you may know a criminal does not make you yourself a criminal, correct?

Correct.

Right.

And on this extensive investigation you conducted, what you uncovered is that the owner, the licensee, and or the manager know people who have been convicted of crimes or have had their massage business shut down, right?

Correct.

But you agree that in and of itself does not mean that these people are guilty of violating any of the statutes or ordinances that the people they may or may not know were convicted of, right?

I mean, we I think we've already gone through this.

They are associated, they associate with them actively.

Let's talk about that.

How do you know that they associate with them actively?

Because your client told me.

Because my client told you.

Did he tell you how they knew them?

Uh Mr.

I'll have to go back through my report here.

Mr.

Ming.

I'll just help you.

I think one of them said that they had they had socialized with them, right?

Yeah, socialized, been to his house, knew him and his wife, Mr.

Raymond Taylor, which was arrested in Cherokee County for operating.

Okay.

Did he tell you they did crimes together?

No.

Now you agree that China massage, destination relaxation, V V massage, and cocoa massage are not the applicants on this application, right?

They're not the applicants.

Yeah, they're not the applicants.

They're not relaxing heads massage inc, right?

No, but they're employees of the wellness and VB.

Right.

Do you have anything to prove today that to the extent that any of those massage businesses did anything illegal or which violated an ordinance that any of that happened while any of these people were employed by those places?

Well, there were several ordinance violations issued at wellness uh when we did our site inspection there and also relaxation destination.

Right, and you agree that none of those happened during the times in which these individuals were employed.

Uh Mr.

Haijing Jin was issued citations.

Mr.

Haijing Jin was issued citations when?

When we went out to destination relaxation and wellness massage.

Where is that in your report?

I did not issue those business license office, did it's not in your report, right?

It's in there when we went out on March 20th at Destin or uh Wellness, she issued a she issued several citations there.

I issued one for an employee not possessing a health spa permit.

Um and then Miss Deary issued several county ordinance citations to Mr.

Jen at Destination Relaxation same day.

Now you stated that there were online postings associated with VV massage that indicated that somebody was providing sexual services, right?

Correct.

Did you bring those postings today with you?

I'm not willing to give that up.

That's coming from other stuff, so right, because it looks like a lot of the information that you're citing in your report is coming from other sources, right?

Right, law enforcement resources, correct?

Right, and you hadn't bring any of those with you today, correct?

Well, I have them in my case file.

Okay, but your case file is not with you today.

It's here, but it's not submitted as evidence.

Right.

So I don't know what sort of foundation is laid for any of these statements.

I just know that you are making these statements.

Right.

It's low, it's information that I've located.

Okay.

That is all the questions I have for you.

Thank you, Detective Hughes.

Commissioners, do you have any questions?

Detective.

Yes, for the detective.

This was certainly a lengthy report that was written.

I I've been trying to just diagram how people may be connected to different aspects of this just for my own understanding.

And just looking through this, it's looking.

I'll start with China massage.

And well, first let me ask a clear that it's probably for Alicia.

Trying to understand what responsibility the owner has, the employee, the employee has versus what the licensee has to the site.

Right now, I'm looking at a lot of um information about Mr.

Ming as the licensee.

So I'm presuming that it's him who is the subject of the denial for this application due to not disclosing the arrest and due to not sharing all of his prior employment.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

So with that information about both gens.

Can I compartmentalize that separate from our analysis of Mr.

Ming?

So the um in this case the business is owned by someone who's not a state licensed massage therapist.

So Mr.

Ming was hired for the purpose of being the licensee, correct?

But the 100% shareholders not licensed to conduct massage therapy.

Has to be a licensee, someone that knows the laws, the rules, the regulations of that practice.

But the owner is not required to have the license, just the licensee.

Correct.

Okay.

And the son, fortunately, I can't pronounce his name, but last name, Jen.

As an employee, he's not necessarily required to have he's required to have a state license to conduct massage therapy, and he does conducting it.

Okay.

And it says here, but his license that says it's on probation.

It is with the state, yes.

So tell me what that means.

If it's on probation, does that give him the ability to still provide massage therapy?

Yes, it does.

Okay.

While it is on probation, I'm guessing it still continues to be reviewed by the state.

But as long as it is not revoked, he can continue to practice massage therapy.

Okay.

So then getting back to the licensee, Mr.

Ming, he was employed at some time by China massage in ACWR.

I do not have that information.

That's when we come from the teast department.

Yes.

Thank you.

I just had some procedural questions for you, but getting back to our detective here at China Massage and ACWR.

It says Mr.

Ming served as the licensee.

Looking back into our law enforcement resources at work, I did find that he was listed as a licensee at one point there at China Massage, and they were also closed.

Was it 2024 by the business license office?

Yes.

And they were closed in 2024.

You said for a sundry list of activity which you did not specify, but would it be problematic activity that would be I mean, can you be smaller?

Allowing massage therapy without a massage therapy license, I believe is the reason why China Massage was closed.

Okay, is was there anything else discovered?

I would have to look in the file, but I do think there were other citations issued at that time.

Okay.

But I will touch just a quick follow-up on that train.

That train of thought was was his affiliation with that massage parlor during that time of when these citations were given.

So it was he affiliated 10 years before these happened.

Can you give some reference of when he was affiliated?

Um I'd have to look and see if I have that in here.

Um in our system, it shows listed in our system if you've ever worked at any other business in the county.

So when I looked in that system and ran his name, it showed China Massage as one of those businesses with a licensee.

Well, the system that I looked him up in, our county system, as a record records management system, did not show a date of when he was there.

So but it I mean, I I would have to go back and try to find that out, but it doesn't show that it shows every place that he's worked for in Cobb County where he's applied for.

But just not dates.

Correct.

Yes, go ahead.

I do not think that he was the licensee of China Massage when the license was revoked or okay.

Thank you.

May there may have been some association, but I do not think that he was the responsible party on paper at the time the business um was either denied or revoked.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Burrell.

Yeah, and that was gonna be one of my questions.

But you did say when you went in March to um March 20th when you went to one of these destination relaxation, I believe.

That um one of the applicants here today was um there working there at that time, yes, or no.

Um wellness massage on Barrett Parkway and we're destination relaxation uh inside town center mall.

Mr.

Ming worked placed employment at wellness massage on Barrett Parkway.

Hai Jin Jin was the manager of wellness and destination relaxation, so he was the one that we made contact with at we made contact with him at destination relaxation because we had already finished up at wellness over on Barrett Parkway.

Okay, but he was working there at the time you went back to that one.

He came into the business to see us.

Um he did identify himself as a manager of both of those businesses.

Okay, and then this is for Alicia.

Can uh can you repeat the requirements for um the licensee, the owner, the manager, what is required?

Um at the end of the day, the owner may very well be the just like you and I.

If you said, hey Alicia, you're the state licensed massage therapist, I want to employ you, you know all the rules, regulations, health care, all the things, you hire me, and but the responsibility of that is I go on the license.

I am the state licensed massage therapist, and I'm agreeing to be the responsible party.

Um the owner himself does not have to have any of those credentials or qualifications, right?

But who's required to be on site at all times or perform massages if they're if the licensee is not on site, a manager is required to be there, and that manager in charge is required to have a state license massage, uh be a state licensed massage therapist.

There should be a state licensed massage therapist on site at all times.

You should never walk in a place and that not be the case.

Okay, and is that the case here?

Um I wasn't with them on that day when they went to wellness and um destination relaxation.

I don't I there were state licensed massage therapists on site.

Okay, okay.

Slide get back here.

And to detectives um to the detectives' point, there were some citations issued, but the person who was cited who was here today as the proposed manager of this establishment was not listed in this application as an applicant.

So that's why that wasn't part of the denial letter as far as his name being attached to that because he is not the owner and he is not the licensee.

While he is the proposed manager, he doesn't have any I don't want to say stake, but he doesn't have any ownership, and he's not representing himself as the licensee at that location.

Okay, some follow-up questions regarding China massage.

Um it was said China Massage had been previously shut down, but you met them okay.

I see he was somebody else.

This is meant this is kind of superfluous information, I guess.

There was saying that there were several employees mention Tang Andy, who was the owner of China Massage, which was previously shut down, correct?

But however, he was at the location of wellness massage.

He was an employee an employee there, okay.

As a licensee, he had a like a license.

He's um not as a licensee, he was an employee of, so just as a massage therapist at that location.

Okay.

Uh can you tell me which prior employment history was not listed?

The VB massage in Cartersville.

V V massage.

Okay.

That's the only one.

Correct.

Okay.

How long was he employed at V V massage?

He didn't really tell me that, but he did tell me he worked there on and off uh to help his mother out.

Um, but when I asked him the day that I interviewed him if he was employed by any other uh massage parlers or places, he told me BB massage, but he did not disclose that on his application.

Okay, and along those lines, in the statement here, uh there's a uh statement that he works primarily as a flight instructor and intended only to work at the spa occasionally for supplemental income.

Is that the same scenario in which he communicated he worked for his mother, or is that a separate occurrence?

It's it's a separate person.

Um he told me he's gonna work primarily as a flight instructor, but then work when he wants to make extra money at uh relaxing head spa as top massage.

Okay, um, and I think that's kind of what he did at wellness also over on Barrett Parkway because he wasn't there when I went out there.

Um but he admitted, and you know, we asked for the last five years on work, and he told me that BB massage was one of his employers, and he failed to place that on his application when he turned it into business license.

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't the same reference as the other person or the other person that claimed that they would leave their mother or work for their mom.

So we're talking about two different individuals, right?

And okay.

No, his mother is the owner, the licensee on this application, his mother is the owner of BB massage.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Um detective um or maybe Alicia.

The spas that were shut down because of several violations, yes, ma'am.

Or was any of the three here to application here today working at those?

I can't state that they were employed there, not to my knowledge.

I don't believe that any of these folks were the licensee or owner of any of the establishments that were closed.

There seems to be some association and affiliation, but neither of them were listed as responsible parties on the two um health spas that were shut down in 2024.

That are in cop.

Correct.

Okay.

And a follow-up that just to make sure I'm clear.

So the reason that that's introduced in the evidence is purely just with so show association and the possibility of a link.

Is that what we're yes?

Okay.

I think that gets to the opposing counsel's point.

There are a lot of different links here to some very questionable things, admittedly, so um even looking at the prior employee with Vivi, and then looking at employees who were there on site but also lived with the owner.

Um even looking at the prior employee with Vivi and then looking at employees who were there on site but also lived with the owner.

There's just a lot of there's just a lot to unpack, and we have a very limited amount of time to unpack it.

And I understand your your questions with those connections.

They raise eyebrows, how much those connections link to actual misbehavior.

We it's hard without following all of that.

What we do know is we have a code section that says you have to properly state your employment history and that you need to testify truthfully.

And irrespective of all this other information, those are the two things on which we are relying on.

And we'll wait to hear testimony with respect to clarification of those.

But as much as I'm hearing these things and they're pro I guess they're providing the backdrop to all of this.

There's so much to follow.

I just want to make sure that I'm looking specifically at who needs to be the subject of this consideration and what particular conduct we are uh looking at to see if they're in violation of our code.

But thank you.

Appreciate it.

I don't have any more questions.

No, Commissioner Borough.

Just one more.

Um the Vivi massage in um Cartersville is owned by Mr.

Mother, Mr.

Ming's mother, which he uh he is the licensee on this application.

It was denied.

Okay, and he didn't disclose that he worked there?

Correct.

On his application, he did not specifically where other ones you've worked at.

Correct.

Okay.

So that's the one that he said he was just filling in from time to time.

But as a manager, as a licensee, or what was his position?

Well, I'm guessing he was just an employee for his mother when she needed him there, is what I was guessing because she said he worked, she worked, she told me that he worked here and there for her when she needed him.

Um I think but the opening statement said that that uh he helped out, but it's employee, you know, he's employed if he's helping out and doing work for that business.

Right, and he didn't disclose it.

I understand that, but I guess we'll you'll have to he'll have to um be asked that question and tell us in what capacity.

I mean, if he was required, if he was performing massages, he was required to have a license.

He is state licensed as a massage therapist.

Oh, okay.

The only one that is not a state licensed massage therapist here today is the the owner, Mr.

Uh Yunji Jin.

His son Hai Jing Jin, his his license is state license is on probation for allowing unlicensed massage in 2016.

So it's been on probation for 10 years.

And uh Mr.

Ming does hold a valid uh state license for massage therapy.

Okay, thank you.

I I've got one follow-up to that.

Was with family businesses, it can be a little slippery slope.

So was he showing up just to help his mother in the business?

Yeah, or was he a W-2 1099?

Was he officially an employee on the books?

I don't know how he was paid.

Um, but he told me he was running the business when our they told me he was running the business, and as they said earlier, that when his mother was having chemo, he was basically operating the business.

So if he's being paid, I have no idea.

Right, but my wife's a dentist, kind of the same situation, she has to be there with license, everything else, but I may go for two or three hours, help with the books, do different things.

If someone were to ask me, am I an employee of her practice?

I would say no.

So I'm trying to understand was she was he there as a son helping his mother in the operation, or was there a W-2 1099 or something that showed he truly was an employee?

I don't have any paperwork showing how he was paid or if he was uh 1099 or W2 employee.

Um I'm going based off of he told me he worked there, mother said he worked there, right?

Um I'm not gonna really get into what they he says he he did, but I believe they said at the LRB that he took phone calls and handled stuff for the business appointments, stuff like that.

So but as an employee or as a son, I think are two different things, and that's what I'm trying to get to.

Thank you.

This is gonna be a question for the county attorney.

Nowhere in our code section does it address that they have to disclose W 2 1099s or how they are paid or compensated, correct?

It it doesn't get that explicit, other than it states that you you can't put any false information in the application.

So it doesn't speak to what types of app of information that is.

And is how you were paid or compensated?

Or I guess that's a question for Alicia.

Is that included on your application for business license?

Should V V massage have been located in unincorporated Cobb County and he failed to have listed that his employment here, we could have asked for that information.

But V V massage was in the city of Carter.

So we didn't have access, nor do we have the authority to ask for that from another business.

Okay.

Are there any more questions?

Just a clarifying question on the scope of responsibility or helping out.

Um in the statement, it reads that um Miss Sue stated that her son is sometimes there to operate the business.

Um the description of helping out is a little different to me than operating the business.

Uh operating in my opinion means that he has full access to operate the entire uh function of the business.

So do you have additional info uh context that you can add to Ms.

Sue's statement?

Well, that I I put directly in my report what she told me, and that he does operate it when she is not there, she needs him to.

Um as far as operating it, I mean, he's if he's acting as the the manager or the operating owner, I can't really tell you that.

I mean, she just told me that he operates it when she's not there.

Meaning she might be in China, or and I didn't know like they're saying chemo, so um that's you know when he was operating it for her.

Okay, and a follow-up question on the log book, and this may be for Leisha.

Um with the log book, are you required to be licensed to schedule appointments, or can that be an administrative function?

Like if there was a receptionist at the front.

Oh, sure.

That could be a receptionist or whomever that it, but if they are not a state licensed massage therapist, they have to obtain a permit from the police department, so we can identify who is who when we get there.

Okay.

But in terms of booking appointments in the log book, yeah.

Anyone that's just an administrative staff can be that licensed or not, yes, ma'am.

So the log book that I I put in my report is the people that had came that morning for actual massages, and the only person at that business was the owner that was a state licensed massage therapist.

So I know she did not do those that she was employing people that were not state licensed.

That's the only reason I brought the log book up in my report.

Okay, because there were two people in the in the back, and she said that there weren't there was at least one person.

Three three more besides her.

Okay.

Did she say she did the circus?

She would not tell me that, but we you know that she wasn't doing the services.

Um, especially when they're at the same time.

I mean, you can't do both people at the same time.

Yeah, and she mentioned that there was just one other person there beside her.

Correct.

But there were actually three.

Correct.

So there were two, which we'll assume were there for the two customers.

I mean, we can assume that I can't really.

I mean, they were state licensed massage therapists.

Okay.

Or I'm sorry, she was the only state licensed massage therapist.

They were not.

One female was actually asleep when I got there in one of the rooms, and she told me she had just came from China.

So I mean, it's it's you know, one of those things where it appeared that people were living there.

I see.

Yep, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Any other questions?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

I believe we'll now hear from the applicant.

All right.

This time I'd like to call Zhin Tong Meng.

Hi.

All right, Mr.

Mang, thank you for being here today.

I just want to cut straight to the chase.

Um, the arrest history.

Can you tell me let me start first?

Um your first language is what?

Uh Mandarin.

Okay.

English is your second language?

Second occupation.

How long have you been a speaker of the English language?

Uh since through the college.

College?

Yeah.

Okay.

What year was that?

Uh it's like the two and okay to Sultan's nine.

All right.

Now there was an arrest that you did not include in your application, correct?

Yeah, uh, that's that's that's my fault.

I now we're really want you a car word as one.

So it's like the on that the rush.

So I just a few of the basic basic information and didn't read that clearly, like just sign the name.

If I really want to cover it, like the the day the police officer come to me, so I'll say no.

He's just asked me how have you ever been arrested?

I directly say yes.

So yeah, that's that's that's part is my fault, but I'm not really like the in my mind to want to cover that part.

Had you understood the question better, would you have disclosed that you had been arrested?

Uh yeah.

Okay.

And can you tell me about what what was that arrest about?

Uh it's just the uh like the reason is I forgot to like renew the tech and I get pulled over, and uh he said uh my need to the renew the tag and also my insurance is like the past uh the date.

So you're you were driving on a um old tag and your insurance had lapsed.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, and that was why you were taken into custody?

Yeah, that's right.

Okay.

Did you get those issues resolved?

Yeah.

How quickly?

Uh just uh after he pulled me over, he said like the your insurance is like the past due.

I said, oh, because the reason is I renew like the I lost my wallet, so it's an auto pay, so I totally forgot.

So at that moment I directly like to renew everything, so the officer let me go.

Okay, give me the tickets, tell me the data to appear to court.

Okay, and those tickets were issued in Duluth Municipal Court?

Is that correct?

Uh yeah, that's right.

Okay, how did you plead to those charges?

Uh excuse me.

You you recall the term no contendere?

Uh-huh.

Do you remember pleading no lo to those charges?

Uh the tr the charges?

Yeah.

The suspended um license plate and the insurance?

Yeah.

Do you know how you pled to those charges?

The play to the charges.

Yeah.

If I showed you a copy of the ticket information sheet, would that help you refresh your recollection?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Oh sorry.

All right.

Are you looking at a copy of the Duluth Municipal Court ticket information sheet?

And where it says plea, does that refresh your recollection as to what you plead?

Yeah, yeah, that's complete.

Okay, sorry.

What?

So how did you plead to that charge?

Yeah, I just uh later go to the court and are you submitting that as evidence?

I was just gonna use it to refresh his recollection.

I mean, I it's not a certified copy.

I can if the commission will entertain it, I will submit it into evidence.

As far as as far as evidence goes, we we're informal, so uh whether or not I mean it's fine that it's not a certified copy.

Mr.

Hensley, do you object?

No object just to see what it is.

All right.

Thank you, Ms.

Maker.

All right.

Now I want to move on to VV massage.

Your mother is the owner of VV massage.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Okay.

And I understand your mother was undergoing cancer treatment not too long ago.

Uh yeah, that's right.

Okay.

When when was she undergoing cancer treatment?

Uh since 2025.

Okay.

Were you assisting her at V V massage while she was undergoing cancer treatment?

Uh the way yeah, yeah, yeah, assisting, but the way I only do is like the older payments because they don't speak English that well.

So I need to do the payments and also like the talk with the like the post machine, some like the buy stuff, that's all.

Okay.

You're a licensed massage therapist though.

But I don't do licensed order.

I I don't do massage order.

But are you a licensed massage therapist?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Just wanted to clear that up.

Now I understand.

Did let me ask you, did your mother or V V massage control your hours?

Did they say when you had to come into work or not?

Uh no, only like if there's something broken or like the sometime they need to buy something.

I just do the deliverer.

So you would come in on an as needed basis.

Oh, excuse me.

You would come in when you were requested to come.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Okay.

Now, um you did not have any control over how you were paid, correct?

Yeah.

Did you expect to receive any payment?

Uh no.

Okay, but you did get paid, right?

Yeah, yeah, you can say that just so and you were issued a W2, right?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Did you have an did you ever have a conversation with your mother or with Vivi Massage saying, hey, I want you to give me a W2 for this work?

No.

Okay.

So just at the end of the year, you were handed a W2.

Oh, yeah.

It's like the I do with the Texas some.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Now I want to talk about these aggravating factors that are brought up.

Raymond Taylor and Donkey Chang.

Do you know those individuals?

Yeah, I know them.

How do you know them?

It's just uh like the seven of six years ago, like they have like some the party is a lot of people from the same the the hometown.

So they have like the party.

So I go there and have just the dinner two or three times.

Okay, so they're from your same hometown?

Yep.

Okay, in China?

Yeah.

And you went to a party with other people from your hometown?

Yeah.

And that is how you met Raymond Taylor and Donkey Chang?

Yeah, that's right.

Have you ever worked with either of these people?

No.

Okay.

Um China Massage Ackworth.

Have you ever worked at China Massage Ackworth?

Yeah, I now working over there, and I heard like the he said, but I have no idea how they got my information.

I now were working over there, and then I were to add information to them like them use my license.

Okay.

So you were never the licensee at China Massage as far as you know?

Yeah, I don't know how they get my information.

Okay.

You deny having worked there.

Yeah, I now we're working over there.

Got it.

And while working at Vivi massage, did you ever witness or participate in any illegal activities?

You mean like the working hour like to Were you ever there while people were giving unlicensed massages?

I don't do the massage order.

Right.

But did did you ever participate in any illegal activities while you were at V V massage?

I didn't know.

Okay.

That is all the questions for you.

Thank you, sir.

Just a couple of questions.

Sir.

Would you agree with the statement that if you're gonna be the licensee for a massage business or health spot?

You need to follow the rules that govern that business.

Is that a fair statement?

Uh yeah.

You should follow the rules, right?

Oh yeah, that's true.

And you didn't follow the rules, did you?

You were not truthful on your application.

You didn't follow the rules.

You didn't you did not disclose your rest history, and you did not disclose your previous employment, did you?

Uh yeah.

You did?

Uh no, I I mean like the yeah, that's that's part of my rules, did you?

Yeah.

That's all I have, Madam Chairman.

All right.

I'd like to no more questions for this witness.

I'd like to call Hai Xing Jin.

Okay, there may be questions of the board.

Oh, sure.

Apologize.

Thank you.

Let me start with Commissioner Burrow and then I'll see if anybody else.

Commissioner Ball, did you have any?

Um not at this time.

Okay, Commissioner Gamble.

I'm sorry, did you want to continue?

No, I don't have anything at this time.

Okay, Commissioner Gambrel.

So when you worked at DB for your mom, you testified that you did not do massages, you just did different things as needed.

Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Okay, but then you said you worked at the Ackworth location and then one other location.

So what did you do at those two locations if you are not actively a massage therapist?

Oh you mean which location?

Um the Ackworth location.

He he he testified that he's a licensed massage therapist, but then he gave testimony that when he was working for his mom at DB, if I'm remembering this correctly, he did not do massages.

He only did different things.

Yeah, as needed.

Yet then his testimony went on that he worked at the Ackworth location and then one other location was it?

I'm I'm losing my my notes here.

So where or I'm what I'm questioning is if you're a licensed massage therapist, but you did not do massage therapy when you were working for your mom.

Why were you working at the other two locations if you are not practicing massage?

Oh, this is like because my mom's uh so is like the really f uh about one hour job from my home.

So like the sometime I do the part-time job is like the uh like the uh there's like this it's really close to my it's nearby the call county oh here.

So it's sometime there be that glue me a call.

So like the we need like as people, so I'll free it right now.

So if if I have time, so I'm gonna be so just go there do one or two.

So it's the way we do.

Uh like the my mom's store is like the one our job away.

So I don't go over there.

Because my priority job is like the flag instructor.

So it's like the now does the schedule working like every day.

It's just we just off on the day, is like the weather is bad, or maybe they're like the no student on today, so we I we get off is not the schedule.

So the time is really flexible.

Only that that's like the heisting though.

So he will be asking me like if he they're really busy, they're like sold our people.

So right now, like we have like some customer is waiting, so I owe right now.

So can you come?

So yeah, if I have time, I'll be telling me for like no, I don't know.

Okay, I wouldn't know.

Which if I may which store do you do you go and do some massages when you need to?

It's like the World Star is in like a nearby.

Okay, so it's not one of the it's not China massage.

Uh yeah, and now we're working in the China Massage.

He said he never worked correct, correct.

Okay, so he works at Well Star.

Yeah, wellness, it's sorry, wellness spa, yeah.

Okay, okay, thank you.

And that's the one over there.

It was and reopened under different ownership, but yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Well, this was shut down and reopened, yes.

Okay.

May I ask him please?

So um you are a licensed massage therapist.

And are you the one on probation?

For no.

No, yeah, no, I I only just to do the massager.

Massage therapy.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm just kind of confused as to who's who here.

Okay.

That's what I thought it was the son, and he's the son.

Yeah.

So I I I think that's where it's it's hard to follow as the chairwoman said because uh so much was introduced that's not really directly relevant to the applicant that it's confusing.

And I think it's a lot of information introduced that creates it it's a lot to follow.

Right, but um I I know, and I'm not concerned with who you party with or whatever.

Um, but I am concerned on where you've worked and other violations that were that are being introduced.

So I'm just asking if um whose license this related to the applicant, whether it be the manager, the licensee or the owner whose license is on probation.

The gentleman that identifies himself as the manager who is the owner's son, Mr.

Jin.

Okay.

His license is valid, it's not on probation.

The owners is valid, he can operate or practice massage, but it is on probation.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I'd like to call Hai Xing Jin.

All right, Mr.

Jin.

You are the son of Yunji Jin, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

And Yunji is the owner of relaxing head head spot, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

And you are the proposed manager or employee of relaxing head spa, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

And your name was disclosed on the license application for relaxing head spa as an employee, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

You are a licensed massage therapist, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

That status is currently on probation, right?

Yes.

When did you when did it go into probationary status?

The provision start uh I think the 2022 or 2023.

Okay.

And why did you go into probation?

The things happened around the 2016 or 2017.

That time uh I work for the one massage shop on Gainsville.

So that checking license.

So I that time the shop had one people had license, but the Florida license, no Georgia license.

That's why they gave me the ticket.

Say I hired the people, no Georgia license.

But this one, after 2024, the state board mailed the letter, tell me how to go court.

So just to be clear, the original citation came about because you were the manager of a spa who had licensed massage therapists, but their licenses were in Florida, not Georgia.

Yes.

Okay.

And you've been on you're on probation arising out of that event, correct?

Sorry, Sue.

You're on probation arising out of that event, correct?

Yes.

When does that probation end?

They say this year August or September.

Okay.

Now Detective Hughes in his report noted that a citation was issued at destination relaxation in March of 2026.

Do you recall that?

Yes, I know.

Okay, why were those um citations issued?

Okay, they came in, they tell me I have camera on the front door, but I don't have camera on backdoor.

I said I don't know that I have to have camera on back door.

I say, can you give me like a warning?

They say no.

So the ticket for the no no no no camera on backdoor, another ticket for he said I don't have human traffic site on the front or restroom.

I said, I don't know that too.

Can you get tickets?

No warning?

They say no.

So basically I get the two warning on two locations is I don't have camera on backdoor, another one is I don't have a human traffic site on the wall.

All my workers have license.

Okay.

Did either of those citations uh impact your probationary status?

I don't think so.

Okay, so your probation hasn't been revoked or suspended, correct?

My probation is still on probation right now.

Right.

It's you're still permitted to provide massage therapy services.

Oh yes, yes.

Okay.

Now there's mention made in this report of an individual by the name of Bao the Trin.

Bao Trin.

Yeah.

I I'm I'm sorry, you know, I lost my contact.

That's why today I wear this.

This is not sunglasses, this is contact, okay?

I just don't want to wear this root.

That's why I keep doing it like this because my contact is broken.

I don't have time to get new contact here.

So can I wear this?

I cannot see.

Go right ahead.

Yeah, sorry, sorry about that.

How do you know about trin?

Oh, Bao Then, like a me and uh Mung Jin Tong, Bau Trun.

We still work on professional body works in Toulouse, like uh 12 years ago.

Okay.

Now your intention is if this application were to be granted, you would serve at this location as the designated manager in the event that Mr.

Meng is not present.

Yes, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

And you're there's nothing preventing you from doing that, right?

Sorry, so there's nothing preventing you from doing that, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

That's all the questions I have for you.

Thank you.

One question.

Sir, your massage therapy license is on probation, correct?

Yes.

Why is it on probation?

Because the 2026, the the higher licensed people, no Georgia license.

You allowed unlicensed massage therapy in your business, didn't you?

Sorry, sir.

You allowed unlicensed massage therapy in your business, correct?

Not right now.

No.

When your license was put on probation, that was the reason, wasn't it?

I think that time was about right now.

I'm not talking about right now.

I'm asking you when it was put on probation.

What was the reason?

Oh, yeah, that time, yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

people no Georgia license you allowed unlicensed massage therapy in your business didn't you so you allowed unlicensed massage therapy in your business correct not right now no when your license was put on probation that was the reason wasn't it I said that time was about right and all but not I'm not talking about right now I'm asking you when it was put on probation what was the reason oh yeah that time yeah thank you yeah does anybody have any questions I guess as a follow up to the license being on probation you mentioned that you had unlicensed massage therapists at that time were you aware that you that the license that you needed licensed therapist so one more time licensed for oh it was in Florida they were licensed in Florida okay thank that's one yeah I'm sorry are there any other questions I have one so um have you been the manager for any other businesses in Georgia or Cobb County Yeah I do I manage uh uh mine and my shop I mean right now and before but only at that time hire no people no less than my license title provision after that all shop I'll work every people have lessense no more no more hire no people no license on only George on essence and are you still employed there me yeah I'm I mend it on the employee too okay so if this is approved if the license for the owner here is approved or will you be working for him because you listed on the application and you write off for the new shop we're talking about yeah it doesn't my father's shop you know was open I don't work there too as a massage on I don't manager I'm I'm legally to do massage right now right yeah okay that's all I add okay thank you sir appreciate it can I do have a quote yes you can can we call um Alicia Webb back up sure okay thank you yes ma'am hi um the location that we're this in question today 3372 Canton Road has that ever operated at is any other owner or anyone period ever operated at that location not that I'm aware of I've had two applications both of which were denied but it's been some time back not at the specific tenant space no ma'am not at this address okay but has this applicant been denied before okay I I'm sorry I misunderstood what you there have been applications before this they were denied and did not appeal it and this was the third one to come from one right behind the other but no one's ever been issued a license there so is there anything from other people no different applicants but there's never been option there right location based so nothing's operating out of there right now not that I'm aware of do you have a question for Alicia for Clarity um is there anything that prohibits the county from issuing a license or permit based on a suspended I mean a license on probation no sir okay a question for you do we have a copy of the application that was filed I do I have the original in my hand yes ma'am okay can we take can we take a look at it please make sure that I'm put particularly looking at the area where it asked about arrest history you could perhaps put it on the screen okay for others to see um let me see if I can tag those for you just so you don't have to dig through here a couple different sections asks page eight and then um let's see is it in our book it's not yeah I didn't see for him you know what let me just tag these somehow for you guys because I don't want to make I'd also like to see the portion of it that has employment history as well thank you okay yeah didn't put it on the screen because something's been redacting okay I see I assume Mr Booth would have no objection and I have no objection either that's fair paper clip what else

Are you okay with that?

And I have no objection either.

And then the other two tag pages are specific to his personal statement to Mr.

Wade himself.

So my question is, is this his handwriting?

This is his handwriting.

I don't know who might have answered those questions.

I mean, there's a lot of his his naturalization certificate or his documents should be part of your still out on that.

Okay.

On page fifteen of this, it says one of the questions is have you or your spouse or any person having interest in this business or their spouse ever been arrested, convicted, detained, and indicted, pled guilty, pled no load, or home probation.

And they're all answered no.

So that's pertaining to his criminal history, not his state license.

That would be any arrest for him individually, not for his license to practice massage therapy.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Alicia, I have a question on the business description.

It has head shampoo here.

Um I don't know if that's an additional type of service or that would be acceptable under a message.

It is.

It's um, he is a state, well, the state licensed massage therapist, it's getting to be pretty common thing in for shampoos.

Okay.

And that for agents if they're doing head massages, things like that's becoming more and more.

Okay.

Just wasn't sure if it requires some.

As long as it's not reaching the cosmetology realm, really.

Hold on.

I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

As long as it's not something that should be done by a cosmetologist, we're starting to see some of that being pretty common.

So I need to present this to him too to look at it, and you want to give this to saying to look at it, or to Debbie?

Sure.

This is the application, correct?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, I think we both agreed to no objection.

Does anybody else have any questions for Alicia?

Thank you.

One is the employment history not being accurate, and looking at the um criminal or arrest probation history of the licensee specifically.

Um of that other history.

I know if you're not really astute to the law, that might be something you bypassed as quickly did it to go through the hearing and not be held culpable, but even if they saw the arrest as something perhaps not to consider if he was detained for any reason, yeah.

There was more than one option that could have been checked pertaining to that experience, and it does signify at the bottom of that failure to disclose this with truthfulness can result in you not getting the license issue.

So I mean that is stated explicitly to understand the weight of filling that section in clearly.

So to me, the for me, I can't speak for anybody else.

The weight of this turns on to why that was not answered truthfully, and I know that as counsel you've explained it.

I have not heard the applicant really give clarity for that not being there.

And while language may be a barrier as far as as far as um communicating verbally, was language a barrier as far as reading it.

When my perception is to have a license, you have to have not just physical knowledge or practical knowledge of delivering massage, but that there are some texts that you likely have to read to understand what is needed to obtain a license.

So for me, that's where I'm just having some that's where I'm having a lot of challenges with this.

I mean, certainly all the other facts don't help.

They add a lot of color to this that would probably make someone inclined to to not want to issue a license.

I can't speak for all those things.

I can't even begin to wade through a lot of those things, but I can't perceive in looking at that application why not one of those boxes was checked with respect to what occurred may you may we make brief closing statements?

Well, I I've got one more question if I can to Alicia, and I don't know if you have to yeah, I guess you have to come back up to the mic, but um I agree with what Gerald just said.

It is is it our practice in Cobb for any applicant with a clerical error misrepresentation on the form to automatically be denied, or have there been cases where someone has been offered an opportunity to come in and remedy those?

Um we have done both.

Um I'll just say after our experience over the last we have done both sort of but I was our experience after the last 24 months and closing the 25 massage or health spaws that we did.

This is the same practice as those.

So this is a practice started, you said 25, 25.

23, 24, 25.

Okay.

I'm sorry, you said this as a practice.

What is a of not allowing them to remedy the clerical correct area at one time we might have said you we now know you did not honestly disclose your criminal history?

You need to disclose that because police department can't tell us by GCIC rules what it is they just did not disclose.

So at one time we opted to not base it on falsifying information.

Not only did you not tell us, now you essentially lied about it altogether.

So at one time we would have said come, you know, fix this, but after what we've experienced over the last three years, two, three years, we have not done that.

Okay, you said that yeah.

Can you clarify that you said after what you experienced over the last two years you didn't permit it?

What have you done?

The spaws that we have the dials that we've done over the last two to three years with health spaws.

We have not given anybody the opportunity to come and fix anything clerically.

And and that kind of leads into where I've I mean, I I agree that there was an error made.

I don't know if it was a negligent error, you know, unwitting or or otherwise.

But it it just feels like all the other information was introduced to kind of justify why those two things you know weren't done, and it's it's a stretch to me that we wouldn't just ask someone to clarify.

Um like you, I mean, and because it sounds like if this if this wasn't a spa, maybe they would have had the opportunity to come in and clarify.

So I'm or are we taking our prejudice out on the the type of business by being more restrictive than we would be with any other application?

That's just the way it feels to me.

So I want to make sure that we're we're focusing on the error that was made that has nothing to do with illegalities, it was a paperwork issue.

We have not allowed anyone to fix it.

That is a spa.

That is a spa at all.

We would have offered the same thing to an alcohol license before, but we have not made it.

Okay, because originally a few minutes ago you said it was just response.

For we started going through the regulations heavily of spas, let me rephrase that.

So any applicant correct today, if they make a clerical issue, they are automatically denied and not given an opportunity to remedy, even if it was a clerical or paperwork mistake.

Correct.

That is our position.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Yes, Commissioner Bob.

And they did correct their statements after a thorough and after a thorough investigation and the questions were asked, they did clarify after the fact, but that was they're applying for a license in their conversation with the defender.

In their interviews with detective huge.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

They did have an opportunity to correct, but they had an opportunity, the state had an opportunity to correct to correct would be to say I want to change my application.

Let's to correct would be to, and I agree, I agree with what you're saying, but I'm just saying we have to be clear that they were when confronted, there was no denial, there was an acknowledgement that these were true, but they weren't given the opportunity to go back and correct that on the paperwork.

We're not dealing with the act itself.

We're not saying that the act itself would be disqualifying.

That's why I've asked the question.

The fact that he pled no no low or even had been arrested is not disqualifying.

It's a check mark on a piece of paper that he wasn't allowed to correct.

That's that's what we're because that's why I asked the question is the probation disqualifying, is pleading no low disqualifying.

Those are not disqualifying events, but because of it being marked that way, which no one can dispute.

I mean, it's clear we all saw it that he did not fill out the paperwork correctly, but was also not given an opportunity to correct it, but was able to acknowledge it.

Well, and uh that's with anything.

I mean, when they apply, you have to go by what their answers are, and you all did a very thorough investigation to uncover these false statements and work history, so well uh excuse me.

I I just want to add, I I think there is a difference between an oversight and an intentional misrepresentation.

Um there were two areas in which there was an oversight.

I can almost understand if one area there was oversight or misrepresentation, but to have both it's a little concerning to me.

Um there was testimony earlier with respect to being stopped for an expired tag or something along those lines, and then once that was brought to his attention, it was then corrected.

So I I find that this is kind of that same similar behavior, ask for forgiveness over permission with some of the testimony that's been shared with having uh unlicensed therapists performing licensed duties.

I think there shows a pattern.

Uh so for me it's my thoughts are that it seems more of an intentional misrepresentation than an oversight, Peter.

Well, and kind of to echo what Commissioner Sheffield is saying, also the fact that they have multiple locations, maybe not in Cobb County, but in other locations, they've had to fill out similar applications, and I would assume that the information requested would be the same.

I mean, I know local jurisdictions, but the foundation is the same.

Um, and it goes back to if you don't understand what you're filling out to ask the question.

I just just want to go back to I I'm not disagreeing, and I think that if we would have presented on the merits of the paperwork, but I I I can't help but to feel that we brought in a lot of things, associations of working in places that don't even have dates of when they work there.

There's just a lot of things that we brought in to taint.

So I think the emotion or the the view that we have is because we've also been flooded with a lot of negative information to help us feel like something's going wrong.

That's true.

And I I agree that the paperwork needs to be complete.

But I still don't feel comfortable at how we've presented this to paint this as a picture of nefariousness by introducing so many other elements that aren't relevant.

I mean, if this were a court, those would not have been admissible.

So we have we have brought in a lot of things to prejudice how we look at this applicant.

And so I hope in the future as we do these, we can stick to the merits because you had a very strong case, but now I'm conflicted because it seems to be this, and I use the word pile of paperwork error.

I'm not gonna debate back and forth.

I'm just saying that from a procedural standpoint, that is I I hope in the future as we do these that we don't feel that we have to introduce that type of of information just to prove a point on a paperwork error.

No, and and I completely agree with you.

Um there's been an overwhelming amount of information shared that's not relevant to uh to this application before us, but in sifting through those items that are relevant is where my attention has been focused.

Um obviously, you know, you you eat the meat and spit out the bones as it's said, and there's a lot of history, a lot of context, but it does not for me overshadow what's actually before us, and those are the two items in which you violated.

So that that's been my focus, but I do agree it was a lot of information that was shared.

Um that can I guess um have us kind of look at the case differently, but um it still should for me has not overshadowed the two the two items that are before us for consideration.

I think what we've learned here in context, there's the context of the connections associated with the applicant, but there's also the context of what's been happening here in the state of Georgia and perhaps beyond with massage parlors that have caused us to look at our processes differently.

Perhaps there isn't that level of grace provided that was given before, given the serious nature of some of the infractions that have been found, and that's what I'm concerned about facilitating that potentially in support of the applicant, but I'm also concerned about utilizing those experiences to color every experience and not look at them objectively when looking at whether or not this infraction is material to their ability to be able to lawfully provide massage services, somebody getting stopped on the road is that and have an expired tag that really is not a material violation to your ability to be able to provide license therapy and and the context that that was not weighed.

I'm not even sure because the questions weren't asked about how that entire experience occurred to understand, and perhaps that's where I would ask more questions.

In what ways did that circumstance play out such that it did not prompt the applicant to perceive this as something that I should put on here?

But if I were to take away the process and just look at the substance of what occurred, that's not something that I would say, okay.

Now you can't be a massage therapist.

So this ultimately gets to truthfulness of something that is administrative, and to what extent for me again, Commissioner Sheffield shares is also looking at the employment history, and I get that.

For me, I can give some grace and leniency to the employment for the mom.

Um for this, I'm I'm torn, but I'm just telling you, I I'm just torn uh with respect to that.

So I don't know if we have the ability.

Do we have the ability to call back up another witness, Debbie?

Or that side I I mean the you you can I think you can.

I I mean okay.

The the I mean if you have additional questions of anyone to clarify the point, and as well, they have not made their closing statements either.

Okay, so yes, I do have a for the um licensee, I'd like to ask um some questions.

Hi.

Um were you physically arrested with handcuffs?

Oh, yeah.

Were you when you were arrested, were you put in a police vehicle?

Oh, yeah.

Were you taken to a station?

Uh it is transfer like the from the door view to the Green Nat.

Okay.

Has this ever happened to you before?

No.

Okay.

And how long were you in the facility waiting for this to be processed?

About 10 hours.

Ten hours.

Yeah.

Okay.

Have you filled out other applications for serving as a licensee for other jurisdictions, other cities, other counties in COVID?

I'm sorry, in Georgia.

No.

Okay.

Have you ever listed that experience as on any of your applications to be a massage therapist?

Uh you mean like the arrest part?

No.

I know it's will be like the full job application.

They will be asking that question.

And you've listed it before or not listed?

No.

You've never listed that experience.

Oh, for application, like the massage one?

No, but for the job application to ask me.

When did that when did the arrest occur?

Was it 2025?

Never mind.

It was very simple.

Okay, I don't have any other questions.

I just I just wanted to understand the context of that experience a little bit better.

Okay.

Does anybody else have any questions?

All right, thank you.

Anyone else have any questions for any of the witnesses before we go to closing statements?

Okay.

We'll go ahead and go to closing statement.

And I would like to assert mine for the end.

Okay.

I believe I'm the applicant, which would mean I get to open and close.

Correct.

Okay.

Go ahead, Attorney Hemsley.

I have several thoughts, Madam Chairwoman.

First of all, Mr.

Booth has made an argument, and this has been a subject of conversation up here, deriding the what I would call the guilt by association argument.

Well, that's not something that should be easily impugned.

Another example of guilt by association is prohibiting felons from associating with other felons when they're on probation or parole.

There's a good reason for that.

There are obvious reasons for that.

So it is, in my view, very relevant as to the people and establishments that these individuals may have associated with, may continue to associate with, especially if they've been involved in questionable activity in the world of IMBs.

This is what we call illicit massage businesses.

And there's been some conversation too about recognizing the severity of that problem of IMBs, not only in Georgia, but especially in the Metro Atlanta area and our own community here in Cobb County.

It's been my privilege to work with kind of our unofficial task force, which involves Alicia and the Business License Division, Detective Hughes and the Cobb County Police Department, the Attorney General's office.

And we have in the last couple of years, as Alicia alluded to, been able to close down approximately 25 of these establishments in our county, where all sorts of serious criminal activity has taken place.

We're talking sexual assault, we're talking uh human trafficking, we're talking money laundering, we're talking all sorts of things that occur, and I'm not saying that that's occurring in anything these gentlemen have done.

Okay.

But their associations are relevant to that.

And our code requires, in my view, us as the presenting uh body, the attorney and the bodies that investigate these things and review these applications to present what are called aggravating or mitigating circumstances.

It's in the code that this board can review those in its consideration of the application.

Some of it may be relevant ultimately once we hear testimony, once we uh hear all the evidence regarding those, some may not, some may.

But it's our responsibility, and I think Detective Hughes did a great job of laying everything out that he uncovered during his background check and the inspection of these establishments.

So, yes, sometimes we do have to treat certain establishments maybe differently than we would some other business license where this kind of activity doesn't potentially go on.

So I think it's very relevant to consider all that.

Having said that, let's assume there were no aggravating circumstances whatsoever.

Let's take them off the board.

We've got two violations.

You know, one is a mistake, two is a pattern of not being truthful about their application and their history and their employment history, their criminal history and their employment history.

And this body has heard me say this a hundred times when I come before you on alcohol and massage therapy licenses.

We need people who are going to follow the rules.

That's what ultimately we need to look at.

Are the people that are applying for this uh privilege in the case of an alcohol license or in the case of a massage therapy license, they're going to follow the rules.

And we had the applicant stand right here, and I asked him, you didn't follow the rules, did you?

No, I didn't.

Didn't say it was a mistake to me.

He said he didn't follow the rules.

Didn't bother to, as Mr.

Allen pointed out, and I think uh Commissioner Gambrill as well.

If you don't understand the question, ask for help.

What does this mean?

So that leads to the implication that maybe it was a subterfuge.

Maybe they weren't being honest.

So what else is going on?

So all of that is relevant to you consider.

But remember that we're working under what's called an any evidence standard.

And by that I mean let's say that this board chose to deny this application, and their attorney filed a petition for review at the Superior Court of Cobb County, which is their right to do.

Used to be called a writ of sortier.

Now it's a petition for review, it's a record review.

And the only job of the Superior Court is to see if there's any evidence to support the decision made by this body.

And if there is, the court defers to the county.

So it's your job, as you know, to evaluate this, which you've done a great job doing.

There's a lot of information to sift through.

So I'm trying to cut to the chase here.

Were they on it?

Did they follow the rules?

Okay.

And I don't see that happening.

So I asked that you uphold the administrative denial of this application.

Thank you.

You know, I find it um awful rich that we hear from the commissioners that they don't appreciate hearing about a bunch of irrelevant circumstances that don't actually have to do with the reason that the application was denied, and then hear the county's attorney testify the or present the bulk of his closing addressing those very factors.