All right, everyone.

Good evening.

Thank you for joining us tonight.

We're going to be having a discussion about potential rate increases in the stormwater as well as sanitation enterprise funds for DeCap County.

Of course, those are priorities for the level of service that we're able to offer to the residents.

With that said, I want to introduce uh my colleagues, Commissioner Shakira Johnson, who also serves as the uh presiding officer of the Board of Commissioners, uh, Commissioner Ted Terry, who is also the chair of the FAB committee.

Uh, and we also have this evening with us Director Gordon.

Welcome.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for having me here.

Uh, we really appreciate this opportunity uh to have this town hall meeting so you guys can get all the answers you would like along with the public, and uh we appreciate you letting us uh request a rate increase for stormwater and sanitation.

And uh this time I'd like to bring up uh uh Rick from Ricada, and he's gonna do the presentation.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Director Gordon.

Rich, good to see you.

Good to see you too.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening, Commissioner Patrick.

Sir Patrick, I just want to let you know, Commissioner Michelle Longspears is joined you virtually.

Commissioner Spears, I appreciate you stepping in and reminding us.

Uh thank you for being here virtually.

We are uh we're grateful for your time as well.

And um, if there's any other commissioners, this would be a time to introduce yourself if you're available.

Okay.

If not, Rich, please go ahead and get started.

All right, thank you.

All right, so I'm gonna step back for just a second because we're gonna give you a uh an overview of the of the program and then uh talk about the the financials uh specifically the rate studies.

So um, and this is really I know some of y'all know this already, but just stepping back, the modern stormwater program for the county really kind of dates back to 1994, so a little over 30 years.

Uh when the county was issued its first national pollutant discharge elimination system, municipal separate storm sewer system permit in PDS MS4.

Um and that kind of kicked off the modern modern era.

Um it kind of rolled along for uh a number of years, about seven years, and then Georgia uh created the first Georgia Stormwater Management Manual, and that kind of kind of standardized requirements for counties and cities across the state.

Um in response to that and infrastructure needs the county formed the stormwater utility in 2003.

Um and then every uh five years the the permit is renewed, and I I'm you know you won't be surprised to hear that they never roll back requirements, they just add on to them.

So every time you see one of those black lines, just know there's been something added to it.

Um and that kind of corresponds with the next one there.

Uh 2016, they updated the stormwater management manual so they could incorporate additional requirements onto the program uh via the the next permit in 2019.

Um the other thing I'd note is again the the utility was formed in 2003.

The first stormwater utility rate increase wasn't until 2023, three years ago.

So um that kind of gets us up to almost today.

Rich, if I can just add, uh if you'll go back to that previous screen, uh as a former bureaucrat, every time I see a string of letters like that for an acronym, I I know I halfway fall asleep.

So I'm glad you could explain to us what that meant.

Uh but very complicated.

What you're basically trying to tell us is is when it rains, the water has to go somewhere, and it ends up either going in someone's yard and then getting pushed through there to some pipe or some road, which then we have to deal with all of this surge of water.

Uh and for those who remember what happened a few weeks ago at 7585, uh the surge of water came along and it clogged all of the inlets.

Yep.

And then it shut down the interstate.

I guess the benefit would be is is GDOT has newer, stronger pipes than we would have in place, and that some of the concern ultimately is is we have old pipes, older infrastructure in DeCab, and the potential for loss of roads or private property is is the concern that we're trying to ultimately address with all of this.

And I would the only thing I would add to that is the MPDS permit.

One of the things that added on, you were absolutely correct in everything you just said.

The MPDS permit, one of the things that layered on was water quality.

So you had to start treating the water.

Right.

Um in addition to just the flooding and the infrastructure maintenance and all the traditional government functions.

So not that I'm a civil engineer, but I am a nice guy.

Um but uh um the idea of water quality is is all of the oils, all of the particulate matter, all the stuff that floats in there that settles someplace that can accumulates and then clogs clogs the drains.

Is that correct?

Absolutely.

Um training for GDOT, we help them with their MS4 permit as well.

Think about every time you're in a car, and I experience plenty of traffic on the way here.

Yep.

Yep, every time you you hit those brakes, your brake rotor and and brake pad engage, and a little bit of that gets worn off, and that's just full of heavy metals.

And while you doing that one time really is minuscule, but think about the number of people that are out on the roads, and so that's another function of that.

Right.

So perfect.

Okay.

Thank you.

Sorry for the interruption, but I think some of those things might um make this a little more plain speak.

All right, so that kind of brings us to today.

The current stormwater utility, it's operated by public works, specifically roads and drainage division.

Um it provides stormwater management, and this is this is key.

Uh it provides stormwater management services within that blue area, which is the unincorporated area of the county, and Stonecrest, which is the light blue area to the south.

The areas that are kind of hatched, those are the other cities in the in the county, and they have their own stormwater utilities, they handle their own stormwater within those areas.

So anything I talk about today is only related to the unincorporated areas of the county and Stonecrest.

So if you hear me talking about rate increases and you live in Tucker, this doesn't apply to you.

So understood.

Um, so that's the service area.

Their primary responsibility is kind of going back to just what you just said was drainage infrastructure on public prior property and and certain easements, flood control, and then uh what I was talking about with the regional, the state, and the federal uh regulatory compliance programs that are put on the county.

So that's the stormwater utility.

So kind of just gives you everybody uh an idea of the numbers we're talking about.

I mean, you can see 500 miles of pipe.

I mean, that gets you to well into Florida if we line them up end to end.

Another 135 miles of roadside ditches, 22,000 catch basins that collect water off the roads, 200 bridges, over 900 detention ponds, um, and in addition to that, dams.

Uh certain certain uh county owned and maintained dams.

Um you can see that you know a lot of corrugated metal that's in poor shape, uh, about 400 miles of that.

That's we think is over 30 years old.

So it's not it's not young infrastructure going back to your comment, Commissioner Patrick.

Um we'd think about 350,000 to 400,000 residents are served by the stormwater utility.

So that kind of gives you an idea of the scale of this program.

It's it's not small.

Now the county operated for a long time uh in and in 2003 as part of the original rate increase.

Um they were also working on a master plan.

And these are just kind of high-level bullets.

You know, develop that a strategic master plan, get help kind of transition um the program from what was a fairly reactive program where it was like, okay, we got to go fix this, fix this, fix that, and they're literally just running from one emergency to another.

How can we get in front of that?

So that we can we can you know hopefully save a little money, and I'll and I'll talk about that here in just a minute.

Um, it was it was a strategic vision.

Um it kind of created that official roadmap um and then just identified areas for more detailed studies uh as part of the strategic plan, and I believe that was adopted, I believe it was last year, if not the year before.

So I'm gonna start talking about critical infrastructure and just to help everyone kind of get their heads wrapped around.

This is just a random subdivision here in the county.

Um it's a millake circle just off of Redown Road.

Um you can see it's subdivision like a lot of us live in.

Um the big thing that I want to focus on is that little insight.

You can see there's there's one road coming into the neighborhood, and there's a creek that goes under that road, and it's a double 48-inch corrugated metal pipe.

If we lose that, if we have a big flood and we lose that culvert and it takes the road with it, every house that you see in red there now is cut off.

They can't get out, we can't get in, they are isolated.

So this is an example, and you'll hear me start using the phrase high-risk infrastructure, um, single ingress culverts, things of that nature.

I use this one just because uh a couple of years ago the the county applied for a grant and actually uh won.

Now they haven't gotten the money up because of changing administration, so the money's been a little slow to come, but they're still working on it.

So the map you're seeing here on the right, every one of those dots represents a culvert or a drainage system, just like what I just showed you.

So that kind of gives you an idea of the scale.

Um you can see, for example, you know, infrastructure would isolate one to ten properties.

We identified 413 locations.

So kind of going again, kind of setting the stage of going, how do we go from react to proactive?

We got to figure out what's the big potatoes, what's the little potatoes.

Um, as part of the strategic plan, we did a desktop evaluation.

At the time, we think that rehabbing those uh those pipes is somewhere north of half a billion dollars.

Um, that's just the incorporated product county.

If we add in Stone Crest, add another hundred million.

So now I'm not suggesting that we go out and spend that in the next two years.

That's just a scale to kind of get an idea.

We'll talk a little more about being focused on how we attack this.

Because not everything is in bad shape.

In addition, as part of that that master planning, we're not just looking at what's going on out there today or what has happened in the in the recent past.

We're starting to think forward.

So we started looking at the land use plan and saying, okay, where we expect growth, where is our infrastructure at risk?

And so what you're seeing here is uh areas of expected development in the next 20 or 30 years, and the dots represent culverts or drainage systems that could be at risk if mitigation efforts are not put in place.

Finally, again, as I mentioned, uh you know, three, four years ago, they were very reactive, and so they were trying to run from one thing to the next, and they were doing they were doing the best they could.

And I and I don't uh and and it's very they were doing a good job given the scale of what we're talking about.

But we tried to help kind of focus in like okay, let's start kind of putting this into buckets so you can see routine maintenance uh was was a challenge for them because they were so busy trying to fix things that broken.

It's like think about it.

If you're constantly fixing things at your house, you're probably not doing the painting and that kind of stuff that helps get on top of that.

We've got corrective maintenance, put that in a bucket and say, okay, where we got to go out and just fix things like broken catch basins and things like that.

The the smaller things that become bigger things later.

Capital, we're gonna talk about that a lot.

Those are the big projects, like we've got a flooding problem, we've got a road collapse, we've got something like that.

That's what we talked about when capital, and then regulatory compliance.

That was the long string of acronyms that we still have to do.

We put all that together into a 20-year vision.

So, you know, the county's 200 plus years old.

You're not gonna fix all this in two years.

So we laid out how can we move again from that reactive stance of where they were into a proactive stance in the future, and we've laid out kind of four phases and things that can be done in those phases one step at a time where someday, you know, it's like okay, we had a big rain event and nothing bad happened.

That's the that's the long-term goal.

So, in addition to that, you know, so let's talk about a little bit what's going on right now.

Um, we as I mentioned, we finished the strategic master plan, so they're operating under that now.

Now they're going in and being more focused.

Remember, I mentioned that you know they're trying to get to more specific areas to do more focused area uh studies and and identify problems and start getting those fixed before they collapse.

That's what we're talking about there.

Um the county also secured a GIFA loan.

They had a pretty good backlog, and you know, one of the challenges was funding.

They got a loan uh for I forget, I think it was like 10 million dollars, and they're using that that funding now to kind of accelerate that backlog uh reduction.

Um and then the other thing they've uh recently done is they've got some dams, some big ones, that have some maintenance needs to the tune of about 30 million dollars.

And so they've gotten preliminary approval for a uh loan through the core of engineers.

If you hear me say the phrase Swift P just here, core loan, loan from the Corps of Engineers.

Okay.

The uh these are just some of the some of the dams that the county has the public dams that they own, uh, anything where you see yes, those are ones they're planning on fixing here and then are doing maintenance on the near term.

These are some of the watersheds that have been broken up.

Um folks on the middle there, the pink area, that's that's Snapfinger Creek.

That's the watershed for Snapfinger Creek, that's where they've been focused their their uh advanced efforts on there, and they're moving into the blue area, which is North Fork and South Fork and Peachtree.

Something else they've been doing a lot of that they've made big strides in is didn't remember.

I mentioned they've got over 900 detention ponds.

I mean, think about if you had to mow your lawn every two hours, it'd be tough for you to stay ahead of that.

And that's kind of the level of what they were looking at.

You know, they had so many ponds that they had to do like a couple a day.

And it just they didn't have the resources.

So they've taken that rate increase and they've really been getting on it.

And I can tell you these two ponds, when the first time I ever saw them, they were they were they were very grown up, and and roads and trainers have done a great job of getting these back into fighting shape.

In addition to that, they're looking at what can they do with some of these ponds.

Some of the ponds will be finding out is they don't really provide a great benefit.

It's one of those like develop the development regulations said you put it in, even if it didn't make sense.

So we're looking at maybe decommissioning some of them, returning the property to the homeowners.

In other cases, maybe they can be done, turned into green infrastructure and provide water quality treatment and improve the water quality of the county.

So these are just uh just another example of where we're looking, and you can see there's a lot going on in this map, and that's the level of detail we're looking at, trying to find areas where we can convert these facilities into benefits.

That was a lot.

And the whole time they still got their date job.

And this is just an example of a of a typical failure.

Uh this one was out on Stone Gate Boulevard where just road collapsed, and they had to jump on it and fix it.

So, you know, they're they're they're doing all the things, and they're still doing this.

Um this is just an example again of the Snapfinger Creek watershed.

Everywhere you see a green dot, that's critical infrastructure.

And this is what we're looking for.

And as we get more focused, we're going down to the asset level, and this is what we're looking for.

So you can see the photo on the left.

The the pipe shouldn't have a big hole in the bottom of it.

That's that's a pipe that's getting ready to fail.

So we're finding those and saying, okay, there's the priority.

And you can see here, just there's a lot of numbers here.

What I want to show you is in the top top line there, that's that's Snapfinger Creek.

There's almost 1,100 assets that are considered critical in that watershed.

And you can see we went out and looked at them, and almost half of them are in good shape.

Uh a bunch more are in fair shape, about 161 are in poor shape.

So we'll take all that, we're kind of trying to again distill this down.

What can we do?

Take what are the big potatoes.

So there we took them, we started doing of all those are in poor shape.

Do they need to be made bigger?

What we found is about third of them, maybe a little less than a third, a little more than a third of them are undersized.

The rest of them are adequate.

So we can go in there and we can just align those pipes, which saves the county a tremendous amount of money if we can get that done before the road collapses.

All right, so let's talk about the so that's a lot.

I realize I just threw a lot of stuff at you guys.

All that requires funding, and that that brings us to the to the stormwater utility funding.

Um, primary funding source is the stormwater utility fees.

That being said, it's not the only place they're looking.

So I mentioned the GIFA loan, that's 10 million dollars of work they're getting done.

Uh ARPA, you know, the American Rescue Plan, they use 10 million dollars of that to help offset the cost to the to the ratepayers.

Uh again, I mentioned that brick grant, that's another 2.4 million dollars.

30 million dollars to amateurize the repairs to the dam so they don't the repair doesn't take it all hit all in one time, and then they're using uh splash fund as well.

All right, so this was from the uh master plan.

What you're seeing here is the blue line represents funding.

2023, we did the rate increase, that was a phased rate increase.

We brought that up.

That allowed us to handle the base program funding so all the employees, you know, they can't they can get their paychecks, go out there and do good work, you know, materials, all the all the stuff that takes to run this program, and that yellow band represents emergency CIP firms.

So remember, I showed you that picture of the the road collapsing.

There's money for that.

So that wasn't a like, oh my gosh, we got to come to you guys, we gotta find money somewhere.

It was there with that rate increase.

The red and the blue, that represents the future.

That's those are capital needs that are gonna need to be funded at some point.

So you can see there's still a funding gap, but we've got the program under control now.

Now it's just a matter of what do we really need to do in the in the near term, and let's let's start fixing things and kind of get that line where we're getting into the fixing the high-risk capital renewal, the moderate risk capital renewal, and still handling the day the day job.

So, what do we need short term, near term?

We need debt service for that swift peed loan.

That's that's what's kind of driving the immediate need.

That 30 million dollar loan, we need the coverage.

We need to raise the rates just a little bit to handle the coverage so that you know, because anytime you get a loan, they want to see can you pay us back?

Right.

And then the other thing, you know, as we get into those pictures, I showed you where the pipe bottom was gone.

We're gonna need money for the when we identify those to go out there and fix that.

So those are the kind of the near-term needs.

So we went ahead and took the the the rate model and we updated it.

So we're looking at a five to ten year program.

We modeled 10 years, so kind of a you know, 2026 to uh 2036 basically.

We're looking at we modeled a what I think you guys sometimes refer to as a 10 by 10, so it's a 10% rate increase per year for 10 years.

Um and I'll show you the numbers of what that really looks like.

Um again, just assume that the the program's gonna continue to handle the unincorporated county as well as Stonecrest, what what you're doing now, um, and it'll be built on the on the tax commissioner's bill or in the tax bill, just like it is currently, along with sanitation, street lights, and such.

Um, and then the other thing we did was uh maintain a six-month operating reserve, um, and then any excess funding we've got, we said put that to capital.

And so here's what the it kind of looks like.

And I'm just showing you five years, but just so you can actually see the numbers.

So right now, the rate for the storm routility is basically ten dollars per month uh per residential home.

So 120 dollars.

That's if you go pull your tax bill and you look down at the very bottom, you'll see stormwater 120.

That's what it is currently.

10% increase, that's that's one dollar a month.

We want to raise that up, and then uh $1.10 the next year, so it's just 10%.

Um and down at the bottom you can see that's what it's gonna do to the bottom line revenue, you know, what it's gonna provide money for the uh the stormwater program.

So what are they gonna do with it?

So this is the expense side of the ledger.

Um I just want to kind of talking about what we just mentioned, the top red box, that represents the anticipated debt service for that 30 million dollar loan over the next five years.

Um down at the very bottom, you can see the the bottom red box, that's the number of months that if no revenue come in, they could operate again for basically six months, depending it each year it's a little different.

But and then the middle red box, that's money that goes to capital renewal, fixing pipes, fixing detention ponds, water quality BMPs, things like that capital.

Again, I mentioned that we modeled it for 10 years.

That's I didn't want to show that because you know you really can't see those numbers at this scale, but we did model it for 10 years.

So what does that mean functionally?

Down the left-hand side of this slide, that's the amount of funding that would go to capital renewal, CIP projects again.

Um you can see it ramps up from basically called five million dollars this year, going up to 42 million dollars in 10 years.

Um hundred and twelve million dollars over the next 10 years could go to capital.

Now, one of the things that we did, we wanted to stress test this.

What if we had a hurricane and we had a lot of failures all at once?

Could that revenue source handle a significant debt service?

Like if we had to go out to the bond market and get money, it's like we can't wait for the revenue to catch up, you know, tell the poor people in that one subdivision, like, hey, next year we swear we'll have the money.

That that doesn't work.

We need to go fix that now.

So we stress tested it by by we just threw a number at it, $50 million.

It wasn't based on any projection, it was just let's go with $50 million because that's a lot.

If if we did a 10-year to 25-year payback, you can see what the debt service would be.

So let's just say $50 million at a 15-year payback, that's five million dollars of debt service per year.

You can see uh, with the exception of this year, we've got five million dollars in capital that could be thrown at that and get those projects fast tracked.

The priorities for this renewal are the are the are those bottom bullets.

I mean, the first is safety.

You know, we we don't want our major roads collapsing, we don't want the bridges failing, things of that nature.

Second one is we want to avoid isolated and trapped communities, like we don't want that that scenario where we lose that neighborhood because of bridge washed out.

That's that's a that's a big priority.

Displacement of residents, we don't, you know, we want to try to manage the floods as best we can so that people don't get displaced by floods, and then finally traffic disruptions again, going back to that.

Um, we could close that road, like Stone Gate, Stone Crest Boulevard.

Thank you.

Um, they could close that road.

Like they didn't, like they could temporarily close that road, but it's an inconvenience.

I mean, think about if we had to we could close Redan Road.

If like a pipe collapse, we could close it.

Y'all would get some phone calls.

I mean, that would be a major disruption to the public, and that's one thing we want to avoid.

So anyway, that's that's the proposed use of the funds.

Um, and then I always get this question, so we went ahead through a table together.

Uh, what are other folks paying?

And you can see here, current rate kind of puts you guys in the middle against the other cities here in the county.

Um to you know, 2026, it bumps you up above Chambly.

Um, and you can see, you know, Brookhaven has a fairly stout rate uh as well as Avondale Estates and Decatur's got a pretty high rate, but they've also got a tiered rate, so I I threw in if 3,000 square foot home, which is about uh impervious area for a typical home in DeCab County, you know, it's about $150 a year.

That's that's inside the county, and then I just threw a few others up there just to kind of give you an idea like Rockdale County, Gwinnett County, Clayton County Water Authority.

Cobb County just implemented theirs like uh their bills should be coming out any day, like they're supposed to first bills are supposed to go out in June.

So if they haven't hit the mailbox, they're about to.

I mean, then just a few just outside.

Um Georgia here, like Chattanooga to the north, Charlotte to the to the east, Philly is uh known for having a really robust stormwater program as well.

So with that.

Uh Rich, just to call attention.

I noticed that uh Fulton County and City of Atlanta have no stormwater utility.

Correct.

But I thought you had said previously their combined um water and sewer system, is that is that correct?

Well, in the case of um City of Atlanta, they fund their stormwater needs through their water and sewer bills.

Okay.

Um so I can give you another example of New York City does the same thing.

Um I'm working with them right now, and they're they're grappling with the same thought of like how do we get funding for the stormwater components?

Yep.

And then Fulton County is there's there's just not a lot left of unincorporated Fulton County because of all the incorporations.

Understood.

Okay.

Um I want to say thank you for the presentation.

I see uh Director Allen coming up.

Yep is anything else you'd like to add, Director?

Yes, Commissioner.

I just wanted to kind of bring it all home uh and to reiterate to the board and to the residents the magnitude of our inventory, which is what we're struggling with.

I mean, the 500 miles of pipe, and we actually have over 25,000 corrugated metal pipe, and those are the ones that have been in the ground for 30 to 40 years and are rusting out that were shown in the photograph.

The dams, you know, a number of my dams are category one, which means if they fail, there's a potential for loss of life and property.

And as Rich mentioned, the roads and communities that could be blocked off that would not have access if these pipes collapse.

It's not um a question of if that will happen.

It is it's a question of when because that is happening now.

Uh during Hurricane Helene, we lost three large covers.

And um, prior to that, uh we've had three roads that were totally blocked off where we had to go in, you know, work around the clock 24 hours to give access, rebuilding roads, trails just to get um people access to their home.

So it's it's a it's a big issue.

Our uh MS4 permitting requires us to do tens of thousands of inspections annually, all that cost money, and the 900 plus detention ponds is something we're really really struggling with, and that's something that that you hear about all the day.

So, I mean, all the time.

So I just wanted to bring that home, the magnitude of what we're dealing with.

And that was all I had to add.

All right, thank you, Director Allen.

Uh DeCav, I think is the one of the top, well say the top five counties in Georgia.

And so we have a lot of uh geography to cover and a lot of varieties of territory uh to go with that streams as well as as uh valleys.

Um commissioners, I'm assuming no no questions for you guys, and if there's none, I'd like to open up the floor to our residents and have them uh be able to ask questions uh or give comments.

So um with that said Miss Barbara?

Yes.

Comments from the public.

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All right, thank you very much, Miss Barbara.

Rich, I was wondering if you could pull up on the screen uh page four, and then that way residents uh sort of have an idea of the scope of of uh what we're what we're talking about.

Um and do we have uh any speakers uh we have one card for stormwater?

All right.

Uh let's go ahead and have that person come on up.

Adriana Long.

Adriana Long.

Adriana, uh, thank you for being here this evening.

We appreciate your time.

And uh please go ahead.

Um I just needed a little clarity as far as it was just one question, but it said three minutes, so it was kind of confusing.

You got three minutes and whatever you whatever you want.

This is the time to say it.

Okay.

Um, so I'll just I guess give a couple questions that I had within that time.

Um, I know we were looking at the um the slides for S in 10 years.

Um, so I was just kind of curious like does a rate ever revert um back after that 10 years for say, for example, we've seen things like tolls, where after that toll time has happened, we've seen incidences where they just continue to collecting tolls.

So that was uh one of the things that um I was concerned about.

Um there was a comment that was made also that um that people are doing this and as well doing their day job.

Um so I was wondering where we understaffed um to say they were doing this and their day jobs.

I wasn't a hundred percent clear as to um what that meant per se.

Um I was also curious as to um there was a a comment as to like I guess the overage that may be collected, I heard capital, um, but I was just wondering that we if we could guarantee that anything that was left over would not be diverted to other programs that wasn't outlined in in um the presentation.

Um I was wondering also for those people who are um have renters, um, how would that be um I guess shared between homeowners um and renters?

Um and I had one more question.

I did get the cumulative.

Um yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

I'm sorry I didn't give my um, I think it said name and full address.

So it's Adrena Long and it's 4684 Mayor, spell M-A-Y-E-R, Trace Ellenwood, Georgia, 30294.

Thank you.

Okay, appreciate your time and your questions.

I can if you don't mind giving a if it's possible to give some answers right now, and then let's also be able to have those as uh some answers or some FAQs uh for residents afterwards.

Thank you, uh Commissioner.

And what we'll do is uh um while while there's time, we will certainly respond.

Each the first uh question was related to will there be a reverting of the fee after 10 years.

What we would uh propose is that we were which we do, we revisit on really an annual basis what our uh capital and spending needs are as compared to the revenues.

So we would certainly uh propose that in those out years we take a look at um the overall need and and make that determination that if after 10 years uh we didn't uh you know we needed to reduce the rate, then that's something that we would consider at that time.

The comment that uh Mr.

Gruell made relative to day job.

I think what the intent of that statement was was simply to identify that on a daily basis the roads and drainage staff are working to address a variety of uh more routine operational needs, but uh there are also emergency situations that arise that require them to go above and beyond, uh which you know may necessitate calling in contractors and or using overtime, but that is still part of their overall job.

I think the statement was really to identify and emphasize that there's a lot to be done and there's extensive capital needs that need to be addressed.

Um the next question was related to I think assuring that these funds would be spent on capital or um how the funds would be uh spent.

The the uh stormwater fee and the stormwater uh fund, quite frankly, uh operates as what we call an enterprise fund.

So all revenues generated in the uh stormwater fee would stay within stormwater to be used to support either the capital program or the staff who implement the capital program.

Uh the final question was related to rental property uh versus property owner.

Um the fees uh stormwater fees are on the placed on the tax bill.

So the owners of individual properties are the ones who are responsible for um paying the fee, whether they would choose to, you know, proportionately allocate that to uh to rent.

Um that would be a determination made by each property owner, but these the fees are paid on the tax bills.

Uh it's separate from the tax, but it's featured on the tax bill by uh property owners.

Understood.

All right, thank you, Zach.

Uh do we have any other speakers, Ms.

Barbara?

Any other cards that have been turned in?

Not for stormwater.

We'll be getting to sanitation shortly.

All right.

Uh yes, sir.

If you would give your name and uh also fill out a card, okay?

I certainly will, and I appreciate your recognizing me, Commissioner Patrick.

I just had a question.

This is Mike Cooper, president of the Greater Ridge Avenue Neighborhood Association in Stone Mountain.

Since we're discussing questions, there's a wide variation in the rates that is that are paid by municipalities.

And I'm wondering how that comes about, how some county residents who are in cities are paying much more or much less than the DeCamp rate.

And I wonder what governs that is that the individual intergovernmental agreements that you've made with the cities, and can those be changed so that those who are paying the small amounts uh are paying what others in unincorporated DeCab are paying.

Uh I don't know.

I noticed that Stone Mountain was London one of the lowest rates, but I and as much as our district four commissioner is magical, I'm sure she can't claim credit for that.

Uh but I did wonder how those rates are determined and how they can be readjusted.

And I'll go fill out a card for uh the clerk.

Thank you, Matt.

Uh Zach, if you don't mind uh addressing that one.

So each each government, the county and each municipal government takes a look at their um their needs, their capital needs, their operational needs as it relates to stormwater or any other activity that that the county and city provides.

So you're going to see in some instances um you it may be a level of service, but it also is going to speak directly to the overall anticipated need.

Um so in some jurisdictions uh they may have less need, less of a uh um infrastructure, uh maybe a newer infrastructure, or it may just not be as extensive.

Whereas in DeCab County um understand that uh it's very significant large uh area and it's just the operational and capital costs associated with what it will require to maintain our system.

I think also uh thank you for that answer.

I'd also add, you know, um some jurisdictions, and I'm speaking from my uh my municipal experience, um, may not have a stormwater master plan in place which goes out and proactively identifies what the concerns are.

Uh they may not have as many dams or the size of dams that the county has or a county has, which tends to be geographically better, uh bigger than a uh than a municipality, so that would account for the variation.

Um and then uh and then I'll say not every jurisdiction wants to prioritize that.

It's only a problem when it's raining, and if the news doesn't cover it, then people don't necessarily pay attention to it, which is also uh um it is a concern that ends up uh affecting everybody in the long run.

Can I add to that as well?

Please do.

So to add context to that too, is just to make it clear that this proposed rate increase will only pay for stormwater infrastructure in the unincorporated areas.

It wouldn't cover anything in the cities.

Their rates covered their city.

So you it's not like you would have to, you're not subsidizing a city that has a lower rate because they're taking responsibility for what is in their jurisdiction.

And this rate does not cover that.

So I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

Commissioner Terry.

Yes, thank you, uh Mr.

Chair.

And I think uh just to add on to that point uh for my colleague is that um I think the kind of the ultimate goal is that we're aligning stormwater master plans from the county and the cities because you know certainly the word the water drains doesn't necessarily follow city or county lines, and like you know, Pine Lake's a good example.

Pine Lake has their own stormwater, but they're surrounded by the county, so certainly what we decide to do will impact them a lot.

And um, you know, to the extent that the different basins have different flow rates, there might be kind of a county city or a city-county, you know, sort of up upstream, downstream.

Is that fair to say, Rich, that you know the goal is to um make sure that we're in alignment with a countywide approach.

The cities will pay for their set side, but I assume there's like are there opportunities for us to um I guess compare master plans or to um understand their priorities and how their priorities might address our priorities, particularly downstream.

Absolutely.

Um I mentioned you know, we were finishing up Snapfinger, there's not a lot of interjurisdictional there, but where we're currently looking, North Fork, South Fork, yeah, Peachtree Creek.

Uh that's that's a lot of there's a lot of governments there, and and that's part of our our task, our orders is to kind of go look at what's going on there that could affect county infrastructure and vice versa.

So thank you.

Uh Rich, following up with what uh Commissioner Terry had talked about.

Could you advance the screen to page uh 15, I believe?

That's the one that shows unincorporated uh DeCab County by basin.

And uh basins, as uh Commissioner Terry mentioned, do not follow political boundaries.

Uh it is geographically how the land falls or how the land lays, and that determines where the water goes.

Um and if we happen to have put a house or a bridge, uh neighborhood or a business in the in the flow of the water, then that ends up being part of the concerns with the need for a stormwater uh fees to go with that.

Exactly.

Uh the the example I would give would be like a detention pond.

I said we were looking at those detention ponds.

We're not gonna just go out there and decommission one if it's gonna go out and fill a bunch of homes in one of the cities.

Like it's just that's a health and safety issue.

We would never do that.

Right.

So that's an example, very microcosm scale version of what we're talking about.

Yep, perfect.

Um Commissioner Terry.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just a quick follow-up on that thought of how we you know see how our different plans impact each other.

So and this might also be kind of a legal question as well, uh, attorney Phillips, but when we talk about a county portion of this map that has certain ponds or pipes, but ultimately flow down to a municipality, and maybe there's a another network.

And there's a determination that you know improvements upstream actually will improve issues downstream, and so therefore it makes sense to partner with the municipality to address the basin issue.

So you might have uh uh even a small creek shed within these watersheds where 30 percent is the county, 70 percent is the city, and it makes sense for those things to really to function in that shed.

And so I'm just curious about how we treat the funds that are accrued, you know, in unincorporated to Cab County and how they can be deployed to address those sort of inter-jurisdictional creeksheds.

No, that's a fair, you know.

When we get into again, just using the detention because it's easy to wrap your head around.

Um can they be turned into regional?

And so, you know, if there's an opportunity, let's just say we had a detention mind.

We're like, we could do some more with this and make it more of a regional asset.

And it's going into immediately was just I'm just gonna pick on Decatur since I'm in Decatur.

Let's say going into Decatur.

Yeah, Willow Willow Lane.

Yes.

Uh Willow Lane from North Decatur downhill hits the city of Decatur.

Okay.

Yep.

Yep.

Thank you.

May I?

Please.

Commissioner, you're you're absolutely right.

It's an overall system.

And we have to keep in mind that it is an overall system in the folks in the field work with our neighbors, and we try to coordinate efforts where it's appropriate and reasonable.

All right, thank you.

Uh Mr.

Allen, how are we on time?

At this time, uh, we may want to ask the clerk if there are any other uh public comments for this uh section.

If not, feel free to move on to the session.

Madam Clerk, any other any cards?

Not yet.

Okay.

And uh for stormwater, uh last opportunity for anyone that has one coming for stormwater.

Maybe two.

Maybe two.

Good evening.

Okay.

Excuse me.

Hey, come on up.

Good night, everyone.

Good evening.

If you wouldn't mind, give us your name and address.

This is Barbara Francis from 1905 Whitehall Forest Drive, the forgotten community.

Um I am here with Tatiana, my neighbor.

Uh, the last time, you know, we told you that our community was in the landfill.

Well, tonight I'm here to tell you that because you're talking about the sewer and water drainage and all that.

We're in the floodplains or in the swamp due to busted pipes.

Um sewer, you know.

Um we've send you know multiple letters asking for help.

And since water and sewer is on my tax bill and I pay for those services as well as the other people that are in the community that are paying um their taxes and paying for these services, and I know it's gonna be said that you know this is a private community.

Yes, it's a private community.

But when you talk about water and sewage, you know, draining, clogging, you know, um pipes and and and and causing road to deteriorate.

You know, this is a major issue in my little community, and it seems like it has been forgotten.

Okay.

So I'm here to tell you tonight that we are asking for some help in that community.

We pay water and sewer, and our bill is gonna raise up just like any other bill.

You know, um, if you so decided that this is what's gonna um go in effect, we're gonna have to pay the higher rate as well.

So I want you all to please consider us.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

If you would please fill out a card as well.

You already got the card.

Okay.

Yes, we have two others.

Okay.

No, no, no.

Those are the ones that just have one more question.

Okay.

Um, it seemed like we had a little bit more time.

Um, I just wanted was curious like what were things that were in place for senior citizens or low income as it relates to the increase.

Okay.

I think as of right now, that's something that uh Zach our chief operating officer is going to come back to us with with some written answers uh for that.

So thank you very much for asking the question.

Um again, seeing no other questions for uh stormwater.

Um I would ask that uh Barbara if you could remind us of the rules for public uh hearing or public discussion.

Oh Marcus.

Yep.

Okay.

We'll do the sanitation presentation first.

Okay.

It is just want to thank you again for giving us the opportunity to uh do a presentation for our sanitation rate increase.

Um Robert from Marceta will come up and uh do the presentation for us and uh thank you again for taking consideration.

All right, thank you, Director.

Robert, welcome.

Thank you.

Good to see all of you again.

Uh again, I guess for the record.

Uh my name is Robert Ryle.

I am also with Arcadis.

Uh, and I have had the opportunity to work with your solid waste division.

I understand it's recently been rebranded.

Um, in undertaking a revenue sufficiency analysis.

Um essentially what we did is we looked at all of the needs, all of the cost uh associated with solid waste.

We look at what the revenue stream is, we calculate the difference, and we determine is there a need for additional revenue, i.e., is there a need for fee increases?

And there in fact is.

Uh as I'm going to share with you, the solid waste division has been running a deficit for the past five years and has had to rely on the general fund in order to uh financially support its operations.

Uh so my agenda um before I get into the proposed fee increases and the comparables that we have.

I want to just provide some background.

Um first is uh I want to talk about an enterprise fund.

Um solid waste is an enterprise fund, as is stormwater and enterprise fund.

And the purpose of an enterprise fund is a self-supporting governmental fund.

It operates as a business.

It provides a good or service to the public for a fee.

Currently, solid waste fees do not generate sufficient revenue to support that department's operating and capital needs.

And solid waste is having to rely on the county's general fund in order to be able to pay for the current capital and operations of the department.

Over the long term, this is just not sustainable, as I'm going to show you on the following slide.

This shows the solid waste fund balance, both historically, starting on the left hand side.

The historic fund balances, we have we have called this out in the lower left quartile of this slide.

And as you can see, the past five years, solid waste, as I've mentioned, has run a deficit.

And that shortfall, that deficit has been covered essentially by the county's general fund.

In our forecast, we forecasted over the next 10 years.

If there were no additional revenues, there were no fee increases, what would deficits look like for solid waste?

At the end of this 10 years, that deficit would be over 500 million dollars, which I believe to be unsustainable, both for solid waste and for the general fund.

I think that that one of the things that that may have uh influence getting to this position.

This is a comparison of City of Atlanta's residential solid waste fees compared to DeCab County's residential solid waste fees.

And you can see that the City of Atlanta has outpaced a CAB County by 250 to 281 dollars per year.

In some years, they've actually charged more than double than what DeCab County has charged.

And I think this is one of the items that that has led to the deficits, if you will, that uh are being experienced in solid waste.

I also want to speak to the capital investment needs.

This is this is really reason number two that there is a need for a fee increase.

Reason number one being we have to fix the deficit.

Um sanitation solid waste, um, they need to be independent.

They need to fund themselves.

Um I'm a financial expert.

I'm not an expert in landfills, but I've spent a lot of time with the Solid Waste Department.

And from a layman's perspective, what I understand is that while there's a lot of landfill capacity left, this landfill is expanded incrementally in cells.

The current cell has about four years of capacity left.

And then there's nowhere for the waste to go.

To build a new cell takes about four years to complete.

So we're really at a convergent point where something has to be done to be able to prepare for the future and have somewhere for the waste to go.

Um the top of this figure shows that landfill expansion.

Uh I can give you some numbers here.

Landfill expansion over the next 10 years.

There's multiple cells built into that next 10 years.

About 126 million dollars.

There's about 84 million dollars in need that's non-landfill uh related transfer stations and such, and about 120 million that's associated with with the vehicle renewal replacement repair.

So about 330 million dollars total over the next 10 years.

But in my perspective, the landfill expansion element really is the most critical.

And you can see that that's new.

In 2026, we didn't have landfill expansion.

It's not something that's been under undergone, it's not been occurring, but but it is critical and it and it needs to start now.

So getting into the the fees that we are proposing over the next 10 years.

I'll start by saying we tried to fit a 10 by 10 plan for solid waste.

Um that's what water and sewer adopted, that is what Stormwater has adopted, and we tried and it didn't work.

It just did not produce enough funding over the near term to cover the deficits, recover from the deficits, as well as to fund this landfill expansion.

So what we're proposing are two 15 percent increases.

One would be this year, 2026 would be on this year's tax roll, followed by another 15 percent increase in 2027, then getting more in line with the 10 by 10 plan with 10 percent annual increases uh there for the next 10 years.

Uh I will mention that for 2026, the 15 percent increase would be a 47 dollar uh per year increase for typical residential customer, that's a little less than $4 per month.

This plan also does call for a general fund loan.

This plan does work its way out of needing to rely on the general fund, but there would need to be a loan of 21 million dollars in order to help cover operating and capital costs over the next three years.

And then Solid Waste would be in a position to start repaying that loan.

I also have proposed uh commercial fee increases, they're the same.

It's the same 15 percent followed by 10 percent a year thereafter.

So we're proposing the same proportional fee increases for commercial customers.

And I also would like to show some comparisons similar to to what Rich provided.

So this is a residential fee comparison on the left-hand side, current the Cab County residential customers uh are paying $315 per year.

Um compared to an average of the other municipalities in this comparison are paying $417.

DeCab County is on the low end of this.

You can see uh the range of where this fee would go over the next uh five years with our proposed increases.

And I'll also mention that if we were to apply the first two years, the first two 15% increases that would take the residential three fee from 315, it actually takes it to 417, right?

Which is the average of what other communities and these are currently paying today.

I have some other comparables.

Um the first is a landfill transfer station fees.

You can see again the range over the next five years of of where these fees um where they would go under this proposal.

I'll also mention that DeCab County, your landfill is unique and that it's the only landfill in the Atlanta metro area.

So any other option is going to require hauling cost.

And in order to show this, if if you uh uh if you look at the bottom of our chart here, you'll see miles.

And this is essentially miles from Decatur to each of the alternative uh facilities.

So it gives us an indication of what that what that hauling may look like.

A comparison of a commercial front loader dumpster fee.

This is a very common commercial um uh container.

You can see that that comparison as well as a commercial recycling fee.

And I want to conclude my presentation.

Um just again, you know, our major findings, uh again, the solid waste fund has incurred a deficit uh each year of the past five years, and without some change in revenue, right?

Those deficits are expected to increase in the future.

Landfill cell expansion and closure activities are are critical.

Those need to be initiated next year and 2027 in order to ensure landfill capacity in the future.

Uh the residential fee uh adoption that we're asking for uh would be on on this year's uh tax bill.

So that would that increase would be needed in it in advance of July 1st.

The commercial and landfill increases would be effective in the same time frame be effected effective um the uh the first of July.

With that, um I don't know, Director McKinney, if you have any anything that you'd like to add.

Thank you, Robert.

Sure.

Welcome.

Good evening, commissioners.

I just open up and say that um everyone's looking well this evening.

Thank you.

Pitch that, right?

But no, on the serious side, you know, this is um we in great need of this rate increase.

We want to create a sustainable environment as relates to our operating and our landfill.

So just give you a little bit deeper dive on landfills and a municipally owned one, it's a gold mine.

The prices go up exorbitantly when we start when we have to share these things out to private companies.

You're talking about the minimal rate increases here.

If this was going in a different direction, as Robert indicated on some of the slides, prices or rates would be a whole lot higher than what's being proposed here this evening.

Um that being said, working in general fund as well as more enterprise our funds, enterprise.

This is the opposite of what the independent it is should look like, right?

So we're trying to cost recover, just the cost of doing business.

There's no pot of gold risk ashing for, we're just trying to you know recover that cost, right?

As inflation and everything rises.

If you're operating off of you know past rates, you're always going to be at a deficit in the operating structure.

So I will say uh from residents from Dunwoody to Tucker as well as the unincorporated areas of sanitation is viewed as a champ.

Um it it is there when things don't go right, we hear very quickly, but I think that's also because the bar is so high, the standard of uh of performance has been so high over the years consistently from sanitation that I think at least the residents of district one unincorporated and and done what he uh do appreciate the level of service that uh that we get.

So and I should also add Tucker as well to that.

Um so director, I want to say thank you very much, appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Commissioner Terry, I know you have uh an idea that you'd like to present.

Is that ready to roll right now?

Ask one question before we go to that.

And I you probably said this in the presentation, I'm not remembering it.

When was the last rate increase for sanitation?

So there was a commercial increase in 2023.

For commercial only.

Commercial only.

There was a residential increase, I believe it was $50, and that was in 2024.

We had planned to come back in 2025, but that didn't materialize.

Prior to that, when we implemented the residential, when the county implemented the residential increase in 2024, we did look back.

We we we went back working with sanitation, went back 20 years, and we could not find any increase for that fee in the the 20 years prior to uh to the increase that happened in in 2024.

In 2020.

As I uh to your question or to your point, as I recall, um the county at one point provided twice a week service.

Four times.

Four pardon me, four times a week service.

And uh it was uh Zach, if you wouldn't mind uh share, share some of the history of the level of service.

A little history, and this is uh literally 13 and a half years ago because it's one of the first assignments when I started.

Um and at that time sanitation was trying to fill about a four million dollar deficit, if my memory serves correctly.

And we were uh providing uh four time a week uh pickup twice on recycling and twice recycling and yard pickup and twice on um residential garbage.

And in order to avoid a rate increase at that time, uh we were just coming out of the Great Recession.

Um what we determined was we had to we would cut back on service.

So we cut back service to the once a week uh in an order to stave off the um rate increase.

But that what that goes to show is that we have known for quite some time um that there would be and there does need to be um not only a rate increase but consistent rate increases to keep up with if you look at what um uh solid waste staff made um back in 2013.

If you look at the price of vehicles, the price of fuel, all of those things have gone up, and we have not kept pace.

What's the current minimum wage now we have for the current minimum wage is $19 an hour thanks to the Board of Commissioners who just recently uh the CEO recommended the board just passed that.

I'm going to guess back, you know, in 2013 it was probably around $13 an hour, uh if my memory serves correctly.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Um thank you very much, uh uh COO Williams.

Uh Commissioner Terry, if you're ready.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

This um I'll be brief because I want to hear from the public.

Um and Zach, would you give me the uh clicker, please?

If you don't mind.

Okay, very good.

So um that's not working.

Next slide, please.

Do you need to go to the podium?

Podium.

I'll see why not.

Look at this thing.

Next slide.

Maybe it maybe it's locked in now.

Oh, try it one more time.

Okay, there you go.

Okay, so I do want to cover a couple things that we have talked about in the committee that I think hopefully informed this debate.

Um so um I'll go over the policies in at a high level.

Um we would like to um uh fulfill the the commitment we made about expanding a compost facility um in the last um sanitation rate increase.

And so we did do a couple uh analyses on um the uh incentivizing municipalities to to do a compost program.

We are looking at adjusting the minimum scale fee, and so that's something that happened with the commercial uh tip fee.

So if anyone wants to take something directly to the landfill, uh looking at adjusting that fee, adjusting the tire tip fee, and I'll go into that as well.

And then you've heard these before, but the uh air filtering, air monitoring programs, the distance um uh rebate that uh uh would be applied to the folks who live directly around the landfill.

Uh continue working on the Pulp Bridge Master Plan, and or uh complete a compost feasibility study so that we can fulfill that that goal, and then working with our cities uh that have their own trash service.

So Decatur, Avindale Estates, and Shambley have their own municipal trash pickup, but they do take it to Seminole Road Landfill.

Um so we're basically a partner there.

Oh, that was all that I thought I had more.

Okay, I'm missing a bunch of slides.

Um but uh let me back up here.

Oh, actually, it's like in reverse.

Oh, that's weird.

It's like backwards.

Okay, sorry, they started it like way.

No worries.

Okay, here we go.

All right.

Um as a reminder, we did raise the tip fee for um up to 99 pounds, and so the history there went from $16 in 2022, 48, and then I think now we're proposing $59, or is that this year, or $74.

So basically there's an increase being proposed for the uh commercial tip fees.

We have looked at other jurisdictions that have like a more staggered approach, so under like 200 pounds.

So this could be literally a resident just wanting to drop off a bag of garbage.

They wouldn't have to pay that high minimum, they would pay a staggered rate.

So a little bit of a step up for just the smaller loads.

Just for clarity, you're saying someone takes their home refuse to the dump.

And then this would be I guess some reason here is a dollar amount that you said that they would end up paying for that.

So um that's actually something that we need the administration to run the numbers on.

We have a couple proposals from other jurisdictions, but the idea basically is the minimum is minimum up to 99 pounds.

So if you just had a bag of garbage, it might just be like five pounds.

You're still paying the minimum fee for that.

Uh places like Cobb County scale it up, so a bag of garbage that might be 20 pounds would be 10 bucks, right?

So there's just a it's it's uh recognizing that there are some users who aren't delivering large loads, and um this would just give sort of a a um a new minimum minimum.

Okay.

Please continue.

Okay.

Uh I will point out the tire fee.

So it was a dollar in 2022 and the previous, I think 20 years.

We raised it to $10.

And so um, I do have a little bit of data on why we might want to backtrack on that as well.

All right, okay, here it is.

So this is the um example that Rome we actually like Rome, Georgia the best because it kind of had that very deliberate step up, and so basically $10 from zero to $250, $15 up to $250 to $500, $20 from $5 to $750, $30 to $1,000, and then so on and so forth.

And so this is just basically a way for there'd be a little bit more equitable fee if there's just some small loads going to the the seminal road landfill.

And um, and then this is sort of the the proposed tier rate basically on um, so that's Rome's example, and this is basically this a similar type example where it would be a 50% um uh increase until that tonnage read up rate of 2,000 pounds is reached.

Okay.

All right, so the tire tip fee.

Um, so we did increase it, I guess by 900%.

So it went from a dollar to 12 dollars.

And what we did find, thanks to the uh data from the sanitation department is we did see a decrease in what was the residential tire drop-off uh account uh by 56%, and then the keep decab beautiful account, which is where they go pick up the tires, um, we track that.

Uh we saw a huge spike in um that account.

So basically what we believe is happening is when we increased the fee from a dollar to twelve dollars.

Some set of people said it ain't worth it, it's a lot of money, and then it may have ended up in you know a some of the backyard or creek or abandoned property, and then there was more and more, and then you know, once you have one tire, then you get 20 more.

Um we don't think the revenue impact is as great.

Uh, in 2025, we only received 708 7800 more in revenue from the 2022 tire tip fee.

So uh this doesn't seem to be a big revenue driver, but it could hopefully incentivize folks to actually bring the tires to the landfill because they'd be at a a more reasonable rate.

Uh this is the keep the cap beetle flow account that I referenced.

You can see it just basically went up uh 2023, and then 2024-2025 went up a lot, probably because we were asking for more dump sites to be cleared up.

So it's possible 2023 had a lot of dump sites, and we just basically began to get to them 2024 and 2025.

One uh recommendation that actually came from um central staff in constant consultation with other metro um counties is that we do we lower the tire fee to three dollars and fifty cents from $12.

That would be the under 18 inch tire.

So these are just the standard car tires.

And then if you have a large uh tire, it would be like the big trucks, um construction vehicles, it would be $16, and then if it has a rim, it'd be $30, and that's just because you're introducing a big old piece of metal, and you gotta deal with that.

Um we've gone over this in the committee, so I won't spend too much time on it, but um you know, we would like to see the composting program, um, you know, more odor enhanced uh monitoring, as well as the um equitable equitable sanitation rates uh for individuals that live within that two miles uh that could apply for um a reduction on their bills.

And this is just the uh the fiscal sort of estimates we made um for the county based on what Mr.

Rouse has put forward.

I think he has this, but if he doesn't, I'll make sure you get it because you can do the the actual math.

Um but we just based it on what was presented to us, and so if everyone took advantage of the rebate, and it's about you know between three and four thousand households, it would be a 1.9 million less in 2028.

And if you see here in 2025, based on where it's at now, um it would be um or I'm sorry, 2026 would be 1.5 million.

So that's the fiscal impact.

And then so forth on into 2030.

So 2.1 million reduction in the revenue projections.

All right, so I did want to uh point out that we did um uh well we have asked for the administration to put out a request proposal for a composting facility, and that's something that I think just again really depends on where you would place a compost facility.

Is it at Pole Bridge, which we presented on that about we have to work with City of Stonecrest for the potential next steps, or I think as um our landfill manager had mentioned at a previous committee, um Director McKinney, that when the state EPD is renewing our license for the air quality permit, then that would be sort of the moment to introduce the idea of a compost facility at Seminole Road Landfill, uh hopefully with the purpose of reducing the emissions.

And so I think that's that's been the biggest issue right now is that the there is a air permit at Seminole Road Landfill, and so adding additional emissions without a reduction it would violate the permit.

And so I think that's kind of where we've gotten stuck in the past, Zach, if I if I'm getting that right.

All right, so I do want to just point out that we did um do an Avondale Estates curbside composting pilot program, and it was a great success.

A lot of the residents really enjoyed it.

It was curbside pickup, and we we ran some numbers and got some sort of hard um facts on who participated, the amount of landfill diversion, methane that didn't you know get you know uh sent into the atmosphere and like was you know uh kept into the soil, as well as um uh participants who at an 80% rate said they wanted to keep participating, and then 90% found the program extremely convenient.

So this is where we uh asked to uh work with our cities, and so we did uh run the numbers and found that there are some potential savings for the city of Avondale simply by not by diverting compost from the landfill and therefore their tip fee is lowered.

It's only a few thousand dollars, commissioners, um, so it's really kind of you know something that um would have they have to work in their budgets.

And as I mentioned, Avondale, Shamble, and Decatur, uh we have held their 2022 sanitation tip fee at the same base rate, which Zach reminded me again has been the same rate for 20 years previous to 2022.

And uh the goal here is to partner with the cities to keep their 2022 rates for their their uh residential tip fees if they um implement a composting program.

And the goal there simply is to divert uh food waste from the landfill on uh the page six slide that Mr.

Rouse pointed out.

Uh the landfill expansion cost is 125 million dollars.

And so the the theory of compost as well as recycling diversion from the landfill is that you're just sending less tonnage to the landfill.

So in theory, it will last longer because you only have so much capacity.

Um ideally we'd like to keep that landfill capacity as large as possible because at some point it might it will be full.

You know, is it in 20 years?

Is it in 40 years?

Is it in a hundred years?

And based on other programs from around the world, you know, you are seeing landfills actually maintain their ability to um uh uh to maybe even reduce their um capacity or reduce their um emissions and increase their capacity.

So this is just like sort of the the dis the the basic discount that would apply to yard waste as well as their commercial drop-off and that okay there you go.

And that's it.

Alright, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Commissioner Terry.

Um that that was a lot of information that was presented, and uh I would hope that the administration could review that and give us some feedback on it.

Um my only concern with with with the idea of the discounts in general is is and as I look at uh page number four.

As I line up the 2027, it looks like we're almost at a 31 million dollar deficit.

And so I would just be curious to make sure that the numbers do work.

Um and then being mindful of the I think what we saw was a 15 by 15 rate increase, if I remember correctly, Robert, is that right?

I got 15 followed by two.

Um again, Zach, if if uh staff can look into uh the numbers, I think that's really what's driving a lot of the questions or conversation that we have, um, at least from my perspective, uh, on this.

Absolutely, we'll we'll get a hold of the uh PowerPoint and follow up with the commissioner as appropriate.

Perfect.

All right, thank you.

Um Miss Barbara, uh, if you could read uh remind us the rules, and then we'll open up the floor to the public.

Excuse me.

The purpose of public comment is to allow the public to voice county-related requests, concerns, or opinions during the town hall meeting.

Speakers will only have the opportunity for one public comment per presentation discussion.

Each speaker must complete a speaker card and present it to the clerk before the beginning of the public comment portion of the meeting.

Cards turned into the clerk from the time the town hall meeting is convened, approximately 6 30 p.m.

And by the beginning of public comment portion, generally following presentation on the agenda.

The clerk will accept cards on a first-come first-serve basis prior to the call for public comments.

Speakers who are residents of DeCab County shall be allowed to speak before residents of other counties are allowed to speak.

Once the public comment portion of the meeting begins, speaker cards will no longer be accepted.

Speakers will be allowed to speak for three minutes each, and public comment shall not exceed 30 minutes in length.

When the buzzer sounds to indicate that time has run out, the speaker will be expected to immediately see speaking and to year the podium.

Speakers should always talk directly into the microphone and begin by stating their name, full address, and the name of any organization they represent.

Abusive, profane or derogatory language, holding up signs, clapping, yelling, standing, all in the awesome to show support for opposition to a speaker will not be permitted.

But a show of hands are quietly standing in place will be permitted to show support for opposition to a speaker's position.

All right, thank you, Miss Barbara.

Um I know that my colleagues probably have some questions.

We're gonna do the public comment first, and then if there's questions from the board, I know I have a couple questions myself, we'll do those.

Uh who is our first speaker this evening?

Our first speaker is Katie Jeffers.

Katie Jeffers Welcome, appreciate you coming out this evening.

Yes, thank you.

Um Katie Jeffers, I live at 3385 Thornwood Drive.

It's unincorporated uh DeCab County.

Um I have a couple of statements and questions for the group.

Um my first statement is my husband and I try very hard to reduce our amount of trash each week.

So we typically have just like one bag of trash in our bin.

Um we compost in our backyard, we recycle, we take our plastic bags to Kroger to recycle those.

So we really make every effort to reduce that amount.

Um and then meanwhile, every Wednesday morning, I see my next door neighbor who lives alone put out three bins of trash.

And I suspect he's bringing trash from other locations and disposing of it.

Um I've also seen him put out large items that should be a special pickup.

And he's like, I can see kind of bullying the sanitation workers into picking it up.

I I want to be clear, I don't blame the sanitation workers.

I my next door neighbor is a bully.

But my point is he's the one abusing the system.

And I wonder how many other decab residents are also abusing the system, adding more to the landfill, not paying their fair price or like their fair due, and the burden of this fee increase is falling on the rest of us who are actually trying to be good citizens and reduce our trash burden and follow the rules.

So my question is is there any thought to charging like per bin so that those producing less trash and trying to you know manage it responsibly, um have a smaller fee than those that are contributing a lot of trash the landfill.

Um that's my my first statement, and then I would say I do support composting.

I I do push that it was more available.

Um I know a lot of my neighbors don't want to do the backyard composting because of the extra work, but would put it out to the bin or like you know, at the the curb side if it was available.

Um then my my last question and comment is you know it seems like the cab is continuously reducing the number of items that can be recycled, and I suspect a lot of people then are just putting it in the trash because it takes extra effort to you know put the plastic bags or the the glass bottles, you have to take them other locations, and so I know for most people that's just not convenient, and so they're probably just putting it in the trash and again contributing to the the landfill problem.

Um so that's all my comments.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um I think because those were a lot of comments, uh, we may have staff come back with written responses.

I will say that I know from my own experience I I have two trash bins, two of the green cans, and I pay the uh the extra fee for that, and so that may be something that we uh um have a policy that works to address if you're overflowing consistently, perhaps there's a way we can address that uh, but get us a written response to those questions.

Okay.

Okay, and thank you for coming out with those questions.

Uh Barbara, who's our next person?

Our next speaker is Suzanne Sen.

Suzanne.

Good evening, and thank you for coming out.

Thank you.

I'm Suzanne Sann.

I'm at 442 Kennelworth Circle, Stone Mountain, 30083.

And um I love what the first responder said.

Um I'm would like to comment, Mr.

Riles, I believe, said that the other options would be transporting trash and paying a lot more.

But I have another option.

Um I believe that the sanitation department has renamed itself to the Department of Solid Waste Management with services remaining unchanged.

But I think there is a good possibility for improving the situation if the services are changed.

Um one of the possibilities was just mentioned by this lady, but there's the zero waste goal, which pushes the county to rethink how materials are purchased, used, and recovered across all departments.

Green teams training and everyday practices are envisioned for county employees.

But what about the rest of us?

What about pushing the county to help its citizens reduce produce less waste by first of all reducing their garbage output in my neighborhood?

There are so many trash cans overflowing, the garbage is picked up and stuff is dumped in the street, it's a real mess.

Um the citizens could be trained to recycle more compost and put out for the landfill only one small garbage bag of waste per two people per week.

That's what we do.

It's perfectly possible, but most people are not putting out this amount per week for two people.

And if they're told how to do it, maybe they would.

It takes a little bit of time and a little bit of money to train, but it's you're asking for a lot of money for people not to be trained, for them not to improve.

And I think they should improve.

Um what else?

Avondale, the composting was very successful in Maine, where I'm from, they're instead of having a large bin for garbage and a small bin for recycling, it's the other way around because they're encouraging people to recycle and put out less garbage.

And if the people want to put out more garbage, they have to buy designated plastic bags, not just any old bag, you know, the but a designated one so that the sanitation department knows that they've paid for putting out extra.

And that reduces, you know, that's they're not incentivized to just put out loads of garbage.

They're incentivized to keep their garbage down.

I understand from a neighbor who came from Vancouver that their garbage collection was once every two weeks because people were putting less.

Okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

That's the three minutes.

Uh as a I guess that's just as a reminder, uh, staff is taking down those uh taking down notes to answer your questions, and um it'd be ideal if we can get those answers for us uh back at the next PWI committee.

Something else I should add uh that everyone may not be aware of.

Uh Zach correct me if I'm wrong on the numbers.

We currently spend about a million dollars a year for uh recycling.

Is that is it it's gone up to two million dollars?

I believe our contract is about two million dollars, and that's to take whatever is recyclable that Pratt will accept.

Is that yeah, and then that has changed significantly over the last probably five years that there used to be a point where we were being paid for the recycling, but that's just shifted because of the global recycling market, and there's just not as um many opportunities to to provide the material with some other countries.

Right, right.

Um, and I guess while you're here, uh do we have any partnerships with charm?

I know Commissioner Terry has uh been big on charm in the past.

Is that still something we uh you know?

I don't well, charm is definitely something that we we promote.

Uh I don't know that we have any formal arrangements between our solid waste uh division and charm.

Um but they are definitely a like viable and a strongly encouraged option for people to take their hard to recycle materials.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Barbara, who's our next speaker?

Our next speaker is Karen Menthell.

Karen, welcome and come on up.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Karen Minviel, I live at 2201 Dancing Fox Road near the corner of uh second Avenue in Glenwood.

We have a community of 67 homes.

Uh we started 28 years ago, and during those 28 years, we have recycled thanks for the single stream pickups.

Uh we take to charm, and we also have composted.

And I just want to say all of those are great.

Um, and we really support the composting program.

We're a huge fan.

Uh we compost our RO, we make it work our and among ourselves uh for 67 homes.

It is a lot of work.

We'd love for the the county to take it over if possible.

Um, but it's huge.

What we don't put in the landfill.

Um, and then we also come out with great fertilizer for not only our yards but our farm.

So we really support this idea.

We strongly encourage uh the county to support it.

It's easy, it's smart, and extends the life of the landfill.

Um it's a proven program, and we really appreciate the recycling and the support of charm.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

Uh Barbara, who's our next speaker?

Our last speakers, Adriana Long.

Adriana, come on back up.

Uh and again, thank you for coming out this evening.

I appreciate your time for being here and we appreciate your comments.

Okay.

Where's the clock at?

Is it okay?

I see three minutes.

Um try to make this fast.

Um, I do like the idea that was kind of mentioned uh by is it Commissioner Terry?

Um, where we're looking at um a program for the pay list, kind of as others have mentioned, you know, live in by myself, one bag of trash.

Um not filling up a trash can.

Um I will say that I feel like in my area, I'm not seeing recycling being pushed, whether it's in messaging, fly, I don't I don't I don't see it.

Um also as an educator in the cab, I would love to see a program about recycling put in schools if we want to educate start young um about uh recycling.

Um I don't know if the recycling um where it happens if that facility is open to the public.

Um I definitely either for myself or even would I bring my students out to see um a recycling happening?

I'm not sure, so I'm just asking.

Um as far as also in the recycling.

I'm kind of unsure um of how it works because I've seen um the solid waste people taking my recycling.

Um so that kind of gives me the idea that nothing's being recycled because it all goes into the same truck.

So it's kind of confusing.

I also think that if we're pushing recycling, I know we used to get bags that would also push people to recycle.

They stopped doing that.

Um so I buy my own recycling bags as well.

Um there was something mentioned, I wasn't 100% sure her sanitation and solid waste needs to be separate.

I just wanted a little clarity on that.

I don't think I'm 100% sure what that meant.

Um I heard that the new rate was starting July 1st, and I was just kind of curious as to um is there a date to re-evaluate, or is there like a mandatory review on those rates?

And like how after how often 10 years, every seven years, five, I don't know how that works.

Um let's see here.

Um also as far as in the implementation of increasing increase in rate, are there operational efficiencies being implemented to minimize um to prevent these hikes as well?

Um also want to bring back my other question from previous.

Also just kind of curious about as far as in seniors, low income.

Anytime we talk about a price raise, I want to think about my mother who doesn't have an income per se.

She has retirement, but um, let's see.

And um from what I'm hearing, um, it looks as if like we have a price hike, but no change in services.

So how how does this change my day-to-day to get a price hike?

Um we know there's sometimes that pickups are skipped.

Um there's just so many rules for bulky items, um all these things that are happening.

So I just feel like if I'm paying more, I should get more.

All right, thank you.

Uh those are great questions, and um I uh our staff again has written down those questions, and we will work to get you uh answers.

Uh do we have two more cards, two more speakers?

Okay, we've got some time.

If you'll uh bring those up for Miss Barbara, Mike Cooper?

Mike Cooper.

Ah, welcome back, sir.

Thank you for uh allowing us to being flexible with the speaker procedure.

Um I'm here to stern Mike Cooper 663 Ridge Avenue Stone Mount.

I'm here to give you a stern complaint about you're violating the county code.

Um if you look at Muni Code, chapter 22, Article 2, Section 2230, it says refuse will be collected twice each week from residential units.

Under the Lee May administration, when we went to weekly, nobody apparently thought to change the code to reflect that.

I remember asking some of the commissioners at the time, and one of them thought they had done it, but you might at some point want to change that to reflect the current status.

Thank you very much, Mike.

I appreciate that.

Uh and Miss Barbara, is there anyone or who is the the next speaker?

Our next speaker is Amy Grinnelli.

Amy.

Thank you for coming out this evening.

Appreciate your time and uh uh looking forward to your comments.

Yeah, thanks for um hosting us here tonight and for allowing the public comment.

I um try to reduce my waste on the regular basis by thoughtfully recycling, dropping off at charm, um and composting in my backyard as well.

I work with area groups.

Oh I sorry, I forgot to say my address is 3331 Stratfield Drive in Brookhaven.

Um and I I in my area I um work with area community groups to try to host zero waste events where we recycle and we thoughtfully um provide um containers to take food back home and compost and everything like that.

So um so I would be in support of uh a composting, uh decap county composting.

And additionally, um if there's if there's some education that the DeCav County residents can get around recycling, we know the recycling landscape changes constantly, right?

Like sometimes, you know, even at charm, right?

Like they collect things because again, the money sometimes they get paid for things and it gets filled up.

So if we could have some kind of education around the DeCab County recycling and what we take on an ongoing basis because it has changed, and it and you know, I think a lot of people get really confused on what is allowed in the single stream recycling.

So thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh to our last two speakers.

Uh y'all sound like you'd be great uh uh company on one of my TikTok channels.

So uh y'all throw some questions that are good and uh those were good answers.

I think the community would appreciate.

I like TikTok, but you know, come on.

Who isn't on TikTok?

Yo, come on, folks.

Wow.

Hopefully the next election's not about TikTok, right?

Otherwise, I'm I'm getting a new job.

Um well, listen, uh I do want to I just realized that we have Commissioner Spears who may still be on the line with us.

I think she was gonna drop off after the presentation.

So she may have dropped.

Okay.

Uh commissioners, we have a few minutes.

Are there any comments or questions?

Uh uh, Commissioner Johnson and then Commissioner Terry.

I did have a question for you, Director McKinney.

You've talked about this in some of our committee meetings, but could you just touch on some of the ways you are working to optimize and increase improve operations?

Commissioner G.

McKinney, solid waste director.

So we're looking internally first.

We're making sure that routes are being ran at maximum efficiency.

So we have a platform, a program, RouteWare.

It works in conjunction with another program, Samsara.

One of the biggest inefficiencies are routes crossing each other.

To get to this route, you have to go through several routes.

So this is the system is being cleaned up.

In fact, um we've got some time scheduled, and then over the next two weeks to do re refresher training as well as introductory training for routeware.

It was designed to maximize your operations.

Um the other things that we're doing is we're maximizing the size of routes, making them become industry standard.

For example, um, on a commercial side, we look at um location of our discharge point where they're being transfer station or the landfill.

And you build a routes in proximity.

So we're not kind of just, you know, um riding around now.

We were in a diesel-heavy environment, which we're not, thank thankfully, right?

That'd be a huge uh issue with waste and fuel, but since we're the C and G and we're blessed to have that.

So those are some of the things we're looking at from efficiency um standpoints, and then retraining.

Retraining is a great tool to uh improve those efficiencies.

I think the biggest tool though, when you're talking about rerouting and things like that, is to hear from the frontline operators.

You know, one thing you do is a route, a route where we'll say go take the route ABC, but it may be a school at sea that you need to stay away from from a while because it's heavily congested.

So having their input is critical.

So we are looking, you know, head to toe to see how we can improve internally.

Thank you for that.

And we've had conversations and you've presented, so I knew you had been working on those, so I wanted to give you that opportunity.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh Commissioner Terry.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And um also thank you for holding the town hall meeting.

Um you're a consummate public servant.

Uh getting the the people a chance to tell us what they think.

And um and I appreciate this balances out the TikTok thing, right?

We're good.

We're still good.

Yeah, please click that clip clip that for TikTok.

Um also send you TikTok, so be careful.

Yeah, be careful.

Um but I do want to um and thank you for that because uh our residents made a lot of really good points.

So I wanted just to kind of quickly address a couple of them because I I agree with a lot of what was said.

Um I wanted to first, I'll go in no particular order, I just took notes here, but um if I remember correctly, Zach, the second and third bin actually cost less than the first bin.

And so I might suggest, I think that was a good point raised is I mean, some people have larger families, so you know, the second and third bin, they need it, right?

But um it might make sense from an equity perspective, just to at least have them all cost the same.

And you know, I'm not sure why we sort of have that discount, it's like five or ten dollars less.

So it might just be a small thing, but it would just show that we're treating extra bin usage as sort of the same.

Um the reduction of the recycling items, I think is large part because China is just sort of saying we're not taking anything except like ones and twos, basically.

Um so uh I think there there was a thought about um at least for like the glass recycling, I think that's another thing we stopped taking because it crushes and clacks and then now it's in the system and the conveyor belts can cut people that are sorting it.

Um but I know we've struggled a little bit, Zach, to replace some of the glass recycling drop-off locations that were removed in the few a few years ago because of the fire station was getting a bunch of stuff dumped at them.

And I don't think we ever kind of got back to kind of that full um coverage, and that might be another opportunity to support people that want to collect their glass separate, and if there was more locations near them, you know, it it might uh be the incentive that we need for them to take it there.

Um I like the idea of the education effort.

I know we have a sanitation like communications team and they do great graphics and they do you know, sort of a lot of programs.

I actually might suggest that we have a field team.

And you know, because I think the same the crews are actually like kind of doing their own little surveys, because I've I've seen them take pictures of my recycling bin.

I looked at that one day, I was like, what are they doing?

He's like taking a picture of my recycling bin, like the lid, you know, preferable preferably or presumably to see do I have the wrong things in there?

And so I'm assuming we're doing some sort of surveying director McKinney.

So I I you know it seems like if there's a high contamination rate uh street or route, and and I feel like someone may have told me, and I'm just gonna keep this confidential for who said that, but that it's possible that when we think there's a highly contaminated rate routes, that's when the crews might just combine everything because they might know the recycling bin is contaminated and because they looked at it and they're like it's not gonna take it, so we'll just put it in the in the sanitation truck because it already has trash in it.

So I don't I don't know, you don't have to answer that question.

But just to say, like, what do you think about having you know an actual crew that literally like goes out and distributes information, does like little neighborhood workshops.

If we know we have a route with a high contamination rate or you know, other issues that might you know they need some help on.

Commissioner Tier, that's uh it's a great thought, great question.

So Zach and I would just say sidebaring about increasing our education efforts.

Um in fact, uh, as you know, the Cab County just um boarded its first sustainability chief.

Yes.

And wonderful young lady.

Oh, we we we hit it off.

Same same idea, same thoughts.

So we'll be working together here in the near future to create a sustainable platform which includes a comprehensive program.

When we say diversion and things coming from the landfill and that pro in that platform, it'll be the recycling, the education opportunities to divert.

So when you say um diversion, divergent is more than the greenhouse gas items, right?

It's anything that doesn't have a bio degradable uh process or patricible.

Let me talk my landfill language for a moment, or patricible waste value.

If you don't produce methane, we don't want it.

That's how you truly increase the life of the landfill.

Right.

So we say we got 80 years of permitted property, but it takes time to build each cell.

If with a great program, which we think and we the CAP can be great, one of the nation's leaders, right?

We can possibly push that 80 years even further out with a great program.

So to that, the education is the peak is the key to this.

Okay, great.

Well, um, and it'd be great if y'all could just because we're voting on a multi-year um rate increase.

I think it would be good to um just map out if you didn't expand the education team, when would you do it?

Obviously, if you have more money every year, you know, you kind of build it in.

So I would understand you'd want to kind of slow roll it out, but I think it in later years as the fee would go up higher, presumably there would be the opportunity and the incentive, I think, for us to your point of greater education, um, more diversion, and therefore capacity is increased, and that's an important aspect of our recycle of our of our landfill program.

Um, I did like the idea of the recycling bins being larger.

I am actually one where I my blue bin, I get the largest blue bin, and I it is full by the time it comes.

So every week it is full.

And my trash bin is like half full, usually.

So I would like to encourage us to ask the manufacturer of the bins to say um I have a time limit.

We'll wrap that up.

Okay.

Um to have a uh a larger blue bin, so maybe a third size larger, the little small ones are very small.

Um, really quickly, I would like us to see a CS have a charm south.

Um, because right now charm is on Memorial Drive in uh Columbia, it's in the middle, but I think there's an opportunity to have it in the south.

Um we we did have a school recycling program um started, I think a couple years ago.

The school system wants to participate, so I think it would just engage back with the school system.

They were ready to deploy all of the bins, they had a little educ uh y'all have like an educational module.

So we so the kids and the students are actually ready for it.

And then, yes, we definitely can do tours of the recycling facility.

I've gone to Pratt and Conyers, and I mean we've asked them, can you take students there?

And they're like, of course, like they gotta plan it.

So maybe we can work on that with the education crew.

Um I two last things.

So I don't think we're taking into account the revenue, the renewable energy gas revenue contract in these projections.

The last I saw it was 26 million, I think over 10 years.

Uh so just I it would be good if we could have an estimate of because I think at some point we'll get it online again.

So let's maybe add another section to this graph that's like here's what would be the revenue from that, so we could just have a firmer projection.

And then last and but not least, I would like us to consider um, and this is maybe a legal question as well, but working with the tax commissioner, identifying the senior homestead exemption properties that are the two tiers that are the low income senior exemptions, and I would like to see us um delay that rate increase for those properties.

It's about believe 30,000 based on this tax commissioner's initial estimate.

Um just because this year it's tough this year.

And I think that's why you know Commissioner Patrick, you were asking about sort of a different kind of smoothing to maybe not have a big shock.

And so I would like to ask the tax commissioner and Mr.

Riles to compare those two metrics and come up with a fiscal impact if we delayed the rate increase for the um the seniors that are in the the first two tiers.

So under 40,000, basically, is the um uh the exemption for um senior homestead.

Thank you.

Okay, all right, thank you, Commissioner Terry.

Um other questions for you?

Okay.

I actually had someone text me a uh a very good question.

I'm gonna put on my reading glasses.

Um it comes to the cells, can you guys produce a map that shows where the cells are going to be in relation to residential properties?

I think that's been a really concern.

So when we have this conversation again, it would be ideal to be able to present that and then we can pass that information out to um and let me see here.

And then as far as the next steps, um, would it be possible?

I think our next meeting is going to be Thursday.

Uh could you guys have answers to the questions for the two different presentations we've had presented, as well as the items that the commissioners have uh put to you guys and have some answers for us to be able to work forward with.

Yes.

Yes, I I think we should be able to have all the answers to certainly the the questions raised by the citizens.

We're gonna study uh the document Commissioner Terry uh presented.

It's it's you know much more uh comprehensive.

Hopefully we can get those responses to those those things too.

Okay, but but certainly the citizen questions.

Okay, and just so the citizens know, um, our next uh public works and infrastructure meeting is going to be June 18, and uh we typically start at uh 3 30 in the afternoon and run to about five o'clock or so.

So uh if you go to DC TV 23, ideally speaking, we'll have the answers to your questions.

Uh, and hopefully we'll have a website put up.

Maybe central staff can get us a section of the website that talks about questions from the town hall so we can get you guys answers for that as well.

Um well, we started about uh 15 minutes delayed.

It is 8 33, so we're technically going to save you guys about 12 minutes unless there's any other questions.

All right, seeing none, thank you all for coming out.

Thank you all for watching.

We appreciate your time and consideration, and uh we are uh adjourned for the evening.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.