Johns Creek City Council Work Session: Tourism Funds, PAC Outreach, ZIP Code Review (July 14, 2025)
Johns Creek City Council Work Session – July 14, 2025
The Johns Creek City Council met in a work session at 5:00 p.m. on July 14, 2025, at 11360 Lakefield Drive, Johns Creek, Georgia. No minutes were available, and the raw transcript opens after a break, so the FY2026 Budget initial presentation listed on the agenda is not covered in this summary. During the recorded discussion, council members addressed tourism product development funding, a Performing Arts Center voter education campaign, and a USPS ZIP code lookup issue; no formal votes were taken.
FY2026 Tourism Product Development Project Recommendations
- City Manager Greer presented four CVB recommendations for FY2026 tourism product development funds: a visitor center, bicycle access points or rental facilities, public art, and Performing Arts Center (PAC) multi-purpose room funding.
- Staff noted the funds will not be collected until October 1 and that council must choose a project before FY2026, though no decision was required that night.
- Several council members supported bicycle access/rental facilities as a health/wellness investment; one argued $178,000 would not go far toward the PAC. Others supported the PAC multi-purpose room, noting it could include a visitor center and reduce general-fund spending on PAC construction documents.
- Staff clarified that the CVB recommends but council chooses, and tourism funds must be spent in the fiscal year they are received; a visitor center inside a future PAC would not open next year even if construction documents started around Christmas.
- City Manager Greer summarized informal consensus as four council members favoring the PAC multi-purpose room as the primary use, with more than four backing bicycle access points as a backup plan. The final choice was left to FY2026 budget deliberations.
Performing Arts Center Education Materials
- Council reviewed five levers for the voter education campaign: community meetings, stakeholder meetings, web presence, social media frequency, and mailed collateral.
- The roundtable produced this consensus direction: one community meeting in August, two in September, and two in October; accept invitations to stakeholder meetings, with some members also requesting proactive outreach to larger neighborhoods; add a dedicated web page with a domain link on the city website; post weekly social media updates; and send two mailed pieces, one soon and one before the election, preferably graphic postcards rather than text-only envelopes.
- Council members requested FAQ additions on annual operating costs and millage-rate impact, total construction cost including land and design, possible cost overruns and a maximum construction cost, construction timeline, future capital projects, PAC management, community use/rental rates, building-specific parking, impact on city reserves, tax impact using actual assessed value and the 0.27 bond millage, naming rights/private fundraising, and whether prior tax payments would be used for the project.
- The City Attorney advised that the city must remain neutral, that council members should direct residents to the city website, and that speaking as a private citizen while holding office could create personal liability or an ethics complaint. The City Manager said FAQ wording would be reviewed by the City Attorney and bond counsel to keep materials educational rather than advocacy.
USPS ZIP Code Boundary Review Decision Point
- The Mayor explained that Johns Creek addresses are often identified in online databases as Alpharetta, Suwanee, Duluth, or Roswell, even though mail addressed to Johns Creek can be delivered.
- He recommended pursuing the USPS preferred city-name/plus-four “hard override” option so databases would show Johns Creek for addresses inside city boundaries, while keeping a broader ZIP boundary change on the table.
- Council members described the preferred-name option as a “no-brainer” and agreed the broader boundary change, while unlikely, costs nothing to continue pursuing.
- Council consensus was to have the Mayor inform the USPS of that direction. The Mayor thanked Senator Ossoff’s office and Representative McCormick’s office for their support.
Boardwalk at Town Center – Bathroom Addition
- A council member asked to discuss the proposed bathroom addition at Boardwalk at Town Center. Council agreed to defer it to the July 28 meeting and asked staff to provide a presentation and be prepared for questions.
Key Outcomes
- Tourism: informal consensus to prioritize the PAC multi-purpose room for FY2026 tourism product development funds, with bicycle access points as the backup; to be finalized during FY2026 budget deliberations.
- PAC education: consensus on the meeting schedule, stakeholder approach, web presence, weekly social media, and two mailings; FAQ wording to be made neutral and reviewed by the City Attorney and bond counsel.
- USPS: direction to pursue the preferred city-name/plus-four database update while keeping the broader ZIP boundary option open; no formal vote.
- Boardwalk bathroom addition deferred to July 28.
- Routine business items on the agenda were not acted on in the available transcript.
Meeting Transcript
No, sir, you were just in recess. All right. So let's go back to our next topic. We're going. Thank you. The next item is the fiscal year 26 tourism product development project recommendations. We have City Manager Greer for presentation. All right. I'm going to keep my presentation on this item very brief because the urgency is not necessarily there with this topic. It's an important topic. The CVB has given you four recommendations for projects they think might be a great use of tourism product development funds in fiscal year 26. That's a visitor center, bicycle access points or rental facilities, public art, or performing art center multi-purpose room funding. The agenda in your memo has more details both from staff on the history, the official code of Georgia allowable uses, as well as in an attachment with details from them. The requirement is that based on our intergovernmental our agreement with them, not intergovernmental, we need to have picked what project or projects you'd like to do before the start of the fiscal year. So that can be wrapped into your fiscal year 26 budget deliberations. You don't necessarily have to take this one up tonight unless you very much want to discuss and debate it. Well, how are we doing on time? Well, you have 30 minutes to cover three items and the next one on the agenda. Is there by any chance, is there any chance that we're in consensus that maybe we do foresee? And if in case the voters decide that that's what they would like. Ooh. So I had avoided making a recommendation on this one since you had a recommendation from the convention and visitors bureau. You could certainly do any of the projects listed, or you could deviate and go to the list. So something like investments in the parks or wayfinding signages. I don't know that I can give you a solid recommendation off the So basically like a 25, you already spent uh that towards the public cars and other So this is we are talking more specific to 2026. Specifically to fiscal year 2026 revenues you won't start collecting until October 1st. So again, like the bicycle access points and the wayfinding, those are the good ones, but we don't really have the infrastructure for those yet, so probably we could do that next year, but probably for now just leave that for the number four or performance arts, PSE construction documents or the multi-purpose. I would rather leave that that way. Uh mine would be number two to support the health and wellness, um the bicycle access points and rental facilities. I don't think that 178K is gonna go very far towards um what you all are trying to do with the performing arts center. So most likely once the park and everything is opening in. Next summer, so I'm gonna I'm I'm sticking with that one. Thank you. So um d number four, just a quick question there. Is uh we had allocated, I think in a CIP five thousand five million dollars for construction documents. Is that part is the five billion dollars include the multi-purpose room? It does. The longer description in the CVB's document goes into how they would be very excited to see the opportunity of potentially allocating the lobby for the multi-purpose room to them as a visitor center. Okay. Uh I thought or I thought that's how I read it. So I would rather put the money into bicycles, public art for sure, bicycles, and then just put it in the visitor center bucket. And if the if the public says we want to go ahead with the pack, then go ahead and take that that visitor center and embed it within the pack. And bury it in the got that. So those are your top three priorities. I just want to clarify that the C based on the our agreement as set up. They give you recommendations, you as a council get to make the choice. So they how you how you nuance the funding of does it go specifically towards multi-purpose room and are you allowing that multi-purpose room lobby to function as a visitor center is not a decision you would make as part of this because the funding has to be spent in the fiscal year it's received for tourism product development funds. So you won't be able to, even if all the stars aligned, you won't be opening a visitor center last next year if it's in a performing art center that you don't start construction documents until Christmas. Does that make sense? So sorry.
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