No, it's just the admitted just the minutes in the review.

Welcome to the party.

Um would you like a motion, Mr.

Mayor on the minutes?

Let me call it order first.

First item is the minutes from July 9th.

If you fill in the blank from the mid- Um make a motion to approve the minutes from July 9th, the favorite please write in motion so approved.

Um agenda.

I'd ask the football team to come to be introduced tonight, and they're coming at seven, but I've always feed back to me too.

But I didn't follow up, so if we can have you now consent to add that under presentation, If not, I'll let one of you you know tell them because I would be hiding upstairs.

No uh no issue with doing that at seven o'clock.

Any objection?

No, thank you very much.

Is that why you and Andy are in matching outfits?

I said, is that why you and Andy are in matching outfits tonight?

He's the daddy and I'm the son.

Okay.

The Mr.

Stevenson's just one person on scheduled appearance.

The special minutes are on clear those of consent.

Yep, injection.

Boy, rights and water.

I've I've called a couple persons, but I have nobody suggests for tonight.

And we look for the next two weeks and yeah, and have a special call meeting committee meetings.

Yep.

Yeah, that probably be.

I think that's the way you do it.

I agree.

Do we table this or just not have it?

Just take no action.

Or you can table it do whatever you would like.

No action family.

No action.

Just a reminder that one oh five Ayers Avenue.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have no new information on this item.

Is that the one we were gonna get feedback from the community?

No.

I do have a question if I could.

And I'm sure it's probably in my book.

It says increase in density.

What did that go to?

Is it it's within the residential info overlay, and so it goes from eight units per acre to eight point three units per acre.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

One other question, Mr.

Mayor.

Yes, sir.

The uh proposed the proposed change still means it still means it has to meet the requirements of the info overlay.

Correct.

That's correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions for this segment?

213 Fraser Street.

That's the one I don't see Mr.

Gardner here yet.

That's the one that I had asked to be off of consent, and I've got a couple of questions for him.

Yes, please.

That's the one, Mr.

Garner's.

Okay.

The next one's it's code new six and it I'm not in favor of it, but would it be already sitting there or you wait for the debate?

Um, mine might be if I've maybe I've been living in Cobb County a long time.

I've never seen anybody do this.

In fact, in the six fifties and sixties, they used to do slick sheets.

Before they were computers and blogs and stuff.

Ah, okay.

I mean, I mean, I think it's a problem that I hadn't seen.

Number two, if it was me, somebody filed one on me one minute past the deadline.

I think I'd every every right to defend myself.

I mean you still would though, but they couldn't file it until after the election.

Until after the election, yeah.

So that would so basically from August 18th until November 4th, if it was effective immediately, no one could file a complaint during that time.

But they still have 60 days, if I'm not mistaken, to file a complaint.

So at six months.

Six months, I'm sorry.

They still have six months.

So November 5th, they still are within that six months, they can file it then.

So it doesn't preclude them from filing against you.

It precludes somebody from trying to muddy the waters just to sell your name.

Right.

And that's well, that's the third one that bothered me that usually that's a court discretion.

I mean, you know, inequity issues.

So like the whistle I mean, we do have a whistleblower set, which is very similar.

There's nothing even close to this in there.

I mean, so we're gonna put the person that's gonna file it on trial.

I mean just can't do it in and not for this election because we were making it effective one January, so for the election five years from now or four years from now, saying during that period, you can't file a complaint.

You don't lose your right to file because you got six months.

If you look at all the ethics codes in the it demands like the speedy trail within 30 days, I mean not just hours.

Oh, they would still get it within 30 days after so if they filed within six months, they still would then get a hearing, they just would be delayed in their date of filing.

They could file on the 15th of August if it was this year, they could file on the 5th of December, I mean 5th of November, but intervening about 80 days, 70 something days, they couldn't.

Where else in the code is I mean, I looked at Title 45, you know, the whistleblowers and all that, and it was just and again, nothing precludes somebody because because one, it's not signed.

If somebody came in next Tuesday and said, I got a complaint I want to file, it's just it's gotta get filed.

So we're not saying for us this is a protection.

We're saying in the future, this protection's there.

It's us whether well it's us, but it's not again bad timing last time.

That's what I want to talk about now.

It's not okay.

I don't think it's pure protection.

I mean if I vote for it, I'll be saying I think that ought to be good, but I think the mayor should have the same standard I the next one.

Okay.

Just uh and and I guess you know, and we've got something from the ethics committee here, but I guess if this was something that they've seen in other ethics committees and ethics ordinances, and they felt that this was a good idea, and I don't feel strongly against it.

I think it's a good idea, but if there is a strong feeling against putting something like this in the I feel like it's it's pretty much you don't it's keeping you it's from a situation where you pretty much don't have much defense against it if you're the uh guy running for office.

You're almost defenseless to try to to fight an ethics thing.

You you you can fight it, but it's giving you such a little amount of time to do it.

Wait, I don't understand that, I'm sorry.

You've got from middle of August to the first of November, and they they wait until October to file it.

And you're sitting there, you can't do anything, you can't hardly fight back.

Well, that's kind of what I think it's a law.

I think it's a logical thing.

Yeah, and that's kind of what I'm thinking, and also kind of the issue is is that what people remember as they're standing and they're about to vote is the complaint, not what happened.

Yeah, and it'll be uh in the paper.

It'll be in the paper.

It'll be in the paper.

At that last minute, it'll be there, and you don't have any defense against yourself.

Yeah, and then you know, a couple weeks later they find out that it wasn't you know, legit for it, or yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, a couple weeks later they find out it wasn't legit, and it's too late.

Your name's already solid.

Yeah.

I would like to use the same words, you can't fight it.

Somebody thousand it's sitting out there, it's public record.

And the code protects you from then you can't protect yourself from that suit that's hanging out there.

We we don't live in a world where you're presumed guilty.

I mean, it's really if somebody found that against a politician, you could not defend yourself.

That's all I'm saying.

But that's we're saying the same thing, but from two different sides.

Yeah, so I I don't understand the other side, but for my side, I understand it, but uh well if somebody slapped you and you can't hit them back.

Oh, I got you can hit them back, they just won't have to.

Yeah, right.

They can still slap you, but they're gonna slap you on November 5th.

They can't slap you on November 3rd.

But if they file it, they've had a ledge where you cannot defend it.

But because it's sitting out there.

But they can't file it.

Yeah, that's the thing, they can't.

Well, they could then uh they just say you know, despite the whistleblower's law and all that he's protected, he or she is the okay.

Let's just say the mayor's protecting themselves.

I mean, they're not talking about perception.

This going forward, but oh, they got I mean, blogs are more dangerous in a I'd rather have a trial than being protected in a trial.

There have been people who commented when the story was in the paper that said that's what we were doing is we were protecting ourselves, and I don't see how we're protecting ourselves especially because it's not effective until one January.

So no one up here is being protected.

Um you can show up on the 23rd of August and put something against me because this wouldn't go effect until one January.

So I don't see how we're protecting ourselves, but again, um but but is it primary is it to protect, or is it are we judging that anybody found we're we're judging they're doing it with no it's to well I guess it is to protect it is to protect not the person but the appearance that someone has done something wrong because it's going to sully their name on the and I know you say that we we're not in society where you're proven guilty until you're proven innocent, but we are.

I mean we clearly are questioned for Doug.

So I'm not an attorney, so I don't understand the whistleblower law.

How does this um I guess relate?

Well, there actually two different laws, but the whistleblower protects the person who blows the whistle, and you cannot take action against the whistleblower under Georgia law.

They're exempt.

Now, does that feed into this?

Uh I think the mayor is saying it does, or it's relevant.

Uh, but the whistleblower law protects the whistleblower, and no no action, you can't sue that person.

You can't take them in the court.

Uh they're fully protected.

It comes up mostly in zoning matters.

I'm saying that you could interpret it like in retaliation.

I want to sue you.

Yep.

And they say, well, under 4510, 13, 4510 3, that's the same thing as retaliation.

You will not let my charges be heard.

Yeah.

It and it did not come from a judge, it came from the body that's being protected.

The fox in the inside.

I mean, I mean, that that's just I mean, and nothing else is done to I mean, courts have sessions, but you don't have seasons on uh ethics, and I mean I'm enjoying this because it's not just because somebody doesn't agree with me, it doesn't mean that there are two sides of this.

And I respect them.

I mean, just can't vote for it.

I think you could see that in national politics from when that happened several times.

And then come to find out that wasn't true.

Yes.

But you get due process.

Yeah, but after the election.

After somebody believed that you were the thing that's why I think they do it late in October, and you have no time to fight back.

I hate to bring Mr.

Trump's name up, but he was running all that time.

And then when he got elected, he did the same thing.

So just think kind of that one.

So the attorney general suing his opponent.

And people have heard that, but you may not hear anything else about it.

So you now believe because there's no way somebody would take this to court if it wasn't real, so now you believe it's real without looking at it.

So his opponent's name is currently being sullied, and it may not be may get thrown out, it may get a lot of things.

But the filing of it is enough that it's going to cause people to raise an eyebrow about his opponent.

Yes.

George Law does not prevent that.

Well, definitely not that.

That's for sure.

We can try.

Yes.

Wouldn't be the first time.

I've lost before.

I I would I would be concerned that Griff and I are on the same odds.

I'll call you.

We can't kick it down the road any longer.

It's an hour.

We'll hear more about this.

Let's see if the veto power has it on.

I should write now.

It's a first reading, nothing has to happen at all.

Yeah, and it's this would not be right for a set for waiving a first reading at all either.

This is why I come to this stuff.

Okay.

I think that's a good question.

That's it.

That's the next one.

You don't have any new information, Mr.

Mayor.

We'll be ready for the public hearing at seven o'clock.

And then there is nothing.

Oh, so we could talk about that ethics thing for a whole hour.

Or we could or can we can read all of the any of these remaining ones you may want to say called consent?

No.

No.

Leave it on there.

Read all these disclosures.

Yeah, I had to re-add my disclosures for that one.

Or amending the contract on redisclosing just in case.

Would you like to go in that executive session?

We can.

There's a need for executive session sometime tonight.

You can have it now or after the meeting, either way.

Um we got 40 minutes.

We can do it in 40 minutes, can't we?

Oh, yes, sir.

Easily, yes, sir.

We don't have enough to fill 40 some minutes other than that.

He always says that in good 48 minutes.

Um could talk for an hour and uh Mr.

Mayor.

May I may I ask the uh reason for the executive session?

So for for purposes of motion.

Um would you like a motion, Mr.

Mayor?

Please make a motion to go in executive session for pending legal matters.

Correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Motion carries we had an executive session.

I'd like to recall the meeting back to order, please.

One meeting at a time.

Thank you.

Mr.

Brady, do you have anything you'd like to share with us?

Um, yes, sir.

We do have a few uh updates and a couple videos that we could show.

Um I'll start off with the videos if we can.

Um we've got uh one dealing with the push-in ceremony that we had, and a lot of you were able to be at um over at the fire department, and uh we've also got the first day of school.

Uh so like to show both of those.

Hello, I'm Deputy Chief Joe Pachico with the Marietta Fire Department.

We're excited to announce a special tradition here at Marietta Fire.

Hello, I'm Deputy Chief Joe Pacico with the Marietta Fire Department.

We're excited to announce a special tradition here at Marietta Fire, the push-in ceremony.

This ceremony dates back to the 1800s.

When crews respond to calls and on their way back, we have to push their horse-drawn carriages back into the bay.

Then it was part of the job.

Today it serves as a symbolization, a tradition to welcome new equipment into our fleet.

We are proud to announce at Marietta Fire, we are bringing two 2025 KME's engines into our apparatus fleet.

First and foremost, we want to thank our community for the continued support with the SPLOSS funds.

These engines were funded through the 2022 splotch and equipped with advanced technology and updated features.

Which we carefully designed to match the layout of our current engines.

This will help our crew stay consistent and ready to respond.

I want to thank the council members uh for all the support they've given over time because it is important to be able to plan this ahead and know that we've got the money to be able to do this.

People of Marietta know that SPLOS is very important.

I mean, this is what we did, and we've got the best fire department in the state, and this is gonna help make us even better.

But also want to thank the department for all the work that you have done to try to spec these trucks out.

This is a proud moment for our department as we honor the tradition and bring the service of two new engines to our community.

It's running.

I don't know if we have the ones on the parts.

Maybe not.

Uh the drones or no, no, the uh the videos of the individual parts.

We'll look for that while they're see if they can find out what we're doing.

Um as far as uh both departments uh in public safety, uh Chief any updates?

Uh just a couple things.

I'd like to um ask for assistance with uh putting the information out in regard to our uh upcoming Citizens Police Academy.

The first day of that will be September 4th.

It's a 10-week program, and we're looking for people that want to attend.

So if you know anybody that's interested in finding out what we do with the Marietta Police Department and spending uh 10 weeks with us, one night a week.

We would love to have them sign up.

Uh just contact us and we'll we'll get the application rolling for them.

The only other thing I want to mention, uh I've mentioned many times before this board that we are emphasizing training of our new officers, especially the ones that are in uniform patrol.

And uh as of today, we have over 5,000 hours of training just for the uniform patrol division this year, uh to date today.

So a lot of training going on, and that's gonna continue throughout the year and in coming years.

So for the fire department, who would like to give update?

Chief uh Milligan's at uh conference at FRI in uh Orlando, but uh no really real two report.

Um fire trucks are in, we're working some kinks out, but you know, just new recruits.

Uh we didn't start new uh two uh nine this week uh new recruits, so we're um 100% full.

We have no openings at all, so we're would you explain real quickly what you're gonna do with the trucks you're taking out of service?

Uh so we have one training engine that uh we've kind of just had in our fleet that we used to always train on.

Um that one engine will now just stay at 50 uh 56 of the training grounds, just basically be a prop, it'll ever be back on the road again.

Uh that would want our guys to train on it and just use that one piece of equipment and not really uh wear and tear our others.

Um one other piece of equipment will just be surplus, it'll just be uh older engines.

Um two we took out of service will just go into our reserves.

Um and I like to say like our reserves are better than most people's front lines.

So those two trucks that were two engines that were in service are just gonna get rolled down into our reserves, and and they'll just be part of like when an engine has to go down to your oil change, or there is a mechanical problem, where those are just to just roll right up.

So we're very fortunate to have everything lined out, and we're all our engines in our entire fleet and our reserves will be the same KV fleet.

Very fortunate.

Thank you.

Thanks, sir.

Any updates and parks and rec.

Yeah, sure.

Um, a couple things related to parks.

Um July 31st, we do get the restroom building uh delivered over to Wildwood Park, so that's installed.

Uh we may be open Friday, but it might get pushed until next week.

We still have air conditioning units and other things to uh assemble and get uh hooked up to the building, but it's there and on site.

And construction has started over at West Pixie Park.

The contractor has uh demoed the pavilion, uh taking that out, all the concrete asphalt playground, still fence is all up there, so they're already at work.

Uh as far as uh events go, um youth basketball registration is going on right now for kids six to fifteen.

We'll have our movie night, Friday night, our first fall uh movie screening, and that uh will be called uh that movie is gonna be uh high school musical, kind of in honor of back to the school system.

Um an anomaly this month.

Uh week from Friday will be the Friday night concert series.

We'll have a soul and punk man there because we have our park on Labor Day weekend.

So the last Friday is occupied with that, so uh just be aware that we have that next concert next Friday.

And then on September 12th, we have our coffee campfires encrypted.

It's a little pop-up event in African Square, and that tells stories and things about you know, lockness monsters and uh different uh kind of hopeful tales and different events going on there, so it's a good little event.

And we actually won an award for that last year from the festivals and the selfies festivals and event association.

Very good, I appreciate it.

Um Keisha, anything from HR?

Are we good?

Right now we're just starting to plan our open enrollment events and our uh financial wellness events uh in September and October.

And we're just gonna put solicit one more time if you have any gently used professional clothing, please donate them to HR for Sherry's closet.

Very good.

And uh Rachel, could you come down and let's uh talk about our innovation page?

Yeah, no.

We have the video cheating you've got to do.

Okay, we'll we'll go to this and we'll see if we have time.

But I appreciate you pulling them up.

Uh yeah, this is something we've been working on uh for decades as far as being a city of innovation.

And uh, we're finally gonna actually be able to tell our story.

So uh Rachel's been doing a great job working with IT on this, and uh just wanted to let you see what she's come up with.

All right, can we show this computer screen on the larger monitor all right?

Well, good evening.

Uh I'm excited for this opportunity to uh present to you, Marietta's new innovation uh webpage.

Uh it was a great team project with Ronnie, Bruce, and Mr.

Bruton and I to really highlight the innovations of Marietta.

So you can see that actually this is included in the main web page, and at the very top right, you will see there is a new header there, and it's called innovation.

And this is where it leads you, right here.

So I'm just gonna kind of go through and talk about just a little bit of what this page is about.

And I think the first the introduction paragraph really sets the tone best in telling this portion of Marietta's story, and that is we are an award-winning city committed to innovative practices in local government to best meet the needs of our community through forward thinking solutions, cutting edge technology.

Marietta continues to enhance the efficiency, accessibility, and quality of services we provide from streamlining processes and online platforms to improving citizen engagement through digital tools.

We are dedicated to creating a more responsive, transparent, and connected city.

So this page highlights the innovative initiatives driving Marietta's progress and our commitment to delivering exceptional service.

And then right under here, we'll scroll down, and we have these four categories, and these really lend to the credibility of that paragraph.

And we are an award-winning city.

And it leads to a page where we highlight these recognitions and awards throughout the years.

That many are at the state and national level as well.

So it kind of goes through, we are still digging deep to find some other awards through history that we have, and then we'll be adding new ones as they come along as well.

Our next category is an AI-driven initiatives.

I'm sorry, I kind of this mouse is getting me a little bit, but we are highlighting our AI-enabled utility customer service call center project.

And more to come on this page as well.

Go back to our third category, and we are exploring smart solutions.

This page is um dedicated to showcasing how Marietta is exploring innovative ideas and emerging projects and how we're planning for tomorrow.

We are highlighting the project Smart Grid Technology with Marietta Power on this page right now, and again, more will be added to it as we fill out the section of the website.

This spotlights the people behind the innovations.

And I am going to see if Stephanie can play the introduction to this video series that we will be creating.

If um, so that we don't have to go through the YouTube channel.

Are you able to play it from your end?

And we want you to meet the people behind the innovation.

In our innovators at work series, we will highlight City of Marietta employees who are turning ideas into reality using creativity and technology to serve our community in new and better ways.

They are the problem solvers, the thinkers, the doers, and their work is what keeps Marietta on the leading edge.

Stay tuned to get to know the innovators at work and discover how our team is building a smarter, stronger city.

Thank you.

All right, and right below that, we will not deep dive into this next section, but it does um highlight with a grid of uh previous press releases, um, announcements of projects, videos.

Um this section serves as additional proof points at the page's purpose, demonstrate city council leadership's forward thinking approaches, and documents our innovative story.

And so we will continue to add to this section of the website, um, not only with uh future endeavors, but also finding those past projects and initiatives that have propelled Marietta forward to becoming the innovation leader.

So check it out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

And we'll be getting that out to the public uh in press releases and other things so that uh folks will be able to go on to the page and see all the great things that our folks in Marriott are doing.

Um speaking of things that we're doing that other people uh like to um try to emulate or do themselves.

Um just wanted to let you know the city of Canton recently uh contacted us and wanted all of our materials for our Citizens Government Academy because they want to uh do something similar.

So they're not the first to ask for that, but they're the latest.

So uh we were happy to share that with them so they can do the same.

Uh Mark, did you have uh anything you wanted to bring everybody up to speed up?

All right, yeah, Bill, just a couple of quick things.

Uh Rottenwood Creek Trail, we have uh sent the contract over to GDOT getting their final approval on that, and then we'll be able to get that signed and we'll get that project underway.

We'll we'll get a groundbreaking schedule as soon as we get the contract signed.

So sometime in the next couple of three weeks you'll see an invite coming out so we'll get the groundbreaking set for that.

Um we are underway on design for the Franklin Gateway Bridge project.

I know that was we talked about that several months ago.

Uh we are still ahead of schedule to get that project under construction and be ready to start construction as soon as the World Cup has completed next year.

Uh so we're we're still moving forward on that.

And final thing I'll mention uh, or two things we'll mention.

Uh we do have a meeting uh with Ms.

Richardson uh next week on East Dixie Avenue.

Um that Sycamore, the there's a stop sign there, and we've had a resident request uh that stop sign removal, and so we're gonna have a public input meeting with the neighborhood there to discuss that potential uh aspect before anything moves forward in front of this body.

So um we'll have that meeting next Thursday at 6 p.m.

over the transportation office where we have our traffic calming meeting.

So we'll see.

We've got uh Ms.

Richardson will have Parks and Rick uh economic development, uh, and I've also invited the police department there to talk about traffic issues in the area.

So we'll we'll have we'll have staff there and we'll have addressing the public concerns and we'll be ready for that meeting.

Last thing I'll mention real quick uh last month public works, we was at our state public works conference down at Jekyll.

Uh we did receive, I think I know Rachel sent out the public uh the uh press release.

We received two state two more state awards uh for our department and for the city.

Um uh one of our staff members received uh another supervisor of the year award, recognized for his service.

Um then we received a project of the year award for the uh Kennesaw Mountain Trail for our section on burnt hickory uh for quality of life project.

So I'll have those on the agenda for next month for formal presentation in front of all of you, but I just wanted to go ahead and mention that while I was up here tonight.

So thank you.

Mark, if uh if uh if the light is removed, are we able to reuse that?

If the if a light uh traffic light is removed, are we able to reuse it?

Yes, sir.

So we can put it in the next one that comes up.

Yes, sir.

Um the one we're talking about is actually a stop sign, so it's a little different.

But uh we actually will have that situation with an upcoming project that uh we will be re reusing a traffic signal that we'll be taken down and putting it someplace else.

So, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That said, I think we're right at time.

We've got about 13 seconds and uh prayer.