City Council Work Session - October 6, 2025
City Council Work Session - October 6, 2025
The Marietta City Council held a work session on Monday, October 6, 2025, at 5:15 PM in the Council Chamber. The meeting covered a range of items including a Board of Lights and Water (BLW) report, fee structure revisions for road races, a proposed public gathering ordinance, and a downtown solid waste management district service plan. Several items were moved forward to the regular council meeting on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, and one item was referred back to committee.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of the September 8, 2025, Agenda Work Session minutes (motion carried 7-0).
- BLW report and associated contract with GDOT for US 41 resurfacing (manhole and valve replacements from Terrell Mill to Windy Hill) were approved and placed on consent (7-0).
- Fee structure for road races/walks was approved to move forward to Wednesday (7-0) and placed on consent.
- Several other items were placed on consent without objection: special minutes from September 30, 2025; ZA appointment for Ward 4; 209 West Dixie rezoning (from OIT to R4 with variance); 462 and 480 Roswell (with stipulations to be finalized); West Dixie Avenue and Raymond Street stop sign request; 77 North Park Square certificate of approval (historic review); and various SPLOST reallocations.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments were made during the work session.
Discussion Items
- BLW Report – Councilmember Cheryl Richardson presented the BLW report. Key points: a contract with the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority to improve outage detection and isolation (example: reducing a 200-person outage to 65); a GDOT resurfacing project on US 41 (Cobb Parkway) requiring three manhole adjustments and valve work (estimated cost $5,400); a Cobb Marietta Water Authority financial report showing water sales averaging 81 million gallons/day (budget 90 million), year-to-date net income exceeding budget by $2.5 million, and capital spending of $40.5 million with $51.6 million remaining commitment. A finance report noted lower power costs due to milder weather, and a general manager’s report highlighted a strategic plan focusing on HR retention (45 of 200 employees eligible to retire in 1-5 years, vacancies reduced to 17). The council voted to accept the BLW report and add the GDOT contract to the Wednesday agenda. Councilmember Goldstein disclosed that his family owns property in the Downtown Solid Waste Management District.
- Public Gathering/Expression Ordinance – The item was discussed and a motion to move it back to the Judicial Legislative committee passed 7-0. The mayor clarified that the item would not be heard on Wednesday.
- Downtown Solid Waste Management District Service – Staff presented a revised proposal for Root Street and Dobbs Street. The plan (Option B) includes: making Root Street one-way south from Dobbs to Hansel; installing angled parking along Root Street; constructing a dumpster enclosure at the corner of Root and Hansel; keeping Dobbs Street open; and removing two parking spaces on Church Street to improve sight distance. A motion to accept Option B and move it to the Wednesday agenda passed 6-1 (Councilmember Griff Chalfant voted against, preferring Root Street to be one-way north and favoring closure of Dobbs Street). Councilmember Goldstein made a disclosure regarding family property interests.
- Proclamations – Two proclamations were added to the Wednesday agenda: one recognizing the Georgia Symphony Orchestra’s 75th year and Maestro Timothy Verville’s 10th year; and one declaring October 8, 2025, as Mayor’s Reading Club Day (part of the GMA reading club). The council also approved adding a performance of the national anthem by the GSO to the Wednesday meeting agenda.
Key Outcomes
- BLW Report and GDOT Contract: Approved to move forward to Wednesday (7-0). The contract will be included in the consent agenda.
- Fee Structure for Road Races/Walks: Approved to move forward to Wednesday (7-0) and placed on consent.
- Public Gathering/Expression Ordinance: Referred back to Judicial Legislative committee (7-0).
- Downtown Solid Waste Management District Service: Option B (Root Street one-way south, Dobbs Street open, angled parking, dumpster enclosure) approved to move to Wednesday (6-1). The item will be on the consent agenda.
- Proclamations: Added to Wednesday’s agenda (7-0 each).
- Consent Items: All consent items were approved without objection, including minutes, zoning items, and the 77 North Park Square certificate of approval.
- Executive Session: Noted on the agenda for legal, personnel, and real estate matters, but not discussed in the transcript.
Meeting Transcript
I'd like to call the city council junior work session to order. First item of business is a consideration of the September the late agenda work session minutes. Is there a motion or all second? You just be quiet back there. Present Andre. Andre just yelled second. What do you got a second? I told you just to stay quiet back there. Thank you, sir. All those in favor, please use your right hand. Andre Barbori. Andre. Oh, the amendment. Yes. Okay. That's an aye. Motion carries seven. Oh. Councilmember Cheryl Richardson will give our BLW report. Okay. So of course we had a BLW meeting today. The first item, as always, is our regular minutes, and that is no change from what we had last month. The next item of business was we had a presentation about a contract that we are seeking approval for. And the contract was for the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority. So basically, what this contract does is it improves on our ability to detect and isolate outages. So it helps to make that faster. And we've already cut down with the number of systems we currently have, but this is a contract that goes in effect. And it will cut down on out, not the outages, but the impact that an outage may have. So one example was for anybody that lives over by Marietta Middle School. There was an outage on Sunday, which I got immediately notified. And instead of it being 200 people, it turned into 65. So it was able to detect it and minimize the impact. So this is a bigger grant that will allow us to do that in more places. So that's a good thing. So the resurfacing is going to be on US 41, so on Cobb Parkway. Impact for us monetarily will be three manhole covers that'll need to be adjusted and also some valve work. So we have three that we need to look at. We expect the cost to be approximately $5,400. We'll know exact cost when they actually let the contract with the contractor, but the work will go from Terrell Mill all the way down to the Fulton County line, our impact being Terrell Mill to Windy Hill. So financial impact small, but just kind of beware when GDOT starts this, it's going to go down 41 tarrell to Fulton County. Um separately because the way the contract was written was City of Marietta and the Board of Lights and Water. So the Board of Lights and Water has already approved it. We will need City of Marietta approval. Yes, sir. And just looking at the uh motion, it did say um it says that this the motion from the BLW is a motion to approve recommendation of the city council to approve the GDOT. Uh was there also as part of that motion uh a separate authorization from BLW too? It was it was so we'll we'll get that language cleaned up. So we because we did discuss, as you know, we discussed the fact that it's gonna take the two signatures, though it should have just been one, but that was fine. So if we can get that cleaned up, that'd be great. Um we'll come back for a motion on that.
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