City of Marietta City Council Agenda Work Session - August 10, 2026
City of Marietta City Council Agenda Work Session - August 10, 2026
The City Council held an agenda work session on August 10, 2026, at 5:15 PM in the Council Chamber. The meeting covered reports from the Board of Lights and Water (BLW), financial updates, a mayoral report on energy challenges, discussions on convention center funding, support for a state rehousing program, appointments, and review of upcoming agenda items. Several items were moved forward to the regular meeting on August 12, 2026, and the council entered an executive session for legal and real estate matters.
Consent Calendar
- Minutes Approval: The July 6, 2026 Agenda Work Session minutes were approved by unanimous consent.
- BLW Report: Council Member Kent presented the BLW report, which included employee recognition, rate changes (general service rate 3.2 and large load rate), and a contract review for a potential data center customer. The report was received and filed.
- Board of Lights and Water Appointment: Dr. Stephanie Meyer was appointed as a non-resident member of the BLW board by a vote of 7-0. The appointment was placed on consent for the regular meeting.
- Workers’ Compensation and Fiduciary Insurance Renewal: The council approved renewal of Workers’ Compensation Excess Insurance and Fiduciary Insurance policies for the period beginning August 17, 2026, with Midwest and Chubb Insurance, respectively. Motion carried 7-0.
- Annual Subscription for Supplemental Power: The council approved the BLW recommendation to submit form selection number five to MIAG for the annual subscription for supplemental power. Placed on consent.
- Civil Service Board Appointment: Derek Greenacre was appointed to the Civil Service Board after the previous appointee took a job with Cobb County. Motion carried 7-0, placed on consent subject to his acceptance.
- Special Meeting Minutes and Executive Session Minutes: Minutes for July 6 (special), July 8 (regular), and July 28 (special) were approved with revisions. Five executive session minutes were also approved. All placed on consent.
- Planning and Zoning Items: Upcoming rezoning cases (407 Atlanta Street, Copper Leaf Partners, and Whitehawk properties) were discussed and placed on the Wednesday consent agenda with noted stipulations.
Discussion Items
- Finance Report (BLW – June 2026): Patina presented financials for the month ending June 30, 2026. Water sales averaged 8.1 million gallons/day (budget 8.3 million) with revenue shortfall of $379,000. Net income for the month was $5.3 million, exceeding budget by $600,000. Year-to-date net income exceeded budget by $1 million ($2.9 million excluding unrealized losses). Capital projects spending totaled $36.8 million with $47 million remaining in CIP commitments. Cash reserves for CIP were $53 million.
- Mayor’s Report on Energy and Data Centers: Mayor Tumlin reported that the Georgia Public Service Commission had placed a one-year moratorium on new data center commitments. MIAG issued an RFP for new generation, and Marietta is committed to 50–150 megawatts. New policies require customers to pay upfront capital costs, limiting new large loads. The city’s generation capacity is sufficient until 2029 but will be tight due to the planned retirement of the Addison plant.
- Convention Center Funding Allocation: Discussion on reestablishing the Hotel Motel Tax allocation for a second Tourism Event Center. Key points included the need for a qualified 501(c)(6) organization (DMO) to receive funds, with the Downtown Marietta Development Authority (DMDA) and the Cumberland CID as potential options. The council agreed to move the item forward for further discussion and directed the city attorney to draft a motion for the August 12 meeting.
- Georgia Rehoused Program – Emmanuel’s Village: Council Member Gaddis recused himself (employer: Georgia DCA). An MOU was presented supporting the application and allocating at least $50,000 of Opioid Settlement Funds. Discussion focused on ensuring the commitment is consistent with normal zoning processes and state law. The item was moved forward to the regular meeting with Gaddis abstaining.
- Georgia Tech Response – Data Center Ordinance: Council reviewed a proposal from Georgia Tech’s Energy Policy and Innovation Center to assist in drafting a data center ordinance, with costs up to $50,000. Council Member Anderson expressed concerns about the scope of expertise (e.g., noise, air quality). The item was referred to the Judicial Legislative committee for continued discussion. Council also noted an AI-compiled ordinance draft from existing ordinances across states.
- Public Hearing Procedure for Zoning Case: The council debated procedures for an extraordinary public comment session on a rezoning case. It was agreed to allocate 15 minutes for proponents and 15 minutes for opponents, followed by council questions. The mayor clarified this is public comment, not a hearing, and will be listed on the August 12 agenda.
Key Outcomes
- Appointments: Dr. Stephanie Meyer (BLW) and Derek Greenacre (Civil Service Board) were appointed unanimously.
- Insurance Renewal: Approved Workers’ Compensation Excess and Fiduciary Insurance policies.
- Convention Center Funding: Moved forward to August 12 regular meeting for further discussion and motion drafting.
- Emmanuel’s Village: Moved forward to August 12 regular meeting with Gaddis abstaining.
- Data Center Ordinance: Referred to the Judicial Legislative committee.
- Consent Agenda: Several items placed on consent for the August 12 regular meeting.
- Executive Session: The council voted 7-0 to enter executive session for pending litigation and real estate acquisition.
Meeting Transcript
Called a city council agenda review session. Work session order or if some people said the third presentation of the twilight zone or something. Quite a period lately, so maybe this one would be quite as much fun. But first item is the July the 6th, 2026 agenda work session minutes. Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Kent, BOW report, please, sir. Yeah, I'm a punt to Ron. They had so much uh information in there, and I'm sure he can do uh 100%. I'll I'll run through it real quick. Uh, first up, we had the uh employee uh recognition. This was our electric department. Eric brought in some of his uh senior staff come in. Cody Tibbets, Alan Matthews, Hewlett Norville, and um trying to think who the fourth one was. But Steve Graham didn't show up, he's one of the ones that's gonna be retiring from uh distribution. Then we had a uh good presentation from Cole Blackwell from the Cobb County Marital Water Authority report. He did a good job explaining the uh the uh what's going on with Cobb County Water. I don't know. Maybe Griff can speak to that a little bit later. Yeah, the BLW presentation here. Then uh Eric got up and we had some changes to a couple of rates. The first one was our general service rate 3.2, and all we're really doing to that rate is changing the availability up to 10 megawatts. That's for general service customer. Uh we don't really have a customer right now that's 10 megawatts. Our largest one is the hospital, they're probably about eight and a half, nine megawatts, and then it kind of trickles down from there. Um so they approve the uh change to that. Then the next rate is the large load rate, and really what we're doing there is changing that rate to uh to accommodate the uh potential new customer that we may have since they're purchasing their energy or at least putting up a some type of financial instrument to secure the uh the generation that we'll have to have to purchase to serve them. So that will be a different billing structure than what was originally in the large load rate for the existing data center that we have. Um so we've we've added that. Uh you see the components there. There's a metering charge, the demand charge, and then the uh uh kind of the margin of what we'll make on the uh on the actual rate itself. Yes, sir. Um question regarding those two policies. Um I know one policy is dealing with something below to a below 10 megawatts of certain of a certain definition term, another one's in excess of 10 megawatts on a certain definition term. I know the terms are not the exact same. Um is there any gap between those two? And if there is is there another policy that covers out that deals with contract rates or something? Yeah, the uh the customer choice policy would handle that anything over of thousand KW, one megawatt would be uh on a contract rate, which would come to the board for pricing. So it'd either go on the general service rate, uh, customer choice rate or the large load rate if it was somewhere in between, but that's how we would handle that. Okay, thank you. Okay, so uh I think that was uh for the most part the biggest change to uh to that uh to that rate 3.5 and then the next item was the um the actual contract itself. It was uh for information purposes only for the uh board to review and would uh ask the council to do the same, review that contract if you got any changes to it, let us know because we'll have to bring it back. Uh if the council approves something, if you don't, then it we'll just kind of hang on to we we have something. So then the next item was uh Eric went over the uh marketing objectives for the uh for the department, and that should be in your book. Um kind of the same most of the same information I would would like to note on the rates uh for the residential customer when you average the rates throughout the year.
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