MINUTES WAYCROSS CITY COMMISSION PLANNING & INFORMATION SESSION MONDAY, APRIL 14, 2025, 5:00 P.M. WAYCROSS CITY COMMISSION CHAMBERS (417 PENDLETON STREET, WAYCROSS, GA) I. CALL TO ORDER: The Waycross City Commission Meeting was called to order on Monday, April 14, 2025, at 5 pm by Mayor James. The meeting was held in the Commission Chambers of City Hall. Present were Commissioners Shawn Roberts, Alvin Nelson, Katrena Felder, and Mayor Pro Temp, Sheinita Bennett A. Invocation: Commissioner Shawn Roberts Invocation was led by Mayor Michael-Angelo James B. Pledge of Allegiance II. GUESTS: Ms. Pam Seldon, 1809 Osceola Avenue, Waycross, spoke on the condition of the road she lives on as well as a property that is condemned and needs attention, She wanted to thank the City Manager and Director of Public Works for coming out to access it and she is looking forward to it be resolved. Mr. Tim Peacock, 906 Euclid Avenue, he expressed his concern with how the process oft the memorial of Monroe Park was handled. III. TRAVEL/TRAINING SCHEDULE AND REQUESTS There were none at this time. IV. PLANNING & INFORMATION SESSION A. Discussion Items: ***SEE DISCUSSION NOTES*** 1. Bids: 1. WAYXL25-06 Surplus Property 2. ChiefCox- 1. Bailey Street Police Security 2. Motorized Carts and Personal Transportation 3. Men's Recover House Clint Floyd 4. Aurora Taylor- Ethan Jackson Investments Page 1 of3 Section 6.00.02 -Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with a disability. The City will provide reasonable accommodation to qualified applicants and employees when necessary to permit them to perform the essential functions oft their jobs. 5. Pheonix Park Relocation 6. Infrastructure & Property Set-back Requirements 7. Utilities Rate Increase 8. Meter Pilot Update 9. GDOT Projects 10. Contract with Satilla Regional Water Sewer Authority "Dumping" 11. Resolution for Annual Retreats. C. Privilege Licenses Renewals: n/a D. Privilege Licenses: a. Zels Café and Catering, A. Bostick, 320 Pendleton Street, Waycross Ga, Beer, Wine and Liquor. Consumption on Premises Only. There was a consensus to place this on Tuesday agenda E. Proposed Ordinances: n/a F. Proposed Resolutions: 1. A Resolution of the City of Waycross, Georgia, To Declare 85 toner Cartridges To Be Surplused Property; To Provide For Sale On GOVDEALS.COM; and for Other Purposes There was a consensus to place this on Tuesday agenda. 2. A Resolution of the City of Waycross, Georgia To Approve The Transfer of Certain Real Property Located In Industrial Park To' The Waycross Ware County Development Authority Consisting of4.39 Acres; and for Other Purposes. There was a consensus to place this on Tuesday agenda. G. City Attorney Report: H. City Managers Report: I. Last Call J. Adjourn to Executive Session There was a motion made by Commissioner Nelson to go into executive session, seconded by Commissioner Felder for the purpose of personal and property. All voted in favor, and the meeting adjourned to go into executive session at 6:45 pm K. Adjournment Page 2 of3 Section 6.00.02 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) The ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with a disability. The City will provide reasonable accommodation to qualified applicants and employees when necessary to permit them to perform the essential functions oft their, jobs. CITY OF WAYCROSS BY: uha a MICHAEL-ANGELO JAMES, Mayor ATTEST: aul Paul JACQUALINE POWELL, City Clerk e 08os Page 3 of3 Section 6.00.02 -Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) The ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with a disability. The City will provide reasonable accommodation to qualified applicants and employees when necessary to permit them to perform the essential functions oftheir jobs. ** * DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 CITY CLERK: Yes, Mr. Mayor, we do. We have two guests. Our first guest is Miss Pam Selden. Miss Pam, if you'll step to the podium and state your name and address for the record. Miss Selden is here talking about road conditions. GUEST#1: My name is Pam Selden. I live at 1809 Arcola Avenue here in Waycross, Georgia. Last week I come up and I spoke with the city manager about the conditions of our road. We're a dead-end road. And my neighbors here with me, and we've had no work done on that road for 50 plus years. City manager did come right out. He looked. He looked and talked to us about our concerns. And he had we had a big hole where the water was going up under the road, and we had some potholes. And he had the city engineer come out the next day. And they come out and fixed it and patched repatched the holes. Well, one of them's already given in again. But I do want to thank them for their quick response. We still have several problems on that road. Most people think it's a dragway. We have small children out there and we have requested a speed limit sign. Speed bumps, something to slow these people down because they're doing every bit of45 and 50. And you know, when you got 3- or 4-year-old playing in the yard, if they get out of the fence, you ain't going to stop fast enough. Even at 15, you're going to hurt that child. We have an old, condemned house that's been sitting there for years, and they have a sign on it to have it torn down. And he went down, and he looked too dead. And we're wanting that torn down, too. We're trying to clean up our end of Osceola, most of it on the left-hand side, the yards are kept clean and everything, and we're pretty good. It's just that road needs some attention. And we spoke about drainage. Him and the engineer both talked to me about the drainage and everything because we have no drainage whatsoever. And when it rains, I'm afraid that pothole that they filled up with dirt is going to come back again. It always has. Um, we just wanted to come to the meeting and make everybody aware of it. And, you know, because he said nobody has complained about it. Of course. You know, my mother was 93 and she wasn't going to complain. And Wendell's mother, she wasn't going to complain. But I've been there 57: years and they've never done anything to that road since I've been there, other than patch, and he's been there 62 years and we're just walking. I know, I know, we hear we don't have the money we don't have, but hopefully we're going to find something and get something done because they need to do something, especially about the speeders on on that run. And we have a lot ofbig trucks come through there. And I think that's why where they patched just outside my driveway. I think that's why it's kind of sinking in the middle again, is because those big trucks coming through there. It's a tree truck, Townsend tree truck and it's heavy. And you got ups comes down there Fedex you know their bigger trucks. They're not normal size vehicles but they're also speeding too. But anyhow that's all. CITY CLERK: Mr. mayor we have Tim Peacock. Mr. Peacock you may step to the podium and you have three minutes. Mr. Peacock is coming to speak on district four. GUEST #2: Tim Peacock, 906 Euclid Avenue. Uh, mayor Commissioner's been contacted by a lot of folks from district four. where concerns about the way things were handled at Monroe Park, with Commissioner Hopkins gazebo being put up and all, and quite a few of them has got bad feelings that the family was intentionally left out of that deal, and that we didn't see more commissioners at that program than we did. And itjust seems like with the time it took to get that plaque made and everything 3 or 4 days ahead of time, that we could have got together with the family and contacted the family. I know there's been some things said about not being able to get phone numbers and all like that, but everybody knows Marvin, everybody knows Mark. I feel sure it wasn't a wouldn't have been a real big problem to have got Ahold of the family. And it's we're already thrown under the bus with the way things have gone with the election and everything, and now the point that that family was left out after 20 years of service from dying. There was not there just was no excuse for that. And there are a lot of people in an uproar over it. I've been contacted numerous times about it. And I think we need to get past the excuses and at least do, since we've already set a precedence for doing, uh, apology letters to citizens in this town. I don't see where it would be a big deal to do an apology letter to the Hopkins family in this case. I would hope that it wouldn't take, uh, an ethics complaint to get to that point, because that's Page 1 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 where some people are at, is what do we have to do to get an apology letter sent to their family? And they Because like I say, Diane's done a lot in this town for 20 years. Some think so, some think not. But everybody's got their own opinion. And for the family to have been left out like they werej just no excuse fori it. No excuse whatsoever. And everybody not showing up when that happened and only having one commissioner available that that was disrespectful. Thank you. Thank you. MAYOR: Any other guests? CITY CLERK: No, sir. MAYOR: With that, we will turn the remainder of our program over to our city manager. And we're dealing with travel trade requests and the remainder of our planning and information session. CITY MANAGER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. At this time, we don't have any travel training scheduled. We're moving to the planning information session. Mayor, the vision, and the mission remain the same. And because we have an audience, I'lI leave it up a little bit longer for the audience to read. Mr. mayor, parties have not change. Mr. mayor, the prize fort the broken down has not changed. know we discussed at the retreat about priority and moving some ofthe items over. We're currently working at. We: should have that ready for the next meeting. TII leave this up for a little bit longer for those in the audience who have not seen it before Next Mr. Mayor. We're moving to the city plan, plan, and I'll go ahead and kind oftalk on this al little bit for those who might not be familiar with this chart. this is our chart for our 20- year plan for the city. We are in year two through four this time starting with year two. some of the actions we're going to be doing over the next two years, next four years, actually is updating the programs, policies, ordinances, procedures, um, performance tracking, as we discussed at the retreat. thei improvement of standard based workforce talked about additional training for our workforce during the retreat. complete automation ofthe overall systems. I will highlight this today. Mr. Simmons' team has added an additional feature on the Tyler software update. It will give the commission and the city workforce even more capabilities. We'll go into that for the next meeting, but it is free of charge. Um, it does attach the city app with the work order process that you will be able to track your sales from your phone as a commission. So, we're excited about that. even the citizens, once they put their work order in, um, from from the app on their phones, they'll be able to see the whole step by step process, um, from notification to pothole to the police to pothole. So, we're excited about that. Um, of course, we talked about, um, infrastructure priority strategies. Uh, we'll be requesting a stand-alone meeting, um, for the space utilization update, um, sometime in May. Um, we did meet with the directors, with some ofthe director this morning, and we put a plan together. I think the commission will We appreciate it. Uh, it does go by calendar year versus fiscal years, though. Um, because the money is collected through spots by the calendar year. So, you'll see that when we do the actual briefing. And of course, the rest is to maintain quality of city services. And since we have, um, additional people in the audience today, I will, uh, touch on the budget. We'll start the budget review process and start in May. And of course, with the budget review process is divest and invest. Uh, next, Mr. mayor, we're moving to bids. At this time, we only have one bid, and we're asking the commission to surplus, uh, 85 toner cartridges. Uh, this is because we. have upgraded our printers, and those cartridges cannot be used. We plan to, uh, sell those cartridges ONGOVDEALS.COM. MAYOR: And you need a consensus. And I'll start with district one. Yes, sir. District two. Yes, sir. District three and district five. Yes, sir. CITY MANAGER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. At this time, we'll move on to the next item. It will be read by Police Chief Tommy Cox. Page 2 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 CHIEF TOMMY COX: Mr. mayor and commission. To speak with you this evening about the Bailey Street pool. Um, a couple interesting facts. You probably you already know, but that is a county owned pool. But same time, it's inside ourj jurisdiction. And they have reached out to us asking if we willi if our officers can work off duty security at the location. In the past, there has been discussion on, you know, how that's going to be paid for, whetheri it be city She's paying fori it. It's in ourj jurisdiction or the county is paying fori it since it's their property. When it's all said and done, the county is going to pay for us to be at that location, and it'll be officers who voluntarily sign up for it on their off day to come in. And sO due to, um, like Isaid, some ofthe - don't want to say controversy in the past, but, you know, discussions in the past, we wanted to bring it forward to kind of get the blessing from the commission on it. And I have some of those dates ifyou're interested in them. On when the pool is going to be open. It's also my understanding that they can't get security for the pool. More likely than not, be it. But for the 2025 season, it will open up on Memorial Day and continue operations until August the 2nd. With the exception of the opening day, the pool will be open Tuesday through Saturday and all remaining weekends. Daily operation of the pool will be 1 p.m. to 51 p.m. For general use. And for that statement that youj just made, this will also be on our website sO that you'll be aware of this or how will we generate conversation to our community? Mr. mayor, it's been a website and Facebook page. Continue to get more SO. Yes, I had some. I'll speak on the golf cart ordinance. Y'all ready for me to go with that? Yes, as a matter of fact, if you wanted to, you needed a consensus on this first piece. As far as the support. The security, just. What I'll do. I'll call the district. District one. Yes, sir. District two. Yes, sir. District three. Yes. And district five. Yes, sir. Do you have consensus on that one? No. CHIEF TOMMY COX: The second thing I want to speak on is motorized car usage inside the city of Waycross, and just kind of give some of the citizens kind of a heads up. I've already been in contact with Mr. Spearman about it, and we're working on some wording concerning motorized cart use, personal transportation, vehicles, etc., use for use in our neighborhoods. Um, Georgia law gives us some guidelines, but right now we're going through I'm trying to put something together that fits our community. Um, primarily concerning safety and all that. So, we're putting those final details together and hopefully we'll bring it back to you sometime next month. MAYOR: So, is there any specific thing that you need from us at this time? It's just. CHIEF TOMMY COX: No, sir. It's more information. Just let thej just let the citizens know that we're working on it. This is something that probably comes up every couple ofyears. Yes, because we've got people in the community that do have these motorized carts, and they think they're following state law oni it, which is not the case under Georgia law. It gives us the authority to construct their own ordinance. And that's what we're trying to do right now. So, we can put something on paper that, um, that kind of fits our community. What works for us? Um, you know, it might be different than Peachtree City and what they have, you know. Yeah. I think these golf cart ordinances, I mean, they're pretty standard, um, throughout the state, border communities have them. Page 3 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 MAYOR: So, it's basically what we'll need to do is craft a draft poverty ordinance or some form of a policy where we look at our legal and see what we can possibly do for that. CHIEF TOMMY COX: Yes, sir. And frankly, the main thing I'm working on right now is, is trying to they cannot be on any state escape room. Okay. But, um, and they're supposed to be, on, um, roadways only 35mph or under. But we're still, like I said, we're going to try to tailor it because there are some community areas of our city that's broke, for example, Tebow Street. I think it would be unsafe for motorized car to be on Tebow Street. Um, on cars or avenue. No. Not Avenue. ET cetera. ET cetera. So that's kind ofi issues that I'm kind of going through right now to try to tailor something that's good for us. And have we seen motorized vehicles on those particular streets? We have at times. Yes, sir. MAYOR: Well, we certainly need to get on that SO that we will be able to assist our citizens and safety. Yes. Thank you chief. CITY ATTORNEY: Mr. mayor, ifI may just interject, um, Mr. Curry, when he was here, actually drafted an initial, uh, motorized cart ordinance that Chief Cox shared Share it with me. Based on the Blackshear model. And ChiefCox and I are working on that one, trying to expand it and make it fit the needs of the Waycross community. So, he'sj just putting you on notice that it's coming. And when we, um, finished putting our heads together, we'll present a draft to you. Thank you sO much. MAYOR: Before we move further, there was a point of clarification. Okay. Thank you. Just making sure it's back into your hands, Mr. City Manager. CITY MANAGER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And another point of clarification that should include for us to. I think we've been discussing that a lot. So that will be on there as well. Okay. Um, next, Mr. mayor, we're moving to a home utilization, uh, request and presentation by Mr., uh, Pastor Clint Floyd. Thanks. CALEB LANCASTER: We're honored to be here. Uh, good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Commissioners. Uh, my name is Caleb Lancaster. I had the privilege of serving as a senior pastor at Remnant Church. Uh, that's located right outside the city limits, uh, in Waycross. Today, I come before you, not just as a pastor, but as someone who loves this community. I was born in this community, raised in this community. And now I get to pastor, uh, this community. And, uh, I want to share an exciting vision that we're stepping into. One that we believe will bring hope, healing, and lasting change, uh, to individuals and to this community as a whole. Remnant church has recently been entrusted with the property located at 406 Gilmore Street, formerly known as the serenity House. This home carries a legacy of care, and we're honored to build upon that foundation. And we're in the process of fully restoring and repurposing this property and moving forward. Uh, moving forward, it will be known as legacy House. Legacy House will be a men's residential recovery and discipleship center offering 18- month, faith-based program specifically for men who are ready to break free from the grip of substance and alcohol abuse. But this is more than just recovery. It's about transformation. It's about discipleship. It's about creating a space for men to discover their identity and restore their dignity and walk forward in their true purpose. The name legacy House is not just a title, but it's a declaration. We believe that every man who enters this home has the God given potential to rise above addiction and build a legacy, al legacy offreedom, a legacy ofi faith, a legacy ofstrength that changes not only his life, but his family's life, his children's life and generations to come. Truly leaving a legacy. We've cleared the house of all the old furniture and debris. We've cleaned up the yards. Uh, but we we know there's a whole lot to do, lot more work ahead. We're committed to doing it the right way. So that's why we're here today. We understand that the property will need to be rezoned in order to function as we envision, and we're ready Page 4 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 and willing to go through the proper steps, uh, whatever they may be, to make that happen. We're eager to work in partnership with this great commission, our mayor. Uh, the staff here, the city of Waycross director Mark Hawkins. The Community Improvement Department, to ensure this house is brought up to code and prepared to serve our community with excellence. Wel have talked to Commissioner Felder, and we have, uh, she's been very helpful, and we appreciate her willingness to work with us at Remnant Church. We have a core value that drives drives everything that we do. We believe excellence honors God and inspires people, and that will be our standard for legacy House. This is not a halfway house. This is not aj place where people come and stay for a week. Uh, this is a place where men's lives will be changed as a key part of our commitment to excellence and accountability. We want to inform the commission that the legacy House will be actively pursuing certification through the Georgia Association of Recovery Residences, known as GA. GA certification, ensures that recovery residents operate with the highest standards ofintegrity, safety and effectiveness. Mr. mayor, being GA certified means that our program will meet or exceed state recognized practices in areas such as residential care and safety, program structure, facility operations, and ethical leadership. This certification is notj just a badge, but it's aj promise to the men that we serve their families and our city. That legacy house will be a place of professionalism, structure, and hope. It reinforces our commitment to build something trustworthy, sustainable and life changing. But let me be clear this is a faith-based program. We're unapologetically centered on the life changing power of Jesus Christ. And we've seen that God, what God can do in broken lives and how he takes what's been torn down and builds it back. Better than ever, stronger than before. And we believe with the right environment, the right guidance, and the power of God, that these men will leave behind addiction and stepi into freedom and responsibility. Legacy House will not be a burden on this community, I promise you. Uh, it will be a blessing. A lighthouse of hope for those lost in addiction. A place where men don't just recover, but they become restored. They become leaders. They become legacy builders. We don't have a male shortage in South Georgia. We have a man shortage. And we want to see males become men of God. And I want to thank you for your time. I thank you for allowing us to be part of this. I was told I have ten minutes and I know I've only used like two. And, uh, sO thank. We want to change this community. One life, one home, one legacy at a time. And I want to turn the mic over to Stephanie Goddard, who's the coordinator of accountability court here in Ware County. And she would give us more insight today on the need of services that the legacy House will provide. Thank you, Stephanie. STEPHANIE GODDARD: Thank y'all. So, I work with Accountability Court, which is drug court and mental health court here. Um, we started in 2008 and I have been there from the beginning. I also work with Unison Behavioral Health, and I have been with them for 29 years. Males' facilities for recovery are SO needed in our community right now. For us, we serve 60% of our participants are males, and when they come out of the jails, most of the time, the number one thing that makes them fail in our program is they have nowhere affordable or safe to go live. So having this recovery house, most of the time what happens is we have to send them to another community, which is a shame because the great state of Waycross here, state, great County of Waycross, we're SO great. I would love to be able to tell other participants and coordinators in other counties that, hey,send them to Waycross. We have a great recovery center here. We have worked with, um, Remnant Church through Celebrate Recovery for many years. We send a lot of our participants out there to get their lives changed and then be involved in their programs. And because of that, I am 100% on board and supporting their program. It is much needed, and I know very well that this church will run it to where it needs to be. We'll follow all the rules, and we'll ensure that it becomes a thriving place for Weber County. So, I ask for your support in this to get it rezoned. When it was serenity House, we worked with serenity House, and when it was great, when we lost serenity House, that's when we started seeing our failure rate go down because we had nowhere to send these men. So, Iencourage you, today, um, meni in recovery need a fighting chance. And if we can offer that in Waycross, then I am 100% on board. Reach into men's life and tell them God can change your life. And from the bottom of my heart, with the utmost respect, I want to thank you for your time here today and your service to this community. Page 5 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 And I'm SO honored to stand before you today and share my heart. Thank each and every one ofyou for your service. City manager, thank you SO much. MAYOR: All right. Back to the city manager. CITY MANAGER: Next, Mr. mayor, we'll move to a presentation from Ethan Jackson's investment by miss Aurora Taylor. She's doing a project request. AURORA TAYLOR: I don't quite have the Eloquence to follow that, but I'll keep it simple. Um, we're looking to get an administrative variance for the project on Grinnell and how the apartment complexes. We talked about it before where we were planning to do, uh, gravel parking lots to reduce the amount of pervious surface with how wet that property is. Um, in the city of Waycross. We have to get an official approval from the city commission to do gravel instead of paved. Um, we're hoping to get that tonight. The property is indeed wet. Our geotech report shows that wel have, um, groundwater sixi inches from the surface. So, we really don't even have the room to dig and put a parking lot. Um, and it would be much better for the environment. Better for that street, better for the existing stormwater facilities that are there for us to do gravel. We're going to do, um. We're going to do a large, heavy rock base that stays in place even during hurricanes with crush and run on top. Um, and SO that will compact down really nicely, and they'll stay in place. It shouldn't impact the stormwater facilities. We've reviewed it sO far. Um, and we're having the ESG engineers officially review that. Um, but they also thought that it would be better for the street to have gravel. lots. So, we'rej just looking for that official approval. MAYOR: Okay. We're going to have questions about that, I'm sure. And one ofthe major issues that we've had in times past, we've had others to come in for the same kind ofthing. And for us to give way to this particular way of doing. Now, that would mean other entities that have come before us are going to have some real serious issues about that because we are. just, I mean, within I know within a couple of years we've had this conversation before, but I'll leave this to the commission anyway. Generally, I don't have a voice when it comes down to the vote, but I do have a voice when it comes down to the annotation around it. So what? I want to make sure we remember what we do. For one, we do for all. Andi ifwe're going to start that, that means that's going to start moving toward other places as well.. And many ofthe businesses that have started, including care homes and travel agencies, have had the same questions. So, I'm wondering what we can do ifthere is something that can be done. And I'mi not certain ift thei improvement, the community improvement having regarding that, but I'll look to the city manager to get something to add to that. MAYOR: Mr. City manager. CITY MANAGER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. next we move to the Phoenix Park statue. Relocation of statue. Asyoul know, this came before the commission. I believe in the first time. It was in 2021. Maybe at that time, 2021.21. Same, same. And the commission did decide, um, for the owners ofthe statue to come, to come pick it up. Uh, that did not happen. Um, uh, some statue of law has changed since then, and I'll bring it back before the commission on request of, um, commission that, uh, that request goes back out again formally for them to come and remove it, and then we'll go from there. Um, as a reminder, it's already been passed. We have a resolution on this act already. Um, from that time frame. Um, I was asked to put it back on, um, on the on in dinner. So, I am. We do have a few locations or interested parties for the statue. I did speak with them on my first arrival here. There was a couple years ago. I'm going to assume they would still be interested in a new location for that statue, but of course it's by the resolution. The citizens have to come and pick it up. And I'm gonna pause. Mister Mayor and city attorey might want to add a little bit to that, and then we'll tum back over to you, mister. MAYOR: I was going to say, because I know we've had this discussion for about two years straight, and I've been to court on this one. Page 6 of21 *** DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 CITY ATTORNEY: Yes. Yeah, yeah. The law in Georgia did change in 2019, uh, in response to some other things that were going going on around the country. For example, in August of 20. Let me just back up. Um, in 2015, we had the Dylann Roof incident, um, where nine black churchgoers at a historical black church in Charleston, South Carolina, uh, were were killed by Mr. Ruth. You remember that? And he had pictures. Mr. Ruth had pictures posing with the Confederate battle emblem. Then in 2017, there was a large white nationalist rally titled Unite the Right, assembled in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal ofa statue ofRobert El Lee from the Charlottesville Emancipation Park. And of course, then President Trump offered a weak rebuke of white nationalists. Um, crowd by comparing them to the counterprotesters, saying there were fine people on both sides. Uh, and then in 2020, there was a murder ofGeorge Floyd. And, you know, as a result ofthese incidents that went went around, I'm sorry, that occurred around the country. Uh, a lot of these statues, Confederate monuments were moved without objection. Uh, but then some states, like Georgia, uh, decided to change the law to make it more difficult to move these monuments. So, in 2019, Georgia passed the 2019 Monument Protection Act, and that act provides that it provides protection for publicly owned monuments located in publicly owned parks. Uh, you can't move them. It also provided protection for privately owned monuments in privately owned property. But what it did not do is provide protection for privately owned monuments in public spaces. So, I understand that the statute in Phoenix Park is privately owned, sO there is no protection under the law for that. And, uh, I understand that the commission has already adopted a resolution to have that, uh, to to require that it be moved. So, uh, going forward, uh, you know, the commission can now put some teeth behind this resolution and order that that statute be removed, ifthat's your desire. MAYOR: Excellent. Are we talking about bringing this back for another vote? CITY ATTORNEY: Well, I haven't seen the resolution that there's a resolution. I mean, when we did this some time back, this was April 2021. Okay. MAYOR: And it continued up until 2023 and into some portions of 24. It kept popping back up. I actually sat in a hearing regarding this very same thing. Matter of fact, we were called to court at the state court, and at that time Mr. Curry was he represented, Isaid, as a representative ofthe three council that voted, which would have beeni in districts one, two and three that voted at that time. And as a result ofthat, I didn't know because I know something came up after that. And I think this new ordinance that you) just made mention of that came after the fact, right? It's not an ordinance. It's actually a law. State law. A law. State law. And I recall that there were places that had taken those monuments down that had to go back and place them back, or even put them back in those places again. So, this is the the, the conversation we had, Iknow, especially in Stone Mountain and other places ofthat sort. So, my question is really around the idea of what are we doing now? Are we trying to have the organizations that are together to come move this? Because that was that was what they went to court for, and they said they weren't moved it. So, my question is what are we doing? Because we can't. We the city can't. I know we had several persons to come in to make comments on. This is city property. These are privately owned statues and cannon. And those persons need to come and get those things off. And we shouldn't have our staff cleaning them, or we're owed remuneration and reparations for having cleaned up during that time frame. And understandably, we have full history on it from 1910 to present day. And we constantly were being told, without a shadow ofa doubt, it needs to be moved. But my question to the city manager and to our city attorney, what steps do you see us taking to do anything different from what we've already done? CITY MANAGER: Okay, Mr. Mayor, the law was always there. It was there when the previous attorey did it. did not want to go into all that. MAYOR: Well, I understand that the law was there, but the the the new law that came in was supposed it sounded as ifi it was telling us to leave it alone. But the reality is, is now understandably you you've shown that at 1.1 law regards private property privately owned, the other is publicly owned and public Page 7 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 property. Ours is a mix. It is a privately owned. And the argument that the. Those who are standing to keep it there is that it belongs to us. So, they're trying to make it say that the city owns it, and it has been there this long, and that that's where our conversation is. So do we have something in writing saying that it does not belong to the city of Regards. Or do you have something that says that it does belong to the girls? Both of them. CITY MANAGER: Let me see. Let me say this. So today, 2019, the law was already there. And that's what the friction was. And I'm not I'm trying to start a tiff with that. MAYOR: But I understand exactly what you're saying. Ijust want to make sure before we make steps that we make the proper steps, and that I have the, you know, because we have to have the backing of the commission to do whatever it is necessary, but it'll be the commission that makes the decision. But it'll be me sitting in the chair. Gotcha. CITY MANAGER: And we've had that discussion. Who will get the full blast ofthis? But at the same time. This Morning, it's the first time I'm just, you know, trying to tell me someone did not do what's growing. The first time we were told that we couldn't do it for various reasons, which was not true. That's all I'm gonna say. That was not true. That law was already there. So, it should have been moved that time frame. So, the information given to the commission was not right at that time frame. I was still on the movie, but then you were told to be based off of whatever, but the law did in 2019 stated what it was its own public. I mean, its own city property, actually, and it's a private statue. So, the city was always in the right from the get-go. Um, we. just told we couldn't do it for other reasons, which we'll get to if need be. MAYOR: So, SO my question again, just before making any formal decision is what is it that we're asked to do tonight. What is the. CITY MANAGER: Well, I'm asking the commissioners but brought to me to put on the agenda. Um, it still stands. Do we move it? Get it moved. Send a letter back out, or we'll just leave it alone. I mean, at this point. MAYOR: So, my going back to my statement one more time. We already voted to move. With the concurrence, I'm thinking that everybody concur that it has to be moved. That's what this is, Commissioner said. But my question now is what is it that we would be talking about ifit's already been voted on and already what we are doing with that decision needs to be implemented. But let me ask this question. When you went to court, was there was there an order from thej judge one way or the other with regard to moving that monument? That's a good question, because that would have been it should have been filed with us, but at least we should have copies of what took place during that time. That would have been under Mr. Curtis. CITY MANAGER: Again, a lot of things were not done correctly during that time frame. MAYOR: So, I'm good with what you're saying, but I'm just making sure that ifyou don't see it in any ofour paperwork and nobody else knows where it's located, we're going to have to check with the court to find out if there was a disposition given regarding this. And I'm thinking that it was just a hearing, and we didn't get any response back from it afterwards. I don't recall having anything that I've talked to. Presidents of different organizations that are a part of holding this district because they've come in and had meetings with me. So that's why I'm saying we want to make sure when we're making these statements that we have something. That's why I asked my paper, do we have something saying we don't own it? Because that was the argument in the case that we owned it. Well, my question is, ifit's not saying we don't own it or we do own it and we don't have any paperwork on it, we still go forward as we've already done. Or do we need to do this again? Well, again, it sounds like the commission considered whatever needed to be considered at that time, and then you adopted a resolution requiring Page 8 of21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 that it be moved. I'm hearing all ofthis really for the first time. So, I'd like to have an opportunity to see what the resolution says and see how it ended up in court. Just to be able to give you better direction. I mean, it sounds like you're within your rights, but I can't say that definitively until I see what the record reveals. I mean, I just don't know. I'm hearing it for the first time tonight. Okay. CITY MANAGER: All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And next, we'll move on to infrastructure and property setback requirements. Uh, request to change. And it will be presented by Mr. Mark Hawkins. MARC HAWKINS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Commissioners. Um, sO there was a repeat of what we discussed in the last work session. Just a conversation. Uh, looking at the city of Douglas, city of Valdosta, and some ofthe cities that were normally compared to, um, looking at there. So, our smallest lot size would be the R 50 residential. Um, city of Douglas looked at their smallest lot size in the city of Valdosta, per zoning. What their smallest lots of Loss would equal the city of Douglas. Their minimum lot size is 9000 square feet, with a minimum lot width of 70 foot of frontage. The minimum set side setback from the property lines to the structure is 7.5ft, and then their minimum square foot for homes is 900 square foot. The city ofValdosta, their minimum lot size is 6000ft?, with a minimum lot width of 60ft and a minimum setback ofeight feet with a minimum square footage. All these are heated, square foot, heated square foot of 800ft2. Ours our small. Our minimum lot size is 5000ft2 with a minimum lot size of 50ft. The one big difference that from ours and theirs is the minimum side yard setback in the R 50 is six feet on one side, but both sides have to equal 15. Whereas Valdosta and Douglas it was just 7.5ft on either side, ifthat makes sense. So, um, one of the things that we did, and our minimum square footage of homes is 1000ft, but then we've got that caveat that I'll show you also that says you take the average of the homes in that same block, and SO you build to that. So, if the average in that block is 2500ft?, you have to build 2500 square foot home. Ifthe average is 800ft2, you can go down to 800ft2. So, um, we have that caveat. The others didn't. They just had a minimum square footage. And then it when you go through both Douglas and Valdosta as your zoning changes like ours, we have our 50 R 75 R, R 90 and Rs. They have different zoning districts. Their lots get bigger just like ours do. Um, but their minimum square footage kind ofstays the same. Um, sO our minimum front yard setback. Um, and Ijust took the R 90, R 75 and R 50. That's the four biggest ifyou go to. We also have our 50 MH, R 75, MH and RM 75 which all allow mobile homes. When you get to the setbacks and the yard requirements, they point you back to either R 75 or R 50. Um, SO this is just kind of an idea of what each one will look like. The front setbacks. Um, with this, um, these are all from property lines, not from streets. So, these are from property lines. Um, sO I was going to get your opinion on if you want to leave those minimum front yards the same or ifyou want to reduce those, you see the rear yards, um, are. 30ft for Rs and R 90 and 25ft for R 75 and R 50. And then you see the minimum square footage uh, per dwelling unit. So Rs obviously a single family only. So, you can't have duplexes, but once you get to R 50, R 75 and R 90, you can have duplexes or multifamily the way it was written. Each house or duplex, each dwelling unit. So, ifyou've got a duplex there's two dwelling units. Each one has to be 1000 square foot. Or if you take the average and it's 800 square feet, then each side of that duplex is 800 square feet. Um. Again, the minimum front yard. This goes to multifamily. They're pretty much the same. Um, and then when you get to the multifamily, the square footage is the same as well. This is the caveat that I was talking about. And it's a whole lot ofverbiage, basically just to say: you take the average of that block and you build to that average. Um, sO that's where there's some differences between ours. And if, um, on the side yard setbacks, um, I did go through and as we talked and again, any of these changes would have to go to the planning Commission. They make their recommendation, then we bring it back here for a public hearing. Um, one of the recommendations that I have was to take out our side yard setbacks where it says sO an r just r 50. For instance, the setback was, um, six feet on one side and both sides had to equal 15. Um, just take out both sides and then it would just be a minimum of six and a half or six foot on either side. Um, the only difference would be where that property is on a street corner. Um, right now in the R 50, if it's next to a major collector street, that setback would be 20ft. Um, ifit's a minor street, it would be 17ft, and then the other side would still be six. So that's something that we could look at to reduce if we needed to there. Um, but just trying to get what this commission Page 9 of 21 ***I DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 wants to do. Um, as far asi ifthey want anything changed with the front setbacks, um, the rear yards and then the minimum square footage for homes. MAYOR: What is your Recommendation? MARC HAWKINS: My, uh, again. So, the, uh, the side yard setbacks. Like I said, I took that out to where it was that the front yard setbacks. There's another section in there that. So, we do have some streets where the houses are a little closer. Uh, there is a section in section six. Um, that would allow you to move that height. So, ifthe property, if the houses are closer to the street, um, you can line up with the houses that are there. So, there's already a little provision there. Um, the only problem where that wouldn't be or not problem, the only situation where that wouldn't be helpful is if there's no houses on that street. Um, then that front setback would come in the rear yard looking at Valdosta and Douglas. Um, again, some oftheirs were 15ft of rear yard. Um, some were 20ft and then some were 25ft. So, um, and then a couple of them, uh, their front setbacks were a little, a little shorter. So, um, if anything, I would, you know, keep in mind with our 50 again. So, ifyou've got six feet on each side of your house, that would. If I'm six feet from my property line, you're six feet from that same property line. There's 12 feet between you. When you start getting below ten feet, then you have to start looking at firewalls. Uh, the fire code says also that you want SO much room between the buildings sO that you can get two, two firemen and a hose between them. So, they recommend at least ten feet. So, I wouldn't recommend going below six feet on a side yard setback, um, for our 75. That side yard is eight feet For R 90 and Rs. That side yard will be ten feet. And again, those lots are bigger. So, they could have bigger houses. Um, some ofthose might be two stories. So, you start looking at some ofthat. Um, we could go six foot straight across, or we could just leave that six foot for our 58 feet for R 75 and ten feet for R 90 and Rs. And then like I said, it would just be taken out where they have to equal because like in the R's and the R 90, you've gotten feet on one side. Both sides have to equal 25. So, you would have ten and 15. So it would give them an extra five foot to to work with there. And then in R 90 it would give you an extra um three foot that you can build there. Um, and then the, the square footage for the houses again. Um. I would not go below 800 square feet. That kind of seems to be the average. Um, um, once you start getting below that, it does start getting a lot smaller. Um, take for instance, the houses on, um, Carswell just passed, or I think it's right before the Nelson Green Center. Two houses there. They're just over 800 square feet. And there are. You can tell they're kind of small. MAYOR: So, like the tiny house thing that we've been talking about at some given point, those houses would not be in alignment with what you're talking about. MARC HA WKINS: Correct. And I talked with the regional commission. Um, there are some places where they did tiny house communities. Mhm. Um, sO what they did was took, let's say the lot behind Kroger. They just rezoned that one lot for tiny House community. Uh, instead of putting them all over the city they just kind of put them in one, one lot. Okay. You took that or another big lot. Scout Lake, or trying to think ofempty lots whereyou could rezone a big area and make that a tiny home community. So, and what they did say was that it did affect, you know, if you put a tiny house between two 2000 square foot houses, it would bring down the property values of those, those two houses. MAYOR: So that was a concern we had some time ago when we were talking about homelessness and building homes that would be affordable, but then in these neighborhoods they would have to meet certain requirements. And sO, you're talking about average right, square footage. So, I understand exactly. MARC HAV WKINS: And the city of Savannah did one. It's a tiny home community. It was, um, for veterans that were homeless. Um, but it's in a section, and it's just one lot. And I don't know if the city owns it ori if the developer owns it, but they made that a tiny home community for veterans. So. CITY MANAGER: I know, you asked a question on Miss Hawkins recommendation. Uh, and I know this was a request by the commission to get some feedback on this. We might need just a I don't know Page 10 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 how we do this to go look at some of the lots, because the problem is we do have investors come in who do want to rehab the big homes, you know, and then that's more of a code's thing necessarily the size. And then we have a lot ofthose vacant lots. And nobody's coming in to build those big homes on those vacant lots. So, it's a twofold problem. And maybe this is something we, you know, um, do outside. I mean, we can put it in the paper and everything to make sure everybody has a clear understanding of what's being asked. Uh, there's no there's no one one size fits all. Uh, I will say, um, some other cities, although they have their stuff documented a lot looser on their policies. Um, Douglas, I mean, you know, but, uh, sO maybe we need to go that direction, that approach, uh, versus this, um, you know, Mark, you want to give you and again, Mark knows he's talking about when he does this every day. Um, but it is just numbers and words right now until you get out there and actually look at it and like, say, we're SO unique with the makeup of our neighborhoods. Um, we definitely couldn't do a one size fits all scenario. So, um, I'll try to sit down some dates, um, to the commission to kind ofreally look at this on the ground. I think you have a better, a better understanding of what Mark's saying. Ifyou can look at it on the ground, I think we, got 4 or 5 homes we can go look at and lots to kind of better depict, um, some recommendations that he's making right now. So, um, like I said, we do have people coming in to rehab, those big homes. And again, I think that's more of a, um, a change in how we allow that to happen. Um, and then the other problem would be the smaller lots. Nobody's going to build from scratch, not a big home. So, I stopped there, Mr. Mayor. MARC HA WKINS: And I can say that. So, talking with the regional commission on some of these smaller lots. If we had a big area where we had a bunch of smaller lots, we could rezone that. But our smaller lots seem to be just here and there everywhere. Um, SO we do have the Board ofZoning appeals where, you know, somebody owns that lot. They can come seek a variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals to reduce setbacks, reduce some ofthat. Um, one thing that they did mention was that we could put in there an administrative review to where ifit's 10 or 15% less than the requirements, then we could do that in house instead of making them go through the Board of Zoning appeals. So that's an option that we could look at, just that it would kind of speed it up. Uh, even though the Board of Zoning Appeals meets once a month. Um, and as long as we have the property posted in 15 days, we can geti it. And it's when they make their decision. It's final that day. Um, but the administrative review, some cities have it, some don't. It just gives staff a little leeway to, you know, if the lot says it has to be 50 foot and it's 45, that's less than 10%. Then staff can do that in-house and move forward. So that's something that we could look at. So, um, like Mr. Rayford said, this is just to try and get some feedback on on exactly what the commission is looking for sO that we can address those issues. MAYOR: Okay. Well, what I would do, ifyou don't mind, I'm going to open the floor to the commission that they may. just talk freely to you about the setbacks. And I'lI start with district one. Any comments he may have. And then afterwards district two and three and five. COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: So, I don't have any. COMMISSIONER BENNETT: Yes, sir. I'm just going to go along with what the city manager said. MAYOR: And district three. COMMISSIONER FELDER: Yes. I have a question, Mr. Mayor. Um, Mark, regarding some of these homes at these issues regarding the lot size. Can your kind of just maybe give the commission some some examples of where you've seen this at? That kind of poses an issue. Do you see it more sO in one district as opposed to another Like I said, throughout the entire city. MARC HA WKINS: Not really, like I said the lots that we have that are undeveloped, they're kind of just they're in every district. Um, and it's just the way that stuff was drawn up. Um, maybe it was family land and they kind of subdivide it, and then each person started getting some. And SO, it's just kind of a hodgepodge throughout the city. It's not any one district. Um, but there are some where like I - said, just Page 11 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 say our 50. It requires it to be 50 foot wide and at least 5000 square feet. Um, I know there's one, um, on the north side in district one, that it's only 40ft wide and 80 foot deep. Um, SO they could seek variances to build on that, just to reduce the setbacks and the yard size. Um, and I don't think I don't think there's a lot of houses in there, sO it might be we're in that situation, you know, shrinking down the square footage of the house to 800 or 900 square feet, with the benefit them to be able to build a house on that, um, and develop that. Um, but as far as just being a daily thing, it's not that often. Um, with the Board ofZoning Appeals, ifwe were seeing a lot of, uh, developers or property owners coming to seek variances to reduce yard setbacks or reduce things, um, obviously then we know that we've got an issue, and we need to address it. Um, but as far as setbacks, they're few and far or variances, they're kind of few and far between. So, these lots are. just kind ofjust a hodgepodge. And they're just kind of wherever. Ifthat answers your question. COMMISSIONER FELDER: Also, regarding the lots. It's a mixture of, I guess, public and private health. MARC HA WKINS: Most of them are privately owned. The city does have some lots. That are kind of close to being developable. The city has some also that are, just little slivers that might have been old right of ways or easements on it. So, we. just got a sliver that obviously can't do anything with, or ifit's a misshaped triangle or something that we took in as part of a road. Um, the majority of them would be privately owned. MAYOR: I think some of those lots were either requested to be utilized for green space. MARC HA WKINS gardens. Yes, sir. Wel have, uh, one out on Nichols, and I think one, 1 or 2i in district one, I think. MAYOR: And district five. COMMISSIONER NELSON: Well, my desire when I first came and asked about these lot sizes, because. There's a lot of lots About Pittman and Thomas Street near you. And I appreciate all those numbers, but. MARC HA WKINS: Yeah. So, you've got r 50. MH, which would cover some of, um, Longview at short Buick cuts in their R 50, which was some mobile homes. Then you get, um, the Ossie Davis, it turns into R 50. Um, a lot ofthat is R 50 until you get over to Colley Street. Bailey. Bailey Street, those two R R's single family. And then you've got a little bit on Quarterman from the side street on Colley- by-Colley Street School. Um, is it Buchanan? No. Anyway, from the side street next to there, over to, um, Dorothy Street. There's a little section that ses. And then when you start going back, uh, towards Vernon Street, that gets into R 75. Okay. Um, R's there's a little section there. There's majority of Cherokee Heights is R's. Um, and then, um, honestly, majority of our properties are R 50, except for that little section there. And then there's um, assembly. And those where the brick homes are there. That's our 75 and some R 90. COMMISSIONER NELSON: Well, my concern was because Hudson Street and Spurgeon Street in those areas They have small lots as well. And in your mind's eye, since you've been around town, can you see yourself putting an 800-foot home down the street or Thomas Street in those lots? Because I don't know. MARC HA WKINS: Actually. Yes, sir. Um, there are, um, a lot of those lots. Um, the homes that are there, the current homes are what they call the old shotgun houses. Yes. And they're no more than 750 al lot some of them are 750, which are really tiny. Um, but no more than 900, maybe nine. 25. So, yeah, 800 square foot home, I believe would fit there. Um. And 800 is it sounds small, but it's it's pretty big. I mean, if you went in these houses on Carswell, they look small. They're three bedrooms, two bath. Page 12 of 21 *** * DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 They actually have good size kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms. Um, and we've got a developer building some. He's going to build five on Martin Luther King that are right at 1100 square feet. Um. COMMISSIONER NELSON: So, we're going to have that visit to the Thomas Street area and the Hutchinson Spurgeon Street, because there's a lot of vacant lots over there that people people don't automatically know that they can, or they have the option to go before the zoning board to get it done. MARC HAWKINS: And we always tell them when they come up and want to build that, they have those options. Okay. So okay, good. But I would you know, like - said, the one thing I, I see, um, again would be the side yard setbacks. Just make that clear. Um, that it's the same on both sides except for where it's on the side streets. And then, um, the only other thing I would see is reducing that or just leave that caveat in there where they build to the average oft that, that area, which would give them that. So, the houses on Thomas Street in that, in that block or 750, they can build a 750 square foot house. Okay. CITY MANAGER: Thank you. Mark next, Mr. Mayor, we move into the utilities rate increases conversation. Um, uh, we did discuss this in detail at the retreat, and I will say up front, I had another meeting with the engineering team on Sunday and Monday to discuss a few things. Uh, based off of some ofthe conversations at the retreat. So, some ofthis is like a phased approach. Um, bottom line up front, uh, everybody knows, um, how old our systems are, all thei infrastructure. I'm gonnaj just beseeing these slides numerous times now. Um, we had the young lady,j just Osceola just speaking. I did go out there, um, on that street. We got a lot of streets that way. Um, they need, um, and and they have. No, they have no lines out there at all, but just itjust depicts how old the systems are, how old the streets are, and they go back and look at some of the. We do have some core samples and some historical data. And she's right, that street has not been done since 19. I think it was 61. Um, sO it's still a long, long time. Um, uh, sO, um, after I talked to the team about some things, um. We would never catch up, but we're doing right now. Just bottom-line up front, the amount of revenue we're bringing in. Um, we're starting this conversation. We will never catch up. Um, fixing our water and sewer will continue to get worse. Um, during the finance, um, update last year, we were going through the budget brief. We discussed that. Uh, the water: sewer brought in about $7 million, and that'sjust to keep everything going. That's not include all the fixes. And then we do typically have been pulling out of the general fund to fix some of those projects. And we just don't have oily Worst case. Um, we find that stuff, and that carries with it a lot longer. We're still carrying debt from ten years ago on projects with water and sewer, and that is killing us right now. Um, and, um, and because we're carrying that debt, you know, monthly, weekly, monthly, yearly. Like I said, we don't have any cash. So, cash flows, like, pick up new stuff. Uh, so Iwant to make that clear. So that first conversation should be raising rates. And that's discussed in the retreat. Maybe 3% is too low. Um, that was like a dollar after three years have been like $1.25. That would give us just enough amount of money, uh, to put in for some grants as matching money, and that would be helpful. Um, but it would still be prolonging the inevitable. But, uh, that's that's the first piece of this. The next the next piece I want to talk about, uh, some of the different equations that was given, um, from both of our presenters. Uh, once again, they were saying the same thing. So, um, Charlie just focused on the on-revenue creation. And Mr. Powell was looking at uh, the usage and uh, usage, how we track the usage, which would be in total usage versus the meter size, uh, which a lot of cities do do. He was right about that. But to do that, you do have to have the software update, which you don't have yet. You do have to have all our meters working in place, which we don't have yet. Um, and once we did that, we could go to that total usage versus meter size. So, um, in theory, uh, commercial. We'll be paying more. Um, Ihaven't seen that yet for all the data, but we'll be paying more. So. So what I'm telling the commissioner, because we've been talking about this for a lot oft times. We need to decide. Uh, and let me go back. Um, we can, uh, we actually, we already passed a resolution on this. Um, and we keep that same resolution. Um, just change it to move the date. Um, actually, it's already in there. We can make it go up later on the year to help the citizens, um, during the peak season. So that would mean maybe November Ist. October Ist. Those two will take effect. Uh, we're still about a year away for the software getting, uh, updated, fully implemented. So that year, I'll have to come Page 13 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 back then, um, and look at how we do the utilities building. We could do that then. But once again, that would be a year away. And if we could change that process. So. So I'm telling the commission now I'm gonna go down. Let me check it out. Um. We need to do something. It's point blank. We gotta do something. Um, which means we need to, uh, look at raising the rates. Um, we need to update the software. We're doing that. We need to replace the meters. And that's part of the conversation as well. And, um. And you heard the numbers on that. That $500,000. That would mean a total total replacement that me and our own backbone installation. Everything. We don't have to do that right now. I'm thinking the number was about 350,000, and that would be us getting on the backbone of Georgia Power. And then that monthly bill will only be about $1,800 a month, which would be good for us. Um, long term, until we could decide maybe to restore some funding and then create our own backbone later on down the road. So, I brought to the commission, um, a few times before. So, I'm just asking again, um, what is the will of the commission to be, you know, really don't want to do another meeting on this if we don't want to do anything at this time right here. Ijust focus on getting the software implemented. Um, that's that's the key factor. And then getting these meetings changeover because the meetings will bring in more new meters, system will bring in more revenue because we'll be able to accurately track the revenue right now. You know, we just we kind of, um, we're doing our we're not tracking the revenue properly because the meetings don't work. So, with the new meetings, we're going to do a lot. MAYOR: I want to say something here, ifyou don't mind me interrupting, but this is this shouldn't have to be an either or. This can't be a both. And it can't be this can. We can go ahead and implement what you've already presented to us. And then as time progresses and the other software gets in, then we can go back and we can redo as we're doing with some of these other events, make a vote and then go back to the potential word that was stated to us. Charlie's way could be the starter and Mr. Powell's way could be the closer. CITY MANAGER: Correct. So, I just I'm just to the point now, I know we need to go ahead and do something before it gets worse because we already see she said it before you can get the gravel down or before you can cover the pothole. Just a good rain and it's gone and you're going back out and do the same thing you just did. And if you're doing that all over Waycross, you're having you're using a lot of resources that could be used better in this particular case. So that's my suggestion based upon your statement. But that would be the commission to make that determination. And T'll open the floor for conversation around it because we've heard this multiple times. COMMISSIONER NELSON: Your suggestion of going with the one that's already on the books. The resolution is already there. It would be my choice to just add to that the business portion of it and then come back, as the mayor said, just address the meter thing, and we can include glue that holds together. So, either way, we need to go ahead and jump on this right away. Oh, great. MAYOR: So, let's go back. Now we said 3% on residents. Is that correct? Correct. And then 7% on businesses. CITY MANAGER: So, the 7% if you if your um, again, both of the presenters said the same thing. Um, currently when we set up the commercial users use more water and pay less. So, to create that inversion it will be a 7% increase. And Mr. Powell said a 10%. Ifyou look ifyou look at his notes. MAYOR: So, my concern because I know he was basically taking it up to maybe $22. Yes, yes. But but when you're looking at just listening to the conversation on both sides, I it's somewhat of an incremental step. We're doing it a little bit by little bit step by step. And then this would ease into it as opposed tojumping into the deep end pool and not knowing how to swim. So, this this particular portion of it seems like it would be a better route to start with. The I don't want to say the Charlie brand, but they start with that and then come back and do the power plan. Page 14 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 CITY MANAGER: And again, that 3% at the end of the year. We talked about the basketball money for the 3.5 being we generate for the grant, and we'll be able to that will do a lot for us. So, um. MAYOR: So, we had a statement, and I opened the floor to Commissioner District one. Did you have a comment? No, sir. Okay. Mr. Keith, anything you want to share with us? I know you've already did. Whatever you're saying. COMMISSIONER BENNETT: But let me just add, um, I'm not sure if he was here, but I had a constituent talk to me about Osceola, and I mentioned Osceola before. So, this is nothing new. I don't think he was here. And you're absolutely correct. And the old lady who patched it up and it's still messing up, that's like on, um, Sweat Street and Congress Street, you know, did the work, but it's still water coming out there. So, agree we need to move forward. CITY MANAGER: And again, SO the passage of the asphalt or the cement, you know, that's mainly to the utilities issue that we have old piping. Um, SO and again, all that's failing right now, um, like I said, it was 1961. There's another great example of when, um, the road got put down and the drainage got put in, or lack of drainage getting put in. So, the 3% increase, um, for both the residential and commercial and then the 7% right size ofthe commercial version wasj just Well that's true. If we started there this first year, we know that the resolution that's currently states, we always come back to the commission to change the numbers if need be. But this first year we did that, and it'll give us time to get the software implemented, get the meetings, all the meetings put in, which will then track the correct amount of usage as far as what they actually bring in additional revenue and put us in a better space. And then after we get all that done, we can look at changing how we utility bill usage will be on the back end of that. So probably a two-year process if you look at it that way. Um, but a much-needed two-year process. Like said, we would definitely catch up on some things. Not everything, but at least we have started the ball count moving forward and not always backwards like we're doing right now. So. MAYOR: So, district two, did you have a follow up or did you do. Oh, okay. District three. COMMISSIONER NELSON: Yes. Um, SO you're, um, recommending you were recommending a 3% increase for residential and 7% for Percent for business, which is a total of 10%. Correct. CITY MANAGER: I'm recommending a 3% for both residential and businesses, but the 7% will be to rightsize the the invert the ratio right now between the residential and commercial, where the commercial uses a lot more water, but they pay less. And like I said, I can't explain how we got there where we are there. Um, this will be very minimal. Y'all see the numbers here? Um, what it would be, um, roughly $3 over time frame and the larger meetings. So right now, we're charging by the meters. So, you're talking about the eight meetings, which is the big commercials and up,you know, $55, you know, pretty much every year. So, $150 in three-year time period. So, we're not asking much of them. We are asking them to start paying for what they use. I mean, a little bit more. So, and this is the recommendation that, um, our engineering firm, uh, put together. Also, my engineering team, uh, upstairs, and I stand by them. Um, this is a low, ifyou want to look at it that way? Um, Mr. Powell, he did recommend a hire. Um, he did recommend you look at his numbers. $20. He was talking about 22% increase. That's because he he's taking into account CPI inflation. We're not really putting inflation in here. We're just trying to start the ball rolling. Uh, as far as bringing extra revenue. COMMISSIONER FELDER: Thank you. IfI recall, Mr. Powell recommended, um, it was a flat rate depending on meter size using the ER, I believe it's the ER or the ERC methodology. CITY MANAGER: Like stormwater. Right now, we don't have the software to do that, that's all. And we don't have our meters are not aligned right now. That's why we need to get the software implemented and up running new software. Utilities billing and then get our meters in place. And then we could Page 15 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 change all that over. Uh, what he was saying was whoever uses both waters should pay the most and be by a gallon usage period without needing to be included in the equation like we currently do right now. COMMISSIONER FELDER: So, what is the software that we need to have implemented in order for this to happen. CITY MANAGER: So. Um, sO right now, um, software SO we can read the meters right now software SO we can read the meters better SO we can read the meters. Right. What is the name of the software. CITY MANAGER: It's come with a title. Everything is come with the title. MAYOR: It will be here. What I'm hearing, what we need to do is make sure when it gets here that it will be able to read those things. And then along with that, the statement that was made is crucial to asking the question was the air using IRC for the things which you need to know? Well, once that is implemented, that's this goes back to my original statement. The statement was gone ahead and implement the first one that we've already mentioned, and then come back and do the other once we get the the software up and running. And you said it will be within a year that we're able to do that. Yes. Okay. Are we going to finish with Commissioner. Commissioner district three. And then I'll come back in district five. COMMISSIONER FELDER: So, um, even though we're in the process of getting Tylet Software implemented, you said the final implementation will be a year from now. CITY MANAGER: Yes. It was a two-year, 18 months to two-year process. I believe that from the beginning we will give me updates. It's going to be about two years to get everything implemented. But it's notj just the title ofsoftware. It's the fact right now we're changing the media software. Um, once we go with the new: media company, they got software too. So, artists got to get connected SO that the media can meet again. And I bring that up because right now you can't read between 1700 and 2000m. So, we're losing data. We're losing revenue on that as is too. So, did you get all that fixed first? So, then you can go to ToysRUs when you got all of your usage tracked properly. Right now, we don't have everything tracked properly because our meter is not working. When I say 1700 to 2000, that's not the same 1700 2000. They they flip flop. So, it could be on this address. It could work. And then they cut offt the day the battery goes dead. The transmitter stopped. And tomorrow? Come on. So go and get all that stuff fixed first. So, we have a total package and a clear understanding of how much revenue we actually bringing in with us before we change how we build it. Thank you. Yes. District two. COMMISSIONER BENNETT: Thank you. Um, can we go ahead and call for a vote? MAYOR: We can do a consent on whether to bring it to the agenda tomorrow, and then we can go through the process. Yes, sir. Tomorrow on the resolution that may be written, I think, as written. Would there be a resolution for this? CITY ATTORNEY:I think there's there's already a resolution that we're traveling on. You just want to know whether or not to put it in the budget. CITY MANAGER: Where the current resolution, it only states 1.5 adjustment every year to the commission, but I think it says it can vary. I got to look at it again. Okay. Page 16 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 MAYOR: Okay. So whatever wording needs to be changed, if there's a wording change that needs to be done, then we can have that done and we can bring it up to a vote tomorrow. That's çorrect. That's correct. We can vote up or down. Don't forget a motion and a second, and then we can move forward in that regard. Okay. Now I think the commission is okay with putting it on the docket for tomorrow. So obviously something's crossed my mind. But district one, what are your thoughts? COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Yes, sir. I'm good with it. Okay. MAYOR: And district two. COMMISSIONER BENNETT: Yes, sir. MAYOR: District three. COMMISSIONER FELDER: No. MAYOR: And district five COMMISSIONER NELSON: Yes CITY MANAGER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, next. Mr. mayor, we're moving to the GDOT update. As you remember, we did do support letters, for certain construction projects within the city of Waycross. GDOT was going to fund. I did provide a hard copy oft those those areas. I'll go ahead and brief on those. Kind of shortly here. Um, the first project we're asking them to do, what they asked us to ask you to do is to put those, um, speeding, I mean, raise mediums down Memorial, drive. And you can see on the map that you have there in front ofyou. And we agree. We agree on this six months ago. Um, but, um, I need to make sure that we're still and consistent with it SO I can get him to go ahead and start looking at the project scopes. So mainly for Memorial would be to those raised mediums you can see during the map where it is. And then, um, and those cuts in there to where people would be able to take turns and try to be honest, Mr. Mayor, it won't change much right now. We have the yellow lines out there. Are they going to do is prevent everyone from driving across the yellow lines. It will make it safer for everybody. And then it goes up on one end. Memorial starting on the south side and goes Off the Kroger exit. And then the next thing they're working right now will be phase two. They're still doing their study would be to go up corridor and do the same thing, raise mediums. Ifyou ifyou adjust with our lights and all those things, they're still doing that study right now, but it's almost complete. So that was the first option. I just want to make sure with the commissioner. Good on that. Um, because they want to go ahead and start moving funding towards that, towards that. Uh, at the same time, they will be replacing some of the streetlights there, um, to better mitigate, uh, the new traffic flow patterns with the raised mediums. And again, it's not changing much, if you can imagine the yellow lines, which nobody should be crossing, but, you know, everybody does. It will simply make everybody have to go down and use the turnarounds or the turns, and those turns will be pretty much the same locations right there at Walmart. I think it's about a new hotel. I think it's about Applebee's. There's one more. I think it'll be like for four terms at that point. I don't think we had any conflict about having to raise medians. We did, Mr. Mayor, but I just want to make sure everybody's familiar with. I know Commissioner Robbins was not here. Um, we voted on this. I think Commissioner Nelson just got on when they brought this to us. So, I just want to make sure that we're good. So, I give him an. Okay, we did do a support letter to them, uh, signed by commissioners, uh, to go ahead and start that process. I'm just circling back to make sure everybody's has not changed their opinion on this. MAYOR: And you just basically are going to talk about having a support letter for Geo gDot, which would say it's fine for us to raise them. Page 17 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 CITY MANAGER: We did we did support that already, Mr. Mayor. We did already. Just just falling back. Make sure everybody's still in connection with it. Uh, next, Mr. mayor, we did present, uh, Ozzie Davis. And you remember the district engineer came out and presented that to the commission about turning that into the center lane with one lane on each side, um, in a similar configuration to Albany Avenue. Um, and with that particular project, they will be paying for all the utilities associated with that project. And that's in the tens and tens of millions of dollars. And as the Commission knows, we're responsible for those utilities right now. Um, and we definitely don't have the money to fix that. So, they want to they want to change that from Plant Avenue all the way up to the new bypass. They're going to put that in that bypass project cost free to the city. So, um, we did a support letter for that as well. Just once again making sure that the commission is okay with it. MAYOR: I think we're okay with anybody giving us money to take care ofi it. CITY MANAGER: And like I said, the corridor study has not been completed yet. There are other factors with the corridor study doing it for us because they looked at the well, they already approved doing the race meetings, but we did ask for some other speeding, um, speed coming up. Take this infrastructure on that particular, uh, road. So, they are looking at other things. Of course, they'll be changing the lights and the light, things liket that. So, they're trying to figure that study out and hopefully they get done with that pretty soon. And then we can bring to the commission, um, with the total plan is for that. All right, Mr. Mayor, there are no questions. I1l move on to the next agenda item. MAYOR: This is one general question. No, sir. No, sir. Mr. Three. No. And district five? No, sir. CITY MANAGER: Next Mr. mayor, we have until the regional Water and Sewer authority, um, a contract extension and contract modification. Um, as you remember, we had, uh, a misunderstand. I'm not saying we had a disagreement on the offloading of some of their waste material, uh, down there, one of our lift stations. Um, Idid go out there. We did bring EPA out there. Um, we had a conversation on, uh. What? Where it should be. Uh, after talking to them, um, talking to my engineers and looking at the total concept of it, we decided it'd be best, um, moving forward, they would bring all of their offloads to the plant. To the treatment plant? It'sj just too difficult. Um, the way we're doing it now is just too easy for. For people to enter our system. Um, pretty much anywhere. And then we can't track a lot of that, um, offload. So, I did talk to the regional water authority. Um, they're okay with it. They're ready to go. They understand, um, why? We're asking them to change how this policy works. Because they kind of. Although they kind of subcontract in the county with their, um, with their vendors and their vendors kind of look at it differently. But for us, like I said, it's it's manholes. There are, um, can't be locked. Um, we can't see everything. So just best for the city that they bring all their sewage and wastewater to the plant and offloaded there. And like I said, everybody's in agreement with it. There's no misunderstanding. They just want to change modification to contract here and then sign the next extension. That's the only modification that we'll be doing. MAYOR: What do you need from the commission? CITY MANAGER: Uh, it requires your signature. My signature, Mr. Mayor, to do the change. And you have it on your desk right now. Ijust wanted to let the commission know. And again, Mr. Mayor, we discussed this a few times already, too, about what happened when they did that legal dumping out there. Are there any questions on that, Mr. Mayor. MAYOR: I have none. Okay. Unless someone wants me to write out my signature. CITY MANAGER: Yeah, okay. Mr. Mayor. Next, we move to the city. Retreat. Uh, resolution. Um, currently, we don't have a resolution on city retreat. Ijust want to. I thought it might be best to go ahead and put that in the resolution. Um, to confirm those days. Um, and a few other things we're going to put in and put in the resolution, just how we come up with the agenda and things of that nature. Right now, Page 18 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 we're just kind of there's no real documentation on how it's supposed to really run. Um, and I 1 talked to the other city managers, um, and my support, um, support group, and they said we should have a resolution on the city retreat. Uh, first of all, for accountability, um, because it is an item we paid for, um, with city revenue and taxpayers' dollars. So right now, I'm just informing the commission. We're going to just put a resolution just outlining what the city retreat is. We'll stick to two dates in April and October to those two dates. Um, confirm those two dates, um, depending on when they fall exactly in the calendar year. And that's really about it, Mr. Mayor. Is there any question on that? No. We have no privileged license renewals. We have one privileged license. And I think everybody is excited about that privileged license. Um, that business is finally coming to full operations. Uh, we have no proposed ordinances. We're going to have four resolutions when we add the retreat resolution. Am I correct with that? CITY ATTORNEY: That's correct. CITY MANAGER: With that, Mr. Mayor, we're moving to the city attorney's report. CITY ATTORNEY: Mr. mayor, commissioners, I just want to comment on the resolution to approve the transfer of real property located in Industrial Park. It's number three on your work session agenda. Uh, the Waycross-ware Capital Development Authority, uh, contacted, uh, the city last week regarding some property that was given to Waycross and Ware County. Uh, after the war, it was the old army base which constitutes an industrial park. And, uh, for the last 60 odd years, going back to, uh, 62, 6263 somewhere around there when some ofthe property was transferred. Uh, the uh Development Authority was under the impression that it owned this 4.39-acre tract, uh, that a deed already covered that. And then they recently discovered, uh, that the title to this 4.39 acres is still in the name of Waycross and Ware County. And sO, Mr. Jason Rubin, buyer, is asking that, uh, the County of Ware and city of Waycross, uh, go ahead and transfer this 4.39 acres as a matter of housekeeping because they they've always, um, maintained control over that property for the last six or something years, acted like it was theirs. They used it when they negotiate with various companies and, um, but They recently discovered that they don't actually have a deed to it. And SO, they're asking that the commission go ahead and approve a deed, a quitclaim deed to transfer this property officially in their name, since it was apparently overlooked for some six to something years. So that's the explanation behind that resolution that I wanted to make clear to the commission. Yes, sir. CITY MANAGER: Do you have any Question Mr. Mayor? Mr. mayor, I move into the city manager's report. That report remains the same. Um, public works is at full capacity. Making great things happen in the city. You see the engineering? I did provide an update on the dirt streets, uh, last week. And then this morning to some commissioners about, uh, did not did I ever see my first email? Did you see someone who made a design coordinator here? New businesses are coming in. Um, you see the water and sewer? I did sit down. Um, we were planning sit down with ESD this week. We recognize there are quite a few cuts that need to be. Um, we did, and that's going to be a priority over the next 60 to 90 days. Um, it will be, uh, making sure that we stay on top ofsubcontractors. Um, we might do that work sometimes and make sure those cuts are done properly. So, we did recognize that, uh, road paving again. Now. Mr. mayor, there's a question. Yes. COMMISSIONER FELDER: I just want to clarification. I noticed that in your report. Um, if you go back one slide, please. Um, it's it has there, um, for example, light equipment, um, in zone three. Are we referring to districts as we know? Just clarify that, please. CITY MANAGER: Yeah. My apologies. So, we did change the the zone concept. So, the zone concept, we do the four zones, zone one, two, three and four. Um, and we employ all our forces at that point in time for that particular zone. Uh, this allows us to complete that area in one day. Um, and in accordance with our eight hours of work. So that math and science does work. Now, that's what everybody's at work, and we're at full capacity. We'll get the whole zone done. Most of those zones is compiled oftwo Page 19 of 21 ***I DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 districts. Um, by doing this, like I said, we get more work done this way because we got everybody in the same area. We save on a lot of gas this way. Um, SO we're not spread thin. Um, and then that also gives us, allows us to use Friday as the recovery date and the maintenance day because, you know, based off of last year, we lost those two long was when it was going hard throughout the week and sometimes weekends. Um, it was better for our mechanics. And as you heard, the retreat kind of show the mechanics. So, this is the best way to kind of give them time to have all the equipment back in the motor pool and whirlpool back in the back in the public works to kind of make sure it doesn't blow up on us. So, um, this was actually started by the previous public works director, um, a few months, and we did a test pilot on it. Um, the new public works director, Matt, came in and kind of added a few more things to it. So, like Isaid, it's working very well. Um, we do start a little bit early. Um, they come in in daylight. We try to get the most they can right now. We won't really know how effective this can be until we, get to the summer months. That's when we lose a lot of the employees. So hopefully this way of going it, it keeps my son. And most ofthe time they're done, you know, around 2:00, you know, 2 or 3:00 and then back into the area. And that's when they go ahead and do other maintenance and stuff like that. And we use that additional time to do training as well. So, um, it's been a great I mean, it's been a great initiative. Like I said, we get a lot more done than we ever did before. Um, but basically, um, once we get everybody to, you know, come on, come in every day, all the time. Uh, I think we had to branch off into other areas that we can't, you know, do like it might require more than once a week cuts. So, some areas might need it twice, especially in the summer months. So, we are hopefully we'll get to that point. MAYOR: And just to Add, I know the question was what clarified the reasoning of the commission district or not. And sO, what it seems like the definition of zoning and the number of spaces, you just said that it could include two districts at one time. Maybe we can put when you have the zoning in parentheses, what districts it's covering. CITY MANAGER: Yeah, we have the maps up SO everybody can see the zones, and, um, and we'll put that back. I'll make sure the commission get it. I said it a couple times before. We'll sit down again, and we'll add that to that, Mr. Mayor. And like I say like zone three right now, that's pretty much, um, some of district two. District three and a little bit of district five. There's a little bit um, because if you can look at it, it's a, it's a pie shape. Look at the city of Waycross. It's a big old full pie. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So that's all it is. And like I said, it's getting a lot of work done right now. Um, I don't know the real results because the summer: months come because when it gets hotter, they'll move a little bit slower, but hopefully, uh, that's not the issue. Like we're going to start a little bit earlier, uh, hopefully around 6:00. And then we should be out ofthere, done with thel big stuff prior to the sun really hitting out there at 1:00, 1 or 2:00. So. Uh, last name for the city manager for Mr. Mayor. And we talked about this at the city retreat, but I want to talk about it for the public. So, we were alerted by Facebook, um, that any live videos will be coming, coming down due to storage issues with Google after 30 days. Um, sO that's and that means if somebody's coming made comments on that live video, those comments will be coming down. We'll delete it too. Um, that's definitely the city can do about that. Outside of upload those videos on our YouTube channel, which we have. So, and we're trying to figure how to do an Instagram as well. We have Instagram as well, but it's a little bit harder to upload videos on there for our space. But for any of those citizens who might see, um, I think a post got deleted. T'll tell you right now, all oft the, uh, live feeds are going to be at 30 days. They get pulled Down. MAYOR: That's not just for city That's everybody Churches and Everybody. CITY MANAGER: Yeah. So. But they want to look back for any old meetings. We are uploading them on YouTube. They can't stay on YouTube as of right now. Um, and they don't. YouTube makes that same policy because ofstorage concerns. They will just download them here in our servers and maintain them that way. And with that, Mr. Mayor, that's all I have for the city manager's report. Page 20 of 21 ***DISCUSSION NOTES*** WS 04142025 MAYOR: I believe we have a motion needed for going into executive session. Yes, Mr. Mayor. And this would be on. CITY MANAGER: Personnel and property. MAYOR: Personnel and property. So, at this time, I will open the floor for a motion. COMMISSIONER NELSON: So, moved. COMMISSIONER FELDER: Second. MAYOR: We have a motion from our commissioner motion. And second, from Commissioner Felder. Any questions before we go in? If not, we're moving to voting. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Nay. Motion carries. We're going to executive session. Page 21 of 21