We have a CBS 46.
Yes, sir.
Warren Hadlock, 1210 West Smith Street. I just want to reiterate what I said in the work session a little bit that I think it's good if you folks would really think hard and step back a little bit,
but not get persuaded by the emotions of the moment and it's not a matter of not being
principled.
But let's just see, maybe take another 30 days, as several of you had suggested previously,
And see what the wisest thing to do is, maybe get a little more legal advice in the light
of the meeting
of some of you with ICE officials late this morning, since several of you did
not have the benefit of being at that meeting, could not have, including the mayor.
And also that whatever you pass is not worded in such a way as to be affrontive to anybody,
but really just as a way of standing up for all of our citizens,
Some of the wear-as's that I'm reading look a little bit like
they're kind of aimed at
ice and I think we could make it more about positive than negative, okay.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
My name is Omar Shikai.
I'm the Executive Director of Somalia American Community Center.
I'm here today to ask you to support us.
We live here last time, last on the 29th, you guys heard about the emotion of the families
that are impacted on this issue. The city of Clarkston is built by immigrants.
We have been coming here since 1980s. Most of you were not here. I came here in 1984.
Start the school here, grow up here.
This is a moral issue.
This will not affect the city.
It will have no impact on the city.
All you're doing is standing up with our families.
Most of the families are refugees.
They haven't done anything.
ICE is going after them, going to their homes,
going to their businesses.
This is a moral issue.
Thank you. We need you to stand up with us, please. Thank you very much.
Once again, greetings, council members. And my name is Glory Kilanko. I'm the director
and CEO for Women Watch Africa, providing services to African and immigrant refugees
from 23 African nations. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to once more appeal
to your conscience and to say that we have been having this conversation in order to prompt
our elected officials to do what is right and just to protect its citizenry.
The mayor just called our attention to the words of the pledge and if we put that in
our minds in the things that we do and in this conversation that we have had.
We cannot have this conversation again from now to next year for us to come up with anything
new.
The same information we have been given, the same legal justification and ramification
that has been addressed by six lawyers in this room would not change anything as
the situation stands now, particularly as the non-detainer policy that we are asking you
to vote on and approve and make us go forward.
Claxton has been a place that has set a case in the state of Georgia.
Even in the maps of Georgia, Claxton has more diversity than any other state.
And if we take into consideration the people, the community that we serve and look back
to some of you, our elected officials who were in this room, this same room last Thursday
who saw women and children cry before you all, sharing to you the pain that they are
faced with as a result of separation of their families.
I think with that alone even if you refuse to consider anything else even if
there's any other Ayota of doubt in your mind the fact that you saw real life
these people give you their testimony it should not take you time to vote yes
and adopt this policy I can only tell you anything but they would never tell
you that what they are doing is wrong. Nobody tells you that what they are doing is wrong
because they have to keep their job. Their job is to enforce the orders that are given
to them. I come from a country where the world most
renowned Afro-Bittkin calls that kind of order, the order of zombie, that they only
follow the order they are told without consideration. But we put you in office
for you to represent your your constituency and so for that reason it's
not an issue of having to follow an order but to do what is right by your
conscience and so I want to thank you I want to thank you ahead of time because
I know by the time I sit down you'll be voting your conscience and you'll be
voting to approve this non-detainer policy so let me begin now to thank you
all each and every one of you as I look you in the face and take my seat and know that
you're going to vote and we leave this room having handshakes and hug thanking you for
voting versus rights.
Thank you.
Again, my name is Stephanie Ali.
I work with one of the local resettlement agencies and with the Coalition of Refugees
Service Agencies in the Georgia Immigrant Alliance for Civic Engagement.
Thank you for allowing us to speak a little bit earlier.
I don't want to go back over all my points.
I think you heard those except for I do.
just want to thank my fellow community members for backing up some of those
points except for I did want to come up and just say that some of the points
made at the end of the meeting at five o'clock and it directly pertained to our
work and it was part of that threat of government funding if it's not stopped
can be held up can be put a stoppage on it that did directly happen in 2012 to
the refugee resettlement agencies and it was not a fun experience some of you
guys were we're here for that some of you guys helped us live through that and a
lot of you are new after that I myself am new after that in fact I directly came
in because of what was going on in 2012 because of my experience organizing my
experience advocating and what I have seen happen is yeah after four months
we got our funds and it was hard for those four months but since we began
advocating on our own behalves organizing for each other educating our
community members on how to fill up a room and speak on their own behalf
and making sure that they are leading the efforts like they did on Thursday night,
we haven't had that same issue with our funds being held up. In fact, we have
days of the capital like we did that some of you guys came to and have come
to consistently every year where we said the governor even make a comment on
he's never seen that many people fill up the stairs of the capital. That's
the change that we saw from four years ago from now it's five years
ago. So yeah the government funding can be held up but that happens when
you're not standing up for yourselves and for your community members. And that's
exactly the opposite of what we're doing here tonight. We are advocating for what
the city of Clarkston stands for, for who our people are, for who we care about.
So we are saying that we're not going to take things like that lightly, that
we're going to stand up for our own people, and we're not going to let
things like that happen because, like Attorney Quinn stated, like Jamie said,
that they're not legal. And we'll fight them. Mario said he'll even file
the lawsuit himself be there or he'll be on the lawsuit so we know that we're not
they're not legal and we know that you can come out of that that are on the
other side so I just wanted to put that out there and thank you again for giving
us this the statement and again just say my strongest point to my heart if we
wait another month if we wait two months there are communities that ICE
has already put out there on this list that are gonna come because they're
losing their protective status Haitians people from Sierra Leone Ghana
Liberia are all going to have this happen to them this summer and it's
important that we stand up and say we did this when the first community got
hit. We didn't wait for four more communities to get hit. Good
afternoon my
name is Stephanie and I'm a resident of Clarkson. I own a condo in the city of
Clarkston and my concern is I would like to know if there's gonna be a
ordinance or bill introduced for second-hand smoking if you're a condo
owner. Um one of the my neighbors, the neighbor on the right of me, the condo
is empty, but the neighbor on the left of me, he's a heavy smoker and he
also has five children from the ages of like approximately four or five
years old all the way up to like 12. And the second hand smoking is very,
very strong. He smokes all day all night. It comes into my unit. I've
talked to my board association. They can't do anything because it's not
an H. O. A bylaws call Clark's police department. They can't do anything
because of his private dwelling.
Community officer Clarkson's talked to him.
She tried to tell him, you know, secondhand smoking.
He still didn't stop.
I've talked to him four times myself,
put notes on his door.
There's nothing, he hasn't let up yet.
He smokes all day, all night.
And again, he has small children.
And I was just wondering, is there
can be some kind of ordinance put in place
where, especially if you have small children
for a secondhand smoke coming into other people's private dwellings.
I know it's not nothing done in the state level, but maybe in the city level,
something can be done because it not only hurts me, but it also hurts his four kids.
And I don't even know if they have health insurance, but they didn't.
And they want Medicaid that comes out of our dollars because of his reckless behavior.
So if they were on Medicaid, that's taxpayer dollars.
And so he's smoking causing problems to them.
He's not even giving them a second chance in life.
And if they choose to medicate as a health service,
that no only affects our pockets, but the whole system.
So maybe if the city of Clarkson can be a pace
that are trying to do some type of ordinance
with secondhand smoke for private dwellers,
maybe we can be the pace that are not just
for the state of Georgia, but also for the nation
as a whole, because it just doesn't affect me.
But all across the world, people having to endure
secondhand smoke inside their own home
because of somebody else's breakfast decision and he smokes heavily all day
all night.
My other concern is I know the HOA is a private private dwellings we
have a board and they said HOA home association set the dues for condo and
townhouse dwellers and my other question is could there also be a
ordinance on H.O.A. dues caps. So if H.O.A. dues are $320 and the mortgage is $435, can
there be some kind of cap where the dues don't equal the mortgage? And I know that's private,
but maybe some kind of discussion can be made about that as well. So I just have
two concerns.
Thank you.
Good evening. I'm John back and to clear up some confusion, I now live on Orton
Street.
I've been very concerned in the past couple of months with a lot of what I consider
to be the abuse of the executive branch. I think that they're overstepping. I think
the courts will find that they're overstepping. And I think that eventually we will be determined
that this is all unconstitutional and this nightmare will be over at some point. I encourage
the council to show some intestinal fortitude and to support our residents, which I'm a minority
here. And most of the people here are immigrants or were not born here. And they have the same
rights as far as I'm concerned that I do. They should not be abused. They should not
be living fear or terror. That is not the U.S. that I grew up in. And I don't
want it to be the U.S. that other people grow up in. I think it's – I think that we have
got to – let's make a stand. We have got to be clear that we will not stand for the
abuse that the federal government is trying to push on us at this point. Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening once again. My name is Cree A. Cobham. I'm a practice and attorney
here in the state of Georgia. I'm not going to repeat everything I said earlier
today but I will just say a few things. First I want to state that regardless of
the threat that you mentioned that ICE made towards Clarkson or the city of
Clarkson I'm urging you to pass the non-detained a policy because it's the
right thing to do but also because it doesn't violate any law. It follows
and complies with what's required and it's providing comfort and it's
providing assistance and it's providing protection to the people here in the
parks them. There will be no new information to be found if you wanted to extend time to do more
research because all the research has been done. We've had six attorneys come up or speak. We've had
six attorneys do homework. We've looked through this like we were back in law school, back and
forth trying to see both sides. There's no more information. Everything that's happening is time
sensitive so it cannot be postponed. So I'm asking that you please go ahead and pass this
and entertain a policy.
Thank you.
All right, thank you all very much.
Any more public comment?
All right. We'll close the public comment portion, and we just have two items for administrative
business. First is the approval of the minutes for the March 30th special session and the
April 4th council meeting. And I'll open the floor for a motion on those.
I'll move that we approve the minutes for the March 30th special session and April
for 2017 council meeting. Second. Any discussion?
Okay. All in favor of motion, raise your hands
and say aye. Okay. Motion carries. All right. And I want to recognize now our city manager,
Mr. Keith Barker, to recognize some outstanding certificate of appreciations for our several
of our law enforcement officers here this evening. Mr. Barker. Yes. Thank you, Mr.
the mayor. And so I'll just have a few introductory remarks and I'm asking, I see Chief Hudson
and Sergeant Heth's coming to the front right now. We think it's important that we recognize
the excellent work that all of our employees do every day here in Clarkston, but especially
recognize the efforts of our public safety officials, our police services. And so we
have an officer of the quarter award and we have some of those today and so with
that I'll turn it over to Sergeant Hess and Chief Hudson and I believe they have
a few awards for a few of our members of our police force here today. Chief
Hudson. Good evening everyone we're gonna start off with the first quarter
2017 officer in the quarter. This individual who won it is Sergeant Sparks which runs one of our
day watch shifts. I personally nominated him because he has been my go-to guy I guess you could
say. For those of you that don't know I started in January here and Sergeant Sparks has really
been a great asset for me personally. Some of the highlights is he's implemented the
current field training officer program. He's assisted me with that as far as
being the final sign-off, the new officers that we hire after they complete the
field training officer program. They'll go ride with Sergeant Sparks, he'll give
me a thumbs up, and then from there he'll also shadow them for a couple of
shifts also just to reassure that they're 100%. He's also stepped up,
thought outside the box on several different occasions. We recently had
a sergeant promotion assessment internally. He came up with the
written question aspect of the sergeant assessment which he wasn't, didn't have to
do but he already had the resources there so he brought that to Chief Hudson
on his own and said this may be something we could use. He also sat on that
board and the Sergeant Jay who was promoted to sergeant he came once again
thought outside the box and came up with a training program for newly
promoted officers that we were going to run with from this point forward. He
personally trained Sergeant Jay for a period of two weeks to ensure that he was
100% ready to go to take over the supervision. So thinking outside the
box, stepping up, going well above the standard for a sergeant,
and that's why I
Thank
you for your service.
Thank
you for your service.
at 0245 hours, Sergeant Fonseca was conducting station area surveillance at
Northlake Vet located at 935 Montreal Road. When he heard an audible alarm,
Sergeant Fonseca located the alarm at thrift town and when he turned to the
parking lot he noticed a black male suspect walking away swiftly from
thrift town. Sergeant Fonseca noticed the shattered plate glass front window and
knew that it was a burglary in progress. Once the suspect saw Sergeant
Fonseca, he took flight. Sergeant Fonseca knows the suspect was cradling unknown objects in both
hands. Sergeant Fonseca was able to exit his vehicle and order the suspect to stop. The objects
the suspect was cradling were numerous boxes of rolled coins totaling amount of $520. Sergeant
Fonseca's quick thinking led to a solid felony arrest in the city of Clarkson. Sergeant Fonseca's
actions, not only reflect well on himself, but on the department and the
city of Clarkson as well. I recommend Sergeant Fonseca could be commited for
his performances in this case.
Evening Council, even folks for those that don't know me. My name is Jason
I'm a detective in the Criminal Investigation Division for the Clarkston Police Department.
The reason I'm up here is the Chief has given me this opportunity to recognize a couple
officers for an excellent job they did.
I found in my line of work as a detective, it's not very often that I get a case that
comes together so perfectly as this case I'm going to explain.
And that's in part because of the patrol officer's hard work and attention to detail
when investigating this case.
On December 29, 2015, at approximately 7 in the morning, Officer Hazelwood and Officer Conger
responded to the 1,100 block of Wild Creek Circle, which is the Wild Creek Apartments,
for a report of a burglary that just occurred. During the respondent officer's initial
investigation, it was learned that unknown male subject unlawfully entered this female
victim's apartment and had been watching her as she got dressed in the
morning. It was also determined that the screen from the bathroom window had been
taken off and there were indications that the suspect had been watching the
victim's shower prior to the burglary. The officers did an excellent job with
their on-scene investigation by documenting and collecting evidence to
include a lotion bottle and a knit cap that did not belong to the victim.
The
the point of entry as well as documented a missing screen from the bathroom window and
shoe prints underneath that window.
So approximately 14 months later, it takes a while, but the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
Department of Forensic Services was able to provide or was able to match DNA collected
from that knit cap on scene to a suspect.
further investigation revealed that the suspect had been charged with multiple
similar crimes in which he targeted female victims in Tennessee and also in
Florida. The suspect had even gone so far as to molest a 15-year-old victim in
one of these cases. The DNA match also led this investigation to the Miami
area where a detective of the North Miami Beach Police Department was
notified of the suspect's involvement in their similar burglary. The officer's
diligence in collecting the necessary evidence is what led to the successful
identification of this suspect. The officer's diligence in documenting the
scene properly by describing the missing bathroom window screen and the
footprints beneath the window also make it possible for me to properly charge
the suspect with an additional charge of keeping Tom. Had this information not
been documented with the detail that Officer Conjure and Officer Hazelwood had documented,
this incident may have been looked at as just another burglary, as opposed to having the
serious elements of the sexual predator that it has.
This on scene investigation and subsequent documentation should be an example for all
of our patrol division and CID to follow.
I'd like to give my kudos to Officer Hazelwood and Officer Conjure for a job well done.
Well,
I would like to give off the conjure another accommodation.
I think I was his first
supervisor when he first came out of the academy.
And he's probably one of my hardest workers ever had.
One of the hardest workers on the police part of that time.
You know, I had to tell you, I'm Bakerville home.
You know, we work 12 hours shift now.
And he's one of the ones that like to stay on the road
not to call me, you know, so he's a real hard worker.
For this brief incident, I'll give you a brief synopsis
of this incident while I'm recommending for this accommodation.
station. On December 22, 2016, at 327 hours, Officer Condi was on routine patrol, foot patrol
in area of 3600 Montreal Creek Circle, Clarkson Station Apartments. He was shown area due
to a recent rise of in-autos. While on patrol, he noticed a vehicle with his interior lights
on, unattended. A period, it had been just entered. He pretended to wash the vehicles
inside of the complex and noticed a black male suspect going between several vehicles
looking through the vehicle's windows. The suspect fled the scene on foot when
he observed a potential victim approaching their vehicle.
Officer Conger chased the suspect on foot and apprehended him. He later was able to
determine that the suspect indeed entered the vehicle he initially observed
with the lights on. The suspect was placed under arrest for family
in the auto and loader in a prowling. Officer Conger's quick thinking and
greater attention to detail. That's a solid family rest in the city of
Clarkson. Officer Congress action not only reflect well on himself, but on
this department and the city of Clarkson as well. I recommend that he be
committed for some forms in this case that a cop of this combination
They should be placed in personnel. Wow.
Thank you.
Yeah,
thank you.
Thank you, Chief.
Thank you, Chief. That's in. Okay, um,
We're going to get right into our new business.
We just have two items this evening.
First is item F1, the safe play area ordinance.
And we discussed that at the work session.
Councilman Burks, do you want to say a few words on that?
Yes.
Thank you, Mayor.
This ordinance came about as a result of a concern
that one of our citizens had.
It is to make sure that we provide a safe place
for a child play area.
And that is designated where any daycare, nursery, childcare, kindergarten school or similar business may have an area outside for the kids to play.
An example of that would be what you'd see on Church Street where there used to be a daycare facility.
And they have the playground on the Church Street and it's close to the curb.
So what this will do is make it where it will have a setback of at least 50 feet.
If they're unable to do that, the alternative is to provide a setback requirement and an approved guardrail.
So that way there's protection for the kids in case someone drives up the curve or has some type of issue with the vehicle.
This will impact major roads.
roads. So if it's on a major road such as Brockett Road, Norman Road, Church Street,
Ponce de Leon, and Indian Creek that we can make sure that we provide a safe place for
Our kids, if they're in a daycare facility. So this is going to be in place. What we're going to do is discuss it at a community meeting and then follow up with that in terms of a vote with the council and allow the community the opportunity to voice their concerns or any suggestions that they would like at that particular time.
Thank you, mayor.
Thank you. Anything else from the council?
Okay. All right. And it sounds like we're going to just no motion on this, so.
Well, I'll move to defer it to committee.
Okay. All right. So, all right.
I'm sorry to refer to committee. Second. Any discussion?
Okay. All in favor of the motion, raise your hand and say aye.
Aye.
Okay. Motion carries.
The safe plate ordinance is referred to committee.
All right. Item F2, approval of the non-detainer policy. And I didn't, I forgot to have my
nose, but I know we have Councilman Williams sponsoring it. Who's the other council person
sponsoring it?
Okay. All right. So I'll recognize Councilman Williams and Berks to
introduce this. This is, I have to start off by saying this is a non-detainer policy
that was actually brought to the council's attention by Gloria Kalenko of Women's Watch
Africa and also have to give special recognition to Project South. Attorney Asaday provided
an enormous wealth of accurate and relevant information as well as an actual legal memorandum
to the council about this issue. On top of the legal memorandum, that was really good
also by our city attorney Stephen Quinn. I guess I want to start this off by
dispelling a couple of things about this non-detailant policy and the best way to do that is actually
to read a couple of things about the lawfulness of the policy.
The first numbered paragraph says, city officials and employees shall communicate and cooperate
with ICE with regard to reporting immigration status information.
So there isn't an effort, there is not an effort, by this council to somehow not
cooperate with the federal government.
To the complete opposite, the plain language of the policy says that we will cooperate,
but it's to a certain degree.
And so the next paragraph says, the city of Clarkson shall not detain or extend the
detention of any individual at the request of ICE unless ICE first represents city of
Clarkson would have judicially issued warrant authorizing such detention.
This, again, is perfectly, constitutionally permissible and actually authorized.
It is absolutely unlawful for a federal government to deputize local law enforcement agency in
this capacity.
And the reason why this actually focuses on judicial issue warrants is because, as
Attorney Azadeh pointed out so well, basically these are sheets of paper that law enforcement
and officials, federal government agents from ICE,
are going around and using to try to detain people.
And we do not want our local law enforcement involved
in detaining people or assisting in a situation
where there has been no probable cause determination
under our Constitution.
So we want to start off with that.
The second thing that I want to bring to everyone's
attention, and we brought it to the attention
at the last council meeting, is that some of the council
some members met with ICE, and there was a threat made of, one, if we pass the policy
that we would be listed on a, I don't know, maybe a, I don't know if it's, you know, where
this list is, but a list that would say, hey, look, you're going to be put on this list,
and then second, your federal funding or state funding could be affected.
Number one, I've never seen a list.
Number two, there's no evidence that anybody's federal state funding has ever been affected
by passing a detainer policy like there's none that I know of, but number three, just
the fact that you would make a petty, empty, unconstitutional threat actually draws in
the question, at least in my mind, the legitimacy of the raise that you're actually conducting.
Because if you're willing to threaten a legislative body of a municipality in this state in that
way, it just, it paints a dark cloud and a dark picture over what else you're actually
actually doing in the manner in which you're going about doing it.
So number four, the fourth point is that the executive order that is based on this has
already been held unconstitutional, it has already been held as violating the separation
of power because the executive order is trying to do something that is actually reserved
for our Congress to do, which is place requirements and mandates on the spending power of the
purse on federal funding. Fifth point, the agent, the government itself showed up at
a hearing and admitted that this should not even be covering projects like Street Skate,
that it should be limited. Now they did that in a way to try to subvert the constitutional
challenge that was being made, but nevertheless they admitted that. So we took all this
information into consideration that was brought forth by various people. We had
the hearing last week, Councilor Moore was the chair over the hearing at the time, and
we deliberated it. Now, it is true, and I have to say this in defense of some of the members
of the council that when ICE threatens you like that, it makes you pause for a second.
Just to think about it, no one held a meeting, no one determined that they weren't going
vote for it but it did pause the process for a second because the meeting happened today at about 1030
and now we're meeting today at 5 o'clock or 7 30 so everybody started thinking like hey what's really
going on but the facts are the facts right it's unconstitutional it's a threat there's no basis
not to pass the policy um I have to echo the sentiments of people who spoke today and and
actually the mayor too is that I think we have sufficient information and I
don't believe that any time another 30 days or 60 days or 90 days is going to
bring us to it to a point that where information is going to be brought to our
attention that would change the overall dynamic of the situation. I think this
is a great policy for this community but I also think it's a great policy for
every city or a locality in the state of Georgia. I think it's a great
policy throughout the country, and that's represented by the sweeping movement that is
going on now, where localities all across the country are actually implementing similar
or like policies as this one.
So with that being said, I'll pass it over to Councilwoman Burks, and then we'll try
to move for a vote on this issue.
Thank you, Councilman Williams.
And again, I think everyone should applaud Councilman Williams for actually coming up
with this and get him recognition for it.
That's one of the beauties of living in Clarkston is that we will step out and be the trailblazers
but for the right and the good for our community.
And so I'm very happy that he came up with this to make sure that we let our residents
know that we have refugees in our community.
We have undocumented members in our community, but as a city, we will support our community.
And as one who attended the meeting, I was at the meeting, it's not a nice feeling to
be put on a naughty list or be told that you'll be on a naughty list when you're a grown
woman.
And so, but when you have that, you have to stop and think about what's really
important and who is important. And so that's probably one of the takeaways that was for
me is to recognize that I live in a beautiful community with such a diverse background that
we have to do what we have to do to protect them and to protect our community. And so
So with this, this is step one in terms of how we deal with it, but step two is, what
are we going to do to educate our community?
And so we need to look at this in phases.
How are we going to take whatever we do tonight and then move forward within our communities
to work with our community leaders to educate our people?
How are we also going to make sure that you saw all these wonderful commendations from
our police department who are willing to work and we have to recognize them for what they're
willing to do and how they work within our community and how they are an advocate for
our community as well.
And so I want to make sure that if people are in fear of the police, let's stop that
and let's make sure whatever it is that we need to do to make sure that we have
that community relationship, we do that as well.
So I know that we have people from Project Self
that have said that they will help in terms of education.
So we need to look at steps
and how we're going to make sure
that we take care of our community
and educate our community as well.
I will, so thank you for the introduction.
I will open the floor for a motion on this item.
I move that we approve this resolution
by the city of Clarkston to adopt a non-detainer policy.
I'll second.
Any discussion?
If I have lots to discuss.
Nothing more to add?
Just one thing real briefly for people that weren't at the earlier meeting.
I do support this resolution, but I do respect people that have reservations as well because
I just want to make clear that Clarkston is not actually detaining people at the
request of ICE right now.
We don't have a jail that we keep people under, and as far as I know, ICE has
never even requested a tainer, but I still believe this resolution is an important
symbolic step to represent that we are welcoming community and that we will not
honor these requests in the future. Any more discussion? Okay all in favor of the
motion and raise your hand say aye. All right motion carries thank y'all.
Thank you
very
much. All right so we just have a few just last little items just a report
section and first of the planning and zoning rewards.
Shawana, Cowie.
Good evening.
Can you hear me?
Okay.
Planning and zoning department has been very busy as usual and as we're busy, we had sign
permits that were submitted to the planning and zoning committee in the month of April
and we have four that were approved for the Nepali Bazaar.
That was a wall sign that said 1131 North Indian Creek.
Serene Cafe is at 4260 East Ponce, and that was a wall sign.
The Exxon, that's at 1051 Montreal,
and Wesson Studio, a photography studio at 4200 East
Ponce de Leon.
That's it?
Any questions?
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you, Shawana.
All right.
City Manager's Report, Mr. Keith Barker.
Yes.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
At first, I'm going to report on a couple of capital projects that we are in process
of completing.
The first is the Friendship Forest redevelopment project.
We're doing that project in three phases.
The first phase is the removal of a lot of the invasive vegetation and clearing the
entrance and the path about 20 feet along either side.
I was down there today and it looks very, very different and not as scary and sketchy
already and we're about 95% complete with that phase.
Second phase is that right now we are in the design phase where we're designing the
hardscapes and that is the parking lot, the bathrooms, the new pavilion and the path.
And we should have those designs complete around July 1st of August and then we start that construction.
And then the third phase is the wetlands design.
Right now we're doing soil analysis to ensure that the soil is capable of maintaining a more robust wetlands area down there now.
We have a wetlands area there now, but it doesn't stay moist.
And so we're doing some things that will create a more robust wetlands area.
We'll introduce some wetlands vegetation and hope that we will attract some wetlands of foul eventually.
And so, again, that's a permitting process.
And there's a design process, an analysis process.
And so that should be complete around July or August as well.
So we are well in the way with that project and so far we're very pleased with our progress.
Secondly, we are about 95% complete with phase three of our three phase sidewalk program on
East Pennsylvania.
If you noticed, right-lead it up to Friendship Force, you'll notice nice, brand new six
foot wide sidewalks and brick pavers.
We've also even constructed a new area in Granite for the Marta bus shelter.
The bus shelter when complete will be moved back into place.
And so there's just a couple of it of punch list items that we need to complete,
but we're happy with the process in the progress of that project as well.
I want to mention a special project that we have just started last couple of weeks.
We now are working with Segal Radio to produce a Clarkston-specific radio broadcast.
We're taping those broadcasts every Friday afternoon.
Thank you.
And Shawana Kawee is the, our planning development director is the host. She's taken advantage of
her mass communication broadcasting skills from Clark University. And also, Terry Sanders,
our special projects coordinator, is functioning as producer of those shows. And so, we've
got, it's just amazing that those individuals have a lineup of guests for the next six
weeks or so. And so that broadcast on, you can access it by going to www.cigarradio.org.
Also it's going to be broadcast each Saturday at 7 p.m. on Radio Station of 1420 a.m.
So please, if you take a moment to tune in and it's very informative, a lot of great
Great information and a lot of great guests in our own city staff and elected officials
will be involved as well are producing that show and hosting that show.
Then lastly, I'll finish quickly with a financial report.
At this point in the year, we should be at about 33.3 percent of expenditures.
We like to track our expenditures and make sure that we are not going over budget.
We are right at budget.
we are 32.6 percent.
It's a little early in the year to track revenues
because most of our revenues and property taxes
come at the end of the year.
But you see that we unusually are tracking
about the same as revenues,
and that's because we received the funding
for the Friendship Forest Redevelopment Project,
and you'll see under capital projects revenue,
we received that $1.4 million, and so that's why you see an unusual bump in revenue.
All other expenditures are tracking nicely, and revenues are tracking nicely,
and so the budget is good.
And so with that, that completes my report.
Thank you, Mr. Barker.
All right, yeah.
Good job, Mr. Barker.
A lot of great things.
Good job, good job.
Come more often.
City Attorney's Report, Mr. Quinn.
I do have one item to report.
The Cab County has officially approved and signed our IGA
to transfer the 40 Oaks property to the City of Clarkston.
We have not actually received a deed yet,
but we have received their contractual commitment
to sign the property over.
Great. Thank you. That's great news.
That is good news. Thank you.
Good news. Thank you, Mr. Quinn. All right. Council remarks and we'll start down here.
Thank you all for coming out. We really do support the community and really appreciate
all feedback and the opportunity for me to attend the meetings throughout the community
to understand the dynamics of it and had a meeting with ICE today that gives me
another perspective on the dynamics and I'm glad to see that we're going to have
a lot of people lining up with us when they start taking our funding away.
Appreciate that. I
want to thank everybody for coming out also. I did
want to talk about something else. I'm going to reserve it really for
Councilwoman Berks would talk about.
We did have a pet day and it went really well
and she'll probably end up talking more about that
since she was the main reason that it went off so well.
And I just want to say briefly,
I was thrilled to attend the Feijeron at the same time.
We had the Clarkson Cultural Festival.
I want to thank the city manager and the city staff
and all the volunteers, organizers who really made that they happen it was
really amazing probably the best turn out I've seen so far also yeah close to
a thousand people really went on to Fijiran and almost all of them ended up
visiting our cultural festival so it was really awesome and I want to
mentioned on the 27th of also I was I want to thank Councilman Williams again
for setting up the date even though you couldn't make it and thanks to the vice
chair of the committee for setting up that meeting and which culminated into
today's decision and finally I want to also thank Councilman Moore for joining
for Eritrean American Day on the 29th, which is last Saturday, and that's pretty much what I was saying.
Thank you.
I would like to thank you for Clarkston at large, especially for those who pushed this issue of non-detaining.
I mean, it was a hard, long, you know, after all, you know, this thing started, you know,
ever first and ever since Gloria was spearheading for this, you know, and the other. I would
like to give them, you know, those attorneys that, you know, working for Pro Bono for this
case. And I would like to thank for the, you know, the council, you know, my people
here for voting for non-detainer and I'm asking Clarkson citizens to be aware and
always be here and be with us and thank you for your support.
I
would also like to thank briefly just the people that came out today, the people that spoke today, and also the people that came out on Thursday and spoke on Thursday. It's really great to see citizen engagement on this very important issue.
And as Councilman Williams said, Saturday we had our pet wellness day. And it was a great event. We had more than 55 cats and dogs that we gave free vaccinations to from from the city.
And as well as we donated both Councilman Williams and I donated the microchips for the pets that were there.
So what does that mean? That was just a start.
We understand the importance of education and one of the things that really came to light in terms of dog bites and everything else
is that when you have a child that's seven years old, it's equivalent to the same height as a medium to a large dog.
And so having a very active child and a maybe less trained pet is a bad combination.
And so what we want to do is look at one of my favorite phrases is to educate before you legislate.
And so making sure that we educate our community, look and have our committee meeting,
and also see where, in terms of ordinances, that's one of the things that we're going to talk about,
what makes sense, what do we have, what do we need to change if we need to add anything.
And also one of the things that came up in terms of the mayor, he brought up the signage
and the fencing and everything else.
So we'll look at all of those things and we want input from the community because, you
know, where are we seeing these dogs and animals?
I see them all next door where people are saying this person's dog is loose, but where
are they?
So that when we have to put the right signage or whatever we have to do, we're doing
doing it with something that makes sense in terms of where and what we're doing.
So I'm going to encourage you to come out when we do have our committee
meeting to give your concerns, to talk and let us know.
And thanks again for coming out and making it a very successful event.
And we're looking forward to getting funding for additional grants so that
we can do more education with our community.
And I have to say the idea came from Tracy Bishop.
So I have to give recognition from our community, and that's one of the things that I love to do is that if you come up with an idea, we're willing to work with you.
And if it makes sense as a council, we will listen to your concerns.
Thank y'all, council.
Mr. Mayor, can I make one other announcement?
Yes.
It might be two.
So this is about a party.
So, May 26, we're having our annual Mylum Pool Opening Party from 10 until 2, so please come bringing kids as optional.
It's going to be free for everyone.
We're going to be cooking hot dogs and hamburgers
and maybe veggie dogs for our council member and mayor.
We're going to be having games and raffles.
We're going to be giving prizes.
We're going to be giving some passes, pool passes,
daily passes and then some big seasonal passes for a family of four so you can
come and swim family of four free all season. Also I'm this close to trying to
arrange for free tennis lessons for kids here in Clarkston and so that same day
we hope to have sort of a tennis activity day where kids can have an
opportunity to learn about tennis, learn about the summer program, and maybe to sign up for
the program. And we're trying to work with the United States Tennis Association to get
free tennis rackets, free balls. And if I can convince the city council, maybe the
city of Clarkson will underwrite the lessons for the kids for all summer. So May 26th,
The tennis probably started at nine and the pool party at 10 to two.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Great.
Thank you all very much.
So just the Mayor's report, just a few things I want to report on a few miscellaneous items
first.
The young woman who spoke earlier about the smoking, secondhand smoking issue, I appreciate
she reached out to me a few weeks ago and I spoke with the city attorney about this
idea of a nuisance ordinance and whether that applies.
And so I don't think Stephanie's still here, but so we'll we'll definitely talk about it
I think because that's really concerning that someone's smoking that much that it's actually impacting a
Larger circle around them
So I appreciate her coming out the public comment and reaching out to me
And pretty sure everyone really everyone coming out tonight because you know if
If we don't hear from y'all if we don't know what's going on then
and we won't know.
And so you have to speak up, you have to advocate,
appreciate glory and Project South
and all of our attorneys and all of our activists
and advocates for being here.
You're a valued part of this community
and you're really helping make Clarkston
a truly compassionate and welcoming community.
Just some random things that I was thinking of
because I really appreciate our officers
and the diligence and the diligence
that went into that 14 month investigation.
But something caught my ear, and I've heard it over the years, that when Clarkston detectives submit evidence to the GBI crime lab, there is a delay.
And so I would love to just get some more information, you know, about how long these delays are.
Clearly, it has nothing to do with what we're doing. We're sending off the evidence.
but is the GBI crime lab so backed up that it's taking months and months and
months to get evidence to put someone away where in the meantime they could be
out perpetrating more crimes and it sounds like you know they this this
person that we identified may have indeed done that so I really would love
to get to the bottom of why the GBI crime lab is taking so long. I thought
I heard that they got an increase in funding this last legislative session
but I don't know if I could be wrong, so that's pretty concerning because I'm sure that our
detectives would love to have as much information and expedient process as possible.
We've had a vacancy on the Planning and Zoning Committee for over three months now.
The charter stipulates that the mayor should appoint, and the council approves the Planning
and Zoning Board members.
I've, you know, it's been two months now that I've put forward a nomination, and it's still not showing up on the agenda.
And so I really want to encourage the council members to just have an up or down vote.
If you don't like the person who I'm nominating for the PNZ, say something, recommend someone different, or just have a vote and just vote it down.
But leaving this vacancy with no action, you know, I mean, it's not going to hobble the planning and zoning,
but we have a resident who is very eager, who applied, went through all the hoops to, you
know, came to the council meeting two months ago and spoke and introduced herself. She's
a young woman. She has policy background and she wants to get involved more in the
city, you know, city government. And so I don't want there to be this long wait period
for anyone who wants to get involved with our, you know, committees and with the government.
That's a good way to dissuade people from getting involved.
In that same vein, I appreciate Councilman Williams and the Public Safety Committee.
They've had many, many meetings over the last 14 months.
There's two residents as part of the Public Safety Committee, but I haven't seen any.
I want to make sure that the other committee chairs, every council member is a chair of
committee that, one, we're having meetings and that, two, when people are applying to
be the resident member on those advisory committees that we're responding to them.
I'm aware that some people have applied, other people are considering it, and so I think
it would just, you know, behood everyone as each council member as a chair just to
respond in an expedient manner if they're not a good fit, let them know, don't leave
months and months on end of not saying anything because that's a good way to
you know dissuade people. I have kind of a nitpicky thing Mr. Barker. It's about
using Roundup on the railroad right-of-ways. You know we've got to
we spend a lot of money to pay to mow and to try to maintain the railroad
right-of-way. Some folks may not know this but the railroad will not cut the
grass in Clarkston and if we didn't do it, it would be six feet high.
And so I appreciate that, you know, that one, our residents are supportive of us, you know, taking care of CSX's property.
But every, you know, like quarter around this time and around the fall, there's a nice gray dead strip along the curbs.
And if you've ever noticed the work crew that we consult with, they just spray roundup in there.
And so if you go down the tracks right now, it's just a dead patch of a dead strip right along the curb.
European countries have banned Roundup, California just got approved a month ago to put a cancer
warning on Roundup sold in their state because there are several studies in many different
countries in America that are linking higher rates of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to when exposed
to high amounts of Roundup and if anyone has ever witnessed around three o'clock
in Clarkston people cross the robo tracks all day long and I'm not saying
they're going to expose to large amounts of roundup but let's just you know try
to be as sensitive environmentally sensitive as we can we can probably the
biggest impact is the the runoff if roundup is sprayed and if it rains you
know that day it's gonna all run run downstream and some of y'all may not
know this I've said it many times I think it's kind of cool but Clarkston
is on the eastern continental divide, all right, so, you know, millions of years ago
the continents collided and that railroad track is where the continents
collided and form North America. So all the water that hits that rains and is
goes into the stormwater drains on that side of the railroad tracks eventually
goes into the south fork of the peace tree creek to the Chattahoochee down
to the Gulf of Mexico. All the water that lands on this side of the railroad
road tracks eventually hits the Oak Mowgli River and then the Altamaha and then the Atlantic
Ocean.
So we literally impact two different bodies of water, major tributaries, everyone downstream,
people who fish, who recreate, we have an impact on those streamsheds.
So I don't want to get too micromanagy, but maybe we could just do an edger or
something instead of the spray.
Two things, one event or one very nice meeting that I had.
We've been receiving international delegations to Clarkston for the past 12 months or so.
Several of the council members have met with members from Portugal delegation.
We had a Middle Eastern delegation from Algeria, from Mali, from Egypt, from Jordan, from
Palestine from several other Middle Eastern countries come to Clarkston and meet with me
just for about an hour over at the coffee shop over there on Monday and it was just a really
good conversation.
They were very interested in things that Clarkston is doing.
How do you have so many different ethnicities and religions and we're maintaining
a good amount of peace and prosperity.
And so they're very interested, and we continue to see delegations from international countries,
particularly ones that are seeing an influx of refugees.
They want to learn from what we're doing in Clarkson.
The number one thing I always say is the mayor hasn't done anything Clarkson has done that.
It's the advocates, it's the resettlement agencies.
It's all the people that work with all of the immigrant and refugee communities
and the larger Clarkson community that make Clarkson so compassionate and so welcoming.
And so hopefully when, you know, as they keep coming, we'll connect more and more of the groups who do work here to share their experiences and best practices.
And then finally, I want to also announce another community event on May 20th right there at the Adams Center.
So if everyone knows Refuge Coffee, there's a big concrete wall there.
And you may have noticed there's been some painting going on.
So the city is sponsoring, along with several other organizations, sponsoring a community
mural project.
Shannon Willow, one of our local artists who has done mini murals around Clarkson already
is getting the base level ready.
And so on May 20th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., excuse me, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 20th
is a Saturday.
It's a community mural day.
So anyone, children older, doesn't matter what age,
can participate in actually helping paint and be a part
of completing the mural project.
It's a great, I think, beautification project
and a great way for us to engage our residents
and all of our community members.
And so I encourage you to come out for that.
Again, thank you all very much for coming this evening.
We have one final item.
It's called the executive session.
session, and so it's sort of a private session, so I'm going to open the floor up for emotion
on that, and once you go into executive session, we're going to have to politely ask y'all
to leave. There's no more business on the agenda, so we're going to come back into session,
but we'll probably just adjourn right away. But if anyone wants to visit or talk afterwards,
you know, I think I don't know how long this is going to take, but we'll be around
after the executive session, and is it vital, Gloria, what is it?
Okay, thank you.
We're
back and that's all the business we have this evening so I'll open the floor
up for a motion on German.
A motion to adjourn.
Second.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
The motion carries meeting adjourned.