Okay, you guys ready? Okay, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for being here. We certainly appreciate your time.
participating in this civic event of our public work session.
On the agenda for now, we're going to have two agendas.
First is a special call meeting, and we'll conduct that one first.
After that, we will have our work session.
But for this meeting, this is a special call meeting,
and the meeting is the appointment of Sherry Hobson,
Matthews as our incoming city manager so again I'm calling this meeting to order
let's go right down the line now roll call that the record show that all our
president accounted for and councilman Gaynor is viewing us remotely and we'll
move to item C which is comments from our citizens do we have any comments
that's at this time.
Seeing no movement, we'll move right past the public hearings
and go to item E, which is the item for discussion. And that is the appointment of Sherry Hopson
Matthews as our incoming city manager, the approval of the professional services contract
and the approval of the city manager employment contract.
And just so everyone knows who she is, she'll be sitting on her front row and I'll do a
brief introduction just shortly.
So we'll have our city attorney to share any of the information that you'd like to share
in this talk.
Sure.
Mayor and council, you have in front of you a couple of different agreements.
One is the city manager employment agreement.
That's the employment agreement.
take effect once the City Manager is appointed and assumes the role of City Manager.
We also have a consulting agreement that we've put together for kind of the interim time,
which allows the tops of Matthews the opportunity to kind of get to know our staff, set out goals and priorities,
both in the short and long term, before she actually takes over the rent as City Manager
and effective on Eric's retirement.
And then, in addition to that, you have a resolution which essentially codifies or resolves
the city's acceptance and the powers under the Charter.
It's passed through a couple of drafts with those employment agreements.
I'm happy to answer any questions you may have seen this morning.
We made one slight change to the consulting agreement,
and I'm happy to answer any questions that arise from that.
I will read through the recommendation.
The recommendation is to appoint Sherry Hobson-Matthews as city manager effective September 11th,
2026 at 5 p.m., approve professional services contract allowing the retention of Sherry Hobson-Matthews
as a consultant during the transitional period, and to approve the employment contract for
Sherry Hobson-Matthews for employment as city manager, the background.
With the current city manager retiring on September 11,
2026 at 5 p.m., the city has engaged in extensive search for a new city manager,
the charter vests, the mayor and council with the authority to appoint city manager
to serve as the city's chief executive officer.
After a view of the numerous candidates, the city announced Shariah Hobson-Matthews as city's sole finalist.
The attached resolution formalizes Ms. Hobson Matthews' appointment as of September 11th
at 5 p.m. and allows the city to enter into agreements provided per as below.
The contract for professional surfacers for consulting agreement with Ms. Hobson Matthews
to allow her to provide the Mayor and Council with an efficient transition of the city's
leadership and to allow Miss Hopson Matthews to the opportunity to begin
certain short and long-term priorities. The employment agreement provides for the
execution of employment agreement for Miss Hopson Matthews. It details her
salary benefits as well as her long-term employment. The cost for the
consulting agreement will be paid through will be paid through
The cost for the employment agreement will be approximately equivalent to the cost for the position.
Any adjustment is expected to be within the contingency built into the mayor and to the city manager budget, not the mayor's budget.
It's consistent with our comprehensive plan and the attachments that you have are of the resolution, appointing Sherry Hobson Matthews,
professional services agreement and employment contract so at this time we will open the floor
for discussion. Four questions from council.
I have a question and just a quick question from the
actual employment contract section six it reads the mayor council shall provide the employment
with a written job evaluation at the time of our review
and shall determine whether any adjustments
in conversation provided the city manager should be made,
provided it was super.
Can we define that?
And then at the option of the mayor council,
this is my real concern here.
The governing body may define detailed written goals
and performance indicators that the body determines.
Is that just giving us a lot of options there?
because everything else is shall.
We shall do this.
So what is required is the evaluation in the annual.
What I wanted to give some flexibility,
and we did this with Eric's contract,
is flexibility on exactly how we're defining goals
and opportunities.
And so that's why there's flexibility
that's built into the latter half of that paragraph
as opposed to inflexibility at the top.
The shalls came from the prior agreement.
We certainly could make them maize, but my understanding was...
Well, I like the flexibility of having, ensuring that she gets an annual review, I think it's been beneficial to her.
And to all of us, the maya, I think, gives us some flexibility, so thank you for pointing that out.
I guess we just kind of continue with what we've been doing with this current city manager's best practices.
This is kind of what we want to do.
but I think having a retreat where we kind of define all that annual it should
be our expectation going forward just to set everyone up for success I don't want to
agree and we could do that offline if there's material changes that we need
to make to this contract tonight how does that affect things in terms of don't
we have to we have to make a decision on the contract tonight we do we don't
have to make a decision on the contract tonight if they're there are
material. Well, what do we do? What we don't have to? Well, the consulting agreement, right? It is
effective. The employment contract. The employment contract, if we have some
direction, we can take it back. I can just include in the resolution what
changes made by council as to form if they're simple. If it's something that
we actually deal with, that we need to negotiate, we throw this on to the next
council meeting, which I think is the 9th, 8th.
That doesn't set back her starting date.
I guess the start date is the, yeah, Z11 at 5 o'clock.
And we would allocate plenty of time for her to review
and check with her council as well, right?
Yeah, of course.
Because I don't know the number that I don't know if I should,
if they should all be talking about tonight or...
Over here, you've got a number, a number of different things that I think we ought to address on this.
You can share those to me.
Okay, so are you done?
I'm interested.
Let me just, before you do, so you want a clarification of May and Shell?
I'm good to go on what Bill said. If everyone else is good to go.
Okay.
The writing in here is fine with me.
Okay, so for instance, the first one here is that we have this fixed term that ends August 30th,
2029, right, in the election cycle, and there's nothing in there about renewal or it just ends.
And so I'm wondering if it would be better if we had some kind of a automatic renewal
or a 90 or 800 day notice of non-renewal just so there's not something strange that ends up happening there.
Oh, that's interesting.
It's right in the middle of an election cycle, you know.
I don't know best practice on that though.
Best practice to be is an automatic renewal.
so we have we have it's a three-year an annual term three three years with
automatic renewals we can we can add an additional renewal I need to of course
speak with Matthews if she's willing to do that we can do that four-year
automatic renewals annually it's a three year three year we could add a fourth year
you could add a fourth year yeah
So there's different ways you can do it. And I don't want to set up my successor, but I'll tell you in my case,
I talked to you about it early and you extended my original three-year contract by four years.
So I think the key, and I think on her behalf, she will be interested as early as possible to get a sense of
If you're happy that you let her know that by doing an extension well before you get close enough that
the city manager has to start looking for the next shot.
I understand. Okay, so it's flexible.
And I don't believe it's her, but I don't have a stake in this, but I know the feeling of wondering whether you're going to get your contract renewed.
Okay.
You know, I think during an annual evaluation, you could kind of take that up, and I appreciate
what you did that for me.
I think to that point, we could also revisit that particular details in that.
Like year two, year three, before we get to year four, we can say, hey, we see the trajectory here.
they may be ready to move, they may not be ready to move that person and then we
can make a decision at that point in time. We should we'll know the last year
of the contract so probably not something that we need to put in an
automatic renewal now. I think we should have that discussion a year from now or
two years from now or three years from now we can say hey this is what we
decided to do because the world changes so quickly. We didn't know what we
didn't know when we brought Eric in. It just gives us maximum flexibility as
as well, right?
This current contract down to three years, August 32 and 29.
229, yeah.
And then before in 27, 28,
we should be making the decision.
I wouldn't want to get to August, 2029,
and not know up until the automatic renewal.
We should probably do our due diligence
well in advance of that.
And so this should force our mechanism to say,
there's no automatic, so we need to go do something.
The next one is that,
Well, let me just add, I think legally, you can't buy newer councils coming in.
Future councils, right, and that's why the term is annual with an automatic renewal.
Just the term sheet I got was three years, that's the term that I put in the agreement.
But certainly council wants to have some kind of mechanism, we can do that.
I think the mechanism that was intended was just this check-in, this annual check-in.
But again, if we want to do something else, that's what we can.
We also check in after automatic renewal.
Absolutely, yeah.
At least we'll be able to check in when it's after given news.
Just a little hug.
You're next.
No release of claims.
So if there ends up being a payout,
those cities pay out some sort of standard,
usually that there's a release of claims.
If we do a six month,
you know, if there's a severance.
Yeah, so one issue is we can't ask somebody
to release prospective claims, so future claims
that have not arisen.
We can't require that to be done.
Now, I will say in the normal course of negotiations
and working through an event where a severance is triggered,
there is a discussion regarding that severance provision.
and the waiver of claims, and that would ordinarily be done at that time.
So we're not waiving our right to trade.
That's right.
The
next thing is that apparently cause is effectively not defined, is undefined a little bit,
because it says shall include but not limited to, and maybe we ought to be putting in there
things like clear things like misappropriation of city funds, falsification of records, breaches of the charter, and our city banal policy.
So cause is defined as professional misconduct among others.
Issues and professional misconduct is defined. Willful disregard of express directed by mayor
and council. Refusal to abate reasonable lawful orders in
mayor and council. Willful neglect of duties, violation of the city code of ethics.
Do you not think that's too loose? I don't, because I think it defines a pretty
wide breadth of conduct that would arise from creating cause.
the kind of balance that you have to play when you're defining causes you don't
want to be too particularly targeted because there are circumstances that
may be outside of that that if you use broad statements would capture it but
if you use precise language may not so there is a balance that you do want to
play to make sure that you're keeping broad language obviously if there is
specificity it's very important that this council tell me and we will make
sure that's in there right it's not like we have to choose broad or specific we
can choose both I think what happened with mr. Johnson's contract and it was
just a lot of it just wasn't as robust as his contract or better at Morris I think
that's maybe where a little bit of our fear comes from it's we want to make
sure this works for her for the citizens so how much we started from
ground floor on this contract right ground floor but plus we exchanged some
kind of templates early on it's just kind of talk about what are what are kind of
negotiable points.
Any other questions? Comments or concerns?
Okay. I haven't heard from council.
Chair will entertain a motion.
How are we doing all three at once?
Suggestion from city attorney?
Actually let's have three separate motions. So appointment, independent,
it consulting agreement motion to
the point Sherry having Matthews the
city managers effective September 11th
2026 at 5 p.m. second well motion and
second on the floor do we have any
discussion here none all in favor that
be known by raising your right hand to
sing aye. Aye. Oppose the same side. Motion passes. Welcome.
I can make a motion to approve professional services contract a lot for the retention of
sharing ops and Matthews as a consultant during the transitional period second
it's been motion and second to approve any objections to moving the question forward just
clarification we're defining transitional period here from now until date until September 11th
The other question is the objection to moving the question you're not all in favor they'd be known by raising your right hand saying
Opposed the same sign motion passes
Okay, make a motion to approve the employment contract for sharing Alps and Matthews for her employment as city manager
With motion on the floor
motion and second on board. Any further discussion?
The objection to moving the question. Seeing none, all in place, will it be known by raising your right hand and saying aye?
Aye.
Opposed to the same sign. Thank you, Bruce. Okay. Again, welcome aboard. I'm going to ask that Sherry come up and we'll formally introduce her.
And if you'll come to the podium, I'll let you come to the podium.
So it is my pleasure to introduce the city of Norcross's incoming manager, Sherry Hopson Matthews.
Sherry is an accomplished local government executive with extensive experience in strategic planning,
organizational leadership, community development, budgeting, and public administration.
And before joining Norcross, she served Henry County's government for more than a decade, that's a long time.
including as county manager. She holds a master in urban and regional planning from Alabama A&M, but we won't hold that again.
And her leadership has been recognized with several honors including the Jerry R. Griffin Excellence in Public Service Award,
the Georgia City County Management Association Pillars of Excellence Award,
and recognition as one of the Southern Crescent's top 50 women of influence.
And Sherry is known as a collaborative, thoughtful, and results-oriented leader who values transparency,
accountability, and strong community relationships.
And her exceptional public service is well-known throughout the study.
And we're excited to welcome her to the City of Noracoss and we look forward to her experience,
her leadership and the vision that she will bring to the city.
Please join me in welcoming my new...
Mayor and Council, thank you all so very much, and to the community, thank you.
I am truly elated to stand before you all as the incoming City Manager for the City
of Noracoss.
I will tell you that the path here has been nothing but delightful.
I have had so many residents, business owners, community leaders reach out, and so I am extremely
excited.
So Mayor, Council, thank you all for seeing in me this leadership that I'm ready to bring
forth and to work with the employees of the City of North Cross.
I do have to pause because I think I am the reason y'all reached your limit for
the number of individuals here this night, but I have a very strong village and so
I certainly want to recognize my husband who's here tonight, my parents that are
here as well.
my daughter and her fiance and then I also have some Henry County people that
are here that just absolutely lovely so thank you all for your support I am
excited to be here I'm excited to set the standard and I'm excited to see what
we are going to bring to the city of Norcross so thank you for trusting me
thank you I certainly want to perform this evaluation Eric thank you for four
years because that gives me a piece of my
I don't even know if that is service or something.
But again thank you all so very much and I will be here
right early in the morning and I am ready to get started so
thank you all very very much.
Thank you.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Thank
you.
Thank you.
See you in the morning.
Thank you.
Okay, that was the last agenda item for a special call meeting.
We're gonna need some transitional period, I've been notified by Tecnic or
we're gonna have to do some change over stuff.
So again, thank you all for being here.
We'll entertain a motion to adjourn.
Motion to adjourn.
Second.
Motion second to adjourn.
The objection.
All in favor?
Motion passes.
Thank you all.
for a moment there like that, that was quick.
Thank you for coming.
Thank you for that.
Thank you so much.