For your safety and your well-being, we reaffirm our commitment to listening to children,
standing with our brave survivors and reaching out across our communities to support families
and to help others in need, whereas all community members have a role in ensuring children have
positive experiences with families and have the resources they need when they need them.
Well before they are in a crisis, everyone in the community should become more aware
of child abuse prevention is considered helping parents raise their children in a safe,
nurturing environment. Our community should work together in the resounding this year
in building together prevention and partnerships. For our children, child abuse and neglect
are preventable, and all communities benefit when children and families are well supported.
Effective Child Abuse Prevention programs are seeded because of strong partnerships
among the parent leaders, agencies, schools, religious organizations, law enforcement
and businesses in the community.
Now, therefore, I, Anthony S. Ford,
by virtue of the authority vested in me
as the Mayor of the City of Starbridge, Georgia,
and on behalf of the City Council member,
Zeldin Alexander, and London Barbara,
John Blunt, and Keisha Gantt,
and a fond of Thomas do hereby for Plain March,
excuse me, April, 2023,
as National Child and Youth Prevention Awareness Month.
We call upon our community agencies,
faith groups, elected leaders, medical groups,
businesses, and individuals to increase
to participate in efforts to support all families and strengthen the communities in which we live,
thereby assuring safety and preventing child abuse. The witness thereof I have hereunto set my hand
in the great city of Starbridge, Georgia, on the 10th day of April, here above the floor in 2023.
I signed the proclamation loan that I put in this hall. And
now I don't think we have anybody
who's simply here to put me in the institute, but I'll tell you what I'd like to do. I want
come join anybody come join footage all right come on don't be shy I'm all right come on join come on
anybody come on okay where would you where we need to be we need to be more centered
is
this is
Let's start retiring, you might as well stay right here.
And anybody else, proclamation I'm going to read now, sub-aggressive veterans services
in corporate.
So, anybody that wants to come on up for this and come on up, I'm going to read this
and then we'll take a photo, have a photo of it, all right?
And it's good to see Chair Hurrell in the house here.
Appreciate that.
Mr. Lewis, I don't know if this is the first time you've been here in business.
No, it is.
Okay.
I'm going to call the dollar.
We can just...
I'm going to get to my workload.
Me too.
It's all good.
All right.
Here we go.
It's the Proclamation City of Starbridge, Georgia, in recognition of Southern Crescent
Veterans Services Incorporated, where a Southern Crescent Veterans Services Incorporated
is a volunteer group of retired veterans
from various war areas dedicated to assisting
fellow veterans and employment, education, transition,
training programs, and networking opportunities.
Where the Southern Crescent of Veterans Services
incorporate partners with various local nonprofit service
organizations to meet the immediate needs of our veterans
in financial crisis, shelter for homeless veterans,
employment of job leads, assistant with resume,
filling out filing for increase of VA compensation
or pension as well as assisting them
with filing their initial VA claims.
Where Southern Crescent Veteran Services
and corporate team of volunteers strive to serve
our war heroes through a network of resources,
contacts, and referrals,
where the goal is to connect veterans and their families
with services and to be a conduit
for many of the nonprofit organizations
in our community who are serving our heroes.
And whereas the veteran conditions in the United States
need more attention and care.
Unfortunately, veterans are highly vulnerable
to social issues such as huge education on depth,
defts, homelessness, and lack of medical care.
Our community is fortunate to have
Southern Crescent Veteran Services step in
and uplift our war heroes,
providing free assistance to all veterans.
They're surviving spouses and dependent children
from all branches of the service.
Now, therefore, I, Anthony,
and Spore by virtue of the authority vested in me
as the Mayor of City of Starbrings, Georgia,
and on behalf of City Council member
Delton Alexander, Lana Barber, John Bluth,
the case again upon the time to hereby recognize Southern Crescent Veteran Services Incorporated
for all that you do for our United States veterans and we thank you for volunteering
your time and services that we ask the community to continue to support your efforts. The winners
thereof I have here on to set my hand the great CLC Starbridge Georgia on the 10th day of April
year by law in 2023 and I signed the proclamation law when I closed the missile holiday.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I would just like to say thank you for coming out to support us.
Without you, it would not be us.
We do the things that we do on behalf of our hearts and make sure that our veterans and
our youth that here in the Henry County and Clayton County area are taken care of.
Majority of the time you'll see me on Facebook begging a lot for volunteers in kind donations
or monetary items to assist those who are in need.
This is a truly appreciated award so I thank you Mayor Ford for bringing it to us at this
time.
If you know any business in the neighborhood that need our services everything that we do and provide is free
Just let them know that we're here to serve and thank you
You want to get you the picture sir, I'm just part of the group
It's all about you all
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Good.
How you doing?
Mrs. Carter,
Mrs. Carter.
Ladies and gentlemen, council, let's get started with the meeting, please.
Is
that an air cord?
Well, I surely hope so. I have not looked at my e-mail.
I'm looking at Facebook live now, and I don't see that we're streaming live in.
Yes, we are streaming live. They can hear us now.
My mic is on. I told them exactly what you were concerned with.
Make sure that the video is positioned so that they can fold.
I mentioned that to them.
I don't see it on Facebook.
Well, I'm sorry about that. I told them. I read it to people.
Gentlemen, let's go.
We're live folks on Facebook as we're recording at this time I now have 6.05 so I'd like
to call our April 10th council meeting to order and on that note please stand for invocation
That's our retired basin, please, due to orders.
Everyone,
if you please, close your eyes and bow your head as I give a brief application.
I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to come before you,
to acknowledge that you are the one that's in charge of each and every one of us.
We thank you for making the ultimate sacrifice in regards to giving your one and only sign,
as today is that day that he had rose from the dead.
We would like to thank the community for coming together to put forth the efforts
to make sure that all citizens are loved, shown in this kindness, and to help them in
their time of need. Please be with Mayor Ford and the elected council members to share good
news and good deeds to the people who are seeking their advice and leadership. We love
you so very much for everything that you continue to do and we pray this and accept
this in the whole oppression name of your son Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.
President of the United States
of America, the United States of
the Republic, and the state, one
nation, one country, the
individual, the liberty and
justice for all.
Madam clerk roll call please.
Mayor Ford.
Present.
Mayor Pro Tem Barber.
Present.
Councilman Alexander.
Present.
Councilman Blunt.
Present.
Councilwoman Gantt.
Present.
Councilman Thomas.
Thank you Madam clerk counsel. I'm I'd like to do this. I have them I want to make a life for you to make a motion to amend the agenda to remove item number six, which is an amphitheater rental policy.
May I forward?
Yes, sir.
So moved.
Is there a second?
I second.
Ms. Gantz, second.
All in favor, please indicate.
Discussion?
Discussion.
No, sir.
We're going to, no need to discuss this.
Either you're in it, up or down.
No need to discuss.
All in favor, please indicate.
Okay.
All opposed.
Okay.
Four is one.
Okay.
Also, council, you don't mind like a motion to amend the agenda to add number 18,
which would be an ordinance for consumption of alcohol at the amphitheater.
So moved.
I second.
No, there's got to be a so moved.
Yep, Ms. Barber.
Ms. Barber, so moved.
May I report?
Okay, Ms. Gantz seconded.
Okay, all in favor, please indicate.
Call opposed.
Okay, unanimous decision.
All right, fantastic.
Screaming?
Number 18, we'll add an ordinance for consumption of alcohol at the amphitheater for discussion at number 18.
Okay?
And also, Calcineda, motion to amend the agenda for discussion, which will be item number 19
for the Southern Crescent Technical College for Amphitheater rental agreement.
But I'd like to have that right after our first presentation, so we don't keep them waiting all evening.
Yes, ma'am.
This will be for a discussion item?
It's actually for, it was going to be for approval, approval actually.
But none of us have approved it.
We would discuss it, but eventually it'd be for approval and disapproval.
But none of us have read the contract.
It was just.
OK, I'll tell you what, you want it for discussion, we'll have discussion.
And then if we decide, if we decide, OK, if we decide to do something different,
the council will decide to do something different for discussion.
Are you, are you so moved?
I'll make a motion for discussion.
OK, is there, is there a second?
Is there a second?
We, we're doing a rental policy, but we'd not, we took the rental policy off.
That's, that is correct, sir.
That is correct.
I'm certainly support them moving ahead with this, but I want how we're going to do that without the policy, but there's there's there's a sign of policy in front of you sign agreement in front of you at this time.
Yes, ma'am. I understand what Councilman Alexander is saying now.
Have we approved the we've already approved a rental policy agreement. Correct.
We did approve it. There were some potential some adjustments that we wanted to make but this this the particular policy with the southern Crescent College
Have been worked through for the last several months or so. Okay, and attorneys have been actively involved in this as well
All right, so I will move to has anyone made a movement. Well, she wants to remember what I want to discuss versus versus having a
Presentation to a for approval or disapproval
Okay
Well, anyway, I mean, you can always vote.
Exactly, exactly right.
So it could be for discussions.
You made a motion for discussions.
Is there a second demo?
I second.
And I want it.
It's going to be right after the presentation.
Right after the presentation.
It'll be up early.
All right, thank you.
Okay, so seconded by Ms. Gantt.
All in favor, please indicate.
All right, unanimously.
Fantastic.
Okay.
On that note, council, we have before you the adoption of minutes for the council meeting on February 13.
And also the council work session on February 28.
If there are no particular changes for the clerk for these particular minutes, I need a motion to approve them.
Ms. Barber, is there a second?
That's second.
Mr. Blunt, second. Our favor, please indicate.
You can ask the decision. Thank you very much.
Okay.
Madam Clerk, are there any public comments at all?
Report, we do have...
Okay, come on forward, please.
Name an address as you come forward.
Hi, good evening. My name is Fran Morgan.
I live at 316 Spring Creek Drive.
I am a homeowner and I've lived in Will Spring subdivision
for the past 11 years.
The reason I'm here today is because we have
quite a few residents that are parking their vehicles,
trailers, recreational vehicles on the grass
in the front, sides, and rear yard.
The grass is no longer there
where these vehicles are being parked.
This is not only an eyesore but an embarrassment when our friends and family come to visit
and it has to see all this.
It's also important we protect our property values and this could deter potential buyers.
I am aware that the city does have a code that does not allow vehicles to park in the
street but I have been told that there is no city code preventing vehicles from parking
on the grass which is an unimproved surface.
I am asking if you could please review this and consider adding a city code that would not allow any vehicle trailer or recreational vehicle to be parked in the front yard side or rear of a residential zone property.
I don't believe this should apply to the entire city of Stockbridge, but it should apply to single family residential homes that are in a subdivision.
And I have pictures that I can leave you all if you want to review them later on to just
see what's going on.
I'll tell you what, the city manager is over here.
He would take those pictures from you, he'll review this in this aspect.
I thought for sure we have this covered in the ordinance and of course our police chief
is in the audience here tonight as well.
But the police officers do, we do have the ordinance and they follow the ordinance.
So we'll double check with your thoughts here and make sure it's accurate and we
make sure we're just in support.
But to Mr. Garner's right there, ma'am, if this is something else that you will meet
you and you can handle those pictures. Okay?
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
All right. Next on item of ceremonial. Earlier today, we actually had two proclamations
that I read. And the first one dealt with Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month,
which is April. And in about the city, you will see blue and silver pinwheels
indicating our support for child abuse, excuse me, a support against child abuse, excuse me,
and this aspect and prevention. And you have some signs there as well. So I want you to know that
we're very supportive of the aspect that we need to take care of our children. Okay. And also,
the other proclamation dealt with the Southern Crescent Veterans Incorporated,
And that's our basin who gave the invocation today, received that, and she has an outstanding
organization that works with veterans across the board to assist with them with anything
that they need in reference to health issues, job issues, and anything else, anything that
deals with a veteran's period.
So it's very, very worthwhile and quite a bit of support that we have given here
in the local community in reference to that.
But on that note, we'll move on to our presentation, Annual CVB Convention Visitors Bureau 2022 Report
presented by Laura Luker, the Executive Director.
Please, Laura, come forward.
Okay.
There we go.
Thank you all.
I am Laura Luker.
I'm the Director of Tourism for Visit Henry, and I have spoken with all of you previously,
so I won't go into the specifics just quickly to say that we are, excuse me,
okay we are the destination marketing organization for the city of Stockbridge
as well as for Stockbridge, for Hampton and Locust Grove and then for
unincorporated Henry County and that means that we are charged with the
promotion of all the things that there are to do in order to make Henry
County and all of its cities, a desirable destination for visitors.
And our mission is to inspire tourism by engaging the partners, that's you and all
of our hotels, restaurants and attractions in the community in order to build a sense
Thank you.
A lot of hospitality for Henry County's visitors to stimulate economic development, because economic
development is what it is all about. So, in 2020, I know that there were several, excuse
me, 2022. Nobody wants to go back to 2020. 2022, there were several changes that is our
first full year that we collected hotel motels access from short-term rentals, but it also
So I know that you've had several new hotels come into the city of Stockbridge with your
annexation.
So the numbers next year and the percentages will look a little bit different.
But as I said, we do represent four different entities and you'll see those percentages
of budget makeup represented here.
The orange is Henry County, the yellow is, excuse me, orange is Locust Grove, yellow
is Henry County Unincorporated.
The grayest stock bridge at about 20% with Hampton making up the little blue
strip at the top and that's representing about 30 hotels and a bed and
breakfast across all of the community.
So in 2022 we had a variety of things
that we were working on specifically one of which was a visitor services. We
have our 2022 visitors guide that was our second installation of our magazine
quality visitors guide and it continued the work that the previous issue had
started where we had pioneered having four custom brochure racks from Barn
Beautiful in four of the welcome centers and it was so successful we
expanded that to eight. There are nine centers only eight will allow any
type of promotion from outside of their region. And so we did it in all eight, and we went
through a little over 50,000 guides. We're actually still waiting to see from our distributor
if we went through more than that. We ordered 65,000, and we had to order 15 additional
thousand in June because we were already running out. So that was incredibly successful,
and we do have our 2023s that just came in. So if you haven't had a chance to
see those, I encourage you to request one. We'll leave some for everybody at the
city as well. And then some new things that we really put into practice and
we're excited about this year was our photo kiosk. This is a freestanding
independent touchscreen kiosk. It allows visitors to interact with it and
select from 12 different branded city backgrounds. You can see some examples
of some of those photos that people have taken. They can email it to
themselves or text it to themselves, but on the back end it lets us know what they're
interested in, where they're from, how many people they shared it with, that kind of information.
And so we have one at the center now and we have asked if we could expand that program
as well.
Then in 2023, excuse me, we launched our new mobile visitor center, but we started
that process mid-year in 2022 and we hired our part-time expert explorer.
In September, she started a began working event such as at your local theater,
not the theater, the amphitheater at hotels, restaurants, events around the community.
And she is supported by more than 30 trained what we call local explorers, which is our volunteer force.
And they were incredibly successful at engaging volunteer visitors at those events.
The goal with this program is to meet visitors where they are.
They're coming into the destination maybe with little to no knowledge of what else they
could do maybe other than what they're there to do.
And so our goal is to be there in their moment of decision and to say, here's what else
you could do.
Here's where else you could eat and encourage them to stay longer and spend more money.
And so this will be our first full year with our actual van that is built out on
the inside as well.
If you haven't had a chance to look at the inside,
I would love to bring it and let you see it here at City Hall.
So we also have several different types of advertising
that we do.
We have seven different billboard locations.
They are digital billboards.
We have one that's the lowest one we have
is in just north of Mount Carmel Road.
And the one furthest north is on Interstate 24
in Chattanooga.
So they're all facing southbound traffic.
that's what we found from research was where our highest number of visitors are coming from.
And so we have four different designs that rotate through when we don't have either event
or partner promotions. You can see here as an example of the one for the city of Stockbridge.
We also do print and digital ads. We did ads in a variety of different types of publications
like I said, both print and digital including the Georgia State Parks Guide,
Southdown Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, and then here's some additional
examples of some of these ads that we ran as well.
We did a lot of video
advertising. We have 15 second and two minute videos, the 15 second video for
each of our cities, and we did about 1 million stock bridge specific videos.
These were served via YouTube connected TVs over-the-top TVs. So these are
to things like YouTube ads or in-stream content
if you're reading an article or things
like Hulu that have streaming content that has video ads.
More than 800,000 of them were completed.
So people chose to watch all 15 seconds of it.
They didn't skip it.
And then that created about 1,700 clicks
through from those ads directly
to stock bridge specific itinerary on our site.
We also have some very stock bridge specific display ads. These are called digital display.
You see copies of photos along with some text that tells visitors what they can expect. These
had over 2 million impressions and 17,000 clicks to our site, which was all linking directly
through to stock bridge specific content. And I do want to make sure that it's specific,
that these 2 million impressions are just stock bridge specific impressions. Every city has
different set of ads there's about 25 ads for each city and they run and rotate
through depending on what people are looking for based on what's in that city
so that's what you're seeing is stock bridge specific numbers and that is also
including paid and paid search and paid social so here's an example of some
paid search ads and those had about 50,000 impressions as well and so they
cover a variety of different toppings, shopping, history, et cetera.
We had a very successful year with PR and media.
We had about 172 published results, including that equaled about $168 million in earned
media value.
That means that if we'd gone out and bought these ads in these publications, the column
length or the number of pages would have cost us about $168 million, but instead
it was free because it was editorial content and that did include an ad or
a full several page article in Southern Living Magazine.
Social media, Leo
continues to knock it out of the park with social media. You can see here's
examples of some Instagram as well as Facebook post and he generated about
three million total impressions on our social content last year, 100 and about
150,000 total engagements and grew our following by about 2,000.
We also invested in a new research, it's a new research called Arrivalist, it's a company
that does location-based data.
For those of you who had the opportunity to come to our annual meeting, you got to
see some of this presented by John Packer, who works for Arrivalist, and I just wanted
to run through a couple of quick overview slides.
This data is so deep, so broad, there's so many applications for it, but what it
does is it actually tracks visitors that come into the destination via cell
pho data. So you can see here that in 2020, so this the data you're looking at
is 2022 data, we had about 1.9 million visitors and this
This data is taken based off of AT data, but it is taken along with the census data, and
they level it accordingly so that you're not getting really skewed data.
What you'll also notice is that while we had almost 2 million visitors, only about
32% were spending at least a night.
That gives us a lot of opportunity to capture those visitors and turn them into overnight
stays and then to make them stay longer as well. And with this we have an idea
of where they're coming from, who's staying, and how long they're staying. So
you with this you can also see, I know it's probably small for those in the
audience, but what you can see is that some of the states that are our
highest traffic states or points of origin make a lot of sense. Obviously
Georgia, we're in Georgia, but Florida, Alabama, we touch all of those states,
But what might be a surprising is that 1.2 percent of our visitors in 2022 actually came
from New York and from Illinois and Texas.
So you see all of those states that don't have any, they don't touch us at all, but
they're generating high traffic to our county.
And then when you look at the orange and data more specifically when you kind of dig
begin to it, what you'll notice is that while Georgia provides the highest number of our
visitors, it doesn't provide our highest overnight stays. While New York is what, almost six-sevenths
in terms of the number or the places that people are coming from, it has the highest
number of overnight, 2.44, average of 2.44 overnight. So it's really good to know
that, OK, if they're coming from New York,
they're tending to stay longer.
And then you think that makes logical sense,
but you also see that Florida tends to stay longer
than Alabama, even though Alabama and Florida are
both touching.
So those are just good data points
to know when we're trying to advertise
and where we're trying to advertise.
And then when you drill down from the state
to the city level, you can see that only the top five
cities are Georgia cities.
You get New York right back there in the mix,
noting that Georgia is our sixth, excuse me, New York is our sixth most popular
point of origin for our visitors, which actually really surprised me. And then
when you look at our share of overnight again, I talked about only 3.2%, but then
you see how that breaks down by the number of nights. Most of our visitors
are day trippers with about 4.3% being four nights or more. And then
when you look at where people are coming from, where they're going, and
And when they're going there, you'll see that hotels, that captures the highest number
of our visitors, which makes complete sense.
Again, people need a place to stay.
We do see a lot of pass-through traffic because we are on I-75.
But then you look at when they're visiting, March, July, August, again, the race happening
in March and July, that makes, you can see those trends, you can see tournament season,
in. You can see concerts all coming in as they impact that travel. Also, when you look
at a year over year report, you can see how they change based on the month. Okay, well,
we lost a little over 8% in January this year over last year, but in September we
gained it. So you can see and you can also look and say, what happened in September?
Why did we get more people in September than we did the previous year? What happened
in January, and why did we not get as many people this year? Was it weather? Was it an
event that did or didn't happen? Those are some kinds of things you can look at when
you're making better decisions. And so we're not making any decisions in a vacuum. And
this is a screen capture from the presentation that John Packard gave at that annual meeting,
taking the Stockbridge amphitheaters points of interest specifically. We were
able to identify 29 points of interest and draw basically a grid right around
their footprint and so only people who enter that footprint get counted as a
visitor and so while Stockbridge had 4,300 visitors that were from out of
state they were spending an average of three and a half hours in the
destination and you can see you know maybe what your most most impactful
concerts where what looks like whatever was in August was your highest you know
you had several concerts in August so maybe that's you can see how that how
that shifted the the travel trends you can also see where they're coming from
most people are coming from Georgia and so it's an opportunity again for us to
look at our partners our cities our points of interest and attractions and
figure out how we can best work with each of those to better leverage what it is
that's making people come and visit and then how we can create additional
experiences. One thing that John said during that presentation that I think
it's important to emphasize is that for every hour someone travels to get you
get to you, you have to have four hours of things for them to do once they
get here. So if people are coming from Savannah say and they've traveled three
to four hours, then we need about 12 hours or things for them to do.
And so putting together itineraries, opportunities, packages so that they know what else they
can do when they're in destination, it provides a huge opportunity for us to leverage the
people that are already interested in what you're offering, but maybe just don't know
what else they could do with an easy proximity.
So I'd be happy to go through this data in more detail or dive in anything specific
If you have any questions at a later point, but at this point, do y'all have any questions?
That's just a real quick run-through.
Yes.
Well, I've got it.
Thank you for it, Laura, for that presentation.
It's progress, American progress, that's for sure, in this aspect.
And I know we're helping along that process and for that progress.
DeVan, I don't know if you've already done this along with our event staff or
even with our amphitheater, our consultant is in here as well, and our representative
from our Vestatis here to work out something for the CVB band.
And to be at those particular city activities or even at the concerts, okay? So I don't know
if you've already started a dialogue you have, okay?
It will be, they'll be there on Friday.
Oh, fantastic, fantastic.
So we've got volunteers and the van and Rachelle all scheduled and all very excited.
Good deal. And then New York, I have to admit I'm not totally surprised personally because
every time I turn around and I meet new people, they're coming from New York, a new journey,
somewhere up north like this. So it's fantastic, okay? It's good brief, I appreciate that.
Mr. Blunk, go ahead please.
Thank you for the presentation. I want to start specifically with the amphitheater piece.
How do you calculate the points of interest? Once again, how do you calculate points of interest?
Because you've got a number of 4,323.
So what they do is they draw a geofence around the property.
and so when a phone enters that fence it's registered as a visitor if it
returns to a location outside of Henry County and if it is a I should have said
this at the front end it rules out anybody who is a commuter so if you
If you go, if you live outside of Henry and you come and you go back, then it rules you out.
It doesn't count you as a visitor. It only counts people who are in the destination for at least two hours.
And then if you're stopping and getting gas and then going down the road, it doesn't count you.
And so it is all about cellphone data for app usage.
And that's why it's normalized for the Census Bureau because you might have different populations
that are heavier app users than others or heavier apps of certain apps.
So what it is for the amphitheater specifically is that there's an invisible line basically
drawn around the amphitheater and when a cell phone enters that zone or somebody opens
an app that is one of the apps that is tracked, it gets registered as a hit.
And the reason I ask that because it's when you look at this is for the year, is that correct?
Correct.
But when you look at this for the year, let's just say for instance, 12 concerts on a 34
seat amputated, that's over 40,000 seats.
And so for the year, you're telling me that in the parameters of the amputated, only
10% or a little less than 10% of the people got on their cell phones or they did whatever.
Is that what you're saying?
No, what I'm saying is that only that that percentage are from outside of Henry County
Outside of Henry County correct if they are residents then they will not be counted
It only counts people who whose home base is outside of Henry County and that they're not commuters
So less than 10% of the people that got on their phones was outside of Henry County. It's it's
not about
It is about who gets on their phone, but that's why they normalize it.
So that it's not about, there's two sets of numbers.
There's real numbers, and then there's the normalized data.
So you have your real numbers that might say that there's only a hundred or a thousand
visits logged, and then you look at the normalization of it, and I'm not explaining
this well.
John would have done a better job, but you look at the census data and you say that in
that age group or in that demographic or in that area, this is the percentage of the population
and they adjust it and they've found that it's within, I think, 90-something percent
accurate in terms of when they normalize it. Again, I'm not doing a fantastic job
of describing that, but...
And that's fine, and I will have to say you're 100% sure because I have no idea
what you just said. But my concern has been, how connected are you all? So you're an entity
of the Chamber or you're connected with the Chamber or you're a separate entity of the
Chamber?
We're an entity of the Chamber. We're underneath their umbrella.
So the thing that has concerned me even since I've been on this Council is with the Chamber
because you know the City of Stockbridge is the heaviest provider of funds to the
Chamber.
Are you talking about Hudson Middle Taxes?
I'm talking about local option sale tax.
So it's a loss tax?
Yeah.
And the Chamber is not funded through loss tax?
Well, the funding, well, I'll be putting it this way.
The funding that we give to the Chamber,
the funding that comes from the stock bearer's portion
for advertising.
Come on, hotel motel?
You're talking about hotel motel tax?
Hotel motel tax.
You're 20% of our budget.
But other cities are going to be less than that
with the Chamber in Henry County.
No, that's what we were told so stop bridges. I have a slide stop bridges 20%
Locust Grove is
40 something percent. Are you dealing with that per capita? Are you dealing with that for?
Money's a funding brought in the amount of money brought in okay, so I have it broken down what I do with
the
When I look at is I put everybody's
totals in and then I take the percentage and so and it's based on the real
numbers that are brought in. Well that's fine because I don't want to I don't want
us going down that road I just I'm only going off the last information that
this council was given. My concerns is I've been on this council when it can't
when it comes to those things that the Chamber are doing for the city
because this amphitheater which is the anchor for this whole area this whole
region of the county has brought, we have hotels that are going up and we have a
lot going on and when I come in to come into the city, I'm looking at the
numbers you're giving, but I'm not seeing this type of advertising. That's what
I'm saying because when I come in from the south end, I'm as far as a hundred
miles out and I'm seeing something for McDonald's. When I come out from the
north end, if we just did a picture of the
and how to contact to understand about shows and that,
I would love that, I don't see that.
So the numbers you're giving versus what I've seen,
that's why I'd even just ask our mayor,
have you seen this?
I don't see what you're doing, I don't see this.
And if something could be given to this council,
when you're doing it, that we can go see ourselves,
that would be great because it gives validity
to the presentations right now for what you're giving
and even the question I asked about this point
a point of interest and all that. I'm not sold on that yet, because I guess someone
else had to present it for you, but I would ask that the Chamber would look
closely to what is anchoring this city, which starts with our amphitheater, we
start with what we're doing, we start with the historical piece, and that this
Chamber look closely on the correct way and how to, with the funding that
they're getting, to advertise our city and make it more prevalent for
people to come to our city. And I will say that if I'm doing my job right you
don't see our advertising. Billboards of course you would see but it is not aimed
at residents. Residents are a wonderful byproduct of what we do. Education of
residents but it is about educating people outside of Henry to get them to
visit Henry. So all of our digital ads, the video ads, all those things that
was talking about, they are targeted to cities outside the Georgia cities and
cities outside of the state that we have already seen a specific tendency to
either through research or through our web data that have already showed a
propensity to or for interest for city of Stockbridge. Every city's advertising
is different so we'll have Stockbridge is targeted to different cities than
City of Locust Grove because your visitors are not the same. They're not interested in
the same thing and they're not the same people. So we do target it differently but you are
not going to see. You're not going to go on Roku or on Hulu and see one of your ads
because you're within the city limits. You're not in Little Rock, you're not in Birmingham
or wherever else these cities are being. I've been in the City of Stop Bridge now
and gone on 17 years and I've yet to talk to one single person at anything that
was for people from out of town and say they saw this online or they saw it on
wherever they say they saw it on Facebook they saw it on next door they
heard somebody tell them that's has been from my experience I have no I'm gonna
only speak for John Blunt and one of the things I would ask that you all would
do is to get with the people of the city of Stockbridge that are in those
positions to tell you that the talking points that we would like
seeing and how we would like those be presented because if I won't see it
How can I believe it?
Only thing I believe in that I don't see is God Himself.
And so I need to, so if I don't see evidence or something,
how could I, you know.
What exactly would you like to see?
I mean, because I mean, I'm showing you screen captures
of actual ads that are running or have run.
But when you tell me, I'm sorry to cut you off
because you asked the question, I don't want to go stupid.
When you tell me the point of interest
is that 4,000, I think it's 323,
22 or something like that. When you tell me that, that's less than 10% of a concert year.
And when you tell me that, and then I don't see those type of people at our concerts because
the parameters that you gave, I'm saying I don't see what you're telling me. That's
all I'm saying. I don't see what you're saying. I don't experience that. Maybe my
other council members do and that's fine, but I don't. And then when I ask about it,
It's not really being explained to a point to make it clear enough to me on what because when you say you draw a line
I don't see it. I'm sorry. Can you you don't you don't see what I'm sorry
I know that that my explanation for the data wasn't the best
One of the greatest things that you all can do that we could see is to understand your efforts
If I don't understand your efforts without results, then I question the efforts
So, if I don't understand your efforts, will I just ask you, and I didn't really understand
what you were saying, then how can I adjust the results?
Because if you give it all you've got and we don't have any results, it's not your
fault.
You see what I'm saying?
So, at this point, if I don't see your efforts, like you say, I won't see it, then I'm
at a point where what else do I have to go offer?
And I'm more than willing to come and present or do anything that I can.
I can't,
because of the way our ads are targeted, I can't, the digital ads, I can't make sure
you see those in the moment.
I can certainly bring you copies of our print ads.
I can bring you, I can email you copies of all of the articles that have been written
about the city of Stockbridge by writers that we've brought in.
I mean, I certainly can do those things.
So I won't prolong time. I'm counseling with John Blount. I'll give you one of my cars or somebody give you my car
And when you do those ads so you call me and say you need to check this out
And I'll be all right, and I do have copies of every ad we've ever done so I can send you copies of
the magazines or pictures from the magazines
I think counseling the other miss. Mrs. Anna. Go ahead, please. Yeah, I think I had this conversation and I share some of the
concerns that Mr. Blunt was registering. This is why I would like Mr. Gardner you
come to the podium and Mr. Young will you come to the podium. One
of the questions
that I asked Ms. Luker before we got started was you know what are we doing
with the billboards and what's going to happen? What are we do we currently have
any show promos running on their billboards right now? The answer was
No. First Friday night show. The answer was no. And the answer from their end, I'm not
talking about from your end. I'm talking about from the Convention and Visitors Bureau angle.
They have billboards. I was under the assumption, as I'm sure the council members were, that
we were operating just like we were last year, that we were going to duplicate show
advertisements on the CVB boards just like they did last year. Now, I asked Ms.
Lucca, was she familiar with you, Mr. Young? She said no, she was not
familiar with you and that she had consulted with several members. I
told her about the professional hits that you had on B103, KISS 104, the
digital video promotion that you had, and they don't have any of that. There's
breakdown between what you're doing, which is on a Class A top level, that information
is not getting to them. We need to make that connection between you, her, and the staff
members so we can get that grade A advertising information to them because if they have billboards
that are available for us to use and we got a show on Friday night and they're
not being used, we're missing that because that's part of the service that we pay
for but right now we're not getting that and I think it is and I asked the
question well who was the contact with the city are there there were several
contacts with the city but there needs to be one to generate and to do exactly
what mr. Blunt is saying what I'm saying which is communicate what we want
specifically in terms of shows that we want promoted and events that we
want to promote it not just as you say not just in this in the area but in the
billboards that you have certainly if the majority of the traffic is coming from
inside the these inside the area we certainly want those people at mount at
the Mount Carmel board to drive by it and see it so if we had the Isley
Brothers concert on this the common Mount Carmel board it would be seen
inside of Henry County. If we had it on I-75, it would be seen inside of that. So I'm asking
that we make that connection.
So that we're able to cross promote. And I think we did, as we talked about the data that we, in that excellent presentation that we received at Murrow Mander Center, we talked about extended stays and I think it was four hours, not necessarily two.
I think it was four hours. And then that, if they were in the city four hours, then they would be more apt to book a hotel stay.
And based on that, I had sent you an email in some of the counterparts over at Panola Mountain.
And so to see whether or not we could tag and put our own package together.
So when someone would come to the site, the suggestion would be put forward,
but, okay, you could, excuse me, you could go to Panola Mountain.
You could go to Yule Forest.
You could go to Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Or you could go to the Stark Bridge Amphitheater.
so we could get that greater than four hours
and a hotel stay in the area as well.
Those are the cross promotion things.
There was some responses on that and we need to get involved
in that in partnering with other organizations.
But firstly, I would like for Mr. Young to make the connection
with, if it's okay with you Mr. Gardner,
to make the connection with the CVB so we can get the
advertising that we're using on their platforms and we can take advantage of
those with the specific information we won't provide it, not necessarily because
right now it's seen as though they were making the decision but we weren't
actually, they weren't exactly sure what we wanted out of that particular
process. But it will be a cleaner look especially for the amphitheater for
the concerts that we're having and maybe we can change that today and
get them some information that they need to use those billboards a hundred miles
out, 200 miles out. Surely somebody in South Carolina might want to bring their
mother to the Maxwell concert or somebody in New York. Those are the kind of
things that we need to see on those boards and on those advertisements that
will specifically bring people to Stockbridge. Was that clear or was it?
And I just want to state that you do have money set aside for city advertising, that you can
buy billboards in South Carolina, and we still pay for them, but you get to select where they
are and what messages go on them, but that is up to the council as a whole.
And whoever to be that one point of contact to let me know who and how that money needs
to be spent and then so that's one avenue and then you also have the boards
that you're speaking of we do have seven and we can we have as you have a
schedule of people who have already are already committed to spots on the board
and so if you have a concert that you want promoted then you can say hey do
you have a spot and I say I do but only until these days or only for this
month or not on this board but we do on this board I would be happy to do that.
You just just let us know and we did connect this afternoon for the first
time so I appreciate that connection. So your staff is doing a fantastic job of
making the connections it's just making sure that we are connecting with the
right people on the right projects because I do know that you know the
amphitheater is handled separately than maybe the conference center or the
main street and so we are connected to all of those people trying to make
sure that we're plugged into all the different aspects of the city because we
know that it's so multifaceted it's it's so many different aspects so we would
love to work with you to know what your concert series what your priorities are
what the art is we would love to promote those on our social channels as
well and also obviously on our billboards so and we appreciate working
with Mr. Young too on making sure our welcome center can be at the
property, because we want to work with you.
That's what we're here to do, and we
want to make sure that you understand what we're doing
and that you feel comfortable with it.
But whatever that looks like, I'm here.
I'm always available.
I'm always here.
I can provide my cars, my email.
I know Ms. Holliday has my email as well, so.
Yes, and as you said, you just said the key thing.
You're waiting on those decisions to be made on our side to tell you what we need to do
with those funds if we wanted to use that advertisement outside of the city.
You're waiting on us to tell you what we want to do with the seven boards that we have
access to on specific things that we want if we want these things done.
That's what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about we need to do what's necessary to get the information to you on
our side so that we is there's no you're not unclear on what needs to be on what
we want and that connection is made that's what I'm talking about and that's
what I'm asking mr. Gardner to do through the staff is to make sure that there
aren't any ambiguities they know exactly what we want to see and what we
want to see coming forward. The one last question is on this graph that you have
here, we were told that Stockbridge was contributing certainly a large amount. Is
this just hotel motel tax or what is this pie graph? The only thing I'm
concerned about is hotel metal taxes. Okay so this graph represents the hotel
motel tax that is coming from the various entities to you all. I'm
looking at the hotels, I mean how many hotels are in Locust Grove? A lot.
maybe 15. Yeah. There's tons of hotels. In the city limits. In the city limits. They're all within half a mile from the interstate.
Yeah. And they've built four in the last two years maybe. Okay. So our number should be, certainly should be coming up with the
annexation and the Holiday Inn coming in and several others coming in as well. So those numbers should be increasing.
Yeah, the Holiday Inn is a, it's a great property, and the Holiday Inn, you get the Holiday Inn,
the Microtel, no, that one already is yours, Red Roof and the Travel Lodge, I think you
get three additional hotels coming in.
Right, right there in that particular section, so those, that's certainly bumped our numbers
up.
But I just wanted to, so I certainly understand what Mr. Blunt was saying, and that is it.
Those seven boards, we want to use them because we should have access to them,
We just need to get the information to you and I want to be clear. I know that I know that it's restricted in their share
Yeah, but if we had lean forward earlier, we would already be there now, right on the ones that are already spoken for because we have
Agreements, yeah, so
Okay, thank you mayor
Before I ask my question I wanted to one commend the CVB board on what they do locally I can attest to that personally
they reach out to small businesses and before that I was a little apprehensive about what exactly the CBB board did.
But when your hands on and you have experience with seeing that they offer a lot of trainings and they really, really try to promote all of the businesses that are within your city or that are part of the chamber.
And they also worked really hard at trying to get the word out outside of Henry County about going to those places.
So I do want to commend you for that.
I did have a question in regards to the seven billboards.
What's the process of getting on those boards?
What is, how can we become a priority?
Or how do you go about picking and choosing who gets to be on those boards?
So we have the seven and they are the first priority is we have visitors guide the advertisers
in our guide and the advertisers get first pick basically.
It's part of their package and they get depending on whether they have full page or half page
they get either two or one month and then they get to go through and pick which boards
and which months.
And then after that, there's a request form that goes through, and you can select, say,
I'd like this board of this month.
And can you give me the amount of advertisers that you have?
You estimate maybe an advertiser's guide?
I think we have 17 total advertisers, maybe 15 total advertisers.
Not all of those are full, or not full or half.
So yeah, and and when they have when so not all of them are full of half
There's about 17 and out of those seven billboards. Are they all electronic and rotate? Yes
And we can run like so right now. We don't have
Partners running right now. We just have our city billboards running and those run
We have all four of our art that rotate through
Okay, so the city is rotating through as part of our our overall campaign
So although it's not the Isley Brothers or the concert series,
Stockbridge is still being promoted on seven billboards.
So in regards to that, you had mentioned that we have money set aside that we could utilize for a billboard.
What is that money?
Do you guys have that money or do you guys send it over to Stockbridge or how does that work?
And what is that money allocated for?
It is allocated to promote the city of Stockbridge in the way that the city chooses.
This is money that you can use to promote festivals.
It has to be tourism specific, but it can be used with your branding.
So all the stuff that we do has our branding, but this money is set aside for your branding,
your ads, whatever.
And because the one thing with the city ads that we, excuse me, the billboards that we do when you use our seven billboards is you do have to allocate a fourth of the board with our logo.
If you use your ad, if you do the city funds, then they're completely yours.
You can do it however you want.
whatever the art looks like. In the past it's been used for bridge fest radio
advertising or holiday festival radio advertising and that is you basically as
a city contract with that entity whatever that entity is that you want
and then we pay those invoices directly by law we're not allowed to give you
money back but that sends up all sorts of red flags for the Department of
Affairs or Department of Community Affairs but basically y'all have the
the invoices come directly to us, we pay those invoices directly up to the amount that you
have allocated.
Okay.
And so there's a percentage of hotel, motel, tax that comes directly to the city of Starter
Bridge, correct?
Correct.
So this is in addition to that.
Correct.
All right.
And so can you, well, you just mentioned some of the things that we've spent money
on before in the past.
I know that we, for a fact, have.
I remember food trucks in particular, when I first started them, we reached out to CBB
and used it for some of the billboards that we wanted directly.
So I remember that, but I was just curious, and I'm going to shift gears a little bit
because I know we're all focused on the amphitheater, but there's so much more that
Stockbridge could have to offer and can offer and one of those things is and I
believe it's in your field the movie industry and being on the registry has
that by chance been updated to at least present maybe the Stockbridge
Amphitheater some of our re-screwed trails and some of the prettier I mean
some of some nice shots and locations here in Stockbridge. I haven't updated
it recently but we certainly can. You can update that that they've changed the
system and I think that other people can update it now you can add your own
listings those kinds of things now so it doesn't all fall to the camera ready
liaison to do it but you can we can certainly do that we can update those
and I get calls several a week for different places so right now my my
role is largely a clearinghouse trying to make sure that I'm getting to the
right person but I do and I often get calls that say I need X and rarely is
it the pretty stuff actually it's usually I need a dirt road or a house that's
falling down but there is certainly I have gotten at least three calls about
the amphitheater so those we are getting calls we are directing them to the
appropriate places and that's that is what I do and what my job is because
I'm not a permitting agency, y'all are the permitting agency, so it's trying to make
sure that those interested parties get to the interested people and they can connect.
But having the better photo just definitely works.
Any photos that anybody has, wants, updates, let me know.
We can get that happen.
Mr. Thomas, please.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Mayor.
Ms. Luca, thank you again.
I was with you at the Murrow Managers.
And I just want to commend Council.
I think this dialogue is good, getting a better understanding, becoming a team to work together.
I think all of this is good.
But where I want to go with this and as a city, and I know Mrs. Gantt mentioned some of the things.
Councilman Alexander mentioned some things.
But I think we as a city, we have to give travelers a reason to stop in Stockbridge.
Folks traveling up and down our 75 or what have you, it's incumbent upon us to give them
that reason.
So we're talking tourism and I think we're headed in the right direction.
I think we're doing some of those things.
but I don't want to get too deep and I appreciate the concerns of the council
and they are sharing those concerns with
And hopefully you are going to address some of those, but I think it still comes back to
the city of Stockbridge offering, creating Stockbridge as a designation, what people want
to come. If you're traveling, say, if you're coming up from Florida, you're going to wherever,
and you'll say, well, okay, let's stop over in Stockbridge because, and we have to offer
for more than the amphitheater, you see.
And so, and again, I think we are headed
in the right direction, but I don't want us to get
too bent off into, you know, what you're doing,
which I think is still valid.
I think the concerns that have been raised,
they are valid concerns, and hopefully
you're going to address those.
But again, we as a municipality and our staff,
economic development, Main Street, all of us. I think we have to give folks a
little bit more as to a reason why you want to come and spend a couple nights
in Stockbridge, more than the amphitheater. So I just want to just share
that and I think Council, you know we're on board with that but we just have
to dig a little deeper and we have to produce a little bit more to create
Stockbridge as that place. So when folks leave home or whether they go in
north or south, hey let's stop in Stockbridge because and we got to give
them that because so we have to market that but if we don't have anything why
should anybody want to stop? And I'll say that your Stockbridge 15 second
video everybody I've ever showed it to says oh it makes me want to go to
Stockbridge because you have things you really do and I think it's about
about packaging and about packaging it to the right people.
Yes, yes.
Well, thank you again for coming.
Mayor Ford, I'm going to yield,
and hopefully we can move on to the next agenda item.
I just want to double check any other comments
from the council.
Thank you.
If not, thank you.
Lord, appreciate the presentation.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, counsel.
Okay, good deal.
Now we'll move on to the Southern Crescent
Technical College, that presentation,
and what we have Mr. Ingram come forward,
please. And with the Southern Crescent Technical College, we have Dr. Clark and Dr. Johns. I
know that Harold is here for any things that may have to deal with the amphitheater itself
in that aspect. And of course, talking about the actual contract itself, and I know that
Mr. Washington has been involved with the attorneys from the Southern Crescent as
well in reference to this particular event. Go ahead, Connie, you all, please.
Thank you, Mayor and Council. On behalf of the event staff, we've been working with Southern Crescent since about last September in coordinating their graduation, which is May 9th of this year.
We've gone back and forth with the attorneys, finding the contract itself. We had to put that together during this process.
And we finally got that together.
Today we have a clean signed contract for your approval.
Could you explain in reference to the nonprofit aspect and all the things that the colleges
have to do in reference to the rental process so they understand that?
In the contract, it states that we are giving nonprofits $2,500 rental status, and that we
did not have a standard operating procedure other than the $2,500, but there are several
other things that come into play.
the maintenance, the police, the security, all the parking, all aspects which have come
to now 16,000, a little over north of $16,000, including the rental fee.
So when they started looking at $2,500, that's just for the shell.
and and so we've come to this place now and provided help them provide the the
vendors that they needed to secure this and that's where we are at this point and
council in front of you you have you should have a document that indicates the
all the services that they will be paying for to those vendors and those
vendors are vendors that are very familiar with the operation of the
apathy and because of the same vendors we use, there's no money coming from the city for
this support of this. This is something that has been worked out with the staff and with
the college and the leadership in reference to the renting of the facility. And I want
to go online and say the fact that I can't recall the actual concerts, but if I understand
right, both doctors that are here, Dr. Clark and Dr. Johns, attended a concert
or sometime last year and enjoyed themselves and said,
won't this be a great place to have a commencement service?
Because I think they've outgrown where they have been
having in the past.
And this is something that they're looking forward to,
something I would think that hopefully we're looking forward
to in reference to having a routine annual type of event.
And if I understand correctly, they
expect to have roughly 3,000 people
to attend this particular event, this commencement
service.
It's a great thing. Stand by, please. Mr. Alexander caught my attention first, sir. Go ahead, sir.
Yes, sir. Might we just hear from them real quick?
Yeah, that's fine. They're here.
Before we do that.
Okay.
I would like on page 3, you must remove clause number K. 8K.
8K, what's 8K?
There's nothing to do with this. Thank you.
8K.
What is it?
8K. That's all.
That's part of the list.
Page 3, 8K.
Okay, labor and expenses.
Yes, in the contract.
Eight cases parking at the elementary school,
is that what you're talking about?
Right, we don't own the elementary school.
They have contacted the school themselves,
the Stock County Board of Education for that.
And I agree, that's fine.
That's what they're supposed to do,
but we can't contract with,
put that in our contract agreement.
No, it's not in the...
Because that's what you do with us.
No, you're correct.
for that to be removed.
Okay. Stand by, please.
Mr. Thomas, go ahead, please.
The Apple Theater rental has been going on for a couple of years,
but I just want to say to Southern Crescent
and any other organization that really want to rent the Apple Theater.
going back some years when, and I was on this council when we discussed a bill in the amphitheater
and the reason for a bill in this amphitheater. And we talked about a facility that would impact the quality of life
for our citizens as far as entertainment.
Also number two, we talked about having
an economic impact in our downtown.
And I'm saying this to say,
we welcome selling crescent in any organization
that want to come and flood downtown.
That's where we want.
We want people in our downtown.
So make no mistake that, you know, we're pushing back on anybody coming.
That's what we want.
But the issue that I have, and I've raised this issue for more than two years now,
and I think any organization, whether it's the college, fraternities,
it's the roaches, churches, schools, even in your home,
There are rules and regulations, there are policies and procedures that has to be in
place before you can roll this out.
And that's my sticking point with this, not only with Southern Crescent, but with any organization.
And I think it's a failure on our part because we did not get it together.
And I think we're still sort of going around, but from what I'm hearing and what the mayor
just read, I think we're there now.
But I just want to just say this and, you know, we move to take the policy off the
agenda because it is not ready.
But again, I just want everybody to understand, and I believe everyone does understand that
But you have to have policies and procedures in place in order to roll this out properly
because what you do for one, you have to do for all.
And so it was so fragmented, so chaotic, and that's the problem that I have and I don't
see no reason why it should have been that way.
You know we're wrong folks, we're educated folks.
And so why couldn't, and look, in Southern Crescent,
this is not your fault period.
In the churches, anybody is not your fault
why this policy is not in place.
It is on us.
And I just have a problem because we did not get it done
and now we're still trying to patch and mismatch
and all of that when it just,
it wasn't necessary for us to do. So I just want everyone to say that I'm not against anyone
in coming downtown, the more the merrier. And Castleman Alexander, he is a preacher for this.
He knows that we want people to come into downtown. We want to have shops and restaurants.
We want folks to come in and, hey, spend your money in downtown. That's what we want.
But again, it is our responsibility to put the policies and the procedures in place so
we can do just that.
And I'm just having a problem in understanding why we haven't been able to do this because
we've been talking about this for two years now, and it's still fragmented.
So, I'm hoping, and I think that's why it was pulled off because we know it's not ready,
but hopefully we can go forward and allow Southern Crescent to come in.
But I just want everyone to know that we are not against anyone in coming, participating
in partner.
That's what we want, but we have to put some things in place, policies and procedures.
I don't, you know, I know if you're a member of any organization, you have bylaws, you
have policies, you have procedures, so y'all know exactly what I'm talking about.
But there are some things that just were not in place, and so over the last 3, 4, 5 days,
some things have become clearer, clearer, and I think we can go forward.
But just understand that if and I'm just going to say it was our fault that we did not get
together.
So Southern Crescent has nothing to do with you as far as you did something wrong.
You did not.
You know you came and you wanted to do this and again you know the failures on us so I'm
just saying council staff let's get it together.
Let's get it together.
So we can put we can roll out to welcome that to all of these organizations and
Churches and schools or what have you to come in and be a partner with us in our great set of stock bridge and
That's me. That's basically all I want to say. So let's let's just do a better job in doing that. All right. Good deal
Thank you dr. John's dr. John's a dr. Clark. Could you come forward, please?
Yeah, go ahead sir
It's England real quick on the
because I haven't had a chance to look it all over the the amounts only rentals all
of those different fees yes even the one for for for profit those are non-concert
fees right those are yes all those are non-concert fees those are yes they're
non-profit fees but they have to pay the regular price for any vendor for
for the services that they need to operate.
No, I get that, but I just want to make sure
that the fee scale here that I have.
Yes, sir, it is the non-profit in the commercial
for-profit event.
All of these are non-concert.
The last one on that line is the $10,000 it is for profit.
But the $2,500 is for-
You can have a profit by having different type of events.
Yes, this is my concern is that we become
Competitive within ourselves. I want to make sure none of these. There's no dollars exchange on this event
So that basic price for the non-profit price is that they're not looking to make any money
They're not charging people to come
It's kind of I get that
Follow me what I'm saying is
Let's go all the way down to the commercial slash for property bit. Yes, sir
Can someone come with that amount and do a concert at the amphitheater?
For the for-profit yeah
Yes, sir, then I'm not for
What is that amount I'm not sure
Respectfully no sir
That was a rule that you guys asked us to put in place
So we do not rent the facility out to anyone who wants to have a concert in competition with the city
That was a rule put in last year, but where's that it's in it's in the policy
documented in June of last year we amended it and then we came back and we
wanted to make further amendments to it it's in this document it's gone what I'm
saying is if that's our policy with all due respect I believe it
You all know that's our policy. I think that all literature, contractual literature that
we put out, even this to us, everything should be clear that none of these, none of these
are for concert purposes, none of these remits. Okay. So under the policy that we adopted in
June of last year, you have education and a non-profit. They pay a flat fee of 2,500
And then any associated costs as a release to the use of the amphitheater
That's what adds up to the 16,000 that they're being charged
So if they have to pay for parking, that's in there. If they have to pay for fire input, that's in there
They have to pay for garbage pickup. That's in there for janitorial service. That's in there
That's what adds up to the 16,000. Well, let me say this because when you buy cigarettes
No matter what brand or what kind no matter how many wants to call to get certain general got something down this
and it's called cancer.
How about every time we put something out about these fees,
that we put something in there, the caveat in it
as for non-construct purposes, or whatever we need to put
on everything that we put out when it comes to this.
I just don't want any misunderstanding,
any misinformation going out if you wouldn't mind.
So in the policy document, the amendment remain
under each section in here,
We put in there civic or educational events.
Concerts under this section shall only be allowed under partnership agreement approved by City Council.
Under non-profit benefit events, we have the same language.
Concert under this section shall only be allowed under a partnership agreement approved by City Council.
Under commercial and for-profit events.
Let's go on, sorry to interrupt, just for sake of time.
Would there be a problem with putting that on any of these?
If it is, then we'll just deal with that.
Would there be a problem, if we do a contract with anybody,
would there be a problem putting it on here?
If you're gonna list all the fees,
then we gotta say what the purpose is
for anybody that gets this.
If somebody got this and looked at it,
oh, wow, for profit, I can do for profit
for $10,000, we know, but nobody else would know.
Can I just clarify something?
Go ahead, Ms. Thompson.
And I appreciate Councilman Blunt's concern.
But again, the question went out about this rental policy.
And to my knowledge, I was the only one that responded
and gave some suggestions.
Even at the retreat, we tried to get into this.
I don't want Southern Crescent to get caught up in our short comments.
And I think this is why we delayed approving the rental policy because it's obvious now
that it is not ready.
So, but how can we, in order for a serving crescent to meet their May 9th deadline, how
can we fix it somewhat so they can go forward, which is still a double edged sword because
what you do for them, you may have to do it for others.
And just let me say about the policy, Mr. Gardner, in that policy, it talks about an
agreement between the applicant and the city council.
That did not happen.
It didn't happen.
So responding, I'm going to respond to whatever you get ready to say now.
Respectfully, sir.
The contract is what you have before you.
That's what council approves.
So whenever we get no no
Finish he wanted to let me just make this come in then I'm gonna give back to
Mayor Ford yes, ma'am, but I like to get knowledge after
Councilman Thomas, please well more you're back to to the council of volume, but mr. Garner
Yes, sir an agreement
an
agreement between
selling Crescent and the City Council. It did not happen. That was where was the
discussion between selling Crescent and the City Council? So where was that
discussion for us understanding and approving and agreement? But I'm
going to yield back but I'm just saying I'm just trying to show that yeah
rental policy has some flaws in it and we just have to sort of get it together
but I'm still trying to figure out how can we allow Southern Crescent to go
forward even though this policy is not ready but let me just hear back to to
Councilman Blunt because he did have the floor. Why he did floor? But go and
answer your question Mr. Thomas's question Mr. Gardner, please.
So Council Member, when an entity comes, you hire us to do to work with that entity to bring
them to this point where there is a contract for this council to approve, right? That's
why you have these people here. And the goal behind that is so that you don't have the
wrangling over contractees points in a city council meeting with a potential person
who wants to rent it as long as they meet, as it relates to the policy, right?
We adopted the policy.
We did not scrap the policy.
We say we would amend it as we were moving forward, which we did in reference to some
of the comments related to outside entities' renting.
So there's a provision in here that literally says that open to the public under commercial
and for-profit, open to the public where the primary use is making a profit.
However, no commercial or for-profit concert shall be allowed at the amphitheater.
That was one of the chief concerns that we're not competing with ourselves.
So we did away with that to allow, make sure that no one could come in here and have a concert
in lieu of a concert that we're having.
So we put that provision in there.
So the key is, as you have a, like with any zoning ordinance, you don't scrap the whole ordinance
and then say we're going to just amend it and leave nothing in place.
You have something in place and you amend it as you go.
so you could get it to where you want it to be, right?
We don't just take the ordinance and say, it's done.
There's no more zoning, so therefore we don't use it.
So the best guide that we have is the guide to read.
What do we have in place?
Taking into account that there are some language
that council wants to see change,
most of those changes that we saw
are not substantive changes to the actual policy.
They're like change event manager to contractor, right?
It wasn't anything substantive that says,
this is what we want to see change. Correct me by your own counsel. Give me a second.
I'm going to finish my piece y'all through with me.
What's your point of order? Is it Jermaine to the topic? They've been waiting for quite
a period of time. This is not Jermaine to approving their particular agreement. This
This is the issue with people dealing with us.
We need to nip this in the bud in this conversation and vote because they've been waiting.
They're patient.
We know that this is a legitimate or a function that should be at the amphitheater that would
bring 3,000 people downtown.
Stop with the grinding and micromanaging and vote.
All right.
Stand by, please. Stand by. You'll get your opportunity. Mr. Watson, you got something you need to say, sir?
I was going to say, part of where the confusion comes in about this is that, and this is a whole bunch of detail, but I'm going to be brief.
We have a contract, which is our standard contract. Southern Crescent because they are a state agency, they have a separate contract that they have to send out for signatures on when they're doing stuff because they're a state agency.
So we have our policies and procedures that we sent them and then the drafting going back
and forth, they finally sent us their contract and we, you know, Mr. Ingram and everybody
we've been on the line about this a whole bunch.
So the rental policies and all the stuff that we have in place is our standard contract.
What they did was they lifted language from our standard contract and put it in there.
But because we know that this wanted to, we wanted to fast track this because you
who all have been asking about this,
this is the information they lifted to put in here.
So the prices that you see in there
for the $2,500 and $7,500 and all that stuff
is simply something that we can just black out, right?
We can just simply black that out,
that does not have to apply.
And when you look at the top of the contract,
it specifically says that this is just the contract
between us and Southern Crescent Technical,
because this is the form that they send over.
This is not our standard contract.
This is just the contract
contract that Southern Crescent sent to us. We got the contract at roughly two-thirty
today as a clean contract. We want to try to get it before you as soon as possible.
And so what will happen is the final contract, and this is one that the President did sign
off on, saying that they are fine with the languages in this contract, is that the
final contract, before we ask for the Mayor to sign off on it, we can make the minor
edits to it, which would be to take those numbers off.
Thank you, Mr. Washington. Mr. Block, go ahead, please.
Thank you. If you remove the other amounts, I'm fine with that. Everything in
this contract, and let me make something clear, we had a retreat. This is not new
to me. Everything in here we discussed. Everything in here. I was clear. I'm
okay with this contract. I'm okay with Southern question. Only concern I asked
was that if we're going to put the amounts on there, that we can put that writing in there.
Nobody up on this council put me in office. The citizens did.
And if we have to stay here until midnight so I can make sure the citizens business is correct in the way that I'm divorced for, that's what I'm going to do.
You gave them a resolution to a situation and I'm fine with that.
I'm fine with you all having the event.
I just had concerns about those extra amounts in that that didn't even pertain to them.
No, that's why I wanted to explain it.
This is just document drafting back and forth.
They lifted it, put it in their contract because we've been going back and forth
for several months as the mayor can attest to.
They finally sent over their form contract to us and they sent it over to us
and it had some edits and stuff and it's a we didn't get a clean contract to Dan to roughly
to contractually in the future if we would just put that amount that pertains to whatever
one would be fine with that yes that will totally do that now so before before you sign
it Mr. Mayor will have edited those understand this Barbara please thank you Mayor Ford okay
So I have three questions.
Mr. Gardner, during the retreat, was this contract
for Southern Crescent provided to the council
for review or discussion?
No, ma'am, there was really not a concert at the time.
My next question, the amphitheater policy.
I know that that was a topic of discussion during the retreat
and some changes that you are going to make.
Yes, ma'am.
I am perfectly fine with Southern Crescent
holding their graduation ceremony here.
My concern is the contract.
I don't know when anybody else received
a copy of this contract.
I mean members of the governing body.
I didn't receive it until I sat down here today
and I had the copy.
I haven't read anything.
So you're asking this council to approve a contract that none of us have read.
The mayor, he did call me yesterday to make me aware that this item was going to be added to our agenda today for discussion.
I asked for a copy of the contract to be sent.
Today, I followed up with him again, today asking, hey, are they going to send us a copy
of the contract?
Because I don't want to be here discussing this contract, and I haven't read it.
None of us have.
What concerns me is the inconsistency.
Inconsistency in our processes, and not only that, the pricing.
I don't know if these pricing that are listed on this document here, I guess these are costs
that will be, okay, electrical costs, $350, sound $6,445, janitorial $1925, parking attendance
We didn't have parking attendants even when we hosted our first series of concerts last
year.
While we put that on them, those are the kinds of things that concern me.
If we do this now, we'll have to be consistent with all rental contracts that come to us
using these same pricing.
I don't know where these pricing came from.
Were you involved in the negotiations of this contract, Mr. Gardner?
No, ma'am.
You are not?
No, ma'am.
The pricing, specifically as released to parking, so last year, no, we did not.
But this year, we do.
Under the new management of the amphitheater, leadership, that's something that we implemented this year.
In terms of having a private parking company to come in and my
It's the parking. As it relates to the document, the breakdown of the fees are associated with
what we put in the policy document, and to mean to how long they're going to be utilized
in the facilities. So your typical concert lasts for four hours, right? They usually start
up at five or six and we go tell about 10 o'clock at night. The graduation is not going to
before hours, I don't think.
And so, you know, you then have to look at
how you prorate the fees related to the use
of the amphitheater, but everything that we've done
is part of what we have in the existing policy.
As we move forward with amending it,
the data that we got, we got from other communities
that have an amphitheater,
one of them being the city of Woodstock.
I mean, theirs were so germane to ours,
that's why we looked at theirs, right.
But we've done everything and the reason
why, you know, preferably I wanted to bring this at the end because it had to
go through their process. Lawyers going back and forth was the reason why it
took so long because it wasn't just our attorneys reviewing it, it was their
attorneys reviewing it, getting feedback and going back and forth over the last
couple of months. If we had it our way this would have been to you guys in
January but it wasn't because when we sent it to them as the city attorney
state they and they could attest they were back and forth between their legal
counsel and our legal counsel right that took a lot of time so it wasn't it
and I would have preferred to bring this with enough time on the 28th but the
28th of this month would have left them with a week and a half to graduation
and if it denied they don't have a venue right that was my suggestion
because I understand this was going to be a question that came from you guys, right?
And to stay consistent, but sometimes you have to adapt and make changes.
You can't run through the wall, you got to go around it sometimes or go under it or go over it, right?
So this was a situation that we didn't inherit. It wasn't of our making, per se.
It was just, I'll let them tell the story, it was just them, us going back and forth with the changes.
I get it as to what they wanted to see what we needed to see what they needed to have
That's what ate up almost two months of this time. Mr. Gardner. My concern is I want to be fair
I want to be fair to Southern Crescent. We are. A $500 cost on here for parking lot rental rental
Are we being fair? Is that necessary? I don't think it's necessary. Yes, ma'am
I am, for the record, Madam Clerk, I am going to be abstaining from this only because I have
not read the terms of the contract.
And I have made it a point for three years asking that contracts be provided to the council
beforehand so that we can review it.
and by providing it to me at the start of a meeting,
it's just not sufficient enough for me.
That's all.
Thank you.
All right, Mr. Thomas, please, sir.
Thank you, Mayor.
A couple of things.
Again, I'm in favor of Southern Crescent,
but I'm going to disagree with Councilman Alexander.
No one is micromanaging.
As I stated before, you have to have policies and procedures in place.
That's what we are attempting to do.
You cannot do anything unless you have policies and procedures, means of how you get the business
done.
That's what we're preaching about today.
Mayor Pro Tem Barber is correct about this contract.
That's the reason I asked the question.
Even in the first document, it says an agreement between the applicant and the city council.
It didn't say the city manager, it didn't say the city clerk, it didn't say the event staff.
It says the applicant and the city council.
But again, and I don't want to continue to throw blame, but this policy should have
been done with.
We would not be going through any of this talking about a five dollar park and
this and that. We have to be fair to everyone. If you had a policy in place
that policy would oversee any and everyone that wanted to rent the
amphitheater. That's what a policy and procedure does. That's what it does.
Until we understand that we're going to be still chaos and confusion like we
are right here right now. We did not see this contract at the retreat. So I'm
saying, and I don't want to throw no blame at anyone, but Southern Crescent, this is
not your fault. So I'm just giving the fact, the truth and the facts. That's
what I try to be about, the truth and the facts. And until we get this policy
corrected, where it pertains to any and everyone that wants to come, whether
whether you're a non-profit, whether you're a commercial for a product, whatever the category
is, the policy would lend itself to that. And this is what we're supposed to, this should
have been done. And now Southern Crest, it's, you know, getting
it short far because we didn't do our due diligence. I yield back, Mayor, thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
May I have to make a motion on this?
Ms. Gant, please.
Mayor.
Yes, ma'am.
First before I start this is to Mr. Gardner the policy we voted on a policy
already the meat and potatoes of the policy the dollar amount is that not
correct we've already voted on those numbers correct those numbers were part
of the policy document yes and we did we adopt that policy you adopted the
policy in June of last year 2022 okay and so tell me we were talking about
amending it but it was only for minor terms correct like agent slash was it
what were we amending we were only amending certain name specific not not
the meat and potatoes but just terms is that not correct so the comments that
we got back were mostly germane to removing events manager and place
replacing it with contractor consultant was into us so removing
I think events manager and replacing it with what?
Contractor, consultant.
Contract, consultant.
That was the majority of the references.
Okay.
There was some other ones in there.
I can't remember off the head
because I don't have the notes in front of me.
But it was not dealing with the numbers
and what we had already defined
as non-profit educational expenses.
Is that correct?
There was one area that I remember specifically,
I think that we wanted to add in there as it relates to I know it was civic
educational and then there was one other language we wanted to add to that to
that to cover.
What was it what area were we gonna add so because it was
non-profits civic was it like yes so under the under the current language we
We had civic, educational, non-profit benefits,
private, commercial, and non-for-profit events.
There was one other type of entity,
I think that we were going to amend,
and I think it had to deal with civic
changing the language and that civic or educational
out in some other type of entity.
I don't have my notes in front of me,
but I know that's what came out of the retreat
in terms of the many not portion of it.
Okay, so just adding maybe another category.
But not necessarily, it doesn't change anything with nonprofits, is that not correct in education?
They would still be the same category.
There was also some discussion regarding the fees and should we increase certain fees,
but there was no, I don't think there was a consensus in Madam City Clerk, you could remind me if I'm right.
But currently the adopted policy that we have in place right now today, fits this contract agreement, correct?
And this contract agreement reads between Southern Crescent Technological College and the City of Stockbridge. Is that correct?
That's on the first page. All right, that's at the top.
And what my recommendation is, well, I'm looking at page one, this rental agreement is made and entered into this 10th day of April,
comma, 2023 comma, buy in between Southern Crescent Technical College
parentheses here and after renter and the city of Stockbridge, Georgia here and
after city. Is that not correct? I would say yes. Okay. Everybody see that on page
one at the top? All right. I want to make sure. No. On the page one, no one has
gotten a copy. Do you have a copy of this Amphitheater in a poem? It's the
Okay, hold on folks, hold on.
Are you talking about Southern Crescent?
No, I'm looking at the rental agreement
buying between Southern Crescent Technical College
and the City of Stopbridge.
So one question, I'm not finished.
The 25, on page three
of this agreement,
we've already asked that the other
information that was copied and pasted
a basic list of the other events such as private events
and commercial for profit events be taken out, removed,
so there will not prevent any confusion there.
A policy already has in place that anyone else
who rents our amphitheater cannot have concerts
at the facility.
So that's something totally different.
That's in a policy that we've already adopted
and voted on.
And I asked that we remove on Clause 8K parking at elementary school that we
remove that because that has nothing to do with the city of Sao Paulo, I can't, we
cannot contract with that. Understanding? All right. And in regards to
everything else, my only other questions are one, what is the clause
due to force of nature in regards to rain, what is the what are we going what's
going to happen at that point has that been discussed at all? I don't see it in
disagreement so I need to know I don't see that clause in here I'm sorry I'm a
lawyer so I'm asking where is that and I need to know whether or not that
clause and what would be the plan B because it says that once you rent it's
non-refundable. So let me know what we are with that. I want to answer to that
one and I also want to know I don't have any objections none whatsoever. I
think this is great. I think this is what we want. We want graduations at
our amphitheater. We want the community and we're very proud and I would
love to always support Southern Crescent. I want you to know that. I will vote in favor
of this once we get all our, once you can tell me the answer to, in regards to the rain clause
or whatever happens clause, the force of nature clause, and also I need to see the, I saw
a clause in here about damages, but those damages, the clause did not, one second.
Page 4, Section 12, says damage to personal property to the extent permitted by Georgia
Law.
The city is not liable for the loss of damage of any goods, equipment, a personal item stored
on or used at or around the facility premises, but what about the damages to our premises?
What's the repercussion of that?
Where's that clause?
Those two items I need, as soon as possible.
Other than that, I 100% support Southern Crescent being a part of our participating here.
I want to apologize, I'm sorry you have to go through this scrutiny of debates, it's
not your fault.
I believe that everybody on this council, based off of what I've heard, supports the
fact that graduation would be held here.
We will love it here.
I just want to make sure that our, and I would vote for it today as so long as those clauses
are in there to protect the city.
That's our job.
Okay.
Mr. Thomas, sir.
I'm going to agree, as I stated before, I'm in favor of Southern Crescent.
But my message is to the staff, Southern Crescent, and I'm going to continue to
say this.
Now in that agreement, in that rental policy that we approve that we keep
referencing to, it says agreement between the applicant and the city council.
Now we understand that some of us understand when you see the city of
Stockbridge that's the same as the city council. Number one. But the
contract itself and Councilwoman Barber is correct. This is what we have to stop
doing staff is giving us something at the last minute. We just had a retreat. We
should have had this contract at the retreat so we could this should have
been a we should be on on on agenda item 12 by now because it's a failure of
of a process.
What's your point of order, sir?
Point of order.
If we have any
OZ or anything
with staff itself
as a council, those things
are addressed behind closed doors.
Well I agree with that, Mayor.
The issue at hand right now
is are we going to approve this
or not?
Because while we're going to take the staff out to the barn
and spank them, then that's a totally different
and that's a totally different meeting.
Are we gonna approve this or not right now?
May I finish?
Play it and finish.
Okay, I'm gonna agree with that.
That is for us, the staff. But when we try to deal with these things proactively, and then
if it don't happen, then it leaves us no course but to do just that. But again, I'm in favor,
I will vote in favor of this. But I get tired of coming here on the dyers and going through
the same thing every day, and especially when we start talking about contract.
Council
We have said it's over and over and over.
Give us contract in a timely manner so we can review
and we can make an intelligent and a comprehensive decision.
So I just want to say that I'm more apologized
for task and counsel, but I mean staff,
but when you don't give us a choice,
this is sort of where we are.
So, but going forward, may I'm going to yield back
and hopefully whatever the contract says and whatever the agreements are, you know,
we can sort of just go forward and I guess in the other organization that
come in behind this, how do we treat them? What I'm looking for now is a
motion with the particular things that we want to see change. I guess a
couple different things that were identified that need to be changed to
And provided that we have we document those particular changes properly for the clerk and of understanding and have a motion to go ahead and approve this particular contract.
So in that case, Mr Gardner and Mr Washington, could you come back to the podium first please before we go down this road?
I want you all present.
I got it.
Okay.
I got it.
I want to make sure we have a group here understand life for all of you over here
Hi, this is this on you now miss gap. Yes, I'll go right here, please mayor
I move that we approve the rental between southern Crescent and the city of stop bridge
With conditions changes in the contract agreement to read room on page three
remove under clause six
fees, removed private events at $7,500, and commercial slash for-profit events of $10,000.
Specifically just state what we are renting for, which is this non-profit educational
event, or educational event, civic, I'm sorry, civic and educational event.
I also, wait, I'm not done, I also asked on Clause 8 that we remove Clause 8 item
on K, which reads Parking at Elementary School on page three.
We also need to add into the contract agreement.
There's in our policy, we voted for number six, which is security slash damage deposits,
and we talk about damages.
If anything happened to the amphitheater, that needs to be placed into the agreement
along with the mentioning of, you know, the rain or rain out or whatever the
case may be. Having said that, I ask that we move to approve this with those
conditions. Second. Okay, motion has been made in a second. We have plenty of
discussion. So all in favor of motion please indicate. The procedure is a
discussion. One of the things I want to say is that this concern came up
about about the rain dating is there an alternative day all this came up and I
get to hear anything about that it would the staffs gonna work up so all
in favor of the motion please indicate once again all right it's you know for
four on and one of stention 401 okay forward I like to add a comment for my
stanchion madam clerk madam clerk for the record the full council was not
provided a copy of the contract prior to the start of tonight's meeting. I will
abstain for that reason. Thank you. Okay, 4-0-1 motion passed. Dr. Clark and Dr.
Johns, congratulations. We look for a long, long relationship with your college and
I know it's gonna be an outstanding event. I look forward to that and look
forward to having a good time and watching everybody come across the
get to diplomas, families, grandparents, children,
enjoy themselves, you and your staff,
have done a wonderful job.
And by the way, before you go,
I don't know if there's anything you wanna say,
you can do it now, sir, or ma'am, if you'd like,
it's up to you, but thank you for being so patient
and working with us.
Thank you all so much.
I'll just say, good afternoon, good evening, council.
Thank you, Mayor Ford, thank you all of you
for your support.
Southern Crescent Technical College,
which is one of 22 technical colleges here
in the state of Georgia.
We are proud to be able to serve not only Henry County
but Stockbridge.
We're able to host our graduation here this year.
Approximately 2,500 individuals, over 400 graduates
will be on site to celebrate as they
earn their associate's degrees, their diplomas,
and their technical certificates of completion.
So we're excited to be able to support workforce development
in the region, and particularly in Henry County.
And look forward to seeing all of you at the graduation
this year as we celebrate our students and we help support our industry
partners to keep Georgia number one for workforce development. So thank you so
much. Thank you sir. I appreciate it. All righty. Sanitation rollout plan presented
by Mr. Aaron please.
Good evening Mr. Mayor and Council. Tonight we come
before you to discuss our public works in GFL. We'll roll out the
sanitation services for the recently annexed residents
This has been a long arduous process. This has been more difficult than when I oversaw
The recycling program rollout for 96,000 customers with the city of Atlanta
one of the most challenging thing was actually getting a
Listing that was accurate and up to date that we could
provide and review and scrutinize with GFL then the next thing was how were we
going to go about building the residents as the city doesn't currently have a
building mechanism in place how we go about building them temporarily for this
year and ensuring that we collect the revenues to support this service and the
third thing was how do we go about integrating the annex residents into
the current sanitation system. And last but not least was, how do we allow
residents to transition from their current provider to the city's provider?
Because some residents we've learned have paid up for the year. They've paid
through 2023. Some have varying expiring dates on their current terms.
Some are satisfied with the current provider that they have, but the city
maybe makes it mandatory that residents have to use the city's provider.
And so what we have done is we've had bi-weekly meetings with GFL and our representative.
We have secured the carts, but the main thing was the billing piece.
Because when we transitioned the residents in carriage lates, we had 100 customers.
So we could absorb those cost, it cost us $1,200 a month to absorb those customers
from August through the end of the year.
But with these over 2,000 customers, it's going to be about $40,000 a month.
So we had to make sure that we get the revenue for that.
The first thing that I presented to you in your packet was just a time outlining how
much time and effort has been spent by Jeremy Goodwin, Leslie Norwoodsworth, and I would
represent this from GFL to make sure that this thing went off smoothly and went as
little hiccups as possible.
And also to ensure that the data and information we had was as accurate as possible because
we bill on a property tax statement.
And when this goes out, we want to be accurate because if not, we're going to have a process
to refund people that are not in the city but were billed for the service.
So currently, there are about 742 customers that are currently GFL customers.
And so some 200 expire on June 1st, 262 people will begin paying the city's rate.
On July 1st, 234 customers will start paying the rate.
And on August 1st, 236.
So we finally got a list that we felt was accurate on the 17th of March from the tax commissioners.
So we sent out a letter to all of those customers on April 3rd and that their carts will be delivered
on May, starting May 1st, we'll start delivering those carts to the 1,300 that are not GFL customers.
And June 5th, residents will start receiving service from GFL at the city's preferred
rate.
And one of the things, we've been getting a lot of emails and calls from new customers.
They're excited and they're also liking the fact that they're going to get three additional
services because most people just get sanitation and that's it, they don't get the recycling.
So we've had some that are concerned that in the county they were allowed to not have
sanitation services.
So we've had a couple of residents calls that, well, I take mine to work with me.
But the process is rolling out in May, the first of May, they'll start receiving
their carts, and then on the 5th of June, that's when the service goes live and everybody
becomes a City of Stop-Bridge customer.
Entertaining any questions that anyone may have?
Well, I like the presentation and its timeline.
I'm going to read it thoroughly.
I understand that you've been doing a lot of good work, so transitioning to these
new customers is something that obviously you've got a plan and we need to implement
at the plan properly and make sure that those new citizens realize that we do care about
them, we're going to take care of them and make sure that they understand that they want
to be proud to join the City of Starbridge and they voted the right way.
Okay?
Any other comments from the Council?
Yes, ma'am.
Go ahead, please, Ms. Barbara.
Thank you, Mr. Aaron, for your presentation.
According to the timeline here,
I see on the second page where procurement in December 7th
an email from procurement to Sanitation Evaluation Committee, I assume that is for you all to
determine the bids or proposals that were submitted. However, the council approved the extension
of the existing contract when the bid or advertisement for the sanitation was still open. I don't
see that on your timeline. The council approved extending the contract. That's not on your
timeline. It was on that meeting in December. I think it was December 12th. No, it was in
November. It was prior to the close of the solicitation that was out there. You all had
not evaluated the bids.
It's on December 12th. There's an email from Mr. Berry to
Scott Johnson and GFL stating that that would come up for a vote on December 12th about
extension of what I meant was you came to the council in November you and Mr.
Gardner you asked that we extend the existing contract with GFL and it was
prior to you all evaluating the two proposals that you received that is not
a part of your timeline that you receive approval from the council to
extend the current contract. That was either at our November council meeting
or the November work session. This is not a part of your timeline.
It says December 12th resolution renewing GFL contract was signed by mayor
Ford. So that was at that December 12th council meeting when it was assigned by
the mayor but it was approved by the council in November. Okay, nonetheless so
know that I'm clear because we told the citizens that they would get sanitation services in
January and we've been prolonging this. So I'm clear we have a timeline now of when this
rollout will happen. Yes, ma'am. We need to stick with this. There cannot be any more
pushbacks. No more excuses. Mr. Gardner, in fact, can you please, sir, because I
It will start June 5th when those residents will start. Yeah, you gave me an
explanation of all this in November and you said we would start rolling it out
second quarter of 2023. That didn't happen either. I can't hold you
accountable for Mr. Gardner I can. The residents here, we cannot keep telling
them that we're going to do something and not stick with it. If they put pressure
on me, I'm putting pressure on Mr. Gardner. Do what we say we're going to do.
That's all. That's all. Don't make me out to be a liar because we just keep
prolonging this and I don't know any other way to put it. Please let's stick
with this. If we can't make it happen then we need to move on to another
supplier. That's all.
Mr. Gardner. Mayor. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, we will. Thank you, sir.
All right, so she's done. Ms. Gantt, go ahead, please. Thank you.
If I think I recall this correctly, we were told a while ago that we would have to roll out second quarter.
or a second quarter starts now, I believe.
So January, February, March is first quarter.
Second quarter would be April, May, June.
But so I wasn't, I just want you to be clear.
I thank you for providing this to us.
I didn't think that we were going to have sanitation
right off because we were notified that we weren't.
I just wanted to make sure that we communicated that
to all of the people who were annexed in.
because I do see a lot of times on social media that there are questions as to
when are they to receive sanitation so I want to make sure that the city is doing
everything possible they can and have communicated that to those people who
have newly been annexed in and didn't and wanted to know though that particular
ant question but I did not expect for us to roll this out in January I do
remember you were stating that it was going to take a while just to even get
some of the receptacles and some of the things that are needed and even if we
were to go with another agency, another sanitation company, they too would have
a hard time based off of the amount of supplies and things that were going on
within the economy in general. Is that not correct? Yes ma'am one of the most
difficult things has been actually the actual number of residents cause one one
spreadsheet we got had over to 2400 residents on it then another one had I
think like 1400 then you had another one that had 1200 so you had to go through
and verify all of those addresses based on the annexation to ensure that we
were notifying the right customer like I said this goes on their property tax
statement. And so we didn't want to be stuck if we had to refund 200 or 300 people that money
that we collected. So we wanted to make sure what we do was proper. And this process is
as seamless as possible because guess what? It's going to be some people, we're going
to have some hiccups when it starts. And it's going to be some people that were
perfectly fine with the company they had. And now they're having issues. So you're
going to be getting calls. We're going to be getting calls from, I didn't have
problem with my old company. Y'all made me change. Now I'm having problems. We're trying
to make this as seamless as possible and the fact that we spent all of this effort and time
identifying the potential pitfalls. I mean there's a lot of countless hours that's been
involved in it. We've got three different ways for people to sign up. They can go online
and sign up. They can call public works. They can call GFL. That mail went out to
all of those residents last week and our email and phone have been blowing up
since Thursday. I was taking calls Friday from people that wanted to sign up for the service.
So I think we've done a good job, you know, ensuring that this thing is going to be as
seamless as possible. Like we said in that letter, please give us time. There's going to be some
hiccups. But I think when people, you go from paying $35 a month to $17, and now you're getting
bulk waste pick up recycling and yard waste. And when you paying $30 just to get sanitation
garbage, I think that's a big win for our residents. And I think the majority of them
have been patient. I have not had but one disgruntled person and that person was upset
because they have a business in Stop Bridge. They live on Banks Road. They take their trash
to their business so they don't have to have sanitation at home. But now they're going
to have to have it. That's the only disgruntled customer or resident that I've taken a call
from. Most people are happy. They understand the process because it's just like if you
were a business and you bought another business, there's a transition process
And you try to ensure that that process goes as smoothly as possible, and that's what we've
done.
And I think you're going to be satisfied when it rolls out, because you're not going to
get all the phone calls if we were to just haphazardly say it comes January and we threw
out 2,000 cards, but we didn't have a plan in place to make sure that it was successful
and we've done that.
Well, I want to thank you and the Department for rolling out this plan in organized fashion.
I do understand that some of the challenges, we've confirmed with GFL some of the
challenges that were was to get some of the receptacles as well as any other
company and sanitation. So I appreciate that. We are on today's the 10th of April
so we are on the 10th day of our second term and you guys are right on time. And
so I really appreciate that as well because I thought that it was gonna
take a year based off of what you said last year. Your estimate was past
six months, seven months. So here we are. I believe that we're ahead of the
game with this. And I'm glad we are but I'm also glad that it's done in the manner
that it is and that you've had an outline here showing us and you know
hopefully our residents will see this as well. So thank you.
Okay Ms. Barber go ahead please. So during the town halls that we had for
annexation Councilwoman Gantt it was said that those new residents would
begin receiving sanitation services January 1st of 2023. That's what was told to them.
So that is why I keep asking, please, let's stick with these dates. Now in January, Mr.
Aaron said that we would begin in second quarter rolling it out. So I just want us
to stick with what we're saying.
That's all.
I don't want us to delay it any further.
That's all.
Thank you.
Any other comments from the council?
Mr. Blank, go ahead, please.
You know, usually when I talk,
I try to know what I'm talking about when I open my mouth.
So one of the things that concerns me,
Ms. Erin and I will say this to you,
with what you're working with right now,
I think that you guys are diligently doing a good job.
I mean it's a lot of stuff, a lot of moving parts going on right now.
However, I just believe that we as a city, as a city as a whole,
we have to put, we have to have,
we got to put strong proactive contingency plans in place.
And I'm not going to go into that, but I just believe that strong proactive plans, and when
I say contingencies, because none of us knew if the annexation piece was going to come
in or not.
But the proactive contingency plan in place, I just believe that would have helped things
all like that.
That's all I'm going to say on that.
All right, here are the comments from the council.
If not, thank you for the presentation.
Appreciate it.
You got a good time of mine.
I know you're gonna make it work.
It's gonna work out well successful.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council.
Okay, new business.
Council consideration approved.
The revised youth council and youth council
advisory committee bylaws,
presented by Dr. Cordean.
There you go.
Yes, you did.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
Good evening.
Thank you all for having me up today.
True, we're trying to revise what we have,
the Stockpredict Youth Council Advisory Committee.
We've revised the Stockpredict Youth Council bylaws
as well as the Stockpredict Youth Council Advisory Committee
bylaws.
Have y'all had the opportunity to look at them all?
Would y'all want me to go?
I personally took a look at it, yes.
Okay, do y'all want me to go?
I personally did.
Do y'all want me to go line by line?
Just the correct, just the revisions that we made.
That you highlighted already.
Yes.
Okay, got it, go ahead.
Okay, so I'll go with those.
So, first we're going to go with the stock for youth council bylaws, so if y'all can
pull that out in front of you all on the very first page.
The one thing that we wanted to revise, I mean, initially we did not have a GPA attached
to the bylaws, but we thought it was appropriate to put that, now mind you, our children
on the Youth Council, they are 3.0 and above,
but we did not want to eliminate any students
that felt that they, 2.75 is what we agreed upon.
We thought that was a good standard.
That's not to say that we are lessening our standards.
However, we want to incorporate all the youth
of Stockbridge and the surrounding areas
that can be attached to this program
because we feel that a leader,
your GPA is not dictated by leadership.
I should, I say leadership is not dictated by your GPA.
So we wanted to have an inclusive language for that.
So that's the reason why we changed that.
Moving to the page, behind that we wanted to,
we added council participants agreed to miss no more
than three monthly meetings per school year.
Initially, we had, there you go to that one, one second.
Sorry, I'm trying to find that spot.
Initially, we had no more than four.
We changed that because we felt four was a little bit
too much because the kids,
throughout the school year, the kids may have,
I should I say to you, they may have an event,
maybe they're on football this season
or maybe they're on basketball the next season, so we understand that they still have lives
outside of the youth council, so we wanted to limit that so that they wouldn't be penalized.
I felt that they, you know, was penalized for not coming at that time.
And also, we changed or re-enhanced the 10-hour minimum for community service because the
kids are doing that with their eyes closed, so we wanted to give them a little challenge.
And so we increased that to 20 hours per school term.
Moving on to the bottom of the page for good standing.
This is just a recap of the 2.75 GPA, so that still stands.
And moving on to the page, Article 9, SYC Ambassadors.
We wanted to mirror the, I'm sorry, we wanted to mirror the, what the standards are for the
ambassadors with, mirroring what the youth council, should I say with the mayor and youth
and the council members do up here, because the program does represent the mayor and council
here.
So that's why we change the standards for their criterias on the back.
Are there any questions about the SYC?
I think it changes fantastically.
I liked it personally.
Okay.
Any other comments from the council?
Yes.
Ms. Clark, go right in, please.
Thank you so much.
And I appreciate the recognition that we want to include more students as many as
possible.
And obviously, we understand that there's more to it than the actual GPA, and I've said from the beginning, we don't want perfect students.
We want a representation of what we have in the community.
Exactly. Okay. So would you like me to move on to the advisory committee?
Yes, please. Go ahead.
Yes.
So, the advisory committee was also redone in order to recap the first page under responsibilities
of committee.
The Stockwood Youth Council will host at least four events per year.
This was changed from we'll have to at least be at four events per year.
And the reason why we change it to that is we wanted them to be at events that we're hosting.
So we volunteer a lot around the community, but we wanted to be able to have them for
the events that we're actually hosting.
Moving to page three, it was erroneously put in the last bylaws, bi-weekly meetings.
As we know, the Youth Council as well as the Soccer Advisory Council, we meet on
and monthly basis. Moving to Article 5, attendance policy. We have advisory council members are
required to attend at least 70% of the SYC AC meetings and 50% of the youth council work
sessions for planning and 50% of the youth council activities, approved calendar events.
We put the approved calendar events because we require the advisory to have a more hands-on
approach.
We do understand that the advisory committee itself, they have jobs, they have families,
they have children, and other events to attend, but we feel that if you are a member
of the advisory committee, you need to be there in order to mentor the youth and the
only way you can do that is by actually being present.
So we increase that a little bit so that we make sure that the advisory committee is there to mentor and guide the youth.
On the fourth page, we change, if you go down to number three from the top, actively engage.
That also goes hand in hand with why we change the percentage of time that we would, you know, expect the advisory committee to be present
so that they can, you know, do more mentoring and advice to you, because that is actually our reason for, you know, being sworn in to this position.
I'm going to the sixth page for the bookkeeper. Initially, we had the bookkeeper would just review all the items that
You know, the money that we spent, this was added to add more transparency. The bookkeeper
will reconcile purchases made on behalf of the SYC and provide a monthly financial report.
So that will in turn not only provide more transparency to the board, but also to let us
know what we've spent and what we have left to spend for either that quarter or the year.
Moving on to page seven, if you look at close to the bottom of the page,
page, the middle page, article 11, fiscal year. Any events during the summer months are
strictly mandatory, but what we did normally, the committee for the youth council as well
as advisory, the time period is from August to May with July and June being off. Now
we know that our students are busy throughout the whole school year, so we want them
the rest for the summer months, which is July, June and July. But for the advisory committee,
we felt we should hold ourselves to a little higher standard. And okay, we'll take June
off, but July, we need to come back for planning sessions, meetings, and development programs
in order to welcome our youth back and be prepared for them when they come back from
the summer break. And I do believe this is the last mention, which is we changed
These bylaws may be altered, amended, or appealed and may be adopted by a majority of
the member of the committee at a regular or special meetings.
Of the committee, proposed amendments to the bylaws shall be sent and write into all committee
members at least seven days prior to the meeting.
Initially that was not in there.
We think that seven days is appropriate because it's not many pages for the advisory committee
to review.
We wanted them to review it bring their suggestions to the next monthly meeting
And then we discuss it if it's something that we all agree upon
Then we vote upon it and then we bring it to mayor and council for them to approve
That's all I have
Fantastic any questions mayor. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead, please. I move that we approve the bylaws for these council advisor committee
Mr. Blunt the second that this game made that motion all fair, please indicate
Snaps decision. Thank you very much appreciate it. Thank you for your time
All right, fantastic.
Consecration approved the use of empathy in the green room
Thursday, May 4, 2023, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
to host a national small business week reception
and honor small business owners presented
by Kimberly Lines, Hollands.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
Kim Owens, Economic Development Director.
Every year, the small business administration
recognizes small business owners
for their contribution to our local economy
economy, and our national economy. And this year, National Small Business Week will fall
on from April 30th to May 6th, and your economic development department would like to host an
event just to thank our business owners. And we're here today to ask for approval
to use the M.P. Theater Green Room to host that event on Thursday, May 4th, from 6 to
8 p.m.
Okay.
I would like to take any questions.
Thank you.
Questions?
Concerns?
Mayor?
Yes, ma'am.
Go ahead, please.
I just want to make sure it's going to be large enough for the small businesses.
You're inviting all the small businesses in the city?
Yes.
So we're inviting everyone.
Unfortunately, we only have space for about 50 people.
So we're going to send out an event blast and see how many people we get to RSVP
but we'll have to limit it to 50 people, unfortunately.
Or you can go upstairs to the catwalk area
where they do the sponsorship thing
and have more room to spread out.
We'll see what the response that we get.
We're gonna end the RSVP for small businesses,
is what I'm saying.
So if it gets larger,
then you might need a larger venue
and I'm okay with that.
I think that's a great idea.
And I think it's needed.
It's been needed.
So, on that note, I vote to approve, I make a motion to approve this National Small Business
Wheat Reception on May 4, 2023 in the green room, but if a larger venue is needed, I vote
that we allow it regardless, unless it's already booked.
Second.
Okay, Mr. Alexander, second that motion for Ms. Gantt, any further discussion?
All right.
All in favor of the motion, please indicate.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Approval to apply for a grant.
Georgia Land and Water Conservation Fund, LWCF,
presented by Jeremy Goodwin and Kelly Russell.
Evening.
Can you speak into the mic or somehow get it closer to you?
This is a little better, I guess.
Thank you.
The other remaining requirement of cash for any kind of cash was that you have to defer
what we observed in our slots account.
The grant application period opened April 1st on May 31st and it also requires us to have
Okay Miss Gantt go ahead please. Mayor I move that we approve this land water
conservation fund grant application and and it requires a resolution and for
the and for us also to direct staff to draft up a resolution for this
approval. I second. Ms. Barbara seconds that any further discussion okay all in favor please indicate
all right fantastic four four votes good thank you very much appreciate that outstanding
let's see a council consideration to approve purchase a one-ford ranger 28,565 and one-ford
Edge SUV for $3580 under state contract 99999-001, SPD 0000183-0006, Funding Source 2023 Capital
Improvement Budget for Police Services presented by Chief Trammer, please.
It is.
Evening, Chief.
As you've
done some knowledge and you've
marked the vehicle with UCB and
the thing about
you is I think I can just
stay contrary to what you're saying.
Any questions?
I mean, why don't you answer questions?
Councilor, any questions from the Chief Trammer?
Just one question that I always ask, Chief.
That's right.
Where are we moving in that direction?
In the question for the Chief, and if not, I need a motion to go forward with
this purchase.
So moved.
So I'll move from Mr. Alexander, is there a second?
Mr. Blunt second then.
All in favor, please indicate.
I'll see you now as you sit and thank you, Chief,
appreciate it.
Councilor, consideration to approve a contract
for emergency services for building, permitting,
inspection services, not to exceed six months,
six month timeframe.
Ms. Carter, please.
Yeah, it's somehow, I'm thinking.
It's off, it's back on.
Good evening, mayor and council members.
Thank you so much.
So I'm going to kind of whip through my presentation.
This is just a continuation to wrap up the conversation
around handling the building permitting inspections
and civil engineering services for the department community
development.
And we have a number of things to go through tonight.
What I'm asking for currently is for a contract
for to be awarded to Bureau Veritas, North America Incorporated. For a six-month
period to handle our building inspections plan review for any new projects
that come into the city for a period of up to six months. This is to allow for
us to advertise and start interviewing to hire in-house staff. Should
that be the will of the council but that is my Mr. Gardner's recommendation.
We look at it as a way to regroup and recoup some losses that we have lost as a result
of having a consultant paying upwards of 60% per month for split for revenues.
So the request before you is to allow for the new contract to be awarded and you
We have the contracts before you and all the information regarding the quote.
Thank you. Questions? Council? Ms. Blunt, you have something?
The previous contract for these services, has it expired?
It will be expiring on April the 21st.
On April 21st? So if anything approved, the night it would not overlap any?
It would overlap a few days because I've already worked with our current consulting on the off-boarding and onboarding of the new company.
so that there can be established what new projects are underway to make sure there's continuity and services.
Okay.
Okay, any questions, Council?
Yes.
Go right into the center.
So this new vendor, what was the process behind vetting them, choosing them for this job?
So this particular company is one of several who submitted quotes.
They have done work all over the region.
Villarica, several other cities throughout the Metro Atlanta.
They have offices nationwide and other continents across the world.
And I've taken a look at some of the things they've done online, talked to some of the
jurisdictions and believe they would be a positive fit for us for this stop gap measure
until we can bring in a in-house crew
to be able to have some seamless streamlined operations.
Okay, could we have them come to the podium?
Sure, I have Chris Honeycutt
and also Daniel Elliott to come up and speak with you all.
How are you gentlemen doing?
Hi doing mayor, how are you doing council?
I'm Chris Honeycutt,
I'm the East Area Manager for Bureau Veritas.
us. As she was saying, we do work for the city of Riverdale. We are the building official
for the city of Stonecrest as well, along with Barrow County, Oconee County, Watkinsville,
and numerous amounts in Georgia. We have two divisions in Pennsylvania, three divisions
in Texas, and we also have three, I believe, in Florida as well.
We've been consulting for 192 years, I believe it is.
I think it was 18, was it 18, 20?
28.
Yeah, 28.
So I've been at it for a while.
Damian, you got anything to say?
No, I think you can't have it.
Let me ask you a question.
So right now, with this economy being what it is,
what is your staffing situation? How many people do you have? How many people would
you have to bring on? And are you up or down? So we have roughly 35 to 36 people
within Georgia. Me as an area manager, I have six up under me.
Along with a permit tech, which I believe that is one of the positions that you are inquiring on, so we would not have to, at this time, bring on anybody for the six-month emergency inquiry here.
If we move along through that, then we may have to look into bringing a permit tech on, but other than that, building officials and inspectors, we are fully staffed.
Okay, so you normally have, you said six people up under you, that's what you normally
have in your area?
Yes, sir.
That's what I have in just my area.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
What, how many cities does your area include?
So we cover 12 jurisdictions right now.
So you have 12 jurisdictions that your six people cover?
Yes, sir.
We provide, we provide multiple services in those areas.
So some of those jurisdictions are just inspections.
so that's fairly easy. Like the city of Stockbridge, or excuse me, Stonecrest, we do
build an official services, so that takes up a lot of my personal time, but a lot of
those areas are just inspections, so that's fairly easy. Okay, so that's
the number that you normally have up under you. Is that number the same as
it was in 2022 or 2023 have you added somebody? Absolutely so in roughly 2022 I had three people
and then from there we moved to six so I mean we've we've been growing constantly we're we're
always looking just like everybody else because it is very hard to find qualified individuals in
our field so we are continuing to looking to grow if that's kind of what you're asking so
we're always trying to find somebody to bring along one final question talk
about the experience of the individuals on your team yeah absolutely so we have
licensed electoral contractors through the state of Georgia we have licensed
HVAC contractors to the state of Georgia we are all ICC certified in
residential and commercial we have certified fire marshals we have
certified planners, certified building officials. We have master code
professionals. We have almost anything the ICC offers we have and that is what the
state of Georgia goes through. Okay what am I getting at is that the tenure with
you so you've added the three people so when did you add the three people and
the latest three and how long have they been with you? The latest one was
probably October of last year and that was an early career guy. We got him
straight out of the Marine Corps so we picked him up and have pretty much pushed
him through the whole process. He's now fully residential certified. We're now
working to get him commercial certified but I mean I think early 2022 is
when the other two came on. We picked both of those up at the same time from
a jurisdiction. They wanted to leave there. So last to 2022. Okay. All right. Thank you.
Any other questions? Council at all. All right. Seeing none. So otherwise, we need a motion to
for the staff to go forward with this new company. May I forward? Yes, sir. So moved. Okay,
Mr. Thomas. Second. Mr. Gantt, second. All favor, please indicate.
Thank you very much, gentlemen, I appreciate it.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Council.
Thank you.
Council, consideration to approve contract emergency services for civil engineering
services, not to see a six-month timeframe.
Ms. Carter, please.
Yes, so a similar contract, but for civil engineering and plan review and inspections.
We have been working with a consultant who has actually been one of the subcontractors
for the current contractor we utilize and has Whitley engineering they familiarize themselves
with a lot of the projects have been very key and making sure that we stay in line with
state code as in regards to soil and conservation erosion control measures and we're trying
to ensure that we keep those folks on staff in order to continue those services.
The contract before you is to have up to six months for a contract for services for civil
engineering that handles land disturbance reviews, inspections, meetings.
We a lot of times have meetings with new business owners, new developers who are bringing
a new project, but they need guidance.
They want to put a face to the name so that they know who to contact for land development
concerns or questions and what have you. So the request before you is to approve a
similar contract for Whitley Engineering Incorporated for emergency services up to six months.
Okay, questions for Ms. Carter, Councilor?
Mayor?
Yes, ma'am?
I move that we approve.
No, I have a question.
Oh, I got a question.
Never mind.
Go right ahead, sir.
I hate to sound ring. Is this the name of the company in there that you hire? I don't
Yes. It's Whitley Engineering Incorporated.
Is this in your packet?
It wasn't on the face.
You say that this company is out of what company?
So Whitley Engineering is the subcontractor under our current larger contractor for building services currently.
I do have Mark Whitley here who can speak a little bit about what he's done and the experience he has and what he's brought to the city.
When you said a larger company, which company were you talking about?
Safefield. We currently contract with Safefields.
Wait a minute. So they would Safefield? I'm sorry, Mayor.
Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry.
So the company, this company would Safefield?
They are a subcontractor. So they work separately but within under the same umbrella of building services.
The way the contract was written originally, probably early 2021 before I came on, it was
to have building permitting inspections and also a civil engineering firm as well.
SafeBuild was not able to provide that as they had no one in house, so they did provide
a subcontractor to handle all of those services.
Yeah, but my concern with that for me is that that's common practice for these
company to have subcontractors that they use that are under their umbrella, but how do you
protect the city from any double-dipping or saying, hey, what's up, you out to the city?
I mean, it's, I don't want to get too deep in that, it's just interesting when we get
companies that are subcontracted under contracts that we already have in place, it's kind
interested in me. Mayor. Go ahead please. So who do we have a contract with?
SafeBuild or with Willie Engineering? We currently have a contract with SafeBuild.
SafeBuild's contract and all subcontractors is ending April the
21st. Okay. And the subcontractor is Whitley Engineering who handles all the
civil engineering piece of all inspections, pre-construction meetings,
planning reviews that are pivotal in making sure we bring a development on
correctly according to state requirements. So would we be directly
contracting with them now? We no longer contracting with Safeville. That is correct.
Okay, but they have been doing our inspections already. Yes. For erosion
only for erosion control. So our this contractor ahead of us handles only the
construction only the portion of the property that is land development as
prepping the land for any building to be built. SafeBuild currently handles all
the building inspections all that when any piece of any property goes up any
buildings go up bricks what have you that's what SafeBuild typically does.
And now Bureau Veritas will handle that in the interim. Okay. Any questions? So
So again, what was the process behind selecting this particular vendor to perform this service?
Well when I set out to working with the finance department to get quotes at all, a lot of them
just did not have staff available for this particular use.
They would also have to sum out to someone else and I said, well, you know, we currently
have services that are working very well for us and we're staying in lock step
with the state process. Let's work with who has been doing a great job at it and continue that
so they can continue to move forward and provide that service for us.
Any other questions for Ms.
Carter on this? All right then I need a motion to for the motion to accept this new contractor.
May I forward? Yes sir. So moved. Okay. I second. Okay from Mr. Thomas to Ms.
All in favor please indicate the answer is thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right.
Council consideration adopt new job description for cheap building off the official full time
position.
Ms. Carter, please.
Okay.
So as part of this process, we just, you all, thank you for approving the two contracts.
The objective of that is to allow for us to hire, qualify folks to be able to fill the positions,
three full-time positions, chief building official, which is the first item we have,
which would be the manager of the permitting inspections and permit process.
And we also have a building inspector that would be managed by the chief building official
and the building permit technician that will be handled under the building official.
The building official primarily manages the permit processing and reviews and inspections.
And I'm recommending this new position.
The job description is as a result of, I want to say about two to three years ago,
maybe 2019, it was a desire of this council to understand a little bit more about bringing
this division in-house and it allows for continuity, a little more
efficiency and expediency in our processes. It allows us to be more
accurate with reviews and we can say hey everybody let's get in the room and
let's review this plan and we can move things forward. So that is what I'm
asking kind of one by one this is for the chief building official position.
You
I will pull up the organization chart.
That's
already up.
I'm not sure if you can make that up.
I'm gonna zoom into community development
because this updated org chart, if approved,
would be incorporated with this proposed change.
So the items in yellow would be new positions.
The items in white are current positions.
Ms. Gangoy, please.
Has this been budgeted for already?
It has.
It actually, if we're able to bring on these folks full time
by July 1, we should work within our current budget.
And I would not need to come back to amend
or to get any additional funds.
It's just a matter if it does go past that.
We go the six months.
It does depend on what we're putting out
for the consultants that we may need just a little bit
more additional funding that it will be nominal will our budget increase as of
January 1 because we'll be there'll be full-time and working the whole year it
will not because even bringing on these four individuals it still costs us less
than we've been paying over the years for a consultant okay we've been paying
60% we're only paying 50% for the emergency services and we'll be paying
and even less than that for bringing folks on board.
Our out-of-pocket expense would be likely two trucks,
two to three trucks.
When you said we were paying 60%, you mean the split?
Yes, the revenue spread.
The underpriced was 60, 40.
Correct.
And then 70, 30 in some instances, was it?
I wish it could be 70, 30,
but 60, 40 has been what it's been.
We got, I got it down to about 55%.
And now the, even the emergency services is at 50%.
I'm just going to say listen, I don't know if we're ready for this.
I think it's going to be a good idea, but are we ready to do this as a city?
We've had several issues.
We had some ongoing issues and I'm not exactly sure we're ready to do it ourselves within
the next six months, maybe at some point we might be ready to do that with some
of the challenge that we've actually had so you know that's my opinion I say
we should go forward and go ahead that's my thing I think I would like to do
that but I'd like to be a real sure that we're gonna do the job okay yes sir
go ahead please I'm in agreement with mr. Alexander we still have issues that
haven't had oversight we still have issues that haven't been resolved even
as of today.
When we contract,
because you don't want a quick fix for a long term issue,
a long-term process.
And when we've done that, the city has gotten the short end of the stick. And I'm not going to go into details about that because it's not the place for it. But I have a problem with some things. That's all.
All right, now, Mr. Thomas, go ahead, please, sir.
Thank you, and thank you, Mrs. Carter.
We have had the conversation over the last few years
about bringing this in-house.
And I think the research proved then.
And I asked you here recently about the same research.
And you went back and reviewed that.
And one thing that was true then, and I think it's true now, when you bring staff in-house
and it showed too that there were a surplus in that, but what you get is the training and
the accountability of staff when you bring folks in.
And I think that is what I see and that is what I'm looking forward to be able to
bring staff in, train them, and hold them accountable to the job. So that's why I'm
in favor. And I was in favor then. The research proved that to be a fact. And so
without any other questions, Mayor and Council, I move to approve.
Yeah, I do have one more.
Stand by one second.
Motion made to move to approve.
Is there a second?
Ms. Barbara, second that?
I second, but I have a comment, please, sir.
All right.
Okay.
I was going to go back to Mr. Blunt here, but go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead, Councilor Blunt.
Go ahead, Ms. Blunt.
All right.
For me, when we look at approving these positions,
When we look at moving around, when we're filling positions that there were reluctance
in or whatever, and there's a position that we're filling, I think there's some things
that we're discussing now.
We should have had more discussion behind closed door because this does become a hiring
position and it does become open for the discussion. I don't want to sit here and I would never
sit here and belittle any staff, at least try not to anyway, but I have concerns when
we're adding positions to field positions that was so long deficient. My greatest
This concern has always been in this city is being proactive and oversight, accountability,
transparency, all of those things make the city successful in every department, even among
us as council members.
So for me to put these positions on right now, I think for me I would need further
discussions on these positions and stuff behind closed doors.
I was just going to make mention that this is for emergency services and because this
is an emergency situation.
The six month contracts that we have with the consulting services, not consulting but
service contracts that we have with this company, this company, I'm sorry, I would
I'd like to see us do a one-year contract with the both of them.
I don't know if they are interested in that.
And after six months, then we can evaluate whether or not we're ready to kind of bring this in house.
I just want us to be ready.
We've had some issues over the past three years since I've been here.
A lot of it has been internal issues.
So I just want to make sure that we're ready.
I know we've already approved the six month contracts.
I am in support of what you recommend with bringing these positions in-house here.
I just want to make sure that we're ready.
What I'm saying is to Councilwoman Barber's point which is that we would bring this back
in six months to see what we look like from our standpoint because we got people on our
side of this pendulum too and then a contractor got people on their side.
So, after six months, we would come back, we would reevaluate our readiness to move forward.
And then after that fan point, we could extend for another six months if we needed to, or
we could move forward with it at that point.
Because right now, I think we just hired somebody on our side of the equation.
And those people are getting up to where they need to be.
All right, if you know how to comment, the motion was made in a second, so all in favor
of the motion, please indicate one, two, all polls, okay, okay, two, two, you voting for
them?
What do you say?
I'm sorry, I'm looking at this.
If you were voting about the chief building official.
I'm in opposition.
You're in opposition.
What's again, all in favor?
Let's do this again.
Make sure we got it right.
All in favor of the motion.
Two, all polls.
Three, so the motion fails.
Two, three, OK.
Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to, for the rest of the table,
the next items coming up and just
repeat what we just did, which was bring them, which
was deny them and then bring them back.
So you're referring to the building inspector permit
technician and the civil engineer, which
is a part-time position, it says here.
that you're referring to. Yes I mean there's no need and at this point I don't
think we've already made a decision on the one really they could have been
brought forward as a package but that's kind of where we are now. Councilman
Alexander may report if I may. I do understand the concern. Is it possible
that you would consider approving the positions with no dollars attached to
them that way if within the six-month period we come back and determine we do
want to move forward with bringing it in house we don't have to wait another month
or so just to get the job on the agenda and posted that will take us additional
time to do interviewing and all of that is it possible that you all will be
amenable to that I'm personally found recommendation and I don't know what
The rest of the council is thinking here.
Yeah, I'm fine with that.
But he's been going mad for motion.
Yes.
One second.
Hold on.
I just wanted to come back.
Ms. Barbers, fine with that?
I am fine with your recommendation, Ms. Carter.
OK.
Ms. Dallas-Enter?
No, I'm not.
No, he's not.
Again?
I have a question about it.
You're asking that we approve the job descriptions so that the positions are available, but
we've already approved these positions already, correct?
No.
The positions are brand new.
So we would have to just approve the job description.
If there are no dollars tied to it at this time, then we wouldn't put it out for hiring.
I don't want to do that. And we have a budget, we have budget meetings or whatever the case may be.
I don't think I want to do that prematurely because even if we are taking out the dollar amount,
when we are ready to advertise or put those positions out there we're gonna
have to do all this anyway right we're gonna have to present you got to
present these descriptions chart in dollar amount pay scale anyway correct
like when we get ready to put it out there well typically if there are
positions that are held and I'll defer to the city manager on positions that
But even though they are on the books, there may be no money tied to them and they're frozen
until a particular time where they'll be unfrozen and then we can utilize them and connect dollars
to them.
Okay.
Mr. Blunt.
For me, I'm with Mr. Alexander that we take with these three because for me, we just
had a retreat and we're talking about changing the aura chart that's going to affect the
budget. There's going to move people around. There's going to have oversight that I oversight
in different positions. I think further discussion need to be had with this because bringing
this forth now without, first of all, without any funding numbers. And if we do this before
then, then we won't have to do this now. I think that it convolues the whole situation
and we find ourselves in such a conundrum that we can't get back out of because we
We made a decision today to move forward with the basically saying, hey, something that's
going to happen beyond now, and if, if, if, if I think we need to table this and we need
to have further discussions about that, maybe some of that discussion need to be had behind
closed doors also.
All right.
So, yeah, go ahead, Mr. President.
Mayor Ford and Council.
Also, positions can be approved, as long as they are not field, there is no money attached.
But positions can be approved.
Thank you.
All right.
So we've got a couple of things.
We've approved the positions, which is a recommendation, a potential recommendation from Ms. Carter.
Or you can lump them all together and table all the items.
I would might want to double check with the attorney make sure we can all lump them together in one motion to do all that though
Even though there aren't as individuals, so I need for you to weigh in on that sir
Okay, okay. Thank you, sir. Mr. Blunt go ahead
We have a lot of power to do something up here we because
We can do we have the right to do something and always doesn't always make it the right thing to do for me
I mean the right thing for me to do is to discuss this further because once we approve positions,
we put a lot of this in staff's hand that we shouldn't even be dealing with as elected
officials anyway when it comes to how much this person is going to make.
This and that.
There's a lot going in the staff hand after we approve this.
I got problems approving this and this is where I come in, this one individual.
This is why I agree with Ms. Alexander, we need to table this and have further discussions
on it and have a plan in place and what this what kind of hit this gonna do to
the to our budget and what what's gonna be needed too many ins and outs for me
right now all right all right council then that's the case I need a motion to
reflect your desires here what's the motion ma'am I'm Michelle Zana I think
you have or Michelle Zana someone in motion please yes sir I want to make
motion in accordance with what the city attorney had recommended, which is
tabling all three of this, in reference to the index numbers that are attached
to the next three. 14, 15, and 16. Okay. Is there a second that motion? Second.
Mr. Blunt, second that all in favor please indicate. Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Does that not include item number 13? It's also a motion to a job-to-job
We already made a decision on 13 though, we already made a decision on 13, I thought the motion failed to adopt it, but is that not being tabled as well? That is the question.
If we did not vote, I'll add number 13 to it.
Well, we made it, we made it.
I thought we did.
We already made a motion on that or approved and made a motion.
13 is only a job description. It's not it's it's if you never approved a position
You just got a job description in place the job job
Yeah
Yeah, well if that's the case, so we did not I thought we did I will add 13 to that
Okay, wait a minute. We got we have there's an action. We have to take we just cannot make another motion on this
Is 13 a new position?
It is 13 14 15 and 16. They're all new positions
Okay, so the motion was made by originally who myself I'm 13
You made the motion on 13 and it's okay
So otherwise if you made a motion 13 mr. Attorney if he wants to retract that I guess I guess we can we can do it that way
Well, you wanted to you wanted to amend I guess change the motion or meant it to add
13 to number 14 15 16 we are revoked on 13 previously.
Oh, that's right. That's
right. That's right there and I need to talk to the clerk. That's right. It did
fail. I'm sorry. No one that's why she asked that question. Oh, it did fail. Okay.
So otherwise, we can automatically just add that to the other the other motion
with the other three items. Okay. Go ahead, please. I'm sorry. Yes, I amended
it to add 13. Okay. Is that who second that motion? Okay. Mr. Blunt. Okay.
So, otherwise, the motion, as I imagine you have this, Ms. Clerk?
Okay.
So, all in favor of motion to table 13, 14, 15, and 16.
I need a motion.
The motion is made.
The second.
All in favor, please?
Okay.
I had a question, sir.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
We're tabling it until when?
When is this coming back?
We tabled this.
we have a temporary contract for the six-month period that we have. We will reevaluate out
the six months to determine whether we're ready to move on.
That's with the contractors.
But you're.
Thank you.
The purpose of this motion is for the new job descriptions.
Right, the same thing.
We're tabling this indefinitely.
So it will run concurrent with that.
It will be six, as I said when I made the first one,
is that we will come back to this in six months
and we will evaluate whether we are ready or not
at the six month period.
When it's time to, well, we need to renew for another six months
or we need to move into another direction.
Okay, so then after the six months, we'll be able to determine whether or not we are
happy with the services or quality of services that we're getting from these two contractors.
But it still doesn't address the fact that she needs new job descriptions.
Those new job descriptions will need to be posted and advertised.
after then. So why would you wait six months for the contracts to expire?
We can bring it back at any time we want to. Staff can put it on the agenda.
We can put it on the agenda. I put the six months in because it runs concurrent with our agreement where we will always have protection at that point.
But the council can bring it back or the staff can bring it back at any time they want.
Can you say bring the job description back in three months. I've said the statement that I'm I've made the motion already. I'll abstain. Okay. Well, first of all, before you did it, man, one measure forecast is proper before we take another vote on this. So what do you have madam clerk.
Well, I'm having the motion to table item number 13, 14, 15, and 16 for six months to
be evaluated and brought back to the council at that time.
Mr. Alexander, is that correct?
That's correct.
Okay.
On that note, ladies and gentlemen, council, I need all in favor of the motion, please
indicate all polls, okay, polls, okay, so three, one, and you sustain, right?
So 3-1-1, motion passed. 3-1-1. And, okay. Ms. Carter, thank you very much.
Thank you. All right. What I have here, council consideration to fill a vacancy and appoint a
member of the downtown development authority presented by Mr. Washington.
Now, once again,
this is typically we do these, we've done these in the past in the executive session and come
back out of executive session for this, but I think there's only one person that is on this
particular list. And I
have to admit, I don't even know this
gentleman.
Yes, sir.
That person is Mr. Antonio Gordon, who's had a business of
barbershop owner here in Stockway, Georgia.
Alright, I believe this is to be on the Ethics Committee, I
believe it is. Board of Ethics. That's what it says
here, right?
The downtown development authority downtown. Okay for downtown. Okay. Where on application
system different. Okay.
Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. That is on there, but it's also
included. Okay. The final position for the board of ethics has to be appointed by the
mayor. That is not been selected, but the applicant did make the request to be considered
for any other board that had an opening and that is why he has been admitted to the council for this position.
And of course his business is right in the downtown area.
Yeah, if I'm paying three, he's willing to work any of available.
Okay, all right.
All right, council soul.
Anything else to answer?
No.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Questions?
Mayor.
Yes, ma'am.
Go ahead, Councilman. You're on the Board of DEA.
I just wanted to answer a question. I just didn't know that. I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that this was coming up tonight. Was there some discussion already with the applicant or just the qualifications have already been verified?
The application was submitted to the Mayor and Council, the DDA Chair as well.
Okay, so the DDA chair has already reviewed it.
It was submitted to the DDA chair.
Okay.
Did you want to double check with him or?
Yeah, let's do that.
Let me follow up with the DDA chair
because we know what he's been going through
and we need to see whether or not
he's had time to chime in on the application.
I thought your suggestion is to table it with this eraser.
Well, if that's what you'd like to do,
then make a motion.
Yes, sir.
Sir, I'd like to make a motion to table this appointment
to consult with the DDA board and chair.
Is there a second to that motion?
Is there a second to the motion?
I second.
OK, Ms. Gantz seconds the motion.
You have some apprehension there, Ms. Gantz.
This goes to show that even if we only have one applicant,
we still need executive sessions.
I don't I don't like the way this way. Okay. Well, what about he's gonna talk further with it with the GDH here
So it and we'll go from there all in favor of the motion. Please indicate all in favor seen this decision. Okay. Thank you very much
Okay, what's next?
Mr. Quinton mr. Washington is stop bridge am a theater alcohol policy, sir
The ordinance
This was the
The ordinance that you are requested, the only change that we would have on there is to match
up to what is on the website about the seven quarts.
That's not eight by eight, that's 12 by 12 coolers.
And so we talked with Chief Chairman about it, it's the 12 by 12 cooler to be able to bring
in alcohol and we just asked for that to be an amendment that you all would adopt
for the ordinance.
and
this is all outlined in number D right and
this is to allow alcohol outside
alcohol for our concerts was this provided to us before today I didn't get
this until today
mr. Washington okay was this just provided to us at the start of
the meeting yes it was okay I'll be upstanding again okay well
this is what
she wants to sustain but let me mention this to the council now just is so you
have food for thought I suppose I have to admit I'm not in favor of this ordinance
and since it is an ordinance I do have by the charter I do have the power to
undermarriage power to veto and so I will tell you that if by chance this
ordinance passes with a minimum of three votes I will veto the bill I will
veto it all right so in the course if I do that then it takes forward to overturn
my veto that's the checks and balances so I just want you to know that at this
point that that is that's my thoughts and that's my that'll be my action so it's
up to the council how you want to proceed and then and then how you ever you
proceed may may may cause me to do something yes sir I guess my only
concern is what we have advertised on the website and the premise that concept
goals help purchase tickets that that's my only concern about any changes to the
premise that people have purchased our tickets and I think we just need to be
a little caution on that, and that's my only concern.
Okay, Mayor.
Yes, sir, go ahead, please.
I concur with that, and I think we went back and forth
about this for a little while.
Last year, all we kept telling everybody,
even when they couldn't even bring a bottle of water in,
I saw many council members, several council members
among myself, being very apologetic
about the way the amphitheater was being ran last year, just to be honest.
And everything that we told them that was going to happen this year, and I grew Mr. Thomas,
because if I buy a ticket expecting to go into a suite and I get there and it's a one
bedroom with no bed, that ain't what I purchased.
purchase, people purchase an experience at the amphitheater that we said we was going to
do and now at the ninth hour to say, well, if they don't want it, we're going to, this
amphitheater is continually trying to find its way and try to find identity. And I was
hoping that this year would be one that we find identity. And through this year, if
it doesn't, something doesn't work, now we see. Now we actually see because of things
that are put in place right now but I'm for it because of what we've put out and
what we've said and we have a concert next week next week and the talk has
been the city of Stockbridge is not like it was used to heard it's not gonna be
like it was last year I just want to put that okay and let me just say I
think procedurally and I talked with the chief and Mr. Young who's over the
amphitheater. If you were to use your veto on this one, my understanding is that it would
take effect for the second concert, is that correct? And not this one. So the second concert
and I was going forward from there unless it was overturned.
Okay. I understand. Thank you. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. But because this concert, the
concert tickets have been sold and advertised. I'm talking with Chief Trammer and with
Mr. Young, and if you want them to explain it here, that if he were to veto it, the veto
would take effect after this concert.
What if he vetoed it tomorrow?
So, I mean, that, am I wrong?
So when,
right, but there's already been a contract created between the people.
If you all wanted to, he would still have the veto,
but they would not be able to get
the information out to the individuals that would be trying to bring alcohol in at enough
time for this concert.
They were thinking that on the administrative side that they would be able to make it in
effect for the second concert as opposed to this first one that's coming up.
in a second concert this year happens to be Mother's Day weekend with Maxwell on
13th and 14th of May. So that's roughly a month, the 30 days difference in
time. Yes sir. I still have the same issue and I don't know who bought
tickets or when. I know that the Maxwell tickets went on sale one particular
of Friday and people came and rushed in and purchased their tickets.
So I just still have the same concern that, you know, concertgoers have purchased tickets
under the premise that we have stated on the website.
And I just only concern if we had sort of decided during the off-season coming into
January that we were going to take a position, I'd have been fine with that.
but for us to flip flop and to appear disorganized that's just that's just the
problem that I have with all of that. In the beginning no one authorized this to
be put on the website so let's go back to there okay the change was made but I'm
not sure how the change was approved we talked about it we had a vote there
was a three to two, I think a three vote decision that was made on the item. I think we talked
about general liability and some other items that were concerned with that. So my position
is I'm, I certainly, I think based on what you discussed, I'm certainly not for it.
Mayor Ford. Yes, sir.
If I'm not mistaken, the consultant met with all of the council members through Zoom.
I recall the conversation, and I don't know what his contract called for in this particular
I don't know if it was a vote
or not, but I do recall the
conversation during the Zoom
call, I can't speak to what that
vote was or even if it was a
vote, maybe Mr. John could
respond to that, but again, it's
on the website, that's the
bottom line, it's on the
website and people have
purchased the tickets under
that premise, regardless how
it happened, it's there.
Mayor. Yes, sir. Someone spoke, I mean, the attorney spoke for Chief Trammer. I didn't,
I don't know if he wants to get fooled in this or not, but at the same time, did you,
were those your thoughts that were conveyed here at the podium?
I would I would defer to
Legal and to Mr. Young with the management company. My position is, is we're here to enforce whatever guidelines are put in place for the amphitheater, whether that's you decide to admit it or you decide not. And that's our position.
Thank you.
Okay.
I tell you what, we have the ordinance here and so what a mouth to, I need a motion to
whether or not we're going to accept this, this ordinance change dealing with the alcohol
being brought into Tampa Theater or not.
Is there a motion?
Excuse me.
We don't want to hear from Mr. Young.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Excuse me.
Mr. Young?
Come to the podium, sir.
Is it necessary?
I don't need it.
Okay.
I don't need to talk to Ms. Yellen.
Come on, Ms. Yellen.
If you have something you want to add to this, please.
Good evening.
Happy you're here.
I'm happy to be here, sir.
You're right in the fire.
Yes, sir.
So, as a consultant, sir, what are your thoughts, sir?
Back in January when we had the Zoom call, I spoke to every council at 3-2 calls
and it was stated that we will allow alcohols we brought in this year.
That's
why it's on the website. All everything that came out of that meeting is on the
website. That's what's been stated. So that's how it came up, Mr. Alexander.
So you said it's been stated. Who stated it that it was approved?
I can't remember exactly. With three, two I had at different times.
We're talking about in January, but we met this section and that section, so if we didn't
do it, so whoever, whatever the three said at that time when I brought it up, I discussed
it on both calls.
Okay, so what you're saying is there was no vote, that was just correct.
Did I have to have an official vote?
I'm just saying, I'm just saying, stating the fact.
I did not have a vote, I don't...
Correct, okay.
I know what you said.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If you got a consensus, there wasn't a vote.
Right, yes, sir.
Thank you. Just the facts. No problem. No problem. Yes, sir. Anything else?
All right, so on that note
Ordinance has been brought forward by the mr. Washington. It's a Harold young to spoke
So so I need a motion to accept this particular
Ordinance change involving bringing in alcohol to an amphitheater for this season
There is there a substance of this motion mayor. Yes, ma'am
Go ahead. Well, I wanted to just want to make a comment before we even take a vote
Concert tickets have been sold not just for this first show, but throughout that's correct at the purchase of a concert ticket
at that time a contract
Per each individual person who has purchased a ticket has been made mm-hmm
They exchange money for their ticket mm-hmm as well as for all the amenities and everything else that's included in their disclosure
And that's what I'm saying we we have to be you know careful with that and I think that
Whether we you know, I don't know what tickets are open right now
We put a halt or whatever the case may be for the next show until we get all this ironed out
However, we want to do it not halt the show but you know, however we want to do it
But for now at least through Maxwell from what I'm hearing and
and maybe even Monica, or I don't know, from others.
We've already established some rules here, and we had a vote, I believe, we had a vote
already during the retreat.
And if we did not, if we did not, I believe we had a official vote during the retreat,
which is an open meeting, a public meeting.
So, at that point in time, and I honestly believe that we need to follow process and procedures
that we have in place for now and maybe work on this halfway through from those shows that
have not been announced or in sales.
I think we can kind of do something at that point.
That's it.
I still need a motion.
We're going to accept this ordinance change or not.
Yes, sir.
I'd like to make that motion, but I want to make sure.
Well, not necessarily to make the motion, but when the motion is made,
I want to decide that the cooler to be included in the motion.
And that that is 12 inches by 12 inches.
Is that what it is?
All right.
So then fine.
Eight inch.
No, no, no.
He wants to change it to 12 inches.
Oh, that's what he's asking for.
All right, I mean whoever makes the motion can add that in there for the vote.
He's making it.
Is there a motion?
Go ahead.
I second it.
So I would like to make a motion that any alcohol beverages brought, well make a motion
that we approve the ordinance provided for an exception to the restriction of the
possession of consumption of alcohol beverages at Cybridge Amphitheater and for the purposes
is listed to include a 12 with the amendment on D page 2. Any alcohol brought into the amphitheater
must be in a cooler, not larger than 12 by 12, only one cooler per patron allowed.
A second. Okay. Okay, Mr. Thomas, second that motion. All in favor of the motion,
please indicate all posts of staying okay it's 311 and as I 311 and as I
mentioned before I will veto this ordinance so I need to go through the
process of official veto I will veto it I wasn't playing with that so I'll
veto it and then of course the council can overwrite once I officially do that
with the proper paperwork and the council go over write a veto with four
affirmative votes now so on that note we'll start the veto process or
documentation effectively tomorrow I'll be in tomorrow to take care of that
unless you got some other guidance for me Mr.
on that note we'll move on to
announcements and upcoming events council meetings would be held city council
chambers noting some board and committee meetings will continue to take
place by the way of zoom okay so we go to cities website city of star bridge
for meeting invitation link Facebook page or contact City Hall offices at 770-389-7900.
Citywide Development Authority meeting, 2nd Tuesday of each month, 6 p.m. City Hall leave
our meeting room which will be 8.11. The Main Street Advisory Board meeting, 2nd Friday
of each month at 9 a.m. Welcome Center, 130 ML King Senior Heritage Trail, April 14.
Downtown Development Authority meetings as 3rd, Tuesday of each month via my web Zoom, April 18th.
Youth Council of the virus youth committee meeting 6.30pm, 3rd, Tuesday of each month, Levi meeting room, April 18th in City Hall.
City Council Work Session meeting last Tuesday of each month at 6pm, City Hall Council Chambers, April 25th.
Planning Commission meeting 6.30pm, City Hall Council Chambers, 4th, Thursday of each month. It's April 27th.
A couple of things here, cave city events and upcoming events here.
Council initiative, April 26th, the 6th PM Emerald Madness Conference Center.
Councilwoman Gann is going to have her district one town hall.
Also Henry Free Music presents ASEP Violin Classes and Music Program at Cotton Indian Elementary
School involving Cotton Indian Elementary School, Red Oak Elementary Fairview Elementary
School and the Youth Orchestra United Joy through music spring concert 2023 on
Tuesday May 16th at 2023 7 p.m. at Murrow Manors and a Mayor Pro Tem
Barbara plans to participate and be in I guess she's gonna play a violin I
suppose I don't know okay there you go all right join Mayor Pro Tem Barbara
once again a partnership with JJ smiles for the 2023 annual cookout and fun
raised on April 15th from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Clark Community Park. Community
members are encouraged to donate backpacks, backpacks and school
supplies. Monetary donations are welcomed with 100% of the proceeds going
directly to JJ Smiles Incorporated. This event is free and open to the public.
You can email Ybarber at cityofstarbridge-ga.gov for more information.
Join Councilman Blunt on Wednesday, April 19th at Murrow Manus Conference
Center for Bingo from 10 a.m. to noon. Please contact Ross and Rawls at 6 7
8 8 3 3 3 4 8 for more information. Join Councilman Blunt once again on
Thursday April 20th at Winsong Clubhouse for District 3 Town Hall meeting
7 p.m. and contact once again Ross and Rawls for that information and I got
him this join Councilman Blunt again on Saturday the 22nd of April at Clark
Park at 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. for stock bridge motorsports or safety ride once
again contact Ross and Rawls at 678-833-3348. Join Constable Thomas with
Don't Trash Stop Bridge centered around education highlighting the causes and
effects of littering and illegal dumping. Save the date for the
Carrie Mae Hammerick Day Saturday May 13th. More information of follow, contact
and Councilman Thomas 404-247-4972, and as always,
a continuous salute to veterans.
Please forward pictures of veterans,
including name, rank, branch, years of service,
to Mayor Pro Tem Tom, and we'll actually
say, excuse me, Councilman Thomas.
Special, as you present, a special tribute
to our local veterans, pictures should
be submitted to Rosalind Rawls at rrawls.citystopgrays-ga.gov.
And, of course, thank you for your service.
And also, I'm sponsoring a particular event also on May 6 at 2 o'clock with the Fundraising
Event for Sisters Top.
It's going to be in Merrill Manors at 2 o'clock, as I mentioned.
And this is a nonprofit that works with young girls and helps young girls become more
responsible and mature in this aspect as well.
So we'll make sure we'll get that information further out as well.
And my other comments, it is springtime, but COVID-19 is still out and about, so make sure
you get your boosters.
I don't think flu season is out, we're out of flu season now, but boosters are still
needed, so please be safe and be healthy, and happy belated Easter, everybody, and
happy record, ooh, Resurrection Day, I can't get that out there.
and hopefully that you got to renew a spirit for life based on what occurred
a couple thousand years ago with Jesus our Lord. Let's see here for the for
football fans the draft comes up here here and shortly the next week or so so
hopefully your favorite team will get their particular players and and wish
well on the Falcons as they gather some folks for the next season and well wishes to the
Braves for a great start this season and hopefully will continue to work towards another pinnett.
And Friday the 14th will be our first concert of our concert season for 2023 with the
ISE brothers and the group after seven. On that note, Mayor? Yes, sir?
You know what? There's a there's a distinguished citizen. That's probably gonna be in the top five of the NFL draft
You're absolutely right. And his name is Will Anderson. I got you and I understand what you mean
I guess so we got a look got look forward to
A knowledge that with him after all this guys done to see what else we can do here in the city
Yes, he might be the first defensive player
He very much take a look at that don't know where he's gonna go of course, but we'll find out on that note
But as my understanding, we have an executive session, so I need a motion to go to executive
session.
No, we don't.
We don't have an executive session?
We do not?
Okay.
Well, if that's the case, then I need a motion to end our meeting.
May it stop moved.
Okay, there's a second.
Ms. Barbra, second.
All in favor?
Please indicate.
Okay.
Thank you.
God bless y'all.
Good night.