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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 09/14/2014 - MINS 09 14 SC (Migrated from Optiview)Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 ,2015 at 5:45pm Page I of9 This summary is provided as a convenience and service to the public, media, and staff It is not the intent to transcribe proceedings verbatim. Any reproduction of this summary must include this notice. Public comments are noted and heard by Council, but not quoted. This document includes limited presentation by Council and invited speakers in summary form. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting proceedings. Official Meetings are audio and video recorded. The Special Called Meeting of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on September 14, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Mayor Joe Lockwood presiding. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Joe Lockwood called the meeting to order. ROLLCALL Councilmembers Present: Councilmember Thurman, Councilmember Kunz , Councilmember Lusk , Councilmember Hewitt , Councilmember Longoria, and Councilmember Mohrig (via telephone). Mayor Joe Lockwood called the meeting to order at 5:45 p.m. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE (Led by May or J oe Lo ckw oo d) APPROVAL OF MEETING AGENDA (Agenda Item No. 15-246) Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve the Meeting Agenda. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously (7-0). GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT Margaret Lootens, 3515 Peacock Road, Milton, Georgia 30004 I have lived in Milton for 2 ~ years. I am here because of an article I saw in the Milton Herald last Wednesday. There is a quote from our Mayor regarding a safewise honor that the city received for 2013 which specifically stated that there were no murders reported in the city in 2013. The Mayor goes on to praise the citizens. I am shocked that there is no mention of the young man who was shot dead in his driveway in Avensong. I am surprised that no one remembered this young man. It was on the city 's Facebook page and in the newspaper. A state senator was also quoted in the recent article stating that you can rest assured because Milton is one of the safest cities in Georgia. That is not true; there was a murder in the city in 2013. There seems to be an incredible amount of filtering going on in the city. I have had an ongoing problem with trash where I live. I have learned a lot about how the city works and how it doesn 't work. For instance , it would have been nice to know that the road in front of my subdivision at the comer of Bethany Bend and Morris Road is going to be widened to four lanes. Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 ,2015 at 5 :45pm Page 2 of9 I had to go to Forsyth County to learn that information . That is despite me having to ask Marty Littleton at a DRB meeting. Marty had no idea and he also did not know that he has a DRB mailbox at the city. I had written him a letter back in November and I thought it was strange that I did not hear back from him. I discovered that emails are reviewed by city staff and they decide whether or not to forward the email to Mr. Littleton. I find that there is a lack of transparency , integrity, and honesty in the city. I have multiple instances where I have not received a response from the city whether it was regarding trash, zoning, fire marshal , etc. I hope that my experience is unlike anyone else 's experience. I have brought these issues to the attention of the city manager who responded to my email in December and told me he would work on them. I looked at the tax assessor 's web map for our county and starting looking at some of the large parcels ofland in the city. I started in the northwest comer and noticed that Waste Management has a huge parcel of land and continued to click on every large parcel. I disco vered that the Mayor owns a very large parcel of land that is 20 acres or more. I am having trouble understanding why the Mayor is able to lead a city discussion on the CSO . I feel like he should not be able to vote on the issue. I just wanted to bring all these issues to your attention tonight. PUBLIC COMMENT Walter Rekuc, 615 Scarlet Oak Trail, Milton, Georgia 30004 I think the CSO needs to be a zoning district. I don 't think it needs to be a subdivision ordinance or something that addresses a subdivision. This needs to be addressed as something that could be a zoning district and could be handled as such. I think it is a wonderful idea to modify the AG-1 . I strongl y recommend that a committee be put together to discuss this issue with the people who are affected by these changes and work with these groups to create modifications instead of taking information straight from staff. I do not recommend hiring a consultant to study the AG-1 or CSO. I think if you just schedule a few meetings with the people that are in the industry and do this for a living you can get the answers you are looking for. James Roy Wells, 330 Houze Way, Roswell, Georgia 30076 I urge the City Council to postpone a decision on a Conservation Subdivision Ordinance so as to coincide with potential modifications to other zoning decisions. According to my email this is Agenda item no. 15-247. The final decision should take into consideration the Property Owners rights-The right to the highest and best return on investment without violating other values , such as the environment and productive use of properties -and the consideration of some for a rural view. The criteria should be to continue to pursue a Conservation Subdivision, with as high a density as environmentally possible, so as to attract land developers and give the vested land owner the highest and best use for their property , with the ordinances designed to give a rural venue. I am requesting that this email be made part of the public record for this Agenda Item. Thank you for your consideration. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 1. City Council Consideration of Postponing a Decision on a Conservation Subdivision Ordinance to Coincide with Potential Modifications to Other Zoning Designations . (Agenda Item No. 15-247) (Ken Jarrard, City Attorn ey) ...... ________________ ------ Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 ,2015 at 5:45pm Page 3 of9 Ken Jarrard, City Attorney In conjunction and consultation with City Staff, this has flowed through the process and it is my position that in addition to the CSO there needs to be some modifications to some of your zoning codes. For instance , AG-1 needs to be modified. There is also an AG-1 Enhanced which needs to be modified and there may be others. But, the concern is that if we adopt the CSO in a vacuum without making these other modifications at the same time , we will have potentially a dysfunctional CSO while we otherwise scramble to complete the other zoning modifications . I think it looks like mid-November is when we have the process set so it is my recommendation that the CSO be postponed so that it is in tandem with the other ordinances that are being modified. I think if we took action on the CSO next week it would be premature. Mayor Lockwood Are there any questions or comments? Councilmember Longoria Ken, so , let 's pretend for a second that the CSO ordinance that we adopt is an optional thing , in other words , there is nothing mandatory about it. How does that put us in some kind of conflict with existing zoning or existing subdivision requirements ? City Attorney Jarrard Right , Councilmember Longoria, but right now it is optional for what, and what I mean by that is , if an individual is looking , for instance , AG-1 and saw that it is an optional development criteria for AG-1 , there is no cross-reference. It would simply be a CSO in a vacuum ; there is no cross-reference to any other zoning designations in the City of Milton to even tell a reader of our ordinances where to go to find this development regulation; optional or not. My thought is to try and give this thing a little bit of formality such that to your average reader of our ordinances it makes sense and kind of is part of a seamless whole as opposed to done in a vacuum because right now, for instance , if we had not changed AG-1 , how would you even know that AG-1 can be de veloped by way of a CSO; how would you know that? I don 't mean to ask you a question; it is a rhetorical question. Councilmember Longoria I understand that a lot of times we spend a lot of time reading these things and it is obvious to us where it may not be obvious to somebody else so I would agree with that. The other question that I would have is by putting this in the same stream as other things that we want to do; we are not tying those things together, in other words , we aren 't going to have one big package that we have to vote on and everything is co-dependent so how do we achieve the goal that you are suggesting we need to achieve when we are going to be voting on all these things independently anyway ? City Attorney Jarrard That's right. And , that is what has made , candidly , the scenario you just rolled out has been what I think has made this so challenging for both the council and staff is that it is a bit of a complex solution and whether we need to simplify it or not. There is no forecasting that will be the way it occurs. Candidly , when you vote on a zoning action, we don 't know what your vote is going to be until it is taken. But , the expectation has been , based upon the feedback during the work session, is I think staff feels like we have a bead on where the council wants to go and that is what we are trying to make happen. I can 't guarantee it. Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 ,2015 at 5 :45pm Page 4 of9 Councilmember Longoria Okay , so do you think that it is plausible or possible that we could somehow come up with a hierarchy or priority associated with the things that need to be updated in order for the CSO to make sense so that we vote on them in an order that would keep ourselves from getting into trouble? City Attorney Jarrard Not only do I think that is likely , I think that would be good policy. There is very likely a chronology or hierarchy of things that if we took them out of order they would be non-sensible. Councilmember Hewitt So , Ken, ifl understood Joe 's question and your response correctly, if we were to pass the CSO ; say if everybody in this room loved the CSO , we passed it next week, it could not be put into effect without changes to the AG-1 code to reference it? City Attorney Jarrard I think that makes much better public policy from my perspective. For instance , if someone walks in next Tuesday after we have adopted the CSO and we mention that they can build out pursuant to the CSO and they have AG-1 property , their question would be, well , what says I can do that? Where does it say that? It doesn 't say that in the AG-1 ordinance that I can do that. Could we just sort of wink and nod and allow that to occur? Perhaps , but again, I think for purposes of good policy it would make sense for us to adopt all of these as close to a package as we can even to Councilmember Longoria 's point, even if there is a structure such that , there is a sensible structure that they make sense as a collective whole but the best I can tell you Councilmember Hewitt is that it is my recommendation that we delay the CSO until the other moving parts are in place. Councilmember Hewitt And , if those parts weren 't moving , we would still be in this ; maybe we are thinking about this ... City Attorney Jarrard Let me explain it this way to you as well. CSO is a development regulation; it is not a zoning ordinance. But, I do believe that a zoning ordinance does need to reference the development regulations that appl y to it. And , so I want to be very clear that we are not adopting a CSO that really is like a zoning code because I would not want to leave the CSO open to a challenge that is really a defacto zoning code we are just calling it something else. I think the better way to make that line very clear is if we are modifying our true zoning codes contemporaneous with the de velopment regulation. I think that makes that point very clear that they are different. We know how to craft a development regulation and we know how to draft a zoning code and the y do different things and I think that having sort of a contemporaneous adoption of all those various moving parts makes that abundantly clear that we are making a clear distinction between a development regulation and a zoning code. Remember, zoning codes have to follow the zoning procedures law which is a different structure than just a development regulation. That is one of the things that I have advocated for to the City Manager. Councilmember Hewitt Because I, quite frankly , have no desire to defer it but it sounds like you are saying even if we all passed it, nobody is going to be able to do anything with it or not. Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 , 2015 at 5 :45 pm Page 5 of9 City Attorney Jarrard I don't know how they could but even if it was there in a vacuum we would simply have staff telling people that if you have AG-1 you can develop under this regulation. I just think a cross-reference makes a whole lot more sense. Mayor Lockwood Anybody else? Bill. Councilmember Lusk No , they reflected my opinion on the whole situation. Mayor Lockwood Okay , I would agree with Councilmember Hewitt but my perspective is not to delay. We have been working for a long time but if it does procedurally ... City Attorney Jarrard Well , you have lifted the moratorium so I mean I think some of the concerns about delay have been addressed and then , I know this council; I know this council well , I know you want things done correctly , and I am not suggesting that there is only one way to do something but I do think this is a better way. Mayor Lockwood Okay , if there are no other comments or questions , I will open it up for a motion. City Clerk Gordon Mayor, I do have one late public comment that just came in. Mayor Lockwood And , we did have a few people walk in so if an y body has any public comment, feel free to let us know. You are welcome to speak and you can just fill out a card afterwards. PUBLIC COMMENT Sandra Faires, 2065 Country Ridge Road, Milton, Georgia 30004 My comment might be a moot point now. I wanted to address it so just the expressed concerns of my subdivision and the 100 people or so I've talked to .. we are concerned about setting a precedent. We are also concerned that even though you are going to vote to defer this later, we think , and I'm representing the 100 people that I've talked to. I think it is a much better decision that should be made by the 32 ,000 -33 ,000 ofMilton, not just the councilmembers about voting on this. People haven 't been notified properly as far as what is going to be expected and with the You Tubes and things like that of the world if we could put together something so that the people could understand what this is about so when it does get put to the table again after its deferred , we at least , maybe have an option of voting on it to prevent further precedences or some regulation the general public, the citizens of Milton , might not agree with. I've talked to other people besides Country Ridge residents too and there is just a general feeling that maybe the owners of these properties that want to get developed have not gotten the septic land , the appling soil that they need to , and that 's why they are trying to scrunch the houses together. Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 ,2015 at 5 :45pm Page 6 of9 And , some smart , savvy lawyer, way down the road after you all are gone and maybe when some of us have moved out of the area is going to come back and say "Ah " ... "there is a precedent". So , there is feeling that we would like to vote on this and again, not being a lawyer or a lobbyist, if there is any way it can be considered upon a vote after the deferral at some time , that might be nice. Mayor Lockwood Okay, is there anything else? Ken, I want to ask you a question, I know since we are talking about conservation subdivision we have had some open records requests and there have been letters back and forth between your office and the consultant and records. And, I wanted to kind of address that. If we are postponing this and looking at it , and I know everybody wants to get all the information , it sounds to me based upon what I read that maybe there, if maybe you could address the law on how we would get those records , or it sounds to me based upon the cost estimate that there may be enough information there that it may be worthwhile for the council to check it out. City Attorney Jarrard Right , with respect to your consultant, we have received an open records request with respect to documents withheld or maintained by the consultant. But , then the request was modified or withdrawn in part such that it was off the table and then there was a follow-up request simply by Milton on behalf of the City Manager to otherwise just ask for the same records to be provided for a few reasons but the primary reason to is that whenever you have documents that are withheld by a consultant , particularly one of a finite duration, and we believe there may be additional requests , it might be better for us to retrieve and safeguard those documents as opposed to the consultant. That request was not terribly well received and what I mean by that is that there was a request for payment by the consultant to the tune of between $600 -$1 ,200 of additional payment for those documents to be forthcoming. I have not made a recommendation one way or the other of whether that should be paid. It is not a lot of money but it; I think it is somewhat atypical for there to be request for payment to provide the City of Milton what , I believe, are Milton's own documents but , nonetheless , that is where we are. And , so candidly , that is something that the City Manager and I have been kicking back and forth and whether or not it is worth it to the city to offer up payment for those documents. There has just been no consensus reached on that at this point. That is where we are , Mr. Mayor. Mayor Lockwood I am just kind of asking as an elected official as well as a citizen if there is that much information if the city doesn 't already have it I would personally like to see it as we make this decision so I guess you are saying that you don 't really have a recommendation that is rightfully property of the city and the citizens or that if we were to request that ... City Attorney Jarrard That's right and Mr. Mayor, and maybe I wasn't very eloquent , my point was that the City Manager and I have not come up with a recommendation. I mean if the City Council wanted to recommend or authorize the expenditure of those funds , I don't know whether it is worth it in the big scheme of things to get into an adversarial situation with our consultant. At this point, there has been a confirmation at least twice that there is going to be a demand of payment but in the big scheme ofthings $600 or $1 ,200 , I don 't know if it is worth becoming adversarial. I just think that is money we could go through very fast if it gets adversarial with the consultant and so it may be if the city wants those records, given that we have an additional three or four months until such time as we have to take action on this , it may be worth securing those documents. Special Called Meetin g o f the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 ,2015 at 5 :45pm Page 7 of9 Mayor Lockwood I personally would like to see them since we have paid for them through the consultant's time and the dollars so I don 't know if anybody else on council , Karen ..... Councilmember Thurman It bothers me a little bit that we have paid a consultant to create records and then we are not allowed to see the records that he totally created so that almost , in some ways to me , that how do you rely on his opinion if you don 't have all the information that was used to allow him to garner that opinion. City Attorney Jarrard Right , and Councilmember Thurman, what I can tell you is that I have tried to express to the consultant in fairly strong terms that we believe that it is unusual for there to be a monetary demand associated with that. The consultant 's position back is simply that rounding up records is outside the scope of his assignment and that he will provide them; he has not indicated ever, I want to be very clear on this , he has not indicated ever that he will not provide them , he has simply indicated that if you want me to take the time to round those up , I will be charging you an hourly rate $600 bucks; $150 per hour, that sounds to me like four hours at a minimum all the way up to perhaps eight hours ; $1,200. So , Councilmember Thurman , I hear you . Councilmember Thurman What would happen if there was an open records request requesting those documents from an outside individual? Would he have to produce them at that time and would it cost us as a city for him to do that? City Attorney Jarrard Well , that is right. The law is very clear on that. If there was a request for those records, for instance, a citizen, then they would have to be collected and gathered. Now, as the council knows very well , the open records act allows after the first fifteen minutes allows for the payment, sort of a fee shifting mechanism to the lowest paid full-time employee that is qualified to assemble the records. I believe our consultant's position would be in that situation that is him. And , that he would therefore assign to that, not the city , because I have advised the consultant that the next time we get an open records request, I am simply going to send it to him if it implicates his documents that he can coordinate directly with the requesting party. I don 't believe that there is any requirement of the act that we handle it for that entity. And , if the demand for payment of a citizen is too much money and there is a complaint made to a regulatory agency , for instance , like the Attorney General , that will be between the Attorney General and our consultant if they believe that the assessment is too high. That is a different question , Councilmember though , as whether or not the city should request them itself and pay for them. I want to make a correction. Forgive me for this , I want to be very clear and Mrs. Inglis has provided this to me , the consultant quoted a flat fee of $750 in his most recent letter so what I just told you was $600- $1 ,200 ; it looks like there is a flat fee of$750 that was quoted in the last letter so forgive me for that. Mayor Lockwood Just to confirm , is his hourly rate $150? City Attorney Jarrard It is. Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14 ,2015 at 5 :45pm Page 8 of9 Councilmember Longoria So , our definition of work product for a consultant doesn 't include communication and information that could be available to the consultant by an email. Is that what we are saying? City Attorney Jarrard No , we are not. I mean, it is unmistakable that the definition of a public record under the Open Records Act includes documents that are prepared by a private individual in the course and scope of their functions for a government. And , no one is really challenging that. The only thing that is being challenged right now is whether we can require this consultant to expend the time to round up those documents without compensation. Councilmember Longoria My point was that if we define , and we probably ought to look at updating our standard contract to include this , if we define work product to include any and all communication that happens during the course of the development of whatever work we have engaged with the consultant, then we could have just gone to him and said , "hey , you still owe us this." We wouldn't have had to pay extra for it. City Attorney Jarrard Right , and to your point, Councilmember Longoria, I agree first of all that it is not set forth in the contract to require that and secondly , probably should have ; candidly , this is not an issue that comes up that often . Councilmember Longoria The likelihood that there is anything that he has from a communication point of vie w that wasn 't copied to either city staff or council or somebody is very low , okay , so more than likely we have all the communication that we would need to have , however, there does exist a small possibility that they communicated with somebody outside of that group that would mean that we would have to generate that documentation and so I think in this particular case we ought to pay whatever it is we need to pay and make sure we have the communication, archive it on our side so we don 't have to go back to him in the future , and then learn from this and make sure we don 't do that again. City Attorney Jarrard Right ; understood. Councilmember Hewitt I would agree with that as well. Councilmember Thurman I think we need the information ; so. Mayor Lockwood I guess to the point, I would think that most of it would already be on our server but if he is saying that five hours of work time ; he is either overcharging us or that is a lot of information that ... Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday , September 14 ,2015 at 5 :45pm Page 9 of9 City Attorney Jarrard And , let's be clear, just because it takes a long time to round it up doesn 't mean it won't be duplicative . It may very well be duplicative but if all our request is to get us everything that involves a CSO that is in your outfit that may be a lot of information that we have and it may be a few pieces of information that we don 't. Councilmember Thurman I think Joe could get it o ff of his server in less than five hours. City Attorney Jarrard Understood , but at any rate , I understand the direction of the council. Mayor Lockwood Okay , I don't know that we would make an y formal but I think that it sounds like council would like to pursue that. City Attorney Jarrard Got it. Thank you , Mr. Mayor. Mayor Lockwood Thank you. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve the decision to postpone a decision on a Conservation Subdivision Ordinance to Coincide with Potential Modifications to Other Zoning Designations . Councilmember Kunz seconded the motion . The motion passed unanimously (7-0). ADJOURNMENT (Agenda Item No. 15-248) Motion and Vote: Councilmember Kunz moved to adjourn the Special Called Meeting at 6:27 p.m. Councilmember Longoria seconded the motion . The motion passed unanimously (7-0). Date Approved: October 5, 2015 Joe Lockwood~