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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - CC - 01/20/2021Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 51 CALL TO ORDER Mayor Lockwood: I'd like to call the regular meeting of Milton City Council for Wednesday, January 20th, 2021, to order. The city strongly recommends that you review tonight's agenda carefully. And if you wish to speak on any item on the agenda, then please bring your comment cards to the clerk as soon as possible. While Milton rules allow a speaker to turn in their comment card up until the clerk calls the agenda item, once the agenda item is called, no more comment cards can be accepted. So, if our city clerk will please call role and make general announcements. City Clerk: Good evening, Mayor and Council, I'll be happy to call roll for the January 20th, 2021, regular meeting. I would like to remind those in attendance to please silence all cellphones at this time. Those attending the meeting who would like to make a public comment — you are required to complete a public comment card prior to speaking on the item. Your comment card must be presented to the city clerk prior to the agenda item being called. All speakers — please identify yourself by name, address, and organization before beginning your comment. If you are representing an organization, an affidavit is required stating you have the authority to speak on behalf of that organization. Please review tonight's agenda. And if you would like to make a comment, please bring your comment card to me now. Demonstration of any sort within the chamber is prohibited. Please refrain from any applause, cheering, booing, outburst, or dialog with any person speaking. Anyone in violation will be asked to leave. As I call roll this evening, please confirm your attendance. Councilmember Rick Mohrig? Mx. Mohrig: Here. City Clerk: Councilmember Paul Moore? Mr. Moore: Here. City Clerk: Councilmember Peyton Jamison? Mr. Jamison: Here. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 51 City Clerk: Mayor Lockwood? Mayor Lockwood: Here. City Clerk: Carol Cookerly, Councilmember, Ms. Cookerly: Here. City Clerk: and Councilmember Laura Bentley Ms. Bentley: Here. City Clerk: and Councilmember Joe Longoria. Mr. Longoria: Here. City Clerk: We're a little out of order. Sorry. Mayor Lockwood: He's sitting in the kid's section. Councilmembers Present: Mayor Joe Lockwood, Councilmember Rick Mohrig, Councilmember Paul Moore, Councilmember Peyton Jamison, Councilmember Carol Cookerly, Councilmember Laura Bentley, and Councilmember Joe Longoria. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE (Led by Mayor Lockwood) City Clerk: Would you all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? Several: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mayor Lockwood: Good evening. I want to welcome everybody here tonight. We appreciate you being here, and I would ask the clerk to please call the next item. City Clerk: Our next item is approval of meeting agenda. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 51 ELECTION OF THE MAYOR PRO TEM City Clerk: Mayor, my apologies. Let's back up. Mayor, let's do the election of the mayor pro tem, please. Mayor Lockwood: Per our charter, we yearly elect or appoint a mayor pro tem. The council either appoints or reappoints someone. So, I'll open it for nominations on custom. Ms. Cookerly: Go ahead. Mr. Moore: Mayor, it's my honor and privilege to nominate Peyton Jamison for the position of mayor pro tem. Ms. Cookerly: Second. Mayor Lockwood: And you're good with that, Councilman? That's worked fine in the past. But I'll open it up for discussion. I have a motion and a second for Councilmember Jamison. Is there any other discussion? Mr. Moore: [Inaudible] [00:03:57] opportunities for Peyton to have demonstrated his expertise and professionalism. He has represented this city, the mayor, and the community well every time he's been called upon to perform that role in the past. Mayor Lockwood: Joe? Mr. Longoria: So, are we voting on the nomination of Peyton? Or are we accepting other nominations as well? Mayor Lockwood: Well, I opened up for nominations. So, we have a motion and a second for Peyton. But, again, I think legally we can — Ken, help me out on that. That's why I asked in discussion if there's any — Mr. Jarrard: Right. Mr. Mayor, different jurisdictions do it different ways. A nomination process for this sort of an appointment can be a little bit procedurally challenging. My recommendation would be — there's been a motion a second — that that motion and second should have a vote taken upon it. If it's unsuccessful, then an additional nomination can then occur. That will tell the tale is that vote on that nomination. That's what I would recommend. Mayor Lockwood: And if we could have some discussion too — Mr. Jarrard: Absolutely. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 51 Mayor Lockwood: — before we vote. If someone has someone else they'd like to nominate, you could bring that up for discussion before — Mr. Jarrard: Then you could have the second withdrawn. Mayor Lockwood: — before we vote on that. Mr. Longoria: And I don't have a problem with Peyton because he did do a great job this year. I just know we rotate that usually on a pretty regular basis. So, I was just wondering if there was a reason we weren't gonna do that again this year? Mayor Lockwood: I believe — and Ken or Steve can help me in the charter — we appoint yearly. Originally, it was four years with the mayor's term. Then it was changed in the charter to reappoint each year, but I don't believe it says we had to rotate. And we did use that opportunity. Mr. Longoria: No, no, no. Attorney Jarrard: That's cultural too. Mr. Longoria: I was talking more about what our best practice has been. And that's usually been our practice. So, I didn't know if there was a particular reason that one of the other council members hasn't distinguished themselves enough to be nominated for this position. Mayor Lockwood: I'm certainly open to that. Selfishly, for me, Councilmember Jamison's been good because he's across the street and been has available for any of the times I need him. But, certainly, if there was anybody else that was interested in it or whatever, it's not that big a deal to me. Mr. Longoria: Well, that's okay. If we haven't talked about up until now, let's just go with the plans are. Mayor Lockwood: I would have thought that we would have if there was somebody else. So, we have a motion and a second. Ms. Cookerly: A second — yeah, we do. Mayor Lockwood: All right. A motion by Councilmember Moore, I think — a second by Councilmember Cookerly. Any more discussion? Hearing none. All in favor please say "aye." Any opposed? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 51 Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you. Peyton, do we do the swearing in next? Motion and Vote: Councilmember Moore nominated Councilmember Jamison as Mayor Pro Tem. Councilmember Cookerly seconded the nomination. Councilmember Jamison was elected (7-0). City Clerk: Yes, Mayor. Mayor Lockwood: I'll swear at him. City Clerk: So, you can do it right here on that one, please. Yup. [No dictation] [00:07:26 — 00:08:07]. Got it. Yup. Gotcha, Mayor. Thank you very much. Mayor Lockwood: I'll ask the clerk to please sound the next item. APPROVAL OF MEETING AGENDA City Clerk: Our next item is approval of meeting agenda — agenda item No. 21-006. Mayor Lockwood: I would like to add an executive session to discuss land acquisition, potential litigation, and personnel. Anything else on the agenda from staff or council? I'll open it up for a motion. Mr. Longoria: Mayor, I move we approve the meeting agenda as submitted with the addition of an executive session on land acquisition, potential Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 51 litigation, and personnel. Mr. Mohrig: Second. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion from Councilmember Longoria with a second from Councilmember Mohrig in approval of the agenda as read. All in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: Any opposed? That's unanimous. Tammy, do we have any public comment? Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve Agenda Item 21-006. Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). City Clerk: No, sir. I do not. Do we have any online, Stacy? No, we do not. CONSENT AGENDA Mayor Lockwood: Then let's move on to the consent agenda. If, Tammy, you would please sound those items. City Clerk: Our first item is approval of the December 21St, 2020, City Council meeting minutes — agenda item No. 21-007. Our next item is approval of the January 4th, 2021, City Council meeting minutes — agenda item No. 21-008. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 51 Our third item is approval of the financial statements and investment report for the period ending November 2020 — agenda item No. 21-009. Our fourth item is approval of the change order #1 to the professional services agreement between the City of Milton and Brumbelow-Reese Associates, Inc., for the Providence Park Trails — agenda item No. 21-010. Our fifth and final consent item is approval of change order #1 to the professional services agreement between the City of Milton and Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker, LLC, for strategic planning services to extend the deadline to March 31St, 2021 — agenda item 21-001 — I'm sorry — 011. I said that wrong. Mayor Lockwood: Do I have a motion on the consent agenda? Mr. Mohrig: Mr. Mayor, I'll make motion that we approval the consent agenda as read. Mr. Moore: Second. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion from Councilmember Mohrig with a second from Councilmember Moore in favor of the consent agenda. All in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: Any opposed? That's unanimous. Let's move on to reports and presentations. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve the Consent Agenda. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 51 REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS City Clerk: That first item is introduction and swearing-in of new Fire Chief Gabriel Benmoussa. Mayor Joe Lockwood. Mayor Lockwood: We want to wish a warm welcome to our new fire chief, Gabe Benmoussa, I believe — how you pronounce it. I want to welcome you here to Milton. And I know in discussions you've already figured out it's a great place. Just counting on you to help keep it that way and make it better. So, I will come down and — City Clerk: Would you like to read it? Mayor Lockwood: I can. Sure. Raise your right hand, and repeat after me. I, Gabriel Benmoussa — Chief Benmoussa: 1, Gabriel Benmoussa — Mayor Lockwood: — as the Fire Chief of the City of Milton — Chief Benmoussa: — as the Fire Chief of the City of Milton — Mayor Lockwood: — swear that I support the Constitution of the United States — Chief Benmoussa: — swear that I support the Constitution of the United States — Mayor Lockwood: — and the Constitution of the State of Georgia — Chief Benmoussa: — and the Constitution of the State of Georgia — Mayor Lockwood: — and I will faithfully — Chief Benmoussa: — and I will faithfully — Mayor Lockwood: — honestly and impartially — Chief Benmoussa: — honestly and impartially — Mayor Lockwood: — discharge the duties of Fire Chief — Chief Benmoussa: — discharge the duties of Fire Chief — Mayor Lockwood: — of the City of Milton. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 51 Chief Benmoussa: — of the City of Milton. Mayor Lockwood: And I pledge to carry out to carry out the duties — Chief Benmoussa: And I pledge to carry out to carry out the duties — Mayor Lockwood: — of Fire Chief to the best of my ability. Chief Benmoussa: — of Fire Chief to the best of my ability. Mayor Lockwood: — and will honor and respect the mission — Chief Benmoussa: — and I will honor and respect the mission — Mayor Lockwood: — goals — Chief Benmoussa: — goals — Mayor Lockwood: — purpose and policies — Chief Benmoussa: — purpose and policies — Mayor Lockwood: — of the City of Milton. Chief Benmoussa: — of the City of Milton. Mayor Lockwood: And I recognize the badge — Chief Benmoussa: And I recognize the badge — Mayor Lockwood: — of my office as a symbol of public faith. Chief Benmoussa: — of my office as a symbol of public faith. Mayor Lockwood: — and trust. Chief Benmoussa: — and trust. Mayor Lockwood: Chief Benmoussa: Mayor Lockwood: And I accept so long as I am true — And I accept so long as I am true — — to the ethics of the fire service — Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 51 Chief Benmoussa: — to the ethics of the fire service — Mayor Lockwood: — and make the promises so solemnly — Chief Benmoussa: — and make the promises so solemnly — Mayor Lockwood: — freely — Chief Benmoussa: — freely — Mayor Lockwood: — and upon my order — Chief Benmoussa: — and upon my order — Mayor Lockwood: — my honor. Chief Benmoussa: — my honor. Mayor Lockwood: With that, I wanna congratulate you. Chief Benmoussa: Thank you, sir. Mayor Lockwood: And I'll shake your hand later. Chief Benmoussa: Sure. Thank you very much. Mayor Lockwood: Maybe we'll have the captain go up here and some of the other guys in uniform up here. Chief Benmoussa: Sure. Mayor Lockwood: And we'll get a picture. Chief Benmoussa: Sounds good. Thank you. City Clerk: Mayor, while they're coming down, can you do the signing first? Male Speaker: And two of them. Ms. Bentley: Do you miss your spot? Mr. Mohrig: I wonder [inaudible] [00:14:34]. Mayor Lockwood: Six foot. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 11 of 51 Ms. Cookerly: Hey, I'm half vaccinated. Mayor Lockwood: You got one? I was telling Gabe earlier — it's always easier to come in as the fire chief versus the police chief because wants to see the fireman. Nobody wants to see a policeman in their driveway. Thanks, guys. If the city clerk would please sound the next item. City Clerk: The next item is introduction of the Milton Land Conservancy nonprofit and the potential partnership with the City of Milton. This is Mr. Robert Buscemi. Mr. Buscemi: Good evening, Mayor and Council. I just briefly want to introduce a new conservancy in Milton known as the Milton Conservancy. They're here tonight. They're gonna be giving us a short presentation just to introduce themselves. Female Speaker: Good evening, Mayor and Council. There's so many wonderful things about beautiful community of Milton. Sorry, Bob. If you could step back, I'm gonna take my mask off. Mr. Buscemi: Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Female Speaker: I feel like I can't be heard. I'm sorry. This beautiful community of Milton — and I'm quoting Chief Austin's opening prayer there. The thing that I am most proud of is our conservation of more than 400 acres of greenspace. And we're not done yet. The process of protecting this greenspace required the will of the people and passing the green space bond and the continued commitment of the council to see that the intent of the bond is carried out. Tonight, I will be introducing Elizabeth Drevet, president of a new nonprofit organization, the Milton Land Conservancy. Some of you may already know Elizabeth from her tenure on the Milton Equestrian Committee. I don't wanna give away too much of her presentation. But I do wanna point out how this group of citizens passionate about trails and land conservation said, "Here's something that needs to be done, and they are doing it." That's amazing. So, it is an honor to introduce Elizabeth Drevet and the Milton Land Conservancy. Mayor Lockwood: Welcome tonight, Elizabeth. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 51 Ms. Drevet: Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I really appreciate the opportunity not only to speak to council, the city, but really the entire Milton community. Thank you for that. So, my name is Elizabeth Drevet. And I moved to Milton with my family about nine years ago. And we moved here for the same reasons that most people moved here, the farms, the open space, horses, and just the fact that it was different than the surrounding areas because it was special and it was unique. Like Teresa said, while being a resident, I was honored to serve on the Milton Equestrian Committee. I met amazing people while serving. And I learned how deep the equestrian history ran in Milton. It's part of our emblem. But I think what people don't realize is how horses, conservancy, trails, nature — how they all run parallel. So, while serving, it became apparent to me that Milton was really lacking an organization basically for its citizens to get into to protect and preserve why they moved here — to protect and preserve their land and just Milton in general and the character. So, about a year ago, myself and Larry Covington and Josephine Dufresne founded the Milton Land Conservancy. And we were granted 501(c)(3) status. I feel like I'm— Mr. Longoria: You're good. Ms. Drevet: We're going to 501 (c)(3) status in September. So, that was really exciting. So, basically, tonight, my goal is just to increase awareness for the conservancy, let people know that it does exist and to give people a way to get involved in their community to preserve Milton and to preserve its rural character. So, here we go. The Milton Land Conservancy — what is our mission? Our mission is really to partner with public and private landowners, to preserve land, protect and improve wildlife habitat, and to offer a place for passive and equestrian purposes. So, this is really about conservation and conserving land in Milton. Once gone, this land is gone forever. So, we need to be able to partner not only with public landowners, such as the city, but also private landowners as well. The second part of our mission is to work with the city to preserve and restore and enhance city -owned properties and greenspaces. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 51 So, through the greenspace bond, you guys have purchased some wonderful land for passive use. We want to help. We want to help with that, help maintain that, help give people access to that. It costs a lot of money to maintain those passive use parks. And through our volunteer organization, we really feel that we can benefit the city and those greenspace bonds and give people access to nature. And the third part is really just about education. It's to encourage and provide an understanding of the rural landscape's play to enhance quality of life. And I think that this is probably the most important one but probably the most difficult part of our mission. So, the rural landscape and quality of life, it's not only about air quality and water quality and just our general wellness and mental health. It's also about value, value of land, monetary value in conservation and in our land. If you go to USA Today, the top four out of five best towns to live in are actually in Colorado. And why is that? That's because there's access to nature. There's access to land. There's monetary value. People value that. So, I think just providing an understanding, increasing the understanding to our citizens would benefit the entire community. So, what do we do? So, obviously, conservation. We wanna protect Milton's natural areas and create places that benefit our land, people, plants, and wildlife. Like I said, once gone, these places are gone forever. And I was talking to someone today, and I said a quote that I'm gonna say right now. And it's — the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second-best time is today. So, yes, we've lost some farms. And, yes, we've lost some things, but that doesn't mean that we still can't protect and preserve what's here. The second part is really trails. And this is really about increasing people's access to nature, allowing them to get out and experience just nature and wildlife. In 2020, we became much more aware of how important it was to be able to get out and to get outside and how cathartic that was. So, trails are a big part of that. So, we would like to not only work with the City of Milton on that in their green spaces and helping them with that, but also increase that network so that more people gain access to nature. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 51 So, with that, we need to collaborate with you, with the city, in order to be successful and productive. And unlike the education piece, I feel like this is probably the easier part of it. To collaborate with you is just a dialog and just keeping that open and what the city needs, what roadblocks you have had, and just what you're hearing from the public and from us as well. We can talk to you about what we hear and how we can help. So, education, again, influencing people's behaviors and attitudes is really what I would love to do here. I would love to be able to create a culture in Milton where conservation, natural areas, open space is valued. And we do that by just getting people involved and giving them a way to get involved. And it's hard for people to get involved with the city. It's much easier for them to be able to get involved in a community -run organization. So, I hope to be able to provide that. I hope to provide that for the community to get just people involved and just influence them, I guess, so that we can preserve what's here and maybe even leave a legacy. That would be wonderful. So, how do you find out more? How do you join in? So, it's really easy. So, for events, yes, you can find out more during our events that we have planned. But, honestly, the events are most likely scheduled for 2022. And that is just because of COVID and just what is happening in the world right now. Also, we have a website that I'm gonna show on the next page. On that website, you will see trail updates as we get more involved with the city, and we can add access and more volunteers out there. So, we can monitor trail conditions. We also provide etiquette guidelines. As more and more people use the trails, it's so important for everyone's benefit just to have some guidelines on certain etiquette. There's been some instances where people use trails, and they get into run-ins. And it's not that people are malicious or mean. It's just they don't know. So, we wanna provide just guidelines for people to go through so the experience of trails and nature is great for everybody. You can also donate. We are a 100 percent volunteer -based organization. We do not take a salary. This is strictly our time. And we're doing it just because we love Milton, and we really want to preserve what's here. So, you can donate through our website. There's a big donate button. 1 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 15 of 51 You can also become a member. So, as we have agreements with private land, if you remember, you will have access to that. And then also being a member just gives you a network to be in and to be involved in with likeminded people so that you can get involved in your community. There are a thousand different volunteer opportunities in this organization. So, if anyone in the community would love to help out, we will not turn you away. So, the more the merrier. Just please help out. We want this to be community run. And the more people that are involved the better it will be. This is our website, our Facebook address, and our email. The Facebook address just as a caveat, there's not much on there. But the website is up and running with everything on it. So, you can contact us. You can email us. Please do. Please come join because like this says, it does take a village to make this work. And it's gonna be an uphill battle. And we're ready for it, and we wanna just make Milton even better than what it is. So, thank you. Thank you so much. And I hope everyone gets involved. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Do you have any questions? Carol? Ms. Bentley: No. Just a couple comments. So, thank you. So, your spinoff from the Milton [audio cuts out] 100:28:4211 think with an empty seat. But I'm so happy to see you. I think I run into Liz almost every time I walk on Brittle Road, including today. But the last time before that, I had two tiny little dachshunds, and she was on her very big mare who was quite fresh. So, we were sharing the trail very nicely. And I know that this is your passion. So, I have no doubt of how successful this will be. And you've got great support with Larry and Josephine. I know that we've been working with conservation land, and I would love to connect you with Katie. Also, this reminds me of our Milton Trail Committee that we talked about after doing the latest update on [audio cuts out]. That would also be [audio cuts out] efforts. And thank you again. Mayor Lockwood: Carol? 1 1 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 16 of 51 Ms. Cookerly: Well, Elizabeth, you know how happy I am. So, it all comes down to the how. So, when you talk about preservation, [audio cuts out] dollar signs, and targeting any properties and [audio cuts out]. Ms. Drevet: Yeah. Thank you, actually, for commenting on that. Yes. So, the first fundraiser, actually, that we have voted on is actually for the benefit of Birmingham if the city will allow us. So, that is just to increase trails and trail maintenance and preserve that. But in terms of other preservation. There's not a particular property that we are going after. But, yes, we would eventually like, once the money, hopefully, comes in, we would like to do that as well — is to purchase land, greenspace buffers, trails, etcetera. Did I answer your question? Ms. Cookerly: You did. You did. Mayor Lockwood: Well, also, I just wanna not only thank you and, obviously, everybody that's involved but last week or the week before we started our strategic planning for the next five years for the City of Milton. And that was a big topic that everyone was interested in is preservation and land and our equestrian community. So, this is very important to not only our citizens but also our elected body and our staff. So, thank you very much. Anybody else? Rick? Mr. Mohrig: I'm excited to actually see you here. I think it was about a year ago we sat down, and you and Larry presented kinda the concept. You presented telling where it works in other places and how they did it. So, I just commend you, and we're very happy that you actually are taking this on because I think it would be a good complement for the City of Milton. Ms. Drevet: Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you so much. Ms. Drevet: Thanks. Mayor Lockwood: All right. Tammy, if you'll please send the final report and presentation out. City Clerk: That final item is presentation on Morris Road widening concept development. Mr. Robert Drewry and Ms. Sara Leaders. [No dictation] [00:32:09 — 00:32:421. i Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 17 of 51 Ms. Leaders: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight we'll be presenting some details on the concept development for the Morris Road widening project. Morris Road widening was first identified in the 2009 comprehensive transportation plan. It was listed as a potential project if the McGinnis Ferry Road was widened in the future. In 2012, as part of the Highway 9/GA 400 area Livable Centers Initiative Study, the Morris Road widening was listed as a potential transportation improvement project. In 2014, the McGinnis Ferry Road interchange and widening project concept design received approval by GDOT to move forward in the design process. Part of the 2016 comprehensive transportation plan, we looked at specifically the impacts of the McGinnis Ferry interchange on the city's roadway network system. We'll look at impacts. It evaluated the Interchange Justification Report, which looked at anticipated volumes and distributions. The study then recommended the widening of Morris Road to relieve trips that were planned for Bethany Bend and provided the most improved efficient access to Highway 9. The project was funded as part of the 2016 TSPLOST as a tier 1 capacity improvement project. Prior to 2018, there were multiway stop intersections at both ends of the proposed Morris Road widening project. In 2018, a traffic signal was installed at Morris Road and Bethany Bend by the development on the Forsythe County corner of that intersection. To address the impacts from that signal and how vehicles approached the next intersection of Morris and Webb, a roundabout was constructed in 2018. That project was funded with TSPLOST as well. And the roundabout used a majority of the existing footprint of that intersection with the ability to expand it in the future with the widening project. In 2019, we developed a concept -scoping document for the Morris Road widening. We looked at traffic counts and estimated cost, coordinated some with the McGinnis Ferry interchange project, and looked to the feasibility of combining the Morris Road widening with the Big Creek Greenway Trail Connection project. Ultimately, we decided to keep those two projects separate due to the type of funding. The greenway trail project has federal funding on it, but we elected to use the same consultant for both projects. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 18 of 51 So, in 2019, did a request for proposals for design services for both projects and awarded that contract to Pond & Company. In September of 2020, we issued a task order to Pond for preliminary engineering and full concept development. In October, we held stakeholder outreach with the property owners that would be likely impacted by the right-of-way and easement acquisition for the widening. And then from December 14th to January 4th held a virtual public forum, which we'll give you some more information about that later on in the presentation. And then the progress on the McGinnis Ferry interchange in December of 2020, GDOT received construction bids back on that project. So, the next step is to award a contract for construction for that project. I just wanted to highlight how the Morris Road widening section fits into the greenway connection trail map. This is one that I've shown before with the talk on the greenway connection project. So, the black lines, the Cogburn Trail and the Webb Trail, those are both being designed as part of the Big Creek Greenway Trail Connection project. The purple line is the segment that would be installed with the Morris Road widening. So, the trail would be on the north and west side of the road. It would then tie into the trail that's gonna be constructed with the McGinnis Ferry interchange and McGinnis Ferry widening improvements, which is the red line. And that ties into an existing multiuse trail that gets to the Forsyth greenway. And then the orange line is, from what we understand, is Alpharetta's connection to Forsythe. And then that would give us connection to the Alpharetta segment as well. And now I'll turn it over to Daniel Sabia with Pond & Company. And he'll introduce his team and go over the additional details on the concept development. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you, Sara. Mr. Sabia: Hello. Thank you, Sara. Appreciate you starting us off. And I wanna thank Council and Mayor for having us here tonight to present the Morris Road widening concept. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you, Daniel. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 19 of 51 Mr. Sabia: I'll introduce myself and my colleagues real quick. My name's Daniel Sabia with Pond & Company. I'm the project manager and roadway design lead for the project. We have Lauren Blaszyk here. She's our public outreach expert. And Patrick McArdle's on our traffic analysis team. Mayor Lockwood: Welcome. Welcome here tonight, everybody. Mr. Sabia: So, tonight in the presentation we'll talk about the need and purpose from a traffic standpoint. We'll talk about the traffic analysis that we completed for the concept level of the project. We'll go over the concept layout that came out of that analysis. And then we'll talk about our public outreach and then a conclusion and recap of everything. So, as Sara mentioned, this was part of the 2016 TSPLOST program. So, clearly, you recognize that there was future growth in the area, and this was a project that was needed. We can all see growth in Milton. There's growth in North Atlanta. So, that's gonna bring more traffic to the area. And now with the McGinnis Ferry project, widening, and the new interchange at 400, Morris is gonna serve that interchange. So, that's gonna bring traffic along this Morris corridor. We'll go into the ADT traffic volumes in the next few slides, but you'll see that we're basically already at the threshold to implement a four -lane roadway here. The increased traffic obviously brings in concerns for safety. But we've looked at some alternative designs along this corridor to actually help reduce safety in the future. And then as Sara also mentioned, you're gonna get the connection with the greenway. So, the City of Milton greenway, the new multiuse path on this corridor, and that will lead into Forsythe County and down into the City of Alpharetta as well. And then you won't have that pinch point or bottleneck between Morris Road to the south that has four lanes and the new McGinnis Ferry that will have four lanes as well. So, the first thing that we do when we start our traffic analysis, we do some traffic counts. So, we went out there and looked at multiple count stations. We did traffic counts for turning movements at Webb, Lathene, and Deer Trail, which were the major intersections on the project. We did not count at Bethany Bend because we already had that data from the McGinnis Ferry Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 20 of 51 project. And we knew that they were going to redesign that intersection and put a new signal in there. We also did count at a roadway segment between Webb Road and Lathene to get a general idea of the volume of traffic on the corridor. Of course, that was in 2020 during the COVID crisis. So, we did have some previous year 2019 traffic counts. So, we looked at those, and we were able to adjust our 2020 volumes up to what they should've been. So, that's what you see on the bottom corner here, the 2020 volumes of 17,000 ADT. From there, we wanted to project out to an opening year of 2024 and a design year of 2044. So, the short-term growth rate that we found, we used GDOT traffic count stations that were in the area and looked at the growth there and applied that from 2020 to 2024 to get our 2024 open -year ADT at 19,700. And then to get farther into the future, to our 2044 design -year ADT, we looked at a long-term growth factor. We used the ARC travel demand model. They typically look into the future for about 40 or 50 years. They know all the potential projects that could happen in the area. So, you'll capture things like the Georgia 400 interchange that's on McGinnis Ferry. And it's gonna take all those into account. So, we went from the open year to the design year to give us a design -year ADT of 24,500. And then one note on the bottom of your screen on the left side here. This is from the GDOT design policy manual. And you'll note that in the existing year, we're very close to that 18,000 ADT. And by the open year, we're above that. So, what this tells us basically — we need to go from a two-lane roadway to a four -lane road with a raised median. So, whenever we talk about level of service when we do traffic analysis, this is kinda giving you an idea of what I mean, level of service or LOS. The better the level of service, you'll get a better grade, like if you were in grade school — so, an A. The worst level of service, you can get an E or an F. And those are called failing. So, typically, on a roadway project, when we look at a design year 20 years out in the future, we want a level of service D or better. Anything below, would be called failing. And we wouldn't wanna put money into a project that does that. On that small table on the left side there is just kinda giving you an Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 21 of 51 idea that level of service can vary based on the delay. So, traffic lights are looked at a little bit differently than intersections that don't have signals. So, after we were able to calculate our ADT and our proposed ADT, we looked at the existing conditions. So, the 2020 -year existing conditions — two-lane road with the side roads and the exiting control on the side roads that they have. As you can see in the top table here, the level of service varies and is starting to fail in some locations. At Morris and Deer Trail, you have an E. So, that's a failing level of service. So, we can see that they're starting to become a problem along this corridor right now. Also, we looked at the crash data. So, we looked at the crash data for the last five years that was available. That was 2015 to 2019. There were a total of 73 crashes over those five years. But what's important to look at here is 80 percent of those crashes were angle or rear -end crashes. So, that really signifies that the corridor is more likely a lower level of service. It's probably bumper -to -bumper, especially at the peak times. There's probably some intersection issues, maybe some minimal gaps where people are trying to shoot out and get through traffic, but they're not doing it safely. Or maybe there's some narrow turn lanes or short turn lanes that they can't handle the storage and the turning movements there. So, next we look at the future conditions. So, we look at how's the roadway gonna perform on the future ADT? So, we analyze multiple conditions. The first thing we do is look at a no -build scenario. That would basically mean we leave the two lanes in there. We leave the road exactly how it is, and how will it perform in 2024 and 2044? You can probably guess. It would perform very horribly. So, we knew. Well, we can't leave it like this. We looked at some alternative intersection designs. We looked at a full intersection median opening. We looked at the roundabouts. We looked at signal designs. And then we also looked at RCUTs. On this screen here, you can see the table and the level of service that is provided for the RCUTs at the multiple intersections that we have identified that they would work for. So, you can see in the design year, you have As and Bs as a level of service. So, that's really an excellent level of service along the corridor for your design year 20 years out in the future. So, what Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 22 of 51 that's going to tell you is that you're gonna have short delays and drivers aren't sitting on the side road waiting to turn out for long periods of time. You're probably asking me — what is an RCUT? So, RCUT is a reduced conflict U-turn intersection. The point of this here is to make sure that Morris Road is efficient. So, that people can travel along Morris Road efficiently and get to where they're going. But we do that by controlling the side roads and providing an intersection that worked well with the roadway itself. So, as you saw on the previous slide, we had a high level of service. What it means for a driver on the road is — if you're on the side road, you're able to make a right turn out of the side road, but we're restricting a left turn out of the side road. If you're on Morris Road, you can make a right turn onto the side road, and you can make a left turn onto the side road. So, basically, we're restricting that left turn off the side road. And that means somebody will have to make a right turn and then a U- turn later to go in the opposite direction. And that U-turn is also part of the RCUT design. Again, we got a very high level of service, a very efficient corridor. And now we're looking at the safety factor here since we have had a history of crashes. The reason that this is a safer intersection is because we're reducing conflict points at the intersection by about 50 percent. So, you can see here that you can decrease fatal crashes by 70 percent, and you decrease injury crashes by 42 percent. So, this next slide is some more information on how did we design the project and how did we determine that these were good locations for intersections and why is there is a median here. So, right now, this is a cutout from the GDOT policy manual. So, what GDOT wants you to do in an urban setting is place a median a minimum of 1000 feet from each other when there's a raised median along the corridor. So, if you think about Deerfield Parkway, you've got the median, and you've got spaced -out median openings. So, it's keeping the main line efficient but also safe. When we look at making this a four -lane roadway like we talked about and adding that raised median, if we were to simply say we would have a full median opening here — well, right now, you have Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 23 of 51 a full median opening at Webb Road with a roundabout, and then you have a median opening at Bethany Bend. So, it's a very short corridor. It's about 0.6 miles. So, you would expect that you would put probably one major median opening in there, but then basically you would cut off all the other side roads along the corridor if you were to follow this design criteria. But because we designed this with an alternative -type intersection, you can place the median openings closer to each other because they are safer. They reduce some of those turning movements. So, as you see at the bottom there, we were able to place them closer to each other. So, that provided access to everybody on the side roads, and it also still gave us a really good level of service in the design year. One more thing to point out that's not on this side but four -lane roadways with a median will typically provide you a level of service that's acceptable for up to 36,000 ADT. So, making these improvements now, this will perform very sufficiently into the far future. So, once all that traffic analysis was completed, we went and finalized our concept layout. So, I'll kinda hit the highlights here for you. This is Morris Road that we're widening from two lanes to four lanes from Webb Road to Bethany Bend. Webb Road has currently a single -lane roundabout, and we'll be improving it to have two lanes in the north -south direction to match Morris Road to the south and Morris to the north. And then at Bethany Bend, we'll be providing additional south through -lane so that they match up on the ends. There'll be a raised median throughout, and then we'll have those RCUT intersections at Lathene, at Deer Trail, and Flamingo to provide access to all of the side roads on the corridor. Again, we're gonna provide that 10 -foot multiuse trail on the north side. So, that will be your connection to the greenway and to the Alpharetta and Forsythe County greenways as well. And we'll have a 5 -foot sidewalk on the south side. We've designed this to work around those major power poles that run up and down on the corridor because, obviously, those are very large, very expensive. We don't wanna have to move those. So, we've already looked at how do we tweak the design, and how do we move and maneuver around with our sidewalks and our trail. And we also do not anticipate any impacts from this project to the Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 24 of 51 Camp Creek crossing over there at the end of Morris and Bethany Bend. So, when we first started the project, we knew we needed to have a public outreach program. So, what we did was a phased public outreach. The first thing we did was when we got in and we recognized that there were stakeholders along the road that had property that would likely be impacted by the project. So, we found out who they were. It was about 12 property owners, most of them HOAs. So, we sent them a formal letter stating — hey, here's the project. This is what it's probably gonna look like. You may see a surveyor in your yard. Don't be scared of that. And, also, if you would like, we could sit down. We can have a face-to-face meeting or we can have a virtual meeting and go over any of your concerns. So, we had one stakeholder meeting come out of that. I believe it was the Montessori School at the corner of Morris and Bethany Bend. And then once we finalized our concept layout, we wanted to provide for citizen input on that drawing. So, of course, due to COVID protocols, we weren't, unfortunately, able to do this in person. So, we tried to do the next best thing, and we had a virtual meeting that followed similar policies and procedures that GDOT is currently following. But we tried to also improve upon that by creating an interactive site where citizens could go and see the project, and we've had success with this on some other projects. So, we sent out 2662 postcards to residents around the area that were residents in Fulton County as well as Forsythe County. We tried to get out there and make people aware by social networking, city newsletters, newspaper announcements, newspaper articles. And then we held the public meeting live virtually from December 14th to January 4, so a total of three weeks. We wanted to make sure that because this was during the holiday season that people had plenty of time to get on there and review it and make any comments that they might have. The website that we used to do this was called Social Pinpoint. And, basically, if you logged on, you were able to see the proposed alignment laid over kinda like a Google Earth aerial imagery. And you can zoom in and out. You can kinda find your house. You can look at where you go to church or how do I get to work and then see the impacts of the project to you personally. So, we got 98 comments online, and we had 387 up or down votes. So, I think it Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 25 of 51 was a really good, successful public outreach campaign. Sorry. Once that was completed, we downloaded all those comments, and we tried to summarize them. We tried to look at them and put them into some major themes basically. So, that's what you see here. One of the major concerns was the proposed intersection control. So, questions about — what is an RCUT, and why did you design that, and why can't I make a left turn out of my side road? Another was bicycle and pedestrian accommodations. So, how will we utilize the greenway, and how will we safely utilize the road to get to the other greenways in the area. There was concern for the need for the widening or the justification for the widening. There was noise concerns due to the widening, potential safety concerns from more traffic, and then some greenspace concerns. I think that's kinda like the buffer area. They're concerned about those impacts on the HOA property. And then there were some other concerns in a miscellaneous category. So, the utilities — how are you gonna work around the utilities? Do you expect stormwater to be increased? Have you looked at alternative intersection designs? Are you going to fix the issues on McGinnis Ferry? So, I think in this presentation we talked about some of these — the concern about the intersection control and the RCUTs. What we tried to do here was provide a very safe corridor, one that is efficient, and will keep traffic moving well into the future. So, you see that in the level of service that we have provided along the corridor. Plus, we have access for all of the side roads on the corridor and a high level of safety as well. The bicycle and pedestrian accommodations — we'll have that 10 - foot multiuse trail on the north side of the road. We're gonna have a five-foot sidewalk on the south side of the road. And, again, that trail will connect with the greater city greenway and then off onto Forsythe County and Alpharetta greenways as well. And then there was the concern for the need for the widening. I think we hit that pretty early on in the traffic analysis. We're already at that point where we see we're hitting that threshold from moving this corridor form a two-lane to a four -lane corridor in terms of volume of traffic. And we know that McGinnis Ferry is gonna bring in more traffic. So, we need to make this investment now to make sure we don't have any failing issues in the future. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 26 of 51 Continuing on through some of these themes, the noise, the safety, and greenspace. We're gonna maintain that 35 mile an hour speed limit. We can look at lighting along the corridor in the preliminary design phase. And maybe it's roadway lighting or pedestrian lighting. But we'll certainly wanna make sure that we light the roundabout appropriately. Landscaping — we can work with the property owners to try to replenish some of that vegetation that may be lost during the project and even look at landscaping those medians as we're in preliminary design. We talked about how we're gonna avoid those large power poles along the corridor. And then we're gonna reach out to all the other utilities early on and make sure we understand where they're at and reduce any conflicts that we may have with them or help them maybe to relocate whenever there's a widening kinda like this. In terms of stormwater, we have already looked at conceptual post - construction BMPs for our stormwater runoff reductions as well as water quality. So, we'll continue to improve upon that and look closer into it and nail that down in the preliminary design process. Questions about other types of intersections — we looked at alternative intersections. And roundabouts weren't warranted, and singles were warranted. And, really, the RCUT brought you that best level of service. So, with that continued coordination with McGinnis Ferry project, I think the citizens will be happy to hear that the trail will continue. And McGinnis Ferry will be upgraded to the same conditions that we'll be upgrading Morris Road. So, in conclusion, I think you'll see that the concept we designed addresses the concerns for the increase in traffic demand. It gives you a very high level of service into the design year, meets access requirements. We're providing access for all of the side roads on here. And we're gonna be able to ensure that traffic will move efficiently throughout the corridor and protect the safety of the motorist. And, importantly, we'll have that greenway connection through the city and beyond but also no bottlenecking when you have Morris that's four lanes to the south and McGinnis Ferry that will now be four lanes to the north. So, again, I wanna thank you for your time today. And I'll be here Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 27 of 51 to answer any questions afterwards. And I'm gonna hand it over to Sara to talk about the next steps. Ms. Leaders: Our next steps — we've conducted the field survey of the corridor. So, we have all that survey, topography data, existing conditions already collected. So, we're ready to proceed to move into the design task order, and that'll really begin laying out the construction limits, the grading, the stormwater, and what the shoulder looks like along that section. We're anticipating to have that in February, to have that before you for approval. And as we get ready to move to that, we want to consider if there's any further design considerations that we need to be looking with that task order. We'll be conducting property owner meetings, again, with the ones that we're needing to acquire right-of-way or easements from as we get plans developed. And we're anticipating, hopefully, to start those this summer. And the right-of-way acquisition and final design plans — we'll make any adjustments to the plans as we work through the right-of-way — anticipated to last about 12 months. So, we're hoping to bid for construction in fall of 2022. So, we'll be happy to answer any questions, take any comments, or hear if there's any additional design considerations to be considered. Mayor Lockwood: I have a question as far as public feedback and what not. Gosh, it's been a while. But, ongoing, I've talked to some concerned citizens up at the Webb and Deerfield crossing there, impact, and all with that. Where are we with citizen feedback and whatnot? Has that process been closed? Have we been through that? And I know, again, you just mentioned about the right-of-way you'll meet with the citizens too. But has that intersection been addressed to, I guess, the minimal amount of disruption as possible? Ms. Leaders: By grouping the comments, which the comment period is closed — we extended that another couple of weeks after the interactive site closed for any comments to be emailed — we'll take those general themes and have the responses to how we're addressing those concerns typed up and published on the project website. And then, yes, stormwater is definitely a part of the design package and will be looked at in more detail as we look at that intersection corner. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 28 of 51 Mayor Lockwood: Yeah. I've gotten some feedback on that. So, we'd love to have you look at that really hard. Anybody else? Rick? Mr. Mohrig: Yeah, I've got a few questions. I live over in this area, and we do see a lot of people walking both from the apartments, which are, I guess, as you look at this, on the south, and then the townhomes on the other side. What are we looking at? Because now we're gonna have four lanes plus a divided area. What about crosswalks to try to get from one side of the street to the other? Are you gonna have a crosswalk at the roundabout? Is the next crosswalk gonna be down at the traffic signal? And from a safety standpoint, are those gonna be signalized where you can push a button to actually get a chance to actually cross all four or five? Actually, it'll be five lanes with a turn lane. Mr. Sabia: So, we did look at that. At Bethany Bend, you will have the ability to cross, and they'll be ped crossings installed here. That's pretty standard now when they upgrade intersections. There's also a crossing at Webb Road at the roundabout. So, we'll continue to have that and light it appropriately if there's crossings at night. It is a very short corridor. We don't anticipate that there would be a lot of people crossing the road in the middle. There's not a lot of pedestrian generators there. But if you know that people are crossing from one side to get to another neighborhood that would be — Mr. Mohrig: I think probably more concern would be at the two intersections that you talked about because we upgraded the light. And now we're gonna add two more lanes. And then we've got the third lane with the turn signal to turn left. So, I think that would be important to actually have an ability to call for an ability to cross if you wanted to get across. And I don't know how you do that with a roundabout because I know roundabouts are meant to keep traffic moving. So, I don't know what considerations there. Just a question on the RCUTs, the design that you have, there's enough room for someone to actually do a U-turn when they pull into that lane and they wanna head south? Mr. Sabia: Yes, sir. So, there'll be multiple locations where they could make a U-turn. Being that it's a 35 mile an hour speed limit, there won't be a lot of distance that they need to accelerate and weave across the road to get into that next left turn lane. So, we provided Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 29 of 51 everybody on the road access to be able to do that. And there's a lot of interconnectivity there, especially on the south side with the apartments. Mr. Mohrig: Right. Mr. Sabia: So, if you knew that you wanted to go left, you'd probably wanna travel inside the apartment complex to the south and then come out and take a right and then find that U-turn to give you a little bit of extra space to get to that U-turn to make and go to the south direction. Mr. Mohrig: Thanks. And then the raised medians — when I look along this stretch, unlike the other part of Morris Road, it looks like most of these are just gonna be concrete? Is that correct because of the restrictions or concerns about the width? Mr. Sabia: Well, that's just an illustration for now. It's certainly something that we're gonna look at in preliminary design in terms of adding landscaping along the raised median. Mr. Mohrig: That is still an option. So, this is preliminary. So, as you get into the actual right-of-way acquisition and the true design, then you can look at what you could do as far as — similar to what we have when you go through Deerfield on Morris. You've actually got some landscaping in the middle versus just concrete, which concrete alone, I think, sometimes causes more of a hazard when you've got traffic moving like that. Ms. Leaders: I was just gonna add in — we'll bring some landscaping concepts back as part of a future review as we get into preliminary plans. So, we were anticipating looking at landscaping where we can in those medians. Mr. Mohrig: Last question — as far as the timing at the signal at Bethany Bend because I'll end up sitting there sometimes for long periods of time trying to turn left on McGinnis Ferry, who owns that traffic signal? And are we gonna make it into a smart signal where actually when I'm there at 9:00 at night and there's no traffic on Morris and McGinnis Ferry, and I'll sit there for two minutes and during the day too if there's a lack of traffic. Are we looking at doing something different with the signalization? And what input does Milton have in that process? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 30 of 51 Ms. Leaders: So, as you know, the signal was installed by the development that's in Forsyth County. And Forsyth County permitted the signal. I've reached out to them recently about the timing. We've had a couple other concerns. Right now, they're running the timing. With the interchange, there's gonna be multiple other signals added at the exit and entry ramps for the interchange. So, I don't know that they have in their plans for it to be interconnected. But that's definitely something we can find out and see if connecting all the signals along there are a part of their plan or if it can be added in. Mr. Mohrig: Because I know along Bethany Bend and Highway 9, we have varying times, and we have the smart signal. So, if you pull up at 1:00 in the morning, you don't sit there. It'll recognize that a car is waiting, and then it allows you to actually get through. And then it goes back to the state highway. • I would just ask that we look at that, especially if we don't control the signalization. See if there's a way even before we do this, we can actually improve kinda the traffic flow right now. And I don't know if that's something that you would've seen in your traffic studies or if that's something that we actually have data on — consideration. Mayor Lockwood: Anything else? Thank you very much. We don't have any items under first presentation, public hearing, zoning agenda, or unfinished business. So, Tammy, if you would please sound the first new business item. Naw Riminacc City Clerk: That item is consideration of a resolution to set qualifying fees for the 2021 municipal elections, agenda item [audio cuts out] [01:11:49] -012. City Attorney, Ken Jarrard. Mr. Jarrard: Mr. Mayor, members of the council, thank you very much. You have in your packet this evening and tee'd up for official action something that every county and city is required to do when there are local elections during the same calendar year, and that is to set qualifying fees. Qualifying fees are a product of state statute. There is a requirement that the qualifying fee be set at 3 percent of the total gross salary of the office paid in the prior calendar year. 1 1 11 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 31 of 51 The obvious reason for this is because individuals that may want to put their hat into a ring for an elected office have to pay this qualifying fee. And it has to be set. And we have to, in fact, set it and publish it fairly quickly. We're certainly on task to do that. But we do need to do it this evening. So, with respect to the City of Milton, you have, it looks like, four posts that are up this electoral season — the mayor, the district -1 post one, district -2 post one, and district -3 post one offices. The qualifying fee for the mayor would be $690, and all of the respective post fees would be $390. That is the resolution that is in your packet. This is a requirement of state law. It is my recommendation that Council take action this evening. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Mayor Lockwood: And I know this has been typical, but the only question I have is — you said that if it's set, that its 3 percent of the salary. Why do we have to reset it every year? Mr. Jarrard: Well, because they do change. Obviously, the compensation in Milton has been fairly static over the years, but a lot of jurisdictions have a lot of changes. So, it is just a safeguard built into the law to catch those changes. And it would include, for instance, supplements. And a lot of elected officials — you all don't receive one, but a lot of them do — have supplements they get over and above their state -mandated or charter -mandated compensation. It's just a safeguard. Mayor Lockwood: All right. Any questions? I'll open it up for a motion. Ms. Bentley: Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve agenda item No. 21- 012. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion from Councilmember Bentley, and I think Councilmember Longoria was the second. So, all in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms.Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 32 of 51 Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That's unanimous. Will our clerk please sound the next item? Motion and Vote: Councilmember Bentley moved to approve Agenda Item No. 21-012. Councilmember Longoria seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). City Clerk: The next item is consideration of a resolution appointing a chair to the Milton Citizens Advisory Committee for the City of Milton 2040 Comprehensive Plan — the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee known as CPAC. Mr. Robert Buscemi. Mr. Buscemi: Mayor and Council, I'm here tonight requesting that the council appoint a new chair to the Milton Citizens Advisory Committee, CPAC. Ron Gilbert, our current chair, notified the city that he was resigning from the post. Todd Chernik is our current vice chair for this committee. Mayor Lockwood: So, I guess out of the members on the committee, I'll leave it up to the council to make a nomination of that. Mr. Buscemi: It is. Mayor Lockwood: I wonder if there's any recommendations? Todd is the vice chair, you say? Mr. Buscemi: Todd is the vice chair. Mayor Lockwood: And then who else? Could you list the names of everybody on the committee? Male Speaker: And, Mayor, it does have to be anybody on the committee. It's not required that you appoint a chair from somebody that's already in the existing committee. However, staff does recommend to the council that you consider appointing Todd Chernik, the current vice chair. Mayor Lockwood: And I know Todd's done a lot and done a good job. So, I would be certainly fine with that. 1 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 33 of 51 Ms. Bentley: Mayor Lockwood: I just have a comment. Sure. Ms. Bentley: And, Paul, I'm sure you do too. Having served on the Steering Committee and the liaison, Todd's done a fantastic job. Unfortunately, Ron had a personal situation with his family that caused him to resign. Todd has been seamless. So, I would expect that the CPAC will backfill Todd with a nomination. Mayor Lockwood: Anybody else? Mr. Moore: I'd just like to second Laura's comments. Todd has served us well in a professional work capacity. He's a consultant. He's served the committee well in that capacity as well. He's a great leader. He's well spoken and well respected by the members. He's done a great job in leading the conversations within the Steering Committee as appropriate. And I just think it's a great natural transition to allow that appointment to take place. Mayor Lockwood: I've always heard good things about Todd's work. If there's no other questions or comments, we'll open up for a nomination then. Ms. Bentley: Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve agenda item No. 21- 013. Mr. Moore: Second. Mr. Jarrard: Hold it. There's no name on this. Mayor Lockwood: We need to name a name. Correct? Mr. Jarrard: Yeah. Mr. Moore: Todd Chernik. Mayor Lockwood: So, Laura, did you name a name in your motion? Ms. Bentley: No, I didn't. I'll be happy to. I retract my motion and restate my motion. On behalf of the CPAC, I'd like to recommend that Todd Chernik replace Ron Gilbert as the chair of the CPAC. Mr. Moore: Second. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 34 of 51 Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion for approval for Todd Chernik and a motion from Councilmember Bentley with a second from Councilmember Moore. Any discussion? All in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: Any opposed? That's unanimous. Thank you. And congratulations to Mr. Chernik. I don't know if that's congratulations or condolences. If the clerk will please sound the next new business item. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Bentley moved to approve Agenda Item No. 21-013. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). City Clerk: Next item is consideration of the issuance of an alcohol beverage license to Milton Wine & Crystal, LLC, located at 12660 Crabapple Road, Suite 110, in Milton — agenda item 21-014. Ms. Bernadette Harvill. Ms. Harvill: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you this evening, you have an application for Milton Wine & Crystal. This location is right here in downtown Milton. They currently have a package license with an ancillary wine tasting that includes Sunday sales. The new license request before you is for consumption on premise, including a craft wine market. This will be our first craft wine market in Milton. As you recall, Sarah LaDart did a revision to our ordinance, and this was one of the new opportunities she brought before you that you approved. And with that, they'll also be applying for a catering license, which will allow them to catering of packaged or consumption based on Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 35 of 51 all the requirements they have under each license. So, Sunday sales will be permitted under the package license but not the consumption under the 50150 state rule right now. They are in compliance, and staff recommends approval. Mayor Lockwood: Is this in association with Kathleen's Catch? Ms. Harvill: They're in the same facility, but they are separate businesses. Mayor Lockwood: I was looking at the address. All right. Any questions? I'll open it up for a motion. Excuse me. One second. Sorry, Rick — process. Do we have any public comment on that? City Clerk: We do not. Mayor Lockwood: So, I'll close the hearing now. Rick? Mr. Mohrig: Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve agenda item No. 21-014. Mr. Jamison: Second. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion for approval from Councilmember Mohrig with a second from Councilmember Jamison. All in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That's unanimous. Tammy, if you'll please sound the next item. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve Agenda Item No. 21-014. Councilmember Jamison seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). 1 i� 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 36 of 51 City Clerk: Our fourth and final new business item is consideration of the issuance of an alcohol beverage license to Milton Scratch Fresh, LLC, doing business as Scratch Fresh located at 12980 Highway 9, Suite 160, in Milton — agenda item No. 21-015. Finance Director Ms. Bernadette Harvill. Ms. Harvill: Mayor and Council, before you, you have a license request for Milton Scratch Fresh. In our current ordinance, there's just a provision that if the establishment does not meet the deadline of December 15`h that they must come back before council for a new license. So, this is just reinstating the license that they have obtained for consumption on premise and Sunday sales at that location off Highway 9 in the Deerfield District. They are in compliance, and staff recommends approval. Mayor Lockwood: Do we have any public comment? City Clerk: We do not. Mayor Lockwood: I'll clear the hearing and open it up for a motion. Mr. Longoria: Mayor, I move that we approve agenda item No. 21-015. Mr. Moore: Second. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion for approval from Councilmember Longoria with a second from Councilmember Moore. All in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That's unanimous. Ms. Harvill: Thank you very much. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 37 of 51 Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve Agenda Item No. 21-015. Councilmember Longoria seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). MAYOR AND COUNCIL REPORTS Mayor Lockwood: We will now move into reports. I would like to say something. And I'm sure most everybody has heard and some sad news. We lost a great member of our community, Mr. Tim Lester. So, he's a great guy, made a big impact to a lot of kids, a lot of adults, just a great asset to us, to our community, as well as I'm sure council and citizens and staff. My thoughts and prayers are with Natalie, his wife, and his kids and his family. At some point, I would like for the city to have some kind of recognition. So, work on the proclamation and presentation in honor of Mr. Lester. Is there anything council wants to report on? We'll move on into community development. STAFF REPORTS Department Updates Community Development Mr. Buscemi: Good evening, again, Mayor and Council. I do wanna thank the council for electing Todd. He's been extremely engaged in our CPAC and our Steering Committee meetings. So, he's a real asset. So, tonight we have our update. So, happy to announce that we've filled our planner -1 position. They'll be starting March 1St. She's relocating from Tennessee. And I think it's gonna be a great addition to our team. We've been kinda limping along with the loss of Cody. So, it's good to fill that position. We interviewed several folks. We had a lot of interest in the position. And we did quite an intensive amount of interviewing to get somebody we thought would really be able to fill that position. So, I'm happy to announce that we have that one done. Of course, we've been putting a lot of time into CPAC. And I just wanna say that on January 28th, we have our public meeting. So, Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 38 of 51 I'd like to invite everybody from the council and the community to attend. You can attend virtually. They have that all set up. And I think that's gonna be a really important meeting, and we have a lot planned for it. We did some video tutorials ahead of the meeting and gave it out to the CPAC Committee members to kinda help them get some of the background and achievements and where we are on some of the projects that we've done, especially past projects, the past work plan to say — okay, what was our targets. Yes, we've achieved those targets. And I think it's kinda nice to bring them up to date. On the 28th from a land use perspective, we'll be concentrating on the Deerfield and the AG -1 character areas. And then as we move forward, we'll do other character areas. We're also gonna be presenting that night an economic report, which I think is nice. I've heard the report with the Steering Committee. And I think a lot of the report is in alignment with items that we've been working on with the development community as far as our new projects to achieve high quality architecture and high quality development and pedestrian connectivity. So, I think when you see that report and if you look at the tutorials, then you'll see — geez, the plans are already in the process of being developed or in concept phase. All the different phases are sort of hitting a lot of those recommendations, which is kinds nice. I think it means from a staff perspective we have a pretty good alignment of what we think and where we think the economy is going, what we think Milton is looking for as a development pattern, what the LCI studies and master plans have said in the past and what we're trying achieve. So, a lot of that is still in [inaudible] [01:26:50]. And in February, we're gonna be conducting community educational sessions. So, those would be more like working meetings where we sit down and can really get into the weeds more on particular items. On plats and permits, I'm happy to announce that we are fully up to date. Reviews are ongoing, but there is nothing in the arrear. It's all been caught up, and everything is moving along quite nicely. I have a lot to thank Tracy who's here tonight. I just wanna thank her. She is relatively new to our team, but I will tell you. She's Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 39 of 51 really been quite aggressive in making sure that we maintain our plats, LVPs, and those site plan reviews. I'll be frank. They could fall behind real easy. All you have to do is blink because they keep coming in. So, I just wanted to thank her because she's really taken that on, and I think she's done a great job with it. I wanted to tell you that I know we've been working with the Bartenfeld Estate Agreement, and we've met with them several times going back and forth. And special thanks to Ken who has personally looked over these with us and helped us work through this. And I'd like to say that we achieved and they have incorporated into the agreement everything that the council wanted — the plan, the progression of the plan, the quality of the plan. So, I think we got that all in. And I just wanted to say thanks to Ken. Based on his final recommendation, I signed that agreement. Let's see. What's new? Public safety building? We're planting trees. We're digging holes today. And they're planting trees tomorrow. And I will tell you one of the nice parts about being the community development director is that you get the opportunity to search talent within the city where you'd never think you'd find it, and he's here tonight. And I wanna say Sergeant Scott Mulvey has taken on this project. And he has done a terrific job with it and has really helped me out and has personally looked at it, got the bids. He's overseeing the installation, and our city arborist will be out there as well. But Scott's really done a great job with it. And it sounds easy, but it's a lot of work. And I think the placement of all the trees are really important. So, they should be there tomorrow. And we spoke to Greg, our communications director. And I think as they go in, we're gonna start taking some photos and try to get them out there, show the people what we're doing. We waited until January to do it. We moved in in August. They said, "If you do it over the summer, you're just wasting your time." So, it took a little bit, but we waited. I think it's the right time of year to do it. You'll probably see a change order come before you on the consent agenda for some HVAC repair work. For some reason in some of the units, we were getting a higher level of humidity than we thought we would. So, what we did was we went back and spent three months figuring out what the problems are. And I told Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 40 of 51 the architectural firm, "Look, this has nothing to do with the city. It's got to do with the design." So, they did agree that they would pay for it. So, even though the change order will be in front of you, it's really been reduced. Bernadette has just reduced that amount of money from their amount of fee owed to them that I held back, and they agreed to pay for that repair. So, I just wanted to make sure you understood why that's still coming before you. Fire Station 42 — the building should be vacant at the end of the month. I'm working with a new chief. I'll see if we can extend that as long as we can. I think you'd like to see it being utilized to the last possible day. So, we're gonna work with them. But right now, the target is the end of the month. And then we'll have the demolition contract. That's another contract you'll see come before you. And then once that's awarded, we'll take the building down. So, we're running on schedule on that project. The future Milton Country Club or former Milton Country Club, however you wanna say it, whenever we come up for a name for it. I just want you to know we picked out all the interior finishes. We picked out all the mechanical systems. And we're just pricing everything out. So, we are on target. That project will be lit this spring, and construction will begin. Steve is giving me — get the bathrooms built. So, we're working on that. And we're really pushing on it. And then the website page updates, one of our initiatives is that we work with staff to kinda roll out a new webpage. But now, community development is really working towards refining that and trying to get that webpage really focused on each individual staff member's responsibility. So, if Teresa's working on environmental or sustainability, that portion of the webpage will really be strengthened. So, we're looking to strengthen each and every staff member's position there. Now for the fun stuff. We did a little walking tour today of the property known now as the Crabapple Market District. It's the quadrant right down here on the other side. It's the old Strawberry field property if you remember that. So, what we did was we went over there. These are some renderings that are on the website. The buildings aren't completely finished, but they're getting there. And I just wanted to let the Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 41 of 51 council know the position there is we have a coffee house. They call it Starbucks. But I think it's just a coffee house coming in on the ground floor of the building on the left of your screen. They take up half the first floor. The second floor and third floor have already been sold. So, we have offices going into those. The building on your right, the second floor has been sold. So, they're marketing the first and third. But I guess I'm just reporting on it because I wanted you to see the buildings from rendering to the completion level as well as the strength of the economy. Even with the COVID pandemic, people are still purchasing offices and real estate in downtown Crabapple. So, I think that's a good market barometer to see how we're doing with that. And we're hoping to get the coffee house opened probably mid to end of February. So, they're really moving along there. So, let me show you some others. These are some photos from the third floor. So, when you're up on the third floor, this is what you're looking at. I thought it was a nice photo of the city. I love that building in the middle. Ms. Bentley: I do too. Mr. Buscemi: All right. All right. But I think it's really a neat photo that shows the quality of the architecture that's getting developed here in downtown. It's looking really nice. It's getting all built out. And it's really coming along. So, I really show you all of these slides because I truly believe by the end of the summer, you'll probably see a whole new transformation of the downtown. You'll see a much more fully occupied walkable — and we're working with some of the landowners to come up with programs and activities. The mayor's always said, "It's not about the brick and mortar. It's about the people and the activities." I've always heard that and thought in the back of my mind — okay, we're still gonna make great architecture, but we're gonna have all these programs and activities. And people are gonna really use them and enjoy it because I think it is the key to a successful thriving city. So, let me show you some others. This is really neat. From the rooftop, you can see the North Georgia Mountains. That's pretty neat. And on the other side, from the third floor, you can see Kennesaw Mountain. It looks so close. But it's kinda neat. From the third floor, people are getting great views. And that's why they're buying these units because the views and what it looks like. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 42 of 51 So, I think it looks really nice, even looking north towards the school. When you look out the window, you don't really see a lot of urbanism. You see a lot of canopy, and this is in the wintertime. So, I thought that was really kinda nice. These are some details of the buildings. You can see on the left the brickwork that we did. We tried to mirror and create old vintage - style architecture that would really make it look like it's been there for 50 years — having that detail. And the developer looked at me today and said, "Bob, you realize what this cost me, right?" And I said, "Well, you're not gonna be sorry because you sold them already." Everything that we put in on these buildings, I think, is really coming out nice. There's a picture of the plaza in the middle with the roundabout, which I think came out really nice. The picture on the left just shows some more detail. Now let's jump to the lake park. I've shown you this before, but Lakeside and Crabapple, the lake is complete. We got one or two little minor things, but for the most part, it is done. They will be formally turning it over to the city. And we'll be starting to take over maintenance of the lake. The top picture is showing the lake, actually, at a very low level at this point. The left bottom corner is the bridge or walkway that we created. We wanted the roadway to have a nice bridge going across, make it look very pedestrian oriented. We brought the lake underneath the bridge. So, it looks like a real bridge. The picture on the middle lower is a pier or dock that we created. So, you can walk right on out to it. It's got seating. And on the upper right screen is the pavilion that was built. And I just show you all this because the land and all these improvements, again, were donated to the city by the developer. We spoke to them. We told them it would be a good thing for the city and a good thing for them. And I think it is because I think it will help them sell their buildings. So, I think it's sort of a win- win, if I can use that term, for everybody. But in the end, we will be maintaining this. It will be our land, and we will be taking it. We did a lot of research on the Smith family. I may have mentioned that. We did a lot of research. I will be asking the council in the future to name the park or a lake, and I'm sure Greg Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 43 of 51 is setting up some sort of formal ceremony or something we can go out there and actually turn it over to the city formally. And, again, this is just the other half of the development, which is all getting done. I took a look at this. I just wanted the council to know that everything that was given to us in the concept plans and the renderings is actually what's getting built. There is no substitutions, no changes. This is important because I want developers to understand that when they give me a rendering and I present it to council, that's what I expect to see built. I don't wanna see substitutions. I don't wanna see changes. I don't wanna hear commentary or problems. And they do it. And they are doing it. I think it's very successful. And they're very proud of it. I think they're all very happy with it. So, I just wanted you to see this. And this should be opening up very soon. Ms. Bentley: So, Bob. Mr. Buscemi: Yes. Ms. Bentley: That picture — are we gonna get that sign that says "Crabapple"? Mr. Buscemi: That's something that we've been discussing. Ms. Bentley: I think that's cool. Mr. Buscemi: We have to look at the signage. And that came up in CPAC. Really, one of the big things is to look at signage. And I think, right now, our sign code currently really addresses tenant -type signs. It looks at if you have a tenant in a building, that's the sign. It doesn't really address if you wanna name your building. Like you say — I wanna name it the Joe Lockwood Building or something or the complex. It doesn't address that. Nah, you wouldn't wanna do it. Ms. Cookerly: That sign comes down. Mr. Buscemi: Or in this case, the developer really wants to just put signage up and has been working with staff to try to get signage up that just says "Downtown Crabapple" or "Crabapple." And he looked at me, and he said, "Look, it's one of these selfie moments when we had our meeting." He says, "The kids come. They grab their Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 44 of 51 phone. And they're just trying to take their selfie in front of the Crabapple sign." And it's all part of the marketing and branding that we're working on. So, I'm holding that firm. He hasn't given up on that. We're coming up with some other ideas. But I'm really working with him on it. But I think it's something that I think it needs to be addressed. And staff needs to address it and bring it back to council to clean it up. And when we looked at Beecham's, he said, "Bob, I really want blade signs, the old blade signs." Other people have said, "I want old painted signs" — the distressed Coca-Cola type a sign. Can we do that? None of the code really addresses this at this point. So, it's something that we really need to look at, and I did bring it and will be bringing it further to the CPAC just to kinda get their feel on it. And then staff should start looking at it more carefully. But, you're right, that's a big one. And the nice part is they're willing to install it, maintain it, and it won't cost the city any money. The city doesn't have that much, right. So, we have to make the best of what we have. So, this one, I wanted to jump a little bit to the Birmingham Corners. Everybody knows that we did that mixed-use development up there that's currently in development. But I wanted to show you that when you approved it, there was two commercial buildings along Birmingham Highway. And the drawing you're seeing is the larger one. It was a medical complex, and then there was a smaller building to the south, which was retail. And we needed three different uses in order to comply with mixed- use standard requirements. And where the star is is the building. And it came in, and I've been working with the developer. So, I wanted to show you what that's gonna like from a rendering perspective. In keeping with the Birmingham Corner requirements and overlays and the current architecture that's there, we wanted to keep it looking like it was in the rural overlay, the rural -focused areas of Milton. So, this is what we came up with. We just wanted to give the council a peek at what it's looking like. It will be going to DRB the next meeting for their input as well. So, it might get adjusted slightly here or there. But just to give you an inkling of what that'll Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 45 of 51 style will look like. So, I thought it looked kinda nice, really been working with them on it. And that's what I have. Questions? Mayor Lockwood: Any questions? Male Speaker: I don't have anything else. Mr. Buscemi: Well, gee. Thanks, [inaudible] [01:42:40]. Mayor Lockwood: We've got some extra time, Bob. We've got another 15 minutes if you want. Mr. Buscemi: Only if I could show more pictures — staff keeps saying, "Keep it short. Don't put too many in. Make it so you just show a few each time." Probably the concept was to keep the council abreast of what's coming in — Mayor Lockwood: It looks good. Mr. Buscemi: — what it looks like, and how it's getting developed. And I think it helps make land decisions on your behalf to see, really, how it's getting developed and say, "Well, is it too dense? Does it look right? What do we need to do from a council perspective as far as land decisions?" Mayor Lockwood: The only thing I wish you'd added a little bit more discussion on intersections and right-of-way and whatnot. Mr. Moore: I wanna know more about Lockwood Pavilion. Mr. Buscemi: Yeah, I'm sure you'll [inaudible — crosstalk]. Mr. Moore: Do you have Lockwood Pavilion planned in there? I appreciate the detail. When you're driving by it, you don't get to see it. Mayor Lockwood: We'd had some discussion about it. Some of these developments, obviously, when they get started look terrible. And some citizens were very upset. But if there were some renderings of whatever it was gonna look like — it's all green and ponds are in and trees, that would alleviate some fears. So, we've kinda talked about working on that to get some signage up and whatnot on the developments. 1 1 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 46 of 51 Mr. Buscemi: All the new future developments, even taken down 42, we're gonna put up a rendering of what the new 42 will look like so people will get a better — Mr. Moore: Will that be true of Birmingham as well? I don't think there's anything up there right now, is there? Even the residential — Mayor Lockwood: That's a good example. That would've been a good one to have. Mr. Buscemi: Right. To kinda have what they are doing. Every single house that's gonna be in that particular development per condition of approval is gonna be subject to architectural review with all the conditions. And I've been working with that designer to make sure that each and every house looks different, unique, and complies with all those conditions. So, it's really hard because these developers come in, and they constantly are like — Bob, let me do one. It meets it. I'm gonna repeat it. I'll change the colors, the siding. I'm like — no, this is Milton. Every single house has to be a unique character. And then at the end, they kinda like it. But they come back and say, "Gee, Bob, this is great." Because sales are so strong. I think the market analysis we just did shows that sales are so strong. They showed us a little picture of the general metro area. And there was Milton, the darkest color. And they said, "Geez, this is great. How do you do it?" It doesn't just happen. It's a lot of work. We really push people to raise the bar, and I think Milton's unique because of it. Mayor Lockwood: The only thing I would say out of all those sales and those people that are buying those, you know the email I'm gonna get — complaining about traffic and development because they just moved here to get away from that. Thank you, Bob. Mr. Buscemi: Thanks. Mayor Lockwood: That's good. Mr. Jamison: Mr. Buscemi: Nice work, man. Yeah, thanks. 1 1 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 47 of 51 STAFF REPORTS Department Updates 2. Police Mayor Lockwood: All right. Chief Austin? Chief Austin: Greetings again, Mayor and members of Council. Looking at our year-end crime and accident numbers for 2020, we fared quite well. Traffic crashes overall were down 35 percent with personal injury crashes down 36 percent. Mayor Lockwood: Would you relate that to maybe COVID with people not out as much? Chief Austin: Yes, yes. And, actually, I was gonna mention that and our crime numbers — crimes against persons down 17 percent, crimes against property down 16 percent this year. So, yeah, some of that is certainly due to COVID, a lot of folks not out and about during the lockdown in particular. No school traffic on many days, those types of factors as well. So, I wouldn't expect to see those type of reductions again next year, certainly, but we'll take them while we have them now. So, overall, again, fared quite well with our year-end numbers. So, going forward, this coming year we'll be looking at the trends within our other North Fulton communities and doing more three - to five-year analyses on some of the crime trends. In other news, we were able to participate in Shop with a Cop this year. We had to do it a little bit differently due to COVID. But we were still able to partner with several North Fulton agencies and serve over 100 children for the North Fulton area. So, that was very much a pleasure to be able to be a part of that. Also, in December, we had two recruiters that graduated from the academy. We had Officer Taylor Alton and Officer Kelsey Graham hit the streets. And they are currently in their field training. That's all I have this evening unless you all have any questions. Thank you. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 48 of 51 Mayor Lockwood: And that's a good prelude to — Gabriel, when it's your turn at some point in the future, you can talk about all the great things at the fire and how happy everybody was to see the fireman and whatnot. STAFF REPORTS Department Updates 3. Finance Ms. Harvill: Onto the finances, everyone's favorite topic. Mr. Moore: That's why we save it for last. Ms. Harvill: The most riveting — so, we are currently in the midst of our annual audit fieldwork. So, I still exist at September 30`h of 2020. So, if I say anything about 2020, I apologize ahead of time. We are beginning the preparation for [inaudible] [01:48:17] and our [inaudible] as well, which will be available to the public in early April. And we're really excited. We've been doing new things and getting more information out there. And we'd love to highlight through our new [inaudible] all of the projects that all the teams have been working on. Also, back on the 15'h of December, property taxes were due. So, we have finished collections. And we have done some refunds. And we will now be sending out any delinquent notices in February that will give anyone proper notification before that 5 percent penalty accrues in April. Our business license renewals are also going on. We mailed those renewals back in December, and they will be due on March 31" to avoid any penalty or interest. We have a few remaining businesses from 2020 that haven't renewed. And Sarah LaDart in Economic development has been helping us reach out to them as code enforcement, just to ensure that they get into compliance. We're in the process of streamlining some of our payment merchants. So, you'll see some changes coming. Our communication's director, Greg Botelho, has been helping me with those notifications to all of the people who'll be impacted. We're getting some new opportunities to pay by e -check or ACH online as opposed to just having that credit card option, which has been a i ri 1 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 49 of 51 request for some time. So, I think you'll be happy about seeing that come through. And, lastly, we are working on the last finishes to our new transparency portal. The first phase will be on its way soon. And then over the next year, we'll be building out even further. And I'm hoping this to be our hub for not only financial information but other information for our stakeholders, including city demographics and project statuses, as all the projects that are ongoing will have a little landing page where people can ask questions right there, see timelines, see the budget, and see where we are with that. So, that is coming as a build out over the next year. If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them. Mayor Lockwood: Any questions for Bernadette? Ms. Harvill: EXECUTIVE SESSION Thank you so much. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you. We'll move on. We added an executive session to discuss land acquisition and potential litigation and personnel. So, I would open up for a motion to go into executive session. Mr. Longoria: So, moved. Mr. Mohrig: Second. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion from Councilmember Longoria, a second from Councilmember Mohrig. All in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Ms. Cookerly: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 50 of 51 Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to adjourn to Executive Session to discuss potential litigation, personnel and land acquisition. Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). Female Speaker: You've got 10 minutes. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion to reconvene. Male Speaker: Motion to reconvene. Mayor Lockwood: And I have a second. All in favor please say "aye." Mr. Jamison: Aye. Ms. Bentley: Aye. Mr. Moore: Aye. Mr. Longoria: Aye. Mr. Mohrig: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to reconvene back into the regular city council meeting. Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Cookerly was absent from Executive Session to Adjournment. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Lockwood: That's unanimous without Carol. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Mr. Longoria: Second. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor please say "aye." Council Members: Aye. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 6:00 pm Page 51 of 51 1 Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to adjourn the city council meeting at 7:11 pm. Councilmember Longoria seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Cookerly was absent from Executive Session to Adjournment. Date Approved: April 12, 2021 1