HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - CC - 08/01/2022Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
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CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. I would like to call the regular meeting of the Milton
City Council for Monday, August 1, 2022 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 the 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. Will the city clerk please call the
roll and make general announcements?
ROLL CALL
City Clerk: Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'll be happy to call roll for the
August 1, 2022 regular meeting. I would like to remind those in
attendance to please silence all cellphones at this time. If you are
attending the meeting and you would like to make a public
comment, you are required to complete a yellow public comment
card prior to speaking on the item. The yellow comment cards can
' be found at the door on the table right to the door when you walk in.
Those attending the meeting who would like to make a public
comment, you will be required to submit your item before speaking
on it, which can be found on the tables just as you walk in the
chambers. Thank you.
Please note, your comment card must be presented to the city clerk
prior to the agenda item being called. Any comments received after
the item has been called will not be accepted. 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, outbursts, or dialogue
with any person speaking. Anyone in violation will be asked to
leave.
' As I call roll this evening, please confirm your attendance. Mayor
Peyton Jamison.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
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Mayor Jamison: Here. '
City Clerk: Councilmember Andrea Verhoff.
CM Verhoff: Here.
City Clerk: Councilmember Paul Moore.
CM Moore: Here.
City Clerk: Councilmember Juliette Johnson.
CM Johnson: Here.
City Clerk: Councilmember Jan Jacobus.
CM Jacobus: Here.
City Clerk: And Councilmember hick Mohrig.
CM Mohrig: Here.
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Mayor: Mayor Peyton Jamison present.
Councilmembers Present: Councilmember Andrea Verhoff, Councilmember
Paul Moore, Councilmember Juliette Johnson, Councilmember Jan C. Jacobus,
and Councilmember Rick Mohrig,
Councilmember(s) Absent: Councilmember Carol Cookerly
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
City Clerk: For the record, Councilmember Carol Cookerly is absent. Would
everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
All: 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.
APPROVAL OF MEETING AGENDA
Mayor Jamison: Will the city clerk please sound the next item.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
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' City Clerk: Mayor, that next item is approval of the meeting agenda. It's
Agenda Item No. 22-230. Mayor?
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Council, I would like to make one amendment to the
agenda. If we could move Unfinished Business, Agenda Item No.
22-152 to immediate follow after the reading of the consent agenda.
I'll open up for a motion.
CM Moore: Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve the agenda as you have
requested.
CM Mohrig: Second.
Mayor Jamison: Okay, I have a motion from Councilmember Moore and a second
from Councilmember Mohrig to approve the meeting agenda as
amended. All in favor, please say aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Moore moved to approve the Meeting
Agenda with the following amendment:
' Move Unfinished Business Agenda Item No. 22-152 to immediately follow
the Consent Agenda.
Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0).
Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Mayor Jamison: Any opposed? That's unanimous. Next is general public comment.
Do we have any general public comment?
City Clerk: We do, Mayor.
Mayor Jamison: The next time is general public comment. Public comment is a time
for citizens to share information with the mayor and the city council
and to provide input and opinions on any matter that is not scheduled
for its own public hearing during today's meeting. Each citizen who
chooses to participate in public comment card and submit to the city
clerk prior to the agenda item being called. Please remember, this is
' not a time to engage the mayor or members of the city council in
conversation. When your name is called, please come forward and
speak into the microphone stating your name and address for the
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
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record. You will have five minutes for remarks. The city encourages
you toreview the agenda and if you wish to speak, to bring your
comment cards to the city clerk right now.
If the City Clerk will please call the first comment.
City Clerk: Mayor, I'd like to invite Roland Morva to the podium, please.
Roland Morva?
Mr. Morva: My name's Rohan Morva. I live at 525 Cogdell Trail, Milton,
Georgia. I just wanted to talk about remembering John Milton here
in Milton, Georgia. This is the greatest, strongest, best community
that there is, with the greatest leadership. There's so much you guys
are doing to propel Milton forward. I think it's amazing, the best of
the best. And I think while you're doing that, I think it would be
great to remember John Milton in some way, as Milton is named
after John Milton. As he was a Revolutionary War hero, a big part
in Georgia's founding, the first secretary of state, and the signer of
Georgia's ratification of the US Constitution.
I think it would be so cool if we were able to remember him in some
way by naming a park after him or some sort of statue. I'm not sure
of the funding for that, fundraising or whatever But I think it would
be so cool to remember John Milton in some way as the
Revolutionary War hero that he was to Georgia and the namesake
that he is to Milton. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you so much.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you.
City Clerk: That concludes general public comment, Mayor.
CONSENT AGENDA
Mayor Jamison: So, we will close the public comment period. And we will move on
to Consent Agenda. Will the City Clerk please sound the items?
City Clerk: First item is approval of the July 25, 2022 Special Called Council
Meeting. It's Agenda Item No. 22-231.
Item B is approval of a products agreement and addendum between
the City of Milton and Nearmap US, Inc. to provide 3D elevation
data for GIS mapping purposes, Agenda Item No. 22-232.
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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And Item C is approval of a professional services agreement
between the City of Milton and the Georgia Associations of Chiefs
of Police for a Promotional Assessment Center. It's Agenda Item
No. 22-233. Mayor?
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. I'd like to open it for a motion to approve the consent
agenda.
CM Mohrig: Mr. Mayor, I make motion that we approve the consent agenda as
read.
CM Jacobus: Second.
Mayor Jamison: Okay. I have a motion from Councilmember Mohrig and a second
from Councilmember Jacobus to approve the consent agenda as
read. All in favor, please say Aye.
Gmul,: Aye.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve the Consent
Agenda as read. Councilmember Jacobus seconded the motion. The motion
' passed (6-0). Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Mayor Jamison: Any opposed? That's unanimous. We will move on to the unfinished
business item, Agenda Item 22-2152. Will the City Clerk sound the
item?
City Clerk: Mayor, that item is consideration of an agreement between the City
of Milton and White Columns Community Association, Inc. for
installation of four radar feedback signs. It was deferred for 90 days
at the May 2, 2022 regular council meeting. It's Agenda Item No.
22-152. Mayor?
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Before I turn it over to Ms. Leaders, I'd like to turn it
over to Councilmember Moore for a couple remarks.
CM Moore: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If you would please accept my request this
evening, out of an abundance of caution, I'm going to choose to
excuse myself and not participate in this agenda item this evening.
As such, I will step away.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. I will turn it over to Ms. Leaders.
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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Ms. Leaders: I've got a few slides I'm going to go through for this consideration '
of an agreement related to radar feedback signs. Since the last time
this was before you, these were the things that staff was going to
work on collecting to review during this period. So, we are going to
do an update speed study to install stop signs that were warranted
for safety reasons, to collect information from the police department
pn,pumber of tickets written, citations, what speeds. And then the
item related to the HOA's efforts to conduct a community survey.
First, I wanted to highlight a few data points that we'll be discussing
in the next slides related to the speed and the citations. So, this map
shows a couple different things. First of all are the radar signs that
are currently installed. There's four of those. And this shows the
direction that those signs face, the side of the road they're on. The
arrow represents the direction vehicles are traveling that will see
those signs. The red circles are the new all -way stop intersections.
That's at Trayburn Manor View and White Columns Drive. And
then Traybum Manor View and Hallbrook Court. So, those were
newly installed multi -way stops.
And then the red rectangles represents two locations where we've
conducted speed and volume counts along those two sections of I
roadway.
Related to the speed study, we have six locations that we've counted
over the past. Two of those locations, we updated as part of this
effort to look at speeds again. Those are represented by the numbers
four and five, as shown on this map. There's six locations that we
have conducted counts on from 2016 to the present. So, related to
those updated counts, from May 101 to the 12'I', the radar signs that
were installed were turned off as those counts took place. From July
12°i to 14'h, that's the second round of counts we did. The stop signs
had been installed and were operational. And the radar signs were
on.
This shows some of the data related to those two counts. So, Count
Location A is the White Column Drive. And B is Traybum Manor
View. And the radar signs are shown on this map, as well. So, a
couple things we looked at from a data standpoint, in each direction,
were the 850' percentile speed. That is a tool we use in traffic
engineering that is the speed at which only 15% of the cars are going
faster than that speed. So, that's used in evaluating speed limits and
really coming up with that upper limit of speeds along the roadway. '
So, the top three lines show those locations, what those speeds were
from February of 2019, the May of 2022, and the July of '22
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Monday, August t, 2022
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numbers.
So, on White Column Drive, heading eastbound, so that would be
heading towards Freemanville, the 85s' speed dropped from 37 to
34, both in May and July. Westbound, that's going to be heading
towards the country club. That speed increased slightly in May and
then decreased in July. And Tabor Manor, decreased in May and
then decreased again in July.
Another number we look at related to our traffic calming program is
the percent of cars that are going over the posted speed limit. That
is one of our thresholds to qualify for city funds for traffic calming,
is that at least half of the cars would need to be traveling over the
speed limit. So, you can see again the three lines here represent those
count data for the three locations from 2019, May of '22 and July of
'22. The last number we want to look at is the average daily traffic.
So, that takes the amount of cars collected over the entire count
period and it creates an average per day in each direction. In May,
we did see a spike on White Columns Drive. It could have been
related to an activity at the golf course or country club. So, that
number was higher than what we saw in ' 19. But relatively similar
' numbers between February ' 19 and July of '22 related to volumes
on all three.
We mention the all -way stop signs were operation as of July 5 of
2022. And the radar signs, the HOA has been collecting data from
those signs.
Looking at our police data, and this is particularly just for the White
Columns Golf Section. We looked at data collected from April 1 of
2021 through July 27 of this year. There's been 78 traffic stops
issues, 61 electronic citation and four of those were for speeding.
Two cars were going 37 or ticket at 37 and two at 42. There were 28
warnings reported during that time. One of those was for speeding
at 41 miles an hour. Our record system, we're not able to capture
with this report any handwritten citations or warnings. And just to
note that some drivers may have received more than one citation per
stop.
This is a repeat of the slides that were part of the last presentation
about what's included in this agreement that's being presented
tonight. First of all, we have the right of entry. The portion that's
' part of the agreement is separate from what a right of way
encroachment permit does. A right of way encroachment permit
covers the work in the right of way, the sign installation, and
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Monday. August t, 2022
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restoring any city property in the right of way as part of that work. I '
did want to note that while the right of way permit for these signs
was issued near the completion of the installation, public work staff
and the HOA have been coordinating over the prior past six months.
Public works staff did mark and approve the sign locations before
installation began.
The right of entry that's part of the agreement covers the ability for
the. HOA to enter into the right of way at any point of time to
maintain and access those signs.
There is the other components of the agreement. I mentioned the
right of entry for future maintenance. It spells out different items
related to the private improvements, which the radar signs are
considered a private improvement. The public improvement is
an in the right of way that could be impacted by the signs,
maintenance obligation, the duration of the agreement, and then
applicable laws.
The last point of the agreement is the city contribution and data
sharing. Based on the base bid for a radar sign, like we have
throughout the city, we determine that cost through competitive bid.
That's what we based our, we consider the base model of a radar '
sign. The ones that were installed were enhancements to that base
model. So, the city would only propose to contribute half of the base.
That's according to our traffic calming policy and ordinance.
Based on those numbers, the city cost for the four signs at a 50% of
that in the base cost is $6,853. Lastly, included in the agreement is
data sharing, that any of the data collected by that sign could be
made available to the city as requested. And that concludes the
presentation.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Any questions for Sara before we have public comment?
Tammy, if you'll please call the first public comment.
City Clerk: Mayor, I would first like to introduce into the record public
comments that were received via email. I would like to note for the
record that I am reading these in the order in which they were
received. And then I'll move on to the yellow public comment cards
for inviting the speakers to the podium.
The first comment is from Dina Snow at 635 Scarlett Oak Trail. She
is opposed to this item. '
Edgar Snow at 635 Scarlett Oak Trail, opposed.
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Cliff Butler at 1530 White Columns Drive is opposed.
Courtney Hensley at 1530 White Columns Drive is opposed. I will
read her comment, "I strongly oppose the speed sign, cost sharing,
and additional forms of traffic calming in White Columns. In 2019,
the city told the past HOA board that even though a mandatory HOA
existed, they still need to receive 67% approval. Why has this
changed? In knowing that, how did a city employee allow the
current board to railroad them into hastily installing the current
speed signs without city approval and the majority of the golf
residents?
"During the May 2nd City Council meeting, it was stated that the
Mayor along with the other council persons had no idea that a cost
sharing agenda item that evening was for signs that had already been
installed. It seems clear that the proper process was not followed.
Stop signs were supposed to be installed before the speed study.
Most likely, that would have been enough along with periodic police
presences, which has already been shown to be very effective.
Instead, speed signs without proper permits were installed before the
stop signs. And now the board is talking about adding yet more
' speed tables.
"So, because of a mismanaged process, golf residents are now
paying the price of having speed signs up that were never properly
approved by the city or the residents. The current HOA has never
honestly engaged residents and has never fairly asked our opinions.
They continue to publish and report results. Yet, sadly, they are
skewed, slanted, and misrepresent a large majority. We who live in
the golf section are now paying for an error in proper protocol. And
the only fair thing to do is to make it right by taking down the signs
and not to allow any further actions to be taken in the golf section
without proper engagement, discussion, and honest fair result
reporting."
Christine Hill at 15280 White Columns Drive is opposed.
Joseph Hill at 15280 White Columns Drive is opposed.
Sharon Butler, 15430 White Columns Drive, opposed.
Kevin Hensley 15340 White Columns drive, "In any type of official
' office, it takes incredible diplomacy to juggle and meet the short and
long term demands of all parties involved. Unfortunately, our
current board has not done this. Number I, diplomacy takes courage
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to do the right thing in order to be trusted. And trust is the foundation '
for everything. Number 2, diplomats listen more than they talk. Just
because you're in a position of power doesn't mean you know
everything. Every successful leader gathers input from and listens
to every person involved.
"Number 3, diplomats compromise. This is when everyone gives up
a little bit, agrees to the decision for the greater good of our
community, a shared solution. The current HOA board has not, in
any form, given the golf residents of White Columns a voice in any
of the recent traffic calming measures. This includes the plan speed
tables, which need to be stopped before they happen. In summary,
our HOA board or so-called governing power created, enacted, or
carried out diplomacy in any way or have they forced the views of
the overall community."
Dana WilliamsDudley at 590 Glenn Hampton Drive. She is
opposed. "I live in golf section of White Columns, and I am a former
HOA president. This has been a mandatory HOA. Between 2016
and 2019, the former board of directors attempted to obtain cost
sharing for speed tables. However, we were told we needed to obtain
67% approval from impacted residents. We felt we would not be '
able to obtain that level of approval. And as a result, discontinued
the project.
At the May 2nd leader, the city council encouraged the board to
survey residents. The survey, which was titled `Thank you for
keeping our families safe,' contained the following leading
questions, `Yes, I support the new radar -controlled speed signs to
help keep families safe in White Columns. No, I do not support the
new radar -controlled speed signs.' The yes response was in bold
print and suggested that the vote yes means you are in favor of
keeping families safe. But if you vote no, you are not in favor of
safety.
This survey was leading, was conducted in bad faith, left residents
with a moral dilemma if they choose to vote no. I don't believe that
it represents the type of survey that City Council had in mind when
you asked the boards to survey the residents. As recently as the
February 22 Board of Directors meeting, the board reported that the
ad hoc speeding committee would be meeting to discuss all available
speed remediation initiatives with golf residents at large. No such
discussions have occurred to date. '
The board has not been forthcoming with the residents or with the
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Monday. August 1, 2022
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city of Milton. Their survey is an example of their behavior. Their
actions don't represent the community. Please vote no.
Laura Wallace, 960 Treyburn Run, opposed. "The HOA did not
provide details on sign placement or engage community in
meaningful discussion regarding specifics prior to install and still
has not provided any opportunity for community discussion on these
signs. The survey recently conducted by the board at city council's
request did not allow any opportunity to provide any feedback
beyond yes or no. It's wording showed survey bias. I believe City
Council's expectation for this survey were not met by the board. For
this reason, I do not expect the council to fund these signs."
Richard Meier at 300 White Columns Drive, opposed.
Joe Scripture at 15360 White Columns Drive, opposed.
Christine Hill at 15280 White Columns Drive, opposed. "An
unbiased survey should have been sent to residents before the signs
were installed to gather resident's opinions. The board was elected
to listen to and represent the people, not do what they please. Out of
' the 50 plus tickets issued in White Columns Golf last year, only five
were for speeding. The speed studies conducted over the years show
the average speed in White Columns has not increased.
"It is also my understanding that a location of the two of the signs
do not meet the minimum number of daily traffic counts to qualify
for speed calming measures, probably because the locations of the
signs do not match the locations listed on the permit."
Kelly Goldscheitter at 585 Glenn Hampton Drive, opposed.
Stacy Harp at 410 Highlands Manor Court, opposed.
Pam Scripture at 15360 White Columns Drive, opposed.
Mary Leveille at 15400 White Columns Drive, opposed. "I would
like the city council to note that I am opposed. I am so disappointed
and disheartened by the personal agendas and missteps made by not
only the HOA but too by the city.
"No one wants lives lost and am offended by such an inference. I
' would like to see the radar -controlled speed signs removed and the
proposed installation of speed tables halted."
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Ed Thome, 525 Trayburn View, opposed. '
Dawn Crain, 305 White Columns Court, opposed.
Laura Warren at 15300 White Columns Drive, opposed.
,Timothy Kemper at 15315 White Columns Drive, "I'm opposed in
position of the cost sharing agreement."
Derick Giddings, 170 White Columns Drive, is opposed.
Brad Jones, 15330 White Columns Drive, opposed. "The actions by
the HOA need to be voted and agreed upon by the residents,
especially those affected by their actions directly. And not the ones
living in the separate, area. The board is making decisions on behalf
of people without allowing for the voice of everyone involved to be
heard."
Shelly Costello, 510 Treybum View, "I oppose the large speed signs
in our once tranquil White Columns Neighborhood. The signs are
way too large for a well -established neighborhood like ours and the
residents had no input. I encourage the city to ask the White '
Columns Board to remove the signs, as they never had approval to
install them in the first place. Our neighborhood was not even
informed that this was occurring until after the signs went up. The
majority of the board doesn't even live in the golf section of White
Columns. Instead, they live in the gated side and aren't as affected
as those of us in the gulf section.
A month or so later, additional stop signs were installed, which
seemed totally redundant, but are actually tasteful and are being
obeyed, as far as I can see."
Mayor, that concludes the email public comment portion.
Mayor Jamison: Okay. If you will please call the first speaker.
City Clerk: That first speaker, Mayor — well, is just voicing the approval of the
city financial support is Steve Buinthall. Does not wish to speak.
The next person I'd like to invite to the podium is Joseph Gaines.
That's the name on here. My apologies. Joseph Gaines is in
opposition. '
Karin Kemper, I invite you to the podium.
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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' Ms. Kemper: Good evening. My name is Karin Kemper and I live at 15315 White
Columns Drive. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to all of you.
I do not support the cost sharing agreement, nor the radar speed
signs. Has the cost sharing agreement been corrected to show the
updated permit map? The one attached to the agenda contains
incorrect information and policies, procedures, and most
importantly, ordinances were not followed. These four signs do not
appear to follow Ordinance 48235E. The city follows federal
guidelines, and these signs seem to miss key elements by being
multi -color and missing static speed limit signs.
To call these signs decorative would imply that they do not qualify
under this ordinance. The most glaring guideline that was ignored
has to do with the motorist reasonable expectation of where to look
for a traffic sign. The sign flashes changing speed and messaging
and is placed on the left-hand side of the street, past oncoming traffic
and pedestrians, which diverts the driver's attention from the road
for a significant amount of time. Where else have you seen such a
sign? This is a safety liability on a city street with the potential to
create exactly the problem we all wish to avoid.
' The signs were installed without a permit, which is required under
48283. The permit was not applied for until April 28s' and then
approved April 29s'. The signs, however, were completely installed
by April 26t', with the footings installed on March 17. The original
application was primarily to install stop signs. So, why were four
radar signs installed first? The HOA purchased four radar speed
signs before the city determined where the stop signs would be
placed, resulting in an extra radar speed sign. According to Mr.
Moats, who I spoke to on March 18, no other locations were feasible
per the city standards. An extra sign, according to Ronnie Moats,
that the city agreed to put somewhere just because the HOA had
already purchased it. It was not warranted.
The location on the permit's map does not follow Ordinances
28235A4 and 237, which state that in order to qualify for traffic
calming devices, a residential street must first qualify with an
average daily traffic count of at least 400. Prior traffic studies do not
meet this requirement. If a street doesn't meet this threshold,
consideration of average speeds under 236A is moot. When I
mentioned to Rodney Moats that only 28 or so homes were affected
by the extra sign, he commented that he wish he'd known that
' earlier.
This sign should never have been installed. The same is true for the
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Monday. August 1. 2022
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sign on Treyburn Manor View. As we've seen tonight on the data '
collection slide, Treyburn Manor View's traffic counts are
consistently below 400. Why are we not adhering to the traffic count
threshold? These two signs do not qualify under the ordinances.
Both signs absolutely must be permanently removed.
Traffic studies have not been conducted in the back of White
Columns Drive since 2016, presumably because of the insignificant
traffic counts. The HOA did not gain community support before
these signs were installed. The recent survey is biased to obtain and
affirmative vote. Tony Palazzo stated in May that the HOA has a
responsibility to the community. Why then was the' new survey so
biased? Why did these radar speed signs precede the stop signs?
Why were radar speed signs installed without falling the ordinance,
without a permit when installed, in the wrong direction, without
community support?
Why is a sign in a completely unqualified location creating a safety
liability on a city street. Two are most definitely non -compliant. The
city and the HOA literally sped their way through the process failing
City Clerk:
the community.
One minute. '
Ms. Kemper:
I ask tonight for the radar speed signs, all of them, to be removed.
The cost sharing agreement should be rejected. The city must follow
correct procedures and ordinances. Thank you.
Mayor Jamison:
Thank you. Please call the next speaker.
City Clerk:
I'd like to next invite Suzanne Gaines to the podium, please.
Ms. Gaines: Good evening. My name is Suzanne Gaines. I live at 530 Treybum
View. My husband Joe and I have lived at 530 Treybum View in the
White Columns Golf section for nine years. We are opposed to the
current traffic calming devices being installed in our neighborhood
for many reasons. There has been no community consensus on
solutions. The internet-based survey and the recent biased mailer
that was sent out by the HOA are not accurate representations of the
entire golf community. I am house number 98 on the marked survey
that every golf resident got. As you can see, it's bold where you
should go yes and it's no if you don't want it and it's in a lighter
font. '
Every ballot back was marked by a house number. So, I'm not 98.
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Monday. August 1, 2022
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' The city has not followed their own published processes, which
include approving locations of speed radar signs in areas that are
below the average daily traffic count threshold of 400 and do not
qualify for traffic calming measures. Approving permits for the
speed radar signs after they were installed. And allowing speed radar
signs to be installed in locations that are different than what was
shown on maps referred to by the city for approved locations.
We request that the city direct the removal of these speed radar signs
and continue with the process of education, police enforcement, and
conduct a speed study after school is back in session to see how the
installation of stop signs helps to reduce speed in the neighborhood.
Thank you.
City Clerk: Mayor, I'd like to next invite Dave Leveille to the podium, please.
Did I get that right? I'm sorry.
Mr. Leveille: Good evening, my name's Dave Leveille. I live with my wife Mary
at 15400 White Columns Drive. We've lived at this address since
2010. Mr. Mayor and esteemed City Council members, thank you
for taking the time to listen to our views on this topic. First, I want
' to say we value the lives of all our neighbors and visitors to our
community. We don't want to see anyone lose their lives. My
understanding, zero lives have been lost in traffic accidents and zero
pedestrian involved accidents have occurred in the past 22 years,
since the golf neighborhood was built.
You can't improve upon zero lives lost, no matter how many emails
or fliers the HOA board sends framing themselves as our protectors.
It just feels like this entire speed calming plan has been completely
backwards. Why would the HOA buy the radar speed signs without
engaging resident opinion before spending our association funds?
Why would they then send an email survey to a targeted small group
of residents several months later before installing the signs to engage
support? I assumed they thought they would get the support of the
radar signs. But the signs came in a distant third to the top two
recommendations from the targeted group of neighbors.
First place was continuing education. Second place was an increased
police presence. Knowing they already received the signs, they
pushed forward and installed them, I believe even before the permit
was issued. Why wouldn't stop signs have been the first measure?
That would have been prudent since it would have been the least
costly. Then gauge the impact of the stop signs to see if they're
affective. But this HOA board has an agenda.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 16 of 76
Mr. Moore, our neighbor and city councilman suggested the vote for '
cost sharing be deferred so more info, including a speed study
analyzing police records for tickets issued, and a homeowner survey
could be completely. Almost immediately, Mr. Palazzo filed an
ethics complaint against Mr. Moore. He clearly wanted to silence
his vote when, in my opinion, Mr. Moore was just doing his job
.listening to his constituents and neighbors who spoke up.
For the record, that survey that was sent to homeowners was a
complete sham. It's totally bias. It was not anonymous. It read like
a bad political campaign mail piece or infomercial. Numbers on the
response card correlated to the number on the other portion of the
card, so the board would know exactly who voted which way. The
survey offered two choices, the first in bolded black font read, "Yes,
I support the radar signs to help keep our family safe." The second
said, "I do not support the radar speed signs." Clearly, it was
presented that way for a reason.
Why would they send out a survey that was so one sided, I ask? I
have to think they weren't confident they would get the support of
the neighborhood if they sent an unbiased survey. Again, for 22
years, we had no pedestrian involved accidents of any type. Why ,
then do we need all of the possible speed calming measures to be
thrown into our neighborhood at once?
In summary, there have been several missteps on both the city and
HOA Board's part, including timing of installation and permits,
number of signs installed in location, one of which is clearly a
hazard since it's on the wrong side of the road, signs that do not
comply with eth manual on uniform traffic control devices as
required by the state of Georgia, two signs that are in locations that
don't even meet requirements for traffic calming initiatives due to
low daily volume counts from the speed studies. The signs on
Treybum Manor View and White Columns Drive past the club never
should have been installed.
We feel the best thing to do in this case is to step things back by
removing all the signs and analyze the effectiveness of the stop signs
before any other measures are taken. Please do not approve the
installation of speed tables at a cost of $20 — 30,000. We don't think
this is good use of association funds. Mr. Mayor, you voted against
a deferral in May. I believe you have a relationship with Mr.
Palazzo. ,
City Clerk: One minute.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 17 of 76
Mr.Leveille: Is it not true that your son plays on a youth football team coached
by Mr. Palazzo? If so, shouldn't you have recused yourself from the
vote and disclosed this information at the May city council meeting.
Lastly, I urge the city council not to allow the speed tables to be
installed, or at least defer until 2023, when a much more reasonable
board is in place. Thank you.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Please call the next speaker.
City Clerk: Mayer, I'd like to call Kyle Rose to the podium, please.
Mr. Rose: Hey everyone, thanks for having me. I'm Kyle Rose here on behalf
of my wife, Kyle and Melissa, we live at 15325 Traybum Manor
View. We are actually one of the people who have the radar signs in
our yard. So, the first sign going down Treybum, the B radar sign is
in our yard. We also have three young children, 7, 5, and 2 who are
regularly playing out in our yard, riding their bikes, riding their
scooters, playing basketball and soccer. We moved into the
neighborhood roughly a year ago, August of last year. Before that
time, there were no speed measures in place. There was constant
speeding not only going past our house, there's a large hill coming
' down Treyburn as well, before that radar sign.
The addition of the stop signs, as well as the radar signs, we've seen
a great reduction, just personally from being in the front yard, as
well as see people slow down to the radar signs past our house.
We've also seen before the stop signs were installed past our house,
people speed up right past the radar signs. We can definitely see
from our perspective, as well as the data that was shown earlier
today, that these radar signs are working and they have helped our
peace of mind of having our kids out in our front yard, playing in
our front yard, walking around with their neighbors.
There's been a big turnover in the neighborhood in the past few
years with a lot more young kids in and around the neighborhood,
riding bikes, riding scooters, playing ball outside, as you see in these
big neighborhoods. We really think that these measures that the
board and the city have put in place to reduce speeds are working
and we hope they continue to work, as well. I'm in support of these
signs and hope they stay. Thank you.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Please call the next speaker.
I
City Clerk: Laura Walton. Matt Walton. Do you want to speak? Would you like
for me to read it for you? Okay. Stanley Coveleskie.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 18 of 76
Mr. Coveleskie: Hello. I'm Stanley Coveleskie. I go by Track, so some of the people '
out there might know me by Track. My wife and I live at 710
Hampton Trace Lane, that's in the golf section of White Columns. I
think I'm a little unique, my wife and I are a little unique in White
Columns is that we moved to the neighborhood nine years ago.
That's not that unique. You heard another speaker speak of the same
thing. We moved in the neighborhood before we had kids, which
kind of makes this unicorn of a person, someone that moves to a
neighborhood and then. decides to have children. We picked the
neighborhood first, had a child. Now I have an awesome little
daughter. Her name's Catherine. She's eight -years -old and just the
love of my life.
I've had a couple incidents since I've been in White Columns that
have been near misses, both with Catherine in the car. Just to
respond to the speaker that spoke a minute ago, kind of fired me up.
He said how can you improve on zero percent. You know how you
can? It's by making everyone a little more careful. Because if you
have a near miss, if you ever had a near miss with your child in the
car, you would take it more seriously. You would slow down, first
of all. And second of all, you would try to do everything you could
with regards to speed measures to slow down people in the '
neighborhood.
For nine years now, we've seen HOA boards take inaction,
essentially do very little to control speed in the neighborhood. All
the while, the neighborhood has grown. It's turned over. As Kyle
has mentioned, it's gotten younger. We've gotten a lot more younger
children in the neighborhood. They're playing outside, they're on
their bikes, etc. I taught my daughter to ride her bike when she was
about five years old, a little less than five. Guess where I didn't teach
her to ride her bike? In the neighborhood. I went somewhere else. I
went outside of the neighborhood because I was concerned for her
safety riding her bike in my own neighborhood. That's just wrong.
I think because I'm a tweener, I can kind of see this issue from both
sides. You've got people that have children that are trying to do
everything they can to protect them with regards to speed. At the
same time, I can understand people that have lived in the
neighborhood for 20, 25 years. They just want it the way they've
always had it. 22 years, no incident. That's one position. The other
position is we can do better. We can avoid these type of incidences
like I almost had with my daughter. We can protect the citizens of '
White Columns, the citizens of Milton. We ask for your help.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Paae 19 of 76
' One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that White Columns
Country Club has grown in size significantly in the last nine years.
It's almost tripled in membership. We became members when we
first moved in, to today, White Columns Drive gets consistent
traffic. It seems like that's where most of the incidents take place.
I think we owe it to the people of White Columns. I think the city
council owes it to the community to support the measure and to
share the cost in the signs. To not do so would be a dereliction of
duty. As a citizen of Milton, as a representative of the people here —
City Clerk: One minute.
Mr. Coveleskie: Thank you. We owe it to everyone in the neighborhood to make it a
safe and happy place to live. Thanks.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Please call the next speaker.
City Clerk: Linda Howard, would you like me to read your position on the card?
Okay.
' And Jim Howard, do you want to speak? Okay. "Speed Tables
absolutely should not be installed." Let me back up, Mayor, my
apologies. It's Jim Howard at 420 Highlands Manor Court. "Speed
tables absolutely should not be installed. Signs should be removed.
They are a disgrace to the neighborhood and an eye sore to all."
Okay, I would next, Mayor, like to — let me make sure. You don't
have your name on this one. You don't have your name.
Mayor Jamison: Do we have a name?
City Clerk: I'm sorry, I don't have it. I'll have to wait. Brad Dell, I invite you to
the podium.
Mr. Dell: Good evening Mayor and City Council members. My name is Brad
Dell. I live at 500 Glenn Hampton drive in the golf section of the
White Columns community. I've been a resident of White Columns
for four years. I'm also a member of the board of White Columns
Community Association. Speeding is a problem in White Columns,
as confirmed by the two most recent speed studies. It has long been
a problem in White Columns as confirmed by prior speed studies. It
' will continue to be a problem unless, and until we all work together
to solve it.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 20 of 76
That's why we are here. Our association wants to partner with our ,
city officials to slow speeds to save lives. We are incredibly grateful
for the city's professional staff who have worked with us over the
past 12 plus months. With their guidance, we have filed the four
specific parts of the city's ordinance code that outline the process
for installing additional passive control measures to help slow
speeds. They are as follows, Section 48-236, which says a traffic
calming measure may be warranted on a local resident street if 50%
or. more of the total traffic is exceeding the posted speed limit.
Multiple speed studies, and the city's public works director
confirmed that this threshold was exceeded and is still being
exceeded to this day.
Section 48-25A, which says where a neighborhood or other defined
study area has mandatory homeowner's association or other league
entity which may lawfully represent their position on such matters,
this entity may act in lieu of the petition process as approved by the
public works director after consultation with the city attorney. The
city's public works director and the city attorney confirmed we are
a mandator HOA before we moved forward.
Section 48-283, which says any work completed by the applicant '
within the right of way shall require right of way encroachment
permit as directed by the public works department. A right of way
permit was applied for and issued by the city. As stated earlier by
Ms. Leaders, this was done six months prior to the signs that were
installed. This was confirmed by the city's public works director at
your May 2"d meeting. It finally arrived between the Milton City
Council on May 2"d, and again tonight because of Section 48-281,
which says basic installation of a traffic calming devices will be
shared by the city,'50%, and the applicant, 50%.
This last section of the ordinance code has me confused. If the
association did everything we are supposed to do and the code says
the cost of the measures will be shared by the city, why can't we just
move forward with the cost sharing agreement? None the less, on
May 2"d, the Milton City Council offered the cost sharing
agreement, and instead passed a motion or kicked the can that called
for four more things, another speed study, completed, the
installation of additional stop signs, completed, reporting form the
Milton Police Department on the number of speeding tickets and at
what speeds, completed, the conducting of another community
survey to see what representation of the community is for and '
against with the council's desire to achieve at least 50% plus one for
approval from the community, completed.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Pace 21 of 76
' A month ago, we sent a postage paid survey reply card to each
homeowner in the golf section of White Columns. We mailed it to
ensure delivery. We provided a postage paid reply card for the
convenience of each resident. As of today, 63% of golf residents
support the newly installed signs to slow speeds and save lives. That
more than exceeds the support threshold of 50% plus 1, established
in the motion of May 2nd. We truly need your help and I ask for your
support. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Now my personal issues with all this. So, let's talk 67% for a second.
67% of the residents that are here today, two rows back, live in the
back of White Columns and don't see the speed like I do because I
live right on White Columns drive, right by the four way stop. It's
ridiculous. It's a racetrack. People are going 50 miles an hour, plus,
74 miles an hour. I can hear them rev their engines and their BMWs
all the time. I have two girls. Both of them are sitting right back
there, Harper and Reagan. I joined this board to help slow speeds, to
help save lives. If we lose one life by taking down these speed signs,
it's everybody's problem that would happen to. The city, by
removing those would make a huge mistake.
People run the four-way stop all the time. Last week or a month ago,
I saw a black convertible Mustang run the four-way stop going 50
miles an hour and bottom out. Guess where it came from. It came
from the back of the neighborhood. A lot of these people behind me
today do not have children that are my children's age. Harper's
going to be nine, Reagan is going to be seven. They all have children
over 18 years of age, so they don't care. I don't care what the signs
look like. I think they look good. In downtown Alpharetta, they also
have these signs where there's three -million -dollar homes down
there. Thank you. My time is up.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Will you please call the next speaker?
City Clerk: Mayor, the next public comment is Aimee Dmeza. I will read for
her, "The four signs on White Columns Drive violates ordinance
because the flashing sign on the opposite side of a roadway creates
distraction and a driving hazard on public street. Also, it should not
have been in that location because traffic counts are less than 400
cars per day because approximately 28 to 30 homes beyond generate
destination traffic. Treyburn Manor also does not meet traffic
criteria for a flashing sign.
I'd like to next call Mr. Richard Harp to the podium, please.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 22 of 76
Mr. Harp: Thank you. Richard Harp, 410 Highlands Manor Court. I'll be ,
quick. I oppose these signs. Same reason everybody else does. They
were put up illegally and without proper questioning of the residents
there. They did not get the proper input. They were put in
improperly. I do agree with stop signs. I think they're exactly what
was needed. You put them at the beginning of the entrance. I think
the biggest problem is people coming in off Freemanville Road and
going 40 to 60. When they turn into the neighborhood, they're still
.used to going fast speed. I think the stop signs have made a big
difference.
Speed table should never, ever be considered. Those are just a
nuisance. The speed signs should be removed. I think if we keep
watching speeds, worse case, we would go with a second set of stop
signs right in front of the club house, maybe further down Treyburn
View. I think speed signs have made a difference.
I think all these old people here, I know we're old and decrepit, but
we have gone through here with young kids, too, on bikes and
walking. We do care. I just think stop signs is the best option. Thank
you for your time.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Please call the next speaker. '
City Clerk: Mayor, the next, I believe fmal public comment card is from Denise
Upton. I will read her comment. She resides at 15370 White
Columns Drive. "We all want a safe community. The six stop signs
that were approved months ago have recently been installed and are
making a difference. Unfortunately, the HOA board purchased four
speed radar signs, costing over $15,000 at the end of 2021. They
were purchased and installed without any community engagement
and before getting a permit from the city. They do not statutory
requirements. They are unnecessary and unwanted by many
homeowners in the golf section, approximately 227 homes of White
Columns.
"Perhaps a good resolution would be for all four of them to be
moved to the second larges White Column section, the gated, with
128 homes. This is also where a majority of the HOA board
members life. The ones who prematurely spent over $15,000 of
homeowner's association funds."
Mayor, that concludes all the public comment cards that I have. I
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Questions for staff?
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1. 2022
Pace 23 of 76
I
CM Mohrig: Comment on traffic count requirements?
Ms. Leaders: Sure. Let me see if I have it one of the slides. This section of the
code talks about local residential streets and sets some thresholds.
The way we have used this code in the past is more looking at the
size of the neighborhood. Each house typically generates around 10
trips a day, which is for — if you're trying to reach a threshold of 400
trips a day as the minimum for qualifying for traffic calming funds,
that would be like a 40-lot subdivision. Instead of trying to do a
traffic count at the very front of the neighborhood to capture the
most speeds for that neighborhood, we've looked at more from a
size of a neighborhood threshold. So, neighborhoods of 40 lots and
more would meet the requirement for potential matching funds for
traffic calming.
So, the threshold is related to expend public funds to match on the
traffic calming. So, 400 to 4000 cars is our range for defining streets
that are eligible.
CM Mohrig: Does it seem like it's clearly worded in our ordinance? It sounds like
what we've heard is people view it as per location where you're
going to put the sign, 400 counts.
' Ms. Leaders: Right, it could use some clarification that if it is for any location that
matching funds are requested, that it must meet this. The last section
of this slide says volumes below 400 wouldn't typically provide
enough benefit to warrant expenditure of public funds for
installation and increased maintenance costs.
CM Mohrig: When White Columns, the board, originally came forward back in
2021, as you were working through the process, some of the
communication I saw talked about two traffic or speed radar signs.
Was that the intent as you were going through this? So, that would
be the first question. Was two the number you were originally
working with versus the four that got installed?
Ms. Leaders: The application that was submitted in July of '21 just referenced
looking at the intersections from a stop sign warrant. And then it
generally said partnering with the city on radar signs and other
measures. Let me look at my dates here. So, that was July that the
application was submitted. In August, the HOA and city began
talking about radar signs. Two was the number that was started with
in August. In late September, city and HOA met, both to look at the
' stop sign warrants, as well as to look at locations for radar signs. At
that time, we came up with four possible locations. That's how we
got to the four, was at the end of September in the process.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 24 of 76
CM Mohrig: The four locations, where they're installed now, are those the ,
locations that the city recommended? Are they on the same side of
the road? Are they monitoring the direction of traffic that the city
said those would be affected to put in those.
Ms. Leaders: Again, back to that end of September, when we did the first field
visit, we looked back at our historic traffic counts, which I had a
map of that up earlier, that showed everywhere we've counted. We
looked at both Traybum Manor and White Columns Drive. We were
originally recommending one going each direction on each of those,
close to where we had done traffic counts. So, we based it on data
we had from past speed studies and traffic counts. Originally, were
looking at one on each side of the road for those two road segments.
CM Mohrig: So, it wasn't four scattered throughout the neighborhood the way
it's set up right now. I've driven through there, I've taken a look at
the signs trying to get an idea of what was installed. One of them
clearly seems like it's backwards. WE heard a couple people
reference that when it's on the left-hand side of the road, monitoring
oncoming traffic to the back of the subdivision. I think that's at the
very back of White Columns Drive. Was that even a thought to put
it in that location. Was that something where the body or the staff '
said this is a good thing to do, this is a smart place to put it if you
want to do traffic calming?
Ms. Leaders: That one in particular, when we looked at the stop sign warrants, we
didn't complete that study until mid -December. So, we had already
talked about two locations on Treybum, two on White Columns
Drive. Once we realized there were going to be stop signs going in,
that changed the effectiveness of where we had proposed the two
signs on Traybum Manor before. So, that's why there's only one on
Treyburn Manor and the other was relocated to a nearby location to
where we had counted further into the neighborhood on White
Columns Drive.
CM Mohrig: Once you put the stop signs in, it kind of negated the need for where
you saw those speed traffic monitoring or radar signs to actually be
affective. Bu the signs are still placed in different areas, not the
original placement for the stop signs?
Ms. Leaders: Really, just one moved substantially from where it was originally
looked at.
CM Mohrig: I've just got a couple other questions. In the past when we've done '
traffic calming device or approvals, have we ever done anything
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 25 of 76
' with speed signs where we did not request the 67%, so we get a
super majority of the people that are going to be impacted by the
signs to give input by the number of households. Have we ever done
that in the city before?
Ms. Leaders: Yes. Let me see if I've got the list of neighborhoods here. We've
had two different other locations that have done radar signs as their
traffic calming measure. One was a city cost sharing, city installed
and HOA acting in place of the petition. That was in Kennewick.
And then we had another instance where the neighborhood
purchased and installed the signs and just provided an indemnity and
maintenance agreement. They didn't request a cost share. That was
in Hopewell Plantation. So, we did give them a permit. Again, the
HOA acted on behalf of the neighborhood.
Was your question have ever used a 67% or have we ever allowed —
both cases, we allowed the HOA to represent the community in the
installation of those two sets of signs.
CM Mohrig: The last question I've got has to do with the cost sharing process.
Don't we generally — Are we involved, when we do cost -sharing,
' involved with the quoting, the bidding process? Is that supposed to
be an upfront process in application versus after something is
purchased and installed? In this case, I think we've heard, the board
actually purchased the signs before we approved locations and
approved the thing. So, now they have four signs that they
purchased. Now, in May, we have them come forward asking for
cost sharing. Were we even involved in the negotiation of the prices
of the signs, like our process or ordinance requires, to do it up front
versus post approval?
Ms. Leaders: We had recently bid a base model radar sign and purchased 10 of
them to use throughout the city. So, we had a bid and price on what
we considered would be a basic model. So, if White Columns had
wanted to go with that model, we would have contributed 50% of
that cost. The exact number of — That's how we determine the
maximum amount we can contribute to this cost -share agreement.
It's not exactly 50% of what the signs cost or the installation. But
that's how we determine what a reasonable and bid price for a radar
sign would be. We did the bidding separately. We did it to purchase
our own signs. But it provided us a number that we use as that base
cost.
I
CM Mohrig: I guess my question is from a process standpoint because we're
deliberating over post or on the back end, trying to do a
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August t, 2022
Page 26 of 76
reimbursement. Is that what our process require? Is our process you '
work with them, they show you what they want, we do the cost of
installation, we do the bid. And then aren't we usually the ones that
are driving that process once they come forward to us versus being
asked on the back end after they already installed the signs to do
50150 as well as the maintenance?
Ms. Leaders: We've done the cost share where we've actually installed the signs.
This was not something we bid before as this decorative sign. In
instances where HOAs have done something beyond the base, we've
not gone back and done.a cost share agreement.
CM Mohrig: I do understand. I think I read through what shows in the thing and
our ordinance that in fact we'll consider cost sharing. You apply for
it on the front end. We're involved in the bid process. I guess my
question is just a straightforward question. Did they follow process
in actually working with the city on the process? Or did they in fact
acquire the signs before we had been engaged in looking at the cost
sharing? ,
Ms. Leaders: We did discuss it early on, but they did move forward with the
purchase prior to us — '
CM Mohrig: The purchased them on their own, which in the past, can do a
decorative sign, you can do whatever. If the neighborhood wanted
to, they basically pay for that themselves and we approved this as a
speed reduction or a traffic calming thing. At that point, that would
be their cost versus a city coming back in. That was my question.
Did they follow the process. They're asking now per the concern of
the number of the people. I was just curious if they followed that
process. It sounds like they did not.
Ms. Leaders: Right. They moved ahead.
Mayor Jamison: Sara, quick question. Rick brought up a point. So, everything you
were reading was in regards to public funds. Is it safe to say if the
HOA wasn't asking for the $6,853, would we — Council wouldn't
be deciding this, correct? This would just be a public works
decision. Is that correct?
Ms. Leaders: There would still be an indemnity and maintenance agreement.
We've done those in the past. When we first started doing them, the
city didn't actually sign off on them because it was the HOA saying '
we're going to take responsibility and maintenance and take care of
these measures that aren't your standard measure. I believe in our
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1. 2022
Page 27 of 76
' most recent indemnity agreements, even though we don't have
anything we're committing to, we do have them sign as almost a
ratification. Ken's office has helped us review those in the past.
We've done a couple of the indemnity agreements. Again, it just
allows something that's privately maintained to be allowed to be in
the right of way. So, there would still be an agreement, but not for
the cost share component.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. And then one question, I know one of the speakers said
we deferred this on four items. I might need Steve or Ken's help on
this one. The four items we deferred on, if you could go over that
and the results on those four items.
Mr. Krokoff: You have them in the presentation, correct?
Ms. Leaders: I do.
Mayor Jamison: I was curious what the community survey one?
Ms. Leaders: The speed study, that was —
' Mayor Jamison: What was the HOA results?
Ms. Leaders: That I believe was emailed by the HOA. They summarized the
number of responses they had and the percentage rate. So, I didn't
include that in this presentation, but I believe it was in a document
provided by the HOA.
Mayor Jamison: Do we have that at all? It was one of the deferral requests. I was
curious what the HOA survey results were.
CM Jacobus: I think he said 65%.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. 63, is that for or against Sara?
Male Speaker: For.
Mayor Jamison: All right, that was for Sara. Jan?
CM Jacobus: Sara, my concern is with the fact that they put them in before it was
definitely city approved or at least more permanent guidance. If you
were to go into this neighborhood and do the traffic studies, would
' you have just put in two of those signs? Or would you have
recommended four, from your professional opinion when you look
at the situation in White Columns?
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 28 of 76
Ms. Leaders: Based on our past count data, which is here, given the length of '
distance between the count locations, usually we count at a location
where a measure could be considered applicable, eligible,
warranted. Number five and six are a little close together. That was
just a matter of counting it closer to the bottom of the hill versus a
little further into the neighborhood. Same thing with three and four.
They're a little close. Given the size and length of these roadways,
four would be a reasonable number to consider, to address both
Treyburn Manor and White Columns Drive.
CM Jacobus: And you would have agreed with the location of those four signs,
where they're at today?
Ms. Leaders: Yes. With similar spacing and layout to these count stations that we
have in the neighborhood.
CM Jacobus: Ken, I've got kind of a crazy question for you. These signs, they
have messaging on the bottom. I went and looked at them today.
They flash as you go by. So, if you go under the speed it says Thank
You, something like that. It changes. My concern is the HOA
controls the messaging on that. If it goes crazy and becomes
distracting and an individual in there had an accident because the '
sign was distracting, is the city responsible or liable? Or is the HOA
liable?
Attorney Jarrard: That's a very specific fact pattern. It's going to depend on the facts
leading up to that. I will say that what we're talking about here is
signage on city property, part of the city street system. The city has
control over that. In fact, even our ordinance and even the right of
entry agreement you have in front of you is very clear that city staff
have the right, basically, at any time to direct the signs be removed.
That is part of the fact that we ultimately are going to be responsible
for what we put up as a traffic control device. What I would look to
for my engineers, my experts, was to make sure the traffic sign
comports with the MUTCD. I'm assuming that it does. The Manual
for Uniform Traffic Safety Control Devices. I'm assuming that it
does. And if that is in fact the case, I have little concern from a
liability standpoint at this point.
Now, Sara comes to me, or the city manager comes to me later an
indicates there's a problem, there's been a lack of maintenance such
that the signs are no longer serving their purpose or they in fact have
a distracting message on them and they seek my advice, I'm going '
to say if it makes the situation less safe, let's take them down. Or it
will be take that message off. Or put them back to their original
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
Page 29 of 76
default settings, whatever that may be. I think that's something we'll
just have to monitor, assuming what the city does tonight, which I
don't want to get ahead of you all. You all have a decision to make
later.
But it's a point. And yes, we are ultimately responsible for our city
maintenance and our city right of way. But as long as my engineers
are happy with the messaging on these boards, I don't see a problem.
Mayor Jamison: Councilmember Verhoff.
CM Verhoff: Sara, I have quick questions for you. Can you put that speed study
back up? Not that, I'm sorry. The map. So, Sign No. 1, is that the
location where the sign was actually installed, where the speed data
was collected?
Ms. Leaders: No, it's not the location where the sign was installed. It was further
into the neighborhood.
CM Verhoff: Looking at where other signs were installed, where the speed data
was collected, are those the locations where the signs were actually
installed?
Ms. Leaders: They are relatively close.
CM Verhoff: So, why is the No. 1 sign not in the location where the speed study
— why is it installed in a different location than where the speed study
was conducted? Is there an option to move that sign to a different
location?
Ms. Leaders: That was the one that relocated — it was one of the last ones marked
for installation. I don't know the exact reasoning it was moved
further around the corner. It might have been to give — the signs
usually don't want to be able to see them for a long period of time.
You want them to jump out at you as you're coming around a comer
to catch your eye and realize what speed you're travelling. So, that
could have had something to do, to move it a little further around
that corner.
CM Verhoff: On the opposite side of the street. So, that's the funky sign that I'm
having a problem with. If there was a location closer to the club that
made sense, that looks like some wooded area there, I don't know if
that was an option for where that sign could have been placed.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
Paae 30 of 76
Ms. Leaders: We haven't discussed that with the HOA yet. It could be something I
that we could look at moving that one, possibly.
CM Verhoff: I had a few more questions. You mentioned that the HOA collects
the data from the signs. And these are city streets. Maybe I missed
that. Why does the HOA collect the data? And why do they control
the messaging?
Ms. Leaders: So, the data's just available if they want to collect at certain points.
Part of the agreement included sharing that data with the city at any
time. It's just a way for them to get more information about the times
of day that speeding happens. It might help them with some
education measures that they may utilize in their neighborhood
communications on just some speed statistics at the signs.
CM Verhoff: Okay. And they control the messaging on that, as well?
Ms. Leaders: Yes.
CM Verhoff: I think I had one other question. I think that was it. I just had some
comments, but I can save those for later. Thanks.
Mayor Jamison: Any other questions for Sara? Rick? '
CM Mohrig: Sara, could you put that map back up that showed the speed study?
When you said you originally recommended four, were there two
essentially in the same location on each of the streets, one facing one
way, one facing the other? Or were they spaced different places the
way those signs are installed today?
Ms. Leaders: I don't recall exactly if they were right next to each other. I know
there was one close on Treybum Manor to Hallbrook where the
multi -way stop was installed. So, we wound up with one kind of
near five and six. The other may have been further into the
neighborhood on Treybum Manor.
On White Columns Drive, I know we always talked about at least
one on the section between Treybum and Hampton Bluff, Glenn
Hampton. So, something in that section because there weren't a lot
of houses that front that section of road. It just feels more open. The
other was going to be looking on the approach to the country club
property.
Whether they were exact opposite of each other, those were the two I
general areas we looked at.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1. 2022
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' CM Mohrig: As far as when you looked at the actual speed study data, are the
higher speeds that we see, is it more on that entrance leading up to
the club house from Freemanville? Did you guys recommend doing
one for both directions, so we slow people as they exit, too? Or is
there no concerns as people are exiting?
Ms. Leaders: Our highest number out of all these counts was at location four —
Sorry, location three, just coming down off the hill and approaching.
There is a stop sign already at Hampton Bluff and Glenn Hampton.
That looks like, out of all the data we've collected over the last six
years, that that was our highest speed location.
CM Mohrig: Is that where we gave most of the tickets, also?
Ms. Leaders: The speeding tickets, I don't know that we have exactly where those
two were located. I've got an Excel file that has a coordinate
associated with those speeding citations. We can see where that —
CM Mohrig: Going off what Andrea had asked, as far as the design standards, I
know we have strict design standards for what we require for all
different types of signs, size of sign, height of sign. These seem kind
' of unique. I've never seen anything like this in the city of Milton.
What are the color? I've seen red, green. What are the other colors
they've got on these signs?
Ms. Leaders: The speed limit will flash one color. And then the message,
depending on the speed will be red or green.
CM Mohrig: What about height of the sign? I'm just going by some of the people
that sent notes that were concerned, part of it was the multi -color
thing, other was also the size of those. I know we have a minimum
height where the sign has to placed, I think seven feet so people can't
walk under it and hit it. And we have to have breakaway poles
inside. What about the overall height? These seem a little taller than
what I've even seen on Freemanville and different places we put our
own. Do you have any design standards for interior signs within
neighborhoods?
Ms. Leaders: There is a maximum height on the sign, as well, that can be — the
type of mount those are on, it could be — the messaging part of the
sign could be adjusted and a supplemental speed limit sign could be
added to that post, as well. There is a maximum height. I want to say
' it's 14 feet. There is a maximum to the top of the sign height.
CM Mohrig: That height would include any type of solar panel or whatever?
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 32 of 76
Ms. Leaders: It would not. Just the sign itself for visibility to see the message on I
the sign.
CM Mohrig: That's for another time, but I think we need to take a look, possibly
as a council, for future if we ever run into this again, what is it that
we want to see? A little more restrictive. You said that we have two
examples where we did use the HOA board allowing to just make
decisions. Were those smaller neighborhoods?
Ms. Leaders: The two I referenced were just related to radar signs. We've also
used that mechanisms for speed tables. We've had, I think there
were six neighborhoods that have used city funds. Six
neighborhoods that have used city funding and used the HOA's
authority in place of the petition process. That has been passed on
using city funds.
CM Mohrig: I'd always heard, and that's why I was a little surprised in the last
meeting, the signs were already installed without having an official
survey. Reading through the ordinance, I see where that is an option
that's in there where you have a mandatory HOA. I think in every
subdivision that I know of in Milton, they are mandatory HOAs. It's ,
not an option [audio cuts out] [01:23:51]. I always thought, just
like the one previous board president had mentioned, they were told
it was 67%. So, you had to have a super majority of people actually
on that street that agree. That's the process I've been aware. I didn't
know that we did the other. It looks like we made a couple
exceptions on the signs.
One last question, and maybe staff would have the percentage.
When we said that survey was 63%, that was 63%, how many homes
do we have in that section that should have had a chance to turn the
survey in. How many turned in the survey in that 63% is on what
base?
Ms. Leaders: I can get that number.
CM Mohrig: Numbers can be misleading. It could be 63% of what base. When
we usually use approval levels, we want to know what's the whole
neighborhood, whether or not they voted or didn't vote, what
percentage of that base really voted for or against.
CM Verhoff: I will echo that. I was curious if you had actually reviewed the
survey results and if we have seen the survey results. And as ,
Councilmember Mohrig said, how many responded and break down
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 33 of 76
' that 63% of how many actually responded compared to how many
homes are in the club area.
Ll
Mayor Jamison: Thanks. Steve will you get that for us.
Mr. Krokoff: I'm going to review what the motion was last time, but I don't recall
that that was staffs responsibility. Let me dig through what we said.
I believe the motion was for asking them for a voluntary survey. I
don't think that was something staff was expected to check on or
present. I'm just pulling that up now.
CM Jacobus: Sara, on that — I keep calling it the fourth speed sign, the one that's
on White Columns at the end, we haven't talked about the fact that
it's on the opposite side of the street facing. So, it really should have
been facing the other way. Why is it still, in my opinion, the wrong
way if we're giving them guidance?
Ms. Leaders: The signs do have to point at the direction that vehicles will be
traveling to register the speed. So, that location was approaching a
curve. As the vehicle is coming around the curve, it's going to pick
up — the radar from the sign is going to pick up the vehicle and give
a little more notice than if it was on the same side of the vehicle
traveling. It's on the inside of the curve versus the outside.
CM Jacobus: It didn't seem like it was on that big of a curve to me. It just seems
like you're not used to looking over there for speed information. It
just seems awkward.
Ms. Leaders: Typically, they are — the other three locations — actually the one that
pulled up now, that was rotated since our last meeting. You see the
cursor there. This one was facing the other direction, as well. It was
facing for cars coming into the neighborhood versus those leaving
the country club. So, this one has been rotated.
CM Jacobus: But not the one up top.
Ms. Leaders: Correct.
CM Jacobus: But the one up top is still —
Ms. Leaders: Has not been.
CM Jacobus: And your recommendation is to leave it the way it is?
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 34 of 76
Ms. Leaders: We would be open to allowing it to be rotated and to get the vehicles '
as they're leaving that area of the neighborhood instead of going into
it.
CM Mohrig: I think you said that was not one of the locations that staff suggested
— you wouldn't have suggest putting it on the opposite side facing
oncoming traffic. I would think that would be more of a safety issue
because you're more likely to look and to where you follow with
_your eyes, many times, that's [audio cuts out] 101:28:14]
Ms. Leaders: So, right. The traffic count location was further in. Again, as part of
the field lay out, it was moved more interior. But the count station
was further in.
Mayor Jamison:
Steve, you have that?
Mr. Krokoff:
The motion, the fourth part of that motion, was to strongly
encourage the White Columns HOA to conduct a community survey
to see what representation of the community is for or against.
Council desire is to achieve at least 50% plus 1 for an approval from
the community. So, that I would have expected they would have
brought that up and it sounds like they did today. '
Attorney Jarrard:
I was just curious. I think staff got what we asked. I wasjust curious,
how many people responded. If they use the percentage of 63%,
which clearly is about 50 plus 1, I'm just wondering how many
people truly responded out of the total.
Mr. Krokoff:
Perhaps, Ken, if it's the council's wish and we're allowed to, we can
bring the speaker back up.
Mayor Jamison:
We have the results that were emailed to us. Would council also
want to hear the speaker?
CM Mohrig:
It doesn't matter to me, at this point.
Attorney Jarrard:
I'm just trying to figure out what's the base.
Mayor Jamison: Is council okay with that? Who was the speaker on that? Mr.
Hollingsworth, I know you didn't turn in a comment card. I need
you to take a seat real quick. Who was the speaker on that?
Mr. Krokoff: Tammy, can you help me, who was the board member who spoke? I
City Clerk: Mr. Dell. I think it was Mr. Brad Dell.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1. 2022
Page 35 of 76
'
Mayor Jamison:
Mr. Dell?
Mr. Dell:
72 total ballots, 45 for and then 27 no.
Attorney Jarrard:
How many homes are in that section that were surveyed? How was
that really sent out?
Mr. Dell:
227 homes of that section of White Columns, got a response of 72.
CM Verhoff:
And how many were for, you said?
Mr. Dell:
45 were for and 26 no.
Mayor Jamison:
Thank you. Any other questions for Sara before council discussion?
Andrea?
CM Verhoff:
Yes.
Mayor Jamison: Mr. Hollingsworth, have a seat please. Sara, Councilmember
Verhoff has a question.
' CM Verhoff: Sorry, one more I forgot to ask you. Can you pull up the map one
more time. I specifically want to look at the one on Treybum. The
next one that shows the — yes. So, in 2016, No. 6, is the number
below both of those the traffic count, 307 and 385?
Ms. Leaders: Right, the ADT is the number of vehicles going that direction.
CM Verhoff: To install a traffic calming device, we typically look at 400?
Ms. Leaders: Usually, we're looking — this is a little unique because the radar sign
only addresses one direction. But usually with measures, were
looking at the road. So, we're looking both directions. In this case,
typically, it would be the 397 plus the 385, would be that section of
roadways, what we call the ADT, average daily traffic. With a radar
sign, it is only addressing one direction. So, you're correct, for only
the heading into the neighborhood is the 385 cars a day.
CM Verhoff: Do current speed studies show different ADTs?
Ms. Leaders: It was close. Here's the slide that shows the bottom three numbers.
' CM Verhoff: The 345.
Ms. Leaders: Yeah. And those can vary by day or by summer versus in school.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
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CM Verhoff: Vacation, yeah. Thank you. I
Mayor Jamison: Any other questions for Sara? Council discussion? I know we heard
a lot about removing the signs. I think it's very important that we all
know that on our agenda tonight, is just the cost sharing. If council
wants to remove signs at some future date, that's going to be a future
agenda item. Ken, can you correct me on that?
Attorney Jarrard: I agree. Secondly, code speaks in terms of really that being a staff
function in conjunction with the city manager. The city reserves the
right to remove traffic calming devices for any reason. Upon
approval of the,city manager, the public works director may order
the applicant to remove a traffic calming measure in accordance of
Subsection C. Again, going back to the notion that this is a city
function, city right of way, city's in control. If the city engineer and
the city manager have a concern, they have the right to order
removal.
Mayor Jamison: I guess a follow-up question. Can an HOA or future HOAs, they
have the authority to remove the signs, if they —
Attorney Jarrard: The code speaks to that as well. They have the right to seek to have '
them removed. There's an actual process in the ordinance for that.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Council discussion. We're voting on $6,853.
Attorney Jarrard: That's all we're voting on at this point is whether or not we're going
to do the cost sharing.
Mayor Jamison: I think we deferred it for those four reasons. I personally don't feel
anything in those four reasons say we don't do the cost sharing.
That's just me. I'm open to everyone's opinion and discussion.
Councilmember Johnson?
CM Johnson: I'm going to agree but that fourth sign — if we all agree to remove
that would that —
Mayor Jamison: We probably can't do — Ken? We probably cannot direct the
movement. But we can probably direct public works to re-evaluate
that. Would that be fair?
Attorney Jarrard: I don't want the council to take official action on that. But I think if
that's the consensus, your staff is pretty good at picking up on what '
the council wants it to do. That's not in the way of a formal vote.
My trepidation on that issue is simply because removal of sign is not
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 37 of 76
' on the agenda. The agenda is very clear. It is the approval of this
right of entry. I think to the extent that you're discussing it, I think
your city manager is pretty good at getting where you want to go
and will act accordingly.
Mayor Jamison: Is that Sign No. 1 on the map?
CM Johnson: It is.
CM Mohrig: Other question, if we want to change or review the ordinance, like
we've done with others, if you think we're going to avoid issues as
we're dealing with this, we can actually have that come forward,
take a look, do a work session. So, if we think there's a better way
to do it for neighborhoods, including those with HOAs or put a little
more teeth in it.
Mayor Jamison: I would 100% agree with us doing a work session in the future on
that.
CM Mohrig: The only comment I've got as far as the funding, we've got a process
that says you're supposed to work with us. The city staff is supposed
' to go out and do the bid, if I read through. It sounds like they went
ahead and purchased signs on their own, which they can do if they
get approval to install them. The question is, are we going to do this
for any time we need traffic calming devices? Do we make an
exception every time? It's like you can come in later and ask for it,
and we'll allocated the funds including the maintenance going
forward. That's my concern is there's a process. Is there a reason for
the process? I think it's so the city staff can be involved. Even
though we have a comparative bid, the question is was this a process
that they should have followed, and would that have alleviated some
of this?
Mayor Jamison: I think the issue is there was a process. I think it started in July, from
what Sara said. I think there was a mutual discussion going on
between both parties, is my assumption. I'm not going to say you
assume this would have been approved. But I think there was a
working relationship there with the HOA. I think the process was
followed. We deferred it for the four items. The four items seem like
everything was fulfilled. I'm in support of it with the one caveat that
Councilmember Johnson said. I open it up for any more discussion.
CM Verhoff: Back to the process, I know a lot of the conversation started in July,
moved into August, they discussed two radar signs. In September,
the city notes the HOA talked about four possible locations. I
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 38 of 76
understand a lot of the conversations were happening. But if we look ,
at the bates of when the permit was actually given, when the signs
were installed. The signs were installed prior to the permit. For me,
I like to see a process. They are there for a reason. We have non-
standard signs now in place there. Maybe if they were purchased
with the assistance of Sara, offering what signs are standard, these
other signs may not have been purchased.
So, nonstandard signs, didn't the follow the process, I guess, to a T,
that's what I'm struggling with right now.
Mayor Jamison: Sara, can you go over that for us, again? Just when the permit was
applied for, when it was approved. And how is this different from
the other how many other different right of way permits that we get
over the course of the —
Ms. Leaders: The application was submitted in July to review the HOA for the
traffic calming program. And then we started talking about number
of signs over the months of August, September. In November, the
HOA emailed that they'd received four radar signs that they ordered.
At that point, we were doing another field visit to determine the best '
location for those four signs to be most effective. During that time,
we were also still doing the stop sign warrant. We had a third party
assist with that, just to review it form a safety aspect. So, we were
waiting on the results for that. That didn't come in until mid -
December, at which time we notified that one of the locations we
talked about previously would need to be adjusted.
In January, that was adjusted. February 8, public works staff did a
confirmation of the markings of where the signs were. All of them
that were proposed, as well as the stop signs, we have stop signs and
then we have some stop ahead signs, just because of the visibility
approaching the stops. So, all those sign locations were verified in
February. And then the work to start the installation began in mid -
March and was completed late April.
So, the code says any work completed by the applicant within the
right of way shall require a right of way encroachment permit as
directed by the Public Works Department. With our coordination
over six months' worth of talking about these signs, verifying the
locations, field marking them, that was our direction to proceed with
installation. The permit was just the final button at the end to ensure
that all the elements were met with the installation. So, that
happened in late April, was the completion of the signs, as well as '
the final permit signed by the HOA and the city Public Works.
r�
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 39 of 76
Mayor Jamison: That helps. Thank you. Any other discussion? I'll open it for a
motion.
CM Mohrig: Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion that we deny approval of Agenda
Item No. 22-152.
Motion: Councilmember Mohrig moved to deny Agenda Item No. 22-152. No
second was made.
Mayor Jamison: Is there a second? Okay. I'd like to make a motion we approve
Agenda Item No. 22-152 with the one caveat allowing our public
works department, given their expertise, to look at sign location No.
1 and re-evaluate that.
CM Johnson: Second.
Mayor Jamison: Okay. I have a motion from myself and a second from
Councilmember Johnson to approve Agenda Item No. 22-152 with
the caveat of what I just said. Any discussion on that motion? All in
favor, please say Aye.
Majority:
Mayor Jamison:
CM Mohrig:
Aye.
Any opposed?
Opposed.
Motion and Vote: Mayor Jamison moved to approve Agenda Item No. 22-152
with the following amendment
• To allow Public Works to use expertise to determine if sign #1 is to
be removed and approve Cost Sharing Agreement.
Councilmember Johnson seconded the motion. The motion passed (4-1).
Councilmember Mohrig opposed the motion. Councilmember Moore excused
himself from the vote. Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS
Mayor Jamison: Councilmember Mohrig opposed. Thank you. That will conclude
that agenda item.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1. 2022
Paae 40 of 76
We'll move on to reports and presentations. Is that correct, Tammy? I
Greg, here we go.
City Clerk: Mayor, that next item is presentation of results from Milton's 2022
Version of the National Community Survey. Our communications
director, Mr. Greg Botelho.
Mr. Botelho: I am here to talk about the national community survey, which I
briefed you all and talk to you about earlier. But just to give a big
recap before we get into the meaty, juicy fun stuff, I guess. So, every
two, three years, our city and hundreds of other cities around the
country, ranging from the size of about 1,000 to 4 million, but
generally closer to our size, take this survey which as many common
questions. It helps us measure ourselves against hundreds of other
cities. We also are able to measure ourselves against how Milton
residents' views from the past. So, it's one of the things that makes
this unique and useful is that the results are statistically significant,
which, unlike a general online poll where anyone can take it.
There are represented random samples that are measured by polling
experts. In terms of why these are valuable to Milton, many parts of
our strategic plan generally point to this as the tool that we can '
measure how residents feel about certain topics. It can guide what
we're doing well, what we can work on, what challenges we face,
what we can add or subtract, or where best to invest our time and
resources. It's very useful in that respect.
But there are also limits to it. It measures a point in time. So, this
was conducted between March 10 and May 13. So, this is how the
representative households, how they felt at that time. Those opinions
could have changed. They might be different now. We had a 16%
response rate, which is good, not great. There is a 5% margin of
error, sometimes called the confidence interval. Therefore, you'll
see it a little later, if it's within a few percentage points, generally
from a statistics standpoint, those are seen as equal. One, two
percent is an end all be all. There's some other factors here.
I'm not going to go through everything here. Especially for all these
different results, but I did want to give you a broad sense of what
kind of people are represented here. Generally, what I'm going to
focus on the examples that are stand out, whether we are in a very
high percentile, we would be in the top one percent of all the
different communities that are measured here. There's also rank. So,
if there are 400 communities, citizens are asked the same exact '
question. If we are ranked No. 1, that means we stood out more than
any of the other ones. Conversely, the other side.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 41 of 76
' I also have here how we can compare the past Milton surveys. So,
Milton residents feel better or worse about a certain thing compared
to when they took it in 2019, 2016, and 2014. Now, I'm just going
to jump into the results.
Generally, Milton rated very well over all on most measures. You
can see this here. I'm not going to go through everything. The
percent positive, which is the very satisfied. I think it was very
satisfied, satisfied or very favorable or favorable. Our numbers were
generally did not change very much compared to 2019. I would say
96 percentile for quality of life is pretty outstanding. I think you go
down the board. Image and reputation is 97' percentile. That is
extremely high. One of things is a new question that is asked, but a
sense of civic and community pride, that we're in the 92"d percentile.
That means that out of — only 9% of citizens from other cities had a
higher percent of civic pride. I think that's something we should note
and it's a good baseline.
I won't go into every single thing. These numbers, when you have
96% positive place to live, that's very high and that's something we
have a good baseline. And at the same time, it hasn't changed very
much over time.
' I also have this slide on certain things that city government controls
and certain things that city government does not control that are part
of the survey. So, I kind of pulled out some of the things that we do
control. One is, the fact that we're 97d' percentile in terms of
customer service by city employees, is pretty remarkable. We talk
about service in our strategic plan values, and that's giving the sense
that people live by it. One thing that we're down, 10%, quality of
city service provided. We could speculate on of the questions later
on. This would be quality of city services that are provided, it could
also be interpreted by the respondent in terms of services that we
don't provide, for example, trash and recycling. You can't
necessarily get in the minds of every single person. That can be
interpreted various ways.
But generally, you'll see most people thinking we're acting in the
community's best interest as a city government. Most people
approve of the direction that Milton is taking. That's not always the
case in other city governments. Even value of services to taxes paid,
while that is 67%, which could be higher, I suppose, but that's still
up 7% than it was the last time this was taken.
' So, this slide talks about business, economy related items. There's a
few ways these questions were asked. One is importance of
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
Page 42 of 76
residential commercial design layouts. People were asked how '
important is this to you. Apparently, there's 287 communities over
the last few years have been asked this question. The numbers vary
because this is a relatively new question. Milton ranked number one.
That means our residents feel strongly about that, about how
different our neighborhoods and our commercial areas are laid out.
Generally, we do very well in that. We're certainly not ranked
number one in terms of how it is laid out.
You can see all these other measures. Generally, the things that jump
out to me in terms of the cost of living, people sense the cost of
living here is down 15% from the previous years. It's 36t' percentile,
which is perhaps not surprising, but not something you'd love to see.
For some reason, people think the shopping opportunities have gone
down. One of the things I think is really significant, especially in
light of some other things, when this was conducted in the spring,
only 23% of people responded expected positive growth in the
family income. 36% thought they would go backward. That's
compared to in 2019 where that's a 36% difference. That's a pretty
big difference.
One of the categories is called mobility. There's two ways to look '
at this thing in terms of compared to previous surveys, ease of travel,
especially by car, has gone up significantly. People think that it is
higher. At the same time, Milton is in the middle ground for a lot of
these factors in terms of 550' percentile in traffic flow, which is kind
of middle ground, but still better than it was a few years ago.
Two areas we rank considerably lower than the national average is
ease of walking, ease of travel by bike. That's something that has
come up repeatedly, even if it hasn't necessarily changed much for
Milton over time, it is something we don't measure in the same way
as other cities. Public transport is another one, too.
This is one of the most striking results. There's some context here.
Around January of last year, several of our major trash and recycling
providers had issues with staffing. There was some complaints about
whether recycling was picked up and sometimes trash and
sometimes other things. For some areas, that persisted for several
months, including when this was conducted from March into April.
At the same time, you can see these numbers are striking in terms of
these are things the city does not directly control. We don't directly
control garbage collection or waste pickup or recycling. But the '
people's opinion of them has plummeted, at least this survey
compared to 2019.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 43 of 76
' We were the first percentile for garbage collection, much lower than
the national benchmark. Much lower than the national benchmark
for all of these things. This could be a moment in time. Maybe think
about it differently now. Last spring, this is [inaudible] [01:51:591
sample of people, how they thought.
Onto public safety and crime. Generally, people feel very positively
about our police and fire services. People feel very safe. Not much
significant difference between previous years. Our think our crime
data backs up that people feel this is a safe community, and for good
reasons.
So, I came before council for establishing some unique questions
beyond the ones that every community — so these are questions that
are only asked to Milton residents. Some of them are informed by
our strategic plan. For example, our website online services, that
was something that was noted. Apparently we got 80% across the
board as being favorable which is what it is. That was mostly to
establish a baseline. But there's some other ones I'm going to walk
through one by one that could be very interesting for you all.
' One is how much a priority, if any, should be placed on the
following options for Milton's recreation, parks, and cultural
spending? So, the runaway winner — people could select more than
one — nature trails. That's 94% of people think that should be a high
priority. So, people were asked very high priority, high priority, no
priority, kept going down the line. The other four were grouped very
tightly together between an indoor athletic facility, a performance
center, sports fields, and outdoor athletic courts. But those still,
between 66 and 73%. So, it's a pretty comparable grouping. But
generally, people thought they were high priorities for all of them.
Another question we had, which was basically would you support
increasing taxes through a bond for the following, either active
parks, which we had 69% at that time. Another basic green space
bond, which was 80%. Again, this was at a time when most people
thought their income would go down over the next six months. But
still, there was still widespread support for that. Another thing, in
the unique question, where there are so many details, there's 22% of
respondents, if they had to single out one thing mentioned, adding
more green space, parks, or trails.
' This last question speaks to the recycling, which we had seen on the
standard survey, which everyone takes for all the different
communities, support for recycling options. So, how much would
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August t, 2022
Page 44 of 76
you support or oppose, they're asked to rank each of these, which
are basically individual questions. So, 39% supported the status quo.
The highest response by far which was supported was a regional
recycling center with cost shared by government. I'm not going to
go into all of these. You can see it here. There are certain telling —
people are supportive of different options. You can also pick more
than one of those options.
Those are the last highlights. This is 102-page survey, which you
have in your emails if you want to look through it. I just tried to pull
out some of the highlights. This is really just a tool for you all to use.
This is not — scientific surveys are really useful, but they can change
over time, as anyone who has followed political polling, in some
things we can influence easily and some others we cannot. I just
wanted to share that with you and share that publicly. And thank
everyone who participated in this survey. Thank you. Any questions
or thoughts?
Mayor Jamison: Thanks, Greg. This really helps with our strategic plan, for sure, and
everything moving forward. Questions for Greg?
CM Jacobus: Is there any way to tell geographically where pockets —
Mr. Botelho: We did ask for that. I think when we had 415 responses, the margin
of error would be 10, 15%. So, we did ask for that. If we had 60%
response rate, which would be rare. We didn't want to present it
when you have something very high because the margin of error
would vary by too much.
FIRST PRESENTATION
Mayor Jamison: That's good. Thank you. That was reports and presentations. We'll
move on to the public hearing. Would the city clerk please sound
the item.
City Clerk: Mayor, we're going to move on to First Presentation, first, and then
we'll do public hearing.
Mayor Jamison: Where am I on here?
City Clerk: Number eight. Let me read that for you, Mayor, it's consideration —
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 45 of 76
Mayor Jamison: I want to make sure I'm on the right one here. I'm on Page 9. Reports
and presentations. 11 is gone. Here it is. Move on to first
presentation. Will the city clerk please sound the item.
City Clerk: Absolutely, Mayor. That item is consideration of an ordinance for
the mayor and council of the city of Milton, Georgia to establish the
ad valorem tax rate of the city of Milton for fiscal year 2023 and for
other purposes. It is Agenda Item No. 22-235. Our assistant city
manager, Ms. Bernadette Harvill. Sorry, we don't do anything on
that, Mayor. See, I was testing Stacy. Mayor, can we go on to motion
and vote, please?
Mayor Jamison: We do not have any public comment? Every time we mess up with
the agenda —
City Clerk: I am on it. I love to keep you all on your toes.
Mayor Jamison: First presentation. So, I'll open up for a motion.
CM Mohrig: Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we approve First Presentation as
read.
CM Jacobus: Second.
Mayor Jamison: Okay, I have a motion from Councilmember Mohrig and a second
from Councilmember Jacobus to approve the First Presentation. All
in favor, please say aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve the First
Presentation item as read. Councilmember Jacobus seconded the motion. The
motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
PUBLIC HEARING
Mayor Jamison: Any opposed? That's unanimous. So, now we'll go on to Page 12.
So, we'll go on to our public hearing. Will the city clerk please
sound the item?
City Clerk: Absolutely, Mayor. It's consideration of an ordinance of the mayor
and council of the city of Milton, Georgia to establish the ad valorem
tax rate of the city of Milton for fiscal year 2023 and for other
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 46 of 76
purposes. It's Agenda Item No. 22-235. For real, it's now going to I
be assistant city manager, Ms. Bernadette Harvill.
Ms. Harvill: Good evening, Mayor and Council. We are here this evening to
discuss setting the calendar year 2022 millage rate, which will fund
fiscal year 2023 activity. This is the first of three required public
.hearings. We will go into the details of those requirements a little
later in the presentation. First we have the agenda for this public
hearing. We will go over some important definitions, followed by
the state's requirements for the public hearings and advertisements
regarding setting millage rate. Next, we will discuss millage rate
options. Please keep in mind, you can approve any millage rate up
to the legal cap of 4.731.
Staff advertises at the capped millage rate to allow council the
flexibility to select any rate up to and including the capped millage
rate. And we will discuss how this relates to the fiscal year 2023
budget that has been prepared later in this presentation. Following
the millage rate overview, we will break down the digest by category
and show the taxes that would be levied at the capped millage rate,
a mid -point millage rate, and the rollback millage rate, which will
be followed up by a review of the draft general fund budget '
summary for fiscal year '23. After that, we will look at some ways
property owners can reduce their tax liability, have a calculated tax
bill. And finally, the value of your tax dollars as a Milton taxpayer.
Before you we have some samples of definition that help
understanding of the terminology we use throughout the
presentation. First we have a mil, which is one dollar per $1,000 of
assessed property value, or 0.001 times your assessed value. The fair
market value is the estimate of the market value of the property as
determined by the Fulton County Board of Assessors. That's
important to know, it's not your Zestimate or any other information
from a real estate agent. It is the Fulton County Board of Assessors
clear market value.
Your assessed or tax value, those terms are interchangeable,
depending on where you look, is the value equal to 40% of that fair
market value assessed by the Fulton County Board of Assessors.
Property taxes are calculated by multiplying the millage rate by that
assessed value, which has been adjusted for an exemption. So, at the
bottom, I have there, you take your assessed value minus your
exemptions, multiply it by 0.00, in this current tax year, 4.731. That '
would be your taxes owed for the current year.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Paae 47 of 76
' Two more definitions, we have the rollback rate. The rollback rate
is the previous years millage rate minus the millage equivalent to the
total net assessed value by added reassessments. I know that's a
mouthful. We have a math calculation later that shows you exactly
how we calculate that. The millage equivalent is the equation where
the reassessment of existing real property is divided by the current
year's net digest and then multiplied by the prior year's millage rate.
These are all equations to figure out what is the inflation value
versus the new and existing value.
Any time the city's millage rate will exceed the computed rollback
rate, we must hold three public hearings to allow for citizen input.
Since Milton advertises at the capped millage rate to allow for
maximum flexibility for council to adopt any millage rate up to that
rate, we will hold three public hearings as follows: This evening is
public hearing number one, August 1, 2022. The second meeting
will be held after the work session on Monday, August 8. And then
the final public hearing will be held on August 15. Followed by that,
the third and final public hearing, we'll have the vote to adopt a
millage rate for fiscal year 2023.
' Again, we must advertise two ads in the paper any time the potential
millage rate will exceed that rollback rate. I have here an example
of one of the advertisements that was in the paper on July 21' and
28'. And then the second one is the five-year history and net digest
levy. That was in the paper on the 20a', as well. We'll gov over the
math on all of these ads in just a moment. We must advertise this at
least one week prior to each public hearing. In addition, we must
have an official press release and notify by publishing all this
information on the city's website. Our communication director,
Greg Botelho, helps me in making sure we meet those requirements
every year.
Here we have a snipped portion of the worksheet provided by the
Department of Revenue that must be used to calculate the rollback
rate that we just discussed. This shows the 2021 digest figures as
well as the '22 digest figures and what portion of that is due to
reassessment of real property or to other changes in the digest, such
as new homes, new businesses.
Again, I just want to point out that Milton is required to estimate our
homestead exemptions for the coming year using last year's digest
' values. The county does not true up that data to reflect changes that
result in a final digest being issued or any appeals that are fmalized
throughout the year. So, there's always a slight difference between
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
Page 48 of 76
the exemptions reported here on this report and those that you may I
see on our other reports, such as our popular annual financial report.
Again, we show the math to be transparent so you can see how we
get to these different values that have to be advertised. Again, that
millage equivalent, we take the reassessment of real existing
,property, and we divide that by the current year's net digest. Both of
those figures came from that last snip that we just showed from the
PT302.1 worksheet from the Department of Revenue. We multiply
that by last year's millage rate. So, this year's millage equivalent is
0.525 mils. That's the equivalent of that inflationary figure.
Then you have your rollback rate. That's last year's millage rate
minus that millage equivalent that we just calculated. So, that would
be 4.731, our current millage rate, minus 0.525, which is 4.206. So,
you will see 4.206 mils several times throughout this conversation.
That is the rollback rate for this year.
The percentage of tax increase that goes in that first ad that we talked
about, you take your advertised millage rate, which we currently
advertise at the capped millage rate, reduce that by the rollback rate
and then divide it by the rollback rate and multiply by 100 and we
'
have that 12.48%. You're going to hear that 12% figure again
throughout this conversation.
The five-year history is a little different. It is not comparing that
inflationary number, but is looking at the overall digest growth year
after year if we were to use that capped millage rate. So, again, we
take our current net digest, and we multiply that by the advertised
millage rate, which is our capped millage rate divided by 1000, and
that gives us our taxes levied. There you can see, if we have the
$3,430,201,002 total digest multiplied by that millage equivalent,
we would yield at 100%, $16,228,281 in revenue.
So, again, if you compare that to the prior year's levy, you see that
there's a 17% growth year over year at a 4.731 millage rate this year
compared to a potential 4.731 millage rate in 2022's calendar year.
That is how the ads get advertised.
We'll now go in to talk about how we actually collect and what
revenues we project to receive based on all the millage rate options
we're going to talk about. We can stop here if anyone has any
questions. I know that's a lot of math and information. We're good?
Excellent.
,
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 49 of 76
' So, here on this slide, you'll see we always show the capped millage
rate, which happens to also be the current millage rate for 2022's
fiscal year, which is 4.731 mils. We have the rollback rate at 4.206
mils. And then we have a midpoint millage rate, which is right
between the two at 4.469. Earlier in the year, Mayor Jamison asked
staff to consider looking at potential options of rollbacks of the
millage rate and different budgetary opportunities. So, the midpoint
is where we're standing. But again, you have the opportunity to
choose a millage rate anywhere you'd like under up to 4.73 on mils.
At the very bottom of the slide, you'll see the separately calculated
green space bond millage rate. This is the variable rate used to allow
for property tax collection for debt service payments on the green
space bond, including principle and interest due in fiscal year 2023.
This rate is addition to the M&O rate and is not included in that cap.
For reference, the bond millage rate last year was 0.487 mils. The
year before, 0.538. This year were looking at 0.452 in order to
collect the revenues necessary to pay off that debt.
Here you can see the net M&O digest, again, that three -billion -dollar
figure, and the taxes that will be levied under the three millage rate
' options we discussed for real property, personal property. I'm
showing you the comparison of the 100% collection rate. What we
actually [inaudible] [02:07:181 in year one. So, typically, we see
97% of taxes for real property collected in year one and around 65%
of personal property. Those are the revenues that we would collect
under each one.
We have a little bit of a zoom in here under each millage rate. With
a 97% collection in year one for real property, a 65% collection in
year one for personal property, and 55% collection in year one for
motor vehicle. Under a 4.731 millage rate, you'd see a total revenue
collection of $15.6 million. Under 4.469, $14.8 million. And under
4.206, $13.9 million.
Again, we'll go back to those calculations we talked about earlier,
the difference between the rollback rate and the capped millage rate
is that 12.48 percent or $1.7 million. And the difference between
that capped millage rate and that midpoint rate, again, six percent,
right down the middle, $865,210. For your reference to what we are
currently seeing in fiscal year 22, we have the amended budget at
$13,129,743 for current year real property. Collections to date, as of
I
July 26, when we first published the presentation, $13,030,473,
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Paae 50 of 76
We've included the budget summary for reference this year. It '
compares the projections for FY 2023 to the amended budget for
fiscal year 2022. Fiscal year 2023 property projections are based on
that midpoint millage rate of 4.69. We'll go over the details of the
revenue in just a moment. You can also see here, the proposed
expenditure summary by department. Staff will be going over the
,details of the entire budget at the work session on August 8. We
wanted to include this summary to explain that this draft budget is
.proposed on that 4.469 millage rate, and it would cover everything
that you see here within that millage rate.
Should council decide to go with an alternative millage rate option,
staff would make alterations to the recommended budget as needed.
Traditionally, any changes would be related to the timeline of the
city's pay as you go. capital projects, whether that be delaying, or
accelerating timelines based on the available funding in the Pay -Go
program through the approved millage rate.
Mayor Jamison: Bernadette, can you say the very first thing you just said on this slide
a moment ago? I think I heard you say that a particular millage rate,
everything would be covered. Can you tell me that millage rate
again, please. I
Ms. Harvill: The budget before you is the midpoint millage rate of 4.469.
CM Mohrig: That's the recommended staff budget.
Ms. Harvill: So, we prepared the budget at that midpoint based on conversations
we had in the past and based on Mayor Jamison's request for us to
look at some options of tiering back the millage rate. We can alter
this plan based on anything the council would like to do. Like I said,
traditionally, that would be through the capital pay as you go
program. Maybe deferring some projects for some time or
accelerating them depending on that millage rate. But this is the
middle of rollback and capped.
Mayor Jamison: I have a quick question. I know this is peanuts, but why is the 65%
collection on personal?
Ms. Harvill: So, we have just experienced that historically, I believe that a lot of
times businesses open and close and maybe the digest don't get
updated as often. We've seen at times, Alpharetta's businesses and
ours, ours and Alpharetta's, and we have to go through a process to '
get them changed. It is the tax on the furniture and fixtures within
your business. It just happens to be something that lags.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 51 of 76
Mayor Jamison: Interesting. I get that bill from Fulton County, also. I was just
curious why 65%.
Mr. Krokoff: It eventually gets to 100% or some reasonable number. It just lags.
Ms. Harvill: Personal property, often times will have more adjustments to it than
our real property side. And so, it's a give or take. Eventually, for
real property, for certain, gets to 100%. That's typically right after
the end of year one. Personal property, somewhere near there, but
not necessarily with 100% with some of the alterations that have to
be done.
Mayor Jamison: Bernadette, the 4.4, that midpoint, does not have any impact on our
future capital projects, correct?
Ms. Harvill: Right. We will go over, in depth, detail of all the projects and any
that may have been changed according to what we originally said
we were going to do in ' 23 from last year's seven-year plan to this
year's seven-year plan at the 8a' work session. You have something
to look forward to for a week.
' So, here we did a little zoom in on just the taxes category for
revenue. You can see in the first half of the pages, the property taxes
section. You can see the 14.5 million, 190,000 and 22,000 figures
under real property, personal property current, and motor vehicle
tax, match exactly the 4.69, 97%, 65%, and 55% revenues we just
showed on the slide previous.
So, the city is always looking to expand and diversify revenue
opportunities as is required by our ordinance as well as our strategic
plan. Staff will be bringing forth subsequent presentation throughout
2023 related to this. All revenue projections before you were based
on the current circumstances and ordinances. So, we didn't make
any assumptions about potential changes to any ordinances at this
time. You can see that our greatest revenue category is property
taxes with 52% of our total revenues coming from that category.
Specifically, 38% of our total revenue is coming from real property
current year taxes.
Many cities have a commercial digest based closer to 40 or 50% of
their digest. Where Milton's remains around 13 to 15% by the
design of our city. So, it's just something to keep in mind. But we
' do understand that our primary revenue source is property taxes
from homeowners. There are several ways for homeowners to
recognize some tax savings and opportunities for those. We have
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August t, 2022
Page 52 of 76
listed right there, We have our basic homestead exemption. Anyone '
who lives in their home can apply through the county and receive
$15,000 off of the city of Milton tax bill as well as what they receive
with the county. That also qualifies them for the floating homestead
exemption, which goes by the CPI. We'll talk a little more in detail
in a moment.
We have our senior basic homestead exemption and two others
.available to our seniors and a full value exemption for both seniors
and those with permanent disability. As a reminder, there will be a
referendum on the ballot this November that will involve three
questions. If approved, they will expand the city of Milton's benefits
for seniors through those exemptions. The first two questions, when
approved together, will combine that 65-year age only exemption
with the 65 age and income exemptions. For all of those who just
turned 65, to qualify for $25,000. It will apply- to both the
maintenance side and the bond side. Additionally, the income
threshold for the full value exemption will be $100,000 now instead
of the current $72,264. So, I just wanted to point that out, so
everyone understands.
If anyone has any questions and they are age 65 or older or have a '
permanent disability, please reach out to our finance department and
they can get you signed up with these exemptions.
We also have the more recently implemented floating CPI
exemption, which applies to the primary residence and up to five
contiguous acres of land. This exemption, alone, outpaces all of
Milton's other exemptions, including the,full value exemptions we
just talked about. The floating exemption is the difference between
your current assessed value and the adjusted base year value. What
happens is you take that adjusted base year value and you multiply
it times the CPI or three percent, whichever is lower. We believe
this year it's going to be three percent. We're waiting for Fulton
County to confirm that, but I think we can all probably assume that's
what it's going to be. This sample here shows it at three percent.
You can just follow the math along and see that regardless o f how
your appraised value changes, if you have this exemption, your
actual taxable value will not increase more than three percent. Then
your other exemptions apply on top of that. I just want to show that
a little bit and I'm happy to go over that with anybody who has any
questions about that. I
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August t, 2022
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' Another consideration is the CUVA, the Conservation Use Value
Assessment. This is for properties under 2,000 acres that qualify
under the state's conservation use laws and are eligible for this
CUVA program to further reduce tax liability. There is a
requirement to maintain the property at the standards for which the
program stipulates for a period of 10 years. If approved, the property
value will be based on land use rather than market value. So, this
isn't an exemption. It's actually a land use reduction. That's an
important thing for many people in the city of Milton, I just like to
call that out as an opportunity for tax savings.
We also would like to talk a little bit about the assessment notice.
We know that often times it causes a little concern for our residents.
We just like to point out that Fulton County does not maintain the
city of Milton's by parcel exemption information, nor do they, when
they send these out, have our current millage rate. We're talking
about the millage rate right now. You all have received your
assessment notices already. So, we just like to let everyone know to
please not be worried by some data being missing from these
assessments. They're really just to make sure that you do agree with
the fair market value that the county is assessing for your property.
' If you don't, by all means, you can appeal. If you agree with it, then
all your exemptions that you have with the city will hold and stay
true. If you have any concerns, the department can always let you
know which exemptions you have on your property.
Now, getting into the fun part, how to calculate your tax bill. So, our
average fair market value for this digest year was $625,000. We
show the example with a basic $15,000 homestead exemption, not
using the floating. It kind of gets a little confusing. You can get to
the math the same way. Basically, showing you take your assessed
value times — Sorry, your fair market value times 40%. That gives
you your assessed or taxable value. There it is across all different
millage rates. So, at any millage rate, you would have the same
assessed value. You take your exemptions off of that assessed value.
That becomes the rate by which you multiply the millage rate.
So, under 4.731, you would owe the city $1,111.79 for that year's
taxes. At 4.469, $1,050.22, which is six percent less than that other
rate. And at 4.206, $988.41, which is 12 percent less than the capped
millage rate.
' Here you can see across all the services the city provides, the
percentage by which those different taxes would be distributed.
About 42% goes towards public safety, police, and fire. You see
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Paae 54 of 76
about 14% going toward your governing body and administration,
that's mayor and council, finance, HR, communications, all those
types of departments. We have 18% currently going toward capital
pay as you go programing. This is based on the FY 2023 budget that
you will see next week at the 4.469. Again, no matter which millage
rate you do it, the percentage won't change. We have that middle
column is what we're going to have next week's presentation based
on.
Breaking it down once farther, just to show you that at this millage
rate, at the capped millage rate, an average fair market value of
$625,000 with a basic homestead exemption of $15,000 would pay
$3.05 daily for all the services the city provides. At 4.469 mills, that
would be $2.88. And at 4.206 mills, that would be $2.71. So, again
the difference between those are six percent each, to show you what
you'd pay daily for all those services the city provides.
I'm happy to answer any questions. And again, we will go over this
same presentation two more times for public transparency purposes.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you, Bernadette. Any questions for Ms. Bernadette?
Ms. Harvill: Thank you.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. Real quick, any public comment?
City Clerk: There are none, sir.
NEW BUSINESS
Mayor Jamison: I'll close the public hearing. Thank you. There's no zoning agenda.
So, we'll move on to new business.
City Clerk: Mayor, that new business item is consideration of a resolution
adopting the 2022 city of Milton local road safety plan. It's Agenda
Item No. 22-236. Public Works Director, Ms. Sara Leaders.
Ms. Leaders: Good evening again, Mayor and Council. We're excited tonight to
bring forward the local road safety plan for adoption. I did want to
recognize the project team on this. Chief Austin is here. He's going
to present with me. Rob Del -Ross has been a key member since he
started with the city, as well as our consulting partner KCI and
Andrew Antwiler is here tonight, as well.
11
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
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' Our agenda for this item is to present the final plan for adoption.
We'll review the vision and mission for the plan, the progress,
deliverables that you've seen so far, what implementation looks like,
and a quick summary.
We've shown this slide with almost every presentation. We based
the plan on the strategic plan goal to implement a transportation
infrastructure that meets current needs, accounts for future growth,
and allows residents to traverse Milton in a calm, safe, and efficient
manner. With that, we came up with a vision that was formed
through stakeholder input, citizens contributed to this, as well as
staff. We're going to proactively strive through this plan to chart a
strategy to make improvements to Milton's transportation network
through engineering, education, and enforcement that respects
Milton's rural heritage, enhances quality of life, and makes our
roadways as safe as possible.
Real quick, just to summarize what a local road safety plan is,
Federal Highway Administration came up with this as a counter
measure, as a toolkit to look at safety problems through reaching out
to stakeholders, using safety data, and looking at solutions to
' improve safety. Most importantly with the plan, it is a process and
content that are tailored to our local issues and needs.
We began this process in the fall of 2020. The graphic on the right
is our project plan for this. There's been a lot of steps along the way.
A lot of input from stakeholders, citizens, council updates, and
again, our partner KCI, that's our consultant on this really helped us
pull it all together. This is just a summary of the meetings and the
updates and all of the work that went into delivering this plan.
Our Task 1 and 2, that was to perform crash analysis, as well as look
at roadway conditions and come up with six areas that we really
wanted to focus the types of improvements that we're
recommending to address these concerns. This is what we heard
through surveys and stakeholders. Those are vehicle speeds,
distracted drivers, roadway and shoulder conditions, pedestrian and
bicyclists, equestrians, intersection safety, and wildlife.
Task 3 took those emphasis areas and started looking at strategies
and projects that could make a difference in those areas. It also
included elements of things we could do educationally to help those
areas. Engineering projects we could do to address those. As well as
if police enforcement could make a difference in some of those area.
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Task 4 is the last thing we presented, which is the action plan. So, ,
real quickly, on the engineering side of the action plan, our goal is
going to be plan, design, and construct projects using some of these
safety measures. We intend to apply for a grant. There's a new grant
opportunity that is actually considered an implementation grant for
local road safety plans. So, we're in a unique position to go after
Funding to support what's coming out of our plan. Utilize TSPLOST
funding, we had a bucket of funds set up in the round of TSPLOST
that we can use to implement some of these strategies and projects.
Then to complete these in phases.
This is what came out of our highest priority engineering measures.
The gray boxes are the ones that can be done relatively quickly. So,
whether we look at a roadway corridor and add enhanced pavement
markings, shoulders, warnings signs, different things along those
roadways. This could result in just a standalone project. It could be
something more system wide. I'll let Chief Austin talk about the
action plan for education and enforcement.
Chief Austin: Thank you, Sara. Greetings mayor, members of council. So, our
education enforcement will be to perform educational campaigns
with different topics ,each quarter of the year. We'll continue our '
intelligence led traffic enforcement and education as we currently
do. And then implement safety enhancement in the two focused
areas, PTDs and multi -model gravel roads, which we will discuss a
bit more in just a few moments.
The top five educational campaigns from May 2022 survey and
Phase 1 implementation measures, the first one was rules of the road.
Rules for roundabouts, in particular. Then the second one was rules
of the road for bicycle riders. The third one, raise awareness of
potential speed related crashes and aggressive driving. And then
number four, in conjunction with number two, rules of the road for
vehicles interacting with bicycles. And number five, raise awareness
of potentially distracted driving crashes. Down at the bottom are just
a few examples of what some of those educational materials might
look like.
So, these are all measures currently taken. But the local road safety
plan would work to further inform how and when to deploy
resources. This includes enforcing city and state laws identified as a
strategy in vehicle speeds, distracted drivers, intersection safety,
pedestrian, bicyclists, and equestrians. And of course, our police '
actively focuses on traffic and safety daily through public
complaints, high crash corridors and through just general speed
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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' enforcement. Also, as part of our enforcement strategy, intelligence
led traffic enforcement and education, dedicated officers assigned to
traffic. Though all of our officers are involved and responsible for
traffic safety in our city. And then we would consider local
ordinance additions with opportunities there that may help.
Our next steps, of course plan adoption, which we hope will be
forthcoming. And then set Vision Zero goal, which be a goal to have
zero crashes in our city, zero fatalities, zero injuries. We know that's
an unattainable goal, but it is like crime reductions. We always shoot
for zero in our crime numbers. But setting implementation solutions
with that goal in mind to keep us on the right trajectory. Seek
implementation funding. Sara talked a bit about that already. There
are opportunities out there which we would explore. And then
develop our implementation solutions.
We already have a bit of jumpstart on implementation. Projects
underway are beginning that fit into the action plan. That would be
vehicle speeds. So, we have the speed limit evaluations, which were
completed in Phase 1. And distracted drivers, we have a stop and
education approach. We mentioned that one of the recent council
' meetings. We set up some focused enforcement for just that problem
within our city. With that, I'll turn it over to Sara to talk a bit more
about roadway and shoulder conditions.
Ms. Leaders: I feel like that's a good category to focus our grant application for
this Safe Streets For All grant. We'd look at either a section of
roadway where we could add a paved shoulder, a safety edge like
the picture on this slide shows, just a full range of those easy to
implement measures to really address roadway and shoulder
conditions. For pedestrians, bicyclists, and equestrians, for that
emphasis, we're starting to look at midblock crossings. That's
initially starting in some of our form -based code areas on Crabapple
and Highway 9 area with those projects underway in design right
now.
For intersection safety, that's something like what we're doing at
FreemanvilleBirmingham with the roundabout. We've had a
history of cars running through that four-way stop. We've added
reflected strips to the post. The roundabout there will be a big safety
improvement. We're getting ready to put that out to bid for
construction in the next month.
And then along the focus areas that you'll hear the next presentation
is the Crabapple area PTV or golfcart plan. So, that's one way at
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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how to make improvements for that focus area. In a recent meeting, '
a few months ago, we talked about the gravel roads and utilizing the
newly formed Milton Trails Advisory Committee to help look at
those and determine what kinds of safety improvements, as well as
uses those will have going forward.
Another key part of the plan is ongoing analysis. So, as projects are
implemented, we do want to keep track and monitor and evaluate
the progress on our action plan. It's one of the best ways to ensure
that our plan is a living document. It should be viewed as a living
document and updated to reflect our changing local needs and
priorities.
Chief Austin:
Just to summarize our goal has been, and I think we were successful,
to connect with our citizens every step of the way in the local road
safety plan so they can be involved, engaged, and informed on
what's happening within the plan. Thishas been a working
document with input throughout the process. We halve a prioritized
list of issues, risks, actions, and improvements that can be used to
reduce fatalities and injuries on our local roads. With that, we ask
you to consider the resolution to adopt the local road safety plan. Of
course, we're available for any questions you may have. '
Mayor Jamison:
Questions for Chief or Sara? Any public comment?
City Clerk:
There are none, Mayor.
Mayor Jamison:
I'll close the public comment. If there are no questions, I'll open it
for a motion.
CM Mohrig: Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve Agenda Item No.
22-236, consideration of resolution adopting the 2022 City of Milton
Local Road Safety Plan.
CM Verhoff: Second.
Mayor Jamison: Okay, I have a motion from Councilmember Mohrig and a second
from Councilmember Verhoff to approve Agenda Item No. 22-236.
All in favor, please say Aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve Agenda Item No. I
22-236. Councilmember Verhoff seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0).
Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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' Mayor Jamison: Any opposed? That's unanimous.
Coming back, Sara.
Manager Krokoff: Mayor, if I could, that was a monstrous undertaking, that local road
safety plan. It took a couple years to pull that thing through. The
effort, including our partners with the consulting firm, it was
significant. Now we're just beginning the fun part and that's when
you start seeing the changes. Thank you all for your efforts on that.
Mayor Jamison: I appreciate it. Good stuff. So, we will move on to the next item. If
the city clerk would please sound it.
City Clerk: Mayor, that next item is consideration of a resolution to adopt the
2022 Personal Transportation Vehicle, PTV, plan for the Crabapple
area. It's Agenda Item No. 22-237. Mr. Robert Del -Ross.
Mayor Jamison: Sara's on the agenda.
Mr. Dell -Ross: We're giving Sara a break for one item. It's a long night. Good
evening, everyone. It's a pretty momentous long night here. We
' don't often present plans like this for adoption. They typically take
a very long time, and it just so happens we're discussing adopting
for our second plan tonight. This is a very similar presentation that
you saw from the work session a couple weeks ago. We're going to
be talking about the personal transportation vehicle, otherwise
known as PTV plan for the Crabapple area that our consultant CPL
has been underway on for approximately six months. I'm going to
be speaking to you tonight a little bit of background information and
reviewing the local regulations that we have regarding PTV use on
public streets.
We're going to show you the route plan map in detail. I'm going to
get into a little more of the weeds than we talked about at work
session and then show you some of the renderings that some of our
consultants have provided. We'll discuss the registration process
that the state law recommends, as well as discuss input that we
received from the community throughout the plan. And then discuss
next steps.
Where are we as of right now? So, in June 2020, this body
incorporated elements of state law into local ordinance. What that
' means, as of today, you are allowed to drive a PTV on a public street
if the speed limit on that public street is 25 miles an hour and below.
So, if you envision the map of Milton and where those 25 miles and
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
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CM Moore:
Mr. Dell -Ross:
hour streets are, those are typically your subdivisions. Those are '
your public streets, neighborhood streets, residential streets. There
are not a lot of connections between subdivisions right now because
most of them intersect with Freemanville Road or Hopewell or
Bethany. And those aren't 25 miles an hour.
So, one of the reasons for the PTV plan, when started, was to start
to build that network, specifically in the Crabapple area to allow and
make connections between where the PTVs are currently allowed in
order to provide them those paths to get from their origins to their
destination. Their destination may be a school. Their destination
may be the Crabapple commercial area. Their destination may be
the convenience store or a grocery store, things like that we have in
Crabapple.
State law also defines what a PTV actually is. I've gotten a lot of
questions about this. We are not talking about farm equipment. We
are not talking about four -wheeler, off -road ATVs. These are golf
carts and there is a very specific state law definition of what this golf
cart must contain. Those labels are on the screen.
Can you go back a second? The verbiage does not include seatbelts, I
but the picture does include a seatbelt. ,
That must have been a mistake. The graphic includes seatbelts, so
yes, seatbelts are required.
What were some of the recommendations coming out of the study?
These were based on a review of the state law, comparing ourselves
to some of our neighbors where PTVs are also legal, as well as some
of the recommendations from our consultant, and the input we
received from the public. Recommendations to prioritize
development of multi -use paths. So, those would typically be either
concrete or asphalt paths in the right of way but not necessarily in
the road. Ideally, 10 feet or wider. Recommendation to develop a
permitting process for registration. That is a recommended in -state
law, something we're not doing today but after adoption, we'd be
working those details with PD to bring that registration process
online in the next couple of months.
We wanted to establish, along with that registration process, to
notify the people that are registering that there are minimum
insurance requirements per state law for PTVs to be used on public '
streets. The way state law works there, is they treat a PTV as a
passenger vehicle and they set liability minimums at that threshold.
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' Another key recommendation and a purpose of doing this plan in the
first place was to enable conversations with the state DOT, specially
related to crossings of 372. We're underway on design for potential
crossing right outside our front door on 372. We're talking to them
about the other area of, turning the 90-degree angle closer to the
school, going north of 372. So, there are going to be options. There's
a definite need for that. It's just a matter of presenting our plan to
the state DOT and asking of these several options, which of these
would you prefer.
Bullet No. 5, recommendation to encourage future development in
Crabapple. Similar to number one, considering the use of multi -use
and off-street paths outside the pavement. This is a question that
came up in work session and I wanted to make sure I was clear and
explained this. Many of our neighbors, Roswell, Canton,
Woodstock, Augusta, it is more common than not that when cities
have been having conversations about PTVs, they have been
approving them. There is one exception. And I wanted to make very
sure that I explained this. Alpharetta did have a discussion about
PTV use earlier than, it think, 2020, when Milton approved their
ordinance. As of today, golf carts can't be driven on public streets
' in Alpharetta.
What that means, I'll show you a map here in the next couple slides
so you can see where the city limit is, it really doesn't affect the plan
we're adopting tonight. It does affect coordination that Sara and I
will be having with our counterparts in the Public Works
Department in Alpharetta. It will not preclude us from providing
accommodations on 372, outside our front door in the area that
we're focusing on. But, for example, there was a question at work
session talking about grocery stores, specifically, maybe even
getting to the Kroger further down on Crabapple. You'll see on the
city limit boundary, Milton doesn't stretch all the way down to
Kroger. There's a section there in Alpharetta. So, that would be a
problem that we'd have to work through.
To be fair, just because a position as on the screen as of today, that
doesn't mean that a year or two, there years from now, that may
change.
Here's the map. I want to go out of PowerPoint and into PDF view
here so I can zoom in. There's some details in this map that you
' probably can't see in your packets that I just wanted to highlight. As
you can see, we just talked about Kroger. The tan area is the Milton
city limits. You'll see this is the southwest corner of the city. The
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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Kroger plaza is off the page. You can see in addition to the aqua '
lines, those are the multi -use paths and the off -road paths we're
proposing. You see those pink crossings, one at Waterside. I'm
going to go a little further east. You'll see a couple potential for our
Crabapple streetscape project, getting from City Hall over to the
commercial area on other side of 372. We have a couple more pink
lines going north on 372 to get from Kensington and some of the
residential areas on the west over to the schools in the east.
We've proposed some of those pink lines, anticipating that at least
one of them will be approved by the state DOT, to show them where
the need is and where the options would be. We also have at the
roundabout here, we have some crossings just across the local
streets. We have another crossing here where my cursor is further
south on Broadwell. We have another one at the roundabout with
Heritage, Charlotte, and Mayfield. We have another crossing, this
part of the Mayfield sidewalk project. In addition to the sidewalk
that we're constructing on the northwest side of Mayfield, we're
also including a rapid rectangular flashing beacon just east of
Baldwin to get residents from one side of the street to the other.
So, there are a lot of, in addition to the aqua lines, those multi use '
paths, there are a fair amount of crossings that we also have included
as recommendations on this map.
CM Mohrig: Question, on the aqua lines, are we going to allow them to drive
vehicles on sidewalks? Are we talking about enhancing what we
have to make it a wider, walkable —
Mr. Dell -Ross: So, the state law currently states that paths that allow PTVs should
be 10 feet or greater. So, no, we wouldn't recommend allowing
PTVs on any five-foot sidewalks.
CM Mohrig: This would be a future upgrade in some of these places?
Mr. Dell -Ross: That's correct. Going back to PowerPoint. Here are a couple of
renderings. These are renderings from the plan that our consultant
produced, showing what some of those side path crossing along
minor roadways or the midblock crossing of a major road like 372
could look like in the future.
The registration process is something we're going to be coordinating
with PTV after adoption over the next several months. This is a '
recommendation law and is currently being used by many of our
neighbors. The recommendation is a $15 fee for a five-year
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Monday, August 1, 2022
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' registration. There is a sample registration form included in your
packet. We would likely produce a decal similar to what you see on
the screen in the bottom left, along with either an education or a
component to make sure the person that is registering understands
what the state law is and what a PTV is. That would be a five-year
registration.
Lastly, community input. So, we had a survey that we released April
of 2022. We received 880 responses. There were 12 questions.
Those answers were included in the plan in your packet, but I'm just
going to go over a couple of them in the presentation. Question 2,
how high of a priority should the issue of PTVs be in the city of
Milton? We had approximately 56, 57% label that as a medium,
high, or highest priority. Question 3 of our 880 respondents, how
many currently owned a PTV, so we had 229 of the 880 that
currently owns a golf cart.
Of the 650 that do not golf carts, why don't they own a golf cart?
The most popular answers were the need for separated paths
exclusively for PTVs. Additional amenities at key destinations, for
example, parking and charging. There is a portion of our residents,
' 274 of those who don't plan on owning a golf cart just because that's
not what they want to do.
Next steps for us, again, we're recommending adoption. This would
conclude our effort with the consultant. We are going to be having
future conversations, Sara and I, with the public works director in
Alpharetta, talking about a couple of the details regarding 372 and
Crabapple Chase along with the crossing that we had on Mayfield.
After adoptions, we will be working with Ken's office on
recommendations brought forth in the plan for any ordinance
changes we need to work through over the next several months. That
concludes the presentation.
Mayor Jamison: Thanks. Rick?
CM Mohrig: Rob, do you happen to have — give us an idea of the size of that
decal? We have one communication saying they thought it was too
small [audio cuts out] 102:45:231
Mr. Dell -Ross: We haven't produced them yet. In my head, the decal would be
similar to the horse oval that we all have, very common, on the back
' of our vehicles.
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Mayor Jamison: The only question I have, and I don't expect for you all to have it '
tonight. The only thing I've heard from the community is how is the
enforcement going to be done, what are the fines going to be, are we
doing warnings, and all that stuff.
Mr. Dell -Ross: Mayor, if you don't mind, I'd like to defer that Chief Austin.
Chief Austin: Typically, when we start something new, we lead with education,
making sure that we have solid public education on the new
requirements, what the current expectations are. And then we would
move into enforcement, if necessary. As far as the fines, I would
imagine in our fine structure, we would, go into all other fines. I
know, for instance, for Roswell, they charge $200 for golf cart fines
that are out. Our main goal is always compliance and cooperation.
We usually get that with our citizens through education.
Mayor Jamison: Roswell allows'the PTVs?
Chief Austin: Yes, sir.
Mayor Jamison: Okay. Paul? '
CM Moore: Rob, a couple more questions for you, please. Just in passing a
moment ago, you mentioned the charging stations. Whose
responsibility would it be to generate charging stations throughout
the community?
Mr. Dell -Ross: I am not an expert in that, but my understanding is it could go a
couple different ways. There are probably examples of governments
investing and placing them on right of way. I would imagine there
are also examples of private working directly with utility companies
to place that in their parking areas.
CM Moore: Could it be a business would choose to put it in their parking area to
entice people to come? If it was going to be a city involvement, I'd
like to understand what our exposure could be. Look at strategic
locations, how many of them, what would our cost for install be,
what would a shared cost look like. I'd just like to explore that a
whole lot further.
Mr. Dell -Ross: My understanding is there are partnership and opportunities like
that, but that's not something that Sara and I have spent a lot of time
looking into yet. I
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CM Moore: My next question, actually may be for Steve and Ken, so an adoption
of this this evening, can people begin tomorrow to begin to traverse
our streets with all the authority that comes along with this, even
though we don't have permitting enforcement, a fully connected
roadway, ability to cross 372. What are we approving?
Mr. Krokoff: They can already drive on all our roads that are 25 miles an hour or
under. So, nothing changes there. You're just approving a plan for
us to start the process to create the crossings, apply to GDOT, do all
the things we need to do to create this network of trails.
CM Moore: Does it make sense for us to at least explore a not to exceed timeline
for the permitting and the creation of the enforcement strategy?
Mr. Krokoff: I don't know if you need to do it in conjunction with the plan as it's
been going on for quite some time already. But if that's something
the council would like us to place a priority on, I certainly will.
Mayor Jamison: What was the question, Paul?
CM Moore: Whether or not we should contemplate putting a not to exceed
timeline on the registration, creating the registration process and/or
some of the enforcement compliance rules and regulations.
Mayor Jamison: Yeah, I think that will probably be at the next phase, when we're
writing this code. Is that what we're talking about?
CM Moore: We're allowing them to use them today as a part of the test. We're
basically, in my mind, affirming the test was a success and we're
going to allow people to go forward with the authority that
[inaudible] [02:49:281 successful outcome of the test. I'm just
wondering if we got all the nitty gritty figured out where if we do
this, what are we doing? Is it going to be great? Or are we opening
up some areas that could be a Pandora's box if we don't put some
of those things into place pretty quickly.
Mr. Krokoff: This is not granting anybody any authority to do anything that they
don't already have the authority to do today. What this approves is
staff can now expend the resources to start planning out this network
of trails. As far as what is loosely connected to this, and I understand
that, is the registration of vehicles, what that can look like, what
would it entail, and our enforcement. We can handle that parallel to
this. If that's a priority for the council, we could fast -track that.
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Mayor Jamison: I'll add something else. Not tonight, but this is why you go through '
the process because I think this is fine moving forward, before we
approve the final codes and everything, when we're discussing these
trails and stuff, what's going to be the cost. I think council needs to
understand how much we could potentially be spending in regards
to these trails and stuff. That's during the process.
CM Moore: Yeah, if we don't accomplish some of this stuff, it's trails to
nowhere if we're not successful with some of the 372 crossing. I
sense a momentum that some of that is likely to happen. I don't want
to encourage violation. If somebody from.one side of 372 wants to
go to the other side, we don't have some of that. Whether we're
doing it today or not, that's where some of the enforcement comes
in, that concerns me. I don't want to be a buzzkill on this, but I do
want to make sure that we're being careful with process in that we
don't allow the open-ended questions to linger on for too long.
Attorney Jarrard: Councilmember Mohrig, I would say, just speaking for myself just
with regard to the statute, it would seem to me that the plan is what
has been put in motion now. A lot of the enforcement is going to be
enforcing the plan. That's what we're going to be able to do. It seerns ,
to me the enforcement elements might grow organically as we put
together the plan, as we then try to modify behaviors and how these
— I'm Just simply suggesting right now thinking about that might be
Step 6. And we're on Step 2.
CM Moore: I will some of the words I used earlier this evening, out of an
abundance of caution, I would suggest that there are some things
that maybe need to be looked at to ensure we don't have things trail
on too long.
Mr. Dell -Ross: I agree. One addition comment specifically to 372 and interaction
with state DOT, one of the primary purposes the plan started before
I walked in the door, discussions between district staff at Georgia
DOT where we were asking them for crossings. And their answer
was show us your plan. So, we're optimistic that with this plan we'll
start getting some yeses. We're not exactly sure where. We have a
couple options for the map. We're optimistic.
CM Moore: All those things that you presented tonight makes sense. There isn't
anything I take objection to with that at all. I'm just concerned that
we are short on a couple of details that I think are important.
Mayor Jamison: Rick? I
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' CM Mohrig: I think this looks good. I think it's a good start. The enforcement
from a safety perspective, I guess, is where I'm looking at it from a
concern. I just got a call today where someone in the Crabapple area,
which we've approved these 25 miles per hour streets, someone was
— kids that were underage and a bunch of kids were on a golf cart
driving right around here on Heritage Walk and whatever. So, I think
the enforcement, we have to look at. You're not going to catch
everything. But if we start moving forward on this, think through
those from a safety standpoint.
Mr. Dell -Ross: Ideally, along with the registration process, there is a little bit of
education. There is the reminder that you need a driver's license to
drive one of these on a public street, period.
CM Mohrig: That's not happening everywhere.
CM Moore: The point of having that registration as soon as possible, though. The
sooner you have that registration sticker, the sooner the police can
help education and enforce. To me, that would be the number one
priority.
' Mayor Jamison: I understand that. But we already have rules in place now. Maybe
Chief can speak to this. I know I've gotten a couple phone calls a
few months ago for people getting tickets from Kensington Farms.
Are the police currently enforcing the Crabapple area with current
codes?
Chief Austin: We do. We do actively enforce our golf cart ordinance. It's difficult
with some of those folks that are unlicensed because they're
underage, can't write them a ticket. We have to do a juvenile arrest.
If we do a juvenile arrest, they have to go down to the Fulton County
Court, perhaps several times. Do we really want that for a golf cart
ordinance violation? I don't think that's in line with our philosophy.
So, we go back to education. Backtrack has been our plan to go back
and talk to the parents and educate the parents.
We do have, we have not utilized them yet, we haven't had a need
to, but we do have charging options for the parents for allowing.
CM Moore: That would be my recommended, once they don't respond to the
education and the warnings, then the parents should be held
accountable.
' Chief Austin: So, it would be more the parents than the actual juveniles out there.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
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Mayor Jamison: That's something, during this process, you all are going to work
together and fine tune it. Okay.
CM Moore: If today you had a bunch of underaged drivers, what is the policy?
You stop them, of course. Do you call their parents right then?
Chief Austin: That's typically what we do. We just had a recent one, I want to say
within the last week where we had a 13-year-old, a lot of friends.
We called the parents. Got the vehicle back to the residence and had
a public education with that. No tickets. The parents were receptive
of the education. A lot of people just don't know that you have to
have a driver's license to drive a golf cart. That's where I think the
registration process could help because we would give them a
booklet or leaflet that will explain all of these things and, also, I'm
sure, have some insurance information. Once they see that — once
that insurance is paid and they have to do a payout on that, that could
be very costly. So, there are some built in parameters there.
CM Moore: I got a call today, too. I didn't follow up with you, knowing we were
going to have this tonight. Then I got the phone call, and sure enough
I witnessed it because it went right past my house. It was definitely
not a 16-year-old driving it, with three even younger kids. No
seatbelts that I could see. I just caught a glimpse.
Chief Austin: Certainly, we encourage our citizens or anyone to call our non -
emergency line. Of course, if it's that much of a danger, they're
driving recklessly, 911 would be an appropriate call for that. We
encourage our citizens to do that. We'll be glad to go out and check
that out.
CM Moore: Chief if were to impose, I'm just offering a number, a six month not
to exceed on your team having a chance to put together some of
those parameters and, Rob, for you, that same parameter on the
registration process, is that an unreasonable request at six months?
Chief Austin: For our portion or the registration portion —
CM Moore: Either one. The registration —
Chief Austin: Police would handle both pieces of that.
CM Moore: So, is six months unreasonable?
Chief Austin: I wouldn't think so, not unless we run into some unforeseen
obstacles.
1
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
Page 69 of 76
' CM Moore: If there were, if we made that a condition of tonight's approval, we
would certainly entertain a request for an extension. But it certainly
would put some — not that you need fires to be lit to get things done
because you have clearly demonstrated that. I sure would like to see
a sense of urgency to get it down. That might come from a motion
that would include that.
Mayor Jamison: Rob, what's the timeline for this? What we're currently adopting. I
know that's going to be a much longer one.
Mr. Dell -Ross: The timeline for the plan adoption, after tonight, if this is adopted,
the plan effort from CPL is finished. If we go back to the map, the
map has aqua segments that are going to be future capital requests,
potentially future TSPLOST projects, potential future budget items
that will just organically move forward over the next several years.
Is this a — my gut feel, the map on the screen is probably more of a
10-year plan than a 5 year.
Mayor Jamison: I was just saying to codify this in our codes and stuff.
Mr. Dell -Ross: To codify this, any regulation, and code changes along with the
' effort with coordinating with PD on enforcement, that is Sara and I
top priority to bring to you over the next several months.
Mayor Jamison: Okay, thanks. Tammy, any public comment?
City Clerk: We do, Mayor. I'd like to invite Mr. Adam D'Annella to the podium,
please.
Mr. D'Anella: Hey, how are you all doing? I'm Adam D'Anella. I live at 3119
Heybridge Lane, which is in Braeburn right here. I also have a golf
cart. It's a big green six -seater, which I'm sure most of you have
seen either on Facebook or driving around. I love the plan that's in
place. Most of the people that I know that have golf carts are coming
down here to play comhole, to go to dinner, things like that. Some
have come from the neighborhoods up the road that they weren't
necessarily supposed to be on and have gotten ticketed and don't do
that anymore but drive around their neighborhoods.
In our neighborhoods here, we have three of them connected. The
big goal, obviously, in Crabapple is connectivity. Everybody wants
trails, everybody wants connectivity. This does that. I'm
' encouraging you to go ahead and move forward with it as quickly as
possible. A question you raised, a hip restraint is simply what the
chair has. That's what the law provides under state law. You don't
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 70 of 76
have to have seat belts, but you have to have hip restraints. Most of ,
them are being sold with seatbelts anyway. But just to clarify that, it
does not seatbelt. Mine doesn't have seat belts yet. It didn't come
with them from the factory. So, I've got to get them in and put them
in.
But everything else it has meets the requirements. It has the lights,
the blinkers, signals, all the stuff that's required, hip restraints
without seatbelts. We use it all the time. I've seen young kids use
them in our neighborhood, in the other neighborhoods. I know the
police have had to address it one time. Our neighbors complained
about some of these kids because they were 12, 13 years old, driving
around with kids on them. It's entirely a parent thing. The parents
just allow them to do it. I don't know how you enforce that other
than going and talking to the parents, which they've done and now
the kid walks to my house now.
Another thing I wanted to bring up, it's a safety concern. Look at
kids on bikes out here. Look at kids riding out to the green, scooters,
motorcycles, all the same. Those are, to me, more of a safety concern
than a golf cart, which has a lot of safety implemented into. Just by I
virtue of being open air doesn't change the fact that it is similar to a
Jeep or something like that.
What I have noticed is a lot of people that speed in these areas, which
they do. Especially right here in front of this building. This little
loop, just on this section of it now, our neighborhood encompasses
the white townhomes, the townhomes across the way, and the
townhomes into our single-family homes. Right here, people come
down this and either turn into our neighborhood extremely quickly
where we have now speed bumps and then come flying up to this
part right here where they stop. A lot of people cross here and do
these different things.
I was driving my golf cart right up here. And somebody was flying
down this. They weren't going 25, they weren't going 35. So, what
I did was I just came right across the median and got right into the
left turn here and just stopped right there. Had I kept going, I would
have run into them. They clearly noticed me, clearly slowed down.
Having golf carts as part of this community, people are paying
attention to them, just like signs and everything else. They actually
see them more so because they're in the streets, they're driving
around. It does slow people down that are driving through here at '
speeds that are much faster than 25. I think that's a bonus to having
them in here.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 71 of 76
[Audio cuts out] [00:03:02:591 things like that. Just from the
perspective of our family, we just hop in and go for a golf cart ride.
If we didn't have a golf cart, we'd just be at home. But we're like
let's go in the golf cart, let's go drive around. I think a lot of people
would do that. A lot more people would do it from these other
neighborhoods. Every once in a while, we stop for ice cream because
maybe we would have been sitting at home, but now we're driving
around this area on the golf cart and say what the hell, let's go get
ice cream.
I think it's a great plan. 1 think it's great for the community,
connectivity. I think it brings some safety issues with the paths and
the specific things that may be of concern. I'm all for the
registration, whatever it needs to be. I definitely think you all should
approve it. I think it's a nice added bonus to this community. I think
people that are moving into the community like it. In fact, the new
neighbors that just moved from Chicago, within the first two days,
went and bought a golf cart and are now driving around in a golf
cart. I think it's a great thing to add to the city, especially the
Crabapple area. Thank you.
Mayor Jamison: Thank you. More public comment?
City Clerk: That's all, Mayor.
Mayor Jamison: Okay, I'll close it. If there's no more questions, I'll open it for a
motion. Any more questions? Andrea?
CM Verhoff: I really just had more of a comment. But I think we've all kind of
stated it. The map that was shown is my district. I live in Crabapple.
I'm one of the neighborhoods across 372 that would love access
down into Crabapple using our golf cart. The common thing that a
lot of my neighbors and other friends that I have in Braeburn, and
other areas is the age of the driver. That is the main concern because
everybody sees the fifth graders, the six graders driving golf carts
around with kids in the back. I've seen them fall off golf carts in my
neighborhood. That's going to be the main concern.
I guess when they're being registered, confirming they have
insurance, seeing their insurance, maybe that's something we can
talk about down the road. I don't know if we're talking about
registering what drivers will be allowed to use that golf cart when
they register their golf cart as well.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1. 2022
Page 72 of 76
Mr. Dell -Ross: My understanding is that's not something that our neighbors are '
currently doing. That's a detail that Sara and I can work with Chief
Austin and find that balance between prioritizing safety, but still not
being a large drain on staff resources. Every time someone comes
in, we don't want that conversation to be a four-hour process. We
want to find some kind of happy medium.
CM Verhoff: Sure. And maybe it's an application they fill out and they just list
whoever is allowed to drive the golf cart in their family that's over
age or that has a driver's license.
Mr. Krokoff: Let us take a look at some of that. I have to be careful that we're not
stopping people to find out who's driving their PTV.
Mayor Jamison: Find out what state law says on that.
Mr. Krokoff: Just from a law enforcement perspective, we still have to have a
reason to stop people. So, let us dig through some of that and we'll
come back with some recommendations.
CM Verhoff: Great. '
Mayor Jamison: Anything else? I'll open it for a motion.
CM Moore: One more quick question. I'm going to try to form a motion. I just
want to make sure if I do include this not to exceed for the
registration and the enforcement option, that I'm not imposing an
undue hardship on you or your staff.
Mr. Krakoff: Six months is not going to impose a hardship. Six weeks would have
been a problem
CM Moore: Then I'm prepared to make a motion. That is that we approve
Agenda Item No. 22-237 with the condition that those two elements,
the registration and the police enforcement aspects of the plan are
prepared to be adopted within, not to exceed six months.
CM Jacobus: Second.
Mayor Jamison: I have a motion from Councilmember Moore and a second from
Councilmember Jacobus to approve Agenda Item 22-237 with
Councilmember Moore's recommended changes. All in favor,
please say Aye. I
Councilmembers: Aye.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1. 2022
Pape 73 of 76
' Motion and Vote: Councilmember Moore moved to approve Agenda Item No.
22-237 with the following condition:
• The elements of registration and Police enforcement will be prepared
to be adopted within six months.
Councilmember Jacobus seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0).
Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
Mayor Jamison: Any opposed? That's unanimous. Thank you, appreciate it. Long
night for public works. We will move on to the next agenda item.
Will the city clerk please sound it.
City Clerk: Mayor, that item is consideration of a resolution to condemn
property rights needed for Freemanville Road ad Birmingham Road
Project. It's Parcel 1, 0.070 acres of fee simple right of way, 0.114
acres of permanent easement, owner, John P. Cole. It's Agenda Item
No. 22-238. Sara Leaders.
Ms. Leaders: The intersection of Freemanville/Bitmingham, we're preparing to
' move into bid documents on that later this month. What I wanted to
show quickly is just the existing right of ways on both Freemanville
and Birmingham, as well as the right of way needed for the project
to build the roundabout. Early on, as we were working through the
concept and getting through the design, looked at utilizing as much
of the city property on the southwest corner as possible. So, it is the
biggest impacted area that is the green space partial there at
Freemanville/Birmingham. The parcel we're talking about tonight
is the northwest corner. We have been through negotiations, and we
do continue those. This will just allow us to have the measures in
place to move forward with the bid.
Ken can speak to how that process has worked and the negotiations
continue. I just wanted to highlight the project and where that parcel
is relative to the construction. Parcel 1 is what we're talking about.
Ken?
Attorney Jarrard: Council, there's nothing much more to say. City of Milton is always
fairly reserved in exercising its condemnation power. However,
there comes a time we need to go ahead and act to [audio cuts out]
[03:09:441 right of way. Resolution includes proposed order of
condemnation in your packets. John Cole is the property owner,
0.070 acres right of way, 4196.74 square feet of permanent
easement, as well as some drainage easement. Negotiations can
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Paoe 74 of 76
continue. We're always open to want to settle these at arm's length '
by way of negotiation. But we also need to go ahead and take action
to get this in front of the court and get this right of way for these
public improvements.
Mayor Jamison: Rick?
CM Mohrig: We need to be clear because we always are very careful. We've been
working with the property owner, trying to reach out, trying to get
agreement, making this so that we don't stop the process.
Mayor Jamison: Any other questions? Any public comment, Tammy?
City Clerk: No, sir, there's none.
Mayor Jamison: Paul?
CM Moore: Just a comment. Sara, I look forward to following up with you on
the conversation we've started but haven't had a chance to reunite
to discuss further. That is, as we do some of these roundabout
processes, the engineering, just to make sure that we don't disturb — '
we investigate disturbing less land than we have on some of our
already successful project. I hope that, especially in this particular
case, that property has a tree line of mature aged Leyland Cypress.
It would be a shame to see all those go, as an example of what I'd
like to see us investigate some engineering solutions that may not
require us to disturb as much land.
I have one more quick question. It has to do with our roundabouts
and some of our intersections. This is totally unrelated, pardon me,
I have an opportunity to get the podium. There seems to be an
abundance of oil and tar material that's appearing at the
intersections. Is that a debris situation? Or is that a heat and what's
happening with our current paving methodology? Do you know
what I'm talking about?
Ms. Leaders: I do. Yes, that is from when DOT repaved Birmingham Highway,
their turning maneuvers off the paving side on 372 were to use
Freemanville, Providence, I think even Birmingham Hopewell. Just
the way the vehicles tracked around the roundabout left tack. It is on
the 140 paving, I did notice it's part of their contract with that one
to eliminate any tack on the vehicles leaving the site that may not
have been in place with Birmingham. We attempted to get them to I
come and heat it and try to remove it. But it's just a wear form the
tires of vehicles doing paving.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday, August 1, 2022
Page 75 of 76
' CM Moore: It's at Birmingham Crossroads. It's at Birmingham and
Freemanville. It's at the new Hopewell roundabout. It's at
Providence roundabout. Just the ones I can think of off the top of
my head. Can we look at making sure that in our engineering that
that's a consideration that we make sure they pay attention to that.
Ms. Leaders: Definitely all of our contracts that involve paving and tack, that is
something we put in those, as well as working with the state on
things they like to.
CM Moore: Thank you.
Mayor Jamison: Anything else for Sara? I will open it for a motion.
CM Jacobus: Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we pass Agenda Item No.
22-238, consideration of a resolution to condemn the property rights
needed for the Freemanville Road and Birmingham project.
CM Moore: Second.
Mayor Jamison: I have a motion from Councilmember Jacobus and a second from
' Councilmember Moore to approve Agenda Item 22-238. Any
council discussion? All in favor, please say Aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Jacobus moved to approve Agenda Item
No. 22-238. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-
0). Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
ADJOURNMENT
Mayor Jamison: Any opposed? That's unanimous. I'll move on to reports. I know I
don't have anything. Council, have anything? Executive session?
No. I'll move to adjourn.
CM Mohrig: So moved.
CM Johnson: Second.
Mayor Jamison: I have a motion from Councilmember Mohrig and a second from
' Councilmember Johnson to adjourn. All in favor, please say Aye.
Councilmembers: Aye.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Monday. August 1, 2022
Page 76 of 76
Mayor Jamison: Any opposed? That's unanimous. I
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to adjourn the Regular
Meeting at 9:15pm. Councilmember Johnson seconded the motion. The motion
passed (6-0). Councilmember Cookerly was absent from the meeting.
Date Approved: August 15, 2022
Peyton ison, Mayor