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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 03/01/2007 - MINS 03 01 07 REG (Migrated from Optiview)Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 1 of 17 Regular Meeting of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Milton was held on Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 7:00 PM, Mayor Lockwood presiding. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Lockwood called the meeting to order. He requested a reported from Public Safety Director Chris Lagerbloom regarding today’s weather report. As most of you know there is some bad weather that may be here soon and we wanted to go over our plan in case there were tornados, etc. Public Safety Director Chris Lagerbloom gave a quick update that we have been notified through the Fulton County Emergency Management Agency that they have gone to a level 2 based on the weather forecast for today, which calls for the potential severe weather to include tornados and hail. It is the same storm system that came through the Alabama area today. We are under that watch until 9:00 pm. If in fact we should have to take cover during this meeting tonight, he wants to tell us what that process is because there is a safe room in this building. We will ask you not to leave, but actually follow us to that safe room until the storm passes. He introduced the audience to Chief Charles Millican Deputy Director of Public Safety who would lead the group to the records division within City Hall. ROLL CALL City Clerk Marchiafava reminded everyone to silence their cell phones and pagers. Additionally, those wishing to provide public comment during a public hearing or at the conclusion of the meeting under the public comment section are required to complete a public comment card. They need to be turned in to the Clerk. City Clerk Marchiafava called the roll. Councilmembers Present: Mayor Joe Lockwood, Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember Julie Zahner Bailey, Councilmember Lusk, Councilmember Neil O’Brien, Councilmember Tina D’Aversa-Williams, and Councilmember Rick Mohrig. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Led by the Sons of the American Revolution Mayor Lockwood stated that we were delighted tonight to recognize the Sons of the American Revolution to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor’s Comments Mayor Lockwood thanked everyone for being at the meeting and we appreciate your presence. He asked those in attendance to spread the word to their neighbors and friends. We appreciate any feedback, whether it is positive, negative or constructive that we receive. Every email gets read and every phone call or letter is addressed. APPROVAL OF MEETING AGENDA City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda Item no. 07-186. Approval of the Meeting Agenda City Clerk Marchiafava stated that City Staff has requested that we add two resolutions and that they be added to Reports and Presentations. 1) Resolution amending Resolution No. 07-02-013. A resolution appointing member to the City of Milton’s Northwest Overlay District Design and Review Board by adding Board Member Terry Herr for District 1. 2) Resolution amending Resolution No. 07-02-014. A resolution appointing members to the City of Milton’s Board of Zoning Appeals to withdraw the name of Linda F. Kelley and add Board Member Todd Chernick of District 4. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 2 of 17 Mayor Lockwood asked if there were anymore items to be considered. Councilmember Thurman stated that she would like to add the invoice for the legal fees for the month of December to the agenda to approve this evening. It was previously on the agenda and additional information was requested that everyone should have now. She would like to add it to the agenda and get it approved. Councilmember O’Brien stated he wanted to defer the Consent Agenda (Approval of the January 11, 2007 Regular Meeting Minutes) if this is the appropriate time to mention that. Mayor Lockwood asked for motion to approve the agenda as amended with these changes. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve the meeting agenda as amended with the two changes. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. PUBLIC COMMENT Mayor Lockwood stated that the next item is public comment. Public Comment is the time for citizens to share information with the mayor and city council and provide input and opinions on any matter that is not scheduled for its own public hearing in today’s meeting. Each citizen that chooses to participate in public comment must complete a comment card and submit it to the city clerk. Please remember that this is not a time to engage the Mayor or members of City Council in conversation. When your named is called please come forward and speak into the microphone stating your name and address for the record. You will have three minutes for remarks. Mayor Lockwood asked if there were any public comment. City Clerk Marchiafava said she had not received any public comment cards. REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS City Clerk Marchiafava introduced the agenda item. A proclamation recognizing the Milton High School Commercial Design. Mayor Lockwood stated that he is delighted to present this proclamation to the Milton High School Commercial Design Students. This is the first step of many future community partnerships between Milton High School and the Public Safety Department. Mayor asked Chris Lagerbloom to say a few words before he presents the proclamation. Public Safety Director Lagerbloom stated that it is with great pleasure that we bring several of the students that helped design that neat looking police car you passed on your way to the door. We are exceptionally proud of how it turned out and we will have another seventeen of those in service on May 1, 2007. The poster board of the car will preside for a long time at the Milton City Hall. It is a constant reminder of the cars as they are driving up and down the street just how lucky we are to have a good relationship. These students have the right motivation level. That was exceptionally exciting and free. When you are a start up and do not have any money that is a great thing. The students came forward for the reading of the proclamation. Mayor Lockwood read the proclamation: WHEREAS, The City of Milton, Georgia is a newly incorporated City in Fulton County, Georgia and is home to Milton High School, Principal Ronald Tesch and Assistant Principal Gene Dunn, and WHEREAS, The Mayor and City Council has taken an aggressive stance on crime prevention and public safety by announcing a rapid police department deployment timeline, and WHEREAS, The Director of Public Safety solicited the assistance of Heather Meyer’s Commercial Design class at Milton High School to design the inaugural police car graphics package, and, Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 3 of 17 WHEREAS, Evan Bourff, Richelle Gross, Liza Gurley, Jordan Johnson, Phillip Jones, Tori Kennedy, Jean Lu, Brendon Medlin, Maria Palumbo, Juan Ramirez and Whitney Vaught, all commercial design students accepted the challenge of this inaugural design, and WHEREAS, The City of Milton wishes to honor these students with our heartfelt thanks for their hard work, and WHEREAS, The inaugural police fleet, along with future police cars will serve as a constant reminder of our commitment to community interaction and the hard work of our students. NOW, THEREFORE, we, the Mayor and City Council of the City of Milton, hereby recognize and thank by proclamation Milton High School, and its Commercial Design students for their hard work and dedication to the Milton Department of Public Safety. Given under my hand and the Seal of the City of Milton, Georgia on this 1st day of March, 2007. Mayor Lockwood also added that he hoped this was just the beginning of a great partnership with our schools and our students of the City of Milton. City Clerk Marchiafava stated that added to the agenda is a resolution amending resolution No. 07-02-013. A resolution appointing members to the City of Milton’s Northwest Overlay District Design and Review Board by adding Board Member Terry Herr for District 1. Mayor Lockwood requested a motion. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Thurman moved to approve the resolution amending resolution no. 07-02-013, a resolution appointing members to the City of Milton’s Northwest Overlay District Design and Review Board by adding Board Member Terry Herr for District 1. Councilmember Lusk seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. City Clerk Marchiafava stated another item added to the agenda is a resolution amending resolution 07-02-014. A resolution appointing members to the City of Milton Board of Zoning Appeals withdrawing the name of Linda S. Kelly and adding board member Todd Chernick for District 4. Mayor Lockwood requested a motion. Motion and Vote: Councilmember O’Brien moved to approve the resolution amending resolution no. 07-02014, a resolution appointing members to the City of Milton Board of Zoning Appeals withdrawing the name of Linda S. Kelly and adding board member Todd Chernick for District 4. Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. City Clerk Marchiafava called the next item. Administration of the Oath of Office for Board and Commission members. Mayor Lockwood stated that we will start with the Northwest Fulton Overlay District Design Review Board and asked for the members to please step forward for the Administration of Oath of Office. Mayor Lockwood stated that he is glad to have the new board member onboard, as well as everybody else on our boards and commissions. We certainly appreciate all the hard work and effort and that is what makes us such a great City. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 4 of 17 CONSENT AGENDA City Clerk Marchiafava stated that the consent agenda was removed by motion and vote. ZONING AGENDA Mayor Lockwood stated that there were no items under the zoning agenda. FIRST PRESENTATION City Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda items. 1. Agenda Item No. 07-187 - Approval of an Ordinance Accepting the Georgia Municipal Employee Benefits System Official Plan Document for Retirement Program. 2. Agenda Item No. 07-188 - Approval of an Ordinance Adopting Rules and Procedures for the Engagement of Legal Services for the City of Milton, Georgia. Councilmember Thurman asked if the vote was for both agenda items together or separately. City Clerk Marchiafava stated that first presentations are voted on together. There was discussion regarding separating the two items on First Presentation. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Thurman moved to remove Agenda Items 07-187 and 07-188 and vote on them separately. Councilmember O’Brien seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed 7-1, with Councilmember Zahner Bailey voting in opposition. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated that she was opposed because she did not understand why the two items were being voted on separately. (Agenda Item No. 07-187) 1. Approval of an Ordinance Accepting the Georgia Municipal Employee Benefit System Official Plan Document for Retirement Program. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve the First Presentation of an Ordinance Accepting the Georgia Municipal Employee Benefit System Official Plan Document for Retirement Program. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. (Removed from First Presentation by motion and vote) (Agenda Item No. 07-188) 2. Approval of an Ordinance Adopting Rules and Procedures for the Engagement of Legal Services for the City of Milton, Georgia. Motion and Vote: Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams moved to approve the First Presentation of an Ordinance Adopting Rules and Procedures for the Engagement of Legal Services for the City of Milton, Georgia. Councilmember Zahner Bailey seconded the motion. The motion failed 2-5, with Mayor Lockwood, Councilmember Thurman, Councilmember Lusk, Councilmember O’Brien, and Councilmember Mohrig voting against the motion. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Mayor Lockwood stated there was no unfinished business. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 5 of 17 NEW BUSINESS City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda Item no. 07-189. Approval of a Resolution to approve the use of speed detection devices by its’ law enforcement officials. Resolution No. 07-03-21 Public Safety Director Chris Lagerbloom stated that this resolution is simply a statement of intent. It is one of a series of things that have to occur before we can deploy services and start to enforce speed laws by either radar or laser technology. It does not supersede state law and simply gives more of intent that that is something we would like to see occur on our roadways to make them a safer place for people to drive. Councilmember Lusk asked is this to allow the use of cameras at intersections. Public Safety Director Lagerbloom stated that this has no bearing on cameras at intersections. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve a resolution to approve the use of speed detection devices by its law enforcement officials. Councilmember Lusk seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda Item no. 07-190. Approval of a Resolution in support of extending the special 1% Sales Tax for Education Purposes. Resolution No. 07-03-22 Communications Manager Bill Doughty stated that this is a resolution supporting the Fulton County Board of Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax or SPLOST that will be going before voters on a March 20th Referendum. Mayor and Council had met briefly with the Fulton Superintendent James Wilson, as well as Board Member Katie Reeves, who represents this area and they talked at length about all the benefits that the entire county has enjoyed, but certainly the City of Milton which has seen construction on schools with the previous renditions of the special purpose tax. Approval of this resolution puts you on record as supporting that referendum and urging those to support in favor. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Zahner Bailey moved to approve a resolution to support extending the Special 1% Sales Tax for Education. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda Item no. 07-191. Approval of a Resolution Approving the Fiscal Year 2007 Work Plan for the City of Milton Georgia. Resolution No. 07-03-23 City Manager Bovos stated that February 1 & 2 they met in the 1st retreat to begin discussion such as, values of the City Mission Statement. As a result of that retreat, they also prioritized eleven projects that were identified and voted upon as needs of the organization. This resolution formalizes that it is the staff’s work plan in order to accomplish both the legacy and non legacy projects for the Mayor and City Council for the fiscal year 2007. Just to reiterate, the Legacy Projects are: 1) Update or amend the Comprehensive Land Use Plan; 2) Advance Overlays and Key Commercial Corridors as soon as practical; 3) Adopt a Tree ordinance; Non-Legacy Projects are: 4) Annexation Dispute Resolution; 5) Adoption of a Noise Ordinance; 6) Closing of Sewer Ordinance Loopholes; 7) Develop a Plan for Alleviating Safety and Congestion Problems at three key Intersections – Crabapple, Bethany Bend, and Birmingham Providence; 8) Adopt New Sign Ordinance; 9) Certified City of Ethics Designation; 10) Capital Improvement Program and Mark Funding; 11) Milton Volunteer Pacers. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 6 of 17 Councilmember Thurman stated that assuming this is our work plan now, things can be added to it or taken away from it as the Council chooses six months or so in the future, but this is giving directives now of where we want time spent. She asked if that was correct. City Manager Bovos stated that was correct and that they are listed in order of the highest number they were voted on, as they appear here tonight, and are in priority order based upon the score they received during the retreat. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked for point of clarification. While they are in order, as she recalls from the retreat, they did talk about that there could be some of those that could happen parallel. While they are in order it would not preclude those from occurring in parallel at your pleasure based on staff ability to get those done. She asked if that might occur. City Manager Bovos stated that was correct and based upon staff allocation across the department, we may be able to do some out of order quickly. A lot of these projects do happen to fall under the Director Tom Wilson, Community Development Department. He cannot pull more than one or two primary ones off the table at one time. In the event they do not fall under him, we will be happy to get those done. Motion and Vote: Councilmember O’Brien moved to approve a resolution approving the Fiscal Year 2007 Work Plan for the City of Milton Georgia. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion The motion passed unanimously. City Clerk Marchiafava stated that the next item was added to the agenda this evening. Approval of monthly invoice for legal fees. City Treasurer Carol Wolfe stated that she has provided the Council with a handout with an additional two pages of supplemental information on the legal fee invoice that Staff removed from the February 15 agenda and was added to this agenda earlier in the evening. This legal fee invoice is for $14,365.50 and payment is due thirty days from the invoice date. This was pulled from the February 15 so upon approval tonight will be paid immediately. She and City Attorney Scott will be happy to answer any questions on the detailed information provided. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams stated she had a question. This is really a question for the City Manager. Based upon the request for the additional information on this invoice, does he feel like sufficient details have been provided, would he be in a position on his professional opinion to approve this invoice with the details submitted? City Manager Bovos stated that in the purview of the organization in total, traditionally any invoices that come before the City are signed off on from both the Operations Director and himself. Because of the relationship that clearly the Council has with the City Attorney, we bring these invoices forward for Council to approve. In the event that this was under the purview of the City Manager’s office, as all of our expenses are, we would ask for additional detail. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams asked if she was to understand that City Manager Bovos is not taking responsibility for the invoices. City Manager Bovos stated that the challenge is that he has no way nor does any staff member have any way to prove that services were rendered directly to City Council members. There are considerable amounts of bills on the invoice that directly correspond with the City Attorney and the Council. Staff’s goal is clearly to make sure that the organization runs as smooth and effectively as possible, and he is challenged in doing that because he does not have the ability to sign off on something when he does not know that services were or were not delivered or rendered. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams stated that in addition to that resolution that City Manager Bovos brought forward this evening with regard to legal fees and the procedures for reviewing those invoices being submitted, she would just Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 7 of 17 like clarification on that resolution. She asked were those procedures what has actually allowed for him to take the responsibility of being able to approve these legal invoices, as well as allowance of required additional detail, in his professional opinion, he would then be able to then take responsibility and approve the invoices. City Manager Bovos stated that was correct. He went on to say that their goal through the ordinance that was presented tonight in 1st presentation was just to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the organization. We have had those discussions from a staff level at the retreat on February 1st and 2nd. In keeping the discussion that they had on Sunday, that particular policy came forward. Their goal, obviously, is to not have Council involved in reviewing services and being sure that they are being delivered and signing off on invoices. Quite honestly, he feels that is not a responsibility of an elected official with the Charter in the organization that we have. So that policy would have clarified that. He has had conversations with the City Attorney as well as the Mayor and requested a format of an invoice. We have met one- on-one and that was also solidified in an email that we shared with all of you earlier this week. He feels like wherever that is in the organization, we have been clear with the City Attorney moving forward of the format and detail that we would like to see on invoices. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams stated she would like to clarify her perspective on this for public openness. She would prefer as a Councilmember for our City Manager to be responsible for the primary approval of any and all invoices and then to bring them to the discretion of the Council if there is any challenges with those invoices. She would also like there to be significant detail for every invoice. In her professional opinion as a business owner and long time business manager to have that sufficient detail be provided for any and all invoices. She just wanted to make clarification there because we have before us today a resolution presented by our City Manager that has been voted down by Council and that would have provided for that detail with regard to our City Manager. Councilmember Mohrig commented that he thought they had a discussion earlier this week and if we go with the standard bill, he thought City Attorney Scott said he would provide additional detail on invoices going forth. Councilmember Mohrig posed a question or suggestion to City Manager Bovos that if invoices come forward that have items pertaining to individual Councilmembers, he would want them to be reviewed and signed off on and essentially approve those services were rendered. City Manager Bovos stated that was correct. At this point, the legal invoice will be the only bill presented based upon our current Charter structure and the voting down of Agenda Item #07-188. So that will come before the Council every single month. Councilmember Mohrig asked City Manager Bovos if what he would be asking Council for approval individually on the items they would be responsible for such as City Attorney Scott’s meeting times, and if he is doing any projects working directly with staff, would that be something that Council would review? City Manager Bovos stated that actually Council would be responsible for the whole entire invoice. City Attorney Scott, under the Charter, based upon his opinion and the opinion of some members of the Council, reports to the elected officials not the staff. We could review projects that he has worked directly with City Attorney Scott, but City Manager Bovos would have to report to Council that that bill was consistent with the services rendered and then staff would be responsible for approving the invoice. Councilmember Mohrig asked for clarification that City Manager Bovos would confirm the portion that services were rendered directly working with he and staff, as well as general things such as Council meetings that he is assuming would be the majority of the time as we go forward. City Manager Bovos stated that was correct. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 8 of 17 Councilmember Thurman stated that she thought it was important to know that City Attorney Scott did submit a bill that did have things broken down by day, by person performing the legal services, and by what they were doing and the number of hours charged for each of those. It was not like we got one lump sum bill, which is what it sounds like. City Attorney Scott did submit it and it was actually a five or six page bill to start off with. If we feel like we need additional information going forward, she is perfectly fine with that, but as someone who bills on an hourly basis, she cannot tell you what kind of conversations she had with someone two months ago at a certain time. The bill clearly shows that he had conversations and who they were with. Going forward if we want more information that is fine, but she thinks this bill that we have had now for a month it is time to go ahead and get the bill paid. Most of it was for annexation. Out of the $35,000 for the first November/December bill, roughly half of it was for legal services regarding the annexation. That was a commitment we made as a City and long term to annex people that wanted to come into our City. She feels like that in the long run the annexation will more than pay for the legal fees associated with it. Mayor Lockwood stated that he reviewed the invoices and while it is a large amount, he felt comfortable with them after going through them. As Councilmember Thurman stated not only annexations, but ordinances and City start up costs were involve. Obviously, we hope to manage the legal bills in the future, but we have a lot of costs on the front end. We have also had conversations with City Attorney Scott regarding the way we would like the invoice presented and from now on out we will have much more detailed billing. Councilmember Lusk stated he wanted to clarify one point with this topic. He believes that denial of Item #07-188 does not preclude the City or any of the Council folks here to request or demand additional substantiation or documentation of the bill and asked if he was correct. City Manager Bovos stated that was correct. The Council can do that versus himself as a City Manager being able to do that. He believes that has already actually occurred today. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams stated she had a few more comments based on some of the comments since her original comment. What it boils down to is accountability. For the public record, she wants to make sure that our public is aware that we are taking out of the role of responsibility from a government where we have a very strong manager form of government. She believes that responsibility is that the City Manager should have to approve these invoices. The accountability needs to be there. She does not want to mislead the public either to think that we have any challenges with the limited detail that we see and the invoices coming from our City Manager. However, in the future if you as the public would like to take a look at some of the detail, it is not going to be available to you. That is what concerns her. Not only herself as a Councilmember and our staff, but the public. She is looking towards the future by looking towards the past and making sure that we have that sufficient detail. There will come a time, especially as a new startup for our city, we are going to need to go back and look at this detail. In her small business, and she is sure many of you feel the same way, she wants to prevent us from having a challenge in the future. In addition, it is a matter of public record that we have a budget for our legal fees and we have been above budget. We have done some very good things with the money and probably there is some justification for being over budget the first months of our city-hood, however, we are on tract to be over budget again and at some point we have to be accountable for that. We have to be accountable, our city attorney, our city manager and council be accountable for that. At this juncture your city manager and your city staff will not be accountable for it. Mayor Lockwood asked for clarification on whether we are talking about two different things; the resolution versus approving this legal invoice. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said she thinks it all ties in together. Begging the pardon of the Mayor, the challenge that we have here is not having the detail. The resolution that we voted down tonight would have required that detail. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 9 of 17 Mayor Lockwood said he thinks we have all the detail, and in fact moving forward we are going to have much more detail. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said in her opinion, she did not get the detail that she was looking for. Councilmember Thurman stated that the detail that was given is what is reasonable and customary in the legal profession. She did not know how someone could go back and tell you exactly what conversation they had at what time on what day two days ago. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said that is usual and customary from the legal profession, as well as the accounting professions set to bill on an hourly basis and quarter hour for their time. Councilmember Mohrig asked City Attorney Scott if in the future, if you had a conversation with Councilmember O’Brien and himself individually, would he detail that with the new billing system and detail what the conversation was, assuming it is not a personnel matter or something like that. If it is standard business, he will put that level of detail that City Attorney Scott committed to both the City Manager and those of us who have spoke to him about that. City Attorney Scott said that was correct and just to make it clear, he was not asked to give that level of detail in the beginning of December when these bills started to be brought forward and the City Manager agrees. We have worked on that and have worked up a more detailed system. The difficulty, as Councilmember Thurman referred to, is going back and trying to recreate and remember something that happened sixty days ago. It is not that he does not want to give more detail, he gave the best detail he could reconstruct. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams asked if City Attorney Scott was in a position to provide any additional detail. She said that she did not get the message. When they asked for the additional detail what they got was some additional detail, but not a message that your system was not able to provide that detail. City Attorney Scott stated he believed that when he sent the attachment, this document was an email attachment. The email specifically said, and he did not know if she got it – apparently she did not, but it specifically stated this was the best he could do with going back to that time. The detail that was required of him at that time was the standard. Mayor Lockwood stated that at this time he would like to keep the discussion on just this legal invoice by approving it or not. Again, he thinks we are on the right track. He stated we have been over it and we are going to get a lot more detail in the future. As far being over budget for legal services, he does not necessarily agree with that in the sense that we look at a ten month budget with legal. Obviously, we have had to spend more on the front end with annexations, new City start up, ordinances, etc. He feels very committed and will personally help watch and monitor this to make sure the rest of the year we do not go over budget. City Attorney Scott said that he wanted to make one more comment about this invoice. He pointed out that of the 95 legal hours that were billed, some of which were not charged by the way, the amount of telephone calls and discussions with individual Councilmembers amounted to probably less than 10% of that. He wanted to make that very clear and he does not get a lot of calls. Councilmember Thurman said probably a good many of those were with her regarding annexation, which is a one time thing and it will not be continuing. City Manager Bovos said as a Point of Order asked for a motion. Councilmember O’Brien asked for one Point of Clarification when Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said by going this route it precludes the public from looking at this invoice. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 10 of 17 Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams stated that she said “the greater detail” of the invoice, not the invoice itself. That is now available. She further said she believes there needs to be a greater detail. She asked City Attorney Scott in his opinion, if he came in front of the judicial system and needed to utilize this invoice as evidence for something, or show a point, or negate a point and set as a benchmark, would he be able to utilize that in his defense or for something. City Attorney Scott said the detail that different clients demand or request varies quite a bit client by client. In his experience, he has done a lot of work for insurance companies and insurance companies do a lot of analysis trying to cut costs. He stated that he gave his day-by-day time for December and gave what was customary in that firm at that time for detail on a legal invoice. Since that time he and the City Manager discussed his providing more detail. One other thing that we are going to be instituting and is part of what he will be doing at his new firm, which he thinks is very much in line with what the City Manager has asked for, is breaking down everything he does into various matters. Such as, community development, annexation, public safety so that all the categories of work that he does will be billed separately and there will be an individual bill in each department, for lack of a better term. You will see on a subject by subject basis what has been done, and the amount of time that is spent on each particular item, and he thinks that will probably be what the Council is looking for. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams asked if that would be something that would be formalized for the Council, similar to the ordinance that would have been passed. City Attorney Scott said he thinks that would be up to Council to come forth with a resolution. He is certainly planning on providing that and the City Manager has asked him to provide that and he has every intention on doing that. Councilmember O’Brien asked for one Point of Clarification by asking if City Attorney Scott did it by different departments, he would have individual detail when you break out the hours where they were spent. That information will be given similar to what Council asked for regarding the invoice and if there was concern with this specific bill or bills going forward. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said both as well as the fact that the Council will be the ultimate approval for these invoices. City Attorney Scott asked Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams if while looking at the ordinance, he feels there may be two questions and asked is she looking more for detail in terms of the write up or more detail in terms of an individual breakdown between different items. He stated he might have for example, in terms of the description of the work done, a blanket list of things, and then a lump of time, 1.5 hours. He thinks we are fairly detailed in terms of what is being described, but he thinks she is looking for more of a breakdown in terms of the sub-part of that block of time. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said especially because she is putting herself in not only her own shoes, but also in the shoes of the public. If they needed to go back at a future time and look to the past, would they be able to discern from the detail that City Attorney Scott has provided. She said she may remember a conversation she had with Mr. Scott one or two months ago, but that is not going to give the detail that the Council may need if needed to fight something that he has been investigating. They need to review that invoice or there may be a challenge with an invoice for another reason. Maybe it is a budgetary reason. Maybe we do continue over budget, so she is looking to make sure that we have taken care of this procedural process now while we are still early and can correct it, and know that in the future that it is corrected. She stated that in her opinion, if you look back at the invoice in front of you today, six months from now, we have folks that admit they cannot remember something that happened last week so she thinks we will be challenged on it. We talk up here every couple of weeks about being in court and being challenged by things so she is trying to make sure we are not. Again, as she stated earlier, this is not about looking at something that may not have been done, or anyone challenging the bill this time other than we need to have that detail. Especially with regards to the fact that we are talking about annexations, there have been some concerns over the annexations. These bills could be and are a matter of open record that could be used for something at a future time and we would not be able to provide Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 11 of 17 the detail and we cannot provide it today. That is what she is trying to preclude from happening. She thought that if we went ahead and backed up now while it is still an opportunity to get that information, we would certainly be saving the Council and staff a lot of headache in the future and admittedly going forward. She loves the fact that we are going to have this detail, but it does concern her that it is not formalized. We could be here two months from now and have another invoice without the detail and have the same discussion and no formal policy in place. City Attorney Scott said he will cordially suggest to Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams that if he does not provide her with the detail she is looking for, that she tell him and then do not pay that bill until he gets it to her. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said she would rather it be formalized, whether it is by City Attorney Scott or by someone else as our City Attorney. City Attorney Scott said with the change in firm affiliation there will be, if not already, another bill sent for January. He will say to staff, as well as Council, if that bill has been received, he is more than happy to provide detail for that previous firm, because it will be under their previous system. Mayor Lockwood said he felt that things were getting off track with two issues and we have addressed this issue for the future so he wants to limit discussion to the approval of this invoice. Councilmember Lusk wanted to make one comment since he had not weighed in yet. As a point of information for the Counselor, he asked when he first started performing services for either the City or Governors Interim Commission. City Attorney Scott replied it was the first or second week of August. Councilmember Lusk then asked City Attorney Scott where the invoices were for August, September, and October. City Attorney Scott replied there are none because the City did not exist at that time and there was no one to send the bill to. He stated further that he did not bill his time until he was appointed as City Attorney and was working pro bono. Councilmember Lusk wanted to make a point that he thinks there is a perceived cloud of suspicion or doubt over our Counselor and he wanted to make it clear to not only the taxpayers, but the press that he thinks we have gotten good value for the expenses that we have received here. He has known City Attorney Scott since about the first of August or middle of August and has known him to be of the highest moral, ethical, and professional standards. Further, he would like to distill any perceptions that there is any wrongdoing here over billing. He stated we have gotten a real good deal so far. We could consider the fact that we are over budget and it could be twice that much if City Attorney Scott had billed for all the service provided. Mayor Lockwood said he did not think it was a moral, ethical or honesty issue at al. He thinks we have addressed it moving forward. Again, he stated to reiterate what Councilmember Lusk said, if you look at what we have gotten accomplished versus what we have spent, we are probably not over budget because later down the road we will not have nearly as big of a legal bill. Councilmember O’Brien asked just so we can see what it is City Attorney Scott is going to do, he asked if he could give us a sample invoice and stated it does not have to be an actual one. City Attorney Scott said we just ended a month so they will be formulating a bill and he will certainly at least get them a prototype and will take feedback. If there is more needed, they will accommodate that. Mayor Lockwood said he thought City Attorney Scott made the statement that once he sends his next bill if there are any questions or if everybody is not happy, he will certainly address the level of detail. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 12 of 17 Mayor Lockwood again asked for a motion on whether to approve this invoice or not. City Attorney Scott said Point of Order calling the question is not correct under Robert’s Rules you have to make a motion and it requires a 2/3rd majority. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she would be happy to pursue that and was just trying to be very polite and allow Councilmember O’Brien to continue since at our last meeting he said he did not get enough opportunity to speak. With that said, she said she will be happy to continue and said she has a couple of concerns. She is concerned that we do not have a policy in place that allows our City Manager to have authority and a judiciary responsibility. She believes that our Charter had indicated that staff, and we subsequently talked about this at our retreat, was indeed going to be ultimately managed by our City Manager. She thinks that we are stepping away from that procedural approach that we all had talked about at our retreat and as was recommended by Carl Vincent Institute of Government. She is concerned about that. She also stated that she is not sure when we would have the opportunity this evening to discuss that, however, as Mayor Lockwood has suggested, perhaps we need to direct our comments at the moment directly to the invoice. With regards to the invoice, it absolutely has nothing to do with morals or anything of that nature and said it has everything to do with business procedures and making sure that we have a process in place that we are all comfortable with. She thinks that we have heard from several folks this evening, and we obviously had a variety of emails over the last few days, including those from our City Manager, that highlight the details requested. With all due respect, obviously Mark Scott did provide some of those details. But, as we just heard, some of that detail only covered a portion of the bill. She said she will refer to the 19.5 hours of the 95 hours of this bill that provided some additional detail and she appreciates receiving that additional detail. She thinks it was the remaining 80% of those 95 hours that might have been helpful, and she would concur with the comments made earlier this evening on this item that these details would be important regardless of whether or not it was from City Attorney Scott or someone else. So it really is not an issue about the individual. It is an issue about what is our procedures, and what fiduciary responsibility do we bear as a Council and individually. She stated that personally, as a Councilmember, she is not comfortable approving $14,300 of a bill for which she has no detail that she can confirm because she is personally taking responsibility for approving something. She stated again, she is not questioning whether the bill might be accurate. She just does not have personal knowledge that what is here reconciles to those numbers. This is not the first bill that has been beyond the $8,000 budgeted for the month. The first bill that was put forward was $21,000 and this is now $14,000. She personally is not comfortable approving invoices for which she does not have personal knowledge and said that concerns her. She said she would be remiss if she did not say it for the record. She further said it is not a personal statement about City Attorney Scott and she hopes he will understand that. She said she would have that question if it was an invoice for another service, not just legal services. If it was an accounting service that we did not have adequate detail about, she would still have those same questions. She would hope that we could respect one another enough on this Council to respect the need for that additional detail. She then asked City Attorney Scott regarding the system he referred to with his new firm, that she is familiar with a lot of attorneys that she has worked with in the past that have phone systems whereby if he were to call her from his office it would log the client with whom you are speaking and tag the number of minutes within that phone conversation. She asked Mr. Scott if that is the sort of system that he will have going forward. City Attorney Scott said that is not the sort of system, but he will certainly be logging the actual times. For example, if he has a call with Councilmember Zahner Bailey and it lasts ten minutes, he will indicate telephone conversation with Councilmember Zahner Bailey regarding sign ordinance, point two. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked City Attorney Scott if he was aware of phone systems like that which do actually log the client and the times. She said she knows he said different clients request different detail and further asked if it is reasonable and customary that there are clients that ask for that level of detail. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 13 of 17 City Attorney Scott said that no law firm he has worked for in approximately 12 or 13 years of practice has had that system. Councilmember Thurman said that they have that system in their office, but no longer use it because so much of communication is done on cell phones and on the internet. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she is familiar that there are law firms that do track whether it is a phone system or not that tracks the phone calls. For herself, she said in addition to this category, which she thinks would be very helpful, one thing she would be looking for especially if she needed to be able to confirm that indeed that was the amount of time logged on a particular call, and she would hope that we would see that and that it would not just be lumped in a summary fashion, but that we would see by Councilperson or by staff member the amount of time of the call. She further said that otherwise she could not possibly look at an invoice and say that it is accurate. She said that is just something that she takes seriously because these are not her dollars. They are the dollars of the citizenry of the City of Milton and she is very mindful that they expect us to be incredibly responsible with their dollars and would be remiss if we did not ask for that level of detail. Mayor Lockwood suggested that we need to talk about that at a Work Session or some other time. Again, he requested a motion to approve this invoice. Councilmember O’Brien said he had a couple of questions and said just so that the people watching would have an idea of what we are talking about for background. He further stated that if he is correct, we have a 10 month budget for legal of $110,000 dollars and we actually do not bill it out month to month. He asked if that were correct. City Treasurer Wolfe replied no. It is an annual appropriation. She further said that we look at a trend and project out in case there needs to be mid-year appropriations. Councilmember O’Brien said to reassure those who are paying attention to this discussion, we are not over budget for our legal budget for the year. The other thing to be mindful of is that Johns Creek has, if he is not mistaken, approximately double the legal budget that we do and he believes Sandy Springs was more on the order of $400,000 in their start up year. He further stated that to some degree what this discussion bears out is we perhaps were ambitiously contingent in our budget build and the happy factor is that we have substantial acquisitions for annexation that has cost us some in our legal budget. That is a legitimate concern, as Councilmember Zahner Bailey has pointed out, and he is sure that we all share that. We are spending a lot of resources and probably by any estimation, it is money well spent. He would just say that as far as the proposed ordinance which failed, he thinks that not so much to his perception. He did considerable research on this, as everyone probably did, and said that he had the perception that it was not really about specifically judging the validity of the bill, but it was more relevant to the relationship. Despite, and not withstanding our City Manager’s form of government, our Charter is written where there is considerable autonomy for the City Attorney in the relationship with the Council so that probably was considered a relevant factor by him. He then asked City Attorney Scott if he would say that the format we have used is typical or common in his industry. Going back to the invoice, there are dozens of entries that are not for City Attorney Scott, but they are for other entities, he assumes, within his firm but assisted in legal work for the City. He then went over various entries on the invoice and stated that the entries were fairly detailed and that is typical of what he has seen. He said he is aware that some questions were raised seeking additional detail, which he thinks anyone could accept that a couple of months after the fact might be difficult, although City Attorney Scott did satisfactorily recreate the described 10% portion of the bill that was at issue. He asked that more of the point going forward, do we have a standard format that we have built or staff prepared a standard time sheet that would allow the City Attorney and his new firm to comply with the desires of the Council and the staff. City Attorney Scott said that the City Manager has provided him with a format this week that he would like his firm to follow and that is what they intend to follow. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 14 of 17 City Manager Bovos said that is absolutely true, but that is under Council’s purview and they would need to decide if that format is acceptable. He further stated that Council also has email so if you want something different they will need to communicate that to the City Attorney. Councilmember O’Brien said he thinks that what is going on here is, we are all sensitive and responsive to the taxpayer resources that are being extended, but he thinks we may differ and in his opinion. There is probably more detail presented that he is familiar with and said he has dealt with attorneys and law firms a fair amount in his profession. He asked the City Attorney if the level of detail being solicited is typical or how would he characterize that. City Attorney Scott said he provided the level of detail in this December bill based on his prior experience working for cities, and based on the prior level of detail that he had been expected to provide by other cities. However, he said that if the Council would like for him to provide more detail that he will provide more detail. Councilmember O’Brien asked how the December bill differed from the November bill. City Attorney Scott said he did not think it did. Councilmember O’Brien said to his recollection, although he was not seated when the discussion of that bill came up, asked was there a similar degree of concern and did he have any solicitation for additional detail for the November bill which was $21,000 for two weeks. City Attorney Scott said he did not recall that there was any real discussion about it. Councilmember O’Brien said that he recognizes that the City Manager has expressed that Council assume a substantial degree if not complete degree of responsibility for these bills, but he is quite confident that the City would not cut a check regardless of Council approval or not, if they were not confident that these items were appropriate, and that implicit in Council’s approval. He then asked the City Manager if he would like to comment. City Manager Bovos said he did not understand the question. Councilmember O’Brien stated that even if Council approved a legal invoice, if the City Manager had any doubts about it, he is guessing that the City Manager would not issue a check. City Manager Bovos said that is an incorrect statement and then said he would have liked to have seen a little more detail on this invoice that you are approving tonight. He then said that when you approve it, as the Operations Director said, we will cut a check. Councilmember O’Brien asked if City Manager Bovos had grave reservations that the Council would be well aware of that and asked if that was a fair statement. He said his point is, as a professional, City Manager Bovos would not release funds without cautioning Council if there was any problem of note that would be a breach of Council’s responsibility to the tax payers. City Manager Bovos said he would agree that that is their responsibility. They would present Council with all the facts that they know of from a staff perspective and Council would then choose to move forward and do what Council chose to do. Councilmember O’Brien said that if or when we vote to approve invoices implicit in that approval is the acknowledgement that the specific line items that would pertain to an individual would be therefore verified. He said, in other words, let us say that we voted unanimously to approve an invoice. If there was an item in there referring to a conversation with a particular Councilperson, they are implicitly acknowledging that that took place assuming that they did their due diligence, if you will, in reviewing the bill. So he is reassured by that, but said his take on this is we have Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 15 of 17 had pretty sufficient detail, and again we should be mindful as we view these meetings about this or any other topic, that City Attorney Scott’s expertise is present for our benefit and for that of the City. Yet even at the modest rates that municipal attorney’s charge, every minute that he is reviewing things that we talk about, it is $2.50 for the City and he would shutter to think it is probably $50 a minute for all of your time, the audio resources, and so forth, when we put on meetings. So the last thing he will say is he thinks we really need to be careful about how effectively we address issues and move through them and this probably exemplifies what we do not need to do. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams stated at the risk of being the last statement, which she is sure she will not be, she just has to be on the record stating that she does not feel comfortable, as your elected official, approving invoices that do not have the level of detail that she has requested personally, regardless of whether it is typical, normal, or agreed upon with this Council. Especially in light of the fact that we have a City Manager that we have entrusted with an enormous amount of responsibility for the management of our City, and said she would like to have his direction. She said that what she is hearing here tonight is that Council will be presented with invoices that we will be approving and unless we ask the City Manager to review something specifically or unless he has himself engaged in it, it is not his responsibility or his purview now to approve these invoices or to manage these invoices, if you will, and that concerns her. She just wants to be on the record with it and does think that we are going to go forward tonight. This has nothing to do with City Attorney Scott, with all due respect. She said she has known City Attorney Scott longer than some of the other Councilmembers because of being on the Milton Steering Committee together and she applauds him for the work that he has done just like she applauds many of her fellow Steering Committee members for all the work done on the Steering Committee and leading up to the formulation of the City. But, she still thinks we are running a high risk of getting ourselves into some legal situation if we do not have control, especially from a financial perspective. Again, she stated she has concerns over it and you do not hear her talk that much unless she really has a concern over something and you will not. Mayor Lockwood said it sounds like we keep (and excuse the pun) “beating a dead horse,” but this invoice to him looks customary to what he has seen in the business perspective. He said we also have addressed the point that we would like to have more breakdown of information in the future. He thinks we have thoroughly gone over that and we are on the same page there. At this point, we are going back to approving this invoice. Again, he said he can understand City Attorney Scott may not be able to go back and detail it any more and said for the public that does not know, it is detailed daily with several different entries per day. It could be detailed more but at this point going back, he does not know that there is anything more that City Attorney Scott can do. He said he would like to move forward with the motion and the second. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated she wanted to ask Carol Wolfe in her professional opinion, could she verify where we are with regard to a line item legal fees relative to that $110,000 on a budgetary perspective so she could be clear and asked if we are on budget or off of budget and what trends does she see based on her professional experience. City Treasurer Carol Wolfe stated we are trending to be over budget if we continue to stay on the trend that we are now. We have received a bill for and paid a bill for $21,355 and the bill you have in front of you for $14,365. She said she has another bill on her desk, but does not know the exact amount. She thinks it is approximately $11,000 that goes through the middle of February. We have spent $63,280 to date, and that is including the $11,000 invoice. She further said that if you subtract that from the $110,000 budget, we need to average about $9,000 a month from now to the end of the fiscal year to stay within budget. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that while she knows that annexation has taken a great deal of time, and with the work plan that we just approved and everything that is on our work plan for the rest of the year, she said that she can imagine that it is not going to require a legal review since that is part of our staff review process. She thinks that perhaps it would be unfortunate to presume that we are not going to continue to need legal input and she is not comfortable right now presuming that we are going to magically end up on budget. She would prefer we continue to track this very closely and again said for the record that she is extremely uncomfortable approving invoices which she Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 16 of 17 has no detail that can confirm whether or not these items actually occurred or not, and is not comfortable with that fiduciary responsibility and believes that should firmly rest with our City Manager. She said we hired our City Manager to operationally run the City and that is how our Charter defines our organization and this concerns her. Councilmember O’Brien said he appreciates the review of what we talked about earlier about trending over budget, but he has yet in this discussion this week to hear a specific question and would welcome one example that would clarify those who….. (Councilmember O’Brien was interrupted by Councilmembers discussions). Motion and Vote: Councilmember Thurman moved to approve the Invoice for Legal Services for December. Councilmember Lusk seconded the motion. The motion passed 5-2, with Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams and Councilmember Zahner Bailey voting in opposition. MAYOR AND COUNCIL REPORTS There were no Council reports. STAFF REPORTS City Manager Bovos said he will turn the floor over to Bill Doughty to give an update on Intergovernmental Meeting. Communications Manager Doughty said just as a reminder that our next Intergovernmental Meeting is scheduled for this coming Monday with the Johns Creek City Council and we will be meeting over there from 5:30 – 6:30 pm. He forwarded directions earlier this week, but said if you need further detail to please let him know. Councilmember Lusk asked if Communications Manager Doughty would forward an agenda to the Council. Councilmember D’Aversa-Williams said she would not be able to attend as she has to speak at the Alpharetta Council meeting. Mayor Lockwood stated in the case any of the public does not know, Communication Manager Doughty has been very instrumental in setting up weekly meetings; He said we have met with Forsyth, the Fulton County School Board, and other City Council. As a friendly gesture and to open up the doors of communications, we feel like it has been very helpful because all of us up here are new and it is nice to be able to learn from other people too. City Manager Bovos stated we received an email requesting to do a fund raiser for a laptop for the police department and just wanted to let everybody know we are appreciative of that effort. We also had several members of the Milton Volunteer Pacers wanting to do a fund raiser for furnishing some equipment for the fire station, so they are moving forward as well with that effort. He said we were very pleased with the volunteers and the subdivisions within the City. He said one last thing he would like to talk about is that he has received a couple questions about committee structure. He knows we talked about committee structure in the retreat. He said he and the Mayor are currently working on committee structure and hopefully we will be rolling that out very quickly. He would like to withhold the details and further information at this point, but just wanted to let it be known that we are working on that and certainly he will have more information in the future. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked if there was an update for the retreat and if there is a date. City Manager Bovos said we do not have a date. Councilmember Zahner Bailey wanted to know when we would have a retreat date. She said that for her personally, it is getting more and more complicated; she puts things on her calendar then she takes them off. Do we have a sense of when we might have a date for a retreat so we can confirm that? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Thursday, March 1, 2007 Page 17 of 17 City Manager Bovos stated that this week Scott Wrighton was asked about when he would have a full Friday and a full Saturday or a full Sunday and a full Monday and his first available week to that is the end of May. Mayor Lockwood stated they are going into Executive Session. The purpose of this Executive Session is to discuss a litigation matter. Basically, the way this would work is we will go meet privately to discuss this matter and will come back out here and adjourn the meeting. He is not sure how long that will take. Mayor Lockwood made a motion to go into Executive Session. Motion and Second: Councilmember Thurman moved a motion to go into Executive Session. Councilmember Lusk seconded the motion. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked for point of order information. Since this is our first Executive Session, will we be required to sign an affidavit and what is our procedure for Executive Session, if it could be stated for the record. City Attorney Scott said the Mayor signs an affidavit. Vote: There was no further Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. Mayor Lockwood asked for a motion to reconvene. Reconvene: Motion and Vote: Councilmember Zahner Bailey moved a motion to reconvene. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Mayor Lockwood said he wanted to say one thing. Tonight, we looked at a process and not all of us agreed. We have been through that process on a couple of items before. We will probably have a hundred more issues like this over the next few years. He further stated that as long as we can walk away afterwards and move on to the next thing and try to all be positive for the City of Milton and respect everybody, we will be a lot better off. Mayor Lockwood asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. ADJOURNMENT Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to adjourn the March 1, 2007 Regular Meeting at 9:40 PM. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. Date Approved: May 3, 2007 __________________________________ _________________________________ Jeanette R. Marchiafava, City Clerk Joe Lockwood, Mayor