HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 06/14/2007 - MINS 06 14 07 WS (Migrated from Optiview)Work Session of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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Work Session of the Milton City Council was held Thursday, June 14, 2007 at 5:30 p.m.; Mayor Joe
Lockwood presiding.
Mayor Joe Lockwood read the opening statement:
Work sessions are the more informal setting to update the Council on business items. No votes
will be taken. Tonight there are five items on the agenda. We will begin with the
recommendations from the Milton Bicycle & Pedestrian Path Committee. Public comment is
allowed that is germane to the agenda item. If you wish to speak, you are required to fill out a
public comment card and turn it in to the City Clerk staff. Public comment will be allowed for a
total of ten minutes per agenda item and no more than two minutes per person. Public comment
will be heard at the beginning of each item. Once the item is called, no other public cards will be
accepted.
The Mayor stated that the first item on the agenda was:
Recommendations from the Milton Bicycle & Pedestrian Path Committee
Brian Maloney, Chairman of the Milton Bicycle & Pedestrian Path Committee, presented the
recommendations to Mayor and Council.
City Clerk Marchiafava said for the record there is no public comment on this item.
Brian Maloney said the Citizen’s Advisory Committee consisted of the following members with
staff assistance from Mike Tuller, Abbie Jones. He stated the City should be incredibly proud to
have these two very talented and knowledgeable people, as well as Dr. Drummond, who was an
incredible resource from Georgia Tech and guided them through the process as well, along with
his assistant, and Jason Seberringer and Tony Georusso.
Brian Maloney stated that as a committee their goal for the Trail System was to very simply
preserve the world character of the City of Milton by creating a Trail System which would help
connect the residents with the schools, points of interests, the parks, and some of the retail
centers. He said that an interesting point in history was where all of the surrounding
communities that touched the City of Milton already had existing Bicycle & Pedestrian Plans in
place, so it was very timely that the City of Milton sought this out as well. He informed the
Council and Mayor that as they begin looking at the plan it was very interesting that Milton had
some very valuable assets already in its hands, and that was over 10 miles of gravel roads that
already function as a trail system. He said they could see the high school jogging teams on the
roads, people riding horses, and people riding their bicycles, so as a committee they decided that
this really needed to become the core of the trail system. He stated, however, most of that gravel
system ran east to west so they began to look at routes to see how they could expand that into the
rest of the City. Keeping with the City’s five year budgetary process, they decided to try to
break this into a five-year plan. It was decided the first year to go ahead and look at the gravel
road system and they would go ahead and apply markers for those, and also in that first year
what we would do is have the head of the first leg of the trail system run from Mayfield up to the
northern Phillips Road Circle. With the first road segment, it actually connects to Crabapple
Elementary, Northwestern Middle School, the high school, all the way up to the Summit
Elementary, so that was a very exciting segment.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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He said that the next segment in the year two would extend eastward along Bethany Road
extending over to Cogburn, and this would actually wind up connecting Cogburn Elementary,
Hopewell Middle School, Saint Francis, and King Ridge School. They also included one little
segment between Highway 9 and Cogburn because right now the parents were walking their
children on the road to get the children to school, so they thought that was very important to
include that leg.
The third year they looked at was the Freemanville north leg, which would run from the Phillips
Circle up to Nicks Road. This was going to allow access to the new school sites, as well as
connect the White Columns area and other communities along there to the core system. The next
year they focused on connecting the core system to the Bell Memorial Park, a very heavy utilized
park during the week, as well as on the weekend. He said that this would run primarily along
Thompson Road, which was a very scenic road.
In the last year they would have the final connection running from Nix Road up to the
Birmingham crossroads. He said that additional layers on the core system then involved the state
route system which was approximately 13 miles, 12 or 13 miles along the three state route
systems, but the trail system was going to be a little bit different. They would have some bicycle
routes along the side of the roads, and they would actually connect with some of the adjacent
bicycle plans that were in place. They would actually become connected in a whole statewide
process. He said that on top of this, they had some additional routes [referencing from map on
his presentation], longer term sections which then fanned out through the rest of the City
connecting all the residents to the core system resulting in approximately 70 miles of trail
system. He stated how do we pay for this? The good news was that they had gotten 10 miles for
free already in Crabapple, and they based their performance on the fact that Gwinnett and
Roswell had just gone through this process and they had completed asphalt trails at $500,000 a
mile. Looking at some state numbers, they saw that gravel trails were being built at $200,000 a
mile. He further stated that they should also mention that at those rates, they found many
contractors that were jumping to complete the project at these rates. It was the intent of the
committee to try to preserve the rural nature of Milton, so as they began talking about
construction. Materials they did not want to see were concrete paths just cutting right through
the community. He said that instead, they were really focused on creating more of a natural path
using natural materials out there with the gravel and an underlying support structure that could
accommodate bicycles, wheel chairs, all the way up to horses. They thought that was in keeping
with the intent of the community, and that where necessary, maybe because of drain issues,
supplementing that with asphalt. He said there were a couple bridges that would be required, and
they had already included those costs in their guesstimates. For purposes of the budget being
presented, they had only looked at one funding source and that was the state and federal
transportation source for which they have an 80/20 match with a 20% local match, but said there
were many other funding sources. There was the state routes to the school programs and he said
that this was where Abbie Jones and Mike Tuller were absolutely incredible because with their
past trail experience. They were very familiar with that, as well as Dr. Drummond, so they had
not even passed any of those, but to be able to look at this and present this to Council they only
looked at the first section.
Mr. Maloney said so in dividing this up; they tried to break it down into about $200,000.00
increments. He said that in the first year in looking at some signage for the roads, and the
guesstimate there were maybe about $10,000.00 to design the signs, and maybe about
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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$10,000.00 to put the signs up. These would be trail head markers which would also help to
market the roads and then include the Freemanville south section. He stated that he should also
mention that they thought these estimates were on the high side and that they did not include
some of the existing paths that were already out there. Most everyone was familiar with the
concrete section from Mayfield up to the Milton High School track section. He said there was no
reason to tear that up, but the trail would just begin at the end of that so that number is a little on
the high side.
Mr. Maloney stated he would like to open it up for questions or thoughts.
Mayor Lockwood said that the first comment he would like to make, as several of the members
on the committee are here, is that he wanted to thank the committee for all their hard work. There
was a lot of hard work going into it and will be in the future, but this will be something that will
definitely make a statement and improve the lifestyle of the residents of Milton.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said this was a fabulous end result that would continue to
evolve. She stated that as the committee continued to go through the process, and talked about
the alternative types of pathways, and she knew that within the document that everyone did a
great job to everybody because the detail was really very helpful. She said that when you look at
the alternative pathways and you connect that to the number of miles, she knew that within here,
there was a discussion about what portions of those miles should be the multi-use trails. For
example, the Equestrian, the bicycle and the other; when you looked at that range of cost either
on a per mile basis or basing it kind of what your five-year plan was, she thought she heard Mr.
Maloney say they had already considered what portions of that would be what type of trail. She
asked if the 80/20 rule still applied in the best case scenario.
Brian Maloney said that for the initial five-year plan, they thought the 80/20 was a good place to
start. He said he believed it was going to be very important as far as some of the other programs
that are out there, so wanted to try to expedite this. Once there was a plan, everyone would want
to see it as finalized as quickly as possible. He thought from the Council’s perspective he would
love to see that as an extension of the committee. They could meet maybe every six months or
something to try to monitor the progress of the plan and evaluate costs, determine modifications,
and try to keep the project going.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she knew that there was some background that Dr.
Drummond provided, and as she thought through their whole process, she believed that certain
types of trails sometimes are more conducive to certain types of grants, so she just did not know.
She thought that as part of this, she thought it was mentioned on pages 39 and 40 where it talked
about the types of paths, the shared paths, the equestrian and the other, is there any advice that
the committee could give them as they started to try to help them promote from a funding
perspective those different types of trails and trying to understand which of those had a greater
probability as certain types of funding sources. She stated she thought a lot of folks are excited
about how they now take a plan and actually get it implemented. When they start to think about
funding, she would just look to the committee to help us ferret that out when they look at types
of paths and submit the five-year plan.
Brian Maloney said they had not looked at that and they were aware that some funding
programs would have certain requirements possibly along the state routes, as their requirements
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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were the strictest and that is why we put them off to the side as a separate item. It was the belief
of many of the members on the committee that to spend $500,000.00 or $200.000.00 a mile for a
trail was extremely high and they would love to see a citizen’s committee overseen by the City
engineers to put some trails in.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she understood that Mr. Moss had a committee, a posse,
that was already running with some pick up trucks and maybe some tools and chainsaws that can
possibly do it less expensively than $200,000 a mile. As you think about those paths, it was
obviously very exciting knowing that there were different alternatives and that those different
alternatives obviously made it a different grant opportunity so just any additional detail beyond
this evening that the committee had on that would be really great.
Dr. Bill Drummond said the committee felt comfortable recommending mostly shared use trails
and one alternative was to have separate bicycle lanes and sidewalks where the cyclist could be
on the road and pedestrians could be on the sidewalks. There were differences of opinions in the
bicycling community about one versus the other, but the committee came down on the side for
the most part for shared use that would enable recreational bicyclists, children, pedestrians and
others to share that trail together. The one exception to that, the possible exception, would be the
Route 9 area because Route 9 had been designated as strategic bicycle/car by the Atlanta
Regional Commission. Given the fact that we are part of a larger region and would like to
connect what is happening in the cities on both sides. He said that for instance, Forsyth has a
plan to have a bicycle corridor on Route 9. For compatibility with both sides of Route 9, it might
be better in that area to have separate bicycle and pedestrian facilities so that the cyclist can
come up from the south, zoom right through Milton and then get on into Forsyth without having
to dodge skateboarders, baby strollers, and horses. He said that maybe that gets to part of what
Councilmember Zahner Bailey was asking.
Councilmember Bailey said yes it did, and thanked Dr. Drummond. She said that with the
shared path, obviously with the equestrian community that we have, you may have some folks
that are particularly interested in helping on the equestrian portion, not that they do not love to
bicycle too, but the committee has helped to identify those committee opportunities that share
pathway. She thought it would afford different people with different interests that opportunity to
jump in and hopefully help, get excited about it or help fund it, or do a variety of different things
other than just outside grants.
Dr. Bill Drummond said that what they had discussed, even though some bicycle advocates
claimed on-road facilities were safer, the committee asked themselves, would they want their
kids in an on-road bicycle lane on Birmingham Highway. Dr. Drummond said he would not
want his 14 year old on them. He stated that in order to connect the schools and the parks and
hold out the promise that a kid can bicycle to school, then after school bike to a soccer practice
or baseball practice and then bicycle home afterward, or walk or jog, that we came down on the
side of shared use paths rather than mostly separate bicycle and pedestrian.
Councilmember Thurman asked if the $500,000.00 per mile included land cost or was it just
construction costs.
Dr. Bill Drummond said no, it was not just construction costs, but as we all know land prices
vary widely. In some places it may be possible to do this within the existing right-of-way and in
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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other places we may need to expand. It does sound expensive and it sort of sounds like we could
get out there with our bob-cats on the weekend and go ahead and put the trails in. The other
consideration is, and Abbie Jones, Transportation Engineer, understands this very well that if we
use the 80/20 match for state transportation enhancement funding, at present those have to be
done to state DOT standards. He does not know if Abbie Jones will say this in public, but he is a
professor, so he can say it, it looks like those standards are way over designed and they require a
lot more in the way of design than you really need. If it is done in that environment, it may end
up costing more simply because the state DOT is so exact about these things.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that maybe an extension of that same discussion is that
when you, as a committee were working fast and furious obviously to try to get here by this
evening, and so she realizes that this may be work that comes out of this initial report. To
Councilmember Thurman’s question, in looking at the land cost versus the construction costs, on
those different routes and those first five different opportunities for trails, do you have the chance
to be able to identify which of those would require additional acquisition of land versus not.
From a budgeting perspective, we could start ask how do we now help implement this great plan,
is it detailed there that identify say that first mileage from Freemanville south, and how we
really look to dissect that into annual amounts that we need to set aside.
Transportation Engineer Jones said in many of the instances it will not require additional
right-of-way. It could be a trail easement which means that we would not be purchasing right-
of-way and in the very ideal situation easement could be granted free as a gift, but that probably
will not happen all the time. So that makes a difference in your cost if you are purchasing an
easement or purchasing in fee simple.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she does not know if the committee had already talked to
some of the trust organizations that are out there. She knows that the Georgia Trust is interested
in providing some assistance to Milton and again, this is an evolution so it may be something the
Committee has discussed. She just did not know as they proceed this summer into kind of
budgeting, she is looking at easement opportunities and those past incentives that may or may
not be out there either through the state or some of these local trusts. She asked is that something
that you already have to offer to us or that you will continue to work on. She hopes that you
guys stay together as a committee. She guesses it is part of that message on the easement side of
that and is that something that we will continue to get some data on.
Transportation Engineer Jones said that her expectation is that at each annual budget process
there will be a discussion of how much has been built and how much will we try to build in the
next fiscal year. You will get some amount of annual reporting at that point and time to find out
how you are doing on that process. She cannot remember the rest of the question.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said about easements, about the Georgia Trust as an example, if
you were ever able to reach out to them or is that something that will be in the next phase.
Transportation Engineer Jones said you need to have your plan in place before you go and
solicit funds from folks. So as soon as we are able to get everything blessed by Council, then we
can go and start looking and soliciting for various grant money.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said terrific. Thank you.
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Councilmember Thurman said she has a question for staff. What is the next step to get this to
be an additional plan so that they can start getting grant money?
Transportation Engineer Jones said she believed this was on the next meeting agenda.
Councilmember Thurman said will this approve this as it has been submitted to us.
City Manager Aaron Bovos said it will actually be a resolution that will be on the July 12th
meeting agenda.
Councilmember Thurman stated that this will be a resolution.
City Manager Bovos replied yes, that is correct. One of the things that he had mentioned too
was about funding. There is a match requirement that will have to go through the annual budget
process so just so that everybody is clear about that.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said in that resolution, will we have the opportunity to request
the continued involvement of the committee or is the premise that this is now at completion. She
does not know if you guys as a committee have talked about that or is that something that you
have had discussion on?
Brian Maloney said the standing of the committee, the initial stages of the committee is done,
but he thinks it is the will of the committee members to stay together.
City Manager Bovos said that the resolution that created the committee is now fulfilled and will
be fulfilled when this report is accepted by Council. If Council wants an additional committee or
have them meet again with the Council, we will just seek to pass an additional resolution.
Mayor Lockwood said again, thank you for all the hard work. This looks great.
Senior Summit
City Clerk Marchiafava stated that there was no public comment on this item.
Mayor Lockwood said this item will be presented by Councilmember Neil O’Brien.
Councilmember O’Brien said he appreciates this time to present this item. The senior focus
and the follow on Milton Watch, which is a public safety initiative that is a working concept, is
the second of three parts that he wanted to introduce. He is very fortunate tonight to have a
subject matter expert to talk about senior issues. He thinks everyone was here for the pedestrian
path plan. What we recognized or what he felt strongly about was the seniors are a significant
and very valued element of the community. There are a variety of resources, but like many
efforts that we are sort of breaking ground on in the City of Milton, it is more a matter of
identifying the issues and connecting resources that already exist. The underlying premise that
we have worked with the last few months is that we really do not have, with our budget posture,
money to throw around but we do have meeting time. We do have the ability to network and,
fortunately, we have some committed professionals and volunteers that are willing to help us as
with the disability process that we have initiated. And the staff has been great about that. We
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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will plan to add a component or subcommittee of the Milton Volunteer Pacers to incorporate
senior concerns, as well as public safety issues as that grows to a firm concept, but he would like
to introduce a woman who has very graciously agreed to spend a couple minutes talking with us.
Lois Lake is a nineteen year employee of the City of Alpharetta and known to many here and
especially the former employees of the City of Alpharetta know her. She is really a local and at
center light here and she is currently the supervisor of the Alpharetta Senior Activity Center on
Cogburn Road, which is attached to North Park. He would like to invite Lois to speak about
some of the concerns that they have for seniors, what their needs may be and where they are and
who they are in the community. Additionally, how we may address some of those needs as an
opening posture as we continue to move forward here in Milton. He welcomed Ms. Lake.
Lois Lake said there are lots of familiar faces around here so she feels a little bit easier talking
since she knows and worked with half you guys and miss you, but you are just across the street.
Talking about your senior needs, she has been up here for 19 years at the senior center. She
helped open the center. We have seen the changes that have been here and the people that have
moved in and every time a family moved in, a grandmother and grandfather came with them.
They are real happy because we had something to do. The senior center was built with
community grant money. The City of Alpharetta was gracious enough to fund the rest of
everything that we have done up there and we are plugging right along every day. We have
people that come from everywhere actually. We are a little different because we do not have to
do the resident, non-resident business. That may change, but she does not really think it will.
They basically have to welcome anyone who lives in Fulton County. They have had people
come from as far as south Atlanta. They have also had them kind of sneak over from Forsyth
and some from Duluth and they come from Gwinnett. We are recreational senior center. We are
not a neo-flight center and she guesses they pretty much take care of the seniors at school drive,
that are still independent, that still want to go and want to travel. They have been very fortunate
because we do happen to have transportation at our center. The city did let them buy a bus and
that pretty much started their transportation program. They had about 1,000 to 1,500 seniors the
first year we were up there that were actually members of the group. We have the Golden Age
Club and it is just blossomed from then. We network with everybody in the area and we have
three other centers in the area. There is the Benson Center, which is down in Sandy Springs.
They have different things that we have. The Roswell Center is also a different center. We all
three network with each other and if we are doing a program, the Roswell people will come to
our program. If Roswell is doing something we will go to their program. There is something for
every senior in this area to do if that senior wants to get out and that is the hardest trouble we
have had is getting them. When they moved down here to be with their kids they live with their
kids. The kids go off to work everyday and then Mom and Dad is stuck at home and do not have
anything to do. So the hardest thing is getting them to come to the center and come and be with
us and learn about the other people. There will be a lot of activities and we go on a lot of trips
and things, but we also take care of anybody in Fulton County that wants to come in. The
biggest need that we have seen up here is for transportation and if, when your parents moved
down here, they do not necessarily drive in all this traffic. They did not necessarily drive in New
York City or necessarily drive in Miami, but we do not do bus pick up service. There is not that
kind of service within the county. The only county service that is offered to go to North Fulton
Senior Services which has a spot in Crabapple, has a spot on Warsaw Road in Roswell and of
course, the Benson Center down in Sandy Springs. There are three North Fulton Senior Services
Center. We pick them up early, early in the morning and we take them to the center. They will
eat a meal and then go home that afternoon. They will do activities at the center and possible go
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on a field trip. Those three centers are set up for the frail, elderly and they really do not have
anything to do. The Roswell Center and our center, like she said, are pretty much independent.
A lot of seniors up here want companionship and, of course, the center is where they get it. We
started basically out of the Providence Park for five years before coming to the City of
Alpharetta. We had 100 people, just like that. It does not take a whole lot to get something
started. It just takes some activity. She knows you may not have a lot of facilities right now.
You could have an activity in here during the day and have a really good program. Our big
thing is making sure these seniors live longer, live active lives, and live happy lives. We do our
best to try to get them to come to the center and get them to get involved in activities. Our
biggest number of people we have now are between 75 and 85. A lot of the 80 or 85 ones are
paid staff that works part-time at our facilities in the City of Alpharetta and their ages are
between 80 and 85. They are the ones that work 12 hour days and help us out the most. And
that is another component to try to keep these people active and keep them going and not just let
them come here and wither away. Meeting people their own age is important. We are in the
process of trying to change our center to a 50 plus center because so many of you all have
already retired at age 45 so we have to find something for you all to do. We are trying to get the
50 year olds and start a program for the younger seniors. We are looking at changing the name
of our center to the Alpharetta Adult Activity Center instead of the Alpharetta Senior Activity
Center. 50 to 65 year olds do not even identify with the word senior and it is hard for us to get
programs going so we are trying to hit the younger group so that is another component with this
area. There are enough 50 year olds that are living up in here that it will be a big help as far as
getting something started too. Also, they are getting more facilities in this area. Fulton County
Council on Aging and Fulton County Aging Services basically and our center, the Roswell
center, the Benson Center, and there is something for everybody to do up here. It is just a matter
of getting the word out and getting them involved. It is for what the seniors want and we try to
go out of our way to do whatever it is they want to do. If they want to travel to Africa, if they
want to travel to New Zealand or if they want to go to Miami, we take them. We make sure they
have a pleasant life here because that is where they are going to end up staying because all your
kids are staying here which is good.
Councilmember Thurman said thank you for coming and asked how many people do you think
you have in the programs on an annual basis.
Lois Lake said probably 25,000 people, but those numbers are a little combined. You might
come play bridge on Thursday, you might go on a trip on Friday. Those individual things are
counted and you might get counted twice, but the numbers are getting pretty close.
Councilmember Thurman said she was just thinking in terms of lot grant requirements. She
knows there are a percentage of people required to start to get an adult grant.
Lois Lake said yes and we have more people from Milton than we do from the City of
Alpharetta and look at where we are located. We happened to be annexed right into the middle
of the City of Milton and we are surrounded by the City of Milton. We have always had this
problem because we are so close to Forsyth and so close to Cherokee. This way people are
going to gravitate if there is something they want to do, they are going to come and do it. We
have not had to say no yet to anybody yet.
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Councilmember Thurman said well, maybe we will be in a position to have different services
than what you are already providing and that way we can cross share and have all the more for
everyone to participate in.
Lois Lake said well most of the City of Milton people come to our center now and we will do
whatever we can do to help you guys out.
Councilmember Thurman asked if they rent out the Center to other people.
Lois Lake said the building itself, yes. We do rent the building out for family reunions and
things.
Councilmember Thurman said she knows they had a few piano recitals there.
Lois Lake said yes and parties, etc. We are able to do that.
Councilmember Thurman said we here great things from your facility.
Lois Lake said it is the people that make the program and now that Milton is a City and getting
organized, hopefully we will help each other out.
Councilmember Thurman says she has a question for staff. Do we have a packet put together
for new residents when they move into the City yet? Is that something we are working on? If
they show up at our door and want to know what we have to offer. Do we have anything?
City Manager Bovos said no, we do not have a packet yet.
Lois Lake said they get calls every day about what you all were doing and she has gotten with
Carol Wolfe to send her some information. They wanted to give out information and hopefully
we are going to have you guys over to talk to us about what is going on.
Councilmember Thurman asked if it was possible to put a link on our website for that or the
center so that when people are looking for things for their parents to do they can get this
information.
City Manager Bovos said we would have to get approval from Alpharetta to do that because
Lois is an employee of that city so it would be her link between the two but, we could certainly
talk to them about that.
Councilmember O’Brien said the foremost question we would have based on your expertise is
if we had been researching this, where it would be found. He has talked with ARC, they have a
pretty significant senior outreach organization and services. Fulton County has a program and he
had a discussion with their director. He was invited with Councilmember Lusk to an event at
Lois’ facility. It was the Memorial Day and a Senior Event. He was pleased and surprised to
hear that she feels that about 80% of her customers are Milton folks, but he guesses he would
make a comment but also ask a question. What is the first thing that they just named that you
would urge us to do to be responsive to that element of our community and he thinks there is two
sides to the senior picture. There are the active seniors that are your customers, but also he had a
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discussion with Deputy Director Millican about medical issues and support of those who may not
be quite so active. We are actually contemplating setting some parameters that we can respond
to and perhaps a paramedic visit program for a senior who really did not get out much. Maybe
once a month or something they received a 15 minute visit from one of our paramedics to take a
look around, take their blood pressure, make sure they look okay, make sure they have a battery
in their smoke detector, but there are a couple of sides to that problem. He would ask you
perhaps if you could comment on where you should look first or what we may do being mindful
that we are very resource scarce. The other thing that he would say about this is kind of a call to
action. We are also looking for some 80 to 85 year olds in Milton who may be interested in
pitching in as members of the Volunteer Pacers on the Seniors Subcommittee which Lois has
graciously agreed to provide some assistance with. Where do we start first or where do we look
at first?
Lois Lake said you have a problem because you are still so rural. You still have this million
dollar house right here and then this little tiny, tiny house that has been there for 100 years with
this little 84 year old woman that has not sold out. She is still living there and she is going to
live there until you carry her out. You still have those and they will not come to the centers. We
had a big problem when we first got started. We could not get the City of Alpharetta people to
come to the center. They said they are not going over there to that place. That is a senior center.
They are not a senior. They worked all their lives and are still working every day. So it is hard
to get the word out to these people because some of them just do not want to hear it. You know,
they do not want to know about services and things that are going on but there are so many in
this area that do need help that need some kind of outreach. It could be done within the fire
department, and police department. You know there are computer programs that do a daily call
that call these people. The firemen when they are at the fire station and do not have anything to
do, they could call a few of these numbers. But, it is a matter of finding out through your tax
rolls or through your voter registration where these people live. You have got so many houses
with three generations in them. That third generation may be getting left out. You may not even
know that there is a grandmother living in the basement or in the house behind the house and it
would just be a matter of you all getting the word out to everyone that this is what you are
looking for and you need to find where these people are. Some of them do not want any help.
Some of them do not want to do that kind of thing.
Councilmember O’Brien said how are you meeting that challenge in Alpharetta?
Lois Lake said they challenged their Golden Age Club Members to go knock on their doors.
Knock on their neighbor’s doors and we have got people that will just walk down the street and
just talk to people if they have gray hair. They say hey, how are you doing? Have you been to
the center yet? Some of them are carrying little business cards around that say come to the
center, so the word is beginning to get out more. That is really the only way to do it is to go door
to door and find out where this little teeny, tiny house is that has been there 100 years that you
did not know was there. She says there are a lot of places like that that still exist that need to be
knocked on the door. People go to church and church is their big thing, but word has gotten out
in churches pretty good too. Knocking door to door is probably your best bet. They have been
looking into this massive computer program that is going to cost them a lot of money that will
automatically call every day call those on that call list. If they do not get an answer, a car goes
out there and checks on them. There are programs like that that are very easy to get.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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Councilmember O’Brien said he thinks one of the biggest challenges is not so much someone
who maybe lives in a million dollar house who can afford it, but ADT has a program that you
can actually subscribe to. They actually monitor the day to day activity level and motion and it
actually monitors so if there is a change in the routine, it generates a response. But there again,
lot of times, there may be a couple dozen people or 50 scattered around that lives in Milton that
are on the little ranches. The same people that probably go hang around with a bunch of
transplants at the senior center who have been here all their lives or multiple generations. They
may be less apt to subscribe to ADT for some kind of service like that and they may be an old
fashioned crowd. People that are very self reliant, but may yet need at some point in their life,
some support. He would love for us to generate an interest in the community that these people
that perhaps live on either side of each of these little ranch houses may be reminded of this if we
can generate a little bit of interest and actually go knock on their door and check in when it is 18
degrees for 48 hours in January or if we have a power failure or something like that but that was
one of his concerns.
Lois Lake said check on the million dollar houses too. Because like she said, some of the kids
work especially if Mom and Dad do not speak English and that is the next hurdle we are trying to
get over is the Chinese, Japanese, and the Hispanics. She does not even want to go there
because that is their next big hurdle to get over is trying to get the different populations to come
in. That is another thing to think about because their kids speak perfect English probably but
Mom came over and she has lived over there 80 years in China and does not speak English.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she knows somebody who’s Mom is celebrating her 81st
birthday today. She participates in Dorothy Benson and as somebody who appreciates that level
of service and your commitment to the elderly she can not thank you enough. She cares very
much and she appreciates us bringing this to the forefront. She would echo the first set of
comments about that; the information and networking. She does not know if we have that with
one of formality with us as a group and a prior meeting when we talked about at a minimum just
getting some information out on the website and that link to Alpharetta as well as some of the
services mentioned that are available right now. At a very minimal level get our
Communications Manager to maybe help us package some of that information. It is already out
there and we could put it out on our City of Milton website as the first step and list some of these
things that Councilmember O’Brien and others have just mentioned other options for networking
and at least, there is no cost involved in that. It is just sharing information and then as we pursue
some of these other avenues, that would at least be a placeholder. Another thing that comes to
mind when you talk about how do we reach out, we just talked about all this homestead
exemption activity. There would be a set of information that tells us right now, some elderly
people that live in our community that may have just filed for homestead exemption.
Lois Lake said that is the first thing they think about. When they move in a new place, they are
the first ones knocking on the door for homestead exemption.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said it may or may not address the person that does not own the
home that is living with someone which is a whole separate networking piece but again, that is a
piece of data that we have in our office right now that we could leverage and obviously on
newsletters and these other things. Knocking on a neighbor’s door, whether it would put a tag
line to it or not, if we could encourage someone to go and knock on that elderly person’s door. A
great example is firefighters. Now 43, station 18, the woman who lives next door they help take
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her food and things and they have not heard from her for about 48 hours and they went and she
had been lying on the floor for too long. It is simple stuff and she applauds the effort to make it
a priority and it does not have to cost a thing.
Lois Lake said there is a lot of information in this packet she is providing. There is probably
every number, every link, everything you might want including her business cards. She is
available to answer any questions.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she had a quick question about grants. In talking about
activity like Medic Alert, and there are all these things out there, she realizes that that may not be
our responsibility but even if we share some of that information it would be helpful. Her
personal experience has been that just gathering that data, it becomes so critical to be able to then
be able to provide care for somebody that may or may not be able to provide it for themselves.
When you think about where would or when you get a group of great seniors together, and as has
been suggested here tonight, they want to take action immediately. In the City of Alpharetta
facility, have you ever had any discussions about shared programs whether that be, maybe not
Forsyth and Cherokee, but thinking about shared capacity, shared programming or how we could
come together.
Lois Lake said she was the wrong one to talk about because she will do that in a second. If does
not bother her to do that. She always has to go through her supervisor and we will talk about it.
She thinks probably at this point it would be something that they could do if the space is
available and it should not be a problem if the space were available and you have got so many of
your people coming in now, it really does not matter. They are going to come anyway.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said they are already sharing your space.
Lois Lake said yes. Along with everybody else. That is what we are here for, for seniors, 50
and above.
Councilmember O’Brien said he would like to let the Mayor have the last word but once again,
thanks from the Mayor and City Manager for this opportunity. He thanked Ms. Lake for coming
and he guesses as you approach your 20th year doing this, it is fair to say it is a special calling.
Lois Lake said she enjoys it. They teach her something every day so it is wonderful.
Mayor Lockwood said good luck and thanked her for all of the information provided.
Milton Watch.
City Clerk Marchiafava stated there is no public comment on this item.
Mayor Lockwood said this item will be presented by Councilmember Neil O’Brien.
Councilmember Neil O’Brien said let us press through this as well and Milton Watch, just for
the lack of a better term, is just kind of a concept that he was interested in and concerned about,
but primarily interested in stepping along side or duck tailing into the Public Safety plans along
the same lines. He has worked on this conceptually and he has been fortunate to have some time
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with Director Lagerbloom, Deputy Director Millican, and Lieutenant McCarty, who is the point
person for these types of programs for Director Lagerbloom, but he guesses he will just explain
what he is suggesting that we work on. The general concept that we have talked about is
somewhat reminiscent of a neighborhood watch. As Director Lagerbloom has explained to him,
neighborhood watch really is a very dated concept. It evolved, he thinks, around 1972 before
Internet or cell phones when it was really a communications tool. As he understands it, it was in
many cases literally where people would stand watch in their neighborhood literally. And really
that has become somewhat passé, but what has been discussed in sort of broad strokes and in a
direction to work to and support from our position on the Council with the director with his
people is that kind of a unique hybrid of earlier version of neighborhood watch that would
incorporate both police and fire initiatives. This might be, if not the first, certainly one of very
few that would focus on a joint capability, in other words, incorporating the talents and expertise
of both the fire and the police folks. There would be groundbreaking coordination throughout
the Public Safety Department. With neighborhood organizations, he does not know about
anyone else out here, but his neighborhood took four years to get mailboxes replaced. So if you
limped along in your neighborhood and you stood up the capability for the neighborhood watch
in Fulton County, we at least want to maintain that inertia so that programs are brought on in
Milton with the Public Safety folks that that inertia is a tool to build on rather than have to
reinvent the wheel later on. So the idea would be to build on existing areas that were covered by
the former Fulton Police Department programs. This would be a Milton tailored, custom fit to
our City. One of the ideas would be to use Milton as a test bag. There is a certain karma
attached with a new City and perhaps in the near term we may have an opportunity where people
would offer grant programs or special child idea issues, things like that. He had a discussion
today with the special agent in charge of the GBI, ICAC program and they sometimes have
programs that we might be eligible for. The fact that we are a brand new City there is a certain
karma that we might capitalize on with that and maybe save some money in the process.
So the initials steps would be to try and build a versatile shell which can kind of accept the idea
being to have modular initiatives so that as Director Lagerbloom, Deputy Director Millican and
Lieutenant McCarty have initiatives that are either needed or desired by the community or
developed by his people or the City. It is almost like a rack concept, like stereo components you
can plug and play, but it would all sort of build on having a shell of leaders in each neighborhood
or area in the community with an absolutely sacred list of e-mail addresses and phone numbers
that would never be used for any other purpose, political or commercial. He thinks that is
critical for people to feel safe that they participate in a program like that. Probably a website
based initiative and we have access to a website which may be used, or may not. We may just
link off the existing website if it develops that way, but the monitor of Milton Watch seems
somewhat suited to us rather than neighborhood watch and Milton Watch.org is available to us.
What has been discussed in preliminary discussions are a neighborhood by neighborhood list and
the ability to post crime reports and actually have two sides that are active and passive for
dissipation. Lieutenant McCarty explained to him that in his experience, he was recently in
Marietta and they had a very successful program there, but interestingly he said the higher the
bar is set for people to participate, the better the program is and the more effective it is. In other
words, he envisions developing programs that require quarterly meetings, active participation
and a very serious commitment of people rising to that challenge. It is actually much more
effective therefore, not everyone will want to do that. Let us say that you have a neighborhood
that does not want to make that commitment or cannot, they would be able to plug into a web
based application and still be aware of crime alerts, crime reports, etc. There could be seasonal
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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safety initiatives, for instance, Christmas time is probably a higher interest time for the fire guys.
There are a lot of issues when you start plugging in twenty sets of lights in one plug. On the
other hand, DUI’s around Memorial Day and the 4th of July might be more for the law
enforcement folks. You would have a very agile, tailored capability on a web based application
and it could either be directed to someone very actively participating or perhaps somewhat more
passively. If he could just offer a couple of possible elements that may be incorporated or have
been discussed and he then he will ask Director Lagerbloom to talk a little bit about his thoughts.
Child ID kits and Child ID or child safety initiatives; he mentioned the ICAC program which is
the Internet Crimes against Children, which is an element of the GBI and it is actually a federally
funded initiative. Probably a huge issue for a lot of folks these days is identify theft, nuisance
solicitations and in fact, he has asked the City Attorney as to the viability of having an ordinance
in Milton to prevent the type of solicitation where people, although it is already a federal crime,
under postal regulations, you cannot place items in or on a mailbox. If you are like me, you look
at your window and you see someone pull up to your mailbox and reach out, and you do not
know if they are taking your American Express bill or putting a magnet on there for some
solicitation. He would suggest that we should consider, if we are able to have an ordinance that
prevents that in Milton. Because he thinks that is practically a matter that relatively few people
actually respond to that and it would help us with vulnerability to identify theft. The other thing
is that nuisance solicitation door to door often is really a platform for people to access the
vulnerability of a house or a neighborhood. And again, most people, unless it is Girl Scout
cookies, or someone that you know in the neighborhood, you are not going to respond to it
anyway. Safety enforcement initiatives; personal safety, an element that was discussed by
Lieutenant McCarty is subject to the needs of a community element or a neighborhood. They
can come out and have quarterly or annual briefs on how to protect yourself personally. Let us
say your neighborhood is typically young professionals. Maybe single folks. There are
particular vulnerabilities that they may be interested in being prepared for. The senior piece is
also very important. One suggestion from the fire folks was a Vial of Life which is actually a
sticker that is put on the front door or a home and it is geared to seniors, but if the firefighters
come to that house or respond to it, it is a repository of their medical information. It tells the
firefighters that on their refrigerator door, there will be kind of like a zip lock bag that has the
medical records for that person. Fire prevention awareness, senior outrage trust crimes; seniors
are particularly vulnerable to scams and especially as they dabble in the Internet. His mom is 86
and lives by herself and is a widow. He often worries that she may get duped by something. She
is pretty savvy, but you never know. Fair weather notification response, INGS, gang prevention
programs and we have kind of unique demographic issues in Milton and there might be some
special programs that would actually be responsive to the uniqueness of some of the very high
net worth or high visibility residents in Milton. Because let us face it, we have people in the
community who may be CEO’s of companies and they may be vulnerable. That is kind of a
Homeland Security piece of concern that may be on the radar of our Public Safety folks.
The final thing that he would like to mention is he would really like to encourage blood
programs, blood donor programs, which would include whole blood platelets, and quart blood
programs. If we can interface with a couple of the quart blood plans that are out there, that
would be helpful. Encourage marrow donor registration and particularly from his experience in
the military, establish a walk-in blood bank. If a Public Safety professional, an officer or a
firefighter is severally injured or let us say a teen or any member of the community was seriously
injured and needed a great deal of blood on short notice, he would love to have a pre-established
network of say 20 to 100 individuals who would be prepared in a contingency to step up with no
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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notice and donate blood if we have a member of our community need those products. So those
are a couple ideas that he wanted to throw out. He wanted to back up and say that this is to be
encouraged and in sync with the plans and initiatives that have been underway with the Public
Safety Department.
Public Director Chris Lagerbloom said yes, as a matter of fact, he sure does have something to
add and would like to talk a little bit about where we are at with some of the crime prevention
ideas in police and fire, and a little bit about the focus that we have given some of the people in
our agency, and then also what some of our limitations are. The list he has seen here is long and
certainly we cannot be the best in the world at all of these things and likely can be the best in the
world at one, maybe even two of them. We are going to be good at something and we are going
to figure out what we can be the best at. That is what we are going to be the best at rather than
be half good at a whole bunch of stuff. He can tell you that the direction that we have given the
department at this point is that the program that we come up with at some point in the future, he
knows one thing for certain and that is we are going to be both police and fire working together
as a team to deliver whatever that is. That is the only real thing that he is committed to at this
point is to make sure that when we solve problems, we solve them from both the police and the
fire side. It is great to have such a brain storm list of ideas and concepts that he now knows are
of interest to at least the Council and he has seen some of these delivered in Milton. It is going
to be a process to work through some of this stuff. He could tell you Lieutenant McCarty met
with Councilmember O’Brien and Chief Millican yesterday and he wishes he could have been
there. That was treated as a big brainstorming session from what he could tell and those are
super important. Lieutenant McCarty is one of the morning watch Lieutenants. He works from
five at night until five in the morning. So he is doing this in addition to what he also does. He
just wanted to manage that as well, but if you have the opportunity to talk to him he is not
committed to this full time. So just bear with us as we start to put these programs together. We
will have something that resembles great crime prevention in Milton just as certain as he is that
we have a great agency that is deployed at this point. He is glad that they had this discussion
tonight so he could get you thinking about crime prevention because crime prevention is
important and he anticipates in the future that we will have many, many more of these sessions
where we kind of figure out what is the right thing for Milton. He appreciates the Council
working with them and supporting them as they decide what is right. Anytime we talk about
crime prevention, he is enthused about that because that just puts it out on the table and makes us
all think about some of the things that exist. As we further design and develop in our agency, he
will certainly be thrilled to come back and let you know at meetings in the future exactly what
they have delivered and how it is going.
Councilmember O’Brien said he thinks that the take away on this with some brain storming of
some of the ideas that may in some cases come to fruition. He thinks there is consensus that if
we can identify those neighborhoods or areas in Milton that want to participate in the programs
that unfold, now would be the time to cling to your organization from Fulton neighborhood
watch days or sort of organize it. Build the shells in your neighborhood. Find somebody that is
willing to step up, organize and set up your structure so that you have e-mails addresses, you
have phone numbers and have a way to tie in together. When the time comes for the programs
that are rolled out, some which may be relatively soon, you are able to just plug into them. So
that is really the intent of this awareness exercise to create individually and collectively the shell
that can be dialed into the programs that ultimately become offered.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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Mayor Lockwood asked if there was any other comment.
Councilmember Mohrig asked if they planned to refine the plan here providing time to
condense an outline. He asked have you researched any other communities around here that
incorporate that somewhat broad reaching plan that you are talking about.
Councilmember O’Brien said that he has tried to express support for the development of the
safety, Public Safety directed programs in Milton, but he wants to stress that he wants to defer to
the Director and his people. He is confident and enthusiastic that whatever unfolds here will be
like everything else that they have done, just top notch. He has done the outline that he read
from, and can provide. He also has done some research and there is a variety of resources out
there which he lists on the back of his outline. USA on watch, Citizen Core is a female
organization that, as you might guess, evolved after 911 and they have some really good links
and there are a surprising number of programs out there. That is probably why the Director leans
back in his chair when the mention of these kind of things come up because it is absolutely eye
watering what is out there. He has printed some things off the web for Citizens Core with their
affiliate programs and organizations. There is the Community Emergency Response Team, there
is a Fire Core Organization, and actually as you dig in a little bit, they are talking products or
some organizational tools and you need to be mindful of that. But again, he thinks it comes back
to the no-cost, say hi to your neighbor, find someone that is willing to be the point person, collect
some e-mail addresses and be prepared to step up either actively as Lieutenant McCarty
suggested or passively if that is your preference as the offerings are presented from the City. He
is just enthusiastic about the prospect that we will have a community component, as a friend of
mine who is in the counter-terrorism world said, you know, a big part of public safety is the
public. We can be the eyes and ears. The police and firefighters cannot be everywhere. If we
are good at prevention and we are keeping an eye out for things, we are going to head off a lot of
problems. He would love for us using the great folks we have and would love for us to be in
Milton, kind of a tough nut to crack. They drive by because they know we will notice, we will
make a phone call. We will send an e-mail and it is not worth the effort to try and create
problems in Milton which is, he guesses, what it boils down to. That is the reason you have an
alarm sign in your yard.
Public Director Lagerbloom said that would certainly be our goal. We are worried about
preventing crime in these 50 square miles which is certainly our focus. Public Safety is great
because they will attach the program to anything they do. Anybody comes up with a concept and
you have got a new program. Some of those will work in Milton and some will not. We have
got some great skills in the agency. Lieutenant McCarty is an expert at doing this in an agency
that he came from. But he is an expert in doing crime prevention. He is not an expert at doing
operation safe crossing, for example, that somebody else may have done because that is no value
to Milton. We have no railroad tracks. We have got to pick the programs that are right. He is
not opposed to doing what is best for Milton and making our own program. We can take
ownership of something as well so he thinks that is kind of where we are going. We have some
concepts that he thinks that looks like Milton and he will be excited to share those when we get
ready to roll them out. We have been responsive in the comments that you have got from the
citizens and they are positive and he only hopes that they get better.
Councilmember Mohrig said just to add briefly, what he really wanted to look at is how can we
target some of these initiatives and then get community feedback as far as what does the
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 17 of 43
community really want and how can we build. There is a lot out there and he agrees with what
Councilmember O’Brien has said. We really want to look at how we want to build a community
because we have said it before, this is a nice place to live and it will only get nicer as we build
the community. Not just to have nice houses and Public Safety, we can work in part with our
Public Safety Department and that is where we are interested in getting feedback both from the
individual neighbors, as well as working with to see how we can make it better.
Public Safety Director Lagerbloom said that one of the things they could focus on that what
would be beneficial at this point and that would be to share with us, the people or the
homeowner’s association president’s that you have met through your campaign. You have been
out there doing this or getting votes a lot longer than we have been deployed as a police
department and he would guess you might have a lot of this for your district or for the whole part
of the City at your disposal. That would be of assistance to us at this point and certainly not that
he has a program that he is ready to roll out to them next week, but to start building that contact
and that networking database that allows us to, when we need for example, something in a
certain part of town. Collecting data at this point or collecting contact information would be
what he would ask for your assistance with and something at this point that would be of value to
him.
Councilmember O’Brien said that to answer your one last question as well, we have
collectively gathered contact information for the Fulton County neighborhood watch as it exists
and when we can collect it.
Mayor Lockwood said any other questions or comments and there were none.
Update on the Comprehensive Plan
City Clerk Marchiafava stated there is no public comment on this item.
Community Development Director Tom Wilson said he just wanted to take a minute to bring
you up to date. We have taken a couple of really significant steps toward the initial comp plan
effort. As you know, last week we nominated the Citizen’s Advisory Committee and he thinks
they are going to call it the Comp Plan Advisory Committee, the CPAC for short. It is a very
good group of people and he knows they are anxious to get started. A second step that we have
done this week is we have the RFP, the Request of Proposal is now on the streets. We have sent
this request directly to 18 companies in the area that do these sort of comp plan updates.
Anybody else that you might know or would be interested in it, we would certainly send it to
them directly. It is advertised in the newspaper and advertised on the website. He wanted to
give you a couple of key dates. Our pre-proposal conference, which is a conference we will have
with anybody who is interested and wants to come and ask us questions, will be on June 27th.
The proposals are due back in here on July 10th. There will be both the proposal and the cost
estimate in a sealed envelope. We are targeting August the 2nd for maybe the date in which we
might award this contact. He has given a lot of thought to our evaluation committee. We have
not really settled on that yet, but we will have an evaluation committee to evaluate the proposals
when they come in. We will probably do a short list and then have interviews and we will select
one and then go with it. There is a lot more to be done after August 2nd but the rest of the
summer will probably be fairly slow because the first thing we do in a comp plan is collect data.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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Data, data, data and that is done by our consultant. It does not really involve the committee all
that much so it is going to be kind of quiet for them through the summer, but beginning in about
September, he suspects we will start meeting on a regular basis. That is kind of where we are
today. He will give you periodic updates from time to time. He will answer or any questions
you have in the future, he will be happy to answer too.
Councilmember Thurman asked how many of the 18 proposals that were sent out do you
expect to get back.
Community Development Director Wilson said if we get six proposals back, he will be very
happy.
Councilmember Thurman questioned that we are not expecting to look at 18.
Community Development Director Wilson said he would be really happy if they got 18 back,
but he suspects that if we get 50% response that will be really, really good.
Councilmen Lusk asked when did you send out the RFP.
Community Development Director Wilson said the RFP was advertised in the newspaper
yesterday. We sent a notice out to those 18 people that this was available, if they would call of
check our website. Certainly, if they want us to provide them the documents, we will or the
request for proposal is actually on the website. If they need other documents like the existing
comp plans or any of our other plans, we would send that to them as well. The point of contact
for any communication with our clients would be Mike Tuller. He wants to say thank you to
Mike Tuller for helping. He has done a terrific job in putting together this RFP and he will be
the contact for the City for any questions that you might have. He thinks this is the most exciting
thing we do in Community Development.
Community Development Director Wilson said he wished it would go faster, but they have
had to go through some steps.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated she thought she heard him say that all 18 were local and
asked if that was true.
Community Development Director Wilson answered saying they are all local.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said okay, so they are all here in the Atlanta area.
Community Development Director Wilson said they are all in the Atlanta area. These are the
people that we know who do this. There may be others out there that do it and these are the ones
that we know. Hopefully, we will get back half a dozen proposals.
Councilmember Thurman asked does the proposal have a date with which they would begin
and end this, that type of information in it.
Community Development Director Wilson answered yes. We are suggesting that they begin
their community assessment in August. If we award this on August 2nd, he would expect that
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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within two weeks, they would begin. We will probably get into evaluating that day and that
would be sometime in September.
Councilmember Lusk asked how long we would engage them.
Community Development Director Wilson said all the way through the end of 2008. His goal
is to certainly present it to the Planning Commission in August of 2008. September would be the
Mayor and City Council and if we need to tweak it, etc. We have a couple of months to do that
and still complete it in 2008.
Councilmember Thurman asked if he had communicated with all the community members at
all.
Community Development Director Wilson said we do not even have the address of all of
them. Actually, we are still a little foggy on the addresses and we have a letter going out. It
could even go out today, welcoming them aboard and he thinks that we will probably have at
least a meet and greet gathering sometime in the very near future. He thinks he will probably
benefit from some training and he is looking for an expert in the field to come and talk to them
about the importance of a comp plan, what they are about to do, and what their role is in the
comp plan. He thinks they really need some targeted conversation on this and we were seeking
the help of a couple of experts.
Councilmember Thurman said she believed that a portion of that whole training that we had in
the manual they would really benefit from.
Community Development Director Wilson stated that is correct. To Councilmember
Thurman’s point at least, nine of those sixteen have already had that training or at least had the
opportunity for that training. He thinks we can probably target more specific to the comp plan,
which is what he would like to do.
Councilmember Lusk asked what the mechanics of this whole process are and what is the
format in this process. Is it the Planning Commission or the CPAC? Are they running
concurrently with their meetings with the consultant or are they meeting together throughout the
course of this whole process. How does that really work?
Community Development Director Wilson answered that they do meet together. The CPAC’s
responsibility is to solicit and evaluate the information that they get. The consultant will actually
run the meeting and run us through the process, all the different processes that we need to do. It
is hugely important to have public input in this. He has said before the plan zoning, public input
is important. His biggest concern on this whole process is really getting the public really
involved on this. The more we can get, the truly better the information will be. One of the roles
that he is going to take on all this is trying to make sure that we get good representation across
the whole City. They do meet concurrently and it is actually run by the consultant through the
different steps of this process and the CPAC will be there to hear all of this information, digest
all this information, and then at the very end evaluate and pass along their recommendations to
the Community Development Department who will actually write the plan. The plan will be the
Community Development Department’s plan. It will then go to the Planning Commission if they
Work Session of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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wish to modify that plan or make recommendations to the Council. They would do that as well,
but the plan is actually written by the Community Development Department.
Councilmember Lusk asked what kind of a document will that actually be and how long do you
think it will take to actually take to put that document together.
Community Development Director Wilson said that that document is actually put together in a
number of different sections. As you know, there are eight different sections in that document
and that document is actually written by the consultants and reviewed by Community
Development staff. They put in that document what we say to put into that document. The
document itself if probably 400 pages long. It will be in two different sections. There will be a
section of just the data collection and that is all merged together. It is a very difficult document
to read and so in recent years, people have started separating all the data collection into a
separate technical appendix. He suspects the document itself will be several hundred pages. The
technical appendix will be several hundred pages.
Councilmember Thurman asked if all the meetings would be open to the public.
Community Development Director Wilson answered absolutely. Every one will be open to the
public. We are going to try to do some creative things like maybe take some of these meetings
out to homeowner’s association if that is what it takes to get those folks involved. We will also
have them here. He really does not know all of that yet and he is looking for some help from the
consultants who do this a lot on their ideas of how to get the community involved. We have
already said that there would be some sort of a survey as part of all of this. We will send that out
to possibly every household in Milton, but we will send it out to a good many of the households
to get the input back. We will constantly strive to get more and more people involved. We need
your help. Talk it up. This is the future of Milton. There is no better way to make a
contribution to the City of Milton or in the future of the City of Milton than to involve you in this
process. When things are going well, people tend to not involve themselves as much as they do
when things are going bad and things are going pretty well right now so it is still going to be a
challenge. Get your friends to participate. We will certainly advertise it heavily. We will
certainly do a lot of communication on the website.
Discussion on Amendments to Chapter 6, Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct
Mayor Lockwood asked if there was any public comment.
City Clerk Marchiafava called for Carol Lane.
Carol Lane said she lives at 14890 East Bluff Road in Milton. She is a member of the Ethics
Board and she is speaking for herself, not the board. We will have a packet, she guesses, that
was on the website that showed some more amendments for the Ethics Ordinance. There is an
original which is what you all passed, then there was a second one that came up that was not
passed and it has green writing where you can see where things have been added. And this one
you have tonight has a few additions. Last night, we had a meeting to go over the Ethics Board
Ordinance, just with board members and the staff. She had asked if this would, the one that is in
the packet on the calendar now, if it showed all the additions, so you could tell what was already
passed and what was going to be added on. This is not showing that these amendments are
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 21 of 43
added on or showing if they are in there. She means there is not a difference in it, if you
understand. She would ask that that be put in the packet to show what is being added to the
ordinance so that when you all do review it, you have what is already passed and what has been
added.
Also she just wanted to reiterate another thing that Mark Scott, yesterday at our meeting, when
he was going over the Ethics Code said that you all would have this today and the Ethics Board
would review this document before it goes to first read. She would request that you would do
that and she thinks that is a good idea. She knows that you all make the decision, but they do
have a meeting Monday and asked that that be added on the Agenda. If it is not, she really does
hope that you all will allow the Board to review it before it goes to first read.
Susan Campbell said resides at 245 Bay Colt Road in Milton, Georgia. She would like to say
that she does support the proposed change of the amendment. She supports section 21, wrongful
use and section 22, wrongful use of code of ethics. She believes that these amendments are
being implemented as safeguards and she appreciates that. She also appreciates the opportunity
that the Board of Ethics will have a chance to review this and provide comments. It is very
helpful for all of you if we are plodding along and learning this and she thinks fewer mistakes
will be made. Once we have alignment with the by-laws and the Ethics Board members that that
will help. She thinks that everyone, if we have that alignment with the by-laws is basically a
process and it has been very helpful to her in looking at the ordinance and looking at the by-laws.
Being a member of the Board of Ethics, she believes that everybody will have the knowledge
needed to proceed forward on process which she thinks is very important. She appreciates your
time and input.
City Clerk Marchiafava stated that completes public comment.
Mayor Lockwood asked City Attorney Scott when we talked about the Ethics Ordinance, we
discussed a lot of changes on this ordinance. He asked if he had any more conversations with
Jarrard and Davis and were those included in the ordinance we are discussing today.
City Attorney Mark Scott said yes, we have included a number of changes and also discussed
further changes with Richard Carothers, the outside attorney who has been retained to deal with
the Ethics complaints. We are moving forward with those things.
Mayor Lockwood stated, as you know, there has been an Ethics Complaint filed against him
and so his question is should he recuse himself.
City Attorney Scott said no, he did not believe he needed to do that.
Mayor Lockwood said all right. Thank you.
City Clerk Marchiafava said that for the record, the complaint was not submitted properly so at
this time there is no complaint against the Mayor.
City Attorney Scott said right, it has been returned for resubmission to conform to the Ethics
Ordinance. He wanted to preface his remarks by first stating that we adopted the Sandy Springs
Ethics Ordinance. In a work session, probably this year, we had Jim Langlais, who is a member
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 22 of 43
of the Sandy Springs Ethics Board and an attorney downtown. He has really taken an interest in
the ethics business and has a lot to do with the writing of the Ethics Ordinance. The interesting
things about the Sandy Springs ordinance is that in a year and a half they have not had a single
complaint. They have not had to use it as much as we have to use it. We are finding practically,
now that we are using it, there are some problems and one of the biggest problems is, the
ordinance as it was written does not take into account, the conflict of interest that occurs if a
member of the Council or the Mayor to whom the City Attorney reports is the subject of the
ethics complaint. We are now in the process of reconciling that. We have also realized that
some of the by-laws which we looked at are Sandy Springs’ by-laws. If we are going to adopt
Sandy Springs’ by-laws, we adopted Sandy Springs’ ordinance and we did not look at it with as
much scrutiny as we apparently now realized we have to because, after all, this is Sandy Spring’s
by-laws. This is Sandy Spring’s ordinance. We now have to go back and reconcile some
discrepancies which occurred between the two. We are doing that. We are going to be re-
writing the by-laws to make sure that they do conform to the ordinance. We have also received
some comments from the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) and the letter that they sent to
us in which they informed us of our award of the City of Ethics status pointed out are a couple of
minor issues which we are dealing with as well. So the status of this amendment, if this were a
piece of software, he would be calling this Ethics Ordinance 1.2. It is still basically the same
original ordinance although the last series of amendments in a previous work session would have
been 1.1 and this is 1.2. It is the further tweaking some of the same basic language. One of the
things that he wants to point out is that the package before you includes both what he would say
would be 1.1 and 1.2. He is not exactly sure what was on the website or what Mrs. Lane was
able to access and what her printer printed in terms of color, but what is on your discs and what
is on the color copy with the notes off to the side, which he was able to receive from a city
printer shows the changes and the deletions which are occurring. This includes both what he
would term as 1.1 and now 1.2. So all of the changes that we are proposing at this point are in
this package that is before you and that is on your disc.
Councilmember D’Aversa said there must be a couple of different discs because what she has
is not highlighted.
City Manager Bovos said that he just wanted to say from a staff standpoint he thinks that is
correct because what he has in his packet is just the changes subsequent to 1.1 and none of the
1.1 changes.
City Attorney Scott said he wants to make it clear that 1.1 and 1.2 are not differentiated. It is
just all of the changes that you are being asked to consider because remember we never did act
on 1.1.
City Manager Bovos said he knows but as a traditional rule, what we do is annotate any change
in comparison to the original ordinance.
Councilmember D’Aversa said and that is what this does.
City Manager Bovos said no, it does not and this is not the place to do that. He just wanted to
make sure that Council is aware and that we get that fixed.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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City Attorney Scott said we will get that to you so what he is going to do is make sure that we
are all clear about what we are talking tonight. He is going to go through every change. He also
wants to let you know that this is considered to be very much a work in progress so suggestions
that you come up with we are open to. He wants to hear your comments and he wants to work
with you on coming up with the best amendments that we can so that we can do this at one time
and so that we can have an ordinance that reflects the reality of the situation that we have, as far
as an Ethics Ordinance in Milton 2007. To the first changes or amendments that he has are at the
Table of Contents, all of or from Section 21 down to Section 28, there should be a lot of red ink
or ink that shows changes and then there is or if you have the feature with the various comments
off to the side, you can see what has been deleted.
The first changes are on change or are on Page 5 under Section 3.I-1. What that is doing is
taking out the term Confidential Advisory Opinion. It is just making it an Advisory Opinion.
We are doing that because of the comments that the GMA pointed out to us that we cannot give
Confidential Advisory Opinions because the Open Records Act requires that an Advisory
Opinion would be or that the Ethics Board were to give or that the City Attorney were to give
would be an open record.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she is sorry, just so that she is sure that we are using all of
our time efficiently, she does not have a copy the highlights.
City Manager Bovos said he did not have any way to get it to them tonight, the servers are
down currently and we do not have a way to print or a way to access.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said if we are actually paying attention to our presentation,
would it make sense in light of our meeting of last night, that we take a recess to make sure that
we are actually reviewing the same Ethics Ordinance. She is very sensitive to making sure that
we do not have a discussion on something that is not what the City Attorney is referencing. If
we can just pause and make sure that we all have what.
Councilmember Lusk said does somebody have the right CD because we do not have it.
City Attorney Scott said let us do this. He has this disc and he knows this has all the comments
on it. If he gives you this, you should be able to download it into your machine.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said it was not just her, it was everybody.
Councilmember Thurman said can we make copies of that diskette?
Councilmember O’Brien said that was what they were just discussing, but he was also going to
ask Mrs. Lane if it sounds like what she referred to as green and red and he is wondering if
maybe whatever green comments that you may have access too may have come out in black on
the packet. He would agree that it would be probably helpful to make sure that we have the same
document.
Carol Lane said it is not about her printer or the color, it is about her format. And the format of
the one that was presented the first amended ordinance that was presented was in green and that
is why you could tell that it had been added.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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Councilmember O’Brien asked is that the entire document that is defined. It sounds like there
was a source document that was modified once that shows green and then there is another layer
of changes in red.
City Attorney Scott stated he is not particularly worried about color; he is worried about it
being the same document. All of the amendments are clear so that everybody knows what is
being amended.
Mayor Lockwood said called for a Point of Order. He asked City Manager Bovos do you want
to look at those disc and see if this is the correct one and if that is the case, then maybe we can
have that disc downloaded and let everybody get that.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that and would it make sense.
Mayor Lockwood said let us see if we can get everybody on the same page. You had a
question that for a couple reasons one, that we could have had something advertised differently
on the website than what we have in front of us.
City Attorney Scott said yes. He thinks the reality is at this point or that his preference would
be is that we get you a copy of the document that is correct. Certainly, we can try to do that
tomorrow to give you or obviously a short period of time over the weekend and tomorrow
afternoon to review the document and then from that stand point we will cover it in a Monday
work session prior to it being on an agenda. Again, he cannot do that tonight since he does not
have access to Internet with the servers down, but to that respect remember that it does need to
go to Ethics Board so that they have the opportunity to review it.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said and she would just ask the Mayor if we could make sure
that this come back to a work session.
Mayor Lockwood said he could make sure that it did.
City Manager Bovos said to Council that it does not have to go to work session. We do not
have a policy for that.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she is asking tonight as a matter of record, it was
advertised and going to a work session so she would ask that tonight before we adjourn we
would agree to that. She means it was supposed to be at a work session and she thinks that we
do not benefit when have to have a non-form meeting. We do not get the benefit of everybody’s
input.
City Manager Bovos replied sure.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she knows that this would want the benefit of a full
Council and Mayor discussion so she would just ask, because of the error, however this
happened, that we not adjourn before we agree or not agree. Hopefully, we could agree that this
goes back to a work session.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 25 of 43
Mayor Lockwood said that he would request that if it is the will of the Council and that we
postpone this and then if it is before the Council that we bring this back to the next work session.
City Attorney Scott said your July work session is full. So we are talking about having it come
back to the August work session. As long as everybody is okay with that time line, that is fine in
putting it on August work session but, we are only having one meeting in July and that is on July
12th. He would not recommend that from staff perspective. His preference would be to go ahead
and have it concur on the normal course unless we want to do a special called work session.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that she is open to that and her concern is that we
publicized that there was a work session around an item that for better or worse has gotten a lot
of attention. She thinks we would do ourselves and the City a disservice if we advertised
something, for whatever purpose there has been an error. City Attorney Scott who, gave us some
good training last evening stated a concern for all of us in that room and some of the folks that
were here. She just wanted to make sure that they do not trip based on input that was given to us
by the City Attorney last night and that was that everybody including the public, etc. need to
have a full document. So however we do that even if it needs to be a special called session, and
maybe it sounds like maybe we need to go back and verify what was publicized. She does not
know what was on the website.
Councilmember Thurman said this copy here is not in color. It has all additions underlined
and deletions out to the side. She asked can we go by this.
City Attorney Scott said the challenge is that is not what was published and publicized.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said it is pretty simple. She thinks we need a document that
reflects the changes.
Councilperson D’Aversa said she would vote for a special called work session.
Mayor Lockwood said he did not think we needed to wait that long.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she would support a special work session. We could have
a work session as soon as is possible. She is just suggesting that we advertise the work session.
Councilmember Thurman said that she thinks we need to be true to what we advertise.
City Attorney Scott said that he guessed from staff perspective, an ordinance requires two
readings so we would rectify and publish the document prior to those two readings. For me, the
Monday meeting would suffice as the education process to the Council because your only public
comment tonight was from the Ethics Committee members. They are going to see it through
their normal process. But if you want to have a special work session, again, it is up to you.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said can we do it on one of our Monday meetings. She wants
to benefit from hearing other people’s input. That was her point about Monday is that when we
split up as two groups, we do not get to benefit or she does not get to hear or get to hear the other
three Councilmembers’ in put because we are in two separate sessions. That is her point.
Work Session of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 26 of 43
City Attorney Scott said sure we can advertise a special called work session on a Monday
meeting.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she was just trying to find a workable solution.
Councilmember O’Brien said 8:00 a.m. or 8:30 a.m., on Monday he would not be able to do
that this coming Monday. That does not work for him.
Councilmember Lusk said this Monday is unusual for him because he has a funeral so probably
the next day. The question before us is either we proceed under some limitations or we defer, is
that correct.
Mayor Lockwood said defer the correct document, post it, talk about it at the Monday meeting
and go through the normal process of meetings.
Councilmember Lusk said August is absolutely unworkable and he thinks with GMA and other
things are going on, he would advocate that we try and press on subject to the limitations in front
of us and at least engage in discussion, especially with two members or at least two members of
the Ethics Board here who probably would like to hear our comments. At least get as much
work done at this work session as possible. That would be his leaning, but he will go with
another one too.
Mayor Lockwood said he would like to get legal counsel’s advice on that.
City Attorney Scott said that what the City Manager pointed out was that the real key is that it
is the right thing, at least by a second reading. If we go ahead and discuss this, the last time we
talked about this the document that he brought to you initially was different from the document
that came out of that because you asked him to make changes. So it would not be any different
than if, say he brought in, for lack of a better word, 1.1 which is apparently what was supposed
to, or what it looks like. And then we either, through the course of working through it, came up
with 1.2 as a group or somebody brought a second, or a separate draft that became 1.2. He does
not think it is any legal obstacle to discussing 1.2 when 1.1 is what was proposed here. As long
as we finally let the world know what we are considering when it comes up for an actual vote.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she thinks that is fine. She just thinks we all need the
document.
City Attorney Scott said who needs a copy tonight or who does not have a printed copy of the
ordinance. Then we need three more of 1.2.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she thinks that what she has may include 1.2 or it may
include both, but it is not obvious what the net new changes are since 1.0.
Mayor Lockwood said let us move forward and make notes.
Councilmember O’Brien said he was going to say at the very least we know that we need to be
aware that we need to be strictly vigilant to any changes and or we can do that and he is guessing
Work Session of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 27 of 43
it is a practical matter. Some years ago before this technology people limped along with scant of
limitations.
Councilmember Thurman said she did not think they had a work session on the original
ordinance that we discovered at the Council meeting.
City Attorney Scott said do we have a copy of what he is going to term 1.2 in front of him now.
He is going to start and he thinks that the key is if you look at page 22, you can see under
wrongful use of Ethics, does that appear to be a lighter shade and also under section 20, is there a
deleted box to the right that takes out a good bit of the ordinance or of the section?
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said of 20, yes.
City Attorney Scott said if you have that deleted box where it says Confidential Advisory
Ethics Opinion on the right side, you know you have 1.2. So what he is going to suggest that we
do now is turn to Page 5 and he is going to go through the changes. And these are both or 1.1 is
incorporated in 1.2.
Councilmember O’Brien asked these are all the changes.
City Attorney Scott said these are all the changes that have ever been proposed to date that is
different from the original ordinance that you folks saw.
Councilmember O’Brien said so we have already passed it?
City Attorney Scott said yes.
Councilmember O’Brien said so these are the amendments we are considering discussing right
now, which includes things we have already talked about in the earlier session.
City Attorney Scott said that is correct.
Councilmember O’Brien said these are additions, but we need to look at these and what we had
before and we have not looked for these.
City Attorney Scott said right. 1.1 was sent back for further amendments so it became 1.2.
Councilmember Thurman asked if we were actually voting on 1.1 and 2 together.
City Attorney Scott said right. 1.1 is subsumed into 1.2.
Mayor Lockwood said we are discussing where we are in progress and we will move forward
from this document here.
City Attorney Scott said that is the best statement anybody has made.
Mayor Lockwood said let us get started.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 28 of 43
City Attorney Scott said under or on Page 5, Section 3, I-1 we have taken out the reference to
Confidential Advisory Opinions because we cannot give them. Under Section 5B, we have
added after City Attorney or outside counsel recognizing that it is the City Attorney if the
complaint is against one of you folks, then we need to get outside counsel. Likewise, under
Section C there, the City, the Mayor, all public servants reported violations of this ordinance of
which they have knowledge to the City Clerk, Mayor, City Attorney or outside counsel who shall
forward such report to the board. The underlined portion, you should be able to at least see your
underlines. Although he knows this copy was not very clear. On Page 9, under F, he think this
was the City Manager’s suggestion, rather than have that go to the City Clerk, it is to go to the
City Attorney.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey guessed it would only be the City Attorney, it would never
have to be outside counsel.
City Attorney Scott said right, and of course, if something came up as a result of that, the City
Attorney would then take that and refer it to outside counsel.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she thinks that last night, when the City Attorney was
going through some of those suggested changes, it was mentioned or she thinks that that item
applies to a number of different sections and he were not sure that he was going to refer to City
Attorney and/or outside counsel in each section.
City Attorney Scott said right he was going to frankly look at that a little bit more because that
will something that will come back. Under Section 10, C-2. This is a request that came out of
the Public Safety Department or designated emergency situations. Under Section 11, paragraph
A-2, another point that came out of Public Safety or as authorized by the City Manager.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked if we want to go through all of them and if we have
questions, come back?
City Attorney Scott said if you have a question, go ahead and ask it.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked, as authorized, can you just give an example of that?
City Attorney Scott said sure, let us read the whole paragraph so we have it in context.
Requesting using or permitting the use of any publicly owned or any publicly supported
property, vehicle, equipment, labor or service for the personal convenience or the private
advantage of one self for any other person except as otherwise allowed by law or is authorized
by the City Manager. There may be situations where it is appropriate to use City equipment or
City property, vehicles, etc. etc. for the personal convenience or private advantage as long as it
has been cleared by management.
Mayor Lockwood said let us say there was an anticipated storm or something and you have
allowed an employee to take home a company truck, the brush or fire truck with equipment in
anticipation for the storm or whatever.
City Attorney Scott said it just allows for discretion. A simpler example is that we have a
policy that allows “community police scene” which allows police officers to drive back and forth
Work Session of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
Page 29 of 43
their vehicles. In the event that we hire a police officer and every time we hire a police officer,
we have to come to Council to get approval without the police officer to drive his or her vehicle
even though it is already covered in our policy. There are layers and layers and layers of
bureaucracy to the process so this is something that just allows us to streamline that.
Paragraph 3 below referred to last night in the Ethics training that he proposed that a prohibition
against deliberation. He would request that you would recuse yourself if you are also in a
materially adverse situation to somebody. Not just when you would have a financial interest in
the matter that is being put before you but say, you are involved in a lawsuit and say that there is
a business competitor. Anytime that you are in a materially adverse situation from the attorney
perspective, conflicts of interest under our rules of professional conduct clearly goes both ways
on that point. You cannot engage in a conflict that would benefit you. Also you cannot engage
in a conflict that would hurt somebody else. It does not make any sense to him why our
ordinance would allow you to do something to hurt someone else when it does not allow you to
benefit yourself.
Councilmember Thurman asked if we needed to have a definition back in the definition section
for materially adverse.
City Attorney Scott said it did not occur to him to be something that was necessary when he
wrote this. He thinks it is pretty clear. He thinks it is pretty much plain English and anybody
would understand that.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she had written down the same thing. She just wrote down
do we need a material adverse definition?
City Attorney Scott said if you would like me to do it, if you direct me to do it, he will do it.
Councilmember Thurman said she was just asking.
Mayor Lockwood asked to clarify it.
Councilmember Mohrig asked if the term is commonly used in law.
City Attorney Scott said in legalese, you would know what it means.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she guessed her question came up when the City Attorney
was giving some examples. It is that window of interpretation because it is an ethical item.
City Attorney Scott said let us narrow it down a little bit.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked if we could give some thought beyond tonight’s meeting
whether or not that needs to be defined in the context. Materially adverse is defined by Black
Law dictionary, but how would it be applied here is her question.
City Attorney Scott said okay, we can work on that.
Councilmember Thurman said it probably wouldn’t hurt throwing it in.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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City Attorney Scott said 11-A-4 also comes out of Public Safety. Engaging in private
employment with or rendering services for any private person who has a business transaction
with the City unless the employee has made a full public disclosure of such employment and
services and received approval of their supervisor or the City Manager. We want to strengthen
that a little bit, but we also want to allow it to be Supervisor or City Manager, largely again
because of the practices that the police officers engage in. Quite often they are able to engage in
off duty employment, directing traffic for churches, for schools, things like that, for private
schools and, frankly, they can use the additional income. As long as they get approval for it is
the general practice in cities all around.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked would it be fair to say that that approval from the City
Manager or whomever. This might be obvious, but that it should occur before the act. As an
example, it should not be after the fact. That the approval should be in advance.
City Attorney Scott said he put the word advanced and receive advance approval. This is the
language he received, but he thinks advance would be fine.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said both there and in item number 2, it should really be
advanced approval just to clarify that.
Councilmember O’Brien said out of curiosity, could it say approval of appropriate authority
instead of Supervisor or City Manager.
City Attorney Scott stated that Section Six, accepting any gifts. What we added was with the
minor or with the exception of minor tokens of less than $25.00 in value such as food or
beverages. Because, again, as you know, police officers are routinely offered little cups of
coffee, meals and whatever, and we do not want to deny them that.
Mayor Lockwood asked if we needed to clarify that it is per diem or per time so that that is not
a $25.00 cumulative, but at each time that occurs.
City Attorney Scott said we can do that.
Councilmember O’Brien said that you could say perhaps with the exception of instances of
minor tokens.
Mayor Lockwood said he wanted to make sure that was not a cumulative number and it is not a
daily number.
City Attorney Scott stated the per diem, say $25.00 per diem, allows that in.
Councilperson Zahner Bailey said in a given week, is there any threshold where anybody
would challenge that and she does not mean the $25.00 per day, but if it was every single day, is
there a challenge. She does not know the answers. She asked is there anything where a
cumulative amount suddenly becomes something that would be challenged.
City Attorney Scott said he supposed it could.
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Councilperson Zahner Bailey said that she did not know the answer. She is just wondering if it
is only for police officers.
City Attorney Scott said no, it is not, but it is oriented more towards them than anything else.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said it is just that some would challenge if it was 365 days.
City Attorney Scott said well, clearly that would be a problem.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said but it does not address that and she did not know at what
point it is acceptable versus what point it is not.
Councilmember Lusk said some may not be aware that police officers are routinely extended
50% discount or gratuities. For instance, if they stop in at Quick Trip at 3:30 in the morning,
they get free coffee and he believes certain hot dogs or a couple of items may be extended free.
He doubts that anyone would object to that because it is a token of respect for their commitment
probably in an under compensated profession.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said it was not her question about police officers, but it does
not define that it is for officers. It could apply to her and at what point is it not appropriate for
her to get $25.00 in free food 365 days a year.
Councilmember Thurman said her question is say it is a GMA conference and there are lots of
people that are put into our agenda. We get two dinners in one night sometimes so how do we
make sure that we are not in any violation.
City Attorney Scott said that what he would say if the individual employee receives it, says
public servants as well. Well, so we should change employee to public servants. But at the same
time whether or not you are a public servant of the City of Milton, if you are participant at a
GMA convention, you are going to get those. So that is the differentiation, he thinks. You are
getting or you are going to be given gifts and gratuities and free food or whatever at the GMA
convention because you are a participant in the convention, not because you are a public servant
of the City of Milton.
City Attorney Scott said one option is that the IRS actually talks about the minimum token. So
you may want to even consider taking out the dollar amount and just putting in the minimum so
that way, it is everyone’s responsibility to evaluate or gauge whether the token is appropriate or
not appropriate based upon the event and the employee receiving them. We will change that to
with the exception of the minimum token such as food and beverages.
On Page 11, A-9, he believes this is one of the City Manager’s suggestions. Ordering any goods
and services for the City without, and he asked to delete prior. Without official authorization
because there are going to be times when you may not be able to get prior authorization and you
will be able to get subsequent authorization.
City Manager Bovos said well, our practices and policies do not require prior authorization.
Through certain threshold department heads are allowed, but to extend resources up to a certain
dollar amount, he does not want to change that from the purchasing policy.
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City Attorney Scott said that this was one of the original changes as defined in what he would
term 1.1. It was suggested to him very early on that rather than limit it to City Councilmembers,
drawing per diem or expense money’s for seminar, etc. that we change it to all public servants.
Mayor Lockwood said now is that going to change the GMA conference this year?
City Attorney Scott said as long as you all show up.
Miscellaneous conversation about the conference.
Mayor Lockwood said that is what he was saying, you need to go to the meetings now. All of
you.
City Attorney Scott said Section 11-C, we have taken out in the third line down we have taken
out administrators and substituted it for staff. It broadens it and he thinks this is one of the City
Manager’s suggestions too because the term administrators is not well defined so we opened it
up to all staff.
Councilmember Thurman asked then for referring to City staff it means actually City staff, but
those of CH2M Hill also, without question.
City Attorney Scott said the Ethics Ordinance defines public servants as anyone who is also
engaging in City business under a contract so clearly it covers anyone who is with CH2M Hill.
And it also covers City agents so anybody who is working for the City in any agent capacity
which would be clearly me, CH2M Hill employees, anybody like that. Page 12 and that is
Section 11-K, no public servant shall while in the course and scope of their duties engage in any
kind of behavior towards another public servant or a member of the public that is perceived by
the recipient as threatening or abuse of the nature. Section 13 or that was part of 1.1. Quite
frankly, he is not sure who suggested that to him.
City Manger Bovos said he would own up, it was him.
City Attorney Scott said very good and thank you. He could not remember because it has been
several months. Moving to Section 12-C.
Councilmember Lusk said the recipient is the determinate of what constitutes threatening or
abuses so if someone perceives that you are disrespectful to them or even if no one else would
perceive it so you are therefore guilty of it?
City Attorney Scott said no. It is still subject to a frivolously determination by City Attorney or
outside counsel to a reasonable person’s standards and ultimately, if it even gets past the
attorney’s scrutiny before it gets to the Ethics Board, it is up to the Ethics Board. You are not
guilty or automatically guilty. You are not guilty until proven innocent.
Councilmember Lusk said he was just struck to the notion that it was subject to the standards of
the perceived victim.
City Attorney Scott said it would still be a reasonable person’s perception.
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Councilmember Lusk said good.
(Unidentified council members) Miscellaneous conversation about this part of the ordinance.
City Attorney Scott said that is a universal legal principle. He thinks we are safe on that.
Section 12-C, all that does is bring this up to, he thinks it was just a gap that was left in the
ordinance previously, just to bring it up to the nomination standard that we are using.
Page 14, Section 13-A3 we are adding a little bit and then we took out a little bit in Section 1.2.
All cases to be investigated by the City Attorney and we have added or outside counsel and
heard by the Ethics Board regarding alleged violations of the ordinance, as a result of conduct of
individuals must be initiated by the filing of a written complaint in accordance with the
procedures as set forth in Section 17 below. Other actions related to issues of policies such as
questions as to whether this ordinance is being violated by City action may be brought by the
request of anyone or on the Board by motion. We took out whether such cases are lodged from
the complaint or are and the reason for that is, again, we have already got our second complaint
and we want to make sure the complaints are well founded and we do not want to clog up the
board with too much. We want to make sure that cases are initiated by a written complaint. In
Section 17 we are adding language which we will get to in a minute which is going to require
that when you file a complaint, that you certify that it is well founded. We have already talked
about that in previous discussions.
Section 15, who may request forward action. We just took out all the references to a
Confidential Opinion.
Councilmember Thurman said you did that too on Page 14.
City Attorney Scott said he was sorry, he missed that. Yes, that is right. Thank you for
catching that. GMA’s comments to us which were absolutely right and again, this is something
that Sandy Springs gave to us and we did not even really consider the fact that, of course you can
not have a Confidential Advisory Opinion. It is against the Open Records Act. It had what the
Ethics Board does have to be open and transparent and available to the public.
Section 15-B we added in terms of who may request forward action and shall comply with
Section 17 below. In other words, they were just referring to that requirement that the complaint
be well pleaded.
Section 16, we have added or have made some slight changes. Upon advice by the Board, the
action should, we have deleted the word shall, should be reconsidered by the appropriate person
or public body and then we have added or outside counsel behind City Attorney reflecting
realities.
Section 17, this is the portion that the Mayor had asked him to soften the language on and he has
softened it in this way. What you have to include in the ethics complaint says, you have read the
complaint and confer that the facts contained therein are true to the best of my knowledge and
belief and that you are aware that the Ethics Ordinance that created the Ethics Board, authorizes
the Board to impose penalties for filing a frivolous complaint including, and this is where we
softened it, most of it sustained without limitation, dismissal of the complaint with the handling
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and processing of the complaint. This is what was softened, and/or all other penalties applicable
under the law rather than threatening specific types of crimes.
Mayor Lockwood said he changed his mind.
Councilmember Thurman said this only applies to those who are filing, hopefully never, after
we have passed this ordinance, correct?
City Attorney Scott said non-expos-facto.
Councilmember Thurman said that is the word she was looking for.
Miscellaneous conversation throughout Council.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she knows that you said that it would soften it because
before she did not realize that it was still in there. So the only thing that was changed was that
and/or all of the penalties.
City Attorney Scott said it is not alleging or accusing people of perjury or other specific crimes.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said the earlier ones about payment of cost with the hand and
all of that is still in there.
City Attorney Scott said that was 1.1 and this is the difference between 1.1 and 1.2.
Mayor Lockwood said that or he thinks that meets his request.
City Attorney Scott said is that what you wanted?
Mayor Lockwood said yes.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said we are trying to ask questions as we go with outside
counsel and she meant to ask it earlier. Somewhere in this document, does it define how outside
counsel is identified for each situation?
City Attorney Scott said yes, it does.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said could it be a different outside counsel at different times?
City Manager Bovos said that he and the City Attorney actually talked about that and the
purchasing policy allows expenditures obviously by department heads up to $50,000.00 per year
without Council approval. We added verbiage on the procurement of outside counsel to be
concurrent based upon the recommendation of the City Attorney with concurrence with the
Chairman of the Board and me.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked, you mean the Ethics Board, right?
City Attorney Scott said we will get to that shortly.
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Mayor Lockwood said and what happens if the three of you do not agree.
City Attorney Scott said well, if we do not have our $50,000.00 we will be doing a big per
annual legal services for conflict of interest from the Council on the Ethics Board.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she guessed the reason is based on some written discussion
that you have shared with us. But is it the City Attorney or is it the law firm Jarrard & Davis.
She asked would there ever be an instance of where it would need to be City Attorney and firm.
She does not know.
City Attorney Scott said what you need to understand if he is interpreting your question
correctly if he has a conflict of interest, then his entire firm has a conflict of interest. So it can
not be anyone else in that firm making that decision if it cannot be him.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said but in that case that you have just gave, if you are one of
the three, then picking the outside counsel, it could be anyone in your firm or let us just say that
you had a conflict of interest, could it then be Ken Jarrard then that would present it on your
behalf?
City Attorney Scott said no. Because he is imputed to the same conflict that he is and what he
wants to make clear is that when we look to getting outside in the current situation, he made a
recommendation to someone who he used to work with, but that is not even or the only reason
that that has any bearing on it is because he knows him. He wants to make it clear because there
was an allegation made in an e-mail this week. This person is probably the foremost expert on
city aspects that is out there. He co-wrote the GMA handbook on Ethics. He was the best
person that he could possibly think of to recommend. We had a meeting with him today. The
City Manager would say he was impressive and we hired the best person and it just happened to
be somebody that he knows. To be honest with you, the City Attorney and the Municipal Law
Community is relatively small in the State of Georgia and everybody knows everybody.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that her question was not about specific situations. In the
instance or something down the road, would there ever be an instance when the City Attorney,
City Manager, and the Board, if anyone of those three, something we have not even thought
about that there was some weird thing where one of the three of you could not be a party to
making a decision for outside counsel, would it then just go back to two of three?
Councilmember Thurman said she guess what she is saying is if the Ethics Complaint is being
reviewed.
City Attorney Scott said right but that would not be the City Attorney because it is not against
the Councilmembers.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said without noodling through any possible example, are we
covered or would it make sense to say, if there is something that is not yet identified, we do not
have to change it in the future that there would be a means of another option.
City Attorney Scott said he thinks the contingencies are pretty well covered at this point.
Section 17-D is the same as what was in 1.1 and was previously discussed.
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17-E which did not copy well at all he thinks the portion is what was just discussed. It is the way
of choosing outside counsel and he is going to do his best to read this. In the event that the
subject of the complaint is a City Councilmember or the Mayor of the City, the City Attorney
shall be recused and outside counsel will be retained for investigation of the complaint. Outside
counsel shall be based or he guess the choice about outside counsel shall be based on
recommendation of the City Attorney, subject to approval by the Chairman of Board of Ethics
and the City Manager.
Section F, the City Attorney or outside counsel, we have just added shall provide the Board with
a preliminary written analysis.
Section G we are getting into problems with or in the author of the complaint fails to cooperate
with the investigation, the complaint shall be deemed dismissed. That was in 1.1.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said maybe this is addressed in a later section, what is the fine
in failing to cooperate. Does it have to be substances or kind of going back to an earlier
question, who is making that interpretation.
City Attorney Scott said he is sure there are statutes on the books for when, and the Public
Safety Director could probably tell us about this if the victim of a crime does not want to agree to
cooperate with prosecution by testifying, you have to dismiss the case. That is exactly what we
are doing here. He does not think there is any difference.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said so there is no differentiation of definition that is needed?
City Attorney Scott said right. He thinks it is pretty clear cut. He means that if they refuse to
give a statement but then, let us say that they will show up at the hearing and he will say it, then
they are participating. You know, there may be some judgment calls involved.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said based on what you just said, then does it make sense to
clarify that just so it is not subjective. She thinks the less subjective the better.
City Attorney Scott said well, we could say that if subsequently cooperating.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that helps.
Councilmember O’Brien said he disagrees. He thinks it speaks for itself, but if it pleases you.
He thinks the more you arm wrestle with these things, the more trouble you get into rather than
less. He thinks the more you seek to define rather than operating under standard, legal terms and
especially for laymen’s since he believes there is only one of us here who is an attorney, but he
thinks the more we try to define even what is best interest, as he is sure is the case, we could get
into trouble. He thinks that in general and accepted practice that is implemented would be in the
best interest of the City.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she guesses she is going back and she thinks what she
heard our one attorney in the room say was that, according to legal definition it probably is or it
is meant to imply substantive so rather than delete that per question, if nothing else, beyond this
evening, we could just give it consideration, taking both of our comments into consideration.
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City Attorney Scott said he could go either way.
Mayor Lockwood said if you could go either way and one defines it just a little bit more, he
would suggest doing that.
Councilmember O’Brien said that he would vote or he would retreat a couple of paragraphs
and say that if we are going to follow that type of course let us define penalty of perjury. Let us
pick a protocol and adhere to it. He thinks that would be appropriate for the document. Either
we are going to define things like that or we are not. We have kind of gone back and forth
tonight in other areas when we have discussed these kind of things so he would just encourage
that if we are going to adopt a rationale when preparing documents, ordinances, and so forth that
we just stick to it. Either we are going to say, for instance, substantive, in penalty of perjury, he
would just advocate that.
Mayor Lockwood said he would just ask the City Attorney to review it line by line and let us
get your best legal opinion on it.
City Attorney Scott said he gave you the best opinion he had when he drafted this and all he is
saying is that anybody writing anything, editing can always improve and polish what you have
already written.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that she was just responding and go back to your original
question that it better clarifies. Since that was your input and we are not going to decide it
tonight. We are not voting. In the interest of efficiency, point noted, you guys decide whether
or not we address it or not.
City Attorney Scott said it can always be addressed in an amendment, one way or the other.
Councilmember O’Brien said so is it in or out?
City Attorney Scott asked what is the consensus? We will move forward with staff’s
recommendation and you may choose to make an amendment at the appropriate time.
Councilmember Lusk said so as written.
City Attorney Scott said as written, this is a working document. Under Section, Page 18,
Section 17, J-3, we changed the word order to request because as GMA pointed out as well, we
do not have real power, or the Board just does not have the power to do it. Now he wants you to
understand and one of the things that he mentioned last night, that there is a duty for all public
servants to cooperate with the Board so if you are a public servant and you do not cooperate, you
frankly are opening yourself up to an additional ethics charge. It is almost like perjury, if you lie
when you are under investigation for something, you are committing another crime. You may
have not have even committed one in the first place.
There is some paragraph changes or numbering changes on the next page. The next changes are
page 21, Section 19- ex-parte communication, the substance changes are under A-1, and the
members of the staff may obtain legal advice from the City Attorney and may discuss the
complaint. What we have done is change it to any staff provided to the Board by the governing
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Thursday, June 14, 2007, 5:30 PM
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authority. What that really takes into account is that the possibility of outside counsel being
retained other than the City Attorney.
A-2, we have tightened it up a little bit. The members of the Board may discuss the complaint of
the lawfully conducted meeting and only and then we go on to the top of the next page Page 22-
B we have added no Board, this was in 1.1, no Board member shall undertake an independent
investigation of any complaint or matter before the board. It is just like the instruction that a
judge gives to a jury that you are not supposed to do your own investigation. He means, the
Ethics Board is very much like a jury in our situation and you do not want to taint the jury in any
way.
Section 21, Wrongful Use of the Ethics Board. He is sorry, let him go back to 20 because there
is a deletion there regarding two confidential advisory opinions. Everything off to the right in
that box is deleted because we can not have confidential advisory opinions.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said is that between just the Board, is that what that is saying or
is it confidential advisory ethics opinion.
City Attorney Scott said that the scheme that we inherited from Sandy Springs with this
ordinance allowed for someone to go in confidence to either the City Attorney or the Ethics
Board and ask for an ethics opinion that would be confidential. You cannot do it under the open
records law. He means, it is a nice idea. That way somebody cannot use it against them if they
have asked for that kind of opinion but frankly, we are a City and we are subject to open records.
If somebody really needs to confidential ethics opinion, they are going to have to go to their own
attorney and not him.
In Section 21, Wrongful use of the Ethics Board and 22, that is all carried over from version 1.1.
You have seen this before.
Councilmember Thurman asked has it been changed.
City Attorney Scott said he has one here that might be it but he does not think anything had
changed. No, that is all the language that Jim Langlais had provided to him as his suggestion.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said if this says that, it was the same things that we were
earlier, correct? She means, again, we could not focus on this right now. This was in the old
document.
City Attorney Scott said now correct me if he is wrong but he did not believe the Mayor had
asked him to change this or to soften the language in this part. He thought it was only in the
other portion where that was the statement that someone would have to make and essentially the
verification to the ethics complaint.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she guessed that she had interpreted that differently.
City Attorney Scott said yes and he may be wrong.
Mayor Lockwood said yes, he does not remember asking on this.
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Councilmember Zahner Bailey said and so it does not need to be consistent.
City Attorney Scott said right and he thinks that the idea is that we have it in here in case we
have to use it, but we are not throwing it in their face when they are filing an ethics complaint.
He thinks that was the Mayor’s concern frankly was that he did not want to have that rubbed in
someone’s face that you are filing an ethics complaint and you use that and you better be sure.
Mayor Lockwood said this kind of reads to the next step. That once they have done one and
then you hear that it is frivolous.
City Attorney Scott said that is absolutely correct.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said 17 being the procedures at the time of the complaint.
City Attorney Scott said exactly and he does think we need to have this in here because in the
event that somebody did really file something and was really egregious, we would want to have
these remedies and we would want to be able to avail ourselves of this as a City.
Councilmember Mohrig said that you have got the piece in there, but you also have the ability
that says that it is not considered frivolous if the person truly believes.
City Attorney Scott said that there are some very good safeguards in this language that Jim
Langlais has provided to him.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked does frivolous define to your point Councilmember
Mohrig. Again, she has put them between documents trying to keep up with your comments. .
City Attorney Scott said frivolous is not defined in the definition section, but he will tell you
that when you look at the language of Section 21 and 22, it really gives you all the possible
alternatives to that word. He does not know that frivolous would need to be defined simply
because of what you have already got in these sections.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she was just asking again, trying to keep up with what the
current language. In Section 22, to this point about a person has not filed is that same language
what was originally in the 1.1?
City Attorney Scott said yes. This has not changed from 1.1 to 1.2 at all.
Councilmember O’Brien said he is just curious while this is going on, backing up to the no
Board member shall under take an independent investigation. You used the analogy of a juror.
Hypothetically, if that took place, what would the remedy be?
City Attorney Scott said an ethics complaint against the actual board member or perhaps
removal as a member from the Board or perhaps being stricken from the consideration - striking
them off the jury.
Councilmember O’Brien said if it became apparent that, hypothetically, that that type of
conduct took place, hypothetically, would that then taint the process?
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City Attorney Scott said they would absolutely change them and there is no question.
Miscellaneous conversation among the Councilmembers.
Councilmember Thurman asked is there an example for changing things?
City Attorney Scott said there have been cases that are documented where jurors have
conducted scientific experiments in their own time when they were not sequestered to try to
duplicate what somebody was talking about and they have come back into the jury room and
said, well, you know what, he went home and he did this and it did not end up like that extra
witness said it would. The jury is supposed to examine only the evidence that is presented to
them in the courtroom.
Councilmember Thurman stated you could not call a person that the complaint was about and
ask them a bunch of questions on their own. That would be a clear case of a violation.
City Attorney Scott said even more clear cut that conducting your own kind of experiment.
Section 23 has been removed because the waiver of confidentiality language does not or actually
it was the old Section 23 and now everything moves up one. The waiver of confidentiality does
not apply if we cannot have confidential opinions so Section 23 now becomes Statute of
Limitations.
Section 24, everything is the same except for now just moving all of the numbers up one,
reducing them by one.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said last night on Section 23, there was a question that came up
and she thinks she heard one year six months and the City Attorney answered it the way it is
currently written, and you were going to go back to review that.
City Attorney Scott said he is pretty sure they have convinced him that it is okay the way that it
is.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that he wanted to make sure that you had a chance to go
back.
City Attorney Scott said and to be honest with you he really had not looked at that much before
because he never had any indication to and it had never come up before. He had some questions
about it that he thinks it was given a scenario that made sense.
Councilmember Lusk asked would it be simpler just to have a straight forward one year limit or
something like that rather than - this seems a little convoluted as had been noted by
Councilmember Zahner Bailey.
Councilmember Mohrig said he needs two different things. It has got to be about statute of
limitations is with one year, but if that ends the one year, he thinks you have got six months or as
soon as he is aware, he has six months. If he knows of an ethics violation, he has a duty or
obligation to go ahead and file that if he is clearly aware of it within six months.
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City Attorney Scott said that is correct.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said the total is one year but you said an obligation. Just
making sure she is hearing this right. Total of one year, but if she finds out about something, she
has an obligation within six months.
City Attorney Scott said right and if you find out on the day that it happened, then it really
becomes a six month statute of limitations. So that is actually a little bit tougher.
Councilmember Mohrig stated that if you in essence, are aware of the ethics violation but if
you do not file it then you put yourself in jeopardy.
City Attorney Scott said in jeopardy under the Ethics Ordinance, exactly.
Councilmember Lusk asked what comes up in this discussion is that we are kind of adhering to
an honor code standard that we will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate others that do and you are
just as culpable if you are aware of an over infraction even if you prefer not to, you would bring
up.
City Attorney Scott said that what he would say is that it is pretty clear that if something
happens, it is not so much that you have to file a complaint, that you would at least need to just
to talk to the City Attorney and ask is this an ethics violation. At that point, he or whomever,
would be able to say to you that he does not think that is an ethics violation.
Councilmember Thurman said what happens if you said yes, it was and that person did not
want to file a complaint.
City Attorney Scott said then you could have a problem. He means, there are any number of
scenarios.
Councilmember Lusk said that he could envision a scenario.
City Attorney Scott said then the City Attorney may be obligated to file that ethics complaint
himself and maybe name both of them.
Councilmember Thurman said most of the time the complaint is not a black and white thing or
else you would not need an ethics board in the first place. Most of the time the complaint is the
complaint so you know both sides, but how do you know.
City Attorney Scott said he could not give you a black and white definition. It is all very gray.
Councilmember Thurman said that if we encounter possibly one, we just need to let you know
and you can just decide what to do with it.
City Attorney Scott said he would give you the best advice he could give you. And you may
not be off the hook because he may say, he thinks you need to file a complaint.
Councilmember Thurman said or you file a complaint. Hopefully, we will not have any more.
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City Attorney said right and asked are there any other questions. This pretty much goes through
the changes.
Councilmember O’Brien asked what if a pattern of conduct emerged and in retrospect what
may have been ignored or overlooked or tolerated becomes unbearable in retrospect.
City Attorney Scott said that he thought that is why you have the statute of limitations language
that when you know or should have known or when you learn or should have learned, it is kind
of the discovery rule. If suddenly you wake up and say, wait a second, this has been going on,
this is an ethics violation. It is still a year statute of limitations leaning back, but then the clock
starts ticking on you and you need to file the complaint.
City Attorney Scott said we are certainly going to take this forward. We are going to bring this
to the Ethics Board. There has been comments already. There has been some comments by
other members of the community. This is very much a living document at this point and if you
have any other suggestions or other methods of input, you can drop me an e-mail about it. We
can discuss it some more. We will go to the Ethics Board. It will be put on the agenda for a first
reading. He is assuming August after the Ethics Board has had a chance to look at it in July.
Councilmember Thurman said now what will be put on for first reading? Will it be what we
have gone over tonight or will it be what we have gone over since we first changed the Ethics
Board document.
Councilmember O’Brien said well, this is what staff has recommended but that Ethics Board
has some changes.
City Attorney Scott said he thinks what they will do is they will take into consideration what
the Ethics Board says and then essentially bring a staff recommendation to the Council based on
that report.
Councilmember Thurman said so you will go ahead and put those in with that?
City Attorney Scott said yes, so that would be 1.3.
Councilmember Mohrig said no, that 1.3 would be the recommendation.
Councilmember O’Brien asked if we want to make changes when we go to vote on it.
City Attorney Scott said exactly.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said just to make sure and again, she thinks this worked out
really well that we were able to get a document and walk through it. Just making sure that
whatever is on the website that it is less the 1.0, the 1.1 and the 1.2 so anybody that might be
reviewing something we are sure that we have got out there what we just discussed tonight.
City Manager Bovos said the City Clerk filed that when you were actually going through this
review. What occurred is the ordinance version that was published on the website and in your
Work Session of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 14,2007,5:30 PM
Page 43 of 43
packets was the version that we had Iast Thursday. And if you will remember the City Attorney
e-mailed a new version on Friday that included all of the changes.
City Attorney Scott said the Council got an e-mail in PDF version so we will move forward.
He thinks that is after he had gotten more input.
City Manager Bovos said we will publish whatever the latest version that we have at the time.
We publish the agenda and traditionaAIy that is the version that we would ask you to vote on.
That is obviously our goal.
Mayor bockwood said any other comments or questions on the Ethics Ordinance and there were
none.
After no further business, the Work Session adjourned at 8:34 PM.
Approved August 16,2007
Jeanette R. Maschiafava, City Clerk Joe Lockw~dd&layor