HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 06/21/2007 - MINS 06 21 07 REG (Migrated from Optiview)Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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This summary is provided as a convenience and service to the public, media, and staff. It is not the intent to transcribe proceedings verbatim.
Any reproduction of this summary must include this notice. Public comments are noted and heard by Council, but not quoted. This document
includes limited presentation by Council and invited speakers in summary form. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting
proceedings. Official Meetings are audio recorded.
Regular Meeting of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on June 21, 2007 at 7:00
PM, Mayor Joe Lockwood presiding.
CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Lockwood called the meeting to order.
ROLL CALL
City Clerk Marchiafava reminded everyone to silence their cell phones and pagers. Additionally, those
wishing to provide public comment during a public hearing or at the conclusion of the meeting under the
public comment section are required to complete a public comment card. They need to be turned in to
City Clerk staff.
City Clerk Marchiafava called the roll.
Councilmembers Present: Mayor Joe Lockwood, Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember
Julie Zahner Bailey, Councilmember Lusk, Councilmember O’Brien, Councilmember Tina D’Aversa,
and Councilmember Rick Mohrig.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Mayor Lockwood led the Pledge of Allegiance.
APPROVAL OF MEETING AGENDA
City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda Item no. 07-178 approval of the meeting agenda.
Motion: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve the meeting agenda as amended:
1. Move the Christopher B. May Public Safety Building Proclamation to a meeting next month
or the following month when his family can be present.
2. Add a presentation by Fulton County Board of Assessor’s Chief Appraiser, Burt Manning.
3. Under new business add approval of the April 2007 invoice for legal fees.
Second and Vote: Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion.
The motion passed unanimously.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Jon Carroll, 2140 Country Ridge Road, Milton, stated that he wanted to see if someone from the Tax
Assessor’s office could come to Milton to meet with the residents and go over their taxes all at one time
as opposed to having to go down to Pryor street individually. He also wanted to thank Councilmember
Lusk for the flagpole at City Hall, thank Mayor Lockwood for the good job he has done, and all the
Councilmembers for all their hard work.
Richard A. Kirk, 1455 Rolling Links Drive in White Columns, stated that the reason why he is here
tonight is to address the school that is proposed on Freemanville Road. There are 11 schools within a
4.79 mile radius. They are talking about three additional schools or a total of 14 schools within a 3.977
mile radius. Right now, the roads are already packed and you cannot get anywhere within a three mile
radius because of the schools that are already there. He hopes that the Mayor and City Council can speak
to the Board of Education on what should be done up in that region.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS
Presentation by Fulton County Board of Assessors Chief Appraiser, Burt Manning.
Burt Manning, Fulton County Chief Appraiser, stated that his mission is to prepare a fair and
equitable annual tax digest and they work at that diligently all year long. The tax digest is a listing of all
of the taxable, real and business personal property, or taxable personal property in the county. This year
they have reached the level of a little bit over 324,000 tax parcels or separate real estate parcels plus about
32,000 business personal property accounts, which is up from 303,000 parcels just a year ago. The total
taxable fair market value is over 136 billion dollars. The tax commissioner in each county is an elected
official and he takes the information that we put in the property tax document as the motor vehicles and
tax bills are collected. It is his job to appraise the real estate of all residences, business and commercial
properties. We also appraise business personal property. Property is appraised at 100% of its fair market
value. It is assessed at 40%. Basically, your taxes are based on fair market value times 40% less any
extensions that you might be entitled to and times millage rate. Milton has 11,362 parcels as of January 1
and a value of approximately 5.4 billion dollars. To keep the digest in an acceptable mode, they have to
conduct what is known as sales ratio status and after completion of the 2007 evaluation. They ended up at
approximately 93% of fair market value and that is an acceptable level. They have to be above 90% and
less than 120%.
As it stands right now, they have about 3% of the properties that were assessed with notices that filed
appeals. The time period for most of those properties had expired last Thursday night, which was the end
of the 45 days. There are basically four reasons to file an appeal:
1-You think your property is not taxable. That would be the taxability assessment. Normally
this is an issue for institutions of charity, place of religious worship, organizations of that type
that might fall under Georgia statutes in an area that allows them to be exempt from taxation.
If and when the City of Milton decides to buy or build a City Hall, that would be exempt
from taxation.
2-Uniform assessment means that we are treating the value of your property in the same manner
that we would treat others or are we applying the same standards, the same tables, treating it
equally with other properties like yours.
3-If you believe that the fair market value that we have proposed and set forth exceeds fair
market value that would be a reason to file an appeal.
4-Denial of an exemption such as a homestead exemption because that is what most of them are
but there are a few other exemptions like business inventory exemptions from manufacturers,
etc. If you felt you were entitled to a homestead exemption that would be a reason to file an
appeal.
To file an appeal, it must be done in writing and within 45 days of the mail of the notice, not the date that
you receive it.
Councilmember Thurman said their website has been greatly improved. That was her primary source
of information when we were annexing property into the City.
Councilmember Lusk asked what the typical rate of assessment is per year. He asked is it one that adds
year to year or is there some years where the rate of reassessment might be 20% on average perhaps and
then some years, it is high like this year.
Burt Manning said this year the digest went up about 11%. The actual values of the digest went up
about 11% and in a year like we have had, that is pretty typical, 10 or 11%. Certainly, back in the 90’s,
maybe the real early turn of the century when we were seeing double digit percentages and inflation every
year, there could have been a higher percentage of increase. The land in the north and south Fulton had
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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been left not appraised for a number of years and that is the major change that happened in the extremes
of the county this year. Both north and south, almost all the land got reappraised.
CONSENT AGENDA
City Clerk Marchiafava read consent agenda items:
1. Approval of Land Development Final Plats
a) The Manor 1-B e) Clearbrook II
b) The Manor 1-C f) The Highlands @ North Valley
c) Crabapple Station g) King Estates Manor
d) Hampton Manor
2. Approval of Financial Statements for the period ending May, 2007.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Thurman moved to approve the Consent Agenda. Councilmember
Mohrig seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
ZONING AGENDA
City Clerk Marchiafava read Zoning Agenda item no. 07-281:
ZM07-001 - Zoning Modification – Applicant: Chris McCrary for Waterford Homes Location: 649
Dunbrody Drive, Lot 59 Crabapple Station Subdivision.
Community Development Director Wilson said he is in receipt of a letter asking for withdrawal of this
application because they have decided to put a home design on this lot that did not require the variances
and set back. Staff would recommend approval of the withdrawal.
There was no Public Comment on this item.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Thurman moved to accept the withdrawal of ZM07-001 -Zoning
Modification – Applicant: Chris McCrary for Waterford Homes Location: 649 Dunbrody Drive, Lot 59
Crabapple Station Subdivision. Councilmember Zahner Bailey seconded the motion. There was no
Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously.
City Clerk Marchiafava read Zoning Agenda item no. 07-282:
RZ07-004 – Text Amendment to City Of Milton Zoning Ordinance Chapter 19.4.1, 19.4.2, Use Permit
for Adult Book Store and Adult Entertainment Establishments.
Community Development Director Wilson said the ordinance would allow sexually oriented businesses
in the M-1, M-2, C-1 and C-2 district where those locations were at least or greater than 500 feet from
residential and agriculturally zoned property. This pretty much identifies only property in the vicinity of
our City Hall. As he understands it there are even further restrictions on that activity by the landowner’s
in this vicinity. His recommendation to you tonight is for approval of this ordinance.
There was no Public Comment on this item.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she knows we discussed this with staff, but if Mr. Wilson could just
confirm that this particular draft now includes the lot of the prior discussions and commentary that we
have had. It also includes some outside counsel that we had received that was presented to us and all of
that has arrived now into this revised document that does represent the best ordinance. She would not
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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want anyone to think that this was the extent of our discussion because they have had multiple discussions
and meetings. She asked if he could spend just a quick moment and elaborate how we have evolved to
the point of what is before us this evening.
Community Development Director Wilson said we have had a lot of discussion on this. It was the
subject of at least one work session and has been to the planning commission for their review and their
recommendation to you tonight is for approval also. We did have counsel talk to us about this. We have
compared this with many, many other ordinances of this type. We considered whether or not we needed
to buffer 1,000 feet from residential properties. We considered 250 feet. We considered how many
properties that we needed to have remaining that with the activity could occur on because we could not
actually zone them out of our City. All of that was taken into consideration. He probably had 25
different maps spotted and we did a lot of homework on this. He feels very comfortable that we have
given the citizens what they want and what they deserve.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she it would be her understanding that for any future changes to the
land use plan, whether that is through this next 18 months process to the CLUP advisory process, that we
will have the opportunity to defer the condition or to go back and make modification to this document.
Community Development Director Wilson said anything that might become M-1, M-2, C-1, C-2
through or consistent with the future land use map would take a re-zoning or would be a condition of
zoning and ask for an agreement that these uses be restricted from any newly created C-1, C-2, M-1, M-2
district. Certainly if we change the long range comprehensive plan during the comp plan process, we will
have to take another look at this. If we create more C-1 or C-2, M-1, M-2 properties then we will just
have to look at it again and make sure that we have got the right buffering distances on there and that we
are controlling what we want to control.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve RZ07-004 – Text Amendment to City of
Milton Zoning Ordinance Chapter 19.4.1, 19.4.2, Use permit for Adult Book Store and Adult
Entertainment Establishments. Councilmember O’Brien Seconded the motion. There was no Council
discussion. The motion passed unanimously.
FIRST PRESENTATION
City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda item no. 07-283.
Approval of an Ordinance Amending the Right-of-Way Ordinance.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve the First Presentation of an Ordinance
Amending the Right-of-Way Ordinance. Councilmember D’Aversa seconded the motion. There was no
Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda item no. 07-271.
Approval of an Ordinance Amending the Rules of Procedures for City Council meetings and Public
Hearings for the City of Milton.
City Clerk Marchiafava stated that staff is requesting the approval of the ordinance that will amend the
rules of procedure specifically to section 19 regarding public participation. This is adding Item E:
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Representation of Civic Association’s Advocacy Groups or Homeowner’s Associations. In that text, the
City Council may allow public comment on either an agenda item or a general public comment from a
representative of such an organized group or association provided however, that such an individual shall
file a notarized affidavit that they have the authority to speak on behalf of said organization on a form
provided by the City Clerk prior to the item being called. Additionally, she wanted to point out that we
will have notaries present at all of the Council meetings, two and possibly three. Additionally, under
section 21, Minutes, the text has been added that minutes will be in summary form and minutes for
zoning agenda items will be verbatim. Another addition to that section is that regular meeting minutes
will be provided at the next regularly scheduled meeting. Minutes from work sessions will be provided at
the next regularly scheduled work session.
There was no public comment on this item.
Motion and Second: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve approval of an Ordinance Amending the
Rules of Procedure for City Council meetings and Public hearings for the City of Milton.
Councilmember O’Brien seconded the motion.
Councilmember Thurman had just a couple of comments for possibly City Attorney Scott, just to
confirm that this description under Section E is pretty much exactly what Fulton County allows for their
meetings. There was a much stricter or a little more liberal policy and required that these forms be
completed on behalf of other groups and notarized as well and asked if that was correct.
City Attorney Scott said the form we are using was received from Commissioner Riley and it is the
Fulton County form just transposed to say the City of Milton.
Councilmember Thurman asked if they felt like there was anything else that would prevent us from
having any challenges for someone misspeaking on someone else’s behalf.
City Attorney Scott said not anything that he has even contemplated. He had thought about it and he
does not think there is anything else that we need to be concerned about. He said we thought of
homeowner’s associations, advocacy groups, etc.
Councilmember Thurman asked that in the event that someone would come forward and make
representation for another individual, how would that be handled?
City Attorney Scott said someone who makes representation on the part of another individual really is
not covered by this. He said he wanted to discourage that because it is almost the same type of issue why
courts do not allow hearsay. He thinks the Mayor should raise the point of information at that point and
say, are you speaking with authority on the behalf of, and we would prefer that you not speak on behalf of
someone else because we cannot say with certainty that you have the authority to speak on their behalf.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked if we might want to include that we would not allow someone to
speak on someone else’s behalf or is there a reason not to include that.
City Attorney Scott replied that you get into freedom of speech issues when you actually talk about
legislating it and he thinks there is a better way of handling it. The proper way would be to simply say we
would appreciate it if you did not make this representation on someone else’s behalf.
Councilmember Thurman asked if this were something our City Clerk could state when she talks about
people coming forward for public comment.
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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City Attorney Scott said he thinks we could add to the script in the beginning and he does not think it
requires any other action and just make the statement that representation on behalf of other individuals is
discouraged.
Councilmember Thurman said that obviously she is more than just a little bit concerned about this only
because she wants to make sure that someone does not speak on anyone else’s behalf. If they want to
come forward or send a letter, then we should accept it.
City Attorney Scott said it would be very difficult when you are talking about organizations that they
have the authority to do it. That is something that is easily verifiable. It is much more difficult to do that
in terms of an individual. If we ask them did they have the authority to speak and if they did fill out an
affidavit, they would be basically violating that oath that they took in the affidavit.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said our City Clerk confirmed this in their staff report. If we are going
to be accepting summary minutes, just to confirm for the record that this does not preclude us from
requesting that we go back and get those detailed minutes for purposes of a whole host of things that
could be an issue outside of zoning.
City Clerk Marchiafava said that is correct.
Councilmember Thurman said just from a perspective of public inquiry, you may be thinking how we
get these verbatim minutes. We are being audio taped and you are able to request an audio tape tomorrow
if need be. It is a WAVE file and our City Clerk would be able to provide that. She also wanted to make
you aware that the reason why we are doing this is that it is costing us a lot of money to do verbatim
minutes and most cities do not. We have had discussions in our work shops and it is real important for us
to be more frugal with the money and then knowing that we have the WAVE file is available, which is
really verbatim.
Vote: There was no further Council discussion. The vote was unanimous.
NEW BUSINESS
PUBLIC HEARING FOR ALCOHOL BEVERAGE LICENSE APPLICATION
City Clerk Marchiafava read Agenda Item No. 07-284.
Approval of Alcoholic Beverage License Application for Tokyo Sushi, Inc. located at 980
Birmingham Road, Suite 303, Alpharetta, GA, 30004. Applicant is Chen Mei Chan J for
Consumption on the Premises – Wine/Malt Beverage.
City Treasurer Wolfe said staff received a complete application and it has been approved and reviewed
with the Public Safety Department, as well as the Community Development Department, and has met all
areas of compliance for issuance of a license which is staff’s recommendation tonight.
There was no public comment on this item.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve Alcoholic Beverage License Application
for Tokyo Sushi, Inc. located at 980 Birmingham Road, Suite 303, Alpharetta, GA, 30004. Applicant is
Chen Mei Chan J for Consumption on the Premises – Wine/Malt Beverages. Councilmember D’Aversa
seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously.
END OF PUBLIC HEARING
Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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MAYOR AND COUNCIL REPORTS
City Clerk Marchiafava read the item was added by motion and vote.
Approval of April 2007 Invoice for Legal Fees for Jarrard and Davis.
City Treasurer Wolfe said they have the approval of the payment of legal fees for April 2007 in the
amount of $21,579.89. She provided a table outlining all the items that staff requests Council to approve
tonight in order to remit payment to Jarrard and Davis for legal fees. Also notice on the attachment
tonight there are two invoices. The first one is the invoice you have seen earlier in the week. The second
is a revised invoice, but just a verbiage change in one of the items removing a name requested of the City
Attorney. The amount is still the same.
There was no public comment on this item.
Motion and Second: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve the April 2007 Invoice for Legal Fees.
Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion.
Discussion on the Motion: Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked City Treasurer Wolfe if she could
give some information about the amount of the invoice and is this relevant to the initial budget as well as
the revised budget.
City Treasurer Wolfe said the initial budget for legal fees was $110,000.00 during the budget
adjustment which was approved a few weeks ago that was revised to $170,000.00. After payment of this
invoice, expenditures for legal fees for the year will be $116,810.00. Approximately 54.5% of legal fees
for the year have been billed. These are April legal fees and that constitutes about 54%. The
expenditures represent 68.7% of budge. She will also begin to add the cumulative legal fees for extent of
budget from this point forward so Council can always see where we are.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked City Attorney Scott that given the 54% versus the 68%, is there
anything that maybe we could be more mindful of.
City Attorney Scott said definitely. This bill represents more than what has been billed in past months.
They have nearly finalized the May bill that will be sent to the City probably in the coming week and that
bill is approximately $15,000.00. He will tell you that significant expenditures during April include long
meetings, being asked to appear at more meetings than previous months, a lot of time spent on ethics
related issues, as well as public safety transition issues and that was also the case during May. As you
know in May there were a lot of start-up costs dealing with fire and police and public safety transition.
May was not as bad as April.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey said her discussion was not about the invoice, but it was about some of
the discussions she knows they had in the staff meeting. When you look there are many dollars that
Council is being asked to sign off on and she would be remiss if she did not restate that she was
uncomfortable in having to sign off on a $22,000.00 bill which she really could not account for some of
the hours. It is not a statement about whether or not they are valid. She does not have the ability to
confirm what all has been signed off on. She suggests that in a work session, they go back and evaluate
how it is that these legal fees are going to be managed and how we handle signing off on these. She
knows we would have the opportunity to re-visit it. She would ask if together between Council, Mayor
and staff if they could come back and have a discussion about that.
City Attorney Scott said it was requested of him this week to begin breaking out time spent for issues
with Council or staff. We are going to be separating that. May is not broken out that way but lumped
together until you get to the final bill draft and they were separated out for next month.
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Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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Councilmember Lusk said he respects Councilmember Zahner Bailey’s concern for this, but he thinks
one way to manage these costs is to identify who is really occurring or generating these costs. He knows
you get to a point of diminishing returns.
Councilmember Zahner Bailey states in addition individually how we approve these things; we have the
responsibility to approve those. Part of it is just the process. If we are having the authority to have to
sign off on this and we do not have a process that says if we are going to ask our City Attorney to be
present for meetings, and we are just talking about the Mayor approving that, but there are other issues
where we really do not have a process. This goes back to the earlier resolution where the City Manager
talked about having the City Attorney report versus Council. She thinks we need to have in place a
process so that we can feel comfortable seeing a bill of this size and we have not been privy to some of it
and then have to have the responsibility to approve it.
Councilmember Lusk asked are most of these items here generated by either staff or us on Council and
asked if City Attorney Scott takes it upon himself to go forward on a project without authorization.
City Attorney Scott said no, definitely not. There are times when he identifies what has to be done and
then what happens. He speaks to the City Manager about it and gets approval prior to undertaking it.
Vote: There was no further Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously.
MAYOR AND COUNCIL REPORTS
Councilmember O’Brien said from the standpoint of our organization and the impending deadline, on
Bethany Road he has had some discussion with some residents about the speed limit and he wonders if it
is possible to raise that for staff to follow up on. He was advised that there are 35 mph speed limits
posted on Bethany Road, but this has not been recorded or affected at the organizational level since the
State actually owns that process. There have been some valid concerns raised and if possible, the staff
can look at that.
He stated that we will receive a City of Ethics designation from GMA and wondered if we could have on
the backs of our City of Milton business cards imprinted with the City of Ethics so that every time a
member of the City staff or officials have contact with someone and extends their business card, it is a
reminder to both parties.
Councilperson D’Aversa said she just wanted to make a couple comments about an anniversary party
that we are going to plan to have. Project Assistant Linda Blow is heading it up with the Milton MVP’s
and she wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of it. They are looking for volunteers. She
encouraged anyone to please contact Linda Blow to volunteer.
Councilmember Thurman said she would like to thank Carol Haag for all the time she has put into the
GMA convention and making sure we were in the right spot at the right time.
Councilmember Bailey said that Monday there was a City of Alpharetta meeting and a rezoning item
was deferred. Our Director of Community Development has put a letter together and sent that to the City
of Alpharetta just to have collaborative discussions. Community Development Wilson and Senior
Planner Robyn MacDonald attended that meeting and hand delivered that letter. She does have as a
separate item; she is going to take this opportunity to set the record straight regarding an article that ran
May 30th in the Neighbor newspaper from another City of Milton councilmember. She wants to make it
public and for the record that she did not attempt to take sole credit for CH2M Hill savings as planned by
Councilmember Lusk in his letter to the editor. The Neighbor Newspaper wrote the article and misquoted
her. Councilmember Lusk inquired about the article with the paper and they informed him that they had
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Thursday, June 21,2007 at 7:00 pm
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misquoted. In spite of this advance notice of this error, he submitted a critical letter to the editor knowing
his accusations and claims were based on a misquote. In this letter, CounciImember Lusk claimed full
credit for identifying these savings. This was clearly a collaborative win in which she played an active
role and she is quite comfortable stating this for the record. She is disappointed that Councilmember
Lusk did this without a simple courtesy or an advance call to discuss the issue. Respectful
communications and teamwork should be part of our guiding principle. Her original statement to the
paper was accurate and noted her invoIvement in the contract negotiations and cost savings. Together we
were successful in reaching $200,000.00 in insurance savings in the first year and an almost $600,000.00
cumuIative savings over a several year period. This is a win for the entire City and our sister cities as
well. She would like to put this issue to rest so that the Council can get on with business without
distraction. She is mindful in the trust that citizen's place in their City leaders and she remains more
committed than ever to Milton and her duty to represent the entire City.
Councilmember Lusk stated that setting the record straight equates to him as =-writing history and he
will Ieave it as that.
STAFP REPORTS
There were no staff reports.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
Mayor Lackwood stated the purpose of the Executive Session is to discuss personnel.
Motion and Vote: Councilmember D'Aversa moved to adjourn to Execwtive Session to discuss
personnel at &:25 pm. Councilmember O'Brien seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion.
The motion passed unanimously.
EXECUTIVE SESSION ADJOURNMENT
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to adjourn the Executive Session at 10:22 pm.
Councilmember Thunnan seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed
unanimously.
RECONVENE
Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to reconvene the June 21 2007 regular Meeting at
10:23 pm. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The
motion passed unanimously 6-0 (Councilmember Zahner Bailey was not present for the vote).
ADJOURNMENT
Motion and Vote: Coun~ilmemberLusk moved to adjourn the June 21,2007 regular Meeting at 10:24
pm. Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed
unanimously 6-0 (Councilmember Zahner Bailey was not present for the vote).
Date Approved: September 6,2007
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Joe Lockwood, Maydr