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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 08/11/2008 - MINS 08 11 08 WS (Migrated from Optiview)Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 36 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 summaryform. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting proceedings. Oficial Meetings are audio recorded. The Work Session of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on August 11, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Mayor Joe Lockwood presiding. Council Members Present: Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember Julie Zahner Bailey, Councilmember Bill Lusk, Councilmember Burt Hewitt, Councilmember Tina D'Aversa, Councilmember Alan Tart Mayor Lockwood • Work Sessions are a more informal setting to update the Council on business items. • No votes will be taken. • There are six items on the agenda. • Public Comment is allowed that is germane to an agenda item. • Required to fill out a public comment card and turn it into our City Clerk. • Public Comment will be allowed for a total of ten minutes per agenda item and no more than 2 minutes per person. • Public comment will be heard at the beginning of each item. • Once the item is called no other cards will be accepted. City Clerk Marchiafava read the first agenda item. Update from the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC). Chairman George Ragsdale • It has been exactly six months since we were before Council. • That is far too long. • We have a lot we would like to cover. • We will try and make Council aware of some of the issues that we have been dealing with and have yet to deal with. Power Point Presentation Why Plan? • Required by State law • To ensure future growth does not exceed capacity • To provide a "roadmap" for change that, over time, preserves the quality of life desired by residents What is a Comprehensive Plan? • An assessment of existing conditions • A policy guide that addresses future needs, limitations and opportunities for the community • A blueprint for a coordinated approach to future land use, transportation, infrastructure and both natural and cultural amenities • A good plan includes the strategies and identifies the priorities necessary for implementation What is the Approach? • Phase 1 - Baseline Assessment Iwo — MissionNision Statement — Community Assessment (CA) — Community Participation Plan (CPP) • Phase 2 — Community Agenda Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 36 — Visioning/Goal Setting — Character Area Level Planning — Community Design Workshops • Phase 3 — Adoption • Phase 4 — Implementation Mission/Vision Statement Mission Statement: • The City of Milton is committed to maintaining the unique quality of life for our constituents while efficiently delivering essential services to residents and businesses in a community interactive environment. Vision Statement: • Milton is a distinctive community embracing small-town life and heritage while preserving and enhancing our rural character. What is Community Assessment? • An objective analysis of the present state of the community and anticipated future trends in eight focus areas: — Population — Economic Development — Housing — Natural/Cultural Resources — Community Facilities — Transportation — Land Use — Intergovernmental Coordination What is Community Participation Plan? • Outline of strategy for ensuring meaningful public and stakeholder involvement in the process and ownership of the results — Questionnaire(s) — Stakeholder interviews — CPAC — Presentations/Open Houses — Web page — Visioning Session(s) Schedule — Where Are We? • Drafts of CA and CPP are complete — we are seeking approval of City Council for submission to State • Next step is to submit CA and CPP to ARC — up to 40 day waiting period before we begin Visioning process • We are approximately 30 days behind our original schedule • We are still working towards completion of the draft plan by end of June 2008, with formal adoption by end of September 2008 Quality Community Objectives • Development patterns — Traditional Neighborhoods — Infill development — Sense of place — Transportation alternatives — Regional identity Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 36 Quality Community Objectives i Mw Social/Economic Development — Growth preparedness — Appropriate businesses — Educational opportunities — Employment options — Regional cooperation/solutions — Housing opportunities Quality Community Objectives • Resource Conservation — Heritage preservation — Open space preservation — Environmental protection CPAC Member Curtis Mills • Talk about the survey results • Purpose of the survey was to give us guidance on what the community thought was important. • To gather information that would be useable by the City going forward. • Started a year ago this month and finished sometime in November. • Spent hundreds of hours and tedious detail. • Were pleased with the final survey. • About forty questions and ten demographic profile questions including things like district, age category, whether there were children in the house and whether they drove their children to school. • There were a number of categories that were interesting in slicing and mining this data. • Very data oriented. • We sent 12,000 surveys out. • One to every address in the City. • We needed a response rate of 372 which would be 3%. • That was a 95% confidence level with a confidence interval of 5. • That is the minimum amount we needed to put any reliance on the results of the survey. • We received 2,925 surveys which is about 24%. • Almost a factor of 10 higher than we needed. • It was a strong response. • Some sample findings; do you support the City's stated mission? 91% did support the mission. • Do you support the City's stated vision? 86% • There was a pretty close spread between the districts and how they felt about this. • District 2 which is probably the most rural was the highest to support the stated vision. • District 6 which is the least rural came in lowest. • Septic as a tool for density control and that is a boil down of the question; there was strong support for that. • Growth management strategy that would ensure that new development does not exceed the capacity of public infrastructure was among the most strongly supported responses. • Most were opposed to new commercial areas anywhere in the City. plow • There was strong support for affording additional expense to assure that any capital improvements are characteristic to our historical era. • Bridges, sidewalk, street lighting and pedestrian crossing areas were listed in the question. • There was also a strong agreement that people wanted to offer developers incentives to encourage preservation of natural and environmental resources. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 36 • We recognize that there are costs and revenues trade off issues and that may not be obvious to the populace but it was interesting that it was a strong response. • He is only presenting things that had some remarkable response. • If Milton required more revenue, what sources should be considered and the top two rankings were do not spend money and a pretty resound support for develop impact fees. • Rank areas in which additional tax revenues should be spent; all were rated high but following is the sequence: transportation, parks and recreation, green ways and trail system. • Market the City as a corporate center to provide professional jobs within the City; it was a close split but it was a close split for reasons that may not be obvious. • Many would think that it was because a lot of people do not want any business but it was really because they did not want to spend money on the marketing and that came across in the comments. • There was a strong positive response for requiring green space and housing developments in the future. • Question regarding preservation of historic assets were strongly supported. • Relative to increases in taxes; approximately 20% would be willing to pay more taxes for services, however about 3/4 of the 20% said they would not pay more than $100 more. • Many specifically asked that taxes not be increased and that the area remained rural so no surprise there. CPAC Member Kim Horne • She will be talking about the character areas. • There fifteen unique areas that we feel need preservation or enhancement. • The first is Conservation Greenspace. • We ask for feedback by August 22nd so we can stay in the time line. • Linear Greenspace is the brighter green on the map shown. • Agriculture area is more of a true agricultural definition versus the broad AG 1 definition. • According to the Department of Community Affairs, with the new planning efforts we are using character areas versus the single specific zoning definitions. • Another that is very important that is the Equestrian Estates. • We have realized that there are a lot more Equestrian Estate areas that are not on the map so the map will be revised. • Another that they felt was important was the gravel road rural greenspace corridors. • Rural residential is one of the largest parts of the City of Milton and those are the single family detached residential developments. • Some are subdivisions but some are not. • Breaking that down further; one is what we call suburban area developing and this is a transition that is developed from the rural, residential and the agricultural areas. • Suburban area built out is where we felt like there was existing development built at the maximum level of which the City could maintain and those are the main subdivisions. • Most of them included lots of one acre or more and usually managed by homeowners associations. • The best example of rural village is the 27.1 acres of the Birmingham Crossroads. • Neighborhood center; the main one is the Crabapple Crossroads. • Another one that might be new to Council is the main highway corridors and they are areas that receive commercial and higher density development and are located along State Route 9 and Arnold Mill. • The gateway corridors are corridors in Milton that are areas along major highways but they border adjacent jurisdictions. • They are like our doorsteps to residents and passersby. • Another highway corridor determined is the scenic highway corridor. • They have a major presence in the City because they exist across much of the City's territory and they are key pieces to the rural setting of Milton. *40 • We have major employment centers which are mainly in Deerfield, Windward Parkway and Georgia 400. • We felt it important to have the golf course community have its own character area. • We have seven golf courses that make up quite a bit of acres in the City of Milton. Work Session of the Milton City Council r Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 36 • The existing character map and the existing land use maps also show the flood plains. • We felt that was important because it is not buildable land for anything and should be set aside. • About 10% falls into either the 500 or the 100 year flood plane category. • Both maps are available on CPAC's web site on the City website. George Ragsdale • We are trying to back out the flood plains. • We are also going to back out all of the land that has been approved for development but has not yet been developed because the whole purpose is to be able to look at what is remaining to be developed and how we want that to be developed and what the future characters will look like as the map evolves. • The definitions that Kim read applies to what is there now but we are focusing on trying to refine those for what we want them to look at in the future. • Want to talk about next is the financial model. • We did it in this order because we really want to talk about the bridge between the two pieces just presented. • As heard from the resounding survey there are a lot of people in the City that are very happy with the City the way it is. • There are also a lot of people that believe we should not be spending any more money than we are spending. • One of the reasons for the financial model is we believe we need to do some asset testing to make sure the development plans for the City are financially supportable by the City without any change in the tax revenue. • It is not a piece that is normally included as part of the Comprehensive Planning Process but we really think it is an important piece to include in the plan. • The slide that is in Council's packet is an excerpt from a letter between CH2M Hill and the City. how • The model was developed an owned by CH2M Hill. • It was intended to define the purpose of the plan. • It is a tool that will be helpful for us with respect to evaluating different alternatives but it is also a tool that we hope will be useful to the City even after the plan is developed for being able to test different zoning applications and scenarios that may be brought before Council. • Anticipate it being at a level of very finite level of detail. • They are building the model around the existing revenue and the 2008 budget as the basis. • When we have perfected that and it works the way we want it to, we want to look at a build out plan that is based on the completed build out as defined in the Focus Fulton Plan. • The population projection in that plan was approximately 51,000 plus in 2025. • That is what the Fulton plan projected the population of Milton would be. • We believe that is far too aggressive, particularly given the fact that we want to try and have a slow growth development. • We do think it is important to understand if it were to grow that way; how the City would support that level of expansion. • We also want to look at a plan that is based on a compact development in the Deerfield area, increasing density and along Highway 9 and 140 corridors where we think, if there is going to be commercial development, that is where it would be and we will test whether we need commercial development in order to be able to support the overall build out of the plan. • We are going to test increasing the equestrian development along Highway 140 which was talked about raw by the equestrian community when we met with them. • We will look at an aggressive growth scenario that would be redeveloping the Highway 9 corridor and tow expanding Deerfield to increase the commercial but in a very concentrated way and in a very concentrated area. • This is not intended to be a complete list but is intended to be a list of alternatives that we want to try and develop in the financial model to be able to assess the impact on the City. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 36 • He cannot say where we stand with respect to the development of the financial model. WWW • That is one of the issues that we will be meeting about with the City Manager and CH2M Hill to try and figure out where we are and what we need to do to get that done. Now • It has been far too long in the making. • There are three pieces to the plan. • The Participation Plan, the Assessment Plan and the Agenda. • The Participation Plan and the assessment are the documents that were submitted to the state in April. • We have been trying to put together the agenda. • As an overview of what the process looks like; our consultant BRPH will prepare a draft that is based on the outline of what the state requires. • We have to get comfortable with the fact that there is a significant difference between what the state requires from a plan standpoint and what we might want to have in place from a plan standpoint. • The state does not require the level of detail nor the implementation plans that he hopes they will end up with in the planning document. • What do we need to do to finish the work we started to be able to submit the plan to the state for approval. • The mission and vision statement have already been written and approved. • There will be a community vision with the future development map showing the character areas. • There will be a defining narrative for each of those with the types of development that would be encouraged in each of those areas. • The land uses that would be allowed. • The zoning changes that would be required etcetera. • There will be a final list of community issues and opportunities. • There will be a short term work program that will define those things the City should be looking at over the next five years to help move that plan forward. • It is a very high level and very strategic list of work objectives.p • It will include some transportation projects. • The last piece is a list of policies and ordinances that we would recommend as a result of the plan needing to addressed or changed or created. • We want to make sure that everyone understands that it has to continue. • As we talk about issues and opportunities, we have been stalled a little bit for the last six months. • A lot has been because of the time of year because of school letting out for the summer. • There has been scattered participation over the summer. • We will be pinning down the time line that we need to follow for the rest of the work. • We want to make sure we all understand who is leading that process because it is not something that is going to happen by itself. • It needs to have someone in charge and we want to make sure we have the right resources on board. • One thing we talked about when we retained BRPH was the need to have at least the availability of a transportation consultant. • The have offered to bring in a transportation consultant but we have not engaged them in the process. • The delivery process is important. • We learned from the participation and assessment presentation that waiting until everything was ready to present to Council and asking Council to allow us to send it on was probably not the right thing to do. • It ended up delaying the process by two months and one of the reasons we are here tonight is to try a different approach. • We want to get Council engaged as early as possible. • With all due respect to the City Attorney; they have no qualms about any of them attending their meetings at any time. • They encourage Council to read what was given them and to ask questions. • They need to get the financial model completed. • He cannot say they are any closer than they were a year ago. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 36 p"° • There are some opportunities to fix some things that may be lost if they do not act quickly. • Need to try and put those together in more tangible terms. low • Last but not least is cost. • Cost is Council's issue. • They had a budget for this work when they started and he believes they need to make sure they spend the rest of the budgeted money wisely because they are running out of time and they have a lot of work to do. • If it means they need to bring in additional resources to get it done then they want to make sure they are doing that. • There is not magic end date but we committed in the beginning to try and get it done in twelve months and we are past that and are now trying to get it done by the end of this year. • That is our goal. • Having adopted the Fulton County plan there is nothing legally we need to do until 2011. • 2011 is the date we have to have our own plan in place but they want to get it done this year. • We have a lot of people spending a lot of time and energy on this. Mayor Lockwood • Thanked the entire committee. • He has witnessed and knows there is a lot of time and hard work that has been done. • They realize this is one of the most important things for Milton. Councilmember D'Aversa • Shares the concern about the financial model. • Asked if there were people on the committee that is working with City staff members. George Ragsdale • His perception is that it has been an issue of CH2M Hill talking to CH2M Hill. • That has been the problem. • Their consultant has had no direct contact with the model developer and no one on CPAC has had direct contact with the model developer. • It has all been managed within CH2M Hill. • Getting an understanding of what they were going to give or not give the City and what it was going to cost took a long time to get to that point. • They have been trying to define the specifics of the model and that process is not visible to either the CPAC committee or to our consultant. Councilmember D'Aversa • Asked if he had recommendations on how to facilitate that. George Ragsdale • He would rather work that through the City Manager in their upcoming meeting. • It is a more appropriate question for him to answer in the context of that meeting rather than trying to answer it here. Councilmember Thurman • Asked how they could best help the CPAC committee get through this process. George Ragsdale • Thinks it is a two way street. • They can start supplying more information to Council earlier on and asking for their feed back individually. They can come before Council more frequently rather than waiting six months. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 36 • They need to make sure that Council is clear for them and with them about the rolls and responsibilities of the different players that are involved. • When the effort was chartered a year ago, there were different players in place in the City than are in place now. • As the transitions have occurred there has not been a transition for the responsibility for developing this plan. • That has put individuals in uncomfortable positions because they are trying to do two things so being clear about rolls and responsibilities of the consultant, of CPAC, the City Council, and the City employees but most importantly CH2M Hill. • Being clear about what each of those parties are supposed to do will help us work together and be more efficient going forward. Councilmember Thurman • Asked if it would be beneficial for Council to have an informal meeting with the CPAC committee to discuss things in more detail. George Ragsdale • He thinks that would be very beneficial. • With all due respect what they are trying to do is craft a plan that represents what the City wants and not necessarily what just the Council wants. • That is the value of the survey. • It will be much better if they can have more interaction working sessions with Council so they can tell where and what they are doing. • They will have a definite recommendation coming out of the meeting on the 200' and that would go back to Council to be validated. Councilmember Lusk • Commended the CPAC committee for the work they have done. • According to the survey results; one of the top three issues was the transportation situation and looking at the report we have not engaged a transportation consultant at this time. • He thought they appropriated enough from a separate fund to hire a transportation consultant and asked what has been happening with that situation. George Ragsdale • Altobelli was identified as a transportation consultant working for BRPH; they retained them a year ago. • There was an option in the contract with them that allowed us to retain them to do a more extensive transportation plan than the basics that were required by the state. • He does not know if they can engage them with that option or not. • He believes they should. • They have not seen Altobelli at any of their CPAC meetings. • They may have been involved behind the scenes working with BRPH. • Johns Creek spent a lot of time developing a separate transportation piece and had a separate committee working on nothing but transportation. • Admittedly it is a much bigger issue for Johns Creek in one respect than it is for Milton but in the other respect it is a huge issue for Milton because we have problems we do not want to see coming. • He does not feel like it has received the focus it should have until now. , Councilmember Thurman • Asked if they would be making that recommendation to them. George Ragsdale Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 36 00" • One of the products of the meeting on the 20"' is to get clarity about what needs to be done going forward and who needs to do it. b. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Thanked the CPAC committee for all the hours put into this. • Asked if part of the discussion of their upcoming meeting would also highlight a review of those contracts and whether or not any of those transitions tie back to budget and either what they have received or have not received. George Ragsdale • Yes and from a budget stand point; as a group of volunteers they have not been privy to the budget nor necessarily should they be. • That has been managed between the City and CH2M Hill. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • From her perspective; quality over speed of completion is what is important. George Ragsdale • We will not sacrifice quality for speed. Mayor Lockwood • He is sure the City Manager will give them an update after the meeting. Pam Councilmember Tart • He assumes there were certain economic studies that were done informing the City to be able to say look 600 we can be our own City and be able to financially support services at or a level better than Fulton County. • He asked of the scenarios they had listed what exactly was done by the steering committee before the City was formed. • Was it to look at being our own City with existing revenue and cost as base line. • Was it to look at the Comprehensive Plan as was laid out by Fulton County to determine whether we could be our own City and support that given the Comprehensive Plan that we had before us what information did we have coming in to our own City. • He is hearing rumors in the media and within our own members saying that we do not have enough money to be our own City. • That concerns him because he assumes they did those studies before we became a City. Councilmember Thurman • It was based on the 2025 Comprehensive Land Plan • It was based on what was projected by Fulton County as increase in property values. • Some things have happened. • We lost $900,000 of insurance money. • That was part of the projections that were done. • We did not take into account that there was going be a huge down turn in the market so property values have not increased at what Fulton County had originally projected that they would. • We also based on the fact that we were receiving the same level of service that we were receiving from Fulton County. • In a lot of ways we are receiving much better service. • Police and Fire is much better service than we dreamed of having with Fulton County. n� • We are not looking at the same level of service but a much higher level of service with a down turn in the economy and with $900,000 being lost. • Unfortunately that has made things tight. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 36 • It does not mean we cannot work through them but it has made things tight. Councilmember Tart • Thanked Councilmember Thurman for the clarification. • Mr. Ragsdale had mentioned that there is a need to clearly identify the rolls and responsibilities of the City Staff, Council, the citizen members and CH2M Hill. • He asked Mr. Ragsdale if he felt the citizen members has a vital and clear roll in this process. George Ragsdale • He does not want to speak for everyone, but he thinks they all feel like they have a vital roll. He would not agree that it is citizen driven. • That is his point. • They have a vital roll but at this point they are a sounding board and not driving the process. • The City was not intended to function as a smaller version of Fulton County. • From a staffing organization hierarchy standpoint and a process standpoint the vision was that it would be drastically simplified from what Fulton County looks like. • From his perspective that is not what has happened. • That adds cost that is very hard to identify but until that gets undone, he thinks there will be more cost built into the City, more cost built into what CH2M Hill is charging the City than what need be. Councilmember Hewitt • Asked who he felt was driving it if it is not citizen driven. George Ragsdale • That is his point. • Right now he does not know the answer to that. • He thinks CH2M Hill is. • If he had to point at one party it would be them. • There is no reason it has to be one versus the other, but it has to be clear. • He thinks their volunteer committee is more than willing to step up and take that role if that is the role that Council wants them to have. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • As they go through the financial modeling they look at the different perception of service levels. • There is probably data to be had out of those surveys. One persons impression of what service is appropriate versus another could be very different and she heard him say that the cost of some services have been driven up based on contracts that we have in place. She is hopeful that the financial modeling will help uncover a lot of that so they are not making any suppositions about what is appropriate or not for a City. George Ragsdale • He did not say the contracts were driving the cost up. • The contracts reflect what the City asked people to do. • What people have been asked to do is to replicate processes in systems that were not anticipated. • There is more infrastructure built in that was anticipated. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • We need to look at all of those things as we go through this modeling process. "do ki Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 11 of 36 Ulty Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda item. Presentation by the Hopewell Youth Association (HYA). Morgan Dunn (President of the Hopewell Youth Association) • Lives 2 miles outside the City of Milton in unincorporated Alpharetta. • The HYA provides a wonderful baseball experience for local youth in and around Bell Memorial Park and have done so for almost two decades. • They have had over 800 members playing ball on their four fields. • They have been eager to see the City of Milton come into existence. • They had a new septic system installed in coordination with the City. • They have modified the bath rooms. • Recently they began some new negotiations on the field use agreement with the City and while those have been in process they have already instituted many of the items the City had requested. • They now have a non resident fee. • They are in the process of setting aside 15% of the resident fees for capital improvements for the park. • They have also instituted an exclusive Milton resident registration period which allows Milton residents first right of passage in terms of signing up for registration at the park. • They are very close in the negotiations and would like Council to consider three areas that they are currently working through. • First area is in relation to the travel program. • They offer various levels of baseball from a recreational level, an all star level and a travel level for the most competitive aspects of the game. • The goal is having 50% of the travel team's membership be made up of Milton residents. • Kids travel from team to team and park to park and often times their goal has been trying to retain the talent and they have often left for neighboring parks. • The goal is to try and get them to come back to the City where they reside. • Would like to propose a graduating process in getting to the goal of 50% Milton residents. • Their proposal is to say with currently sanctioned teams, they would be able to maintain their existing roster structure while all newly formed and sanctioned teams would have to adhere to the 50% Milton City residency as of day one. • Within about 3 years time the vast majority of all the travel membership would be made up of Milton City residents. • The second item they are working through involves and area of legal terminology regarding a conflict of interest. • The agreement precludes any board member or a company that they may be involved in from providing services to the park. • They do not want the board members personal gains to come from the parks membership. • In the way of mitigating this risk they propose taking 3 closed bids or blind bids in an effort to get the best possible scenario for the park and their financial structure. • In addition if there was a board member in question involved in one of these bids or their company, they absolve themselves from that vote. Public Works Director Dan Drake • There season starts August 23rd and there are a couple of outstanding issues that they are talking about and need guidance on. • Their goal is to bring the agreement in front of Council August 18`h baw Mayor Lockwood • Would like some clarification on the 50% or the sliding scale. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 36 HYA President Morgan Dunn • The travel program already exist and it is a competitive baseball level. • They have evolved over time. • The objective with the travel teams is to try and keep as much of the core of the team as possible from year to year. • The more they stay together, the more they progress. • In travel ball there is a certain amount of attrition that happens and that is to be expected. • There are some issues that would come up if they were to tell the teams at this time they need to be 50% Milton residence. • They may be saying to someone who has been with the team for two or three years that they can no longer play. • They have gotten a lot of feedback from the travel team managers. • The highest talent level of ball players in the City of Milton are playing travel ball right now. • Their objective is to make enough incentive for the players to come back and play at their park. • They do have provisions in place where; by administering all of the newly sanctioned teams to adhere to the 50% Milton City residency they will be able to retain that talent going forward so teams currently in existence now would phase out in that 3 year period. Public Works Director Dan Drake • To give clarification on the points. • The travel teams are different than the recreation teams. • The recreation teams have an independent selection process. • The travel team is more competitive. • It is selected by the coaches. • The City wanted some ability to have some percent of the team members being City of Milton residents. • Each of the teams are paying about $1,250 per season per team to the City to play. • The language says that no more than 50% of the team members shall be non residence of the City. • HYA is asking for a clause prior to that saying for newly sanctioned teams; non existent prior to July 1St would have to have 50%. • There is nothing in the agreement about a 3 year turnover that is just what Mr. Dunn predicts it would take to get up to 50%. • Asked of the 6 teams that we are sanctioning; how many are newly sanctioned for this year. HYA President Morgan Dunn • One, it would be the 9 year old team. Public Works Director Drake • So five teams for this year would not have the 50% and one would be required to have the 50%. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked what the break down of percentage of current resident to out of City resident is. HYA President Morgan Dunn • He does not have that number at this time. Councilmember Zahner Bailey *49 0 That is something they would need because it applies to this. G Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 36 Councilmember Thurman • She agrees and asked if they are going from ten to fifty or from forty to fifty. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Or is it eighty percent that is outside of Milton. Councilmember D'Aversa • To be completely accurate she thinks the travel teams try out each season and they are in the process of trying out now so the teams are new at this point. HYA President Morgan Dunn • Not necessarily. • To clarify the tryout process; through this point; technically the travel teams at Hopewell actually does not have to hold try outs. • They can maintain the teams they have had through the previous year. • It has been allowed at their discretion. • That is changing and they encourage all of the teams to have try outs. • The objective is to maintain as much of the core group from year to year. Mayor Lockwood • Asked Mr. Dunn to clarify that in three years they would be at 50%. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Thought those statistics were suppose to be provided to Council. taw • Asked if was fair to say that some of those teams have a greater majority of citizens outside of Milton. HYA President Morgan Dunn • Some of them do. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Part of the premise of having an agreement is that there are citizens that pay tax dollars toward a City park that they have an opportunity to participate in. • There is not even a requirement for a travel team to have a try out and that is extremely concerning to her. • She thought that a travel team out of a City park absolutely required a try out so to think they have teams with 80% of the participants coming from outside of Milton she understands that they do not have the statistics and encourages them to provide them because she cannot have a meaningful discussion without them. HYA President Morgan Dunn • Although they do not require the try outs, there has not been a single team that has not held try outs. Councilmember D'Aversa • The premise is to get to an equal position with the citizens. • Need to be able to tell them with 100% accuracy that they have an opportunity to play at least baseball at Bell Memorial Park. • They have waited a year to get some of this data with regards to the three specific items in question. • They looked at the 50% with other cities and decided it made sense. • They said they would not do anything last fall to increase the fees for out of city by a tremendous amount but would start to educate the board. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 36 • She is not sure that happened with regard to the Hopewell Board educating the members that were participating. • As far as the board member conflicts, they had members of the board as well as participants that had some concerns so they decided to address those issues with a Facility Use Agreement. • Wanted to take any challenges out of issue so they could say to citizens, no there will not be any conflicts of interest there. • She does not want anyone to think they are doing this for any reason other than to get on an equal footing for the citizens. • She still hears that there is field time that is not available for all recreation teams. HYA President Morgan Dunn • They have changed a lot of things whether it be perception or reality to make sure those availabilities are there. Mayor Lockwood • Talking about 50% on the travel teams only and not about the recreation team participation. • Asked what the typical standard was for travel teams versus recreation teams. • Asked if it was safe to say that you would have a higher percentage of Milton citizens on the recreation program. • The travel teams would be tougher because it is a more serious league. HYA President Morgan Dunn • Yes, they have provisions in place to help for providing Milton residents access within the recreational program. • With the travel program, it is a competitive level of baseball and a lot of the talent in the area, be it a Milton resident or non resident, is currently playing travel ball either on our team or a local team. Mayor Lockwood • His question was to clarify that there is a difference between the travel and the other as far as a reasonable percentage. Councilmember Lusk • Sounds like another governmental mandate of setting goals for participation. • Baseball and any other sport to him are competitive sports and he thinks teams are built on the best available talent. RYA President Morgan Dunn • There are a variety of levels within the park recreational level, travel level and all star level. • For a player to participate on a travel team; if they were not prepared adequately to play on that team, it could be a very negative experience for the child and their family. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • As an example, the City of Alpharetta has to have 60/40. • 60% from the City of Alpharetta. • The reason being that cities want to encourage their citizens to have an opportunity for travel ball. • They are talking about kids that are from 9 to 14. N" • They are sanctioned with having to make sure that the one park has adequate opportunity for Milton citizens. „tj; • Everyone knows we have limited field space so we have to struggle with how we move the one city park that we have towards something that at least the citizens that pay those tax dollars view it to be equitable. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 15 of 36 • She thinks there might be travel teams with a much higher percentage where the majority of youth comes from outside of Milton. • Again she would like to see that data because she does not want to presume what it is. • If there is 80% of non residents then that is an issue. HYA President Morgan Dunn • He does not feel like they are precluding anyone from Milton playing baseball in Bell Memorial Park. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Her point is without percentages there is a tendency based on current statistics if we were to look at those; some of those teams have a higher percentage. • Provide the data and that will answer the question. HYA President Morgan Dunn • By way of contrast; in Forsyth County they have a 75% in County residency requirement. • The City of Alpharetta population is quite a bit different than the City of Milton so they have to take that into account as well. • When Forsyth County went to 75% residency, they allowed their existing teams to run under their current rosters. Public Works Director Drake • To clarify, 50% is in the agreement but it is allowing the existing teams to run their course. • There is no time frame. OM • The newly sanctioned is the issue they are talking about. haw Councilmember Thurman • She agrees with the 50% and the phase in but she knows there are players that come and go. • She thinks they should do it such that no new players can come to a travel team that are not City of Milton residents if that team is over the 50%. • If a player leaves the team, then they have to be replaced by a Milton resident or if we are below the 50% then they be replaced with anyone. • She would like to see that as a way of phasing it in so we really do get to the three year mark. • She would hope in three years this will not be an issue because she hopes we have a lot more places for children to play. Mayor Lockwood • Asked Public Works Director Drake if he felt, in listening to everyone on the Council if they can come up with an agreement with HYA that can address this travel team 50% phase in. Councilmember D'Aversa • Her concern is that the travel teams that are currently out there; they are all trying out and they have confirmation on that. • So they are selecting new teams right now so we could handle this process right now by saying they have to choose 50%. Councilmember Thurman • She hates to see a team that has been together split up, but at the same time if someone leaves it then they can be easily replaced by a Milton resident. lalw Mayor Lockwood • It would be up to the board to monitor it. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 16 of 36 • He would like the board and staff to come up with a sliding scale. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She has a question that goes back to the newly sanctioned team. • If there are no members of those teams that are going to change why are we giving the impression to the Milton citizens that there is an active try out process? • She does not need an answer but we need to honest with citizens and we are going to say that at a city park there are travel teams that are truly open to new players then that says that indeed that every year there is that opportunity because they are trying out and if instead these teams are going to come together and stay together and it is not a newly sanctioned team and there is not a real try out; she thinks we need to level with people. • If 90% of that team is going to be the same team for the last three years then we just need to level with them and going back to Councilmember Thurman's point that is they know that only two members are going to be selected that are new then go ahead and let the people from Cherokee and Forsyth know that they do not get a chance at those two spots. • Citizens just want us to be honest. Mayor Lockwood • He thinks that is exactly what Councilmember Thurman had said and that would be the process. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • How would they monitor it - use 10 year olds. As an example, if you are only going to bring 4 during a try out, let's say 6 of 12 kids; so in theory you have 6 net new children that would be available if those other 6 were all Cherokee if she is hearing Councilmember Thurman's point those additional 6 slots have PM to be Milton residents. Mayor Lockwood • We have a board and people with experience and he knows there is not a clean cut way. • He asked Public Works Director Drake if he can come up with a sliding scale that would follow the intent of Council. Public Works Director Drake • He thinks he has direction at this point. Mayor Lockwood • The next issue is conflict of interest. Paula McCreedies, 450 Kensington Farms Drive, Milton Georgia • She has been on the board for 3 or 4 years. • Her son has played there for the past 8 years. • They have had situations where when doing improvements they had an existing board member who had a company who did turf and they got the turf at cost. • Part of the reason for the conflict of interest is she wants to make sure that if they can get a better deal for Hopewell or the City and use their money more wisely. • Have a bidding process so they have three closed bids then it would not be considered a conflict of interest if a board member had a business that could help get something more cost effectively. • It is that simple. Mayor Lockwood • Basically we need something in there to protect the City and HYA from having a board member having personal gain form the park or from the City. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 17 of 36 • On the flip side there may be someone on the board that has a contact or a company that can donate something or get it done cheaper so they want to be able to take advantage of that. tow • There certainly should be some way where it is a closed bidding process; if there is a board member that is in for example the light bulb business and replaces them at cost or they can get them cheaper then they can take advantage of it. • Need to ask the attorney if there is a way to have an arms length transaction. City Attorney Davis • The agreement that is currently drafted based on the concerns expressed on conflict of interest has general conflict of interest language which would prohibit the transaction period. • They needed to find out if Council wanted to adhere to that strict prohibition or whether they are willing to consider the compromised position of having some type of advertisement and bid process. • They will draft some language that would allow for advertising and essentially a purchasing policy. Brian Stup, 15910 Milton Point, Milton Georgia • They have no issue with a mandatory up charge of non city residents. • They are doing that now. • They want to make sure they are maximizing the revenue of the park and maximizing the number of City residents that are using the park. • They do not want a fixed percentage of 50% because their experience is that parks will vary. • Wills park has varied their up charge year to year. • Depending on the influx and out flow of people in the park, you might have a large number of an age group that is leaving a certain field for an example so you need to have a larger number of people relative to what the City allows. • Your population of a certain age group may be lower; you have some field space so you want to decrease that to increase the number of people at the park because we want to maximize that revenue stream. • They would like to include some language that allows them flexibility to increase and decrease the percentage by age group or by year so maybe it is a 33% with a 25% minimum and we can go anything over that but to fix it in at 50% potentially hamstrings us when other cities may take their non city resident fee down as a result year to year. Mayor Lockwood • It makes sense in one perspective, but on the flip side it would put a lot of pressure on the board to try and adjust that. Brian Stup • They are trying to keep the park full and keep the number of residents maximized. • That is ultimately their goal. • Right now they are running at a 50% and our registrations are off significantly this year. • Our ratio of Milton to non Milton residents is up substantially. • In the spring we typically run 30% City of Milton to 70% non city. • This fall we are at 70% Milton and 30% non city but our registrations are down to where we were this same time last year. • He has been treasurer for only two weeks so he can get more data as they move forward. • They want to provide the park flexibility that they can drive that tax piece as strongly as possible because that come back to the park. • At the same time we do not want to have under utilized fields because the population of the City of Milton of 25,000 relative to the Alpharetta and surrounding populations of several hundred thousand; Milton does not compete to fill all of those spaces if we keep a fixed out of City percentage. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 18 of 36 Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked what a Milton resident pays versus what someone outside the City pays for recreation ball and travel. Brian Stup • To use Wills park as an example today at Hopewell a City of Milton resident for a 9 to 15 year old range is paying $230 for in city. • That same in city at Wills park is $185 so in City to in City we are higher. • The non Milton resident is $345 at Hopewell and at Will Park the non resident fee is $324. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked Public Works Director Drake if that comparison was done when they were looking at fee differentials. Public Works Director Drake • When they talked about the fee, the only number he had was Alpharetta. Councilmember D'Aversa • We seethe comparison just between Wills Park and Hopewell and there is not much of a differential with out of City but they did not set the HYA fee for in City residents. Councilmember Thurman • Asked who set the fee. Brian Stup • Thinks the HYA set the fees. Councilmember D'Aversa • The City of Alpharetta for example has 55 thousand residents and they have 3 times the field space that we have at Hopewell so that is a big difference. Brian Stup • The concept is; if we are stuck at a 50% fixed rate; as we want to take our fees up; if we were able to maximize the number of people in Milton that out of City fee goes up exponentially. • If we wanted to pull that back to manage that top side because we have a strong City of Milton element of it; a fixed percentage hamstrings them from what they need to do. Councilmember D'Aversa • In her opinion as they look at the growth rates with projections of Fulton County, as well as our City projections then it will not be very long before it catches up with the City of Milton residents. Mayor Lockwood • Hates to tell the board how it should be run versus the way they think it may work better. • He would like to throw out with an area that they as Council have a target or goal but charge staff and the board to get it there; however, they feel reasonable. Public Works Director Drake • From staff's administrative perspective the 50% would be the simplest. • If there are reasons in future years that needs to be changed, they can always amend the agreement. • That is what he recommends. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 19 of 36 Councilmember D'Aversa • She knows this if very important but they have spent a lot of hours working on this agreement and the ir... board and she does not want to start at the drawing board again. • Wants the Council to be aware that Public Works Director Drake will be our representative with the board. • She appreciates the time and effort that he and our City Attorneys and the board have put into it. Mayor Lockwood • Would like to leave it with the understanding that staff and the board and the City Attorneys get together and work on the agreement so it can be presented to Council at the next meeting. • Need to come to terms on the 50% issue. Brian Stup • If the 50% causes us to have registrations that are significantly off, at what point do we want to have that readdressed with the city. Mayor Lockwood • It is trial and error with a new city and if next season we see it is really significantly impacting the program and the city, then we could readdress it. • We want this to be a win/win for everyone. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Our finance department put together a comparable that was a very easy table and would be a very good "* tool if the board is open to that. • We could put it on the website or the board could help communicate why there is an increase fee for out ... of city residents. • Some people may not recognize that there is that situation with Alpharetta or Roswell that Milton residents have to pay more. Brian Stup • We have one last point. • We have 14 board member volunteers who spend countless hours at the park improving the lives of the 800 plus athletes that are there. • We would like to include a stipend to cover all board members children's registration fees. Councilmember Thurman • Asked if any of the board members receive any other kind of compensation for serving on the board. Brian Stup • No board members presently receive compensation for being on the board. Mayor Lockwood • It is his opinion, if it works within the budget; he does not have a problem with it. Brian Stup • We discussed that after the first child they paid the non resident fees. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked how many board members were outside Milton. Brian Stup 0 He thinks it is five. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 20 of 36 Mayor Lockwood • As clarification, he understands the recommendation to be that if a board member is a resident of Milton their children will not have to pay. • If they are a board member and live outside the City of Milton; their first child does not pay but any additional children would have to pay the difference for the out of City fee. Brian Stup • That is correct. Councilmember D'Aversa • She has time to check with other cities to see what their policy is; if that is Council's wish. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Thinks it would be important to check. • There are other boards who are volunteers that spend a lot of time and effort and we do not provide any stipend for them so it would be helpful to know what other cities do as support material. Mayor Lockwood • That may not necessarily make the decision for us but it would be good to have that information. City Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda item. Consideration of a request regarding deannexation from Dennis Potts. City Attorney Angie Davis • They presented the legal issues to Council when this came before them at an earlier date. • They need some affirmative direction from Council on how to proceed. • To recap, we discussed the fact that Mr. Potts property is located in an area that de -annexation would result in an unincorporated island being created. • Although that is prohibited under state law, other cities have together with Fulton County have worked together in an effort to work around that statute that prohibits the creation of an unincorporated island. • That scheme would consist of us agreeing with the City of Alpharetta; that the Alpharetta Council would annex this property after we de -annex it. • There would have to be a component of an intergovernmental agreement with Fulton County whereby the City of Alpharetta would agree to provide services in this parcel of property during the period of time in which it is not a Milton City property before it can become an Alpharetta City property, there will be a lapse of time where it will be an unincorporated island. • Other cities have used this process. • The goal of the statute is to ensure that there is not an unincorporated piece of property surrounding on all sides by a city primary from a service delivery stand point. • That is why we would have to work with Fulton and Alpharetta to ensure for that moment in time that it is not a Milton property and before it can become an Alpharetta property there would have to be some provision service. • Technically she thinks we do have a creation of an island issue. • We have seen process by which others try to work around that by trying to meet the goals if not the letter of the statute. • At this point we need some direction on whether they need to go forward with working together with Alpharetta and Fulton or whether it Council's preference to abide strictly by the statute and say this creates an unincorporated island and we are not going to look beyond that. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 21 of 36 PM" Mayor Lockwood • City Attorney Jarrard said he had talked to the City of Alpharetta and it was not a problem. bum City Attorney Davis • She has an e-mail from City Attorney Jarrard and he quotes the City of Alpharetta as saying "we sort of blinked on that issue and moved forward." • Neither of us are sure what that means, but we think it means they knew it was an issue but they felt they could overcome it by some maneuvering. • She does not know what a court would decide on that but she thinks the argument would be is though it is a violation of the statute in the letter of the statute that they are meeting the goals of the statute by ensuring there are provision services. Mayor Lockwood • He thinks this property is an anomaly. • Unfortunately for Mr. Potts; he got left out with Fulton County and he feels for him in that regard. • He thinks it is fairly clear with the sewer maps that he is "on the wrong side of the railroad tracks". • He certainly supports and is committed to supporting our existing policy. • We had the opportunity to write a letter as the City of Milton and Mr. Potts could have had sewer and developed his property in conjunction with the neighboring properties. • He does not want to change his policy of extending sewer but he also feels this is a situation that is not typical and he sees where it is a big burden on Mr. Potts because there is a big difference of the value of his property and also everything else around him has sewer and is developable that way. • That being said he does not want to go back on any commitments of extending sewer or increasing density but he would support him annexing into the City of Alpharetta. • He does not want to lose the property and tax base but he thinks this is a rare situation and he does not think that just because we allow him to do it everyone else would want to do it. Dennis Potts, 2745 Webb Road, Milton • The other properties he is trying to join with is on Windward Parkway and Webb Road. • He is in land lot 1049. • That land lot inadvertently got left out. • Commissioner Riley said it was an anomaly and that she would support giving him sewer if given a letter from Council. • That was not done so we got to this position. • Since day one Greg Hightower which is in control of the three and a half acres on Windward Parkway has always been with him. • It is not anything new that they are trying to combine the two pieces of property. • Even if he had been given sewer they probably would still have come back and ask for de -annexation. • He looked on the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and they do not even have him on their map as Commercial Property. • They have him as some suburban area. • He brought that to the attention of Mr. Ragsdale and he said they would change it. • When he tried to get sewer he had three different contracts on the property and he has not been able to sell it or develop it because he could not get sewer to it. • He does feel like he has been caught in a quagmire and he does not want to point fingers but he does know that Lynn Riley is even behind him to get de -annexed because it would take the pressure off everyone concerned. • He apologizes for his partner not being there but he had a family issue to attend to. • Also there is a curb cut on Windward Parkway and there is the manhole for the sewers there. • Pointed it out on the map. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 22 of 36 • The owner had all intentions of working with him to go in through that property; otherwise, he would not have put the curb cut there. • If they had known back then they would get caught up in all of this, they would have went ahead and put the sewer into his property five or ten years ago. • There is an issue coming up with the "red dot" that is across the street from him and when Mr. Carson started developing that; he asked if I had any problem with town homes. • He has been here since 1978. • He took all the money he owned to buy that property and now he is in a position where he cannot even do anything with it. • He would like to de -annex. • If Council does not let him de -annex, he is right back in the same position with no sewer. • Thanked Council for their time. Councilmember Lusk • If the City of Milton were to allow the de -annexation, there is a time gap between that and when the City of Alpharetta would approve the annexation. • Asked the City Attorney if this transaction be made simultaneously so there is no gap and no island created. City Attorney Davis • That is a question they have contemplated. • She does not know how they would do it that way unless there is a joint meeting. • They had talked about if they met in different places and that might be difficult because of not knowing the timing and how that would work. • The other thing they discussed they could say they were de -annexing but with and effective date in the future. • She has some question as to what the court might say if they looked at any of this because it is obvious what they are doing. Councilmember Lusk • Seems like it would minimize the timing of the transaction. Councilmember Tart • He understands Mr. Potts situation and the issue with sewer and the development surrounding him. • One of the big questions tonight was financial modeling and if we have the finances we need to function as a city. • He does not have that information yet and he would be very weary; one of allowing a de -annexation without having that financial modeling and two without knowing if there are other properties similarly situated. • He does not want every property that abuts an adjacent municipality to start a trickle down that any land lot adjacent to a municipality could ask for a de -annexation. • What kind of negative precedent would we be setting with this? Councilmember Hewitt • He does not want to lose any properties but he also does not want to force someone to stay who does not want to for whatever reason. NOR • If the City Attorney could get us to the point of working the details out so we will not be revisiting this because someone said we did not follow the laws then he does not want to stand in the way of anything. mod 0 He also does not want to bear a lot of cost in getting there. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 23 of 36 pow City Attorney Davis r.r. • She cannot assure that this would be free from challenge. • Technically they might have a good argument. • The other cities try to cover that lapse of time with a provision service agreement. • If Council decides to go this route Mr. Potts could indemnify us. • An indemnification is only as meaningful as the money from the indemnifier to cover us so that would be something to consider. Councilmember Hewitt • Asked about the administrative cost. City Attorney Davis • The complexities are always dealing with Fulton County but we will be dealing with the City of Alpharetta and with Fulton County so we would have a couple of Intergovernmental Agreements. • She would think easily it could take them 10 to 15 hours. Dennis Potts • He would have to talk to Greg but he cannot see the problem with sharing or taking the brunt of the expense for the cost of the de -annexation. • He realizes that the City of Milton has already spent money, time and effort. • It is an issue that needs to be decided one way or another. • He does not want to come away with no de -annexation and no sewer either because then he is right back in the same position and his back is against the wall. r0w Councilmember Tart • He does need the question answered regarding precedent setting. • Maybe this is a rare occasion and maybe this is the only land lot that could ever de -annex or are there others. City Attorney Davis • She thinks any time they take an action; anyone can argue that it sets precedent. • They could consider doing the same thing they did with Sembler and the Manor. • Perhaps the de -annexation action contains a very detailed set of findings where they try to distinguish this property. Councilmember Tart • How do we justify allowing a de -annexation of a property when there is this notion that we need additional commercial income? • He is having a hard time trying to figure out why we would allow this to go forward. Councilmember Thurman • She is struggling with it because he is a citizen of Milton and he wants out but it almost seems to her they are cutting off the nose to spite the face. • Giving up tax revenue because they have made a policy not to allow someone who is completely surrounded by sewer to have sewer, she hates to see us giving up that tax revenue just because of that one policy. • At the same time we do not want to break our policy. • Asked Mr. Potts if he could develop the property as it currently is zoned without sewer. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 24 of 36 Dennis Potts • To be honest, he does know if he could answer that question. • He is not an engineer. • Show him some commercial properties that have had septic tanks. • Do we have any out there? • There is a stream on his property so he will lose seventy five feet on each side of the stream. Councilmember Thurman • Asked if by not allowing him to have sewer if they had taken away some of his rights to develop the property. • There are so many variables with this. • If they do not give him the sewer or the de -annexation he probably has grounds and would want to pursue this further so what do we stand to lose. City Attorney Davis • Some analysis might need to be done by staff or it would be helpful if he brought engineered analysis that said here is what I can or cannot do. Dennis Potts • They were planning on putting the building on both pieces of property and that is the biggest reason he wants to de -annex. • You cannot have a building in two municipalities. Councilmember Thurman • If he had a site plan that shows the building going across the city limits; it might help justify in her mind why he would need to go to Alpharetta. Dennis Potts • They do have a site plan that shows that. • If you do not de -annex him and you do not give him sewer then he cannot develop the property then you have not given up anything because you will not get any tax base out of him if he is sitting there as a residence. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • It is not a new issue. • It is one that she appreciates and understands the idiosyncrasies of the scenario. • She also struggles with the request for de -annexation. • Shares the concern of setting precedent. • Suspects this is not the only parcel that would come forward subsequent to this asking for a similar scenario. • She is concerned that it would create an island. • The state law currently says that we are not supposed to do that. • It would be hard for her to approve a process that counters state law. • Concerns her that what they then will see is the City of Alpharetta go to Fulton County or come to us to ask for sewer extension. am • This is a parcel that was never intended for sewer historically. • By de -annexing it would ensue a process of requesting sewer. r.w • She believes it can be developed as currently zoned. • The provision of sewer is not a vested right. 60. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 25 of 36 1 he conceptual site plan is not a vehicle for approval despite other design and development standards to those densities that may have been approved do not preclude the development standards for streams or other setbacks. She thinks there may be other parcels that might want to do some sort of combination development City of Roswell, City of Alpharetta, Forsyth County so if the premise that we have two land owners in different cities and they want to do a project and therefore we want to start de -annexing she thinks they need to recognize that there most probably would be other land owners and applicants that would seeking that so she struggles with that from a precedent setting perspective. Mayor Lockwood • The City Attorney asked us to give direction and he does not think with all of the comments that they can give a clear consensus to support de -annexing Mr. Potts property. City Attorney Davis • It sounds like there are several different concerns. • The ultimate alternative is to put it on a future agenda and make a decision. • Either vote it up or vote it down because Mr. Potts is entitled to that. • The state law provides in a de -annexation context is that he would first have to get a Resolution from Fulton County saying they would agree to accept him in the unincorporated territory so that is the first thing he would need to do. • He would then bring it to Council to vote on. Dennis Potts pp" • He has not made a written request for that Resolution but he has talked to Lynn Riley and he would like to go that direction. • If she is willing to do that then he would move forward and ask Council to vote. Councilmember Tart • Asked if Mr. Potts would need to get the whole Board of County Commissioners on that Resolution. City Attorney Davis • It would need to be a Resolution of the majority vote from Fulton County. • If a piece of property is going into the County then the County has to agree to serve it. City Clerk Marchiafava • She has been asked if they can move item #5 to discuss now. • We have a consultant present that has a very long drive back home after he makes his presentation. • That item would be Discussion on Solid Waste Plan Agreement. Public Works Director Drake • This is a requirement by DCA and is suppose to be done by December of 2008. • We will not be done by then. • We will get an extension. • There will be a contract coming forward for our presumptive consultant The Ecological Planning Group. • We are fast tracking starting this project. PON • Our first public meeting will be September 4, 2008. Ed DiTomasso with the Ecological Planning Group • Thanked Mayor and Council for letting him present this plan. • Will be contracted next week to get started on the plan. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 26 of 36 Power Point Presentation flection posal id Limitations 0" Moll �,Vo id Waste Management Plan Introduction I Waste'Stream Analysis s Planning Area Unique Conditions and/or Seasonal Natural Resources Variations Population (ex. Spring/Fall Yard Trimmings) Seasonal Population ' Waste Generating Disasters (Hurricanes, Major Rain Events) Number of Households Types of businesses/industries Economic Activity • DisposalRates 0" Moll Jnr Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 27 of 36 U011ectil Illegal Dumping & Littering J::� Needs and Goals Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 28 of 36 Environmental Limitations: • Water Supply Watersheds • Gro • PR Land U Solid Waste Management lea n I�WF�4 v71lCa b Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 29 of 36 Volid'Waste Management Plan Solid Waste So-*ttakeholder Committee Project Team • City Manager • Public Works Din . C Itants e Member point one person each (7) it (1) Beautiful (1) airs (1) ;ion (1) fitment ittee Meetings (5) Stream Analysis' m Analysis fication of Needs and Goals mentation Proaram Public Works Director Drake • The next element is the Solid Waste Stake Holder Advisory Committee. .. • There is two elements, the project team which is he, Alice, City Manager Beckett and the consultants. • They would like to use that committee to get direct input from the public • They will have public hearings and multiple meetings. • They would like to get input from Council in regards to each Councilmember would appoint someone to the committee. 0 They would have waste management because of the Chatowith Land Fill on the committee. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 30 of 36 • They would have two waste haulers • They would have DCA and ARC, the reviewers of this plan we would invite to be on this committee also. • He would also like to get input as to whether they could make this a study committee which would not need any approval or they can make it an official committee with a date of next June for the end of this plan. Councilmember Thurman • Asked if we could come up with at better name than Solid Waste Stake Holder Committee. • See if we can make it sound like something people really want to join. Councilmember Tart • Along those same lines in trying to get a volunteer to help with this committee can we get some point on what the members would be doing? Ed DiTomasso • We will provide a fact sheet and will also have an invitation letter and something that gives them more information about what it is. Public Works Director Drake • Time is of the essence on this so they will make sure Council gets those bullet points. • We will need the appointees so they can invite them before September 4`h. Councilmember Tart • They have seven waste haulers in his neighborhood and it is degrading the streets rapidly. • Asked if the committee would be addressing those types of issues. • Trash cans are out every day except Saturday and Sunday because we have trash collectors there everyday. Ed DiTomasso • They will absolutely address that. • It is something that came up the first time he sat down with the City to talk about it. • There are different options to address that. • He thinks there are 10 to 12 different haulers on the cities website that are approved. • The most equitable way to do it may be to create zones so waste management might have six thousand customers out of 20 thousand in the city. • The city could be broken down into zones where they still have the same customer base but they only do it on certain days. • Other ideas are to try and stream line it and have the City have a more active roll in facilitating collections so they can narrow the amount of haulers or state only certain days of the week. Councilmember Lusk • Did we not pass a Resolution a year or so ago where we were going to team up with the City of Roswell or at least be able to use their recycling and if so how would this plan relate to any agreement with them. Public Works Director Drake • We have the Ordinance with each of our haulers. • If we have any agreements like Councilmember Lusk mentioned they would be pieces that our consultant would look at and make recommendations. • This is our chance to look over the next ten years on what we want to do with recycling, waste management etcetera. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 31 of 36 City Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda item. Discussion on amendments to the Rules and Procedure for the City Council Meetings and Public Hearings. City Manager Beckett • Reviewed the Rules and Procedures in conjunction with some of the comments that have been made in the past in order to better define some of the issues that have been raised. • He saw the back and forth on the subject of legal opinion versus no legal opinion. • He would simply remind Council that the Rules and Procedures are the Rules and Procedures. • That is how we got into the discussion over physically present versus present, by some other means to begin with. • No one is questioning anyone's legal opinion. • We have put in front of you a number of statements regarding the requirement that you physically be in the room at the site in order to vote. • We have some survey results; none of which to his knowledge was discussed with City Attorneys. • There are a couple of comments by municipal attorneys and there is also a comment made by Ted Baggett who has been GMA's assistant General Council for a number of years. • What we are saying is that you by rule can determine that you need to be physically in the room in order to vote. • We have made several changes that we propose for your consideration. • That is the one of the bigger items for your consideration; whether you want to allow the members of Council and or the Mayor to vote from some location other than being here. Mayor Lockwood • Would like to discuss that before we go forward. • He supports this. • Allowing someone to call in can cause more distraction. • We have a clause in there that if there are extenuating circumstances or an emergency or we needed to have some call ins then we could suspend the rules and do that. Councilmember Hewitt Thinks the whole goal of these changes are to make our meeting more effective, efficient, and orderly. Thinks that would be one of the major ways to accomplish those things so he would like for people to be here. Councilmember Thurman • She supports the change. • She feels it is important that they all have as much information as possible in which to make decisions and we can only gather that information by seeing whatever presentations may be that evening. • She thinks it is best if they are physically here. • We do not allow people to call in and make presentations to us or an applicant cannot call in on a zoning case so we owe them the face to face time of being here. Councilmember Tart • He is fine with that. Councilmember D'Aversa • She is also fine with it. Councilmember Lusk 0 Certainly, he is in support of this. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 32 of 36 • The term precedent keeps coming up and he would hate to set a precedent where we allow call in's in some situations. *a Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Supports not voting by call in. • As a matter of clarification; in extenuating circumstances where a vote is not involved; is there an opportunity to call in and listen in that way and what is it with Executive Sessions. • In the past our prior attorneys had said that during Executive Session we could have some one call in so she would like to verify in those instances as well. Mayor Lockwood • His perspective is this would be for Executive Sessions and meetings. • If there were special circumstances or emergencies then we would have the opportunity to suspend the rules and call in. City Manager Beckett • We can insert something in the rules to say no participation. • One of the things he is pushing very hard is the granicus system; if it is approved; anyone can dial in live and in person. • If you have internet you will be able to see and hear and it also archives so you can watch at you convenience. Councilmember Tart • Asked if we want to suspend Roberts Rules of Order. Normally, that requires a first, a second and then a 2/3 vote, if he is reading it correctly is it saying there is a first, second, discussion and a unanimous vote or are we talking about suspending other rules. mo City Manager Beckett • This was untouched by us. • This is what you have had all along. City Attorney Davis • It appears to read unanimous approval. • We have not reviewed these. • It is a little unusual to her to suspend the rules but she agrees with the City Manager that this has been there. City Manager Beckett • On page 5 of 7 at the top established by the City Manager and City Clerk, we wanted greater flexibility to make request of staff and require things of staff to get things to us rather than locking us in to a specific process. • It gives us the proper flexibility to properly manage the agenda. Councilmember Tart • Asked if that would be pursuant to a Resolution which requires seven days. City Manager Beckett • That is correct. P9 Councilmember Zahner Bailey 0 Asked what it used to be versus what this is. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 33 of 36 City Clerk Marchiafava • It was a chart that said this is where it starts and it could go here or go there. It was a defined process .. from start to finish. • We have refined that and improved it and Council passed an Ordinance. • We just put established by the City Manager and City Clerk instead of every time we change the Rules of Procedure; having to change the process. Councilmember Zahner Bailey So it still requires the seven days. As an example, if there were a Council Meeting; it is not as though it could get added without the seven day review? City Clerk Marchiafava • No, that is an Ordinance so we would continue with that. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She is trying to understand how this is different. Mayor Lockwood • It is not the time. We are still protected by the seven day time, but it gives them the flexibility in setting the agenda. They still have to have the seven days. PON City Clerk Marchiafava • Before it was just a chart that said this is where you start and it was a diagram of all these little boxes and tom. every time we change something or we pass something; this little process had to be completely redone every time. • Sometimes the processes change but not in conflict with the seven day rule. Councilmember Thurman She is sure there are some things you can get through in half a day and other things you may need two or three months just depending on what the agenda item was. City Manager Beckett • That is correct. • Sometimes the more rules and regulations we adaptable to circumstances that may arise. impose on ourselves, the less flexibility we have to be Councilmember Thurman • Prefer those decisions be made by the City Manager and not Council. Mayor Lockwood • We will still get the same information. • It is internal process with staff. City Manager Beckett A""' • Most of these that we will be talking about and it is strictly up to Council but we inserted some language to reinforce a couple of things. • This is a neutral statement, but it is a statement. The Mayor is responsible for running meetings in an orderly efficient manner. • His background is if we had a work shop that lasted as long as this one had for example they would be chasing him out of the room. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 34 of 36 • i ney wantea everything succinct, concise, and to move very quickly so that meetings did not drag on for an extended period of time so they inserted a few things. • He is prefacing his remarks. • He has always been under pressure and he says always because it is true; to move meeting along and ensure they are efficiently run so they inserted a couple of words in section 16. • The work succinctly which means clear and concise. • It is not a derogatory term but just means you should speak what is on your mind, to the point and move on. • On the next to the last line you will see that the Mayor shall rather than may it goes from an option that he is now required to rule on a question if a point of order is raised or if he wants to for whatever reason, he can allow Council then to debate the issue and decide it by majority vote on that question of rule. • It put some pressure on the Mayor to rule and move the meeting along. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if there were any questions on that. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked Mayor Lockwood if just because it is obviously his meeting; the shall versus the may what strikes her in reading that is that it removes his discretion as the Mayor of the meeting. • She understands the intent but she would not want to remove the discretion of the Mayor. City Manager Beckett • If you think about it, it does not necessarily though because he still has an out. • He can still defer to the Council and the majority can rule but he cannot not rule on it. • It just solidifies the fact that he has to make a decision. • He either has to rule on it or turn it over to Council to make a decision on a point of order. Councilmember Lusk There seems to be a conflict in there. Passage of a motion shall require the affirmative vote of a majority of those voting at which a quorum is physically present at the site of the meeting unless otherwise specified in the Charter as it pertains to voting by the Mayor. A majority shall mean at least 4 of the Councilmembers including the Mayor. Councilmember Thurman • Thinks the Charter states the Mayor is a Councilmember for voting purposes. Councilmember Lusk • He read it to mean that the Mayor must be included in a quorum. City Clerk Marchiafava • It means that he could be included in a quorum. Councilmember Hewitt • Maybe it should read Mayor or presiding officer. City Manager Beckett oft • That is a good suggestion and we can clarify that and bring it back. • Section 19 C again shall. rrW • This is a situation where the individual comes up and attacks any or all of you and they are completely out of order the Mayor has an affirmative responsibility to act in that case. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 35 of 36 • No one needs to be subjected to that. • It requires the Mayor to set the person down. Councilmember Tart • So the Mayor can rule them out of order but then the next sentence says a majority vote of the City Council shall rule on the point of order so basically it says that the Mayor can rule or if it is a point of order made by Council then it is a vote of all Councilmembers. City Manager Beckett • It is a majority vote. • Page 7 of 7 may be controversial but again he goes back to the granicus system. • There are very few places that require verbatim minutes. • One of the things he observed when he first came here was Francesca and Fonda spending an inordinate amount of time typing 70 and 80 pages of minutes. • He understands why they would do that and he understand that there are some circumstances where it may be necessary to have verbatim minutes in conflict zoning cases and things of that nature but by and large he thinks we can get by without them. • We have visual and an audio record and as long as the minutes capture what you are trying to do he thinks that is ok. • When and if we get this granicus system and we have the safe guards and security that we have for future storage; what better record could we have. • It is a TV quality tape so we can go back at any point in time. • Jeanette, Alice and he feel comfortable recommending that we discontinue the practice of verbatim minutes, but insist on good quality minutes. Councilmember Tart • He feels we are doing this prematurely. • He is not opposed to it providing we have the technology available to ensure a maximum open and transparent government. • When we get the streaming video and we can search the cases as they come up then he would be open to this but all of us at one time or another have gotten a copy of the CD and know that when someone is not talking into the microphone you cannot hear them. • There is no way to search so if you want to find a quote or certain conditions on a CD you have to listen to a six hour meeting to even figure out where to go because it is not searchable. • He would like for them to consider at least having verbatim minutes for the zoning agenda items and when we get the streaming video to re -address this. • Does not feel we have the technology right now to provide the transparent government we need. Mayor Lockwood • We could talk about what the timing would be to enact these changes versus when we would have the technology but on the flip side he also sees the concern in staff and the time and money and effort we spend day after day doing the minutes. • It is a pain to listen to a six hour meeting but if there is something really important that someone needs, they can do that versus having to spend the staff time on that. City Manager Beckett • Asked how often it is necessary to go back and get that kind of specificity out of the minutes. Councilmember Tart 0 He is not just speaking for himself but also for the citizens. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, August 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm Page 36 of 36 %-ity %-ierx iviarcniatava • She understands the concern and normally if someone does call the office staff will find that portion of the tape and a lot of times we will only down load that portion of the meeting. • With the software that we have for the record you can document where that issue starts. • In the beginning, she was receiving a lot of request for copies of meetings and that has trickled down to approximately 10 percent compared to where it was. • A lot more people are coming to the meetings and she thinks the minutes are clear. • The zoning verbatim minutes was a request from Tom Wilson because of an experience with him in Roswell. • His staff was having a hard time trying to listen to the tapes because they were on a cassette. • We are working on trying to get the Council to approve some better technology so they do not have to talk directly into the microphone. • It is proposed by my office and the IT department. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She is concerned about verbatim minutes as it relates to zoning cases. • Recently we have had some cases where it would be helpful to go back and recount the specifics of cases that we needed fact specifics. • Sometimes we have meeting where we do not have zoning cases. • She would like to continue to have verbatim minutes until we get the new technology. City Clerk Marchiafava We do not have a problem with waiting. Mayor Lockwood • Thanked City Manager Beckett and City Clerk Marchiafava for looking into these issues. City Clerk Marchiafava read the last agenda item. Discussion on Local Assistance Road Program LARP submittal Public Works Director Drake • Council was given a map of about 4 miles of local roads that they will be submitting to the state. • The fiscal year 2009 LARP submittal is due August 290'. • Our approach this year is to hit 3 local neighborhoods. • One off Birmingham Highway, one off Thompson Road and one off Bethany Bend. • The PCI scores are below 30 which are areas that need the most. • It is about 50% over what the state is going to give us based on our population and road miles. • That is what we will be submitting to the state this year. • We are trying to minimize our mobilization cost. After no further business, the Work Session adjourned at 10:15 p.m. Date Approved: September 3, 2008 oJeate R. Marchiafava, City Clerk Joe Lockwo yor