Mayor and Council Meeting
Video Transcript
Duration: 225 minutes
Speakers: 26
Good evening and welcome to the City Of Roswell mayor and city council meeting of Monday, 05/12/2025.
I'm mayor Kerr Wilson. I'd like to acknowledge and introduce
my colleagues and council members present.
Council member Sarah Beeson,
council member Christine Hall,
council member Anpro Tam Lee Hills,
council member David Johnson,
council member William Mortland,
and council member Alan Sells.
This time, I'll turn the meeting over to our city administrator, mister Randy Knighton. Mister Knighton will explain how the meeting is run. Mister Knighton, sir. Thank you, Mayor Wilson, and good evening, everyone.
In accordance with section chapter 3.7
of the city code, the city council shall hold regular public meetings.
The purpose of city council meetings are for the public to participate and
speak on agenda items, which which constitute formal decisions by the elected body. These items are listed on the published agenda, which can be accessed via the city website prior to the meeting. This is a public meeting and some items do require a formal public hearing. An important component of city council meetings are to hear directly from residents
on the items listed on the agenda, and residents are at the top of the organizational chart for the city of Roswell.
Therefore, public comments and questions are essential for mayor and council to consider
as they contemplate each decision. If you would like to speak on an item, we ask that you fill out a comment card which can be accessed at the back of the room. In order to ensure an accurate record of the meeting, we ask that everyone
observe the principles of mutual respect and the appropriate demeanor during the
the
you exit the rear doors to the vestibule area.
In addition, we ask that you silence any electronic devices,
during the course of the meeting this evening.
The mayor is the presiding officer and will ensure the orderly exchange of comments
and questions leading to decisions by the elected body. We encourage everyone
in attendance and the viewing audience to visit the city website for meetings and departmental information,
as well as access
roswell365.com
for various activities and offerings here in the city. There are a number of events upcoming
in the city which promote community,
physical activity, and leisure as we all make Roswell the number one family community
in America.
Mayor Wilson.
Thank you, mister Knighton. As always,
Roswell is blessed to have, in my estimation
and experience as a lifelong
Episcopalian, one of the finest Episcopal churches
anywhere right here in Roswell,
on Old Roswell Road. It's called Saint David's Episcopal Church. I had the great fortune of raising my family there, my daughters,
and, attended,
actively from twenty two two thousand and four to 02/2017.
And we're very privileged tonight to have the rector,
of the wonderful Saint David's Episcopal Church, the Reverend Remington Sloan, to lead us tonight in the invocation and moment of silence.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson.
Let us pray.
God, you have created the vast expanse of the universe and the minute particulars of every living thing.
We give you thanks for your tender love and care for the whole human race and for each of us individually.
We ask that you would stir in each of our hearts
reverence for your work and the spirit of love and wisdom
that our lives
and our collective efforts might be just and compassionate
and that we might seek to order our lives in accordance with your will.
We pray especially that this might be true in Roswell
and among those who work and visit
and reside here.
With that end, we pray too, both now and always, that those who serve in positions of public
trust, and especially this mayor and council,
would be so governed and guided by your spirit that they may serve you as they promote the welfare
of all those entrusted to their care.
Grant them
every grace they need to pursue this your calling,
courage,
love, and lasting dedication.
All this we ask for the sake of your love and in your holy name. Amen.
Amen.
Thank you, rector and reverend Remington Sloan of Saint David's Episcopal Church on Old Roswell Road.
I say to you, my friends, if you're an Episcopalian,
you cannot go wrong by going to Saint David.
And if you're not a Episcopalian, you're welcome as well.
I'm very privileged to ask United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Carolyn Richardson
come forward and lead us in the pledge of allegiance, and I believe she's bringing a very special guest by the name Savannah to join her as well.
I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of The United States Of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation
under God,
indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel
Richardson, and thank you, Savannah. That was well done.
Lieutenant Colonel Richardson, if you would be so kind to stay up there, I am gonna ask the council to come down and join me for the first item under the mayor's report,
which is a reading of the esteemed veteran of Roswell award,
to Lieutenant Colonel Carolyn Richardson.
Proclamation,
office of the mayor,
lieutenant colonel Carolyn Richardson.
Whereas the city of Roswell
is proud to recognize and honor the distinguished service
of lieutenant colonel Carolyn Richardson,
dedicated over two decades of her life to serving our nation in the United States Air Force
with honor,
integrity,
and excellence.
Braz Carolyn Richardson
entered the United States Air Force in 1980 at the age of 26,
beginning her military career through officer training school at the Lackland Medina Annex in San Antonio, Texas.
Whereas,
throughout her twenty one year career,
unit colonel Richardson
held a variety
of vital leadership roles at military installations
across the globe,
including Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina,
Langley Air Force Base in Virginia,
Able Air Station, Kevlak, Iceland,
Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio,
Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas,
and Robins Air Force Base in Warner Warner Robins, Georgia.
Whereas among her many accomplishments,
Bennett Colonel Richardson
served as a contracting squadron commander,
deputy chief,
and later chief of the operational contracting division,
and was selected for the elite education with industry program at Boeing Helicopters
in Philly,
prestigious and competitive program bridging military and private private sector excellence.
Whereas her commitment to continuous professional development
led her to complete squadron officer officer school,
air command and staff college,
and numerous other trainings essential to officer advancement.
Whereas her outstanding service,
recognized with numerous military honors,
including the meritorious
service medal,
the air force commendation model,
air force achievement medal,
air force outstanding unit award,
and the air force good conduct medal,
as well as the distinguished administrator of the year award.
Whereas, lieutenant colonel Richardson
earned a master's degree in public administration
while serving in the Air Force,
exemplifying her dedication
to lifelong learning and leadership.
Whereas, after retiring
from the Air Force in 02/2001,
she did her service to the nation as a federal civilian in the acquisition
field and later retired
from the Federal Student Aid Office in Washington.
Whereas today,
she needs to give back through community and
time with her grandchildren
and participation in civic activities.
She lives by values that inspire us all.
Happiness
is the new rich.
Kindness
is the new cool.
Health is the new wealth
and inner peace.
Now, therefore, I, Curtin Wilson,
mayor of the city of Roswell, Georgia,
do hereby name Lieutenant Colonel
Carolyn Richardson,
an esteemed veteran of Roswell,
call upon all our citizens
to recognize her outstanding service to our country
and to our community,
that there is no higher calling than those who serve the United States Armed Forces. Congratulations, Colonel Richardson.
Good touch, Savannah.
I'm
I'm
I'm I'm deeply touched, so I kinda kinda gotta catch my breath
here. But, anyway, it's it's been a while since I've,
had to do any
real public speaking.
So,
but I do want to thank you
for, you know, for this recognition.
I I I I do know that,
upon you taking office,
you implemented this
recognition program for veterans.
And, you know,
with that alone, I have to say thank you because, you know, I'm I'm not one
that really likes being in the the limelight.
But, you know, I I say I do it sometimes for my family,
you know, because and it's for my grandkids because I want them to see that, hey. Yes. You know, what what you can accomplish.
And so I would like to, say thank you. I'd like to thank Janet Russell.
Because, Janet
nominated me for this recognition.
And I also have to say have to thank mister Rafael Francis because
he passed my name along to, to Janet.
So,
you know, I'm I'm thankful for that.
I wanna say thank you to, Katrina,
to Mary Kathryn because, of their efforts in in putting this together. They worked with me, and I I really appreciate that.
Special thanks to my family,
my friends
for coming out and,
you know, just, you know, taking part in this,
celebration with me.
I know that they're I'm I'm hoping that, I did send the the the live stream out. So I do have some family members and friends and friends. So hopefully hopefully, they I thank them also for for streaming in.
I hope they didn't have any problems with it because I told them I said, you know, once it starts, if you have any problems,
don't don't call me.
I would not be able to help you.
So I just wanna, you know, thank everybody because I'm I'm, everybody under the
sound of my voice because I'm I'm I'm deeply I'm deeply touched,
and,
I'm just
happy to be here.
I I guess and lastly, I would say that,
I love this city of Roswell.
It's a great city.
And and and again, I just wanna say thank you for recognizing me, and thank you for recognizing all veterans of this great city.
So I'm just gonna say thank you.
Okay.
Oh, I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Carolyn Richardson. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Next on the mayor's report is approval of a resolution
updating
the appointment policy of the Downtown Development Authority.
I'm gonna ask our chief legal officer and city attorney Davidson to to please introduce this item.
Mister I'm gonna recriz himself. Yes, sir.
Thank you, mayor. This is a resolution to update the appointment policy and reappointment policy of the Downtown Development Authority.
As you know, OCGA
thirty six forty two four provides that
deep,
downtown development authority may have one member of a city council as one of its members.
This council has determined that,
in order to ensure strategic alignment, that that would be a good policy.
And this resolution will update the current policy that's been in effect since 02/2011,
which did not provide for a council member member
of the DDA.
Perfect. Thank you, David.
Any thoughts, comments, or questions from counsel?
Yes, ma'am. Council member Beeson.
I just wanted to flag that I understand that this is completely within our legal abilities and that this is something that, the city has done in the past before 02/2011.
Just my policy standpoint to not have a sitting council member on the DDA,
it's just my frame of mind that if from a policy perspective, we serve as our own elected body, and I don't want to,
have the appearance that we're trying to pressure any of our boards and or commissions. And I understand that that might be a deviation from the rest of the mayor and council. So we'll be voting no.
Thank you, Sarah. Any other thoughts, comments, or questions from council? Thank you very much. I'll ask if any Roswell residents would like to weigh in on this.
Thank you very much. Bring it back to council.
Any final thoughts? If not, do I have a motion?
Would you make the motion, please, sir?
I'd like to make a motion to,
approve
a resolution updating the appointment policy of the Downtown Development Authority. Thank you very much, Kalfinger. Customer sales. Is there a second? Second. Seconded from Pro Tem and council member Hills. All understand the resolution in front of them. All in favor of the resolution, please do so by raising your hand.
All those opposed, please do so by raising your hand. Let the record show that the vote is four to one and the resolution passes. Thank you very much.
Next on the mayor's report is the appointment of Jake David, you can come back, sir. Sorry.
Next on the mayor's report is the appointment of Jake Corona to the Roswell Development Authority.
Does counsel have any questions regarding this appointment?
Thank you very much.
Do I have a motion to approve the appointment of Jake Corona to the Roswell Development Authority?
Motion to approve Jay Corona to the Roswell Development Authority, council member Moreland? Yes. Thank you very much. Do I have a second on that? Second by council member Johnson.
All those in favor of approving Jay Corona to the Roswell Development Authority, please do so by raising your hands.
Let the record show that the vote's unanimous, six to nothing. Thank you very much.
The,
next on the mayor's report is the appointment of David Johnson to the Downtown Development Authority. Mister Johnson, are you recusing yourself, sir? Thank you very much.
Does council have any questions regarding this appointment? Council member Beeson?
Not any questions. Just to build off of my previous statement, I will preface my vote with even though I'm voting no, I'm gonna give him exactly three seconds since he's jogging lightly out of this room. He's recusing.
I will preface my vote by saying that I trust council member Johnson tenfold,
outstanding person. I have no doubts about his ability to serve in this capacity nor his ability to serve as a council member.
It's
again, purely a policy standpoint of making sure that we keep the in my mind, the mayor and council as a body separate from our other appointed bodies.
Thank you, Sarah. Any additional thoughts, comments, or questions from council?
If not, I'll ask let's see. This is on the appointment of David.
Is there a motion to approve the appointment of David Johnson to downtown authority?
Motion, Baynton.
For David Johnson to approve the approve his appointments to the road to the downtown development authority. Would you make the motion for me, sir?
Let's see. We're on number four. Motion to approve downtown development authority appointment of David
Thank you very much. Is there a second? Seconded by council member Christine Hall. All understand the appointment of David Johnson to the Downtown Environment Authority. Please do so by acknowledging and raise your hands if you're in favor.
If you're opposed, please do so by raising your hands. Let the record show that the vote 41. Thank you very much and the appointment goes forward. Thank you. David, you're welcome back, sir.
I'll now ask Jay Corona and David Johnson to come forward and read the oath of office.
Got it right.
Yes. That's a very good point.
Alright.
And I'll
Yeah.
I oath of office, state of Georgia, county of Fulton.
Alright. Corona. David Johnson. Solemnly swear our firm. Solemnly swear or affirm. Solemnly swear or affirm. That I will support the constitution of The United That I will support the constitution of The United States. That I will support the constitution of The United
End of the state of Georgia. End of the state of Georgia. And And that I will in all respects. And that I will in all respects. And that I will in all respects. Observe.
Observe the provisions of the charter. Observe the provisions of the
Ordinances of the city of Ordinances of the city of Roswell. And ordinance
And I will well And I will well. And truly
To perform the duties And truly perform.
The d
Duties The duty of the office of downtown development authority. Of the office of downtown development authority.
Office of Roswell development authority.
I will to the utmost of my skill. And that I will to the utmost of my skill. And I will to the utmost of my skill. And ability.
Ability. And ability. Endeavor to promote.
Endeavor to promote. Endeavor to promote.
The interest property of said city. The interest and property of said city. The interest and property of said city. Without fear. Without fear. Without fear. Favor. Favor. Favor. Or affection. Or affection. Or affection. So help me God. Help me God. So help me God. Congratulations.
Oh, thanks.
Alright. Next on the mayor's report is upcoming events in the city of Roswell, and I'll ask our pro tem council member Lee Hills to give us an update on some on the many of the events that are coming up. Lee? Yes. Thank you, mayor.
As as usual, I will remind you if you have an event,
coming up or if you wanna know what is coming up in the city of Roswell, please visit roswell365.com,
and, you can find out what's what's coming up that's of interest to you. You may also register for free an account and post your own event. If you have a nonprofit organization with whom you,
serve
or a faith organization or a neighborhood event that you'd like to publish and advertise to the public here in Roswell and outside of Roswell, you may do that, and then it will automatically expire at the end of your event. So there's zero maintenance after you load that up, but it's a great way to get your name out there, your event out there, and get some publicity,
absolutely free.
Well, a couple of things coming up on Thursday, May 15, that's this week. We have the Fallen Officer Memorial.
Roswell Area Park Pond at the 911 Memorial at 11AM,
we will hold a solemn and reflective ceremony that's dedicated to honoring a profound the profound sacrifice of law enforcement officers from across the state of Georgia
who have given their lives in the line of duty. This year's memorial will hold special significance as we pay tribute to the Roswell police officer Jeremy Labonte, who we lost tragically lost earlier, killed in the line of duty
duty 02/07/2025.
Your presence will be would be a valued expression of support and remembrance for all of our fallen heroes. So please consider coming.
We have our next alive in Roswell. Can't believe we're already into May. That will be on Canton Street, our very own Canton Street from five to 9PM on Thursday, May 15.
This is a free monthly festival held every third Thursday
in the year from April to October. So come out, see friends, get a bite to eat, and enjoy yourself,
before it gets too hot.
Sundays in the park, this time at Riverside Park, it is come dancing with the band. That is this coming Sunday, May 18 from 05:30 to seven. Joining us as special guests are the Georgia Sensation Chorus, a group of talented women renowned for their captivating
barbershop harmony.
The Roswell New Horizons pop band is a 40 member ensemble, providing an evening of free entertainment, uniting friends and neighbors in celebration of the arts. Whether you're light on your feet, music enthusiast, or simply seeking a relaxing evening out, this event promises to captivate and delight audiences of all ages.
We also have at Riverside Park on Saturday the twenty fourth at 07:30PM,
Roswell Riverside Sounds, Bea Taylor.
Bea Taylor is a once in a generation talent whose live live shows have become legendary for those who have attended them.
Now her debut studio album will allow the world to witness that power.
V. E. Taylor is equal parts Lioness and Songbird. Music lovers leave her shows as newly converted evangelists encouraging others to see her.
And then rounding out this month, we have our Memorial Day celebration.
This is the ceremony that is the largest in the state of Georgia
and always draws a huge crowd. This will be right here at City Hall on our backyard green that face Highway 9,
Monday, May 26 at 11AM.
I'm gonna say this several times. It is rain or
shine. The Memorial Day
ceremony will include displays with music provided by the Roswell New Horizons band, a military ceremony, the preservation excuse me, the presentation of colors,
honor guard,
the singing of the national anthem, the pledge of allegiance,
a POWMIA
tribute, and the solemn laying of the wreath.
Retired United States army colonel Carl Hamilton,
also known as Skip Bell, from Marietta, Georgia is the guest speaker. He was inducted into the military veteran Georgia Military Veterans Hall of Fame in 2023
for his numerous acts of bravery during two tours to Vietnam.
He is a recipient of five bronze stars, two for valor, and 15 air medals, one for valor.
Skip Bell's extraordinary leadership and selfless acts of heroism are a testament to the uniform and this great nation he has served for thirty one years. I will say again, this is a rain or shine event. Last year, it rained early. I think a lot of people took that as a signal that it was off. It's definitely not off. We have a back up plan. We're organized. We're ready, and we are celebrating no matter what the good lord puts on us that day. So we hope you'll join us. It's a wonderful event.
You can purchase lunch there afterwards if you like or head over to Canton Street or, Southern Post or Oak Street and get a bite and just enjoy the day. So we hope we'll see you there. Mayor, back to you. Thanks. Thank you, Lee. Oh, I didn't say Yes?
His imminence, our mayor, will be speaking as well. So you don't wanna miss that. So
rain or
shine, come hear the mayor and celebrate those that we've lost. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Lee. Thank you so much.
There's one item left on the mayor's report tonight.
It's an update on the Economy Hotel,
and I've asked,
speaking about imminent, some of our amazing,
people inside the organization to come give us an update beginning with senior vice president and police chief, Jim Conroy.
Getting to Jim.
Bob, I'll call you up in just a few minutes. You're free. Relax for a few minutes.
We're gonna give an overview. As you know, we've been very busy at the Economy Hotel over the past week, but I'm gonna start and give a little historical overview of some crime in the area and what brought us to where we are today. And then our fire chief who led
most of the efforts over the past week is gonna come up and give you more in-depth with some statistics
and, everything that we've done
to, assist this community. As you know, the Economy Hotel has been one of our crime hotspots for many years. These are just some of the statistics,
going back through January
2022.
So 4% of our crimes against persons or what we call our violent crimes
occurred at this location.
It's also, 4% of our narcotics violations,
and 4% of our weapons violations occurred at the Economy Hotel.
Two of our six murders over the past four years occurred at the Economy Hotel.
We had 18 Narcan deployment saves. These are where officers deployed Narcan to save the lives of persons who are suffering overdoses
occurred at this hotel.
36 narcotics violations,
110
violent crimes,
four missing persons, and also seven missing persons recovered at this location.
Most recently, a terrible case, which I know we've all heard above about that occurred there about six weeks ago of human trafficking
involving two female runaways, age 14 and 15, who were lured
to this hotel.
They were sexually assaulted, abused, and exploited.
These incidents resulted in the arrest of six adult men, including one employee of the hotel,
on a variety of crimes, which include
human trafficking,
sexual exploitation of a minor,
enticing a child for indecent purposes,
sodomy,
aggravated sexual battery,
child molestation,
and statutory rape. These were particularly egregious crimes that the manner they were committed that many residents
and employees of motel
knew or should have known that these crimes were ongoing.
I wanna take a moment to remind everybody that we will continue to eradicate human trafficking by going after everyone involved.
If you participate in or operate a business that exploits the most vulnerable of our populations,
we'll be coming for you also.
Subsequent to our investigation, we discovered that the hotel
was due for their annual inspection by the fire marshal,
whose inspection uncovered a number of very serious life safety violations that required that the hotel be shut down as soon as practically possible. Again, our fire chief's gonna get into a little more depth on what those violations were and exactly why we had the timeline that we did to ensure the life safety of those occupants.
As of Saturday, the hotel has been closed.
The rooms have been sealed with police tape that we can determine if the seal or the doors of any of the the entrances to the hotel have been tampered.
A fence has been installed and they do the the hotel has hired security guards that are on-site twenty four seven.
In addition to that, our PD officers will be patrolling the parking lot to determine that nobody is going into the property and we don't have any additional incidents at the hotel.
We do also have access to the security camera systems that our staff can monitor remotely as well.
During,
the past week, we worked very hard with our partners, both government and private groups, to ensure that those who were displaced had a safe place to reside.
This also included we made
a special effort to work with the Fulton County School System
to ensure that the students who needed to continue
were in the last weeks of school,
and we we didn't want them to be interrupted. And if possible, keep them in the same school district with their same teachers for the remainder of the year. It's important to note some of the families chose not to take that option and decided to move closer to, to family members in other parts of the the metro area. But that was, something we paid considerable attention to.
I do wanna commend the city employees, volunteers,
charitable organizations, and those donors who helped take care of those who were displaced.
This was an operation involving many city, county,
and private organizations
working together
to provide an out, the best possible outcome
under difficult circumstances.
With that, I'm gonna call the fire chief to give his presentation
more in-depth on what we did. Are there any questions on some of the history that we had here at the location?
Lee, do you wanna ask questions now or you wanna come back?
Either one of them. Come back, if that's okay. I'll stand by. Yes, sir.
Welcome,
Fire Chief Lubel Troche. Thank you, sir, for being here with us.
Council.
I have to get set up here
and situate
myself.
Again, thank you, mayor, council. I like to start by
echoing something that chief Conroy said about what's a difficult situation
and a difficult decision that needed to be made.
And
before I start the presentation,
twenty five year career being deployed all over The United States in a lot of different efforts to include hurricanes, tornadoes, and you name it.
This was a difficult
difficult
and very fluid,
operation that we did.
I've also never been prouder of a community, a city,
and a staff
that had so much empathy, so much compassion, so much drive
to ensure that we had the best possible outcome.
I don't believe I could ever be prouder or will ever do anything again in my career that would make me so proud to see people come together to handle something
the way they did.
The presentation I'm gonna start with a little bit
of, how we got to where we are today.
I wanna let the community know to please visit roswellconnections.com
if you haven't already. Our communications team has done an outstanding job
of providing
very in-depth information
that can fill in all the blanks and all the questions that people have. So please visit that.
Pictures,
everything you need is there.
Now let's talk about the Economy Hotel. The Economy Hotel has a 29 a 129
rooms.
On the date, on Tuesday, the start of operation, we were informed
that a 111
of those rooms were occupied
by staff.
One of the things that we found immediately
was that there was no way to truly trust
or verify the information we were being provided.
Rooms that were
supposed to be vacant that were occupied
and rooms that were supposed to be occupied that were vacant.
So what we were doing was getting the rent log every day, and when we get that rent log on first day, a 111 rooms of the one twenty nine were supposed to be occupied.
The hotel could not provide the number of occupants.
We found in some cases that the occupancy could be up to ten, twelve, 15 people in one room.
So, again, the situation
was complex,
and it was very fluid, and it was very difficult to get
true objective information.
So now we get to where we are in the decision making process.
These this is a little
of what's a very comprehensive
list of what led us to the decision.
What you'll see in the pictures above starting to my left looking at the projector
is the conditions of the stairs
that people are supposed to be exiting in the case of a fire. What you can see is rusted out stairs
that obviously cannot support what they were intended to support, which is a lot of people exiting a structure.
In the center, towards the top of the picture, what you'll find is a big fracture that goes all the way across,
on the concrete
that's supposed to meet the staircase.
That is not structurally sound. That is nothing that can support people coming down, especially in masses.
I actually had
big concerns during the operations, just on the moving operation alone, that the wait would be enough to compromise
and make that staircase fail.
On the right side
is what is supposed to be the elevator to allow the residents, and there were many
that were not able to be mobile to be able to exit,
wheelchairs,
as well as people who had just had difficulty,
being mobile.
So, yes, in a three story structure,
on the right side, that's your elevator, nonfunctioning,
covered by a piece a piece of plywood.
In the next picture, what you'll find is some of the things that are supposed to be protecting
the people in that hotel.
Top left is what we found way too often, no smoke detectors.
As you'll find when we go into the operation, there's people that are hearing impaired, there's people that are,
visually impaired,
and
there was no alerting system to let them know if something was gonna happen in this hotel. Statistically,
everything was in place for something catastrophic
to take place.
Below that, you'll see an electrical box on the ground.
The reason I chose this picture is because one of the things that we know we wanna protect is our children. This is live electrical wire
exposed where children play,
and this was not the only place that that was found. It was found in a lot of places, including
where they actually took showers.
On the right side, you're gonna see a kitchen.
We have been unable to find any records
of permitting for that kitchen that was built.
This last slide, as it pertains to some of the things that we found there, and it is a very long list, and, again, visit the website and take a look at some of the information we provided,
If some of the support systems that are in these structures to help the fire department do their job,
this is where we would put a a hose line to support a suppression effort if there was a fire.
No one's hooking up a hose line to that. Now the record show that it was decommissioned.
When you decommission
something like that,
it has to be physically marked so the firefighters responding to this incident know that it's not operative.
That's the conditions that we found it in. So
not only are there structural issues,
and I have not gotten into mold and all the things that we saw, not only are there structural issues,
not only are there,
the aids that are supposed to help people in case of a fire, but even the stuff that's in place to help firefighters, like fire extinguishers,
most
I'm not gonna put a number, but most, with exception of one or two, expired.
So there was
no way
that we can ignore that. I have never lost so much sleep in my life.
I did not sleep at all knowing
that
the potential for a catastrophic
event was present.
So now let's go into the operation.
On 05/06/2025,
crews were mobilized and the command center was established in the Public Safety Summit Building.
I have to stop here and command
mayor,
council.
That building is currently housing some of the police department.
We've already put it to work in one of the largest operations that I've been involved with in the city. It was phenomenal.
An assistance team was, posted on-site at the Economy Hotel every day from 8AM to at least 5PM.
I say at least 5PM
because I honestly don't know a day that we left before six or 07:00 and even after that.
We said we would be there between eight and five. The actual hours were more like six to seven, eight, and sometimes even 09:00.
We closed this operation 05/10/2025
at 6PM.
We were there long after 6PM.
So what did we accomplish?
Request for assistance.
93 units requested assistance. Request per unit included, but we're not limited to housing, moving trucks, moving assistance, and transportation.
It is very, very important for everyone to understand
93 units, not 93 people.
On average, there was at least three people per unit.
This was 93 units that requested aid aid,
some level of assistance.
Student families, 12 families with 21 suit students were successfully housed.
Requests for assistance were 100%
completed.
Assistance requests, like noted, was 93 units requesting assistance. We counted
our best account that we could do, a 127
adults,
49 children.
We received over a 129
records.
This is very important to note, and I wanna make sure that everybody is aware
that we were receiving requests for assistance from people that didn't even live in the hotel.
We had to go through a lot of information, do a lot of vetting, and with our police department partners, a lot of intel to ensure we were providing
the right services
to the right people.
46 total animals.
Immediate financial support
as someone who was on the scene from day one and was immediately
tasked with ensuring
that this operation went efficient and effective.
The The first question I was asked by the city was,
what do you need?
And I said, we need some immediate funding to ensure
we can take care of the immediate need.
Within
minutes, the city committed the $25,000,
and we were able to immediately start executing on those requests because the city did not hesitate,
didn't pause, and met that need immediately.
Financial support, and I'll talk about some of our partners here in a second,
that we were able to raise with the efforts that this city put together,
partnering with the Drake House and the unbelievable job of our communications division,
$37,000
as of this morning.
The city came through and the community came through.
Services and accommodations.
We supported those that were visually impaired. We supported those with hear that had hearing impairments.
We supported those that had mobility impairments.
We supported mental health impairments to include social workers and calls to mental health clinicians for guidance and support.
We had professional clinicians
on call calling them to advise us how to best handle
some of these individuals
that were having some difficulties
because of this, operation.
We have support for emotional support pets
of the families.
We even took into account and ensured that those emotional,
support pets that the individuals had were taken care of. If you can imagine the complexity of just getting housing for someone with a pet,
that's that's complex.
We were not only able to just get the housing for people with pets, we were able to make sure that the accommodations
for the, support service pets were also taken care of.
We had zero
zero
pets
that needed to be handled by the Fulton County Animal Control. They were on standby the entire time.
This city was able to put enough resources and and enough help behind this that we were able to house everyone.
Not one pet
had to go, with animal control.
The on-site assistance, of course, Roswell Public Safety and code enforcement.
We had school representatives and including
this the Fulton County School Board, but, of course, we had individual,
representatives from this from the school system. Drake House,
Atlanta Fulton County Emergency Management,
Fulton County Animal Control,
Fulton County Continuum of Care, The Gateway Center,
Single Parent Alliance Resource Center, Fulton County Animal Control is under twice. My apologies. First Place Hotel,
Home to Suites, Hometown Suites, Gracious Plenty.
The effort
to rally these troops, get everybody together for one cause was just extraordinary to watch how everybody
dealt
with these, to everyone in need with compassion and help.
We wanted to make sure that we covered every possible need, and the list goes on and on.
So what does this look like when we operational
operationalize
it? So on-site, what I'm showing you above,
on the top left is, yes, a City of Roswell Van
that we were utilizing
to transport people to where they needed to go. Some people just needed somewhere to go. We were using our resources.
The city
immediately met all needs, and we were using
our people to transport people to where they needed to go.
On the right hand side, what you'll see is the daily briefing.
Every single day,
the teams would meet up at the command center. They'd have a briefing.
We know very clear what the mission was and we were accomplished a day, but we'd also have one on-site.
We wanted to make sure we met those that needed assistance
on-site, that they could see us
and they can talk to us.
Something else important to note here is a 129
rooms.
A 129
rooms
were contacted
every single day,
most days, two to three times a day. So we knocked on every door.
We left,
information on every door
every single day.
On the bottom
left side is where you'll see that we had tents as well as a very large trailer.
This is where we were doing our intake. This is where we were talking to people, we were meeting their needs, and everything that was happening on-site
was being communicated up to the command center through a special dashboard that was created
just for this operation.
We started the the platform,
on-site
after creating what the needs were, and Afsema partnered with us and brought their tech people, and on-site was able to build what I think is one of the most
comprehensive,
support systems for a mission like this on-site for us.
On the bottom right
is way above and beyond, and I don't think we can ever go above and beyond when we're taking care of the community.
What looks like a simple picture is this, food was provided, breakfast
and lunch
at times,
but breakfast and lunch almost every day. The community came through with food, and we were feeding people every day, every morning, so
we can meet that need. Also, what you see in a big in the box there is a hygiene kit. We had personal hygiene kits that included everything from soap, combs, shampoo,
so we can provide
some of the things that they may not have.
The operation center, again, was at the Summit Center
on the Fourth Floor, and on the right hand side is what
that
one room of two that were occupied.
One room was completely
filled with a
rehousing team.
Excuse me. That rehousing team was made up of typically more than 10 people, and all they concentrated on is rehousing.
And then in the picture above is your actual operation center where the incident command,
ensured that we had all the logistical needs for the day.
Below that are two boards that I don't expect anybody to,
be able to read, but on the left
was the goals that we were establishing. They were lofty.
On that board on the left, it says 50%
of all assistance by the end of the day. We know we were going in for a lofty goal, and we were able to meet
over 78%
of that goal on that day. On the right hand side is where the school board,
along with counselors, were working to make sure we accounted for every student family,
that was at that hotel.
The benchmarks that were established,
create a system
for the established plan's unique challenges,
and it was a lot of unique challenges.
Safety, we wanna make sure that both the residents
and the workers were safe.
100%
success. No injuries.
Maintain a calm, respectful, and nonconfrontational
environment.
100%.
To include
management,
those that were living there,
never had a problem.
Open arms,
lots of hugging, lots of handshaking.
It was incredible to watch.
Meet all the requests for assistance.
100%.
All requests for assistance were met,
and some were met beyond the request.
Secure vacant rooms to ensure no reentry.
That was quite the task. As you can imagine, you close one door, walk away, and somebody walks back in.
With the aid of the police department, we were able to,
put a system into place
that ensured accountability
over it, and we were able to secure
every day as well as the end of the operation
100%,
security of those vacant rooms.
Secure perimeter for no reentry,
100%
success. At 08:00 in the morning on Saturday, it started, And by the time the operation was closed,
the entire area
was
closed to ensure that was security.
I'm gonna close with, for questions. But before I do that,
I've done everything in my power to keep my composure here because it it's quite a difficult event.
Your staff
outdid themselves.
Amazing.
Amazing.
Difficult situation.
A very difficult dis
situation,
and
it's difficult not to be there and feel the emotional weight of what was going on.
With the team that the city of Roswell has,
anything is achievable,
and there's no question about that because what I saw out there is a bunch of humans
meeting other humans when they needed it the most.
I won't probably never see something like this again in my career.
It's something that this city, that this community should be very proud of.
I'll open up for any questions. Thank thank you. Fire chief, Bill Troj.
Thank you, police chief, Jim Conroy.
Randy, do we have anybody else that's presenting this evening?
No. I would like to make a few comments, after mayor and council if that's Yes, sir. If you'd like to yes, sir. Sure.
Thank you, chief Trocheek and, chief Conroy.
The one thing that I do want to emphasize, I certainly want to acknowledge and commend
the elected body, the mayor and council,
for making human trafficking a priority several years ago, a few years ago, two and a half, three years ago.
Since that since that time, the city has taken a number of tangible measures
to address human trafficking in a very
real way, including revising our application process,
providing a new form of, approvals,
for massage spa establishments.
And as a result, closed down 23
spa massage establishments that were,
operating either illegal illegally
or had illicit behavior
as a part of their business model.
Also, rescued 50 women,
from human trafficking and provided additional report or or support resources.
This is not an easy task, but the mayor and council made it a priority
and did not shy away
from what would be a monumental
undertaking.
As a result of that, the city of Roswell has made some tangible moves,
to address human trafficking in the city.
We are not done.
We will continue.
We will be relentless, and we will continue to pursue accountability.
And,
we will ensure that the judicial process addresses all of those who engage in human trafficking.
With respect to the substandard
living conditions, we,
saw and Chief Troche addressed.
That's another area in which we will continue to address through our various,
city resources.
And what this unfortunate,
very unfortunate,
occurrence has done
for our organization
is to refine our approach in how we address
substandard living conditions
and also human trafficking.
And so for those who engage in such, the the city of Roswell
will continue to move forward and eradicate and eliminate human trafficking
and substandard housing
in this city.
We will not stop,
and we will continue to pursue those
who engage in such activity.
And,
our teams, I want to commend as well, chief Trosh, chief Conroy,
all of the members of the team
who were able to put together a logistical
apparatus
to address such a significant issue in a short period of time. Final thing that I will say is this,
some people question,
the manner in which we
approach this issue.
One on the one hand, we had a building that was structurally
unsound,
and the integrity of the building
was in great question as chief Troche outlined.
We also had,
several adults and children
who would be displaced as a result. And so this city, I think, did a tremendous job in balancing
the need for safety
and also the human component of ensuring that every person was addressed
individually.
Their individual needs were met, and we were able to transition them into other forms of housing
as a result of this this, terrible matter.
So I wanna con commend the staff,
commend the mayor and council.
Certainly appreciate the hours that were spent,
contemplating and strategizing
and also implementing.
And it's and and this ordeal is unfortunate as it is. It's something that the city of Roswell can be very proud.
The manner in which we handled it,
professionally
and humanely.
Thank you, mayor.
Thank you, mister Knighton.
Thank you for your leadership. Thank you,
police chief Jim Conroy, fire chief Abel Troche, and I'll make some comments in a minute. But I wanna turn it to council. I know Lee, you had a question, so I'd like to start with you. Sorry. Councilor Lee Hills, pro tip. Thank you, mayor. And thank you, mister Knighton, and thank you, chiefs. I really appreciate it. This a clarification
question for you, chief Conroy.
When you mentioned the 4% of the crimes that take place in that hotel,
that sounds like 96%
of all the other crimes are all around the city. Can you that doesn't sound like a lot, And I just wanna I know what the deal what the deal is, but can you just describe that for those listening and that are here? Like, what 4% really means? Is that a high number there for this hotel?
The
the volume of calls there?
Or Yes. That is a high number for one address. That is one of our highest,
call volume addresses in the city. Absolutely. Okay. Remember, we've got a 100,000
residents in the city. Mhmm. So that 4%, that's that's a high number for that one for one particular accident. Because if one crime occurred at, let's just say, a gas station or a a corner,
that doesn't even hit a 1%. Correct? Correct. Yeah. And I just wanted to value add that because I don't think that's very easy to understand for regular people that don't do that what you guys do. And and the also another way that crime systems are calculated,
throughout The United
States. So that one sexual assault event that went on for several days,
I I read over fifth there were over 50 criminal charges filed
that counts as one
offense
in that number. So
multiple events could happen that so that's how the statistics work for for those. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify. Absolutely. Thank you, Lee. Council member Sales. Thank you, mayor.
I I'm gonna try to come at that just a little bit differently. If you expand the scope beyond that address,
just that, intersection and and
the backside of the Summit property and that that side. Could you talk about how much, of our crime reports come from, say, two or 300 yards from where we were talking about? So So I could run those numbers. I don't have those. This was run specifically for that address. You know, there's another hotel close.
There's the the food mart that's very close, and incidents that occurred on the roadway or in the the Summit property,
were not included in those numbers. Right. But is it fair to say that that is a high proportioned airy area
around that?
Okay.
Well, so my point is is that the beauty of the the meeting or the,
the event we had where we're sharing this with the public on Thursday is we are standing literally
in the new
police and Fire headquarters talking about this area. I mean, the fact that we are moving
you guys right there is such a wonderful thing. You started moving in, I I guess, what,
the first or so, right, of this month?
Last month, April 30. April 30. There you go.
And and the fact that we are we we're standing there looking at this and you guys are in the exact right place. And and just speaking for myself, you know, this is this is an issue of of great importance to all of us.
Johnson and I are new on this. You guys were on this before.
It's makes my makes me very proud to be a part of this group. And for those I mean, this the the interesting thing about this and I get didn't get to say this about David. I was pleased to vote for David earlier And
because
we as a city council
are so aligned, and I think people would be surprised how well this council works together.
And this kind of issue like this, we're we're all focused on this and the staff is just completely,
this is good governance.
This is what local government should be about,
and doing this through the the way we're having to do this with code things and things like that is is incredibly difficult, and it takes
diligence, patience, and firmness and you guys have demonstrated that to the nines. I really appreciate it a lot. Thank you. To your point,
all the media briefings
were done on Summit property, actually.
Good point. Thanks, chief. Thank you count. Thank you count. Thank you, Allen. Thanks, councilor Marcellus. Council member Johnson.
For all the families that had Fulton County,
that had children that attend Fulton County Schools, if they wanted to stay at the school that they were,
you know, like I think the elementary school is Esther Jackson. So if there's an elementary school student that wanted to go to Esther Jackson and stay there for the end of the year, was that
possible? Like, did they stay at the school that they wanted to be at?
That was that was the priority. I believe we achieved that with everybody who want Who wanted to stay.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, council member Johnson.
Council member Hall?
Thank you.
Just really, really wanna commend
your work and all of the staff's work. We,
had a a family friend in from Philadelphia who had lived all over the country
over the past few days for
a graduation event while this was going on and there was a lot of media and news about it.
And,
he expressed
to me that he'd never seen
a city response
to this
the human element and the human factor.
And just a couple of examples, just in our local area, Chelsea Gardens and College Park
condemned people out on the street. College Park isn't helping. I mean, nothing against College Park, but that city city didn't step forward to help those people.
Similar thing in just last month in Statesboro
condemned people out
scrambling on their own.
I don't know of any other community and and perhaps
maybe,
Chief Choas can can comment on this as as you,
reached out to see what protocol was. There's nothing like this. Even my my dear friend who's lived in many, many
cities across the country said he's never ever experienced anything like this. This
caring of our community, it's really it's tremendous in of the city,
of my colleagues, of of the staff, and the entire community. I mean, I just can't say enough. Thank you. And and maybe you can elaborate on that a little bit. Sure. Thank you so much, and I really appreciate that question.
One of the things that we did is we reached out to every colleague that we can possibly call to see if there's a playbook on this,
Seattle,
California,
Florida.
And
there is no playbook.
I don't know of any municipality in the country
that has
gone through these efforts
to ensure
that the community was taken care of. We could not find one. So what the what Roswell did,
which continues to do, is
set a level of expectations where we're creating the playbook, and that's exactly what we did. We did a comprehensive plan,
but we had very limited support
because no one's done something like this.
Thank you, Christine.
Council member Sarah. Council member Beeson.
To clarify, I'd received a question from a couple of residents regarding,
the state of the rooms and how these weren't previously caught in terms of code violations or to your point, the number of people who are staying in each room.
My understanding is that's a constitutional
issue. So could you explain
the reason why code enforcement or the city has not been able to enter the rooms prior to this past week?
Yes. Great question. So,
if a room is logged as occupied,
we cannot enter that room.
We can only enter vacant rooms.
And as you can imagine,
that in itself is very complex.
So,
we are prohibited from entering
rooms that have someone in them. So our only course of action is to enter those that are vacant.
Again, to the beginning of my presentation, we were told that a 111
rooms were occupied.
Those logs changed pretty quickly, and at a certain point, they refused to give us the logs for the rooms. So that made it extremely difficult for us to be able to get into the rooms
till we confirmed and pushed to make sure they were vacant.
Sarah, anything else?
Thanks, Sarah.
I just want to also say thank you very much to the efforts that the city put into this.
Not only financially, but the amount of efforts and boots on the ground. Myself and I know some other council members visited the site throughout last week.
It was nonstop
staffed. So appreciate,
not only the staff coming through and not even just our first responders too. We also had some, Rec and Park staff too also that were assisting on-site.
And additionally as well, just wanted to give one more shout out to Drake House for really stepping up and helping assist with this.
Flagging for the community as well, and I know that, chief Troche mentioned how difficult it was to ramp up a situation like this. To remind folks, the city of Roswell does not have an arm for social services.
This is something that the county typically staffs. They are the ones that have social workers. They're the ones that, typically address issues related to homelessness or displacement with housing. The city of Roswell does not have a department dedicated to that just because the economies of scale doesn't normally make sense for us.
But I think
staff and, collectively, the city went above and beyond to answer that call last week, and I just wanna say thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Castro Moreland.
I'd
like to start off by thanking mayor Wilson
for the immediate
$25,000
worth of funding that was that was approved.
That was probably step one in really kick starting
the healing efforts over there and and just starting off on the right foot. This is a very difficult
situation.
No question about it. And just having that financial commitment
ready to roll
allowed for the staff to shine.
And I'm I was I was on-site with the chiefs.
Chief Troach walked me around a little bit, met with Nisha from the Drake House,
started
just really putting eyes on the the total situation that pictures just cannot cannot provide.
Bob Regis
is another asset that really came through for us.
Can chief Troj, can you say something about Bob and his his efforts here?
Sure. And I appreciate the great questions and this is something that,
you could spend days on the amount of things that happen. So
thanks to,
mayor,
one of the request was to,
hey, something someone at a high level that can
be present and provide some of that maturity, some of that experience.
Bob was by my side from day one
providing,
guidance,
direction.
He was present every single day. He got to engage at every level from the command center to boots on the ground to making contact with some of the tenants,
we
we got to the point where Bob would come to me and by name say,
is this person housed now by name? So Bob was a tremendous asset
and stood by our side from the very beginning all the way through the operation
and every part of the operation.
Let me also clarify. Thank you, council member Northland,
and chief Troj. Bob Rivas is the former city
administrator of the City Of Alpharetta and former Fulton County manager.
And he's a Roswell thirty year Roswell resident.
And so he, brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to us. And whenever you have to stand up an operation like this is, expeditiously,
as we did,
we wanted to make sure that we were able to leverage every resource possible
and every form of
intellect and acumen
to be able to address this issue and support
support the occupants. And so we appreciate,
Bob and his efforts.
And, Thank you, sir. Dick Anderson as well played a major role. Yes. Yes.
Dick Anderson, full current Fulton County manager,
was on-site, of course, FCM and the Atlanta Fulton County Emergency Management Association
was integral in this as well as the Fulton County Animal Services Department. Although Although we didn't have to use them, they were there and and were present.
Dick Anderson is another Roswell
resident,
who was on-site on Saturday.
I know on Saturday, it may have been another day as well.
He provided a needed needed support. We were exchanging
text messages and he kept asking is there anything that we can do or anything in addition.
And so he was another point of contact and support for us. So, it definitely was
a citywide, region wide effort,
and, I commend, those local governments and those individuals for being a part
of this,
this process.
Alright.
So those those are just
very, very few highlights,
and and well deserved credit is being spread and shared.
But just from the human touch, because you you made the statement earlier about a human touch,
what really stood out to me were the police and the fire personnel
being that human touch out there,
helping with assisting of boxes, helping getting people from the Third Floor down to the parking lot area, helping them getting loaded,
supplies, whatever they needed. I mean, I witnessed it myself with with
police personnel and fire personnel just assisting in the room
relocations.
The fire department went above and beyond with with funding provided to
get vans and and transportation procure procured because we were under such a tight timeline
and just thrilled to see that we had a 100% success at the end of the day, and everybody was taken care of. And
bravo.
Thank you. Thank you, Will. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Pavel. Thank you, Randy.
I might save a few comments here for a minute, but I'm gonna ask if any Roswell residents would like to address,
this presentation.
Yes, sir. Roman, welcome.
Good to see you, sir. Herzlak,
810 Whitehall Way.
First of all, as a resident,
I want to thank to fire department, to the police department,
all the people who have been involved in it because it's serial case when I hear it from the beginning.
My question is,
we are a city.
Around us are five cities.
Do you have any
communication
in such a cases
if it happened there?
Because you close one place here in Roswell,
they just
can cross the street and go to Alfredo,
Sandy Spring. Do we have any corporations, so such a thing will not happen over there too?
I was a little bit surprised
when I hear the inspection,
the condition of the firework
of the condition of the hotel
and basically is danger for
catastrophic event.
Do you have any inspection
for other hotels,
at least
once in two years,
maybe the fire department,
if there is something
damaged
or inappropriate
or, like, fire extinguisher
that expired,
it's probably in all the hotels,
that someone can check it
and see it, some security
of the guests that whoever is there.
Is someone can do it
or write a protocol?
Yes, sir. I'm writing down your questions and I'll we'll get you answers as soon as you do it. Yes, sir. And I think there was good example.
They tried to call all areas in United States,
and they didn't find any book or any protocol what to do in this case.
I recommend
from you to write a book. So we'll be example from all United States.
We're talking more 4%
of
crime in this area.
What is the 4%
of what?
Of 1,000
crimes?
Of 100 crimes?
Because 4% doesn't mean anything
of 100%.
Numbers
are talking.
And we're looking for houses to buy. We see a crime. How much crime is
number of crime in this area? So I don't want to buy the house in this area.
I would like,
Kevin answers to my question if it's possible. And I want to thank you also to the city as a resident, what you did.
Thank you, Roman. I'll get you I'm a get I'm a ask I've got three questions here. I think, ask the staff to come up and answer those three questions. Thank you, sir, very much.
First question, I believe, was on cooperation
and the potential overflow to other cities.
The question is about, cooperation with other cities. The cooperation with other cities and what does this there's a spillover effect. Is there a spillover effect to other cities? And how are we communicating with other cities, etcetera? So one of the things that we do that's great, the police and the fire
department both do this. We have, North Fulton chiefs meetings. Once a month, all the police chiefs from North Fulton get together.
We meet and talk about issues such as this. Hey. What's come up? Is this something you've ever dealt with? And we discussed these, and this was one of the items that we talked about at this month's meeting of we're having this incident at the hotel,
and we share efforts
and experiences on that regard. And same thing with You do the same. Fire does the exact same. Just to kinda correlate that, Jim, you've been doing that also on the massage
on the illegal spas as well. We've been talking we actually been
we've actually
been in joint cooperation as well as assistance
on some raids in some other cities. Correct. Yeah. Our our SPA efforts
have expanded to the other cities. We've served warrants and, as you know, our lead investigator,
she's now been deputized by Homeland Security
to assist in those human trafficking efforts.
And she has become a resource actually statewide
for spa operations for police departments.
Alright. I think, any other follow-up on the question on cooperation?
Yes. So I just wanna echo what, chief Conroy said with cooperation. There's two things. One, the fire department also has monthly
meetings with all of our North Fulton neighbors, and that includes every division from community risk reduction to operations.
Also, we have a pretty robust,
communication
with the local emergency managers.
So what happens there is we're texting each other from all the cities,
letting us letting each other know what's going on and supporting each other during
whether it's a storm event or something like this.
So we're always collaborating
communication and planning with our neighbors.
Alright. The second question, if they can tell, particularly with relation to inspection at hotels,
what we're doing? Are we
in an aggressive posture
in terms of finding, these kind of things and or that might be,
evident at some other places that perhaps we have not dealt with? And I'm gonna turn that over to the fire chief. But if you remember during my opening statements, I mentioned that we discovered that this hotel was due for its annual inspection,
and then I'll let the fire chief talk about that annual inspection.
That's correct. Thank you. So a couple of things. We have a very
comprehensive
policy
and,
inspection cycles that we recently here actually just updated and established thanks to Chief Wolf here in the Community Risk Reduction Team. And what that does is put certain businesses and and the places that we inspect in categories
on,
on our inspections. One year, two year, three year, one year being those that have a high hazard class. This falls under high hazard class. It was due for an inspection.
We did an inspection.
That inspection revealed
many, many things
that had us in a room strategizing
on how we do a deeper inspection
that led to a secondary inspection
that revealed a lot.
Also, it's worth,
noting what was discussed earlier, and I appreciate, Sarah, you asking the question. There's some complexities to this, like not being able to enter,
rooms that are
occupied. So one of the things that we did is we knocked on every single door and we asked him, would you allow us to go in and do a safety inspection?
So
we look for every possible way to get as comprehensive
inspection as possible,
And we also have an escalation process.
Some of these things take years
for them
to get to the level that they are. So that's kind of the inspection process,
that we have in place for, places like this.
And then I think the third question,
Jim dealt with 4% of crime.
What is that number? What does it mean? Does it really mean anything to me on its face value? Correct. As I mentioned,
during my opening remarks also, I said these were statistics that went back to January 2022,
and that was 110
violent crimes I listed.
I do have them broken down.
I mentioned the two homicides, one aggravated assault by cutting, eight by firearm,
one aggravated child molestation,
five aggravated batteries.
Jim, can you tell people I mean, can you pass on to,
us as laypeople?
In your world,
and I think this is where Lee was going with the question.
When you say 4% to another fire to another police chief, that's a big deal. You guys say, like, that's a real problem. Can you pass on to us as laypeople why that's a real problem? What 4% means? Because the way people hear that, it's like, well, that's only 4% of your crime. That's it's not really that big of a deal. That's
So, yeah, 44%
is is a lot for one location. Absolutely.
That's
numbers are numbers. Fortunately, we're blessed in Roswell that our crime numbers are low and have continued to drop as we've talked about in some of those,
those series. But in this, this is 110
violent crimes. Those are crimes against persons,
which are those big seven crimes, assaults, sexual assaults, aggravated assault.
All of those are
crimes, batteries,
anything that is a crime from person to person. That's 110
reported crimes.
At that address.
At that address. That that's the important point. It's not it's not the area. It's that address. That's right. That address. That's part of what we look for for our condominium condemnation proceed proceedings
on the law enforcement side is what is going on at that address.
For our future cases, we can't go into what's going on across the street. We have to go with what's on the property
for what we're doing. But we can gather statistics for the immediate area and what are causal
for the surrounding areas.
None of these people live at the, the food mart, but you see a lot of them hang out at the food mart.
Very good. Thank you, chief. I appreciate it. Thank you, chief. Appreciate your answers to those questions. Are there other Roswell residents that would like to make any comments or ask any questions? Yes, ma'am.
Welcome. I prepared. I didn't expect to say anything.
But I'm very proud of the city and how we handled this situation. With everybody. Yes, ma'am. You let everybody know who you are and where you are. Oh, I'm Reva McNair. I live at 1205 Club Atlanta Lakes
here in the
city. 20 Some Years.
I'm I'm proud of how the city handled this because I was not very proud to see what happened on the news.
And
if most of you are familiar with that area, you know that many of the residents there are just a step from being homeless. It provides temporary housing.
My question is,
what will the city do
in in the future to prevent it from becoming this bad?
You know? Because that those are cumulative
violations,
extreme violations.
No No one should have to live like that.
So if an inspection was done a year ago,
do we have standard normal inspections?
Have we decided at this point to increase those inspections
so that we can continue with the location like this that would have been a very low good location for people to live on a temporary basis had it not been,
just gone downhill
and become a a crime spot?
It's a great question. I'll answer that question to some degree. I'll probably ask mister Knighton to join me in the answer to that question.
Here's the cold truth reality.
I think most of us who've lived in Roswell for a while,
you know, it's really easy to I mean, it goes it's a busy intersection. It's it's easy to forget about things.
I think most of us at Roswell, though, have been aware of that that that certainly that area is not only it's our highest crime area in the city.
And that's not a surprise, and it's been that way for, really, two decades.
And when I came into office in January first of twenty twenty two,
we identified several things that we were gonna do. And the this this elected body and this organization under leadership, mister Knight, have done the vast majority of those. We haven't done all of them.
One of them is eliminating human trafficking, which is the first and foremost thing. That is the first and foremost issue, is to eliminate human trafficking in this issue, in this city.
The second part is is to be real about what's going on in your city. You can't solve problems till you get real.
And the answer to your question from my perspective is kind of an organization. We had to have real organizational transformation. This city could not have pulled this off two years ago. It could not have pulled this off three years ago. And so part of this has been is a maturation,
really of the organization in terms of the sophistication
and its ability to execute such a complex operation like this. It's easy to go identify, but then what do you do about it? And do you have the ability to back it up? And it's taken a level there's a level there's so much complexity to this that if you heard Christine mentioned two cities here in the state of Georgia.
It's easy to condemn, but then what do you do? I'll give you example. This is one of the things I found out in the last three and a half years of being involved. Like, human trafficking is rounded about often in the political circles, and I had I know some townships
that will make arrests along the human along the areas of human trafficking. The problem is they don't really make a dent. You have to have a sophisticated strategy
around all corners
if you really wanna get serious about this. And this has been an ongoing buildup of strategy inside the city. And that's why I say, I'm now in a position that I can say with confidence to you is that,
if you're involved in human trafficking in the city and you're a business or you're a real estate owner, we're in a position to shut you down, and we will.
I couldn't say that three years ago.
I had to begin to build the organization along with Randy to get this organization in a place where we could execute at this kind of level. So the answer to your question is yes. You're gonna see more inspections. You're gonna see more inspections very intentional
and targeted toward those we know are involved in criminal activity, especially human trafficking,
and who are involved in substandard housing.
The reality was, as these things are going on our city and we haven't had the ability, and Sarah kinda mentioned it, usually doesn't fall under our city's purview.
We're taking a very aggressive posture on it. So, yes, you'll see more inspections that will highlight
substandard human substandard living conditions
and also with the direct intent. And I wanna make no mistake
about this because it's easy to get lost on this because I saw a story in the press this morning. I saw a lot of social media activity on it.
But I don't know what you to forget.
This story, first and foremost, is about the tragedy of people who want who had to live there. Can you imagine being a mom
who went to
work and had to leave her child, her daughter,
in that hotel,
probably with the knowledge of, one, all the criminal activity that was going on, and two, there was human
trafficking happening right there where she lived.
So I dare say we had a responsibility to solve that. I dare say to the young two women, young girls
that were raped multiply
again and again and trafficked and imprisoned,
that waiting one day longer to not take action was a day too long if you're the parent. It was a day too long if you're one of those children.
And this city is going to see take a more and more aggressive action because it's now in a position to. The organization
has gotten to a place where this leadership's in place
strategically
and the ability to execute what the will of the people of Roswell is, which I believe is to stamp out human trafficking.
Is this to to do what other people say. Look, it's too hard to deal with. We're dealing with it. We're gonna deal with it. We're gonna stamp it out. And, you know, I know I sound like a hard ass because I am. Because we're gonna stamp it out in this issue.
And, we are gonna stamp out human trafficking.
And I'll say again,
if you're a business
in the city of Roswell
or you're a real estate owner in the city of Roswell,
you best fix up your business and get out,
because we're gonna correct it for you. I promise you that.
And by the way and we'll do it through a multitude of means. We'll do it through fire inspections. We'll do it through comm dev. We'll do it through the police. We'll do it through legal. We'll adapt. We'll innovate, and we could continue to do that. And on your specific answer to your question, you bet. You're gonna see more inspections.
You're gonna see more inspections. We know where you are. We're coming for you.
And,
this is the first.
And I will say the real tragedy of the poor people that have to live in those places. Can you imagine?
I can't imagine that. And what's amazing is, to Christine's point is, this city did the impossible.
It brought its full resources in a compassionate way and solved the problem in ninety six hours. And by the way, underneath the rendered leadership of mister Knighton,
an assistant,
senior vice president Joe Pannino,
after the arrest, we made the announcements
ten days ago. We knew we were gonna take action.
We knew we're gonna take action.
And they said, hey, we need us we need a resource
to help deal with the practicality
of dealing with human beings as who we're gonna displace.
And so I asked Bob Regis, who this former city manager of Alpharetta for twenty years, a man of great,
renowned and ability,
and former Fulton County manager, I said, Bob, I need you to come in and help assist us in this process.
And he did,
and was a great assistance. But I don't wanna understate
what Randy Knighton did. I don't wanna understate
what,
Pavel Trost did. I don't wanna understate what Jim Conroy did. I don't wanna understate what Jeff Leatherman did. I don't wanna understate
what Sharon Izzo did. I don't wanna understate what Don Stevens did. I don't wanna understate what David Davidson did and Joe Cusack.
I mean, what this organization did is phenomenal,
and it is we're just talking about it like we're telling you a story. They should they can't they're too humble.
But what they did I'm glad you said it, Roman. What Pavel was saying is he looked and talked to resources throughout The United States.
There's not a model for this.
They knocked it out in ninety six hours. That's talk about a story. That's incredible.
So but on the human trafficking side, yes, ma'am. You're gonna see us continue to intensify that. We're knocking it out. We're gonna knock it out. Yes, sir. Can someone say It bears repeating that three years ago, it was a part time fire department. And and I I don't know if people realize that or keep up with that, but we were professionalizing the fire department. And it's that kind of work that gave us the infrastructure
or certainly made it a whole lot more, easy to arrange with the full time fire department. So
thank you for that. Got to your point. Look. I for twenty years, we know we needed a we had a part time fire department. We need a full time fire department. Largest city in United States with a part time fire department, literally.
And
we, $5,800,000
lift.
Kinda like what I talked about. Three and a half years ago? So guess what? We had to change the financial resources of city. We had to put the we had to put the pieces in place
financially,
from a leadership perspective,
from an organizational perspective, to begin to take action and be able to execute on this. So thank you for that question.
I I got a little note here. When somebody's gotta go to the TT Room. But before I go there, are there any other Roswell residents who are like, yes, ma'am.
Miss Ponticel, sorry.
Well, I,
I just wanted to publicly
thank you guys,
for holding the Economy Hotel accountable.
And,
especially, I wanna thank you, Randy Knighton,
for the way the work was carried out. It was thoughtful. It was deliberate and compassionate.
And most of all,
I share your concerns about human trafficking. You and I've talked about this over the years
and,
we both have been engaged and we've both been doing something about it. You and the city along with wise and equipped
local nonprofits and service providers were each positioned
in the area where each,
was best suited for the greatest good on the ones being impacted.
However, no one could have done what you did and that was to bring justice.
The god ordained responsibility
and purpose of a governing body.
I am reminded of women whom I've mentored, who thought there's no way out of living conditions they were in,
but then
the unexpected
happened.
Someone paid attention
and the lies they've been told to keep them in bondage were proven wrong.
People do care, people do see and they do something.
They were not abandoned and now they have hope.
And the next best thing is the culprit of their misery is held accountable
and no longer has control over them. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude
and,
to the work and let's see where I left off. And I am sure I speak for everybody in this room tonight.
Thank you all. May God continue to work in and through you to bring justice with mercy.
As you've demonstrated last week, and other cities follow your excellent leadership.
Thank you. Hey, Rhonda. Thanks. Tell everybody who you are and where you live because I gotta be fair here. Sorry. I'm Rhonda Sales and I live in 9028 Riverbend Manor with that guy right there. Outstanding. Thank you so much, Rhonda.
And yeah.
Any other Roswell residents who would like to address this item before we leave it?
Thank you so much for your comments. We appreciate the questions. We appreciate your thoughtful thoughts.
That ends the mayor's report.
I'm gonna bring it back to the council for any final thoughts or questions.
Thank you,
to the city organization, Randy.
You guys are amazing,
doing an amazing job. Thank you to the elected leadership.
Thank you for your unwavering
commitment
in knocking this out. All six of you,
none of you can hide.
All six of you getting it done. Thank you.
And thank you as a proud member of Roswell community. I think you you have a right to be proud of your your city and of your elected leadership up here and of the amazing team.
And I have got
word. I'm getting ordered here by one of the council people to take a ten minute break. So I'm sorry. We got to take a quick ten minute break.
See you in
eight it's 08:33.
I'll see you in 08:43.
Quick ten minute break.
Where's David?
There he is. Where's Sarah?
Welcome back, everybody.
That ends the mayor's report. Thank you, everybody. Thank you,
team.
Next is consent agenda.
Does counsel have any question or comments regarding the consent agenda?
Randy, did you have anybody that want to do a presentation on any items of the consent agenda?
I don't think so at the moment. Very good. Thank you. At this time, I'll ask if any Roswell residents would like to address
any items on the consent agenda. Yes, ma'am. Janet Russell.
Welcome, Janet.
Janet Russell. I live in the Historic Gateway area.
Items number
five and six
pertain to the Historic Gateway.
And seven.
I'm sorry. Five, six, and seven.
I wanna know the specifics of the requirements that we're going to accept 1,500,000
for the Historic Gateway project
for to contract
amendments.
And the second one is to accept funding for 3,500,000.
So that's $5,000,000
from g dot, it looks like,
because that project has been going on. And by the time they begin it, the traffic study will be twenty years old.
It will be irrelevant.
It is a bad project brought to us by the previous previous mayor and his
transportation
staff who gave us Oxbow Road project.
Remember, you will be known by the fruits of your efforts.
They gave us, I'll repeat it, the Oxbow Road project that was closed to our traffic for forty two months.
All it needed was a traffic light at the top.
Didn't spend enough money and still, Oxbow Road is full of potholes.
I think that's ironic.
So I want to know because
one, no archaeological study has been done at the historic gateway area.
Back about before any of you were on council or city administrator,
mister Davidson, I believe you were here.
We paid, we you've been here a while. We paid Gladding Jackson, do you remember that name, Gladding Jackson?
We paid them to do a survey of historic gateway area from the river to the square,
because I've been hearing since I moved here in 1973,
we can't improve
the area between the river and the square because the state's gonna widen the road. That started in 1973
when a man used to ride a horse down that street.
'73. That's fifty one fifty two years
I've been hearing that.
Now the city said GDOT's in charge of it, and GDOT says the city's in charge of it.
And they said this is a GDOT driven project, and GDOT says this is a RDOT driven project.
I really don't like conflicting lies.
I watched one of the previous GDOT or RDOT people stand in the church parking lot where the funk the junction is now, talking about we have to make sure everyone knows and thinks this is all about safety.
Safety, because we're all about safety.
It's not.
It's going to damage the environment,
you will not, You forget that over 10,000 residences are in that corridor.
Remember,
this isn't one of your nice little subdivisions that have a gate.
This is the real historic area.
Bladding Jackson did a study and told us, and I'm sure it was lost,
that the city can take ownership of that project and that road
as long as they decide they will maintain it themselves.
So the baloney that we've been told that it's a g dot driven project and because it's a highway, state highway, we have no control is not true.
It is not true. I'm gonna repeat that. I'm tired of hearing baloney.
Also,
we paid Caleb, I don't remember the name of the company, to come and assess our historic district,
and his one of his findings was he was fantastic,
was that is the most unique, beautiful entrance to any city in Metro Atlanta
coming across the river.
The trees will be removed on both sides, they will cut 70 feet into the national park and clear cut it, so that means that when we have the rain like we had yesterday, all the roots that help stormwater management
will allow Vickery Creek to flood,
cover Riverside
Road,
go into the water treatment plant and poison our river.
Don't forget they want to put up a thousand foot long 40 foot high sound barrier like on high on Georgia 400.
They want to put in a 16 foot raised median down the middle of the road,
and two roundabouts within a fourth of a mile of each other that will be rendered useless because they're already
critical mass,
exceeding critical mass.
So this, I don't know what five and six and seven is all about, but I don't like that it was just stuck in there. We're gonna get $5,000,000 because it's got strings attached and we don't need to give up our right to that road.
And none of you know that.
Nobody knew about Gladding Jackson except me.
Why? Well, you guys weren't here.
Okay, I get that, but it's my neighborhood.
If they were gonna put a 16 foot raised median down the middle of the entrance of Horseshoe Bend, it would hit the fan
or Roswell Country Club
or Brookfield West.
But, hey, it's just the area, the old part of town. And don't forget the Cherokees lived there long before white and black people got here.
No archaeological
study and that is required by the state, and I have been adamant about this, and I'm not gonna give up just like I never gave up about not moving the war memorial.
Thank you.
Thank you, Janet, very much.
And then we'll come back, and I wanna answer one of your questions or have the staff.
Any other Roswell residents who would like to weigh in on the consent agenda?
Sir Roman, welcome.
Number two,
about the garbage containers.
I wanna explain to you what it means.
Semi automatic
residential
house garbage. What is it?
I know only I'm moving the garbage from my house to the car for on Wednesday. This is what I know about garbage. What is this?
Let me automate it. What's
Yes, sir. I will any other questions? I'll I'll I'll get the staff to answer that question here in a minute.
Then I was a little bit surprised.
Okay. Anyway,
there's here two contractors
to do the job,
and one was 65%
above
the other one. And you select the cheapest one was correct. But my question is, how come
it's such a big difference on 65%?
It's different materials that are doing it or what?
Because this is unusual.
Which item were you? Are you asking item two, Roman? Yeah. Two. Okay. Yeah. Well, you wanna know the difference between the bidders and why?
Yeah. I know. Are you that's your question. Right? Yes. But my question, if they receive the same
item with product
that you ask them to do, because this is extreme
difference. I know 10%,
3%.
Yes. But 65%,
I don't know.
Then I have the same thing
on item
three.
You received here
several
beads on it,
and you selected the cheapest one.
Is the cheapest one the best one
or could be cheapest for short term and very expensive for long term?
It's like you have another bid that's just 3% higher
than you accepted because it was a small one.
Is there any reason just because the price is cheaper than you selected or quality of work?
What is it? Yes, sir. We'll get you an answer to that question here in just a second. Yeah. Now on number six,
there is
a financial impact. It says federal
grant
fund
number so and so. We know the federal
government is cutting budgeting.
How
you're sure that this you get this money from the government?
Which item is that, sir, that you're asking about? It's number six Yes, sir. Under financial impact. Thank you very much. Okay. That's 1 and a half million dollars,
available with federal grant
funds.
Okay.
So are you sure you will get it? Because they stuff I'm changing by day to day. Alright. Thank you. If you cannot get it, can we do it? Okay. Thank you very Thank you. Thank you, sir, for those questions.
Director Watson and director Littlefield, would you be kind enough? And senior vice president at ISO, if you guys wanna address any of the questions that Roman asked, and we'll come back and also,
answer a question that Jenna asked. I think the first question was on item number two on the consent agenda, Brian.
The approval for the mayor and our city administrator to award a contract with Sebring Services LLC for semi automated residential household garbage containers in the amount of $143,600.
I believe the question was related to what exactly are the semi automated residential household garbage containers? Why are we why are we doing this? Those are the containers that their residents have to put out their garbage.
And we put a budget every year that we have to replace cans if they need to be repaired or if they have to you know, they're just there at the end of their useful life. So it's just the the contract to replace those.
The the second question on why was the second bidder so high, their margin was too high. They were trying to make too much profit.
That's on you're talking about on question on item two? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. You just saw a huge discrepancy. That's correct. And you see these bids ongoing throughout the year on various number of items. And We can get a very large, difference in bids, whether it's,
unit prices for, like, carts
or if we're looking at construction,
it's not unusual to see,
discrepancies that that different. That's right. And you don't always necessarily take the lowest bidder by the way. Thank you,
Roman. Thank
you. He's answering the question. Thank you, sir. All right.
Number three, approval to award the FY 2025
Road resurfacing contract to Vertical Earth in an amount not to exceed $4,065,986.10.
Jeff, I think you heard Roman's question on that. Yes, sir. Thank you, mayor and council.
We did accept the lowest bidder.
We did verify their references. So each contractor submits references.
We called references. We called Johns Creek. We called Milton.
They had similar projects
this past year with them. They were pleased. They said they would hire them again. So we had no reason to not go with the low bidder at this time. I believe this was covered in committee. But, councilor Johnson, I know you've been involved in this. And, Jeff, you as well. You wanna speak a little bit about the value that's actually been and by the way, it's a policy of the city not necessarily to take the low bidder. Low bidder is just happened to be the low bidder in this particular bid. You want to talk a little bit about what happened in terms of a value perspective on this particular bid?
Either one. You want to go first?
Yeah.
We did get a great value on this
project for resurfacing. I think we have like 17 miles
of resurfacing,
for $4,065,986.1
you do see a big variation
in the bids.
Usually, that's availability
of work for the contractor.
So if they've got a lot of work piled up, they do put a price on that because they may have to pay liquidated damages if they can't finish the contract on time. So this is a hundred and twenty day contract.
If they didn't feel like they could finish in time because of the volume of work they had, they may put a higher price on that.
This contractor
did not do that. And like I said, we did verify their references and they were good references.
And to Jeff's point, the reason why we were able to get a good price is because we've changed our budget cycle.
We're bidding early,
on the work schedule. So back kind of one of those things from material changes of actually changing how you organize and run your government,
changing the fiscal year to match the calendar year made a difference in terms of the value you were able to get for the residents of Roswell. And I don't want to say publicly the number, but there is a publicly internally that we thought this was gonna go for and this number is under that number. Yeah. It's significantly more exactly. More more roads are gonna be paved with the $4,000,000
than than what was anticipated. Correct.
Jeff, thank you. And then item number six, obviously,
Randy, you may wanna address this one, approval for the mayor and city administrator. Yes, sir. Customer Johnson, sorry. I'd like to address some of the
comments made about items five, six, and seven. Can we come back to that just one second? Let me just finish the last question Roman had. I just wanna wanna answer Roman's last question,
which was approval for the mayor and city administrator to authorize contract amendments in amount not to exceed 1,500,000.0
with WSP USA Inc. For the historic gateway project. And I think Roman's question is, how do you know you're gonna get a million and a half dollars? Obviously, the federal government's in some flux. So why are you so
assured that you're gonna get up with that $1,500,000?
I think there may be some confusion in the questions that were asked.
The
we the city of Roswell will receive
$3,500,000.
That will be from g dot.
That is some federal money,
but the roadway project roadway money has
really we haven't seen that it's been touched. The 1,500,000
the contract amendment
is that we're asking to spend some of that $3,500,000
so up to $1,500,000
so that we can complete the gateway project
plan. So we need to still complete the foundations for the bridges.
So we need to do some geotechnical work, some coring so that we can see where the granite is, how deep it is so that we can get the right foundations.
We still need to do the landscaping plan. We need to hire an arborist so that we get the tree canopy that we desire.
And so that 1,500,000.0
is us asking to spend some of that $3,500,000
that GDOT is allocating to us.
Thank you, Jeff, very much. Thank you, sir. Alright. David, you like to kind of follow-up on questions five, six, and seven as posed by Janet? Yes. Yes, sir.
In my hands, I have the 12/16/2024
letter responses to public hearing open house. It's called POA. I think, Sharon, we're gonna put this on the
website, you know, on the city website at some point in the near future.
Miss Russell, forgive me. I was listening to you and try to go through this and find the answers for a lot of your questions. The last time a traffic forecast was done by GDOT was it was updated in 2022.
You know, forgive me going through a lot of this. Crash analysis was recently updated for March of twenty twenty four.
Also, I should point out that this road has a 75%
higher crash rate rate than the state,
average.
It's 15 pages long, so forgive me. I'm getting there.
Tree clearing,
would would have been minimized to the extent as as possible. Retaining walls have been utilized in several locations as long to project to minimize the project footprint and impacts including tree clearing.
And there's a 2.59
acres permanent easements required in the Shoddy Chattahoochee River Natural Recreation,
area, but it will not affect there's no hiking trails in that area, so it's not gonna affect the quality of the park.
And then there's a hydraulic study done,
and this gets really
mister Watson could probably read this in better English than I can, but long story short,
the the increases
of flooding is minimal according to the GEDAS.
So
and it's a historic project that's within the historic district.
A culture
resource survey was done by GDOT in 2016
and addendum report was done in 2017.
And I might be done.
Oh, it's in the South. We're we're going there just a minute. Yeah. We're going there just a minute. So, I wanted to point out that a lot lot of lot of your questions, miss Russell,
are are answered in this and I'm more than willing to give this to you afterwards because it's public information. But there you go. Well, I I don't know about,
the left hand.
I think what you said,
baloney,
something that I can't remember. I apologize. And I don't wanna abuse what you said. I don't wanna mischaracterize it.
I can tell you what my personal experience is.
I can tell you that council member Hills and I spent quite a bit of time
down along with mister Knighton,
and along with Director Littlefield,
who was not there and originally, thank God, he wasn't there beginning with us in 2022.
He got to miss some of the fun stuff.
And we knew Lee and I knew the mission when we came in.
We were educated by people who were very against the Gateway project.
We believe pretty much for the most part as well as the rest of the council, my Councilmember Palermo, Councilmember Hall, Councilmember Mortland, Councilmember Advancement Time, all believe that we were against the Gateway Project as we understood it, particularly those who came in office in 2022.
So we went to the state
and we went to the very top
and we began to make that pitch. And in that pitch, we got an interesting education.
The education is this, so let me be very clear so there's not a misunderstanding,
there's a lot of things that could tell rumble about.
This project,
the design of this since 02/01/2011
has belonged to the city of Roswell.
So the City of Roswell gets to design this project.
Okay. It is a state project, but the City of Roswell owns the design on
it since 2011.
And a lot of things have happened since 2011.
So Lee and myself and
Randy and Councilmember Palermo
and Councilmember Hall and Councilmember Moreland and Councilmember Vanstrom,
we all were in support of saying, hey, can we change this project?
We're not crazy about it. We got a lot of people upset about it.
And the state in very unambiguous
terms said, absolutely, you can.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the problem.
We will ultimately end up taking over the project and you'll lose any influence of the control and design.
We said, okay. Well, that's not so bad. And they said, you don't understand. We'll do the project the way we want to do the project.
We said, what does that mean? They kind of spoke to us in clear terms like, well, for us, it will become a transportation project,
moving point cars from point a to point b. We won't be concerned about traffic calming. We won't be concerned about how the impact is to the topography issues that you can concern. We will be concerned about sound walls. We will be concerned about any of that. What we'll be concerned about is moving cars from one point to the other.
And so
Lee
and myself and Christine and Will and Palermo at the time and Vanschmidt time thought about that and said, well, that doesn't sound like that's a great option for the city of Roswell.
That doesn't sound like that benefits the residents of the city Roswell because this project has been in consideration since '92 and it's been a lot of opposition to it.
So we said, so you allow us if we design it, which we have, and we said, we have some real pain points on this project. We'd like to have real influence on it. And they said, well, you're designing it. We said, we understand that, but ultimately, will you follow our design points?
And the state has been working with us on that. For example, you just heard Lee mentioned, There was a 40 foot sound buffer
there at the corner of Riverside and Highway 9,
and the state has agreed to remove that. That is gone. They have allowed us to take that other design.
The state has been working with us on narrowing the road in certain places
to reduce speed.
The state has been working with us on creating certain pivot points of real cross cross cross paths across the road for real pedestrian traffic.
In other words,
the state has said, look, the project is gonna happen.
Now do you want design in it? Do you wanna have influence on it or not? And I think we took the wise course and said,
if the project is gonna happen, yeah, we'd like to have we'd like to have some influence on it.
And so because basically, we're told it's gonna happen one way or the other, and I believe them. And I think the rest of my elected colleagues
then and now believe that as well.
That's not getting into the merits of the project, it's getting into the merits of do you want influence on something that's gonna happen in your city.
So I can't answer
the any of the past. I can answer what I'm responsible for and what my fellow colleagues are for the last three and a half years.
So if you see us moving forward on this project, the answer is yes.
We think it's in the best interest of the city of Roswell.
We think it's in the best interest I have belief and competence in the director of transportation, Jeff Littlefield. I think he's an amazingly talented man. I think underneath his leadership,
he's had real impact in working positively and cooperatively with the state, the g GDOT.
We value very much the relationship we have with GDOT and with the commissioner,
Russell McMurray. It matters to the city of Roswell, not just on this project, but projects across
this this board. For example,
Big Creek Parkway, looking, things are tied together, so I'm forgive me for going on.
I can't tell you how badly the city of Roswell screwed up that the elected officials screwed up on Big Creek Parkway. They changed the original design that you voted on in 2016. They changed it in 2019.
They gave $15,000,000
to the state of Georgia to GDOT
to move up the divergent diamond interchange.
They changed what I would call an East South project.
This council came in, this elected body came in and said, hey state, we need to change that back to the original plan, the original plan that the the voters voted on in 2016.
The problem was, it was a $40,000,000
project in 2016. When we began to illuminate the issue, it was now an $80,000,000 project.
So again, back to last couple
years, we had to go find the money.
And guess who helped us get guess who gave us $15,000,000
back, which is unheard of in government?
GDOT.
GDOT gave us our $15,000,000
back. And I dare say, Big Creek Parkway in the big scheme of things is very important to the city of Roswell. Hugely important. We didn't have a relationship with GDOT. We weren't willing to work with GDOT. That would not have happened.
So there's a level of trust that you put into your elected representatives as representatives of you
to do the right thing.
And we believe it's the right thing to do. We understand not everybody's happy about gateway,
but we think
moving forward with the design
that Roswell's highly involved in rather than just a state mandated design is the wisest course of action for the city of Roswell.
And we believe that that's the course we're gonna pursue.
And, and I understand. Look, people come against us and they're gonna be mad at us and some are gonna vote against us and I get all that. But we believe it's the right thing to do for the city.
Alright. Thanks very much. I appreciate it.
I think there's all the questions and comments. Any other comments on the consent agenda?
Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Is there a motion,
any additional comments? Yes, sir. Councilman Johnson? Motion. Motion. Okay. Give me on the on what? On the consent agenda. On the consent agenda. Second. Seconded on the consent. Motion on the consent agenda. Motion seconded.
Thank you, David. Thank you, sir. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda shows by raising your hands. Let it show that the record shows consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you very much.
Alright. Next, we're gonna go to what the regular agenda is and we'll go to council member Hall to read the first item, I believe, on the quarterly management review.
Thank you, mayor. Item number one,
the quarterly management review and that will be presented by our chief operating officer, mister Don Stevens,
perhaps along with our CFO, mister Bill Godshall.
Welcome, sir. Welcome, gentlemen.
The C Suite, two thirds of you are here.
We'll get the third up here.
Well, I got the two of them next to me and you got the other two upstairs.
Two thirds of your Two thirds of your Two thirds of your Two thirds of your
Well,
which one do we call out is the question.
Bad math. Right?
Math.
Sorry.
Bad
math.
Congratulations,
guys. Sorry you had to sit and wait so long. No warning tonight. You troopers.
Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
Okay. We're ready to go now.
Good evening, mayor and council. Really appreciate the opportunity to come present to you tonight. This is a continuation of what we reviewed a couple weeks ago in committee.
We'll try to move through this a little more briskly than we did the other night. It's, I know it's been a late night.
We'd like to start with, you know, where mister Knighton likes to start all the council meetings, restating what the vision for the city is to be the number one family community,
the nation.
Appropriate to start there, if you recall in our leadership planning conference, mayor, that's where you started. You started with the vision when we kicked off the planning session, the strategic planning session. We started with the vision, you restated it, and then we launched into strategic planning.
We started talking about operations road map, strategic imperatives. We shared a number of the goals and objectives that we have set for 2025 to lead us towards that vision. Most importantly and relevant to this meeting, we made a commitment to come back and give quarterly updates to to this group on where we are with our goals,
operational scorecards,
financial performance, kind of a quarterly business review, quarterly management review. And that's the purpose for tonight is to go through the first quarter status report.
I'm excited to share we've made encouraging
progress in the first quarter, both in terms of goals,
operations, dashboard. We'll go into quite a bit
of detail around that.
Also, we've had, again, an encouraging start from a financials
perspective
and our CFO, Bill Gadschall, will go into this in much more detail. But for the first quarter, our revenues and expenses were both ahead of budget.
We continue to spend off cash and have positive cash flow contributing to the to the bottom line. So good start. Still a lot of work to do for the year, but always you always wanna have a fast start to the year. I also shared,
in that if you recall in the in the leadership conference, I had been with the organization about a hundred days, and I shared some of my initial observations and actually some of my priorities,
for the really the first half of this year. Streamlining the planning process, decompressing decision making. We've discussed
what you've seen as a legislative
agenda and calendar on the back end for us as a staff has required a lot of rewiring in terms of our planning process and how we prepare decisions for this body to make. And so getting that pushed out to a sixty-ninety day window is actually allowing us to process decisions more quick.
Very important when you reconsider
the number of projects that we have coming through the pipeline. And so improving project management discipline has absolutely been a priority.
I've referenced this before. We have over 50 projects in in in in play this year at any given point in time between economic development,
infrastructure.
We'll go into that in a little bit more detail, but we are definitely a project driven organization.
When you are a project driven organization, that leads to the other private priority, which is making sure that we have a strong focus on service delivery and service excellence. We'll talk a bit more about that in in in this presentation.
And then along those lines, making sure that the support organization,
HR, finance,
and those organizations are clearly aligned and tethered to operations as a key priority. Again, we'll touch on that in a little bit more. But those are some of the things that I feel like we've really made steady progress on in the first quarter.
Mayor, if you recall, you kind of challenged the staff, challenged me actually coming into the first of the year about developing more of a strategic planning approach.
There's a little bit of danger whenever you don't have a three to five year kind of business plan, strategic roadmap, whatever you wanna call it. If you don't have that, you tend to lean on your budget for strategic planning, which can be dangerous, that can be problematic.
So we've spent a fair amount of time and we reviewed this in the leadership conference. What are the components to a to a three to five year business plan? You can see here the color coding black
circles mean that we feel like we have that those components kind of checked off the list. The green items are the ones that are left to be done and the commitment that we made as a staff was that by the end of this year, this would be in place. You can see here,
there are things ahead of us to brand strategy, which really kind of encompasses not just communications, but refreshing our value system.
We'll be initiating that here in second quarter. It will likely drift into the third quarter.
We have things around goals and objectives, financial plan. Clearly, we have a plan in 2025
for that. Stretching that out over three to five year horizon will be part of the budget planning
process. Again, the commitment here is by the end of this year, we will have a working model in place. Not that we can put up on the shelf, but we can actually use from a planning standpoint, and we would be able to review this in next year's leadership conference.
Strategic imperatives, if you have the vision, I've used strategic imperatives as kind of the roadmap on how you get where you're going.
Some people call these strategic pillars. Last year, I believe we called these enterprise goals.
But these are the things that from year to year, you have new initiatives potentially that come online.
But these things never change. This becomes the the framework for planning,
and you can you can read these. I I won't go through these for the sake of time.
Some of this is, you know, some of this I would say is new. But some of these things like economic development, infrastructure investments, stewarding with integrity, that's just rewarding the strategies that have really they've been in place, you know, predate me. So some of this is is mostly framework.
And then this kinda gives a different view of that framework. You can kinda see us across the top,
those strategic imperatives, and then you see below each of those imperatives
for 2025
very specific
initiatives, goals, and objectives. Again, that can vary from year to year. Certainly, not going to go through all of this. You saw this whenever we we presented this. This is part of what we went through in the in the planning conference.
But the two comments I would make about this as you look at the as you look at these
incredibly ambitious.
The scope, the scale, the depth and breadth of what's being undertaken here
is significant, not just from a project standpoint, but also in terms of setting up systems,
processes,
structure
to support the project activity that we have underway. The second item that I would point also is that we are leadership aligned structurally
to this framework.
So, if you kind of move from left to right here, economic development reports really up through and is overseen,
with senior vice president Jeff Leatherman.
Infrastructure investment is overseen by senior vice president Sharon Izzo.
Best in class c safety is shared,
with both chief Troche and chief Conroy.
Service excellence is primarily,
senior vice president Joe Panino. We all share in that a little bit.
Stewarding with integrity is our CFO, Bill Godshall.
And top place to work, which is primarily the people of the HR function is, the senior vice president Joe Panino.
We meet on a regular
we're tied at the hip and
the goal of that group, which we call the OLT Operations Leadership Team is pushing this agenda
through all the things that we come against in terms of
execution for the year. If you recall in our leadership conference, each one of those Senior Vice Presidents shared
in each of those areas what the goals and objectives were for the year.
I'm going to give a quick update. I'm going to go through each one of those and give you a quick update in terms of the first quarter results, what's been completed, what's on track. And some of the key focuses coming out of the first quarter were actually obviously midway through the second quarter. And so this has been revised to reflect some of that.
In terms of economic development,
senior vice president Jeff Leatherman gave a quarterly update on this just a couple of weeks ago, so there's no need to go through it. I would point out that one thing that, as he talks through the economic development
process, if if you recall, there were a couple of slides there that define the process kind of outlined it is incredibly complex.
We have 11,
what I call high priority economic development projects in play right now ranging from tens of millions of dollars to the city upwards of a billion dollars of value.
The lead time on those can be months, can be years as I'm learning, incredibly complex. And so when you talk about
that volume,
that level of complexity,
the reason it's the reason why it's important that we're re buttoned up on project management, things like scorecards, the things that Jeff committed to are absolutely a high priority here because we're really kind of moving from project management more into, like, portfolio management or program management. We have to be on point with those things.
Infrastructure
investment,
Senior Vice President Sharon Izzo. Again, I won't go through all of these, but when you tally all of these up for this year, we're upwards of over 40
projects that this team is leading.
These have a a level of complexity, all of their own.
You know, if you talk about when you have to talk about all of them, I would just highlight that Sharon and her team, Brian and Jeff, have made great strides in terms of project management,
developing a discipline, bringing the tools. Again, taking it more to program management,
portfolio management. In fact, the processes that they have stood up, we're leveraging for the rest of the organization. And so,
it's it's critical that we're on point from a project management standpoint because, again, if you're if if if you're not clean at that, then it starts to drift into service delivery and you can lose on both ends.
Best in class safety. And I had my comments prepared to to to
to share with this. I was gonna talk about the economy hotel. Everything was said. There's nothing left to say. You know, I think I can just share my perspective coming into this from an aviation background that had an absolutely high bar. When we talked about
best in class safety, that was like
that's what ruled the day,
for this team to step into a situation with with no playbook has been described.
And the other part of it too is really not knowing what what they were going to find out. I mean, stepping into that situation last Tuesday and then into Wednesday,
there was just a lot of collecting data because it was okay. We're we're gonna have to figure this out. For for that to turn into the response that was was created,
well, I would argue that that's best in class.
And so there are a number of things that are important here to discuss. We talked about,
standing up to, the summit, public safety building and those sorts of things, but incredibly proud to be a part of a team that has had that kind of part because this this team is actually establishing what best in class is. It's very exciting.
I would also just say let me go back. I would also just say what
allows and and, Mayor, you started to touch on this. What allows organizations in my view to kinda navigate through uncharted territory
leadership
and values based leadership. So just kudos to to chief Croche,
to chief Conroy,
stepping into uncharted waters and turning that into the the the result that was was delivered. That's that's best in class leadership.
Service excellence. We're gonna talk in a few moments about KPIs and performance standards.
As I shared before,
KPIs, performance standards,
operational reporting means nothing unless it's plugged into a management process.
So the highlight here is we have developed in the first quarter what we call monthly business reviews or MBRs.
We're taking that reporting, we're plugging it into those meetings.
Those are meetings that we're having with every single operating department, every single support department. And it's not just reviewing the operating results, we're also integrating the financial results. Bill and finance, they're they participate in those meetings as well. We also go over the the people metrics, the HR metrics, and those sorts of things. So it's fully integrated.
And, and it's really, really where you can end up really driving an organization in a completely in a completely different way. So,
and as we've discussed before, when when it's done well, this is really the kind of the lead in, the runway into the financial planning process.
Do it with integrity?
Joshua?
I don't get the clip? Sure. I don't get the clip.
So on the stewardship with integrity,
mainly
the finance operations of the city,
we have finalized our fiscal year 2024 results,
and audit findings. We presented that
just about a month ago
to
to mayor and council here.
We've also worked on improving the quality of financial reporting as well as the timing timeliness of financial reporting.
We are preparing our internal numbers,
within five days and and our accounting numbers within fifteen days of month end, which is a much higher standard
than you would typically encounter
in small, medium sized businesses and governments.
We're starting to get into the large corporate timing space.
We've initiated our impact fee study.
We've got the monthly
the bond dashboard is back up and running, so the monthly bond updates are in place.
We've continued to evaluate our grant strategy and our exposure to the
grant landscape. We feel, fairly comfortable,
in the types of grants that we have that they align with what this administration,
is continuing to pursue as as mister Littlefield mentioned.
There's not been any pressure on transportation grants, and we haven't felt pressure in other areas.
We're also, rather focused on our grant strategy, making sure that it ties to,
the pillars that that Don presented, make sure they tie to the objectives and goals
on our strategy card.
If it doesn't tie to there, then we have to ask ourselves why we're expending energy in that area since it's not a priority.
And then, you know, we're here tonight with the first quarterly management report with the expectation that we will take what we've learned from this process and make it better for the next report. And then by the third report, we should be at a pretty steady cadence and steady expectation.
If we're, going to aspire to be the number one family community in the in the nation, then it stands for reason we should also aspire to be a top place to work. And so this is primarily where we would,
house all of our HR and people initiatives.
We have a great opportunity here. When we talk about culture and and scaling culture, in my view, there are two mechanisms you have in an organization to do that. One is leadership and one is your HR function if it's the right type of organization. And I think here for us,
under the leadership of senior vice president Joe Panino, we have great opportunity here to really leverage and enhance what we would consider to be already a strong service ethic, but also bring ethic,
and then bring into that
performance and results based culture as well.
Operations dashboard and this is more kind of the COO side of it. Right?
Yeah.
Are we safe?
Is our product clean?
Are we reliable? Are we on time? Are we friendly? Are we responsive?
In my view, there are kind of two questions that we start with when we're going through that. The first is, do
we have a performance standard in place? And then the second question is, are we measuring that standard?
So you see here from a safe standpoint, some of the version of the KPIs that we're starting to capture.
Green represents
KPIs where we have the standard identified and we have the measurement in place. Yellow represents where we have the standard identified and we're still working towards getting the measurement in place. And this is the information that really forms the basis of the MBRs that we have. You can kind of see here all of the operating
departments across the top.
This is safety as an area as you would expect that we have. We're a little more data rich probably in this area than than in others.
And,
our opportunity here is to actually leverage this at an enterprise level and have a more strategic approach with
mister Davidson in terms of how we approach risk management.
From a clean standpoint, you see a little bit more yellow here,
and and, you know, this is the reason for that is it's easy to identify the standard. It's much more difficult to come up with a measurement. You know, these are more observations,
audits, those sorts of things.
We kinda break this down in terms of staff, in terms of appearance and appearance guidelines, our vehicles, our facilities clean, those sorts of things.
Lot of good work, lot of good progress being,
in this area.
Our goal is by the time we come back to you for the second quarter report that we've completed this and we're all of these are green.
Here, and a lot of good progress in terms of not only having the standard in place, but having some very specific,
measurements in in place. I think on the community development side, we've discussed that. As I'm learning as I'm learning, that's a much more complex process, very interdependent with other departments.
And so it's more of the 300 level process remapping that we have to go through to really kind of to
nail this in terms of processing time and the different types of permits that are being processed. So again, by the end of the second quarter, we will be able to provide you much more information on that.
And then responsive,
friendly. Again, some of these are areas where it's a little more difficult sometimes to measure.
I am excited about the standing up of the business and resident services for a number of reasons. But for one of those, a call center always gives you much more data rich information in terms of your interacting with your customer. And we will be able to have,
some very good objective data that comes out of that.
So those were the operating departments. This gives you a a view of the support services, finance, IT, and HR. And again, you can kinda see where we are are yellow, where we are green.
Great opportunity here to better leverage data,
from a support standpoint. And this is important because when you're talking about a service culture, you know, are we taking or internally,
are we taking care of the people who take care of the customers? It's really it's kind of that simple. And so developing those same kind of service level expectations internally as we're promoting externally becomes really key culturally.
It's just a quick example of one of the charts that we're,
we're putting together and you can kind of see here on the upper left hand side,
from a missed residential
solid waste pickup standpoint. We're not picking on brine. It's just it's just the right chart. You can kind of see where we're going from a month to month, year over year trend, tracking that against the benchmark. And in the lower right hand, you can start to see a little bit of the, yeah, it gives us a little bit of a better view of exactly what's causing the any of the variances that we're seeing.
So to just quickly cover the, the financial results,
for the, for the first quarter.
On a revenue basis, we're about a half million dollars ahead on a three month basis. Most of that is being driven by sales and use taxes.
Our sales tax situation is a little bit unique. I feel in the state of Georgia,
our taxes are collected at state level,
distributed to the county level, and then they make it to the city of Roswell through a revenue share arrangement where we get a set percentage of what the county collects.
We get that number generally on the twenty fifth of the,
month following the collection month. So February 25 for January, March 25 for February and so forth.
These numbers do include actual March results.
So we are about a half million dollars ahead.
There's some speculation that some of this is accelerated spending,
due to
external macro factors. So I don't wanna get too excited about it yet, but, I think Don said at the beginning, it's better to start the game, two touchdowns up than two touchdowns
down. So I'm I'm for a 14 lead.
Sorry about that. Property taxes,
relatively small increase,
but still an increase. Some of that is also tied to ad valorem taxes and a strong first quarter of vehicle sales.
On the operating side, we are $700,000
ahead of budget at this point.
Some of that is just timing matters on certain purchases and certain positions
to fill.
But the net result is that we are $1,200,000
ahead of budget at the end of the first quarter.
We
will continue to monitor that. And one of the things that we have as our goal this year is to implement a forecast and results so that we don't have to wait,
for the end of a period or an end of a year to have an idea where we're going. And then hopefully that helps inform the budgeting process sooner than waiting for an audit report that gets issued six months after the year end.
Did you have a question? No, sir. Okay. You leaned forward like you were ready.
Also, I was asked to present
the the, cash position of the city. So as of March 31, we had unrestricted cash of 88,000,000,
relative to fund balance. That's a little bit over 200%
of our general fund fund balance for the same period.
And you can see the trend on the unrestricted cash,
is trending upward. The restricted cash is generally a matter of timing and
is
in
this case, the, the decrease is related to bond payments. So those are scheduled, cash uses that are good cash uses because it brings down our debt.
So
last
item, the mayor's top priorities,
we've covered a lot of
Kohl's objectives
going through this very quickly. Obviously, we have a lot of priorities on our plate for this year. These priorities represent that if you don't do anything else, this is what's the most important to get done. Right?
Hence, the name, the the branding on this, the mayor's top priorities. The first time that I think I really started to hear this list was in this year's State of the City,
Mayor Wilson that you gave. We started kind of picking up themes and some of it was new for me obviously. So I was kind of listening maybe differently.
The very next week, we went into the leadership conference and started formalizing
these and that effort has really now kind of turned into this.
You know, so very excited. You can see since that leadership conference, not only what it's evolved to in terms of the priorities,
but we've also assigned senior leaders to each of these,
and also very excited to see, and and have council member help and support in this. As I've shared before, staff was going to take these on regardless
for council members to be able to come alongside and really kinda give this a whole different level of boost of of
energy, firepower, whatever you wanna
call it.
Incredibly important. So the team would I'm very excited about that and very grateful for your leadership and support in that.
We've had meetings. We've some of these are, underway.
Some of these will be in the back half of the year.
And as appropriate,
updates will be provided.
So, yeah, in closing,
an encouraging start to the first quarter.
We're already halfway through the second quarter, so it feels like a whatever. Second quarter, we're in the middle of it, but encouraging start.
And I would just be remissing. Bill and I are up here kind of representing the entire team. As I shared with you in the committee meeting,
it's easy to say, everybody says we've got a great team. And so it's it's like a kind of a trite kind of comment to make. This is an exceptional team,
and it's it's it's goes beyond competency.
It goes beyond talent.
There is a care
in the mission and the vision and doing the right thing.
I think that was demonstrated over the last week. Even when you don't know what to do, you just do the right thing, you know. And I I think someone mentioned it before the alignment, not only within the team, but up through mayor and council around vision and mission is remarkable.
I shared with you a few weeks ago, I'm new,
into the government side of this and so I expected there to be politics.
That's that's context here within this organization,
and it's the trickle down from the mayor and council into the staff. It's remarkable. So very much appreciate I'm thrilled to be here. So thank you. Any questions?
Exactly how to end. Should I put a slide up to says questions? No. I love it. Walk away.
No. Don't no slide for questions.
No, Don, Bill, thank you.
Thank you.
Council, thoughts, comments, or questions? Council member Hills.
Thank you, mayor, and thank you, gentlemen. That was that was great. I wanna if you'll indulge me, I wanna walk down memory lane for just a second. When the mayor and Will Morphland and I and at the time,
Vanstrom were elected,
we joined three we joined two of the three, existing council members. One fell ill, Marcela Zapata, but we joined Hall and Palermo. And the mayor had
the genius for us to meet before we were sworn in. So we could meet the four of us newly elected with the two. We didn't have a quorum until that we were sworn in early January.
So we sat in Mayor Wilson, then,
Mayor elect,
in his dump of a headquarters and had sticky notes on the wall, and we just brainstormed, brainstormed, brainstormed.
I never had that idea. That was not my idea. That was none of this was all Kurt Wilson. And we went to town, and we were we decided to meet three, four, and five nights a week for about six weeks, three and four hours of crack, and we burned it out. I mean, just burned it out. And
all of us sitting in the room had experienced frustration, either with the lack of unity that we're sitting up here on the dais or the desire to have a better unity with that group or a new group, but we knew we needed to do something. And, Mayor Wilson was able to get us to articulate what our hopes and dreams for the city
would be and how we go about doing that. And, it was really amazing,
our CEO, Mr. Knighton,
said,
wow.
I think you used the word aggressive. This is an aggressive agenda.
You said you'd never seen this level of,
expectation and execution in all of the cities where you've worked and that sort of made my hair stand on end because I thought surely this is how it gets done. But it's been unprecedented, I believe, at least in most people's lives living here in Roswell.
And and, mister Knighton, I know you've seen a lot of different places and you you've said it many times. I'm letting the cat out of the bag. It was set in closure a lot. So but that's not a policy thing, that was just a comment.
With executing that once we were in,
you know, sworn in,
we didn't really have the the talent in the right shoots and,
we like to,
we don't like it, but we get bombed a lot on people that have left this organization
to go somewhere else.
And mayor Wilson is very invested in the people,
not only our residents, but the people working here. Like, okay, let's give them a chance. Maybe nobody asked them to do that. Maybe nobody posed a question. Can you can you execute this? You know, with your background, you should be able to how can you what do you need from us, from the elected to make your job, you know, executable? And some didn't rise to the occasion, and many did. Many more did. And we've been super picky,
hires to backfill some of those spots
that have been vacated. But,
mayor Wilson, I give you all credit on that, and and we've supported. I mean, even beyond the the four of us that were elected when, you know, you plus three others then. But Christine Hall was already here and then the our three Muir,
coming in. But that's a big deal. And,
COO Stevens, you bring you're one of the the picky hires. You're one of them. So is is CFO
Goshell right here. We got picky. We're like, nope. We're not taking the that'll work.
We're taking high end,
highly intelligent, highly experienced
individuals to come in and do a workload that hasn't been seen like this in decades.
50
projects? I mean, if anybody's listening to this,
you know, that's that's a lot.
And it also explains why we went from one deputy,
city administrator to now three, which we call senior VPs.
It that is a massive
change in how we're doing things. And,
I know those of you who have heard me rant and rave, rant and and
go bananas of how are we supposed to get these things done. Mayor, you're one. Our chief of staff, Gazzetti is another, that has heard me say things like, I'm so frustrated because things aren't lining up. You know, when do I have to stop looking at the nitpicky things and just know that it's handled from the organization that was hired to handle these little nitpicky things?
And I have sent notes to mister Knighton and to mister Stevens and a few others when something just the damn breaks and it is just smooth as silk.
And I'm like, oh my gosh. Things as silly as us being apprised to what's coming up on the agenda. And the legislative
calendar that you have implemented, mister Stevens, I just I can't even tell you how pleased I am. And I I'm going on about it from my perspective. I know most of our residents just expect like I do that things just work.
We've been waiting. Twenty three years I've lived here and I thought, when are things gonna start rolling in the city? And I had no idea how difficult it is if you don't have proper
direction in the city, and you empower the people that are talented enough to be put in director and deputy director positions and all the support team in each one of those arms in this city.
That's a lot of work just to just to organize that.
So
I will tell you I've seen a massive change in the last, like, two months,
and and here I am in my fourth year here,
and not because it just happened. This has been
from
December of twenty twenty one in the works
and not even one by one. We've had droves of people within the city that have said, I'm on this team. I am part of the team.
And it's pretty overwhelming in the most positive way.
So
tonight's update for those of you listening, it's pretty, sounds pretty extensive and it is, and it has a lot of pieces and parts to it that are still getting worked out and massaged out. But it is such a bright future for the city of Roswell the way we're doing this. And,
and mister Stevens, COO Stevens, I just wanna give you a lot of credit there because
being an event planner, I work on a calendar in my head whether you all know it or not. But,
actually seeing how each one of those benchmarks
gets accomplished,
I I it's it's making everyone's life so much easier and more efficient.
So that when we're executing 50 projects that our residents are ready to have happen, that we can do that in a meaningful way. It's trackable.
It's it's repeatable with some nuances because each project is a little different. But I just want to say, thank you so much. We're getting it
done. We're not done yet. We're still just getting started, but it is it is a really fantastic snapshot of
how things should be done in my opinion. And, and I appreciate that you all are, all of our leadership is constantly,
being nimble and moving in order to make the next steps easier,
for the whole team and certainly enjoyable for our residents and our visitors. So thank you. I'm noticing.
Lee, thank you so much. Councilor Sales. Thank you, Mayor.
Just just a quick comment.
Appreciate that, Lee. That was good. I I I you know, a lot of that I wasn't here for. So
a lot of work that you guys have done, it certainly pan off.
And as an entrepreneur and a guy who has, been in the business of starting businesses for the better part of my career in private equity,
the way you go from being a lemonade stand
to a real company is spending time working on your business, not just in your business.
And what we are doing is working on our business. We're not just simply executing,
you know, the next comm div question or fixing the next pothole.
We're taking the time and doing the work
to work on the business
so that we have,
the ability to respond
correctly
at every level. And as as everybody has said here tonight,
we had the opportunity, the joy, the great pleasure
of seeing that play out in the last week.
But that's what we're doing. We're working on our business, not simply in our business. And it takes people who have
the the time in their day to think strategically,
so we've had to reorganize. And that's what we've been doing, and and you guys,
clearly are a part of that process. But that's that's the that's the difference that people should begin to feel. We're working on the business and not just in the business.
Thank you, Helen.
Any other thoughts, comments, or questions from counsel?
Christine? Yes, ma'am.
Kudos and thank you to you. And this is a little bit, down memory lane as well,
going back to our retreat one of our first retreats,
when we went to,
Opelika,
Alabama.
And senior vice president
Leatherman and I did a presentation
of how
what what is the ideal
city look like? If we could just erase
what we had and step outside of that paradigm
and build the city,
that's when we started building this vision under
mayor's leadership.
And it's so exciting because we are starting to see the fruits of our labor
really come come together. So I think most of us were there during during that that meeting, and and just thank you because it really
and as council member sales said, I mean, we have to work on our business so that our business can work for the residents in the best way it can, and it's coming to fruition. It's fantastic. Thank you.
Council member Mortland. Thank you, Christine.
I'll, I'll be brief, but,
Bill, I learned a new term tonight.
External
macro factors.
That was that was awesome. Thank you.
Glad to help.
Will, that's all you got?
David? Yep. You good?
Number two. Alright. Alright. Very good.
I'm not gonna pump any smoke up you guys, you know.
We'll come back.
Thank you, counsel. Any comments from me, Roswell residents?
Thank you. I'll bring it back.
Listen.
There's so much to go here just for the sake of time. We talk all the time.
Extraordinary people are doing extraordinary things.
This is about creating really
it's about doing something radical. It's creating a miracle in Roswell, but it's true that like, there's a lot of pieces as but the very simple framework is
government is one of the most static objects
in the environment.
And this is about
remodeling, remaking government at the local level, so that's highly responsive, highly adaptive, highly innovative,
dare say, entrepreneurial.
So that really works, you know, in the most
just fundamental way for its people.
And you look at the things that don't change and they get static and you like, government's like top of the list.
So there are a lot of pieces to this equation we talk about.
One of them is to create a model to demonstrate the local government can work at a very, very high level. It's remaking local government. There's a lot of pieces of equation.
That's why you guys look that's why I created a c suite. That's why I created,
leadership below that, created white space,
rather than just, as you said, working in the business, working on the business.
To really bring the talent in,
to come in and do radical things,
things that are unthinkable at the local government level.
And that this city,
one is really does its people proud, but really creates a framework for other cities to follow. And I think this there's a story here that's gonna be magnificent as people continue to unpack and unfold and get into
it. Like, if you just look at the last three and a half years,
the amount of things accomplished by
Randy Knighton and his team
and by the elected leadership of this council,
they're dramatic.
They're so dramatic.
What's the word you used Don? It's the, you used the word today, you used some moniker.
Which was like like, there are so many things that are so dramatically
already been executed.
And Lee's right. The truth of the matter is we're just getting started. And you contrast to that compare,
it's like radical. If you objectively look at what this city has done in the last three and a half years,
it's pretty,
it's it's of tremendous
size, it's gigantic in terms of the historical record. It's really gigantic if you compare it to other sister cities.
And like I said, we're just getting started
because the leadership's in place.
The leadership's in place.
The elected leadership has a vision.
They're aligned.
The organization's gonna continue to mature,
move at a faster rate, innovate, adapt,
and, it's fun to watch and it's great for its people. And as people get to catch on to what's going on, I think they're getting more and more excited and they're gonna realize there's a level of acumen
that's like not part usually in the government sector, particularly at the local level. So you guys are amazing.
You guys are amazing.
You guys are amazing. That's enough nice amazing.
We'll get back to the real world tomorrow.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Alright.
Christine, council member will halt. That's by the way, that's the end of the,
the regular the quarterly management review. We're not voting on that. Do you you want us to vote on that, Scott? Informational.
Okay. We can vote on it if you want to.
Alright. Alright. Christine, would you read the last item, please, ma'am?
Yes. Item number two, approval of a text amendment
to chapter two, article two dot two personnel,
article two dot three, city administrator, and article two dot four, committees and departments of the code of ordinances of the city of Roswell.
This is the first reading, and it'll be presented by
doctor Joe Panino, our deputy city administrator and senior vice president. Thanks so much, Christine. I'm gonna ask the chief legal officer, city attorney David Davis, to read the ordinance, please, ma'am. Thank you, mayor. This is an ordinance to amend chapter two, article 2.2,
Personnel, Article 2.3, City Administrator,
Article 2.4, Committees and Departments.
Now therefore, the Mayor and Council of the City of Roswell, pursuant to their authority, do hereby adopt the following amendment: Chapter two, Administration, Article 2.2,
Personnel,
Article 2.3 city administrator and Article 2.4
committees and departments of the code of ordinances
of the City Of Roswell, Georgia is hereby amended by and replaced with exhibit A, which is attached here to and incorporated herein by reference and have approved this as the first reading.
Thanks, David. Welcome, Doctor. Panino.
Thank you so much. Very sorry about your family's
loss today.
Thank you.
How do I get this up here?
That? EC2.
Where?
That's what I'm
Perfect.
Thank you.
Very excited to follow that last presentation. It's such a great setup.
Primarily, because my presentation is way shorter than that.
But also because of all the data and the key performance indicators and just that this conversation of,
really just operational efficiency and how good governance works.
So,
I'm Joe Panino. I'm the deputy city administrator senior vice president for planning, performance, and innovation. And kinda what that's about really is
accelerating how local government works and really looking inward while we're doing these
fantastic things
with economic development and capital improvement projects,
really focusing internal on the business, on the organization, and making sure it's set up with policies and procedures,
to really move as fast as you all wanna move. Be responsive and be dynamic.
And sometimes what that means is,
we have to look at our ordinances and all these things that the city has developed over years and years and years and make sure that we are adapting them, to the direction that we are going as a city to make sure that we can be responsive to our citizens and our business owners. Many, many weeks ago, when I was the fire chief,
as you know, I
worked on several ordinances. One being the fire ordinance and one being the emergency management ordinance. And again,
really the philosophy is how do we make the ordinances more streamlined, easier to understand,
shorter,
and make it to where our staff, our our,
talent can really be responsive to the citizens. And that's what we're doing here.
So not only are we looking at streamlining and efficiency, but really what you're gonna see in these ordinances is
I think they resonate the trust that you all have in staff and that delegated authority and decision making to do what's right for the the citizens as we saw this last week.
So just some general overviews for these ordinance,
revisions. It clarifies roles, defines the roles between the executive and the legislative,
responsibilities,
policy versus executing on policy,
modernizes language, reduces the ordinance lengths by about three pages,
it aligns us regionally with our sister cities,
strengthens innovation, and continues to advance
our reputation
for being modern
and efficient when it comes to good governance.
It empowers staff to make decisions
and
execute on behalf of businesses and our citizens.
And it also preserves your oversight when it comes
to key appointments and policy direction as the legislative body. So we'll start with article 2.2, which is personnel.
We'll start with personnel manual.
So what we're doing with this ordinance is proposing that we move the personnel manual, really an internal
human resources manual that we,
refer to as staff, out of the purview of mayor and council
and under the purview of the city administrator.
At this time,
any changes to the
HR manual, the personnel manual requires approval,
by resolution
of you all,
which really slows down that process
and making sure that we can stay responsive and keeping it updated.
Also,
administrative simplification. So
ensuring that the HR manual can be
adjusted and updated based on operational need, not just legal compliance,
and also removes things like
having benefit
costs in the personnel manual, which we just don't do by practice. Those change annually,
and that's always separate from,
the personnel manual. So we're cleaning up the ordinance to make sure it reflects what we actually do as a business.
Article 2.3, city administrator. So expanding the role and authority of the city administrator,
now has the authority, if this is approved, to establish administrative, operational, and personnel policies,
has the authority to
appoint, suspend, or remove department heads. This is something that our surrounding city managers have the authority to do. At this time, it's the purview of mayor and council to appoint department heads.
This makes sense,
putting it under the city administrator because the city administrator ultimately,
directs the department heads and is responsible for them.
Also gives the city administrator the ability to create, consolidate, or dissolve city departments,
as needed for the operational efficiency of the city to to
make sure that we are being responsive and moving direction that you all wanna go.
And it also codifies the new executive positions that have been created that we just saw, chief financial officer, chief operating officer,
and also add some additional titles. So for city administrator, chief administrative officer, and for our city attorney, chief legal officer. Codifies those within ordinance and also gives mayor and council
authority and approval of those positions.
When previously it was the department head, it's now going a couple layers up to that c suite that you talked about, mayor.
Article 2.4,
committees and
departments.
So streamlining the structure so the new language better reflects how we actually operate.
Previously, or I I should say currently, the language talks about
committees will be made up of
the mayor, the city administrator, and two,
city council members. When we haven't operated that way in quite some time,
our committees of council is is now now takes place twice a month and is done,
with all the committees together and all the council together. So the way that it is worded in this proposal
better outlines how we operate.
And it also throws back to the language that's already in city charter.
So city charter, already has language about the mayor having authority to appoint council members to oversee department functions,
to make sure that there's legislative visibility and accountability,
within those departments.
So again, as Don talked about, the mayor's top priorities for 2025, so I'm just gonna run down them real quick.
Slow down in Roswell, senior vice president Sharon Izzo with David Johnson.
Eradicate human trafficking is a big one we talked about for this last week. Chief James Conroy, council member, Lee Hills, revitalized brand and UDC standards.
SVP
Jeff Leatherman and council member Lee Hills, transformational
economic development,
SVP Jeff Leatherman and council member Alan Sells. Exceptional infrastructure projects
for Parks.
That's SVP Sharon Izzo and council member Will Morphland. Exceptional infrastructure projects.
This is all the other CIP projects.
SVP Sharon Izzo and council member Sarah Beeson.
Generate new revenue streams.
And this is,
CFO Bill Godshall and council member Alan Sells.
Transition strategic plan to a three year business plan. That's myself and council member Christine Hall.
Improve resident and business
experience,
SVP
Jeff Leatherman, council member Lee Hills. Elevate Communications and Special Events, myself,
council member Sarah Beeson, and Centralize and Consolidate Financial Services,
CFO Bill Godshaw, and council member Will Murph Morthland.
So these are as
COO Don Stevens talked about, these are our priorities for 2025.
A lot of these, like, eradicate human trafficking and some of the others, you can see that we're already working on. We're already executing on them. And now we have that oversight at the SVP level, the c suite level, and the council,
level as well. So let's talk about how we are currently, which you see on the left. Council members are assigned to each department. They primarily work with the department director.
There's limitations in this because the the departments become very siloed. You have a council liaison with a specific department and and you're only looking within that department and it really gets kind of,
sectioned off. And there's no real direct connection with the city's overarching,
strategic priorities.
Over to the right, you see the new priority based structure where council members are assigned to each of the strategic priorities that we just talked about. And that's to ensure organizational and policy alignment across
multiple departments and eradicate silos and working with members of the OLT, the operational leadership team, the SVPs who have strategic override oversight
and directs direct connection with the mayor and council.
So the benefits of the new structure,
the collaboration with the COO, CFO, and the SVPs
ensure successful deliver delivery of the top strategic priorities.
There's strategic advisement and alignment with the organizational priorities. And again, the probably the biggest one for me is it's it's active rather than passive. So when you're liaison for
a department, let's say, you're kind of
just assigned that. So you're talking with the department director, seeing what's going on with the department itself. But now,
with this new structure, it's very active. It's action based. So we have the mission. We have these priorities.
And there's KPIs and everything else wrapped around these. So,
it's not just static sitting back waiting for something to happen. It's working with the SVP and the c suite to make sure that we're delivering on these priorities.
And it breaks down silos to making sure that there's communication
across departments, across the organization, and then making sure that there's periodic updates to the mayor and quarterly updates to the mayor and council as well.
So to wrap this around some of our,
strategic imperatives,
service
excellence, it modernizes our internal structures, eliminates
procedural delays, and improves responsiveness to our residents and our businesses.
It streamlines approvals and clarifies
operational authority
for coordinated service delivery.
From an innovation standpoint,
it empowers your professional staff with clear delegated responsibilities to drive performance.
It aligns in aligns internal governance with modern municipal management standards
to support continuous improvement like we saw with these KPIs that we're doing on a monthly and quarterly basis.
Of course, it preserves accountability and maintains your authority over executive appointments,
budgeting, and then all the major policy decisions.
And I'll also say that if it, in the long term, strengthens financial stewardship, and we have some statistics in here about the amount of waste that happens in government when structures are too rigid and there's too many approval processes and too much bureaucracy
when it comes to getting things done.
That's all I have for you, and I am here to answer any questions you might have.
Thank you, doctor Joe Panino, senior vice president of PPI.
I noticed I've been using that term a lot with you, the PPI term, and it's, I think quite flattering.
But I'd like to ask counsel if they have any thoughts, comments, or questions for doctor Pannino, senior vice president of PPI
at this time. Council member Beeson.
I just wanna flag. So with some of the language changes in the ordinance itself, I would say I'm not necessarily inherently supportive of, so for example, some of the title changes,
with moving some to some of the more corporate terms.
But that said, I would like to have a more larger focus, at least on my end, from where my vote comes from, on what it really accomplishes. Because I think the ordinance updates overall are really needed.
It's to reflect more so the way that we currently operate and not an outdated
mechanism that we don't follow anymore.
But being able to streamline the operations, to be able to improve the responsiveness, and to be able to eliminate a lot of that waste just in the ordinance itself, I think, is more largely helpful,
and why I will be voting for it.
I
can I give you a thought? And this is not worthless. And I I wanna hear everybody's thoughts on this. It's funny,
kind of we've done a little little memory lane today, and I'll give you a memory lane one.
I I don't remember what committee it was. It was my second or third committee meeting.
And I'm sitting in there and
I'm seeing the sorry, Jeff. Forgive me for this. Jeff, senior vice president of Liberty.
And income
a couple of park and rec guys.
And
this committee meeting is like,
you're asking us to Was it lawnmowers? Yes. Oh, we all remember lawnmowers.
I'm just saying. And to that point, it's like it kept on packing like, what in the world
what in the world is the elected body
involved in such minutiae on the operational activity of the city? And so it's not like inherited. It's like still acts like it's a 10,000 person town, you know, where the the elected body is involved in all these operational decisions. So we've been unpacking that for three and a half years, continuing to unpack it.
Two, let's say, look, I believe and I I think that that's the charge of our leadership is that we're responsible for policy.
Right? And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead. I was gonna tell you that to reiterate your point, I think specifically that meeting was one of the first meetings where you said, does this constantly have to come to American Council? But it became an ongoing theme for the better part of I mean, since that was very early on in my tenure was
lawnmower gate.
But
I didn't realize it was your fondler.
But that was the first time that she provided staff with the feedback of
why does this constantly have to come to us because it holds up mayor council because we have larger things that we're trying to address.
And I know that became a drumbeat that you consistently
beat, but I will give doctor Pena to his credit in the few months that you've been here. That was one of the first things that you've tackled was addressing an ordinance change that you don't have to keep asking the redundant question of why does this keep coming to me. Exactly. So it's a to my point, it's a larger picture of what it addresses and why it's effective. Exactly.
That's well said.
So I didn't know it was a gate though. That's cool. Longmore Gate. That's kinda Is there another title for it? No. I do. I thought it was long forgotten but evidently
council yes, sir. Councilor Marcello. Thank you, mayor.
I'm looking at the I wanna go back to something you and I talked about and that is
what we are preserving for mayor and council to approve.
And as I understood it, it was gonna be the senior VP level
positions, which would include
so the chief legal officer position
description in two dot three dot ten does not include even language with the other two
about the city administrator shall recommend qualified individuals
to fill the position approved by the mayor and council. It does not include that and it needs to.
That's correct.
That is actually in the charter.
Oh, cool.
So it doesn't need to be in the ordinance. Yeah.
Never mind. Yeah. No. It's a good idea. I would also like to say, I thought this was going to include the two chiefs as well.
It does not.
So it's the C Suite
is the purview of mayor and council. Everything below the suite the C Suite is the purview of city administrator.
SVPs,
I'm I'm gonna claim a false memory here.
Okay.
I forgot. Chiefs are
the the the the Chiefs are SVPs.
That's right. Chief of Police and Chief of Fire are SVPs. So they
fall outside they fall in the purview of the c suite making that decision. Sorry, with the CAO,
mister Knighton, who's ultimately has that authority. Yes, sir. And the authority of the mayor and council underneath this provision is to fire, hire
anybody in the C suite CLO, CFO, COO, and CAO.
And then all the other ones would fall under operational decisions of the city CAO ultimately.
And of course, my belief on this
and worthy of discussion is
the mayor the mayor and council is the board of the city,
and therefore, you're hiring,
the ultimate the executive management team. And you're actually I would argue there's a little bit of overreach on our part, kinda in this deal because it really should just be the CAO.
But I'm adding the entire c suite
CFO, CLO, and COO
as part of that deal to say, okay, you can reach in. But technically, if you were to argue this, I think from a philosophical perspective, you'd say really just Lance, you're firing and firing is of the top level, which is the CAO. So we've got four basically under this deal and no more.
Okay, fair enough. Well, I mean, look,
it's
it's your deliberation. You guys, you know, all the way do what you want to. Yeah.
It is a first reading. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Let me talk about that. First reading. Right? Yes. Yes, sir.
As and by the way, are we gonna do anything about the p PPI term or we're gonna leave you as SVP and PPI?
I had a I had a different term that was
vetoed. I'm happy to I'm happy to rediscuss that. I like the PPI term. Yeah.
Any other thoughts, comments, or questions from counsel
on on the first reading presented by the senior vice president of PPI?
Oh, thank you.
Oh, council member Moreland. Sorry.
If this does anything for us to keep us away from the lawnmower and the river rock conversation, I'm all for it. So thank you very much.
Amen to that brother.
Alright.
Randy Roswell residents would like to weigh in on this particular matter in front of the council
at this time.
Thank you very much. Council, any final thoughts, comments, or questions?
Alright. Then I'm going to ask, council member Bahal, would you like to make a motion?
Yes, mayor. Motion to approve item number two, approval of a text amendment to chapter two, article two dot two personnel,
article two dot three, city administrator, and article two dot four, committees and departments of code of ordinances of the city of Roswell, first reading. Thank you, Christine. Is there a second on this particular approval of the text amendment? Second. Seconded by council member Johnson. By show of hands, all those in favor of the approval of the first reading of this text amendment, please raise your hands.
Let the record show that the first reading passes six to o. Thank you very much. And we'll have the second reading, I believe, on May
27.
Tuesday, May 27. Thank you, Joe, very much. I appreciate it. Great job on the presentation in all seriousness.
Will, would you read the first item under the economic development piece? Yes, sir. Approval of an ordinance to amend chapter 22,
traffic in motor vehicles, article three, parking restrictions, section seven, to establish and regulate designated areas for the city for paid parking, and section eight, enforcement of parking of code of ordinances of the city of Roswell. Roswell. Second reading
being presented by Jeff Leatherman. Thanks so much, Will. And I'm gonna ask the chief legal officer of city attorney David Davidson to read the ordinance for us, please, sir. Thank you, mayor. This is an ordinance to amend chapter 22, traffic and motor vehicles, article three, parking
Restrictions, Section seven, Authority of Mayor and Council to Establish and Regulate Designated Areas of the City for Paid Parking of the Code of Ordinances of the City Of Roswell. Now, therefore, the Mayor and Council of the City of Roswell, pursuant to their authority, do hereby adopt the following amendment.
Chapter 22, Traffic and Motor Vehicles, Article three, Parking Restrictions Section seven, Authority of Mayor and Council to Establish and Regulate Designated Areas of the City
Of Paid On Street Parking
and Chapter 22, Traffic and Motor Vehicles, Article three, Parking Restrictions
Section eight, Enforcement of Paid Parking of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Roseville, Georgia is hereby amended by deleting said sections and replacing
said sections with new
subsection
22.3.7,
Authority of Mayor and Council to Establish and Regulate Designated Areas of the City for Paid Parking
and Section 22.3.8,
Enforcement of Paid Parking, which shall read as shown in Exhibit A, attached here to an incorporated here in by reference and if approved, this is the second reading.
Thank you, David. Welcome, Senior Vice President, Jeff Leatherman.
Thanks for all your hard work on this.
This is the second reading. So there's been a couple of questions that I'll just,
clear up, in my presentation,
and then, of course, we can have any questions that you may have.
We just wanted to cover, once again, and I've provided some maps here on the screen
of, on the left hand side. It's a little busy, but those are all of the different parking areas that we either control or have some portion of control in the downtown area.
The two maps on the right hand side of the screen includes 71 spaces. That is what we are talking about tonight as it relates to paid parking in the downtown area. So out of about the 100 and or 1,001
1,011
spaces that we have either managed or controlled here in the city, we are just dealing with 71 spaces.
Again, on Canton Street, Elizabeth Way, and East Alley are the primary areas that we are focused on as it relates to this ordinance tonight.
This is just another view of those same slides a little bit closer.
We have added Old Mill Park as one of the areas that we may regulate in the future as we've talked about at the first reading. There may be some changes here. We're working through the technology solutions. We'll be meeting with some community members at the end of the month to refine our strategy as it relates to this park in particular and those spaces
in and around Old Mill that we do control.
As we know that there are a number of service area parking spaces up by the town homes and along Sloane Street Park,
that we'll also be looking at as part of our overall strategy
at Old Mill.
This is a city ordinance change as mister Davidson has gone over. There are three resolutions behind this. I will take the ordinance change first and see if there's any questions. And then once the ordinance, if you choose to pass it, is in place, we have three additional requests related to,
resolutions that we would like passed. That gives us the ability to charge for parking,
to establish the fee schedule, and also the locations in which we would like to charge for parking. But since this is just the first item, I'll stop there in the presentation and then we could move to the resolutions
should you choose to pass this ordinance and ordinance amendment.
Alright. Just for clarity,
you're asking the council
on the second reading
to, basically
one,
char
enforce
where there's already charge for parking inside the city Roswell. Yes, sir. And that's only that's 78 spots?
That's correct. That's Elizabeth Way,
that's Canton Street
and East Alley. And East Alley. Those are the three locations where the city is currently charging for parking just not enforcing. That's correct. So you're asking the city council to say, I'd like to start enforcing that, please. That's correct. And then the fourth the fourth piece of that is is I'd also like the ability to potentially do that at Old Mill Parking. I'm working on solution right now that I gotta get the technology
piece solved, but I would like to be able to add enforcement
to Old Mill Parking to the Old Mill Park as well. Yes, sir. That's what you're asking the council to approve tonight on the second reading. That's what I'm asking. And the second thing is, you wanna put a $20,
fine in there. Yeah. That'll be the fourth the third resolution in series. So item number six. So we're in item number three right now. Then we'll have, restricted parking areas, a resolution related to the fees, and then also a resolution related to the fine schedule.
We have updated the,
resolution to include the fine schedule at $20, but it is per hour of each violation.
We had some clarity between committee and first reading that we wanted to have the authority to be able to do that per hour if necessary so that we can deal with,
any egregious violators
of our downtown parking area that are taking up space, and blocking areas that our businesses would need to support. Anything you're presenting tonight in this on these in these resolutions,
have to do with
parking at the parking garage that would be ready for the city on May
2026?
No. This has nothing to do with the Green Street parking deck at all. Does this have anything to do with parking anywhere outside of Elizabeth Way,
Canton Street, and and East Alley, and potentially Old Mill Park? No, sir. So it has no other relevance to any other area than these these these areas? That's correct. And the way that we've crafted relevance to City Hall? No. That any relevance to Hill Street? It does not. Does any relevance to Mimosa? Does not.
That any relevance to Wells Fargo? It does not.
Does that have relevance to Woodstock Park? Does not.
Does it have any relevance to the Green Street activation plan?
It does not.
Thank you, sir. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I just wanted That's okay. I was just gonna make the the additional point, following your line of questioning that the way that we've crafted the resolutions is to add any of those areas or to change the areas in which we are activating
any sort of parking strategy would need to come before mayor and council by resolution before we could add any additional spaces with the exception of those that we mentioned tonight. So tonight, just for clarity's sake, this is relevant to Elizabeth Way. Yep. Canton Street? Yes, sir. East Alley? Yep. A total of 78 spaces? Correct. And potentially could affect Oak Mill Park once you get the technology figured out? That's correct. That's it. Correct? That's it. And you want a $20 fine by the hour to for your enforcement model? Correct. Okay.
Counsel, thoughts, comments, or questions?
Okay.
Any Roswell residents would like to weigh in on this?
Roman,
welcome.
I do need those four.
I'm following all the parking
project
since the beginning,
and I have comments especially on right here. Is it relation to Elizabeth Way,
Canton Street,
East Alley?
Is it relate is it relation to
I have a question. To Elizabeth Way, Canton Street, East Alley, or Old Mill Park?
I believe it's your
it's your yep. I print out this from
is what it is. The relation to Elizabeth Way, Canton Street, East Alley?
To confirm so.
My concern to all these places
is, and we talked before,
how you charge
parking from the people who come to this one. Here, for example, administer with maximum
of $5 per hour. What's a maximum
$5 per hour?
Is it $4 per hour?
$2 and the maximum
of $5? I don't understand what it is.
But then
we have been talking before
that we need technology,
new technology,
how to charge. So if someone is parking
and not paying,
it's basically today doesn't exist because
in parking lots, and I see
have been in several places in over the world,
this is
phone is park
page
charging for every parking.
The four can dedicate which number you are parking.
You're paying the $5 for one hour, and then it's coming back to your phone. Sir, you have still ten minutes.
You want to stay longer? Pay another $5 or whatever it is. So this is technology.
How much is this technology to
will cost the city
to put it on?
For example, during the night,
you need to have a camera and you have a light.
Because if you can go to YouTube, you can see people are stealing your wallet
if you're putting you want to pay to machine or credit card. Therefore, within parking lot, in the hospitals, everything,
You're going through your window and paying.
So my question is, what kind of technology you will use for the parking?
This is now in Europe
number one. Yes, sir.
So what you're going to do with that? Yes, sir. How we so
$5, $20
doesn't mean anything
if you cannot pay for it. Yes. You don't know how you collect it. Thank you, Roman. I'd like to have it. Yes, sir. Your consent. Let me see if we can get you an answer of that. Yes, sir. Jeff, would you
be kind enough to answer Roman's question?
Yeah. The since 02/2019,
we've had the technology in place to charge for parking.
That technology will remain and continue to be used. The challenge that we've had since 2019
is we haven't had the enforcement mechanism
in place to enforce parking. As we talk about technology solutions for Old Mill Park in particular,
we wanna have a much more, I would say, elegant and strategic approach to Old Mill Park.
We wanna understand that, you know, it is a location that we want residents to be able to enjoy. And so distinguishing between residents and nonresidents
or perhaps having a little bit different parking model that is not a one size fits all model that we currently employ, down on Canton Street is something that we wanna understand and have a a little bit better, I would say, higher level of understanding of what our options are before we tackle
parking related either charges or not charges or strategies
for Old Mill Park in particular.
It's really two different,
strategies altogether.
The first on Kansas Street is about supporting our businesses. It's about supporting businesses being able to turn traffic in the front of their stores. And as we relate to Old Mill Park, it's about how do we provide access to a community, a neighborhood park, as well as a a high destination park for our residents,
with a really, really small parking lot comparatively to the volume of people that we see in and around that park and that facility. And so, the same technology can't be deployed that we're using on Canton Street for the same solution that we're using down at Old Mill Park.
Jeff, thank you. Thank you, Roman, for the question very much.
Any other thoughts, comments, or questions from Roswell residents?
Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Bring it back to council for any final thoughts, comments, or questions on this matter.
There are none. So I will ask thank you very much, Jeff, for your presentation.
Thank you for all your work on this and your work with the downtown Canton Street businesses as well.
Council member Martin, would you like to make a motion, sir? Yes, sir. Motion to approve
an ordinance to amend chapter 22 traffic in motor vehicles, article three parking restrictions, section seven, to establish and
regulate designated areas of the city for paid parking and section eight enforcement of parking of the code of ordinances
of the city of Roswell.
And it is the second reading.
Second reading. Thank you very much, council member Orland. Is there a second to Second. Seconded from council member Hills. By show of hands, all in favor of the second reading being approved on this ordinance, please raise your hands.
Let the record show that the vote is unanimous, six to nothing. Thank you very much.
Will, would you read the second item under the economic development piece here, sir? Yes, sir. Approval of resolution
to designate paid or restricted parking areas within city Of Roswell, presented by Jeff Leatherman. I'm gonna ask,
you don't have you know, you're not reading this ordinance, are you? This is Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Sorry, Jeff.
It's okay.
This resolution establishes the paid and restricted areas within the city of Roswell.
I won't belabor the point. It is for the locations that we discussed, at the previous item. And this resolution then just formally establishes those four
locations,
and this resolution then just formally establishes those four locations, Kansas Street, Elizabeth Way, East Alley, and Old Mill parking lots. And this coincides with the ordinance that you just passed the previous item. Thank you, Jeff. Council, any comments, thoughts, or questions?
Very good. Any Roswell residents?
I'm gonna make any comments. Thank you so much. Alright. Council member Morton, would you like to make a motion, sir? Yes, sir.
Motion to approve resolution to designate paid or restricted parking areas within the city of Roswell. Is there a second?
Seconded by council member Hills. All those in favor of the approval of this approving this resolution, please show do so by raising your hands.
Let the record show that the resolution passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Will, would you read the next resolution, please, sir? Yes, sir. Approval to repeal resolution number two zero one nine zero eight four four and to approve a resolution to establish parking fees
for operations within the city of Roswell presented by
deputy city administrator and senior vice president, Jeff Leatherman.
Again, associated with the ordinance that you just amended and and adopted,
this establishes the strategy for future parking fees under the authority of the city administrator,
with a maximum amount of $5 with a 4% inflator. We will establish those fees,
initially
tomorrow,
and we'll make a recommendation if this passes this evening. Thank you, Jeff.
Comments, thoughts, or questions from counsel?
If not, Will, would you like to make any council residents like to weigh on this? Thank you very much. Will, would you like to make a motion, sir? Yes, sir.
Motion to approve,
the
motion to approve
well, how do we do this? Repeal.
Motion to repeal.
Would that be correct? Yes, sir. Approval to repeal resolution number? Motion to approval to repeal resolution number 20190844
and to approve a resolution to establish parking fees for operations within the city of Roswell. Thank you, Will, very much. Is there a second to this
seconded by council member David Johnson.
By show of hands, all those in favor of of the approval to repeal this resolution and approve the new resolution, please raise your hands.
Let the record show that it passes six to zero. Thank you very much.
And, Will, I think you've got one more here, resolution. Yes, sir.
Approval of a resolution
designating
a fire excuse me. Fine schedule for section twenty two point three point eight enforcement of paid parking.
Mister Leatherman. Thank you. And just wanna point out that,
from our last conversation that this is $20.
The fine schedule is a $20 fine. It is per hour,
that we've established within this resolution.
That is our request tonight so that we can help to manage,
any egregious parkers that choose not to pay the fee on a repeated basis, and this gives us the enforcement authority to do so.
Just final comment is I wanna thank you for allowing us to go through these three different resolutions. I know it feels a little bit arduous to kinda have them broken up this way, but the strategy really is about in the future, if we need to come and make any amendments or adjustments,
they're broken out, so it'll be much simpler and quicker to be able to do in the future. So thank you for indulging us on breaking these up, should you approve this third one as well. Worth the time to do it. Thank you, Jeff. Any thoughts, comments, or questions, counsel,
for Jeff or on the matter itself. Thank you very much. Any Roswell residents who would like to weigh on this particular resolution?
Thank you so much.
There are none at this point. Councilor Mortland, would you like to make a motion, sir? Yes, sir. Motion to approve a resolution designated
fine schedule for
section twenty two point three point eight enforcement of paid parking. Thanks so much, Will. Is there a second to that particular resolution?
Second. Seconded by council member Johnson.
By show of hands, all in favor of the approval of this resolution, please raise your hands.
Let the record show that the vote is six to zero and it is unanimous very thank you very much, Jeff. Thank you for all your hard work on that as well.
The looks like the last item, council member Beeson,
is yours on public safety. Would you read the item, please, ma'am?
This is approval of Quake See Through Technology pioneer program and a budget amendment of b a three fifty thirty five two hundred dash o five dash one two dash two five to fund the program. This is presented by chief church.
Mayor, council, I'm back.
Yeah. So tonight is
requesting consideration to be part of the quake see through technology pioneer program.
In alignment with the city of Roswell's strategic focused on best in class safety
and operational excellence, the Roswell fire department has been selected as one of the only
one of only 10
agencies nationwide to participate in the Quake Technologies exclusive see through pioneer program.
This will put Roswell at the forefront of evaluating and shaping the future of firefighter safety and performance through cutting edge
augmented reality.
Mayor, you went down memory lane, so I think I'm gonna go down memory lane for just a second.
I remember sitting in your office as a deputy chief
with
doctor
Panino,
and you made a comment after something that we presented, and you said,
who made them, them being the authority over
the fire service
in what we were presenting. You said, who made them the authority?
And what's RFP going to do that hasn't been done in the fire service in the last hundred years?
And what you did is you challenged us to think outside of the box
and say, well, that's been being done for a hundred years. What are you guys gonna do?
While transitioning into a full time,
department,
thank you for that.
And putting a forty eight ninety six with a later start time,
and the data supported initiative to do traffic preemption.
We continue to shatter ceilings because of that comment that day, that challenge to say, what are we gonna do that hasn't been done in a hundred years?
So here's what we're doing today.
To put this into perspective,
07/01/2024,
the Department of Homeland Security,
science and technology
directorate
announced that
interested fire departments across the country can apply to test an innovative new fire safety tool.
This is the first time
that the Department of Homeland Security has done this and partner with an agency like that.
According to FEMA,
there are 27,068
fire departments listed in the National Fire Registry.
You can wrap your mind around that.
27,068
departments.
The fire depart the Roswell Fire Department was one of approximately 80 departments selected for that program.
In 2025,
Quake developed a pioneer program for 10 progressive and innovative fire departments.
Roswell was one of the 10 nationwide selected why I'm here tonight.
It's very important to note that
everything that I mentioned and much much more that has happened under the leadership of the mayor and council
that we have here has put
the Roswell fire department
in the national spotlight
all over the country for the things that we're doing here.
That's why we're being
one of 10 departments in the country selected for this pioneer program. So what is this program and what is this technology?
What I have on the screen on the left hand side is the helmet. The helmet
is
state of the art technology that's attached to it. And something very important I'm gonna talk about the augmented reality that it's gonna present, but something very important as I go through this is it is capturing
all of the data
and it's using AI technology
to give us feedback
on everything that we do. So everything is captured
in, in this technology
and they're using AI analytics to provide us feedback on how we can continue to improve, enhance
our operations.
On the right hand side, you see a few of our people with the helmet. We did have the trial here at Roswell and it was
for us to provide feedback and get our hands on it. It was an amazing technology,
tremendous feedback from the troops on what we saw.
On the bottom is what augmented reality looks like with thermal imaging.
Those in the fire service knows that this is the first time in our history where we actually have technology,
accelerated technology. Usually, we're about twenty to thirty years behind the military.
Whatever they use, twenty to thirty years later, we do we get our hands on it.
I can't tell you the countless amount of searches
when you're searching through low visibility that has taken place in this country with the previous technology that fell short.
The augmented reality
enhances
our ability. It expedites our ability to safely do the job, but also to get to those victims quickly
like it's highlighted there.
On this next one, I'm gonna show you a short video that I ask you to please bear me with me on this.
There's a little bit of wind in the front, but what I wanted to provide
is
a first view of it being on the fire ground, being used in training, and they articulate very well what this technology is doing.
This device is revolutionary from anything that's been in the fire service in my twenty plus years. Wearing a camera
inside of an environment that's hard to describe. It's an environment that we can't train in anymore because of all the, cancer products.
With this device,
I'm able to show that environment in real time
and also use it for what I could do better next time. On the body cam side of it, we're we're live streaming from our helicopters.
Why can't we do it from the inside? It's it's helmet mounted.
And so, obviously, where the head goes, the body goes. So it's intuitive.
It takes that old thermal imaging camera thing to the next level where having hands free allows you to be more functional
facility. Being able to see those lines and think we can identify doors and windows, things that we use that to do by hand. It makes a big difference. I think it'd be a a great advantage to any fire department who actually deploy.
I can actually now look and I can scan as if I didn't actually have anything in front of me. And I could actually see things inside of a dark or smokey environment that normally I wouldn't be able to see. User friendliness, which is something I found today was impressive. I didn't have to be instructed on how to operate it with only having three buttons as a choice. It's pretty easy to figure out. From an incident manager, I can prompt them to look at something that I might have seen or that I want to see. And then, again, that'll aid in either the suppression efforts, the mitigation efforts, and the overall safety of being able to recognize that early and and or confirm that, yes, that's truly lives.
Being able to see what's happening, being able to track where I was, what happened. I might be able to rescue you because they could see it happen. They can pin it back to right where you were. By having the location
ability, being able to track who's where is a huge part of what the fire service doesn't have or has very minimal of. This has kind of always been the vision of where I thought things would go, and it probably has other aspects too that it can be utilized in other arenas, not just firefighting.
So again, as articulated on there, and I and I'll make it I'll simplify it to our terms. An incident commander is responsible for the troops on the ground and all the actions that they take and their safety to do the job.
With this technology, the incident commander can see everyone moving in the structure and where they are. He can communicate
from the command center
to every individual firefighter inside of a structure and let them know whether they need to get out,
as well as saying, are you okay?
Right now, that takes a tremendous amount of radio traffic. And if you can imagine in those conditions, it's extremely difficult,
to do that.
Imagine on your cell phone using the text messaging right now and acknowledging
that text with a thumbs up. That's the new technology that you're using in your hand. Instead of texting, you just throw a thumbs up. This technology does that. We say, are you okay?
They click one button and the command center says, you're okay. And they can see where you are.
And once again, all of this is kept. All this information is kept centralized and AI analyzed to help us be more efficient.
It also safeguards our firefighters.
It safeguards our firefighters,
in
no visibility whatsoever with high heat to be able to navigate
and see those hazards.
So what do we get as part of this program?
16 see through helmet mounted augmented reality systems,
16 additional power modules,
four see through command consoles for real time video communication,
one Pioneer 16 accessory kit, helmets, storage and associated equipment
and quite
cellular connectivity, software updates and support for these devices. We get a lot,
for
being part of this program.
I will turn it over to our,
talented CFO to go into the financials.
So this is a three year contract. The first year is the,
basically, the operational evaluation and testing period as a fire chief has
already described. It includes the hardware, the helmets,
and the software that's necessary to
drive the helmets, capture the data, and perform the budget analytics. That first year cost is a 171,000,
in association with the the item as a budget amendment,
where we, will draw that 171,000
from project savings associated with the build out for business and residential services. Thank you. Senior vice president Leatherman, if he's still here.
He brought that project in under budget by almost exactly the same amount. So this has no net effect to the city's, budget for 2025.
For the second and third year, we will pay a renewal fee, or maintenance and software renewal fee of 63,800,
and that would be included in our operating general fund budget,
probably under IT at this point,
as a pass through.
Couple of other things that are important to note in this contract.
We get pricing,
on a future units purchased in the first renewal period
such that, we will continue to maintain the lowest price offered by by Quake,
for this technology.
One of the benefits that we negotiated to be a test site would be one of the 10,
test sites.
And then the other concern or risk that we saw in this program is if they are not operational by the end of year one, still in beta phase, so to speak, we did not start paying the renewal fees until they exit beta and go operational.
So after the the when the first monthly renewal is due,
they have to be operational for us, to be payable. And then the last thing we threw in there is that no matter the delay on operational, it does not extend the contract beyond the initial three year period.
So we have the ability to either stay in it, renew,
or whatnot.
With that, we'll take any questions. Thank you, chief. Thank you, Bill. Well done. Counsel, any thoughts, comments, or questions?
Thank you very much. I know everybody wants to offer congratulations. Any comments or thoughts from any,
Roswell residents?
Thank you very much. Bring it back.
Well done, gentlemen. We could talk about this for a long time. It's big stuff.
But I think at this time, I feel Sarah staring me down saying she wants to make a motion.
Motion to approve Quake see through technology pioneer program and a budget amendment b a three five zero three five two zero zero dash zero five dash one two dash two five to fund the program. Thank you, sir.
We gotta go get somebody else. I just said
Alright. Seconded by council member Johnson. All in
all in favor of the approval of this particular
technology pioneer program, please raise your hands.
Let the record show that the vote is six zero's unanimous very much. Thank you. Congratulations,
Pavel and Bill. Thank you.
Alright. Next on the agenda is the city attorney's report.
Chief legal officer and city attorney Davidson, would you read the ordinance under the city attorney's report? Thank you, mayor. This is an ordinance to amend chapter three Alcoholic Beverages, article three, requirements for consumption on premises license section 7.18
craft beer and wine market. Now therefore, the mayor and council of the City of Roswell, pursuant to their authority, do hereby adopt the following amendment.
Chapter three, alcoholic beverages, article three, requirements for consumption on premises license,
section 7.18
craft beer and wine market,
excuse me, of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Roseville, Georgia is hereby amended by deleting said section and replacing said section with the new Section 7.18,
Craft Beer and Wine Market, which shall read as shown in Exhibit A attached here to incorporate here in my reference.
And if approved, this is the second reading. Thanks so much, David. Yeah. Just for clarity, it's the approval of ordinance to update sections three point seven point one eight, craft beer and wine market, the code of ordinances, and the city of Roswell, and it is the second reading. Are there any comments or thoughts from, counsel?
Thank you very much. Any Roswell residents like to weigh in on this? Thank you very much. At this time, Christine, I believe this is Lee. Is this yours or Christine is this yours? Which one of you guys?
Go ahead. Christine. Lee, would you like to make the motion? I would love to make a motion to help out one of our local business owners well, two business owners. That's right.
Motion to approve the ordinance to update the section three point seven point eighteen, craft beer and wine market of the code of ordinances of the city of Roswell. And I'll second it. Second reading. Second reading. Second reading. Second reading. And I second reading. Thank you. And final alright. Thank you very much. Motion made by Lee, seconded by Christine.
All in favor of approving this in the second reading, please raise your hands.
Let the record show that the ordinance passes unanimously six to zero. We appreciate that very much. Thank you, and congratulations to those two businesses being impacted by it. Being that there are no other items, this mayor and council meeting of 05/12/2025
is adjourned. Thank you so much.