Mayor and Council Meeting
Video Transcript
Duration: 144 minutes
Speakers: 25
Council open forum of 03/31/2025.
This is the fifth Monday, which means it's open mic night.
I'm mayor Kurt Wilson. I'd like to introduce my colleagues and council members present,
council member Sarah Beeson,
council member Christine Hall,
council member Lee Hills and Pro Tem,
council member William Mortland,
and council member David Johnson and council member Allen Sells are both not present,
on an excused,
absence from our meeting tonight.
I'll now turn our meeting over to our chief executive officer and city administrator, mister Randy Knighton. Mister Randy Knighton will explain how the meeting is run. Mister Knighton.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson, and good evening, everyone.
Good evening, and welcome to open forum.
If you would like to speak this evening, we do ask that you fill out a comment card, which can be found at the back of the room,
in order to ensure an accurate record of the meeting. We ask, of course, as we do in all meetings, that everyone observe the principles of mutual respect and display the appropriate demeanor during the course of the meeting this evening, which should be and is reflective of our great community.
The mayor, of course, is the presiding officer of the meeting and will ensure
the orderly exchange of comments this evening. As always, we encourage everyone in attendance and the viewing audience to, visit the city website for meetings, events, and departmental information and encourage everyone to review and participate in the various activities and offerings here in the city of Roswell, which you can find at roswell365.com.
There are a number of events, upcoming in the city of Roswell, which promote community,
physical activity, and leisure
as we all make Roswell the number one family community
in America.
Mayor Wilson. Thank you, mister Knight. And as always,
at this time, I have the great privilege of asking pastor Jason Cook, pastor of Fellowship Bible Church, to come to the front and lead us in an invocation and moment of silence.
Thank you, mayor Wilson, and thank you to the council.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.
Father in heaven, you are so kind to us and so gracious
that you've given us another morning full of your mercy. You've given us another day that is full of your grace.
And even this evening, you've given us yet an opportunity
to experience your hand of provision,
protection,
and even fun
by and through the work of those before us. Would you superintend this meeting and would you be here in our midst
so that these leaders before us and those of us here who are citizens of this great city
might,
experience the great joy of co laboring
to see your kingdom shalom on display here.
So, Lord, would you guide and govern our time this evening?
We love you so much. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen.
Amen.
Thank thank you, pastor Jason Cook of the Fellowship Bible Church for joining us tonight.
At this time, I'd like to ask United State Marine Corps, Colonel James M Dunn,
James M Dunn to come forward and lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Colonel.
Pledge of 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, Colonel Dunn.
At that time, I'd like at this time, I'd like to ask you to please stay up there as I'll ask the council to come down for the first item under the mayor's report,
which is a reading of the proclamation for the esteemed veteran of Roswell award.
Proclamation,
office of the mayor, Colonel James m Dunn. James m Dunn,
esteemed veteran.
Whereas the city of Roswell
proudly recognizes and honors the outstanding military service
and lifelong dedication
of colonel James m Dunn, United States Marine Corps, who served his country with honor and distinction
from 1970
until his retirement in 1999.
Whereas colonel Dunn's exemplary military career spanned twenty nine years,
including five years of active duty
and twenty four years in the marine corps reserve,
during which he served as an officer and aviator,
piloting CH 46 helicopters on active duty
and Ah dash one Cobra attack helicopters in the reserves,
amassing more than 4,000
flight hours in both rotary and fixed wing aircraft.
Whereas during operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm,
then lieutenant girl colonel Dunn
served as the commanding officer of HMA seven seven three,
an attack helicopter squander squadron
based out of Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta, Georgia.
He led approximately 100 United States Marines
and four naval service members,
successfully completing all assigned missions
and ensuring the safe return of every service mender member under his command.
Squadron logged approximately eight hundred flight hours,
including two hundred and seventy hours in active combat duty.
Whereas for his leadership,
valor, and service,
Colonel Dunn was awarded the Bronze Star
and carried out deployments and training operations
in numerous locations around the world,
including Okinawa,
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia,
Norway,
Denmark,
The Philippines,
Thailand,
Japan,
Australia,
and across The United States.
Whereas,
colonel Dunn has consistently demonstrated his commitment
to honor sing to honoring the legacy of all who have served,
particularly
Vietnam veterans,
ensuring they receive the recognition and appreciation
they so richly deserve.
And whereas following his military retirement
at the rank of full colonel,
colonel Dunn continued to serve the community
as a dedicated immigration attorney in Roswell, Georgia for over thirty years,
helping individuals and families pursue
the American dream.
Now, therefore, I, Curtin Wilson, mayor of the city of Roswell, Georgia,
do hereby name Colonel James m Dunn,
an esteemed veteran of Roswell,
and call upon all our citizens to recognize his outstanding service to our country and to our community,
and that there's no higher calling than those who've served in the United States Armed Forces. Congratulations, sir. Thank you. Thank
you.
Okay. Thank you. I would like to say a few words.
Hi. Mayor? Oh, sorry. Sorry. Thank you, mister mayor and city council and, miss Katrina Singletary who I who worked with me to help put this together.
And I'm I've accept this recognition, not for me personally,
but on behalf of all service members,
past and present,
who served our great country
and,
particularly with emphasis on the Vietnam veterans.
They gave more
than, than they got. And, I'm here really on their behalf. Thank you very much for
this.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you very much.
This is the fifth Monday, which means it is open mic night. The reason that the overwhelming majority of you are here, thank you for being here and being with us during the presentation of Colonel Dunn's esteemed Roswell award.
We have three open mic nights this year. This is the first on the calendar of 2025.
We have received
a great deal of
commentary
and emails and comments and conversations
over the parking deck and the parking policy.
So if you will bear with me, there's gonna be a five minute presentation by vice president Sharon Izzo and a three minute presentation by, senior vice president Jeff Leatherman.
They'll now open up the meeting, and then I will open up the open mic meeting to all Roswell residents who are here. So thank you so much. So let me start off first with a five minute present presentation by vice president Sharon Izzo on the parking deck.
Thank you, mayor Wilson.
So excited to be here again with you tonight celebrating the great milestone of the giant step forward we took Wednesday night in our parking deck project.
As you know, the voters overwhelmingly,
voted for the parking deck in Downtown Roswell, and we have worked,
long and hard to identify the site and then to,
do some some preliminary engineering and architecture work,
to develop a a a design that, we then were able to go out into the marketplace with
and go through a very painstaking
procurement process to make sure we identified the exact right team for our design build
of this parking deck, and that team is Winter Construction.
I wanna start by talking a little bit about the the design itself, the images that
uh-oh. Hold on.
Hope if I turn it on. Okay.
These images that we shared on Wednesday, I know there were a number of questions that you all received over the weekend. So I wanna start by saying
that the Green Street parking deck is a part of a broader Green Street activation plan to create an East West pedestrian
corridor
along Plum Tree Street that's going to to connect Canton to Green Street and Green Street to Southern Post,
and to to create, an opportunity for parking that could,
accommodate visitors that might be even coming into our Woodstock,
soccer soccer fields over the weekends and in the evenings for practices.
So,
just to to talk about the Green Street activation plan a little bit, if I may,
the Green Street plan is to take Green Street and
basically take that from a two way,
street to a one way street travel traveling south.
That will work well along with the corridor,
drive that'll go in on the north side of our parking deck to create better circulation in that part of town.
In addition to that, the intention is to take Plumtree Street right now, which is a one way street, and turn that into a pedestrian only street to provide that connection for
visitors that are parking in our parking deck and looking to,
get over onto Canton Street to visit our restaurants and our shops and to generally explore all that Roswell has to offer.
The design itself
contemplated the original design of the Mason's Lodge. As you know, as a part of this process,
the Mason's Lodge, it was determined that the city council wanted to preserve and protect that property.
And in so doing, we needed to take a look at that architecture, which is Greek revival,
and how will our deck work next to that deck next to the lodge in addition to being adjacent to Southern Post and the rest of the surroundings.
And that's what you see here. You see the the brick facade. You see the the vertical,
relief that's provided almost making it look like a grouping of buildings.
That was some of the work that was done by the architect we worked with. He looked very closely at not just those buildings, but also the rest of our historic district to understand what the architecture was and what we could do
with this deck.
As we talked about last week, the deck itself is a giant concrete structure. It's a bunch of concrete LEGO blocks that get fitted together.
So what we need to do is talk about what happens on the outside.
And our deck is a four sided deck. Oftentimes, in other cities, you might see a deck that looks one way from one perspective and another way from a from another perspective, almost like a backside and a front side. Our deck is is completely going to have an architectural treatment on all four sides.
The other thing I wanna point out as we're looking at this image is you can start to see some of the,
the fall that we have on this site. So on the Green Street side,
the, land itself is higher. We move over to nine, we have about a 12 to 15 drop 15 foot drop across the site. So what that means is that part of the deck would actually be subterranean on that very first level.
As a female, and I imagine other people,
I'm not terribly comfortable
in a subterranean deck with very limited light. I feel vulnerable,
and that's something that our team looked very, very closely at. How are we going to create,
an openness even in the subterranean level,
to create a feeling of safety and allow natural light to, penetrate that deck? And you'll see some very large openings particularly
again, it's almost like a crown molding. It's that little bit extra that you do, And, again, it's almost like a crown molding. It's that little bit extra that you don't always see on a parking deck, but something that,
the the group felt was very important for this particular parking deck.
You can also see that on this image,
and I probably should oriented you when we got started here.
This is actually looking at our parking deck from Southern Post, the southern piece of Southern Post looking across the street at where our deck will be. You can also see,
the surface parking there on the south side, and that'll actually be the entrance to the,
to that first level of the deck. You can also see there's a lot of, landscaping there. And so there's attention given to,
the beauty
surrounding the deck and paying attention to the property itself.
This image is more from,
the the,
traffic light there at South Southern Post looking directly at the deck. So that gives you an idea of how deep the deck is going to be.
And then here, this image is as though we've just had breakfast at Fellowes and are walking back down to our car at the parking deck along Green Street. And you can see here that tower tower is actually the, not just the stairway, but also the elevator for the deck. And you can see that there's, there there's
a fair bit of light being,
given to that tower, which will make it feel open and less restrictive.
There's also,
rather than making that just an opening, we're actually gonna be put putting glass in there, which I think will be lovely and also,
allow that to feel, safer.
And again, you can see some of the beautiful plantings that are contemplated there.
The last image I have to share with you is actually of the Green Street plum Plumtree Street connection. So this will be the, the image that a visitor will have as they're returning to their to their parking deck after a visit perhaps over on Canton Street
looking back at the deck. And you can see on this side, the deck looks much shorter. And, again, that's because there is that subterranean level
below,
that level that you're looking at here. So you're actually looking at the middle level of the deck when you're looking at this image.
And of course, I'm I'm well I'm open to any, questions or thoughts, but I think probably now you'd like me to turn it over to Jeff so he can talk about parking policy. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much, senior vice president Sharon Iso. Thank you. Thank you.
Senior vice president Jeff Leatherman on the
parking policy.
Thank you, mayor. And I just wanted to cover a couple of points from our last presentation. As miss Izzo has said,
community members can go back, last week when we presented both at committee and then also at our special called meeting where I spent quite a bit of time talking a little bit about our, economic development strategy and how not only parking, but this parking deck and future parking decks will impact and influence our economic development strategy over the course of time and especially in our downtown area. We're thinking about new projects that are coming on board, Hill Street being one, West Alley is right behind us, and Chambray Hotel, all on the horizon in our downtown area, plus a tremendous amount of work in our Midtown and East side of our community where parking and parking as a service to support our businesses will all be part of our economic development strategy
moving forward.
I wanted to make sure that we just cover for the community.
Real quick, seven bullet points, and then I'll touch on the budget of items that we have moved forward,
with guidance from this mayor and council regarding our policies that we released and started to talk about as part of our fiscal year twenty five budget. And what I really wanna communicate both to the community and,
to those that are watching
is we are slowing down the implementation of our fiscal year twenty five downtown parking plan. We'll be meeting with our community,
to get some feedback on additional ways that we can support our businesses in and around the downtown community.
We will continue to charge for parking at our existing locations, and that'll be the only place that we'll focus on charging for parking here in the foreseeable future until we bring some additional recommendations back to council regarding technology,
which I'll talk back on the next page. But Canton Street, Elizabeth Way, and East Alley, currently, we charge for parking at those locations. We will continue to charge for parking. We will be bringing some ordinances forward,
to help us support the enforcement of charging for parking. But, again, it'll be limited to those three locations.
City staff will also be doing some research and recommendations for technology so we can identify resident versus nonresident, and that will help inform future policies for this mayor and council.
We'll be recommending that technology at Old Mill Park. We're also tackling,
an opportunity at Old Mill Park for how we could potentially implement parking and parking related solutions
to help with the traffic that we have and that we experience coming up really probably in the next month or so and throughout the remainder of the summer down at Old Mill Park. We know that our community is impacted, the park is impacted, and we believe that there are some parking solutions as we continue to do our research that will help support both the operation of the park, but also the community and the surrounding neighborhoods of that park facility.
Again, we'll be updating some ordinances
just related to our Canton Street,
and Elizabeth Way in East Alley. We may also include, Old Mill Park as part of that as we continue to work through some of the solutions there. We'd like to transition East Alley into pedestrian friendly experience
and then also introduce some downtown ambassador type programs where we can help solicit feedback from our community and also help navigate people around the downtown area when we're under construction over the next thirteen months with our new parking deck.
As it relates to our budget, just one bullet point there that we did forecast a $2,200,000
budget. We've revised all of those budget projections. We do have a million dollars,
budget opportunity, I will say, essentially,
uncommon for a budget as the size of ours as we forecast our fiscal year twenty five budget. We continue to refine our revenues, refine our expenses, and we'll do the same with the forecasted
parking revenue.
So we're working with about essentially a million dollar deficit that we do have to tackle. We've already decreased our expenses. A lot of the expenses were associated with the expansion of downtown parking with technology, signage,
and staffing, which we have reduced from the budget already as we sit here today.
Those are the major points I wanted to cover as we set the stage for the conversation tonight. Thank you, mister mayor, for an opportunity. Thank you, senior vice president, Jeff Leatherman, and senior vice president, Sharon Eisel. Thank you for your time. Thank you, everyone, for allowing us to make a quick short presentation.
At this point, I will open it up to the floor for all RELREL's residents. I will call on you. I'll call on you before you come up, and I'm gonna ask a favor of you. Please announce your name and where you live,
and do me favor. If I ask it again, because I'm writing it down, so I write down the note. So just bear with me if I ask you again. So that's what my first question.
Yes, ma'am.
You're right there. Raise your hand in the beautiful blue dress in the second row. That's you.
Or blue blue top. Sorry. Forgive me.
Okay.
Good evening, mister mayor, council, and fellow Roswellians. I am doctor Melody McLeod. I am an original owner of my home
here in Roswell now for twenty nine and a half years.
First, I just wanna say that, the off the service that we had for, slain officer, Jeremy Labonte, was wonderful.
The community
and the city came out beautifully for him, and I just it was a beautiful service and supportive his him, his family,
his brothers and sisters in blue, and all of our first responders that fill the church.
Second quick thing, I would like to see if we could refund or reestablish the core program, which I heard has been discontinued. We loved it was a great experience. I think it would be great if we can get that back if it has been,
discontinued.
Thirdly, quickly,
about the parking,
I, as a 29
resident of Roswell,
I'm in favor of us needing parking, but I really still don't feel
that we should have to pay for the Roswell and should have to pay for the parking. I would like to see that we have one parking decal
per homeowner residence, not three or four cars per residence, but one. We can make it happen and let people who are visiting Roswell pay for the parking that we've paid for this with our taxes.
Minimally, I'd like to suggest that senior citizens be allowed parking, but I think all Roswellians should be allowed to park for free.
Last other thing before my final comment is, I still don't know why we have to pay $20 to watch the people shred our documents at the recycling center
when they're there to do their job and we're just gonna stand there and watch.
Now my main reason for being here is as I was here on 10/30/2023
regarding
incessant barking and growling from the neighbor's dogs, which is still ongoing, which has now been over two years at my corridor.
Our noise nuisance violations
fall under code Roswell code eight point one point thirteen f and eight point eight point three.
I suggest that our code enforcement department is in great need of better investigative practices and procedures to assess violations that are not static,
such as
overgrown grass.
And I don't think that officers should inform the violators that they're coming because that way it negates,
them being able to observe.
In fact, years ago, couple years, officer Johnson,
he actually came by the property
in his marked vehicle
and just as the dogs began to bark, what did he do? He cut off his body cam. I have the the the clip right here.
And I just would like to say I would like to something to be done about it. And just so you can hear a little bit of what's been happening on my corridor, just because it wasn't observed,
that's the thing. You guys have to observe it. But it doesn't mean it's not happening. And so I just wanna share with you and I my apologies to those of you behind me, but I I want you guys to see what's happening, not only to me. And when you hear this, I'm in my kitchen
and this is what I'm hearing inside my house. And I have a pretty large house, but this is what I'm hearing and and I want you to hear just a little taste of it.
And if they're outside with the dogs, you would think they would tell them to shut up.
Remember, I'm inside my house recording this.
Now I'm gonna stop because I wanna allow I'm gonna forfeit some of my time because I really would like a response
from some of you because I'm I still have time. That I had
I had been at my kitchen counter,
seasoning turkey wings for four and a half minutes. And Melody, just stay focused on what you're doing. Just keep and I couldn't concentrate. So I washed my hands, dried my hands, found my phone, went and started recording. That recording last eight and a half minutes.
So I've got, like, thirteen, fourteen minutes of that. So I'd like to no. I wanna give you what can we what can we done about this? Thanks thanks, doctor McLeod. I really Any comments, sir? Appreciate no, ma'am. No comments from you. This your night to make the comments, and I really appreciate you coming. As you know, we have we actively are happy to engage with you on any and all matters of the city. I really appreciate you being here tonight. Thank you. I would like to hear from someone about this, though. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
Janet.
Janet Russell, Roswell, Georgia. Fifty two years this month, I moved here in pollen heaven. Congratulations. The good news is we don't have to shovel pollen.
I didn't really come prepared with notes. I came to listen, but I have a couple of comments about the presentation. One, I'm going to go on the record as saying
the parking garage is in the wrong location.
It's terrible.
The design isn't that nice. It's not reflective of our historic district. It looks like a gulag.
Secondly,
I'd like you to consider
solarizing the roof of the parking garage.
There is a company in Atlanta that specializes in solarizing
parking garages.
Let's get in the twenty first century folks,
you could provide enough electricity for all of Canton Street from a parking garage.
What a concept.
Thirdly,
pedestrianizing
the East Alley project. If you go back and look at the minutes of about, twelve years ago,
when the city and the DDA
decided to spend $1,970,000
to pave the East Alley
to make it a pedestrian area.
It was not a public street.
We had to take possession of it first,
then we put in pavers,
so the Sysco food trucks could back in.
It will never be pedestrianized
because it is a service alley for the restaurants that face Canton Street, and delivery trucks cannot park on Canton Street to deliver because it's one way in each direction.
And no one's going to take a dolly through an entire restaurant to the back where the kitchen is.
Secondly, they screwed up by making it a one way street entry only from Canton Street, exit out to Norcross Street, and trucks cannot make a 90 degree turn right there when they enter.
So they go on to Norcross Street and either park in the left turn lane
and then unload their stuff and bring it in, or they back in down from Norcross Street to Canton's to the East Alley.
Rotting garbage, broken benches, you can say what you want that it hasn't been activated, but that's because there's nothing back there,
except the one restaurant that is actually the back door of the Elizabeth Way entrance. When they tried to make a patio, the city shut them down with that that increase of capacity.
So I think you need to look at the whole picture. Pedestrianization,
I've been fighting for that since I moved here.
I remember going to city council when it was at the visitor center where the visitor center used to be and saying,
wouldn't this be cool? Roswell has 5,000 people. I think it would be nice to make it like a city ordinance or part of our planning that every single shopping center, school,
subdivision,
park, everything gets connected by a multimodal path, and I was laughed at.
Imagine if fifty years ago city of Roswell had done that and taken my advice,
we would be a model for how a city grows.
Right now, I still am waiting for sidewalks, and I was told twenty five years ago I wasn't patient enough.
Well, twenty five more years, and I'm I guess I'm not gonna be patient enough either.
As far as parking for pedestrian for residents, I've been asking for that down at the river. I've given up going to the river on the weekends. The parking lots are full of bars Bartow,
Cherokee, lots of Cobb. The Willie 0 Park is really a nicely kept park for the residents of Cobb County.
You can never there's 12 parking spaces, you can never get a parking space.
I was told that we couldn't charge for parking down at the river because that was one of the conditions when we took over the land from Fulton County.
I thought we leased it for like a dollar a year and then we did all the improvements.
We're not charge asking you to charge for parking. We're asking you to put up some signs that say, Roswell resident parking only and give us a sticker.
For Pete's sake,
I can't ever use the parks on the weekends. Forget it. It's impossible.
But everybody else can. I see whole mother groups come from Cobb County and park in 30 cars so they can have Mother's Day on Tuesday.
Why? Because they charge for parking in Cobb County.
Now I
don't think that charging for parking for residents is gonna deters because most residents don't really go to Canton Street.
They go other places as we know where all the secret places are that are better. Thank you.
Thank you, Janet.
Mayor Wood,
welcome. My name
is Jerry Wood. I reside
at 10850
Stroop Road. I came tonight because I had a question.
But I recognize that it is the policy of this mayor and council
not to answer questions
on fifth Monday.
So I'll ask you a couple of rhetorical questions.
Our first question is,
why is this mayor and council,
choose not to answer questions? Now I can understand if the answer goes beyond five minutes
or the and the time goes beyond five minutes, it would be inappropriate.
But I still don't understand
when a citizen ask a question,
why cannot they get an answer?
I'm sure if they have
I'm sure your staff
or you may have an answer. And if you don't, you could say you don't have an answer and get to us later.
But I think it would be welcome
if you would answer our questions.
And again, I came tonight because I had a question.
I read last week that the city had approved $14,000,000
to build a parking deck,
and it showed
a rendering.
So I went
to the city site to say, what's the site plan? Where is this building going? I couldn't tell where it was going from the rendering.
I have searched the city's
online information and I still cannot find
where this building is exactly going.
I asked Marley Press, who was the city clerk for twenty years, to see if she could find out where this building was going.
He couldn't.
I called a couple of council members and did not get a a a
a site plan.
So my question
is exactly where is this building going? Because
it does not show
in the minutes.
It does not show in the rendering.
And I've got a question where the billing goes.
Mayor Wood, I can interrupt you. If you don't mind, I'll show you where it is right now. Sharon, would you show the mayor would you show the mayor where the building's going?
That the rendering that you have?
The one that you
The site plan. The site plan.
Thank you, sir.
Of course.
This is a this is rudimentary,
crude, but it shows you exactly where the location of the parking garage is on this on the fiscal site.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I I I searched and searched the city's
approval of this $14,000,000
and couldn't find it.
So thank you for that. I appreciate that. But I would encourage you
to entertain questions, if they're simple,
from the floor. It would be welcome
and would be helpful.
And next time there is
a approval of a project,
it would be nice to have the site plan
with the approval so citizens like me can understand
a little more than what what is going on. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mayor Wood, as always.
Appreciate your comments, Mayor Wood. Thank you so much. And obviously, the
council and,
is free to answer questions as well as I am at any time.
And the staff as well as often we
and it's been,
it's not a policy not to answer questions.
It's usually it's our policy to allow the residents to speak and to address the issues they wanna address.
We have an active policy of meeting with any and any resident, any business, anytime they wanna meet and address any issue they wanna address.
There are people that come to these meetings sometimes that we've met with several times, and they'll still ask the same questions. And honestly, it's I don't wanna give a public answer
that makes the resident of the business look like in not a great position. So sometimes the best thing is just to be quiet
because I'm not interested in making people not look good.
And it means what I can tell you is that we actively behind the scenes will meet
with anybody
about any issue that they have in the city at any time.
Staff will, counsel will, and myself will, and that is an open invitation.
It is the opposite of hiding. I
really ask
and think and believe that this is your time, and it's your time to say the things that you wanna say. It's not my time. It's not the council's time. It's not the staff's time.
I gave a little presentation shortly just I hope it was eight minutes,
just to give a little pretext of the many things that we'd heard over the weekend from a bunch of people saying, hey. We got some questions about the presentation.
And we figured that some of those would come up tonight. And I'm sure that they still will, and I'm sure it doesn't answer all the questions. And I thank you, Mayor Wood, for asking about the specific site selection.
There's a lot more coming that you're gonna get, obviously,
on the parking deck. So I've got enough. Who would like to speak next?
Gail? Yes, ma'am.
Welcome, Gail.
My name is Gail Bohannon McCoy. I live at 736 Bush Street, Roswell,
Georgia.
I have two
issues that I have tonight,
and I will start with Pleasant Hill Cemetery,
which is a historical cemetery in Roswell.
And it has been established,
I'll say,
late eighteen hundreds.
And I was at a
historical society meeting the other week, and I wanna clarify,
that it was stated that the Pleasant Hill that the Pleasant Hill Cemetery was neglected.
And I wanna thank all of those that have been,
going cleaning up, sending donations
personally,
to help upkeep the cemetery.
But my main issue is that,
we were told at one time that,
the city was going to be cleaning up the cemetery,
and that was the memorandum of understanding.
And so
then it was changed,
and they are upkeeping
the other historical cemeteries in Roswell, but not Pleasant Hills Cemetery.
And I just wanted to understand
why some and not all hysterical cemeteries.
I don't know if you will be able to answer that tonight, but, the Let me give you a try. Let me give you a try. I know you got more things, but let's let's see if you can answer on that. Okay. And by the way, you probably notice
talk about,
commitment to service. Nobody knows this, but do you know council member Will
I got no
time. She's coming back. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll have the time. Thank you though for catching it.
Council member Will Mortland sorry, Gail, if I dug in your time. We'll get it back. Council member Will Mortland
actually
cuts the grass
himself along with his son at the Pleasant Hill Church. Now, Jeff,
you might have some insight into this issue because I don't,
and I don't remember the history on it. Can you address anything in terms of historical nature of what the city's done in the past?
Has it done in the past? Can you kind of address that real quick?
No. Come on. It's good to see.
With regards to the Pleasant Hill Cemetery,
miss Bohannon is correct. We do, maintain two cemeteries here in the community, and our historical society as identified on their website and then part of a lot of their volunteer and inventory,
the Pleasant Hill Cemetery as well. It has largely been maintained by volunteers as was indicated, council member Morland being one of them, and I think there's some in the audience who are also volunteers.
The city has not, in recent history, to my knowledge, taken on any active role of maintenance
at that cemetery.
We did talk about it in the budget process,
but we haven't to date, taken on any active, maintenance of that site. Can I ask you a question, Jeff? So historically,
the city, for whatever reason, did not include Pleasant Hill,
cemetery in its,
inventory of cemeteries that it maintains? That we maintained or funded through maintenance. So in
probably three years ago, we or two years ago, we switched over from a contract maintenance service at two of the cemeteries
to in house. But at that time, Pleasant Hill was not part of that contract. And what two cemeteries does the city actually maintain that are not city
cemeteries? We have Founders Cemetery, which is off of Sloane Street,
in in around the old the the Mill Village area, and then we have, the Roswell Historic Cemetery, which is here on Highway 9 in Woodstock. Those are the two locations. Certainly. Those two and the city so the the taxpayer does actually fund the maintenance of those. Yes. But it does but the city has never done Pleasant Hill. That's my knowledge. So, Gail, if I'm hearing you correct, you're banking, hey. We would like for you to start
of working you know, spending some money on the upkeep of the Pleasant Hill Cemetery. Is that right?
The city. Yes. Yes, sir.
Alright.
Well, besides council mayor, Martha and Cutting Grass, I'll go to work on that. Well, not only does Morthland,
Groveway actually contributes money,
for the last few years, and we've already done a lot of maintenance on the cemetery.
And, other people have donated
for the upkeep of that cemetery to the Raul
Historical
Society.
So,
I'm not gonna get into that.
But thank you, councilor Morflin, Charles Grogan, and all of Growaway
members that have been going and others
in helping keep the cemetery alive and looking beautiful.
And we'll go to work on your request
Yes. On trying to on trying to make that part of the inventory, the other three the other two and make it a third that the city,
does maintenance on. Yes. That'll make me happy.
Don't don't give us credit till we get it done.
But we gonna hold you to it. And, Letterman, you could've stayed on up here because my other issue is Doc's Cafe. Yes, ma'am. That started off, like, in 2020,
and it was been moved around and is now on Oxbow kinda hidden behind. And I know it's kinda shabby now, so I don't know if you'll be able to move it or not. But,
from some community members, we would like for it to see in the black community,
as a historical site and be deemed as an historical site for the black community. There's not a whole lot of black history that is in Roswell
that people can identify. When people come to Roswell,
most of the time, all they see is white. Thank you for the excellent roots program that,
you know, goes on every year, but there's other things to see. And we would like to have Doc's Cafe put back in place.
So you know,
let's get our time.
You know, we're working on Doc's Cafe. And so wide open to I'd like to have a very vibrant conversation. I think,
senior vice president Jeff Leatherman has an excellent idea because my I would like to make Doc's Cafe relevant. I'd like to make it active. I'd like the people to know about it. I'd like people to visit
it. We've got an idea about that, but what we would like to meet with, everybody in the community to to about that idea. As you know,
it's not in good physical shape. Right. My concern is it being forgotten about. And so I wanna make it activated and have it be part of the history, not just today, but history in the future. Okay. And tie that into other Roswell history so that it gets more people congregated to do it and time tied into our economic development plan. So I'd love to meet
with any and all people that wanna talk about Doxkelevate, because I think Jeff
we're gonna give Jeff credit. I don't know which one of them are. I think they have a great idea.
And I wanna talk about that. Alright. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Yes, ma'am.
Mary Robichaud. Yes, ma'am.
Welcome, Mary. And I'm sorry. I I wanna give you the right title. It is representative
Robichaud, so I apologize.
Welcome.
No. I dropped that title now. Supposedly, it's honorable, which is silly. Honorable. My name is Mary Robichaud. I live at 2900
Rox Roxburgh Drive.
Been a resident of Roswell thirty three years.
I am here about Pleasant Hill Cemetery and I applaud,
stepping forward. For those of you who have never visited it,
it is a beautiful setting. My husband and I have gone there. It's peaceful. It's quiet. The trees are gorgeous.
Thank you for
cutting the grass. It is actually not in deplorable condition.
What's amazing is when
the cemetery is documented
as being formed in 1855,
one year after the formation of Roswell, Georgia.
We don't know how long people had been buried there, unfortunately.
It was where our enslaved people were buried
at that time. So when you think about Founders Cemetery,
these are some of our founders also.
When we my husband and I walk around the gravesites,
My husband and I walked around the gravesites
to see headstones
of people who were born into enslavement
and then died
a free person.
They have a beautiful little, patio,
as you know, with some benches that have been donated
that we sat there as gorgeous.
Unfortunately, when we were there,
the city doesn't even provide trash cans for the cemetery unlike in the other two historical cemeteries, so I would hope that's part of the plan too. It's got a beautiful archway
into it.
It's actually, I'm assuming, not only do you cut the grass, but I'm assuming MIMS,
which is the facility close by, cuts the rest of the grass. So it's a really nice place, but there's not even a markers out on the street
from,
I think it's Grimes Road pointing you to the cemetery.
I've been looking into too working with Gail at Grove Way. We're investigating
how we can,
I'm sure a lot of people do know, there's a historic black cemetery
trail
in Georgia.
We have one of the oldest ones in the state of Georgia
right here in Roswell,
and I think again that becomes that tourist
part of our tourist destination for various people who want to see that, walk through that,
get that feeling of history.
It reminds me when my husband and I were in Ireland and you walk among those gravesites,
you just can imagine what people live through.
And I would applaud and hope that that does move forward.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, honorable Mary Robichaud.
Thank you.
Yes, ma'am. In the purple. Yes, ma'am. Welcome.
How are you? Welcome. Thank you. Mister mayor, would it be okay if my assistant passed out, some papers to share with you? Of course. Okay. Great. Thanks.
Hi. I'm doctor Cynthia Seabacher. I am a dual licensed
practitioner in the state of Georgia. I've been here ten years for chiropractic and twenty six years for being a licensed massage therapist.
I'm the owner of the Academy of Clinical and Integrated Massage, a massage school dedicated to training future health care professionals.
I believe my business license has been miscoded, and I would like to challenge such denial due to unfair competition or favoritism,
violation of free market principles, and improper use of zoning
laws.
As a trade school, the NAICS
category is six one one five one nine, most specifically massage therapist instruction
as a massage parlor.
The NAICS
category is 812199.
The school is most definitely not a massage parlor nor a massage establishment.
Gwinnett College has a Roswell campus specifically for massage therapy school students in the city of Roswell.
My school is modeled after Gwinnett College and several other massage schools in the state of Georgia.
The city attorney initially denied a business license due to students working on people saying that it was against,
your,
your laws now.
So I've also provided
all the Georgia rules from the massage therapy board
that's in your packet.
Rule three four five dash eight dash o one,
requirements for a board recognized massage therapy education program
states
supervised
hands on instruction,
where supervised means the supervisor is physically on-site, qualified, and immediately available.
Rule three four five dash six dash zero two, the scope of practice of massage therapy students,
states any student pursuing a certification as a massage therapist in an educational program
may engage in the practice of services or activities of massage or massage therapy
when such person is, a, actively enrolled in a massage therapy program,
b, designated by title indication indicating student status and may not represent themselves as a massage therapist or a massage practitioner,
and c, fulfilling
uncompensated
work experiences
required for the attainment of certification.
This is all for in order to sit for licensing in the state of Georgia.
Uncompensated
means any person in student status may not intentionally or knowingly agree to accept any compensation
directly or indirectly
in cash or in kind in the form of payments, gifts, or tips.
The primary responsibility for the services provided for clients by the designated student rests with the licensed massage therapist, supervisor, or other authorized
instruction.
Documents of all service for clients and treatment plans must be reviewed and approved by the LMT supervisor.
And finally, Georgia code 43Dash
24 a dash 19
also specifies that a student is
designated by title indicating status and is fulfilling uncompensated
work experiences.
I'm here because I have written several emails, and I've only had that one response denying that we could be a massage
establishment
and saying saying they wanted us to be listed as a massage establishment
instead of a trade school.
I have not been able to have anybody,
call me back or email me back after providing all of this information.
Can I doctor Seabacher? Please. Yes. Jamie, in the back,
would you need a favor? I'm gonna set up a meeting with you and me next week. I wanna jump all over this. Perfect. Seems like a very reasonable request.
There might be a couple of little legal hurdles we gotta figure out.
I'm sorry about this. Sorry we've caused you a problem. We'll get to the bottom of it, get it addressed. You'll come see me next week if you have time, if that's the case we do. Make the time. Thank you so much. Miss Jamie will come grab you in a minute. Okay. Yes. Thank you, doctor Seabach. Thank you.
Yes, ma'am. Just raise your hand. Yes. Also in purple.
It's a great color. A great liturgical color.
Hi, mayor. My name is Donna Melcher, and I live at 720
Creekview Lane,
just about five minutes that way.
And I'm hoping today that we can have an update on the mold situation in the Roswell housing authority. I was at a council meeting
several months ago, and I know that there was some action items taken.
And to my understanding,
that problem is has not been abated. So I'd be curious about that, please.
Miss Archer, hold on a second. Anybody up to speed on the on this?
Jeff?
Miss Archer, I am not up to speed on that issue tonight. I apologize.
I can tell you it has been addressed in many different ways, but I cannot tell you that I can address it with any confidence tonight to give you an answer
of what progress has been made on it. Thank you. And results are key. So I've got my email address there, and I'd be happy to receive an update. With me a second. Let me finish my note. Okay.
You wanna address
that? Shelter, excuse me, Lee Hills. And I go to pretty much every single one of the housing authority meetings, and the mold that was that was talked about last year, October, November,
was addressed and identified as mildew. There may be other, but that was abated. And,
Gainesville Housing Authority chairperson,
Beth Brown had personally had her team investigate that. Now for a couple of reasons this year, the board has not met. One was, officer Lamonte's
service, and so all all meetings were canceled that month.
And the one that that was March, where I know we're at the tail end right now, was canceled as well. So I haven't been at one to find out or hear,
about that. So there may be more, but I wanna tell you if you had heard
about it in October and November, those
were that issue. I can't remember if there were more than one had been abated, and it was more of a wipe down. But that's all I know. So there may be more to that. We can follow-up on that. And we'll follow-up with you and we'll follow-up with the community. We'll send out
a status of what actually is going on. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, miss Archer. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
And
would you make sure I get her email, so I don't get
that? Okay.
Who else? Yes, ma'am. Welcome,
Daryl.
Good evening. I'm Darryl O'Hare. I live at Arbor Creek Subdivision.
Just have a few things I just want to bring up since it's a catchall.
One, I wanted to say,
thank you for bringing the farmers market back to City Hall.
Whoever was responsible
because,
thank you so much.
I have enjoyed going to all the various locations. However, I just really enjoyed doing it here. It got me started on my own journey of,
buying local and and fresh, and I even worked an entire season at,
one of the farmers that comes here at a different location.
It was really hard work, so all the people come, they really put a lot of work in to put up their things. So I'm excited to have that back here. I'm also happy to see that you do have a parking garage in, place, however it's going to look, and that can be up to anybody. But
I'm very happy to see that there has been
a contract signed for that and that will be,
proposed for being done, I think, within a year.
I do hope
that I think I've stated it before that parking we have already footed the bill for the parking garage.
We'd like to see that the parking is not,
a paid parking space,
it being across from Southern Post,
which is paid. I have issues with that one, but I'll do that another time.
But
I hope that we can really come to a reasonable plan that lets the Roswell residents who've already paid enormous amount of money for a parking garage that we'll get a real benefit out of it by not feeling like, oh, we're gonna have to pay even more.
But I'm very happy that we're we're moving forward on that, and that's that's a big step.
Let's see.
I know that the historic cemeteries has been brought up, but I just wanted to reiterate my own support
that Pleasant Hill Cemetery
is not an addition to our historic cemeteries.
If anything,
it should really take some precedence right now. Our history,
I think we sometimes just get things wrong.
And I really wanna make sure that we get
that cemetery
under our own,
care
and attention
in our budget,
so that we are putting our,
actions behind our words and really putting it as
a forward thinking
while also looking back.
We need to work together, and I think that is something that we could easily do. If there was a memorandum of understanding, I would like to see that memorandum of understanding to have it cared for in
perpetuity.
Is that the right word? Yes, ma'am. Perpetuity. In other words, a memorandum of understanding that has no end in regard to Pleasant Hill Cemetery. So I would add that.
And then Doc's Cafe, I mean,
I would love to see that
before anything else, to be honest.
If we made the move, we intended to do something with it and haven't come up with the funds for it, we need to find it. We found things for other
historical structures.
This one probably means more to me in my heart than any of the others. This is personally for me, but, I know that this community deserves,
the attention and
respect
of having that cafe preserved
and given,
its due and also to celebrate the vibrancy in this,
and the success
of our community.
And then let's see if there's anything else.
I
thought there was something else, but
oh, I wouldn't
my last thing.
I take a little issue where there's a million dollar deficit coming up.
I don't think that's a deficit opportunity. I think it's a deficit.
So I think we just
refer to it as a deficit
and
I'm referring it to is it's a deficit. It's let's just look at what it says in the budget
and let's hope we come up with opportunities
to hire people
that are coming out of college,
who come up with great ideas, who are looking for jobs especially now,
and how we can maybe manage that in the future going forward. So that's just one idea of mine. But I'm really excited about the contract, and I am also excited about the farmers market. You'll see me there. Thanks.
And
don't forget to go to the biking event.
Bike Roswell. Right. Thanks so much. Thank you, Daryl. Thank you so much.
Jeff, quick question. Two things.
Dutch Cafe, do we encumber that money?
We encumber the money for to put to to put activate
the what we were hoping to do with Dutch Cafe. Did we not, or do we or am I wrong on that? So the money that we had encumbered was from,
probably two budget years ago. It's roughly about and I'll look over my shoulder with Steven. I wanna say about $75,000
for kind of the initial
assessment of how we manage Doc's Cafe, but not the full build out or restoration of Doc's Cafe. So that money's not encumbered today? What's what's the number? It's about 75?
65? Okay. Yeah. That's $65,000.
That's correct. And what's the number to with the ideal of the Grand Leatherman, Northland vision that we wanna present? Yeah. Depending on how we activate the space,
it can range from really anywhere from probably a million to a million and a half and even upwards of 2.
But we really wanna make sure that That's good. I just wanna stop there. So million, million and a half. So say you're there. Where's Bill Godshall? Bill, come on up here with Jeff. Jeff don't go anywhere.
So what I want you to know and, you know, again, I'll use this word trust. We are
Bill's gonna do a presentation on April 14 to to demonstrate to you the financial health of the city.
Bill, I want you to as a CFO who came in from the private sector, a lot of government experience, talk a little bit about budget for a second, because Jeff's very transparent when he says like, calls it a budget experience, budget deficit. But when you have a $200,000,000
$100,000,000
budget, there are a lot of things moving. Just for example, like we're looking at the possibility of trying to find a way to make Doctor. Cafe happen. That may happen at '25. You can say where that's money is going to come from. Well, Bill,
talk a little bit about budgeting and the dynamic process of budgeting because it's not a static process.
No, sir. The budget is not a static process. The, the first thing I would point to is
simply the the health of the balance sheet of the city and our ability to generate cash flow from that balance sheet,
as well as our AAA credit rating.
Also,
as each month progresses,
we have an insight into whether we're performing better or worse in certain budget categories.
We've looked at the shortfall or the deficit as
one citizen called
it. We do think on a $100,000,000
general fund budget
that we should be able to find a million dollars to compensate for that. As far as something like a capital project to move the cafe,
again, that should be a a manageable problem, manageable situation. Etcetera etcetera. We do it all the time. There's a lot of things that come up. There are a lot of things that we move money based upon priorities, based upon the desires and wishes of the people of Roswell. Roswell. Bill, thank you, sir. I look forward to your presentation
on April
to the city
about basically the the financial stewardship and health of the city's finances. Thank you very much. Thank you, Daryl. I appreciate that, and I appreciate all those great comments. Thank you. So,
who's next?
Yes, ma'am. In the middle with the yellow card there,
who doesn't have purple on.
Welcome.
Thanks.
My name is Courtney wore Morris
Rosier.
My address is 540 Hembree Road.
I have three questions and a comment.
Can the city's budget information page be updated with the 2025
final budget document?
The proposed version is still posted with a note that the approved version will be added later
earlier date. Do I answer the first question?
Sure. Yep. Stop your time. If you Yeah. First
First question,
Bill, will that be in the April 14 presentation?
You're gonna do that. Is that part of the April 14 presentation, the question that Courtney just asked?
Yes. The proposed budget's there.
Okay. There will be? Yes. Okay. So yes, ma'am. April 14.
Okay. It'll be on the budget information page? Will it be on the budget information page?
Yes, ma'am. Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
The budget information page says that the budget process involves the public with several public meetings and work sessions.
When are those work sessions and public meetings for 2026?
And will those and can those meetings,
and work sessions be posted to the budget information page? I let me answer that. Let's stop our time again.
So, Courtney,
there those dates are not on the table yet for the 2026 budget because, you know, we moved the fiscal year to match the calendar year, which means January 1.
So my guess is that Don Stevens,
Bill Godshall, David Davidson,
underneath Randy's leadership, will set up meetings with the senior staff,
with Leatherman and Izzo and the rest of the team
probably for and I'm assuming here, will it be posted? Yes. Will the public be invited? Yes. And I'm gonna give you some rough dates because these dates are just off the top of my head. Probably starting in August. Okay. Probably would be my guess. Yeah. Because I think for the twenty twenty five year, it looked like it was just the readings and the,
voting. That's right. 2024, there were not 2023, we had public workshops. 2024,
we did not have public workshops. Okay. So I'll tell you, 2023, I got it done. 2022, we got it done partially. 2023, we got it fully baked in terms of done with the public. '24, we did not.
Alright. '25. And to your question, in '26,
it'll be public, it'll be open
and maybe start in July. So the earlier you can get it, because they're going to be pushing, Don's already working on the budget for 'twenty six.
So yes, ma'am, there'll be open workshops on those and those dates will be posted and will be advertised so that people can come to those. If they could it would just be great to see them kind of all on that budget information page, so it's all kind of consolidated
and easy to reference. That would be perfect.
I appreciate that.
My third question
is,
will the city staff present at council meetings, and it sounds like they will,
updates on 2025
revenues and expenditures,
and can those dates please also be added to the budget information page?
So kinda thinking like,
at church and with my own company,
we have quarterly town halls,
there's conferences at church,
and there's budget presentations. So wondering if the same thing
happens Can I can I do you one better? Calendar and Can I do you one better? Have them to the page.
So so, Courtney, what my request has been, that's why Don Stevens is here, so I Bill Gottschill is here
is
so when we look back sorry, I'll give a little commentary. And Bill's going to address this on this April 14 meeting.
From my perspective, look, the city's had a pretty healthy financial history, but there's a lot of pieces to that equation.
Historically low cost of money over the last twenty years. It was a missed opportunity from the standpoint. A lot of lost, a lot we we fell back on infrastructure costs, etcetera, etcetera.
So part of that was when we got into this and started looking at finance was very hard to peek into the financial structure historically.
So one of the things that Bill and Don have got me into is to say, I said, look, from a perspective, I need a monthly reporting process, like a real transparent monthly reporting process. And I say, I need that. The rest of us need that. So what's coming?
And Don and Bill, when is that coming? Because it's soon. What we're going to come is is where every month and every quarter, there'll be every month, there'll be reporting to the senior staff.
So that by the way, if you're a director of transportation, you have clarity of where your numbers are. That's not been the past. Like it's kind of been a big mumbo jumbo, you know, year thing.
So one of the things is to give the operators clarity into the numbers. The second is to give the residents clarity to the numbers. So the short answer is this, yes. Not only you're going to get quarterly, you're going to get monthly. You're going to get monthly financial reporting
on the health of the city, p and l, g and l balance the whole deal so that you can be able to say, oh, now I know with clarity where we are, not fill in the blank numbers, not, you know, from a twelve month perspective.
Governments do that a lot.
Governments people realize if you're in the finance world and you get into the government world, you know, what in the world are they doing? A lot of times, it's fill in the blank on a twelve month process,
not real reporting on a monthly basis. That's why Bill's here. Bill is here fixing that right now, like, actually fixing the undercurrent the undergirdle
of the financial structure of the city from a reporting and information standpoint so that operators, that is the people who run the city daily, can actually know the states the status of, am I doing good or am I not going doing doing
good from a financial perspective.
That's coming. So if I didn't mean I didn't mean to shortcut you, but I wanted to I think we're gonna give you more than what you're answering. Great. We're gonna give you monthly financial reporting. I'd love to hear I heard you use the word transparency, and I love that. Thank you. Courtney.
Alrighty.
For my comment,
I have a comment regarding the parking. Yes, ma'am. I want to say that I support parking at all the city facilities,
which include, but are not limited to, city hall, cultural arts center,
all historic homes, parks, recreation centers
to remain free parking.
I think any paid parking,
for the parking deck plans, any of those plans,
should
include free parking hours
if we are going to be moving to a pay for parking system.
I also think
that,
there should be exemptions for residents until the bond is paid.
I also believe and I ask that any revenues,
that are collected through pay parking would be used and earmarked exclusively
for
the operation,
maintenance, and repair of the parking deck, and any of those, pay parking areas.
I also believe that, current methods for,
funding today's parking
as far as maintenance and repair, that those should just,
should remain in place so that those parking spaces
remain free and
just continue on.
Would you say that the just repeat for me because I didn't write down the ones that you said that are free that should remain free. Would you repeat? So sure. So off the top of my head, thinking where I park today when I come to festivals and, come to visit the museums and things like that.
So it would be city hall when I come, like, for the meetings. And
unfortunately, my daughter had a driving,
driver's ticket, a speeding ticket so we had to come for that during the week.
But everyone was very nice, let me say that.
It was actually for
a situation, a bad situation. It ended up not being
so heart awful. Everyone was very pleasant and helpful during that process in the municipal court proceedings for her parking ticket, but I digress.
Let's see. So we talked about city hall,
the, cultural arts center.
Let's see. Parks.
Can I ask questions? Centers. I think I Museums. Got it. So the three places in 2019
that the city said, these are the three part paid parking places. And, Jeff, they are?
That we're gonna be doing this year? Yes. Kansas Street, Elizabeth, Easttown. So in 2019, the city said, hey, we're gonna do paid parking on those three places. And I'll be honest with you. I did not know that. And so when I saw some ParkMobile things, I went to get my hair done at, Matty's and I saw ParkMobile and I was, like, thinking that that was the paid parking already put into place.
So,
plan, I did not realize. So I've I've probably
I've told myself have, disobeyed
having to pay for the parking because I didn't notice it, I guess, until these conversations came up that there even was,
the paid parking in those places.
But you're good like, at those other than those three, you're saying, hey, remain free?
Yeah. I would say, yeah. The current city,
especially those that are, like city hall, the cultural art center, museums,
historical homes,
parks and rec, I think should all remain free. Yes, ma'am.
Thank you so much, Courtney. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Yes, ma'am.
Jason,
welcome.
Jason Yowell.
So I'm I'm here to talk about parking, but not the way you think I might be here to talk about it.
Really more
personal.
I live at the corner of Pine Grove Road and a small subdivision called Old Oak Common.
And I have two lots that have been consolidated
into one,
but
I'm on the corner.
And
I'm bordered
on Pine Grove with a desal lane.
The desal lane is clearly marked with signs put up by the city of Roswell. No stopping, no standing, no parking
with a tow away icon.
Now I've had a lot of problems with people parking around my house because
I don't have a house directly across the street from me on our street.
There's a strip of land that runs from my next neighbor
across the street on the other side of the,
the creek.
And I chose these two lots because I don't wanna look at anybody else's house. I don't wanna see
things that
I don't wanna see.
It's very private,
even though I'm on the corner.
But people seem to mistake this as let's park our cars
or our trucks
or our construction vehicles across the street from this house because there's no house
across the street from it.
And they like to park in the desal lane.
We can't see the traffic coming up Pine Grove Road when people are parked in the desal lane. It's a safety issue. That's why the signs are there.
I have complained repeatedly
and called the police,
for people parking,
whether it's utility truck pulling up in the middle of the night with the lights flashing
two feet from the curb,
to work on a house that's not in our subdivision,
or it's the surveyors for the Pine Grove work parking on the grass across the street despite the fact the city ordinance clearly says
no parking
on the grass in residential areas.
And then there's the desal lane, which is
the big pain in the butt for me.
I like to think that the residents, the business owners, and the police
are on the same team.
People who come to this town
to make money and extract money from Roswell,
they're not on our team.
Now I'm not
casting aspersions on that.
As they said in the Godfather, after all, we are not communists.
But
when people who don't live here and are coming here to make money
decide that they're going to use
our neighborhoods
as they wish for their own benefit
because they don't want to plan accordingly.
And the police come out and go, Well, we're not gonna enforce that.
My mind is rather boggled.
Recently, the subdivision is being built about 200 feet down the street from me that I actually supported the variances that made it possible for him to to get your approval.
And I come out one morning, and they've got trucks lined up in the diesel lane literally wrapping the corner.
I walked down there. I said, you can't park there.
It's it it's not only
illegal,
it's a safety,
problem.
Somebody from Ardot was there. He said, I'll move my truck. I'm really sorry. He couldn't have been nicer about it. The paving company
just looked at me like, you know what?
I don't care.
I come back. I I I was very nice.
I showed them the signs. I said, you can't park here. I come back later,
asphalt trucks lining the
the desal lane
up and down my neighborhood
inside the subdivision.
And I
really got pissed. I called the police.
They've never issued a ticket.
All the times that I've called and I've said,
I want the ordinances enforced. I want the state laws enforced.
No. We we don't really wanna do that. Why?
Because somebody else wants to take advantage
of what we have.
You don't get a ticket? You don't got a ticket?
I did.
I asked to go to court
in two days,
and I got cited for
parking in the East Lane.
I didn't actually park in the East Lane.
I called the police,
they didn't come. I called them again. They said, but we're we're busy. It's a low priority item.
I said, I can help you with that. I pulled my truck out.
I pulled it right across Pine Grove Road to block the traffic
because I knew
that would force the issue. Jason, thank you.
Jason,
I will set up a meeting with you, myself,
senior vice president Jim Conroy, our police chief, senior vice president Joe Panino,
and senior vice president Jeff Lendman.
And I'll follow-up on your issue, on this specific issue
because it's first I've heard of it. I'm sorry. Randy and I had a couple of long conversations I don't know. Of course, the CEO would be there if he chooses to be. Okay. He's he's already heard the whole the whole story. Alright. Well, I'll follow-up on this personally. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yes, sir.
Thank you, Jason.
Jamie,
you make sure
Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. In the black. I'm sorry. I'll say, hey, Lindsay. Welcome.
How are you this evening? I am doing well. Thank you very much. I'm Lindsay Coates. 715,
Old Park Place.
I had no intentions of saying anything this evening. But, when it came up about having the monthly reporting and the dashboard,
how do you intend to make sure that that is accurate and up to date considering the bond dashboard has not been so
historically?
Great question.
Comms, Jeff,
Sharon?
Thanks, Sherry.
I'll just,
as an update for the bond dashboard, I apologize.
We had a,
change of consultant on the bond project, and, unfortunately, we've been dealing with technology, who owns what.
I don't know if,
if if I can adequately express the frustration I have with that. We have recently resolved it. We are restoring links and getting control of it here in house. So I apologize for that, but we expect very shortly to have the bond dashboard live. It has been extraordinarily frustrating. So you have my apologies. And by the way, just as an aside, thanks to Sharon's leadership,
as a steward
of yours of your money,
it means that you don't continue to do business with someone that you're not getting the results for. And as a act a government acting like as an active agency is saying, rather than just continuing the insanity of actually stopping and doing something like something for it. There's a negative consequences come of it. Thanks, Sharon, for admitting that. That. Bill or Jeff, do you wanna address why
this would be different on the financial reporting perspective
than say, for example, working with a vendor externally on the bond?
So two things.
One is we're going to institute a reconciliation process between the bond spending that goes on shares
our underlying general ledger system. So that's how we'll ensure the accuracy of the information. So if it's coming through our GL, it's gonna be reconciled to what goes into the project.
I'm sorry.
So the first will be the verification or the insurance of accuracy of the information.
What goes into the bond dashboards will be reconciled into the accounting system. So
that's the two way match to make sure that what goes up there is complete and accurate, the objectives of of all financial reporting.
And then as part of our quarterly reporting process, we will also be looking at the performance of our projects.
How they performed against budget? How they closed out? How are they in process?
What's our forecast for future projects? But I think to Lindsay's question, so how's that different? Like, hey hey, Kurt. You said it's gonna be monthly reporting. You said there's gonna be monthly reporting. How by the way and thanks, Sharon, for the very excellent explanation on on the problem on the bond. So how's that different? How are you gonna be any good on the bond? I mean, on your just your general general financial reporting every month? Why should I trust you? Why should I believe you? So part of the monthly financial reporting is the assessment and closing of all fund accounting, including bond fund and general fund. And then the actual project reconciliation process will be a quarterly process because they tend to move a little bit slower.
It's all internal as well? It's it's an internal process. Yes. But as far as reporting goes, it's my intention at some point to to incorporate it into the quarterly reporting package. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Sharon.
Will you also have
personnel related
item budget items on there as well that weren't
I'm not sure. I understand.
So the the budget will include operating and salaries personnel. Right? Plus fringe. Personnel numbers. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we have a coding process so that they get coded into the projects as they work on them. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Did that answer your question? Absolutely. It did. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Yes, sir.
Welcome.
Mister mayor,
council,
my name is Gus Hadorn. I live at 175
Jade Cove Drive, Roswell.
We talk
a lot about progress.
We don't talk a lot about
sustainability.
And we have an environmental crisis whether we acknowledge it or not.
We've missed some opportunities.
When
the Mimosa board put a solar roof on
the house there,
becoming the oldest net zero house in the nation,
we had an opportunity
to talk about solar energy and moving away from fossil fuels,
which the whole country needs to begin to think seriously about.
We missed an opportunity
a few years ago
when
what is now Old Rucker Farm was offered
to Roswell,
and Roswell
turned it down.
We have some major
issues
with invasive plants
on an awful lot of our property.
We're really not paying any attention to our tributaries,
and we have some real opportunities there to create trails along those tributaries
to connect our neighborhoods
and
to give our people opportunities to go walking without
having to get in their automobiles.
So I would just like you
to give some thought to what opportunities
we can create together
to make this a more pedestrian city,
to make it a healthier
city,
and to make it a more,
environmentally friendly
place.
Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask you a quick question, Gus?
Gus, can I ask you a technical question? When was the Rucker Farm piece? When would when did that occur?
It was originally
established
at the old Harry's
supermarket.
And the lady that began that,
was forced to move because
Harry's
yes. The whole You mentioned the city had an opportunity. What year was that? Do you know? I don't know the year. It was probably,
I don't know, six, seven years ago, perhaps. Okay.
That's a guess. I'm not sure. Okay. But the lady that runs it for Alpharetta now
originally offered
that to the city of Roswell.
Can can I ask you a question? Because I know you're you're very active in the city and done a lot of good things in the city.
So and this is not my area of expertise.
Christine Hall would have more expertise in this. And by the way, Christine deserves credit for the farmers market, massively in recruiting Christine de Victor.
Christine's done a lot of work on the invasive plant issue. My understanding, and you correct me if I'm wrong, don't we have a pretty aggressive policy as a city towards invasive plants on most of our on most of our property
in terms of our plantings?
Not that I've seen, sir. I mean, there may be efforts that are in place,
but we're covered up with privet.
We're covered up with English ivy.
We've got trees that, need to be taken care of because
the the English ivy is is all over them.
We've got Ily Agnes.
It's not a problem that's unique to the city. It's all over the country,
but we've got property now
that could be
usable, that could be
park property.
If you go just past the mill,
that's a whole area of,
privet.
The area down,
Hogwalla Creek, we've got ruins that are hidden in in in the in the privet.
And,
you know, the it's an opportunity to get rid of that stuff and the plant native plants, which which we sorely need.
The, let me just address a little bit. David's not here tonight.
If I could get the council to agree with me, which they don't usually, they just kind of push back. But they've all we've all been working on kind of projects, like the major projects, the major missions kind of tying into the vision. And one of them, Gus, is slow down in Roswell. And you say, well, what does that have to do with anything?
To slow down our visitors, slow us down, particularly in our neighborhoods
and our secondary roads. But tied to that is the plan to create more and more. And this council has already approved a lot of projects that probably are not very publicly well known, a lot of a lot of projects that are multi use trails.
And you're gonna see under slowed down Rouswell, you're gonna see a comprehensive project submitted by this elected body
for basically
creating more and more walkability throughout the entire city, including in neighborhoods. Now council's got to agree to that. They got to fight through that. There's a lot of but we're working on that right now because because I'm in complete agreement with you. I want more walkability
throughout, not just downtown, but throughout the entire city. I want more connectivity.
You're gonna see I think I don't know if we did it the other night. Are we gonna do it where you're gonna see the connection? Oh, yeah. You saw the connection on hardscrabble.
Right? That connection ties into perfect example of tying into the high school road,
Woodstock King, Woodstock and King. And the next illustration you're gonna see next year is the ongoing of that all the way to downtown.
Completely on board with you. That's a big deal. It's a big deal from a quality of life perspective. It's a big deal from a sustainability perspective. It matters to having a really prosperous, wonderfully, you know, community where people could get to one another, whether regardless
of town, not just in the car, 100% on board with you.
So you're gonna see and it's gonna fall underneath, slow down in Roswell. So I wanna let you know. The second thing, when you mentioned tributaries,
so Sharon and Brian's not here, Brian Watson.
But Sharon
is this city, believe it or not, Gus, is at the forefront
of really what of cities working on storm because it's my opinion
that the sleeping giant that's out there that most people aren't paying attention you mentioned tributaries. I would tell you it's storm.
I think stormwater is the great potential
catechism
out there that's waiting to really cause
just massive ruin
on regular,
residential communities,
particularly ones that have ages of 30 years plus of inventory of housing stock
because the planning just wasn't done correctly for Storm. And you're gonna see more and more pressure. And under Sharon's leadership, this city for the last two years has been working on long term plans of how to deal with that because it's a money issue, which lack of planning issue and the solve is money. And the reality is, is that most HOAs don't have the money falls on private land. And we recognize as a government, we're going to have to be smarter than the problem and get involved in this and solve for this issue. So thank you, sir, for bringing that up.
One one of the thoughts, one thing that I tried to promote when I was on the Mimosa board was making our historic district
a more pedestrian friendly place.
Mimosa Boulevard is probably our most pedestrian
friendly,
street right now,
but, you know, the the city has
chosen to build parking lots there between Mimosa and Bullock.
And,
and we seem to to to be encouraging the automobile rather than the pedestrian in that situation. I would submit to you that,
Gus,
the two years ago,
we did the impossible.
We got the state
the
state has very limited ability
to change its speed limit if it's not a,
if it's if it if this the state has certain requirements and the police is involved the police and transportation involved on this sort of time, that make it very hard for municipalities. It's kinda the exact opposite of home rule.
So we can put down a speed limit, but we can't enforce it.
Mimosa is a perfect example where really two years ago that depart our our our our our our chief Jeff Littlefield
and and our police chief Jim Conroy
got the we changed the speed limit 25 and then got the state to agree to it. That's a rarity,
and it's a perfect example of we recognize the same thing you do. We want to slow down Mimosa.
We want Mimosa to have more walking traffic.
If there's cars there, we want them traveling at a much slower speed.
And there are a lot of pieces you're going to see us roll out underneath slowdown Roswell, where it's going to be very clear
to our residents
and to our business community and to those who visit our city or come through our city measures we're gonna take bait to slow it down in Roswell for a host of reasons.
And Mimosa is a perfect example of that. But most of that's why Christine,
Christine Hall and David, sorry to touch it. All these things tied together. That's why this city is spending $20,000,000
of your money on the Pine Grove project
because of the Cobb County interfacing. The Cobb County interfacing has brought tremendous amounts of cut through traffic, more speed, more cut throughs. And by the way, it's the second height. It was arguably the first or second highest speeding area,
a place where speeding is abused in the city, Gus.
And so Christine came together with a plan with Jeff Littlefield,
and David Johnson was on board and they cut a great deal, put a $20,000,000
project on board, got the approval of the rest of their
colleagues on council. And so we've got a $20,000,000 project coming on Pine Grove. And that project is traffic calming.
It is traffic calming. It's about slowing down the traffic that comes in from Cobb County,
which goes on Mimosa,
right, or Highway 9, recognizing that's a real problem and how do we deal with that. So I'm sorry if I took too much you if I added too much to your time up there, you're probably ready to go five minutes ago. Well, it's important. Traffic's our biggest problem.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
Yes, ma'am. With the,
American
red, white and blue,
I think it's right. Yeah.
Welcome.
Hi. My name is Ashley Glass, and
I've lived here for twenty seven years.
I live on Wave Tree.
I've just got a couple of questions and a couple of comments.
The first thing is just kind of a comment, but I am
very concerned with our large
deficit and what we are going to do to overcome that deficit.
I'm just that's my comment. I'm very concerned about that because I do not want our taxes raised.
For twenty seven years that I have lived here,
I've also seen Alpharetta,
Norcross,
Woodstock
grow all around us, and I really feel
I know I'm hearing what you're saying, that we're doing things, but I really feel that we have been in the slow lane
for years. And so I'm really hoping that we're gonna join all the other cities around us.
I just again, this is a comment.
The parking building
does not match the city. It actually, for those of us who are native Atlanans,
if you've seen the prison
on Memorial Drive at 285,
that's what it looks like.
The other thing is so I'm an antique appraiser.
When the city bought Mimosa An antique what? I'm sorry. An antique appraiser. Okay. Thank you. That's my job.
And, when the city bought Mimosa, I did the appraisal.
And I think that the city
is really losing money. We are not doing anything with our historic homes.
We have the same you know, people are not gonna come back over and over to these historic sites if we have the same thing
every single year at these homes.
This is a huge thing that could be for Roswell. It's one of the reasons why I moved here,
and we're doing nothing
with these properties. I mean, we could have classes there. You I mean, we could do so much with those, and they're literally just sitting there. And people are not coming
to do the tours anymore because people have already come, done the tours, and it's the same thing.
So we have got to figure that out. You are losing, you know, by just having them sitting there. You're losing money. We're having to keep up those buildings,
but you need to do something. Y'all need to have, you know, get together, make you know, get together with
historic, you know, historians that are in our community and come up with ideas for these homes because you're really just losing out on so much that these could bring in so many things to the city.
Thank you. Ashley, thank you. Thank you so much, Ashley.
This is,
this is one reason why I may not run for mayor again,
because it is so incredibly frustrating from a resident to a resident's perspective
to exactly everything you just mentioned. By the way, large deficit, there's not a large deficit. City's never been in better financial shape. We're gonna demonstrate that on April 14. I think what we've unpacked for example, the city unpacked where you're where over $20,000,000
of your money had been spent over the course of the past ten years supporting other city's pension funds. We discovered that. We corrected that.
To me, that's financial stewardship at a high level. Being able to have priority based budget or zero based budgeting and actually execute that in a very, very static financial system,
that's a significant improvement.
The reason I ran for mayor, the significant most reason we're in for was exactly what you stated, Ashley.
For twenty years, twenty five years under the two previous administrations, this city had been paralysis.
It came up with lots of plans, but it was unable to take action.
It was unable to do the things that needed to do, and you're exactly right, Ashley. Alpharetta, Milton, Johns Creek, you name it. Sandy Springs just leaped ahead of us on the economic side. It's one of the reasons. So the cornerstone of what we've been doing, and I would point to you to my
left, like the Hill Street developments, a perfect example.
When we came in, we inherited
a 1.33
acre development on the corner right here of Canton Street and Hill Street. 1.33 acres,
96 apartments stand alone. That's what we inherited.
On April,
we're gonna bring you the next generation of a PSA
of a multidimensional
mixed use development
with not only apartments,
but billion and a half to $2,000,000 townhomes,
80,000 square feet of retail,
40,000
square feet of office, a true transformative product to add to the dynamic economic activity of this city in the downtown. That's real work.
We're about to deliver. I don't know why I don't know how the I don't know what like, I don't know how more economically oriented you can be.
This city has already announced that it's going to launch a
a sports stadium anchored entertainment district larger than the battery.
That's a billion to $2,000,000,000
project.
I don't know how that doesn't have value,
Ashley. I and that's what I've been for me is as I you could say, well, you guys aren't doing anything. I don't know.
I don't to me, that's just like, I don't understand that. I really don't.
Yeah. Come on up.
Lots of residents. Again, I have been here twenty seven years, and I talked to a lot of,
my friends and neighbors.
And,
so what I'm hearing is we've bought Hartscrabble.
We've bought the one across from Target. Nothing is happening, and then we're gonna start Hill Street. Well, what about the all the other projects? I mean, like, if you've lived here for a long time, we have been stagnant.
And then you're saying this, and we are seeing all these things hap or you're buying all these things and nothing's happening.
Like, what's happening with the one across from Target? What's what's the plan for that one? So I just mentioned Hill Street to you, and you just blew by it as though it meant nothing. That's what the can you say all my friends and I so I'd say, yeah. So tell me the Hill Street development has no meaning, no value.
This is the first thing I'm hearing about Hill Street. That's what I'm saying. I don't know how much where we could talk about it. It's been very So what's happening to the one across from Target? But why is Hill Street not relevant? Because Hill Street was an existing
1.33
acre 96 apartments. Uh-huh. This elected body and senior staff dramatically changed that project so it'd have economic viability for the city. Okay. Great. Great. Does does that not matter? It it absolutely does. But again, we're buying all this land and I But so what say we're not in a deficit, but that's not what I was saying online looking at budgets. So we're not in a deficit see that we saw this in a deficit on our budget?
Yeah. Online. I
again,
you'll have to apologize. I'm actually behind in this eye. Sorry. No. Take your time.
Yeah. I'm gonna let somebody else talk about budget. That's okay. No. No. You know, but I I again, I wanna know. Okay. You're gonna throw Hill Street out there. I wanna talk about the cross of Harts Grab. I wanna talk about the white cross I have talked about Bowen in '92.
So a billion and a half
deal development
Yeah. For this city is of no value.
And you're talking about Hill Street? No. No. I'm talking about this the the USL
sports anchored Roswell Entertainment District. Okay. Right? That is that's of no value from an economic perspective. And when is that gonna be built?
That is going to be announced probably on May.
And when is it gonna be finished? Start building it? When is it gonna be finished? That's the thing is that we have all these ideas. I feel like These aren't ideas. These are these are kinda like has ADHD or something. We have all these ideas, and I feel like nothing's happening. Is your criticism of the past or the current? Both. Okay. What tell me what the criticism of the current is so I can learn from that. Because I I really wanna understand that. Because I when you said these things, that's why I said literally.
Because I saw those things. That's why I had the same complaints as a resident.
Like, I saw stagnation, and I saw one off projects with no strategy. So the first thing that There still is stagnation if you look. I mean, like, I went to Norcross just recently,
and there is just booming. I mean, it's just like, wow. What happened to Roswell again? Somebody that's been here for twenty seven years. The little bit of projects we're doing does not compare to Alpharetta, Woodstock, and Norcross. They don't. I I mean, maybe they do to you because something we're actually doing something,
but it doesn't. When you go there and people are literally
not coming to Roswell anymore like they used to. They're just not. I mean, if you go to these other places, they're packed and we're only packed maybe on Friday and Saturday night on Canton Street with people that are, you know, just
kinda like alive after five. Well, that's changed,
you know, from family time and, you know, again, that's
a whole another,
thing. But,
again, these are just my comments and this is what I'm hearing, and so I am sharing.
No. I thank you for your time and I thank you for sharing. So I just wanna be clear. Yeah. Parking,
I don't don't like it. Looks
terrible. Not doing anything with historical buildings. By the way, just FYI,
$10,000,000
act activation plan. So we are to your point, I I put it to the council two years ago.
You have these historical assets,
either get into the historical business or get out of historical business. The city's paid a lot of money. By the way,
I forget what's over a million dollars a year in terms of operational cost of maintaining these businesses. That doesn't make sense. And we looked at the numbers three years ago and two years ago, and the amount of visitors to some of these historic homes
was honestly
not even worth repeating. It was so small. So I put it to the council and said either get into the business or get down the business. And they said, we wanna get into business. I said, well, then we have to have a plan. Jeff Leatherman, senior vice president, has come up with an activation plan. It's already in place. Jeff, you wanna address some of the things that we're doing on the historic homes? Because I think it's a very good point and it's worth repeating. But I will tell you, like, literally, one of my
these things get said all the time and, like, we're not a marketing agency. Like, the we we don't we're not we're not Coca Cola. But you hired one. No. We didn't. We hired a no. That's not true. We hired an economic czar. We hired an economic consultant.
That's not I read their website now. It says it's about marketing. It actually didn't say anything about economics. Yeah. So it's so that Peter Sorkoff from SEER exactly
is the cornerstone, the tip of the spear, our our economic plan. And has that investment in terms of the return on investment to you as a taxpayer is substantial, substantially good. But that's not marketing. That's not communications.
Comms is something the city takes on, but the city is not engaged in trying to propagandize its people. The city is just simply trying to pass on information. And you're saying, hey. I don't hear that information. It's the same on same on. That's incredibly challenging and frustrating for us when we're doing the work and you're saying, I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't see it. Like, Jeff's about to give you a plan that's been very active, very aggressively worked on, a lot of money spent on, and a lot of time. And to your point, it's like, well, okay. Then so what?
Thank you, mayor. And I'll just cover kind of the historic park activation plan, really surround surrounds our our Founders Park vision, and it combines all of our properties together. So it combines Barrington Hall, Holly Hill that we acquired a couple of years ago, belong to Mimosa, and then also over to Bullock and includes Town Square.
Town Square was our first area of investment, just over $500,000
of,
new park and then park enhancements,
in that space.
And then we worked on Mimosa. Mimosa has a new driveway entrance, has the First And Second Floor completely redone, and mister Malone, our parks director, will be embarking on really the enhancement to Mimosa that will allow us to activate that property for special events. Ideally, we'll be hosting anywhere from 200 to 250 people on that property after that project is done and includes activation of the entirety of the space.
One of the first actions a couple years ago that this council also took was to essentially eliminate the charge for coming into the homes. And that was one of the biggest barriers that we found,
for repeat visitors as you described here in our community that for those of us that are residents, sometimes when you come to the home for the first time, the barrier to entry to bring a visitor back or bring yourselves back was that you were having to pay again. And this mayor and council gave us permission to essentially forego that revenue so that we could increase access and activation
into the homes, and we saw a 60 to 70% increase just on that move alone. So we saw really 40 to 50,000 visitors, if my memory serves me correctly,
coming into the homes over the course of the year after we activated the homes in that way. We've also partnered with Rotary and Friends of Bullock on the Chris Kingwell market, which brings a tremendous amount of people into Bullock Hall and along that entire corridor,
truly activating the home. So I think you'll start to see that movement forward, in agreement with that vision that really the community is looking for of activating our properties, activating the homes, and then creating access,
to those properties,
for a variety of reasons, both the honoring,
remembering,
and celebrating our history and all of the pieces of our history along with how we activate those homes, on behalf of the taxpayers and our visitors alike. And they are being incorporated into our economic development strategy as the mayor described. And, of course, we can talk quite a bit. I also see also oversee our economic development team, and happy to sit down and and talk about what we do as a strategy together because it is a difficult
movement as you talked about. There's a number of projects that have started and stopped. And as the mayor described,
really, this is about how we're developing a strategy. What's our downtown strategy,
Midtown, Uptown, and East Side? And that has been developed over the course of the last two years, and and we're actively pursuing that strategy moving forward.
Yes, ma'am. Ashley, would you like the floor is yours. I I again, I just I think that we're losing out on that sounds great, and I think we just need to put more into those. I mean, that you know, what
town has this many historic homes, a river
in with
the cemeteries
in this
area? None. There are none.
We we just need to, you know, this these historic homes will bring more to the local businesses
as well. So I just I really think that we need to focus or, you know, get a group to focus on these and, you know, whatever y'all done, I I thank you. I
have not seen it, so I'm very excited to see it. I know about Mimosa because I have been working with I I worked with the family before they sold it to y'all. So,
I am excited to see that. But I do think that we're really
losing out on things that we have that we could really do more with. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Ashley.
Yes, ma'am.
Hi. My name is Jenny Lim, and I have been Jenny, you're famous.
You can't just tell me yourself, Jenny Lim. Of fame. Yes.
I have lived in Roswell for twenty plus years. I am at 1050 Martin Ridge Road.
I have a two questions and one comment.
So I remember at some point in the past
the the city had talked about putting
roundabouts
along Grimes Bridge.
Whatever happened with that? My question is, where did that go? Did that evaporate through
community issues or was that part of a greater d o two DOT issue? I'm gonna let's get you an answer to that. That'd be great. Let me get you a full answer on that. Jeff,
I have I at the top of my head, I don't wanna answer this one wrong
because it's been it's been a while since we've talked about this. Where are we on this?
This is director Jeff Littlefield, director of transportation.
Good evening, mayor and council.
Over little over a year ago,
it was voted to
not pursue roundabouts
at neighborhood streets.
We've looked at the I think it was the cottage school. Mhmm. And
We couldn't facilitate the traffic.
So there's nowhere really to put around about right now. So we're reevaluating
and in addition,
Georgia Department of Transportation
eliminated the connection
over 400.
Oh, I did. Yes. And so
that caused us to kinda rethink
what we were doing on Grime's Bridge, and so we're in that process right now. Is it Jeff, how would you describe it? Is it in stasis?
Is it close to dead?
Are you waiting on us? What is what's happening from your standpoint? As far as the connection? No. Not the connection. The the roundabout that Jenny brings up.
The roundabouts are not coming. They're dead, aren't they? We're we're yes, sir. They're dead. They're dead. Okay. We're looking at some other traffic calming measures.
You know But as far as this roundabout on the Grange Bridge Road, for the time being, it is dead. Okay. Is that fair? That that's fair. I understand.
I would like to point out that most days
when I leave my office at Grimes Bridge and
Holcomb Bridge Road,
I spend twenty
five
minutes
going up the hill
to get to Old Dogwood.
Twenty five minutes
at two miles an hour.
Something's gotta give. That's not okay.
The next question
is That's a statement or a question? No. That's that's a statement. Okay. Can we just question that I have for you is you're talking about making the city more walkable.
The section of road between Riverside
Road
and Old Alabama
going up that very long hill,
there are no sidewalks there. We just had a bit of a forest fire.
There's no sidewalks.
Every day, I see people riding their bicycles.
I see people walking.
I see
kids walking down that street. Yes, ma'am. And there's barely any street lights. People are going 55 plus miles an hour.
It's dangerous, and that is one place that we really need sidewalks. Yes, ma'am.
So Riverside in all
question. Will it be will it be will there be sidewalks
on Old Alabama, basically, in Riverside. Correct?
Old Dogwood. Old Dogwood. Old Dogwood. I so I got that as statement one, Old Dogwood.
Yes. It's Old Dogwood. Are you guys planning on putting
sidewalks in along Old Dogwood
between Riverside
and Grimes Bridge?
Jeff,
which where are we on that?
There's a plan, Jenny. I don't I I I don't wanna be straight up with you because I don't know where it is. I don't think it's
I was thinking you said Old Alabama.
No. I'm on the other side. Yep. Yep. Yep.
I'll have to get back with you on that one. We do have the Riverside Road project which goes from 9
to, basically,
Riverside that goes to Old Alabama. And it will be resurfacing.
Okay. But we're talking about from Old, from
Old Alabama.
No. French.
Oh,
yeah. Not
yet. No, sir.
Jenny, I don't know. I have honestly,
can I can we look into it and get back to you? I don't think it's There there is a calming
measure there. There is a flashing light, a a warning light when people are going over the speed limit.
But I don't know that anyone other than myself and maybe one or two of my neighbors actually pay attention
to that. Okay. Can I follow-up with you on that? Absolutely.
The last thing I would like to say as far as well, no. It it's a question. When you talk about this massive sports complex Yes, ma'am. Can you give me a couple of names of anchor tenants?
That is part of the master developer's job.
Okay. The master so I'm I'm gonna guess by your question. You probably have some insight into the into that to that piece. No. Actually, I I don't. I'm concerned
As a resident of Martin's Landing Yep. I am concerned that you're going to put how much more traffic
at my corner.
I mean, we spend
hours getting on to 400 right there, and you're talking about coming in and putting in a massive sports complex
on an overloaded street already. Yes. So you know probably the state's got $4,000,000,000.
There's a lot that's fixing to happen. You're probably familiar with the diverging diamond interchange. You know what that's gonna do. Right? You probably have some sense of that. That's a state project, not a Roswell project. Right. The city is working actively underneath Jeff's leadership to begin. We've been working over a year and a half on trying to integrate things that we need and things that we're seeing.
Right, in terms of having that, how do we impact
softly some of the areas that are being they're gonna be hard impacted.
The Georgia 400 managed lane project potentially had a hard impact on the city of Roswell. The DDI has a hard impact on the city of Roswell from a traffic perspective.
What we've been working on is to have influence on those to begin to tap to change some of those parameters.
That is delicate hard work. And I can't tell you with any, like, hey, this is where we're at. This is what we're doing. I can tell you we're working on it.
But I don't have it like a in terms of that piece, that's a master developer question. So the question is, one is once you buy the land,
right, and you secure the land with the master developer,
then that then you basically gonna secure the stadium and then you all that raw product is gonna be entitled by the council, and and that's gonna be there'll be certain entitles to that. So you're asking a question I couldn't be even be that would be so speculative.
Okay. Like, it would be crazy speculative on my part. My concern is that we already have
four
built out shopping centers in a very close proximity
that have a lot of dead empty space. That's right. So before you go and build this massive center that you're sounds like you're gonna be very proud of,
We need to have tenants in those other locations so that we don't have more dead shopping centers. Glad you brought that up, Jenny.
Let me tell you, that is exactly the problem.
When we came in, Roswell East Roswell has been suffers economic malaise.
Right? Massive. Right? That's not a short term project. That's a long term project.
And,
what what am I looking at? Just wanna be careful about
Yeah. I've I got yeah.
Guys, cool it.
The
the problem with that strategy is what the marketplace has already demonstrated in East Roswell is failure.
Right? And you have a degradation from a to b to c to d tenants.
So there's no dynamic there's no dynamic economic activity that would happen from Kohl's,
movie studio
grill, even
if you put all that and synthesize that and said boom, boom, boom. And you put in let's say the city subsidized
that even to create market activity, which is what would have to happen because the marketplace is not gonna do that. The like, the first rule of economics is the marketplace does what's in the marketplace's interest. Right? So there's a reason that the marketplace is not in Kohl's.
Right? There's a reason Target failed, and then there's a reason that movie studio grew. Right? The marketplace could not support it.
So we said, look. We've gotta solve this for the East Side of our city. We gotta solve this for 40,000 residents. It's gonna take a dynamic project to change the economic energy.
So you think by bringing in the sports complex
that you will be bringing in more people to spend money at the accompanying shopping centers in the area. Do well, you not just change the centers. You change the values of the property, which changes investment. You change the capital's look and perceptive
of this of that side of the city. So the capital begins to invest in new projects.
Like, it's not just going to be, oh, let me take the status quo project there to go say, hey. The value has changed. I see the change the traffic patterns change. I see the demographics of how the dollars are spent changing. I see how much trial there is in the marketplace based upon day time and night time mixes. And then the capital says, oh, I can make money doing that. So the capital begins to invest differently. That's the key. Because on the same trigger levels that we're on today, we are this is it. Right? We're not coasting. We are failing.
We are failing. We've been failing for thirty years and it's gotten worse and worse and worse. And there's been no attention. There was no plan for East Roswell when they got annexed. It was a tax grab.
It was a tax grab. There was no plan to incorporate East Roswell.
And so we look at this and say, look, we've got to save the East Side of our city. We have to save it economically, so this dynamic.
Now you're a little bit ahead of me because I cannot tell you where the Roswell Entertainment District is because that's not been announced. I can tell you we've announced it. So So I can't I do believe it's gonna be on the East Side of the city, but I can't tell you that tonight. Okay. So you guys are you're you're telling me you don't think that you were talking about putting a sports complex on the East Side of the city. Oh, no. I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying that
at all. I'm just saying don't put me in a pigeonhole to say something I can't say to get me in trouble with a bunch of other people. Right? Alright. Alright. Thank you for your time and thank you all for showing up tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Yes, ma'am. Kat.
Oh, my name is Kat Plant. I live at 100 Lake Pines Court. I think I just have comments tonight.
I would just like
to, again,
encourage y'all to stop spending so much money.
We continue to have a bloated,
organizational chart that constantly is adding more
positions
with lead to lead
same
titles. We have multiple people doing the same thing, or at least that's what it looks like to me.
I know we have a large budget, and we can easily find a million dollars to come up with some things is what I heard tonight.
Our budget does not need to be as big as it is. I feel like you could easily cut
what we spend on some things,
mainly our upper levels of,
salaried positions.
Our proposed budget this year has an increase of,
charges for services,
is up $25,000,000
over five years ago.
Maybe if we stopped spending so much money on some things, we wouldn't have to charge our residents
$25,000,000
more for services
than we did five years ago.
Our sales tax
revenue keeps increasing, so I feel like that's money coming in. We
don't have to charge so much for services.
We could come up with money to,
preserve the cemeteries that we need to and our history that has been neglected.
We could maybe not spend so much money on retreats every year,
less money on consultants.
Sorry. I will always pick on SEER. We spend too much money on that.
But that's all. Thanks. Have a good night.
Kat, thank you so much. Thank you for your time and comments as always.
Other Roswell residents?
Yes, ma'am. Sally, welcome.
Mayor and council. It's been a little while since I've been here. Good to see y'all.
Oh, hi. Good evening, mayor and council. Welcome, Sally.
I just I was actually watching online, and I wanted to come down and,
thank you all. I feel like this has been a great,
open mic night. I saw a lot
of comments coming forward and concerns that
you addressed in a manner that showed that I think that y'all are taking care of business
in a lot in a lot of areas where residents have been concerned, and,
you're actually on the same page. We are actually on the same page.
I also
the main reason I came rushed right down was because there was a comment about the the lack of activity, the lack of change, the lack of progress,
and I have lived in Roswell since 1995
or something.
I have been involved
and paid attention since 2013.
'13. The last two years, I have never seen so much activity
and planned change
as the last two years. And so,
and I'm not I don't necessarily agree with everything,
but to say
that you,
that nothing's nothing is happening is just,
I would pass if I wasn't here. It's just not true.
So I I just wanna set the record straight. I I I you all have done you're moving at lightning speed. I think sometimes too fast again,
personal opinion.
But also,
just a side note, just a little thing about Mimosa Hall. There's a great Easter concert there, on on
the fourteenth.
Roswell Music Club continually has events there. Oh my gosh. Amazing events. So,
if you're not tuned in,
public, if you're not tuned in,
follow Roswell Music Club, follow Roswell Arts Fund, get on 365.
Mimosa Hall is activated, and I look forward to seeing how much more activated it's gonna be after the improvements and changes,
that are coming.
So, again, I just wanted to,
thank you all. I don't always agree with you, but but I wanna thank you all for your work and your continued effort. You put your head down. You get the work done. So thank you. Thank you, Sally.
Thank you.
Yes, ma'am. Lee.
Thank you, miss McKenzie. And miss Glass, I just wanna give you,
is it Ashley Glass? Ashley Glass.
I this is not a, an attack. I just wanna give you a little short report of what what I could come up with here, and several things have already been talked about in regard to the historic assets and the utilization of those.
No one would like to see those activated more than I. I I love them. I'm so glad we have them, and they give us a lot of opportunity to talk about our past, the enslaved, the white people that owned them, the whole nine. But in addition to some of the things that have been,
mentioned, I will tell you, maybe your posse, your group of friends doesn't go to the historic assets, but I have a ton of people that are now able and want to take their friends, neighbors, family when they have guests in town to them because they don't have to pay again. And I'm gonna use a really bad analogy. Everybody up here knows I'm not a big sports fan, but I took my net nephews and kids to the Football Hall of Fame, like, five years ago and paid a fortune to go, and everybody had a great time. I'm probably never gonna go again. I'm not gonna pay 35 or $38 to go in there for something that I'm not excited about. But I had a good time that time.
Same thing could be said for our historic assets. For people visiting, you go once as a resident, you're like, well, I've seen it. I don't want to pay again to go take my neighbor or my my, you know, mom or brother or whomever. But I know people that are taking tours on some of our, trails and then stopping by one of the historic homes and then eating out or not.
But I we've seen a massive uptick in that.
The Earth Day program that we put on two years ago was at Mimosa Hall.
Unfortunately, it wasn't very well attended, but it was really cool.
So we decided not to bring that back.
You just heard mention of the music club by Miss McKenzie, and that is a month almost monthly event that's been taking place for up to 70 people. It's usually around forty, forty five,
and they bring in all kinds of different entertainment,
from musicians on string or brass or, vocals.
That right now, while we're doing projects,
of work on Mimosa Hall to get it ready for special events that will start taking place next year,
will be temporarily
temporarily relocated down to the Roswell River Landing, which affords a little more seating and a little change of scenery.
I've heard very positive feedback on that and some people that don't want to leave Mimosa for the time being. So that's fair. But it opens up another place that's really beautiful on our river for people to see.
They will come back to Mimosa Hall, once it's opened back up.
We had, last year, the slave dwelling project, and I attended all three,
events.
The first one was at Mimosa. There were, I think, 78 people. I'm an event planner by trade, so I usually count heads like I did tonight and here to see how many people were here.
And so I noticed that and it was very well attended at Mimosa. The next day at Bullock, we had an open demonstration
on the grounds of Bullock out there outside
of the, the the outbuildings that are
slave, slave buildings that are recreations of that. So there was an open fire with Miss Carissa,
there was a soap making,
and how people watch slaves wash the white clothes. It's called whiting or whiting, I believe, or bluing even. It's a bluing agent.
Yeah. Forgive me. I'm not trying to school you. I just wanna tell you what so the people listening can understand what sort of programming we do put on.
And that was about
just a few others. Christkindlmarket was mentioned.
Mimosa was able to piggyback on that with several different,
photo setting shoots with,
with Santa Claus prior during that time period. We just brought back the quilt show at Bullock Hall. They had a record 500 people, I think, in five days that they were open. Roswell roots. We've had authors, at Mimosa that did the ABCs of black inventors
while there was a,
a story reading in the front room.
I mentioned mimo mimosa being monetized. We have tons of people coming to take prom and homecoming photos, and that's,
not
even counting the folks that have a, license to come photograph for weddings, bar mitzvahs, engagements,
family shots, that sort of thing that we are monetizing. And it increases our exposure.
People tell me all the time kids don't wanna be around this old stuff, and it's so funny because they're standing on Canton Street or standing in front of Bullock or in front of Smith or in full of in front of Barrington taking pictures of what feels comfortable and like home. And, I I can relate to that. And, again, I don't I don't wanna sound like I'm schooling. I'm trying to blow through this. The Beyond My Stone has been an incredible program that we do,
the Roswell Historical Society
in partnership with several other agencies in the city,
where we have actors, some local phenoms,
and others that are just passionate about the history of who's buried at what cemetery. And the one that was
last year, I believe, was at the Pleasant Hill,
Baptist Cemetery that was discussed earlier tonight. I've been to all of them but the founders,
cemetery
over the time I've lived here in twenty three years. Of course, the tree lighting, was a serious dud for years and years and years at our historic original town square, and we moved it three years ago to Heart of Roswell and then put in a, Deck the Square, which is local,
local nonprofits organizations or just I want to do one. Anybody can sign up to do a tree and decorate that to draw people in. So, again, I don't want this to ever sound condescending.
It's not 500 things.
It's not. But it is, a start in some unique things to get people engaged and that hopefully would draw them into and this is just what I came up with on the top of my head. I just wrote these down.
But anyway, I appreciate your perspective, and it does mean a lot. And if if any of that sounds negative, I don't mean it to. So thank you. Thanks for indulging me. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Councilmember Hills. Any other comments from Roswell residents? Yes, ma'am.
Welcome.
Thank you. My name is Liz Goldsmith. I've lived in Roswell for twenty years. I'm also an educator in Roswell.
Couple questions.
Regarding SEER,
and you had described them as the spearhead
of the financial economic plan for Roswell. Chip of the spear. Is that correct? Chip of the spear. Sorry. Thank you.
My question is,
was it not part of their contract to provide quarterly
reports
and progress?
Yes, ma'am. It was. Okay. So I didn't see anything on the website, and I did an open records request.
And what I got back was October
2024.
And so there's not one for December,
and now we're at March 31. Yes, ma'am. So where are we as a city on making sure sure that we're being fiscally responsible and good stewards
when we have such a sizable economic investment in that company, yet they are not giving us feedback? Well, they they are, and that's us, and you'll see that report. Is that tomorrow? So maybe it's an open records request? Yes, ma'am. By the way, Liz, feel free. Yeah. You can set beside you can feel free to do ORs. You can also send that question directly to me. Either way. But April 15. Fifteenth. April 15, you're gonna see the SEER quarterly report, and there will be November and December of twenty twenty four, and you'll see the first quarter of twenty twenty five. So that's not a quarterly report then? It's not because there was a change I'm just trying to clarify. No. There was a change in the fiscal year. And so I don't know what
we they came across with the contract
I'm sorry? Skipped it. No. We didn't skip it. That's why it's going to be you're going to see it next on April, you're going to see the first quarter report and you're going to see the because they had it tied into the the finance had it tied into the
contract, which was May and one of the things. So that's it's a little gerrymandered from a time perspective.
So you're gonna see all five months. You'll see the two months. You'll see November, December separate, and then you see the first quarter separate.
Okay.
My area is not finance. So my understanding of quarterly reports
is that we know where we are quarterly Yes, ma'am. Not retroactive,
like this is what we did Yes, ma'am. A quarter. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. And that's what you're gonna see going forward.
Okay. So
with the amount of financial expenditure that we have going into a company like SEER and that they are also
I don't know. What do you what would you call it?
Job sharing or COO?
No, ma'am. Oh, job sharing. Explain that? Oh, you're the COO? I don't really understand that myself. How would you explain it? I mean, job sharing is that they they went out. It's contract employee. Yeah. Which is not uncommon, Liz. It's done in cities all the time. Sandy Springs, Benning Springs with a company Yeah. Cities do that. Yes. To then contract with that employee.
Yes, ma'am. A contract employee. Would it be a question to you or through an open records request? I believe in the,
budget information, that's a $330,000
salary Yes, ma'am. But it's a part time COO. Correct? No, ma'am. It's not a 100% position? It's a 100%.
That individual works seventy to eighty hours a week at the city of Roswell.
In the contract, it doesn't say a full time. It may not, but the the the results for you as a tax payer are double what the contract says.
Well, I'm I'm understanding
the contract. Can I ask you a question? Yep. Tell me what's what you want to know that's important to you that we're not that we're not providing to you. Sure. Well, I'd like to know if we're we have this
enormous financial contract with SEER. Why do you say it's enormous? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Give me. Why do you say it's enormous?
I mean, in the scheme of our budget But so it's quite sizable. Correct? So I'm just curious because I've heard that before, and I'm always kinda confused because I've never seen the same kind of consternation over other vendors. For example, Jacobs, which is one that basically Sharon get to and said put a stop to that we'd spent I don't I'm not familiar with Jacobs. So if we can I'm just saying but I'm just saying I'm just saying but there's a lot of vendors that we spend a lot of. But if you don't understand my question here.
But
yeah. Through a whole list of all of the vendors Yes, ma'am.
Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Share and show it Yes.
I will I will tell you, Liz, for my for my money. Like, I
as a resident, right,
I'm and as someone who's actually now on the in the government side, I can tell you that for me,
it is hard sometimes because I can't pass on the information
of how much SEER has meant to this city and how much the dollars that we've invested in the city, how much it's meant to me as a taxpayer. Well, I think that's all opinion. Right? So if we Well, it's inform but, Liz, the difference is the difference is is it's highly informed opinion. It's highly informed. It's not just an opinion. It's not, hey. Oh, by the way, hey. We're spending a lot of money with SEER. I'm one of the people up one of the people responsible for making that decision. I'm not nearly willy about how you spend your money. I'm I have a fiduciary responsibility about how you spend your money. And so when it's always a pushback like, well, you're not spending our money wisely. That for me is a different question. Okay. I didn't say No. No. I know you're not. But often that's the sear I think my questions are very black and white. So I don't think we have to But yes, ma'am. You deserve lay into the feelings aspect. Yep. But I'm trying to understand, would it be an open records request or an email to you, or maybe you can direct me to one of the senior vice presidents of departments
that could answer it? But we have this large expenditure
to see her. We also have this additional contract for the COO.
In any of the paper, I can't ascertain
what part of that $330,000
salary is actually going to that COO or is going to see her as the
manager of that COO? Does the COO report to
the mayor and council, or does the COO report to see her who we pay as the consultant? COO reports to the CEO.
The CEO
reports to the mayor and council. The COO reports to the CEO, not to SEER. To answer your question specifically, the 330 or three forty is 100%
pass through.
So SEER retains zero, not a penny of that
in terms of there's there's no money that SEER gains from the contract employment of the COO to the city of Roswell. $0,
not 1p. Okay. Well, great. That's an excellent black and white, no feelings answer.
Second thing is,
in the
quarterly that's not quarterly, but is going to be quarterly Yes, ma'am. Reporting going forward, there seems to be a lot when I've asked for this information
that says x amount was paid to see her, and then the next report comes out, and then there's more money that's paid to see her for the same thing Yes, ma'am. That wasn't filed or paid in the previous quarter.
It seems like
there should be tighter
record keeping or accounts payable, accounts receivable
so that something that says at the end of this quarter was 74,000,
then over here where it's not even a quarter yet but isn't really reported oh, no. That was really 85,000.
To me, that's not transparency
of budget when money is moving like this
after reporting.
So if something took place, say, in August, correct,
that was paid out, but then in the quarterly report in October,
doesn't list that.
But then when we get another report in April 15,
now list something for last August.
That doesn't match up with the budgeting and the reconciliation on quarterly reports.
Is that gonna be something we see being better going forward? Well, I sure hope so. That sound that sound good. Great. That doesn't sound there. That doesn't We agree. Great. That doesn't sound very good. Excellent.
So, mayor and council and and for the community, I'll be,
providing the quarterly report later in the month of April.
April 15. Thank you. April At committee. At committee. Not a council, but the fall they follow on Tuesday the fifteenth. That's right.
And and, yes, you know, we are working very diligently to make sure that we have a clear and understandable report. We're working with our finance team and reconciling the invoices that are coming through. We just processed the last invoices that were at the end of this month today so that we can include those as part of the quarterly report month end of 03/31/2025,
and you should be able to track those through. Now, of course, if there's questions,
I'm gonna answer those as we go. And, Liz, let me give you another piece that you didn't ask, but you're probably gonna ask the next time. You're gonna say, why there's so many SOWs?
Because I have recently directed the team to get more SOWs more specific because of all the work that's done in the city behind the scenes
that Sears involved in. And I said, quit globbing it up underneath this or that and be very specific about the statement of work, the actual work that SEER is doing because that needs to be expressed to the community. The community needs to see the work that SEER is doing. This is the work that you're paying for. And so I will tell you, I predict that you're gonna see a lot more SOWs much more specific
because my request has been I wanna see more SOWs are more specific, more direct I don't wanna see them globbed up. So I don't know if that I know you're not asking that question, but you'll probably ask that question next time. Well, that's a great thing to look forward to because I did definitely take notes on the deliverables that were promised today. So I hope that we do see those coming forward. Yes, ma'am. You mentioned a couple of times the,
billion dollar sports entertainment Yes, ma'am. On the East Side Of Roswell.
Actually, I didn't say the East Side Of Roswell. Jenny said the East Side Of Roswell. And I said, Jenny, I gotta back out of this. I do not wanna get pinned to that conversation tonight. Okay.
But the sports complex that you said is a huge deal, and why isn't it more of a huge deal?
I guess some of my questions are, who's paying for it?
You talking the billions of dollars.
So who is paying
and what
direct benefit
is the city of Roswell
going to gain as far as,
you know, commercial tax,
etcetera, that is tangible, not just Yes, ma'am. Ideas of capital investment.
I'm you're you're I've got the red light, but I'm gonna answer your question.
The first performance shows about 11 half million dollars of tax revenue outside of the standard outside of where we what we what we project
is about deliver about 11
of tax revenue that we And the stadium size? So the specifics of the project Ish.
The specifics of the project will be delivered when the master developer is announced. So I don't wanna get ahead of that. It would be it would be premature
for me to do that tonight. No specific size. Not And you said that No. There's specific sizes, but that is a part of the project tied to the master developer. And and I'm not gonna master development
project information will be forthcoming.
It will be forthcoming as soon as the land deal is consummated
and as soon as the master developer deal is consummated. Okay. So the land's being bought from the city of Roswell?
No, ma'am. I can't address it anymore. It's a real estate deal. Any more any more commentary for me would be,
Okay. Interesting. Because you were asking a lot of questions why it wasn't more. And I guess We talked about the USL piece. We talked about the Roswell It's not more because Well, we talked about okay. We talked about the Roswell Entertainment District. We talked about the USL. I know numerous times, and I said, why is that nobody you said Well, I do have some questions about the USL because I've done some research
on that rumor and It's not a rumor.
So it's not a rumor. It's we we actually did a press conference with it, announced it, and had the USL CEO. But I thank you for your time. You've been amazing. Great questions. Feel free to reach out to me directly. On those things. Yes, ma'am. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Any other Roswell residents who would like to come
up? Really appreciate everybody's time tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you for all your pieces.
I owe some folks some time,
some follow-up,
and I thank you so much. Being that there are no other items or address or comments, this city council mayor and city council meeting of
03/31/2025
is adjourned. Thank you so much.