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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-14-1996 Called Meeting CALLED MEETING COMMISSION-COUNCIL CHAMBERS May 14, 1996 Augusta-Richmond County Commission-Council convened at 4:00 P.M., Tuesday, May 14, 1996, the Honorable Larry E. Sconyers, Mayor, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Beard, Bridges, H. Brigham, J. Brigham, Handy, Kuhlke, Powell, Todd, and Zetterberg, members of Augusta- Richmond County Commission-Council. ABSENT: Hon. Mays, member of Augusta-Richmond County Commission- Council. Also present were Lena Bonner, Clerk of Commission-Council; James B. Wall, Interim Attorney; and Cathy T. Pirtle, Certified Court Reporter. MAYOR SCONYERS: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Special Called Meeting of the Augusta-Richmond County Commission-Council Meeting. The Reverend Robert Anderson, Pastor of the Pine Grove Baptist Church will give the Invocation, and if you'll remain standing we'll have the Pledge of Allegiance. THE INVOCATION WAS GIVEN BY THE REVEREND ANDERSON. THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE WAS RECITED. CLERK: A Presentation from the Legislative Delegation concerning the Consolidation Bill. MAYOR SCONYERS: Ladies and gentlemen, I had asked Representative Connell, who is our Delegation leader, to invite -- and he will introduce the rest of the Delegation -- members of it down to help us. We seem to have some confusion about some of the points of the Bill, so I had asked him to come down today and straighten us out and guide us and put us on a direct path. Representative Connell? REP. CONNELL: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and ladies and gentlemen of the Council-Commission -- well, actually, I guess it's gentlemen of the Council- Commission and the ladies up at the front table. Thank you very much for the invitation. The invitation was to have a committee or the Delegation to come and I have asked the Delegation, all of them, if they would like to attend. Let me introduce those that are here. We have a lady member of our Delegation, Ms. Alberta Anderson -- would you rise, Miss Alberta? We're very happy to have her. Mr. Don Cheeks here, Senator, all of you know, I'm sure. And Mr. Walker over here, Senator from the 22nd, and myself. And Mr. Howard has just arrived and took my chair, I see. That's all right, we've been doing that to each other for years. Thank you, Henry, we're very happy to have you here, sir. Mr. Howard. At your request I appointed, as Chairman, a three-person committee. And Mr. Walker is the Chairman, Mr. Robin Williams, and myself. And Mr. Robin Williams could not be here. If he could arrive, he might be here only for a few minutes. He has to catch a plane out of Atlanta late this afternoon, so I'm afraid Robin could not be here, but he is one of the three-person committee. So I'm going to ask the Chairman of that committee, Senator Walker, if he would bring to you as we think the 805, which is the Consolidation Bill, what it says/what it means as far as we're concerned as the members of the Delegation. This is basically the consensus of all of us. If Miss Alberta or Mr. Cheeks wishes to make their piece or make their statement, I'm sure that they'll be glad to be heard from. And I'll introduce now Senator Walker who I think can bring the message from the Delegation which you have requested. Senator? SEN. WALKER: Mr. Mayor and members of the Commission, I want to try to, if I can in a very brief fashion, sort of outline to you what we perceive the House Bill 805 to be. Not necessarily the intent but the final outcome of that particular legislation. I think the best way to do this is try to specifically address the issues that you all are concerned about, and I think the public at large might be somewhat confused. As I listen to the debate and the discussion about this legislation, it is my opinion in talking with other members of the Delegation we might have a simple case of nomenclature, that we might be talking about the same thing, just using different names. The form of government that we have specifically requires or calls for the Mayor to be the chief executive officer with certain executive powers and authorities, and that is as spelled out by any corporation. We short of envisioned that the Mayor would be the chief executive officer or the chairman of the board and the County Commission-Council would be the board of directors. This form of government with the Mayor being the paid full-time administrator, the full-time chief executive officer, and that the County Commission, by their own vote, could -- with the approval -- with the -- could hire and designate specific rules, guidelines, and job descriptions for an administrator. I think the problem is developing when you use the word manager. A manager form of government would supersede the Richmond County House Bill 805. A manager form of government would, in my opinion and in the opinion of Legislative Counsel, would change the form of government. But not an administrator with specific powers designated by the County Counsel. Even if the Mayor-Chairman of this government wanted to give up his powers at the chief executive officer to an administrator or to a manager, he could not do it, because the bill and the law simply would not allow him to do it because of the form of the government. Now, the question is, how much authority then can you give to an administrator? Just about as much of authority as you want to, except those authorities that specifically move into the realm of the chief executive officer as defined -- if you want to take it to court or by the Association of County Governments. I think we all know what a chief executive officer is. They sign the documents, they approve the hiring and the firing, they are in charge of the day-to-day affairs. Now, the actual running of it as an administrative person, those duties can be transferred or assigned to an administrator. But if you want to move to a manager form of government, then -- like Dekalb County -- what we have to do is go back, make the Mayor a ribbon- cutting person, reduce his salary to a reasonable amount of salary, hire the county manager, then allow the county manager to run for public office as they do in Dekalb County. But that form of government would require an election and we would have to change it in order for that to occur. But now can you have an strong administrator where the County Commission don't get involved in the day-to-day affairs? Yes, you sure can, but you cannot fully abdicate your responsibility to make the final decisions. And as far as the public is concerned, they elected, with 73 percent of the vote, a Mayor to run the day- to-day affairs and we the taxpayers, we are paying him $60,000 a year to do that. So you got to balance that in what you want to do with an administrator. Now, when we were debating this legislation, if you'll check the newspaper articles and all the debate, you said that we want a Mayor form of government where the Mayor is the chief executive officer and we wanted an administrator. We even spelled out -- we tried to spell out the educational qualifications and all of the job description of the administrator in the debate with the Chamber of Commerce, with the community people, but every time we said we wanted an administrator but we wanted the Mayor to be the chief executive officer. Now, the Mayor in a town this big, it is my opinion, and I think the Delegation will share this, you've got to have a professional administrator. I don't see how you could even think about doing it without having a professional administrator. But now if you want a manager form of government, we got to go back to the drawing board. I have -- I think those are the basic issues. And our intent was to have a collaborative form of government. I mean, the people want -- they want the final authority to rest in somebody that they elect. MR. ZETTERBERG: Senator Walker, my bottom line position has been from the very beginning and it's never changed, I want to get the best professional person to do this job, to run the day-to-day part of the business. My question is, can you get the best you can without giving that individual responsibility and authority -- or authority equal to the responsibility? And that's the question. And I've tried to listen very carefully to what you're saying, and it sounds to me like you're saying that that man or woman cannot have the authority to hire or fire his subordinates. SEN. WALKER: No, I did not say that. MR. ZETTERBERG: Well, no, that's what I heard, and I'm asking is that what you're saying. SEN. WALKER: No, sir. MR. ZETTERBERG: Thank you. SEN. WALKER: That person cannot have -- you cannot give him the responsibility without the authority. I mean, if you give his responsibility and no authority, how is he going to act? But that authority cannot exceed or usurp the authority of the chief executive officer. And the chief executive officer, subject to the approval of the County Commission, will have to have the power to approve or disapprove the actions of that person because our form of government gives the final responsibility to chief executive officer with the approval of the County Commission. So you can't just say okay, this guy got all the powers, we have no responsibility, and the Mayor/County Commission can only hire him and nobody else. That's not going to work, not in this form of government. You can give him the authority to hire and fire, but at some point it's going to have to be approved by the County Commission or the Mayor-Chairman since he is the chief executive officer. To give that power to someone else would be an abdication of the legal responsibilities spelled out in the ordinance and with State law. I think Senator Cheeks has a letter from the Legislative Counsel to verify what I just said. Now, if you want to change that, y'all need to get a vote to send it back to the Delegation, then we have to fight that debate in Atlanta, put it back on the ballot and let the people vote on it again. Or we could change it without the people voting on it again if these brave souls would have that much courage. I know I wouldn't. MR. BEARD: Senator, to me it was never a point of -- it was just a matter or point of whether there's going to be a manager or an administrator, and I think since we were cleared on that. But there were very few of us who wanted to give him absolute power, so I don't think that's a big thing. Because I think we all realize that, you know, there were some -- we had to modify some of this, the structure. And I think that most of the time we were in agreement on basically a professional person to run the day-to-day business of -- and with whatever powers that we agreed to give that person. And I think the big thing was the name, manager or administrator, and I think you've possibly cleared that up for us. SEN. WALKER: I think you need to stay away from a manager. MR. ZETTERBERG: There are a number of functions that are critical to anybody who's in charge of something. One would be control over the budget, one would be control over hiring personnel and structuring the personnel system. Could an administrator under this form of government have the authority or be responsible for that and have the authority over those functions? SEN. WALKER: Sure. The administrator would be responsible for presenting the budget to the chief executive officer that will present it to you. I mean, you could delegate that authority. MR. ZETTERBERG: And I think explicitly, could he have the responsibility of hiring and firing the personnel manager? SEN. WALKER: That's where your problem comes in. You want to give him the exclusive authority for doing that? I don't think you can do that. MR. ZETTERBERG: Well, I think that's at one pole. I mean, you're here to define that and I'm here to listen. My choice would be yes, but if the Act doesn't do that, then we -- SEN. WALKER: I think that -- I think we need to get Legislative Counsel to rule on that, but in my opinion that would be stepping on -- it will interfere -- abridge the rights of the chief executive officer. I think that an administrator can be delegated the authority to hire and fire, but it's always going to be subject to the approval of the Commission and the Mayor. Now, that's just my opinion. Now, if you want to change that to form a manager form of -- see, the difference between an administrative form of government and a manager form of government, the manager has absolute -- I don't want to use -- no one has absolute, but you know what I -- it has broad powers, broad powers, whereas an administrative would have limited powers. MR. BRIDGES: Senator, could we give this administrator the authority to initiate any hiring and firing subject to approval of the Commission? SEN. WALKER: Yes, sir. MR. BRIDGES: In other words, he could initiate -- we wouldn't come in and say hey, we want you to look at this person; he would have to initiate it and we could give him that? SEN. WALKER: Exactly. Exactly. You can give him all that. As a matter of fact, y'all can adopt certain ethics rules where no Commissioner can directly refer anybody for employment. I mean, that's just -- it would be an ethics -- ethical -- a matter of ethics. But you can't do that by law, but you can set up your own rules and regulations. That's a good question, and the answer is yes. MR. KUHLKE: Senator, from a practical standpoint we really have the authority, subject to what powers the Mayor has an interest in transferring to another position, anything we want to do? SEN. WALKER: That's just about it, yes, sir. MR. KUHLKE: Thank you. SEN. WALKER: Wouldn't you agree with that, Senator? That's about it. You just put your fingers on it, sir. As long as you don't interfere with the chief executive officer. MR. J. BRIGHAM: Senator, is it -- in your opinion, can we designate this administrator as the chief operational officer, not executive officer but be one that is responsible to the executive office for carrying out operations of this government? SEN. WALKER: Yes, sir, you can do that. MR. H. BRIGHAM: I think you've said it a couple of times, but I think hinging on the debate that I've heard for the last week or so -- and I think I asked in the meeting were we using the terms administrator and manager synonymous. And I didn't quite get an answer that day, but it came out in the papers that they were two different. And I think you've said it, but we would have to basically go back to the people if this is what we would want; is that not true? SEN. WALKER: Yes, sir, that is true. But the Commission -- you all have broad powers that you can delegate to a lot of people, but those powers cannot change -- you cannot change the form of government. MR. ZETTERBERG: And the form of going back would be by referendum or? SEN. WALKER: We could do it -- the Legislative Delegation, if we agreed, we could do it without a referendum, but then it would have to be approved by Justice. MR. TODD: Senator, I'm in agreement with what you're saying and what Senator Cheeks has read to me, but I think we may be getting confused, too, with the form of government as far as manager/administrator and whether we can change the structure, and I think there's a difference. And my question is, can we change the structure as long as we stay with a administrator? SEN. WALKER: You cannot change the structure of the government unless it is in conflict with State law. MR. KUHLKE: Senator, after the first six months, excluding what you have said we can't do under the Bill, what other things can we not do with two-thirds vote of this body? SEN. WALKER: You all can do just about -- y'all can do -- I can't think of anything you can't do. You can't change the district boundaries, you can't change the structure of the government, you can't change the taxing districts until you have met certain criteria which is spelled out in the Bill, but anything else, you can do just about anything else you want to do. Don, do you know anything else they can't do? SEN. CHEEKS: No, that's it, as long as two thirds of them agree, they can do just about anything with the exception of -- SEN. WALKER: Except change the structure. In other words, you can't change it to a manager form of government. You can't do that. SEN. CHEEKS: I don't believe the court system has been addressed and you might want to address that. SEN. WALKER: Right, you can't change the -- well, really you can't change the Municipal Court system either; that must stay in place. We can do it, the Delegation can do it, but you all can't do that. That court must be in place. MR. TODD: Senator, let's address that issue of the court system. And I know we're here -- SEN. WALKER: Well, I didn't come prepared to deal with that today. MR. TODD: Yes, I understand that, but -- SEN. WALKER: I'll answer your question if I can. MR. TODD: -- but that's in public debate, and what I see happening is a constitutional elected officer letting the Municipal Court die a slow death by not putting it on life support. So is there anything we can do to put the Municipal Court back on life support as far as sending cases that direction? SEN. WALKER: Yeah, that is a question that needs to be resolved, and I think it is more of a political question than it is a legal question. In my opinion, since you cannot abolish a court, it would be -- I mean, it does not make sense to have a court that costs $200,000 a year not working. So, therefore, you all have to make a decision on what duties and responsibility that Municipal Court would carry out, or ask the Legislative Delegation to abolish it, or the Sheriff is going to have to be served with a writ of mandamus, and to those cases that occur in the Municipal --those cases that occur within the Municipal -- the existing boundaries at the time the court was created would have to be referred to him -- to that court or the -- or you all are going to have to fight it out legally. But I think the Sheriff is -- he's not required, but I think that if he's -- I'll let the legal people handle that, but I think he's going to have to -- y'all are going to have to address that issue. And I'm not prepared to -- I have not had -- what I've told you today, I've checked it out with Legislative Counsel. I have not checked the courts out with Legislative Counsel yet, so when I check it out I'll tell you what they say also. But what I've told you, except for the Municipal Court, I have checked it out with Legislative Counsel and it's pretty accurate. MR. J. BRIGHAM: Senator, getting back to the administration, you basically have told us -- now, I want to make sure I understood this -- that we can make the administration as powerful as we want to as long as we reserve certain things, namely the hiring and the firing, to us. Is there any other thing that we need to reserve to ourselves? SEN. WALKER: Yes, sir. I didn't just say hiring and firing. He is -- as long as you do not try to usurp the chief executive officer status from the Mayor-Chairman. MR. J. BRIGHAM: Right, I understand that. SEN. WALKER: Now, the chief executive officer means more than just hiring and firing. MR. J. BRIGHAM: Right. SEN. WALKER: Now, that has to be defined, and if you read the language in the Bill -- Don, you want to read what it says? It says generally -- let him read that to you what it means by chief executive officer. It's more than hiring and firing. I don't want to tell you that. SEN. CHEEKS: Hold on, let me find that. SEN. WALKER: It's in the first paragraph in that, isn't it? SEN. CHEEKS: Section 4 is where it is, Charles. It says the Chairperson-Mayor shall be the chief executive officer of Richmond County and the City of Augusta, and the Chairperson-Mayor shall possess and exercise the following executive administrative powers and duties: (1) to preside at all meetings of the Commission-County; (2) to serve as the official head of Richmond County and the City of Augusta for the service of process and for ceremonial purposes; (3) to administer oaths and to take affidavits; (4) to sign all written contracts entered into by the Commission-Council on behalf of Richmond County and the City of Augusta and all other contracts and instruments executed by the county and city which by law are required to be in writing; (e) is to ensure that all laws, ordinances, and resolutions of Richmond County and the City of Augusta are faithfully executed. And this is the crux, this is where y'all come in: to exercise such other powers and perform such other duties as may be required by ordinance/resolution of the Commission-Council. So I'd like to back up a minute and come back and concur with what Charles has said. I'm glad that our Chairman sort of enlightened me today as to why I had not been informed of this meeting, because I learned about it in the newspaper and was sort of -- felt a little slighted, but since he appointed a committee to look into it and not the Delegation, the paper erred in saying we was invited. But since I did see it, I did write -- I mean, call and ask for a ruling, and this is an official ruling, of which I plan to leave with the County Attorney, and it spells out in detail and given the case history and law. And this has been to the courts. The court cases is in this paper that I'm holding, and I'm going to give it to Jim and I'm sure he'll make available to all of y'all a copy of it. I would like to say it does say certain things in here in detail as the Senator has carried out, and it's very plain if you'll just read it. And I think if you look at it, you cannot take the powers of the chief executive officer away. Neither -- he has no powers that y'all don't give him. And the same thing, you can't change the law that -- the State law, but you can change anything else you want to change. You are the Executive Committee. But you can't call this person a manager. And the reason I say that, because they researched for four hours -- Legislative Counsel today researched the administrator and they cannot find out what an administrative position is. They don't know; there's no dictionary points it out, there's no law that points it out that they could find in four hours. So it's a very technical point you're speaking of. But the Bill spells out, and it is in this document, says that the chief executive officer is the chief executive officer and he has certain powers, and then y'all grant him what other powers you may want to. The same thing, you can hire an administrator and do the same thing, but the administrator must come back, present the case in this particular case to the Mayor, and he must present it to y'all for y'alls approval. He just can't do it without coming back before the elected officials. I think that says it in a nutshell. MR. ZETTERBERG: I don't think anybody ever assumed that he would never come back, because he wouldn't last very long. I think we have some problems with definition and I'd certainly like to know what executive powers were and administrative powers were as we wrestle with this. Just as they couldn't describe what administrative powers were, maybe they might not be able to describe exactly what these are. SEN. CHEEKS: Which one is that? MR. ZETTERBERG: Again, my only concern is being able to hire the very best person we can without unencumbering -- there are certain people that would not come to Augusta, Georgia, to be an administrator because he did not have or she might not have the powers to do the job as they thought that they should, so there are limitations what we can do today. SEN. WALKER: There are some limitations, but I think you all can give him some broad powers, very broad powers, and set up your own rules as to how you're going to manage it. But I think in the final analysis you're going to have to -- you're going to be responsible for whatever happens unless you want to change that form. MR. KUHLKE: Senator, most -- a lot of these things are tough to work with. I compliment the Delegation. Because it appears to me that this Bill and the description of the Chairman/CEO gives this body, the Commission- Council, the authority to delegate power where they want to delegate it. And, you know, I think this has been helpful for y'all to come down here and talk to us about it because there has been a lot of confusion on the part of everybody and I think it'll help clear things up for us. SEN. WALKER: Thank y'all very much. MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you, Senator Walker. Mr. Connell, thank you so much. Senator Cheeks. REP. CONNELL: I have a follow up. MAYOR SCONYERS: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, sir. REP. CONNELL: I'm glad the Senator has explained it so well, and Senator Cheeks also. Basically, in summary, this was a big question in our Delegation for the entire '95 session as to what powers the Mayor would have and what powers the members of the Commission-Council would have, and I think -- hope this clarifies it. What I prepared for you today is two pages. The document, 805, is 30 pages legal sized, single-spaced, and it's lengthy. And what I have prepared for you, and I'll give it to Ms. Bonner and others, is those powers of the Commission-Council summarized into a few lines, each power; and then the Mayor's powers also are here. So you can separate it, you don't have to read the whole Bill, if you'd like to have this distributed among the members of the Council and the -- and Mr. Mayor. We appreciate being here. And I'll deliver this to Ms. Bonner, and those who would like to read it, maybe this will simplify trying to designate and to eliminate and to corral all of the needs that y'all have to be sure that you're operating under State law. Which I think the -- we like it and we tried -- there's a big compromise in the Mayor's powers during the '95 session and summarized in 805, and I think this summary may be of some help to you. We appreciate being here. How about Miss Alberta, she may --have anything? MS. ANDERSON: [Indicates negatively.] REP. CONNELL: Okay. Mr. Howard? REP. HOWARD: It's been well said. REP. CONNELL: We all worked pretty close together, I tell you, for three months in Atlanta. Thank y'all very much. MAYOR SCONYERS: I'd like to thank you, Mr. Connell and the rest of the Delegation for being here. Do we need a motion to receive that as information? MR. KUHLKE: I'll move, Mr. Chairman. MR. H. BRIGHAM: Second. MAYOR SCONYERS: I have a motion by Mr. Kuhlke, seconded by Mr. Brigham. Discussion, gentlemen? MR. TODD: Yes, Mr. Mayor. I received the -- I guess the three recommendations, or four, from the Project Manager, and I guess that we're going to decide on those recommendations at the next regular meeting or at some date. And I certainly would like to know when this is going to go on the agenda or are we going to have another retreat or are we going to meet and sit down and talk about them, because I have some problems with all of them and think that we need to fine tune if we're going to look at the administrator position and what the job classifications there are going to be. And I think in that recommendation it's giving the administrator the rights to hire and possibly fire with -- for cause certain department heads, then there's other department head or functions where the Commission have that, and I certainly would like to maybe see that changed to the administrator having the authorities and power to make recommendations for appointments and make recommendations for discharge per -- termination per cause to the board, and that's on all department heads and all functions and not just some. MAYOR SCONYERS: Mr. Todd, we can't discuss anything except what we've brought up today. None of that can be discussed. Am I correct, Mr. Wall? MR. WALL: That's correct. MR. TODD: Are we discussing the form of government, whether we're going to have an administrator or a manager, Mr. Mayor? MAYOR SCONYERS: No, sir, that wasn't what we were -- CLERK: Just accepting this as information. MR. ZETTERBERG: Since we can't propose anything, I would suggest to you that maybe we have another meeting together so we can have dialogue versus coming in here and seeing something for the first time. MAYOR SCONYERS: You mean like a -- I don't want to have another retreat. We can meet in this room over here. We're not going to waste any more taxpayers money on it. We can meet over here or in this chamber. I'm willing to do that, I don't have a problem with that at all. MR. ZETTERBERG: That's fine. I don't need to meet anywhere other than here. MAYOR SCONYERS: Okay. When do y'all want to do it? Do you want me to set the meeting? MR. BRIDGES: Yes. MR. ZETTERBERG: Exercise executive power. MAYOR SCONYERS: All right, thank you. Mr. Beard? MR. BEARD: I was just going to move, Mr. Mayor, that you set the date to -- for us to get together as Commissioners and discuss the proposals that the Project Manager has presented to us, and we should do that as soon as -- hopefully we can do that as soon as possible so we can move on, set up the structure, and get on with the other business. MAYOR SCONYERS: Okay. I'll -- MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor? MAYOR SCONYERS: Mr. Todd? MR. TODD: I'll yield, Mr. Mayor, to your comments. MAYOR SCONYERS: I'll get with Ms. Bonner and we'll see how quickly we can set up the meeting. Be happy to do so. MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, my concern is -- and I guess Mr. Carstarphen and the County Attorney can answer this -- is that as I read the proposal as far as the administrator go, we're giving the administrator authority to hire and fire in one case for cause and then there's a group of functions, et cetera, and departments where we're not, and I'm wondering can we do that. And if we can't do that, then is there a need to even have a meeting with a proposal -- with something being proposed that we can't do, that we maybe need to -- someone need to direct Mr. Carstarphen to look at that, review it -- and the County Attorney -- and bring us something that we can do versus something that we may can't do. MAYOR SCONYERS: Mr. Wall, do you want to answer -- first of all, we're not even supposed to be on this subject, but I'm going to let Mr. Wall answer that and then we're going to vote and that's going to be it. Thank you, Mr. Wall. MR. WALL: Mr. Carstarphen and I have discussed that. As long as there is an appeal to the full Commission-Council so that the decision of the administrator to fire for cause could be appealed to the Commission-Council and the Commission-Council has the ultimate decision, I think that that would satisfy it. As far as totally divesting that control to the administrator is in that gray area that Senator Walker was talking about. That is an executive function, both the hiring and the firing, and I think that ultimately all that decision has to come back before the Commission-Council. MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor, I call for the question. MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you, Mr. Todd. All in favor of the motion to receive it as information, let it be known by raising your hand, please. MOTION CARRIES 9-0. MAYOR SCONYERS: Being no further meeting -- I mean, no further -- excuse me, I'm sorry. MR. WALL: Mr. Mayor, I had talked with you about discussing two litigation matters, one in particular that there's some urgency about, and then if you have the time I've got a couple of real estate matters that I don't think will take long that I would like to discuss with you as well. MAYOR SCONYERS: Do I hear a motion? MR. TODD: Mr. Mayor? A point of order, Mr. Mayor. It's not on the agenda, as I was told. I think what I was wanting to discuss is more related to what this meeting was called for than real estate matters and other matters. MR. POWELL: I move we adjourn, Mr. Mayor. MAYOR SCONYERS: Thank you. This meeting is adjourned. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 4:45 P.M. Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission-Council CERTIFICATION: I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission-Council, hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Called Meeting of Augusta- Richmond County Commission-Council held on May 14, 1996. C E R T I F I C A T E G E O R G I A RICHMOND COUNTY I, Cathy T. Pirtle, Certified Court Reporter, hereby certify that I reported the foregoing meeting of the Augusta-Richmond County Commission- Council and supervised a true, accurate, and complete transcript of the proceedings as contained in the foregoing pages 1 through 30. I further certify that I am not a party to, related to, nor interested in the event or outcome of such proceedings. Witness my hand and official seal this 15th day of May 1996. ______________________________ CATHY T. PIRTLE, B-1763 CERTIFIED COURT REPORTER