Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutRegular Commission Meeting January 17, 2012 REGULAR MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER JANUARY 17, 2012 Augusta Richmond County Commission convened at 5:00 p.m., January 17, 2012, the Hon. Deke Copenhaver, Mayor, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Lockett, Guilfoyle, Mason, Smith, Hatney, Aitken, Johnson, Jackson, Bowles and Brigham, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. Mr. Mayor: I call to order the Regular Commission and call on my friend Bishop Rosa Williams, Pastor, Ever Faithful Baptist Church for the invocation please. The invocation was given by Bishop Rosa Williams, Pastor, Ever Faithful Baptist Church. The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America was recited. Mr. Mayor: Bishop Williams, thank you for that powerful invocation. Madam Clerk, on to the presentations. The Clerk: PRESENTATIONS(S) A. Mr. Jack Trover, CDW-G on behalf of Digital Cities. RE: Presentation to Augusta Information Technology Department. Mr. Trover: On behalf of the Center for Digital Government and Digital Communities Centers Local Government Program we’d like to extend our congratulations to you, to your top ten ranking placing fifth in the 2011 Digital Cities Survey in the nation. The survey is now in its eleventh year and the survey recognizes successful achievements of cities and its accomplishments of its elected officials, top appointed executives and staff. Each city has submitted a description of its accomplishments and planned improvements using technology to enact judicial and departmental goals and improve the life of the government employees, citizens or both. All the responses reviewed and judged by a panel of experts. The top ten cities provide the best examples of how information and communication technology is used to support public service as part of their overall strategic priorities and operational service delivery strategies. Specific attention was focused on accomplishments and the future plans for public safety, social and health services, natural resource management, economic development and administrative efficiencies. A few of the things that the judges found impressive about the work being done and in the City of Augusta include the City of Augusta’s most has moved towards the consolidation of applications, data based platforms, servers and vendors. A major success has been implemented of the browser based Enterprise Resource Planning system that has resulted in improved efficiencies since the end user installations are no longer needed cutting down on the IT staff site visits to the end user and to perform troubleshooting. In 2011 the data based platform for this system was changed to a move that ultimately saved the city $55,000.00 annually in maintenance fees. It also reduced the number of data bases that needed supporting. 1 Augusta’s Human Resource software was interfaced with a software as you service based provider to improve the employees benefit program. That solution permits employees to manage benefits online and provides enhanced accounting for the benefit expenditures. The Licensing and Inspection Division Public Portal Support online permits requests of payments. This service will reduce traffic in that office with the new online business licensing directory provides Augusta businesses with multiple new ways of using the website. The Sheriff’s Office and Information Technology has devoted months of hard work toward implementation of the new Field Reporting Solutions for the deputies. The Sheriff’s Office has fielded nearly 300-mobile data terminals in the past years. Nearly all the deputies now have the ability to file a report from the field. Efficiency has pushed up the change of command since the shift supervisor’s view and approved the reports via the computer. The approved reports are instantly available to the records division instead of arriving by courier and thus saving time and money and improving overall operations. Finally in 2011 the IT deployed Emergency Notifications Signup a web page for Augusta Emergency Management Agency that enables citizens to register to receive message via phone and text messages. The solution insures the citizens have the ability to receive emergency alerts regardless of their location or chosen communication device. Other public safety features available via the Augusta website is emergency alert when the emergency system exists such as an amber alert, heat advisory or hurricanes the site well featured the attention grabbing alert across the top of the page describing the nature of the emergency. The alerts can also go out over Facebook and Twitter thereby helping keeping the community better informed. The competition was fierce so making the top ten and coming out fifth in the nation is an achievement. And we thank you for your wonderful information service that you’re providing for your constituents. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, sir. (APPLAUSE) The Clerk: We’d like the Mayor and the IT Department, Ms. Tameka Allen, the Director. Do you have staff you want to come forward to receive this presentation? Ms. Allen: Okay. First of all, Jack, thank you from CDW-G for coming down to present this award to us. You know when they notified us, last year we were seventh in the nation and of comparable agencies. That was rewarding enough to us. So when I got the notification that we had been recognized again I’ll be honest with you I was so excited I didn’t even see where we ranked. I didn’t care because we ranked you know while we were in the top ten because we do so many good things and we have so many good partnerships with the various departments to make things like this happen. So just being in the top ten was awesome enough and fascinating enough to us. But to realize and recognize that that we had actually moved up from number seven to number five regardless of budgetary constraints and things of that nature because in 2011 we really didn’t have a capital budget to work with. But it doesn’t, one person doesn’t make things like that possible because most people would’ve used that as an excuse not to make things happen. But the people that you see behind me are some of the people that make things like this possible. They’re the ones that come here on a day to day basis that are passionate and truly dedicated to what they do for the City of Augusta. We do appreciate the support that we get from our Administrator was well as our Mayor and the continued support we get from our Commission but these people that are behind me are the ones who really do the job. One person can’t do it two people can’t do it. It takes a great team. I’m so, so very fortunate and the City of 2 Augusta is very fortunate to have people that are so dedicated as the people that stand with me today. So I want to recognize the people that actually make things like this happen. We’re looking forward to scoring even higher next year because we’re going to continue to do the great things that we come to work to do on a day to day basis. So please help me and join me in recognizing the people that make things like this happen. (APPLAUSE) Photo OP. Photo OP. (APPLAUSE) RECOGNITIONS Employee of the Month B. Mr. Jerome Mitchell, Crew Leader, Augusta Utilities, December Employee of the Month. 2011 Employee of the Year Award C. Congratulations! Ms. Nancy Greer, Appraisal Coordinator for the Tax Assessors Office, 2011 Employee of the Year. The Clerk: Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission at this time we would like to acknowledge our Employee of the Year. And first let me mention Mr. Mitchell had a family issue that he will not be able to be with us today. So hopefully we can reschedule that one at a later date. However we would like to acknowledge the winner of our 2011 Employee of the Year Award. We ask Ms. Nancy Greer along with the Tax Assessors Office, Mr. Ross and members of your staff, who would like to join her. (APPLAUSE) The Clerk: The Employee Recognition Committee has selected Nancy Greer as the 2011 Employee of the Year for the City of Augusta. Nancy is employed as an Appraisal Coordinator for the Tax Assessors Office. She has been employed with the city for over 18 years. Ms. Greer was previously nominated for Employee of the Month in 2011 by Ms. Donna Murray who is Deputy Chief Appraiser for the Tax Assessors Office. As a result of Senate Bill 346 which modified the annual digest process with new requirements on assessment notices Nancy provide the Tax Assessors Office with managerial oversight on all components of the new development which insured accurate and timely mailings of the 2011 notices to over 7900 parcel owners. This will insure submission of Richmond County digest therefore timely mailing of the 2011 tax bills by the Tax Commissioners Office. Ms. Greer worked many late evenings on this project in addition to her daily duties and remained encouraging support staff within her department. She was able to assist in coming up with different scenarios to make sure information was accurate that would go out to tax payers and avoiding errors that would create estimated tax impact. The Employee Recognition Committee felt that based on Nancy’s dedicated and loyal service to the City of Augusta we would appreciate you in joining us in awarding her the 2011 Employee of the Year Award. (APPLAUSE) Mr. Mayor: And I’ve just a letter for you as well. Thank you so much for your service to the city. Dear Ms. Greer. On behalf of the City of Augusta it is with great pleasure that I congratulate you for being recognized as the Employee of the Year for 2011. Your contribution to your organization and Augusta Richmond County Government and the citizens of Augusta has earned you this recognition. I appreciate your willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty and your outstanding work ethic. I value your commitment to making Augusta a better 3 place. And it is with great pleasure that I present to you this award. You are truly an asset to the Augusta Richmond County Tax Assessors Office and the citizens of Augusta Georgia. Please accept my personal congratulations on this wonderful award. You are truly deserving of this recognition. Sincerely yours, Deke Copenhaver, Mayor. (APPLAUSE) Ms. Greer: Thank you very much for this special recognition but it’s a team effort. It’s working with us the whole Tax Assessors Office this represents the Tax Commissioners Office stood up to help us create this scenario so that we had minimal errors. Don Murray, Mr. Ross and all, I could go on and on but I just want to say thank you. It was a team effort from several departments. Thank you very much for this honor. (APPLAUSE) Mr. Mayor: Madam Clerk, on to the delegations, please, ma’am. The Clerk: DELEGATIONS D. Ms. Sameera V. Thurmond. RE: Animal Control Ordinance. Ms. Thurmond: Good evening, Commissioners. Mr. Mayor: And if you could keep it to five --- Ms. Thurmond: Sir? Mr. Mayor: If you could keep it to five minutes, please, ma’am. Ms. Thurmond: Yes, well okay, I may, I guess it’s five minutes. Okay, as you know I’m here to request a modification in Title IV Public Health Relating Specifically to Felines. My purpose for doing this is that I have been cited twice for my cats being outside or being off my property. I believe that all living entities have a basic intrinsic value because they’ve been created by God. Certainly human beings believe this about themselves. No doubt humans believe themselves to be above those seen as lesser animals. Clearly however there is a role for them whether we’re clear about what it is or not the Creator saw as a necessity for their creation. This dominion over all living creatures became diversified when we determined that animals would be used for different purposes and no doubt how they would be used and treated. One of these uses is for companionship to humans. The county requires containment of cats to which I would submit that containment is a virtual prison which runs counter to the nature of cats. Containment is a form of arrest even it’s even against the nature of human beings. So we only imprison people when they have acted in a physically dangerous manner or exploited individuals in some way that causes mental and economic suffering. The purpose of arresting free roaming nature of cats is unclear particularly when they have been properly registered, spayed or neutered and inoculated. The ordinance doesn’t make clear why such an imposition has been placed upon felines since consensus will show that they’re not included in a danger to society category. Rationale for the restraint of domesticated animals must have been predicated on the predisposition of certain animals to harm humans or the act of some wild like manner that has fragrantly outside the norm of tolerable behavior. The feline species particularly seems to 4 invoke feelings of strong hatred or that of enormous love for them. The nature of cats bears no predisposition towards harming human beings. Comparatively cats are probably less dangerous than squirrels who are allowed to roam free. In fact the term fraidy cat reflects their nature to jump or run at the slightest noise or movement. Whatever the rationale for the law it is hoped that its purpose was not to impede the free movement of cats to justify a few within the public who bear personal idiosyncrasies towards this animal. One must look elsewhere for the rationale. If society’s apprehensions rest on the fear of overpopulation it’s a justifiable fear. If society takes the dominion over animals to a responsible level, then we are obliged to enact primarily for their overall well being. To this end we must assure that the population of cats doesn’t exceed the number of people willing to care for them otherwise excessive numbers of animals will suffer in many different ways. Humans have created shelters of love to protect them from many discomforts if not dangers of life that confronts them. This is the value we attach to ourselves. Certainly as man became more enlightened and being in agreement with the biblical passage which instructs us that we have dominion over all living things we developed a humane mindset which provided for a shelter of love particularly for domesticated animals. This shelter of love for domestic animals began to resemble that which man afforded himself that is registration of our existence with instruments as birth and death certificates, childhood inoculations and social security. Now we do the same with our pets. We register their existence, existence, provide for the necessary inoculations to protect them and ourselves. I would argue that there’s no real justification for restraining cats to move freely if all requirements are met. Therefore I am requesting the Commission to revisit the pertinent sections of Title IV Sections 4- 1-21 and 23 with the aim of partial modification allowing cats who have been properly vaccinated spayed or neutered and registered with a veterinarian to have free roaming privileges. I thank you. Mr. Mayor: Okay, perfect, right on five minutes. That’s pretty amazing. Do we have any questions? Yes, sir, Commissioner Mason. Mr. Mason: Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. Can we hear from our Animal Control Director in reference to this request here? Mr. Mayor: Do we have the Animal Control Director in the house? Mr. Russell: Mr. Mayor, if I may we’ve --- Mr. Mayor: Mr. Russell. Mr. Russell: --- we’ve got an issue that we need to walk very gently around. There is a currently outstanding case that’s not been heard in court yet in reference to this. So as long as we talk in generalities I would think that that would be appropriate. But to ask specifically I believe would trespass on her civil and criminal rights, I guess, or something. Mr. Mayor: Okay Mr. MacKenzie. 5 Mr. MacKenzie: I’ve also been made aware that there is a pending case. I would also prefer to wait until that’s resolved. I mean obviously you can talk generally about the case. If it’s the will of the Commission in making alterations that can be discussed. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Ms. Thurmond: So I have --- Mr. Mayor: Mr. Mason says he’s fine. Okay. Okay, thank you, ma’am. What’s that? Ms. Thurmond: Okay. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Madam Clerk, on to the next delegation. The Clerk: DELEGATIONS E. Rev. Marion Williams. RE: Disparity Study. Mr. Mayor: And, Reverend Williams, you are veteran so you know the five minute rule as well. Thank you, sir. Reverend Williams: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening to you and the Commissioners. I came this afternoon to comment first of all and to ask I guess a couple of questions. As you know yesterday we just celebrated a holiday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and what he’s doing for justice for all people. One of his most famous sayings was in justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. That leaves me to this study that we talked about this City of Augusta was mandated by the court to do a disparity study. We spent over $500,000.00 I believe I’m not sure the exact figure on that study, Mr. Mayor. And that study came back and said we as a city of Augusta has been discriminating against minorities and women. That study to my understanding was only good for five years. Two and a half of those years is already gone by. I guess my question is since the raises have been given out to department heads and the things that have been taken place in this city already I would like to know where we are and what we are doing and where is the Commission as far as the study is concerned. The disparity in this department as you know the fire department came down here in record numbers about some disparity that they had in that department. The next department that’s coming is going to be Utilities it’s going to be the water department. If you want to know how do I know all of this I’ve been getting calls as if I was still sitting in that seat that you’re sitting in. But people know that there are someone needs to address those issues and find out why. The disparity in the water department is wide across the board in the water department. I’m here to get into that I am here to know, to ask this body of elected officials who got those great employees we just talked about a few minutes ago and all of the awards we gave out. Where are we and what are we going to do about the discrimination that we had to spend over $500,000 dollars to prove which we knew before we took that study. But the courts made us do that so we’d have something to go by. And if two and a half years is already gone it only leave two and a half years left before we enact then we may have to do another study which is going to cost another $500,000 dollars to what we already know. So in my closing and I say within the 6 guidelines of my five minutes, there’s only three minutes done, Mr. Mayor. But I want to know what are we as a body, this elected body of elected officials plan to do with what’s in place because when the study was given I was here at this meeting and The board of Commissions just received that as information. And to my knowledge since then that’s all that’s been done is received as information. Mr. Mayor: Okay, thank you, Reverend Williams. Yes, Commissioner Johnson. Mr. Johnson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Reverend Williams, for bringing that up. I did have some conversation with the Attorney in regards to this matter. And I think of June of last year we actually approved and if you will Mr. Attorney you probably can elaborate a little bit on what happened in June of last year and I guess where we are at this point as far as collecting data from I guess our Procurement and Small Business Advisory or Yvonne Gentry’s department in regarding to the disparity study as far as what we’re implementing as a city and how we get to where we are now what we are I guess what the end result will be. Mr. MacKenzie: Sure I’ll try to be as concise as possible. In June of last year there was some improvements to the local Small Business Program. The disparity study was actually done voluntarily by the Commission. It was not ordered by the court. It was so the Commission could assess the availability of certain groups in the market place. That is something that does have a shelf life of typically of about five years and we are about two and half years in the process. But some steps have been taken towards assessing the availability of what the disparity study as well as data collection as you mentioned which was implemented as part of the changes to the procurement code in June of last year. Mr. Johnson: So at this point the next step I guess for us to probably recap this in a retreat to see exactly where we are in the next I guess step up or path forward to reassure that we are doing what is necessary on this, from the city’s behalf and that perspective. And if not then we need to go a step further. But would it be I guess okay to actually revisit this at the retreat next month to get into detail regarding where we are as far as the department and what’s going on as far as the data concern? Mr. MacKenzie: I think that would probably be a great idea to talk about this at the retreat. Mr. Mayor: Okay, all right. Thank you. Commissioner? Reverend Williams: Mr. Mayor, if I could respond to and I don’t know if my time is here or not. I was on the board of commissioners at the time when the courts had us to do the study because of the, we did not have the study done at that time. And we had to stop our DBE program. In fact our DBE program was stopped in its track at that point. We couldn’t let any contracts. Even the contract that we let now with the businesses around Augusta who’s saying they’re going do ten, fifteen, twenty percent of minority occupation have not been done and they have not had anybody to follow up on what they said they were going to do once the contract was let. So if the commission’s going to go into a study on it, go into a meeting on it next month I think that would be great. But I think that the time is the clock is ticking and that this study that 7 we spent all of this money on and brought it back and just laid it on the shelf again it’s a waste of taxpayer’s money and it’s an injustice to the employees that have been suffering through this all of this time. Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Thank you, Reverend Williams. Commissioner Bowles. Mr. Bowles: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would like Andrew to correct me if I’m wrong but the disparity study we did had nothing to with our employees. It was an economic study on businesses and the impact of the workers and the city. And it had nothing to do with our employees. Is that correct? Mr. MacKenzie: That’s correct. Mr. Bowles: Thank you. Mr. Mason: Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Mason. Mr. Mason: This is not in relation to this. I’m going to ask for a point of privilege. As a matter of fact I meant to ask you back in the back but you know a point of privilege on a different --- Mr. Mayor: Okay. Mr. Mason: --- note. Okay, thank you. Understanding that I was the chairman of the redistricting committee and it was brought to my attention of course last week that both Commissioner Smith and Commissioner Brigham will be meeting with us Senator Stone and others here in the near future in reference to the map. It is also prompted additional questions in terms of what we had talked about prior in terms of the potential letter that was drafted to try to see where we were on that because time is passing and the legislative delegation will be looking at this soon. So I was just curious as to where we would be on that at this particular point from your standpoint. Mr. Mayor: I will tell you, Commissioner Mason, I’m just sort of watching it play out. I said I would consider that but obviously the Commission doesn’t have to approve the maps. Obviously this situation seems to be changing on a regular basis from what I understand. So that’s I would like to see you know the delegation get their act together and decide as well. Mr. Mason: Well, I think they’re definitely going to do that one way or the other because they’re charged to do that. But I think what I was asking before when I came before the Commission was that you are elected by the entire city and you weren’t afforded an opportunity to weigh in on the issue. And the community really kind of wanted to see where you stood on this particular issue. And it was our hope at that particular time when we brought it forward to you that there would be a letter drafted that would be appropriate that met some of the things that you said prior in terms of your support for that particular item. So I do realize that they will act 8 on that, there’s no questions about that just like we did one way of the other. But it was my intent or at least my hope that you would act on that as well so that the people would be very clear regardless to what anybody else does. Be very clear as far as where you stand on that particular issue. But I fully understand. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Thank you. Madam Clerk, on to the consent agenda. The Clerk: Our consent agenda consists of items 1-25, items 1-25. For the benefit of any objectors to our Planning petitions once the petition is read would you please signify your objections by raising your hand if there are any objectors to our Planning petitions. I call you attention to: Item 4: Is a request for a Special Exception for the purpose of allowing church improvements relating to property located at 3450 Old McDuffie Road. Item 5: Is for a Special Exception to establish public parking during the Master Golf Tournament on property located at 405 Berckman Road also at 2713 Cherry Lane. Item 6: With conditions is a change of zoning from a Zone P-1 (Professional) to a Zone B-1 (Neighborhood Business) affecting property located at 1724 Wrightsboro Road. Item 7: Is for a change of zoning from a R-1A (One-family Residential) to a Zone R-3B (Multiple Family Residential) affecting property known as 2575, 2577 and 2579 Dover Street and 2578 Lyman Street. The Clerk: Are there any objectors to any of those Planning Petitions? Mr. Russell: None noted, Madam Clerk. The Clerk: Under our Public Services portion of the agenda if there are any objectors to any of our alcohol petitions would you please signify your objection by raising your hand once the petition is read. I call your attention to: Item 8: Is for a transfer of the Liquor, Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with the location at 3253 Deans Bridge Road. Item 9: Is for a Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with the location at 3102 Washington Road. Item 10: Is for a retail package Liquor 7 Wine license to be used in connection with the location at 3696 Peach Orchard Road. The Clerk: Are there any objectors to any of those alcohol petitions? Mr. Russell: None noted, Madam Clerk: The Clerk: Our consent agenda consists of items 1-25 with no objectors to our Planning or Alcohol petitions. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, ma’am. Gentlemen, do we have any items to be added to the consent agenda? Commissioner Jackson. 9 Mr. Jackson: If there’s no problem item #33. Mr. Mayor: Any more items to be added to the consent agenda. Has anybody got a problem with 34? Okay. Mr. Russell: Thirty-four if added needs to be, um, approve a contract after the approval of the attorney of the contract. The Clerk: Subject to the Attorney’s approval? Mr. Russell: Subject to the attorney’s, yes, that’s exactly what I meant to say. Subject to the attorney’s approval. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Any further additions? Do we have any items to be pulled for discussion? Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Chairman, agenda items 19 and 20. Mr. Mayor: Any further items to be pulled for discussion. Hearing none can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Mr. Jackson: So moved. Mr. Mason: Second. CONSENT AGENDA PLANNING 1. FINAL PLAT – GRANITE HILL, SECTION 3-B – S-827 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by Southern Partners, on behalf of Crowell & Co., Inc., requesting final plat approval for Granite Hill Section 3-B. This residential subdivision is located on Clarkston Road, adjacent to Granite Hill, Section 1 and 3 and contains 17 lots. 2. FINAL PLAT – HAYNES’S STATION, PHASE 1 – S-818 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by Cranston Engineering Group, on behalf of Coel Development Co., requesting final plat approval for Hayne’s Station Phase 1. This residential subdivision is located on Gordon Highway, west of Old US 78 and contains 47 lots. 3. FINAL PLAT – MCCOYS CREEK, SECTION 1 – S-824 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by James G. Swift and Associates, on behalf of Prather Construction, requesting final plat approval for McCoys Creek, Section 1 subdivision. This residential subdivision is located off Gordon Highway, east of Dodge Lane and contains 59 lots. 4. Z-12-01 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by Reverend Mark Walden, on behalf of Old Time Way Church of God in Christ, requesting a Special Exception for the purpose of allowing church improvements 10 and related church activities per Section 26-1(A) of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta, Georgia affecting property containing approximately 32 acres and is known under the present numbering system as 3450 Old McDuffie Road. (Tax Map 94 Parcels 27.1 & 4.01) DISTRICT 4 5. Z-12-03 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by Patrick J. Rice, on behalf of Berckman Residential Properties and Augusta National, requesting a Special Exception to establish public parking during the Masters Golf Tournament per Section 8-2(b) of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta, Georgia affecting property containing three tracts as follows: Tract A – contains 1.01 acre and is known as 405 Berckman Road. (Tax Map 018-0-088-03-0) DISTRICT 7 Tract B –contains 1.26 acres and is known as 409 and 415 Berckman Road. (Tax Map 018- 0-088-02 & 018-4-038-00-0) DISTRICT 7 Tract C – contains 0.77 acres and is known as 2713 Cherry Lane (Tax Map 019-0-051-00-0) DISTRICT 7 6. Z-12-05 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve with the following conditions 1) the rear yard must be improved for parking in compliance with the required number of parking spaces and 2) the site must comply with all regulations and codes for Augusta, Georgia including the Tree Ordinance before a business license is to be issued; a petition by Beverly Patterson Manor, on behalf of Zelwin, Zeler Y Tonya Davis, requesting a change of zoning from Zone P-1 (Professional) to Zone B-1 (Neighborhood Business) affecting property containing .16 acres and is known as 1724 Wrightsboro Road. (Tax Map 045-3-377-00-0) DISTRICT 2 7. Z-12-06 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by Norman Michael, on behalf of the Augusta Georgia Land Bank Authority, requesting a change of zoning from Zone R-1A (One-family Residential) to Zone R-3B (Multiple Family Residential) affecting property containing approximately 1.37 acres and is known as 2575, 2577, and 2579 Dover Street and 2578 Lyman Street. (Tax Map 097- 1-113-00-0, 097-1-115-00-0, 097-1-116-00-0 & 097-1-086-00-0) DISTRICT 6 PUBLIC SERVICES 8. Motion to approve Transfer Application: A.T. 12-01: A request by Tok S. Ha to transfer the Liquor, Beer & Wine license used in connection with Hwang Kuem Jung located at 3253 Deans Bridge Rd. to 3008 Deans Bridge Rd. There will be Sunday Sales. District 6. Super District 10. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 9. Motion to approve New Application: A.N. 12-02: request by Betty John for an on premise consumption Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with JNB Pohnpei LLC DBA Mikoto Express located at 3102 Washington Rd. District 7. Super District 10. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 10. Motion to approve New Application: A.N. 12-03: request by Sandipkumar Patel for a retail package Liquor & Wine license to be used in connection with H&S Wine & Spirits located at 3696 Peach Orchard Rd. District 6. Super District 10. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 11. Motion to approve the selection committee’s recommendation to select Turner Construction Company as the Construction Manager at Risk for the Municipal Building Renovations and Modernization. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 11 12. Motion to approve Contact Modification #4 to Reeves Construction Company’s Contract at Augusta Regional Airport in an amount not to exceed $16,403.60. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 12. Motion to approve the Fourth Amendment to the Republic Parking Management Agreement at Augusta Regional Airport in the amount not to exceed $65,347.11 for fiscal year 2012. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 14. Motion to approve an Ordinance amending Title I General Government, Chapter 3, Aviation Commissions, Article 5 Airports and Aviation, Section 1-3-43 of the Augusta, Georgia Code of Ordinances to adopt new Rules and Regulations for the operation of Augusta Regional Airport at Bush Field; to provide an effective date and for other purposes. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 15. Motion to approve the selection committee’s recommendation to issue a contract to Virgo Gambill Architects for Professional Architectural Services for the Augusta, Georgia Municipal Building Renovations and Modernization. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) 16. Motion to approve the Contract Closeout between Augusta Regional Airport and Sommers Construction at a cost not to exceed $9,782.00. (Approved by Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES 17. Motion to approve tasking the General Counsel Mr. MacKenzie to draft his opinion of what ordinary business is and disseminate to Commissioners. (Approved by Administrative Services Committee January 9, 2012) PUBLIC SAFETY 18. Motion to approve Letter of Agreement between Augusta Information Technology and the Richmond County Board of Assessors. (Approved by Public Safety Committee January 9, 2012) FINANCE 19. Motion to approve the continuation of the GPS monthly tracking service with GPS Signal Track Smart Antenna from GPS North America. (Approved by Finance Committee January 9, 2012) ENGINEERING SERVICES 20. Motion to approve the Augusta Utilities Master Plan proposal from Constantine Engineering with a fee not to exceed $618.338. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee January 9, 2012) 21. Motion to approve a donated Easement between James P. Helton, Jr. and Margaret Knapp Helton, as owners, and Augusta, Georgia, as optionee, in connection with the Fox Spring Road Drainage Improvement Project, said perpetual easement consists of 0.10 acre (4,355 sq. ft.) of permanent drainage and utility easement, more or less, from the property located at 3026 Fox Spring Road, private. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee January 9, 2012) 22. Motion to approve an Option for the purposes of acquiring an Easement between Sherry M. Smith, as owner, and Augusta, Georgia, as optionee, in connection with the East 12 Augusta Roadway and Drainage Improvement Project, said perpetual easement consists of (231.64 sq. ft.) of permanent drainage and utility easement, more or less, and (408.73 sq. ft.) of temporary construction easement from the property located at 409 Aiken Street, private, at the purchase price of $538.00. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee January 9, 2012) 23. Motion to approve an Option for the purposes of acquiring an Easement between Bobby Lenwood Thomas, Jr., as owner, and Augusta, Georgia, as optionee, in connection with the East Augusta Roadway and Drainage Improvement Project, said perpetual easement consists of 0.002 acre (75.26 sq. ft.) of permanent drainage and utility easement, more or less, and (563.18 sq. ft.) of temporary construction easement from the property located at 802 Wallace Street, private, at the purchase price of $150.00. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee January 9, 2012) 24. Motion to approve Crosswalk Easement Agreement entered into by Augusta, Georgia and The Whites Building Condominium Association, Inc. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee January 9, 2012) PETITIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS 25. Motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of the Commission held January 3, 2012 and Special Called Meetings held January 9 and 11, 2012. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign. Mr. Guilfoyle: Ms. Bonner, could you show that a no on number 11 and number 15 and abstaining on number 29, please. The Clerk: Okay, wait, let me, I will get that. Mr. Hatney: Ms. Bonner, I’m abstaining on alcohol whatever number. The Clerk: Okay. Go ahead and vote on the consent and then we’ll, okay. Mr. Hatney abstains. Motion carries 9-0-1. [Items 8-10] Mr. Guilfoyle votes No. Motion carries 9-1. [Items 11 and 15] Mr. Guilfoyle abstains. Motion carries 9-0-1. [Item 29] Motion carries 10-0. [Items 1-7, 12-14, 16-25, 33, 34] The Clerk: Twenty-nine is not on the consent so we’ll do 11 and 15 voting No. 13 Mr. Mayor: Okay, is the Tax Commissioner, is Mr. Kendrick still here? Okay. I’m going to go, I know he’s got to get to Paine College to teach a class and so I was going to call, yeah, he’s a professor now. You didn’t know that? Dr. Kendrick, could you? I’m going to go ahead and call Item 30 first, please, ma’am. Mr. Brigham: Move we approve. The Clerk: FINANCE 30. Consider a request from the Garden City Rescue Mission regarding a refund of taxes for the properties at the following locations: 828 Fenwick Street in the amount of $5,427.79, 834 Fenwick Street in the amount of $82.04, 836 Fenwick Street in the amount of $75.73 and 838 Fenwick Street in the amount of $302.96. (No recommendation from Finance Committee January 9, 2012) Mr. Mayor: Okay, was that a motion to approve? The Clerk: Who was that? Mr. Brigham? Okay. Mr. Mayor: Mr. Brigham, you did not make a motion to approve. Mr. Bowles: Second. Mr. Brigham: I did. Mr. Mayor: Oh, okay. We have a motion to approve and a second. Mr. Commissioner, did you want to? Mr. Kendrick: Yes, sir. Dr. Kendrick’s fine. The item that is up for discussion I was asked to give a little insight as to how it got back to this body again today. As you gentlemen all know in the city of Augusta we attempt sometimes or we do sometimes things because it’s the way they’ve always been done. I certainly inherited a lot of that in my office and it takes a lot to kind of change the culture. Several weeks ago we were asked to in the Tax Commissioners Office to abate the taxes for the Garden City Rescue Mission. I had talked with individuals on the Finance Committee and informed them that there was nothing in the statutes that would support a Tax Commissioner abating taxes. In actuality there’s only information that allows tax commissioners to refund and those refunds in most cases as with the governing authority’s approval. It was sent to my office, I sent it back after the communication so that we could get on the same page. It was my desire to make sure I do what the body asked but at the very same time make sure I keep us all out of trouble. And so the taxpayer in most incidents I would require them to come in and pay. Now that’s not a new concept. Any time someone wants to appeal a process for valuation it’s done in the assessor’s office. This requires that they pay in order to do that as well. And so the Georgia Constitution also requires that you pay before you get a refund and before it is approved. And so I assume after the Garden City Rescue Mission came back to me and paid the bill that they came back before your body to ask for the refund. For a number of 14 years I suspect probably for decades we have doing things probably the way they have always been done. But in an attempt to make sure that you continue to do things right and I continue to do things right I want to make sure we do that the right way form this point forward. Mr. Mayor: Okay, well, thank you, Mr. Kendrick. Dr. Kendrick, tell the kids we said hello. We have motion and a second. If there’s no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Mason votes No. Motion carries 9-1. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Madam Clerk, if we could go on to the two pulled items, please, ma’am. The Clerk: FINANCE 19. Motion to approve the continuation of the GPS monthly tracking service with GPS North America for the GPS Signal Track Smart Antenna from GPS North America. (Approved by Finance Committee January 9, 2012) Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Lockett, I believe this was your pull. Mr. Lockett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I discussed this briefly in committee. You know I have a difficult time with us spending money that we obviously can’t afford on things that we really don’t have to have. A survey showed that GPS units that are used the way we’re using ours the first couple of years they are financially beneficial. But after several years have elapsed the value of it goes down drastically. Now we’re talking about a hundred and some thousand dollars per year and what I look at is that hundred and some thousand dollars could be used for us to keep 3.1 some employees on the payroll. So I cannot support that. This is something that’s nice to have but we have supervisors and directors that are making big bucks. If they cannot keep track of their employees maybe those big bucks should be paid for somebody else. So what I would like to do, Mr. Chairman, is make a motion that this particular agenda item be disapproved for the reasons that I’ve indicated. Mr. Mason: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. Commissioner Brigham. Mr. Brigham: Mr. Mayor due to the fact that we have now corrected an abuse problem of people using our vehicles, our gas, our time by having this system implemented I believe that if we was to do away with the implementation of this system that we would have people that Therefore I’m going to make a motion, a substitute motion would revert to their old ways. that we approve this. Mr. Bowles: Second. 15 Mr. Mayor: We have a substitute motion and a second. Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Even with these units in place we still have abuse. Nothing’s going to be 100%. So for my colleague to say that I believe that if we take these GPS units away that our employees are going to go out and deliberately not perform their duties in a prescribed manner. Those employees should be put on notice that if you’re caught improperly using vehicles your employment is going to be terminated. I mean you know to me we’ve got to have some trust here. And even with these devices I know I see some of our vehicles from time to time it’s not at a work location because it’s at a residence. So I just think it’s a waste of money. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Guilfoyle. Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I actually last year challenged this as far as the GPS and can we actually listen to the IT Director on the value of this product? Mr. Mayor: Sure. Ms. Allen. Yeah and so fifth place nationwide gets you some street cred. Ms. Allen: Yes, sir? Mr. Guilfoyle: As far as what Mr. Lockett is requesting as far as to do away with this GPS tell us the value of this product like you had told me last year as far as tracking, keeping up with employees and such as that. Ms. Allen: Normally this falls under the Finance area under Risk Management not IT. Mr. Guilfoyle: Okay. I apologize for that. Ms. Allen: Okay. Sandy Wright’s here to address it. Ms. Williams: Commissioners, the program is administered by the fleet, by the Risk Management section of Finance. The reports are overseen the supervisors in the departments have the ability the review the reports but I’ve got Sandy here as the director of Risk Management if you have specific questions or (unintelligible) Mr. Guilfoyle: No, I just want to know the value of this product. Is it saving us money? Ms. Wright: At the current level that we’re managing the program it is still saving money. It’s just not saving as much as we did initially. That’s because it has leveled off. The value of employees has changed as far as driving, where they’re going, how fast they’re going has been dramatically reduced. We have not eliminated it all and I really think if we take the units off now we are going to go back. Our employees are going to begin to speed again only because there’s not any way to really detect other than the use of this device. Before we put the devices on the vehicles I know law enforcement officers would tell us about how they would see 16 our employees speeding. I mean we can’t catch them but after the devices were on there was a noticeable difference. And some deputies told us they no longer saw the speeding, the violations. So I really think that it is still a benefit and it will save us money particularly if gas prices increase like they’re predicted to this year. Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, ma’am. Commissioner Johnson. Mr. Johnson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess, Sandy, you could probably answer this question not Donna more so you. As far as the budget for this is this an item that’s budgeted into their budget and where’s the money exactly. Is it coming from the general fund or what? Ms. Williams: No, it is not completely in the general fund. It is budgeted under the Risk Management section which is an internal service fund. And the costs that are associated with the Risk Management are prorated back out through the indirect cost allocation to the various user funds. So it is borne if there are higher percentage that are on utility vehicles utility pays the majority of the bill. If there were fewer in the general fund and I do not have the exact count right in front of me. I can provide that for you at some time. Mr. Johnson: Okay. Ms. Williams: But it is split back amongst the user fund. Additionally should this program be discontinued there goes the question what would you do with your initial investment. What would you do with the units themselves that are existing on the cars? Do you take them off do you sell them for salvage or what? You know what do you do with them? We bought these 437 units at a cost of about $250.00 a piece. Mr. Johnson: Okay. All right, thank you. Mr. Mayor: Okay, we, Commissioner Brigham. Mr. Brigham: Ms. Williams, I believe in committee y’all said you have other governments that come to us seeking this technology so that we could, so that they could implement it in their government? Ms. Wright: We do the same as South Carolina through a consultant has contacted us about our program and they are looking at it and they seem enthusiastic about what we’ve done and the information we provided to them. Mr. Mayor: Okay, thank you, ma’am. Okay, we have a substitute motion and a second. If there’s no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the substitute sign of voting. And, Madam Clerk, just for clarity if you could read back that motion. The Clerk: The substitute motion was to approve the continuation of the GPS monthly tracking service. 17 Mr. Mayor: Commissioners will now vote by the substitute sign of voting. Mr. Lockett votes No. Motion carries 9-1. Mr. Mayor: Thank you. Madam Clerk, on to the next pulled agenda item. The Clerk: ENGINEERING SERVICES 20. Motion to approve the Augusta Utilities Master Plan proposal from Constantine Engineering with a fee not to exceed $618,338. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee January 9, 2012) Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Lockett, I believe this was and Mr. Wiedmeier. Mr. Lockett: Yes, it was, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wiedmeier, my question came about when I saw the bids that were made and I saw that this, what is it, Constantine? Mr. Wiedmeier: Yes, sir. Mr. Lockett: had I think 80 points in AECOM if I’m pronouncing it correctly had 907 points. AECOM had a presentation reading of one and Constantine had two. So my question is why is the award going to Constantine as opposed to AECOM? Mr. Wiedmeier: We entered into negotiations with AECOM. They were the highest rated firm coming out of the selection process that was qualifications based. During the negotiations the team that they came with fell apart. Their local engineering firm backed out. They felt like they did not have, were not being utilized in the best manner. When that happened we made the request to the Procurement Department we be allowed to negotiate with the second rated firm. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor, maybe this did happen in Engineering Committee I don’t know because I’m not a part of it but don’t you think, I know I’ve asked this question several times before. When you have something such as this shouldn’t there be an explanation there so when we read this that we will understand why certain action was taken? Mr. Wiedmeier: Yes, sir, and I might not have gone into enough detail but I did try to address that in the background for the agenda item. But perhaps I didn’t provide enough detail. Mr. Lockett: All right, thank you. You answered my question. Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Commissioner Mason? 18 Mr. Mason: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I’m going to go ahead well just for the purpose of Mr. Lockett that was vetted through the Engineering Services Committee. I’m satisfied with the proper procedures that were handled. It was unfortunate that the number one company was not able to produce what we needed and so therefore it caused us to go out and do what needed to be So I’m going to go ahead and make a motion to approve this agenda item. done. Mr. Smith: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion that’s been properly seconded. If there is no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting. Motion carries 10-0. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Madam Clerk, on to the regular agenda, please, ma’am. The Clerk: PLANNING 26. Z-12-02 – The Augusta Georgia Planning Commission took No Action on a petition by Catherine Johnson, on behalf of Jerome Johnson, requesting a Special Exception for the purpose of establishing a Family Personal Care Home, per Section 26-1 (H) of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta, Georgia affecting property containing .20 acres and in known as 2036 Fernwood Circle. (Tax Map 110-1-138-00-0) DISTRICT 6 Mr. Mayor: Mr. Patty. Mr. Patty: Yes, sir. This is a petition for a Family Personal Care Home in which you can have up to six individuals in your care. The owner was not going to live in it she was going to provide staff for it. It’s a six, I’m sorry a 1525-square foot house with three bedrooms and one bath I believe. We had a number of objectors to this from the neighborhood. Most of them appear to long term residents in the neighborhood. They had a petition of 70 names in objection to the request. They cited traffic issues and potential crime issues and some other things. The Planning Commission voted on this. The first motion was to approve it. The motion didn’t carry the second motion was to deny it and there five votes in favor of it, two opposed to it, two abstaining and to be honest with you we improperly tabulated that vote and it should have been approval of the denial. In other words, to deny it. We have presented to you here it was a no vote but it should’ve been a denial. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Jackson. Mr. Jackson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Do we need to hear from the petitioners, George? Mr. Mayor: Yes, if we could hear from the petitioners. Mr. Jackson: Yes, ma’am, if you could state your name and address for the record. 19 Mr. Speaker: Yes sir. My name is John Kendrick. I live, my address is 2059 Fernwood Circle Augusta, Georgia. To the Augusta Richmond County Commissioners the property owners of Fernwood Section III Fernwood Subdivision Augusta, Georgia respectfully ask the Augusta Richmond County Commissioners not to approve the request for a Special Exception for a Family Personal Care Home located at 2036 Fernwood Circle Augusta, Georgia 30906. This subdivision was designed for single family living. These homes were not designed for this type of home. We are sure that the people living in this home will be walking into streets and the traffic will increase. We now have a limited amount of space to park our vehicles and with the additional people living in the home and their visitors this will greatly diminish the amount of parking spaces for the existing homeowners. The homeowners of 2059 Fernwood Circle were never involved was never informed of this request. A person putting up a sign in this yard of this home stated that the owners of 2036 Fernwood Circle had talked with the other owners however this is not true. Mr. Johnson never said a word to anybody until after the sign was put in the yard and he asked he came over and talked to us. I happened to be at Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s house the evening he came over. He explained his situation that evening after the sign was put up. The next day he approached Mrs. Weeks who lives next door to him and told her about it. We signed we the assigned on the attachment respectfully request the Special Exception for a Family Personal Care Home located at 2036 Fernwood Circle Augusta, Georgia 30906 not be approved. We have an attachment here not to approve Special Exception for a Family Personal Care Home located at 2036 Fernwood Circle Augusta Georgia 30906. There are 72 signers on this petition and out of the 72 signers 50 owners of property in this area signed this petition. Also, also there’s an abandoned swimming pool in the back yard of this home and it would be very dangerous for an elderly person. And Mrs. Johnson doesn’t live at this residence. She resides in Goshen. In closing I respectfully ask the Augusta Richmond County Commissioners not to approve this Special Exception for a Family Personal Care Home located at 2036 Fernwood Circle Augusta, Georgia. Thank you, sir. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, sir, and if we could hear from the applicant. Mr. Mason: Mr. Mayor, just for the record can we clarify that --- Mr. Mayor: Mr. Mason. Mr. Mason: --- the gentleman that just spoke is the, is in objection --- Mr. Mayor: Yes. Mr. Mason: --- to the uh --- Mr. Mayor: Was speaking for the objectors. Now if we could hear from the applicant. Mr. Johnson: I’m Jerome Johnson and as I stated previously at the hearing for this home would be for elderly and no one else. And as for the parking of the elderly these elderly people as my recollection if they’re needing homes they wouldn’t have vehicles. But I do understand my neighbors of their concern and it’s deep heartfelt but these people that would be housed in this home they will be taken care of by my wife and by others who are caring for the elderly who 20 have helpful hearts. Just as well as anyone else needs a place to stay these people would but I asked so many that have come out against this how can you have 50 people that live on the street and is only six houses each way on both sides but still not even that. The people that have come out are so much against the elderly having homes or somewhere to be taking care of but they’re elderly themselves. But however I still understand their petition and I still understand their arguments. The home is not being it’s not vacant. Whether my wife is residing at the home or not is still there’s no value to what they’re saying or how they feel. But I do understand that how they feel. Mr. Mayor: Okay, thank you, sir. And if we could get a show of hands of objectors in the room. Mr. Russell: Twenty-one, Madam Clerk. The Clerk: Okay. Mr. Mayor: Okay, thank you. And all those in favor? Mr. Speaker: I guess I would be on the one in favor. Mr. Mayor: Okay, there’s another gentleman over here. Okay, gentlemen, can we get a motion on this? Mr. Jackson: Motion to deny. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion. Is there a second? Mr. Smith: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. If there’s no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Hatney abstains. Motion carries 9-0-1. Mr. Mayor: Okay, thank you all. Madam Clerk, next agenda item, please. The Clerk: PLANNING 27. Z-12-04 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to deny a petition by Richard Pieczynski, on behalf of Dillard Browning and Michael Browning, requesting a Special Exception to convert an existing duplex into a triplex in a P-1 (Professional) Zone per Section 20-2 (b) of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta, Georgia affecting property containing .23 acres and known as 2051 Walton Way. (Tax Map 035-3-322-00-0) DISTRICT 3 21 Mr. Mayor: Mr. Patty. Mr. Patty: This is a house that’s got, it was a professional office and it’s legal and non- conforming rights to be a duplex. In 2010 this came before you the same application to add one additional unit which there’s apparently space for within the house. The house was converted to an office. It was office of Blanchard and Calhoun and I believe it was Metropolitan or one of the insurance companies. We had an objection from the neighborhood citing the improvements that have occurred within this area over the past year or so and the desire of the neighborhood to limit the number of units in these multi-family structures which they seem to be inundated with in the area. Mr. Mayor: Okay, thank you. Can we here from the, you’re the applicant? Mr. Pieczynski: Yes, sir, Richard Pieczynski. I’m representing Dillard and Michael Browning who are the owners of the property at 2151. They do have two units there they would like to add the third. I do have the petition that was signed by some homeowner on Heard Avenue from a year ago. The items they have listed we actually addressed. There was, we do acknowledge there was one incident. He has since evicted those people. He has a rental policy which if you would like I could share with you that he’s implemented. And one of the things on here that he really does is a background check on everyone. If you got a blip on it than you know he’s not going to rent to you. I do have pictures of the place it’s nice, it’s neat, it’s clean. There’s a brick house next door to it a single family home that he also owns which his parents have not just moved in over the holidays. And then right across the street I guess it’s on the northeast corner it looks like there’s some patio homes getting ready to go up right across the street from us and you know one of the objections they had from a year ago was the congestion in that corner. Well it’s going to be even more congestion now because they’re going to have people there and who’ to say that an investor is not going to buy one of those units and move in renters. And I also have a police blotter report that’s a year old and if you look on here I’ve color coded it, the one in yellow is on the Browning property like I say it was over a year ago. They rest of them on Starnes, Crawford Avenue and different areas. He is a good he wants to be a good neighbor a good landlord. He keeps his place neat that’s it right there and that’s the unit that you’re looking at right now, the front door to the unit. His biggest concern right now is if you can see that porch that’s the corner of Walton Way and Heard Avenue. There’s a convenience store right down the block during the school year basketball games, football games after that people go get something to eat, a drink. They walk up and sit on that porch and they eat and drink and then the next morning he’s got to come and clean up. And you know with someone there that’s not going to be a problem. Like I said the brick house that you see to the right of that his parents just moved in there. They’re elderly and you know he’s not going to have anyone that’s in there that’s going to be you know be a judgment to his parent’s house either. Mr. Mayor: Okay, gentlemen, do we have any questions? Commissioner Johnson. Mr. Johnson: Thank you. George, what was the reasoning I mean what is the real problem behind them not expanding to that. I mean what is the meat of the heart of the problem? 22 Mr. Patty: Well, this came up in 2010. We try to balance the interests like we do in all. We try and look at the positives and the negatives and figure out which is greater and we basically ended up with a coin toss staff did in 2010 and recommended it be approved and the Commission turned it down. And so our feeling was it was the same application nothing on the that I was aware of that the applicant’s side had changed and looking at the neighborhood you can see definite improvement in the last year and a half or whatever it was. I just you know I’m fairly familiar with that area and it’s just go a better look to it. And if the neighbors are here feel that this would be detrimental then I think you know you balance those two issues the policy you set when you denied it before and the positive changes that have occurred I think that slightly outweighs the denial, the detriment. Mr. Johnson: I would like to know I guess how many here oppose it and how many are for it. Mr. Mayor: Okay, we’ve got three that were in opposition. Are there any in support? Okay, one in support. Yes, sir, Commissioner Aitken. Mr. Aitken: George, do you have any idea what’s going to be in the property across the street from this house? Mr. Patty: The person that bought that house ran several sketch plans by me and they involved patio homes. Three patio homes, initially three patio homes. Mr. Mayor: Get ‘em while they’re hot, three patio homes. Mr. Aitken: Well, with that in consideration I mean it’s going to be traffic on each side of that. Have those plans been approved? Mr. Patty: No, no, sir. Those were sketch plans that just concepts of what they might do with it. They did as you are aware tear down the old rental house that had I think it was seven units in it or something like that. Whatever they do is a positive over there. Mr. Aitken: Okay, thanks. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Commissioner Brigham. Mr. Brigham: Mr. Pieczynski, is this building rented currently? Mr. Pieczynski: Yes. There are two occupants in it now. Mr. Brigham: Is it professionally rented or is it residentially rented? Mr. Pieczynski: Residentially rented. Mr. Brigham: Both of them are residential? 23 Mr. Pieczynski: Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor: Okay, does anybody want to make a motion on this? Commissioner Bowles. Mr. Bowles: I’ll make a motion to deny. Mr. Jackson: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second to deny. If there is no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Smith votes No. Motion carries 9-1. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Madam Clerk, next agenda item, please, ma’am. The Clerk: PLANNING 28. Z-12-07 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by APD, on behalf of the Augusta Georgia Land Bank Authority et al, requesting an Overlay District to be known as “W4” per Section 25-E of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta, Georgia which is located on the western boundary of the Laney Walker/Bethlehem Neighborhood. It is described as beginning at the intersection of R.A. Dent Boulevard and Holley Street; thence, south on Holley Street to the intersection of the rear property lines extended of properties fronting Wrightsboro Road; thence, east on those property lines to their extended intersection with Augusta Avenue; thence; south on Augusta Avenue to Poplar Street; thence, west on Poplar Street to Woodson Street; thence north on Woodson Street to Roulette Lane; thence, west on Roulette Lane to Floyd Street; thence, south on Floyd Street to Poplar Street; thence, west on Poplar Street to Fifteenth Street; thence, north on Fifteenth Street to Wrightsboro Road; thence, north on Wrightsboro Road to R.A. Dent Boulevard; thence, north on R.A. Dent Boulevard to the point of beginning. (A complete list of tax parcels and addresses may be viewed at the Planning and Development Department office at 525 Telfair Street, Augusta, Georgia. DISTIRICT 1 Mr. Mayor: Mr. Patty. Mr. Patty: This is an application that was before you in November I believe it was maybe December. It’s the same area. It was discussed it was postponed until January. Shortly after that we reviewed the situation with a couple of the objectors and decided that there were some very minor procedural errors that had been, issues that had been raised that probably needed to be addressed and we decided the best course of action for the city would be to go ahead and run another legal ad, send out additional notices and present a perfect application to you which I believe we are doing today. It’s the same issue. The applicants want to restrict certain land uses 24 from being initiated within the area known as “W4” which is a very small area off Wrightsboro Road. The applicant’s here if you need any additional information that we would certainly recommend you approve this. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Aitken. Mr. Aitken: I’d like to make a motion to approve. Mr. Guilfoyle: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. Commission Hatney then Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Hatney: My only question is about this venture what is it that without the Overlay you cannot do that you can do with it? Mr. Patty: Without the Overlay there are some, there’s currently some properties that are zoned General Business B-2 and with the Wrightsboro Road frontage and you know the changes that the Housing and Community Development anticipates making of their, it would be a better business environment in the future. And so there’s always a possibility of other properties being zoned General Commercial and it would meet the standards that we set for that zoning. So there will be properties there are and will be additional properties more than likely zoned B-2. Those properties right now could be used for anything allowed in a B-2 zone. The restriction would eliminate a few of those. Those would be auto oriented businesses, auto repair businesses, bars, night clubs, liquor stores --- Mr. Hatney: No liquor stores? Mr. Patty: --- restaurants, no, sir, no liquor stores. Mr. Mayor: That’s right up your alley. Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Thank you. Mr. Patty, please tell me that during the last Planning meeting there were no discentives. Mr. Patty: Are you talking about the planners or are you talking about from the planning commissioners or are you talking about --- Mr. Lockett: When this last appeared before the Planning Commission. Everybody was in agreement with it now as opposed to previously. Mr. Patty: There was an objector present at the meeting. Mr. Lockett: One? Mr. Patty: One. 25 Mr. Lockett: Okay. Mr. Patty: The Planning Commissioners were universally in favor of it. Mr. Lockett: Okay, this one objector. Has he or she have their concerns been addressed? Mr. Patty: No, that’s not possible. Mr. Patty: Not possible. All right, thank you. Mr. Mayor: Okay, we have a motion that’s been properly seconded. If there’s no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting. Motion passes 10-0. Mr. Mayor: Madam Clerk, on to the next agenda item, please. The Clerk: PUBLIC SERVICES 29. Motion to approve the Contract Modification #5 to the Choate Construction Company Contract at Augusta Regional Airport in an amount not to exceed $33,027.01. (No recommendation from Public Services Committee January 9, 2012) Mr. Johnson: Move to approve. Mr. Bowles: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. If there’s no further discussion, Commissioner Hatney wanted to ask one question. Mr. Hatney: My concern is it’s so much a question of this it’s just all of our contracts. It seems that we have a policy in place where as folks can put in as many modifications as they chose to do. They can go from one to forty. So I’m going to allow change what we’re doing to restrict that. Because what I see folks grossly underbidding and making up their differences with change orders. I think that’s poor business. Mr. LeTellier: Commissioner, with all due respect. Mr. Hatney: What do you mean due respect? Mr. LeTellier: No, sir, but I want to take issue with it. Mr. Hatney: Okay that the issue. 26 Mr. LeTellier: The change order specifies several changes. Several are deleted several are added. They cancel each other out for the most part. The two significant ones are for $15,692.00 which is unsuitable soil. It had to come out. Mr. Hatney: I was not so much pointed at this particular item, I mentioned that. I was talking about our process in general, not yours. Mr. LeTellier: Understood. Mr. Hatney: You can take your seat. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion that’s been properly seconded. If there’s no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Guilfoyle abstains. Motion carries 9-0-1. Mr. Mayor: Madam Clerk, on to the next agenda item. The Clerk: ADMINISTRATOR th 31. Motion to approve the Administrator’s recommendations made during the January 11 meeting regarding revisions to the FY 2012 budget. (Requested by Commissioner Corey Johnson) Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Johnson, this was yours? Mr. Johnson: Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Of course in lieu to the absence of a couple of our colleagues last Wednesday when we actually went into discussion about this item we had our Engineering Director to come forth and also our director from parks and REC to give us impact on these budget cuts for these departments. And I just want us to keep in mind these departments are very key components to this government, the programs they offer and the services that they offer to this government is very vital to our service for our citizens throughout the city. I do know we asked the Administrator and also I think our tax assessor some options there and the Administrator did say that he would not feel any heartburn to $1.5 mills out of the rainy day fund as well as one million out of the Pictometry Program from the tax assessor’s office. And I wanted us to revisit this item because we didn’t have the support there on Wednesday to move forward. I just want this Commissioner to understand we do have some uphill battles coming up and we really need to get into discussion about how we can alleviate this problem in the future. We do have some issues financially, we know that I guess our tax base is down and we need to figure out how to increase that. And also increase our sales taxes as well throughout this county. But we got to act now. This is a very important matter and I think it’s a lot on the line at this point. I don’t think I know it’s a lot on the line at this point and we have a department and I know our Engineering Department is operating at about 6% of its employee capacity and if we ask this gentleman to decrease his employee capacity by another six 27 employees that he would be at about 50%. We’re actually setting him up to fail. It would not be fair to him or his department to try to render the services that is needed to the people and the citizens of this county with little or no people. Our Parks and Recreation Department of course a couple years ago we asked them to cut back --- Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Johnson, two more? Mr. Johnson: --- yes, please, back on some of the things that of course in other words tighten his belt there. Do I think there’s any room to continue to do that yes. I think we need to hold our department heads accountable for doing just that. But I will say this is not going to solve the problem today us addressing that matter and I think we need to look at this deeply and make sure that we do what is going to be beneficial for our citizens as we look at making the necessary changes throughout this year to alleviate the problem in the future. So I just wanted to make that statement and I want to put that in the form of a motion to accept the recommendation that was given last week by the Administrator of course and I hope my colleagues definitely see that I’m supporting this matter. Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Okay and just for clarification, Mr. Russell, can you say for the record what your recommendations were? Unfortunately I was at a funeral in Atlanta so I wasn’t at the meeting. Mr. Russell: That would take about an hour and a half. Mr. Hatney: Give us the short version. Mr. Lockett: Real short. Mr. Russell: What I basically said last Wednesday was that I am not uncomfortable looking at additional revenue sources. I preface that by saying that we would be taking an additional amount of money out of the rainy day fund. In addition to that the projected additional amount of money to come in out of the ITOS Project which you just approved which is a matching program looking at the aerial pictures to determine a right sizing of our tax base. To do that is basically a policy decision that you would have to make. And that’s pretty much what I said. What I would suggest you do with those numbers with that additional revenue if you’re comfortable doing that is to allow us to look at the major concerns in Recreation and Engineering and to move forward with a different approach to the reduction in force by not just picking a million dollars but to do that more surgically than with a chain saw basically. The question becomes is the philosophical approach to where we’re going here basically. And the recognition once again is the Commissioner said applying band aids to wounds. My concern is that we really haven’t looked at this uniformly as a group to get us comfortable on where we’re at there basically. You know I think the presentation we made the second and third presentations we made were somewhat of a shock to some of you as we looked at what the real affects of the gross numbers that we looked at were. We were prepared last time to look at Recreation and determine if we’ve got a $800,000 hole there what would be your recommendations to shit that around. We were prepared to look at Engineering in the same thing in a little bit more detail. So my concern is that we’re still talking in about 30,000 foot and as we drilling that down I’m not 28 too sure that you as a group are really prepared yet to make a decision on where we’re going to go in the future. Because what you do makes a big difference in where we go in the philosophical thing and at the end of the day our problem is we might be wrong. We might be back here in July saying that we didn’t recover that million dollars that I thought and that we need to look at the money we take out of the rainy day fund because prices have tremendously gone up. You know we’ve held our own but we haven’t kept up with the increase in prices. Everything’s been flagged except our costs and that becomes the issues. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Hatney then Commissioner Guilfoyle. Mr. Hatney: Mr. Administrator, you mentioned if I heard the information correctly, that you’re talking about asking I think the Engineering Department to operate with 50% of its needed capacity. Mr. Russell: Over the years we’ve made cuts to them and made reductions that we have not filled positions as you well know. We’ve been trying to save money in every way we could. We’re at a critical point now where, you know, Abie made some recommendations for the budget, he made some cuts internally we were able to, he thought he could live with those to some degree but I don’t think any of us are happy with the level of demand versus the level of service we can provide. The additional cuts that were made in the across the board cuts that you approved in November hurt him more than others because he had done what we asked him to do and that was to cut the budget. So I guess what I’m attempting to do is figure out a way that we can look at this thing in a more surgical manner as opposed to what we’ve done in the past in my last recommendation and to make sure that as you look at this you know what we’re buying because if we proceed onward the way we are we make some drastic cuts. Some of you want to do that and that’s fine but I’m just not comfortable. Even those that want to do that know the impact of what we’re getting ready to do. Mr. Hatney: The other point. Are you prepared to really get with those department heads and sit down and really work through this thing from both perspectives and to bring back to this group that which they actually can work with. Because you’re talking about the Engineering don’t have 50% of their needed employees. And then you want to cut some more. Something’s wrong with that problem. I don’t see you know I’d just like when you lift the log with one hand because I can’t live with two but I’m just throwing it out you know. Are you, what I’m saying are you asking us to give you a chance to reprogram this? That’s what I’m asking. Mr. Russell: What I’m saying is that this particular year in my mind the budget is the most important thing we can possible deal with. And we’ve dealt with other things, we spent a lot of time on the Personnel Manual, we spent a lot of time on other things over the years but I think with this year’s budget you as a group need to spend more time than we’ve ever spent combing, shaking the trees, combing through the fine print and it’s to make sure that not only the departments that you control but the other departments to constitutional offices, the elected officials the people that are working for committees and stuff have been able to do the same thing. My recommendations to do that in a large form but we need to make sure we stay on top of that. And my concern is that while I’ve never been overly afraid to make a decision and then live with that good, bad or indifferent my concern is that we’re at a point today where I cannot 29 make a decent decision without more and more your involvement to make sure I’m on the right path. And that’s what I’m asking for is some, if that’s what you want to do then you need to help me do that collectively. If you want to give me what you want me to deal with and deal with it then at the end of the day you might not like what I’ve had to do to get you where you’re going. I probably didn’t answer your question but the short answer is yes I’m willing to roll up my sleeves but I would require, no that’s --- Mr. Hatney: Request. Mr. Russell: --- I would request that you be willing to do the same thing because together is the only way we’re going to get through this. And otherwise you’re going to put me in a position where I’m going to make at least half of you mad on Tuesday and the other half mad on Wednesday. If it every works out on Thursday where you’re all together I’m in trouble and so is the city. Mr. Hatney: We normally vote on Tuesday so if you get past Tuesday you don’t have to worry about it. The reason I asked the question I felt that’s what you were saying. One other question. Do you have those numbers in different categories already or do you still have to work towards that end? Mr. Russell: If you accept the premise that we could use additional dollars out of the fund balance you know that gives me some money to work with. If you accept the premise that we’re going to gain additional monies through ITOS, through that picture thing he keeps talking about that we can get some dollars there that gives us some balance to look at. Let me share with you though that the government as the end of this process is probably not going to look like the government you’ve got today. There’s no way in my mind that we’re going to end up without making some cuts, without making some changes, without adapting what we’re doing. And to do that you know it’s going to require a consensus and some work on what we get done. You’re talking 700-million dollars but you’re talking in my mind 700-million dollars that most of which is accounted for. And we’re going to have to change, we’re going to have to do some things at the end of the day and I need to be more comfortable in the fact that y’all agree on what we’re not doing if that gets me where I’m going. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Commissioner Guilfoyle. Mr. Guilfoyle: I’d like to put a motion in that we actually move this to a work shop meeting or move it to committee to where we could have more dialogue on this because this past week we spent 45 minutes after hearing the directors and it takes more than 45 minutes to get this budget in balance. We don’t want to have to keep coming up with the same issue over and over year after year. If we don’t fix it now we’re only going to pose a problem for the future. Procrastinate it. If you look at it right now with the Rec Department by cutting it 4% look at the havoc it’s putting on this community. What’s going to happen next year when we cut an additional 4%? We’ve got to fix the problem now, gentlemen, and the only way we’re going to do it is communicate. And I don’t want any kind of dissention on this floor. I’d rather talk and handle things out like we have been doing this year. 30 Mr. Hatney: I second the motion. Mr. Mayor: Okay, was Commissioner Johnson’s motion, did it get a second? Mr. Guilfoyle: No. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Okay, so we have a motion that’s been properly seconded. Commissioner Johnson then Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Johnson: Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. Well, Fred, the only thing I think we need to make clear here today that is this is not going to impact the services at this point from I guess engineering as well as the REC Department correct? Mr. Mayor: Fred? Mr. Russell: You can temporarily make the assumptions based on the revenue that I’m talking about. That keeps us operating at the current level until you can tell me what you don’t want to do or we get a better feel for what’s happening. And that’s my concern at the moment. You know we need to, the neat little diagram we did with everything I’d like, we’re prepared to do that with Parks we’re prepared to do that with everything else that we’ve got to let you all help us make a decision. Or at least come to a direction that we can go in that’s makes you happy. I mean we in the past weeks since we talked you know several of you come and said my goodness we can’t do that. But we’ve got to do something so if we can’t do that you all need to come together. And the dialogue we had this morning in reference Commissioner Lockett and Commissioner Guilfoyle met and talked about some of those issues. As I said then and I’ll say again I’ve got right here I’ve got a fine example of two ends of spectrum here that need to come together someplace betwixt and between to get us where we’re going. And the only way you’re going to do that is to be able to sit down and talk about it. And I don’t know if this is going to be the right platform or not but you need to be able to do that in a way that’s constructive as opposed to whatever, before I get in trouble. Mr. Johnson: Let me say this before I end. Fred, well, let me ask you. Would it be any issue if we was to use and I guess this is what I’m saying that we’re not, I’m saying you know I’m not opposed to doing exactly what Mr. Guilfoyle just suggested. But I think in the meantime you’re going to need some funds to continue to operate. And I think we can always put those dollars back once we find take the fine comb and go through it and see what we can get rid of and what we can’t. But at the same time we need to make sure that you guys are comfortable in the department he is comfortable to operate because I understand what Mr. Guilfoyle is saying but that’s not saying it’s going to create instant revenue or funding right then. So you’re going to need to still be able to operate and I think with that we can still put those dollars back accordingly. So it’s not saying hey take the 2.5 and just go spend it but use it accordingly. And if we’re able to save some dollars out of the meeting and of coursing dialoguing about this matter than you can do that and we can put those dollars back. But I’m just trying to get a I guess a consensus that we need to make sure we’re giving you fair direction to keep these entities operating and I don’t think we’re doing that. We’re saying let’s put a band aid on it and come 31 back and visit it again. But in the meanwhile you’re going to make some decisions. Now am I right? Mr. Russell: If you all gave me real clear direction I’d faint. I wouldn’t know what to do. But I think what I’m saying is that if you make the assumptions on the revenue that will keep us going at the current level until within the next and I would suggest you do this quickly and potentially to get together on the --- Mr. Mayor: Retreat? Mr. Russell: --- retreat should dedicate a bunch of time to this. Because once again you know we could talk all day and play the games on how to talk to each other and all that other stuff. But we need to do is set down and figure out how are you going to spend the limited number of dollars we’ve got. And if you would make those assumptions that would keep us at the same level until then. But then you’re, I mean you can’t you’re going have to (inaudible). Mr. Mayor: Okay, just for to try to get clarity here. You are saying that you do not need action from the body today. Correct? Mr. Russell: No, I’m saying that if you want not to continue with the budget that was passed in November that provides for the cuts that I recommended you need to tell me to stop that, assume the function that we are, can anticipate some additional revenue either through the fund balance or through the (unintelligible) thing until you give me further direction after the retreat or sometime then on what direction we want to go in. Otherwise the marching orders I have today are to make those cuts effective as soon as I can make them. And I can’t, my opinion is I need to move forward on that unless there’s some will on this body to talk about it at some greater length like Commissioner Guilfoyle and Commissioner Lockett seem to agree on. Mr. Mayor: Okay --- Mr. Johnson: I would look at it as a substitute motion then since my motion failed if that is what Fred is saying let’s go back and basically retract the budget that we voted on in November and revisit. That’s what you’re saying? Mr. Russell: No, that’s not what I’m saying. Let me say it one more time. Mr. Mayor: If you could get the motion that you needed to get you where you need to go what would that motion be. Mr. Johnson: Exactly. Mr. Mayor: And include the work session with it or. That motion would be to assume additional revenue from the fund Mr. Russell: balance and/or and the ITOS Project as new revenue that would allow us to continue 32 services at the samelevel until the retreat at which point you as a group will make decisions on either additional funding or cuts to our budget. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Commissioner Guilfoyle, would you like to amend your motion to reflect that? Mr. Guilfoyle: No, sir. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Mr. Johnson: I’d like to substitute my motion to --- Mr. Mayor: You’d like to make a substitute motion based on what the --- Mr. Johnson: (inaudible). Mr. Mayor: Okay, do we have a second to the substitute motion? Mr. Mason: Second. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Commissioner Bowles. Mr. Bowles: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Fred, we’ve kicked this can down the road the six years I’ve been up here. I’ve yet to see really any cuts. You know you and I differ on how we implement raises. A lot of us up here like to do an across the board. I don’t think that’s appropriate and I definitely don’t think across the board pay, you know cuts are an effective way to manage our government. We need to run it like a business. We need to separate our wants from our needs. Our citizens expect from this government clean streets, nice streets, clean drinking water and public safety. Everything else is a luxury item. And sooner or later we’re going to have to run it based on those principals rather than gauging departments inappropriately. I got an email back we all got a letter back from juvenile court this week saying they can’t cut their budget. Well I got the detail budget and for some reason juvenile court’s spending $183,000 a year in rent. The last three years their telephone costs have gone from $9,022.00. You know we need to drill down on these and get the details and see who’s wasting the taxpayer’s dollars and get rid of it. And so I agree with Commissioner Guilfoyle we need to take action. We need to come together fast and we need to identify and give you directions on what the citizens expect and then we work from there down and fund those departments at appropriate levels. And whatever’s left we add programs to it. If there’s nothing left we’re going to have to cut from it. It’s plain and simple. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Commissioner Brigham, did you have your hand up? Mr. Brigham: Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. I have a real problem when we start spending imaginary dollars. If we’re going to spend dollars we do not know that we have to balance a budget that we definitely do have I have a very major problem. I think if we’re going to do that maybe we need to go down to Wal-Mart and buy some Monopoly money to balance our budget. 33 That’s the same affect is grabbing a figure out of the air and saying that our revenues are going to increase this much because we’ll going to fly over some houses. We don’t know that. Our tax commissioner, assessor don’t even know that. He’s knows it’s going to generate something but somebody has an idea that sits up here or anywhere in this building as to what kind of revenue that’s going to be generated. And if we’re going to go spend that money I can’t vote for that. Mr. Mayor: Okay, we have a, Commissioner Hatney. Mr. Hatney: It just always has concerned me that sometimes we get a little over zealous and that’s just natural. But at the end of the day that’s all the budget is, imaginary. I know you all CPA’s think differently and that’s fine. But you don’t really know. You don’t really know. It’s a proposal. You demonstrated that last year. So all you talking about is more time to look through the same things because I have a problem cutting our public services the way we’re talking about doing is. And something as important as engineering, come on now. And the recreation they’ve been taking hits since I’ve been on this. I’m not trying to put no props up for Engineering but they’re the only department that I know of that’s saved this government millions of dollars. Mr. Russell: You know obviously I --- Mr. Hatney: I did second his motion, Mr. Guilfoyle’s motion. I did second it. Mr. Russell: You’ve asked me to do several things --- Mr. Hatney: Yes, sir. Mr. Russell: --- some of which conflict with some of the other things we’re doing but I agree with you know what they budget is just a plan. Mr. Hatney: That’s all it is. Mr. Russell: And while Commissioner Brigham and I probably will never agree on some things I think we can agree that the spending of imaginary dollars is not a good thing. But estimates of what we do are probably you know probably as good a guess as what we’re going to get. The ITOS Project is a million dollars there you know that might be a million it might be two million it might be $500,000. We anticipate some additional dollars there. The money in the bank, that’s in the bank. That’s money we’ve got and that’s not imaginary. Whether or not we spend it whether or not we use it whether or not we do that you know it’s a philosophical decision that you all have got to do. I occasionally get accused by the public of you know trying to run the budget or whatever but you know I just do with what you give me to work with. And my only concern at the moment is that the cuts that you’ve approved are somewhat dramatic. If that’s what six of you want to do that’s what we’ll do and that’s where I’m going right now unless somebody changes that. You know that’s all up to you and we’re just here to do what you say. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Commissioner Lockett. 34 Mr. Lockett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to have my four minutes if I can get it please. You know we build new buildings, public library, judicial center and so forth using the SPLOST funds. However for some reason or another we anticipate that we’re going to have to use general fund money for utilities and so forth. And we’re constantly talking about cutting, cutting, cutting but we keep on spending, spending, spending. This is a government publication I’m going to read to you briefly dated January 2012. The name of it is Governing, The States and Localities. It said that if government is serious about restructuring and improving efficiency they may have to make the investment required to implement new ways of doing business. We’ve talked about that but what we are doing is we are not showing the whole picture. We’re just showing tidbits. I would like see and I question my colleagues what I can see what is the finished product going to look like. And it says carefully analyze what’s worth outsourcing and what isn’t. We seem to think that boy if we can outsource it we got a good deal. And they said often the kneejerk response of government officials is to think that outsourcing or privatization is an automatic money saver. It’s not. A string of recent high profile, high stakes outsourcing efforts like New York City’s attempts to upgrade its Personnel Management System have proved to be an expensive disaster. Make sure you’re getting what you pay for. We’re not doing that. If governments don’t track data on performance and results then they’ll never be able to figure out what whether certain programs or policies are working. I have several documents --- Mr. Mayor: Two minutes. Mr. Lockett: --- I have several documents here about ADP and customer dissatisfaction. Ninety some percent dissatisfaction of ADP. And I know we’ve already invested something like ¾ of a million. We can’t even get our checks printed. We still got to do it the manual way and we’re doing it and we’re talking about investing more money. We need to be concerned about citizen wants versus needs. They had one survey where they cut off part of the street lights to save money and then when the money began to flow then you turn them back on. And people were complaining saying we don’t need all these lights. We don’t go out to the citizens and find out what is it you want? We have a tight budget. Do you want us to cut back on REC or do you want us to do whatever. We don’t do that. And one important thing it says support your staff. We don’t do that. They said in rough budget times and when public employees are being routinely attacked by certain media outlets it’s vital to try and keep yourselves morale up. We do a very poor job of that. And last just don’t cut tax responsibility. States and localities have been cutting personnel and services at an unprecedented rate. Even the usually sacristan area of public safety has been hit hard with summit participants talking about huge reductions even in police and fire services as cuts in state and local government move from fat to muscle to bone. Many at the summit argued that it was time to push back on the no new taxes rhetoric of the fore right. Now this I quote. This is not Bill Lockett’s words this is what is printed in this publication and I’m quite sure you all got a copy of it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mayor: Thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Bowles: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just for the record want to set it straight that as a satisfied ADP client ADP does not handle our payroll and they don’t have anything to do with the cutting of Richmond County checks. 35 Mr. Mayor: Thank you. Mr. Russell: Part of the dilemma that we have is that we all feel strongly about how we feel which is a good thing. But, you know, while Commissioner Bowles says he hasn’t seen any cuts let me tell you if you look at the price of gas over the past four years and how much it’s gone up that isn’t the same thing as a cut because we’ve absorbed that cost. While Commissioner Lockett wants to do more and more to help areas and look tighter and tighter unless we have the dollars to do that that’s a good conversation piece but it’s not something that we can actually get done. You know at some point this group has to define what we’re going to do and we’re either going to be able to pay for what we’ve got to do or we’re going to have to quite doing what we’re doing. But that’s a policy decision that you all are going to have to make. Mr. Mayor: Okay, we have a substitute motion that’s been properly seconded. Madam Clerk, for the sake of clarity once again might you read back that substitute motion? The Clerk: The substitute motion was to assume additional revenue possibly the 1.5 from reserve and additional revenue from the ITOS System and continue service at the current level until the retreat at which time the Commission will decide what cuts are to be made. Mr. Mayor: Okay, if there’s no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the substitute sign of voting. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Mason, Mr. Lockett, Mr. Hatney and Mr. Smith vote Yes. Mr. Aitken, Mr. Bowles, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Brigham and Mr. Guilfoyle vote No. Motion ties 5-5. Mr. Mayor: Okay Mr. Russell and that would be your recommendation the substitute motion. Mr. Russell: If I had my druthers, that’s the way I would perceive it. Mr. Mayor: Okay, I will continue on with taking the staff’s recommendation and vote in favor of the substitute motion. And actually let me use my little machine. The Mayor votes Yes. Motion Passes 6-5. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Madam Clerk, next agenda item, please. The Clerk: ADMINISTRATOR 32. Automatic Data Processing (ADP) presentation and recommendation. 36 Mr. Mayor: Gentlemen, I know you’ve been oh, go ahead, Fred. Mr. Russell: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission. Over the past several months and the past year we’ve attempted to do automation of some of our Human Resources functions. We’ve had some successes with that, we’ve had some failures. We have not done as good as I hoped and we need to look at some of the ways we can try to make that better. As Commissioner Lockett said and I agree fully privatization is not a panacea but it is an opportunity for us to look at different ways to do things. It’s an opportunity for us to look at better ways to be more efficient and effective and better ways to provide additional services to our services to our people internally and externally. We’ve asked ADP to come today. They’ve got a brief presentation that they’d like to give you. They have the opportunity then to move forward with continuation of that process or we can take another look at that. My recommendation is that we move forward with that continuation. We’ve spent deal of time a great deal of effort a great deal of angst and woe trying to get a system to work and we have not done a very good job of doing that. I think part of the problem is we did not really embrace that system in the way that it should. We can point fingers all day. We can look at people that are unhappy with it and look at people that don’t want to do it. We can look at people that do want to do it. But I think the only way we’re going to move forward with this is once again make a tough decision to embrace it and do it right and make sure it works in a way that’s appropriate and not in a way that’s self serving for some of our employees, self serving for us and self serving for the status quo. This is just another fine example of the status quo with this particular case in my mind is not good enough. Please they’ve been waiting patiently. They’ve got a brief presentation and they will talk a little bit more about that when they get through. Thank you. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor, can I ask a quick question, please? Mr. Mayor: Yes, sir, Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Locket: Mr. Russell, I’d like to know I guess two things. Number one, why didn’t this go through committee before it came to the full Commission? And, secondly, why wasn’t we provided some date with the agenda item so that we could do research and due diligence on this? Mr. Russell: The first explanation is because ya’ll have asked on several occasions that we bring this forward. We were asked last month or last November to take a look at that and we, I decided this might be the best approach to do this. Secondly the reason you don’t have any backup is I prefer to give you the information today, let them do that. I don’t anticipate a decision today. I anticipate some discussion at this point in time even though a decision is available. I didn’t think that was going to happen. I didn’t the press and the world to be able to go through this at any great length until you had a chance to hear the presentation and then do your own due diligence based on the information you receive. Mr. Mayor: Okay, gentlemen, if you could state your name and address for the record please? 37 Mr. Welch: Thank you, Mr. Russell. Good evening, members of the Commission, Mr. Mayor. My name is Randy Welch. I am the Project Director for government for the State of Georgia and the Carolinas. I’ve been with ADP for 15 years and I have been working directly with Augusta Richmond County since 2009. I’ve been part of this project since the beginning and we did go through and RFP process back at that time and were awarded the bid for the HR solution as well benefits and time and labor management. This city took a conservative approach at that time and we’ve been rolling it out piece by piece and, yes, we have had some challenges. Let me go to my presentation. I kind of wanted to open up with that just to let you know that I do have quite a bit of history and I understand a lot about the city. Have all of you heard of or worked with ADP in one way of the other? ADP was founded in 1949 and with one client. Since 1949 we have grown to a Fortune 200 company. We currently provide services to 640,000 organizations worldwide and we have 51,000 employees dedicated to service. With that we bring a lot of best practices, efficiencies to the city to help you streamline what you’re doing today. Currently one of five Americans does get paid through ADP every payday. That carries a lot of weight. We currently provide services to a little over 1600 local governments. We have the experience. We also built a very large facility here in Augusta about three years ago. We over the past three years have created some 800 jobs and we are still growing in the community. As ADP grows we will create many, many more jobs within the city of Augusta. I’m hearing a lot about budget cuts and savings. Where this is going to come into play is the total cost of ownership. Price, Waterhouse, Coopers did a study and looked at governments and they looked at where the money was being spent. And across the governments they looked at they came up with a number of about $1,403 to do backend processing per employee in a government entity. Through automation that amount can be reduced by about 40% just putting in controls and streamlining and making your processes more efficient. What that means to you with about 2700 employees is about 1.5 million a year in hard costs. That’s ADP taking on the responsibility and I’ll go into more details as I go through. The benefits here decrease your TCL. ADP will go out and buy the servers for you. We’ll take on the expense of the operating systems, operation database management systems, all your future upgrades, patches and everything to make sure you stay on the latest and greatest technology. That’s part of our service. Commissioner Lockett mentioned New York spending millions and millions of dollars but they put in an ERP. An ERP system costs millions of dollars. It costs millions of dollars to implement. We don’t do that. We are a service. You pay for what you use with ADP and we’ve even deferred our implementation costs for your project so you won’t incur any upfront capital expenses to help you streamline these efficiencies within the city. There’s no fear of technological obsolescence we will always have you on the latest and greatest solution. We have proven technology. We have 640,000 organizations that we provide these services for. We’re very good at it. We do have a single vendor management. I mean today you’ve implemented our benefits service. We’re implementing our time and labor service and very close to going live with that solution today which will put a lot of the controls in place that will give you the cost savings around overtime controls in the other areas that we had talked about all along. Yes, we’ve had problems with the implementation but we’re back on track. We do have Tier 4 Data Centers. We built a Tier 4 Data Center in Alpharetta, Georgia. We’ve back that facility up with a Tier 4 Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and we’ve connected those two facilities via fiber optic. All of your data is safe and redundant. In an emergency your people will get paid. We do have proven disaster plans. I’ve got a lot of stories but I was told I had to kind of stick to five minutes. You know we’re going to lower your compliance risk. ADP is going to take on a lot of the 38 compliance issues that you’re facing today. We move over a trillion dollars to the IRS. We have IRS agents that sit in our building so when issues come up we have the resources available to help you. We are AAA credit rated. We’re very proud of that. We do have a lot of cash and we’re still doing acquisitions and building facilities similar to the one here in Augusta today. We automate compliance through service. Currently what we have deployed is our health and welfare engine and that database is getting data from your current IFIS application. That is the system of record. It is a flat file that we send back and forth on a regular basis. On the backend we are sending payroll deduction information to IFIS that has shown to be a problem over the past few months. We’re currently getting close to implementing our time and labor solution. And again IFIS is the system of record and we’re having to move data back and forth to the IFIS application. In the future I’d like to put it all in one single vendor environment where as an employee is new hired through employee self service, manager self service in an online environment through your department heads that data in HR is automatically pushed through health and welfare, time and labor and we’re not having to deal with those interfaces and the problems that have been coming up with Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Okay? All of these services will be housed and supported at our Augusta call center here in town. And I’ve said we’ve created 800 jobs to date. We’ve got a lot of room out there to grown and we have offered to have job fairs for anyone in the city that’s interested to come out and work with ADP. We’re putting that on the table as an option to your folks. We bring best practices, integration. We have a knowledge base that you can go to for answers. We bring you local support, compliance, efficiency, work flow, automation and a partnership. I’ve spent a lot of time here and I’m in this building over the past three years and I’ve made a lot of friends here. It is a partnership and I look forward to expanding this. Mr. Mayor: Okay, thank you, sir. Do we have any questions? Fred? Does anybody have any questions for Fred? Fred, do you have any questions for anybody. Mr. Russell: I’d like to ask the Administrator if --- Mr. Lockett: That’s you. Mr. Russell: I’m sorry, I keep forgetting that. I do believe that this is the path I want to take. I do understand Commissioner Lockett’s concern. I would like to have everybody have a chance to look at the contract and look at the program there and see where we’re going if that’s the will of the body to at least bring that to the next level. That would be my recommendation. I mean I’m not the least bit happy with where we are in these areas and that’s an area that we haven’t done as well as I wanted to do. And I think this gets us to the next level there. It’s going to be a challenge it’s going to be tough but it’s symptomatic of one of the tough decisions you’re going to have to make and I would recommend that you allow me to go forward with this. Mr. Mayor: Can we get a motion to that effect? Mr. Jackson: So moved. Mr. Aitken: Second. 39 Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. Mr. Russell: If by going forward that means bringing back a final document for your approval. Mr. Mayor: Okay. We have a motion that’s been properly seconded. If there’s no, oh, Commissioner Mason. Mr. Mason: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It’s kind of funny actually. We started off by saying this is not really any necessary action to be taken and so forth and we end up with a motion on the table which probably is not a surprise to anyone. Well let me ask you this. What’s specifically because you’re talking about moving forward so what specifically is it that you’re going to do --- Mr. Russell: I’m going to --- Mr. Mason: --- in this process and what are you going to bring back. Mr. Russell: ---- together a White Paper plus a budget plus the contract for ya’ll to take a look at and discuss and determine if that’s what you really want to do. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Thank you. Would it be appropriate for you to do this and send it through committee in route to the full Commission? Mr. Russell: I would like to be able to bring it to Administrative Services at the next Administrative Services Committee Meeting. Mr. Lockett: If that’s okay with my colleagues, it would be fine with me. Mr. Mayor: Okay. We have a motion that’s been properly seconded. If there is no further discussion Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting. Motion Passes 10-0. Mr. Mayor: And if there’s no further business to come before the body we stand adjourned. [MEETING ADJOURNED] Lena Bonner Clerk of Commission 40 CERTIFICATION: I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Augusta Richmond County Commission held on January 17, 2012. ______________________________ Clerk of Commission 41