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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRegular Commission Meeting August 19, 2014 REGULAR MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER AUGUST 19, 2014 Augusta Richmond County Commission convened at 2:00 p.m., August 19, 2014, the Hon. Corey Johnson, Mayor Pro Tem, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Lockett, Guilfoyle, Mason, D. Smith, Williams, Fennoy, Jackson, Davis and G. Smith, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. ABSENT: Hon. Deke Copenhaver, Mayor. The Mayor Pro Tem called the meeting to order. 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 Pro Tem: Bishop Williams, we have a piece of wall wear for you and if the Clerk will read what it says. The Clerk: Office of the Mayor. Certificate of Recognition given to Bishop Rosa Williams, Pastor of the Every Faithful Baptist Church for serving as Chaplain of the Day. On behalf of the Augusta Commission and the citizenry of Augusta we extend to you our appreciation for the significant contribution and pivotal roles you have played in enhancing the quality of life in our community through your ministry of reconciliation. The City of Augusta recognizes and applauds your efforts to advance Christian and civic excellence. Given under my th hand this 19 Day of Augusta 2014. Deke Copenhaver, Mayor. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Madam Clerk, we’ll go ahead with our delegation portion of the agenda. The Clerk: DELEGATIONS A. Mr. Lewis Blanchard, Southern States Police Benevolent Association, regarding law enforcement to be addressed by the PBA relative to pay, overtime and training. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Mr. Blanchard, the floor is yours. You have five minutes, please, sir. Mr. Blanchard: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Good afternoon, Commissioners, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. I also appreciate all the deputies that are here in attendance. Many of them had to leave. All of the deputies that are here are off duty. Some of them to be at work for the evening shift so they had to head on out but we greatly appreciate you hearing us. Since 1965 sixteen police officers have lost their lives serving in 1 Augusta Richmond County. Since records were kept over 35 have died in the line of duty and I say that to say this. And Commissioner Mason said it a couple of weeks ago law enforcement public safety is different than all of the other departments out there you know. It is the primary function of government to provide for public safety. We’re out there 24/7, 365 and we have to do whatever it takes to make sure that our law enforcement is taken care of. I bring you today three primary objectives. One is to improve the public safety radio communications, the second is pay for yearly required training of our deputies and the third and most important is salary adjustments for deputies and 911 Dispatchers. We don’t call them raises because that’s not exactly what we need. We need salary adjustments to do what needs to be done in this county. The radio system for deputies, firefighters and 911, it’s antiquated. Anybody who was around on September 11 saw the problems the people had with their radio systems. We have the same problems. We had a situation at Paine College just recently. We’ve had situations with GRU Police where we can’t contact them. Deputies going to hospitals, they have no radio communications. Think of an active shooter situation at that location. Currently we spend $600,000 a year spending money towards South Carolina for a leased radio system whereas for a couple of hundred more thousand which I know is a lot of money we could actually do a lease to own. This was asked for and approved by the Public Safety Commission. It was asked for the Sheriff, the Fire Chief, the 911 Director and I.T. Unfortunately SPLOST failed. I believe this is still possible and in the long run we would save money but the bottom line is this. If you’re waiting on a deputy or a firefighter at your house and it’s your family member, don’t you believe we need radio systems where we can communicate? The ice storm was another prime example. Columbia County maintained communications, we lost them constantly. Secondly, training and overtime pay. Currently we don’t have an overtime budget within the Richmond County Sheriff’s office. We have to depend on the hours that are there unlike the Fire Department, 911 and most Sheriff’s offices which do have overtime budgets. Our proposal is to do one simple thing: provide funding for overtime for the 40 hours of required training. It’s a win, win. Deputies are already working these times so instead of paying them comp time it likes to be paying them to work which frankly we should anyways. Our employees are our most valuable resource and anyone who owns a business understands that. That would relate to 16,000 man hours that we could put back on the streets and the reason that is, is because if I take a 40 hour, my 40 hours that I’m required to train each year I have to give that back in comp time. So we’re pulling those deputies off the streets and out of CID. We need to change that and for a little over $400,000 dollars a year that goal could be accomplished. It’s our understanding the goal of the Richmond County Sheriff’s office is to be the premiere agency within the state of Georgia. As you know, the Sheriff has already worked towards state accreditation as is working on national accreditation as well. But if we’re going to be the best we have to be able to hire, recruit and retain the best as well and currently we’re just not able to do that. Our CSO must have comparable salaries to similar large agencies with high call volumes and be the best in pay and benefits and we’re just not there. In the long run the paternal investment is far greater to pay the salaries that need to be paid that are fair and comparable. Hey, anybody that puts on this uniform they know they’re not here to get rich that’s not the goal but once they have a wife and a child and they’re earning over $3,000, $4,000 dollars more right down the street and even more if they have a college degree we’re not able to retain them often. Lots of times they do stay but the salaries are certainly at a turn. We’ve talked about and you’ve talked about in this meeting being prepared and not coming to the Commission at the last minute. Well, Sheriff Strength came to this Commission, Sheriff Roundtree’s come to this Commission and we’re not trying to come 2 and wait until the last minute. We have to make some changes in our Sheriff’s office and we have to do them now. In a recent article by the Augusta Chronicle since 1998 over 200 personnel positions have been removed from the budget of the Sheriff’s office. So we’re doing more with less. Now granted in all fairness 50 of those positions went to 911, that’s still over 150 positions since 1998 that have been removed from the Sheriff’s office. They weren’t replaced and most of those come from the road patrol and other divisions of law enforcement. Clearly the RCSO is doing more with less and these deputies are out there working darn hard to get the job done. In 2013 under Sheriff’s Roundtree’s new leadership change of policies and procedures in the way we have implemented law enforcement services violent crimes have dropped by 12% and property crimes were reduced to about 14% again because of the hard work of these deputies. Even with those reductions of 2013 deputies have been able to make further reductions this year. For year to date our violent crimes are down 9% and our property crimes are down 12%. The PDA has requested the Commission to fully support the pay changes submitted by Sheriff Roundtree as an immediate necessity to the RCSO. Deputies making less than $35,000 dollars we are requesting a $3,000 dollar increase or change of pay for new deputies and deputies making less than $35,000. Other pay increases from $2,000 down to $1,000 are also included with anyone making over $60,000 excluded. According to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs police recruit’s average salary in the state of Georgia is $34,700 dollars. An RCSO deputy with a high school diploma or college degree makes between $31,880 and $34,900 where they top out at a deputy rank. You can see the average salaries in Georgia range between $39 and $53. We are the second largest law enforcement agency. Our call volume is through the roof compared to other departments. The chances of being injured in the line of duty are much greater here than in other areas and when it comes right down to it we need to do whatever it takes to recruit, retain and hire the absolute best people. We’ve got some great deputies out there and we need to make sure they’re well taken care of. Lastly for the future because we like to plan at the Sheriff’s office we would like to request that you look into and study through the Public Safety Committee pay raises for those with degrees such is what Columbia County does. An Associate Degree is $1,200, a Bachelors Degree is $1,800 and a Masters Degree is $2,400. Again this comes back to recruitment and retention. I appreciate the opportunity to present this to you. I know you have a lot of tough decisions to make ahead and if you have any questions of me I’ll be glad to answer them at this time. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Thank you, Lieutenant Blanchard, for that presentation. I do know that it’s been talked about, you know, giving the proposed increase. And I know me personally of course I put it on the agenda to relieve the 2.4% budget cut from the Sheriff’s office. But I do know that I was asked this question with Ryan Houston about implementing the excise tax to supplement the funding and I did consult with the Attorney. The excise tax unless it’s something done by the state legislature it will be phased out in 2016. So how would this be a continuous, you know, source of revenue to give the officers because I do agree they need to be brought up to whatever the state level is with the agencies especially being the second largest here, if not a little more. We do have a splendid department and I can’t say enough about the Sheriff’s Department and the job ya’ll do to protect us but I think what we are faced with here is trying to figure out a funding source. And I think that’s going to be something that we can talk about up here and maybe even take some recommendations from you all on how we can do that effectively as well as efficiently to make sure it’s sustained. I do know its other departments who have come forward with the same somewhat similar requests and I understand the 3 importance of the Sheriff’s Department but we’re concerned about the entire county and we know the job, I know Engineering for instance they have, they’re operating at 6% capacity, 60%, you know, and they still got to maintain the entire county. That’s extremely difficult when you don’t have the capital revenue source to really deal with the demand. So it’s something that we’ve got to pay attention to. So I would definitely consult with the colleagues and I will open the floor for questions but I do understand that it is a concern and we need to figure out how we can accommodate that because you all have been below level for a long time and it’s time to get that corrected. Mr. Blanchard: Yes, sir and we appreciate it. And, you know, we look at public safety I mean it is our number one priority for this county, --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Absolutely. Mr. Blanchard: --- looking at what’s best for the county. Industry’s not going to come to any county that doesn’t have great public safety --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: That’s right. Mr. Blanchard: --- so from this Commission’s point of view I would not venture to tell you how to come up with the funding but I would say it’s certainly is our number one priority. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Right, absolutely. Commissioner Donnie Smith and then Commissioner Guilfoyle. Mr. D. Smith: Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Lt. Blanchard, how many openings do ya’ll have on the road patrol currently? Mr. Blanchard: I can give you an approximate number because I don’t have it with me. When you say road patrol I would assume you include Crime Suppression and basically uniformed division? Mr. D. Smith: Anybody that responds to a call that comes in to your agency. Mr. Blanchard: Approximately 40 unfilled positions at this time including that’s above and beyond all the cuts that have been taken. Mr. D. Smith: So ya’ll provide coverage 24/7. I know ya’ll work twelve hours on and twelve hours off. You’ve got four shifts. Is that right? Mr. Blanchard: Yes, sir. Mr. D. Smith: So basically you’re missing ten deputies from each shift which means there’s ten beats that are being underserved for lack of better terms. 4 Mr. Blanchard: There’s different ways to look at it like for example we cut our Crime Suppression team in half to move people to the road patrol because the road patrol is the number one priority of the Sheriff. So we are doing our best to move people around. However we all have to acknowledge that we have issues like, we can’t cut our Gang Task Force. We have to address those issues. Those are new plans that the Sheriff has put in place and if we start looking for other ways to cut we’re there. I mean, you know, we’re not trying to say it’s a critical mass but the bottom line is we’ve cut 150 positions since 1998. We’re doing what we can and we’re moving people around but we need help. Mr. D. Smith: My follow up question is you made mention of something that I didn’t really know and I want you to try and expand on it from myself and for my colleagues. During the ice storm you said Columbia County’s radio system worked and ours didn’t. So when somebody called into the 911 for an emergency whatever it be medical, fire, their house is being broke into there’s was a period of time when ya’ll couldn’t, Mr. Nutter’s here I believe, there was a time when nobody could talk to anybody? Mr. Blanchard: Director Nutter can probably expand upon that. We did use different types of communications. We also went to where it wasn’t through repeaters and things of that nature so it’s not optable by any means. We were having to relay messages and things of that nature. We were having to use cell phones at different times, it can be very critical and we certainly need, law enforcement and public safety can’t be without radio communications, guys. We’ve got to have what we need. And the system we’re working under we’re spending $600,000 dollars a year for nothing other than what we just used that previous year. If we bump it to around $800 for ten years we can own the system, you know? I mean that’s the biggest difference. Mr. D. Smith: One last question. There was a shooting at University Hospital or the Medical College of Georgia with a suspect in the last year or two where somebody tried to commit a crime up there and they had, the radio system won’t work inside MCG or inside University Hospital? Mr. Blanchard: Intermittent in various areas. Many areas it will not work but the new system would basically solve that problem. Additionally you have situations like one that just occurred a couple of months ago where the GRU police were actually involved in a shooting on a traffic stop. By the time they go through their dispatch they contact our dispatch they go through our radio system, the person was in North Augusta, you know? I mean those are the types of things that we’re dealing with. It’s the exact same thing that fire fighters and police th officers dealt with on September 11. Most communities have upgraded and changed and solved that problem. As of today we failed to do so and it’s something that’s needed. Mr. D. Smith: Thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Guilfoyle then Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you. Mr. Lewis, I appreciate you coming before us and I appreciate all the deputies’ patience while they sat here while we was having that millage thing. 5 Mr. Blanchard: Yes, sir. Mr. Guilfoyle: But you said you had 40 unfilled positions. Is everyone the forty needed? I’m just trying to get to a certain point. The reason why I’m saying if you took half of that you have twenty and you abolished them positions that gives you $1.1 million dollars based at $55,000 dollars a year and I’m figuring benefits in as well. Have you looked at that aspect? Mr. Blanchard: We’ve looked at aspects of cutting every possible thing. The Sheriff even went so far as to do away with the Float Day for the deputies which did away with eight positions in order to put them back on the road more times. To be honest with you and I’m speaking as the PBA today not on behalf of the Sheriff so I have to watch what I say in those regards but looking at the numbers no, sir we just, we’ve cut we’ve cut everywhere we can. If you want us to stop the gangs, if you want us to have proactive deputies instead of deputies that are just responding to call to call and taking reports and you want us to solve the crimes, we’ve cut. We don’t have new positions to cut. Mr. Guilfoyle: Okay. I actually reached out to the Sheriff two weeks ago because it’s very important that we do support our law enforcement --- Mr. Blanchard: Yes sir. Mr. Guilfoyle: --- officers. They are underpaid on a lower spectrum and I‘m glad that the Sheriff is focusing from $60,000 below. Mr. Blanchard: Yes, sir. Mr. Guilfoyle: I wish we would do that in other government departments as well. I started doing some research and there’s a pilot program that they used in other counties within the state of Georgia. Non-profit organizations, not just churches, non-profits organizations per, Augusta per capita has more non-profits than any other county in the state of Georgia which is alarming. If you look at the dollar value of the property taxpayers pay 4.1 billion dollars in property taxes. Non-profits has 2.1 billion. We have to look at that as and it’s a program that if I could garner support the reason why I haven’t reached out to my colleagues is because I haven’t got all the information back from the four entities that I requested from and hopefully that this would provide a funding stream for it. I don’t know if we could designate it for the Sheriff’s Department but I would like to see it go to the Sheriff’s Department as well as possibly you know Engineering. Mr. Blanchard: Yes, sir. Mr. Guilfoyle: They always under budget it so. Mr. Blanchard: Well, the Sheriff’s office is willing to look at anything. We’ve gone, we’ve added reserve deputies. We have 18 people that work for us for free, you know, and that’s helped us but those are very limited hours. The Sheriff’s office has begun writing a lot of grants. 6 We’ve brought in over about a million and a half in the last year or two so we’re trying to do things on our end to save money on vehicles, equipment and others things. As you know, most grants don’t include personnel. Mr. Guilfoyle: Right. Mr. Blanchard: So we are trying to do everything that we can but we’ve got to have the help of the Commission. Mr. Guilfoyle: Mr. Lewis, once I get this total package together and am able to compile it and put it in a readable form and reach out to my colleagues and then I’ll be reaching out to Sheriff Roundtree. Mr. Blanchard: Thank you, Commissioner Guilfoyle. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Lt. Blanchard, I serve on the Public Safety Committee, I support the pay increase that’s requested. I think it’s going to be about a one and a half million dollars if I’m not mistaken. Mr. Blanchard: Yes, sir, $1.4. Mr. Lockett: But I know some of my colleagues that will not vote for a tax increase; they will for the one and a half million dollars for the Sheriff’s Department. Ya’ll are well deserving. This government we have a history of living on the cheap. We love to cut but for some reason or another we hate to do those things that will generate revenue. It’s amazing the number of citizens that we have that live in this city and county that go to Statesboro to a water park. Go to Savannah to have a good time. Go to Athens to get an education and I don’t know what they go to Columbus for but they’re going, they’re going. And some of my colleagues we have talked over and over let’s do those things to generate revenue. We have buildings or a depot that’s been sitting here for years and all we’ve done is put a roof on it. We haven’t made a penny off of it. Thomson has a depot. Theirs is on the river beside the railroad tracks ours is on the river. We could make money there. You know we’ve invested in all these buildings that we bought with SPLOST money that’s eating up a good portion of our general fund. So it is not your job to determine how we come up with money to support your endeavor. That’s our job to do. But it’s our job also to put the fire under those people that’s responsible for economic development so that we can attract people to this community. And the part about the education. I’m very supportive of the education part but I would think that the education would have to be in your area of expertise. In other words you couldn’t get a Masters in basket weaving and get extra pay because you’re in law enforcement. Okay? And we have other departments, they have been cut to the bone. We had 2.4. This guy that got all the publicity that was here to interview for the Administrator’s position. He said across the board cuts is the darnest thing in the world you could do and I agree with him. We can’t wait until the midnight hour and decide we’re going to cut to make up for months that have already gone by. This is something that we need to go on a monthly basis. We need to attract our revenue and track our expenses. So I’ll end on that but I 7 want you and all the Sheriff’s Department to know that I support all of you the same as I did the Fire Department. Thank you very much. Mr. Blanchard: Commissioner Lockett, we appreciate it and basically the money we are spending when we lose a deputy at the two year mark or the three year mark it’s costing us a lot more in the long run, you know? And again we’re bringing in deputies that if they start in the jail at $29,000 and they stay with us for a year and then we send them to the 12-week academy and we pay for that and we pay for their uniforms and everything else and they walk out the door before five years we’ve lost our money. We need them to stay for five years before we get our return on investment. And a lot of deputies start here, they love Richmond County, they can do real police work in Richmond County but they get married and they have a child and they decide to leave us. And we’ve got to stop the bleeding. Mr. Lockett: And they shouldn’t have to work two or three part time jobs in conjunction with law enforcement, they shouldn’t have to. Mr. Blanchard: We just had to put out a policy prohibiting our deputies from working more. We just had to actually put out a policy prohibiting our deputies from working more than 16 hours in any given day for officer safety reasons because we have deputies that every single day they are off duty with us they are working special duty. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right. Commissioner Mason then Commissioner Williams. Mr. Mason: Oh, um, thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Lt. Blanchard, I appreciate the comprehensive and precise briefing that you’ve given here and I’m in agreement as you well know with these requests. One thing that I’m concerned about that I did not hear addressed though that I personally think may be of some benefit and of course it’s the Sheriff’s call but there’s times where I believe in our department Richmond County Sheriff’s Office that it would probably be beneficial if we had a time and pay grade type of operation as well. And what I mean by that is if you’ve got a guy coming off the street with a couple of years, you know, he comes in at fifty something thousand dollars or whatever there’s no set of “set time and grade” then you’ve got some guy who’s got 20 years and certainly much more experienced and he comes in making only 30 or 40 there seems to be some sort of inequity there and it kind of leads to a preferential type thing versus a merit type situation. So don’t have any issues with anything that you presented here so far but that’s something I just think that perhaps if nothing more than discussion certainly could be taken into consideration as far as time and pay grade as well to kind of give the officers and our deputies one, something to shoot for and know that all things being equal if they do the job that they’re supposed to do then they will move up to this level next or so forth and so on. And think that would possibly help somewhat with the retention as well as the hiring because they can clearly see a path that can get them to where they want to be. And so I would just and if that’s already in place let me know but I don’t --- Mr. Blanchard: It’s not quite in place, it is what we’re working towards especially the Sheriff again going to state accreditation. And then once we hit national accreditation those will obviously all be requirements. So those are things that are in place for the future. Obviously it just takes a couple of years to get there. 8 Mr. Mason: Fantastic. Thank you. Mr. Blanchard: Thank you very much for your support. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: Officer Blanchard, I just want to touch on the fact that the $600,000 per year you talked about two much hundred thousand dollars which you eat this elephant one bite at a time but if we had that piece in place what would that do for us? How would that help us? Explain to this body what that would do? Mr. Blanchard: Basically you know and I don’t have the exact numbers. That would come from your IT Department but if we were to be able to fund that program stop spending $600,000 on a lease with South Carolina and instead spend $800,000 on a lease to own program you would actually own your own system within ten years. It would double our communications. South Augusta’s one of our worst areas for communication problems not to mention the fact of our hospital buildings and other large structures in this area. You know we don’t add car radios we actually only carry these. The reason we don’t add car radios is because we’re on a lease program. On a lease program we have to spend $32.00 a month for every single radio that we have. We’ve got radios sitting over there that aren’t used so in an emergency we have to figure out how to get those going. With the new system there is no expense when we add radios. Actually you could have people coming in from let’s say we had a mass casualty or an incident at the Master’s. While they’re in route we can actually to our MDT’s and program their radios to communicate on our channels. So it solves a multitude of problems not just for the Sheriff’s office but for 911 as Director Nutter I’m sure will be glad to come forward and speak. It’s solves problems for the Fire Department and it actually solves problems for our community because none of us want to know that we lost three fire fighters in a fire because somebody was telling them you’ve got to get out now and they’re not hearing it. None of us want to have our child in a hospital in a hostage negotiation or in a shooting environment where our officers can’t communicate. We responded to Paine College you’ve got one subject down we don’t know what we have going on at that time I can look over there and see the other Paine College officer and I can’t talk to him on the radio. I have to go through a dispatcher to 911 back to their dispatcher back to another radio. It doesn’t make sense. We have to take charge and solve that problem for officer safety. Mr. Williams: And I think we understand that. I was trying to get at the piece about the leasing to own --- Mr. Blanchard: Okay, yes, sir, I apologize. Mr. Williams: --- you’re good. As far as other areas using our system what would that do revenue wise? Mr. Blanchard: I believe Gary Hewitt could probably talk more on that or maybe even Director Nutter could probably speak more to that. But, yes, you are correct. I didn’t bring that 9 up simply because that’s a possibility not a, you know, it’s not necessary a guarantee but it could become a revenue generator with different businesses. For example Gold Cross or other agencies that wish to buy into our system versus us spending on theirs. Director Nutter, did you have something you wanted to add or Ms. Allen? Ms. Allen: If I could address that. We have brought that proposal back as far as SPLOST. And Lt. Blanchard is exactly correct. When the proposal came back as part of the SPLOST project we also had our Finance Department look at the additional cost, the cost for us to have ownership. I don’t disagree that it would be great for us the city of Augusta to own their own radio system but I don’t want the Commission to leave here today to feel like we have not gotten, you know, a good deal in what we currently have. Even during the ice storm I know it was mentioned about some outages. That would’ve, that could’ve happened if we owned our own equipment. Keep in mind too when we looked at the addition to costs we’re talking about around $12 million dollars to have our own radio system. We looked at the various options. I support us looking at our own radio system. Keep in mind also that once we own our own radio system we have to take into consideration the maintenance costs of owning your own radio system. There is no guarantee that any other agency is going to go with the city of Augusta’s radio system and bring in additional revenue. It’s a possibility but there is no guarantee so we also need to keep that in mind. Also keep in mind Paine College didn’t have the same radio system that the city of Augusta utilizes so it wouldn’t have mattered what was going on as it relates to the event that took place at Paine College. I support us getting our own radio system the Sheriff’s Department (unintelligible) I have no problem with that but I don’t want anybody to leave this room today thinking that want we have in place is not a good product for what we’re getting. I don’t want anybody to think that we’re not getting, we’re not making sure that communications in place for our public safety officers because it is in place for our public safety officers. What I support of course of us owning our own radio system of course I’ve spoken to many people. I’ve spoken to this Commission and supported that endeavor however when SPLOST failed --- Mr. Williams: I’m just trying to bring out a couple of points, Ms. Allen, I wasn’t --- Ms. Allen: No, sir, I just want to clarify because I --- Mr. Williams: --- I understand I’ve been told as a child that Mother may have, sister may have, brother may have, but God bless a child with his own and I still believe that today. And I think if we had our own system it would be a lot better not that it’s guaranteed for somebody else to come in. But we can control, I can control what’s mine. Ms. Allen: I don’t disagree --- Mr. Williams: So it wasn’t no debate, it was just I was just getting Mr. Blanchard to kind of enlighten some of us who may not understand. And maybe everybody does I was just trying to get those points brought out so when we eat this elephant like I said earlier one bite at a time that we can start somewhere. We’ve got a lot of needs. Commissioner Lockett mentioned about economic development. We got to do those things to get those monies in and use those monies for what they intended to be used for and not the studies and the stuff we’ve been doing that’s 10 really not getting us anywhere. So I was just asking him to touch on that, not that we think the system is bad not, that it’s not working. The ice storm had nothing to do with the hospital if you get in some of the hospitals your cell phone don’t work and I understand that, I’ve been in plenty of places. So I understand how the radio communication can go down in certain areas. And if we can do something hopefully in the near future to build upon and to start. Everything can’t go on the SPLOST. The SPLOST failed for a reason. It didn’t just fail because nobody wanted it. It had too much fat in there. We talked about that today that’s why the SPLOST failed it wasn’t radio communication there’s just a lot of other stuff in there. And I didn’t support it myself but I just think that we, we’re heard a lot of good information and I’m appreciative. I’m thanking you for what you’re doing. I pray that the Sheriff’s Department continues to do those kinds of things and know that they got to work with this government and this government’s got to work with you because we’ve got to keep this city safe. Like you said no community will grow if you don’t have a safe community to live in and that’s something I want to try and support. But that was my question, Mr. Pro Tem. Mr. Blanchard: We appreciate it, Commissioner Williams, thank you for your help. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Well, thank you, Lieutenant, for your presentation and we will take this to heart and look at some options. As you know SPLOST is one of the funding sources for the radio system that we looked at. Hoepfully next year they can put that back in the proposal moving forward with the next administration and potentially have better luck next year with getting that passed. And we will look at some other options as well as all of our public safety, you know, departments to make sure that you guys have what is adequate but make sure that you’re brought up to par as it relates to the revenue or the income if you will of each officer. I can think of several things we probably need to talk about moving forward but we’re on the right track now as to start identifying these things and also identifying a funding source to facilitate that as well so let’s stay in conversation. We’ll get with Ms. Allen and then we’ll look at some things and maybe set up future conversations moving forward as it relates to the pay increase or the supplemental if you will and to bring them up to every other agency within this surrounding area so it will be equal so. So again thank you and we’ll look forward to the conversation moving forward. Commissioner Lockett and can you make a motion if you will to receive this as information? Mr. Lockett: Yeah, I’d like to ask a question first. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Uh-huh. Mr. Lockett: The $600,000 dollars that you’re paying for lease. Is that paid on an annual basis? Mr. Blanchard: I’d have to defer. That’s not just for the Sheriff’s office, that’s for everyone. Mr. Lockett: Okay, just something to think about. Do ya’ll think through grants or whatever ya’ll might be able to raise a good part of that $200,000 dollars that you’d be short of? The reason I ask --- 11 Mr. Blanchard: Not through grants, no, sir. We could apply for grants and we have actually applied for certain grants for radio communications and have gained some equipment but grants aren’t going to ever, no grant that I’ve ever read or applied is going to allow you to do a lease or anything of that nature. It’d have to be equipment that you’re going to own. Mr. Lockett: Okay, I was just trying to figure if we could come up with a way to expedite because the next SPLSOT won’t be until November of next year. Thank you and thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro tem. Mr. Mayor: Do you want to make a motion? Mr. Lockett: I move that we receive this as information. Mr. D. Smith: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right, we have a motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Williams out. Motion Passes 9-0. Mr. Blanchard: Thank you, Commissioners, I appreciate your time. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Thank you. Great job. Okay, Madam Clerk, we’ll proceed with Item B. The Clerk: DELEGATIONS th B. Ms. Wanda Collier regarding city’s contribution for the 4 Annual Red Party (fundraiser for HIV/AIDS). The Clerk: Ms. Collier. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Ms. Collier, is she here? Okay. Ms. Collier: Good afternoon. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Hey how are you today. Ms. Collier: I’m fine. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Great sorry for your delay. Ms. Collier: It’s okay, it’s okay. 12 Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right. Ms. Collier: I don’t think --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: If you could state your name and address for the record and you have five minutes please, ma’am. Ms. Collier: Okay. My name is Wanda Collier. A few of ya’ll already know me and what I stand for. First let me say greetings and thank you for allowing me this time to present this to you. I’m coming to you as an individual to represent your district dealing with HIV and AIDS. First I have lived with HIV for 27 years starting in October. I’m also a long time resident of Augusta, Georgia. I love Augusta, this is my home. At one time in my life I lived a very th disruptive life style which I’ve been clean for six years now starting July 26. I got into the spirit of wanting to give back to my community and to the agencies that helped me in my life change while I was getting clean and learning to accept that I was positive. If you don’t know being positive and not having an acceptance comes a lot of other community issues like going to prison and jail and doing all kinds of other disruptive stuff. So I stand here today requesting your support for Stop the Stigma Annual Red Project. This is our fourth year doing it. This is the first time that I felt compelled to come to the Commissioners to ask for your help because we’re actually second in the east district area outside of metro for HIV and AIDS. The tickets, th; well let me first say that this project will start August 30 it’ll be held at the Henry Brigham Senior Center Building. It is at 6:00 o’clock. And as you see we have a lot, I have a lot of community support on the flyer especially (unintelligible) who has supported me for the four years. The ticket purchase is $20.00 dollars. Your ticket purchase will go to me helping Michelle’s Kids which is another foundation here in Augusta that gives back to MCG kids that are HIV positive during Christmas. So it would help me give to them a monetary gift to help with that every year and that’s what we do every year too. In closing because I wasn’t trying to take up a whole lot of time you know the stigma of HIV is big, you know. And I do this because I want to put a face to it. It doesn’t stop unless people like myself understand that HIV is what they have, it’s not who they are. And a lot of the stuff that goes on in our low income areas where I’m from, you know, if we can start supporting and letting people know that a positive that they’re people that our society is not going to just turn their backs on them and they have help like I did. Because a lot of people that I know that I talk to that are HIV positive they know about the help but they’re not willing to go because of the stigma. So I do this in reference of putting a face to it so I humbly ask you and I request of you so together we can continue to educate our community and we stop the stigma and maybe make parts of our community a lot better to give them help and to educate them. If you will to donate to this foundation so we can help them other agencies here in Augusta. If there’s any questions. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Thank you, Ms. Collier, for that brave presentation. And you’re absolutely correct and there is a lot of information that people do not know and don’t understand. And thank you for taking the opportunity to give back and educate others on this matter as it relates to HIV virus. So in particular is there anything that you are asking for before I take any questions. 13 Ms. Collier: The ticket price of, I would love for the Commission to show up when we have events like this because that means a lot. The Honorable Mayor who has supported me, Mr. Williams has supported me, you know, knows what it means for somebody like me to be able to go up and shake somebody’s hand that’s feels like they’re up here. It makes me feel like I’m somebody. So I would love for the Commission not just to purchase a ticket but to come so you can see like the growth of my life change because that’s a big change because when I got clean, I’m going to make you laugh but when I got clean the Mayor was happy. That’s how much destruction I did in Augusta. He was, well, I know he was happy. You know my mentor Sandra was happy and if I can get the same thing, if I can give back and get that across to these people that are positive like me then we have more people like me. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Absolutely. Okay, we had Commissioner Fennoy then Commissioner Donnie Smith. Okay and Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Fennoy: One, I want to say thank you for showing up. You know it takes a lot of courage to stand up and say who you are and I want to thank you for showing up. And I’ve always supported you and what you’re trying to do in the past and I will continue to do that. Just as information I think you said that Augusta’s the second largest? Ms. Collier: It is, we’re saying we are the second, we are second ranked to outside the metro area. We was third in 2012. I think it was Burke County that was second to Atlanta? Savannah was second to them, now we’re second. Mr. Fennoy: Okay and who is the population is the most at risk at this particular time? Ms. Collier: We have the young people the thirteen year olds on up and our older generation and heterosexual. Mr. Fennoy: Okay, all right. And my point is is that at one time this was a --- Ms. Collier: It was a gay disease. Mr. Fennoy: --- described as a gay disease but --- Ms. Collier: It’s not that anymore. Mr. Fennoy: --- it’s not that anymore. And you know one of the things that I tell people is that we know we need to talk to our children about sex and I made a point to let people know that when I was coming up you know my mother talked to me about sex but the extent of our conversation was boy don’t have no babies. So and I think it’s a lot --- Ms. Collier: That’s my barrier now is that I don’t know maybe the commission can help me with this because I really want to get into the schools but the schools only allow you to talk about abstinence and that’s not what our kids are doing. Mr. Fennoy: Okay. All right again thanks for showing up. 14 Ms. Collier: Thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Donnie Smith and then Commissioner Lockett. Mr. D. Smith: Thank you, Ms. Collier. I want to say thank you for being here and you made one comment that I would really like to correct. You said that you were here and you were shaking hands with us that are up here. And, ma’am, that is absolutely wrong because we certainly hold you in high esteem for what you’re doing right now. Ms. Collier: Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Mr. D. Smith: And so saying that I have some campaign money that’s left over and I’ll give you $100 dollars and I’ll challenge the other Commissioners up here there’s ten of us to give you $100.00 each. And whether they take you up on that or not I don’t know but I’ll do it. (APPLAUSE) Thank you for being here. Mr. Guilfoyle: I’ll take that challenge. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: I’ll take that challenge. All right, Commissioner Lockett, you’ll take that challenge. Mr. Lockett: Well, he took part of what I was going to say. I thank you for being here and I was going to challenge all my colleagues and department directors to purchase at least two tickets. I don’t have campaign money, any, I have a zero balance. Mr. D. Smith: You’ve got four retirement checks. Mr. Lockett: I’m a senior citizen on a fixed income but I will challenge everybody and I don’t know if I’ll be in town or not but if I am you can rest assured that I will be there and my first lady will be there to show our support. And I really appreciate you coming before us for such an important venture. Thank you so much. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Absolutely. Commissioner Mason. Mr. Mason: Yes, thank you. Donnie, I’m out of campaign money that Mayor’s election cost me more I care to even think about. But I’m going to go into my personal pocket just like Wayne Guilfoyle did. There’s a hundred dollars for myself, there’s a hundred dollars from Wayne Guilfoyle to help you get started on even as we speak. And whatever that can do to get it started --- Ms. Collier: It’s going to pay the building off today. Mr. Mason: --- all right so there we go. And I would hope again that all colleagues would whatever money they can find they can assist in this process because it’s certainly worthwhile. 15 Ms. Collier: And I say again the money is important but what’s really important to me is that if I can see your face. That’s really important to me. Mr. Williams: Ms. Collier, let me say this. I don’t have a hundred dollars in my pocket like the other gentlemen and I’m going to give you a check. And if this one bounces I’ll write you another one just like. Mr. D. Smith: I’m paying you now. Ms. Collier: Oh my gosh, ya’ll are just (unintelligible). Mr. Mason: If there’s a way you could get the well I don’t need five of the tickets but I will take two. I mean I don’t know if there’s a way you get back to our Clerk --- Ms. Collier: I can. Mr. Mason: --- for us and we’ll certainly --- Ms. Collier: How many tickets are we saying we need? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Well, let me say this now for the record. I’m with Commissioner Lockett I know that we can I will be out of town it’s my birthday weekend. Just for the weekend so I will not be able to be present but I send my regards and please do let them know. I do have a standup doll that looks just like me so I can give you to stand it up in the corner they can take pictures of it if they want. So but God bless you and thank you for just being brave enough to be here today. And know that you are we are equal there’s nobody superior here on this earth. So you’re absolutely correct, Donnie, I’m glad you corrected that because a lot of people do feel and think that we are here. You all elected us to be here and we’re grateful to be in a position that helps serve you all. So again thank you and best of luck on your endeavors okay? Ms. Collier: Thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right. (APPLAUSE) Okay, Madam Clerk, we’ll move on with the well do we have any additions to the agenda. The Clerk: No, sir. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, so we’ll move on to the consent agenda. The Clerk: Our consent agenda consists of items 1-23, items 1-23. For the benefit of any objectors to our Planning petition once that petition is read would you please signify your objection by raising your hand. I call you attention to: Item 1: Is a petition on behalf of David Kingcannon requesting a Special Exception to establish a Personal Care Home affecting property located at 2529 Crosscreek Road. 16 The Clerk: Are there any objectors to that Planning petition? Mr. Speaker: None noted. The Clerk: Okay. I call your attention to the alcohol petitions. If there are any objectors to either of these alcohol petitions would you please signify your objection by raising your hand once the petition is read. I call you attention to: Item 2: Is a request for an on premise consumption Liquor Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with Hooters of Augusta located at 2834 Washington Road. Item 3: Is for an on premise consumption Beer and Wine license to be used in connection with Whole Foods Market Group, Inc. There will be Sunday Sale located at 2909 Washington Road. Item 4: Is for a retail Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with Whole Foods Market located at 2909 Washington Road. Item 5: Is for a retail package Beer and Wine license to be used in connection with One Stop & Shop located at 2382 Barton Chapel Road. The Clerk: Are there any objectors to any of those alcohol petitions? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, our consent agenda consists of items 1-23 with no objectors to our Planning petition nor our alcohol petitions. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Madam Clerk, do we have any items to be pulled for discussion? Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I have a question on agenda item 17 and 18. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Is it something you can maybe get some clarity on right now or do you prefer to pull it? Mr. Lockett: I was hoping. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, let’s see if Tom and then we’ll take Commissioner Williams. Do you have one that’s already pulled? Okay. Mr. Williams: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I’d like to clarify a couple of things and I guess I need to pull it. Let me pull 7, 8 and I need some clarity on 9 and 10 and 12. Let me see what I got on 12. The Clerk: Is that 12, sir? Mr. Williams: Yeah, I need to talk about 12 for a minute just to get some clarity on that. The Clerk: Okay. 17 Mr. Williams: So that’s 7, 8, 9, 10 --- The Clerk: 7, 8, 9 and 12. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: And twelve? The Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor: All right, Commissioner Lockett, you want to address Mr. Wiedmeier? Mr. Lockett: Mr. Wiedmeier, on agenda item number 17 my only question was I see that the general engineers are the ones that went out for bid on this. Is that proper procedure? Mr. Wiedmeier: No, it was bid through our Procurement Department but the design engineer usually makes a recommendation once they evaluate the bid. But it was all done through Procurement. Mr. Lockett: Okay, so that’s the way it’s normally done. Mr. Wiedmeier: Yes. Mr. Lockett: Okay. Thank you. Agenda item number 18, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yes, sir. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Wiedmeier: Is that you also? Mr. Wiedmeier: Yes, sir. Mr. Lockett: On the bottom it says, what I need is an explanation for the deductive alternate and additive alternate. I see it was a price adjustment on the bottom and they said this is the reasons why and I didn’t quite understand what that meant. Mr. Wiedmeier: Okay, that is those alternates are for alternate pipe materials. We had a base bid and then they could offer a different type of pipe material and offer a deduct from the base bid. It doesn’t look like we accepted any of the alternates. Mr. Lockett: Okay, so a deduct would lessen it --- Mr. Wiedmeier: Yes, sir. Mr. Lockett: --- and a additive would be to add more. Mr. Wiedmeier: That’s correct. Mr. Lockett: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. 18 Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right. Do we have any other to be pulled? All right do we have any to be added to the consent agenda? Commissioner Guilfoyle. Mr. Guilfoyle: Yes, Madam Clerk, I’m going to put these items on consent. The Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Guilfoyle: Item 27, Item 28, Item 29, Item 31, Item 32 and Item 33, ma’am. The Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Lockett: Madam Clerk, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I’ve got a question I want to ask on 33. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. So you want to leave that one on? Mr. Lockett: Well, I can ask the question if you want me to go and get rid of it. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Who do you need to address it to? Mr. Lockett: Whoever the agenda item is. It doesn’t say. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: It just says the Coroner. Mr. D. Smith: Mr. Pro Tem. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Smith, Donnie Smith. Mr. D. Smith: If there’s nobody here from the Coroner’s office I can probably answer some of that because I was helping him with that project along with Tim Schroer from Finance. But I can answer some of your questions about it. Mr. Lockett: My only concern is well I don’t think you can answer all my questions on it. Mr. Fennoy: Somebody’s here from Finance. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yeah maybe, we don’t have anybody here from the Coroner’s office. Okay, Tim may be able to answer it a little bit more. Mr. Lockett: This agenda item number 33 dealing with GRU helping to fund a part time employee for the Coroner’s office. Mr. Schroer: Yes, sir. Mr. Lockett: Is that an authorized position in the Coroner’s office? 19 Mr. Schroer: I believe, I’m not sure, sir, what that funding is. GRU was paying the Coroner’s office to, for revenues collected and for the use of the facilities. They’re just asking to be able to use those revenues to reduce their expenditures, their budgeted expenditures. Mr. Lockett: What have they been using those revenues for in the past? Mr. Schroer: I believe these are new revenues, sir. Mr. Lockett: Do you have any idea how much money we’re talking about -- Mr. Schroer: Off the top of my head, sir, no I don’t. Mr. Lockett: --- because this is something I think I would need to know. Mr. Schroer: We can get that information for you. I think it’s, I don’t know off hand. Mr. Lockett: We’re kind of voting on something that’s blind here. Mr. D. Smith: It’s a very small amount of money. Ms. Williams: It’s in your backup documentation (inaudible). Mr. Lockett: I didn’t see it online. Ms. Williams: (inaudible) it’s about thirty. Mr. Lockett: I didn’t see it online. Mr. Schroer: $30,000 dollars. Mr. D. Smith: It’s a small amount of money. Ms. William: This was a new program that they started charging rent to GRU to use the facility that was there. So it is new revenue. Mr. Lockett: I don’t have a problem with it. I just wanted to understand what it was. Okay, thank you Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. All right so we have items 27, 28, 29, 31, 32 and 33 to be added to consent? The Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right Madam Clerk --- 20 Mr. Mason: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Mason. Mr. Mason: If my colleagues don’t have any problem with number 26 under Public Safety. Mr. Williams: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Is there any follow up? Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: I was just going back to 33. I don’t have a problem with it either but what I do have a problem when stuff like this comes in and we create a scenario there then it’s going to snowball into something else that we don’t have or don’t know funds are going to come in then we, we done set a precedent to get started. Like I said I don’t have a problem but I think those kinds of things need to be talked about so we’ll understand everything about it and the follow up behind it if there is such a thing. So I mean I don’t want to pull it I’m going to support it but I just think that it may be $30,000 dollars to someone who says that’s a small amount but I know some folks that don’t make $30,000 a year so when we talk about $30,000 dollars it ain’t so small in the scheme of things. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Commissioner Mason, did you get your point of clarity on 26 or was it --- The Clerk: He’s adding it to the consent. Mr. Mason: I didn’t have any --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Mr. Mason: --- but I think Mr. Lockett was the one who pulled it out. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Lockett, you had a concern about 26? Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, it said see attached documentation. I looked online and didn’t see anything at all attached. I don’t know what they’re talking about here. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Hold on a second. Let’s see if Madam Clerk has anything on that. The Clerk: I apologize for that, Mr. Lockett. The attachment should’ve been, I can see that was a grant that the Commission approved. It was a $233,000 grant that the Drug Court Accountability received from the state. They want to extend that money to enter into this professional service agreement with those funds so we apologize for the attachment not being there. But the State Court Accountability did submit that backup --- Mr. Lockett: No problem. 21 The Clerk: --- and the Commission approved, accepted that grant agreement about a month ago. Mr. Lockett: Thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. All right, Madam Clerk, do we have any more discussion on this? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. The Clerk: Well, I need a motion first --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Let’s get a motion first yes. The Clerk: -- to the consent agenda. Mr. Guilfoyle: So moved. Mr. D. Smith: Second. CONSENT AGENDA PLANNING 1. Z-14-39 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to approve a petition by Mary Kingcannon, on behalf of David Kingcannon, requesting a Special Exception to establish a Family Personal Care Home per Section 26-1(H) of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Augusta, Georgia affecting property containing .29 acres and is known as 2529 Crosscreek Road. Tax Map 130-0-008-00-0 DISTRICT 4 PUBLIC SERVICES 2. Motion to approve New Ownership Application: A.N. 14-26: request by Claudia Levitas for an on premise consumption Liquor, Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with HOA Restaurant Holder, LLC DBA Hooters of Augusta located at 2834 Washington Rd. There will be Sunday Sales. District 7. Super District 10. (Approved by Public Services Committee August 11, 2014) 3. Motion to approve New Application: A.N. 14-27: request by Noureddine Dahhak for an on premise consumption Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with Whole Foods Market Group, Inc. DBA Whole Foods Market Restaurant located at 2909 Washington Rd – Suite B. There will be Sunday Sales. District 7. Super District 10. (Approved by Public Services Committee August 11, 2014) 4. Motion to approve New Application: A.N. 14-28: request by Noureddine Duhhak for a retail package Beer & Wine license to be used in connection with Whole Foods Market located at 2909 Washington Rd. There will be Sunday Sales. District 7. Super District 10. (Approved by Public Services Committee August 11, 2014) 5. Motion to approve New Ownership Application: A.N. 14-29: request by Ranchhodbhai M. Patel for a retail package Beer and Wine license to be used in connection with One Stop & Shop located at 2382 Barton Chapel Rd. District 5. Super District 9. (Approved by Public Services Committee August 11, 2014) 22 6. Motion to approve the adoption of the Municipal Building as an “Annex Courthouse”. (Approved by Public Services Committee August 11, 2014) ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES 11. Motion to approve amending City Code for Augusta Georgia by deleting Article 2, Section 8-5-11 through 8-5-24 in its entirety and replace it with City Code Article 2, Sections 8-5-11 through 8-5-42 (Roads and Addressing). The Code was set forth to provide a system for successfully assigning road names and address within the City and conferred the authority to the Augusta Planning Commission (aka Planning and Development Department). This request will assign that authority to the Augusta Information Technology-GIA Division (IT-GIS) and update other aspects of the Code to allow for current technology to assist in road naming and addressing. Subdivisions and Development Plans must have received from IT-GIA and approved list of road names and addresses before submittal to the Planning and Development Department for review. Road names and address have not been properly vetted and public safety issues have arisen. (Approved by the Commission August 5, 2014 – second reading) ENGINEERING SERVICES 13. Motion to authorize condemnation to acquire title of a portion of property for right of way and permanent construction and maintenance easement (Parcel 227-0-094-01-0) 4772 Windsor Spring Road. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee Augusta 11, 2014) 14. Motion to authorize condemnation to acquire title of the entire parcel, (Parcel 087-4- 038-00-0) 2060 Walnut Street. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) 15. Motion to authorize condemnation to acquire title of the entire parcel, (Parcel 087-4- 045-00-0) 2046 Walnut Street. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) 16. Motion to approve construction contract award to Eagle Utility in the amount of $1,097,298.15. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) 17. Motion to approve contract award to Control Southern in the amount of $78,869.25. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) 18. Motion to approve award of construction project to subject contractor, Layne Heavy Civil, Inc., in the amount of $5,462,198.50 for construction of the Butler Creek West Sanitary Sewer Upgrades Project 60106, Ph. 3. This award will include installation of sanitary sewer mains, manholes, and associated sanitary sewer branch lines, as well as SS Pumping Station. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) 19. Motion to approve the continued funding of the current On-Call Property Appraisal & Acquisition Professional Services Agreement in the amount of $434,000 as requested by AED. Funding is available through the Transportation Investment Act (TIA) Discretionary account, TIA funded local delivery projects accounts, and Engineering SPLOST IV fund recapture. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) 20. Motion to approve purchase of miscellaneous traffic signal equipment from the Transportation Investment Act (TIA) discretionary account. Equipment meets the criteria for transportation discretionary fund usage as requested by AED/TE. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) 23 21. Motion to approve State Properties Commission Revocable License Agreement SPC No. 605.206. (Approved by Engineering Services Committee August 11, 2014) PETITIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS 22. Motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of the Commission held August 5, 2014 and Special Called Meeting held August 11, 2014) APPOINTMENTS 23. Motion to approve the appointment of Mr. Bill Quinn to the ARC Transit Citizens Advisory Committee representing District 3. PUBLIC SAFETY 26. Motion to approve Professional Services Agreement between Augusta, GA in conjunction with Augusta Judicial Circuit and Elaina M. Ashley to provide certain services generally described as Drug Court Services. FINANCE 27. Approve a request from the Sheriff’s Office to replace 2 police motorcycles for the Road Patrol Division. 28. Approve the replacement of one F-450 Crew Truck from the Utilities-Construction and Maintenance Department with an F-550 Crew Truck. 29. Approve the purchase of micro trenching equipment consisting of 1 trencher tractor, 1 trencher attachment, 1 reel carrier, and 1 trailer mounted vacuum system for the Utilities Department-Facilities Maintenance Division. 31. Motion to approve the minutes of the Finance Committee held on July 28, 2014. 32. Receive as information financial reports for the period ended June 30, 2014. 33. Allow Coroner to use revenue funds collected from GRU to help pay for his Part Time employee and to help pay for the transportation costs to take all bodies to Atlanta. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Fennoy out. Motion Passes 9-0. [Items 1-6, 11, 26-29, 31-33] Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Madam Clerk, let’s take the first pulled item. The Clerk: PUBLIC SERVICES 7. Motion to approve award of the contract for Design Build HVAC Replacement at the Warren Road Community Center to the low bidder, Copper Construction Company, Inc. of Vidalia, GA, in the amount of $125,069.00. (Approved by Public Services Committee August 11, 2014) Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Williams. 24 Mr. Williams: My question was that is this a trade in situation where there is a unit there now there is a system there now. Is that system the, what I mean will that system will go through a GOV DEAL situation to be sold. Are we trading that system in? Is that are they allowing us something for the old system. What happened to that that’s the bottom line. Mr. Houck: There’s four 10-ton units currently at Warren Road. Two were operational, two do not work. We plan on keeping the two that do work to see if we can use them within our system anywhere but we’re replacing them with two 20-ton units that’ll sit on the roof and get out of the gymnasium. Mr. Williams: Thank you sir, good answer. So moved, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right we have a motion. Do we have a second? Ms. Davis: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right there’s a proper motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Motion Passes 10-0. The Clerk: PUBLIC SERVICES 8. Motion to approve Bid Item 14-179, Newman Tennis Court Repair/Resurfacing Project, to Court Makers, Inc. for a total of $124,055. (Approved by Public Services Committee August 11, 2014) Mr. Jackson: Move to approve. Mr. Fennoy: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Williams, you had this pulled. Mr. Williams: Thank you, sir, my colleagues are raring to go. I like that but let’s talk about it for a minute here. My question is is this it says repair and resurface. What are we repairing, how many of what are we resurfacing. I mean it says repair and resurface but $124,000. I mean how many of those are repairs and how many of those are resurfacing? Mr. Houck: There’s roughly 5,000 linear feet of cracks that we’re doing an acrylic fill and repair and then we’re resurfacing, color coding all nineteen courts so that there’s cracks on all nineteen courts. Every court will get repair and recolored. Mr. Williams: Okay saying recolor and resurfacing now come on, Ron, that’s two different things. You say recolor and I’m thinking about paint. When you say resurface I’m 25 thinking about, you know, you’re putting down some more asphalt concrete. I’m thinking you -- - Mr. Houck: No, it’s a repair to fill repair and then it’s a color coating ---- Mr. Williams: Okay so --- Mr. Houck: --- nineteen courts. Mr. Williams: --- that wasn’t the deal I thought it was then. I mean I’m thinking we’re getting this deal on concrete and we’re just --- Mr. Houck: No, sir, it’s a, there’s a five year warranty on this and hopefully that will get us until the next sales tax gets passed to do something to this facility that was built in ’81. Mr. Williams: Yeah, I was here then so I didn’t show up for that but. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yeah, I think he said the estimate to replace all the courts what is it it’s fourteen courts out there, eighteen courts? Mr. Houck: Nineteen. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Nineteen, yeah, it’s about 1.4 million or something like that but this will be a temporary solution. Okay. Mr. Williams: I just read the repair and resurfacing. Resurfacing means something else to me not repainting and it should state that. I’m not against it, I’m in support but ya’ll ain’t going to trick me no more I’ve been tricked one time. Mr. Houck: Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right there’s been a proper motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Motion Passes 10-0. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, point of personal privilege. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yes, sir, Mr. Lockett. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES 9. Motion to approve an Ordinance to Amend the Augusta, GA Code Title One Article Four Section 1-7-51 Relating to the Adoption of Personnel Policies and Procedures of Augusta, Georgia; To approve edits to the FOLLOWING SECTIONS OF Chapter IV of THE Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual: 900.001, 900.006, 900.009, 900.011, 900- 012 and 900.202; To Repeal All MANUAL PROVISIONS, Code Sections and Ordinances 26 and Parts of Code Sections and Ordinances in Conflict Herewith; To Provide and Effective Date and For Other Purposes. (Approved by the Commission August 5, 2014 – second reading. Mr. Lockett: I went to sleep at the switch up here. I wanted to send agenda item number nine back to committee. And I wondered if there was any possibility we can reconsider sending it back to committee. Mr. Mayor: Well, Commissioner Williams pulled it so if he wants he can make a motion to send it back and then we can dispose of it. Mr. Williams: Motion to send it back. Mr. Mayor: So you want a motion to send it back to committee? Mr. Williams: Yeah, I can do that. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: You’ll second it, Commissioner Lockett? Do you second the motion? Mr. Lockett: Yeah he --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Mr. Lockett: --- he’s seconded. We’re ready to vote I guess. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure we had a second. Okay, we’ve got a motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Guilfoyle votes No. Motion Passes 9-1. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Madam Clerk. The Clerk: ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES 10. Motion to approve an Ordinance to amend the Augusta, GA Code Title One Article Four Section 1-7-51 relating to the adoption of Personnel Policies and Procedures of Augusta, Georgia; to amend Section 1000.108 AND Addendum Form RM-MVR-RF of the Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual regarding Motor Vehicle Records Check (changing history records from seven years to four years); to repeal all code Sections and Ordinances and parts of Code Sections and Ordinances in conflict herewith; to provide an effective date and for other purposes. (Approved by the Commission July 15, 2014 – second reading) 27 Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: Thank you. This probably needs to go back as well. I had, my question was when you’re changing the ordinance and then we’re asked to vote on these things and when you’re talking about as much changing in the Personnel and Procedures Manual that has been flawed for a while, we’ve been talking about how to get it straight. Well when we pick and choose and change this I mean I don’t understand how we can make those changes like that and not be knowledgeable about what the changes I mean what’s really happening. So that was my reason for pulling nine and ten just to find out exactly what are we doing. Now I looked at the backup on it but if we’re going to send nine back we ought to send ten back as well to talk about them all at the same time. That would be my motion to send it back to committee and get some understanding on it. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, I know this was an item that Director Ms. Melanie Wilson brought before us. We actually discussed it in detail about the MVR requirements for employees and new hires. And we agreed to go from a seven year to a four year history report as it relates to the MVR. And we all came to a consensus for the most part on doing it to give her the ability. She’s kind of in at a I guess a standstill for the last couple of months here trying to get that worked out so she can get inspectors in there. Right now that she they’re running behind they’re shorthanded and this has been the road block for her so I do think we need to move forward with it because I know she was hoping to have it done last week but it wasn’t added to the agenda and somehow it was omitted on the agenda last week so. Mr. Williams: I’m wondering why the HR Director is not proposing this or brought this. And I was here I hadn’t missed any meetings. I understand who brought it and why and I asked that question then why isn’t the our director of that department is adamant about bringing this to us. And when we talk about changing the ordinance and two agenda items but we had not really had no real conversation about it to know what is what. And then the HR person, Ms. Wilson works in a different department I understand we may need some assistance or need some help there. But that’s an HR not, I take issue when everybody’s running this show but the people we’re paying to run the show are in their place, ought to be in their place. So I hadn’t heard any --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Let’s get Ms. Bryant up here and let her address it. I thought they already had some conversation as it relates to that but Ms. Bryant if you can address this. Ms. Bryant: Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tem and Commissioners. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Good afternoon. Ms. Bryant: Good afternoon. Absolutely this has been something that again as far as with the total revisions of the PPPM both items benefit to be addressed as whole but this was something that again for the reasons that Ms. Wilson needed was brought to the Risk Management team to bring forth to you now. 28 Mr. Williams: And that’s my point exactly. We can’t do a knee jerk reaction. We need to, if we’re going to make changes we need to make changes and know what we’re doing and it’s going to benefit everybody not just one department or one area. And that’s why I pulled both of those items in order to at least get some clarity as to what we’re doing. And you being the HR Director had not spoken very much at all. And I’m wondering how can we expect to know what we’re doing because, and I don’t have a problem with it, I’ve got a problem with the way the process is being done. We talk about fairness up here a little while ago all these people said let’s do things right. Let’s do them right. Let’s not do a knee jerk reaction and do for one on this side and one on that side. This government ought to be the same across the board so --- Ms. Bryant: And I can say I’m not a proponent to piece meal anything. Mr. Williams: That’s right. Ms. Bryant: It’s always been my stance that if we’re going to handle it, let’s handle it all and get it all done because it is very hard or very difficult to handle piece meal things done for piece meal different reasons. So I have said that in the beginning, I say it again now and I’ll continue to say that that has been my stance from the very beginning on all of this. Mr. Williams: My motion would be to send it back to committee with number nine and put them two back together to try to know what we’re doing. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Jackson. Mr. Jackson: I make a motion to approve. Mr. G. Smith: Second. The Clerk: Who was that? Who seconded? Mr. Guilfoyle: Joe Jackson. The Clerk: No, he made the motion. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Grady Smith. The Clerk: Okay. I don’t think I heard a second on Mr. Williams? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: No, no, Ms. Wilson, do you want, do you need to speak to this matter? Ms. Wilson: No. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: You’re good? Okay, okay. All right we have a motion and a second on the floor. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. 29 Mr. Williams votes No. Motion Passes 9-1. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Madam Clerk. The Clerk: PUBLIC SAFETY 12. Motion to approve Augusta, GA entering into an agreement with the Georgia Department of Transportation to provide Inmate Work Crews to assist in maintenance of DOT equipment, building, right-of-ways and public work projects. (Approved by Public Safety Committee August 11, 2014) Mr. Jackson: Move to approve. Mr. G. Smith: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right, we have a motion and a second. Commissioner Williams you had this pulled. Mr. Williams: Thank you, Mr. Pro Tem. I see our director is here. Can you tell me exactly what this agreement would do? What are we doing? My colleagues don’t come to committee but they already know so. Mr. Ladson: Yes, sir. This is simply a annual renewal of an ongoing contract with GDOT. Mr. Williams: Okay. Mr. Ladson: All the provisions are the same as our current contract. Mr. Williams: Okay, this is just a renewal. Mr. Ladson: Yes, sir. Mr. Williams: Okay. I’ve got no problem I wasn’t against the agenda item in the first place but I did want to get an understanding as to what we were doing versus not knowing. But we’ve got a motion to approve, Madam Clerk, so. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Motion Passes 10-0. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, we can proceed with the regular agenda, Madam Clerk. 30 The Clerk: PLANNING 24. Z-14-41 – A request for concurrence with the Augusta Georgia Planning Commission to deny a petition by James B. Trotter, on behalf of Steve Dekle, requesting a change of zoning from Zone R-3B (Multiple-family residential) to Zone B-2 (General Business) affecting property containing 2.93 acres and is known as 1085 Alexander Drive. Tax Map 012-0-075-00-0 DISTRICT 7 Mr. Lockett: Move to approve. Mr. Mason: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right, we have a motion and a second. We do have Ms. Wilson here and Mr. Trotter who’s going to speak on behalf of the petitioner. Well, I guess we’ll proceed with you first Mr. Trotter. Ms. Wilson: If there’s a motion --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: But I know ya’ll came. But we do have a motion and a second but. Mr. Grady Smith: I’d like to make a substitute motion. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Grady Smith. Mr. G. Smith: Okay, I’d like to make a substitute motion that we approve the petition as presented by Mr. Trotter on behalf of Steve Dekle requesting a change of zoning. Mr. Jackson: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Hold on I think we had that motion already made. Mr. G. Smith: The motion was read as it was written. The Clerk: To deny. His motion is to approve the petition. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: To approve to deny. The first motion was to approve to deny? Mr. Lockett: Yes. The Clerk: The petition, yes, sir. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Mr. D. Smith: Substitute motion. 31 Mr. Mayor: So we have a substitute motion to --- The Clerk: To approve the petition. Mr. G. Smith: To approve the --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Mr. G. Smith: --- petition by Mr. Trotter. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: We do have a second --- The Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: --- on that motion? Any further discussion? Mr. Andrew? Mr. MacKenzie: You’ll need to give the applicant an opportunity to speak and any objectors (inaudible). Mr. D. Smith: Yeah, they need to have an option to speak. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: That’s what I thought. We do have some who support. The Clerk: A show of hands. Any objectors --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Any objectors? The Clerk: --- are there any objectors? Mr. D. Smith: You’ve got objectors and supporters. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Right, we need to know the objectors. Mr. Cassell: People who don’t support the rezoning. Mr. Guilfoyle: Who don’t want the self storage building raise your hand. Mr. Cassell: If you don’t support the rezoning raise your hand. (4 objectors are noted) Mr. Cassell: Okay, now if you support the rezoning. (18 supporters are noted) 32 Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, now we’ll hear from the petitioner. Okay go ahead, Madam Clerk. The Clerk: 18 objectors? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Those are supporters. Mr. Cassell: The objectors again could you raise your hand? Okay, we have four that are against the rezoning. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right, so are we clear on the objectors and those who support? Mr. Cassell: We have four people who are against the rezoning and 18 for the rezoning. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, all right now we’ll hear from Mr. Trotter as it relates to this particular petition. Mr. Trotter: I’ll let Ms. Wilson go first if she would like to. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Mr. Trotter: Whatever ya’ll would like to do. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right he’ll yield to you, Ms. Wilson. Ms. Wilson: No, I mean I’m perfectly okay. I just wanted to make sure that the Planning Commission that you all appoints recommendation is heard and the reasons behind the recommendation --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Right. Ms. Wilson: --- is heard before you vote. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Ms. Wilson: So Mr. Trotter can go and then I will present the staff report. I just wanted to make sure that (inaudible). Mr. Trotter: I know you’ve all had a long afternoon we all have. I’ll be sure to keep this brief. This is a piece of property two or three parcels behind the Kroger on the west side of Alexander Drive. It has been vacant for many years. There’s a rundown house there. My client is seeking a B-2 Zoning but has agreed all along to restrict the use only to this self-storage facility. And if he does not develop that within two years that will revert back to its current R- 3B Zoning. And I believe many of the people who are here in support of the rezoning are here especially Ms. Kay Hill who’s literally in the back yard of this property. They’re here because they don’t want any more residential developments along Alexander Drive. This particular 33 development will not impact the school system at all it will have a very limited impact on the sewer system there and we did bring a lot of supporters from the neighborhood who are in favor of this development. I believe and Ms. Wilson can expand on this, it was denied at the Planning Commission because it became a discussion about engineering not land use. And this property does slope way down in the back and there are drainage problems back there, there’s no doubt. But whatever is developed there has to be approved by the Engineering Department and has to comply with current storm water ordinance as far as containing the water on site and not releasing any more water off site than already is. And so when we get to that stage with the Engineering Department they will have ample opportunity to review and approve the plans to make sure it does not increase any drainage problem back there and in fact can help the drainage problem back there. So we’re here to seek the rezoning so that their one more parcel along Alexander Drive is not developed as high density residential which is what it is now. And as you all know you’ve driven Alexander Drive many times since it’s been expanded. There’s plenty of other businesses along Alexander Drive especially on that northern, excuse me southern end closest to Washington Road. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Ms. Wilson, you want to? Ms. Wilson: Okay, the request as it came into our office was for a B-2 General Use Zoning and that is what we looked at in addition to the more specific use that Mr. Dekle and Mr. Trotter have brought forth. But the bottom line is if this were rezoned as a B-2 General Use Zoning the uses that are allowed in that zoning district are much more intense than any multi- family units that they would have. A B-2 General Zoning District allows for an apartment, excuse me a hotel, flea markets, liquor stores, trailer parks if you, mobile trailer, park campers and other uses that basically would be allowed based on how this originally came in. Now the attorney is correct in that he did send a supplemental letter saying that he would limit the use but that formerly is not what we had based on how the application came in. Secondly when we look at land uses topography and flooding is a land use issue. It is taken care of and solved in some cases by engineering as far as coming up with solutions. But we all know that our storm water regulations are not where they need to be based on the amount of flooding that we get in the community right now. The picture that is being passed round by our male version of Vanna White here, poke some laughter in this thing, basically is something that was not submitted as part of the application. If you decide to move forward you need to make it as part of an application so that they would be obligated to build what you see from the standpoint of design and everything else. I would say that the decision that we made as a staff which we are charged to do was that we looked at it from a land use issue. The fact is that B-2 Zoning based on the land use plans and development patterns this is not consistent with the ordinance. Right now you’ve got a clustering of businesses that are centered around that intersection. To allow this to go forward and if you can see it’s that little narrow strip of property that we are talking about. It’s a 110 feet wide by 1,200 feet long so it is a very narrow piece of property which is why we had issues with regards to runoff as well as other impact on the surrounding properties. The other issue that we factored in as well although there is a minimum requirement from the standpoint of meeting the being able to get a fire truck there. If there is somebody there unloading you still are going to have probably some issue with a person being able to unload and if there is an incident at the end of the property them being able to get in, turn around and get out. Those are some of, the those are the reasons that the Planning Board during their meeting 34 basically recommended denial. It’s based on our analysis the fact that commercial zoning is not appropriate at this location. You see this property is in between two residential pieces of property. I did not want to go as far as saying it was a spot zoning because technically you could make an argument either way. But the bottom line is it’s a B-2 going in between two residentially zoned properties. In addition to that Medium Density Residences is what is normally used to serve as transitional areas. The proposal for the storage units is for 250 units. That is what the applicant has indicated that they would like to build that is what is my understanding Mr. Trotter is saying that his client and he would agree to have built within two years in accordance with today’s storm water management standards. I would basically say that they need to meet the current the standards to deal with keeping all of the water after the building is being built should you decide to approve this on their property using the most current technological advances to deal with storm water management. If not, you’re going to have people coming down the road to this board asking for some relief because of the amount of water coming off this property. So that is why we had a lot of discussion at the Planning Board meeting about the storm water runoff and environmental. We do have the storm water engineer here to answer any questions that you may have but I would ask should you decide to move forward with approving this that you do approve it with the condition that it is only for a mini storage building that there would be no other businesses allowed. If they decide that they want to come back down the road to try to add additional uses and that if it is not built to current standards that it would revert. So with that the Planning Board voted 10-2 to recommend denial of this request and the staff recommends denial of the petition. Mr. Trotter: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, can I just a few points can I make. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yes, go ahead, Mr. Trotter. Mr. Trotter: Just a couple a questions a couple points. She’s exactly right about the drainage issues but she’s got those issues even if you build in the R3-B Zoning and apartments or townhomes. Whatever you build there you’ve got to address drainage. We’ve agreed all along and we agreed here today that it will be limited to this self-storage facility and not all of the other B-2 uses that she mentioned. Third one point I failed to mention at the beginning I want to make it again. We’re seeking to take a piece of property that it’s on the tax rolls right now and generating revenue of about $1,000 dollars a year. If it’s fully developed out it could generate $25 - $35,000 dollars a year in taxes. It’s a significant difference. Even the discussion from earlier I think it’s important. Finally I know we have a lot of people here and Ms. Kay Hill I know she would like to address ya’ll and I know you’re running out of time. This is in her backyard and she came down here and stayed all day today because she wanted to tell you that she doesn’t want and her whole neighborhood Helena Woods voted that they don’t want any more residential development along Alexander Drive. And that’s why we’re here today just to get this particular development approved, not a flea market, hotels or trailer parks, to get this development approved so that we can add it back into the tax rolls and generate $25 or $35,000 a year for the city. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right. First we’ll take Commissioner Guilfoyle and then Commissioner Fennoy but, Commissioner Smith, would be willing to amend your motion to include the exceptions, exemptions if any other uses --- 35 Mr. G. Smith: Restrictions. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: --- other than restrictions so that it reverts back to its normal uses. Mr. G. Smith: Yeah, I’ll do that. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. All right so we do have a motion made. Commissioner Guilfoyle then Commissioner Fennoy. Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you, Mr. Pro Tem. Yesterday I was doing a lot of communication with Crystal Eskola in regards to this piece of property. She was concerned about setting a precedent in the National Hills Area. I went ahead and pulled up the map. I looked at a piece of property 100 feet by 1108 feet long. If you take 10 feet off each side that leaves you 80 feet but you can’t put an apartment complex, you can’t put nothing in there. And if I owned this piece of property, that would be the only use for this parcel. And to be truthful it is a money generating, it’ll actually generate revenue for the city which is great. They had the concerns about fire. Self- storage buildings I know it’s going to be acclimated but that’s on every quadrant that you would have an air conditioner that feeds a trunk line down so I don’t think fire would be an issue. I just in the bottom 25% is set up for the retention or the detention pond to accept that runoff. And I know that with our county engineers they’re going to make sure everything’s done T’s crossed I’s dotted so Ms. Wilson I don’t, Steve. Ms. Wilson. Ms. Wilson: Basically we were just talking about the fact that the plans as submitted there would still be some issues. One thing that the zoning would require would probably be a variance just because the lot is so narrow that the 10 foot setback for this particular use is probably going to need some type of variance from the Board of Adjustment I mean Board of Zoning Appeals. I have to --- Mr. Speaker: I think we may have to go to the Tree Committee. Ms. Wilson: --- or go to the Tree Commission but they’re going to have to get a variance. The other issue is as Mr. Cassell was just speaking briefly about is the fact that I think the requirement is 35 feet. Is that what you, put your street engineer hat on. Mr. Cassell: Our driveway ordinance requires 50 feet from a property line and because it would be 31 feet wide so you would have with a 100 foot lot you couldn’t get a driveway in there without a variance. Mr. Guilfoyle: Ain’t there a driveway already there? Mr. Cassell: Not a commercial driveway. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, so we need a variance to get to meet the regulation. All right Commissioner Fennoy had a question? 36 Mr. Fennoy: Mr. Ladson, have you had an opportunity to look at, have you had an opportunity to look at the proposal? Mr. Ladson: I have not but we, I have a staff. That’s their job and that’s what he does. Mr. Fennoy: All right well --- Mr. Ladson: (inaudible) David Smith is the storm water engineer. Mr. Smith: Good afternoon, Commissioners --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Good afternoon Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith: --- I’m David Smith. I’m the storm water and drainage engineer for the city of Augusta. I did look at the site when requested to by staff of Planning and Development in regards to storm water concerns and history. This site has a history of drainage issues and not just this site it’s the whole drainage corridor that this follows down gradient toward River Watch from Washington Road. There have been several flooding issues and the petitioner is correct in stating anything that goes in this site other than a residential one-single family residence home is going to increase the storm water. There’s going to be drainage concerns and it’s going to have to be addressed as required by the city of Augusta. Plans would be reviewed by the Engineering Department if it were allowed to be rezoned. And at that time we would look at not only the storm water issues, the traffic issues, the development issues and the environmental issues which we also do a separate review for that being it’s over one acre. But there have been a history of flooding down gradient of residences and that was our concern and why we were asked to look at it. Mr. Fennoy: And Mr. Trotter --- Mr. Trotter: Yes. Mr. Fennoy: --- after these hearing these concerns are the owners willing to address the issue with flooding, possible flooding in that? Mr. Trotter: Absolutely. I’ve got Mr. Darren Prickett from Johnson Laschober, our engineer here, who’s already looked at that and believes that he can design a system. He’d like to just take a minute to tell you what that system would be. Mr. Prickett: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Ms. Davis we’re Johnson, Laschober and Associates. We’re architects and engineers here in Augusta. We’re working for Mr. Dekle on the project. One of the things that were brought up earlier we have a flooding issue. This is one of those rare issues where development fixes flooding issues. If we improve the property we go in we improve it, we pave it and put storm drainage structures in, you put in detention facilities underground detention we have the ability to fix the problem. And so this is one of those instances where I think that the engineering will come through. The property is severely restricted because of its geometry. There’s really not a whole lot you can do with it. The man 37 owns the property he wants to develop the property. The basin it’s 55 acres. 15% of this basin is undeveloped so essentially it’s fully developed. The flooding that’s occurring has been occurring for some time. The upstream properties and mainly the Kroger, the large scale commercial developments that are above us Washington Road is un-detained. We don’t detain road way water but we do detain commercial sites so the flooding issues you’re getting not because of this property but because of preexisting drainage concerns. So the little bit of water we’re going to be putting in that stream is going to be less than before. We’re going to release it at a rate that’s a whole lot less than before we develop this. So there are no engineering drainage issues that’ll occur because of the project. Actually it will be improved. Mr. Fennoy: And I guess my last question is that what you all propose to do for that piece of property as far as drainage is concerned will it create any issues for, because see I had my house sets below my neighbor’s house at one time and my neighbor stopped the water from coming on his property but he diverted it to my property. So I guess my question is that if you all hounded the drainage on that property would it create hardships for the other property owners in that area? Mr. Prickett: No, sir, we can’t. We’re not allowed to discharge water onto a neighboring property. We can’t change the natural drainage force. All we can do is gather it and put it in the downstream receiving water which in this case is the creek. And we have to put it in that creek in such a fashion not to erode the creek, not to increase the volume that’s leaving the site. The volume will increase but the rate will decrease. So we’ll be releasing water for a longer period of time but the amount of water going into the creek will be less. Okay so that’s, we can’t do that. If we did that the Engineering Department would catch us and they wouldn’t approve my plan. They’d send it back and I’d have to fix that. Mr. Fennoy: Okay, thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: And I guess, Madam Clerk, oh Commissioner Lockett you had a question? Mr. Lockett: Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. I made the motion to approve the denial because of my understanding prior to the meeting that the entire neighborhood was against this project. But based on information that I’ve heard to me you would think that the proper thing would be that all those things that you all have said that you’re willing to do why can’t those things be presented to Planning and then allow Planning to make a recommendation to us based on the current information? You know because we have said we’re going to do this we’re going to do that but it’s my understanding that Planning made a decision based on information they had which is somewhat different from some of the stuff that ya’ll have talked about today. Am I correct in that assessment or not? Mr. Trotter: Our discussion in the Planning meeting was much shorter than this one has been and much less thorough. Mr. Prickett was not there and his associate was not, didn’t have time to speak our time was cut short. We believe that all of this information and my communications with Ms. Wilson it has been presented and we have agreed all along to restrict this use to just this one use and not all the rest of them. 38 Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, if I may, Ms. Wilson. Do you feel at this juncture you have sufficient information to make a recommendation that’ll be different from what the Planning Commission made? Ms. Wilson: Do I feel that that the Planning Staff as well as the Planning Commission --- Mr. Lockett: Do you feel in a position to recommend to the governing body that we approve this based on information that you have received today or do you feel it’s necessary that you get the information in writing and let it go back before the board? Ms. Wilson: I think now I’m going to yield to the Attorney just because I think that, you know, if they’re going, there are two concerns as I indicated when I did my presentation. One is the current storm water regs that we have really aren’t that sufficient. That’s why we’ve got flooding around the city and we can’t as staff ask the applicant to design anything greater than the 100 year storm when we’ve been having events that have been greater than a 100 year storm so you’re going to possibly, I mean there’s a lot of unknown but those are some of the things that would be good to talk to their engineer about. We did receive kind of a general letter from them. They had the opportunity to come to the Planning Board meeting as with the other people that showed up but I’m going defer with regards to the Attorney because this is getting into one of those situations as to whether the applicant should put this in writing or whether they can make the motion here at the meeting to do those things. Mr. Williams: Call for the question, Mr. Pro Tem. Let’s vote. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: The question’s been called for. Mr. Attorney. Mr. MacKenzie: I suggest you give the applicant an opportunity I mean any opposers and opportunity to speak as well. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Absolutely. With that being said does the applicant wish to speak as well any of the opposers, those who were against it have someone to speak. Mr. Trotter: Well, I’ve spoken on behalf of the applicant. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, so we’ll here from the objector. And if you could state your name and address for the record. Ms. Speaker: Hi my name is Crystal Eskola and I live at 1215 Magnolia Drive and I am a resident of National Hills and I am on the board and was selected to represent unanimously the board voted to address our concerns regarding the rezoning request. 400 of the homes in the neighborhood are members of the association. Properties along Alexander Drive are adjacent to properties in National Hills. We are concerned with the B-2 encroachment to the east side of Alexander the opposing the opposite side of where this zoning request is. We are concerned about the land use possibilities that come with B-2 rezoning and the appearance of the gateway into Augusta. B-2 zoning, as Ms. Wilson said, could be a flea market, liquor store, motel, 39 carwash, night club. 60% of the Masters traffic uses Alexander Drive to attend the tournament. We want the land use to remain residential. The Augusta Richmond County Comprehensive Land Use Plan recommends the property remain RB-3. Preserving the residential area from commercial development that could begin with the development of the property into a self- storage facility is important to us. We are concerned about the zoning change from R-3B to B-2 that it could set a precedent for future zoning requests for undeveloped land and land that is for sale on the east side of Alexander Drive. We do not want the commercial development on Alexander Drive at the gateway to Augusta and land that is adjacent to our property to become B-2. Thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, now let me ask you a question, Ms. Eskola. You heard the recommendation and you also heard what their restrictions were as it relates to this. They can only do this facility and if they choose not to do the facility they will have to revert it, it will revert back to its normal condition as it relates to the zoning aspect of it. Are you all okay or are you all okay with that being the case because you’re right I know you have concerns about it the other possibilities but it would be restricted to only that if they’re going to do anything there and if not then it goes back to its original zoning. Ms. Eskola: Our concern is the precedent being set that it could be setting a precedent for future B-2 requests and approvals. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. All right and we have any one here who supports it. Okay. Ms. Kay Hill: And I’ll keep it very short. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: State your name and address also. Ms. Hill: I’m sorry, I’m Kay Hill I live on 2029 Glenn Field Lane. I’m here as a property owner that directly abuts Steve’s property. I’m also here as a representative of the Board of Directors for the entire street. We voted unanimously, well not unanimously, a majority of the home owners want this property. We did stipulate that this would be it. Any other buildings, changes we would then oppose. Okay? National Hills talked about the businesses. We’ve got D’Antignac Heating and Air that’s been there as long as I’ve been there. You’ve got an automotive repair shop, you have a Spanish language school. A new one I just found out about is something called Lotto and Games and directly across from the property you have a large full service beauty salon that’s open six days a week. The heat and air, the beauty shop and the mechanic shop have been there since ’99. That’s how long I’ve lived there. And one of our other objections is again referring to the narrowness if anything residential is even considered the ground floor will have to be a garage for parking. Anything above that is going to be 9 feet or so and 50 feet approximately from my windows staring into my bedroom into my bathroom. And we vehemently object to residential being there. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, all right we thank you for your comments. And we do have a motion and a second on the floor. Madam Clerk, we have just one motion correct? 40 The Clerk: No, sir, we have two. We have a substitute and a primary motion. The substitute motion is to approve the petition presented by Mr. James B. Trotter on behalf of Steve Dekle requesting a change of zoning from an R-3B (Multiple family Residential) with a B-2 (General Business) affecting property known as 1085 Alexander Drive with the condition that only a self-storage building be built and if not it would revert back to the original zoning. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: That’s the substitute motion? The Clerk: That’s the substitute motion Mr. Grady Smith and Mr. Joe Jackson. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, do we have any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Lockett and Mr. D. Smith vote No. Motion Passes 8-2. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Madam Clerk. The Clerk: ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES 25. Discuss Department Directors Decorum. (Requested by Commissioner Marion Williams) Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: Thank you, Mr. Pro Tem. I had this item put on the agenda because I noticed and I’ve, I noticed and I’ve been observing how the department heads have been responding. Not just to me but to this body. And on last week I was really disappointed to see the actions of some and how they acted like small children. We pay too much money for the department heads to be able to come in here and not pay attention or not know what we’re doing because it don’t go their way so to speak and act indifferent. Now I took issue with this and I thought I’d put it on the agenda so we could at least be informed about it and get them to at least pay attention to what they’re doing. Now they look at our actions but we look at their actions as well. And I don’t want to get into no name calling but I was very, very disappointed as to the way people acted because they didn’t get what they thought they ought to got. In fact they really disappointed me but I wanted to put that on the agenda just for information that when you come in here you ought to be respectful because you want us to be respectful to them and they ought to be respectful to us as well. motion to receive this as information? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. All right can I get a Mr. Lockett: So moved. Ms. Davis: Second. 41 Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right there’s a proper motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Mr. Mason, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Guilfoyle and Mr. G. Smith out. Motion Passes 6-0. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, Madam Clerk, item number 30. The Clerk: PUBLIC SAFETY 30. Motion to approve Water and Sewer Revenue Bonds Series 2014 bond resolution and authorize the Mayor and Clerk to sign all necessary documents. (Approved by Finance Committee July 28, 2014; No action vote by the Committee August 5, 2014 – request by Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle. Mr. Lockett: I move that this be sent back to committee. The people from IFS oh, they are here, I’m sorry. I thought they had left they’ve been waiting so long. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay. Mr. Lockett: They’re still here. I thought they had left they’re still here. Mr. MacKenzie: You have to have seven --- The Clerk: She going to get, we just need to hold up until (inaudible). Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Hold up a second. All right we’re back in business. Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: Yes, sir, Mr. Pro Tem, thank you. I took an issue with this being brought to be presented, voted on when we didn’t have the opportunity to listen to the other group to explain. And we were talking earlier about saving money, doing things right and then how we can move this city forward and how we need monies. I wanted to make sure that this other group had an opportunity to come to the table to at least share with us the potential savings or the potential monies that we can that we get and I see that they’re here now. At committee they weren’t allowed to speak. I had stepped out. When I came in everything was over with but that’s what happens when you step out. So I made sure I was in this time I wasn’t out of the room but can we hear from them now or can we I mean how can we bring this thing. This is too serious just to walk up and say we’re going to approve it for what we’ve been doing because what we’ve been doing hadn’t been working. And we ain’t just finding that out because we’ve finding it out a long time ago but we’re still doing the same things. Can we hear from them, Madam Clerk? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: You want to hear from the group? 42 Mr. Williams: Right. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, do we have someone to represent the bonding? Mr. Lockett: IFS. The Clerk: IFS? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yes, someone to represent the firm. Now I do have a question while they’re coming up. Now, Tom, the motion is to approve the Water and Sewer Revenue Bond. As it, are we talking about approving it as it stands now correct with the current bonding, Tom? I mean the firm. Mr. Schroer: Yes, sir. The motion is to approve the Water and Sewer Bonds on a competitive bid sale. This is the next step in the process. In May we brought forth the resolution to start the process and this is the next step in the process. After this we will come back with the actual sale dates and tell you what we sold the bonds for. So this is just the next a continuation of the process we started back in May. Mr. Guilfoyle: Motion to approve. Mr. D. Smith: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right if we can hear from a representative with the IFS. Mr. Williams: Mr. Pro Tem, before you speak can I say something? They weren’t privileged to explain this and things and there was some things that was in question before and they were not allowed to come back. Now I hear we’re talking about approving. And I said it then and I’ll say it now I’m not going to sit here and approve anything that I don’t have the opportunity to look at to make the best decision. So there were some things they disagreed with and I understand there wasn’t no debate about it but they weren’t allowed through Finance to continue. And this is the first time being back. Now do we need to send this back and come back to the committee and talk about it again because I’m not going to vote for an agreement of this situation knowing that what I heard before was going to be a beneficial be a better benefit to this county then what we’re looking at right now. Now do we need to let them talk now or do we need to bring it back to committee so we can you know compare apples to apples or apples to whatever else we got? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. As to what Mr. Williams said they were given an opportunity to rebut what had been said the last time they were here. And let me tell you something. I don’t see how we in good conscience vote on approving this tonight. I know many of you talk about all the research you do. I’ve done quite a bit and some of the things that I have seen and some of the things I have with me today are alarming. Some of the comments that have been made before this body were not factually correct. I have a problem with that. 43 Too often we are in a hurry to approve something and later on suffer the repercussions. But if somebody, we just got through talking about tax increases and many of you were vehemently opposed to tax increases. But if somebody’s going to come and show me how they can save us twenty plus million dollars I’m going to take the time to listen if I’ve got to order pizza for dinner tonight. We owe that to the people that we represent. And for too long we have made up our minds before the meeting and we come out here just to punch the button. But things are going to change. Things are going to change. I mean Augusta is going to have to move into the st 21 century and I think now is the time for us to start making that move. Mr. D. Smith: Who’s in charge? Mr. Jackson: Who’s on first, what’s on second? The Clerk: You can elect you a spokesperson until the Mayor Pro Tem gets back so do you have somebody? Mr. Lockett: I move that Bill Fennoy be the spokesperson. Mr. Speaker: Second. Mr. Lockett: Bill, you’re it. Mr. Fennoy: Mr. Wiedmeier --- Mr. Wiedmeier: Yes, sir. Mr. Fennoy: --- what we’re proposing today is this something that has to be done today? Mr. Wiedmeier: Yes, sir. I understand there is a window of time that we can we can get our reserve funds out. Jim, you may be able to speak to that. Mr. Plunkett: There’s a reserve fund of approximately $11 million dollars that if we can go ahead and refund these bonds on the current schedule that $11 million dollars will be nd available October 2 excluding $3.4 million dollars I think approximate $3.4 million dollars that would have to be reserved for this new bond issue. So we get about $8 million dollars available for projects. Fundamentally what we’re talking about is whether or not this should be done as a competitive process or a negotiated process. I mean to make this a little bit simpler than all of the other issues the savings are predominantly the same arguably from one way or the other it’s just the methodology that you use. And so the resolution you have before you is to go forward with a competitive bid. And you know if ya’ll are able to entertain today that would be great. Dianne McNabb, your financial advisor’s, here. IFS is here as well both of whom or all of whom are from Atlanta so if ya’ll have the ability to indulge them today that would be gracious in my opinion but that’s ya’ll’s call. Mr. Fennoy: Okay, so from what I understand what we’re voting on now is not necessarily the company but --- 44 Mr. Plunkett: If you were to do a competitive bid and Dianne can kind of walk you through it a little bit more but basically it would be put out into the marketplace to see who would win the rate. If you do a negotiated process you would do an RFP for an underwriter. IFS is one company amongst many companies that are underwriters. And so there’s a question you know arguably it’s like is it better to do this process through a negotiated process with an underwriter or go out into the competitive market in that regard. And that’s fundamentally what you’re talking about in this action. The goal to get it done by October 1, October 2 is to release some of the reserve funds for projects and that’s the urgency. And also you have market rate issues and again IFS, Dianne can certainly talk more to that, but as rates change your savings is going to adjust and so you’re trying to do this relatively quickly to make sure that you can lock in a rate. And so that’s, the big issue for today I think is competitive versus negotiated. And if you go negotiated then it’s selecting the underwriter. Mr. Fennoy: Okay and back to my original question how necessary is it that we do this today? Mr. Plunkett: If we don’t start the process and not have Special Called Meetings but just to follow the typical agenda processes in order to release the reserve funds and it’s my understanding they’re only available to be released basically October of each year. So if we don’t act on a process today or very quickly we’re going to end up having to wait until 2015 to get the reserve funds and it just means that you’re kind of borrowing a little bit more money or not have the use of some of those funds for another year. I mean it’s not critical, I mean it’s not like the bonds are coming due, it’s your ability to refinance them now and make savings and the reserve monies are the other part that’s a part of this issue that driving the timeframe. Mr. Fennoy: But there’s no guarantee that if we decide to take action today that two weeks from we could possibly get a lower rate or we could possibly get a higher rate. th Mr. Plunkett: The bonds themselves, the rates would be priced around September 17, th September 27. It coincides with the meeting schedule for this body. So that would be the date the rates would be set whatever the market is there. But there’s a number of processes we have to have voted you know to move forward. We have to have validation of the bonds and that takes approximately 20-25 days so we have to you know there’s a calendar issue that we’re trying to move forward with. And, you know, if this body says move forward then we start the validation 20-25 days there and then there’s a pricing about a week later which is the setting of nd the rate and then we get the funds on October 2. So that’s why we’re trying to not hurry it up but get it you know if it’s the will of the body to act if, it’s prudent to act now as opposed to later because you have the reserves we could get out. And that’s why we’re trying to get this moving forward. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: I was taught to respect my guest when they come in and we’ve got a guests and I’d like to hear from those. I mean I want to hear both sides of the coin. I mean can 45 we hear from I guess as our rates or what we’re doing if we’ve got to do it today can somebody speak to that please? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yeah, we can have a representative from IFS and Ms. McNabb if you want to speak as well you can speak. Mr. Speaker: Good afternoon Commission. I’m here joined by our CEO David McKenzie excuse me Alex McKenzie and our colleague Dan Weeks head of our Underwriting Department and we’re very glad to be here in front of the Commission. I really enjoyed today’s meeting understanding the difficult issue facing the Commission and they are difficult issues that are being faced by many cities across the country. That’s why our firm has been called on in many times to assist cities in tough situations because they require innovative solutions to the problem. First I would like to address we submitted a proposal Saturday to the Commission and handed it out today where we adjusted the original proposal and brought the twenty-two and a half millions in savings up front so that that would be cash available on close in the project fund. Now we’ve been talking in the back room with some of the attorneys and there seems to be some disagreement about how the city can utilize those funds. We had an attorney on who said he we have an attorney who says we can believe we can create, look at ways that the city may be able to access those funds for other areas. One of the things they discussed with us that there’s $30 million dollars’ worth of capital improvement projects in the Water and Sewer Fund and I agree that’s one thing that’s there but there’s also the funds for the Police who need their money and there’s also funds needed for this. So what we would propose is our idea that we revise to bring the twenty-two and a half million up front and what I proposed to the working group in the back was that we take the next weeks and we sit down with our attorneys, their attorneys to sit down and work together to come up with all of the options available that can be presented to the Commission and then we come back and we put them all on the table. And it’s upon with that information that you as the Commissioners can make a decision on which direction to go. Now I would say that the assertion that the underwriters were required to go under an RFP is an incorrect assertion. The underwriters come to fall under the professional services and so on a negotiated sale the Commission certainly could select IFS as the underwriter just as they did without the bond counsel that was selected. There was no RFP in 2013 for that position or excuse me 2014. Your last financial advisor RFP was over eight years ago and I can provide you with the Government Finance Office’s Association best practices which says those contracts should be reviewed, renewed and RFP’d every 3-5 years. So I think to say that while we can hire our lawyer’s advisor with no RFP but we have to use and RFP for the underwriter is not correct and so we would like to first just make the point that it is within the power of the Commission to do that. Second this is a critical issue facing the Commission and twenty-two and a half million dollars in a lump sum in this Water and Sewer fund department which our idea is there are ways that we could look at possibly having the city borrow, do an inter-fund borrowing and have a repayment plan so that you could use some of that. There might be other ways to look at how you may do it. You may want to satisfy all your capital improvements but the structure that they’re currently proposing only takes, gives you that service on a that savings on annual basis and with a city, your $30 million dollars in a capital improvement need and other needs that are facing the city we think it’s prudent to take the twenty-two and a half million dollars up front and then make some decisions based upon what’s within the law and the Georgia State Law the federal law to deploy those funds where appropriately for the city government. As 46 the lawyers said there’s no difference between the two but I do want to explain something that I think is a misnomer within the competitive and negotiated sales. Within a competitive sale your last competitive sale I think when you showed was had a price per bond of $13.00 dollars per bond and was that’s much higher than normal sales. We just did a Triple A financing we bought on competitive bid with the state of Missouri and the fee on that was $15.00 a bond. And the reason is quite simple and I’ll make it very simple. The competitive bid process says you have to show up on a specific date at a specific time and buy my bonds and you have to buy them all at once. And so because the rules change for banks in terms of the way they can hold municipal bonds on their books the capital requirements have changed so where they used to be able to do that fairly inexpensive the regulations changed so for now when they take those bonds on their books it costs them more money and as a result you will see and we have shown that the spreads are higher are moving higher in competitive bonds. That’s why within the total marketplace approximately 80-85% of the issuers do a negotiated sale as opposed to a competitive sale. The other thing that we thought was very important is we think it’s very important that the citizens of this community be invested in their community and under a negotiated sale we are able not only to premarket locally but we can make available to all the local brokers if you are a registered financial advisor (infinera) local broker in Augusta we will make them a selling group member. And as a selling group member we would recommend to the Commission that you have a priority that those citizens of Augusta who want to buy the bonds get first priority, first choice. Now you can’t and that’s very significant because in a competitive sale what happens is is a group comes in they buy it and if Madam ‘A’ in Augusta wants to buy some bonds she calls her broker, he has to call the group that buys it, they mark it up for a profit, she gets it he marks it up for a profit so the citizen is getting it after it’s been marked up two times by their advisors. However in a primary sale under the way we’re proposing it the citizens of Augusta would be able to access and buy those bonds at the offering price which is typically the lowest price of those bonds we’ll trade. And so as a result your citizens have access to these bonds and you’re investing them more into your process. The other thing with the negotiated sale versus a competitive sale is that if you choose a date and let’s say you chose this ‘x’ date and I think that’s what happened last year. I looked at the date that was when they were having the shut down possibly of the government there was a lot of turmoil in Washington lot of issues going so the market was very jittery. So on that date they charged you a very high fee that would ordinarily not be charged. In a negotiated sale we would set a date. If we saw that on that date we had news coming in that the, you know, there was issues that were surrounding the government or whatever news that possibly happened that would cause turmoil in the market we could say let’s take a pause let’s wait a week. It happens it happens quite often in these volatile markets. So it gives the city more flexibility. I’d like to note that the fee we’re charging is $3.95 that’s equivalent to the fee that was done in the 2012 deal transaction but it was lower than the fee that you received in your 2013 transaction. So we’re also teamed up with First Tennessee Financial which is $3 billion dollar bank, a very strong bank and so collectively one of the things that is needed as I listened here is that there’s more ideas need to be on the table more perspectives need to be on the table for you to consider. So the last 14 years you’ve gotten one perspective because prior to being your financial advisor Ms. McNabb was also your investment banker. By the way when she was at A.G. Edwards there really wasn’t a problem doing negotiated sales because that’s the way she bid them. And it wasn’t until she moved over that it became competitive. And we’re not saying that there’s any motive to that, what we’re saying is there needs to be a increase in the perspective of how these bonds are sold. And we hope to be 47 able to provide those ideas. We think that the idea we presented to you today is very worthy of merit and that the citizens of Augusta would benefit tremendously by having a thorough examination of how that twenty-two and a half million dollars could be utilized on behalf of (unintelligible). Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Commissioner Donnie Smith. Mr. D. Smith: Thank you. You really have talked about a lot of things and there are a couple of things that jumped out at me right away. I’m not really interested in taking money out of what it’s designated for in other bonds and moving it somewhere else. That’s just this Commissioner because the bonds are issues to deal with our water and sewer problem and when we move them somewhere else it becomes a problem. The old City of Augusta went bankrupt doing that so I’m not interested in that. And then we got a bunch of emails from ya’ll and you’re standing in front of me and everything you’re telling me is the truth. Is that correct, sir? Mr. Speaker: Yes, sir. Mr. D. Smith: And yet the emails you sent to us twice you have had to come back and say whoops, what we sent you was incorrect. Is that right? Mr. Speaker: No, that’s not correct, sir. We had one item where we made a correction as it related to the tenure of Ms. McNabb but that was a very minor correction, sir. And it wasn’t relevant to the specifics of the amount of money we were offering you, the rate we were providing you or the fee that we were providing you. So there was no error as it related to that it was (inaudible) and it certainly wasn’t did not have any malicious intent. Mind you we are trying to rebuild based upon the notes of the minutes of the meeting. We’ve gone back to the 2006 minutes and Mr. Weeks maybe you want to speak to how we came up with some of those that information. He’s speaking to the error we made regarding her dates, specific dates. Mr. Weeks: We were only off by about a few months there (inaudible). Mr. D. Smith: Well, since I’m doing, asking the questions and I respect that you just made an accusation that Ms. McNabb ought to be able to answer. Ms. McNabb --- Mr. Speaker: I wasn’t accusing her --- Mr. D. Smith: --- well I want to ask Ms. McNabb because I want to clarify a statement that you just made. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Ms. McNabb, would you come forward please? Ms. McNabb: Yes, sir. Mr. D. Smith: Would you give me some clarification on something that this gentleman just presented to us? 48 Ms. McNabb: Yes, sir. In their previous communications they have accused me of having directed business when I was employed by A.G. Edwards to A.G. Edwards for underwriting in 2000, 2002 and 2004. I was not employed had never set foot in the government center of Augusta until I was hired as Financial Advisor in 2006. So I had absolutely nothing to do while they accused me of having directed business toward A.G. Edwards in 2000, 2004 and 2006. Now in 2007 when I was your financial advisor we were moving forward with the refunding of the 2007 bonds and at that point in time Wachovia had been selected as your underwriter had been selected by the Commission as your underwriter. But and that was, those bonds were sold in October of 2007. Wachovia acquired and A.G. Edwards was not an underwriter on the 2007 bonds. In November of 2007 Wachovia acquired A.G. Edwards and knowing that was happening I specifically resigned as Financial Advisor in connection with the ’07 bonds. Although that acquisition had not taken place I resigned in an abundance of caution and that was fully disclosed in the official statement. So in no instance have I ever served as Financial Advisor to Augusta and had any relationship whatsoever to any of the underwriters of Augusta. And they have repeatedly accused me of that conflict of interest. Mr. Speaker: Well, I apologize --- Ms. McNabb: In addition --- Mr. Speaker: I just apologize --- Ms. McNabb: --- in addition Mr. Speaker: --- the last question. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Hold on one second. You can go on and continue Ms. McNabb. Ms. McNabb: In addition they have accused me of not providing adequate advice to Augusta in terms of the competitive versus negotiated sale. Frankly if I had been your financial advisor prior to that I probably would’ve recommended competitive sales at that point in time. But I do have information that will demonstrate that in every competitive sale Augusta has saved far more in interest costs then in issuance costs. Mr. Williams: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Yeah, Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: Thank you, let me interject something. First of all I don’t want to get into the he said she said or anything else. Ms. McNabb: Well I --- Mr. Williams: Well, let me finish. Now I was here during the time you served and I couldn’t have told anyone what position you had. And you talk about in ’07 and some changes were made so that’s an easy mistake but I don’t want to get into straining on gnats and 49 swallowing camels. I want to talk about the finances and what we can do for this government. It ain’t about where you were or what Commissioner Lockett asked the question to you when you was on this side. That same question that came up. Were you not an advisor or director or whatever it was in Finance. We sit here, we don’t know nothing but what you tell us. Ms. McNabb: Yes, sir. Mr. Williams: And I mean you I’m not talking about the Finance people who give us information. Ms. McNabb: And that’s why I have to (inaudible). Mr. Williams: Well, let me finish, let me finish now. We ain’t going to sing, we’re going to talk one at a time. But I don’t want to get into a competitive thing about who said what about what. I want to know what’s the best for this government. Even the proposal they’re bringing now the last time we was here that was an agenda item show but there wasn’t no date on it which showed the agenda item was saying that this is what we proposed. Before this firm came I never saw any of that. I didn’t. Ms. Williams I see Ms. Williams sitting back in the back but they showed the agenda item stating the same thing but I remember I didn’t see a date as to when it was brought. Now I’m trying to find out what’s best for this government. I’m not trying to find out who’s on first and what’s on second. Ms. McNabb: Yes sir. Mr. Williams: I want to know how much money that we can use or can get back or can save these taxpayers. So we need to stay on that --- Ms. McNabb: Okay, I’m happy to do that. Mr. Williams: --- and not worry about who said what. Mr. Speaker: One thing we would like to --- Ms. McNabb: I can tell you --- Mr. Speaker: --- I apologize --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Hold one second. Mr. Speaker: I apologize. Mr. Mayor: Okay go ahead Ms. McNabb. Ms. McNabb: What I have here is the amount how the interest rates differentiated in each one of your, in each one of your issues since the year 2000. And I’m sorry you can’t see the very beginning of it --- 50 Mr. Guilfoyle: Can IT set it up to where we can? Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Well, the writing’s so small you won’t be able to. Ms. McNabb: --- but in for the 2000 you can see that your interest rate was actually two basis points that is .02% lower than index rate for bonds the for the bonds sold on that day. Then in 2002 the bonds sold were zero. You hit right up on the index. In 2004 when the bonds were sold and negotiated your rate came in .04% lower than the applicable index for that issue. In 2007 you can see that your interest rates overall came in at .08 higher than index so you didn’t do as well as the index. But you will see that for the last two issues that were sold competitively your, the interest rates you achieved were .15% lower than index. That alone saved the county over $200,000 dollars a year in debt service. $208,000 dollars a year by that .15% lower in interest rate. Then in 2013 when we sold those bonds competitively those interest rates were .11% lower than the index, the applicable index --- Ms. McNabb: Ms. McNabb --- Ms. McNabb: --- for that day. Mr. Williams: --- I don’t have anything to compare that to. I hear what you’re saying, I see what you’re telling me but I don’t have a I don’t have no apples and oranges to look at. I got what you tell me and I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth but I need to look at something else. It ought to be a comparison I think. Ms. McNabb: That’s the comparison. If you look at their comparison is up there. The actual yields and then the index is up there and you can see how your interest rates were either higher or lower in each year and then what the average difference was. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, point of personal interest please. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Hold on one second, Commissioner Lockett, we’re going to have to get some order now. We’re ain’t going to be all night with this I’m just going to be honest we’re not going to be here all night with this. Mr. Guilfoyle: Call for the question. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Either we’re going to agree to do it today or we can put it off until next week but we’re not going to have everybody here all night and we’re not going to go back and forth. Mr. Guilfoyle: Call for the question. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: So let’s decide what can we come to a consensus on today because obviously we’re not going to get nowhere. Hold on one second let me get some consensus here. 51 So if it’s the will to move forward with this and take a vote or do ya’ll want to move it to committee. Mr. Lockett: Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, if I may. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Go ahead, Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: We’re not getting anywhere with what he said she said and I think it would be foolish on our part to vote to approve this at this stage. The question came up a while ago about why don’t we allow them a couple of weeks to sit down and work together and come up with something for this governing body because look I have seen --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: What are you talking about when you say we? Mr. Lockett: --- I have made the recommendation that they be given two weeks to sit down with the attorneys and I assume with Ms. McNabb and company because look --- Mr. Williams: Is it going to cost us anything, Bill? Mr. Lockett: Huh? Mr. Williams: Is that going to cost us anything to sit down? Mr. Lockett: No. Mr. Williams: Okay. Mr. Lockett: --- and --- Mr. D. Smith: But they’re not our employees, Ms. McNabb is. Mr. Lockett: May I speak? Mr. D. Smith: Sure. Mr. Lockett: Thank you. Because I don’t want to be calling names and I’m not going to scream and holler at anyone but some of the same documents that IFS has talked about I have access to them and some of the comments that have been made may not be completely incorrect but they’re not 100% correct. And looking at the history of what we’ve done over the years who these bonds have been given to either though there were other people that were fully qualified that didn’t get it. And you notice that A.G Edwards whom Ms. McNabb worked for up until I think November of ’07 at the same time Wachovia bought them Wachovia got to be it. So there a lots of unanswered questions and I’m not making any allocations. I’m not pointing any fingers but I would like to have some answers before we vote on this. Mr. Mayor: All right we have motion, we do have a motion and a second on the floor. 52 Mr. Speaker: May I (inaudible). Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: I’ll give you your few seconds here and then we’re going to move forward because we’re about to lose our quorum. Mr. Speaker: I would just like to ask one question what index are you talking about? Which index are you using to get these numbers? Ms. McNabb: The MMD index. Mr. Speaker: Off of what? Ms. McNabb: Off of Thompson Financial (inaudible). Mr. Speaker: No, no off of which MMD rating. Ms. McNabb: Triple A. Mr. Speaker: Okay I went back and looked at the deal on the competitive sale. Ms. McNabb: Those are the ‘A’ rated MMD’s. Mr. Speaker: No, no. No, no we priced, I trade bonds every day --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, hold on. We’re going to have to let ya’ll do this conversation outside. Right now we have a motion and a second on the floor. Mr. Williams: What’s the motion? Mr. D. Smith: To pass. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Madam Clerk is out. The motion is to --- Mr. D. Smith: Pass the agenda item. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Where’s the Clerk? Mr. Lockett: She probably couldn’t stand it no more. Mr. Guilfoyle: I know we save the best for last I see. Mr. Lockett: Let’s save the taxpayers some money. Mr. Guilfoyle: Yeah, let’s go ahead and move on then. 53 Mr. Lockett: No, let’s kick it back. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: I think the motion, Madam Clerk, is to approve the agenda item. The Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Williams: I call for a roll call vote, Madam Clerk. The Clerk: Okay. Motion made by Mr. Guilfoyle --- Mr. Guilfoyle: Yes, ma’am. The Clerk: --- seconded by Mr. Donnie Smith to approve agenda item number 30. Ms. Davis. Ms. Davis: Yes, ma’am. The Clerk: Mr. Fennoy. Mr. Fennoy: No. The Clerk: Mr. Guilfoyle. Mr. Guilfoyle: Yes, ma’am. The Clerk: Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson: Yes, ma’am. The Clerk: Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson: No, ma’am. The Clerk: Mr. Lockett. Mr. Lockett: No. The Clerk: Mr. Mason. Absent. Mr. Donnie Smith. Mr. D. Smith: Yes. The Clerk: Mr. Grady Smith. Mr. G. Smith: Yes. The Clerk: Mr. Williams. 54 Mr. Williams: No. Mr. Mason out. Motion Fails 5-4. FINANCE 34. Discuss the following ARC contractual requirement relative to organizations who receive SPLOST funding “Organization shall comply with the purchasing policies of Augusta-Richmond County regarding the advertising for bids, the securing of bids, and payment, performance bonds and contracting. Payments to any sub-contractor employed by the Organization shall be made directly by the Organization, subject to Augusta’s audit and approval. If the total project costs exceed the amount funded by Augusta and the Matching Funds, the Organization shall provide proof of other funding sources. Payments by the Organization t sub-contractors shall be made only upon presentation of verified invoices.” (Requested by Commissioner Marion Williams) PETITIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS 35. Motion to approve the termination of the contract between Heery International and Augusta, Georgia. (Requested by Commissioner Marion Williams) ADMINISTRATOR 36. Update from the Interim Administrator regarding the Municipal building. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Let’s get a motion it looks like we’re going to lose our quorum here in a second so we need to have a motion to send, well, we done lost the quorum. Mr. Guilfoyle: Donnie or --- Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: We need one of them back. Mr. Guilfoyle: --- can you use just one finger just to send everything (inaudible). Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: Donnie, can you come back to, can you come back to send, can you send this stuff back to committee. All right can we get a motion to send items 34, 35, 36 back to committee? Mr. Guilfoyle: So moved. Mr. Lockett: Second. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right we have a proper motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none vote by the usual sign of voting. Ms. Davis abstains. Mr. Mason, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Williams out. 55 Motion Passes 6-0-1. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem: All right, Madam Clerk, with no further business we stand adjourned. [MEETING ADJOURNED] Lena Bonner Clerk of Commission 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 August 19, 2014. ______________________________ Clerk of Commission 56