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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCalled Commission Meeting November 14, 2017 CALLED MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER November 14, 2017 Augusta Richmond County Commission convened at 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, November 14, 2017, the Honorable Hardie Davis, Jr., Mayor, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Jefferson, Guilfoyle, Sias, Frantom, M. Williams, Davis, Fennoy, D. Williams, Hasan and Smith, members of the Augusta Richmond County Commission. Mr. Mayor: Attorney MacKenzie. 3. LEGAL MEETING A. Pending and potential litigation B. Real estate C. Personnel Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to go into an executive session to discuss pending and potential litigation, real estate and personnel. Mr. Sias: So move. Mr. Fennoy: Second. Mr. Mayor: Voting. Ms. Davis and Mr. M. Williams out. Motion carries 8-0. \[EXECUTIVE SESSION\] Mr. Mayor: All right, we’ll call this meeting back to order. The Chair recognizes Attorney MacKenzie. 4. Motion to authorize execution by the Mayor of the affidavit of compliance with Georgia’s Open Meeting Act. Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to execute the closed meeting affidavit. Mr. Fennoy: So move. Mr. Frantom: Second. Mr. Mayor: A motion and a second. Voting. Motion carries 10-0. 1 th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 8 for a motion. Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I’d like to make a motion to approve the amendment of Pinetucky lease at Environmental Services landfill site to include approximately 20 acres as part of the lease. Mr. Sias: Second. Mr. Mayor: Okay, I’ve got a motion and second. Voting. Motion carries 10-0. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 4 for a motion. Mr. Sias: Thank you, sir. Motion to approve the appointment of Dr. Hameed Malik as Director of Engineering Services at a salary of $140,000 with a monthly car allowance of $500, effective November 18, 2017. Mr. Hasan: Second. Mr. Mayor: All right, I’ve got a motion and a second. Voting. Mr. M. Williams not voting. Motion carries 9-0. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 7 for a motion. Mr. Frantom: I’d like to make a motion to approve the amendment to the lease with Verizon Wireless for the cell phone tower site and easement thereto located at 1016 Oakdale Rd. for 5 years with three renewal periods. Mr. Sias: Second. Mr. Mayor: I have a motion and a proper second. Voting. Motion carries 10-0. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 6 for a motion. Mr. Hasan: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Motion to approve a three-year extension of employment agreement of Administrator Janice Allen Jackson. Mr. Fennoy: Second. Mr. Mayor: I’ve got a motion and a proper second. Voting. 2 Mr. Frantom, Mr. Guilfoyle and Mr. M. Williams vote No. Motion carries 7-3. st Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 1 for a motion. Mr. Fennoy: Mr. Mayor, I would like to make a motion to approve the DDA development concept for the Depot site for a $93 million dollar mixed use project pursuant to the preliminary development agreement and to authorize moving forward with an intergovernmental agreement with the DDA to provide for $14 million dollars in DDA bonds as public financing for the Depot Project. Mr. Sias: Second. Mr. Mayor: A motion and a second. All those in favor vote yea and those opposed vote no. Motion carries 10-0. Mr. Mayor: Outstanding. If anybody ever asks who are the hardest working people in Augusta, it is this commission. We’ve got a number of items on the special called meeting agenda. I want to draw everybody’s attention there. 1. Motion to approve the appointment of one from the following nominations for a four- year term on the Richmond County Hospital Authority: Eugene F. McManus, Daniel H. Boone, M.D., Levi W. Hill, IV. Mr. Mayor: In your package you have a letter also and that person listed first is typically the person that they’ve asked to be moved forward and that’s what I would ask this body in my conversations with Chairman/CEO Jim Davis as well and so you have those names in order of rank. Mr. Guilfoyle: A motion to approve Mr. McManus. Mr. Fennoy: Second. th Mr. Mayor: All right, so we’re going to recognize the commissioner from the 8 for the st motion and commissioner from the 1 for the second. Okay. Voting. Motion carries 10-0. 2. Motion to adopt the corrected Authorizing Resolution providing for approval of an Intergovernmental Redevelopment Contract between Augusta and the Urban Redevelopment Agency of Augusta, in support of the Foundry Place project to be leased by the Urban Redevelopment Agency of Augusta to Columbia Ventures, LLC pursuant to the referenced Lease Agreement, subject to incorporating the 3 modification terms contained in the October 2, 2017 Columbia Ventures, LLC memorandum to Augusta. (Deferred approval by the Commission November 7, 2017) Mr. Fennoy: So move. Mr. Sias: Second. Mr. Mayor: All right, I know there are questions. I want to try to answer those in advance. If you remember last week when we took action on this matter, there were issues raised by the th commissioner from the 6 about the documents. Those documents have been updated. They are now in the possession of our Clerk. She has those documents as to form and correction and they are there. That’s what you’re voting on. You approved it last week and your (inaudible) was let’s th get the documents cleaned up. All right, the Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 6. Mr. Hasan: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree with everything you said around this and I fully support when my colleagues take action. I fall in line and support it at this point. My only concern is that we did get a red-line in our agenda. For me I wanted to see the actual language where it was actually changed and we did not receive that. I think the Clerk might have sent yesterday a request for that and I still have not seen it. Mr. Mayor: Okay, so the red-line you have in your notebook – Mr. Hasan: I have the red-line. Mr. Mayor: And that red-line shows you what changes were made. Mr. Hasan: Yes, but go ahead. Mr. Mayor: And what we have in front of us we just have a copy that was printed out, it has the red-lines excepted and a clean document, is that what you would like to see? Mr. Hasan: I’d like to see a clean document. Mr. Mayor: Sure, absolutely. We can do that for you. All right, but what I’ve heard is a motion and a second. Would you like to have that before or after we vote? Mr. Hasan: Well, I think, Mr. Mayor, it’s just appropriate that we begin to try to see, because this is the same thing we had last week, that’s why we’re trying to finalize it this week because of the red-line issue and that’s something the attorney should have gotten to us knowing that that was a concern to see those changes made. The red-line doesn’t necessarily mean that’s going to be the final document. It may indicate that but it may not necessarily be. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Attorney MacKenzie, I’m going to put this on you. Mr. MacKenzie: I’m working on finding a clean version to print now. 4 Mr. Mayor: All right, very good. Mr. Sias: Go to item five and come back. Mr. Mayor: All right, we’ll got to item five and come back to it. 5. Motion to approve the Augusta On Ice Agreement. Mr. Mayor: In advance of us adopting this, Ms. Jackson, what I’d like for you to do is walk us through what the agreement is and the specifics of that so that those questions that the commissioners would have will be answered in motion if you don’t mind doing that. Ms. Jackson: I’ll walk you through the documents and then I’ll turn it over to Mr. Parker to talk through the agreement. Mr. Mayor: Let me draw everybody’s attention to the document of record. You had that placed on your dias right in front of you. You have a copy of that and there are two pieces of th paper. There is an email from the commissioner from the 7 with an invite attached to it and then there’s the second document, Augusta On Ice draft agenda item, special called meeting agenda. Those two documents you need to have in front of you right now. Ms. Jackson: In addition we also emailed out several documents and I don’t know if you have reviewed those. I’ll go over everything that was in the email package just for verification. As you indicate there is the agenda item. At the time we were initially approached, they were under the name Evans On Ice. They did promise us that they would have that changed. We provided the employer identification document from the IRS indicating that they are now registered now in the name of Augusta On Ice. Also provided a certificate of liability insurance indicating that they do have the required insurance to function on our property. There is also a memo from Mr. Parker to myself which summaries the event highlighting the fact that November 21 will be City Employee night for our employees as well as their family members to come in as long as the employee can show a city id. That’s going to be November 21. Also highlighting this is a one-year agreement with the idea that we will go through this year, see how things go and if they want to come back we will make any necessary adjustments in the following year. Also on the second page of that is a list of sponsors that have agreed to participate with the event as well as the beneficiaries of the funding raised from the event. And last there is the lease agreement. I’ll turn it over to Mr. Parker and/or our Law Department to review that as well. Ms. Chris Boerner is here from the Augusta On Ice organization and she can respond to questions as well. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Mr. Parker, Ms. Boerner. Mr. Parker: Thank you, Mayor. For those of you that haven’t met her, this is Chris Boerner. She and her husband Mike have been putting this together for the last five or six weeks, I would say, mid to late October we have been working with this group to craft out this agreement and the event that’s going on. You’ve all seen the lease agreement. I would be glad to cover to any level of detail that you want. I’m not sure how specific you want us to get, going item by item on this or if you want to wait and let us hear questions from you but I would say that basically 5 what we presented to the Commission back in October as the proposal that was going to go out there, we have stuck to that. That is crafted into the lease you see today. The Boerners have worked very well with us to create this event. As mentioned this is a one-year lease. We will sit down with them in late January or early February and craft out what we would hope would be a long-term agreement with this group. So I’ll be glad to go through any of the specifics or just address questions, whichever you prefer. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 5. Mr. Jefferson: I see your certificate of liability insurance. It’s customary that some companies are asked to be separately insured, additionally insured. Was the City of Augusta named as an additionally insured? Ms. Boerner: Yes, absolutely. Mr. Jefferson: Thank you. th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commission from the 7. Mr. Frantom: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First off, thank you, Glenn, and Chris as well. If you haven’t been by the Commons, it’s impressive. I hope all my colleagues will be out on Thursday night at the VIP celebration but I’ve been out there and they’ve put a lot of work and effort into this. I know this is the start of it and I hope there’s many more years to come. But I just want to thank Parks and Rec, Georgia Power’s (inaudible) that have been there to help with this event. I make a motion to approve. Ms. Davis: Second. Mr. Mayor: A motion to approve and a proper second. All those in favor will vote yea and those opposed vote no. Motion carries 10-0. Mr. Mayor: So back to item number 2. Now what’s in your notebooks which is the red- line (inaudible) clean copy in your notebooks I do not support. The clean copy that’s in your notebooks I do not support because it does not reflect the changes that were requested. I’m not sure what the difference is between what you just received, Commissioner Hasan, and maybe it is the original from 11/7 that’s in the notebooks. All right, very good. The Clerk: I call your attention to page number four and you would probably have your red-line copy and I’ll read the clean version. It would be item number four, number two. “The Mayor of the consolidated government is hereby authorized and directed to execute on behalf of the consolidated government the contract and the Clerk of Commission of the consolidated government is hereby authorized and directed to affix thereto and attest the seal of the consolidated government upon proper execution and delivery of other parties thereto provided that in no event shall any such attestation or affixation of the seal of the consolidated government be required as a 6 prerequisite to effectiveness thereof and the Mayor and the Clerk of Commission of the consolidated government are authorized and directed to deliver the contracts on behalf of the consolidated government. To the other parties thereto and to execute and deliver all such other contracts, instruments, documents, affidavits, certificates including without limitation rule 15C212 certificate and a continuing disclosure certificate and to do and to perform all such things as acts as each shall deem necessary or appropriate in furtherance of the issuance of the bonds in carrying out of the transaction authorized by this resolution or contemplated by the instruments and documents referred to in this resolution.” On page five, number three. “The use and distribution of the preliminary official statement and the official statement with respect to the bonds shall be and hereby authorized, ratified, confirmed and approved and execution and delivery of the official statement in the final form shall be and is thereby authorized and ratified, confirmed and approved. The Mayor is hereby authorized to direct to ratify, confirm, approve, execute and deliver the official statement on behalf of the consolidated government and the execution of an official statement by the Mayor shall constitute conclusive evidence of the Mayor’s ratification, confirmation, approval and delivery thereof on behalf of the consolidated government.” Number four. “The resolution and the contract as approved which is hereby incorporated as resolution by this reference shall be in place on file of the consolidated government and made available for public inspection by any interested party immediately following the passage of the resolution.” th Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 6. Mr. Hasan: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, there’s one more here. Can Ms. Bonner read number one on the clean version? The form there, terms and conditions. Paragraph 1, I’m sorry. On page four in the clean document. The Clerk: The forms, the terms, conditions, that one? “And execution, delivery, performance of the contract which has been filed with the consolidated government are hereby approved and authorized. The contract shall be substantially the form submitted to the Commission with such changes, corrections, deletions, insertions, variations, additions or omissions as may be approved as to form by the General Counsel of the consolidated government and the execution of the contract by the Mayor of the consolidated government whose signature shall be initialed by the General Counsel of the consolidated government shall be conclusive evidence of the approval thereof.” Mr. Hasan: Mr. Mayor, there may be some other things but I don’t want to get into the weeds around it but I would, number one, the one Ms. Bonner just read, three and four based on the nature of those things given the ability to revisit and make some changes if necessary, I would think those changes would require the attestment of your signature on those documents and not just the General Counsel attesting (inaudible). I think the Clerk’s signature needs to be there as well. Mr. Mayor: So I’ll hopefully try to clarify. Generally with the volume of documents that come through our office, we have a process and that process that begins with the attorney going through and for lack of another word affirming or certifying it as to form. Attorney MacKenzie or his designee typically will initial those spaces to alert me that process has happened. Once they come to our office, much to the chagrin of many in this government, I take time to read and they 7 don’t go back out the door the same day. So what you have heard is kind of the evolution or articulation of that process. Paragraph 1 and 3 that you most recently mentioned, having looked at a clean copy now, Commissioner Hasan, I will tell you are in order and I think we should take action. Mr. Hasan: I’d like to say one thing and I’ll leave it alone for the sake of not belaboring this point. Whenever you read one it said contract by the Mayor of the consolidated government whose signature shall be initialed by the General Counsel of the consolidated government. The General Counsel does not in my mind attest to the signature of the Mayor. Mr. Mayor: The Clerk does. Mr. Hasan: The Clerk does that. Mr. Mayor: That’s correct. Mr. Hasan: So that’s my point. That’s my point. Mr. Mayor: And, you know, how I’ve described it is effectively what happens. Attorney MacKenzie, he just initials, I’m generally going to sign those locations that he has initialed, but the Clerk, to your point, does attest to the signature of the Mayor so much so that on one late evening, Madam Clerk along with Ms. Morawski proceeded to come to my office and had a series of documents that they laid out in front of me and they said, Mr. Mayor, is this your signature because it’s changed through the course of my signing. And I affirmed to them that as I became weary with my hand, my signature became faster. Okay? Mr. Hasan: And you eradicate that by taking everything to the Clerk. That’ll solve that. That wouldn’t have ever happened. That’s my point. Mr. Mayor, if my colleagues are satisfied with it, I’m satisfied with it and I just wanted to bring that to the attention of the body. If they’re satisfied, I can live with it. Mr. Speaker: Call for the question. Mr. Mayor: Okay, the question has been called. The Chair recognizes the commissioner th from the 9. Mr. M. Williams: I agree with the commissioner. The Clerk has always codified those documents that come through and this is no different so I would think that would be a normal process that we can just do. The discussion (inaudible) be as much because that’s just another safety measure and that’s something we ought to be glad to accept. Putting more work on the Clerk now but (inaudible). Mr. Mayor: Well, I just did a poor job of explaining. I’m going to try it one more time, Ms. Bonner. Documents show up in my office. They have an initial on them and that’s all it is, an initial from the attorney’s office. That was what I requested. Are the documents correct? Many times documents show up and the numbers are wrong or something else. These things happen. 8 After I sign it, all documents go to the Clerk’s office for attestation and that is the process and has been the process and will continue to be the process that the Clerk is the final signature on documents in this government. The Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Fennoy: So move. Mr. Sias: Second. Mr. Mayor: And a second. Voting. Motion carries 10-0. Mr. Mayor: All right. I know there’s a lot of business still in front of us but I want to mention a couple of things. One, on tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. here in the Commission Chamber we’ll have what I believe to be our third budget workshop and fourth, three or four, but you should come prepared for the duration. We’ll do a lot of heavy lifting in that meeting on tomorrow evening starting again at 3:00. There are a series of things going on tomorrow that your attendance is expected at, I think one of those being the Starbucks groundbreaking for Phase II. That’s at 1:00 if I remember correctly. And then we’ll be here for that meeting. I also want to let everybody know that we’re coming to the close of this year’s United Way campaign. I have been asked to remind and ask every member of this body to make a contribution of $100 to the United Way campaign. I have been asked to ask every one of you so I’m following instructions and they tell me that the goal of $40,000 has been reached. That’s what they tell me so I should be preparing to put on a wetsuit. If they’ve reached that goal, that’s the largest amount that the government has raised. You should be very, very proud of that because that’s a good thing so kudos to the team for that amount this year. You also have before you an invitation from Engineering and Utilities th the grand opening of their facility is on Thursday I believe, November 16, 4 to 6 p.m. I want to make sure everybody governs themselves accordingly. Don’t even say it, Commissioner. All right, if there be no further business before us, Attorney MacKenzie, Madam Clerk? Mr. MacKenzie: That’s all I have. Mr. Mayor: All right, committee meetings. \[MEETING ADJOURNED\] Lena J. 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 Called Meeting of the Augusta Richmond County Commission held on November 14, 2017. _______________________ Clerk of Commission 9