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I. 00:00:05
This one, I'm sorry I missed you know this. 00:00:09
Welcome everybody to the 23 Million Council. Retreat is always an important day for us, as we'll see, we go through, but we'll be. 00:00:51
Trims to establish our priorities for the next fiscal year, which allows Aaron and her team to legit and plan appropriately for 00:00:59
the next fiscal year. Also to talk about longer range priorities. 00:01:05
The report for lunch from Councilman Campbell and Garrett around to their recommendation on historic reservation, thank you guys 00:02:19
for working on that and Kate and Sharon reporting on that. And then Chief Brock is going to walk us through some security 00:02:24
protocols as well after lunch. So if we need to change the order there, if you guys are CP it on the bond presentation, might have 00:02:28
to do some, might have to do some drills or something. 00:02:33
That's right. So anyway, that's an overview of the day. The thing I wanted to start with, I think it's always simple for any 00:02:38
organization I'm involved with is we're aligned on our vision and our values and what we stand for. So we agreed on this several 00:02:42
years ago. This body technically changed every year. We have elections that rotate through. So I just want to put this on the 00:02:46
screen and make sure we all still feel good about this. Obviously, if we need a bigger conversation on it, we can, but this 00:02:51
division values that council agreed to. 00:02:55
I think while we had mayor, Dave is our mayor. But it's important we circle back and make sure we all feel very comfortable 00:03:00
because the end of the day the values driven organization and this is not just a council but for everyone and see all that's how 00:03:05
you make our decisions. You look back at your, you look back your values and do you make your decision based on that vision and 00:03:09
values and what we're going to do there. 00:03:14
Anyway that's there, this is, this is the Watkins away. I want to sure we're still comfortable with these and this is it feels 00:03:19
like a foundation we can send on as lead the community. 00:03:24
So a minute to read all that. If we want to discuss it, we can. If if it's or not and we still feel good about that, then then we 00:03:29
can do it. If we need to make some changes, I'm all ears. 00:03:33
In a 16 take pictures. Any of you Angela has this format of the logo, stuff like that. Any of y'all want we can listen? 00:03:58
How do we feel about these things? Are there things we need to change? When you update? Do we feel good? 00:04:06
All right, Donna, you good, great, Jeff. 00:04:13
My part has begun to open. We had a great Christmas in Watkinsville, You know, Rocket Field plans finalized underway. City Hall is 00:04:50
a little bit different, in case you haven't noticed. You know all a year ago, if you park in this parking lot and want to get a 00:04:55
wheelchair or anything like that, you can do it. We had our rush out front. You know it. 00:05:01
You know we have some words that were right on the side building. We also had some things that we couldn't went for if you all 00:05:07
remember the what the roads height drops not Hydra, what was the river we had the plane with the layout after we paved it on. 00:05:14
Thank you and your thing for helping us on that and saving the taxpayers money. So really a great year also initiated the downtown 00:05:20
development authority and last year and continue to make progress on a tremendous amount of initiative so. 00:05:27
Really a great year for Watkinsville. It happened. 00:05:35
Force continues to. I think we got you back up to a respectful staffing level, Chief. 00:05:38
If you think about where a year ago in terms of force and stabilization what we needed, we had a tremendous amount of just a 00:05:42
tremendous amount of progress over the year and most that's not due to the folks. 00:05:48
Bob dies here, except Julie, which really does of Jaron and Julie and Lee WK don't all the work you're doing. We appreciate it. We 00:05:53
set a vision, we souls. We're not in everyday run up our season, get work done. So we really. 00:05:59
Really appreciate everything that you guys have done. The list very long and Jaren's kind of rolling through it. 00:06:05
I'm not going to read it, but I think it's true to the Watersville way that we discussed in terms of a mix of we're taking care of 00:06:10
our citizens, we're delivering on what their expectations are the most basic ways we're keeping them safe. 00:06:15
We're even the roads and the streets and everything maintained it ought to be. We're also reading those connections that we've 00:06:20
built community. So a lot of great work by all departments. Thanks to all of you all for that work and council thanks for doing a 00:06:24
great job in your committees and appear of pulling together to drop all that forward. So great you're sharing anything you want to 00:06:29
highlight 22 in particular. 00:06:33
There was a lot of work done and took all of us do it, so yeah. 00:06:38
Well, y'all, There's an old say. A lot of hands make for lifting. I know there's still light within everything all you'll do quite 00:06:42
a bit of lifting, but but you do wonderful. I will work together on it. We we really do. 00:06:47
Really do appreciate that. Excited about, excited about what's coming for those of us. 00:06:52
Here before there was a city manager, you know, and poor Julie felt like she was just running 90 miles an hour to everything done 00:06:55
and and was this constantly how we move this thing or how do we sing for it. So it feels really nice to be able to say these are 00:07:01
our priorities and then to be able to really check those boxes and have the resources to do so, so. 00:07:07
Anything you want to share, Any highlights at any had reflected back on this year? 00:07:13
I'm just news. Everybody got on. 00:07:19
I know what you're saying, having a very decision in your city staff, Police Department account. 00:07:24
Yeah. 00:07:32
We need the people to implement the ideas, and we've got an excellent. 00:07:35
Idea. 00:07:39
That. 00:07:41
No help on your microphone talks in case of any online, Yes. Yep, my first full year. Just see how everybody close together and 00:07:42
work together. It's pretty amazing to see that. 00:07:47
So congratulate everyone to do it. Do it. 00:07:53
Great. All right. 00:07:58
Those properties that would prioritize how we're going to fund and discount how staff is going to focus their energy in their 00:08:24
time. So this is a really important exercise into how we think about it and how we set it up because this is then what Jaron and I 00:08:29
are to go back and help a budget around to do for fiscal year 24. 00:08:33
When you spend, which is part of what we're doing with Oconee County. 00:09:10
Validate what is in this document, the strategic initiatives document for y'all say, Yep, those are all the things we want to do. 00:10:22
You've by not having any receiving comment about the short term program. I assume it all ones are they're colored Peach we're 00:10:28
going to say and there's not much adjustment to those. 00:10:32
But the ones that are in white that are on the list are the ones that are coming here. They're flowing forward for the short term 00:10:37
program of 20 to 2022. Are there things that were added last year when we had the retreat? 00:10:42
And they're reading it on those the orange and the white. Like, does the orange and white, yeah. 00:11:24
So. 00:11:28
I have. 00:12:01
Among the council members and does everybody just get two stickers or they're going to get 3? 00:12:36
And really, this is really for the budget. This is budget process. Again, as mayor, we're not removing anything from the list 00:12:42
unless there's something that everybody. 00:12:45
We're not going to consider that in the near term or whatever. So that's one whatever. But but this is really for a budget, this 00:12:50
is for budgeting. So how where do you want us to really focus our resources this next budget year and help us figure out where we 00:12:55
need to because I'm limited on people and money. Some of these things are going to be capital projects and those may happen. Your 00:13:00
bar is where they are priorities because those are those things that are we're going to talk about a little bit later about how 00:13:05
can funds and things. 00:13:11
Operationally, I only have so much staff and such money. So where do you want to put our time and ever? Go ahead, Christine, What? 00:13:17
Is there something that I feel need to be honest not? 00:13:22
For sure. 00:13:30
Well, I think let's go and discuss. I think this is the time we have some time back since we said earlier, if you have an idea 00:13:32
that you want to discuss it out there because you need to put out there now so people know if they want to say, Oh yeah, that 00:13:36
should be a priority. So let's talk about new ideas right now to group activity that would be healthy. So mine is sidewalk, I 00:13:40
think sidewalk need to. 00:13:44
On every year you know we we're doing, we've done great things you know with hard hill sidewalk all we've got a sidewalk on column 00:13:48
three and now the time to address connecting the call ferry sidewalk to Main Street and so that way I mean I envision kids being 00:13:53
able. 00:13:59
You know Christian Lake is you know, ride the bike, walk to school, cool back street, etc. This side of metric be able to get to 00:14:04
school. I also like the idea of. 00:14:09
South Main Street I I see corridors that I draw on there. 00:14:16
I think stuff main on the sidewalk side should be curb and gutter with a nice 8 foot. I don't know the multi use path. Why path? 00:14:20
Is that so? Entrance, aid and entrance to the city. What that also does is allows the residents an easy walk to downtown. 00:14:29
Because right now, being downtown. 00:14:37
For resident you're going to walk. Is not the sidewalk not the best narrow crack, your limbs overhanging and and several of the 00:14:40
ditches are. 00:14:44
The pipes are clogged so they can fill up. So it kind of helps alleviate two things. One was the mortar which is in here that 00:14:50
think is important, they can solve that and it also. 00:14:54
It creates a warning walk downtown, which I think we need to vote because we're going to be against. 00:15:00
You know the door downtown is going to be against Water Park. You want to look at it as a competition. You have the downtown 00:15:04
businesses that will be competing with Water Park. 00:15:08
You know what? A mother wants to go. Jennings was coming up. The idea buying some sets are doing some excuse there. So something 00:15:13
else come along. 00:15:16
Well then if the rail gets converted to trail, well that puts everybody along the rail line walking, visiting those businesses. 00:15:20
That is not me downtown. I think we will address getting to the historic downtown. 00:15:26
Now now. 00:15:32
Versus. 00:15:34
Those. 00:15:35
Full. 00:15:36
And then when they continue to have, you know, I think different amount of doctor office and lawyers offices, not the retail that 00:15:37
I want. 00:15:42
So. 00:15:46
That's something I think needs to be addressed. Those doing them. There's a discussion about **** shows. There was about 00:15:48
restriping it. 00:15:50
I think we could make that sidewalk into it, Attend the live pad once I narrow the road with the county on that. Is that what you 00:15:54
work hard downtown? Vice versa. 00:15:58
And then what you're saying is that part of our on page two, second one to export and activate opted transportation. 00:16:05
Pedestrian connectivity and I think, yeah, so I think and I know I'd like to take it. So this is really sort of a general goal, 00:16:16
you know, right. I'm real specific when we start talking about funding. 00:16:22
So we'll prioritize and activate today. You'll give some ideas we'll put on there next week, I'll have you actually say yes, I 00:16:28
want to designate you know, such money here, whatever, so we can get this project rolling. And those are the kind of things that. 00:16:34
These are some things I think about. I'd walk that. 00:16:40
And if you think long term that I do think we'll have an issue if we don't address getting downtown more easily. 00:16:44
Down to master plan is a big priority on here too, you know long term and now that we have their success, we're going to take 00:16:52
before we get to that but that's you know I think that's sort of the Holy Grail for the DA leadership there. So to be in a match 00:16:57
plan we include here's some recommendation areas in case we had some meetings with this owners where walkability has come up. 00:17:02
Already and then the other thing that. 00:17:07
I want over tossed through these spottes like I think there's some relative low cost places. Just those connections will be a big 00:17:10
difference. If you think about you know where school board offices are going to go to downtown, if you think about the colon very 00:17:14
sidewalk to the jet to South main sidewalk. How do we safely people So this place where it's not a huge project but we just 00:17:19
haven't had the resources to create those connections. 00:17:23
Important to prioritize those and I think politically get some quick wins on T Swiss money, you know, so my Sharon, how can we be 00:17:28
as soon as the money starts to come in here and quickly on some of this kind of super basic points? 00:17:33
So, but I think they're all those are all good points. 00:17:40
OK, So what do you say as looking to such a narrow? 00:17:43
The reason I'm asking is because it doesn't mean we're going to do more things. It just means we kind of get a better idea of the 00:18:18
group's priorities. Like, I'm just worried all that the five of us will say we'll have five different things versus beginning to 00:18:21
see some prioritization. 00:18:25
I don't have enough, so we could just, you could just make a mark or something, you know, when I was there you could make a mark 00:18:29
or something. 00:18:33
If everybody has a or maybe just say, hey, you've got the research receipt and forget the proposition. If there's anything, if you 00:18:37
don't think we should do put X by, how about that? 00:18:41
And then we can put it or something put your initials, how about this? Put your initials by something that you think we shouldn't 00:18:46
do. So that way Sharon knows is thinks it's not a great idea and we can go back and discuss if we need to. And it's not that we 00:18:50
don't we should do it. It's more that it should be pretty low on the priority. Well, there may be some stuff that don't think 00:18:54
you're doing. 00:18:58
I don't know. There was, there was some kind of weird stuff on the old list that was kind of like it probably doesn't need to fall 00:19:30
off, you know, well. So we had on pursue misuse development but you've done. I mean that may or may not happen no matter what you 00:19:34
do, you know. 00:19:37
And so it sounds like it might helpful, I said to provolts flexes taking more off the list and so just one off the list. So 00:19:42
anything they're like. 00:19:46
If you're sure, initially put an act if there's some that should. 00:19:51
We'd say we've done it, you know. Yep. All right. If we can, what I'd suggest you we're going to stay up, but just turn your mics 00:20:26
off. You guys can walk over and put your tickers on. We feel comfortable. You can grab from me. Take some time to do that. 00:20:31
All right. 00:25:14
So the point of that with the kind of allow us to sort shift priorities without necessarily having to walk through 40 items alert 00:25:18
plan. So hopefully an efficient way to talk about it looks like we've got a couple areas that. 00:25:23
If one top priority it looks like is exploring activating transportation plans. 00:25:29
And includes connecting sections of existing infrastructure and construction roundabouts indoor traffic calming mechanisms. 00:25:35
So and I did know that also wrapping that it does include the other items that talked about that includes things that people 00:25:40
highlighted, the retail potential opportunity it includes. 00:25:45
Mold their assignment bridge connector. It includes looking at I-17 Barnett tools, thinking we're going to talk a little bit more 00:25:51
about county roads later in conversation. So that was that. Four stickers that had the most that's I-14 share and of course with 00:25:58
the specs that had two stickers on them were the retail potential. 00:26:04
Sort presentation, which we're going to talk more about. There should be stickers from Jeff Councillor Garrett, that's all I know 00:26:10
but trials work on that. The downtown master plan has two stickers, I'm obviously prior so that's those are ones that have two 00:26:15
stickers and then the green space program has two stickers. Well. 00:26:19
Says are you want two stickers in the item of one the truck pass which dot is working on. So that's good hair Shoals master plan 00:26:24
again underway which is. 00:26:29
Storm water somebody somebody put a sticker on that tricky guy which we can talk a little bit more about later if we want to And 00:26:35
those are the those are the problems the things that we had some exes by or things were already done next to use that's gonna be 00:26:40
activated virtue of sewer policy and private sector. 00:26:44
We had two X's on symmetry expansion. 00:26:50
We had Exxon Arts Council with another. Someone thought maybe could leave that into the DA or empowered cat there. 00:26:53
Lights and signs picture list is growing here. Nobody said to do a with it, but somebody wrote DDA buy it check and exit view 00:27:01
process for down to business. Somebody wrote ADDA by Rd. DDA by that. 00:27:05
City Hall improvements. I know that those are virtually complete social media channels and that's being handled. 00:27:11
Establishment of a little History Museum partnership with the County Cultural Arts Foundation. We had 1X but that would love to 00:27:17
talk about a little bit. 00:27:20
And then to the frequency to continue hard working and barfest. 00:27:24
There was there was some exit by that so, so I think some things we can come that can come full was there. So that's where we 00:27:29
landed. How does it feel, you know, feel good. Is there anything that we heard on there that somebody's like oh gosh that's a 00:27:33
huge, I don't want to see that be deprioritized. 00:27:38
Again, with the caveat if some doesn't have an expired or have a stick on it, it's coming off us that's going to stay on the list. 00:27:43
This won't be a big priority in terms of budgeting and stuff energy in the year. 00:27:47
So that sounds about right. 00:27:52
We have historic reservation. 00:27:55
Yes, we had two stickers by sort of presentation. 00:27:58
I do want to. I'm the one I saw here that I'd like to advocate for. It doesn't be a party for this year. But I do think, and I 00:28:05
love Kate's perspective on this too. In terms of I think there is an opportunity for something involving the committee's history. 00:28:10
I don't know that it needs to. The city does. It might be in. 00:28:14
Like an OCAP partnership. But I continually have to come to be and are like I've got all the stories and thought about 00:28:19
partnership. The University of North Georgia on some kind of like Mayor Dave did at one thing Ashford dinner one time. I don't 00:28:24
know if y'all are that. We kind of had history fest there and students from North Georgia came and took video recordings work out 00:28:29
at stuff. But I've known where that is and what I'd love to talk to OCAF about potentially is. 00:28:34
If any of you open in the old gym that they're redoing that front hallway, even something simple having like some flat screen TV's 00:28:39
where we could have video playing loop or stuff index where? 00:28:44
I mean about winners visit Watkinsville. What do they, what do they do, right. In case you've probably got a handle on this, but 00:28:49
there's Eagle Tavern, we can walk around. The more I reflect on the area where capitalism, where school boards leave, that's 00:28:53
probably in terms of a concrete sort of historic area, you know that, you know, you can walk down there and you can tell some 00:28:57
stories, you can talk about the ball field, you can talk about the uses. 00:29:02
We're gonna have a really cool Hoosiers style basketball down back there at the old older buildings. I was just thinking, could 00:29:06
something like that work there again? Not already for this year, but. 00:29:10
Have thought about, you know, is there a way we can capture some of that history and race that can So I know there's a Bogart 00:29:15
History Museum but. 00:29:17
I've never been, John, ever been to the Art History Museum. What's it like? Is it just open one day week or something? You have 00:29:20
any idea what it's going to work? 00:29:24
Yeah. 00:29:29
Yeah, but is Bogart focused? 00:29:31
Is a book order open? 00:29:34
Yeah, OK. 00:29:38
So I've been to one in a row. It was surprising how thorough it was and was. I mean, I'm immediately I was just thinking priority 00:29:42
sometime, not that I don't think it's a good idea. 00:29:50
But I think the key, I think the reason that the X is to be successful, it has to have so much volunteer power behind it. And so 00:29:59
to me. 00:30:03
Or some places where. 00:30:42
If you want to go to Walking History Tour where Joanne isn't available to guide you on it, what do we have at 10 people? Can we? 00:30:44
Make sure I get this. So that is one of the odds that we were proposing for the short term for 22 to 23 to 27 that will go hot 00:30:52
plain. So are you wanting to leave it you don't want to make a priority in the next year you need to remove it all together. I 00:30:57
think that's not what's not making a priority next year. We have put on our place. I just want to call out I think there's but I 00:31:03
want to wait and I just. 00:31:08
I don't know that we've done the great job in a county of capturing our history. But then you look on the Facebook page, how much 00:31:14
people love in a joke can you hold your committee together? And then as you do people live here, I want to understand and 00:31:19
appreciate the history of the community move into. I wanted to be the sort of transactional relationship where I come here, put my 00:31:23
kids in schools or to work at the university. And then we all want to understand what makes us the way we are here. Yeah. 00:31:28
So I don't want to let go of it, I just want to call it out something I think we could probably do some incremental progress on. 00:31:32
But I agree I don't think we have the protocols that next year and also want you paid as you do thinking about. 00:31:38
What are our assets downtown? What? 00:31:43
At some point, the planning process after this, what are we going to emphasize? We try to get to Watchville, you know, history 00:31:46
maybe doesn't, but you know. 00:31:49
You know anyway just so just get some clarification on this. I know you've got the other master that you hold it for right now. So 00:31:53
the pursuit mixed development, I mean that's basically we're not going to look on the list. OK. All right. All right, thanks. I 00:32:00
mean I don't think we need to be out there as a definition of those given the the market I think. 00:32:06
Yeah. 00:32:18
Just have a couple of winter I understand. I want to make sure when I get give you back the document part that I understand. So 00:32:19
it's chair we're taking off completely I don't think nobody. 00:32:23
I remember where that idea came from, but I don't because anybody sitting here thinks the greatest of our dollars has expanded 00:32:27
here and then the arts capital is something that's going to, it's just going to be a lower priority. Same thing we talked about. 00:32:32
It's going to be part of the DDA to make sure I understand that. And then. 00:32:36
And we're going to move City Hall improvement, right? Go down it pretty much. I didn't, she said. It worked. Yeah, we we will be 00:32:43
probably, what, next month. 00:32:47
Can you tell Kemp what's being right now? I don't know if they're wearing what's going on the Police Department, that's where. 00:32:52
Yeah. So the Police Department and the kitchen, which is primarily used by the department, there's, you know, some of us did too, 00:32:57
but the chief is trying to provide some now that he's a full staff based on top of each other. So we're trying to create a little 00:33:02
bit of space to this. 00:33:06
The entranceway on the other side, which never comes through because everybody comes through the door, They convert that air into 00:33:12
office space with sergeants. We're currently on this end of the building. If you go on that side, we're going to be shipping Lee 00:33:18
into the sergeant's office and she's got a couple things we need to find. She's a bigger area to try to track of all that stuff. 00:33:24
And then I'm not sure if you decided all that, but the her office then may become, what did you call it, the crime room. 00:33:29
It may become, we're not sure it's going to end up being like the space where he has the they bring somebody in that needs to be 00:33:35
calmed down you know that I'll that'll be the space or one of the music for the digital assistant. We're having a real time find 00:33:40
anybody for the position that was a part time basically a contract labor position that would help us provide additional support 00:33:44
for Municipal Court and for the police. And I don't know how many applicants are going through but it's not going very well right 00:33:48
now so. 00:33:52
But so that's basically until we figure out but and the kitchen is in desperate need of upgrade and so we're working on getting 00:33:57
that and hopefully that'll be done probably the next couple months. 00:34:02
I think we can show you at the break whatever Christine's got ideas. 00:34:10
A new access point or things like that, but we can get it as we move into allocations and things like that, so. 00:34:44
Staff John, anything. I mean I know you know This Is Us talking about is there anything that. 00:34:51
Would suggest that we haven't thought about at this point in terms of strategic initiative for all years. 00:34:56
So y'all, don't be shy. 00:35:00
Is there something that you wish on the list that you have seen? 00:35:02
I'm a big fan of inclusive planning because if we're hearing from guys, you guys are out there doing this every day, which counts 00:35:06
this week. 00:35:09
They're basically all represented. 00:35:16
Taking forward caused and then. 00:35:27
You know, adding equipment, adding training. 00:35:30
He does where we want to go, OK? 00:35:37
You know. 00:35:40
Separating mark out more to do more. 00:35:42
Some of the beautification, some of that stuff is great. OK, all right. Absolutely. 00:35:47
On the cemetery was part of the possibility, taking that off, understanding cemeteries old Is that right? 00:35:53
Kind of a little bit of a challenging thing. So the city doesn't really own the people who have the plots, own the plots. It was 00:36:02
the church years ago. 00:36:05
And we take care of it, but we don't really. I mean it's a very awkward kind of, you know, and there's there's some things we 00:36:13
don't know about others we know there's an area back where the ground penetrate or we know there's a. 00:36:17
Bodies, but there may be some other and it's just it's a kind of unique. 00:36:22
I thought I heard kind of fool. Well, it's full. It would be nice. Was more room for anyone wants to bury it. I don't know. 00:36:30
You do have a place in there and if you're going to get the whole thing of something that usually owns space, they're not really 00:36:38
administration over this area that so. But as far as I know, I know when Mary's mom passed away, then you got missed and he died. 00:36:45
There wasn't and I think. 00:36:52
When did? 00:36:59
Every that help thanks for her Emory Harden that got space for over there though but it was because they found that they have 00:37:00
we've had people walk in and say my mom was supposed to carry their you got to give us you know she should have something changed. 00:37:05
She owns a lot this is you know so it's it's a kind of a inner order specifically. We don't take all that responsibility It's 00:37:10
really kind of weird basically but. 00:37:14
I didn't know, yeah. So I don't want to get isn't like, explain it necessarily, Yeah. 00:37:20
It's a tricky thing, you know, but I think it's just. 00:37:25
Non governmental sectors and my experience to carry on with other churches or funeral homes or whatever. 00:37:29
Because Jim traveled, the Mama would try to bury their doors. And there's no, there's no way to figure it out. And it's not just 00:37:35
had many plans, you know, And so had those other options. 00:37:39
All right. Thank you all. 00:37:43
Is that strategy plan to come through that what we will a bit different on some big opportunities that we discussed, but to 00:37:46
actually have some some conversations around the items and make sure that we have a line of these are things that are either 00:37:50
having or likely to have in the year ahead. One of the things I want to talk about if you all remember last year we approved a 00:37:55
charter. 00:37:59
That charter then went to our state legislators and Joe I don't remember top your head the big differentiators in the charter to 00:38:04
our legislators and they did not move forward during the legislature session. Let me just finish and I'll let you weigh in. So 00:38:09
they they move it forward and I want your thoughts on do. 00:38:13
Do you want me to go back to them and ask to move it forward again? So it really requires it with our Senator Douser and 00:38:19
Representative Weed our to agree move it forward as local legislation with one other item, the establishment of a public 00:38:23
facilities public, what's it called, the Public Facilities Authority that we have asked them to move forward with. We all approve, 00:38:28
but I wanted to circle back to the new charter and see if that's something that you all want to go back to them and ask them to 00:38:32
move forward. 00:38:37
With Joe, if you if you recall off the top, your head about strikes the differe. 00:38:42
So would it use any? OK, two questions. One, doing a why didn't move forward? Did it just get just looking at cracks or is there 00:39:56
any reason why they wouldn't want it to And does it use any political capital that would be better use elsewhere? 00:40:02
The answer, the first question is there was a little bit blowback from the previous mayor situation and we have one legislator who 00:40:09
just wasn't sure how that all finished out and whether this was you know and I think. 00:40:14
So I think I'm just at the bottom of the island. I didn't put it, you know, second should I mean it's just a legitimate. It's not. 00:40:20
I think it's a big deal to move something like this. 00:40:24
There is one provision here that we added for the reason that I am old it concerned out and that's we have requirement in it that 00:40:28
we change orders helping in. 00:40:31
Every five years. Now it doesn't seem like a big deal, but. 00:40:36
Are right now. Well, be just be blunt. There's it's really hard to find a good order right now for small. 00:40:40
And then when you change. 00:40:46
There's a year that it's just sort of messy on top of that and so. 00:40:48
I don't know if you know, we need to look like for the charter and see that five year clock starts ticking. 00:40:53
In terms of the moving from QuickBooks to the financial software, so the last thing we want to do is auditors. A year we're 00:41:28
changing financial software. We've kind of run QuickBooks and some of the basics on having to move, having to move to a new 00:41:33
system. So that is that's just a very practical concern that has raised and auditors raised. 00:41:39
I just haven't. I'm having that art policy to charge me a mistake. We want to adopt A policy around it. Then we could have a 00:42:12
policy but not have it be so char driven, which then it's like it's impossible not to and then that allows to be responsive to the 00:42:16
market only. Did you have a comment? 00:42:20
Umm. 00:42:26
They say that that was recommended before, but now they they're not recommend changing. 00:42:27
And I think the other thing I think about is all the auditors have professional standards. They're they're not going out and want 00:42:33
to do this one. They all have to, they all have. 00:42:36
For them to adopt, I don't think you know, we'll be able to get something through and then deliver it to them with the appropriate 00:43:40
amount of readings and things that we can do to make a tweak. 00:43:43
That's the. 00:44:53
Rocket field. 00:44:55
If you've been by Rockfield lately, you've seen the progress that they're making, but we also knew there's a part of it that our 00:44:57
partner is covering in terms of their expenses, 3/4 of $1,000,000, But we knew that we would also have some expenses associated 00:45:00
with that. 00:45:04
Sharon and I just want to walk through. We have a slide on that chair and we're going to. 00:45:08
All right. All right. So we don't have a sort of line item, so more expecting. OK. 00:45:15
Look at that number if we can, because we need to kind of outline what some of those expenses are. 00:45:20
I was moving around with enough time to make sure to understand. So what is this is a snapshot of this lobster project right now. 00:45:27
Remember we don't have specific projects that weren't approved by the referendum amount of money that was approved. We as a as a 00:45:34
council you guys have approved so much for each of those call buckets, each of those buckets and so you'll see in the in the 00:45:41
second column that would be the amount that we're approved right now. So we we budgeted based on 83% at the. 00:45:48
To the right of that show that 83%. So technically you can go up the amount through those but cannot exceed that by law. So we 00:45:56
predicted lower and projected about 83 to 85% total reflections. But because he's lost task, I'm making a recommendation and this 00:46:04
meaning if there seems to be some mention doing that, that we would reduce the road, streets and British portion in order to all 00:46:12
the other ones at the Max level. So basically you're moving, I would say that the 540 you're moving in the park to 1.356. 00:46:20
And then multicultural facility 3-4 and then that many registries bring us this decrease that which is 300-8000. 00:46:28
And what that means is that 300,000 in there will be purpose and use out of T slot money. So we're just shipping things around it 00:46:33
to maximize as much as we can to other areas. And because of that if you see well and I know that it's typically on this lot 00:46:37
beyond. 00:46:42
But there is. There's already money in. 00:46:47
Read. 00:46:54
There is $100,000 Y'all detonated commercial park. There was only $50.00 in rocket deal and the result of shifting things around 00:46:57
from. 00:47:01
You know the new lights that they're going to do. 00:47:38
There's I think some of those dollars so so in terms of getting the big ball field also electrical for the fall festival. So all 00:47:41
of a sudden instead of having if you've ever been out there watch how they wire up for the fall festival. It's an elections 00:47:45
nightmare you know in terms of next court and. 00:47:50
It's a CW nod, said. I mean, he's dealt with electrical issues out there before, so we're going to have completely modern 00:47:55
electric. So when we need when if there's a fall festival, if there's another event at Rocket Field, we flip a switch in the in 00:47:59
the, in the Scores tent, in the concession stand and all of a sudden the exterior electric light up, people can plug in and they 00:48:04
begin to use that. 00:48:08
We're gonna run a little high speed Internet out there. So because for Wi-Fi one of the big challenges of all festival for the 00:48:14
vendors is how do I, how do I take electronic payments you know assistance overwhelmed you know and then people do is Wi-Fi for 00:48:19
them. 00:48:24
And then the other thing that we're considering as an add-on is should we do some additional light poles, lighting that looks more 00:48:30
like downtown lights. So we people want to walk around there at night. The Big Lots are off. 00:48:35
Does if you go down school St. in particular. 00:48:40
Or secretary. I mean, it's really dark back there, so we want to put in the infrast. 00:48:43
Well, we've worked people out. There can be much more cost. 00:48:48
Then go back and the potentially a small sort of climb or some sort of activity at the field for younger deployment you know. 00:48:51
You know, if they want to go there and play or if they're siblings or the at the ball fields and then also potentially some funds 00:48:58
for the, you know, for the stage in that area. So that comes back to city sharing and I work on getting those numbers finalized 00:49:03
and I think you know brothels are underrepresented out there. He's basically already paid for himself with the work that he's 00:49:07
doing and saving money with George Howard and others doing a job of being a call at 8:30 this morning already out there with the 00:49:12
contractors you know. 00:49:17
Because they're going really fast. 00:49:22
And they're going really fast. If I need somebody to look every day and are you doing, you know, doing what, what the country 00:49:23
says. He's doing a great job with that, so. 00:49:27
But our number probably is going to come in around 95300 for this maybe a little more. The majority of majority that's the light 00:49:31
electric the field. 00:49:34
But that's AI think that's a 450 year estimate. I mean last slides were put up by hot hummus and somebody else and you know kind 00:49:38
of just they were done and they lasted a long time. You know this is the same sort of investment that we'd be looking to make 00:49:41
Toby. 00:49:44
We went into getting electricity. 00:49:50
And now all that be within the city preview and it'll basically offer those inside of the new session. 00:49:56
And then all what runs the? 00:50:15
Yeah. 00:50:18
When we our knowledge that this course is that call to Gordon Power, but I'm sure around. 00:50:19
So this is, it's a it's a sizable investment, but I think it's you know again this is one of the things that's a long term 00:50:31
investment and if we had to, we had to upgrade the park ourselves, there's no we could have ordered to do it. 00:50:36
But this is, this is so, this is your this is your list of things this time they want to decide on this right now, but I want to 00:51:09
update. All this will come back at the council meeting. 00:51:13
Mental transparency for the public, but we just wanted y'all to see this in terms of where we are, our society, expense. 00:51:18
Well, for me it just makes a lot of sense to not halfway do this project because yes, I mean that's a big number, but in 00:51:23
perspective it's not a big number at all and it will. 00:51:28
Make such an impact. So I would say that if we can do all of these things that we then we do have a spot on e-mail. Makes sense. 00:51:33
Let's do, let's do it right. 00:51:37
And you guys will get this is I don't prepare to give you the detail today because I want to we're going to have this high level 00:51:42
discussion but for your premium this next week I'll get more of the details how I'm recommending going to reprogram the Sun. So 00:51:47
right now in Parks you have half $1,000,000 set aside for grant match. If we get that order our stewards program which you know 00:51:53
we've been trying to get different things but don't know about that until the end of this month or next month. 00:51:58
But you have half, $1,000,000. So if all else fails and we don't get the grant, you have $1,000,000 to use the parks. You got some 00:52:04
money there. Plus you have the thousand was already set aside for the park, so you've got 600 just for the park. So here, Shoals, 00:52:10
no hair Shoals. I'm sorry I didn't make that. 00:52:15
My recommendation was to be there had an, I'm sorry there in 345 to 5. 00:52:20
100,000, I'm moving at 245 down to Rocket Field because it needs to be activated. Something that happened and I think you still 00:52:25
got money, you know you still got some little room. We don't get rent, you've got some room to do some work with that half 00:52:30
$1,000,000 it was already air more so and then because there's. 00:52:34
Seems like pretty good deal, you know. So anyway, I'll give you more detail on the pack for next week. So I'm recommending on 00:53:10
that. Can you speak to your earlier enrollment what you can get money in for downtown to have kind of a meeting green space like 00:53:16
this that you know that it will be flexible and people be able to use them, I mean. 00:53:22
Just to get close enough. You don't have to get right on that. 00:53:28
I think several of us discussion, I think Jeff hit and on the head you know being able to walk to downtown. So I think if if we 00:53:32
can get the connectivity all put down I think. 00:53:37
But in terms of I'm just going to think about visitors landing downtown, you know, or families. I'm trying to, you know, if 00:53:42
they're at a restaurant, we want to keep them down there, you know, is it do you think is is that going to be helpful? It's easier 00:53:46
to say, hey, it's a destination. We can, I mean like you see that working. Definitely. I think so there's something there for them 00:53:49
to do. OK, All right. 00:53:53
Yeah. 00:53:57
Playground at math will be good. 00:53:58
Something along that line. 00:54:08
Hanging out there on the. 00:54:11
You got to go have one chopped pot, some things where you bring your lunch over there and put a dog and run a dog. 00:54:15
Get to Rockville that night, right? 00:54:26
It also means the stretches are down into the possibility of doing something. 00:54:29
That direction. 00:54:37
I think the coolest walk is actually down school St. and down. That way, you know it feels like you know you can have. 00:54:40
It's just interesting vibe there, you know. And so I think anything we can do to increase that, make that feel like an easy walk 00:54:44
or an interesting walk, you know, is a positive. There's other things long term we can look at it at court. 00:54:48
Right. Yeah. Where's he's like, hey, this is a, oh, there's light that knows a reason for me to walk down there and see that. And, 00:54:54
you know, there's better Suns out in Watkinsville and Rocket Field Sunset. You know, So I mean that's, you know, to me, that's the 00:54:58
other place if you want nice even to bear when the sun's going down there, you're watching your kids play ball or whether you're 00:55:02
just sitting out there. I mean, it's just, it's like I can watch the sun go down of those trees. I think we'll have more people 00:55:05
out there once we create. 00:55:09
Some options, but it's going to be you know. 00:55:14
I don't think they're going to be so busy, but I think it's going to be a that you're going to. 00:55:16
We're going to more people want to spend time. 00:55:20
OK. All right. That's Rocket Field update. I just wanted I can go and fast. I just like we always take a pause and let them know 00:55:24
where we are on that. 00:55:26
Any other questions on Rocket? 00:55:31
All right. 00:55:34
Mayor Pro Tem Parish schools. 00:55:35
A little shift in what we originally planned with the officials old playground. A couple reasons for that shift. We really thought 00:55:39
that we could affordably save a chunk of the whole playground and the purpose of it to move like a gonna be walk getting 00:55:47
professional out though to evaluate it. It would be very expensive to do that and would also be kind of very expensive Band-Aid. 00:55:54
It wouldn't even last very long. So the subcommittee has made the recommendation that we and in that portion of it. 00:56:02
The the new kind of possibility is getting such tremendous. 00:56:10
As I've been sitting here. 00:56:15
This is even a particularly today so and one of the things that ESP had had always encouraged us to think through is not to have 00:56:18
like that's the playground for you know people disabilities and then here's this other playground that we're going to play on. So 00:56:24
it is going to be completely demolished. 00:56:30
And what are where that you're wanting to hopefully be purpose some of that and to kind of honor the heritage of that and so many 00:56:37
people have had so many good to raise a point on the playground of the years. 00:56:42
Is to do some public art, and so our goal is to eventually have. 00:56:47
Different artists basically kind of line the walkway between. 00:56:54
To the top, take that penalty walk as well especially it might help me be able to parking needs. If if that is really compelling 00:57:02
then parents are going to park down there and have it be on way to bring their kids up. So it is going to all be all of the art 00:57:07
will have an emphasis on. 00:57:12
Local flora ivana that could be found in park so not like uniforms and. 00:57:18
Players, but you know more like boxes or butterflies or. 00:57:24
If you've seen some of the bears on there and bears, yeah, anything that could be there maybe, hopefully, maybe isn't there. But 00:57:29
snakes don't really see the real. 00:57:34
And again, emphasis, especially with this one, is someone who might be able to repurpose some of the old playground and repurpose 00:58:16
into some kind of art. So that is the current thing. I don't know if you'll have. The proposal has not come out yet. I don't know 00:58:21
if I have any questions about this. 00:58:27
So the council had a $7500 this year's school, your operating budget. That money will be contributed towards this effort. There's 00:58:32
also 10,000, three that doesn't have a time to have to be spent on that. The money does have to be spent by this fiscal year. 00:58:38
We'll talk about how that can happen. But so yeah, that's a story to April 30th and my hope is. 00:58:43
That. 00:59:22
We're seeing an RFP or RQ whatever it is are we emphasizing the obviously want them to load maintenance overtime? 00:59:24
But if there is going to be any kind of maintenance, like will it need to be repainted every five years? It also is emphasized 00:59:33
that it is. It needs to be child friendly, so it needs to be something that children can hurt on. We don't want it just to be like 00:59:38
the sculpture and by the Eagle Tavern, the one that you probably don't really want your children playing on. You want something. 00:59:43
If it is something that children touch or interact with isn't going, you're not worried you're going to get hurt. 00:59:49
And also perhaps my information awards that even if it is like about a snake we have a little information award that talks about 00:59:55
local snakes and how state you know may snakes most aren't minimis and actually good or whatever it might be but but the emphasis 01:00:00
is going to be we have an incredible. 01:00:04
Resource just natural resource here at park that we we want to encourage citizen free to to be able to appreciate and experience 01:00:10
that So we have on the submit is Americans and just a professor at UNG that is in the environment science and so it's been a 01:00:16
really nice balance of people during different perspectives. 01:00:22
Greg, thank you. Any thoughts on Harris holes for me Pro Tem Tucker? 01:00:29
We all feeling good about that approach. 01:00:34
Where's the old lot? Are we going to have it just down the hill? 01:00:37
Slide, got rid, got rid of, got got rid of. Before I had any say in any of it. I was like watch, it's gone. I was like we could 01:00:40
have auctioned that thing off and aid for whatever we are doing. So hopefully the city got some kind of at least money for that 01:00:45
somewhere along the way. But no, it's dangerous. 01:00:51
Yeah, Yeah. Yes. All right. OK. Well, thank you, Christine. Leadership there. It sounds like we're all good on that. And I'm glad 01:00:57
you're Daniel's here because you can fill in some gaps on this. But you know how to, you know, I had a good conversation a few 01:01:01
weeks ago we were talking about. 01:01:05
The word conflict, not the right word. We don't have conflict, have a good relationship, but there's there's a little bit of 01:01:10
conflict in terms of how codes work versus. 01:01:13
Counties codes on on some of the residents so there's a couple county roads for those of you who haven't had spend a lot of time 01:01:17
on this that come into the city that are technically the count responsibilities and then we have state rise of course you'll know. 01:01:23
15 Four 4153 Those are state roads that come out the county roads primarily Column Ferry barnage holes Simonton Bridge. 01:01:29
New hustles, I think there's those before, right. So we've realized is we've gone down the road on price like what are we have in 01:01:37
Trove and others is county has a certain set of standards in terms how subdivision projects are developed that are that are a 01:01:43
little bit different than our land use policies behind our land use policy. 01:01:49
Marshalls up here it's the watched one new households has been repaid past few years. It's a wild one too and we didn't talk about 01:02:27
new Joel so he's willing on to that I don't know but anyway so anyway it's not you know it's not either or but sort of thing that 01:02:32
comes up just so you all know we're like OK and for the wire. 01:02:37
What kind of turn lines should be, what kind of what kind of space should there be in a median Trove As John was quick to remind 01:02:42
he's like technically drove we would have, we should require turn lanes of Trove Barcode. We don't want turn lanes into small 01:02:47
subdivisions right. So that's their nearest feeling way with a different way part of how things work that's OK. But we have this 01:02:51
little conflict that we're managing here. So again not a personal conflict of conflict in terms of our codes. Just want to talk to 01:02:56
you about that. 01:03:01
In terms of you know obviously have some more resources in terms of transportation dollars, but we also have. 01:03:06
A lot of that we want to do before we accept another financial burden. One of the places this would make things easier not to say 01:03:12
we can get it on working at hand account if you think about what we what we talked about our initials you know where if we could 01:03:18
you know school Barnett's a little bit put up a nicer multi. 01:03:23
A path on it get people from down on the wire park. 01:03:30
And then you know again Don, an estimate of indicator will operate was but at the end of the day you know that's the road you know 01:03:34
and we've got some challenges in terms of how we do that. If we want to do hopefully we won't have to, but I mean we had to do a 01:03:39
sidewalk on Simonton Bridge Rd. well then. 01:03:44
How we manage that that's the reason again Walton Hill know how to sidewalk for so long it was County Road you know and and the 01:03:49
leadership of the county at that time had no interest in us in re engineering doing that. So so the pros and cons to that we would 01:03:54
certainly have to. 01:03:58
Taught more with County about the nature of that transaction and what would make sense there. So what I want to talk to you all 01:04:03
about just is that something I'll have any interest in exploring or is it a non starter? And if it's a non starter then John, I 01:04:07
got to get back together and talk about what the next project comes, you know how we resolve these sort of code conflicts and what 01:04:10
makes sense. 01:04:14
Before I turn to you guys, Chairman Daniel, I know we don't have my friend in, but if you want to share anything with council, 01:04:19
you're welcome to have one. John, is anything you want to share with us? Did I get that right? Because you feel free to chime in 01:04:23
and give us your perspective on that too. 01:04:26
Yeah, I think you covered it. It just creates an opportunity for conflict on the road. It also puts our citizens in a in a bad 01:04:31
spot where they. 01:04:35
On a road that comes all and they gotta come doesn't There's a lot of things get lost. 01:04:39
Translation on that. 01:04:43
The biggest expense on the road is the paving, so we've already completed Simon Bridge. 01:04:45
Commentary is on the list on law, so I was talking with the mayor about if it's already on our Five Year Plan tease, plus we would 01:04:51
come on through. 01:04:54
I didn't get a chance to check on it, so I'm pretty sure it's only as well. So your basic expense will be taken care of the next 01:04:57
five years. 01:05:00
And then you'll start getting LB money on those mileage Rd. miles as well. So you're probably good for the team. 01:05:03
Well, how much? 01:05:11
So I think it would be better all the way around. Just count. 01:05:17
Be better for systems that were both organizations if we could move that way, but we understand what you're concerned about but if 01:05:25
it's five year plan, we're gonna go ahead and go through with our supply dollars so. 01:05:30
I definitely, I mean it makes sense. I have one decision maker with projects and all that totally at that. I also understand that 01:05:39
aside like sidewalk portions of any of these roads are primarily going to be used by the citizens of Watkins Self who are paying 01:05:47
those property taxes. I think the issue that I have is the cars on the road that are are hurting the asphalt that we are going to 01:05:54
suddenly have to come up with within 10 years a huge amount of, I'm guessing they did not actually cover. 01:06:02
The actual events like. 01:06:09
Of that at all? 01:06:10
Is that accounting citizens that are not paying a penny of Watkinsville taxes that are the ones doing the majority of wear and 01:06:13
tear on those rows. And so that that's that's always my struggle is just we have such a miniscule budget compared to Y'all's 01:06:18
budget that it seems like a big burden for the city to have to take on financially. So that I'm not. I know I'm just saying that 01:06:23
just seems very like. 01:06:29
Is great for a county coffers, but we are also county taxpayers. Every citizen of Wattsville is, and so it seems like an undue 01:06:35
burden. I mean, we already these improvements that we do that the city has for. 01:06:40
You know Harris Park, that background. 01:06:46
Many non volatile citizens are using all that and locating how many money for any of those things well before Council that I will 01:06:48
just remind you we do benefit from. 01:06:52
Probably from the sales tax, not disproportionately, but you know, we do get a significant percentage of the county's sales tax 01:06:56
dollars. It's not, it didn't pay property taxes, but you know, we. 01:07:01
I think your point is a good one, but always remember that we do, you know, we do. Sharon, Sharon County what? And it's just 01:07:06
about. 01:07:10
You're trying to split control the road in. It's just an opportunity for conflict and we've always been able to work through it. 01:07:16
You're set speed limits on the roads, There's control of driveway, access to road and then. 01:07:23
But they slipped through the crack. We got one standard on one of our road and different standards. 01:07:28
You know it leads to problems down Rd. as well. So there's going to be bounce between control road and then finding the road. 01:07:32
Yeah, I was actually going to call on you because some of those kind of roads, there's some I'm thinking about something bridge in 01:07:37
particular, some next level public works that you might have there. 01:07:42
So I know. 01:07:48
Chairman Daniel mentioned Laws as well as Omega. So my question would be with the city see an increase on their T spot initiative 01:07:50
to cover that additional cost because you guys use Omega paved with Rose, would you? 01:07:56
Alluded to the other thing is public department John and his team and Mike Weathers and they've been great with work was like Lay 01:08:03
Lane and stuff like that. We don't have equipment or the knowledge base right now to do patchwork and stuff that would come up so. 01:08:10
Definitely want to make sure we have an incremental, you know, cooperation with County which we have and we've utilized to make 01:08:18
sure that you know they're able to assist in those projects just because we don't have the bandwidth right now with our current 01:08:22
team. 01:08:27
If we have an interest in this and John and I would have to get back together and say what what's on the five, you need to confirm 01:08:31
what's on the five year plan whatever it is. For my shows in particular it's an easy one to forget but it was built. It's also 01:08:37
really one you know it's not it's not just a lengthy Rd. you can remember if a road to 3rd or I mean you know so so all of a 01:08:43
sudden looking and all of a sudden you're looking at twice as much as after that. 01:08:49
I'm right in the middle of furniture comes down South, that's a mile and it's got the mile rate. So you got a mile and half. 01:08:55
That's probably the real wide, the really bad part. So we got. 01:08:59
I don't know what I want you all to indicate is is this worth exploring. We may still not get a place we'll do it. And then that 01:09:04
point John and I doing who are going to have to say, OK, who's going to have to agree on whose rules govern what you know. And 01:09:09
it's because what I don't want all the conflict to resolve with the clear policy. So even we don't. 01:09:14
That we might have to say if we don't this is very clearly what's going to happen on projects that are at the edge of the city in 01:09:19
the county. We have one as we're dealing with now or a project in city on County Road and whose rules govern. Because right now 01:09:24
we're approving site lands and approving stuff based on our standards and they go to county this who approved, who approved, who 01:09:30
approved this standard will be approved. 01:09:35
In the way that we would have built, you know as you can see that would drive a somebody's investment millions of dollars in 01:09:40
Watkinsville, but it drives them crazy when they they think they got everything they need from us and they go over the county and 01:09:44
the countries like no, he said. And how you said how you would turn. 01:09:47
That's all different. 01:09:52
I think we're still covered by the issue of city taxpayers were also county taxpayer but not conversely and who was using these 01:10:37
roads as part of the discussion. But I beginning for y'all to go down to what are the differences and how can we reconcile that 01:10:43
harmonizes differences to keep an open door dialogue on warden through these contemporaries with these projects coming in. 01:10:49
Any questions, thoughts on that? 01:10:55
I'll just say I think we're getting better on all that Don and his name have been great and Sharon and the team here have been you 01:10:56
know let's from y'all it's been yeah we had 10 years where we didn't have much of anything happening walk as well and and in that 01:11:01
10 years John was the Chairman before that you know and so there's he's got his team so much all new our team should be all new 01:11:06
and then all of a sudden we've seen this you know we've seen some growth in Watkins. 01:11:10
Frank was really innovate projects that you know could never see anything like my part we haven't anything I trove and so we're 01:11:15
we're working this together and I think we're all doing this in a really good the best of intentions. 01:11:20
But since John brought up the idea about the roads, I wanted to at least sit here publicly. They've got other thought you want to 01:11:25
share let's share it not we can kind of muddle on this online with it and they're offline decide if we have something interested 01:11:29
in looking at them. I would welcome in Brett, Chuck obviously this come back to your your committee to to do something about it 01:11:33
so. 01:11:37
I do think we need. 01:11:44
Should continue to engage with county especially something like one of shows we're doing wide pathway would be a huge benefit for 01:11:45
the for the city to see how we can work together I. 01:11:50
I can't see. 01:11:55
That this you know, is it possible that the city finances the the sidewalk? 01:11:56
Portions and the captain is a convert in the company doesn't pay even if the Barnett Shoals part. They also have the benefit 01:12:01
They're going to have to use less asphalt down the road because it's narrower. 01:12:06
But regardless, to see how we can work together, I don't know. The logistics of who voted ultimately becomes what I'd like to work 01:12:11
together to see. 01:12:14
Good. 01:12:18
Having that pathways worth all the discussions and pull back and forth and The thing is we can run the numbers of that complicated 01:12:20
run, figure out how, why they are and what we need to anticipate terms of future costs. 01:12:25
Umm. 01:12:30
Turn the future positive OK then we stretch out OK this is what we'd anticipate 10 years from now if he's bust is renewed which 01:12:31
was not a surveying you know then this is this is what we could do it's not renewed this is likely impact and how we're going to 01:12:36
do that so so you know but we can we've got more work to do just really just want to take else mature. 01:12:42
And see if it's, you know, what your thoughts were. 01:12:48
We're having this conversation. I mean, I. 01:12:51
I have been very impressed with anytime. You know, we don't always under percent agree, but I think there's a lot of goodwill and 01:12:54
just practical, I mean, so to me getting something figured out and here with this current group. 01:13:00
Make a lot of sense so you know even if they stay with a county, but like it's very clear this is the process so we know to give 01:13:07
any citizens. 01:13:11
Because most of the developments are happening or happen to at this point, honestly, other than the Barnet Shoals sidewalk, I'm 01:13:15
kind of like, I don't, I don't think there's going to be that much. 01:13:21
Future. 01:13:27
I just, I can't underestimate the creativity of land. 01:13:30
I got would be for it. It's not odd. 01:13:35
We're going to do it already and it sends these most places we. 01:13:38
Probably been involved with in my past, you know, to see if it's in the city limits. You're working for the city county, you're 01:13:42
working for the county. I think it would be right off duty if if they. 01:13:47
Resurfaced and then it took them. Then would have total control over the sidewalls and what we wanted to do, and it would 01:13:54
eliminate, you know, any conflict in the future. 01:13:59
OK. 01:14:03
The thing doesn't share that the insurance do list because it's 2028 is service delivery strategy. 01:14:36
All right. Any thoughts on John? Is anything else, Toby, any other thoughts on that? 01:14:41
All right. OK. 01:14:46
All right, we'll go. All right. Downtown development of three new Pro Tem. Kate, I've already put on Spotify times, but we'll give 01:14:47
you a little more time here for stain. Do you have anything to share? 01:14:52
I think this is a long time coming and we have a. 01:14:58
Great. 01:15:03
As a board. 01:15:04
And I'm thrilled that Kate is. 01:15:09
What you're. Oh my gosh. My brain just stopped. Yes, our director and you are just jumping in. She mean yesterday What Gee, what 01:15:14
she got going on and what she's done. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is incredible, which is not surprising to me. When we 01:15:19
interviewed you, it seemed very clear that you were going to hit the ground running and and get it done. So we are still in in 01:15:24
baby step beginning days here. But I think a lot's already happening and I am so excited what this is going to do for the city of 01:15:30
Lawrenceville. So OK. 01:15:35
Well, I'll give, I'll give a little update. OK, we'll jump in. So we met yesterday with Beth Evanson with to talk about world 01:15:42
owned designation and there are there's an application that's in August that's what it said. But we were trying to identify what 01:15:48
kind of things were available to us now, what we stores were available just now without having to get like a certain local 01:15:54
government status or his tour reservation simply or any of that kind of stuff. And basically right now without anything we have 01:16:00
access to the revolving loan fund. 01:16:06
Which is that I think NL had used, but maybe through the county or something years ago. 01:16:13
And she clung a little that we're still trying to get a little bit more information about it basically because we have a DEA, we 01:16:18
have access to that now. So those are things we'll try to get a little bit more clarity on as we go forward. The roles and 01:16:22
designation, it's set for five years. The application is in August of this year. We're due in August. It has a lot to do with 01:16:27
Flight now. 01:16:31
Because it doesn't have blight much. You weigh in a blight, Miss Kate. You tell them about blight, What that means and what what I 01:16:35
saw yesterday would be older buildings, inhabitable buildings, buildings and territories, repair buildings, possibly with lead 01:16:40
paint or asbestos. 01:16:45
So just walking around, we around and walked around. We definitely have some some light with our downtown district so. 01:16:51
You know the major qualification for rural zone is population under 50,000. So we definitely meet that. We likely won't meet the 01:16:57
property level, but that's not major. You've got white and the population that are your biggest. 01:17:02
Qualifiers for being designated a rural zone. So the biggest benefits of the end of that would be for property owners for 01:17:08
revitalization and redevelopment of their property. If if what they plan to do with their building creates 2 full time equivalent 01:17:15
jobs, that open settlement is access. A lot of staff will find things for revolving land. Very literature straits. 01:17:21
Just doing the math on the project, it can make a project an unattain. 01:17:29
We have redevelopment project, it can, it can be cashless. So that would be exciting. So we hope to move forward at our DDA 01:17:32
meeting next week. We will hopefully vote and move forward to work with some folks on a 12 year plan work plan that would move us 01:17:39
towards eventual fold downtown master plan. 01:17:46
Not gonna ask for all that, but I'm gonna be asking for some of this, for this and for some other things that are going to 01:18:35
specifically financial management software that we need to get in place while we're in between audits and with auditor. But those 01:18:40
are friends we did not anticipate. We're still budgeting at much lower level for the next six months. You know that our local 01:18:46
auction sales tax did change in January, so it went from 8.63% to 7.77%, but even with that we'd already budgeted for that and 01:18:51
we're still seeing, I mean even. 01:18:56
That will need to be involved in that. 01:19:32
Process. So it's really exciting. I mean she's written from the hose, right. So it's, you know, it's a lot of information that I 01:19:34
think we're starting to get things in place, starting to figure out what, what and and can make some sense for the future. 01:19:39
Hey, could you? I think it might be so great for council learn about just some of the other places you've already visited, you 01:19:46
know, just make sure some of the times you visit a couple impressions. 01:19:50
15-2 would be would be great so I've been to Monroe and Madison and we have not very comfortable to Watkinsville but fixed to a 01:19:55
downtown development there have been in a long time are very. 01:20:00
Regarded gurus in the area around the state, so learn from them. I went this week to Hartwell, which is. 01:20:06
Change from Mendes in the last five years and then I've had really great fun conversations with folks in Homerville and. 01:20:12
Fixing Bay Bridge, so Bainbridge has been well I think that's the Bainbridge particularly have has great benefit in this rural 01:20:21
zone designation. Now their downtown is a little bit bigger than ours and they're you know makeup of their committee is a 01:20:26
different than ours. But once they were designated the rural zone a couple of years ago, they have 35 properties in Chanby rehab 01:20:31
and redeveloped all the access these tax credit. So that completely changed their downtown, it's been able to expand their 01:20:36
downtown. 01:20:41
I am going next week over to Jefferson to talk to the mayor. So that's also, you know, looking for that. But yeah, I'm trying to 01:20:48
learn, learn from all the people that have been doing it a long time and. 01:20:53
See what we can. 01:20:59
Yep, put into place. 01:21:00
And I think they can share and also working on finding small office to get paid downtown. Right now she and I are office, but it's 01:21:03
back there in the mayor's office. So I'm, you know, so she's using a lot more than I am right now. So I'm so. So we're working to 01:21:07
also get her physically located in town. So she's down and I know you're already making around with the merchants and learning 01:21:11
from them and I appreciate that property. So yeah. 01:21:16
Any updates on the DA? 01:21:21
Finalize something yesterday, Judge Iver to rent this ace about his filling on the course of school in Main St. 01:21:25
So March, I think the attorney will be looking at a lease agreement that we're applying this for 18 months. So I'll get her 01:21:36
through like August of next year that we can have it more, you know still be for her until we figure out what sort of things are 01:21:40
going to set you like the space so. 01:21:44
Good. OK, Not lighted. 01:21:49
All right. That's what we got on. Got a couple of minutes. Does anybody need a break? 01:21:55
Why don't we? Then we'll come back 11. So take a break if you need, like we'll come back 11, get into spot, 3 into loss. 01:22:03
All right, all right. 01:32:46
While we're to put us on my, I think my nephew, my nephew's all the gavel here yesterday. Apparently he's a judge at his he's a 01:32:49
judge at his school. 01:32:53
For some program doing. So I think he came in, I think Susan came and got Devil, yeah. 01:32:56
Mayor Dave's old Dave to I think he got three different three different gavels, different local artists. Maybe I'll. 01:33:03
Give Gray the one that made out of the tree in there. 01:33:08
All right, show the snow back on. 01:33:13
Wrong. 01:33:30
All right, so Next up, Sharon's going to rust through Spust 3 and 12 projects that. 01:33:52
Feeling their charts, details of all fear that we may want to, we may want to talk about and think about privatizing. So if you 01:33:58
want to know, you kind of lightly touched on that. So if you want to get through that, if we get done with that early. 01:34:03
Jeff, if you and Chuck are comfortable then we may have historic preservation conversation for lunch. We have time. Again, just 01:34:09
think if we can save something at the end of the day, I know you know they'll also have much stuff to do. So if we get through 01:34:15
that in 30 minutes in May, we'll move that up and set ourselves, set ourselves sometime at the end. 01:34:21
Thank you. So what you see in front of you, we're going to see you after next week counseling. This is our the January 1st loss 3. 01:34:28
So as you see right now, we're based on our budget and whatnot, we're about $200,000 over in sloths. 01:34:33
We anticipated it's on our budgeting. This is a bit better show. I think I pointed out the first time we hit six figures on any of 01:34:39
our lost loss or whatever. So I think it's important to talk about how we can better use this fund. That's what we talked about a 01:34:47
little bit earlier. Recognition next week will be for you guys to bump up all of those, but it's the Max that's approved by 01:34:54
through the referendum decreasing the registry of funds and I'll give you the details like I said on that next week. 01:35:02
Umm again rocket will be a future benefactor about the the Harold's park is 1 and principle will also affect those are green based 01:35:09
program. 01:35:14
And the lower the multiple separate facilities, I just have a project we really didn't have much in there. We do still honey in 01:35:19
there size. We're going to push out working on the industrial park sign at the historic side of the park and all the other park 01:35:24
signage will start. We're in the downtown of course we'll work on that. We want to. 01:35:29
Make sure we do it right first time, not just laughing up, so we'll be working on that, but that's the so that's the big ask 01:35:35
again, a reminder that there is money aside in current slots, but direct parts for the Harris Park project should we get a grant. 01:35:41
And again if we get the grant, we could use that money to help activate some portion. It won't be enough because I think. 01:35:47
I think our estimate somewhere close to $3,000,000 for that project to actually complete that project, not including what we're 01:35:53
working on right now to the. 01:35:56
Paving and parking improvements that's already budgeted for and that he's been set aside. So any question on +3 or you'll see next 01:36:01
week, Anymore discussion? 01:36:05
OK. On T loss, so there may be a little more of a discussion and. 01:36:11
Those buckets and stuff. Do you have an axe like we talked about about before? The ballot amount is a certain about a projected by 01:36:48
85% on these. This is at 7.7%, not 863 percent. Again, these are numbers based on what the county gave us is what we're looking at 01:36:54
over the next. I think it's six years, isn't it? 01:36:59
As we finalize that that we go ahead and commit studies. 01:37:40
Percentage that we'll need to the construction country we've actually we aren't have fun matched for the professional hearing 01:37:45
piece of it but should the construction piece come and we'll know that. 01:37:49
This time next year possibly or maybe in it by this year, I'm not I've got to get project schedule from them. But if that were to 01:37:55
move forward then we need that 20% match and we're at that project and it's it's definitely now because we have it in a full 01:38:00
professional engineer. We've just done a real high level cost estimate, but estimate could be a $4 million project. 01:38:04
So on sidewalk we've got the two eyes under track efficiency. We've got down the construction traffic. Traffic only matters. I 01:38:10
said it all the same bucket. I really don't, you know, those are specific things like y'all talked about activating. 01:38:16
Maybe some chicanes that we're talking about, the transportation study, some roundabouts, some realignments of intersection that 01:38:22
kind of thing is where that bucket will be used for. Again, I'm restructuring that be we could potentially include the Highway 53 01:38:27
extension, anything work that might be going on with that we might need to cover that county project, but that might be something 01:38:32
that you want to decide some money for, think about using that money for and then of course reserves in our local rights and we 01:38:37
have a paid management program. 01:38:42
You guys have seen that we're kind of you know anytime before you I try to go back through that and we talked about words are the 01:38:48
worst and and whether or not we should resurface those or not in what order that's how we came up with this year. 01:38:53
So. 01:38:59
Yes, I think I got a blip on the on the recording, but it looks like it's still recording. I hope everything's good but so so 01:39:03
we'll reference list as as a prior list for free surfing. We'll go through that. You guys will make decisions about which one we 01:39:09
can advance depending on how much is in the in the bank and whatnot. So this is sort of I didn't know, I'm hoping you guys can 01:39:14
provide more a little bit more detail on on specific projects you want us to put on here and then we can you can make a actual 01:39:20
designation appropriation next week. 01:39:26
Again, the money to start flooding here until April one and you figure probably going to be somewhere in the 78,000. 01:39:32
Range each month, so you know 800,000 gonna take us almost a year to get, you know, which is good because you're out. But there 01:39:37
are many other things to activate earlier and we're gonna have to you know, as the money 'cause then make sure we use it 01:39:41
appropriately and manage it well. 01:39:45
So any thoughts on these law specific projects you want to add? 01:39:51
Let her start talking around and fill in. I have a very easy life project. I think I just noticed on on Morrison St. I guess we 01:39:55
put in stops on there. I guess we put in yesterday afternoon and. 01:40:01
Upper double complaints about what I also noticed, and I've been on that stretch for seven years. 01:40:07
Today because I wear as much. 01:40:13
That, that elbow, that double word at the Elders House, there's a stretch of payment that was repaid many years ago, but there is 01:40:17
no tracking on a section. So I go around. 01:40:22
You might stay in your because you don't know where your lane is. There's, there's. 01:40:28
But other sections of more than half, you know, double yield lines in the white on the edges. 01:40:34
But treasure? Nothing. So there are. 01:40:39
I don't know. I'm sure people over that. 01:40:42
But it would help if there was a yellow lighting nose annually. 01:40:44
So anyway that's not a huge capital operating we can certainly do that And the more the streets of background the Moore St. 3/3 01:40:48
was off was we talked to residents on that street, they were concerns about people with. We were trying to figure out some of what 01:40:53
we could address that and. 01:40:59
Was it rat and you? I'm trying to work clear with Connie. What's the transportation committee? Is it? I know it's chit. Cha and 01:41:05
Brett. Yeah. Talked about this. And that's one of the one of the items that we acted as we notified them. And the owner of the 01:41:10
private drive, I can't think of his name. 01:41:15
He's out there when they were doing work. It's just really just because it is a dangerous carpet, but the stripping stuff we can 01:41:20
sort of take care of operationally shouldn't miss you. 01:41:24
But yeah, so like, so the project you guys talked about, like making the connections between. 01:41:28
The instructional support center and Main Street, the gap to be there after county coming built. We've got a we'll have a sidewalk 01:41:35
in front of a steer. We'll have a sidewalk in front of that. But then it won't be anything between there and the Main Street. So 01:41:41
that may be something you know and it may be again got it. But I've got a bulk line. 01:41:46
You guys want to, we haven't done sort of an inventory those gaps that you know so you know then that would be good for us. It 01:41:51
knows when the money does come from, it's OK we'll get an estimate. So I can do ELMIG get an estimate for six or seven different 01:41:55
you know. 01:41:59
Gaps by what? To bring forward and get you guys approved and then we'll install. I'd like to suggest one would be from Horton Hill 01:42:05
Rd. To Bishop's Vineyard. 01:42:09
I think we already on the county. Our friends of county control the right way there. Roads are curb gutter design. There's plenty 01:42:15
right away here. 01:42:19
And that would be really nice because then all sudden that whole neighborhood, even if you just have to the main transitions, 01:42:23
Vineyard take all of them, yeah. And the shrinkage, I don't think it'd be more than, I think it's maybe 1/4 of a mile at the most 01:42:28
and I think it would be other than utilities, I think they're very straightforward stretch there. 01:42:33
I could wrong, I've said that before and just hadn't been easy, but I think that looks pretty simple. 01:42:38
And then I do that connection from Tom Ferry to South main sidewalk and that will be changing just given what some of the. 01:42:43
Drainage there and it will require some thinking on your side of the road. Do we go on? It's a state route that won't. 01:42:49
Connect it to South Main and potentially connected to Jackson Terrace. Is that the name of the resident comes back? 01:42:56
There was a little Rd. that we're we're Terrace. You know if you can't go your direction, get to Jackson St. It could be that 01:43:02
could be positive. There people connect, connect. 01:43:08
The green space at Trails will get more use because I walk and I tend to turn on Jackson St. as a sidewalk. 01:43:15
And then I just go around. It would be nice to have some other. 01:43:20
All right. Welcome back to the. 01:43:39
Council retreat, We're moving on to the second part of our agenda. 01:43:42
For those of you who've joined us online, we did cover the historic preservation report prior to lunch, so we will not be doing 01:43:46
that at the end, which may give us a little bit of time. 01:43:50
To recapture part of that will depend on how our next guests do from Davenport. 01:43:55
And company and guys were, I know you've met with the council subcommittee before our finance subcommittee. 01:44:01
Just as Sharon, our city manager, and Lee and others, we've been looking at modernizing. 01:44:11
Some of our finances, Watkinsville has not had debt in a long time. I'm not sure if we'll have debt in the future, but we felt 01:44:17
like it made a lot of sense as the council thought about strategic options and opportunities. 01:44:22
To have a better understanding of what debt could look like and what our financial capabilities would be. 01:44:28
If we needed to make those decisions, we also started these decisions in an environment where we were at historically low interest 01:44:33
rates. 01:44:36
And historically high construction prices. So part of our thinking at that time which may change now was it may make sense to 01:44:39
accelerate. 01:44:43
Projects in a low interest rate environment and take advantage of the construction prices as they are. Those situations have 01:44:47
changed a little bit, but what had changed is the fact that we may need. 01:44:52
Your services at some point depending on what we decide to do, so Sharon wanted. 01:44:57
You guys in and give us an overview of Bonds 101 and how that might work. So with that I'll much I'll introduce yourselves to 01:45:02
Council and. 01:45:06
And go ahead, be sure you speak into the microphone when you speak. We do have a new guest here, Caitlin from the Oconee 01:45:10
Enterprise. Welcome. I think you mentioned you watched the first part online. Did everything work? Did you hear the audio? 01:45:15
Yes. 01:45:22
Yeah, yeah. There was an Internet for destruction that we didn't know about until after. So we did, when we realized that we had 01:45:26
all kinds of confidential conversations from 11:10 to 11:45. But I'm just kidding. 01:45:32
But welcome. Glad you're here. Appreciate you being here. All right, gentlemen, I'll turn it over to you. 01:45:39
Thank you, Mr. Mayor's Member of the Council. My name is Doug Gephardt, and this is my colleague Ricardo Cornejo. Again, we're 01:45:42
with Davenport and Company. 01:45:47
The cities financial advisor or municipal advisor, you might hear both terms but we we we call ourselves financial advisors. 01:45:52
Our role is really to be a fiduciary to the city, to put your interest in front of our own. 01:46:01
And have a more holistic view. 01:46:08
Financial position to and when you think of financial advisors, you know sometimes you think about investments things like that. 01:46:13
We're really more focused on the debt or capital market side. We do do some of the cash flow management. 01:46:19
Financial policies, but that's really our bread and butter is more on the the capital related capital planning, debt management, 01:46:27
things of that nature. 01:46:30
Again, we're we're based out of Atlanta, our offices in Roswell, so just a. 01:46:36
Mosey on over here and we represent, we're the number One Financial advisor in the state in terms of transactions. And so we have 01:46:42
a breadth of experience. So today we wanted to just do. 01:46:47
A brief overview. While it might seem like a lot, I promise you we're trying to be brief. 01:46:52
And and we will have a quiz at the end, so make sure to take good notes, but we'll give you some hits. Just kidding, but. 01:46:58
Anyways, I think as the mayor hinted to to start, I think part of the reason Davenport got involved with the city. 01:47:06
Was because of there's a lot of things that the constituents of Watkinsville want. There's a lot of projects. There's a lot of. 01:47:15
Potential funding. 01:47:24
The ways in which cities can do borrowings are different than what you and I can do on a personal level, and there's certain 01:47:26
nuances and trends and pros and cons to all of these things, so. 01:47:32
As much as Sharon's fantastic at her job, she that's not what she does do at a day-to-day and so we wanted to be able to provide. 01:47:41
You know, big picture context as to you know what? What can we afford to do? How do we do it? What's a typical process to issuing 01:47:48
bonds or debt? 01:47:53
And we use the term bonds and loans, they're kind of synonymous. So sort of all intertwined if you hear those two words. 01:47:58
At all, it all means the same. So when talking. 01:48:05
Bonds, as we get into this presentation, obviously the first thing you talk about is interest rates. What are interest rates 01:48:09
doing? Because when? 01:48:13
You you issue a bond, what somebody is doing is giving you a. 01:48:17
And to get that money up front, you're paying interest overtime and so you want to know what what are the interest rates at in 01:48:22
today's market. So we thought we'd spend a few moments. 01:48:27
Talking about interest rate trends. 01:48:32
Over the over the last and sort of where the market is going today? 01:48:35
So on the left hand side of this page. 01:48:40
Is the AAA tax-exempt 20 year interest rate or the yield curve? 01:48:44
So going back just over the last two decades or so. 01:48:49
Generally speaking, it's been in a decreasing interest rate environment. 01:48:52
Yields have generally dropped over the last two decades, but obviously you can. 01:48:57
As we head to the right hand side of the page. 01:49:01
Interest rates have increased over the last roughly year, year and a half. 01:49:05
And and part of that is the result of the Fed trying to cur. 01:49:11
The inflation through the rising of short term rates, while not necessarily directly tied to it, it does play an influence on the 01:49:16
municipal market. 01:49:21
While we missed the potential low low lows of. 01:49:26
Post pandemic up through 20/20/2022. 01:49:32
When you look at where rates are historically as of today, it's sort of where we were coming out of the financial crisis and the. 01:49:36
2012 to 2019 range so. 01:49:43
Pretty darn attractive on a relative historical basis. You're not paying. 01:49:47
Anything outrageous if you were to go to market today. 01:49:52
For a 20. 01:49:57
What we call level debt service borrowing, it'd probably be in the 4% range plus or minus. 01:49:59
From that, perhaps slightly. 01:50:08
In in today's current market. 01:50:10
The next page just shows the tax exempt interest rates. 01:50:14
You can see the the short term rates have really risen. 01:50:20
As it relates to that, the spread between the short term and long term is starting to decrease the way that tells me the yield the 01:50:23
yield curve. 01:50:27
Is really, really flat, so it's not costing. 01:50:32
What that means is it's not costing you as much. 01:50:35
To go out longer. 01:50:38
On the yield curve, whereas before there was a benefit to going shorter, so the difference in interest rate between a. 01:50:39
At 10:20 and 30 year loan is going to be pretty minimal. 01:50:45
In today. So granting you're going to be paying interest for a longer period of time. 01:50:50
But it is it is relatively flat. 01:50:54
What we are going to show you. 01:50:58
The the next page is the yield curves. 01:51:02
The the one with the dot dots on it, the dark green line. 01:51:06
Is where we are today and so the yield curve shape is a little bit inverted and So what that means is the short term rates are 01:51:10
actually higher. 01:51:15
Than some of the long term rates. 01:51:20
And so it is. 01:51:22
More expensive to borrow on a 1-2 or three-year basis than it is to borrow on a 10 year basis. 01:51:24
As of as of right now and you can see from high to low, the 20, the one year to the to the 30 year is pretty flat going from 01:51:30
roughly 2 1/4 to just north of 3%. 01:51:35
Whereas if you looked back in another sample yield curve shape. 01:51:41
The dark brown line. 01:51:47
As a yield curve from 2011. 01:51:51
That's a pretty steep yield curve where the short term rates was. 01:51:53
Ride around half a percent, but the long term 30 year rate was 5% so become very expensive to borrow on a long term basis. So 01:51:57
again, while you might have heard rates have increased. 01:52:02
We want to be said, you know I wouldn't necessarily deter you from from from moving forward. We've seen a lot of folks still 01:52:09
continue to progress and especially as inflation. 01:52:14
The cost of borrowing is often less than the cost of inflation. 01:52:19
In in today's. 01:52:23
So one thing that the city is able to do when it when it does, go and borrow. 01:52:29
Is that it's able to borrow on a tax exempt basis or a tax free basis. 01:52:37
And so because of. 01:52:42
Tax exemption, the interest rates that you're going to be getting as a city. 01:52:44
Are going to be lower. 01:52:49
Than what? You or I or a public company? 01:52:51
Would be able to to get out in the general market. So the way that we would read this curve is say somebody for example are 01:52:55
looking in the bottom right. 01:53:00
Of this chart. 01:53:08
That if the city were to borrow at 5%, that same loan to a bank or an individual is the equivalent of 7.94%. So you get basically 01:53:09
a 3% benefit by having the ability to issue bonds. 01:53:16
On a tax exempt basis, so governmental projects. 01:53:24
Anything that's really for general public purposes would qualify. 01:53:28
And I think all the projects that the city has contemplated or is contemplating would qualify for tax exemption. 01:53:32
Anything you want to add so that that's again just a big picture overview of the market of of where things stand and and hopefully 01:53:42
that provides some perspective? 01:53:47
At least. 01:53:52
Rates are what where we're going and how the city might be able to what what it might be able to pay back. 01:53:54
So flipping to the next section is just a. 01:54:04
Overview is how do you how do you fund capital projects generally? 01:54:07
How do our clients we represent close to? 01:54:11
Folks throughout the state of Georgia. 01:54:15
And there's really 33 main ways to do it is. 01:54:17
First one is to use your fund balance right. The city's has some reserves on hand. 01:54:22
And. 01:54:27
Oftentimes, however, the capital projects. 01:54:29
Are in excess of whatever reserves are available. 01:54:32
So that might not be an option. 01:54:36
And oftentimes that if you spend down those reserve funds, it can cause some. 01:54:39
Financial stress or credit concerns? 01:54:44
As it relates to the spend down of those reserves, so having reserves is probably the number. 01:54:47
Credit quality that we have. 01:54:51
#2 is you save up some funds overtime. 01:54:54
So you're able to identify a project that is a few years out that you want the need for. You start setting aside dollars. 01:54:57
In an assigned reserve. 01:55:04
But the problem with doing that, it could take a number of years to get that project done. 01:55:08
You can't just have saved those funds magically. You run a really tight budget. We know you're stressed to just provide the normal 01:55:12
services, so to find any extra dollars for capital can become. 01:55:17
Increasingly difficult. 01:55:23
The third one is to issue the bonds, right? That way you get the money up front, you're able to go spend. 01:55:26
Spend the dollars and So what that does is those repayments are made overtime very similar to saving in overtime but you get the. 01:55:32
The benefit of the project upfront and. 01:55:40
The bond issuance is tied to the useful life of the project. 01:55:43
So what that means is that if you're going to borrow for a new police car, you're not going to go borrow for that for 20 years 01:55:47
because it's not going to last that long. 01:55:51
Whereas the inverse if you're bothering for water and sewer infrastructure, that might could be good for 50 years. 01:55:55
So you generally tie the borrowing to the use for life and that what that does is create some. 01:56:01
What we call generational equity, right? The people that are using the asset have the same benefit over the term. 01:56:06
Of your capital project. 01:56:12
And it does create the. 01:56:14
The need to not have to raise any mileage rate or. 01:56:18
Or anything on a one time purpose that fund a long. 01:56:21
So issue bonds is is. 01:56:26
Our bread and butter. 01:56:29
And so from I'm not going to go into great detail here. 01:56:31
But the general financing timeline? 01:56:35
From the time this is from the time the Council says go. 01:56:38
So obviously we're we're in the pre, we call this probably the pre planning stages that could be as much as 2-3 years in advance 01:56:41
of any any projects you start planning. 01:56:46
From the time. 01:56:50
An elected body says Go Move forward are ready to proceed with the plan that has been developed. 01:56:53
Generally speaking, it's a a three month process. 01:57:00
You know, we we get the approval to move forward, we prepare the necessary documents. 01:57:04
Have the necessary credit conversations and. 01:57:09
The bonds through either underwriters or banks and then. 01:57:13
You know, roughly a month later, so ±60 to 90 days. 01:57:17
Is how long a typical financing process. 01:57:21
Would take. 01:57:25
Again, this is meant to be interactive, so please stop me along the way if you have questions. 01:57:27
As we. 01:57:31
So obviously before going on and issuing. 01:57:36
You want to make sure that you. 01:57:40
A good understanding of what are your debt capacity and what if what is what is your debt affordability? 01:57:43
We think of debt capacity as your sort of your credit card limit. 01:57:49
How much can you? How much can you charge? And Nope. 01:57:53
That this might be different than the state's legal limit. As your financial advisor, I can't make the recommendation that you go 01:57:56
out and borrow up to that maximum legal debt limit. 01:58:01
You're more than welcome to do that, but that would sort of be outside of. 01:58:06
Prudent, financial, good, solid norms, right. We want to make sure that we identify that. 01:58:11
That any potential borrowings don't. 01:58:17
Whatever those parameters may be. And then debt affordability. Just because you can afford to charge a credit card, you need to 01:58:21
understand how you're going to pay back. 01:58:24
And so before you go and issue debt, this where we sort of are is in this pre planning phase or is really getting a better 01:58:28
understanding of what those provisions are, what it may look like, what it may be. 01:58:35
And so that's something that we want to. 01:58:42
To take a look. 01:58:45
And then ultimately once the plan is is identified you. 01:58:46
Will want to pick the way to identify the lowest cost of borrowings. There's a number of factors depending on the project funds. 01:58:51
I don't expect you all to know This is why you hire professionals such as us. But there's a number of decisions that get made and 01:58:57
our our job is to shepherd. 01:59:02
You all through this process so that you're making educated decisions. 01:59:07
With regards of finding the lowest cost of borrowings, whether at these through federal state grants. 01:59:11
Other lending type programs going to the market, different things of that nature. 01:59:18
If I could interject all this is always happening. 01:59:23
Working with staff. 01:59:26
And we work with staff, we show them our thoughts and staff and us work together to get to a point, which then we show to council. 01:59:28
Do the auditors engage in this or is that typically are they typically sort of a come behind and make sure it's clean at the end 01:59:37
or how does that work? 01:59:40
Generally speaking, it's the. 01:59:44
We in the public market you. We will attach the audit. 01:59:47
To an official statement. 01:59:54
And a lot of times the audit is used. 01:59:57
A due diligence tool for a lot of the lenders, so. 02:00:00
The city's historic audits are extremely important. 02:00:04
Have the understanding of the financial position for the various lenders and then sort of post issuance? 02:00:09
The auditors will have a role to make sure. 02:00:14
The debt issuance is record. 02:00:17
And reported properly. 02:00:19
So. 02:00:31
What we're going to talk here is just, you know a little bit of the types of bonds that. 02:00:33
Are available to, to be answered, to be issued. 02:00:38
Again, there's no one-size-fits-all. Part of Davenport's role is to help educate, which is the bath path forward. 02:00:44
But in order to determine what type of bond is issued. 02:00:50
We need to have a good understanding of what the project. 02:00:53
So you can't just go and issue a bond and say we want to do a capital project. 02:00:57
Without identifying what that is because depending on all the things at hand. 02:01:02
It influences what is and is ineligible. 02:01:07
But here's just a few different options of the bonds available, a general obligation bond. 02:01:10
Is the highest credit. 02:01:15
Intergovernmental is a is a is a bond that's equal credit quality that's issued through a third party, such as a public facilities 02:01:18
authority, which I believe the city has. 02:01:22
Entertained exploring that option is a very common thing. 02:01:28
A SPLA spawn where you're leveraging some some of. 02:01:32
Future Splost collections and then. 02:01:35
Lease purchase and pure water and sewer revenue. 02:01:38
Geo Bonds. 02:01:42
You are able to levy a separate. 02:01:44
Mileage rate directly related to bonds it does have to go through. 02:01:47
The constituents for voter voter approval. All the other ones, with the exception of SPOSS, can be done. 02:01:52
At the directive of of. 02:01:59
And then once you determine the funding. 02:02:03
You can choose whether to sell those Bo. 02:02:06
Via Direct Bank Loan or. 02:02:10
A public sale. 02:02:13
Putting you put all these things into a blender. 02:02:15
You got to figure out the pros and cons of each approach and how how you put into the blender. Does it give you the smoothie? 02:02:18
That you want at the end. 02:02:26
And it can all be mixed and matched and intertwined depending on. 02:02:28
On what it needs. So first you know first step identify the project second. 02:02:32
Determine how you're going to fund it, what's your funding option and 3rd is determine how you're actually going to go and and 02:02:37
sell those bonds. 02:02:41
The next page. I'm not going to go through this in great detail, but. 02:02:49
Have a little bit of the summary of the prior. 02:02:53
For you all to help you fall asleep at night, it's there for you to do it. 02:02:56
It gives a good good recap of some of the major key characteristics of. 02:03:02
Type of those bonds each. I'd say these are the general. 02:03:07
General ways to go and fund projects. 02:03:12
So once you deter. 02:03:19
That you're you're ready to. 02:03:21
Issue. 02:03:25
There's a lot of things that go into sizing. 02:03:27
How are you going to do? How are you going to do this? Very. 02:03:31
To like you. You talk about a home mortgage there. 02:03:34
A lot of different times of home loans, you can do a short term, you do variable rate, 15 year, 30 year, you embed closing costs, 02:03:37
you pay those out of pocket. There's all sorts of things. 02:03:42
That need to go into a. 02:03:47
A home when you purchase a home. 02:03:49
When you're doing a capital project for city. 02:03:52
And so some of the things that we look at are. 02:03:55
Are we funding a project fund versus the the actual size of the note? 02:03:58
Are there? 02:04:03
Existing debt service structures. 02:04:05
You want to take advantage of drop offs. I know the city doesn't really have any debt, but if it does, do we want to plan for? 02:04:08
Future issuances, so it's good to understand the larger. 02:04:14
Capital capital stack and. 02:04:18
Reserve funds capitalize interest there's. 02:04:21
Terms. I know it might look like French to you, but I promise it makes sense to me. 02:04:24
But we'll talk about. 02:04:30
The bond size and the structure and how how you all will make the. 02:04:32
So here is just a few of the typical repayment structures. 02:04:40
The first one, all these we did just simply over a 10 year period. 02:04:44
The. 02:04:49
Left hand side, top left is leveled that so. 02:04:50
The light green on all these is the interest that's being paid. 02:04:54
In the dark. 02:04:57
Is the principal. So you can see here on the top left your level. Your debt is the same every year for the entire 10 year period. 02:04:59
So. 02:05:07
So your your principles increasing because there's not as much print fault standing, you're paying less interest. 02:05:09
So you're able to budget the same amount year over year over year. You haven't known known different known debt service structure? 02:05:15
The one on the top right is a level principle. You can see the dark green is is very flat, so your highest. 02:05:23
Interest. Your highest payment is done. 02:05:28
Up front and sort of your building capacity in your budget overtime to perhaps take on additional? 02:05:31
Capital Project. 02:05:37
The bottom left is an interest. 02:05:40
And so an option that you can do is delay some of that principal repayment. 02:05:42
A typical reason would be do this is if you were planning on using a future SWAST. 02:05:48
To make debt service payments or if it was a revenue producing project, where? 02:05:54
Let's say it's an economic development type project and you have a pilot payment that's going to be coming due. 02:06:02
Three years from now, that's going to be the identified revenue source you might delay. 02:06:08
Some of that principle to be. 02:06:12
And then lastly is capitalized interest that increases the amount of borrowing, so you don't have any payments you can see. 02:06:15
In those first two years in the bottom right. 02:06:22
A. 02:06:25
Note no payments. 02:06:26
Again, very similar type type structure, so again just typical repayments to show you how the different ways. 02:06:29
To structure a bond. 02:06:36
Some unique repayment structures, we call this one a structured repayment. 02:06:41
Schedule you can see in this particular. 02:06:47
They had a light. Green was their old debt. 02:06:50
The dark green was where they were, so we sort of restructured this to be in a mode that sort of delayed the impact and allowed 02:06:53
this particular municipality to build up. 02:06:58
Overtime to be able to. 02:07:03
Their debt service payments. 02:07:07
Another potential? 02:07:10
Debt service. 02:07:12
Is what we this one was we call the wrap debt service structure. 02:07:15
You have in the dark green an existing budget. You you have this built into your budget. 02:07:19
And so how can we be creative to layer the debt service on so that you don't exceed? 02:07:25
Your budget. Again, a lot of nuances that go into this, but that's. 02:07:30
You have the ability to not not every payment is level. 02:07:34
And there's certain structuring limitations depending on what bond. 02:07:38
And so we'll make sure to help you navigate those waters as we go through this. 02:07:42
Potential debt issuance. 02:07:47
I have. 02:07:50
If, like on a conventional loan, if the city was to have a windfall, could you pay the principal? 02:07:51
Early, without incurring the interest. 02:07:59
Depending on the method of sale if you were to go. 02:08:01
Ricardo will talk about this later later in the presentation. 02:08:07
But a public sale where you go out to the market? 02:08:12
That typically has a 10 year call feature is an industry. 02:08:16
The bank The bank loans generally allow for more prepayment and flexibility. 02:08:21
That would allow for no penalty to be incurred. 02:08:26
But even in the public market, if after 10 years you have a windfall, you could you could pay it off. 02:08:30
This is getting a little more detailed into the bond math, so I'm not going to spend. 02:08:43
As much time here. 02:08:48
Depending on how, how the bonds. 02:08:51
That you have sort of a teeter totter, your coupon is the actual coupon the the cash flow payments are going to be making. 02:08:55
And depending how bonds are sold, the price can either equal. 02:09:02
So as you have a. 02:09:05
A par bond is what you typically purchase, you know. 02:09:08
If it's a $10 million loan, you're getting $10 million in the bank. 02:09:11
A discount bond means if you if you issue. 02:09:15
Ten $10 million. 02:09:19
Bond, you might have less than that and the premiums inverse, they're going to be paying more because they're having a higher 02:09:21
price. 02:09:24
Than the yield and you'll see how that will be influenced. 02:09:27
The next page, a $10 million bond sizing, can mean a lot of different things, right? 02:09:31
Top left hooked with a $10 million. We just picked this number 10 million round Number. 02:09:36
I know it's a bit big one for the city. 02:09:42
Maybe we should have used five but. 02:09:45
We chose 10, so the top left is a $10 million issue which. 02:09:49
So that part that means it's no premium or discounts being involved? 02:09:53
And because there is some costs associated. 02:09:57
Pursuing a bond. 02:10:01
You only have 9.75 million leftover in the project. 02:10:02
But if you go to the right hand side of. 02:10:07
A $10 million project, which is the more typical structure? 02:10:10
You know, you know your project cost, you're going to increase your borrowing size. 02:10:14
To allow for to pay for the outside costs. 02:10:19
The the bottom left shows sold at par. 02:10:23
But you have to factor in some capitalized interest in the bottom. 02:10:28
Is premium that you're able to fund a $10 million project, but in order to do that you sell? 02:10:32
You only had to sell $9.3 million. 02:10:38
When we go to market, in order for us to properly size the bomb, we have to know the city's goals and objectives. 02:10:42
And ultimately what we're trying to trying to accomplish. 02:10:48
The next one on page 22, there's a lot of professionals that that go into a bond deal. There's a lot of folks. 02:11:00
And. 02:11:07
We have the dotted line there. I won't go into too much detail on each one of these. 02:11:10
People, but there's really, I'd say, like 4 main participants outside of the issuer. And we have the financial advisor and the 02:11:14
issuer in green is that we're sitting on. 02:11:19
Sort of the same side of the deal table. The other one is the underwriter, the underwriters council. They're the one that's 02:11:24
actually placing the loan or underwriting the bonds your local council attorney will be involved in reviewing. 02:11:30
The bond documents and getting shepherding through the appropriate legal processes. 02:11:36
Through the through the courts, if needed. 02:11:41
And then your bond or disclosure council is the one that's given the opinion that all the resolutions that you're approving are 02:11:44
done appropriately. 02:11:48
And that you have the proper tax exemption. 02:11:52
So all the people on the left hand side of the page are. 02:11:55
Important ones are the ones that are going to be involved on the day-to-day basis. 02:11:59
The right hand side of the page. 02:12:03
Is more. 02:12:05
Ancillary particip. 02:12:07
Depending on. 02:12:10
Types of issues may or may not even need some of them, depending on. 02:12:12
The method of sale beings being chos. 02:12:16
So I always a question is what's what's our, what's our role, what's the you as the governing body, what is your typical role in 02:12:24
in the process? 02:12:28
Of issuing debt, I think the 1st is. 02:12:33
Before we actually go and issue anything, one of the recommendations that we will be coming forth the Council. 02:12:36
Is to establishing debt management policies. You have state limits. 02:12:42
That provides some good guidelines and benchmarks, but I think it'd be prudent for you all to set those parameters. 02:12:47
To have what? How to issue debt, what's our limits? What are we comfortable with doing? 02:12:55
And what is the process? I think that would be important, so you would approve? 02:12:59
Then. 02:13:04
You would determine that you do actually need to fund the project. So you've looked at the project that you've had, you determine, 02:13:06
hey, we want to go forward. We're excited about this project. We want to do it. 02:13:10
You direct your staff. 02:13:16
Pursue funding source. 02:13:18
Then after that we work with work with staff to develop what we would call for plan of finance and generally that gets presented 02:13:20
in. 02:13:24
In a work session type mode like this and you to prove. 02:13:28
Sometimes we would have council participate in in some of the credit rating conversations then ultimately. 02:13:31
Not only do you approve the plan of finance, we would have to come back to you all. 02:13:38
To approve. 02:13:42
Terms, conditions. 02:13:44
Processes documents associated. 02:13:48
With the bond issuance or the loan for the direct bank loan. So sort of three cracks at the apple. 02:13:51
One is determining the need to is approving the plan of finance and three is actually. 02:13:58
Approving the final terms in and. 02:14:03
Generally speaking, not necessarily as involved in. 02:14:06
Day-to-day negotiations with. 02:14:09
With. 02:14:12
Loan issuance. 02:14:13
Then on the city manager, finance director side, they help us to find what those requirements all are. They help us make. 02:14:17
Debt management policy recommendations. 02:14:25
They also determine the available resources. We've done a little bit of this homework. What funds do we have? Where have it been 02:14:28
committed? Where's it not been committed? What could be available in the future? What's available now? 02:14:34
And then, you know, ultimately they're responsible for making the payments on the bonds. 02:14:41
And be in compliance with any of the tax status and make sure it actually gets spent on the project that we say it's going to be. 02:14:45
Funded. 02:14:53
So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ricardo and he'll wrap us up with the how to issue process. Perfect. And and I think 02:14:57
what this is showing you is that anything that we're going to do here, it's a 3 legged stool. 02:15:03
Council staff and your advisor. So moving forward it's always in that in that direction. So method of bond issuing that are 02:15:11
available. You have a standalone public sale as as Doug kind of walked you through competitive or negotiated again kind of going 02:15:18
at a high level here for competitive negotiating. We can certainly discuss that at A at a later date. 02:15:26
Direct bank loans by the locality, which Doug spoke about, and then any sort of state or federal programs. 02:15:34
GFI that you may be aware of and obviously the USDA law. 02:15:41
Yeah. 02:15:47
So key characteristics of the the bank loan is that as your advisor we would put together RFP a request for proposal to local. 02:15:48
Regional banks and national banks, about 25 or so, could be involved. 02:15:59
Now I do want to make a point that by putting this RFP together, it does not commit the city to anything nor is there any cost in 02:16:04
putting out the RFP to the general lenders that are out there. 02:16:10
The RFP serves basically putting together loan terms, the structure, options that the bidders will look at as they put together a 02:16:17
response to you all. 02:16:21
The repayment structure is very tailored to your cash flows. 02:16:26
So as we put together this, this RFP, we will make sure that it is it is appropriate to the cash flows of of the city. 02:16:30
And then you will know the terms and conditions prior to even getting any of the responses and whether or not to move forward once 02:16:38
those are are put together from a response standpoint. And then finally as Doug mentioned answering one of the questions from from 02:16:44
the folks here is. 02:16:49
There is prepayment. 02:16:55
You are able to prepay and in some cases there is no penalty, so you can prepay wholly or in part. 02:16:57
Yes. 02:17:04
With. 02:17:06
Identify what you're divide and you. 02:17:11
Walk away once it's. 02:17:14
We've. 02:17:17
It's kind of. 02:17:18
Getting the. 02:17:20
Let's say rates change in that. 02:17:23
Just basically when you walk in on a lane or do you or how does that work, how does? 02:17:28
No, no, no, no, no. So, so and obviously interject Doug, so. 02:17:34
The let's just assume that we put out the RFP and rates are at X. Now again as your advisors were thinking OK, when is the Fed, if 02:17:38
the Fed is going to, so we're going to try to avoid those obviously. So they go out and then you get responses. Now the banks will 02:17:45
come in and say we will hold this rate. 02:17:51
Until we close, we will hold this rate until this particular or the rate is is. 02:17:58
Tied to some sort of parameter and then so we we then have to go through because all responses are not the same. We are actually 02:18:05
analyzing to make sure that the responses that we're getting. 02:18:12
Apples to apples, even though a rate may be lower, it may be a rate that they will only hold for so much because it's tied to 02:18:19
something. So it's important for us to kind of focus through there and any cost that they have there. So that that's kind of how 02:18:24
it would work. Doug, anything I'd say the typical process. 02:18:30
Rates are held for 30 to 45 days from the bid due date and generally speaking, which gives us the time to prepare the documents, 02:18:36
get you approved and then close and then almost. 02:18:42
I'd say 99% of the deals that we do. 02:18:48
That rate is fixed for the term of the loan, so if you close on a 3% loan, that 3% is good for. 02:18:51
Until final maturity. 02:18:58
So you're locking. 02:19:00
It's not going to be subject to a reset or it's only good for five years with. 02:19:03
30 year AM or whatever maybe. 02:19:07
Absolutely. 02:19:14
Now this environment is not Privy yet, but about about a year ago that's all that was being done is refinancing USDAG for loans 02:19:16
and public and and direct bank. 02:19:21
So we always have. 02:19:28
So here is basically and again steps one through 14 kind of are taking what? 02:19:33
What dates we would put in there as we put together a financial schedule and again financial about advisor would evaluate the 02:19:38
scenarios. We would get together with staff and finalize those scenarios. We would present the staff first our findings and with 02:19:44
them and then with the the. 02:19:50
Presence that we're going to intentionally present that to council. 02:19:58
Council then gives the approval. As Doug said, we have now got the green light to move forward so that clock starts ticking. 02:20:01
For the direct bank loan that we're beginning that process. 02:20:07
We distribute that to the working group. The financial schedule working group will probably be. 02:20:10
Bond council and your local council plus ourselves. So they're they're usually those are the folks that would would be in the 02:20:16
working group obviously council and then staff. 02:20:21
And then we would send those out. Again, very important to have local banks involved. 02:20:26
Regional banks and then obviously the national banks out there. 02:20:31
We answer any questions we are. 02:20:35
Those. 02:20:38
That we're marketing the city because we're going to get questions from the banks, they're going to want to know your your 02:20:40
financials and so forth. So we will be marketing, they'll ask questions, we'll be telling them why this is. 02:20:45
Possibly a good, good loan for them and walk them through that. 02:20:52
The responses are due. We start to do any sort of bond documents which are distributed. Again bond, bond council and your local 02:20:56
council will be involved with that. We negotiate with the selected bank. Again we have analyzed this. We're putting things 02:21:02
together to present to you as far as what we feel is is the winning bank. Council meets and gives us the the we present the RFP 02:21:08
results and then recommendations and. 02:21:15
Council then adopts the bond resolution which is put together by bond council, saying that this is being moved forward. 02:21:22
Validation process goes through and then finally we do validation hearings and then then a closing. 02:21:28
OK. 02:21:36
So public sale a little different, has more, more folks involved. You have Bond Council, you may have disclosure Council, the 02:21:39
rating agencies as part of that. Our role as advisors would be putting together what a credit package because we are your 02:21:44
advocates, we are telling a story. 02:21:49
To the rating agency so that they then can turn around the analyst and go to their committee and give them the story now. 02:21:55
The city does not have a rating at this point. So again, if we were to go to the public market and again it's a bit if we go to 02:22:03
the public market, we would go through a process like that in the rating agencies that we would, we would discuss and there's 02:22:10
several, there's three of them, but we would have to make a decision whether it's 1-2 or three that we try to go and get that. 02:22:17
The public offering document is done. That is called the preliminary official statement or the official statement. Staff would 02:22:24
help us with that as we put that together. Bond council would be involved, your local council would be involved as we get this 02:22:28
document out. 02:22:32
Which would be used as a document for investment banks to bid on on your particular. 02:22:37
Interest rates are fixed for the entire term of the loan. 02:22:45
And such and the interest rates and eventual cost of the funds, we really aren't going to know that. 02:22:50
Until the day that we go to market and is done real. 02:22:55
Where basically we put it out, we're doing it 11:00 city of Watkinsville that's known throughout the the world of investment 02:23:00
banking and then the investment bankers begin to to bid on that. So we could have 5 bids, 10 bids depending, but it's all real 02:23:05
time that that's happening. 02:23:10
You are. You do not have to take me. It is your decision to take. In fact, yes. The answer is you do not have to take the bed. We 02:23:17
have seen some of our our clients do a. 02:23:24
Bank Direct Bank. 02:23:31
See what the rates are there. If they don't like the rates, then hey, maybe we need to go to the public market because at this 02:23:33
point the public market might be. So that's called a dual track again. 02:23:38
Lots of things that we would sit down and make because one size doesn't fit all. So but yes ma'am, you do not have to take this 02:23:43
being this being our first go around, what kind of rating would you expect we would get? 02:23:50
Well, truly we we have to dig in to a lot of the the overall financings of the city to go in there. We have a lot of peer 02:23:58
comparisons that we would do as we put that together. So and I'm not evading your answer and Doug of course if you, if you, if you 02:24:05
can interject, but at this point we would really have to dig in more to figure out what we want. Obviously we want investment 02:24:11
grade. 02:24:17
And that isn't very important. So that the the banks or the investment bankers. 02:24:24
Comfortable now we don't need to do that for a direct bank loan. 02:24:29
That is not a requirement. It would be based on the city's financials and the story that we give to the to the banks as they're 02:24:33
asking questions about about that, Doug. Yeah, for for better, for worse in the credit markets size does matter. So I think just 02:24:40
given the size we. 02:24:46
A little limited in the upside. 02:24:54
Of the rating, I don't think that we would be in the AAA range, probably in that A to AA. 02:24:58
Range if we were to go out there. 02:25:04
Today. 02:25:06
Again, it a lot of things go into that requirement is going to cover it. Demographics, things. There's things you can control and 02:25:08
things you can't. 02:25:11
But I think. 02:25:15
Based upon a cursory review, you guys credit is pretty darn strong. 02:25:17
Process of getting a credit three month process $25,000 and what's your. 02:25:23
Yeah. So that that sort of process is baked into that 16 to 90 day period. 02:25:30
So I think you know generally. 02:25:36
30 days. 02:25:39
Give them advance notice we have a meeting. Takes them a week or two to get. 02:25:41
Review the rating, then they come back and so forth. 02:25:46
±30. 02:25:49
Any cost is based upon the size of the bond deal, right? So I think probably a minimum fee. Again, all the costs are generally 02:25:51
baked in. 02:25:55
To a bond deal, very much like a home loan you put in certain funds. 02:25:59
And you might have purchased a $200,000 home, but your loan might be $205,000. 02:26:04
Generally speaking, cost of issuance, your bond council, city attorney, rating agencies all get sort of baked into that. 02:26:10
Into that final borrowing costs. 02:26:18
And to to add to that, so the credit package which we prepare with the help of staff. 02:26:21
We put together that credit package. We have the preliminary official statement put together. We have a meeting now mostly because 02:26:27
of COVID. Most of these rating agencies don't travel anymore or you don't go up and and do that. So it would be a zoom call. We 02:26:33
would have certain folks from council involved. We would have obviously. 02:26:39
City manager, CFO, we would there and then we would go through a process where we would. 02:26:47
We believe that the credit package that we put together for you all answers most of the questions that an analyst would have. 02:26:53
And so that would be done in. 02:26:59
Probably an hour, hour and. 02:27:02
We would tell them when we expect the the ratings that come back and then from there we kind of proceed with Bond Council as the 02:27:05
ratings go in in. 02:27:09
Move forward on that so, but that's kind of the process. So it is, it is a living breathing. 02:27:14
Meeting we're having with them. 02:27:19
As we put together that that credit package. 02:27:21
OK. And then the question was, you know, can you prepay on a bond issue? 02:27:25
It's a 10 year window. 02:27:32
And so after 10 years you are absolutely able to repay or refinance the the? 02:27:34
A little longer, you know this is a more kind of a 6090 day sort of sort of situation where you basically, again we're 02:27:43
reevaluating the scenarios of possible finances, working with staff, presenting the staff, then the council, council gives us the 02:27:49
OK to move forward. We distribute initial financing. 02:27:55
Schedules bond Council is very involved here. The school we may have a disclosure council, your your City Council, your city 02:28:02
attorney is is involved and we're doing the draft of the preliminary official statement. 02:28:08
There's a lot of things that we're asking staff to provide. 02:28:14
For that, you know, top ten taxpayers, things of that nature that we would need. 02:28:18
We would go, you all would adopt the bond resolution bond. The the beginning of the foundation process starts validation hearings. 02:28:23
The draft of the credit presentation is completed. We have our rating agency meeting. 02:28:30
And then the ratings come back. We have our bond. 02:28:38
Council ratifies the bond resolution, President, We are present to approve and move forward, and then we have our. 02:28:42
So we've really gone through this. This is again something for you all to use as the differences between both a direct bank loan. 02:28:53
And a public market issuance. 02:29:02
Each of them have their particular advantages and disadvantages. 02:29:04
It will be our role with staff to work through a process to make sense. What makes most sense on the project that you want to do? 02:29:09
When you want to get paid, how the cash flow is moving forward or when you are paying and so that's the decision that we would 02:29:18
work together and make. 02:29:22
So bond ratings as as the, as the question was asked, the rating agencies basically do. It's basically the risk like anything else 02:29:29
when you're doing a home mortgage, they want to know. 02:29:34
Can you pay it back? 02:29:40
And if you lose your job, how are you going to pay back? What's the collateral? So that's really what they're focusing on and it's 02:29:41
done through an economic cycle, through a long term focus of what they're seeing there. 02:29:46
Ratings are assigned basically specifically to the instrument as Doug went through Geo lease water revenues, all of those have a 02:29:51
particular credit rating maybe a notch below and then. 02:29:57
Again, as I stated. 02:30:04
Default. What happens? Are you able to pay it back? What happens if there is a default? 02:30:05
As as Doug mentioned there are certain things that they focus on. Again as the credit goes Sir, so does your interest rate. So 02:30:13
it's very important to tell the best story so that that we get a A, A rating that that is appropriate to the city. Again as Doug 02:30:20
said that your finances and and your rating or your your credit something that we feel that we should be a good moving forward 02:30:28
should be OK. There are things that you can control things you cannot local economy. 02:30:35
There's so much you can do. We notice that there are certain things that are going on here. What can you control on the local and 02:30:43
call me very little, but the things that that folks look at that the investment banks and also the business community look at, 02:30:47
looks at is the governance. 02:30:52
The management, financial, health. And so those are financial performance, your debt and then finally the management which is 02:30:57
council and which is longevity of your of your management team, your staff. 02:31:03
So these are the rating firms that are available here. And again the decision is do we go to 1 rating, do we go to two, do we do 02:31:11
three, that sort of thing. But Moody's, S&P Global and Fitch Ratings. 02:31:16
Finally on this side and basically the rating scale comparable to each of those three, what they mean on on your left hand side, 02:31:24
it shows below investment grade in the bees B, Triple C and then each tier of adequate capacity to repay very strong and then very 02:31:31
strong and you see that in the A category and so forth and moving forward. So it's something that again if we have to go and issue 02:31:39
debt that is something that we would kind of work walk through. 02:31:46
And so with that, I'll turn it over to Doug on the, yeah, medical debt. Lastly, we just ran a hypothetical. 02:31:53
Debts Debt instrument as. 02:32:01
You can get at least a decent gauge of where things. 02:32:03
Come out so we. 02:32:08
3D differ. I guess it's nine different scenarios here at three different terms and three different interest rates 1520 and 25 02:32:11
years. 02:32:16
At 4/4 and 1/2 and. 02:32:21
Percent interest rate. 02:32:24
And we did a a $5,000,000 borrowing. So the way that. 02:32:26
Sort of. Read this chart is that. 02:32:31
15 year. 02:32:33
Loan if you look in the top left corner, 15 year. 02:32:35
At a 4% interest rate, the. 02:32:39
Repayment. 02:32:42
Would be roughly that that 440-9706 or $450,000? 02:32:43
Umm with the total? 02:32:51
Over the life of that 15 year loan gets to 6.75 million. 02:32:55
Over that 15 year period as you move. 02:32:59
The interest rates. Adding a half percent increases your annual payment by roughly 15,000 in the same as you go to 5%. But what's 02:33:02
interesting? 02:33:07
Is if you go down to the 20 year. 02:33:12
Your annual repayment structure goes from roughly 450,000. 02:33:17
To. 02:33:21
367,368 thousand. 02:33:22
So while you know, again I don't want to diminish interest rate. 02:33:26
Factors, the bigger importance I think on a, on a cash flow basis is term A, a 1% change. 02:33:31
In interest rates influences your annual payment on a $5,000,000 loan by only 30,000. 02:33:40
Whereas a. 02:33:46
An extension of term by 5. 02:33:49
Is an $80,000. 02:33:52
So I don't, again, interest rates are very important. We want to get the lowest interest rate possible, but understanding cash 02:33:54
flow and the impacts are probably a greater driver. 02:33:59
In addition to market conditions for these things. 02:34:06
Yes, ma'am, certainly so it looks to me. 02:34:12
Let's just look at the 25 years at the four point. 02:34:16
On the in the bottom at the column it says the total of the 8 million four 29879. 02:34:21
But at the top it says. 02:34:26
16.86 million paid over the life of the road. You know, I forgot to adjust the top. This was for a $10 million, yeah. 02:34:28
No, sorry. Yes. Yeah, I was about. I was about to point out the same thing. Since it's a matter of public record, we need to note 02:34:41
that that second bullet is not accurate. 02:34:45
That is, we originally ran A10 and we reduced it to five. Sorry, I charge on the bottom. 02:34:50
No. 02:35:00
No, no bottom chart, bottom chart. 02:35:01
And if we're done at this rate through a bank? 02:35:09
Then if we're able to pay it off. 02:35:13
OK. Or even if it's municipal, even if we go to the public? 02:35:16
We can mitigate a lot of interest expense by paying it off at 10 years of rates, reduce refinancing it. 02:35:20
Doing some other things to reduce that interest cost if we go down the road correct, correct and and even in. 02:35:26
Prior to really the last six months or so, reinvestment was not a thing either. So in a municipal loan. 02:35:35
Typically at closing you get the money deposited into the bank and as we knew. 02:35:43
Thanks for giving. 02:35:48
0% return. 02:35:50
So. 02:35:51
In a in a more construction type project it might take 18 months. 02:35:54
Finish. 02:35:59
If you're purchasing something direct at closing, not as critical, but if it is a typical something that takes 24 months. 02:36:00
In today's market, you're able to reinvest those dollars. 02:36:07
So to help even mitigate that further. 02:36:11
You actually in in today's market you a one year treasuries app. 02:36:16
4 1/2 or 4.8% and we could borrow at. 02:36:20
Less than that you'd be effectively borrowing AT0 cost until those dollars get spent. So that's another help mitigating factor in 02:36:24
today's market is that because short term rates are higher. 02:36:30
As you're thinking about spending down those proceeds, you have the availability reinvest to offset some of those interest costs. 02:36:36
So I have a question with a rating of a or two. 02:36:44
Versus going to a bank, what is the, what do you see the? 02:36:48
Typically what do you see the terms? 02:36:53
Of the interest being. 02:36:55
Based. 02:36:57
Going from a bank to A to the public market, is there like a huge gap in the interest when they're grading at a grade of A or two 02:36:58
a like you said we'd be versus going to a bank? Is there that big of a gap in the interest in the terms? 02:37:06
Good. Good. 02:37:15
I think the answer is, and I hate the cop out, but it is it depends. So the interest rate environment between banks. 02:37:17
And public markets are ever evolving. 02:37:26
Thing So. 02:37:29
Generally speaking, the way banks work. 02:37:31
Is that they set the. 02:37:33
As of today. So wherever, wherever the rates are they're, they're less forward-looking, whereas the public market is, is a more 02:37:36
forward-looking where they're anticipating things to go. 02:37:41
And so in a in a rising interest rate environment, public right now, the public markets more attractive. 02:37:47
But if you were to ask me that in COVID Times we would have wanted to go to the banks because rates were at 0. 02:37:53
Right. The public market didn't foresee foresaw that rates were going to be rising at some point. The banks are like this is what 02:37:59
I can get today. So it ebbs and. 02:38:04
The other things it depends on the terms and conditions that we want to do comparing. 02:38:10
10 year bank loan versus 10 year public market sales that. 02:38:16
Different analysis versus a 30 and 30 because not as many banks are willing to go 30 years. 02:38:20
So you might be having to pay a premium. 02:38:26
To. 02:38:30
There might be only a handful of banks to do that, whereas anybody in the public market 30 years is industry standard. It should 02:38:34
be fine. 02:38:37
Versus if we're doing a five year loan, you might. 02:38:40
Ten banks to respond so. 02:38:43
Super sharp pencil as opposed to public. 02:38:45
You know, not as not as attractive because there's not, it's not outstanding this law. 02:38:48
So I think the answer is it's depends and that's part of our job. 02:38:52
Staff and council navigate the push and pull. 02:38:56
Of both of those market environ. 02:38:59
Can you give us an example of a client? You don't necessarily have to name the name, but a client who's recently borrowed money 02:39:04
from you and their experience and maybe. 02:39:08
Generally, what the project? 02:39:12
Nothing like Milton or something, you know? 02:39:15
Yeah, we've done a few different ones. 02:39:18
Throughout we I'll give one where they recently created Public Facilities Authority. This was City of Union City. We helped them 02:39:22
create a Public Facilities Authority. They did. 02:39:28
A City Hall project through their public facilities authority. They had an existing bond rating, but we got involved and got. 02:39:34
Got them a credit rating upgrade. 02:39:43
And that was through the public markets, an example of general obligation bond. 02:39:45
That we did was for. 02:39:49
The city of. 02:39:51
They had never issued debt before in the public market, got them their first ever credit rating and the Geo bond. 02:39:53
They went out to the voters for approval and is for a green space preservation. 02:40:01
Purchase so they had a number of. 02:40:07
Throughout the city that they wanted to preserve for passive parks, trails, things of that nature. 02:40:09
And that got approved. 02:40:16
I believe it was 25. 02:40:20
From a budget size that would be approximately 10 X. 02:40:25
Were you also, the equivalent would be roughly 2 1/2. 02:40:29
In that range, Sir, I think their annual budgets right roughly 3030 million. 02:40:33
Off the top of my head. 02:40:37
From. 02:40:40
Bank loan stand. 02:40:41
Ricardo We've done some refunding for the City of Forsyth. 02:40:44
That's right, we've done. 02:40:49
Trying to think on the another bank loan that we've. 02:40:52
We've done again. These were.