Get around the licensing rules but also to stay open later. And so it requires some things from us. One is more enforcement. And our police department and our code enforcement and our business licenses folks are really have really stepped up to the plate this year. There are on our grid aggressive look at these things, but also we established a nightlife division in the city. This is the first time we've ever created a nightlife division. And this is because I'm in the city I've ever Atlanta. We like to have nightlife as us but also there's a lot of people with our sports and our conventions and, and you know, all our visitors, they like to go and hang out and so that's part of who we are. We have a thriving nightlife, but we want to make sure everybody's safe and in compliance so that they get a quality of enjoyment of life, to the people that are around those nightlife establishments. We're not New Orleans with the Bourbon Street. We just got one entertainment district. We're not you know, Memphis, we just a Beale Street or whatever. We have pockets of nightlife all throughout our city. I think at last count, there's Phillana Williams back there as our Director of Film Entertainment, Nightlife and all things cool and we had about 15 Different distinctive districts around the city that had nightlife betting. So that's that's a lot of different places to manage. So, superstar Donald, could you talk about our efforts and nightlife? Yeah, absolutely. So one of
the things that we've done under the Fair Housing. So one of the things that we've done in May as leadership is that we started to assess all of our nightlife, whether it be restaurants, or big non traditional, that you may not always think about as nightlife so we've noticed some of those changes that were associated with that particular establishment but they've been others that have either been a new stance or causing issues in the city. So we partnered with a we went from just the listener but also about two months ago, the mayor establish a nightlife advisory committee that is a combination of nightlife practitioners and others. And so we brought out some different recommendations that when we make it public, so as well as doing a nightlife study on the economy and how we can better attain some of those restaurants tainted and nightlife establishments to make them position better, as well as the really recategorize every month.
Earlier as we establish that we got to shut down a nightlife establishment. It's not our desire to take anybody's business. It's our desire to make sure that good actors stay active and bad actors become good actors or they exit the system. And so we've had to do that. And downtown there was there was distinctive action that we had to take and so we can take those actions but we much rather get into compliance and to operate you know, with a safety plan. We do an assessment or we weight them or safety or lighting on cameras, when do you know how to identify signs of intoxication and how do you you know, just various things like how do you perform better these folks are like, we didn't even know how to do CPR how to, you know, stop pouring out for us. I mean, it's like, even just started like, he just started restaurant. But no, we want you to make sure that you have the tools to make sure your patrons and your staff are safe.
Scott Hardesty where are you? Okay, Scott's question is please describe the city's plan. to resurface secondary streets. And is there criteria for prioritizing streets such as how we mail
All right. All right. Thank you. My friends and neighbors used to be in the same neighborhood. So the score will make some friends with it. Physical strengths he said just go straight to Mr. Art. Let's go straight to Mr. Art and about all the LMI G and the movement Lana Ford money and all of our planning around resurfacing streets.
Hi again. So we chronically get into the end of the LMG resurfacing program for 2020. We're reminded what LMI is like a local municipal infrastructure. So we give them to say developers to researchers and students. It's run by a two year lag. So we're coming in 2020 and a significant number of streets. I think when I checked today about a number of miles at the exact number but I can provide that information for you. And number of miles of this and these districts have been paid and there is a plan, currently that moving forward program which we have come up with a really good strategic plan to deliver may have taken said earlier that this administration is all about delivery, right. We have looked at process we have looked at what has been preventing us from actually delivering a lot of these projects and moving them in at the pace the right pace that we're supposed to be kind of dealing with them and so you will see that we have come up with systems that would help us to come up with better look at what is going on with our streets and in discord. I talked about how we actually looked at some of these programs. We look at some of these problems that intersection so we have, we have all these systems in place that help us to deliver so all of the projects that you're looking at the whether it's DeKalb Avenue, you know, all the ones that you mentioned, there all right now programs you will see on our website, how we have actually structured them to be able to come online over the next four years, and how they wouldn't be delivered, what the plan is, what it's going to take for us to do it and all of that. So we do have all of these happening and of course, the LV program that I mentioned the next one which is 2021 is going to come online next year as well. You see a significant significant number of fees being resurfaced as well. So look out for that. I have more information for you out there at the desk by ATL DLT to show you all the different streets and all the different programs that are broken for us to work on for over the next couple of years.
And let me add on to that. One thing is, you know, the city of Atlanta doesn't do all resurfacing. We have contractors and contractors means procurement you have to purchase these things. And so I hired a new chief procurement officers to Judy, would you please stand up he he came on exit right? Came on July 27. In this door it was very happy about picking up this this wonderful individual. The reason why I have an understanding and the understanding is your projects that you your favorite project these days that you want to get delivered. They were backlogged because a project like the cab Avenue and even cascade road, they took somewhere around 14 to 18 months to get through the RFP process. That's horrible. We want to get these things down for a reasonable amount of time. So how do complete streets cascade in the cab of the park? This was a procurement problem. And then the other problem is the ability to assess the project for so you get into the project and you find out that the cab app really had a lot of things underneath the ground that were challenges and cascade the same way water problem so we're now doing the infrastructure utility movements and all these projects we have to buy right away. All these things take a lot of time. But when it comes to buying hire the contractors to do you want to speak about some of the things that you were able to do recently and this is important because this answer a lot of questions. I just wanted him to talk about this this is about operational excellence that will lead us down a path of improvement that you will see everything that we buy from streetlights and we buy everything. We don't make it in the city so we have to buy it. So buying is a huge part of our delivery. So this individual and his team have now improved this significantly.
Can you talk about demonstration? Yes, absolutely. So one of the first things that we evaluated is why does it take so much time to get any procurement process completed? So we identified a lot of duplicate steps we identified some of the supplies don't take the initiative to finalize the contracts. So as part of the process, what we also doing is when we issue RFPs and procurement packages, we are also issuing the contract with the package which gives the suppliers have very good idea of what the terms and conditions are. So by the time the procurement process is complete, we are able to make an award supplier will always sign the contract because they know what's in the contract. So average cycle time from 320 days. We are now down to 90 to 120 days.
Three to four months. We went from one year to three to four months and he's been working in about six days. Six days seven
days. I didn't have 100 100 days plan. I executed again according to that. But more importantly as more and more projects come. This will give the short run procurement cycle will help us to get more and more projects within a short timeframe. So you will see more and more projects coming online. We are there to serve you and we will be doing more projects to help the community here.
Let me just add Thank you, Commissioner and Melinda. Is that one of the things that the team has done when the transportation team did the service delivery plan. It was completely aligned with the procurement process that's updated. So we know exactly when the procurement should finish and when the contract sign and when the contract should be deployed. And we're looking at all of the steps we can take in advance of deployment of a project so that when it starts it actually start it's not starting to start or pre start and it's actually going to start on time. So we want to compress the time it takes us to get different steps done and have a coordination across all of departments. And I just want to say one thing about the roads. We have a lot of roads where the reason why you see so many potholes on the road is dipping down is because underneath the infrastructure, there was not adequate curb and gutter or water infrastructure which means that as the street is there, it's eroding underneath. And so one of the things we have to do and which is why we're taking the time to do it is making sure that the interior is correct. And the utilities are in place because we can play these roads. But if we don't fix the underlying infrastructure, the roads will collapse in a year and then you'll be yelling at us saying you just spent all this money and the the road looks the way it did just a year ago so we know it takes time. And I can tell you we all ride on these roads and we want to see him fixed this as much as you do. So we're streamlining our processes to be more efficient in our project delivery, but also making sure it gets done right. We want to make sure the projects are utilizing taxpayer dollars in the most effective way.
A question from Maura Francis Morna there she is what is being done to improve logistics at the Atlanta Airport during construction and improve customer service. Very good.
Question, because we have a lot of construction going on at the world's busiest and most efficient airport in the world. And Mr. Baran, the adoring you want to answer about the airports? What are we going to do? Wow right now we have construction going on right into TSA days. And we I've had phone calls from people saying oh my gosh, it's taken an extra hour or more. What are we going to shorten that time when we when we when we are done with that project? And then what notifications are we given to the public to make sure they're aware of the delays?
The tackiness may or be around the airport General Manager. So the airport is very big again when you look at the airport and the number of people that will move to the airport says ideally they should be Move over 290,000 people every single day max of 280,000 people and peak days through airports I think about it 280,000 People coming through the airport. When you look at the number of TMC operations of car is enormous. It's in the 10s of 1000s. So what we have done to minimize the impact and not say that we are not going to impact the traveling public but to minimize the impact. We have put a suite of options in place and we have people focused on what's happening. And more importantly, we are pushing information to the general public to educate them and let them know what's happening at the airport in terms of using the airport to and from as your destination what to expect and what we are asking of you in terms of planning I did. I saw that you couldn't make your flight in the appropriate time that you have allotted to get to the airport. So from a logistics standpoint, we have a suite of options in there with signage, push notification to the to the consumers and more importantly, we have people, customer service agent to give you that personal touch when you come to the airport. If you're not sure what to be
given to a plane, how many hours they need to go, just say right now for the next how long. I mean, I want to give it straight. How long is it going to take? Is it for the next 12 months? Plan? Two hours ahead for three out there. What do you what would you suggest?
So for the next 12 to 18 months, we are asking consumers to show up at the airport plan to arrive at the airport two and a half hours prior to your flight departing for two and a half hours prior to your flight that's still accommodate for the traffic getting to the airport to accommodate for check in process to the TSA security
and that is because right now we're doing construction right at the ticket at the ticket as a PSA. But we're trying to minimize that by I guess as you complete one you open it up you're not going to fix the whole thing first year as you complete the lane. You open that lane is that how we operate so
the airport is landlocked. We sit them 4700 acres compared to like I used an airport system 10,000 acres. So what we have to do is maximize technology to be able to accommodate this growth that we're experiencing. Remember a decade ago we were at 80 million passenger 2019 We're dealing with decades of that. So everything we do is how do we increase capacity at the airport. So we are modernizing the main checkpoint going from processing about 160 Passenger per lane per hour with the new system we're putting in place will increase the capacity to about 260 passengers per hour. So we are increasing our capacity in the same footprint that we have to operate in and out a little while but
then a little while we'll be paying. So in other words for Thanksgiving and Christmas, get out there three hours or so now we're going to do what we call open mics. And we have two gentlemen who have the mics. And this Francis since you were up real quick. If you'll just say everybody just say between the two guys. Come walk through the backup room and line up please on both sides. Now go back and forth. Because some of your questions in here you can ask that didn't get answered because we need to move now to this. Our grid All right, Miss Frances, go ahead. As a
weekly business traveler, can I ask a question and make a suggestion? Yes. The first question is the notifications. How are those notifications being pushed out? Because I have to clear the Delta and the ATL app because I'm a weekly traveler. And then can we develop some sort of partnership with TSA because I was very surprised to see that. We had customer service awards for the past two years. That has not been my experience as a traveler since 2014. And I think that issue comes in the TSA security. Okay. Thank you. Thank
you. So her question regarding we thank you for your suggestion that we'll keep that and utilize that person per question regarding notifications, how to notifications going out.
So now the dedication goes up in the theory of social media platform, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. We also have our website@aol.com that gives you real time data on the security wisdom and auto construction activity that was going out there. And thirdly, the airline also push out notification via your path. When you about to check in on your flight.
Okay, question. Yes, I'm
very young Johnson. James Miller. I want to thank Mayor I'm ridiculous for the garbage that was removed on i 20. Homes station. You're getting my hand and I will remind you all of Western i I've asked him Oh, sweetheart, what are you concerned about on pass on the other side of ad 20. Now that at Mana medical is being close that we need? Services, we need Trauma Services on our side of town. In addition, we need to honor single family units. They can go to the springs and build as many apartments that they want up there but we don't need more cops on our side of town. This overload and change to try to change our R four and R three of Americans. How you going to honor our three and our whole for our communities on this side of twin.
Okay, so she had two questions. Two questions well Well, first of all, she was garbage. A test a at the cascade back out at the cascade townhomes. Yeah. Can you clean this up and then one day we got to clean so that's what sort of the fun but 30 questions are a level one trauma center. We all are very well aware at AMC WellStar is closing November 1, which is a few days from now. And we got a plan in place and it's time as allowed. We'll have this Gordon kind of talk about that. But we did put a moratorium on the property so that they can turn into some luxury condos and so that we got to use it for hospitals. And we're actively attracting hospital operators to help us with that, but she's also writing in that there are no hospitals south of 20 in the city of Atlanta and no hospitals if you get sick on the north side of about 20 You got to be my Northside Emory and grading but you don't have anything on the south side. That's a tragedy and I don't want to go you know my term or terms it would that still be in our reality. So we're going to work hard to try to attract some medical facilities to the South side of town because an emergency that care was able to do live and it just happened. And so we want to make sure we we deal with that. And so that's what we've been looking at a full full system approach, not just AMC WellStar and then about R three and R four. I believe that the city of Atlanta have a lot of people coming here we've got a lot of growth so we have to have more density but also respect the character of existing neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods already have, you know, when they have they have single family lots, and so on a single family lots. I'm consistent and I've said this in the campaign I said this now I'm consistently not you know, tearing up single family lives and communities that are not ready for that. I mean, we need density we know where to get it got almost 2000 acres of publicly owned land in this city from Borgholm. Civic Center side to Inglewood to bank headquarters to I mean, on and on and on. I just bought a building to P Street went right over a border station that's gonna be the largest residential tower in the city. So we're gonna get our density where we need to get it on your key corridors. So we're not going to touch your neighborhood your home. No miles, I wouldn't let that happen to you or wouldn't it happen to me?
Who's next question over here. We're going back and forth.
Suzanne Mitchell.
Hello, Mayor.
And I want to welcome everyone to summer Hill and Grant Park and thanks everyone from the city for coming out. This is unprecedented and we really do appreciate DC so that's first and foremost. One question or is there there's someone here from invested Lana? We have and this is tiny. We have you won't have a property of the quarter market Georgia. We had abandoned vehicles that are having a hard time getting removed and we have that's the neighbor who sees it every day. And we have massive overgrown trees. You have a great crew that comes in and cuts but they haven't been given the okay to go ahead and cut those trees down. And it's safety and security. So we want to make sure that that's taken care of so I'll get with you. And I just wanted to say one thing. Yesterday, I dropped my keys down at my husband's keys let me stop my my hoodies. keys down in a stormwater drain and within about three hours watershed management when two of the nicest guys on the planet showed up and acted like they were their keys, even though they knew it had washed down the drain. They pulled out this big one thing and took their time and dug in here and said look, I'll look for it. We're gonna look for a minute and
come on. I know you were and you
and I sent a note over to the commissioner and I just wanted to make sure I acknowledge them for their service to the residents. So big shout out to
our workers, people that love our community and don't oh no, you will have that property. Let us know maybe our public works commissioner can help you with cleaning that site up but yes we don't want to have a single city owned property invest Atlanta, Atlanta housing be a nuisance or have any kind of code enforcement or challenges so they have junk cars on our property. We will get them removed ASAP. Idli, sir.
Thank you. My name is Henry Lee. I noticed in your an inaugurational address that you mentioned that one of your goals was to improve the relationship between the city and the state. You know, I'd look around and I see our state routes are still killing people like every other week, someone on Moreland, just this week was killed and GDOT is doubling down on these dangerous roads. Our hospitals are closing and the state doesn't do anything to support them. And Buckhead cityhood it might be dormant, but it is not dead, you know I'm hearing people in our own city council talking about these things. Do you feel like you've succeeded in that goal? And if so, you know, what is it worth if the state won't support us on our most essential issues?
Thank you. Thank you for that. And I appreciate that type of question because it shows you you know, watch the whole picture. But still some key elements may be missing. Your lens may have not observed that even the the WellStar situation that Grady is now getting 184 beds because of the outreach that I've made to the governor and actually held him to the task over the fact that AMC is closing now they're putting in $130 million towards Grady, which gives us 184 beds. Now that's the best. That's progress because it could have turned a blind eye to that but it's clear and honest about this to us an American rescue plan. dollars, which came from if there were no Warnock and no Ossoff, you wouldn't get the vote to be able to get an American plan dollars. Nonetheless, we got to draw a circle, we draw a line, we don't get that done. So we draw a circle all the way from Warnock, Ossoff, to whoever's in the governor's seat all the way to the city of Atlanta. But your point about state routes is extremely, extremely well received. And it's heartfelt by me because Donald Lee Hollowell is right next to mine, where I live, and that's a State Route bank that had four people die on it. Two years ago and you know about two to three years ago. So Moreland is a State Route Memorial. These these state routes were a conversation with our ATL, D O T and GDOT and Mr. Atta, is there anything right now that we have in conjunction with GDOT How is there any GDOT people that are here today? But But would you want to talk about how our relationship with them on infrastructure and it take a listen to us when we say we want to make these state roads less, less threatening and more able to get people through them and across? Yessir. So we
have a very high level collaboration with GDOT right now talking about all these issues. So one of the things that has happened with some frustration as we call it, like a reset, level reset with all the regional partners, so we have G dot aarC and all the partners coming together every month to look at all the issues affecting the city, including the issue that we're talking about right now. So we understand these things and because we bring it to the table every single month, now there was visibility, there was more accountability, and figuring out a way to address all these issues. So definitely we are making progress with all these monthly coordination whenever we're having with the state. Thank you. Question.
Did you want to say things about the relationship with the governor's office on the street racing?
variety. I think we partner with the governor on a variety of things. So originally, the governor's office actually fought back from supporting local municipalities on attacking street rates. After meeting with the governor on that issue, as well as even the more Martin issue, we actually received the full amount of the local funds for more modern, taking it up to $15 million. And then the governor's office have actually been a great partner with us on spring breaks and helping us to resolve about 12 Different things we took 12 Different into custody about two weeks ago in partnership with the chief of police and others, I think we have started to move that partnership forward and we started to see some impact on transportation, state right away, clean up and even our homeless mitigation. We've started to see the state step up so job is not done. But I think we made some great strides.
I got the questions too. But
I think next question. Hi,
I'm Melody Harkleroad. I'm the executive director and the parent nature reserve. And I want to first thank you Mayor for your leadership here and just being more present. Honestly, as a mayor, I also want to thank you and your team for the infrastructure bond for really putting together a great list and for the funding that parks are receiving, as you know, and through your visit, you saw blue heron we have one of the most beautiful parks in the city, but we have a building that is in dire need of renovation. We were fortunate to be able to be a recipient of horizontal funding. But what I was curious about is do you see a flexibility with the funding again, it was designated for horizontal which is really about the site where our knees are a bit iconic. Pioneering building is the same ability. We want it to be here another 50 100 years. And so that flexibility with the bond funding is important and I would imagine that other parks in the city, especially conservancies may also desire that flexibility. So I was just curious, where do you where you felt that stood with the bond referendum?
You were talking about flexibility in the bond for anybody for the CFO. While you were talking about it. Okay, as he's coming up, I love to hear and thank you for the invitation. I came up there earlier this year with APS teachers and we learned a whole lot and I do want to see that continue to be sustained and the facility was actually something that I thought was good, but you're saying that there's some challenges that we need to improve. Okay, well, well, let's see about that.
How about a chief financial officer with respect to flexibility within bond funded projects is limited room for flexibility because that was a referendum that was sent out to the goal is to load on specific project lists. So our our goal is to achieve that project list to the extent that some projects run into certain hurdles along the way. There is a process through city council, in which reauthorization of funding could happen but that only happens in the event that a project can't get completed for extenuating circumstances. But one of the important things to note is with this much amount of infrastructure dollars in place, it relieves other avenues of funding. So impact fees. There is a specific Park meal for Park improvement, funding that that is available Department of Parks and Recreation. So conversations with your elected officials conversation with the mayor's office conversation when the Parks Department could put an emphasis on prioritizing their capital improvement plan and their commitment for dollars which for city government and CFO, it's always limited. We have three times as much things to deal with funding that we have. Yes, sure. Yes,
he's absolutely right. It's very difficult to say because we're not going to recommend them in the bondholders are looking for those products to be done. But that's all the money we will have. So let's talk offline. directly about and we have our deputy commissioner of Parks and Recs over there that can talk to you about that but they are here.
Thank you. I appreciate the Cherokee protected bike lane. I wrote here on it tonight. Also looking forward to the boulevard Southeast Georgia protected bike lanes on environment union land afford referenda to provide continuous protection for Atlanta's children safe access to their middle school, their zoos and to get home safely. All these are great, and I'm familiar with city council members having discretionary budgets. Will you commit to amending your city budgets to include participatory budget line items to allow constituents to identify projects such as sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and placemaking projects for neighbors to gather to be funded and to be built?
Thank you for your questions in 30 seconds.
Got a timer going.
So so our speak on participatory budgeting. And if you don't know Mister, I'm looking for the amount of dollars that we're doing on sidewalks and in the bond. I don't know if you know it right offhand, but let's get that number out. And also, let's be able to communicate about South Bulevar about where that project lies. And so, while you're looking for that, it's gonna want you to be able to respond. And there's also sheets outside about our project list that you can check out on the table. It's very specific about timelines on any of these road projects. But you'll verbally hear from participatory a beautiful Baroque era councilmember District Two he started a participatory budgeting process for his district and observing how that's going. I remember when I was on council and we learned about it and we had Durham, Durham, North Carolina for doing it. It's something that I'm friendly to the idea and how to make sure that citizens whether it's a million dollars or $2 billion that can be out there that you guys can form them have a formal process of deciding discretionary use of those funds. I'm friendly to the idea you'd have to stand up the apparatus to be able to do that city wide. And so charge that to the left, figure it out gold, and that. I'm just interested. I'm interested. You know, we got to figure it out. It's not it's not easy for me to quickly just say yes, we got it. So I'm open to you know, your your inputs on some of the best ways to do that to make an equitable fair, across the entire city. We've seen it done in a district and I'm interested interested to see how all those projects get rolled out. The more micro projects you have, the more times you're gonna have more people said, you know, more stuff to procure more than me, you know, so it is up. It has its pluses and it's minuses, but the pluses are part of my vision for the city that often gets lost and I think it's one of the biggest parts is in the middle of the business statement is full participation of all residents and full participation is a part of the budgeting process. City of Atlanta have a very open budget process where you can see what's going on in combat and come to our hearing, but to be able to make a direct decision on a certain amount of dollars. I'm friendly to the idea. I just got to figure out how to do it and most of our time has been fighting crime, standing up hospitals. Got to get to some of these other more creative things as well. So thank you. And do you want to jump in real quick on the bike lanes and sidewalks are those things that keep people if they don't want to hold on to these numbers to paper down and save 16 million is 12 million they'll beat you up by the time you get out. Thank you, Mayor.
So generally it was sidewalks right in the program. We have a $996 million program and for safe streets and $100 right but specifically for South Boulevard. There was concern from community about the bike lane, right. I think it did kind of gear off the routing through a park and there was concern about that we've reviewed that and we do have some dollars to help fix up to bring it back into alignment of course with community to community input, and we should be seeing that come online in what we call a second batch we should activate in 2024. So that should look out for that there should be a lot of communication concerning that but we should see that cover monitoring 24 Thank you. Next
up, I'm Howard Katzman. I think everyone in this room is probably aware that Atlanta is losing trees at an enormous rate by the city's own statistics. Year over year destruction with Cree trees has doubled. Fortunately, Mr. Mayor, you did form a working group to help develop some improvements to the tree ordinance. But that process largely just resulted in housekeeping items, and no trees are really going to be saved as a result. As we move into this process of developing more affordable housing and higher density in the city. Developers will typically say you can't have higher density and save trees. You got to choose one or the other. I know that's not true because as a former builder, I save trees when I was building I know it can be done. So we in the city here have a once in a generation opportunity to save one of Atlanta's most important assets. Our mature tree canopy will use seize that opportunity, sir.
Yes, thank you. Thank you. I thought you'd get an applause for them. That's applause you're absolutely right. I don't take for granted the fact that we are what we are the best place in the United States to live according to Money Magazine. And how we got there includes a lot of things we talked about today, including our wonderful tree canopy. I believe that our trees have enabled us to the visitors that we have and the fact that people love to live here. Most of my job is about managing competing interests. You mentioned affordable housing. I got a big interest in that. It's like what I do what I want us to do 20,000 units but also want to make sure that we preserve our tree canopy. So most of what my daily walk is and managing and competing interests. And I don't think it's an either or I think it's a both and I think we could do both. And that's why I'm having this done a press are seeking to city plan and talk about where we are in this tree ordinance process and that was one was over here. I think you gotta handle that from the City Council perspective right and how we're going to pass that legislation hopefully before we get out of 42. And we'll go into 23 Knowing how people what they can and can't do that developer or what the penalties are, but also what the what the what the ground rules are on how we're going to make sure that we don't have to manage this competing interest anymore. We can do both. So Mr. Prince, thank you.
Thank you for your question. We have been working on the tree ordinance for some time now and before the end of the year, we are going to bring forward some amendments to the ordinance to strengthen our ordinance. That will be before the last Council meeting of the year. And beginning next year. We're going to start on round two. So stay tuned. Come to the Department of City Planning website. We'll have an announcement for you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you she just said Mayor we don't have much time left. We got all these questions. Oh, y'all all y'all have questions? Okay. Can I make a suggestion? Can and I did this at the last one. It worked really well. I let everybody asked him a question and then I I just answered all of them advocated versus one to one that you know, because our answers alone, because your company questions are complex. So if you can just hit your question, I want to hear your question. I wanna hear your question. And then we'll write down the answers write down the questions and then at the end I will go rapid fire response to that because hopefully someone will be grouped together. So that way I won't be alright, who's next and so, so start start grabbing them and yeah, those people back there writing questions down. Yes, sir.
Thank you, man, James dad for incompetence. It's good to see you sis men too. Questions in your campaign. You want it to make it possible for every resident to wrap model for free. We found that this would not allow my request. I'm glad Councilman Baum came in and said I've been asking that city council per breath. Where do you live branch What's the new citizens modeling the Fulton County plan that they we pay $1 per ride up to 16 rides per month, which you agreed actually do that for oil to naturally do let y'all know I am a graduate of the first black high school instead of Atlanta, Booker T Washington High School. Don't forget that all
right. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna answer later. So don't think I'm ignoring you when I don't ask but I just want to go on a quest things.
over to this side.
Hey, good evening. Show. longtime resident of Summerhill. First, thank you for coming Summerhill. Thank you for this wonderful event. I've lived in Summerhill for 22 years. I remember when we were paid to live with Summerhill because we had tax incentives because they wanted to redevelop a neighborhood. Everything that's happening now is what was promised over 20 years ago. It's awesome. It's great. And we are appreciative that the Carter has been a great developer, partner for the neighborhood. My question is, we have seen over the past several years as development has happened is that we are now having a tax burden. Understanding that that is part of what comes with growth that is to be expected. My question centers around what is the city what can the city do? And what is the city's doing to help us manage that tax burden? So for example, I'm just growing but
no disrespect
to those terms, and I'm addressing these
donut in the intersection. And you touched on it earlier, but I got the solution for you. You don't you don't think I'm maybe a
little crazy. But when
those people out in the street just like a downpour everybody disappear when it's raining just when you have to worry about no police. Nobody's shooting nobody no cages, no dogs No. Wet fill up with a hose get the firefighter
Mr.
Sheriff kick find.
A buyer Good evening, everybody. My name is I live in the Grant Park neighborhood. And I'm a senior and I'm wanting to know what the parks and recreational department plenty that are built as a pickleball court. We have tennis courts in Grant Park especially over here near the Grant Park red bright and walk to with there's no pickleball goes inside of the tennis court.
Okay, next question. Please try to keep your questions brief so that we can go bang bang bang
bang bang when you're finished.
Hi, I'm Brian. I was on about mine and Ken what's the wrong neighborhood? So my question is pretty brief. Since the streetcar extension is about to be completed, or emotion, how can we ensure that this neighborhood South I 20 on the Beltline and other neighborhoods have the condition to the Vibrio condition and using additional relationships outside of warm water program to continue to meet up and not that good? Thank you. Thank you. Hi,
my name is Jamie and I live in Grant Park. I was going to ask the question about tax dollars to and I would like to know why can the city of Atlanta Fulton County. Do like Cobb County and when you're 65 you don't have kids in school or anything that we should not have to pay those Atlanta city school taxes. Already?
My boys were nice.
Our first question is what are you going to do to make schools more safe?
And my question is what are you going to do to help kids with learning disabilities? Good? Hi,
Toby from Inman Park. The forecast for respiratory diseases this winter COVID Flu RSV is not good. And other cities have a vaccine plus approach. They have a vaccine center still running. They're giving out free rapid tests like giving up high quality masks or giving out indoor air quality information. What is the city's plan for this winter?
Next question. Good evening.
My name is a great
breakfast in Thomasville southeast Atlanta and my son was on the left and he pays sanitation fees every year. But because he's there's nothing on the line is the sanitation department will not pick up branches and tree limbs and then grasses cookie on the place I want to have it moved. So my question is why does he have to pay and sanitation taxes every year? And they do that pick up the branches and news next. And I'm just Christian right
and I own a teal blue tea. I actually sell master calm so to keep that and mobilize a lot of your parts as an agency. ATL scoop picked up my coffee and they ran a story and found that 90% of Atlantis are against Bucha in a city and Atlanta is one of the few cities in the state that still have this practice with you or any member of city council willing to amend ordinance 1801 one to eight and make it unlawful to move in the city.
your time and your leadership from one yellow jacket to another the fastest growing sport in America and it will be a sport at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles is pickleball. There is not a single dedicated court in the city of Atlanta while every other city and county in metro Atlanta has a dedicated port. There are some beautiful facilities inside the city that have not been used and can't be repurposed to city parks and recreation has not been responsive to these requests. We please please need your support.
Thank you Next question over here.
Good evening. My name is Steve Williams. I live in Capitol view. My question comes down to I'm curious if you plan to hire the person that built position in water conservation for the city. The position was ended by Mayor Raven Melinda Langston retired who was here earlier than reaching out with the Stanford department to talk about this. John, thank you for what you're doing. I'm just curious to what's going to do because you've got many other other things here. And if you want to help with your climate change, you can carbon control. Look into this concentration in water than please give me a call.
gentleman on the side.
My name is Wesley. I have a son who is about to turn four with Halloween right around the corner. And given that it is the most dangerous day of the year for children as they are killed by drivers more than any other day of the year edition. Why? What can we do as a city to make sure that our streets are safe for our children and Halloween as well as all of the needs of the year.
Next question over here. Yes,
my question is external taxes. What is a way that we find work? It's not straight deed we have family house, a family home that the taxes tripled now and it's it's just not a straight way but we lived here for ever built over in in Washington. That's my first question. I needed Stan and some help on that. And secondly, the squirrels as I said, I know that sounds strange but as they tear down and Bill other places, squirrels are coming across the street to Washington Park like crazy and they're trying to take us back
we're almost finished. The mayor's going to do a good job of answering rapid fire
Hi my name is Oscar Rodriguez, the executive VP and H going on community sorcerer native over 34 years. And the center is named after my grandmother who passed last year to survive and three years with a My question is two part question is what are we going to do when inmates such as My Father has come home from prisons and jails? They get on the Greyhound with only $25 in bulk support. What do we have in place for these people to stay off the
streets
and get help the help that they need? Number two, what are we doing about all the tents in Atlanta where people are sleeping on the bridges? I don't think that's right for human life. But I also have a solution and that is my organization got started this year. We're going to work through the cap County with the city of Atlanta. I look forward to working with you all to get the social services that people need so that we can get our streets clear. And I just want to thank you Mayor Andre for hitting the ground why you see she's got an office. Next question. My name is
My name is Griffin Wasdin and I live in Ormewood Park. Go jackets. What's it gonna take? To get the parked cars out of the bike lanes? And would you be willing to consider putting in place some sort of bike lane bounty program to allow everyday citizens report card as part of your bikes?
Yes
I did and I'm gonna go steal school. And my high school is about here we go my clubs like the leaves that were talking about earlier has like, just add more details like on this question like it's added crime to our neighborhood people die in the club dying on our neighbor's lawns and like it's very puzzling to hear your license licensing and they're postponing it for two months and they're not hearing our voices, but I know what you can do with that folks that have affected you.
Thank you Next.
Good evening, Mr. Mayor as a fellow jacket I hope you're still spending time with George P. Burdell, now that you're in office. I wanted to ask you this evening about our permitting process. What are we doing to streamline streamline our permitting process? I'm currently working on constructing a house and I have at least a year now and my permit done that has lapsed and it's sometimes it's hard to even tell who to reach out to to move it forward. So I'd love to hear what we're doing to make that more clear and to know who the context would be.
Next.
Good evening. My name is Jared Polis Katz and I live in Grand Park and I have a business every day apart. So I have two questions. One is can we use actually all the empty parking lots in the Marta station to build affordable housing so my employees can actually live in the city and also seems a lot of tags that are now proposed to county coming into the city and make more traffic What about you charging them to come into the city?
So that's everybody's questions. Okay. Let's go man.
All right. So overall answer is we're gonna work real, real real. Life. Were real, real, real, real hard. So, quick, pickleball right on the top. We're looking into that for real. Did you want to talk about that, or that none of your shot? Well, I'll tell you, the new commissioner Justin Cutler, just last week, earlier this week, he was saying he is now sure that he here you guys. We will do stay in the round pickleball. It's one of the problems that he mentioned was the noise that pickleball makes the tick, tick, tick, tick. Tick. And so we got people that will tell us the neighborhood so we're looking at like Central Park that have a lot of space around it so you won't have that but some parks a neighborhood park so if you get that and we're gonna get another set of challenges with with noise. So just wanted to share that we haven't thought about pickleball down to the noise of it and the accessibility of it so forthcoming stay and stay tuned I would presume and and indoor you're talking about. Okay, and then according to talk about modern Campbellton road and housing in part. Oh,
absolutely. All right. Absolutely. So there's a three parter is investing $300 million in bus rapid transit to go down Campbellton road. On top of that investment though. That number that cover the actual line or the dedicated lane for the bus rapid transit, but they are also building stations, as well as facade improvements to coincide with that investment. At the same time, the mayor has identified Campbellton road as a key corridor for revitalization and so we're looking at a number of strategies, from at property acquisition to beautification, to increasing access to parks in the areas of figuring out how we bring a grocery store if you've been on campus, a row. There's no grocery store almost from anything again. And so we're looking at a number of activities from economic development, affordable housing and transportation to help revitalize the entire area.
Okay, all right. And affordable housing on empty lines, a lot of stations
Yes, of course, we are. So Martin is a part of the mayor's affordable housing, StrikeForce, which is a collaboration of essentially every government entity that owns land. They have an extensive transit oriented development program already that has already raised $200 million in private capital, and it's designed to do exactly that. And so you've got one project transit oriented development that has been awarded this year that will be in the North Avenue Station, the open the city transit, transit oriented development project RFP will be issued in the first quarter of next year. And of course, right around the corner you have Marjon, which is a transit oriented development. And so we are looking at turning those parking lots into affordable housing units throughout the city, not just on ones
Hamilton homes and also we just bought to the stream right over 5.6 And we just go around quit or cut rid of that Quill, which is Angeles nation. And he said possible to have free Marta and live live there. The very first question that procedures Yeah, I'm friendly to them. And I want to see how we can afford it. Because you know, there's some state regulations but Mr. Bond he's pointing that you said you got some ideas on them. Bonds discretionary funds are gonna pay for the same way, but no, I am super friendly to that idea with Marta and trying to get our board members to push on that our board of board members to push on. I really want to see us and our students to have reduced or free Marlin in the near term. I mean, over the next four years to eight years I started I started phasing that in but I gotcha, I gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Now what was question, Felipe, I want you to ask the question around vaccines and RSV and, you know, flu shots. I got my flu shot today but how we have a triple pandemic right now RSV, flu shots and COVID.
So we're gonna start a vaccination program for the flu and the Bible and COVID-19 poster we're going to start next Thursday at sea all starting at nine finish in s3 so it's open for all the city and the residents of Atlanta. Additionally, we're looking to expand and have these programs every Thursday in different city facilities, parks and recreation and senior centers. The only catch is the rivalling COVID-19 Booster is free however, the booster shot if you have insurance or Medicaid Medicare, we should cover it but if you don't have to, you cannot afford that is a small nominal fee of $35.
Okay, thank you. We're going to have Miss Gordon take homelessness and then I'm going to have you kick it over to your commissioners or water conservation position. That's no longer filled so I don't know what that is Katherine or John. But you go ahead and start with
very pleased that we have our DCO Burks over the over LaChandra Burks and we have Katherine Purcell. She just left works with us on homelessness. We have a pot of money about 26 million, including money from the city's our ponds and state on to address 1500 Plus homeless folks in the next six to 12 months we have identified all of the encampments different areas and processes, we compassionately work with those people that are unhoused to find services for them, and then housing and then to get them into stability to where they can have their issues dealt with so they don't go back into homelessness. So that is the plan and and the issue we have is that there's a pipeline of people coming into homelessness, and then some people are chronically homeless. And there are areas in different communities where we have teams that go out and talk to people so that we can start to eradicate homelessness in our community.
And we have already applied a lot of money in our lives at one point on our left to one over plan we have actually taken individuals that have been an academy This is hard work. And I'm going to continue to let the rest of you answer all we got to answer all these questions. I got them written in text form. But there's homelessness is a huge challenge right now. It is because it's growing. housing costs have skyrocketed 75% Over the last 10 years, but people's incomes have not kept up with that. So too many people have more month than money. And we're gonna continue to see this problem grow. We don't continue to help people get more money by having better jobs, more income, and also bringing down the cost of housing or the accessibility to housing. Well, we've gone into too, when you go into somebody's encampments, it's 3040 tins. You can't just take them in boom. That's a violation of your human rights. We have to go in there and build a relationship, do a lot of outreach communicating to the people with mental challenges with addictions, veterans, we have challenges. It's not an easy thing. So when you've seen and can't miss move, just know that took a coordinated effort with a lot of people to get those individuals into stable housing. Our shelters are not full. We have shelters and shelters about four people since the pandemic have decided I do not want to live tonight in a shelter. I want an apartment. I want a hotel. And it's a challenge that they I go on and on about homelessness, but I just wanted to communicate you when you see us go into a place and then in those tents are gone. We're here we are human rights folks. We have morality. We don't just kick them somewhere, push them over to the other side of the street and have the next set of businesses calling us the next week. No, we're putting them in a transitional room giving them the care they need. But 35% of them have mental challenges. And mental health is not a city constitutional requirement to solve this county. The counties are responsible for Health and Human Services, that county the other 25% of your tax dollars. Your home 25% of taxes go to city 25% Go to the county 50% goes to the school system. That's the other 25% to the council. They are responsible for health which is the hospitals but I'm involved in that now because they've been doing on a school to do mental health. I'm involved in that we're sending money that direction because so I want you to pick up your phone and call county folks more often than you do. Because 25% of the money goes into C. elegans Julius this well, that shorthand having a three human with that invocation. By show of hands how many people is that an education to? Director communications, We're gonna make sure people know about all of your money and why the city is not responsible. All the things that people want to see with the response before I'm again, I've been helpful, it knows at risk, but we need some help from them back and other way. We're strong. Let's talk about returning citizens from incarceration and workforce development. Yeah, so they
are actually working on the mic is the mayor's actually working on the creation and development of his new Department of Labor really expand training opportunities to focus on both homeless citizens as well as returning citizens and so we've already provided $1.8 million to Atlanta Technical College, who was actually creating some customized programs on our behalf in partnership with the city and just I think last week, sat in on a meeting with Deputy Chief Operating Officer burst where we will be partnering with CBS to actually do a resource fair downtown, focus on both workforce development and homeless job seekers who are looking to re enter the workforce.
So that the city has an existing partnership in addition to all those things, a wonderful organization Call Center for Employment Opportunities. It's a nonprofit organization, and then focuses specifically on individuals who were justice involved and who are returning home. There are about 5000 other folks in the city every year. And on tomorrow, I'll be having a meeting with the head of HR, finance and procurement to see how we can expand that partnership. They didn't know what the meeting was about, but it's something Kevin
Yes, a product so we already are having CTO in the name of the organization. And so when they do, they're already in our watershed department or at least I put works really hard with individuals to work about sanitation department. So when you get out you have a job in the city and we don't require them to check the box.
Also,
in addition to that, we'll be talking about someone who's been incarcerated but also dealing with mental health and substance abuse. That's one, where are we watching dual diagnosis cases they're dealing with? I just want to know
what we'll do is we'll see you directly after to give you the specifics on that part. But a job will really help you when you get out of jail too. So you might have missed acid but that's a good answer. Yeah, okay, young lady. I'm gonna skip the last question. Because there's a lot of questions on here and I'm just going into one. So schools, we love our partnership with the Atlanta Public School System and director Janine Lewis over here. Stand up Miss Janine Lewis work for APM now work for us. She's over all of our youth engagement. And so while we are not over the school system, we partner with the school system. So our chief is going to talk to you briefly about our relationship between APS PD, which has their own police department and our PD and then we will also talk about our programs with APS for after school programs as well rough coordination for things during school that can help individuals with various learning disabilities and also a learning objective. So to talk about our connection. Yeah,
thank you, Mayor. Anybody that's in the city's important Atlanta Police Department. We work very closely with APS police, which is led by Chief apple. We talk with him weekly sharing information that's beneficial for both their police departments, but we train with it very regularly. So you often see Atlanta police officers training right beside EPS police officers for best practices. We also are integrating your cameras in your schools. We will be coming in to Connect Atlanta and oftentimes you will see a lot of police officer patrolling through the schools and the request and recently you're seeing our officers reading in elementary schools as we do the badges and Books program. So if it's training, if it's sharing information and it's pulling together, student safety as a priority in the Atlanta Police Department, those partnerships are helping with that.
And Chief unfortunately, let's just talk a little bit about active shooter training. Unfortunately, we just had St. Louis and also had what happened in Norcross and you just you know in a delicate manner without scaring the crap out of everybody. But just when we do have that we have
absolutely nowhere to start last semester what happens in other cities and God forbid it should happen here but if it does, your police department is prepared. Some of us saw recently the active shooter in Midtown Atlanta, when multiple agencies came together at 8am Quickly apprehended that individual, we have trained with those other four agencies over and over and over to be prepared for that worst case scenario. If it should come to an educational institution in this city, you will see the same response robust, quick and very capable to end up quickly.
Thank you. All right now on to doing more talking about our program. And then we're gonna queue up this morning for me for my Georgia Tech yellow jacket. And then we'll go to some
very briefly and ladies, it was nice to meet you. I look forward to working with you. What we've realized in these last 10 months is that we cannot stand up youth programming without youth voice so we will be recruiting for a Youth Advisory Council including parents, so that we can have several layers of support and input as we are socializing our our plans for next year and the year of view. But today, the mayor and our team are actively working with Atlanta public schools Fulton County Schools in DeKalb County schools because all three of those counties fall within our jurisdiction. To make sure that the wraparound services which impact the services for students with exceptionalities special needs, that they are actually getting to the ground and our parks and rec division in departments. We have one of the largest after school programs I believe in the state commissioner Cutler may correct me but we will be working with our after school staff to make sure that they have those wraparound services and recently the mayor began announcing grants to community based organizations that provide wraparound services in after school centers also pushing pushing into the school. So while we do not have jurisdiction over the school districts, we are working very diligently to make sure that those services get to you and we'll do what we can on the policy level within our jurisdiction to make sure you guys are taken care of. Thank you to me
and thank you y'all ladies for your question and being participatory in your government giving ladies a round of applause. Ladies over here
from Atlanta girls school that was the historic million dollars. We have a million dollar grant out there for you service organizations and we're we've already given away 200,000 of them and 50,000 off the top. So there's a lot to help those organizations as part of our permitting and then one wing as it come up our commissioner to talk about this. Sanitation fees from
last me.
Actually, as many of you know, we have been a commissioner of planning and one of the things we've been trying to do is make sure even as we recruit people that we've looked at all of our processes, so deputy coo Otto who spoke earlier has been working with a cross departmental team so that when you come and do your permits one we are giving them lanes so if you're a single family home single provider, you're in a different way than a $40 million dollar project. We're also looking at each step of the process, where is it? We want to be the Uber Eats of permitting where you would be able to go online and see where you're permitted every point in the project in the process as well as who would who do you call right and that's one of the issues we've had people say they should have been called the mayor or me or anyone else they should know exactly what the point of contact is. So we will be rolling out. Really in the next couple of weeks you'll start to see those improvements and then Mr. English and I are working on for the housing, StrikeForce we'd like to see an express link for affordable projects. So projects have affordability that they will have a separate team that works on that and moves different different permits through the process. So we are actively working on that. One of the issues we have with that is when you have when you start you have a backlog so like you there were several people saying you know I have a permit where is it? We are looking at what are all the permits that are in our backlog. So moving forward, we have the new process, and then we have to clear our backup law. So you shouldn't be seeing an improvement soon. But we are working on it. And we also have a focus group that gives us feedback on the process. So we're not doing it in the fact that we're asking people what it thinks that will make permitting with the city easier and smoother.
Go on here. Yeah, we've planned for that permit. Mr. Wiggins, and then we're gonna go over here and find answers to Mr. Bhalla on this car talk about why the APS alcohol Kennedy isn't over 65 You don't need to pay taxes on education, education forcement of taxes. How would that affect us and where are insights on that?
Thank you America. So really simple. Under the current solid waste fee structure and recently approved by the American Council, unimproved or vacant lots are no longer required to pay a solid waste fee. So if you received a bill for feet for vacant lot, you receive an erroneous bill, please send that bill back to us and we'll make sure that that bill is modified. He made a payment we'll make sure we'll get a return back to you because
that's gonna make a lot of brand new the city council and when I was a council member that that was what we did as well. But I also want to let you know we want to build on your life. We want to build some affordable housing on it. So get the last in our city. Let's go please let me know how we can help you be able to work with at best Atlanta to develop that line and to you know, something that's affordable to a family we can you know, depending on the last option to have accessory dwelling on the back so you can get two units. So that's that. All right. Let's talk about something that I looked at when I was a council member. And I remember the number was $14 million was the amount of taxes that we received from people over 70 was the number we would look at Mr. Bhalla. You got two mics over here Mr.
So, Mohammed Bala again chief financial officer so one of the things that we have to do as a government is we construct our budget based on the needs of the city for the year. So every decision that we make, while it may benefit a group of people it will it will have to be absorbed somewhere else goods and services or finance $14 million in demand said and others other fields. However, we are looking at them in more detail to be able to see what the true impact is and what types of requirements are in place. So as you just received years of a certain age or as a percentage of a certain age. Will also within a city for a specific amount of time, right? You don't want to incentivize seniors to move up the ladder to not have to pay that tax and haven't contributed to the benefit of Atlanta for a long period of time. So we're looking at is going to be very thoughtful about a decision like that. I'm looking at it in more detail, so that when it's done is done in an equitable manner and has been for the citizens who have been in Atlanta and help Atlanta thrive and grow for a long time. All right, well,
I'm going to answer these last three questions ratifying because the the principle is like, you're gonna get out of here
and we're just at 730.
So yeah, community tax. I'm friendly to the idea. It's just hard to do. I'm going to so many inroads into the city of Atlanta, where do you put the toll road What do you do to give all of us passes? So if logistically is difficult, but I don't have them on our roads and they're here for free. So I'd like to collect the tax for people that's coming from Erie County. So your
city of Atlanta, okay. My condo on route again? Yeah.
And then park cars in the bike lane, a bounding system. I'd like to hear more about that. Like, how do you operationalize that is it you know, something that you will just tag some tagging, like, hey, it's here. And if you tell them, you know, it's like 311 kind of what that's for, but a balance isn't right. You get a coupon or like, something without the data. So like you said instead of Oh, Lord, that's a that's we have to think about having a compensation now in order to work and the last thing is, well, I don't know man, I was doing vehicles a young man asked about bullying vehicles. I'm not in front of it. I think there's two as property owners, you, you have a requirement of how spaces are to be utilized. You pay money for these spaces. If you're illegally in those spaces, then you kind of want people to offer those things. So if there's something else I'm missing about that I'd be open to the conversation. But okay, so ticketing is the is the alternative to building. Okay. I can look into that. I mean, I could be further to that idea. I'm not necessarily sure how to operationalize that much amount of ticketing from the city services. But last thing I'm thinking this person, can I take everybody out? I wouldn't.
I don't want you to take everybody out because the principal has said we got to get out. Get
out of here. I don't want no one attention. You guys, thank you. I'm really glad that you all came out today and I think that's the key to do things together. And moving forward together. As always going
