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when they're using this. My brother got to move the blood. got to the hospital today. So I need to try to get down there. So my mind is otherwise occupied sounds. I know. All right, let's get started, y'all. Y'all want to have a meeting? Welcome. This is the biggest crowd we've had in in a while. Uh, and you might have noticed we have some state champions in the house tonight. We're going to start this evening. Um, we have Pastor Kim Grahamling from Life Church, Assembly of God at 4100 King Springs Road. Pastor, would you please come up and lead us in the invocation and pledge? Everybody please rise. Let's bow to pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for those who serve on our Smyrna City Council and for all organizations and individuals who will take part in this meeting today. We thank you for those who serve in all le levels of leadership over this city. And I pray that your peace and unity will be present as they all work through the details of the agenda that has been set for this meeting. I ask you to give wisdom for making wise decisions that will be beneficial for the health, vitality, and progress of all its citizens. I pray for divine strategies and creative insights in how to execute those decisions in a timely and effective manner. I pray for the financial provision to see the vision for the future of Smyrna to be realized. I pray for a spirit of cooperation between individuals, government entities, businesses, and other organizations so that we will be stronger and better community. I pray most of all that we would trust in you and not lean on our own understanding. That above all and in everything we would acknowledge you, trusting that you give us direction and wisdom. And it is in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

[snorts] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, pastor, for being here. Appreciate it. All right, we have one thing to do before we have special recognitions and we have one agenda change. We are adding an item to the agenda uh authorizing um King Street closure. We're going to close that keep that road closed uh until further notice to vehicular traffic uh right here in the downtown and uh it'll be used for still used for festivals and all of those things for the food trucks and all that. So, may I have a motion to add that to the agenda? Moved by Mr. Lindley, second by Miss Hines. Everybody, please vote to add that to the agenda. And that's added with a 70 vote. All right. Now, two important things. We have two state champion Little League baseball teams from Smyrna, Georgia in here tonight. And I'm going to go through the

first one. We have the 7U Blue Allstars and the 9U Blue Allstars. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about the 7U. Um, and then I'm going to have the coach come up. We'll have the team come up. We'll recognize y'all. And then I'm going to do the nineu. And then I want to get everybody together for a picture. So that's how this is going to go. So the 7U Allstars, they outscored their opponents 139-64. 24 out of 64 innings they gave up zero runs. Wow. Okay. They won the district here in Smyrna at Brinkley Park. That was in May. They won the sectionals at Peach Tree City Little League. And I got to see some of their game. We were playing on some of the same uh same days and I got to see them win a couple of their games. And then they won the 7U Coach Pit State Championship at Martinez Little League in Martinez, Georgia on Sunday, June 14th. Give them a round of applause. [applause] So, I'm gonna I'm gonna have Coach Mike Meshki come up, head coach, and and the other coaches. Um, and then do you want you want me to introduce the team or you want by now? You want to do it? It's it's your team. It's your team. You you all right? Introduce introduce. But before we before we do that, come on up. Before we do that though, we have he's going to introduce the team. But I want to I want to mention one member of this team specifically because it's the first time this has ever happened in the city of Smyrna. Emerson Ford, number seven. As a member of this state championship team, she became the first female player on a Smyrna Little League All-Star team to win a state championship.

Amaz [cheering] [applause] [applause] this league, our little league, has been part of this community since 1954. So, think about that. She's the first one. And in addition to being on this coach pitch state championship team, she was invited to compete in the baseball for all BFA national tournament in Rockford, Illinois last month. She helped lead the team to win the 2026 BFA 8U coach pitch national championship, making them the first 8U team to earn a BFA national title. Team also received the Shirley Burkovich Hustle Award. Baseball for All is the largest girls baseball tournament in the United States and welcomes players from around the world. How cool is that? Congratulations. Congrat. [applause] [applause] All right, coach. Show's yours. Come on. All right. Is this on? Okay. I'm usually loud enough, but I'll try to not be too loud. First off, I'll follow uh Thank you, Mr. Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much. I'll follow what the mayor said. Uh Emmy, congratulations. You're an awesome part of this community. You're awesome player, awesome person. Proud of you. Thank you. All right. With that being said, um 7U we are not going to dog pile. Not going to happen. Um this was a wonderful group of kids. They showed adversity. Um other than districts, every step of the way we lost a game and it hurt when we lost and they came back. They bounced back. They showed that they had that grit. They had that fight. And whenever we lost the game, we came back and we just waxed the opponent. We got beat by Carterville. We beat them twice. Not just beat him twice, we run rruled him twice. And then we lost to Warner Robbins in the second game of double header. We played Warner Robbins the next day. Guess what? We run ruled him. All right. Favorite part. Blue played in the rain.

It started raining and we started playing better. They shut down. We kept moving forward. I am so proud of these kids. Uh y'all taught me a lot this summer. I'm forever grateful for what you did and who you are as people. I hope that every time I see you at Brinkley Park, you come give me a hug because I care about you and I'm just so proud of y'all. All right, so with that, Was that too long? No, you're great. All right, with that, I'm going to introduce him. I'm starting left to right. We got Xander Fouche. Come up. [applause] We got Raphael Bookman. [applause] We got Malcolm Hughes. [applause] We got Ace Miller Holmes. We got our buddy Hudson West. [applause] We got James Benina. [applause] I got Reed Brothers. I got Luke Reynolds. [applause] Heard her name a lot. As as deserved. Got Emerson Ford. [applause] I got Greg Horseford. [applause] We got the youngest and the biggest. We got Colton Meshki. [applause] And then last, but definitely not least, we got Brooks Stout. [applause] Give it up for these kids. They worked real hard. Great people. Thank you, Smyrna. [applause] Get a picture. Come over here. Coaches, come on. I got it. Also, I forgot to mention, sorry, we had um I was lucky enough to have three amazing coaches as well as 12 amazing, well, 24 amazing parents help me throughout this summer. So, uh, your right to left, we got Philip Bencina, [applause] got Wes Fouche. Um, you don't got to clap for me, that's okay. And then we got Tracy West. [applause] I think it All right. So, y'all don't leave yet because we're gonna we're going to get a group photo with all of y'all. So, now on to nineu. And we're talking about firsts in the city of Smyrna.

We can add a first in the state of Georgia when we're talking about this team. So, this nineu blue all-star state championship team went nine and one in all-star games this summer. And like like coaches was saying, last couple of times we did this, we came out, we lost and had to come out of losers bracket, but we didn't do that this time. And that was that was nice. We beat Peach Tree City 12-2 in the sectional championship. We went and faced Martinez Evans and Dudley in the state tournament. We finished first in pool play, played Dudley in the state championship and won in that big stadium in Warner Robbins 5 to one. What's incredible about this is this is the third consecutive state championship for this team. And the personnel has changed a little bit. We have five, it's even better. We have five that were not on this team the last couple of years. So they're the first in Smyrna history to win three in a row and they're the first in Georgia history to win their respective age group three years in a row. I think that deserves a huge round of applause. And what a cool thing it is to win in that big stadium. So we have head coach Mike Low. you want to come up and say a few words and introduce your [applause] introduce your other coaches and your team. All right. Uh first of all, Mayor Norton, thank you so much. City council, we appreciate uh the honor uh each and every year. This is uh such a treat. We appreciate y'all's support, the city's support uh throughout the entire year. That's really where it starts. We've got the best community there is in Georgia, guys. I mean, the the the strength of the community is where it starts. um that uh fall falls into the families.

Uh the support we get from all of our families is just amazing. Uh makes my job uh all of our all of us coaches our job so much easier when we have the support of the families like we have. Um it's been a special run with this group. Um I can't say enough about these boys. Uh their grit, their determination. Uh every year has been a little bit different. This year was no exception. Uh we made our path a little simpler this year, but we uh still had our ups and downs. We still uh got uh as I say, punched in the mouth and uh we had to react and every time uh we came back stronger and so uh what a ride it was this summer. Um like I said, I want to thank all the families this year for uh supporting us and what we're doing. Uh, thank you to my coaches, uh, Scott Failen, uh, Alan Nicks, who have been, we've been together for three years now. Uh, Drew Gordon, I'm not sure he's here today, but he helped out a lot this summer along with every parent played a role in the championship this summer. Um, the best part about it is every single one of these kids had a major moment this summer where they were a contributing factor to the win. uh most games in fact, but uh every kid had a major highlight this summer. Uh and that's what uh being a team is all about, playing as a team is all about. So, it was pretty special group. Look forward to continuing to coach y'all uh hopefully many years to come, guys. Uh but I like to introduce the team now. First up, Lawson Barnes, [applause] Reed Hasten, Dash Duke, [applause] Emmy Coto, Tate Nicks, [applause] all B Saunders, AJ Gordon, [applause] Mai Bedau, Jack Norton, [applause] Mills, Kalin, Sheplo [applause] and Jude Balen.

[applause] Yeah, man. I think for this picture caught him in the dog pile. Make sure you can see the camera. If you can't see the camera, it can't see you. All right. Down in front. Kneel down in the front. Maybe that's okay. Colton, you're in the back, right? Good. Good. Look forward. Colton, look forward. We good. Y'all, we got a special thing going with Lily right now and all our youth sports in. Congrats [applause] again, boys. [applause] Fun stuff. Thanks, guys. Yeah, man. All right. So, this is we we have a couple of more u recognitions, but I know that these boys, some of them have been at flag football practice already tonight. I know that they're all some of them are going out to dinner and and got school tomorrow. So, we're going to say congrats again and we're going to let you all go. Go ahead. [applause] Thank you, coaches and parents. We're going to take a little pause in the action and let these state champions leave the building. I was wondering if y'all were going to stay sitting in the back all by yourselves. Man, it's a lot quieter in here, isn't it? Those boys played their and girl played their hearts out. Uh and pretty fun stuff. All right, so we'll move on. Now we have recognition of the Smyrna Historical Society's Our City Through Your Eyes Art Contest winners. And I'd

like to invite Christa Evans Heath up to talk a little bit about this program and all the highlights and then I'd like you to introduce the winners. Good evening, mayor and council. So this year, the Smur Historical Society started a student art contest and they had some themes that we gave to them for them to do their personal interpretation of what Smyrna meant to them and including Smyrna's jungle city heritage in their interpretations and they did some great creative and imaginative ways that they um did their work. So on behalf of the Smyrna Historical Society, we want to thank all the students that participated, to their teachers and their families who encouraged them, and to you, the council, for helping us celebrate our next generation of citizens here and carrying on our city's story. So I'm going to have um Craig Riley and Dana Derno, who are also members of the historical society, to come up as well. And I'm going to announce um our group that is here. So the first um we have our middle school students. First place was Ethan Leverok and second place was Finley Lassour that can come up with her artwork. And then we have grades four through five. We have Lillian McDonald, Kaden. I'm trying to do my best here, guys. Um, Anna Chua, and Bonnie Sh. And then grades K through three, we have Ka Vas come up and show everybody your work that you did. Turn around. Show everybody. Turn. Y'all scoot. Y'all come over this way so we can get all y'all in the picture. Come on over this way. Come over. Yeah. If you want to turn and show the council, if you'll come up here so they'll come and show [applause] to excel in what they're doing for our city. Congratulations to all of you. Let's do it. Can I get right in the middle here with me? Scoot in a little bit. Make it easier. Should be a lot of That's awesome. That's really Congratulations everybody. One more round of applause. [applause] Thank you for all you do. Appreciate you. Man, we have a lot of talent in Smyrna. Athletics, academics, arts, you name it. We got a special thing going right here in this town. All right, we'll say the same thing. Y'all don't have to Yeah, we know you got school and all those things tomorrow. We'll um go next now to our proclamations and presentations. And we have a proclamation tonight in recognition of Constitution Week 2026. This is we have

the Fielding Lewis chapter of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution here with us tonight. And to read that proclamation night is Councilwoman Wilson.

Thank you. And thank you all for being here tonight. So, this is a proclamation. I think I've got it on. Let me hold it this way. Okay. A proclamation by the mayor of the city of Smyrna in recognition of Constitution Week, September 17th through the 23rd, 2026. Whereas the Constitution of the United States of America, the guardian of our liberties, embodies the principles of limited government in a republic dedicated to rule by law. And whereas September 17th, 2026 marks the 239th anniversary of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention. And whereas it fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorial anniversary and to the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate it. And whereas public law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the president of the United States of America designating September 17th through 23rd as Constitution Week. Now therefore, I, Derek Norton, mayor of the city of Smyrna, Georgia, do hereby proclaim September 17th through 23rd, 2026 as Constitution Week and ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals the framers of the Constitution had in 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties. Do you want to come up? I'd like to invite Yeah. Please come up and speak and introduce those that are with you. Yeah, you come on up. Mayor Norton, thank you so much. Uh I'm Melissa Tanner. Um and I am the regent of the Fielding Lewis chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. And I am also a former teacher of Smyrna. [laughter] And it blessed my heart to see all these children here today and all of the talent. Um because that's really what we're doing this for is to remember our history. And so the Constitution is very important to us as Daughters of the American Revolution.

And thank you. Thank you so much for acknowledging this with us today. So I have with me h goodness gracious so many wonderful chapter members. Uh I've got Emily Welch and you know what? I'm gonna let you come up. I'm gonna let you say your names as you come by. Why don't you do that? Just Emily Welch, Patricia Hilford, Janice Miller, Dolly Stratton of Smyrna, Georgia, and Dolly Dolly is our chapter. I'm sorry, you know, I can't help myself. Uh she is the chair of the Constitution Week for our chapter. And then I want to introduce Anita who is the state chair for Constitution Week for the state of Georgia. And you can say your name. Anita Mashburn, Debbie Phillips, Eva Garrett, Emily Hwitt. So, thank you. We will actually be passing out packets to the schools for the teachers to be able to share with their students about Constitution Week. We're delivering what 57 57 packets to different schools around our area in Cobb County. So anyway, thank you for the opportunity. Thanks for all you do. I think we're going to come down for a photo. Well, come on down. We're excited about it. We're not as excited those kids, but we're really excited. [laughter] We won't do a dog pile. No, we won't. [laughter] All right, fair enough. [laughter] Let's do it. Okay, let's do it. You're earning it tonight, Patrick. I know he's working hard. Thanks y'all for all you do. Thank you. Don't forget to take that with you. Oh, yeah. We got it. Oh, Lord, I didn't hold that. Lord have mercy. Okay, got it. [laughter] We need to show that we're here. Okay. [laughter] I'm just got a lot of the fun stuff done. Corky was just saying he I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn, but we do have a couple of things to do on formal