Meeting discussionsStart with a topic.

All right, it's 8:30. We'll go ahead and get started. Um, I'm going to ask Councilman Welch to lead us in prayer to start the meeting and the pledge. Everybody, please rise. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our heavenly father, we thank you today for bringing us all together. And Lord, you just ask that we just ask that you be with us today as we make these decisions for the city. Um hopefully these decisions will be to the betterment of the citizens of Smyrna and the betterment of your kingdom. Your name we pray. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag Thank you, Corki. Uh we're meeting this morning. This is our first public hearing on the 2025 millillage rate, which we are keeping the same uh for the 18th year in a row uh since 2007. Um, all homesteaded properties in the city of Smyrna will not see a property tax increase from our from the city. And uh, Mr. Jones, you want to read any background formal business item A, which is the public hearing for the 2025 mill rate actual mill rate is 8.99 as you mentioned that first of three required public hearings before by 21st tax information from Cobb County press release was sent to the 30 Thank you, Mr. Jones. Any comments from council or discussion? All right, we will open this up. I don't see anybody out there. Is there anybody who wishes to speak uh for or against the millage rate? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. There is no vote today. Is there any other business be brought before this body? Yes, sir. I'd asked kept secret since last Friday that the Clydesdale horses were here's action um allowing the the Budweiser Clydes come So many people behind the scenes that did such a good job. I'd ask Jennifer if she just give us Yeah. You said quick.

If I'm covering media and everything else, it's not going to be real quick. Okay. Um so you mentioned a lot of the people that were involved. Um parks and recck community relations which involved our PR outreach laugh and associates um photographers Pedro Jesus Seth Akins with drone economic development also did a media interview and assisted um the police department, fire department, public works um as well as the city administrator. Um outside organizations we have to thank Atlanta Beverage and Budweiser. Absolutely right. Um the day began very early with city teams closing the market village and um we ended the day very late. I think we closed out the final video um somewhere between midnight and 1:00 a.m. on on a Saturday. Uh attendance, we're still evaluating that. It's probably higher than what the police uh the fire department estimated on site. Um the staging route we staged up in um the upper parking lot of First Baptist and um we didn't announce that that was happening. That always draws a crowd anyway. A few people who knew what to expect showed up and um that's where the parade began. We left that, went down King Street, went up through the Market Village to a record crowd, rounded down memorial, took church, um paused again in front of the Stone Chapel and got some good photographs from that. Um and then the team returned to um the staging area where a lot of people got to view that um that that breakdown. uh media outlets covering began Sunday 76 WXIA Monday 77 WF W A Wednesday 79 patch um and then how do you Atlanta MDJ W AGA Atlanta on the cheap Yahoo Sports on Thursday 710 Cobb Courier WF and Secret Atlanta and I'm going to get back to that post in a minute um day of Friday 71 WXIA twice Um, W I mean W AGA twice, WXIA, Bright Side, WSB, KISS Radio, MDJ, um, WSBTV, WNF, 11 Alive ended up covering and GPB was there with us and they helped get the word out about it on um, Saturday.

Social media was huge on this one. Our first Facebook post was July 3rd. Um, and that brought in about 513 reactions, which impressed a lot of people, including the people with Budweiser. But it gets better. July 7, the reminder, we had 178 reactions. July 9, the horses and humans um map went out. That was after we secured the site and made sure that that's exactly the route we were going to have. that got plenty of reactions. Day of we got 500 reactions. Um and then the team progress one got 332 reactions. July 11 um July 11th the first posting following the event. Um and this is Saturday's numbers. We had 626 reactions. Now, the closing video on July 11th, um, which I mentioned we posted out pretty late, um, by midnight, um, Saturday had gotten a,000 reactions. Um, by this morning, we had reached 87,249 views of that video. So 7% of those are our followers, 93% are nonfollowers. Right? So that's huge. Um it total reactions is 3,222. Um you can see on the face of it there were 2.3,264 [Music] shares. Um I could go on, but let's just touch on Secret Atlanta. They helped get the word out like crazy. It's not something that people think about, but they have a huge following. Um their Facebook page has about 150,000 followers. Um they posted July 7th 4.6,000 reactions, 313 comments, and 457 shares. So we owe them a thanks to And um that's all I've got. Thank you for all your work. I was looking back because I I I was trying to figure out how this came to be and Chris Green with with Budweiser texted or called uh early June, mid early to mid June. And I was looking at the text and I said I said, "Mike and Richard, please meet Chris Green.

He's offering an opportunity to have the Annheiser Bush Clydesales in Smyrna July 11th part of the all-star festivities. Would be a cool thing in the city connecting y'all to discuss details. had no idea that it would become what it did. And it did because of all y'all's work. So, someone in the media area up in the staging area asked me, "How did Smyrna get this?" It was just a call from a guy that Travis and I connections. Yeah, that's it. That's exactly right. That's how that happened. I would like to be able to go back to the drone footage to take account. There were um there were a couple of places where people congregated the most. The market village was so busy that Tim from Zuka had to come out to the wagon to get their delivery. You couldn't get it through the crowd. Um, but they were spread out across the the crowd and the fire department told the MDJ 2500, but that came from somebody who was up in the staging area. So, we we need an opportunity to do a real count. Thank you. Thank you for the report. Any other discussion about anything this morning? All right. If there's no other business to be brought before this body, we're adjourned at 8:39. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's do it. squirm squirmy person. I don't know. It's a pretty strong You just do it. You just do it. Hey there. Can you hear me? Hello, Dad. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay, thanks. You you are live in the council chambers by the way. Understood. Everybody It was actually very sad. I didn't know. Those look like some stage champions right there. [Applause] Welcome to Mama. [Music] How are you? I can't see it. Oh, it's a popular Let's go ahead and call this meeting to order. Thank you all for being here tonight. Uh we I know we have some special recognitions and I'm so pleased to have our special guest with us. U before we do that, we have Pastor Brian Downing with Oakdale Church of God at 1631 Cooper Lake Road to lead us in the

invocation and pledge. Uh pastor, come on up and everybody please rise. Thank you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, for this time together. And Lord, um we thank you for this community. We thank you for the leadership of this community that uh we believe you have put in place for such a time as this. And we thank you, Lord, for the great things that they are doing to make this community so enjoyable. We pray and ask, Lord, that you would continue to lead and guide this meeting today. and that you would continue to touch each one of these council members uh families. Lord, we pray and ask God that you would uh bless them. Now, Lord, we thank you for all that you've done and all that you're doing. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. 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 with us. Appreciate you. So, we don't have any agenda changes um for the mayoral report. I'm going to start with item C, which is introducing

our honorary mayor for the day. This little girl making me look better up here, Miss Edie Douglas. And Miss Edie Douglas. Yeah, there you go.

She's seven years old. She attends St. Benedict's and she is very interested in art. She's going to be playing tennis soon and she loves to go to Smyrna Parks and play. Um she toured the um police department today. She got to turn on the siren and the lights. She went on the fire truck and she said her most fun thing today was she got to to spray the fire hose with the firefighters. So that was pretty awesome. And we had a great lunch. Uh and her parents Noel and Stephen are here in the front row. So appreciate y'all a lot. I've got a certificate here. It says, "The city of Smyrna, Georgia, be it known that Edie Douglas has been bestowed with the esteemed title of honorary mayor of the day in recognition of her exceptional spirit, enthusiasm, and curiosity. Edie Douglas is hereby granted the full authority and admiration that accompanies this prestigious role of honorary mayor of Smyrna for this special day given this 16th day of June, 2025. Derek Norton, mayor. Can we go down and get a picture? All right, let's do. And then she's gonna help me run the meeting tonight. [Applause] What she didn't know was she was going to have to sit for a half an hour into a pre-consil meeting, which I think she probably said was a board meeting. B O R E D. Is that right? No, she didn't say that. She didn't say that. All right. Next, um we have three very special guests with us um this