Meeting discussionsStart with a topic.

Um and I genuinely appreciate your response to me as well uh Mr. Mr. Mayor as well as chief of police. But uh I think Councilman Gould, you were the one that read the proclamation on on Smyrna Pride and that's wonderful. Um, and we wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, but you guys have have done a lot of work praising the Smyrna Pride organizers. I would just point your attention to the fact that they were sitting directly behind us. In the entire meeting, they were sniping at us and the man in the black t-shirt when he left, the last thing he said to us was, "Keep crying." That to me isn't diversity of thought. That to me isn't a welcoming, safe environment. That to me is a direct threat. We to this day are still getting online vitriol. I every time we have an event, I have to go through manually and check every single person to make sure that we don't have somebody who's trying to come to our events to attack us. This is not pride. This is not diversity of thought. This is not public safety. I was an EMT for six years. I take public safety extremely seriously. And again, I'm very grateful to the chief for his response. I was actually going to hire private security because I was terrified at the thought of my 50 some odd members being attacked at a public event. So, I just wanted to take the time here today to just let you guys know where we stand. We are peaceful. Half of us didn't even vote for President Trump. We're not MAGA crazies. We're not people that say that, you know, January 6th wasn't a big deal, right? I'm from Washington DC originally. I take the Constitution very seriously. We believe in smaller government and lower taxes. It's pretty much all we do.

But the vast majority of gay people despise us because they think we're anti-trans. They they they think that we think Donald Trump hang, you know, hung the moon. That's not who we are. We're just the same peaceloving people. We just happen to like dudes. That's pretty much what it boils down to, right? So, I just wanted to take the time here tonight while I had your guys' attention to just please reiterate. We are very scared. Most of my members, and Skyler included, would not admit to that. I'm from a very large county in Virginia. Like I said, I don't get scared easily. I have a good job. I have myself put together. I'm very, very worried that something bad might happen. And if not to us, then someone trying to get to us. The Pansy Brigade and the Angels in America or Angels Actions people, they threatened us online more than once. So, I would just urge you, please take this seriously because I am terrified something bad's going to happen. I can promise you we're taking it seriously. and and you know, bringing it to our attention is is the way that we can for our police department to decide how they're going to make sure that everybody's safe at this event in particular. So, so just just know that it is taken seriously. Uh we appreciate your concern. We appreciate you being here. Even though you're from Atlanta, we got room in Smyrna. There's more. There's hope for you yet. Yeah. Um but u no thanks for thanks for being here. We appreciate y'all. Thank you all. Thank you. All right, that's the last speaker from the public um that signed up. We'll move on to ward and staff reports and we'll start tonight with Mr. Ricky Oglesby. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Listen, I've spoke about this uh probably two months now or maybe three, but it's finally here.

The inaugural Junth Festival here in Smyrna, Georgia will take place June 19th starting at 5:00 pm. This is a familyfriendly event for everyone's. Awesome. We put together a great list of entertainment. There's educational piece, there's health piece, there's praise worship, there's something for everyone. You can bring a blanket or a chair or you can get a a table through uh parks and wreck here that's if that's what you like. But whatever you decide, come out and support and enjoy the moment. This is something new and I I personally appreciate the mayor and council for allowing the city of Smyrna to have a festival to commemorate Junth. Thank you, Mr. Gold. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh just want to kind of uh congratulate again uh the state champions we had here tonight, soccer and our gymnasts and and uh just really recognize we talked about earlier just what what fantastic athletes and teams we have here in the city of Smyrna and we're lucky lucky for that. So that with that I pass. Thanks M. Wilkinson. Thank you. I have nothing tonight. Mr. Welch, no report this evening, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Uh, I just wanted to uh thank our first responders and uh public works folks that were very busy uh cleaning up after the storm two weekends ago that uh ravaged parts of our city and hit some of our residents very hard. And then uh officially welcome uh Mr. Jones. He's been on the job what now three days and uh appears to be coming back for day four. So welcome. three days but sent spent a couple of weeks around here trying to get his arms around all the many things we got going on. So, um glad to have you back. Yeah, Mr. Pickkins. Uh no report. All right. Uh Cochran is Heather. All right.

I'll I'll uh before we close, I'll mention since you talked about the sports, uh this weekend we had a a special moment in our family and for the for the 8U um Smyrna Allstars, the blue allstars. They went down to Warner Robbins and won the state championship. So, that's the second year in they did that as 7U, they doing they did it as 8U. Um and we'll appropriately honor them just like we did last year. U we brought them up on stage at the Smyrna birthday and they thought they were rock stars. we might do something like that again. But they they worked really hard just like all of the athletes that we honored here tonight and uh super proud of the whole team and and my son Jack. So with that, if there's no other business brought be brought before this body, we will say good night from the Jonquil City at 8:01.