4/20/2026 Meeting Preview
You’ll see below some of the agenda highlights for our second meeting in April. I’ve added information from the council agenda memos and background on items that may be of particular interest, along with my thoughts on those issues. You can watch our meetings on the city’s Facebook and YouTube pages. Our meetings are typically on the first and third Mondays of the month. Workshop Session begins at 6:00 pm; Regular Session begins at 7:30 pm; Executive Session, if necessary, takes place at the conclusion of the Regular Session.
You can access the full agenda packets here.
We welcome your attendance at our meetings, and public comment is available near the start of the meeting, before any actions are taken. You can speak at the meeting by signing up for public comment here, starting at 4:00 pm on the day of the meeting, or by signing up in person at City Hall starting at 4:00 pm. If you have feedback for Mayor and Council directly, you can email us.
In my preview of the November 17, 2025 meeting, I raised my concerns about the adoption of a new public comment policy that eliminated the ability for comments to be emailed and read into the record. This change was placed on the agenda the day before the meeting, leaving little opportunity for the public to weigh in on a significant shift in how we engage with our stakeholders. I continue to disagree with this decision. I cannot support initiatives that make it more difficult for people to have their voices heard.
A note on Community Enhancement Funds:
In FY 2025–26, each member of the governing body has been allocated $900,000 in community enhancement funds—$500,000 designated for capital projects and $400,000 for non-capital expenditures.
Unlike the formal budgeting process undertaken by staff, where every dollar is tied to a specific line item, my colleagues and I did not go through that level of detail when these enhancement funds were allocated. As a result, some of the items being funded through these accounts are appearing for the first time on the consent agenda without any prior public discussion.
To ensure you have a real opportunity to weigh in on how these public funds are used (especially given the recent changes to the public comment policy), I believe any community enhancement expenditure not specifically identified in the adopted budget should appear in the Regular Business section of the agenda, not the Consent Agenda.
As this fiscal year continues, I will provide updates detailing how your community enhancement dollars are being spent. You deserve to know where and how your tax dollars are being invested.
To see the latest spending information, visit How the Math is Mathing: An Ongoing Series.
Workshop Session, 6:00 p.m.
1. Presentation by the Chaka Khan Foundation in recognition of National Autism Month.
The Chaka Khan Foundation is proposing the installation of seven Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) boards at College Park playgrounds and recreation centers at a cost of $4,500 per board, for a total of $31,500. The broader national initiative the Foundation is promoting is a 300‑board, roughly $1.35 million program, with Atlanta positioned as the Phase 1 demonstration market.
The concept itself is a good one. Communication boards help children with speech and language differences participate fully on our playgrounds. This is not a budgeted item, so we will have to determine if there is a way to find funding for it.
2. Presentation from United Action for the Advancement of Humanity on Model City: Ward by Ward City-wide Initiative. Presented by Dr. Chisulo, United Action for Advancement of Humanity Inc.
The ask before Council is $95,328 total: $21,582 to sustain Ward 1 implementation, $64,746 in start‑up funding to extend to Wards 2, 3 and 4, and $9,000 for a part‑time Program Coordinator.
The Ward I Start-Up cost breakdown in the packet totals $21,583 across six meetings, with an average of $3,597 per meeting. That figure is notable for what it includes and what it does not. The largest single line item is "Service Providers" at $10,519 (nearly half the total budget) with no detail in the packet identifying who those providers are or what services they rendered. Other line items include office rent, website development, a license fee, and advertising and promotion costs. These are organizational overhead expenses, not direct program costs. At the same time, the slide explicitly notes that meals and serving costs are not included in the figures at all. The City is being asked to fund UAFAH's operating infrastructure, while the cost of the actual community dinners falls outside the budget presented.
3. Presentation from Destination College Park. Presented by Karen Jeremie, Founder and President of Destination College Park.
The City entered into a Professional Services Agreement with Destination College Park, Inc. in May 2025, paying $80,000 for tourism and visitor center work tied to World Cup readiness. Ms. Jeremie is also the President and Founder of the CP Historical Preservation Conservancy, and the President of the College Park Historical Society.
Across these arrangements, Ms. Jeremie's organizations have received or are owed the following from the City: $80,000 under the Destination College Park professional services contract, $24,000 in performance bonuses paid on the Destination College Park contract in March 2026, $3,500 paid to the Historical Society in December 2025 for a Ward 1 recognition event, and $125,000 paid in January 2026 as the first two quarters of the Conservancy's annual $250,000 TPD allocation, with another $125,000 remaining. That is $232,500 already paid and $125,000 still owed under current commitments, for a total of $357,500 in less than eighteen months flowing to these entities.
The performance bonus structure of the Destination College Park contract included up to two bonuses of $8,000 each for meeting specific outcome-based targets, plus one retention bonus of $8,000, for a total potential bonus pool of $24,000. The bonus triggers written into the contract were tied to measurable outcomes, specifically exceeding a 10% increase in local tourism and exceeding initial visitor center engagement targets by 10%. I look forward to seeing the data that reflects the bonuses being triggered.
4. Presentation: Amendment to Paid Time Off - Bereavement Leave Policy. Presented by Christa Gilbert, Director of Human Resources
Staff is recommending an update to the City's PTO policy to increase bereavement leave from three days to five days.
I support giving employees meaningful time to grieve their loved ones. Three days is simply not enough time for an employee to travel, lay a loved one to rest, and come back to work ready to serve residents. The proposed policy amendment increases bereavement leave from three days to five for what it describes as "regular full-time or contractual employees." The inclusion of contractual employees is noteworthy.
Contract workers are, by definition, independent contractors. They are not on the City's payroll, do not receive benefits, and are compensated for deliverables or services rather than time present. Paid leave is an employment benefit, and providing it to contractors blurs a legal line that could matter. One of the factors the IRS and courts use to determine whether a worker has been misclassified as a contractor rather than an employee is whether they receive employment-style benefits. Extending paid bereavement leave to contractors introduces that question.
5. Discussion of a Consent Agenda Policy
Under Robert's Rules of Order, which most deliberative bodies (including ours) follow as a baseline, any single member can pull an item from the consent agenda without a vote. That right exists precisely because the consent agenda is supposed to be reserved for non-controversial, routine items. The ability of any member to remove something is the safeguard that enforces that standard. If an item is truly routine, no one objects to its removal and it simply gets considered separately.
I am concerned my colleagues may move to require a majority vote to remove items from the consent agenda. Requiring a majority vote to remove consent agenda items means three members of the body can protect a problematic item by keeping it on the consent agenda, where it passes without discussion in a bundle with everything else. We have seen this play out before, with items involving significant spending, sole-source procurement, and unbudgeted expenditures appearing on the consent agenda and voted through without public scrutiny.
If an item is controversial enough that colleagues won't vote to remove it, that tells you something important about how the consent agenda is being used. It could serve as a mechanism for a majority of the Council to insulate its own decisions from scrutiny.
Regular Session, 7:30 p.m.
4. Council Appointments
A. Additional Steering Committee Appointments for the Comprehensive Plan
This is a continuation of the conversation we had at the April 6 meeting. You may recall that the Body voted then to require Council's Steering Committee appointees to be residents of the appointing Councilmember's own Ward, and that my mayoral appointees must be one resident from each Ward. I am supportive of a comprehensive plan steering committee that actually reflects the whole city: every Ward, and voices from our business community, our schools, our renters, our long‑time homeowners, and our newer neighbors. I will continue to flag that deeply involved community members who do not happen to live inside City limits, including business owners and institutional partners, bring value too, and we should hear from them as part of the process.
8. Public Hearings
A. Public Hearing (Second Reading) of an Ordinance to Amend Section 4-7(I) of the City Charter Relating to the Contracting and Purchasing Authority of the City Manager.
This is the second and final public hearing on a proposed amendment to Section 4-7(I) of the City Charter, which sets the limit on the City Manager's contracting authority. The current Charter language is clear: no contract, purchase, or obligation exceeding $10,000 is valid or binding without Mayor and Council approval. This ordinance removes that fixed dollar amount from the Charter entirely. If adopted, the threshold would no longer be a matter of our Charter. It would be set by ordinance, resolution, or purchasing policy, all of which can be changed by a simple majority vote at any meeting with far less process than a charter amendment requires.
The stated rationale is administrative efficiency. The practical effect is that a protection currently embedded in the City's foundational governing document becomes as easy to change as any other Council vote. This is the final opportunity for public comment before a vote. I encourage residents who have thoughts on this change to come speak at the public hearing.
B. Public hearing and action on a request to amend the Appendix A (Zoning), Article 1 (Basic Provisions), and Article 3 (Zoning District Intents, Uses, and Standards) for "short-term rentals" and "rent-by-the-room housing".
This public hearing asks Council to vote on a zoning text amendment that would legalize short-term rentals in College Park for the first time. Currently, vacation rentals are prohibited citywide across all zoning districts. The proposed ordinance would define "short-term rental" as any residential dwelling unit rented for fewer than 30 consecutive days, and would allow them as a conditional use in R-1, R-2, R-3, and RM residential districts, meaning a property owner would need to apply for and receive a conditional use permit to operate one. The ordinance would also formally define and prohibit "rent-by-the-room housing" citywide, which addresses a separate but related concern about residential properties being carved into individually rented rooms with frequent turnover.
The item comes to Council over the objection of the Planning Commission. Staff recommended approval, but the Planning Commission voted to deny the amendment at its March 30, 2026 hearing. The Commission's concerns were specific: it wants minimum operating criteria for short-term rentals to be codified in a separate ordinance before approvals begin, and it wants the City to demonstrate that Code Enforcement, Police, and Fire have the capacity to actually enforce the conditional use permit requirements that would be issued. Those are practical concerns, not philosophical ones. A conditional use permit framework is only as strong as the City's ability to monitor and enforce it. Legalizing short-term rentals without that infrastructure in place creates a permitting process that exists on paper but cannot be meaningfully administered. I think the Planning Commission's concerns deserve a direct answer before Council acts on this item.
I encourage residents who have thoughts on this change to come speak at the public hearing.
C. Public hearing and action on a request to approve to amend the Appendix A (Zoning), Article 12 (Boards and Commissions), Section 12.14 (Establishment of Appeals Process for Variances)
This ordinance would insert a new layer into the appeals process for Board of Zoning Appeals decisions. Currently, anyone aggrieved by a BZA ruling can appeal directly to Superior Court by certiorari. The proposed amendment would require that appeal to go first to Mayor and Council, with Superior Court remaining available after Council acts.
The concept is not unreasonable. An intermediate administrative appeal can give parties a faster, less expensive path to relief than Superior Court, and it keeps more zoning matters within the local process. The Planning Commission recommended denial, citing the absence of a definition for "aggrieved party," the lack of procedural rules governing how Council would conduct such a hearing, and a recommendation to consider a separate appeals board rather than placing this function in Mayor and Council.
Those concerns point to something important. The ordinance as written gives Council the authority to "affirm, reverse, or modify" a BZA decision, but it establishes no standard of review. That is a problem. In any legitimate appellate process, the reviewing body is constrained by a defined standard, typically whether the lower body made an error of law, exceeded its authority, or reached a decision not supported by the record. Without a standard, a Council appeal becomes a do-over, where a majority can simply substitute its policy preference for the BZA's decision. That is not an appeal. It is a second bite at the apple for whoever lost the first time. The BZA exists precisely to serve as a body insulated from political pressure on individual zoning decisions. Routing its decisions through Council without a defined standard of review undermines that purpose. Before this ordinance moves forward, it needs at minimum a clear definition of who qualifies as an aggrieved party, a procedural framework that includes proper notice and a hearing record, and a standard of review that confines Council to correcting legal error rather than relitigating the merits.
10. Regular Business
A. Consideration of and action on a request to approve an Ordinance to Amend Section 4-7(I) of the City Charter Relating to the Contracting and Purchasing Authority of the City Manager.
See my comments under 8A.
B. Consideration of and action on a request to approve a Resolution Amending the College Park Purchasing Policies and Procedures Manual.
The headline change is straightforward: every reference to $10,000 in the purchasing manual is replaced with $50,000. The threshold change touches multiple sections of the manual simultaneously:
The competitive bidding requirement;
The City Manager's signature authority;
Change order approvals;
Emergency purchase procedures;
Sole-source advertising requirements;
Formal contract procedures;
Cooperative purchasing approvals;
Public notice advertising; and
Campaign contribution disclosure requirements.
Every financial control point in the manual is being reset at once.
On change orders specifically: under the current manual, any change order exceeding $10,000 requires Council approval. Under this amendment, the City Manager can approve change orders up to $50,000 without Council ever seeing them.
The proposed amendments also raise College Park's no-bid threshold to $50,000, double what the State of Georgia sets as its own outer limit before competition is required.
The definition of "Professional Services" in this amendment also warrants scrutiny against Georgia's own procurement standards. The Georgia Procurement Manual limits the professional services exemption from competitive procurement to services "defined by statute as a 'profession' or 'professional service,'" specifically: certified public accountancy, actuarial services, architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, licensed appraisers, licensed financial analysts, chiropractic, dentistry, professional engineering, podiatry, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, registered professional nursing, harbor piloting, land surveying, law, psychology, medicine and surgery, optometry, and osteopathy. The Manual also notes that even exempt purchases may still be subject to other laws and competitive bidding requirements. Every item on that list requires a license or certification of some type. Our amendment expands far beyond the state standard to include consultants with "recognized subject-matter expertise," IT professionals, insurance brokers, and artists, musicians, and writers. Most of those jobs do not require a state license. The state's list is specific and tethered to licensure for good reason.
College Park's version converts that limited exemption into an open-ended category applicable to virtually any spending the City Manager chooses to characterize as requiring specialized knowledge. The practical effect is that a very large and loosely defined universe of spending faces no competitive bidding requirement regardless of how much money is involved. This is not a hypothetical concern. This fiscal year, payments to entities were characterized as tourism development, cultural promotion, heritage preservation, and creative professional services. Every one of those payments would fall squarely within the new Professional Services exemption. Under this amendment, similar payments in the future would face no competitive process requirement — at any dollar amount.
The campaign contribution disclosure threshold is also raised from $10,000 to $50,000. Under the current policy, any vendor doing business with the City for $10,000 or more must disclose campaign contributions made to City officials. Under this amendment, vendors receiving payments between $10,000 and $49,999 are no longer required to disclose anything. This is a meaningful reduction in financial transparency at exactly the wrong time.
Taken together, this amendment expands the City Manager's unilateral authority fivefold, eliminates competitive bidding requirements for a broad and loosely defined set of professional and creative services at any dollar amount, reduces the number of change orders that require Council approval, raises the threshold at which vendors must disclose political contributions, and does all of this in a single resolution. These changes could create conditions under which large sums of public funds could be directed to favored vendors without scrutiny, competition, or Council approval.
City Manager Hicks proposed to raise the purchasing policy threshold to $25,000 at our February 2 meeting. The ordinance before Council Monday night doubles the number unanimously approved by the body just ten weeks ago.
C. Consideration of and action on a request to approve a Resolution Amending the City’s Paid Time Off Policy to Increase Bereavement Leave for City Employees. This item is requested by Christa Gilbert, Director of Human Resources.
See my comments under Workshop Item 4.
D. Consideration of and action on a request to install Playground Communication Boards for neurodivergent individuals in all local parks and recreational areas in partnership with The Chaka Khan Foundation. The total cost is $31,500. This is not a budgeted item. This item is sponsored by Councilman Roderick Gay.
See my comments under Workshop Item 1.
