You know, it was at a time where there were currently, at that moment, three Georgia football players or recent players under indictment for sexual assault and one under indictment for murder. And that's concerning. We see that there's definitely a culture problem in that program.  So you know, I have my personal feelings about that culture, you know, and these young men are given a great opportunity. And I feel like some of them might be throwing it away and I personally grew up around football. I was a football statistician and I saw too many young men who I grew up with end up in prison, end up dead and speeding car wrecks, you know, it really tugs at my heart to see these young men's lives be elevated to such stature and then see them go down a wrong path. I feel like those running the program should take more responsibility towards guiding them to productive activity outside of football. So that's where that was coming from and it was completely taken out of context and it's pretty vile to see how that was taken out of context. When the intention of my statements was, hey, let's get these guys some productive career outside of football because only about one or two percent of them actually have careers in the sport beyond college. OK, thank you. See now, I appreciate it and I called on her first. I didn't have that loaded, but I called on her first because she stood up first. Dexter Fisher is an elected official, new, anything you'd like to say. Yeah, I just want to address the word about our football player. Excuse me. I didn't mean to open that thing. Can we do that at the end? No, I need to say this now. I'm going to take me to five minutes. OK, can we make it to three? Three five. Three is OK. Three three. I'm good. It's good now. Go ahead. That's fine. I've mentored football players for over the years, last 15, 20 years. A lot of those young men do have productive careers outside of football and not going to go to the NFL or the NBA. So to say that only, you know, that these young men, especially black men, are not being productive is not true. I know they're productive. I know they're good husbands, good fathers, and doing great things. So to say that is totally out. When I've been there, done that, I know what they're doing. And I still have some of these young men. So, false statement. OK, and again, as I said earlier, listen to it yourself. Listen to the tape yourself. Reach your own conclusion. I'm an expert ball player. Graduate UGA play two years, stayed with the track program before. So when I heard it, I was mad. But then I said, I need to start seeing things for myself and not hearing what other people say. So it was an unfortunate statement. However, I don't think it was in the spirit to trying to think of the right word. Damn nation, a whole group of people. But, you know, listen to it yourself, make your own conclusion. And I wish I hadn't started off like that because I don't want us to get off track. We have, I'm going to go to commissioners first. I know you're standing. Commissioner Obita Thornton. What was the directions of sorry? Stand up, address yourself. And I just wanted to acknowledge every elected official and those who are working. And try to keep it under two minutes. I really didn't mean to open a can of worms. I guess that was my problem. I'm commissioner Obita Thornton. I was going to make a gesture that I didn't leave that long. If y'all don't look like y'all, maybe last. So, but I will say this, that I think that we as a commission are on the right track. Because you open that up and you don't want us to talk about football. I don't know it. I do want to take this opportunity to publicly invite commissioner Lincoln out and have a conversation. Publicly, I'm asking you that. I've sent you emails in Texas. Yes, yes, they're not going to pull them up. But my point is this. We have to work as a collective group. We should be having different opinions that don't divide the commission. In the past, I feel as though most of my stress came from a block vote. We have different opinions now. And somebody may say it's a block vote now, maybe so. But I do believe Melissa's probably one of the most intelligent people that serve on the commission as far as knowledge about land and development. She knows that stuff. But it has to be for everybody. And my personal thing, District 2 went without a commissioner for six months because of a resolution. That's the black people. That's the poor people. That's who I represent. So at the end of the day, I hope this year we can do some powerful things together, not because I'm far left, far right. It takes all of us to make this happen. And if we're not serious, get off the taller. That's all I'm saying. Now I've been in the news for some other stuff. It will take care of itself. I'm not even worried about that. I'm not even worried about it. God got that.  That's what I'm going to do. So let's all get behind this commission, get behind our elected officials, get behind this community. This community, District 2 or 3, District 3 and 9 and 2 have long been neglected. And we've got a place on catch line. That's equity. That's what you call equity. Thank you. Thank you. I saw Allison, Commissioner Allison. No, that's Carol. Carol. People give me Carol mine. I just saw her talking to her yesterday. I wanted to acknowledge all of the elected officials, especially the commissioners. And thank y'all for correcting me. They look alike. I love it. I'm leaving out a lot. White women with gray hair. OK. I'm going to get a brown one. That's what we're saying on that wave. Would you come up here, please? OK. OK. I got my new sandwich. OK, I didn't. I'm just glad to be here. Glad I came over. I just took a fish sandwich out of my mouth from something else I was at. But I'm glad to be here. And I'm looking forward to seeing what our state reps have going on here, what they're going to talk to us about. So I'm just thankful to be here. And I will continue to work with Commissioner Thornton and Commissioner Link and Commissioner Taylor and Commissioner Fisher on all these issues here in Clark County that we need to address to make it a better place, the best place possible for all of us to live. So I'm glad to be here. OK, sometimes plans don't work as they should. I am going to introduce Ms. Taylor, the elected officials, Ms. Gonzalez. But I've been asked to. Some of the state officials have to move are limited on time. So we're going to go to them first. And then I'm coming back. And then we're also going to ask questions. So I'm not overlooking anyone, OK? Blame that to my lack of whatever. OK, sir, would you take the mic and introduce yourself? Sure. Testing. Testing, one, two. How about now? A little bit. Well, good morning. I guess I'll stand and I can yell, too, either way. I'll leave the microphone. I'll be, like, right again if I use my microphone. Can y'all hear me OK? Well, thank you all so much for being here. I especially want to thank Commissioner Timothy Taylor for putting this together. I haven't seen a group like this come together that includes so much of our community. I see represents from UGA, County Commission, our law enforcement. This is the type of gatherings we need in our community. And so Commissioner Taylor, I just want to thank you for your leadership putting this together. Let's give her a round of applause. Because in order to solve the issues that we have in Athens, it's going to take all of us working together. It's going to take working across party lines. It's going to take folks that you normally don't consider working together, sitting down and solving problems. And I think that's what we've got to do. That's what I've worked to do over my five years. It's hard to believe I've been in the house now five years. But in order to solve these challenges, we're going to have to work together. And I believe over the last five years, we've accomplished some really good things for Athens and for the state as a whole. And I can go through some of those. I know right now we're just introducing ourselves. But I can go through some of the issues that I think we've made some progress on. Because I think it has been a really good. We're heading in the right direction in Clark County. As Commissioner Thornton said, I truly believe things are looking better. I think we had had some issues. And I think especially some of the things we've done at the state level have made some really positive impact. And we can talk about some of the things we've done this session, whether it's on homelessness or whether it's on some of the other issues or whether it's last session where we passed property tax relief for Clark County. There's a lot of different issues we've worked on directly related to Clark County. But then there's also been issues that we've done statewide. And these are bipartisan issues that we've addressed like mental health. Last year, we passed one of the most important landmark mental health bills. We're working on issues that human trafficking gangs. This year, we passed a really good anti-gang legislation. And so that's been a priority of the governor. So these are the sort of issues that we are working on. And I believe it's going to take all of us, especially in this room, working together. Those in the community, those elected officials at the local level, our law enforcement is just critical. And that's one of the issues that in particular I've worked on, whether it was a couple of years ago, making sure local governments didn't defund the police or whether it's giving our law enforcement much needed pay raises. This year, we gave our state law enforcement officers $6,000 raises, those on the front lines. And we need to continue to raise our pay of local law enforcement. We have to support our law enforcement if we want safe communities. And that's why passing legislation like we did on the gang issue and some of these other areas that we've addressed, I think we are making progress. And so I can get into some of the specific areas. But public safety and inflation, to me right now, are top of mind for folks throughout the community. And on inflation, that's why we've done over $4 billion in relief, whether it's additional property tax relief, whether it's refunding, doing tax rebates. We've done over $2 billion in tax rebates over the last two years. Or whether it's suspending the gas tax for seven months. We suspended the gas tax for seven months. That's over $1 billion in relief on the gas tax. So that's over $4 billion plus the largest tax cut in state history. So we're trying to help folks in the face of 40-year-high inflation. And I think we've made progress there and on public safety. I'll sit down. I know we're just supposed to introduce ourselves, I think. But I get on a roll, and I apologize about that. But again, I just want to thank Commissioner Taylor and Rashi. Thank you for having us. I just think these types of conversations, on so many issues, we agree more than we disagree. And having conversations, this group is multi-racial, bipartisan. You've got representatives of both parties here. Again, UGA, ACC, PD. These are the types of conversations I think is a community we need to have. And so thank you all for having me. And I do apologize. I do have to leave a little early, so I apologize when I have to slip out. I do want to say thank you all so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Hey, I'm Spencer Fra, represent House District 122. I've been working in the legislature. I can't believe this is my 11th year. It has flown by. And it's been interesting to see the turnover that we have in the legislature. This year was an interesting time. We can get into that. But I agree with Representative Gaines. And I appreciate you all all being here to see community discussions that we have to have. And it has to be a level of civility in order for us to get things done. And what I always tell people is that, listen, and sometimes it's hard. Sometimes what I'm about to say is very difficult. But you can't not like somebody because they believe differently than you. And we have got to get away from that and back to the regular debating of an issue and understanding. I look at politics like a sports match. I grew up playing football. And it is a thing where you might tackle somebody hard on the field and you're playing by the rules. But then off the field, you don't have to be mad at them for tackling you because that's part of what goes on. And I think if we can get back to where I believe our communities in our state and our nation has gone through probably some of the most incredible, and I mean not that in a great way, times that we'll ever experience in our life, I hope, right? And we've all experienced the same thing. The issues that we face during COVID, the political issues, the danger that seems to be arising from a lot of fringe groups coming out and threatening people, it's very, very disturbing to me.  It's time to love your neighbor. Those are the two greatest commandments. Scribes and Pharisees ask Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? They thought they were gonna get him in a gotcha question, why?  And what do you say? He said, love God. But the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. And that is the hardest thing to do. It's easy to love God. It's hard to love your neighbor. But I wanna challenge everybody to put that in your head. And if somebody's in front of you that believes differently than you, that did something you don't like, but you still should be civil because we're all people of God, we're all people, we're Americans, and we're Georgians, and in this room we're Athenians. And I challenge you all to do that because it's important to me, it's what I try to do. It's what I try to live my life by. And I guess I'm preaching now. I'll sit down, we'll get to the meat of the questions. I needed an amen, but okay. I'm the son of a Presbyterian preacher. So that stuff gets on me sometimes. And he taught me the two greatest commandments and he taught me the Beatitudes. And I challenge you all to use that when you're communicating with people that are different than you, okay? Thank you. Okay. Most of you should have gotten this coming in. And this talks about some of the bills that our representatives have passed. How that names go assigned to them, excuse me, not necessarily passed. Some of them are waiting on the governor's desk. One bill that I particularly like, and I think most of the people would deal them with the quote unquote, Portable Housing Act, is it can go into the next session. It can be the first thing where there's a Florida-based company that basically is sending money to the families with a commitment that for the next 30 years, if you decide to sell your house, they have to have first years. And that's waiting on the governor's desk. I'm sorry, that one can come up next year. It's gone through the process, but it can come up next year.  All right, be happy to. Say your name again for those who just came in. Sure, well Houston gains, I don't know if I ever said at the beginning, I start rolling on some of the issues I was passionate about, but Houston gains, I will mention I represent the western part of Clark County, have a little bit of Ocone County, a little bit of Barrow County, and the southern portion, and all the way up to Commerce in Jackson County. So I've been in the house, like I said, five years, and over the last five years, I've had the chance to work on a number of issues. I'll mention some from this session and also a couple over the last few sessions that impact Clark County in particular. Last year, I mentioned an issue that represented Frye and I worked on together to make sure we're providing property tax relief for Clark County and a low income homestead, a low income freeze for property owners. And that was something that the voters in Clark County approved with over 80% of the vote last November. It's had something that, yeah, as we've seen skyrocketing property taxes that's forcing folks out of their homes, I think that was a really important measure. This year, we also passed a billion dollars of property tax relief statewide that will ensure about $500 reduction in your property tax bill. You'll see this year when you receive your property tax notices, which I have heard that property taxes, the assessments are through the roof this year. And so you're likely going to see significant increases on the horizon. So that's an issue that we've worked hard on as we talk about affordable housing. That's one component is the property tax bill. So that's an issue we've worked on over the last couple of years. And I think the low income freeze, the increasing homestead exemption and then the statewide relief we've passed this year is significant. This session, we also address a number of other issues. I'll mention one issue that we've seen in Athens-Clarke County, homelessness that I believe has become a rising challenge in our community. And certainly if you talk to law enforcement, I think they'd tell you a significant portion of their time, a significant portion of their calls, whether it's police, whether it's our firefighters, a significant portion of their time is related to homelessness. And so one of the things that we've done this year in Senate Bill 62 is to make sure that local governments are enforcing their own ordinances. We're gonna do an audit of spending to make sure that what spending is being done is being used effectively and efficiently. And then one of the challenges we've seen in particular in Clark County is our resources are stretched then. We have seen other communities bring homeless individuals here and drop them off, which is not fair for our community. It's not fair for law enforcement. Our services are already stretched to the brink and for other communities to bring homeless individuals and just drop them off is not right. And so we put in law that that is something you cannot do. You can't bring a homeless individual and drop them off here unless they're here to receive services or if they've been in agreement for services for that individual. But it's not right for that individual and it's not right for the community. And for some reason Athens has been picked on and picked on and picked on and we were going to put a stop to that. And so we passed that legislation this year. That was something that I worked hard on in terms of some of the other bills that are listed here, prosecuting attorneys oversight committee. One of the challenges we've seen across the state is where you have prosecutors who are not actually following up when law enforcement does their job to go and arrest somebody. We've got to make sure we are holding criminals accountable. Yeah, you can't have just a revolving door. And so that's that legislation and make sure right now if a district attorney or solicitor is not doing their job there's really not a mechanism in law to address it. So what we've done with SB 92 is if you have a complaint about your district attorney or your solicitor there is now a mechanism in law that you can take it and have that issue resolved. And you can have that complaint overseen by other district attorneys, other elected former judges, individuals who are well qualified to address these issues. Whereas right now if you have an issue with your local prosecutor there is not a mechanism in law to address it. And when there are serious issues like right now in Athens-Clarke County and our DA's office you're missing dozens of assistant district attorneys. There are so many cases in backlog that there are issues in that office there's nothing that can be done. So I think it's really important that there's a mechanism in law that you can address those complaints. And so that's what SB 92 does is ensure that there's a mechanism where you can go and register complaints. And that is made up of other DA's and judges that could oversee those issues. And so I think that's a really important measure that we passed this session. I'm looking at some of these other... Yeah, please. I don't see any SB bill. Well, SB 231 is the same as SB 92. Okay. I apologize. So at the end of session a lot of times the numbers end up changing but that was an issue we worked on really hard. So SB 231, SB 92 are largely the same. And if you see any more like that, would you call? I will, I will, I apologize. Okay, no, that's my fault. HB 769, the Homestead Exemption. That one, I believe actually relates to Oconee County. That's when we addressed this issue, but similar to what we did in Clark County last year to raise the Homestead Exemption. I don't have the number on that one. The Automatic Renewal Transparency Act was one that we passed this year that I was proud to work on. I had heard from constituents, have you signed up for an online automatic renewal subscription? And it is so diagram hard to cancel. You can't do anything. You try to call them. You have to go see them in person. It's impossible to cancel. So what this bill simply says, if you sign up for an online subscription, you got to be able to cancel online. And they got to notify you when they charge you month after month. So that was, in my opinion, a common-sense bill. Then we also addressed some issues again related to public safety, SB 63. That legislation had not ultimately passed this year, but relating to making sure that bonds and reconnaissance that we're making sure that our judges are being held accountable as well. So I think we've done a lot on public safety. Again, I talked about inflation, some of the issues we've addressed there. I also want to talk a couple of issues related to education, if that's okay. Education, I think we made a lot of progress over the last couple of years. One, for higher education, we raised the Hope Scholarship to 100% of tuition. Previously, the Zell Miller Scholarship had been 100%, but we raised the Hope Scholarship to 100%. We fully funded our K through 12 schools, which is something we've done year after year after year, over $13 billion, the largest amount of money we've ever invested into our public schools, which I think is a great thing for the state of Georgia. Since I've been there five years, we've given teachers $7,000 in raises, which is a tremendous impact in the classroom. Our teachers certainly do so much good work in the classroom every day. We have to make sure we are maintaining and keeping our best educators, and so $7,000 in raises. We also passed legislation, many of, they've done a great job, Foothills Education, I'm not sure how many folks in the room are familiar with Foothills, and they've done a great job of getting their name out there, but if you're not familiar with it, would encourage continued awareness about Foothills, they do a great job. We have passed a bill this year related to completion schools, which is what Foothills is, and will be under the new law. But those are the sort of programs that I think we've got to continue to invest in, especially something like our completion schools now with Foothills and our technical colleges. Our technical colleges do a tremendous job, a tremendous job, and certainly UGA, I know we have representatives here in the room from UGA, we've got to continue to build that town and gown relationship, and we've got to continue to invest in our higher education institutions. Technical colleges though, I believe are just absolutely critical for the future of our state to build those skills, and you can go straight into workforce, whether it's a quick start program, where you can go for a few weeks, through a quick start program, go work at Caterpillar and make an incredible salary. Those are the sort of programs I believe we have done a great job investing in, the general assembly, and something I'd like to continue to see us do. So when I think back on this session, I think about three main issues, public safety and addressing inflation and education, and those were certainly what I believe were our priorities this year. I do have a question for you, but we also, I don't know if you received a card where you could write your question down, or if you raise your hand, if you have a follow up question, we will, I will allow that. Any follow up question?  Hi, my name is Sarah Gehring, I am an afters resident and an attorney. Follow up question on the bill that you supported, related to homelessness. It sounds like you wanted to outlaw, having police departments bus homeless people from one county to another. A couple of questions and one answer might answer them all. Who's gonna enforce that? Is it funded through the bill? How will it be funded? How much will it cost? And could any of that money be used to actually putting people in houses? So the enforcement mechanism would largely be up to the county where the individual is dropped off. The bill provides that, let's say an individual, or homeless individuals were dropped off in Clark County. The Clark County government could actually go and actually send a bill to the county who dropped the individual off for services rendered for the homeless individual. And so that would be the enforcement mechanism it would largely be left to the county, which I certainly would encourage the county to make it known to other communities throughout the state that we are not a community where you just bring somebody and drop them off. It's not fair to that individual, it's not fair to our community. I have one follow up. You mentioned the work that you did for affordable housing being related to property tax relief. I said that was one component of affordable housing. It's certainly not the only answer. And Representative Fry is an executive director of Habitat. It's certainly an expert on that. Representative Fry does a lot of work on this. You also mentioned that our resources is being spread pretty thin. It sounds like we're gonna have to use more resources if we want to enforce anything under this homeless bill. Is property tax, is a homestead exemption increased the best use of our funds? It's not targeted. The person in a million dollar house is gonna get the same relief as a person who's actually struggling. And when you look at who owns houses, for the most part you're not looking at the people. There are people who own their own homes who are on fixed incomes who do struggle. Not trying to erase that, but the vast majority of people who really struggle here are tenants, they're renters. And they're not gonna get a dime from that. So why are you focusing on property tax relief that gives the same amount of money to you as it does to me, as it does to the person on fixed income rather than working on things that would actually detect tenants? So two points on that. One is in terms of a percentage of income, certainly increasing the homestead exemption is going to benefit individuals with houses that are worth, that relief is gonna be a larger percentage of their income than individuals who are making a million dollars to your point. So anyway, I think that is a good measure that does help everybody, but it is gonna be more significant relief for individuals at lower income levels. Secondly, to your question, well, your second question, oh, about renting. We did pass a measure in the House this year to try to help renters in the state, the Atlanta General Constitution, did an expose over the last year about some of the issues related to less than human living standard rental, rentals throughout the state. And so we passed a measure in the House to try to address some of those issues. Unfortunately, our colleagues in the Senate did not pass. Can I talk to them? Are you able to talk to your colleagues in the Senate? I do every day. But it's something that was a priority of the House. The Speaker was very supportive of it, represented Frye worked hard on that measure, but the Senate didn't pass it. I can't make the Senate do something, but those are some of the issues that we have worked on. Okay, thank you for that question. You are next, and then Ms. Mary is next, and did anyone over here have a question? A statement. A statement. Okay. So you're talking about the mechanism of not dropping people off, but what about the mechanism of people coming in and buying up out of community? For the people that's been here, that's causing homelessness, because I'm 60 years old. I've been here all my life, and I'm having to be homeless because one of them is being out of prison for 30 years, and not being able to get an apartment because of that, and then because of somebody from Florida coming and buying up houses. So, and also, what about the problem about the people coming in and jacking up the reap? Mother poor. So have y'all worked on that? Yeah. Okay, are you going to address that when you speak, sir? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm talking about that. Okay. I've got a bill about that. Okay, I want to hear it. Okay, well, here's the time. Okay. Okay, Ms. Mary. Mr. Gasey, my name is Ms. Mary P. Bagby, and I want to address this issue with House Bill 231. Now, all these years is since we've been under the common law of England in this country. Now, suddenly, we have to define the duties of the District Attorney, suddenly, and do this to examine every case. And something that's concerning me is creating an eight-member oversight committee. So this is going to be taken out of the hands of the voters. Is this what I'm supposed to understand? That eight people are going to decide whether or not the District Attorney is capable of being the District Attorney, suddenly, after all these hundreds of years. So I want to know, because for all the years that I've been here, the prosecutor has been taking the people outside the courtroom and harassing and causing them to be convicted into taking plea deals. And so they're under conviction outside the courtroom because the judge is supposed to give them these options, but the District Attorney takes them outside and threaten them. And we find that something is going on a little bit different with Ms. Gonzalez, where she's examining and she's trying to be fair with the people. And so, suddenly, she's under scrutiny because before she became the District Attorney, everybody was threatened, okay, I want you to take this plea deal. Now, if you don't take this, if you don't plead guilty, we're going to give you 30 years if you go to court and have a trial. But if you take this deal, you're going to give you 10 years. And so I see something quite disturbing and corrupt about this. I think if we're going to be over-citing the District Attorney, if she's doing wrong or he's doing wrong, then this should be a vote for the people, not eight people, as I see going on in the school district where they decide, let's get this person to resign and then we can choose who we want to sit here. That needs to change. And I am opposed, I want everybody here to know it. It goes to the vote. What happens to the people? Have we become a dictatorship? I think we are a dictatorship because you are trying to control what happens. I think we have a District Attorney that's doing her job. I think because she has a little tint in her skin, I think people are coming against her and I think it's up horrible. It's terrible. And it shows racism still in the classic city of racism. Thank you. Yes. Sure, I'd be happy to. Well, honestly, we're the first time that I've seen where you have just prosecutors that are choosing not to enforce the law. And so I think that's part of the impetus for HB 231 and SB 92. And to your point about where you had concerns about other prosecutors, should there not be a mechanism in law where you could register those complaints? It's an election. So it's an election every four years. So like an example, okay, there's been multiple, but on several homicide cases where the DA's office has lost homicide cases multiple over the last year or so, those individuals, that puts public safety at risk. So are we supposed to just wait for four years? You know, instead, there should be a- I didn't know they were guilty. Well, certainly every person is innocent until proven guilty. But if you look at the facts of the case, whether it's not being able to introduce evidence, which I actually talked to law students who were more familiar with introducing evidence than some of the individuals who had actually prosecuted the cases. You know, those people are now putting public safety at risk. And so I think you can't wait for four years. This board, it's not a dictatorship. In fact, what it is would be other prosecutors, elected district attorneys across the state, judges, individuals who have experience in the courtroom that would be able to determine, is there an issue?  And then it would go to the voters to determine, you know, who their next prosecutor would be. But you know, the idea that you can just wait for four years on a position like district attorney or solicitor who's simply not doing their job, I don't think is right, it's not good for public safety. And so I think that that's what that bill is about. I'll mention just another example, because it has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with partisanship. Representative Joseph Gullit, who worked really hard on this bill over the last couple of years as well, he had a Republican district attorney who was sexually harassing employees. And there was not one thing in the law that could be done about that district attorney. What are we supposed to do? What are we supposed to do about a situation like that? Right now, there is not something that can be done when you have district attorneys who are breaking the law. There was a district, I mean, there's been issue after issue on both sides of the aisle, the Armada Arbery case, that district attorney. We have to have a mechanism in law to address DAs who are not doing their job. And right now, there's not a thing that can be done. SB 92 provides that mechanism in law. Any other questions? We have, we have. Can I speak since the district attorney? He's the district attorney. I know she's the district attorney. Deborah, Deborah, you are going through, you will get your chance. You will get your chance. The lady here, the lady here has a question. You come next. Go ahead now. Have a statement. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Gaines and also Representative Frye and everyone here in the local police and county commissioners. I'm glad you're all here because my neighbor and I came because we sit in an area of Clark County that we hope has not been forgotten. And that is with the need for broadband. We are right in that area that comes from Oakley County and then to Clark County and then some from Ocone County. And it seems that we are getting the end of everybody's goodness and we're left with nothing. And I'll just give you a practical example a few months ago, before COVID, I wanted to donate some items to Habitat for Humanity. And because the broadband was so bad in my house, I had to take all items and put them outside so that I could send them a picture of them because I cannot do, I can't send one or two pictures from inside. And that's just a broadband situation. When my grandkids came for the summer, they can't pull up the things that they need educationally. If you have someone in our community that has to send medical documents back, they cannot send multiple documents and that becomes a humanitarian need. And I just wanted to bring this to the local commissioners so that you will know, please don't forget those of us in the rural area just because we're small and we're senior citizens. Just please remember us. And I know that it says on here that our Senator, Bill Couser, has worked on, it says rural broadband, but it's not specific. And I don't know where, I've been through the chain of command and I've talked to, I'm gonna thank Commissioner Dexter Fisher for bringing it to attention and other people, but I just wanted to amplify that, that when we talk about quality of life, access to broadband for us is a quality of life situation. And we'd like to continue on quality of life. Thank you. She's exactly right. And I know we're, I know it was a statement, but we have worked on a number of issues related to broadband expansion, but you're exactly right. And it's issue we have to continue to address. There have been hundreds of millions of dollars that the state has invested in it with federal funds that have been brought down, hundreds of millions of dollars in broadband, but we have more work to do. And that's a partnership between federal, state and local, but you're exactly right. Thank you. When we have a private moment, you can give us your address. And then we'll make some inquiries for that area, for sure. Okay, let me say this for the good of order. We are going to conduct this meeting like a meeting. Everybody's issue is important to them. Grandbabies don't want to visit. I don't know whether they do it or not. The grandma doesn't have internet. That would be as just as important as somebody realizing the rich are getting a $1,000 homestead exemption and poor people are not getting more. We are going to respect this place. I'm telling you that now. I don't know how could enforce it, but we are going to respect. Ms. D.A. Gonzalez, you're up next. Okay. Mr. Gaines will be leaving after he responds to the D.A. Thank you. First of all, good afternoon, everybody. You know, I did not know about this event. I found out about it on Facebook. Okay, that's number one. So that means that there are a lot of people who are not informed that these events and meetings are happening. People who would want to be here and who would want to listen as well as say what they have to say, right? So that's number one. I did not know about this event. Number two, I saw who was going to be here and I thought it was important to be here, right? And most of you know that one of the things that I do is I'm always out there in the community.  That's not the same for all elected officials, but I've been doing it since 2017 and before that, right? But everybody knows you. You invite Debra Gonzalez to something, she will show up. And as you see here, I show up even if I'm not invited. If I find out about what it is and if I know that it's important, okay? Number three, the reason why I am speaking is because I have just been personally attacked by somebody here. And that's very different from having a community event to talk about issues versus attacking somebody personally. Okay, and that is the only reason why I am speaking up is because I've been personally attacked. Nobody knows what goes on in an actual office except the people who work there. Nobody knows what happens when you have a public office or position until you're in it, right? I know what it means to be a state representative. I was one, a state representative. I know what happens in the Capitol. I know how bills get gamed and played and set forward. This is a bill that has been brought forward 2021, 2022, 2023. What's interesting is the timing of this bill that came out after the 2020 election when six women of color won DA offices around the state. Not the state. So let's not forget about timing, okay? Didn't pass in 21, didn't pass in 22, passed in 23, why? Because a female woman of color, DA in Fulton County is about to indict a certain former president. Okay, we need to remember timing when these things happen. We need to remember the circumstances of when these bills are brought in because the other party has had majority since before 21, they could have passed this at any time, but they've passed it now. Number two, I have been very open, very open about the understaffing in my office and the reasons why, okay? I have been dealing with the mayor and commission since September of last year and those of you who follow me on Facebook, I put everything out there, everything. One of the core reasons, we're not competitive in salary, okay? That was back in September. Finally in March, I have now gotten that they are finally going to do a market study on those salaries. September to March, okay? People left in the beginning because they could go 20 minutes down the road and get $20,000 more money. Wouldn't you go? I would. If you can go someplace and you can work remote and make more money, wouldn't you go? I would. Was I going to tell these people, no, don't take those opportunities? No, we were not competitive, okay? And then what happened?  You have more work, right? You're overburdened. You got more stress. You want to stay in that? No. And if we're having a mayor commission that I'm going and they're telling me we're not doing the study yet, how do I give them hope? Right? How do I give them hope? Well, we finally have some hiring incentives and guess what? I've hired three people because of those hiring incentives. Thank you to the mayor commission that they did that. The fact that they've updated supplements that have not been updated since 2002. 2002, 21 years those supplements whenever looked at, they are now increased and updated. Thank you very much. That helps with retention. We are now building. I just brought in three new people last week. I've got more people starting in May. Why? The money. Now the money is there. Now there's a difference. Now we bring in people. I've got a new chief. Guess what that chief has? Gang prosecution experience. It took me four months to work it out but he's coming in to help us. Why? Because when they pass those laws about gang laws, we want to make sure that it's not just because people are wearing the same colors. We want to make sure that it's because it's about people who are doing illegal activity in furtherance of the gang, right? That's what the law of Georgia says. And if you don't have a prosecutor who is trained and skilled in that, then we're gonna wrap up a whole bunch of people that do not need to be under that law, okay? Because we want to get the right people to be held accountable, right? And we can only do that when we have the right people making those decisions to hold them accountable and that we have the right resources to do that, okay? And until we have that, we cannot do that. Because when we talk, everybody talks about public safety, but the truth is what? It's about community safety. It's about individual safety. It's about not just safety for that moment where we take them out of sight, out of mind, throw them away four hours down the road because what happens when they finish, they come right back here.  They are dropping them off at our footsteps. And you know what? Putting them in jail isn't gonna help us, folks. We need resources. And that's why what my office does, we deal with prevention and we're working with the community outreach people out there. We deal with intervention, restorative justice. I'm working with Senator John Ossoff on a witness protection bill. Why? Because when we have these gang cases, guess what? Witnesses don't wanna testify.  And I've gotta go and tell them I can't protect you. I'm your DA. I need you to testify in this case and I can't protect you. What do you think they're gonna tell me? I ain't testifying, right? Would you if it's gonna put your child in danger? No.  When it comes into my office, I can't do it because I can't protect them. Why don't we have money for a witness protection program instead of an oversight committee, which by the way, when he says oversight by the Supreme Court, guess who appoints those people? Okay, guess who appoints those people? And I'd like to point out that Houston Gaines does not have a law degree. But the majority of people in the house do not have a law degree. In fact, out of 256 representatives and senators that we have, only 32 are lawyers. Wow. Only 32 are lawyers. That's why there is so much bad law that gets written and passed in Georgia because they're not written by lawyers who actually understand what the law is. And that's why there are people like me, like DAs, and right now the face of the DA Association of Georgia is changed because for the first time there are 16 DAs people of color that have never been there before. It is changing the face. It is changing the way that we are doing justice in our community. It's your vote. You elected me. You don't like what I'm doing. You vote me out next year. Five, eight people should not be able to come and say to 150,000 people that your vote doesn't count and we're gonna tell you what kind of DA we're gonna put in charge of you. Yes. Because I am the first female DA here. I am the first woman of color DA here. And so yes, guess what? Justice looks different with me as the DA because I am different. And that is what you voted for. Not him, okay? Not those people in the legislature. And it's amazing that for most of those people who voted for this bill, how many of them actually live in Athens, right?  What they can say is that they don't like the way that I'm doing it because it's not the way it was done for a hundred of years before.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, all right, yeah, yeah. She, she, she, he gon' be our role. Well, if he does have some time, I still have a statement that I would like to hear from you before. Hold on, wait, wait, wait, one second, wait. Yo, two of you got to holler because there's nobody to chill. I didn't holler and I didn't holler. I was trying to talk because she was talking. I had to raise my voice over. But I wasn't yelling, Mr. Green. I wasn't yelling. Mr. Gaines will be leaving. After this, he makes a statement. I have a 37th statement, a request from him that he will be leaving. He was supposed to stay 30 minutes. Miss Taylor was able to talk him in the standing hours because he had a schedule. Mr. Fry and Miss Taylor said he could state us all the whole time. Now, let me say this, let me, let me say this. We are going to treat each other with respect. Exactly. Period. So if you feel I was yelling at her and she does, I do apologize. Thank you. But when somebody tries to talk over me and I am in charge, I will talk over them. Talk over them. So that's just the bottom line fact. Now, Mr. Gaines is going to address what Ms. Gunsall is, I guess said, not guess it, what she said. I do want to say this. In fact, I'll put mine first. What was stated, a lot of people here, me included if I love this lady. Unfortunately, as Malcolm X said, the press can make the innocent look guilty and the guilty innocent. What I would like for you to do, a comparative study as to what other DAs are doing, best salary compared to admin. And then if you can get that to Miss Taylor, I didn't get it from her. Because the bottom line, we have to talk about our differences, period. And if one has a point, that one has the point. Mr. Gaines, and again, he's not running out because he's getting a little heated in here. He was all in the schedule and I'm sure Miss Taylor can use her charm to get them all back here. The two that didn't come and him again. Go ahead. Well, I'll briefly respond. And honestly, I know the district attorney indicated she felt personally attacked by my statement. I don't use her name. I mean, to me, this isn't personal. To me, this is just what I think should be happening and when you're talking about prosecuting crime. So to me, it's not personal at all. And I'll say that publicly. To me, it's not personal. I just believe there are real issues in the office. And I can go through a couple real quick, but really I don't wanna go through example after example, whether it's 34 resignations, I believe in two years, which no other circuit to your point to your question a minute ago. Another person looking into this did do a study of other nearby district attorney's offices. They do not have the same staffing issues that we do. I've talked to many other district attorneys. They do not have the same staffing issues that we do in our community. And there are, I'll just briefly read a couple cases where the prosecution was unable to get the insurance policy before the jury due to a judge ruling the proper foundation for its introduction had not been laid. That was an Athens woman acquitted of murder, charges and her boyfriend's 2019 shooting. Athens sex trafficking case dismissed due to mishandling by the DA's office. Nearby judicial circuits don't have ADA shortage as significant as the Western judicial circuit. I could go on and on and on about, those are just a couple of recent headlines. This is on the last couple of months. And our district attorney just actually prosecuted her first case personally this year, as I understand it, and I lost the case. And so there are real issues when you have an ADA shortage down to the numbers we do. I believe there's hundreds of cases that are in backlog. And so there are real issues that we're trying to address here to me. This is not personal. This is not personal one bit. It has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with partisanship. And to say that is a gross mistake. What this is about is about public safety. And that's what I care about. That's why I fought on this issue and why I believe strongly in it. But anyway, I won't sit here and talk any further about it. That's why I've been passionate about SB 92. What I do want to say though, is thank you all for having me. While I know it kind of got heated here at the end, at the end of the day, again, I truly believe we can agree on more than we disagree on. And I also want to say that the vast majority of the issues that we address at the Georgia legislature are bipartisan. And it's us working together to solve the issues that we have in our state. And so what I would say is, let's have more of these conversations. Commissioner Taylor, thank you for putting this together. This is one of the most dynamic conversations that I've been a part of since I got elected in 2018. We need more conversations like this where folks can come together, where we have people from the far right to the far left and everything in between in this room. And that's great. That's what Athens is. By the way, I was born and raised in Athens, and I've been here my entire life to the question about who's making decisions on this bill. I've been here since day one, and have never left this community, never planned to do so, because I love Athens. And so even on areas where we disagree, I think we got to recognize that folks making some of these decisions, I love Athens, Georgia. It's my home, and it will be my home. And so that's, for many of you in this room, that's the same case. You are born and raised in this community. You care about the future of Athens. You want in 50 years for it to be a successful community. And so I think that's where we got to come together to address some of the major issues that we have is people who love Athens come together, just like in a room like this, have those conversations. And I want to thank you for putting this together. I want to thank Commissioner Taylor, I want to thank Rashi, and so many for making today happen. I do apologize. I was only supposed to stay 30 minutes. I'm late as heck to my next thing. But I do want to say thank y'all for having me. Thank y'all so much. All right. Excuse me, excuse me. I'm going to do this Ms. Gunn-Vallis, a DA Gunn-Vallis. I want you to have the same opportunity that I asked Mr. Gaines for comparative study to salary and all the things you mentioned to DAs all across the state. It is highly believed that President Trump's issue and some of what DA Gunn-Vallis said is the corporate, but it's like I said, the press can paint a picture totally of what reality is. Also, Commissioner Taylor, let me tell you something else and someone you in here may get mad, so be it. She went through a lot of heat. Why are you inviting those people here? The reason you need to see who's representing you. If you don't like what you see, change our voting patterns. You and your cousin cannot vote, cannot make a change. You're going to have to need the percentages, high percentages. You can't change anything with 10%. So that's not a reflection on anybody here, but I want to personally thank Ms. Taylor. Amen. Because when I see her, I see somebody walking with the ancestors. So those voices in the community will fall if you're not going to her to talk. That's right. Okay. Have a safe trip and we'll have a safe trip. Thank you. And you're going to be more happy. Okay. And... Uh, from the render games. That's the lady that asked about you. That's your address. Thank you. I'll give it to you. Yeah. Thank you all so much. Okay. Also, Mr. Fry, the thing that you ask about homeless, ma'am, let's let that be one of the first things you talk about. Yeah. Her question and I will ask her to say it again. Okay. Okay, you got it. On the back of this form, this tells you if you want to contact your representative, there are two that are not here today. I don't know why. But if you look at the bottom, each one down here, you can know what address to send your concerns to. Okay, sir, you have the court now. Wow. Thank you all.  Okay. Thank you all for being here. I want to talk about Lisa's, some of the legislation that I've been introduced, have introduced, you know, I kind of go at things at a different angle. I think that we really need to focus on the development of our communities and our people within the communities. Obviously folks in here understand that I work with housing. I've done housing. I was only going to do housing for a year. My first opportunity to work at Habitat for Humanity, where I'm the director, was in 1999 when they called me up, my girlfriend at the time, who's my wife now, said, hey, Habitat needs a construction manager. You want to do that?  And so I knew that this was, I call it my Jonah moment. And I told those folks at Habitat, fella named Paul Dorsey. I don't know if anybody remembers Paul, she's remembers Paul, and he was big in starting the housing here in Athens. His son works with us. Mr. Dorsey had since passed away. And I sat there at the table and I said, Mr. Dorsey, I'll commit one year. I'll be here one year because I've got bigger and better things to do. But I think what I realized shortly is that this was my bigger and better thing to do. And I'm talking to you as, from a housing person, not necessarily as a legislator right now. And I firmly believe that safe cost-manageable housing is the answer to a lot of our issues that we face in our community and around the state and the nation. I think safe cost-manageable housing has socioeconomic as well as educational outcomes that we have measured across the state. And we're working to show that we can replicate the systems that we have here across the nation to change school systems only through housing. We've got great teachers. We've got people that work hard in these schools. And it's the environment that the kids live in sometimes that puts people on the wrong path. And I know this personally, okay? I do what I do because this is a personal situation. Lisa, to your investor question, I had proposed a piece of legislation and I don't think it's on here and I can't remember the bill number that would remove the state tax benefit to investor-owned property, okay? So this is the way the system works and this is a little bit, it's bizarre and it's wrong, but a house that an investor owns is able to lose value on your taxes even if it goes up on your appraisals in your market, okay?  And that's the incentive. It's not necessarily always the rent. It's the deduction of an asset, meaning what it does is it reduces the taxable income of these giant corporations. And you have a billion dollars to be invested into housing, a billion by a company like Blackstone. We can't even imagine what a billion is. I'll tell you this and I got to keep my glasses on because I'm gonna tell you something that'll blow your mind. We think a billion and a million are similar because of the way they sound. I promise you that. Like in your mind, you don't understand the difference between a billion and a million. You might be really good at math, but I'm gonna give you something that'll tell you the difference. That was texted to me yesterday when I brought this up in a speech. One million seconds was 11 days ago. One billion seconds ago was 1987. A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 B.C. Okay, did you hear that? A million seconds is only 11 days. A billion seconds, what's that you said? 36 years. You see, so when you have home buyers that can't compete against these corporations that have a billion dollars to invest into housing and we've seen a little bit of it happen here with this prosperity religion. I don't even know if I can call it Christianity because they're leaving out the eye of the needle. That eye of the needle gets smaller and smaller for those prosperity Christians. And that's what happened to Lisa when they come in and invest money and they buy the real estate up and they jack up the rents and they refuse to take a voucher, a state payment. And then they raise the rents and the people are displaced. And so you're looking at a situation where when we have tens of thousands of homes that are owned by these corporations in Atlanta right now my bill would basically take the state tax benefit away from these corporations. And although at 3.6% and somebody do the math what's 3.6% of a billion dollars? I don't know, 36 million dollars. 36 million dollars, okay? So they're getting to reduce 36 million dollars off their taxes every year. And that reduces their taxable income. That's their incentive. That's only on the state side. They have federal tax reductions as well. And so that was a bill that I tried to pass and I introduced that legislation to take away that state tax benefit from the investor groups. Because essentially what we have, the system we have now encourages it, okay? I'm gonna try to get a hearing on that bill next session. So they didn't hear it. They want me to put guidelines. They want the mom and pop investors. I just said everybody. I don't care who you are, right? And so I wanted to take away the incentive that we have in a state and a nation. Now it's not just Georgia, it's across the nation, okay? And we are incentivizing this to go on. And hopefully we'll be able to make some traction because what's happening in this neighborhood, there was a representative that just came in and she actually got in a battle with one of these large investors on her home that she was trying to buy, her and her husband. And see, with a billion dollars to invest, they can pop 10K over, 10,000 over the asking price and not feel it. But a person who's working, dual income household, they feel that $10,000. That raises the payment up and affects the cost manageability of the structures. So that's one bill. Obviously I'm very passionate about to answer your question. Okay, thank you. So a couple of, just to talk about the bills that are on the list here. When sessions started, we had a lot of talk about housing. I mean, the governor said that the municipalities were getting in the way of cost manageable housing and then something had to be done. There were several bills put together that addressed some of the issues. Some may have been heavy handed. I know the commissioners and the mayor here, y'all know how I, y'all have heard everything that I'm saying now in every piece of legislation. You know, some of the things that add costs to housing are basically ordinance related are definitely due to the municipal decisions. What I say is I'm not blaming the municipalities. What I say is when a rule comes up that seems like it solves the problem, as a standalone, it seems fine.  Now this mayor commission have done a yeoman's job of reducing, helping us reduce the cost of construction and working with us and being committed, including an opportunity that we can for the hookup, the hookup fees, okay? They can wave hookup fees for cost manageable housing and I think that's a great step because it does help at least organizations like Habitat where we're just selling homes for exactly what we have in them and sometimes a little less. And so that $3,000 sewer hookup fee, waving it, which I just found out yesterday, I'm really excited about. So thank you for that mayor commission. So obviously on 283, there was a tax credit for first time home buyers and sales tax exemptions on manufactured homes. Had tax credits for single family residents on HB 476, 344 was important to me. We did pass this out of the house. That was the tenant protection act and it basically says that you have to have habitable structures and it also extended the, you had a right to cure for three days. That's the most I could get the apartment complex association to agree with but a right to cure for three days means that you would have an extra three days to pay your rent before they filed for eviction on you. And that also is an extremely important thing. Making them comply with fire and health code is important. Now our municipalities have the power to do some of this themselves but reiterating it in state law is extremely important because it shows that there is a need for it and that the support is from the state. One of the things you'll see in 37 and 388. Let me just, let me just go ahead and I got three more and then we can ask questions. 387, 388, it drives me nuts that the state of Georgia is gonna make money on a product that we've got people in jail for. Okay. And I'm saying, look, you know, if you not even arguing about whether it should be legal or marijuana should not be legal, I'm not even arguing that. I'm just saying if the state is gonna make money on marijuana, then we need to get rid of the and fully pardon all the folks that are in jail for it as well as all the folks that have gotten arrested for it, right? Because why is the state making money on it and putting the citizens in jail for it? That is ridiculous and that's not cool. So, you know, I wanna make sure that folks that have felonies for an ounce of marijuana that that's no longer less, you're not gonna get in trouble for less than an ounce. It's just a ticketable offense. I think that's important.  It is not, it's not that big of a deal. And, but it affects, disproportionately, affects the minority community because there is a targeting that goes on or has gone on and we've got great officers here and they know it happens. Everybody does it. Y'all, people do it to me because I'm a white guy that wears cowboy boots and drives a truck. Nobody, you know, I get, what do you call it, profiled all the time, right? Cause I drive a truck and I build houses. Well, Republicans think I'm Republican for one. That's the problem. And that's the one for your neighbor in the state that is predominantly that. If you share the same, that would mean you share the same. It does help, but also on the other side of the coin, a lot of people think that I'm not as progressive as I am because of the way I look. That's just all I'm saying. Well, it's not progressive helps. Well, not with other progressives, you know. So, and then the last thing is the menstrual products exempting those from state sales and use tax. I say this like birth control is not covered by insurance, but Viagra is. And I say if men had periods and could have babies, birth control and menstrual products would be covered by insurance too. I promise you that, okay? And so just trying to take down some of these barriers and inequities, that's something that was important to the women of the Democratic caucus and they asked me to support that. So that's what I did. With that, I'm open to it. Any questions or anything that y'all want to talk about? Before we do that, someone had left a card and followed the procedure and I goofed. So whoever left the question, is there a regional plan to get all counties to provide services to that non-residents who are homeless? If you will give me your address, I'll make sure that I get back with you with Mr. Gaines answer. I overlooked it because things were getting lucky. Now, anybody having a card? I can address, I can answer a little bit of that. So there's not a real regional plan and the difficulty is the surrounding counties don't necessarily have the same services that we have here in Athens-Cart County. And they don't necessarily want to create them. But I can tell you this, that the sheriff's lobbyist, the representative to the Georgia Sheriff's Association was sitting up in the gallery the entire time that that bill was getting discussed. So you brought up a thing about, Sarah, you talked about enforcement of that. The sheriffs are very aware that their time to be able to do this is limited, right? And because they were in the gallery watching this, this was an important piece of legislation that they were watching. And so hopefully it will make a difference that our sheriffs in the surrounding county will choose to follow the law and not participate in that. But it remains to be seen. Okay, Ms. Taylor, Commissioner Taylor, do you want us to take a five minute break or keep going? What do the people say? Keep going, keep going, keep going. Okay, okay, we're gonna keep going. But we have to respect this man been sitting up here two hours, almost two hours. Okay, okay, I'm good, let's go, let's keep going. Okay, let's go. Go ahead. I had two questions about the drop-off. And I think Sarah asked about the enforcement and other than everything. My thought is still, we have the regional development and we have our little circle of both. How do these people don't even know about the regional development? Are these the kind of conversations that are here being discussed with the leaders in the regional areas barrel over for? That whole circle is another level. It's just so much bureaucracy. Talking to you, does this conversation get to the other decision makers and, or how does it? Yeah, that's a great question. I think the homeless issue, I mean, I think it's a, is this conversation gonna go to the regional communities? I'm not really sure. I mean, I will definitely talk about a regional approach to this.  And one of the issues that we don't really think about though is that we are a major center. All of our folks in Athens aren't just being dropped off here, right? Because we have two hospitals here, 19 County area. I know Piedmont does regional work. And so you get a, think about this.  You get whatever treatment you needed.  You don't have a ride back. That happens a lot because I live two blocks away from that, the back, the ER, and they walk down my street. And I've asked them, where are you from? And one, the part two of that is, when Houston was talking about that particular law, are we expected as local government to develop our own policy? Who's responsible? I mean, if you sign it into, and you say, well, you hope that the police will, are we commissioners and mayor, should we be drafting a policy that would fit Clark County? Yeah, here's one thing and I was gonna have that conversation with some of y'all offline. Is the idea, I believe that piece of legislation makes counties enforce their no camping ordinances if they have it on the books. Okay? And so my suggestion would be if you, y'all have to make that decision on whether you're going to keep that ordinance on the books. You see what I'm saying? It wasn't saying that you can't have to create a no camping ordinance. It just said if you have one, you have to enforce it. And I will say that I think it was that bill. I took a dollar over to Representative Gaines-Desk and said, you know, a lot of the issues you work on are local, so here's a dollar for your campaign to run for mayor, because you can't, you don't need to be governing locally at the state level, is what I think. Say that example to Fred, so. I have a, no, go ahead now. Well, I'd say whatever you say. I have a couple of questions for Representative Frye, more about housing, housing affordability issues. You know, we're in a unique situation. We're in College Town, about a quarter to a third of our population is college students, and the vast majority of them are from families that are making three, four, five, six times the median income of folks who live and work here and have for generations. And so some of these mechanisms to drive down housing building costs and increase density and all that can kind of backfire on us when we already have students pushing folks out of neighborhoods because their parents can have deeper pockets, and the university increases enrollment every year. I think they've increased by about 6,000 students over the past decade or so, and those kids gotta live somewhere, and we're allowing these, you know, big, giant luxury towers to be built, and it's putting pressure on our infrastructure, you know, kids are starting to live in neighborhoods, and when I go out and happen on doors and ask the folks what their concerns are across the board in these in-town neighborhoods that I represent, regardless of whether, you know, there's no multifamily or single family, they're concerned about students moving into their neighborhoods. Some people are, you know, getting their cars blocked in their driveways because every single student has a car, and I had a little old lady die inside her home because the student housing flipper next door took her driveway, so what can the state legislature do to pressure UGA to build more dorms in appropriate places that will relieve some of these pressures on our in-town neighborhoods, and give some of the students who can't afford these rising rents, because I also know students who've turned down acceptance at UGA because they can't afford rent in-out. No, that's exactly right. I mean, that's a conversation of the state. The only thing that we can do is appropriate funds dedicated within the general budget to the Board of Regents and ask them to spend it on what we want, because the General Assembly has no control over the regents, the Board of Regents by design several years ago, decades ago, and so we appropriate in one lump sum, and so certainly there could be threats of lowering appropriations if what we asked is not completed the proper way, but it is a difficult situation. The biggest part of that is the fact that we have been divided up into five House members and two Senators, and I'm the only Democrat, whereas Athens could hold two House members, one Senator and two House members, right, as Democrats if we were districted the right way. So those decisions are also blocked by our inability to be the ones to make those decisions, but that day is coming. Spencer, please tell them. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'll be good, I'll be good, I'll be good. I'll be good, I'll be good. Thank you. I'll be good. Before you answer Ms. Mary's question, I want to introduce a representative from the Senator to the warden officer. Do you have anything you'd like to say now? Thank you all. So I'm Katrina Crawford, I'm here representing Senator Warnock today. I'm really just here to listen about your concerns going on here in Athens-Clarke County. I'm very familiar with Brecht and Tiffany and have worked with them on multiple occasions and I'm listening and I'm taking mental notes and I'm going to be bringing these back to Senator Warnock and let him know really what is going on here in Athens-Clarke County because that is my job to hear from everyone. So, and if there's anything you'd like to do- Hold on for a moment, could we stop the side conversations please? Because I can't hear her. Well, we can't hear her. Well, we can't hear her, right? We're not here, let her, please let her speak. We can talk that way, please. We can talk that way. I can't hear her, I would like to hear her beside conversation. Go ahead now. But I was just saying, going to say, and Commissioner, both have my information, I'm happy to connect anybody with the correct folks in our office. I mainly do outreach, which is information gathering is in a shorter term, but I'm happy to connect anybody in our office to make sure that we can, you know, get you to the right services. Thank you. But, and I'm happy to listen to questions. I do not have answers, all of the answers, but I can connect you with the folks in our office who do have the answers. But I'm really just here to listen and break your concerns back to Senator Brown. Okay, give us your name again now. Katrina Cochran. Okay, thank you, Ms. Cochran. Ms. Mary, you are up next. If anybody has any cards, please give me the cards. Oh, Walter, you're next. Okay. Oh wait, after Ms. Mayer. Okay. Okay, well, I have a concern and I brought part of this to the man in council, Mr. Jesse Hool, about one-third of your income. So this is the second part I'll relate today. So they're saying that you have to have one-third of your income for rent, but the housing is for the college students. So if the rent is $2,000, you have to make 6,000. Now, the loophole that we need to be aware of is that the rich parents of the college students can guarantee them, because you can't tell me that all these college students here are actually on a job making $2,000 a week or $6,000 a month. So their parents are guaranteeing their rent. How can we fight that? Because I should be able to guarantee that my son's rent is gonna be paid and they should take my word, because that's what's happening and we'll be in push out. And I want y'all to do something about that. And I'd like to leave from Mr. Warnock's office because we were told when he came here that his phone number would not be shut down and that we could still reach them and his front person, Ms. Meredith, has not returned any calls since he was elected. I still have the phone number and I have not been able to reach y'all, so please take my name too. Thank you. And there are cards, Tiffany just placed them up right and I'll get you connected. What about the, how they are pushing us out by guaranteeing that their child can pay $2,000 a month? So one of the bills that we were able to pass that Representative Gaines referenced earlier was it dealt with the property tax freeze, okay? And so we need to get this information out. We voted on this as a community. That's what he was referencing. 80% of our community voted for this. So if your income, if you own your home and your income is qualified, okay? If you're on fixed income and you own your home, you can apply for a property tax freeze, okay? Which means that you're, they can assess whatever they want to, but your property taxes will stay the same as long as you own that home, okay? Okay, so you're asking a rent question, but I'm telling you, this is one tool that I was able to get passed that helps us keep people in their homes if their property taxes might go up, okay? Now Ms. Bagby, I see you shaking your head. I was talking about our people that payin' rent. Now I own my house. I'm talkin' about the one that payin' rent and the landlord went up $600, it was $600. And the landlord come out tomorrow and say, you gotta give me 600 months, you gotta give me 1200 or you gotta get out. But the college students can get a house and they don't have to have proof of income. They just let mommy and daddy come and say, I guarantee my child's rent. I'm sayin' that should be across the board. If we're gonna have justice and equality, it needs to be across the board. I should be able to go to Jensen Hood and the mall and all those places and say, listen, my child only makes such and such a amount, but I'm gonna guarantee his rent will be paid and they should let him have that house like they let these college students have. That's what I'm talkin' about, we talkin' about rent. Okay, you're talkin' about rent, but did you know that about your own house that you can get your property taxes frozen? Cause you've asked me about that before. My taxes are okay. Did you freeze them yet? They frozen. Okay, good, good. I'm talkin' about the people that's workin' that's got five children that's workin'. They ain't on the corner with these busted slagging as if a dope, all the people are workin'. You never hear about all the good children that's workin', that's supporting their children. That the wives are home teaching them, homeschooling them, they are honor students. You always hear about bad stuff about us. I want you to help us that's struggling. That's what I'm, I want the rent. I don't care about the property that I already own. I'm talkin' about the people that's being homeless because their rent is being jacked up and do somethin' to these landlords that are gouging the people. Yes ma'am, we did have a piece of legislation that dealt with rent control and it goes nowhere in our legislative process. Absolutely nowhere. Okay, Mr. Allen, we're gonna get back on rent because I got a question. Okay, this is concerning the nine-hand community all over the world. Yes, sir. And it was done not to put the project that you may have a couple of houses going into them. They spoke out against that, of the development of the nine-hand community. What are your thoughts? I know you've got a couple of houses going to go into that community and then I think Land Trust has a council that's going to go into that community as well, even though the people fought it. Yeah, so my thoughts on that type of development, I think it's important to increase the density and the cost-manageability and I think that does that because the houses there, what could be built, and I think we heard it yesterday from the Matt who approached us as a developer to put cost-manageable housing into his development, which I thought was a good step in the right direction. The primary concerns of the neighborhood, no, like I'm not developing it. We're just putting a structure in there. We didn't have anything to do with the process, but I did speak to the neighbors about that property tax-freeze bill because a lot of the concerns were traffic-related, which I understand is going to be more density. It's right there next to the school. Oglethorpe Avenue is going to have a lot of cars going in and out and that already has a lot of cars there. But the property values and the property taxes seem to be the primary concern of the residents. And so with us passing that now, I think it's extremely important that those residents can get their property taxes frozen, which would allow their costs of that structure, barring any maintenance issues that pop up, they're gonna have the same payments, right? Taxes and insurance, they're not gonna fluctuate. And so that's about the only thing I can say about that is I believe it's a good development. I think it's things that we need to look at. We're the smallest county in the state where the 50% of the land is owned by institutions that aren't taxable. And so we have to work with 50% of the smallest county in the state to start with. And then we have artificial demand for the land because of the student population. That raises the land. We'd be Sparta. Y'all ever been to Sparta, Georgia? We'd be Sparta if it wasn't EGA. Maybe a little bigger than Sparta, but we have an artificial demand, we have limited supply and so a development that can increase density is important. And I know it's tough. I'm all about increasing density. I sold a piece of property next to my house. They built a house like I can spit on this house from my house. He gave me a design and said, is this okay if I build this? And you know what I told him? I don't care what you build. It's not my property. So I think it's okay. I understand the residents' concerns and I feel like that we hopefully can address some of their issues with their taxes, which was a prevalent, prevalent issue. Yes, did you want to go? Because I know that there was someone else that wanted to continue non-rent conversation as well. Okay, if you go, I'd like to go. Okay, and then I'll go, okay. Well, her, you, okay. Okay, my question is two questions. You said rent control, it never went through, never passed. Okay, I live in New York and I know they have rent control. Once rent control is passed, don't say it will never be passed. I think we should have it passed because this way, all the people who is grugging on people's lives by raising their rent, you know what your budget is and you know what your salary is. And the other thing is that same rent control helps the senior citizen that is coming up later on. Yes, ma'am. We're not talking about senior citizen, we're talking about working people. Now we're talking working staff, senior citizen. So that rent, that rent control will help the people later on. In other words, you're not just stopping the shift right here. Yes, ma'am. And Mrs. Cundazales, I do appreciate what you're doing, but there's one question I need to ask. The people whose cases have not been tried, what happened to the family that they have out there? Their children, wives or spouses or vice versa? That what happened to that? That destroys the whole family because if it take 10 years for the case to be tried, who helps the families? Is there anything to help the family? Ma'am, can you and Mrs. Cundazales talk about that and what lady we have out there? Okay, I know, I try to talk for everybody, it's for everybody. Well, we have a few minutes, so anybody wants to stay? Okay, I'm sorry. Anybody wants to stay? Me and Mrs. Cundazales. Okay, thank you. Yes, sir. Okay, I have one, by the way, I'm unfortunate. Who are the richest people in the world? According to how you manage your rich people. You know how we manage our money. You know that's how we manage our money. You're talking about money? Yes, sir. Oh, okay. The Jewish people? No, it's not. Okay. Wait a minute, let me go and clear it up. Yeah, clear it up. We are the richest. We, as people on the little ground, the little people, are the richest people in the world. And what the thing is, they cannot come together. You see, we pay the one we call rich, we pay their salary, they don't pay ours. But we ain't got something else to think. Because everything is set up that we won't, they got. But we got control if we come together and use it. And the next thing, where they're not in game, if you didn't know what game said, it was always what he thought about the D.A. I think, I think, I think. That's all he said, I think. But what about the people, what do people think? Well, that's, I'm not defending nobody. Y'all don't jump on me. That's why I asked him, show the proof. But you already know about what he thought, that he already said, I think. I'm talking about what the people think. So, let me, that's a great point. You're exactly right. That the idea that there is only a handful of people that have all the money. And there's more of us than there are of them, is what you're talking about. I mean, we pay the taxes, the workers are the one that make the products, and we pay their salaries. You're exactly right. And I think that's a very important point to bring up because we can't be divided. We can't be divided. And if we want things to change, y'all gonna have to vote.  You have to take your cousins and spouses and friends to vote. And you have to make sure that everybody that's in your phone, voted. And your enemies to vote. Make sure you know who you vote for. Yes, no, that's exactly right. But that's extremely important because we have to be united. There's more of us than them. That's a great point. Real quick to the rent control. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Just there's a statewide law that stops communities from implementing rent control. And so I agree with you 100%. It needs to be overturned. And one day it will. And we're working towards it. And one more thing that you said is that I came from Walton County. The word of mouth is what white people are here. That's right. For all of us. That's right. And the other thing is this, most of the treatment for cancer or anything, this is where they send them to the hospitals and the doctors. That's right. So this is why you have an influx of people here. That's right. Okay, question. How many, do you have any development plan in your mind projected in the future that will not include student housing? Now I heard something the other day and I wanted to laugh and it's called poor student housing. I kind of visualize that as a cold word. And that we're not intelligent enough to realize student housing is student housing. Now my family, if I was sending my kids to UGA and I didn't live here, I would have to select probably another school. But the people who are living here, and I hope the commissioners, anytime you see something with student housing on it, I hope you make sure that you be told. Now I know less than I know because you mentioned something by the Board of Regents. I wanted to make that statement. I'm not taking any more time if you want to respond to it, dude. Sure. And then. Mr. Regents, I'm sorry. I apologize, I didn't mean to hurt you. No, go ahead. This young man's been reasoning the same like forever. Oh, she has to go. Okay, after her, then you will go, and you with the press, right? I have not with the press. It looks like a reporter.  This is my, hi, this is Mr. Fry, this is my first time meeting you. I've heard of you in various conversations, but this is my first time seeing you face to face. And hearing that you are progressive and knowing that you do know the principle of property being a part of generational wealth, where are you on record in your opinion about reparations, including the Linnentown development? Well, on record, I wrote the forward to the, in the Linnentown book. And you can learn a lot about me and the way I view things through that book, through that forward. And so home ownership is something that I've dedicated my life to. And it's what I think is the answer to a lot of our issues that we face, including the disparity of wealth between the races. That's the number one thing, you know? And so I'm 100% in favor on the record of reparations for Linnentown and learning and figuring out ways to write the wrongs. And it's what I have done. I will describe what I do every day as writing the wrongs of the failed federal policies in the past and by offering opportunities for home ownership to people who can't afford the dirt. I was at a real estate meeting yesterday and really wanted to point out. My customers are just like your customers, is what I told them. My customers work hard, they make good decisions. They have decent credit. They pay their rent on time. My customers just don't have the income to afford the dirt. Okay? And for whatever reason that is, I've dedicated my life to solving that. So I 100% believe in that. And everything I do is based around that. Great. I'm not gonna pick up John's time, but I would like to talk to you later. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Yeah, John Morris, chair of the Athens homeless coalition and also worked with the street outreach team at Advantage. Wanted to thank you for being here, but also not really a question, just want to kind of make a comment on SB 62 is we're thinking about dropping people off here. Simultaneously, we're talking about requiring enforcement of people who are in communities that have a camping ban. My guess would be all our surrounding communities have a camping ban. And if they don't, they will, which means all of those people will either be in jail or running here themselves by choice. And so I just wanted to make that comment and point out that some legislation that might look like, oh yeah, we're going after people who are dropping people off here is also potentially incentivizing people to come here, even more so. So I just want to make that comment and say how can we collaboratively and regionally work with our other counties that if we are doing that, are they kind of pitching into services, who becomes the entity to receive that funding distributive run housing programs to actually help get these people who are cycling in and out of jail for petty things into housing and into sustainable lifestyles that they're not kind of in the same cycle they've been in. So just wanted to make that comment that SB 62 has a lot of components that interact with each other in ways that it's really important to look holistically rather than just highlighting one. And I voted against it, by the way, because I didn't think it was solving anything. And I think a lot of the legislation that we passed this year that people are touting are band-aids for the real issues, not getting down at the root of the problem. Thank you for your comments. You're talking about for the Board of Regents, how the state doesn't have that much control over it, but in future monetary allocations to that, is it possible to have strings attached to the Board of Regents for their funding that they must have a role that says, you can't increase student enrollment more than a certain amount or certain percentage and it won't solve the issue, at least help temper the issue of this massive student overpopulation these funds? Yeah, no, I mean, that's what I said. You can allocate funds with strings attached and then with the fear of a non-allocation of funds if what you ask is not delivered, but there is a major separation between the legislature, the executive branch and the Board of Regents, almost like the fourth form of government that we have here. Okay, the lady here, and did you have your hand up now? No. Oh, okay. So I think, I don't know who it was that mentioned, I think it might have been you though, that landlord can move in, you might have said it, because you looked at landlord moves in and says, hey, I know you've been living here with housing voucher, but I'm not accepting voucher anymore and you can't take it. And I'm just gonna lay this out because I think I can do it faster than if you did in your answer. Basically the Georgia, Georgia has a fair housing law in its state statute that says you can't discriminate someone in housing on the basis of race, gender, familial status, religion and these different things. But then in another sentence in that law, it says municipalities can't add other protecting classes. You can't add reasons to protect someone, which basically means that if a local government were to pass an ordinance that says you can't discriminate on someone based on their source of income, hypothetically they could pass an ordinance, Atlanta did, but they couldn't enforce it. It wouldn't mean anything. Unless we get something changed at the state level. And so I wanna state that I think it's very important that we, it's potentially very life changing for a lot of people that we get this preemption rollback or that we get statewide protections, whichever is easier. And further that I just, I can imagine it being very politically beneficial to both parties because a huge number of veterans are using housing vouchers specific to veterans. Anything for veterans seems like political gold to me but I don't know anything about politics.  You do know about politics, Sarah. One of the things that a bill that I did pass was to rollback that is where you could not, I didn't pass it, excuse me, I introduced it, was where you could not discriminate against income, right? Which is basically what's going on. It's like, oh, you have a housing voucher, okay, I'm not gonna rent to those people, right? And so again, y'all. Did this is like sneaking in the public and stake the glory or something? That's what, I mean, a lot of this stuff that goes on, I've got my fingers in, but my name ain't on it, and you really have to do that because we have 78 Democrats, we need 91 in the house. We can flip the house in the state of Georgia before we'll be able to flip the Senate. And I hope that comes in the next decade, honestly. And I've been doing this since 2013 and 2012 when I was running, people were saying, why do you wanna be a Democrat in the state of Georgia? That's crazy. The legislature we had, Stacey Abrams was the leader and we had 60 Democrats. They had a super majority. Super majority meaning they could pass any constitutional amendment they wanted to. And I got in and we'd been building back ever since. And so we've gotten 18 seats in a decade and we need 13 more. Okay. The answer to the young lady and last question is yes. Yes. Okay. Okay, thank you everybody. However, Ms. Taylor, again, I praise you. I thank you. Every time I look at you, I see about nine people walking around you. Keep doing what you're doing. You saw what you have pulled off today. Even though there are people that question you told you, don't let them people come in here, keep it up, young lady, you have the last word. I first wanna say thank you to all of you for staying the entire time. I know that it's very important that each of you had an opportunity to ask the state reps what was going on besides looking at it on the news. When I ran for a commission, I ran for community engagement. I feel like because we are the East side and we are predominantly black, we don't get the opportunity to ask state reps or anybody any questions because they won't come over here. And so I wanna thank Rashi for going to back and for believing in the efforts of being community involved and always letting us use her facility. So thank you, Rashi. Miranda has left, but Miranda was also a champion and getting all of this together, it was a lot. It was a lot. And we did face backlash because a lot of people didn't think that it was important to have a certain party on the East side. But what I do know is if you don't ask them for yourself, then you're gonna go off of somebody else's opinion. And that's where we get misinformation. I wanna put an end to misinformation as much as I can on my end. Now, was everybody's concerns met or got answers to all of their questions? I don't think so. I think that we should have a part two, we should have a part three, we should even have a part four if need be. I do wanna thank Katrina for coming out, you didn't have to. I appreciate all the things that you've done. A lot of things that's done on the East side, we don't get to see the players who extend their gratitude or their positions to us. So Katrina has helped. She was able to get Warnock to come, her and Rashi. And so we do appreciate that. Political nerd, thank you for showing up. Each and every, uh-huh. We, the police department, thank you for coming and showing up. Athens is in motion is here. Sarah is here, I want everyone, I don't know if you have any cards or not Sarah, but Sarah can answer a lot of questions that you do have as far as housing goes, as far as tenant rights goes, DA Gonzalez, thank you so much.  I did not mean to put you on the spot, but I kind of knew that this was gonna happen. I was kind of hiding behind you most of the time, because I didn't want it to get too heated, but I feel like it had to be, you know, you two be at the same room to get some kind of. So then when y'all brought the police, y'all thought it was gonna be a real crime? I did not. They could be at them with the real crime. Take a look at it. The police, that's basically new. I live out here now. And the chambers. Trust me, I'm here. I'm just telling you, so I'm there while you put me out there. That's why I'm with you right here. I'm just saying that I'm here. But I would just really like to thank each and every one of you, the second and third and fourth meeting, I hope that you bring a friend, tell a friend, and stay connected to your representatives. If you wanna change something, and suppose it's where we change it, get to know our representative, get to know their values, and when it's time to vote again, vote for the right person. Not saying that these men weren't, I'm just saying in general. That's all that I have. Thank you so much. I'm over here all the time now. Hold on a second. And y'all can get in touch with me. Hopefully you already got my number, or I'll give you my number. You call me on my cell. I'm at 532 Barbra Street daily.  I was over here this morning, building a house. But thanks for having me. Thank y'all for listening to me. So thank you, oh, yes, thank you. Yeah, yeah, I'm a little disturbed. I've been in and out, and like Tiffany said, in order to make a difference, you got to register to vote. That's what I do. I've known that you ain't registered in two years. You can see me afterward, and I'll be glad to register to you, or change your address. And like I said, I'm with the NJC, Economic Justice Coalition. And I'd like to thank Tiffany. Excellent job. I'll be back again. I want to say something, Tiffany, since you are the commissioner, what are you trying to do to help the homeless? There's the opening count, and there's, you know, there's all the homeless. I mean, because I have a passion really, I'm trying to protect them because they are going after it. What we do, what I do want to emphasize, I do want to emphasize it's going out to vote. Because we have concerns, I know, but my point is we have concerns, but we don't vote. And so for the ones that do vote, they vote for the ones that is going to cater to their values. And so it does go back to that. I'm one person as much efforts as I can do it. If I don't have a community that I'm fighting for, that's also fighting me for fighting for them, then it's a circle. And I can tell you, Ms. Barbara, I run that circle at Ms. Lisa. I run that circle every day, fighting for a community that fights me. And so what I would need is, I do need everybody in this room support. In every area that you work in, every area. You're my number, when you first had a meeting, and I never got talked to. What was your? It don't change, yeah, but I gave you my number. Oh. I can go to the police. Well, Ms. Lisa, I'll see you in six months. Okay, yes, ma'am. I'll see you in six months. You did that.