Mayor & Commission Meetings

GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES Thursday, August 20, 2020 Committee Members Present: Committee Members Absent: Commissioner Andy Herod, Committee Chair Commissioner Tim Denson Commissioner Patrick Davenport Commissioner Melissa Link Guests: Staff: Josh Edwards, Assistant Manager Chris Caldwell, Assistant Finance Director Sherrie Hines, Assistant County Attorney Annette Loggins, Financial Services Administrator Travis Cooper, I.T. Director Brad Griffin, Planning Director Barry Fuller, Systems Analyst Supervisor Kent Kilpatrick, Leisure Services Director David Boyd, Finance Director Committee Chair Herod called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. A. Approval of Minutes: Commissioner Link made the motion to approve the Minutes of the July 23, 2020 meeting. Commissioner Davenport seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. B. Commission Identified Items of Interest: Review of short term rentals: tax payments same as hotels; possible permitting process; health and safety related issues (Mayor Girtz assigned to GOC on November 5, 2019) Josh Edwards provided a brief history of this topic. He said HB276 went into effect on April 1, which is collecting sales tax. The proposed bill regarding the hotel/motel tax, HB448, passed the House but did not come up for a vote in the Senate. The third bill, HB523, which would curtail localities’ abilities to regulate short term rentals hasn’t moved at all. Commissioner Herod requested a written copy of Travis Cooper’s presentation on the responses to the Request for Information (RFI). Travis Cooper shared a presentation on the responses to the Request for Information (RFI) for Short Term Rental Management. Staff reviewed all three responses that were received to ensure that they could create and maintain a database of short term rental properties, register short term rental units, manage payments, assist Athens-Clarke County with code enforcement activities and also assist county staff in implementing and maintaining the product. Responses were received from Granicus (purchased Host Compliance), LTAS Technologies and HDL Companies. Each company can create and maintain a database of short term rentals, can register the short term rental units and can assist with managing all payments. They can each coordinate with county staff to ensure the reliability of the product and maintain the product. Two of the three can assist Athens-Clarke County with code enforcement activities, such as a 24/7 hotline or with coming up with some of the regulations and best practices that they have seen throughout the country.  Prices are modular so you can pick and choose the components that you want. Granicus’ total is $74,083.85/year, LTAS Technologies’ total is $45,500/year. One thing to note about LTAS Technologies is that they charge a credit card processing fee of 3% based on the actual credit card transaction amount which could be in excess of $40,000 a year. The third company’s fees are 35% of all discovered revenues with a $40,000 minimum. Based on the median projections that Finance provided a few months ago, that could entail $480,000. The first two companies do very similar things and the pricing would end up being relatively similar. Staff is not sure about HDL Companies, which does quite a bit less and were vague about how they interact with the public and what they do, and projected costs could come in quite a bit higher. Commissioner Herod asked what the next step would be. Josh said a recommendation to the full commission would be to prepare an RFP and there will have to be decisions about how to pay for the system. Josh said ACCGov will realize new revenue but staff is not quite sure how much based on the economy. Josh suggested that the Committee may want to discuss at the next GOC meeting the permitting piece to this and health and safety related issues. Commissioner Herod said that his preference would be to move forward with an RFP. Melissa said she thinks this is a good idea. Patrick agreed. The Committee had a unanimous recommendation to go to the next step with an RFP. Commissioner Herod asked what staff is doing to collect the sales tax since the legislation to collect sales tax has been in place since April. Chris Caldwell said that the sales tax is remitted to the Department of Revenue just as any brick and mortar company would do. The Department of Revenue then allocates that to the cities and counties. The online merchants, which include Airbnb, and any other online merchants that weren’t collecting sales tax should be remitting that to the State Department of Revenue now. Staff will provide information at the next GOC meeting for discussion of the permitting piece of short term rentals and the health and safety related issues. Review of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government policy for naming of public places in Athens (Mayor Girtz assigned to GOC on July 7, 2020) Kent Kilpatrick reviewed the information that had been provided to the Committee regarding issues and challenges with the policy. The first and foremost is the broader community support and deciding what broader community support means since there is nothing really defined. He said he would like to have something that gives some clarification and cuts down on confusion. The Committee discussed notification and level of approval of people living closest to the facility. Commissioner Link suggested a petition. Commissioner Herod agreed with a combination of letters and a petition. Commissioner Davenport suggested 75% approval of residents in the area. Commissioner Herod said naming of local facilities should reflect local people and he does not want to name county facilities after employees that are currently working for the county. Discussion was held on whether to name facilities after an individual who is living or deceased. Commissioner Herod requested that staff get a copy of the University’s policy on naming of facilities. Commissioner Davenport has information from other cities regarding their policies that he will send to the Committee members and Kent will provide options and ideas to the Committee in advance of the next GOC meeting. Government Operations Committee Meeting Minutes Page 2 08202020  Brad Griffin reviewed Savannah’s Street Naming Ordinance. Savannah’s policy deals with streets as well as public property and facilities. Brad said he thinks there is a lot of merit in combining our street naming policy with the facilities naming policy. Brad will send Savannah’s ordinance to the Committee members. Commissioner Herod requested any information about street names creating confusion with the letter delivery, GPS systems, etc. Brad said there are a handful of streets that have exactly the same name. Brad will provide a list of potential problem streets for the next meeting. Kent asked for clarification about naming of facilities for government employees. Commissioner Herod said that facilities should not be named for somebody who is presently employed by ACCGov. He said that if we’re going to look at people that had previously been employed by ACCGov, then his preference would be that it needs to be for something that they have done above and beyond what they were paid to do. The recognition should be for doing something more than simply their job. The meeting adjourned at 6:23 p.m. Government Operations Committee Meeting Minutes Page 3 08202020