Mayor and Council Meeting
Video Transcript
Duration: 12 minutes
Speakers: 7
And I'd like to introduce my colleagues and council members present. Council member Sarah Bisa will not be joining us this evening.
Council member Christine Hall,
Mayor Pro Tem and council member Lee Hills,
council member David Johnson,
council member William Mortland,
and council member Alan Sells.
I'll now turn the meeting over to our chief administrative officer and city administrator, mister Randy Knighton, to explain how the meeting is run. Mister Knighton? Thank you so much, Mayor Wilson, and good evening, to everyone.
This is a special call to public hearing on the millage rate. This is the property tax rate, which is
mandated by, state requirements. If you wish to speak on this item, please complete a comment card and hand it to communication staff member Karen Zidemer, who's over here. So if you wish to speak on this item, please fill out a comment card and ensure she is able to provide it it to our city clerk.
Speakers will be called by the city clerk in the order cards are received.
We ask that everyone, of course, observe the principles of mutual respect and display the appropriate demeanor
during the course of the meeting this evening, which is reflective of this great community of Roswell. And with with respect to the proceedings,
we ask that attention is given to the person speaking.
And if it's necessary to have an independent conversation, we ask that you ask exit the rear doors to the vestibule area.
Of course, the mayor is the presiding officer
and will ensure the orderly exchange of questions, comments, and discussion.
We also encourage everyone to visit the city of Roswell website for news, events, and meetings,
and to participate in the various activities in the City Of Roswell
as we all make Roswell the number one family community in America. Mayor Wilson. Thank you, mister Knighton. Would you all please join me in a moment of silence and in a vacation?
A moment of silence, obviously, to
recognize events of the past week
and to recognize
healing for our country and for our city, for all our people.
Please join me in a moment moment of silence.
Thank you.
Heavenly father,
thank you for the gift of this day.
Thank you for the gift of this city,
the gift of its people,
for the gift of this land, of this country,
for the gift of freedom,
for the gift of us being able to express
the things we agree on and the things we disagree on.
Lord, I pray bring healing
to our country,
to our city.
Help us to engage with one another
in ways that are productive,
ways that
raise you up and raise one another up.
Be with us
and help us to do much better as a people. I pray, Lord.
Thank you for your goodness.
Pray for your great blessing upon
the city staff.
Pray for your great blessing upon
city council.
I pray for your great blessing upon
the wonderful people and businesses of Roswell.
And I thank you for your goodness.
In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you.
And will y'all please join me for the pledge of allegiance.
I
pledge allegiance
to the flag
of The United States Of America
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation
under God,
indivisible
with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.
Alright.
City Clerk Nancy Long, we have I believe one item on our agenda, which is the public hearing on the military of 04/1949
for tax year 2025.
Would you please read the item?
Yes. This is the public hearing on the military of 04/1949
for tax year 02/00/2025.
Is there a presentation for the public hearing?
Negative.
Bill Godshall, our chief financial officer is in attendance
to address any questions.
Nancy, are there any Roswell residents who would like to speak on the military?
Yes. We have one speaker, Daryl O'Hare. Thank you.
Actually came because I was hoping to see a presentation, but,
I guess not. So I'm gonna,
I have a few concerns about
the current millage rate. I understand that it's not increasing.
However, property taxes are
increasing for because property taxes are our value of our homes are going up. Good news for the city of Roswell. But,
but at the same time, the cost of living and everything else has really,
increased.
My energy bills,
my grocery bills,
everything else has increased quite a bit. So
even though the millage rate is not going to increase as I understand it, it is not a,
it isn't is not keeping the same tax rate
because we'll be still paying more taxes
as a result of that. My question, I guess, is
if we were to do a rollback
tax, a millage rate, I think that's what they call it,
would that is there a figure or a number
that would equal what we
collect in taxes now
as a result of rolling back doing a rollback millage rate?
So that's my concern is that
even though we have not increased the millage rate,
we are actually going to
receive much more in that
fund source, if I'm correct.
So,
for people like me or my husband,
firmly middle class, the bills are all going up. I do know that a lot of the services within the city are also,
going up for people when they're trying to,
engage in the practices at the parks or get some glasses and do all those kinds of things.
So all of the
I would like to keep our taxes
as low as possible
with the millage rate by
looking at
a possible rollback rate
so that we collect the same amount of taxes versus just saying we're doing the same millage rate
because those are two different things as I understand it.
Daryl, you're exactly right. There is
definitely difference between the rollback rate
and keeping the same
millage rate or property tax rate.
And in fact the proposal
that the council currently is to keep the millage rate the same,
but it is not the same effective tax dollars that you'll pay. And if you probably noticed two of the three years we have actually rolled back the millage rate. This year we are not proposing to do that. Bill would you like to address that specifically I think and there's a dollar figure there with respect to the actual dollar value of
what a rollback rate is versus just keeping the millage rate the same or the
property tax rate the same? Sure.
So last week as we walked through the presentation, we used an example
with the Roswell millage rate, the 4.949
rate that
using it on a fair market value home of $550,000
the assessed value would be $2.20
and that would result in
payment of property taxes of approximately $10.89
dollars
This is without exemptions
of any sort, whether homestead exemption, floating exemption or otherwise,
because there's too many things to mix in with that. If we were to use the rollback rate,
which is about 4.658,
then this homeowner would pay $69
less
in in in, property taxes compared to the $1,089.
That's a very good way of putting it with the actual homeowner would be paying in the difference. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much.
That's per year. $69
per year. Correct?
Right. That would be for for the the assessment would change from,
$10.88 and it would be less,
approximately $69
of that.
Thanks, Bill. Thank you.
Thank you for the question, Daryl.
Nancy, do you have any other Roswell residents that would like to address it?
There are no other speakers.
Thank you so much.
Council, do you have any questions or comments?
Yes, sir. Councilman Brown sells.
I know Mayor, thank you, Mayor. I know we share the goal of being out of the property tax business, Daryl. I love that question and, our work the the work we're doing on the economic development just like across the street. I forgot my bearings here.
You know, that that is going to replace a fair amount of our millage rate right right there. What's what is 1 mill worth for, the city of Roswell today? You know?
It's about $7,000,000
right now. About $7,000,000?
Yes, sir. So we have we're we're currently working on one,
location, one opportunity that would be more than one mill reduction if we over what it's currently paying on that same piece of ground. So we're working on economic development specifically
to reduce property taxes. That's our goal.
Thank you. It's it's worth noting too that I think what's interesting is particularly through the productive work of Randy Knighton and his team over the last three years.
This is the only city in North Fulton that's actually actually rolled back the property tax rate two of the last three years.
It has the lowest,
property tax rate that has had in seventeen years.
But the questions as I think we share
the ultimate goal, I know that I do, is that we ultimately
wish to eliminate
the residential property tax
for city Roswell residents and that's
one of the many factors behind
I think the significant measures we take in our budgeting
as well as
our economic development plans and creating new sources of revenue
because ultimately, we do it is our plan to not only reduce
residential property tax but ultimately to eliminate it. So we appreciate your concern, Daryl. Thank you.
Any other thoughts or comments or questions from counsel?
Thank you very much.
I thought we should, I would like David to say why we're doing this as a special meeting just for the record, just so everybody knows why that this is a special called meeting.
Under
the state law,
if there is if the city is not rolling back the military,
we are required to have three hearings.
And this is one of those hearings. And one of those hearings is required to start between six and 07:00.
So our normal start time is 07:00,
so this is a special call meeting at 06:00
under state law. Thank you. Thank you, David.
Thank you, David. Alan, anything else, sir?
Counsel, any other thoughts, comments or questions?
Thank you so much. All right. Being that there are no other comments
and there is not a vote on this item,
this special called public hearing meeting of 09/15/2025
is adjourned. Thank you all for being here.