On this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, Diane Fisher, a representative from the League of Women Voters Gwinnett chapter, delves into the world of voter registration and municipal elections in Georgia. With the implementation of automatic voter registration and the upcoming municipal elections in Peachtree Corners, Fisher sheds light on the importance of informed voting and active participation. From understanding address updates to exploring the power of thoughtful voting, listeners will gain valuable insights on enhancing voter engagement in their community. This podcast serves as a guide for residents to make their voices heard and shape the future of Peachtree Corners, Georgia.

Diane’s Email: Fisher@lwvga.org League of Women Voters
Website: https://www.lwv.org/local-leagues/lwv-gwinnett-county
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/lwvgwinnettcounty/

“Being a prepared voter means being an informed voter. It’s not just about the presidential election, but about all the congressional seats, the House and Senate seats, and county positions. So, there will be an awful lot on that ballot. Knowing when and who is on the ballot is crucial for an informed vote.”

Diane Fisher

Time Stamp

0:00:00 – Introduction
0:01:54 – Voter registration process and information for new residents in Georgia
0:05:13 – Voter maintenance and the importance of updating voter registration
0:08:34 – Absentee voting process and how to request an absentee ballot
0:10:52 – Municipal elections in Peachtree Corners, Georgia
0:17:18 – Being a prepared voter for the 2024 elections
0:20:37 – The need to know who’s on the ballot
0:21:31 – Sharing personal experience about involvement in politics
0:23:02 – Misleading information and the importance of understanding the ballot
0:23:45 – Lesser-known positions on the ballot and the impact of voters’ knowledge
0:25:42 – Thoughtful voting and participation in local elections
0:28:04 – Encouraging voters to engage with candidates and attend events
0:29:39 – The process for third-party and write-in candidates in Georgia for the 2024 elections
0:31:25 – Seeking additional information that Georgia voters should know
0:33:28 – Advising voters to verify their voting location due to possible changes
0:34:17 – Closing

Podcast Transcript

Rico Figliolini 0:00:00

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. Appreciate everyone joining us. We have a special guest today from the League of Women Voters, Diane Fisher. Hey, Diane, thanks for joining me.

Diane Fisher 0:00:11

Nice to be here.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:13

Yeah, this is going to be a good educational podcast. We’re going to be discussing how to be a prepared voter and everything that comes with that for 2024 and municipal elections. But before we get to that, I just want to thank our sponsors, Clearwave Fiber, our corporate sponsor. They’re an internet providing business here in Peachtree Corners, serving over a thousand businesses. Peachtree Corners Life, they’re actually based in the Southeast, and they provide better than what you would expect from a cable provider. Fast Internet connection, great support, especially to businesses and residents. So check them out. Clearwave Fiber also check out EV Remodeling, Inc. Eli, who is the owner of the company. Him and his family live here in Peachtree Corners. It’s a great business. They do design to build renovation work. Lots of good activity out there, lots of good references for them. So check them out, Evremodelinginc.com, and you’ll be able to find out a little bit more about our two supporters that way. So let’s get right into the show. Diane, I appreciate you joining us. League of Women Voters, it’s been around for quite a while. You are the Gwinnett chapter of the organization, correct?

Diane Fisher 0:01:28

We are the Gwinnett chapter. The national organization has been around since 1920, founded out of the movement for women’s suffrage. And we in Gwinnett in this iteration, have been around since 2019. Comes and goes. And so it is relatively new coming back. And so that’s where we are now.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:54

Excellent. So I saw you, I met you at the Peachtree Corners Festival, which is part of what you all do, outreach to the community. And you were out there, I think, at the time when I passed, you were registering a new voter that came on and she was asking questions so similar to what we’re going to do here. We want to know a little bit about how if you’re a new voter and you haven’t voted yet, or if you just moved to the state of Georgia and you have to register here to vote. Because obviously, from where someone comes from, you have to register in the state that you’re going to be voting in at the residence that you’re going to be voting in. So tell us a little bit about what would be needed for someone to register new here in the state of Georgia and Gwinnett County.

Diane Fisher 0:02:40

Sure. So in Georgia, we have automatic voter registration through the DDS, through driver services. And so when anyone gets a new license or changes an address on a license or does anything with DDS, they actually are automatically registered to vote. So we actually have very high voter registration in Georgia because of that. What doesn’t happen, though, is sometimes people you know move down the street, sometimes they move across town, sometimes they move within a county, sometimes they move out of the county. And you do, as you mentioned, need to be registered to vote at your current address. And so it’s important for everyone to make sure that they take care of making sure that that happens. Because sometimes people don’t always update a license in a timely fashion, but they actually move. And the reason why it’s linked to where you live is because who you vote for is determined by where you live, what precincts, and so it is important that you are registered your current address so you can always check. One of the best resources for checking the status of your registration is the Secretary of State has their website which is MVP, SOS ga gov and if you put in your name and birth date and county you can find out where you’re registered to, if you’re registered, where you’re registered, what precincts you vote for, where you vote. All of that information is available on that site. And so we encourage every voter before every election to check the status of their registration, to make sure that everything is above board, that it’s where you need it to be and that nothing happened. Because there is a list maintenance that happens as a regular part of the process and sometimes people are put moved to inactive status if they miss a notice or something like that. So we just always want to make sure that everybody checks their status, which makes sense.

Rico Figliolini 0:04:55

I just did that for two of my kids, I showed them how to do it because they hadn’t voted since they hadn’t voted. So I think one of them, in a decade maybe voted once and I said there’s maintenance, they could purge you from the list and they were still on the list, right?

Diane Fisher 0:05:13

So if you don’t vote in two federal election cycles, then you are moved to inactive status and that starts a process of eventually dropping you off the roll. So you’re not obligated to vote in elections. But obviously we encourage everyone to vote, but it is important to respond to those kinds of requests that you get because they probably did get some kind of notice in the mail indicating that, questioning if they are still at address, that they live, that they were registered, right, no doubt.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:48

And I think younger people have a bit more of a problem following that up because it’s not on their to do list, obviously. I think the demographics show that older people more regularly, younger people less regularly, unless it’s a presidential race and even still sometimes it just depends. And COVID hasn’t helped either, people moving back home with their parents, whether they moved in from out of state, maybe they still wanted to vote for if they were living in New York, maybe they still wanted to do an absentee ballot back up there, and that’s possible, but they wouldn’t be able to vote down, right, right.

Diane Fisher 0:06:26

You can only be registered to vote in one location. And quite honestly, one thing that people don’t know is that if you register so say you move I’ll use your example from New York and you move to Georgia and you register to vote in Georgia. There is not a process like an automatic unregistering. You from New York, you actually have to request that. My daughter, when she moved out of state, it took us a long time to get her off of the voter rolls, know, because you actually have to request that to happen. Most people do not think that that’s something that they have to do. And that’s why sometimes the roles are not updated or updated. You might show up on a place where you have no intention of voting and never voted because you’ve moved and you just didn’t think that you need to do anything about it.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:17

Sure, I think you’re right. Most of my friends would not even think about, oh, I need to know if someone know. Technically, you could end up doing a mail in ballot to New York, let’s say, and vote here, and no one would know the difference, apparently. Obviously we don’t want that happening.

Diane Fisher 0:07:39

There have been cases before the state election board that come, people being caught doing that, and it is not situation. So yes, that is illegal.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:50

It’s a federal offense.

Diane Fisher 0:07:51

It is a federal offense. That is certainly not something that we encourage. And most people who register, they move someplace, they register, they have no intention of voting elsewhere. But young people particularly, or people who are transient, it does mean that you have to pay a little bit more attention and make a plan to vote. I think it’s also important to think about not just being registered, it’s then knowing when elections are, knowing what your plan will be. Will you vote absentee, will you vote early advanced voting, will you vote on election day? What’s that plan? To make sure that you’re actually being able to vote.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:34

So in the state of Georgia, if I’m going on vacation or even an absentee, you don’t need an excuse for an absentee ballot. You can ask for that.

Diane Fisher 0:08:44

Right.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:45

So you could go online to one of the sites or which site to go to to get an absentee ballot.

Diane Fisher 0:08:51

Yes. So that depends on the election. And I will say, and I only raise that because we’re coming up on municipal elections here in Gwinnett County, actually statewide, but also specifically here in Peachtree Corners and in Gwinnett, the county does not run the municipal elections. Every city runs their own municipal election. So the answer for coming up for the November 7 election, which will be the municipal election here in Peachtree Corners, is that you need to request the absentee ballot from the county clerk in Peachtree Corners. And if you go to the website, you can get that information. There’s a form there that you can request the absentee ballot for the Peachtree Corners election. Typically for every other election, you would go to the county. Well, actually either the Secretary of state’s website or the county Board of elections office, and you can get the form there. One of the changes that happened in election forms is that you can’t register just on an online portal anymore. You have to print out the application because it has to have a wet signature. It has to actually have an actual signature on it. So you have to print off the form, fill it out, sign it, and then you can send it back digitally. But you can’t just I think there was a time when there was a portal where you could just go on and put in your information and request it. So now you have to print out the form and then return it to the county election office.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:29

But you can scan that form, return.

Diane Fisher 0:10:31

It digitally, scan it, or take a photo of it, and then email it back to the elections office and do it.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:40

So they’re just forcing you to print it out to do that website, which.

Diane Fisher 0:10:45

Means that you now have to have access to a printer, right?

Rico Figliolini 0:10:49

How many people do know?

Diane Fisher 0:10:52

And so that is the process now and where you go. And again, because Gwinnett is unusual, Gwinnett’s one of the few counties in Georgia that the municipalities run their own elections. Most other counties in the area, Fulton, Jacab, the counties run the municipal elections as well. And so what that means for us here in Gwinnett and in Peachtree Corners is that when you go to vote on election day for the municipal elections, you will not go to your regular location where you normally would are used to voting. So at Simpson elementary or at Peachtree Corners Baptist Church or any of the different locations where you always go to your regular precinct location, everybody in Peachtree Corners for the municipal election will vote at City Hall, down around in the room, around the bottom, the community trust room, around the left side of the building. That’s where elections are held for the county, for the city, I’m sorry, for the city.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:02

And there’s one open seat, one open contested seat, I should say.

Diane Fisher 0:12:09

Every other election cycle we would have. So in this case, on the ballot is the mayor, post one, post three, and post five. So the only contested seat is the post five. And post five is an at large seat. And so that means that everybody, Peachtree Corners will vote for that seat. Post one and three are geographically defined, so the first three posts are based on geography. So post one, I think, is the southern section. And then three is the sort of the northern part of Peachtree Corners. So Alex Wright, Is and Phil Sod are in those seats, and those are uncontested seats. And then, of course, the mayor’s race is also citywide, and that is uncontested as well.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:07

So people understand this, come November, you’re going to have to go to two different places to do this.

Diane Fisher 0:13:15

No, the only election in 2020, right. The only election in 2023 is the municipal election.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:23

That’s right.

Diane Fisher 0:13:23

There have been times when you’ve had to go to two places because there were simultaneous elections, but that is not the case now. So November 7 and actually early voting and early voting does start for the municipal election on Monday, October 16. So Monday through Friday from October 16 through November 3 and then October 21 and October 20 Eighth, which are Saturdays from nine to five, is early voting. So you can go for three weeks early voting, including two Saturdays. And then, of course, on Election Day is seven to 07:00 a.m. To 07:00 P.m., election Day, November 7, and that will be just at the City Hall. If you go to your regular polling location, there won’t be anything going on there other than school or church or whatever might be happening.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:19

So people should also be aware, I think, when they send in the absentee ballot, how long do they have? How does it get date stamped if it arrives three days later? I mean, how is that process explain?

Diane Fisher 0:14:32

So, legally, your absentee ballot needs to arrive, in this case, City Hall by 07:00 P.m. On Election day. If it gets there the next day, it’s not going to count. It has to arrive. So if you’re going to be voting with an absentee ballot, you need to make sure that you’ve planned ahead to request it. And I would say request it like today. When you hear this, make sure you request it, and then as soon as it comes, fill it out. And you can actually I mean, if you are local and you’re just going to be out of town, you can actually just bring it down to City Hall. Worry about the postal service. Obviously, if you’re a student who lives out of the area, needs to mail it again, do all of that life ASAP, because the time is a very limited window.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:31

Okay. And just because I’m thinking along this line, if someone was going to drop it off, like if I was going to drop off my son’s ballot, I could drop that off at City Hall. That’s okay.

Diane Fisher 0:15:42

Yes, you can drop off a ballot for immediate family, relatives, so your wife, your kids, a parent. You can’t, though, start collecting from people in your neighborhood and bringing those in, but for close family.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:00

Okay. All right, that sounds good. So the League of Women Voters is known for providing good nonpartisan information to get people to do to vote, to fulfill their civic responsibilities and all. And we talked a little bit about what it means to be a prepared voter before we started. So tell us a little bit, Diane, what does it mean to be a prepared voter going to 2024 into the presidential race, election year, where there’s going to be a lot on the ballot, I’m sure in a variety of states, but even here in Georgia, sure, because.

Diane Fisher 0:17:59

It’s not just about the presidential election. There will be all the congressional seats, there will be all of the House, the Georgia House seats and the Georgia Senate seats. There will be county positions, all of the county constitutional positions will be on the ballot. So there will be an awful lot on that ballot. And so being prepared voter means being an informed voter. So obviously, the first is to know when you need to be voting. And there are lots of elections in 2024, starting in March. The presidential preferential primary will be in March. Then we’ve got the regular primaries in May, and then we’ve got November elections and then any runoffs that may need to happen as well. So there will be a lot of elections. So it’s not just go in and vote once and be done with it. So that’s one thing knowing when all those different elections are. The second is knowing who’s on the ballot. And through that MVP site that I mentioned earlier, the MVP. SOS Ga gov, you can pull up it’s not available right now, but it will be available for 2024. All of who is on your ballot, you can pull up sample ballots. And so that will be really helpful to know ahead of time because I hear people all the time saying, like, I got into the polling booth and I had no idea that there were all of those things on the ballot. I wasn’t prepared. And so you can be prepared by pulling up the sample ballot and actually marking, doing your research. And there are lots of different ways to get information. There are candidate forums. Certainly the candidates themselves are out there putting information out. Will. The league is known for doing candidate information forums as well, and we likely will be doing particularly for our county races. The state may be doing some larger scale ones, but here in Gwinnett, the Gwinnett League focuses very much on what’s happening here in so, you know, doing your research in terms of getting information about not only what’s on the ballot, but then being able to check out the candidates so that you know who aligns with your values and with the things that are important to you. And so that becomes part of the conversation it’s important to have.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:37

Yeah. Coming from New York, I was involved quite a bit in political politics when I was younger, 1820. You see the things that go on, the amount of so doing it for such a long period of time to hear people say, I’m not prepared, or I don’t know who’s on the ballot. It gets really frustrating when there is a lot of information out there between news outlets. Granted, there’s a variety of news outlets, so some agendas on some of these outlets, but for the most part, you’ll be able to get the information out there. Candidates are especially local candidates are doing more door to door campaigning. You will get it inundated with mail, right? I mean, last year or the year before was just ridiculous. The amount of mail that was going out, literally three or four postcards a day coming in.

Diane Fisher 0:21:31

And you have to be careful about that mail because it’s not just the candidates who are sending out mail now. It’s all kinds of organizations, and some of the information is not always accurate or it’s political spin. And so I think if you’re looking to find out candidates positions on things, that’s where it’s important to look at various sorts. So the league does run nationally, a website called Vote Four One One, where we reach out to candidates to get their input so that you can hear from them what they believe about certain things. So we ask questions. There are other sort of neutral, if you will, sites. Alopecia has sort of a candidate profile site. So there are ways that you can get sort of just factual information candidates, as opposed to sort of the political spin that can sometimes make noise. And so we do encourage, but at the very least, pull up that ballot to say, this is what’s going to be on there. So you don’t get in and say, I didn’t know county, the clerk of the court, I don’t even know what that is. Those are the things that sort of sneak up on people.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:02

I mean, they’re lesser known positions. They get less exposure. People either tend to skip over them or they tend to, depending on the politics, tend to either vote for the incumbent because there’s an eye next to it, because that seems safer, or if they want to stir the pot, they’re voting for the other candidate to come in. It’s a variety of reasons, right, that people vote.

Diane Fisher 0:23:24

Right.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:24

And then there’s referendums on the ballot, and because they’re written in such legalese, sometimes you may be reading it in that moment at the ballot box and not realize really what it’s saying, because some of it’s written in such a way, you would think, oh, that’s easy, that’s what that means. And then you find out later, no, that’s not what that meant.

Diane Fisher 0:23:45

Right. If I vote yes, it’s actually voting against. That’s right, because of the way that it’s written. Right. And so I think that those referendum and those also those are available, you’ll be able to pull those up on your sample ballot at the MVP site so that you can actually see it and read it and do your research. I mean, I know that I sit down when my kids were first voting, we would sit down and literally go through the ballot and research candidates together. And the referendum questions, even life, talk about what they mean and what the pros and cons, and if we didn’t have an answer, we disagreed or whatever, we talk about it. Sometimes we disagreed and they would vote one way and I would vote a different way. But point being that having that conversation and being informed because that is how we citizens are being able to make sure that what we want is actually happening. I mean, you hear so often people saying like, it doesn’t really matter who I vote for if I vote, because it just doesn’t matter, my voice doesn’t matter. Well, it matters if you do it thoughtfully. And if everybody were to participate, then we’re all in a better place. Here in Peachtree Corners, just going back, we have 27,000 registered voters, and in the last six municipal elections, the most we’ve ever had is a 10% turnout. So like 2700 voters. So when people complaining about whatever they might be complaining about, about the city, you need to actually vote to have your perspective put forward.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:42

It’s the frustrating part. Yeah. When I read things on nextdoor and people say, these people, they have an agenda, this is what they want to do, and it’s like it doesn’t take much. You’re right. Sometimes there’s more than 2700 votes. Right. There’s more than that, depending on the year now, really.

Diane Fisher 0:26:05

More than 10% of the voting. I think that when we first became a city that was a higher turnout, but since then, yeah, it’s a very small and we know there are elections that have been won by 15 votes, there are elections that have been won by one vote. And so especially in these smaller elections, makes it more important to get out there and have your voice heard.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:39

Yeah, especially because, I mean, in small elections like this, it depends on how many friends you have. You’re right. There was one election, I think was the last election that we had, where it was a 14 vote difference or something along those lines. If you want to make change. You have to be involved. You have to knock doors. You can’t just send postcards. You have to meet your neighbors, your voters, and figure it out.

Diane Fisher 0:27:10

I will say, I think candidates these days are very open to certainly the local candidates, the county positions, the state House representatives, and so mean you can go onto their websites, know, ask for a meeting. They will meet with you. And I think that that is important. And it’s important to meet with not just the people who you think you might agree with, but also the other side to hear what they stand for and what they plan on doing. And I think that we are in a time when it is easy to access your candidates, particularly at the more local levels, and go to events that they’re having or send an email and say, I’d love to talk to you. Will you have coffee with me?

Rico Figliolini 0:28:04

Right. Yeah. Some of them will put out their cell phone numbers, and you can literally call them and talk to them because how many people in their district, how many people actually can actually call their representatives? And I think people should be aware that their representative is they’re there to be able to expedite things. The constituent service, if they have a problem with government that rep, that represents you, is there to help make things easier or to at least guide you into what you need to do. They’re there for a reason. They work for you. I know that’s, like everyone says, they work for me. But they do work for you, and you’re the one that votes them in, and you should be able to they’re there to represent you. So to fill a purpose that way.

Diane Fisher 0:28:52

Yeah. You have resources and access that we don’t have, and they’re happy to facilitate things for us. Yes.

Rico Figliolini 0:29:00

So let me ask you. I’m a bit of a political junkie, but you don’t know about Georgia politics as much as I probably should after being here since 95. But now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For example, decides he’s going to run as an independent candidate because the Democratic Party, according to him, has not given him the right for a debate or to run properly, they’ve changed the rules a bit, I guess. What happens with a third party candidate in 2024 when you live in the state of Georgia? Can you do a write in on a candidate like that?

Diane Fisher 0:29:39

So, two different things. There is a process for being put on the ballot as a third party candidate. And my presumption, I mean, we’ll often find a Green Party candidate on the ballot or things. So there is a process for that. Write ins are a whole nother story in Georgia. So I know a lot of people know, I’m going to write it in my husband, I’m going to write my neighbor, or I’m going to write in whatever you actually have to register to be a write in candidate. So only, the only write in votes that will count are people who have gone through the process of actually registering to be a writing candidate. If you don’t write in one of those people, it’s not going to count. So they don’t do a tally of all of those. Rico you couldn’t get 100 votes as a write in because unless you obviously go, yeah, so that notion of sort, I’m just going to write somebody in, in Georgia, it’s not possible. The different part, you do not have to be just a Republican or a Democrat to show up on ballot. There are processes for being a registered candidate from whatever party it happens to be.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:11

What should a Georgia voter know that we haven’t covered that may be trivial or not trivial, but detail that most people know that we should mean? Is there anything gone over?

Diane Fisher 0:31:25

So I will say that one of the things that I always say about voters is voters are creatures of habit. So if the last election I showed up and voted in this location, and I voted in that location for the past three elections or ten elections or 20 elections, don’t always presume that things stay the same. We know that we just had so, for example, we know that we just had redistricting with the census and numbers have shifted. And so there is a shifting of precincts and so on. And most of the time you’re going to stay in the same place, but always, again, check to make sure that you know where you’re voting. And just because you always voted at Simpson or New Age building or wherever it might be, don’t presume that that’s where you voted last time, that’s where you’re going to vote this time. Because sometimes because of the ways that the numbers have shifted, they shift. So again, I think it’s really important to always check, even if you think I’m pretty involved, and I check my voter page periodically and certainly before every election, just to make sure that, first of all, my precincts, not just the precinct is the same, but that I know who I’m voting for. Because we know that there were changes in congressional seats and House and Senate races and even County Commission seats. We have a new County Commission situation now from a couple of years ago. And so just knowing where the lines are, because the lines do sometimes change. So I think that that’s something that particularly coming right off of the redistricting situation that we had. If you haven’t voted recently since the last election, you may find that things have changed a little bit.

Rico Figliolini 0:33:28

Makes sense. I know that state House and Senate seats have changed. People have disappeared, or they’ve been drawn out of a district that they were in.

Diane Fisher 0:33:40

They may be running, and the lines have just changed. The numbers have changed. The lines have changed. Yeah, it’s.

Rico Figliolini 0:33:46

Amazing. So it really should go to that website that they have mentioned, MVP.

Diane Fisher 0:33:50

SOS ga gov, if you just remember MVP, if you start typing in MVP and in Georgia it’ll show up. And that really is if you remember one thing from this conversation, I would say remember that. And then the other piece is remember that for the upcoming election in Peachtree Corners, you’re going to be voting at City Hall right.

Rico Figliolini 0:34:17

For 2023. All right, cool. I think we covered quite a bit. We’ve given places that people can go. Is there anything else that you want to share, Diane?

Diane Fisher 0:34:31

I don’t think just I think if we want our government and our society to work for us and we need to be actively engaged with the process and the League of Women Voters is always happy to give information. I get calls all the time, emails from friends, neighbors, people across the county asking questions. So you can always call the county election office. But if you I’m a local Peachtree Corners gal, people are welcome to reach out to me. It’s Fisher@lwvga.org and I’m happy to answer any questions that you have.

Rico Figliolini 0:35:13

Cool. If anyone wants to volunteer for the League of Women Voters, they can reach out to you.

Diane Fisher 0:35:18

Absolutely. We are always looking for new members. As I said, we are relatively new in this iteration and we started right in 2019 and just as we got our feet wet and going COVID happened. And so we are eager to engage people who want to do voter education, voter registration work, helping people. We are nonpartisan. We do not support candidates or parties. So we really are just wanting to make sure that people have the information that they need to be able to exercise their rights.

Rico Figliolini 0:35:54

Excellent. Doing great work. I mean, that’s the biggest battle, getting people educated because walking into that booth, not knowing three quarters of that ballot would be the worst thing to be doing. So I appreciate, Diane, your time with us. We had a little power outage before so this recording took a little later than it was and there was not even a storm cloud in the sky and yet we had a power outage. So go figure. But appreciate you helping with educating our listeners on this. Thank you everyone for being with us. All these links will be in the show notes as well. But do remember MVP, I think if you put MVP elections, it’ll probably pop right up as the first thing on that page. But thanks again, Diane, and appreciate your time.

Diane Fisher 0:36:41

Thanks for having me.

Rico Figliolini 0:36:42

Sure.

Health insurance and open enrollment are demystified by industry experts Erica Dumpel and John Czajkowski. Listeners will gain valuable insights and advice on topics like Medicare enrollment, the impact of politics on health insurance, the rise of state-based exchanges, the financial benefits of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), considerations for different age groups, and employer-based insurance. This comprehensive discussion equips individuals with the knowledge they need to navigate the complexities of health insurance, ensuring they make informed decisions to protect their well-being.

Resources:

Website: CDAInc.net
Phone Number: 770-449-7369
Erica’s Email: Erica@cdainc.net
John’s Email: John@cdainc.net

Timestamp:
0:00:00 – Introduction
0:01:18 – Erica’s experience and background in the health insurance industry
0:02:09 – John Czajkowski and his role in the family-owned insurance brokerage
0:03:51 – Medicare and the open enrollment period
0:06:57 – Seeking assistance for Medicare enrollment
0:08:03 – Explanation of Medicare coverage in relation to employer-based insurance for individuals close to retirement
0:08:47 – The complexities of health insurance and options for different age groups
0:17:07 – Health insurance plans and considerations for families.
0:21:30 – Discussion about HSA and its uses
0:26:02 – Self-employed individuals and their health insurance options.
0:29:17 – Medicare and its impact on dependents.
0:31:20 – Options for college students and their health insurance.
0:32:07 – A strategic approach to health insurance.
0:36:12 – Compliance for employers and the ICRA alternative.
0:38:48 – Closing

Podcast Transcript

Rico Figliolini 0:00:00

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I appreciate you guys joining us. Special guests today we have Erica Dumpel, founder and CEO of CDA, inc. Hey, Erica, nice to meet you.

Erica Dumpel 0:00:14

Hey, nice to be here.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:15

And we have John Czajkowski, who’s the president of the same company. This is a family business. And John is Erica’s son, who joined the business back in 2009, I believe, if that’s correct. Right. And the business, what we’re going to be discussing today is health insurance. As you may all know, at some point, this is open enrollment coming up soon. If you’re close to retirement, you may be thinking about medicare or options there. So we’re going to have a conversation today about that. I’m going to let Erica and John sort of lead us down this road because I don’t know enough to always ask questions. And I’ll be asking questions at the right point, I’m sure, because I’ll be heading into deciding whether I want to do Medicare or what I have to do with Medicare come 2024. But you all came off a meeting this morning from downtown Norcross, where you met a bunch of people, I think Erica did, where they had questions about health insurance and such. But before we get all into that, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself, Erica, and we’ll do the same with John.

Erica Dumpel 0:01:18

Okay. I came into the health insurance industry in 1975, so I have seen a lot of changes. We have a family business here, Peachtree Corners, actually in Tech Park. We have a staff that supports small group businesses, which is generally companies under 100 employees. We have a commitment to the individuals who work in those businesses or who are not covered through group insurance, as well as seniors who are having to grapple with the decisions about medicare depending on the size of their employer. Do they have to have it? Do they not have to have it if they are retiring? If they are not retiring? A lot of questions around that. And Rico, I know what you’re starting to go through with the mail that you receive about all this as well, so it can be a little daunting, for sure.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:07

John, tell us a little bit about yourself.

John Czajkowski 0:02:09

Okay. I am now president of this family owned insurance brokerage. I took over responsibility of the day to day as of January this year, 2023, and I’ve been doing this since 2009, as Erica mentioned. I have also seen a lot of change with the affordable care act happening in 2014 and with the way that the markets have adjusted to all of these new legislative requirements. I am also a very involved member of a trade association, the national association of benefits and insurance professionals. As of right now, I’m the president of Georgia, and I’m responsible for over 460 brokers that operate in the health insurance markets in this state.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:55

Cool. So insurance has always been complicated thing I think for people. Certainly it has been for me and everyone that I talk to. So many options. State of Georgia is different than the state of New York. Let’s say every state operates a bit different the mechanisms that can be used. And you’re right, things have changed. I mean I remember going on healthcare gov at one point. I don’t even know if at this point it’s necessary or if it’s where I need to be on at some point. I do have an employee insurance at this point but I may be looking at moving off that or will be moving off that when I turn 65 next year I think. So these are all things I think everyone has an issue with as far as getting some straight answers. Where can we start that makes sense? Erica, we’ll start with you. At what point? Where should we start on this?

Erica Dumpel 0:03:51

Okay, first let’s just start with it’s the worst time of year because everything is crushed into the end of the year. So the pressure of the medicare open enrollment which starts on Sunday, so between October 15 and December 7 there’s a lot of information out there for seniors. Then the individual open enrollment starts November 1 and goes through December 15 for a January 1 effective date. And add to that the majority of employer based plans renew in January. So there’s a lot of information floating around. So where do we start? It depends who you are, what you’re up to. So if you are a medicare person and you have a drug plan or a medicare advantage plan, you really need to go out to medicare gov, go through the breadcrumb trail, look at what the plans are for next year, make sure you’re in the right plan at the right pharmacy. If you are covered by individual insurance, it’s time to start looking and preparing to look at healthcare gov to make sure that you know what’s going on out there. If you are on an employer plan you should be receiving some kind of outline of future options in terms of deductibles copays plan designs. A lot of decisions to be made this time of year. People like us exist either as brokers for certain people or as consultants for others, depending where we can be of the biggest help.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:17

Let’s start with age groups I guess would make sense. Let’s start with my age group. I’m going to be a little like selfish here. So I’m heading into 65. I’ll be 65 in April, the beginning of April. So January, February, March. I’m told that January I should start looking at medicare. What exactly in brief, what are the bullet points, if you will, of what I should be doing come January?

Erica Dumpel 0:05:40

You need to go out to medicare gov, make sure you have a my Social Security account so that you can go in and enroll in medicare parts a and b. It’s not difficult, but be very careful. There are some odd nuances right now. I’ve run into some stuff recently that surprised us. One example, I did an enrollment with someone. The address was correct, except the country was listed as afghanistan. That will botch things really badly. And then they want you to send your original birth certificate to some address. No, we don’t do that. So if you can be three months ahead of it, do that, because if there’s going to be a glitch, that’s where it’s going to be. And no one has jurisdiction over the government, so we all have to untangle that.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:24

If so, when people do this and they apply, you shouldn’t have to submit any documentation because the federal government should already have that unless there’s an error.

Erica Dumpel 0:06:34

And the afghanistan, I think, was some kind of, I don’t know, space marker or something to tell somebody that the date of birth actually did not match what the individual put in, so the government had the wrong date of birth.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:46

Gotcha bizarre. Okay, so if I have issues and I decide that can’t go through this, can’t handle it, would your company do this for me?

Erica Dumpel 0:06:57

Yeah, I act as a medicare counselor, and we actually bring people through the enrollment. There’s a PDF and a PowerPoint that explains medicare, ABCD, medigap, why would I do this versus that? So it’s a full consult. We do charge for that. We can also then help with the enrollment in any parts of medicare. We are agnostic medicare, supplement medicare advantage, it doesn’t matter, but we really become the guide down this path.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:25

Okay, so that’s pretty much what needs to be done if you’re 65 or older. Right? I mean, that’s basically it. You need to make sure you’re on it. You apply for it three months out. You don’t want to wait until you’re 65 or certainly do it after you’re 65.

Erica Dumpel 0:07:40

Basically, if you are late without proper coverage, there are penalties, there are waiting, there are future dates. If you miss your open enrollment completely, you can only enroll the first quarter of the following year with the july 1 effective date. Imagine not having coverage for that.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:57

Have to people don’t have to be, quote, retired, taking retirement benefits to take advantage of medicare.

Erica Dumpel 0:08:03

In fact, for anyone who is employed, be very careful. If you work for a company that has less than 20 employees, if you don’t have medicare parts a and b in place, the commercial insurance carrier reserves the right to not cover the charges that medicare would otherwise be responsible for. That is a huge hole in your coverage.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:23

Okay, I didn’t know that. So being with a small company, 20 less employees, I turned 65, I’m on that private insurance. I really need to be on medicare is what you’re saying to me.

Erica Dumpel 0:08:34

Absolutely, yes.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:35

Okay. Otherwise you get penalized, which I guess makes sense because that private insurance company says, whoa, why should we be paying for this? The government pays for that.

Erica Dumpel 0:08:45

Medicare is primary.

John Czajkowski 0:08:46

Yeah, okay.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:47

All right, cool. All right, so now let’s go a little further younger, if you will. So we’re in our forty s. Fifty s? Maybe 30s. We’re private insurance likely, or maybe an individual insurance if we’re not employed or if we’re 1099, that’s a whole different story where we’re self employed and how do we do that? So why don’t you break that down for us? Who wants to take that? John?

John Czajkowski 0:09:13

As I mentioned, 2014 the game changed and a lot of people were forced into purchasing private health insurance on the individual market or they got penalized. Unfortunately, politics plays a large role in our industry and without pointing any fingers, both parties, they have taken my industry and picked it up like a football and ran with it. So with that in mind, in the state of Georgia, we are still operating with Healthcare gov as the primary shopping and comparison tool. But our governor is very quickly building out a state based exchange. So many states, both red and blue, they have pursued this and it gives the state a lot more control over how monies are divvied up and enrollment platform buildouts, as well as being able to kind of puff out your chest. You know, we enrolled x number of bodies, so that just got halted by CMS under this new federal administration. And I do expect it to be the primary shopping portal for 2025 open enrollment. So likely have seen some commercials probably during the UGA games for Georgia access and I would encourage your listeners and watchers go check out the website right now. It is a little eye opening what we were prepared to move forward with because it is not, in my opinion, ready for primetime. I have been working in my other role as the President of Georgia, trying to encourage the state to reassess how we are approaching this. We were going to be the only state in the country that had pursued a state based exchange without having a centralized shopping and comparison tool. Once we flick that switch, we lose access to Healthcare Gov, which has a lot of federal funding built into it. And that’s something that I’ve been very involved with trying to make sure that when they do flick that switch, it’s ready for primetime. But Healthcare Gov right now is still the best shopping tool that I use in this office. It does show you all of the options that are out there. And another thing to consider is with a number of federal legislative changes and bills that have passed in the past couple of years, the thresholds for eligibility for financial aid or subsidy have been significantly expanded. Just a couple of years ago, family of three, older parents with kind of younger to middle aged child, middle aged in their 20s with a household income of let’s say $100,000, you would not be eligible for anything or a very small pittance of a subsidy amount. That’s free money from the government that you have applied towards your premium. So immediate discounting nowadays I can take that same family and they are very likely eligible for several hundred dollars a month in financial assistance. Again, free money from the government. It is designed to be applied towards your premiums. And that’s how this system should have been running since 2014. But with a national rollout of a program like this and with politics playing a role in it, one side of the fence holds the purse strings and the other side they’re able to pass substantial laws and there’s got to be some sort of meshing of the two in order for a system like this to be successful. So now we have opportunity for the next couple of years to really take advantage of the aid that we were supposed to have been receiving this entire time. So if you have gotten a bad taste in your mouth over the years with your individual insurance and have not gone back in to reassess do it, you might be surprised with what you’re eligible for.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:07

It sounds surprising because I do remember going on Healthcare Gov some years back and I got subsidized. My income was a little different than it is today, but didn’t see that subsidy later as my income grew. And so this sounds totally different than it was before.

John Czajkowski 0:13:25

It is.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:27

And if I remember correctly, I think part of the Healthcare Gov, like 80, 90% of it was being covered by federal funds. But at some .4 or five, six years into it, the state is supposed to take over the bulk of the money being used. I think at least that’s the way it was at one point, right? Funding, that the state would pick up more funding, bigger formula percentage portion of it. And is that why the state is trying to move towards their system? Because it sounds like the Georgia Access would actually give fewer people coverage because of income and other things and also provide less coverage. Even if you were able to get it, that would give you less coverage on your insurance. So is the state trying to say.

John Czajkowski 0:14:13

It’S more of just a platform at this point? So like Healthcare Gov, it’s just an enrollment tool and that’s what Georgia Access at this stage is looking to, or when the switch gets flicked, then the state is going to have a lot more say over eligibility for subsidy and the actual dollar amounts that you are able to pull from the system. But at the moment I’ll say thankfully, we’re not at that stage yet. There’s still some tweaks that need to be made on the website and I’m hoping over the next couple of months and into first quarter of next year that they’re going to have a lot more traction with what I’m hoping they’re building right now.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:02

Okay. But essentially, once the switch is done and it’s in state control, they will control how much money they will fund. Who control?

John Czajkowski 0:15:14

There are some federal guidelines they have to follow, but ultimately, the state makes a lot of rules they want us to adhere to.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:22

Okay. All right, so fine. We’re not there yet. I guess that’s okay. As far as picking plans, though, if come this enrollment period, what should families be looking at that are? I guess what would be the better thing to start with? Families where the head of household is self employed, or families where the parents are full time employed with health coverage? Where should we start and how should they be looking at that?

Erica Dumpel 0:15:54

I would say start with the families that are employed because a large percentage of people have their coverage through their employer, and generally there will be a couple of options. A high low, high, mid low type of thing. And the thing that we’ve always asked people is, how do you use this? Do you have something planned? Are you having a hip replaced? Are you on a program where you have constant need for treatment? Do you have a bunch of little kids running around with tubes in their ears and you’re at the pediatrician every year? That person is different from a lot of the other people who say, I never use this stuff. Most guys don’t even have a doctor’s visit until they hit their late 50s when things start to go wrong. So look at a high deductible. Look at how much you’re saving. Look at what you’re putting at risk. If there’s an opportunity to be in a high deductible health plan that allows HSA contributions, certainly jump all over that tax deductible money set aside that if you take it out for medical expenses, you never pay taxes on with a lower premium, that’s a win win. So from that perspective, that’s kind of how we look at it on that side. John looks at it similarly on the individual side, but jump on in on that one.

John Czajkowski 0:17:07

Yeah. There aren’t nearly as many plan design options on the individual market. There’s usually I really go in with the mindset of there’s a template out there with three different plans that really are consistent across the board. With every insurance carrier, there’s going to be one plan on the lower end, it’s going to have a higher deductible. Usually in that $6,000 range. You get copays for the bare necessities. You get the sniffles and go to the PCP. You go to a specialist, you got a flat dollar amount every time you go in for that. But in a lot of cases, you go in for blood work. You go in for advanced imaging like an MRI or a Cat scan, all the way up to hospitalizations and outpatient surgeries. All of that is applying towards your deductible. As long as you stay in the network, you’re going to get a discount, which is probably going to be a substantial reduction in your expenses. Whatever’s left over after that discounting, that falls on you, and that applies towards your deductible. And for a lot of us life. Myself, I’m 37. Knock on wood. I don’t really have much going on. That is probably where I’m going to gravitate. I don’t necessarily feel the need to prepay in premiums for a plan with a $2,000 deductible. The way I look at it is, if I am buying this for the big stuff, I’m not buying it for the piddly little copays and things. I’m buying it if I get in a car accident on 285, if I fall off a ladder and break my arm, if I’m diagnosed with something horrible that’s going to turn into a chronic illness. I’m really concerned about my out of pocket maximum. So that’s the most that I can be responsible for if I have a bad year. When you look at most of these products on the individual market, the out of pocket maximum is generally in the same ballpark. Might be a couple of $100 difference between a plan that my premiums are $600 a month versus a plan where it’s $1,000 a month. And when I’m looking at that direct comparison, I’ve got to think about how am I really intending to use? If I’m treating as a catastrophic product, I’m not really going to get much out of that lower deductible plan design, and I’m going to be guaranteeing that I’m spending more money on my premiums every single month. So in that instance, I’m more than happy to take a little bit more risk on the front end with a higher deductible, knowing that my out of pocket expenses, in a worst case scenario, I’m not going to be that far off. And then the HSA component on some of these products, if you’re young and healthy, if you’ve got nothing on the radar, and you are truly treating this as a catastrophic product, you have no intention of using daily usage benefits. That’s something that I absolutely take advantage of. And I think a lot of our clients in all age ranges should be considering. Because I’m allowed to take money from my checking account and transfer it over to a health savings account, that is a tax deductible contribution, and it’s not a use it or lose it. It just sits in this account waiting for the rainy day, waiting for the big something that pops up, where, for instance, my wife and I had a kid last year, I had to pull her onto my policy so that we could deliver at Northside, the baby factory in the Southeast.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:15

Right?

John Czajkowski 0:20:17

In doing so, we had a $6,900 out of pocket maximum, three days in the hospital, epidural the whole thing. She maxed out her coverage. And so with that, I had been preparing financially by maxing out my HSA contributions.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:32

Sure.

John Czajkowski 0:20:32

When it came the time for me to pay that bill, I swiped my HSA debit card without having to have a garage sale, without having to ask mom and dad for help. I was incentivized by the IRS to financially prepare for future medical expenses. And so with that, yes, the small things are going to sting a little bit more because you’re not getting a copay for it. But for me, I don’t use this stuff, so that’s not a big deal. If I have to pay on a cash basis, a couple of $100 for a specialist visit or something like that, that’s kind of how we approach this with all of our clients. It’s really a needs based evaluation. And tell us, what do you have on the radar? If it’s nothing, are you really going to get your money’s worth by going to a richer, more expensive product?

Rico Figliolini 0:21:16

So let me ask you, on the HSA, for example, that’s mainly used for deductibles or the that’s not used for anything else. I mean, you can’t pay for a health club membership. I mean, it’s not made for that, right?

John Czajkowski 0:21:30

It’s made not it’s really intended for any type of care for your body, whether it be your mouth, whether it be your eyes, whether it be your internals whatever. If I go to my annual physical, that office visit should be complimentary, draw blood, and they ship that off to a third party. Think Quest, Diagnostics Lab Core, something like that. That is by definition, a diagnostic evaluation of my blood. I will have an expense for that. I can absolutely use my HSA dollars for that expense. I can use it for prescriptions. Whether I’m getting my discount through my plan or using GoodRx or another discount program out there. It’s quite literally almost anything revolving around the care of your body.

Rico Figliolini 0:22:18

Okay. And you don’t lose it. It stays with you. It’s a tax deductible. What’s the maximum you can put into an HSA?

John Czajkowski 0:22:27

It shifts every year for 2023. Someone under 55, the maximum you can put in is $3,850. But it is prorated. So for every month that you were on an HSA eligible product, you can put in that calculated whatever dollar amount it was. 38. 50 is the most you can put in over a twelve month period. If you’re over 55, you get an extra $1,000 to dump in. And that’s just for an individual. If I have another person on my coverage on another HSA eligible product in my family, we both get to make a contribution to that HSA. And so when we’re talking about families, especially with young kids, that may be something that you might be interested in. You can dump in almost $9,000 every year, and it ticks up year after year. $5100. That’s a nice little nest egg in the event someone gets into gymnastics or football and they start breaking stuff.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:27

Yeah. And it’s an aggregate amount, so it doesn’t matter who you’re using it for within the family, though. Correct.

John Czajkowski 0:23:34

As long as they’re part of your immediate family, they don’t even have to be covered by your policy.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:39

Oh, really? Okay. Correct. Wow. Okay. I didn’t know that. That’s cool. I have three kids. They’re all in there. One’s 19, the other two are in their 20s. So my oldest, he’s like, this HSA, it’s at another company. We started there four years ago. I still keep getting these statements. There wasn’t that much in there. It was under 1000. He’s like, Do I really need that? I’m like, don’t throw away the money. But does it matter where it’s at? Or should he roll that into a.

John Czajkowski 0:24:14

Different ah, that’s a really interesting question. So most people, they learn about HSAs through their employer group, and if they wander off in a different direction, that HSA is still with whatever system it originated in, but you don’t have to keep it there. For instance, I set mine up through Fidelity, not being paid by them, but found that they were probably the best option for how I was using it. And so that’s simply a quick application online. The money gets transferred within a couple of days, and then it just sits there. One thing that most people might not take advantage of, that they should be allowed to do, is if you set up your HSA with a financial institution that also does investments, technically speaking, I am going to set whatever ceiling I want for my HSA contributions over whatever duration of time for me. I’ve got three people in my family I’m going to set aside three out of pocket maximums, but anything beyond that, I consider fun money. I can still make my contributions and get a tax deduction, but then I can immediately flip over money into my investment portfolio and potentially make money off of my tax deductible contributions if I sell those stocks. But at the same time, I have the potential of making money off of this.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:34

Wow. Okay. I didn’t know that. Yeah. So that means that it’s there. You’ve already taken the tax advantage, and now you’re going to use it in investments versus just letting it sit there as cash. Makes sense.

John Czajkowski 0:25:46

The name of the game is set aside whatever dollar amount you need if things go sideways, anything beyond that, that’s your money to do whatever you want with.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:55

Understood. Wow. Okay. Well, that makes sense. I wish I knew that earlier.

John Czajkowski 0:26:02

Well, I was talking with a guy who was moving into Medicare. Last open enrollment, he was turning 65. He and his wife had been on an HSA style program since they were younger than me, in their mid 30s.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:14

Okay.

John Czajkowski 0:26:14

He had about 80 grand sitting in this HSA, and I had to break it to him. You had this option. I mean, imagine if in the 90s, he put $10,000 into Microsoft or Apple or IBM. He’d be a billionaire. Now, that’s something that I think most people are never going to take advantage of because it’s not really common knowledge. But hey, if you’re listening, go talk to your financial advisor.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:40

Yeah, I mean, easily enough, it could easily just even go into an index fund. It doesn’t have to go into individual stocks, so it could go into something safer, relative. All right, so now let’s shift a little younger maybe, or to self employed. So if you’re self employed, you have a company, you’re doing maybe a couple of hundred thousand or you’re doing a few million. What’s the difference there as far as looking at if you’re self employed?

Erica Dumpel 0:27:11

Well, it depends whether or not you have employees. If it’s just you, you are in the individual market with or without subsidy, you are in the individual market. But let’s assume you have employees, not 1099. There is a difference, sure. But if you have employees, that opens up the door, depending what you want to do with your health insurance. We have any number of small companies that come to us and say we are accustomed to having, and more than the employees we are trying to attract are accustomed to having dental, vision, short term disability, all these other things. And medical those could be created once you have two people on the plan who are not husband and wife. So that’s a starting point. But what I’ve started seeing in the last couple of years is a little different. A lot of people think I have a company, so I should be providing group medical insurance. And we’re seeing is that may not necessarily be in your company’s best interest, especially if you are a new company. And we’re having a lot of conversations about what can you provide as an employer that an employee cannot get on their own, either as rich a plan or as cost effective a plan. And that really is the dental, vision, life and disability, particularly short term disability. So we’re starting to talk about packaging those things, letting the employees go to the marketplace or get individual insurance. Because what we’re seeing is when an employer puts in a plan and it is available to the employees, they are no longer eligible necessarily to apply for a marketplace subsidy. And as a result of that, you are sometimes shooting people in the foot. So that’s a conversation to really have. When you do have employees, before you pull the trigger, pay a little attention to what they’ve been doing for their health insurance and what they value. And John can go into more detail about all of these family opportunities where plans have to be minimum value and minimum affordability. So there are calculations where one part of the family may qualify for a subsidy, where the other may be better off on a group plan. But there’s some heavy conversation there right now.

Rico Figliolini 0:29:17

Let me ask you this then. For example, I have a. 19 year old, and if I go into Medicare so this is a little different. We’re shifting a little bit. But if I go into Medicare for next year, which I would, he’s not on my insurance anymore. I mean, he has to go for his own insurance. So he would go through, I’m assuming.

John Czajkowski 0:29:37

Extra layer of complication. Is he paying his own taxes?

Rico Figliolini 0:29:41

Yeah, probably not. He’ll probably still be independent for another year or two.

John Czajkowski 0:29:46

If you are still covering this 19 year old on your taxes and getting your tax deduction, well, the government’s going to make sure that your income is counted for when applying for this child’s insurance and subsidy. So it is a little bit tricky and confusing out there, and even to the effect that if we tried to apply this way and saying that you were covered by Medicare, but your 19 year old is coming in, the system may ask for documentation. The system may require that you submit proof of income or something like that. So there’s a lot of barriers that a lot of preparation ahead of submitting an application is going to be very beneficial for you.

Erica Dumpel 0:30:29

Well, Enrico, let me add another thing. If your 19 year old is in college, particularly if they are in the University of Georgia system kenneth, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, whatever, the university programs are so much stronger than they used to be. Imagine a $500 deductible. Imagine a rate of maybe 100 and $5180 a month. It’s a large population of an age group that is only there for a few years because they come and they go through the system. So it’s not a long term commitment on the part of the insurance company. And these kids generally don’t have anything. It’s a very healthy group. So I’m saying to a lot of folks, look at your university system program, whether it’s Georgia or whatever private college a child may be going to in another state, take a real close look at what’s available out there. It’s much better than it used to be.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:20

Oh, wow. I didn’t even know that they provide that type of coverage through the university system. So they could just take it through there.

Erica Dumpel 0:31:27

Yeah. You are required to sign off that you have creditable coverage or you’re signing up over here.

John Czajkowski 0:31:32

As the college systems, I believe they are still contracted with the UnitedHealthcare. So you get access to a very robust network of providers and facilities. It still heavily relies on the school’s clinic system for the minor stuff, but if something big pops up, you get access to a national PBO if nothing’s changed at this point.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:55

Okay, cool. All right. So at this point, what have we not covered, John, that you feel that we should be covering right now in our conversation today?

John Czajkowski 0:32:07

I would say being strategic about this. So Erica touched on this and you had another prodding question. So if I am employed by a company that is offering benefits, I’m stuck. My option as an employee is I either accept the coverage and the employer contribution to help with my premium reduction or I’m on my own. But things have changed at the federal level when it comes to calculating affordability. And nowadays the remaining family members, they do have the option to split off from you, go to the individual market and potentially be found eligible for subsidy. So that’s something that we have been encouraging a lot of our small group clients to consider. We are one of these unicorns out there where we operate in all three markets on a daily basis. So individual under 65 Medicare and groups where it may make sense to have dual option internal to your household and especially if there are different sets of needs between one family member and the rest of them, that may make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, on the individual market, everything is an HMO, which means that you will be staying in the established network with whichever carrier you choose or else you’re on your own. The insurance is not going to step in. But these plans and networks have been getting a lot more accessible over the years and that is primarily because the hospital systems in a lot of metropolitan areas, they’re getting fractured and they’re signing individual contracts with specific insurance carriers. So, for instance, in Atlanta, the big ones are I’m probably going to forget someone. Piedmont, Northside, WellStar, Emery. And if you’re up here in kind of the northern area, maybe Northeast Georgia Medical Center, if I choose a Blue Cross or if I choose an Aetna or a Cigna, I do not get access to all of those hospital systems. And so I do have to be pretty diligent in which program I’m opting into if I maybe have a planned surgery coming up. And I would prefer to be in one hospital system versus another. So that is one layer of complication that a lot of people, they say, oh, I know that company name, that’s a household name, I can probably trust them. And they opt into something without doing the due diligence to figure out, well, are all of my providers in network or am I going to get only a handful of them? And in a lot of cases I have to have pretty stark conversations which providers do you care about the most?

Rico Figliolini 0:34:41

Right, that makes sense. And specialists, they might be someone that has a specialist that they work with over the years. They don’t want to lose that person or medication that they’re taking that I’ve seen. Some health insurance will not cover certain medications, but they’ll cover something within that that works the same way, maybe quote works the same way or the generic versus the labeled or sometimes they won’t even cover certain medications at all that you may be taking.

John Czajkowski 0:35:12

So it’s a bit crazy and sometimes that’s actually to your benefit. So in a lot of cases, when we have clients that do have prescriptions, whether it be on a group medicare or under 65, it might be a gift that your plan doesn’t cover that medication, because that might give you the opportunity to go to the drug manufacturer’s website, apply for their discount program, and take advantage of that. There are all these fine print stipulations where in some cases, if it is covered, you get in, if it’s not covered, you get in. So it’s different between different medications, but they want you taking their drugs. If they’re willing to subsidize to make sure that you are a hard carrying member of their prescription, then that’s their option to make that an option for you, available to you.

Rico Figliolini 0:36:03

Americans are funny that way, I guess. If you were using Crest toothpaste since you were a kid, you’re probably still using Crest tooth toothpaste, right? It’s similar to medication, right? Most people won’t get off because they know that works for them. The efficacy, go figure. But yeah, Americans are funny that way. We do stick with our childhood brands in some ways for the long run. Erica, have we winding down a little bit in this conversation? Have we missed anything that we should touch upon from your point?

Erica Dumpel 0:36:38

There is for the employers, for the employer based plans, there are a couple of things that are not being discussed that I think are important, and the biggest one is compliance. If I have a small company, if I have a big company, there are certain things that I must do for the federal government or they get very upset and start finding me. Penalties, taxes, fines can be debilitating. So if a company is working with a broker, make sure that they have gotten their compliance lined up. There are deadlines on X date. This needs to be filed with thirty five cents per belly button. I mean, stupid stuff, but you miss the deadlines and can be a big problem. We’ve had one company that came to us that had massively bad health history, and they were facing for January of 23, a massive rate increase over what they already couldn’t afford, and came and asked us for another alternative. And we came up with an ICRA, which is an individual coverage health reimbursement account. So imagine you’ve got 60 employees running around, and if I’ve done my job right, Rico, nobody’s happy. It doesn’t have your doctors. It’s too expensive for JJ. It’s richer than you want to be. So what ICRA does is it says, everybody, here’s your dollar amount, go shopping. And it’s a portal similar to healthcare gov. But you want a rich plan, you want a leading plan, you want these doctors, you want that hospital system. So that’s an alternative. It is still new, there are still glitches in the system, but that’s something to keep an eye open for in the future.

Rico Figliolini 0:38:12

Cool, right? What I’d like this point and we’ve arrived towards the end of our time together. I want people to know where they can. So for example, you charge a fee if someone wants to come to you to have you all handle it right, for Medicare, let’s say. Is that tax deductible by any chance?

Erica Dumpel 0:38:33

Unfortunately not.

Rico Figliolini 0:38:35

I sort of knew that aspect. I thought it is. All right, so if someone wants to come to you to get your assistance, whether they’re a company or an individual, how would they find information on your wall?

Erica Dumpel 0:38:48

The website is cdainc.net. Our phone number is 770-449-7369. And if you want to reach any of us, the emails are simple, it’s our first name. In my case, Erica, in John’s case, John@cdainc.net.

John Czajkowski 0:39:08

And if anyone we’re local, you can find us. We’re not some unnamed or mask over who is actually helping you. It is us. We are in Peachtree Corners. We are in Tech Park. Come knock on our door if you really want to get our attention.

Rico Figliolini 0:39:27

Yes. The good part about John and Eric is I see them at Southwest Gwinnett chamber. They’ve been at the PDC coffee meets Wednesday morning in downtown Norcross. So they’re very involved in the community. They’re out there talking about this, giving free advice out there as well at these speaking engagements that they do so do reach out to them. They are Peachtree Corners based and members of the Southwest Corners Chamber. So cool. Well, thank you guys. I appreciate you spending some time this afternoon with me talking about Medicare and insurance and open enrollment and all that. Before we leave, though, hang with me for a minute. I just want to say thank you to two of our sponsors, Clearwave Fiber, a company that does business internet and residential internet, but they have over a thousand businesses in Peachtree Corners. They too are local to a degree and they have reps here, so they’re not your cable company guy. So if you need to find out a little bit more about how they do their services for your business, check them out. Clearwave fiber and also EV Remodeling Inc. They do design to build renovation work on your home indoors and out. Eli is the owner of the company, lives here in Peachtree Corners. Great family, they do good work, so check them out. Also EVremodelinginc.com. So thanks again, Erica, John, appreciate you being with me.

Erica Dumpel 0:40:50

Our pleasure.

John Czajkowski 0:40:51

Thank you very much, Rico.

Rico Figliolini 0:40:53

Thank you.

From potential redevelopment plans for the Ingle Shopping Center to cutting-edge collaborations with Siemens, this episode uncovers how Peachtree Corners is positioning itself as a hub of innovation and progress. Discover how the city is attracting international businesses, utilizing additional real estate, and embracing the latest advancements in public safety technology. Join us as we explore the thriving landscape of Peachtree Corners on this episode Prime Lunchtime with the City Manager.

Timestamp:

[0:00:00] – Introduction and Sponsorship Acknowledgment
[0:02:00] – Discussion about the Ingle Shopping Center Redevelopment
[0:11:54] – Discussion about the Roberts Property Redevelopment and Solis Apartments
[0:19:34] – Updates on the City Marshal Department
[0:28:20] – Partnership with Siemens and Economic Development
[0:32:58] – Closing

Podcast Transcript

Rico Figliolini 0:00:00

Hi everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life, and today we have Prime Lunchtime with City Manager Brian Johnson. Hey Brian, thanks for joining me.

Brian Johnson 0:00:10

Thanks for having me.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:11

For sure. Before we get into the show, we’re going to be talking, just to wet your taste buds a little bit, everyone. We’ll be talking a little bit about the shopping center, the Roberts property behind Chase Bank, what’s going on there, as well as the progress on the City Marshalls. But before we get to that, I just want to say thank you to two of our lead sponsors. One is EV Remodeling Inc. They’re a local company owned by Eli. Eli has done a great job with home remodeling. Anything from $10,000 to $100,000 in work from your backyards to whole house build outs. So check them out. They’re at EVRemodelinginc.com, does great work there. Second one, the second lead sponsor is Clearwave Fiber who’s come on board. They do a lot of the business internet work here in the City of Peachtree Corners. They have over a thousand plus customers, both business and residential. And you can check them out by going through our links, go to our website, you’ll see their ad there and click right through to them. And that’s Clearwave Fiber. So thank you to those guys for supporting us in what we do here. Now let’s get on to doing this every month. Guess part of we’re going to talk about with Ingles is that we’ve talked a little bit about this on another podcast. And we have an article out that came out this morning as we’re taping this. And we talked a little bit about the Ingle Shopping Center possible redevelopment, and it’s really coming from the owners of the property. So tell us a little bit exactly how this is being talked about because I know this has come up several times over the past few years.

Brian Johnson 0:02:00

Well, economic development projects or the pursuit of economic activity are always hard to talk about because they’re moving targets. There’s lots of considerations going on. You’ve got land acquisition and negotiations and different developers or owners kicking tires, seeing what. So it’s always difficult because at any point in time, short of having an inked deal, these things could fall apart. So I only say that to say that it happens. And sometimes all it takes is a word or phrase and done. Not quite as accurate. All of a sudden people, the community thinks that it’s going one direction. You’re like, hold on. So this is no different in that the work that’s being done, the development that’s happened at the Town Center, the redevelopment of the Forum under North American properties ownership has gotten a lot of people excited about possibilities of growth and capitalizing on increased activity that those two sites are generating. And a lot of the property owners that have current existing commercial property adjacent to or near the Town Center and Forum have approached us recently to discuss possibilities. Hey, how might we change or redevelop our property in a way that’s beneficial to the Town Center, and we can benefit from the Town Center and Forum’s activity. And so the Ingle Shopping Center parcel development and the owners of it are no different. They have discussed with us possibilities. And when this happens, sometimes the city, given that we have in house capabilities of doing this, we know the zoning better than anybody else.

Brian Johnson 0:04:13

We know setback density requirements, all that stuff. We can sometimes come up with renderings and conceptual site plan possibilities that it’s easier for us to do than a consultant working for the property owner. And so, in the case of Ingles, in our discussions with the owner of possibilities, we in house generated just a few ideas, not ones that were generated at the request of that development or the owner, but the owner was very open to yeah. If you could show us how it might lay out differently, we could consider it. And obviously, since Ingalls is the anchor tenant there, we all know it as that, and that’s a significant corporate tenant of the.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:09

To. So then people know because they may not know CVS is an out parcel, not part of that property, if you will. So is the Duncan Baskin Robbins store that’s separate also, I believe, right? No, that one’s part of so the.

Brian Johnson 0:05:28

CVS is an out parcel.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:30

Correct. Okay. And the old McDonald’s, is that also separate?

Brian Johnson 0:05:35

Well, it is separate. In our renderings, we just made an assumption based on the owner saying they have a relationship with McDonald’s corporate office because it’s owned by McDonald’s corporate. It’s not owned by a you know, again, but that’s why in economic know, for you to master plan something sometimes to make assumptions of certain things. And so the assumption was that that would be, if this happened, would be acquired and would be added to the block of property that’s just there. And so some of the renderings did have a newer, somewhat smaller footprint for Ingles. It would be like, hey, Ingalls, there would be a smaller footprint built closer to 141 for Ingles to move from their current footprint into a smaller version in which there are some locations that Ingalls has a smaller footprint but has not been discussed with them. They haven’t requested they are not the one requesting any kind of a footprint. You know, you just never know. It’s not uncommon. We’ve done this with some of the other ones as well. But this is what happens. And this is oftentimes, to a degree, how North American properties redevelopment activities at the Forum happened is we generated the city with the previous owner before North American got it. We generated some suggestions in the forms of site plan renderings that got the wheels turning. Ultimately. It was one where the previous owner said that’s great, we’re going to sell it.

Brian Johnson 0:07:21

But when we sell it, we’re going to share the fact that the city is open to some change based on the rendering shared. So these are all very fluid situations which unfortunately, oftentimes more than not, they don’t serialize but miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. So we’re open to trying. So that’s kind of where we are with that, which is nothing may ever happen or there could be a significant upgrade.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:54

And the owner is not a REIT. The owner is a local business group.

Brian Johnson 0:07:58

No, the owner is a Canadian company.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:00

It’s a know, you know, we did talk about it on a podcast and an article about possibly coming from Ingalls, but this was really from the owners of the development of the property there. Now it’s the mean, I think it was about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago. They also talked about maybe putting gas pumps at one point similar to what Kroger’s has over there. So interesting. But even if anything were to mean, obviously before even ground would break, could probably take two years, I bet, because of rezoning and stuff like that.

Brian Johnson 0:08:42

Yeah, probably not. Well, for them to go vertical with buildings right now, there literally is nothing. So it would have to start from scratch. You’d end up having to do site plan, come up with use, go rezoning, and then that’s when you get the design professionals of architects and engineers that are going to need many months, probably a year to actually generate the construction documents. Then you got to go to construction. And even if you move the angles to a building that’s more forward facing on 141, you would have to construct the new building. And then after they move into the new space, then go back and demolish the existing space to put the new use there. Which is why the Forum is fully redeveloped as probably a five year process because you’ve got new build and then you’ve got some demolition and then you’re fitting pieces into existing properties. Redevelopment is always a lot more challenging and time consuming than new builds.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:51

Well, and you have that whole big right behind Inglesh. You have that whole big not empty, but you have the warehouse park behind Ingles that takes the trucks in that can turn around and stuff. That’s a whole big driveway, if you will, back there. I don’t know if anyone’s really driven back there. It’s huge back there. So even to move that building forward, even on a smaller footprint, you still have to accommodate trucks coming in and stuff. I don’t even know, you know, where the setback is, a valley part near the parkway.

Brian Johnson 0:10:21

I don’t know if that’s a big ditch along 141.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:25

Yeah, that probably would have to bet you that could get filled in or something. I bet you that’s part of that discussion, I would think.

Brian Johnson 0:10:32

Well, it is. We’ve actually looked at that before because it’s horrible, but it is not easy. If it was easy, we would have done it. It is over a million dollars just to fill it in because of the utility work that you’ve got power lines, power poles, you’ve got drainage under it, and being used as a detention facility, a holding facility for extra water when it rains hard. So we’ve looked at it, but yes, redevelopment of the whole thing might include that just to get more real estate, developable real estate. Sure, yeah, big thing may or may not happen. But right now this is pretty common when there’s an interested owner who’s like, look, I’m in this to make money. Like everybody is on these things. And I’m willing to consider what redevelopment changes I might be able to do to ultimately maybe be a better value add to the Town Center Forum and then they can derive more. Maybe they have a use that makes people want to walk over to that location, whereas right now it’s more of a drive to destination.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:54

Yeah, interesting, because even some of the renderings that the city drew up and even their rendering that we’ve put out on our website that we’ve seen that was out there, it would be a multi use. So there’s multiple could be multiple stakeholders in it because one of the things was inactive living maybe seven story tower, six story, whatever would be the center of it, and then retail around it, possibly offices. So it might be two, three floors addition to that. So more use out of that property going vertical like you’ve mentioned before. Yeah, for sure.

Brian Johnson 0:12:33

Definitely closer to 141.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:35

Right. Because there’s all that space. So going from something like that, which is speculation, possible redevelopment going to something consuming. Yes, not just that, but just everything that goes into it. Public hearings, I guess, and all that stuff. Right. So let’s go to somewhere that is pretty much set already to a degree, because it was part of the North American property deal with the Forum and Town Center. So the property that’s commonly known to some people as Roberts property, charlie Roberts that owns the land that’s behind Chase Bank and H and W Steakhouse, that property was rezoned, I think absorbed into the multi use plan that’s there. Right. And then allowed to be departments, I forget how many units, 260 plus maybe somewhere like that. So that was approved, that was all okay. The deal didn’t work through for some reason, whatever that reason is, with North.

Brian Johnson 0:13:38

American Properties and Charlie Johnson interest rates and borrowing money. But yes, that side of the road was an out parcel to North Americans Forum redevelopment.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:52

Right.

Brian Johnson 0:13:52

And so they changed or that deal fell through.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:58

And so now there’s a new buyer. And I heard that it was going to close. And you just confirmed before we got on that it closed. So who’s the new buyer? Tell us. A little bit because there will be apartments there. I mean, that’s what it’s zoned for. So it’s not like it’s a question anymore.

Brian Johnson 0:14:15

That’s correct. And they’re going to be building what is materially. The same thing that was the same renderings that were presented to council. There’s some subtle tweaks to the exterior, but generally that product, and it’s a residential developer named Or Pappas. And so that’s who closed on the property. And so they are going to construct those units as presented to council during the entire North American property application.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:52

Now, most people don’t know that business, but they own is it Solas? Solis.

Brian Johnson 0:15:00

Yes. Correct, Solis.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:02

And that’s what type of apartment is it? Solace Apartments, I guess. I know there’s one in Sugar Hill that’s an active apartment community.

Brian Johnson 0:15:12

It says they’ve got property on Swanee Town Center.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:16

Swanee Town center, right?

Brian Johnson 0:15:18

They’ve got property up Brian Johnson Creek that they’ve developed. So this is what they do. They’re a quality developer. We were pleased on who it was sold to.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:29

Yeah, I’ve seen some of the Solace properties are very nice properties, very sort of luxury driven a bit.

Brian Johnson 0:15:35

Yes, it’s a higher end building. And this is structured parking, as you know, pedestal parking, where your parking deck is underneath the units. And yeah, so again, we were pleased that who was sold to and they’ve met with us. And their intent is to start site work late this year.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:00

Oh, really? Okay. So they’re going to start doing work. And so the property that’s by north of the wine store, corner Wine and Spirit, that’s a different property. But they’ve been out of the ground. They’re already selling at this point, I think it’s been about, what, a year maybe, that’s been built. Yeah. Broadstone at Peachtree corners. So they have a beautiful website and they’ve been already doing pre sales on it. And to some degree it has almost the same look, I think, as Solace Properties does to a degree. But I remember the renderings, I guess that were put out for that. So I’m going to probably put that in the show notes for those that are listening because I think there were some renderings on there.

Brian Johnson 0:16:47

You can pull the application for North American property, the rezoning application and the renderings for that side of the road are going to be generally, I mean, again, the toilet where I do know that they’re lightening up the colors a little bit dark. And I think that there, again, might be very subtle tweaks, but there are no material changes. So I think that would be fair to put that out because it has to be in material compliant or general compliance with that rendering and also with.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:23

The conditions on it. If I remember correctly, there was individually wired units. There was a bunch of things in there like that.

Brian Johnson 0:17:30

That’s correct. EV charging stations. They also have to connection across the creek.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:37

That’s right.

Brian Johnson 0:17:38

Okay, walk directly across the creek from the property and not have to go out to the sidewalk on 141 and walk up.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:47

So that could be out of the ground really in a year and a half to two years.

Brian Johnson 0:17:51

Yeah. Look, right now they’re starting the architectural actual construction document design of the building because they don’t need to go back to the conceptual stuff.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:04

Right.

Brian Johnson 0:18:04

So, yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if nine to twelve months, they’re going vertical, which is pretty quick from not having gone through rezoning or whatever. So, I mean, site work in November or December is fast. Yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:24

Cool. So, yeah, people should be aware of that. That 260 plus units and doesn’t need any rezoning or anything. But this company is a good company from the properties that people can see around, like in Sawani or Sugar Hill in these places. Will that have retail also I forget now if that had any retail space on there. So it’s strictly apartments. Cool. Now I passed by the Forum every once in a while. I’ll go through there at least once a week and stuff. They’re already vertical with two story framework, metal framework for what we call the jewel boxes that they’re going to have there. And they’ve already announced that they’re going to have a food hall by Palatan Row, I believe, which should be great. I’ve seen some of the stuff they’ve had at Colony Square. It’s all good. Chef driven brewery, also centered around a brewery area within that. So they’re moving along, but we don’t see anything else coming there besides that north end piece right now through until next year, I guess.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:34

Have they suggested to you that they’re going to break down on anything else? The beginning of right, sure, but other.

Brian Johnson 0:19:42

Than that, the next thing would be sometime late summer. Well, we’re kind of late summer, fall sometime they’re going to probably break ground on the parking deck, which is that behind Belts, behind Belk. And that will be the next project, because they can’t remove any more of the middle parking stalls until the new parking deck is built, because then they would be below the parking threshold that they need to properly service the property. So the next thing would be the parking deck, which would run into say, summer of next year. And at that point then they could transition back into removing the middle parking stalls and continuing down towards the small event area that they’ll build right in front of Belk.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:37

Okay. All right, cool. Sounds like they’re on track to do everything that they said they would be doing. All right, so why don’t we also segue a little bit into well, it’s not segue, really, but the city marshal system is moving along. We’ve talked about it several times over several podcasts and of course we want to set expectations because you just don’t stand up a city marshal without regulations, without equipment, without office space, without officers without a chief of police, if you will. So there’s a lot still going on. I had thought, even myself, I had thought maybe the end of July that we would see marshals on the street, but that’s not really the case. Things take time. So tell us a little bit where the city is at right now with us.

Brian Johnson 0:21:24

And I appreciate you bringing that up, because for those who may have seen read, watch city council meeting, we have to go through a series of steps within what state law requires as a city for us to stand up a public safety component unit of the city. And so we had to adopt an ordinance and creating the department it’s created. And we have two of the three positions that we have funded this year have been filled. But for those who have seen that, like you said, to manage expectations, I don’t want there to be anybody who thinks or is expecting to see them out. Really just all over the community doing all sorts of things right away. It’s important to remember two things. One City Marshal Department is a supplement to Gwinnett County Police Department. It is not to replace I mean, we as residents of Petrie Corners are paying for Gwinnett County police because Gwinnett County is allowed to charge the police millage rate inside our city limits to fund the police department of the police officers out of west precinct that provide police coverage. We are not changing that. And we have every intention at the city to continue to expect to get services because we’re paying for them. But as you and I have talked about Rico, there’s gaps, and that’s where the marshals are now. So that’s one thing is reminding everybody that the other one know we have to stand up and go through all the policy intergovernmental processes that any brand new law enforcement agency would have to go through. Because these marshals are post certified sworn marshals, which means an example would be they have the authority to take away somebody’s civil liberties. If you commit a prime and they detain you. Well, to do that, you’ve got to have a policy on use of force.

Brian Johnson 0:23:43

What’s the escalation of force and when can you use it and when can you not? Just one example of many policies that have to be adopted. Body cam. Are we going to require it or what’s the policy on when it’s turned on and off? How long are we going to store the data, things like that. Are they going to have a role in or what’s their role in interacting with the community? Are they going to be our primary points of contact with HOAs, things like that. We’ve got to get them fitted for uniforms, order the equipment, the vehicles, get the vehicles wrapped. I could go on and on.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:28

And so there’s a list of things, I mean, even access to. There’s all the cameras we have around the city. Do you give them access to that? How is this going to work?

Brian Johnson 0:24:41

So it is a process, but even at the end of the process, again, I can’t beat that dead horse enough. This is to supplement. This is to be a force multiplier to Gwinnett PD. Gwynette PD is still our primary police department. The marshals are not going to be responding to 911 calls.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:02

Right.

Brian Johnson 0:25:02

That’s still Gwynette PD, those kind of things. But we’ve got intergovernmental agreements that we’re going to have to enter into with or amend existing ones like Gwynette PD or the sheriff’s office and things like, you know, we’re getting there. We’re getting there to where these assets can really know, kind know, vectored to areas that know, spring up and could use a little bit of extra assistance to what? FPD. But we’re not there yet. And so we’ve got to do this very carefully because this kind of stuff is you can get into trouble if you don’t do it. Right. Expectation management, as you said.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:47

Right. So setting those expectations, when do you think they have any estimate of when the first cars may be out on the street? Will it be the end of the year?

Brian Johnson 0:25:57

Yeah, I would say by the end of the calendar year. You’re going to start seeing the cars out in a little bit more. Six months from now is probably a good time. We’ll have the chief marshals position filled by then. That job announcement is going to go out probably tomorrow.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:16

Okay.

Brian Johnson 0:26:20

I think by the end of this calendar year is fair. There may be a little few areas that they’re not quite involved in for another period of time into next year. Because mind you, as a supplement, they’re going to be in areas that Gwynette PD isn’t really very active in. For instance, use of drones in problem areas when FPD has too many constraints that have the resources to be able to do it. Ours will. Interesting, our marshals will be using drones as a supplement when there are situations where it makes sense. And in addition to that is as a location for there to be some innovative use of drones in the public safety space. Because of our partnerships with Curiosity Lab and the infrastructure have in place, including the our recent meetings with their regulatory team in DC. They’re very interested in using our marshals or collecting data our marshals will generate on some of the innovative ways to use it as they write regulations around the use of drones for public. So we might be helping write policy here just because we’re going to be more flexible and department as big as Gwinnett is, they just don’t have the same opportunities that we will with us being smaller.

Rico Figliolini 0:28:01

Well, for sure. And having Curiosity Lab here and the ability to partner with different companies to do cutting edge work in public safety is just enormous. Very exciting to be able to get down that and to be able to provide that sense of safety and security to a community and to be able to see how far we could go with that cutting edge technology. So the other thing that there’s always a lot of things going on here. One of the largest, I guess the largest current largest employer, Siemens, has finally come into partnership with the city eastward corners. We’ve talked about that a bit before. So tell us a little bit about what that means to have, at least at this point, the largest employer, Intuitive Robotics, will be once they’ve completed. But Siemens being now being a partner, what does that mean? What does that do for the city?

Brian Johnson 0:28:59

Well, when you have an employer that’s approaching 1000 employees within your city that is a major player in the technology space, whether it’s facility technology, electric and Emobility technology, they’re all over. They’ve got a lot of fingers in tech and they’re North American headquarters for, well, people don’t know they’re a German based company, german headquartered company, International. But their North American headquarters for their facility technology, their smart facility technology, is here in Peachtree Corners and their worldwide headquarters for electric mobility is here in Peachtree Corners.

Rico Figliolini 0:29:47

Right.

Brian Johnson 0:29:48

And it’s always been a little bit, I guess you could say, embarrassing that our largest employer was not a partner with us, the Curiosity Lab. And it’s a matter of navigating the labyrinth of international companies and where decisions are made and things like that. But we finally ended up getting opportunities to see the value each could provide the other. And so now they have some of their new innovative EV charging stations both here in the city for use by customers. But also they’re going to have a significant play in the EV multimodal expansion that we have here at park, that we’re finally coming to a point where we can start construction. That was the half a million dollar grant that former US. Representative Carolyn Bordeaux got for us to build this multimodal center. And so it’s going to have all things EV coming together at one location. And Siemens will have a significant play in the development of that site for them to test and enhance some of their technology. So we’re mean, in the course of what, two months. It’s our second German based international company that we have a partnership with after Audi. So yeah, good.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:17

I mean, anyone that follows the city or Curiosity Lab on LinkedIn can see all these posts about companies coming here, even us going to countries like Israel and other countries that we’ve been to. So a lot of international businesses are just seeming to find the little city of Peachtree Corners, which isn’t so little anymore, really. Right?

Brian Johnson 0:31:42

Well, we’re certainly punching above our weight class, but yeah, we’re a soft landing pad for international companies. And guess what? Some of those, when they land here, we actually convince them to stay here.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:57

And there’s your economic development so it’s paying off and I think the city is also continuing to look at other avenues. I mean obviously this is smart technology, this is good high end stuff but we’re also doing smaller things that is going to know an economic impact but also good things for the community. Like just recently the Atlanta Sci-fi Film Festival decided with the city as a sponsor to be able to come out here and instead of doing it in the city of Atlanta, the Atlanta Sci-fi Film Festival is going to be hosted here in, you know, nice decent festival and very different from what we normally might see here. So it’s good to see that type of stuff happening and I’m sure there’s other things along the way that we haven’t even know about yet so can’t wait to see. But I do appreciate you coming through with all this information Brian and helping.

Brian Johnson 0:32:53

Always a pleasure Rico, thanks for helping keep our citizens informed.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:58

Yes. Appreciate you being here. Thanks Brian and everyone else that’s listening. Appreciate you joining us. If you have any comments or you want to hear other subjects that we should be talking about let us know. At some point. I’d love to be able to do this a bit more live. This is a simulcast live feed. You may be seeing this on or you may be seeing this on demand but at some point we may be doing a live feed question and answers or submitted questions ahead of time or maybe live. As we’re doing this, I’m still trying to figure out the logistics on that and how we’re going to do it. Twitter or X, who knows where it might be that we might do this. Maybe it’s Instagram Live. Maybe it’s Facebook Live. We’ll take comments and Brian is more than willing to answer those or if he can’t let us know. So we’re looking forward to doing some of that. So thanks again for being with us and catch us in the magazine that’s going to be coming out shortly. Peachtree Corners magazine will hit in about a week actually next Tuesday it’s hitting the post office so you’ll see the latest issue coming out. Thanks everyone.