Peachtree Corners Life
Peachtree Corners Update: Deer Overpopulation, Simpsonwood Park & Illegal Nightclubs [Podcast]
In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini sits down with City Manager Brian Johnson to discuss pressing local issues, including deer overpopulation and potential culling efforts, a school digital signage request, and Simpsonwood park. They also dive into the latest legislation affecting impact of tort reform on city liability, annexation, and drone regulations. Plus, hear how the city’s marshals uncovered an illegal nightclub operating under the radar. Stay informed on the latest developments shaping Peachtree Corners. Listen now!
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Timestamped Topics:
00:04:09 – Deer Overpopulation and Potential Culling Efforts
00:14:41 – Digital Signage Regulations for Community Schools
00:20:00 – Navigating Lawsuits and Tort Reform
00:30:50 – Parking Lot Slope Adjustments and Liability Concerns
00:32:31 – Navigating Legislation Impacts on Construction and Annexation
00:38:33 – Regulating Drones in Public Spaces
00:44:24 – Uncovering an Illegal Nightclub Operation
00:51:37 – Discussing City Matters Behind the Scenes
Transcript:
00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini
Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I appreciate you joining us. We have Brian Johnson, city manager. Hey, Brian.
00:00:08 – Brian Johnson
Hey, Rico. How are you?
00:00:13 – Rico Figliolini
Good. Thanks for being with me. As usual, we’re going to be going through a bit of information about new things that we haven’t covered before. So there’s a lot of stuff going on in the city our size. Little things, big things, but everything needs attention. And everyone has an opinion. So it’s good to be able to go through this. Yeah, it’s good to go through this. But before we get there, let me just say thank you to EV Remodeling for being a sponsor of our show, as well as Vox Pop Uli, another company that is a tremendous supporter of ours as well. And you can find their information in the show notes below. But we thank them for supporting us. Both of them are businesses located here in the City of Peachtree Corners. One of them does remodeling from Design to Build, evremodelinginc.com. And the other one, voxpopuli.com, does anything that you need marketing, imprinting, object imprinting, from trade shows to vehicle wraps. Just, you know, just check them out. Links below. And if you’re watching this on YouTube or any of the other video channels like Facebook, subscribe to us. I appreciate that. So let’s get right down to it, Brian. I guess the first thing we talked about that would be on the list is something that my wife even was asking me about the other day. And I’ve had questions of it, and I’ve seen it. I mean, deer overpopulation in the city of Peachtree Corners, it’s not been like this for the longest time, I think. What are you hearing? What is allowed to be able to do? I know thinning of the herd is something that people talk about, but what is the reality of what can be done or can’t be done in a county park? Because that’s where a lot of them are.
00:02:10 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so locally, so there’s a couple things to consider here is, you know, one, if you live anywhere in Peachtree Corners, really near the Chattahoochee River corridor, it is definitely as a protected corridor and serves really as a place for wildlife to go up and down because it’s a water source. And so, you know, a lot of people have seen deer in the past, but we have noticed that the city that we’ve had a lot more deer car interactions, if you will, in which the deer loses that battle and we end up getting a request to remove a deer. Which, you know, can also get complicated because some people have deer that die in their backyard way off the road and then they’ll call and say, can you pick it up? And we can’t go on to private property to do that because that’s, you know, a gratuity, if you will. But if it does get close to the right of way, we will take it. So, you know, even those aren’t even, you know, as cut and dry as we would like. But we have noticed that there’s been a lot more, you know, deer collisions with cars. And unbeknownst to us, but coincidentally at the same time, Gwinnett County asked the State Department of Natural Resources or State, you know, Game and Wildlife, one of the environmental, but I think it was DNR, to do a deer population study at Simpsonwood Park. And, you know, in Peachtree Corners, we have a couple of areas that are undeveloped that are even more, you know, of a great location for deer to, you know, stay around. The back of Neely Farm along the river has a big area for the residents. The back of Riverfield where the Fields Club has a really big area back there. The back of Waterside has an area along there. And then, you know, then you run into Jones Bridge Park and then a stretch where there’s not a lot of open area. And then you’ve got Simpsonwood Park. And so those areas are where a lot of deer are, you know, congregating. And so Gwinnett asked the state to do a study. The state came back and said that there is a significantly, you know, overpopulation of deer in the area. And they in turn asked, and then they provided the county with a lot of reasons why that’s not good. You know, everything from deer eating higher off the ground up, you know, onto the trees. You know, it’s got ecosystem effects, coyote attraction. Even, you know, the deer that are around, all of them aren’t as healthy as they could be. And there’s a lot of these second, third order effects. They laid out and said, hey, we do this elsewhere in the state, would like to be involved in, you know, deer overpopulation, you know, culling of the herd. And Gwinnett informed them that they can’t do it at Simpsonwood Park because the county has a policy of no hunting on county-owned property. So we didn’t know any of this was going on until then the state of Georgia approached us and said, hey, city, do you guys own any property that would be large enough for us to do, you know, set up a controlled hunt for the purposes of culling the herd? And we don’t specifically own any. You know, again, I ran through the organizations that really would be the ones that could say, yes, you could come out there or not. Neely Farm HOA, Waterside are the main ones. And so right now there is a conversation between us, the state, some of those entities of which we might end up being a facilitator of some sort. We obviously wouldn’t be doing it. It would be the state. It might be we’re merely making the introduction and then one of those property owners, if you will, says it’s okay and they coordinated with the state and we’re just communicating to the residents, could be.
00:06:55 – Rico Figliolini
It’s interesting that the county, I can understand that. I remember that rule about hunting on county property, which makes sense. You don’t want that happening. But this is a controlled thing. This is an environmental approach to something. This is something different than banning hunting because you don’t want people out there hunting. But this is something more controlled that the state would be doing, apparently. That doesn’t make sense to just say, well, we don’t allow hunting and that’s it. How many accidents, do you know how many accidents like that have occurred in the city? Are there any numbers?
00:07:32 – Brian Johnson
Oh, yeah, we have numbers. I mean, off the top of my head, I do not know. I would say within the last six months, we’re probably averaging probably one a week.
00:07:45 – Rico Figliolini
Wow, that many. Do you even know the number when they say overpopulation? How many deer are there out there that they’ve numbered in Simpsonwood? Do you know?
00:07:55 – Brian Johnson
I don’t. I didn’t see the report because, again, the only time we got involved is when the county told the state, hey, thanks for doing the study and confirming what we had already thought or what users of the park had told us. But if there’s anything that’s going to be done about it, it’s not going to be done on our property.
00:08:15 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that’s sad because the overpopulation, I mean, they don’t have a natural predator, right, unless coyotes show up. God knows coyotes have been reported, at least on Nextdoor with pictures and stuff, not too far from here. Like, you know, Alpharetta, some other places north of us.
00:08:34 – Brian Johnson
I just saw one, Rico, with my own eyes about a month ago when I was walking my dog, because, you know, I live along the river, and I saw one on an evening, you know, probably six. I mean, it was really near sundown, and I saw a coyote running right along the…
00:08:52 – Rico Figliolini
In Peachtree Corners? Wow. Okay.
00:08:52 – Brian Johnson
It was running away from me. It wasn’t, you know, bothering, but yeah. I mean, so now there’s some other things too. Now, you know, I know mayor and council have had people approach them about this. You know, it isn’t as easy as we would like, because for all the people who are like, look, deer are posing a problem for motorists, for the ecosystem, the health of deer, you know, things like that, attracting animals like coyotes or whatever. For all of those who are like, something needs to be done, there’s the other ones that are like, no, you know, let nature take its course. There shouldn’t be any hunting, you know.
00:09:46 – Rico Figliolini
That’s the problem. Nature is not taking its course because there are no predators here.
00:09:51 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, well, but I mean, you know, what you get is, and then we also struggle with deer feeders. We don’t currently actually have a regulation prohibiting them. Some people have expressed to council that that should, you know, that they know of locations in which somebody is specifically trying to attract deer. And when you have a lot of deer, you don’t just attract one or two anymore. Now you’re attracting, I know there was a place at Waterside that I ended up talking to the resident that was nearby and was doing it. I rolled through there one weekend morning, you know, right as the sun was coming up, and there was probably 30 to 40 deer in the area, and there was a big feeder. And, you know, it’s just like, hey, this isn’t, you know, this isn’t good. And it was not too far from East Jones Bridge. So you start getting into them crossing it. So, you know, but then others are like, I enjoy the deer coming and feeding at my location. And, you know, don’t take that away. And so, you know, it’s unfortunate, but, you know, in our line of work, you know, local government management, there’s never a decision that’s just easy with you know only one side and everybody is on it so you do have some who are like don’t do it. But that is a problem and you know I wanted to bring it up just because people are talking about it. What is going to be done? We are trying to facilitate again, we don’t own property that is an area that you could do a controlled hunt. There are a few organizations that are in that position that may end up agreeing with the state for them to come out and do it once or twice during hunting season type of thing. But it does appear that Simpsonwood Park is not going to be one of those locations. So we’ll do what we need to, including if we have to facilitate the removal of the meat, you know, because the controlled hunt doesn’t just stop with, you know, there’s a deer that’s gone down, then what are you going to do with the carcass? You want to remove it. There are programs, including ones that harvest the meat and donate it to food banks and things like that. So we’re working through all of those. But we do scientifically have a deer overpopulation problem that does not have a natural way of getting better.
00:12:34 – Rico Figliolini
This is just a good argument for the city to take off over two public parks in its city property here. So from what I understand, it wouldn’t be expensive either. It’d be really cheap to buy those two pieces of property. The city could directly control everything. But I’m sure there’ll be people against that also because that’s an expansion of government. Which, you know, if you want control over some things, then you’ve got to do what you got to do. But speaking about that, let’s segue into something else too, which is a small thing necessarily, but there’s pros and cons to it too, I guess. And that is that Simpson Elementary is looking to do the same thing as Pinckneyville, a middle school house, which is a sign. I don’t know if it’s as grand as that, but they want a digital display sign possibly to go up at Simpson Elementary. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
00:13:33 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so the Simpson Elementary principal, and I don’t know if it was based on PTA encouragement or maybe the public school system maintenance, I don’t know. But anyway, she was the point person to say, hey, we would like to take our current main sign in which they put messages up there, but they have to go out and put the individual letters in and spell it out. She was like, we would like to have a digital, you know, turn it into an LED display, a digital message board. Which functionally is, you know, just on the surface is a, you know, should be a no brainer. A school can have a sign, communicate with the community in a more, you know, really a more efficient way because, you know, on a computer you can type in the message and it automatically goes out there. You can change the messages a lot so you can put a lot more information. It makes sense. But like all things, it’s not so simple. You know, oftentimes you think signs, you know, okay, just where’s the placement and, you know, does it interfere with sight lines or cause a hazard to a motorist? And that’s the only thing you have to consider. But on LED displays, a whole different ballgame when you’re talking about something that illuminates and illuminating signage in which also there’s flashing with the fluctuations of it because things change. So it’s not just turning on a static light and then turning it off, now you have all of the different, you know, displays doing things, which, you know, also can be a distraction to motorists. So, you know, we’ve got to, you know, we’re going to help them navigate through this, but we do have, it is in a residential area with residents that live very close to that sign. And, you know, we’re going to end up having to consider the permitting of this in a way that hopefully doesn’t detract from the quality of life of the residents, but yet provides the benefit that we all know a digital message board would provide to a very important community school.
00:16:05 – Rico Figliolini
Right. So, Paul Duke High School, STEM High School has a digital sign, granted that’s on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. Pinckneyville has their sign. And I get it. It’s kind of bright sometimes when there’s a white background to the sign versus a blue or a different color background that is way brighter. The lumens on it, it’s just so bright. I’m imagining those things can be toned down a little bit in a sign, and it doesn’t have to be as bright as that because that’s overpowering sometimes. It just depends when you come by.
00:16:42 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, this whole process went through with Pinckneyville Middle, and it wasn’t without its detractors either of the people who do live there. You know, and say that it’s going to interfere with their ability to either, you know, enjoy their back or front yard or, you know, could be a distraction to motorists. Those are things you have to consider. It can be done, you know, but you have to regulate, you know, also hours of operation. And there’s even regulation at the state and federal level on certain roadways in which how fast the signs can change. Because if things start to get to where it’s not just a transition to a new message, but things are flashing, that creates, you know, distractions from motorists and that’s considered a driving hazard. So yes, everything from how bright to how quick you can change message, to even hours in which you can have digital messages on there. All have to be discussed.
00:17:49 – Rico Figliolini
And if it’s, you know, for the school purpose, right? I mean, the great thing about digital is that you can dim the lights a little bit. You can adjust the hours on it because no one’s going to be driving to school at six o ‘clock, seven o ‘clock in the evening, unless there’s an event that night. Different, right? But even still, like at a certain hour, it can be shut off or it can be dimmed down where you have to literally be within 40 feet of it to see the sign maybe.
00:18:41 – Brian Johnson
So at the end of the day, look, I think everyone would agree having that ability, a school that’s a very important community school and being able to, it’s going to make them much more productive and efficient when it comes to communicating with the community.
00:19:01 – Rico Figliolini
Right, right.
00:19:01 – Brian Johnson
We just have to navigate this very carefully. But that process is being done. And, of course, mayor and council are very supportive of this as long as we, you know, my directive is navigate the minefield that is the local resident concerns and, you know, motorist safety.
00:19:22 – Rico Figliolini
The good part of this is that these are quality of life issues that a city can address better for its residents than a county can, I think, on a county level. One good reason for having a city is to be able to address some of these issues that, you know, really on a county level, someone voting on it from the other side of the county or something, deciding what the effects are in our city wouldn’t make sense, right? There is also, let’s, the capital is in session. Which can always be dangerous, but also good.
00:19:58 – Brian Johnson
It is always dangerous.
00:20:04 – Rico Figliolini
You never know what goes on there. And the cities that, not just people are affected, but cities are affected, right? The biggest thing is tort reform right now that Governor Kemp is looking at. Southwest Gwinnett Chamber had a big talk on tort reform recently, a few months back. And one of the things I didn’t know was that settlement of lawsuits can garner a lawyer as much as 40% of whatever is settled for. It’s not 20%, it’s not 25%, it’s like 40%. I thought that was ridiculous, that number. Not only that, but when you’re suing, some lawyer told me once that when you’re suing something on a case, you sue everyone. It doesn’t matter if you think they’re not involved, they’re involved. You sue everyone and let the judge decide who’s involved or not. Which draws in a lot of different people, right? So the city can be drawn into lawsuits that really may not be, you know, their fault per se. You know, and I always think about lawsuits as a good way of punishing those that need to be punished a little bit because money speaks, right? But sometimes it can be carried away to a crazy extent. You were sharing an example with me about Milton. So why don’t you talk about that a little bit and talk about that and about what that tort reform might look like for us.
00:21:28 – Brian Johnson
Yeah. So, you know, scenarios you just brought up, Rico, are very common for us. We get named in a lot of lawsuits. We have active, you know, local governments always have a multitude of active lawsuits at any one time at various stages of it. And yes, the shotgun approach of suing everybody and then just letting the judge figure it out is one where if it happens within our corporate limits, we’re more times than not just pulled into it. But, you know, again, the ability to sue and having legal rights and, you know, remedies is important to have.
00:22:13 – Rico Figliolini
For sure.
00:22:13 – Brian Johnson
So, you know, the dilemma is always where do you balance that against, you know, being overly litigious as many people are? And, and, you know, I could tell you horror stories of the trip and fall lawsuits we get where somebody literally just trips on, you know, the world is not flat literally or figuratively and they’ll sue us just because. Now that being said, we do have a large, call it, you know, geographical area in which we are responsible. All the public right of way. Sidewalks, streets, all of the property we own at City Hall or Town Green are all ours. And so, you know, there is some things that, you know, general liability insurance we have to carry because there are things that can happen that we do need to be protected. Now, there’s an interesting case, though, that just came up that contributed to the governor’s tort reform. That is a big case that the city of Milton had. And it was, I guess, a jury verdict not too long ago. And this is a case where before the city of Milton was created, when it was still unincorporated, was it Fulton?
00:23:47 – Brian Johnson
Right.
00:23:48 – Brian Johnson
An owner who had a driveway coming out to one of the public streets put a planter, which was a truck tire, turned on its side and filled in with dirt and made into a decorative kind of, you know, gateway piece to their driveway. It was laid, though, in what was the edge, but the public right-of-way. It still was on, kind of call it the shoulder of the road, if you will. This is a two-lane road. Well, then at some point, not too long ago, a couple years, I think, but now the City of Milton is a city, there was an individual college student who lost control of his vehicle, single vehicle accident, but hit this planter and died. I don’t know if it was the impact or his phone from the vehicle, but he died. His family sued the city of Milton, saying the city of Milton should not have let that planter be in its right of way. And prior to that, cities and counties had always been like, look, we’re regulating the travel way making sure that it’s free of obstacles, but there are impediments in the shoulder. Probably the most common one are utility poles. Georgia Power, using them as an example, is not going to want to negotiate with every single property owner to put a utility pole on their property. So what do they do? They come just inside of public right-of-way. Place it as far away from the road as they can, but it is still in public right of way. And that way they only have to negotiate with essentially one entity, a public entity that owns this stretch of. So now the lawsuit, Milton through sovereign immunity and other stuff, won the first one. And then on appeal, the family was awarded a $38 million verdict. And right now there’s, it’s being hopefully taken up by the Georgia Supreme Court because of the, you know, bigger picture impacts that this could have on any impediment in the right of way that then the city should be of, you know, should have knowledge of. And we’ve got to remove it or else we’re going to be, you know, at risk for being, you know, liable for some lawsuit. So it’s an example where, you know, again, sometimes being overly litigious ends up creating, you know, situations. And if this appeal stood, cities and counties would end up having to take a real hard look at what it permits, how it permits it, not just along the roadway, but I mean, way out of the roadway all the way to the edge of it. And then Georgia power is going to, you know, and some other utilities, you know, you have traffic cabinets and traffic signals, you know, you see the green boxes there or whatever color they are, but you know, the boxes there that are regulating the signal phase and timing of a signalized intersection. If somebody hits that. We have to bury every single one of those, which will.
00:27:18 – Rico Figliolini
But even the poles, I mean, I think there’s a pole by Peachtree Baptist Church, that intersection in the Y. It was a pole in the middle of a triangle thing, I think, at one point. I don’t know if it’s still there. But it was knocked down once. I mean, there’s plenty of those types of things where cars get out of control for whatever reason. They go slamming into a pole. It’s like one of those walk-flashing.
00:27:44 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, it was from, yeah. A pedestrian actuated crossing where you hit it and it flashes. Yeah.
00:27:49 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. So, I mean, there’s that. I remember even along the median, like Peachtree Parkway, I think at one point someone had told me that they don’t do hardwood trees anymore. They do what they call breakaway trees. Because if a car hits it, it should break away and not cause too much damage, right? But if you’re hitting a hard oak wood tree, that person’s going to die. Now, these things will happen anyway. There was an accident on Peachtree Parkway going south. I remember seeing a car. It pretty much, it was crepe myrtle trees. So those are considered breakaway, I guess. It had jumped the sidewalk and went right into that tree. It was burning. There was some, I think there might have been a fatality, certainly injuries there. That was during last summer, I think it was. These things happen all the time. But if they’re taking up tort reform, I would hope that they’re not just looking at the reward amount, because $38 million, I mean, that just seems to be overly blown. But how do you value a life? But $38 million is just for a city, for something like that. Hopefully they adjust. I know it doesn’t affect the city, but the outcome of payment to lawyers, they should really restrict the amount of money being paid out to lawyers. Is that $38 million? Without doubt is at least 30% of that is going to the lawyer, to the law firm that’s suing, which will be interesting about tort reform because apparently most of the house, most of the capital is made up of lawyers or consultants. So it’d be interesting if they actually do anything.
00:29:30 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, again, they serve a purpose, but, you know, we have had, I’ve had this in other cities I’ve managed too, an attorney will get with somebody who’s usually, has a disability that requires them to be in a wheelchair. And they’ll really, it’s not done right. It’s essentially they’ll conspire. By that, I mean, the person in a wheelchair will seek out instances in which a local government is not meeting code to the, you know, exact letter. And then they’ll, the attorney will reach out on behalf of his or her client and say, you’re in, you know, violation of American with Disabilities Act. And if you don’t do something within a certain period of time, we’re going to sue. And so then, you know, you got, now again, ADA exists for a legitimate reason.
00:30:28 – Rico Figliolini
Absolutely.
00:30:29 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, these would be people who I remember one of them, we had a parking lot that had the handicap spot, and then you have that hatched area next to it so that you could load a wheelchair. The slope of the parking lot was two degrees off the, you know, and required us to dig up a whole section of it just to move it two degrees.
00:30:57 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Interesting. There’s, I think, Target and Publix redid their handicap and adjusted it. Way different than it used to be before, probably for some of the same reasons, the elevation issue and stuff. And I know the Town Green part where the Fort of Payne.
00:31:18 – Brian Johnson
Fort Payne, yeah.
00:31:20 – Rico Figliolini
Fort Payne. Fort of Payne. Fort Payne. The fencing had to go around there allows one entrance. Now there’s signage there saying, if you allow your kids in here or whoever comes in here, needs to understand that you could get hurt if you’re not, you know, doing it the right way. And the insurance company had told us, right? Had told the city that.
00:31:44 – Brian Johnson
Yeah. I mean, it was like, look, you have created an obstacle course. And it’s an advanced, it has advanced stuff. You can’t be letting, you can’t have it unsecure. So we have only one entrance. And then, you know, if you’re not with you know, a parent or over 18 years old yourself, you’re not supposed to be in there. And so if you just ignore it and get hurt, then our insurance feels like we’re, you know, we’ve mitigated our risk because we, you know, told them, hey, you know, you’re not supposed to be here without, you know, we also have instructional videos on how to do these things that you can use and everything we can do. But there’s still some people who will do it. I mean, again, we live in a litigious society. We all get it, but there are some things that we got to be careful. In this case, and obviously the city of Milton case isn’t ours, but it will impact us greatly if it is upheld.
00:32:45 – Rico Figliolini
Sure. Like a lot of legislation that goes on there that affects cities, construction material, what things can be built with, whether it’s steel or wood. And if it’s over, I mean, I remember that was a piece of legislation at one point. I think one city had that you couldn’t build something taller than three stories without using steel or metal. And that was struck down apparently.
00:33:07 – Brian Johnson
It was because the, you know, timber lobby in the state, like Georgia Pacific was like, no, no, no, no, we don’t want, we want to still be able to use wood, you know, up to, I think you can go up to four, two, four stories with wood before you have to go to steel.
00:33:27 – Rico Figliolini
Why build something that can last for 100 years?
00:33:33 – Brian Johnson
Right. And, you know, there’s even some, I mean, this session, you know, right now, procurement law in Georgia is if a project exceeds $100,000, you have to bid it no matter what. And it hasn’t been changed since 2000. And we’ve had inflation since 2000. It’s really hard for us to find projects that are less than $100,000 that are any. And so it just slows things up because then you’ve got to bid it out and you have to, you have to award it to the lowest qualified bidder. And so you run into, you know, problems sometimes where companies are underbidding to get the job with the knowledge you’re not going to be able to finish it with that amount. So they try to change order you to death.
00:34:22 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. Yes.
00:34:24 – Brian Johnson
So legislation, just real quick, is to raise that value to $250,000 before you have to bid.
00:34:31 – Rico Figliolini
That makes sense. Because I’ve seen projects where they do come in and low bid, and then you’re sort of forced to pay the rest of it because you need it done. It’s not like it goes from scratch again. We’ll hold them to it, too, because even with a bond or something, it’s just not going to happen. Some of the other legislation, I think another piece was about annexation. So in brief, how would that affect us?
00:34:56 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so there’s still things happening at the Capitol that are removing a city’s ability to annex an area in which the people who live in that area or own property in that area want to get annexed into the city, that other parties could stop them. There’s legislation making it to where counties or in Georgia, potentially almost could get to the point where they could stop an annexation, which, you know, in a state that allows counties to charge a millage rate just to the unincorporated. In Georgia, that usually means that the county will lose a little bit of money when they lose property because they lose the ability to charge property tax to that entity. So counties are resistant. So that’s inhibiting cities to do it. Even the Gwinnett delegation themselves, you know, which are the legislators that represent a district that has some part of Gwinnett in it. They’re discussing having a rule that’s setting the Gwinnett delegation rule such that if there’s an annexation bill, you know, almost like if, say, the city of Peachtree Corners wanted to allow a area contiguous to us to vote on whether they wanted to command, say, a subdivision or something like that, that everybody in the delegation has to vote on having it move forward, not just the ones that represent the areas of affected. So, you know, we could have a legislator that barely represents Gwinnett up in, like, Brazelton or unincorporated area, and the county gets with them and they’re like, we don’t want this to happen. We’ll lose a little bit of money. And then they’re like, yeah, I don’t want it to happen.
00:36:47 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that’s because of the trend of all these places like Mulberry, right? That’s the newest city in Gwinnett County. It’s the trend of all these cities coming into being, chopping away a little bit at that county budget. And now the county has to fight for the budget that they need. Although they have less area to cover, except for the emergency services.
00:37:14 – Brian Johnson
They do. But remember, they’re only losing a revenue stream, in this case a millage that’s charged only to unincorporated. And that’s their own doing. Like in other states that don’t allow that, say in North Carolina. Counties in North Carolina can only charge one type of tax, and that’s a property tax to everybody in the county. It’s one. They can’t then create special, you know, you know, focus taxes that only go to unincorporated. You know, in Gwinnett, Gwinnett has a countywide tax that even you and I who live in Peachtree Corners pay. And that’s for the countywide services like the courthouse, the jail, the health department. But then they charge very specific taxes just to the unincorporated area. Parks and Rec, police, you know, code enforcement, zoning administration.
00:38:15 – Rico Figliolini
That’s interesting
00:38:17 – Brian Johnson
They don’t have to do that. They chose to, oh, we’re going to. So it’s a little bit of a self-inflicted.
00:38:24 – Rico Figliolini
So the county charges for parks to the unincorporated. But we have parks here in the city. But we’re not paying for that fee.
00:38:33 – Brian Johnson
No, we’re paying. You’re paying for it.
00:38:36 – Rico Figliolini
Okay, we are paying for that.
00:38:37 – Brian Johnson
Just like police, we allowed, once we became a city, we allowed Gwinnett to keep charging that in our city limits in return for them continuing to operate the parks.
00:38:49 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. Alright. Yeah, so we should probably buy those parks and just take over the whole system.
00:38:55 – Brian Johnson
Take over the millage.
00:38:58 – Rico Figliolini
All right, so drone, drone regulation. I think you mentioned there was drone regulation. I know a lot of people that fly drones around here. And certainly there are roofing companies that will do the drone thing and check your roof and stuff and show you where the damage is and stuff like that. Building inspectors do that to some degree. So there’s also, and people, just individuals going around to Town Green and doing his own drone. And so there’s legislation up maybe, right? And part of that is probably because of all the drone stuff and the unidentified UAPs up in New Jersey that everyone went crazy on, whether it was Chinese or Americans. And now we understand the FAA allowed some of that to go on. It’s like one of the things that just came out. But who knows, right? Could it be aliens? Could it be foreign governments or our own? I mean, there’s so many conspiracy theories that we’re tracking nuclear weapon transportation into different places. And it’s just like, you could go crazy. So what’s going on with the drone legislation here in Georgia?
00:40:05 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so this actually isn’t bad. Although, by the way, you know, you laugh about it could be anything, which in a lot of cases, you’re like, really? But you do have to give some of those like, you know, tin hat, you know, tinfoil hat crowd, some a little bit of, you know, latitude, because we did have a, what is it? What do they call it? Stratospheric.
00:40:32 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. Those balloons. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:34 – Brian Johnson
You know, I mean, so there are some unique things.
00:40:38 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. And that one was very unique. That was a huge one from China.
00:40:41 – Brian Johnson
It was in the stratosphere purposely, you know, going across.
00:40:46 – Rico Figliolini
And they have solar panels too. They were powering with solar panels too. So it was like a whole big thing. Yeah.
00:40:53 – Brian Johnson
I mean, so, but in this case. Yes, there was a Georgia legislator who, with the whole thing that was happening up in the coast of New Jersey and everything, was like, we should give local governments better ability to control unidentified aerial vehicles. And so in this case, the bill is allowing the local government to regulate drones below 400 feet.
00:41:26 – Rico Figliolini
Well because the FAA takes care of drones of a certain weight and higher, where if you have a large drone, you have to actually get a number for that drone.
00:41:36 – Brian Johnson
And have a FAA license, a pilot.
00:41:40 – Rico Figliolini
You have to actually take a course. Correct. So me as a commercial, let’s say I wanted to fly my own drone as a business because I’m going to shoot drone shots. I want to use it for the magazine and stuff. I actually have to be licensed or use someone that’s licensed to do that.
00:41:41 – Brian Johnson
You do. And for our concerts, you know, we use a third party, you know, firm to shoot video of it. And you’ve seen some of the video we’ve had on that. The drone operator who does the filming for it, he has a license and he has to get a permit from the FAA to be able to fly it.
00:42:18 – Rico Figliolini
But only because I think it’s by the FAA does it by weight versus by height. There is a height.
00:42:24 – Brian Johnson
There is a height.
00:42:26 – Rico Figliolini
But it does buy weight versus, because most of the stuff that a person like you and me would buy is under that weight requirement. But you’re saying that that legislation would then cover even those drones?
00:42:40 – Brian Johnson
Only if they’re going to be over public spaces in which there’s a public gathering, which I believe they define it as 50 people or more that are, that plan to be around each other for more than 30 minutes. And so that would be where, alright, now we don’t want there to be unidentified drone activity. That is where you get into, because even for our concerts, Rico, even below a certain height, the FAA regulates it because there’s so many people.
00:43:16 – Rico Figliolini
Right. But if I was, and I’ve seen, lots of photographers do drones also because it’s part of that thing. They’ll go along the river, which is, it wouldn’t be a part, it’s both a public place, but there’s no people there maybe, or there are not enough people like you’re saying. So that’s a reasonable thing, I guess. That’s not covered by that probably.
00:43:37 – Brian Johnson
No, I mean, I think this is really more of public space where there’s a gathering of the public of more than, I think it was 50 people who are planning on being there for more than 30 minutes. Then, and only then would the local government be in a position to say you still need to identify who you are if you’re going to be flying below 400 feet. You’re still, above 400 feet is still out of our control.
00:44:05 – Rico Figliolini
So if it’s a private party, party in someone’s backyard and they have a drone, they want to fly it up and, you know, do that. That’s okay.
00:44:14 – Brian Johnson
That wouldn’t be because that wouldn’t be on public property.
00:44:16 – Rico Figliolini
Right. Okay. Alright. I guess that all makes sense.
00:44:21 – Brian Johnson
And again, trust me, this wasn’t our legislation. I’m just telling you the unique things. I mean, every day as I’m going through the bills that hit, you know, just to see our lobbyist is giving me, you know, a heads up on, hey, how does this affect you? I oftentimes have to tell them, hey, this wouldn’t be good. So you’re in a position to tell a legislator or the bill’s author in some cases to say, hey, can you tweak it? Whatever. We’ve had to have bills tweaked that would have inhibited our ability to have innovation get tested here in Curiosity Lab because it was a prohibition against certain activity across all sidewalks. And we were like, time out. We need to have the, you know, so we’ve had Curiosity Lab carved out of legislation before. We’ve had the bill language get tweaked before, and we’ve certainly done things to completely help a bill to its demise because it would have been harmful to us. In some cases, just us, or other cases, just all cities.
00:45:37 – Rico Figliolini
Interesting.
00:45:37 – Brian Johnson
It’s a dangerous time.
00:45:39 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, so many aspects of governing a city and what you all have to do. There is some good stuff, though, too. So let’s celebrate something as well that the sheriff department, I mean, the marshal department, sorry, sheriff marshal. The marshals did find some interesting illegal things going on in the City of Peachtree Corners.
00:46:05 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so this is a good story that does reflect the fact that when you’re able to have more time, resources, and intimate knowledge of an area, you can oftentimes uncover things that you couldn’t or you’re not in that position. Our marshals were able to uncover what was, and I believe they only had operated it one or two times before he got involved, but an illegal nightclub. That was operating essentially like speakeasies used to operate back in the day, which is they found a location. I don’t want to get into the exact location right now because it’s, citations have been issued, but it hasn’t actually been, you know.
00:47:03 – Rico Figliolini
Because it was a commercial?
00:47:04 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, in municipal court. But found a location in which they could have a retail storefront. But then the storefront was very, call it shallow and small. And then there was a door both through the back of that and a side door in which, you know, two thirds of this lease space was actually an illegal nightclub, hookah lounge, you name it. But had not gotten anything permitted. They didn’t have plans that reflected this, so they were in violation of a building permit. They hadn’t filed for a business license. They didn’t have a license to serve alcohol, so the state’s Department of Revenue was involved. And they also, the fire code had been limited to like 60 people based on the square footage, and they were having 200 plus people, And our marshal’s intelligence, you know, network was able to then uncover the underground, you know, call it, you know, marketing that this place was doing and they were running a full on club. You know, like a black market club. And had it not been for the marshal’s ability to, you know, dig into this, you know, they probably would have kept going. And, you know, oftentimes the other and there’s no houses near this. So you didn’t have that aspect that could have come up. But the danger of these kind of clubs, whether they’re the ones that move around periodically or the ones that try to keep, you know, keep it quiet are there’s a reason that they’re trying to keep it quiet. These types of clubs generally have people that enjoy them. Well, at least maybe not a majority of them, but there are people that only like to go to clubs that are kind of secret because they’re wanting to do things that the law doesn’t allow them to. And oftentimes can end up in violence and other criminal activity. We may have averted that happening at this one. But, you know, why it was significant is there was a lot of money. This is not a open a door and then there’s this big room with some tables and chairs. This is a full-on outfitted, like remodeled nightclub. That was operating like a, in fact, the name of it was The Secret Lounge.
00:49:50 – Rico Figliolini
Amazing.
00:49:51 – Brian Johnson
And so, you know, kudos to them. There’s from the city attorney, you know, Gwinnett County PD was, supported this effort. But, you know, it was our marshal, led by our marshals, identified by our marshals. And, you know, the city was able to keep it from, you know, continuing to operate. So there are good things. We may have averted a disaster here.
00:50:16 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, it’s great that they’re doing a lot of good work out there. And all the technology that’s coming in, I mean, that certainly helps too.
00:50:26 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, and Rico, you’re talking about drones. We put up a drone to look at the traffic migration in this area to kind of help build our case, our evidence against the owner. Because we didn’t want the owner to be like, you know, what are you talking about? Or I haven’t had anybody come over here yet.
00:50:51 – Rico Figliolini
Right.
00:50:51 – Brian Johnson
So our marshals continue to use drones as a, you know, very effective law enforcement tool. So they definitely have their place.
00:51:01 – Rico Figliolini
No, for sure. And I’ve listened to some of the stuff that some of the products and tools of the trade, if you will, that they’ve investigated. Some really cutting edge stuff. So it’s all good. I think the city certainly gains by that. So you all, you know, I mean, listen, you all do a good job out there. Well, we’ve come to the end of our time. We’ve covered quite a bit. So Brian, I appreciate you doing this with me.
00:51:31 – Brian Johnson
Always my pleasure. Appreciate you providing this communication vehicle for, you know, those who listen and watch can learn about some things that aren’t necessarily always, we’re not necessarily always able to include in things like city council meetings or whatever, because this is kind of the, you know, the day-to-day type of thing that, you know, oftentimes people don’t realize goes on behind the scenes here. So I appreciate you letting, you know, our citizens have this opportunity to hear what is going on behind the scenes.
00:52:07 – Rico Figliolini
Absolutely. Love doing this. I love getting the word out. I don’t always agree with everything that goes on. But the good part is that we can talk back and forth about this and get out, you know, the facts and ask questions because I don’t know everything. So I’d like to ask lots of questions, doing this stuff. So I appreciate you doing this. Everyone else, certainly, you know, subscribe, like the page. You’ll get notified when we have more podcasts. We try to do this on a regular basis, like every month or every five weeks. Usually after a city council meeting, this way we could discuss what just happened, let’s say Tuesday of this week or the sessions like that’s going on in the capitol. So if you have questions, let me know. If you have questions for Brian, he can be reached at the city. Obviously, go to the website, PeachtreeCornersGA.gov, and you can find a way to reach that. Or put your questions in the comments. If you’re on Facebook listening to this, or X, or YouTube, our YouTube channel. And if you’re getting this off Apple or any of the other podcasts, just reach out to Peachtree Corners Magazine, Peachtree Corners Life, and we’ll answer those questions. Again, thank you for our sponsors, EV Remodeling, Inc. and Vox Populi. You’ll find their information in the show notes. So thanks again, everyone. Appreciate you being with us.
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