Woodstock City Council Meeting Review: February 9, 2026

1 day ago
6 min read

What You Need to Know

February 9th's council meeting was light on public business and heavy on things that should concern every Woodstock resident paying attention. Find the agendas and agenda packets for all Woodstock City Council meetings here: https://www.woodstockga.gov/your_government/meetings_agendas_and_minutes.php

The Parking Program Lost $677,000 More Than Promised

The city quietly passed a budget amendment acknowledging that the downtown parking program — managed by Pivot Parking — is performing dramatically worse than what was sold to the public. The original budget projected nearly $1.07 million in revenue and $665,703 in profit in Year 1. The revised numbers? About $410,000 in revenue and an $11,000 net loss. That’s a $677,000 swing from what we were told to expect.

To cover the shortfall, the city is loaning $120,000 from the General Fund — your tax dollars — to prop up a program that was supposed to pay for itself. That loan was already pre-approved at the January 26 meeting, buried in the consent agenda before most people knew there was a problem.

The financial projections for this public program, operating on public streets with public money, are labeled “Confidential and Trade Secret” in the agenda packet.

This $821,000 budget amendment was on the consent agenda — meaning no discussion required.

They Moved the Executive Session Up

Here’s how tonight played out: Council went into executive session almost immediately after public comment, which covered very little. Normally executive sessions happen at the end of the meeting. Moving it up meant that most of the public — people who showed up to watch their government work — left before council came back out, because nobody knows how long an executive session will last.

The result: the biggest financial story of the night — the parking budget failure — got zero public discussion. Whether the early executive session was designed to clear the room or just convenient timing, the effect was the same: the most significant budget correction this council has processed in months happened with almost no one watching.

Wastewater Infrastructure Is Failing

According to the agenda, council approved an emergency $30,398 purchase to replace aeration blower #4 at the wastewater treatment plant. This is the third blower failure in recent months — blowers #2 and #3 were already repaired or replaced in December. The money is being pulled from another capital project (membrane tank wall coating), which is now unfunded. This pattern of emergency spending and robbing one project to pay for another suggests the city’s infrastructure budget isn’t keeping up with aging equipment.

What Else Happened

Arbor Day was proclaimed for February 20. Two weeks ago, council reduced a $50,100 fine for illegally cutting 50 protected trees down to just the permit fee. The proclamation is nice. The enforcement precedent is not.
Minutes from the January 30 joint DDA/Council meeting were approved. That meeting was entirely executive session — zero public business. There is no recording or documentation about what was discussed.
City Manager Jeff Moon brought a “Retreat Discussion” item with no supporting documents. The public had no way to know what direction he was asking council to consider.

Our Woodstock CAN members left after they announced the executive session. There’s no public comment allowed during executive sessions, no way to know how long they’ll last, and no transparency about what’s discussed. Waiting around for an unpredictable amount of time to watch them come back and adjourn isn’t a productive use of anyone’s evening — which is, of course, the point.

The Pattern

Budget corrections after the fact. Taxpayer money quietly backstopping programs that were sold as self-sustaining. Developer-friendly enforcement. Strategic direction shaped in retreats and executive sessions. Public meetings used for approval, not deliberation. And now, executive sessions moved earlier in the evening so fewer people are around when the real business gets handled.

This is how decisions get made without accountability. Show up. Read the agenda packet. Ask hard questions. We’ll keep doing all three.

Public Comment Made by One of Woodstock CAN's Leaders, Martha Jean Schindler

(At time of posting, the video recording of the city council meeting is not available yet. This is the script she worked from. Some minor adlibbing occurred, but this captures the gist of the comment.)

Good evening, Mayor Caldwell, City Manager Moon, members of the Council, and fellow residents. My name is Martha Jean Schindler, and I am a resident here in Woodstock, Georgia.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the prayer we just heard. We were told to love our neighbors. To care for one another. All of it invoking Jesus Christ by name — at a public civic meeting. I'll come back to that, because I want to test whether this council means it.

I also want to note that not every resident of Woodstock is Christian. A city council meeting is a civic forum, not a church service. If we're going to open public meetings with partisan religious invocations, then we should be prepared to live by the values we invoke.

Let me start with the facts.

The federal government has finalized the purchase of a one-million-square-foot warehouse in Social Circle — under an hour from here — to build one of the largest ICE detention facilities in the nation, holding up to ten thousand people. Social Circle's officials were never consulted. Georgia already has four active ICE detention centers, and more are planned.

As of January, ICE is holding over seventy-three thousand people nationwide — an eighty-four percent increase in one year. Nearly half have no criminal record. In Georgia, ICE arrested forty-five hundred people in six months — nearly four times as many as the same period under the previous administration. By June, forty-two percent of those arrested in this state had no criminal charges at all. Georgia law requires local law enforcement to deputize staff to serve ICE, which is why we have one of the highest arrest rates in the nation.

People are dying. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025 — more than during the entire previous administration. Six more in just the first three weeks of 2026, putting the system on pace for a hundred and twenty deaths this year. Heber Sanchez Dominguez, thirty-four, arrested in Georgia for driving without a license, was found hanging in his cell at the Lovejoy facility on January fourteenth. He'd been in custody six days. Renée Nicole Good — an American citizen, a mother of three — was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis after dropping her child off at school. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide.

And twenty-seven people were taken from the trailer community on Dupree Road — right near the dog park. Not from some faraway city. From this community.

So — we just prayed to love our neighbors. Twenty-seven of our neighbors were ripped from their homes on Dupree Road. Council, what will you do? Will you advocate for oversight? Will you back measures requiring ICE agents to identify themselves and obtain warrants? Will you pledge non-cooperation with unlawful raids? Or does "love your neighbor" only apply to the neighbors who look like you and worship like you?

Now let me connect this to how this city operates.

Last month, Woodstock held its State of the City address at City Church — a public civic event on private property with a fifteen-dollar fee. Canton held theirs free and open. When I and one other person stood at the entrance with small signs — "No ICE in Cherokee" and "What Would Jesus Do?" — the church called the police on us. The same Jesus we just invoked in prayer. Then the church leader came out and hugged the officers. That is not Christianity. That is complicity. The same hypocrisy as opening this meeting with a prayer about loving neighbors while doing nothing as those neighbors are dragged from their homes.

I also call out City Manager Moon and Parks and Recreation Director Brian Borden, who has twice attempted to have me and Gopi Govindaraj arrested for exercising our First Amendment rights in peaceful, lawful gatherings — and has called police on political chalk on public sidewalks while this city sponsors chalk art at its own festivals. That is selective enforcement against political speech, and it is unconstitutional.

Mayor Caldwell, you are skilled at claiming credit for outcomes you had no hand in creating and blaming external forces for failures within your authority. When pressed on transparency, you said you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink. You're not leading anyone to water — you're locking the gate and charging fifteen dollars to look at the pond. This city promotes its concert series more aggressively than it discloses how it spends public money. Your excuse last week for not having a newsletter was unconvincing.

If this council means the prayer it just offered, then act like it. Publish a regular newsletter covering council actions and budgets. Stop holding public events on private property. Stop allowing city employees to suppress lawful speech. And take a position — tonight — on whether this city will protect its residents from a federal enforcement apparatus terrorizing our neighbors on Dupree Road.