City Council - Regular Meeting

Father God, we thank you for this day that you have made.

We thank you for your lie down last night and your witness this morning.

Thank you for another prosperous day, Father God. I want you to bless each one of our council and myself and the whole city to make a government body, Father God. Excellent. Bless the sick and the unknown sick and the non-sick, Father God. Heal our bodies. Let us have a mind tonight to be a one accord for our community, Father God. And bless this meeting in Jesus' name, I pray.

Amen.

Salute. I bless you. of the United States of America to deliver a brotherhood for what he's saying, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

The agenda is needed in a modification. I think I think at this time.

And this this government would add. To the agenda, the to the item to approve the compromise. Of the plane that we have to exist with this came up last time we covered everything. I just, I'm thinking if y'all could expand the agenda, so we can prove the compromise in that matter. And I can discuss it further.

Which matter is that again?

I just asked the agenda to be expanded to approve the compromise. I take the motion.

I say aye. Aye.

One more thing. I also know the appointments are not on the agenda. So As it goes to yearly appointments, there are several of them that were with the charter. Thanks. I'm ensuring that the ones that we have the yearly appointments on, such as we were appointing annually, we were appointing every year an engineer or somebody like that. Those appointments carry. for the term and the duration until those appointments discontinue. So we're ensuring that the points, I know that historically some of those things would come back every time. Some of those appointments aren't needed so we don't have to renegotiate in those contracts. But once we do want to renegotiate, we can if we need to. So like engineering and things like that, we're ensuring so we can give proposals. But some of those things we don't have to have annual appointments on. One of which is your clerks and everything like that. They don't actually have

were just maybe appointed annually as necessary just meaning that they didn't want you to have appointments throughout the year like where just every time you turn around i have a question yes so just for clarity so that means that for all those positions for all those positions appointed i mean they will remain the same i'm sorry

That's what happened years ago whenever there was an opinion asked about, because we've got the city attorney issue long before. Mine was a hybrid of it, actually. Two, three iterations down. But that's what happened, is that the charter says you may appoint annually, and the attorney general and everybody came and said, hey, their appointments continue until they're done with it. One good question.

One good question. You've been an attorney for, how long have you been an attorney for the city of Nashville?

Been an attorney since I was confirmed in August of 23.

We've been doing these yearly appointments ever since you've been here. So let me ask you a question. Just because you say shell or mail, I think we should continue past practice as we always. Because you work for the city council and you work for the mayor. So as a councilman, I'm recommending that we follow protocol and past practices and continue because USI is the last mayor and we appointed every year. And so I'm confused a little bit as to why when we first took office, this administration first came in office, we appointed everybody, but this year we're doing something different. So I think for transparency, I think we should go back to doing it like we've always been doing it, Despite the word share, will, may, or whatever, let's follow protocol and let's get back to doing what we normally do because that's how division occurs. And that's how unnecessary fights occur because I'm telling you, we need to go back to doing exactly what the past administration done and what the mayor came in and promised that we was going to.

sure that any were competitive appointments like engineering or anything like that that we had the best competitive appointments to bring to the table the the things that were other ones and my advice as America has not changed under any administration just the prior administration chose to do opposite of what uh the legal thing and had been even with the attorney general's office wanted that we heard that there's not maybe issues with them but could we be more competitive with the people rather than this is who we went with before and can we bring more options to the council to say hey this is who we vetted this is this is the portfolio of what they had and this is what they had historically you would only see the appointment that the individual brought to you want to be able to bring an appointment package to you of this is who we put up for appointment and this is who all was in the candidate pool for that because you remember

Because you know, the big controversy when you got to be here, you remember? You had to be appointed. And that's why they kept, you remember they kept saying, Mr. Jones, you please move yourself from here. So what I'm saying is, like the CEAs, you know, we got 1099 employees and different attorneys in different positions. Like the clerk, I read the charter too. The clerk is there every two years, the clerk will be coming up next year. That'll be two years into your term. But everybody else, it should be appointed just like it is. Because I don't think, I don't know how we can do something with the CEAs and if we don't reallocate the money through the budget hearing process. But still, I think we need to appoint the attorneys and the specialists

I think the practice of doing that and doing it annually is something that's going to continue. There was just a few appointments to bring the package to it. Not to say that there's going to be a change of anybody, but just to say that there's always been the dialogue ever since I've been here long, even before I was appointed, was even with my appointment, was who else was in the candidate pool? Who did you select? a qualified decision about the nomination period. Wanted to be able to bring a candidate pool to you that said, hey, this is the selection we chose from, and this is the one that was nominated for that, for the council to confirm. But yes, the practice is to continue to bring those appointments, but bringing this year is going to occur in August.

One more question that you can give any of those donors. Because like I said, you're the attorney for the city. And if you say the mayor's gone, you're a legal advisor. You ask him, shall we or can we? You're just going to give him a legal advice. You can or you don't. That does not mean it should be done. Just because you can do something, that don't mean you should do it. I think We should go back to past practice and don't create a bitter divide for nothing, because I'm telling you, that's where it's going.

I don't think anybody's creating a divide. I just think this has got moves in August to do it in August. But historically, it will go through the July meeting. It's just one of those things that crept up on us in order to get competitive candidacy for things it would be best done in the August meeting. Look, what is the law is the basement law. What is the law plus what looks out for the best interest is always the best decision. And if the law plus the best interest is to continue a practice that is transparent, I believe 100% this administration is going to continue to do that. Just ask that we continue to do it with the August meeting so we can have that right to you of choice, then you probably won't live.

Thank you for that information. Mr. Jones, as far as the appointments, the appointments go, we're in the month of July. We're talking about having competitive people being competitive for a particular position, right? So how did that happen in July? And then that's the month we usually appoint. So in order for it, if you're talking about how can it be competitive, it's shopping around. No, no, no. I'm not asking about that question. I'm saying this is the month of July when we make those appointments. When did we figure out that we were going to make those competitive appointments? When did we figure out that we were going to do that? See, this is July now. It seems like even though they were committed on this, they were still coming in the month of July. So what happened there?

So you have a blending of two things. All appointments occur throughout. And without a doubt, through May and June, we tackled budget. That was all hands on deck. It's probably the first time we've with the level of numbers we were able to get to. Those appointments, there is nothing that is... The status quo of the city is continuing through July and will continue until the August meeting with all the officials in the places they're in for that. It's simply down to... It's timing. At any given time, My office, for instance, there's a hundred different things that can be done. It's putting in place what is those things. Historically, those appointments have been very, just very carcerary. Whoever was here before was the one that was here the next time, generally speaking, with the exception of that I can remember the author. The author was the biggest switch we had, and there was actually a large discussion. That actually is what characterized the moment is, is if we're going to look at stuff last competitive thing that we had that we looked at it was an official was the owner that was discussed for three meetings a similar view of that so if you're trying to talk about engineering services inspection services things that uh appointed what we call contract services that are providing official duties for the city those are going to probably have one developed discussion that's why june is kind of a hard month when you're going through To actually reach out, but those things and tackle the budget stuff. Hopefully, going forward once we have the cycle, we're all looking for things and get it out in front of it. It's a dialogue that is required to have a very large focus and primary focus on. You don't want to take secondary spot to a budget discussion.

Okay, well, the budget is mostly a gym thing, right? Correct. Okay, so we have two, three, four months prior to that because we know this is coming up in July. So, again, what I'm saying is that seems like to me that would be something that we put on the calendar. But it's a discussion.

It could be.

is your competitive bids what does your services look your scope of services most people when they give you a proposed term of services it's valid for 30 to 60 days okay i i understand that again let's let's just be clear this is this is the budgetary item as well too so so again what i don't want to happen is i don't want i don't want to have to come to the july meeting and then find out about all of this other stuff and why we're not using the July agency. If we were going to do this in August, it seems like to me the five of us should have been given some heads up before we got to the meeting. That's how we keep communication open. The last thing I have on it is, listen, if we have been operating under a law or ordinance for the past few years, and something changes within that structure, I would ask that you would provide us with the actual context of the change. That way, we'll know what's what. Again, sometimes there is conversation about where, well, the law has changed, but there is no context to that. So again, what I will ask is that when there has been a change in the law or the ordinance or whatever, Can we please get some context on that when we have decisions to make according to the view? Do you have one in particular that you can point out? No, no. Even what you just said about the law where it says shall and may, again, that is an indication of something new.

No, it's always existed like that. My opinion has always existed as I've articulated to you. Just the previous administration didn't. did not go by that. I give an opinion, I don't give a choice, and they went by what they wanted to do with their own.

And again, that would apply here as well too. But again, even just for future reference, if there is a change in the law, and it has something to do with the business of the city council, the mayor of the city council, and the city of Master, I would ask if there is a change, and especially if we have to discuss something context of a change of the law, and we can go forward from there.

Oh, 100%. And I've started to the point where I provide memos on stuff. We've had several here in the past, here recent, where I provide memos on where we're at, kind of what the issue we're facing, and what it looks like going forward as a baseline so we can all be on the same page. Okay.

100%. Yeah, we need to... I want... Mr. Miles, bring them, move them up from 15 to our number five, or club to come in and relate to the matter, get them in on the agenda instead of them being back. They can get up and speak during that time, so.

You can just make a motion to vendor arbitral's order. Is that a motion to vendor arbitral's order?

Wait a minute, before we do that, are we done with the appointments?

issue are we still we still right here okay this is all yeah but we still talk we still modification also it's a couple people want to get on the agenda so that's what we said we don't i don't want to get too fast At this point, you would go to call Mr. Miles up. Mr. Miles.

I am Tony Miles, 611 Pearl Street.

71220, Mr. Mayor, Council Member, Attorney Jones. I want to apologize for my behavior the last time I was here. I had trouble understanding what you all were trying to say. So am I to believe the matter of the renaming of the airport is a working crime?

I got to go out there and take time.

And so I was trying to understand what was happening. I mean, I'm just wondering if it's a working party. It's a lot. It's a lot you have to do to rename an airport. And I don't know that we, as a mayor and council, are considering that to rename the airport. We haven't talked about that. I know you've been coming up with this. I heard of a bridge. I heard of a bridge they were trying to do.

That project's been outstanding probably 14 months. It's not related to this administration or the previous administration. It's actually the administration before that, that we have to have the lease approved by the Bonding Commission. And then we also have the extra fold that there is some airport grants that were granted there with some time continuance. layers of things away from actually being able to determine could the name be switched if it is at that point feasible because we have the bonding commission issue with the previous money that was made a mortgage out there when we had a tenant. And then we also have the issue with the federal grant that was just recently used to revamp the airport that was paid and the restrictions on that. So we're probably... 3 solid projects away from being able to make a decision on. Is it feasible? Is it possible to extend it to be those 3.

Hey, hey, Mr. Mr. first of all, I want to say, I do. Thank you for. Everything from Mr. Eric, it's a great man. Have you ever thought about doing like a automation for a day from this guy?

Rename the airport with the part of the original proposal.

Okay.

But, uh, okay, that's all. So, do you have a good understanding of what he's what he's talking about now?

I think so.

Yeah, I think so. It's going to take time to consider it. It is. We have some issues that you have to deal with.

Is it these 1 of what? Yeah. But when I get to that equation, I will definitely, I have it always there. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, Mike, let's move. We got this.

Yeah, but you don't come up with public comments. Don't let them come up with public comments.

No, we still got an announcement. We've been doing that.

Let's get it out with some public comments.

We got announcements. Got a couple of them here. The City of Asheville since Friday are now back in compliance with the state. Only got in compliance, non-compliance list because of not filing an extension when we was doing our audit. The only reason we have received on X, 461, a CA fund of the state, $20,000. We also received an Act 397, the J.R.F., Senator Katrina Jackson Andrews and State Representative Adrian Fisher. We got $69,000 for Dawson Park. We also, under that same one last year, got the $20,000. We are now over there at Dyson during the bathrooms. Also the North Delta Regional Planning Development, DRA sewer project, we got 399, but we got five, so I forgot what the number was, but we can get more detail with it. But the project was going to be, it came in less, so 399,000. We also spent the rest of that money at the sewer plant. Also when I came in, I applied for a million dollar capital outlay so we got good news on that we will be receiving from senator kathy he was proud to give it to our community and he reached out and uh i just pre uh thank all of them for doing it but senator kathy we got 750 we're going to get 750 000 out of a meeting dollars capital outlay first came in we filled out a grant for $1,000,000 and he approved, he got it approved $750,000. So we will receive that. Ms. LeRae is going through the motion now to put that in. I also want to make sure to thank Senator Katrina Jackson-Andrews and Ms. Aiden Fisher also. Let's see what we got. I also want to thank Miss Aiden, Representative Aiden Fisher and Senator Katrina Jackson for the thing they got going on over there at the church with the kids. Every year they do it. They had a meeting and it should get bigger, bigger and bigger each year. They had over there, they had like carpentry work. Somebody showed the young kids how to do that. We had our firemen over there with the fire truck show them how to firemen work. Appreciate that. See, we also had Two other tables had different church, Reverend Glass and Mr. Clacks was doing that. I also showed the kids how to cook over there. And it was living good, too. I didn't get a chance to stay deep in there. And we had an Air Force table. Mr. Jerry Granule, the one that took over the Louisiana Delta, he was out there showing the kids and showed them how hard he worked. And it will pay off. It's more to them. life than Bamstrom and he got out and he went to have a successful life and he's returned to take over Louisiana Delta Community College as of now. Anybody else have any questions?

I do. On August 8th, I am planning on having the first annual District 8 Backpack Giveaway. I'm really excited about it. It'll be at Forest Park from 2 to 5 p.m. But it's not just for District 8 kids, it's for kids citywide. So anybody who have children, please bring them out. We're going to have food, drinks, jumpers, fun, music. So bring your kids out. I'm excited about it. August 8th from 2 to 5, Forest Park.

Also, August the 1st, my son, she does the... Giveaway big giveaway from this was in each year. I was the 1st, 2 o'clock to 5. I want to say. So, yeah, bring them kids out. We, we will be cutting haircut for free. Give away stuff also my brother. Foundation, we will be giving away supplies also. It's always the 1st at this 2 to 5. Any other. What are the comments that it relates to the matter on the agenda?

Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. District E. I'm going to talk about several things on this agenda. It starts with 9A, B, C, D, and E. These are adjudicated properties. It's self-explanatory about the description of the property. but there's no address for these properties. So I hope in the near future that we have address on these properties so the community can know where these properties are located. Now, since the city has taken on this responsibility of adjudicating these properties, it's y'all responsibility now to keep these properties open. Hope you take that into consideration. Last thing on the item that I'd like to talk about I'm not familiar with this. This city is already in litigation with this already. We are making standards and the rules for a company down the road, for a venture here in Vassar. But it's been known fact already. We don't want it here. If it came properly here, it wouldn't be no problem. But it's a problem. So if you're gonna have a standard requirements for a solar panel, any other company wanna come in here to pull up a solar panel for this community. Make sure it's outside the city limits. Each of you have been here a year. You have three more years. Your evaluation with me, not an A, not a B, has been incomplete. We got another three years. The last year of what we've been going through here is irrelevant. It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable, ladies and gentlemen. We got to do better. My representative was not good. He voted on the budget. I had some questions about that, but it went on down the road. Some of these things that you did this year, Last year too, it's going to come back to bite you. Let's get it together. Good evening. Thank you, Rick.

Anybody else?

Yes.

So, we achieved. Let's see. Can I go ahead and hand y'all out something?

Oh, you got to get on the agenda. Oh, can I be on the agenda? Yes. You get on the agenda. Can I be on the agenda?

That's what I was saying.

Can I be on the agenda? We got to move you to.

Got to make a motion to put her on the agenda. Motion to put Ms. Cindy on the agenda, please.

I'll do it now. Can I hand you out something? You can give it to them. All right.

I don't have a mic. Can you hear me?

Oh, she got it. Can you hear me or you want the microphone?

We can hear you. You can hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

I'm sorry, I'm kind of running a little late in here, but I'm not very computer savvy in my print work. So anyway, what I came to talk to you about is BLITE, which is some of the things that we started off with. So I kind of wrote some little notes here so that I wouldn't talk too much. But I saw this yesterday, and I thought it was kind of a little nice quote. It says, the CIS is a collection of problems solved. So I'm hoping that maybe something that I say or something that I do can help solve some of the problems and issues with blight. A lot of times people don't understand, and I know in previous administrations, some of us didn't understand either, but blight and economic development. Just a quick little note on how Keep More House Beautiful actually got started. When we had an international paper company, there was a lady that was in human resources. We were all meeting together as councilmen, police jury, hospital, med co. It's the school system. We all met together to come up with a vision. And she just happened to come in and she was on it. And she told us what happened. She was interviewing for a position at the international paper company. And the lady didn't show up for the appointment. And so she said, she called to ask her, had she not, you know, did she get lost? And she said, no. She said, I drove, I came early, I drove through the bathroom, and I drove back because of what everyone saw. And as people, when we get used to seeing something, we kind of ignore it. You know, it's just going. So anyway, that's when we understood that there are, back then, I know I looked up and it was like 35,000 cars went through a day in the city of Bastrop. Now, if you took 5,000 of those cars and they were business people, you know, or I know there's a lot of hunting they fly in, you know, to go hunting and things around here, we're missing opportunities. If you look at, go to Oak Grove and look what they're doing to their team. Well, you know, Meta now, and Regal, look what's going on there. Monroe, I think yesterday was on the news that they're the second fastest program in the whole city, I think that's what it is. So, we're still here and we need to cash in on what everybody else is doing. So, when I looked this up, I said that, you know, you do not have to answer these questions, but I just want you to have them like a food for thought. And if you want to write it down, you can. I said, what specific initiatives are in place to address white in our town? Have anybody gotten together and said, what are the things that we have to do? How do we involve people of our community in planning and making those decisions? And I thought about, you know, we could get the dummies, we could get the Dallas Council and the mayor, You can walk, keep your house beautiful, and you can get the police, or you can all kind of get on the same page, maybe we can do something. And what funding opportunities do we have to pursue that? So I know that I know most of y'all for a long time, which I'll send you up here. I hope y'all are all still friends with me. And right when this administration began, there was a lot of enthusiasm. I mean, everybody was talking about, look how good everything looks. You know, look what the mayor's doing. Things like we've kind of been at a standstill and that's being fit to, you know, what's happening. So I don't know why, but I just wanted to know, have y'all got specific goals? Have you got a deadline for anything? You know, and I don't really know if y'all are in a position to make that decision or is that just left up to the administration? I don't know if it's the administration or if it's the minority at all. First of all, when we read it, just.

pertaining to items on the agenda. It's not really for the speaker.

I'll give a motion, five minutes.

Okay, well, I'll try my best.

Motion. Second. No motion? No second. Okay, good. All those in favor?

Okay, well, I don't know what the, like, we've had problems and issues with down tampering, and y'all know that. We've had problems with the school that we see every single day. And I don't know if it's an administration problem or a legal problem, but I do know that the Lowry building, I keep calling it the Lowry building, has been going on for seven years because I'm the one that reported it the first time because it was shown to me on the drone during Cotton's administration. That's a long time. Seven years is a long time. so um we just need to find out if we're not doing our jobs and we need to make people accountable seven years you know these other buildings would be in this kind of situation if we got on it right off um i know that when you talked about the youth and i hear we've got all these plans for you but i wanted to give you some just information about how why are you are having so much trouble and i looked this up so It says, did you know that life in a neighborhood can negatively impact children's academic and behavioral performance? You know, think about what these kids see just going to the high school. We still haven't done anything about the house that's on Highland and the Country Club Road right there at the corner. We have to drive the buses in. You know, Highland's not looking just real good. Marable wasn't looking real good. People did tear down some of the houses. But those are some things that I said we need to pay attention to because that affects our children. So what I gave you, Dr. Maria, is the state law. This was done in August 2025. It has on there the laws, and then I have on there what happens if you don't comply. Those are state laws. If y'all would adopt the state laws and then add maybe some more specifics to those laws of what we would do, you would have a little bit more meat. You know, somebody gave me something and said that this could be an issue with the state. That may be something. I'm just trying to find the solution so that when somebody is not doing what they're supposed to do, there's consequences. Right now, we haven't had many consequences. You know, you go, I heard the last time there was going to be 40-something people at an environment report and 14, 15 people showed up. What were the consequences to those that didn't show up? So if you don't have consequences, you can't make a difference. So I said, we've got to have a different way of approaching things to make a difference. So I wanted y'all to look at that and think about it. And then also there's other things that we can add to it that benefits us in this community. So that's basically what I was trying to do to kind of go through some things. And I do think it's hopeful. And that's what you want to have you. I did bring something that I'm going to leave in. Y'all might look through it real quick. I'm not going to go through it. This actually was done in 2007. Don't ask me how I got it because I have no idea. And it says city ambassador master plan and use plan. And I just wanted to read one thing and then I'm hushed. It says quality and character of growth. To encourage and accommodate new quality developments in open spaces should be well maintained, well connected, and pedestrian friendly. and the historic character of the downtown should be maintained and enhanced by convenient construction or renovation. Uses should be more mixed toward the downtown core of the city, with increased separation, buffing toward the edges. Generally speaking, it is desirable to promote a mix of uses within a city. It helps create walkability, generates interest, and so on. However, many of the uses within neighborhoods have been detrimental property values and safety concerns. Development regulations are needed to protect property owners, promote neighborhood stability and public health. We need a master plan. And I think you've got people in this community that would be willing to come up with a master plan. Thank you.

I just said the city does not own that one building downtown. You can go ahead and state.

There's a lot there. Ms. Hendricks, I would invite you to take a look at the almost 80 page ordinance that we adopted involving code enforcement. The law you provided actually did not get passed in 2025. That law was passed in 1999. It was amended in 2025. to say abandoned houses, but it still requires you to have it blighted. It's built for hearing officer court. The second, our statute that we adopted almost a year before this revision was put into place actually increases to the extreme the most amount of teeth that we can have dealing with what is dilapidated properties, nuisance, blighted, anything that's in there. Blighted is the terminal order. You have to have property declared blighted by the court before any of this statute is in place. This is for places where we had before. Environmental court is one of those things where you send it to the property. It's against the property. Unfortunately, because it is civil, you cannot have a piece of property. There's no cop car that we can place a lot. So what it is is a civil. So what we worked towards was compliance with will also mention the book that you're in possession of how your possession of i can tell you about it because i had to spend about a week of my life finding that book that master plan is because one of the committees that's listed in there that had community participation was paid for by the administration prior to 2008 and then it came into the administration of miss uh alfred olive when she came in the first time and if you'd actually look to that book that book is the master plan it's part of why those commissions members of one of those community panels, there's about 50 of them. But if you would please note, to be correct, not the finding of it, the finding of that commission was is that the status of the properties being that there was disjointed ownership due to debt and unopened successions was going to be the hardest and most complicated. The other finding in there was is that in order for that book that was over $100,000 that was paid for back in 2008 to put in one of the most sophisticated zoning things, had two points to it after all the community meetings. One of those points was that the property ownership was so fractionalized that it was going to cost us to be an extreme amount of money to try and enforce any code on those properties because of what the attorneys would cost to do it. The other thing was is that the status of the city would continue to descend because of the education system. It's defining. I can point you to it. The third thing they noted in there is that in order to carry out that bachelor plan that you're holding, that you asked for, that's been in existence since 2010, in order to carry it out, the staff sufficient to be able to carry that out would require that there be a COVID enforcement officer, that there be a planning administrator, and at least a secretary. And it went through a study of surrounding areas and the amount of employees that would be required to do it in a minimum, the city would have to commit three employees to it. That finding's been there since 2011. That status of the deterioration was going to exist because of the property and because of the lack of robust schooling. And until those were fixed, there was almost no way they could see that there was a way out. I hear you. Now, hear what you said. What you brought was a 2025 amendment to a law that's existed on the books since 1999. It is far less reaching the law we have. You ask, what can the city do? I ask, what can Keep Morehouse Beautiful do for us? Because we have been built the most thorough law that exists. We cannot become business property owners, but we can try and regulate it. the money you're talking about for the lower ability you're talking about over a hundred thousand dollars to have it destroyed in seven years nobody's offered a partner to do it where we're not going to get revenue back it is a problem but it's a problem that ironically was spelled out in that book in the commissions that y'all participated in that has existed and the answers were from 2011 in there so you asked for a master plan That is the master plan. That's what y'all participated in. And it's been there. We have one of the most developed code enforcement acts that exist. However, not appearing in environmental court, you cannot arrest a piece of property. It is simple. I understand that everybody is upset. We are working every which way we can. This council, this administration, we've had the greatest movement forward we could in the previous years. We adopted the code enforcement, one of the most developed. In fact, it's actually one that people have gone through and used it for models for their cities and municipalities since we've adopted it. We've also had code enforcement come on. We've gone through, we tackled the solar farm issue, we tackled a lot of issues, and now we're down to tackling, how can we tackle these owners? Last meeting, we adopted that you can revoke an occupational license based on having violations of this, we're moving forward. So I do get a little upset when somebody comes here and says that they don't feel like anything's being done. What more do you want done? What have you done for us in all these years? Because you had that plan from 2011. Okay.

When we started Keep Your House Beautiful, we cleaned up the city. We had someone here that had a lot of kinetic rebuttal.

We appreciate you.

My thing is, if the current spoke to me and he gave his vote, I think it's only fair that you really have a chance to respond because you responded and she responded.

She sat up here and I think the same rules go for Mississippi.

you got to learn the rules because I looked at the charter. I know the chart. I don't want to, I'm the one instituted these rules. Five minutes was pertaining to the, uh, I didn't go on the agenda. Now everybody go look and see what we passed, but we can move on. What I'm just saying, the five minutes was specifically an attorney general was here. Matter of fact, he and I, the one, Got to get them passed, so I know what I'm talking about.

We've been practicing for the last two years. So we've been doing the same practice. All right. I'm talking about who else was here. Y'all been giving them five minutes. Change it when we need to. So we're going to go to number six, consent approval of previous meetings. Minutes. Regular and special meetings.

No, it's just that there's no objection.

I don't think there's an objection. Amendment seven, consideration of any action or report on committee appointed by the government, a finance committee. Councilman Green.

I would recommend that we accept.

Good evening. There was not a meeting in June, so there's no report for us to give because we didn't have a meeting.

So y'all will be back in August. Y'all have one in August?

Yes, Mayor. Yes, sir. We'll have one. No, we'll have one in July. which will be July, which will be this coming Monday.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes, obviously. I see what you said. I'm sorry. Yeah, we'll have one.

What time is that meeting?

Pardon?

What time is that meeting?

It starts at six unless we have a request for a special use permit. If we do, we give the person 15 minutes. So depending on how many, if it's just one person, we'll meet at 545. And what day did you say? Monday. Yes, ma'am.

In this room?

Yes, right here. We meet right here. And we won't know if there's a special use permit request until we get our agenda. Thank you. Thank you.

D, go out into the assurance panel. Mr. D. Green, Councilor D. Green.

Our meeting is coming up on Tuesday.

Yeah, we haven't had a meeting since the last meeting, but we do have a meeting this upcoming Tuesday. It was in July the 21st. I think it's at 1. It's at 2 o'clock. Right here in City Hall.

Hello, thank you for letting me come tonight.

My name is Dee Tubbs. I'm the president of the Historic District. And I just wanted to start by saying that what I'm going to speak about is not about um preventing growth or discouraging investment um we want new businesses in the historic district we want restaurants coffee shops boutiques um and we want the downtown to thrive in our historic history uh to thrive but we also have a responsibility to preserve what makes it unique um and uh We believe as a historic district commission that it's time to review our ordinances, not because there's a crisis, but because it's what good communities do is plan ahead. So we have a vision, and we've always had a vision. Everybody has had a vision. As part of that vision, we believe it's appropriate to possibly review how alcohol sales are regulated within the historic district. We recognize that there's restaurants and other businesses that serve alcoholic beverages can be an important part, but the downtown area, we want to promote a family-friendly atmosphere where families can come to different events, can come shop, can come eat supper, whatever they want to. So what we are, basically we're asking for the council support in reviewing and updating the ordinances as they pertain to the historic district and the sale of alcoholic beverages. And so we are, we've been kind of trying to scramble. We're trying to get a proposal together and hopefully we'll have that for the August meeting as a proposal to a change in the ordinance as it pertains to that sum of alcohol in the historic district.

I have one information. Okay. I'm a little concerned because You're saying that you want to preserve the historic district to have family-oriented businesses. Well, I know one restaurant, and I know it's family-oriented. So is there another potential business that's coming that you think might... Well, we're trying to get ahead of a potential.

We've never really had this... I'm trying to get them all together. All of the businesses have predominantly... most of them been full here until the last, I don't know, say six months to a year. We've had several that's closed. We've had several that's opened. And so in order to just preserve that family friendly, and when you read the ordinance, it's very vague. It just says that alcohol and food establishments can be in the historic district. That's it. There's no real standards for what that would look like. That's all it says. There's one line I've researched and researched and that's all I can find in there. And so we just as a commission feel like that it that it needs to be explored a little bit more, maybe a little bit more defined as to what parameters need to be in place for the sale of alcohol in the history. Yes. And I apologize, I'm shaking, but it's because it's freezing cold in here.

Where does on the main street, where does the historic district start and end?

Okay, so when you start, when you're coming into town where the Stevenson Chevrolet building is, where Etcetera Catering is, that was annexed in to the historic district. So then you've got that part of it, the the visitor center all around the square. I believe it's a block around the square in each direction. Like where the visitor center is, the historic district ends in the middle of the road. But it encompasses like on the side where the library building is and the backside of that. So all the way around.

If I'm coming into from Monroe and coming downtown. So where Dixie Cleaners is, is that part of the history district as well too?

Yes.

And on down how far? Annexed in the school.

Annexed in the school and the farmer's markets is also annexed. Which school? The one that's falling apart. No, I'm talking about the old, old. And is that right, Mr. Locke, where the apartments are?

Not the east side. Not the east side. The second place. Yeah, seventh right. Okay, okay. Again, I'm just trying to be there. How many buildings do you have empty? Um...

So I think let's start where the Italian restaurant is. I believe there's maybe two empty on that side. And then on the Steve's Jewelry building side, there's one, I believe. There's just one on your side. On your side?

Yeah, Witts.

Witts Pharmacy that just closed. So it's not really empty, but it's just closed. And then on the Capital One side, Mr. Steve Perry, they own two buildings, I believe, that are his, he has an office there and then he has also another property there that I don't believe there's anyone in. And then naturally the one that has burned okay so do you all uh is there a place or space where you advertise uh those buildings at uh the ones that are empty you know like for potential we we do not we do not now the owners of the i'm assuming the owners of the building um are advertising you know them for sale or whatever i know the wits pharmacy the wits building is for sale and there's the other two on um restaurant side that are also for sale but um we as a a committee we don't do anything like that we don't have no money okay i believe susan arnett that that whole stretch is in in the historic district

I appreciate that. Okay, thank you very much. I'll report on 8.8, report on . Chief had to leave. Be my appointment, Chief . You got anything? Say you called the you got anything?

I have a question about FERC. Okay. Are we actively applying for any other grants? I know the mayor announced a couple that we received. Do we have anything else in the works?

I'll go ahead. We're going to go next week. Come on, though. Hey, I have a question. I was thinking, would it help?

If we have some, like, like, community, everybody wants someone in their history. Yeah, we got it.

All right. Who are the members of it? Right? Yeah. Mr. Bradford and Mr. I did to do that.

Thank you. That's right. Good job.

It's once a month. I have a question. I see a report here from police department and I see something here from fire department. Do you have any type of documentation on

people that you're meeting, you're complaining to anything. Do you have any type of documentation you're sending? Any type of report?

No, I don't. I mean, my stuff pretty much is a constant thing. So I'll be bringing y'all, you know what I'm saying, a hundred pages because I pass along different stuff. And like I say, how everything works with me is everything happens at different times. I have You know the document for the environment for this. They don't show up. But guess what? A lot of them do participate later on. Call me, say hey, I clean my property. I go out. Assess it, they clean it. OK, that's a done deal.

So if one of our constituents called us and said something is going on in the neighborhood. And they said they called, called the enforcement office. How do we know that they contacted the

Text me. A piece of paper don't define it. And if I could tell you, Mr. Locke, that I have written, it's not documented.

I'm not sure. It's not written. It's not documented. Now, you've been coming for the last few weeks, a few months. We haven't seen, I haven't seen. Now, I don't know if anybody else has. But it needs to be, something needs to be done. I'm getting too many complaints from people in my district and nobody showed up. I got to answer a question too, Councilman.

We're in the middle of getting our M&A guy to come and set up something on his his computer and his secretary computer so they can put it in and then they can be able to get you Richard. So, Mr. Boba had one.

When we're going to get that done, Mac?

We're going to get them out next week to start working on it.

So I'm just asking a question, Mac. If our citizens call in and say that there's something in the neighborhood and then the code enforcement officers come out and check on them, then we'll have documentation saying that it's not.

It's a fair question. It's a fair question, but Mr. Lockett, too, I mean, if you give me something and I go out and work with you, I'm not going to lie to you and say I mean it and I didn't. I'm going to go out and do that. And a lot of my calls, I have prepared the calls that come to my office about the same property, same property. We have a wait. I mean, I don't have to do what I can do as code enforcement. I go out, I see, I analyze the situation. I send a letter. We put them in environmental court. They don't show up. Hey, what can I do for them, Mr. Locke? But the same people are going to keep calling my office and saying, hey, why nobody came by? It's not a situation where I'm supposed to talk to nobody. but if you need to know this if there was something about something in your district it's nothing for you to call me everybody else they call me and i tell them hey i went out or i saw the letter i did this i did that you had a letter for the writing on every complaint yes everything we have is black and white this is a lot of students i'm sorry that's a lot if you want to see it you can go to the office and we'll show you on any complaints you had or somebody said that didn't show up here so you know

You can go up there and he'll show it to you. We're going to get it so that you can have it in your package.

I think his concern is that maybe someone in his district, maybe just verify that the call was actually made. Because they can tell us anything. Do we have proof?

I agree. But until then, y'all can go up there and look at it. Just have it rolled out on paper. If not, We're going to get that bill, the website bill, so we can print it out and then we'll start heading to your page as soon as we get it.

Like I said, I'm very transparent. I just had a situation with a council lady. Probably she reached out. I told her progress. Once it happened, I reached back out to her and let her know, hey, property's being taken care of. You know, I'm very transparent. If you come to me with something, I'm going to come back with you with an answer. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow, but once the problem happened, I'll let you know it's fixed or it's still going. It's going to be something.

Yeah, the time that I have, the time that I have called him in, I'm going to have to reach back out. Can you, can you,

give us a slight overview of what you have going on. And again, the reason why I asked the question is Ms. Hendricks came up and she spoke about blight and all of that. So can you give a slight update on what's going on in the city with the blight, with the problem? citizens or businesses or whatever, and just let us know the work that you guys are doing.

It's slow, but it's progress. Like I said, me and Devin, we kind of work hand in hand with a lot of situations, and we do what we can do. The way the system is set, that's just how it's set. But as far as day-by-day operations, I push for participation. I don't push for bullying. You know, I try my best to reach out and get these people to clean their problems because the way it's kind of set up, we want participation. And if you go at them a certain way, you ain't going to get nothing. You know, so you got to know how to approach people nowadays. And that's just what I do. If I can get to them and I can talk to them personally, I promise you they probably will get clean. It's probably right now that it's gotten It got cleaned. It's all because of how I come in. I say all the time, the letters don't work. I have to work, find numbers, find other ways to contact that person. We don't have records. Some of these people, they use the same address, mail address, that's just as complaints. How can I contact that person? How can I find that person? Guess what I do? I go beyond my job and find them. When I'm off the clock, X around, do we know this person? I tried my best to get a context so I can talk to this person. And I said, hey, what can we do? How long would it take? Some people, like I said, you just gotta know how to talk to them. And with the system that we have, with what's going on, they can easily say, forget it, but we want public participation, so we gotta know how to tackle it.

One last question. If you go out on a call or just happen to buy a property, and it's dilapidated houses, trashed on the property, you got old tires, you got refrigerators, bed roll sets, and all of that, you got blankets. Basically, where you have your window should be or where a door should be, you've got blankets or sheets. How can you just give a number, if you can, of those kinds of properties that are not just vacant or dilapidated properties, but they have vagrants? People staying on those properties, and what process do you take there to inform them that they're in the wrong?

I haven't had many. Like I say, I'll meet up. I'm in a state right now, I'm teaching myself. You know what I'm saying? And I'm taking one step at a time. I'm getting what I can get, and I'm learning on the go. It's laws. It's stuff set in place. It's just certain stuff you can't do. I mean, you can tell them all day long. Once I go back and run out, I'm kind of in the books right now. I know, I know. I'm just trying to learn more about, you know, code enforcement. Learn more about How can we improve? You see, because it's like I said, it's loopholes and everything. You know what I'm saying? So I haven't had many of those where, you know, somebody stand there, you know, because I'm technically more abandoned. Most of this is pretty much outgrown, you know? So I can't tend to give you a good answer to that, but because I'm still on the learning curve, you know, and the reason why I did ask that question is.

I go out to the city a lot as well, too. And some of it is just by always out and about doing regular things that we do. And I'm not going to, you know, approach any of those people because like I said, again, I have no official capacity in that concern where there are people that I can speak to, like maybe friends or friends of friends or family members or something like that. Yeah, that might be a situation where I may make, can lend a hand, but what I always tell them is code enforcement or the mayor's office. And there have been a few houses. I know in my district, again, I know there's certain laws that we have to abide by, and that's always going to be the number one thing Are we abiding by the law? So nobody, I know I would be asking you to do anything that's outside of what we're supposed to be doing. And it's a hard job getting people to do what they're supposed to be doing. I don't care how we advertise it. I don't care who's going to be on the job. I think in pretty much every city you go in, there's going to be that kind of action. but hopefully we can, we're moving on it and hopefully we can get it, you know, get it down to maybe a fair amount. But again, it's going to take public participation.

Ms. Sandley mentioned Highland when she was up speaking. And I do want to say thank you to Ms. Thornton because we had a couple of situations on Highland And I know one property you got to take care of in like two weeks.

It was one right across the street.

So it's actually two or three properties that you've done on Highland. And I know Mr. and Ms. Haynes really appreciate that because they said Romans is running through its things. So I do appreciate what you did in my district.

Okay, I appreciate it. Anybody else? Appreciate it. Is it a turn? Mr. John.

Yes, I would just feedback that I do. For his efforts, he and I work together frequently. We are stored came in in September or October. We. He testified for 2 days in court. me uh mr thornton prior to this worked in a juvenile group home probably one of the best witnesses i've ever had in the state 16 years he has made significant strides in this this council and everybody's made strides i appreciate it in trying to tackle this it's a hard problem it's a problem that's existed for a long time as far as the legal developments we are currently researching several initiatives as we get back to school with things to try and improve. We've had some issues coming around with guns, safety, nighttime hours, parties. I made the general statement again that we've had several locations where there are group fights I said, say it again if we have a disturbing piece fighting, it happens to come to city court. I'm asking for 15 days in jail. Because we cannot, it's the base route of what we're having. And this city, these council members. Court police not going to be burdened by it. We're also looking at other avenues dealing with these places that tend to be. Congregating, we have commonplaces as you go through. On last Friday, we had a training seminar with the police department to deal with report writing, law update, write some lunch and some learning. And we were able to get some good contacts going, some good back and forth, some updates on report writing and things within the city and just a legal update. Hopefully, we can move forward with. So, with giving them updates, so that they're on top of it. And everybody was very pleased with it. As far as it goes with with court, as far as city court goes, we've had an increase in. Patients and then that was coming through. So we've had increased there. And we're also looking at, so we are probably going to start. the city court as our court that we use to enforce it. That is a criminal violation to do that, whether it's the tenants, landlord, whatever the condition is. We can get somebody, get them cited, mark Mr. Thornton over the next month to get him trained to be able to start bringing those to court in criminal court and let Judge Lester deal with them. That's why we put a criminal penalty in our code of fact. I do combat very heavily what people want in the ASAC Act. this done where you're on the ground with all the avenues and things. I don't take it lightly. We're the city. This is a community problem. It's ultimately going to be fixed in the community. It's what Mr. Thornton does all day. That is very hard work to inspire the community to work together to get this done. But we're getting there. Everybody's had their dishes. It's had something go on that they've been able to call and get it done. But for the people who don't want to do it, a few days long passed. We're going to start sending it to criminal court. Judge Lesher has up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine he can impose. Let the argument be with him where it should be. But we've tried everything. We've tried every nice avenue we could. And now we're at the point where we can proceed with the last bit of the plan, which is that if you do not want to participate voluntarily, the community helping, giving us information, then what we're going to do is we're going to start proceeding with those violations through criminal court. I know some people say, they say, well, the landlord doesn't live here. They tend to. And if it becomes known that you're a landlord, where your tenant could be subjected to that because the person who lives there or resides there or the person who owns it is the one who can be liable.

Then that's the way it'll be. Point of information. Say we're going to start going through the criminal court, are we going to abolish the environmental court?

There's no need to abolish it. They can always exist there. And what we can do is we can start proceeding through criminal court with these things and then deal with it. So when you don't appear and that person is personally cited, given the citation, they don't appear, it's a failure to appear.

Okay, but I guess what I'm getting at, we got an environmental court right now. If you're going to go to the criminal court, are we going to have an environmental judge or is it going to, what are we going to do with the environmental judge?

I don't have any intent on sending anything through environmental court, but as far as staffing decisions, that's not me. That's the administration. I do not intend on pursuing things through environmental courts. I intend on pursuing it through criminal court. You speak handled that today?

That's a legal point of information. So you, I'm hearing you correctly. You're not planning on sending it through an environmental court. That's not your, we're not going to need environmental courts. Judge, so we won't be, we can't, we're not going to pay for a position that's not going to be in use. I'm talking about as a counselor. If I'm hearing you correctly, if you're going to go to the criminal court, then it's not going to be the criminal court.

I have no intent on using environmental court in that avenue when I could use criminal court to do it. is going to be that we're going to pursue it through criminal.

That's .

No, I'm just saying, because we budgeted for .

I think that's a dialogue that's going to be had with the council administration about what to do with that .

I don't disagree with that statement.

As far as any of that, I don't know. I can't believe that brought you between the finance and the administration. And bring it to the council.

Okay. Okay.

So, Mr. Jones, the environmental court process, that whole entire process is going to be no longer

Not an avenue that I seek to use for reviewing the dockets. We're getting the change. You heard Mrs. Thornton. He works with people whenever they come through. If they're working with me, people who didn't appear, called him later and said he was still able to work with them through the community, he gained numbers. I think that's an effort that will still continue. But a person who's, if an individual in this city is able to work with the community in that well and gain that groundswell to be able to have a community to just say, hey, I know this isn't where this person lives, but here's what they are and helping get in contact with them. It sounds like we have community starting to participate. People are not participating after that just willfully or not. They're not willfully participating. That's the very standard of violation of the criminal statute that is that. And so we can gain greater compliance by sending them to a court where if you do not appear, it's failure to appear, it's a bench warrant, it's everything else.

I have a question. So how quickly can we move to get like to take care of the East Side School and that country club address?

You're asking about East Side School. You're asking about you're asking about something.

What's our next step? I don't know how to how do we move that eyesore.

You would need to, we need some initiative. We would need some. Proposed resolution taking what we can have now, which is to demolish. suggested with that to, and I know somewhere in the previous administration, I don't know where it was at, to send to the engineer to propose what it would take to remove that.

It's condensed already.

It's condensed. We just need to have engineering look at it to see what proposed would be off of it to kind of, me and you can go back, whether it's asbestos in the forest here, and we've all heard secondhand what everybody thinks. What we think and what it is is two different things.

I think the

The next step would be to ask engineering to take a look at to give us a proposal of what they believe would be to remove that. And then go from there.

I think we would like to move on that because I hate when people come in town and that's the topic of conversation. It's what East side looks like.

You turn the corner and you can see the roof.

Yes.

So let's do some of that. I think that's open to the administration.

We already put it in. We already got it in. We're trying to get a grant to tear down so many houses. The houses we actually have to leave. And then through the school. And then also, so we already, that team, that council and degree, they already put it together.

Yeah, I think engineering is probably the closest. That's where we need to go. Councilman, where are we at? It's completely condemned at this point. It's been condemned for the last two years.

Yes, sir. Councilman Diggory. I'd have to check this one. It was one of the first properties. We condemned that property.

We condemned what is considered to be the 123 Washington.

Quick question. You know how normally when we demolish, the property owners still own it. They say a property. So in this situation with Eastside, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be like most of the other properties was dollar amount. So if we condemn this property to tear down, are we going to own that property? No, just go straight to the taxes. Yeah, they don't pay them taxes. I know you're about to put... But if they don't pay those taxes... I will tell you this. Pay attention to our on this thing. We, everybody want it down, but we don't pay all this money on it.

This question that's never been asked any of this is, as I can tell you this much and all of this will work. I've never seen a school sold by school board with all the restrictions on requiring the individual to do something. was not of our making. Also, we're dealing with the best we can. Mr. Jones? We were left holding back.

Can we get something together for . No, I'm doing it. Can we get something together for animals running at launch so I can get to I am in control. We've been having a lot of dog bites, dogs chasing kids. I think with them in ICU, it's a lot like a personal walk around with five dogs. We need to know how could we side take them, take the dogs. If they're not in the pen with the concrete, with the top on it, we need to get him back aware of that so we can get the police to take the dogs and side take the owner. Because it's getting real bad. You see animals running around everywhere. So we need to try to get there. If they run that large, we have to get to South Texas. I do that with a dog. A dog chasing a young lady had to jump over the east side of the fence to get away from two big bulls.

Speaking of east side, let's go back. Let me ask you a question. Just for clarity. So, you know, at the time that the city all this property and the taxes are paid up. And you saw it at that time, the city will add their price on the taxes. How can you stop that person from operating on this on their said property? Because the illegal it is theirs. It's always legally theirs.

Eventually what would happen is,

it don't come to the case after three years correct so we would have a lapse and then you had to go through that process so for so for up until that moment that owner can do whatever they would like to do on their property 100 percent so if he decided

Now ultimately what you also could do is, it's not your only avenue, you can go in there, you can file ordinary suit to pursue after that person like a lawsuit above the cost. But it would be in the initiative of you. As far as standing in the way of anything else, you wouldn't be able to do anything standing in the way of their taxes and sue them through ordinary process. It's no different than currently we have people who, we have food vendors who have restaurants that don't pay their sales tax. And we outsource our sales tax collections to the sales and use tax commission. And they're currently in sync with them, but those people still have their occupational licenses and everything. Because there's no way to stand in the way just based on that. It is a very,

We're gonna go now. You're finished? Yes. Okay. We're going to the D. I was in budget. Mr. Rick is here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members, I'll be real brief. I need to request a special meeting next week. The mayor indicated during the announcement that we have received grant money involved to our compliance list and received uh two grants or three actually uh but these two are going to be specific for the general fund we got uh about 89 000 and uh one-time grant money that again like i indicated before whenever we get these grant months coming in uh this chairman said we need to count it when we get it so we're gonna uh do a revision to add that revenue to the budget, increase the budget by that $59,000. And they've been earmarked for parking recreation mainly. Most of that is going to Dodson Park to replace two two-ton units. And that is an amount of $69,000. And another grant that was $20,000 is going to be earmarked for parking rec. A lot of that is going to Dodson as well. And then asking for additional budget authority to finish the Dobson Park grant money that we have carried forward from the last fiscal year. So that means it shouldn't take long because it's only to add that revenue because we need to have the budget. as soon as y'all can authorize that budget order we can get the company out there and put those units in and start doing some other stuff that's great they read it too so do so do we need to agree so then we see a date now how we need to yeah just get the consensus like either the mayor or if it's a chairman call especially you know just want to know what's the people's availability again this is a straightforward thing i mean i don't know if all five need to be present which you probably should we don't follow the finance Yeah, you just call it.

And again, I'm going to send the budget out to you tomorrow.

So again, moving forward, that's going to be the regular order. And again, this will be a revision. We're still going to do Q1, Q2, and Q3 budget amendments. But anytime we get new money, it's going to be a revision when we get it. And again, we got... that Mayor mentioned, we got $750,000 grant, capital L.A. grant for the sewer. The matching funds on that will be, I think it's 10%, is what you wrote. That's 10%, so whenever we get that in hand, we'll be revising the sewer budget for that. Just add $750,000. I mean, it's gonna add the $75,000 matching fund. Just the way we move forward, we're going to try not to prepay these projects and just when invoice comes in, send it in to get paid and automatically get the reimbursement and pay it to go.

And the only thing that we have to budget for is the $75,000.

So, but that'll be in a revision once we get it. This chairman was clear about making sure we got the money We just need to appropriate the budget authority. And we also have a last thing we, the mayor is pursuing a $250,000 grant for park energy, specifically for generators and upgrades to lighting, more efficient lighting. So the mayor's proposed That's all I have. Oh, yeah, we, and again, the. grant money that we got for the improvements to Dotson Park. Bathrooms are coming along pretty good. I encourage anybody to go out there and look at it. It's looking good. So that project is nearing completion. Again, like I say, when we revise the budget, we can't afford the budget authority that thanks to Mr. Green, the mass budget freed up so we don't have to dip into the fund balance. We can just apply that. I don't know if you would, you know, have some kind of psych power and all that, but that's exactly what we need for a budget to finish that project. So that's already there. And the budget's still balanced. So again, I'll get with the chairman if we do that. Hopefully we can do it Monday. I'll send the packet out to you tomorrow. I mean, it's pretty straightforward, those two grants. Y'all give us the budget authority for it.

Anybody else got anything for them? Whatever they want, I'll figure it all out.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not going to read pretensions here. I don't think that meeting is going to last long. Again, it's just checks that we got. We need to prove a budget authority to spend because we can't spend without being appropriate because it's one-time money.

Yeah, it's a very complicated thing.

I got a question. Point of information. Just like Mrs. Smith, and I think when we spoke at the finance meeting earlier, when I see reports from the city officials, I'm looking down at the department head, I think that should be here because we don't want to hear it for day-to-day operations you know like this is our time to when they give their report it's our time to ask them about any question that we have pertaining to that department especially when it comes to financing and different things like the police and different other things. I'm glad that Mr. Thornton is here. Public Works, I have a couple questions, but I'm just saying from going forward, I think, I know they give their report, but I think when they're here, this is the venue, this is the avenue that we have to actually ask them questions and see where they are pertaining to the budget or just operational that they have going on versus trying to go to them because that's kind of interfering with daily operations to be going, bothering them all the time. Or if they come right here, any questions that we have, you know, we should be able to get the answers or they'll go back and get the answers. At least there are no what the council expected of them versus just randomly calling them up all the time. So I'm saying when they give their report, I think this will be a great opportunity to have dialogue with each department head. So they'll see where we're coming from and we'll see progress that they're making. Just like Mr. Smith, he and I talked about some documents that I haven't received yet. When we get down to these other things, That's why I'm glad he's here. So he can, we can talk about it. He wasn't here. I'll just be in the blind. So that's my recommendation.

Yeah. On the administration transparency, I brought them in for y'all. That's the reason I had it there. Mr. Jones to add them to the agenda. I don't think they was here last administration, but that is if you are correct. And that's why. I had him handle to it. Today, we had a couple of people out, couldn't make it. So other than that, they'll be here.

Thank you.

Yes, sir. All right. We go to number nine. I'm finished here. Action on ordinance, a resolution introduced at previous meeting. I approve ordinance 26-4287. Yeah, I think that's the secret.

I was just thinking, and even just the reason that you said it, by us being in a legal situation for us right now, should we adopt this now or should we wait? Do we have to interfere with what we have going on right now?

This is no way to interfere with

We still have a temporary moratorium in place. Your temporary moratorium expired. Why haven't we came back before then? Why haven't we redid it? Because I just looked at Sturton, they just put in a temporary moratorium on So I'm saying, why haven't we came back? We need to come back and do it again.

Because instead of having a moratorium, you're adopting this in favor of a moratorium. You're adopting regulation. Can we do both? No, because you would have regulation allowing it, and then you would have a moratorium second that you can't do.

Well, that's what I think. We want a moratorium back in. I'm asking a question. Can we put another moratorium in for those 12 months?

Generally speaking, I would have to research that further detail, but the statute is very clear that you're going to have a 12-month period. Whether you can have consecutive 12-month periods, I'd have to do more research on that. We can do a permanent moratorium. It don't have to be a temporary one. Yes, a moratorium is just simply that you have something on the books and you're withholding the use of it. You would, in order to do a permanent moratorium, you would simply establish that there's a broad prohibition rather than a moratorium.

It's horrible. You can stop. You can do 100. So you can depart this. We can prohibit anything.

Yeah, you can depart this ordinance into a prohibition. You can make an amendment to say I prohibit anything.

That's a little blocky. I kind of read through this ordinance. If we pass this ordinance, can any solar farms apply for being placed into the state?

Correct. This allows it underneath these. I mean, all these requirements. He's saying, you know, research. The preference would be, instead of the moratorium, which would say that you have something that says that you can do it, and you're just holding it in a balance for a period of time, you would just do a prohibition. So if you don't want something to be done, you do an ordinance prohibiting any of this from ever being in there.

I think that's what most cities going to permission inside the city limits.

Correct. So what you know, just out of just be careful on the there is a difference some form of definition as to, because we say there's a prohibition on, if you were to cart this into a prohibition, it would ostensibly apply to residential cars and everything. People couldn't put solar panels in their homes.

Okay, point of information. So, I would like to mirror you, you know, you both about to start. I looked at they more. I looked at they. Can I mirror this? Because probably when you read it, probably after 12 months, they're not going to allow it inside the city.

So their moratorium just simply, we had a sort of, we had regulation and it just said, hey, we're going to hold that in advance for 12 months. If that moratorium is exactly the moratorium we all have, which is the one that was adopted here, if that moratorium was adopted here first, then

out of the city limits?

The majority of cities, I'm not aware of a city who has a prohibition on it. I am aware of municipalities who have regulations on it. But I'm not aware of a municipality that has a prohibition on it.

So these are regulations?

Regulations. It says you can do something, but you have to follow all these rules and do all these requirements. And they mirror the state requirements with the restriction, which we're allowed to do.

I don't know what kind of, what word they have, but nobody wants solar panel, farm, whatever you want to call it, inside of City Limit, especially in the downtown area.

Correct. And we can get together and you can direct me to some of them that you have, and we can look at them and see if that's something we want to adopt. This is just something that was put together as regulations on Board 265. Okay. no this is this is the second phase of it where it was introduced and now it's up for adoption we can always take the option so i'll just go ahead and turn you so you're going to just just check on what you're about to consider We have consecutive periods because the state law does say that you can only moratorium something for 12 months. But if you're looking to see if we can put a moratorium in place, then I can research that and see if we can do a consecutive moratorium. The other part of it is that we need to research about jurisdictions that you know that have a prohibition that I'm unaware of.

with the research. I'm stating the fact, so let's not be sarcastic. What I'm saying is, I'm trying to get what Sterlington got. I know they have a moratorium, just what we have a moratorium. Well, are you the attorney or actually the researcher?

Yes, I'll research.

Don't tell me the researcher. I'm asking you the researcher. I was asking you. No, no, no, you were being sarcastic. that's your perception.

Oh, okay. I think that you've been sarcastic, Mr. Jones. I'm trying to determine, do you want a prohibition as an ultimate ordinance or do you want two moratorium while we... Based on me, I don't want solar panels inside the city limits, but I'm just one person.

I don't have one vote.

Okay, so I was looking at it as I would research a prohibition like that we can't ever do it and that's the final document.

As a council, can we always go back and redo it? Always. That's my point. Correct. If we introduce something, if we institute something, we can always go back and redo it.

But that's what I was wondering. That's what I was trying to do. If ICEN wants to come back and do consecutive 12-1, 12-1, 12-1, are you looking for an institute that says, hey, the ordinance says, hey, you can't ever do it, and then we'll come back later if somebody wants to do something. Councilman Blanket.

Okay, and I think this is my point. I hate to pass this ordinance defining the use of solar on because my wishes is that we don't ever have them in the city limits. So I concur with what Mr. Green is saying.

I just want to make sure we have some understanding. Are we talking about solar farms? So, that's why I would, I would suggest that anything we do, we go with the definition that's in here of a solar form.

but we're allowed to define our own and the way we use it. And the solar farm would mean, it means use of land where a series of solar panels or collectors are used. And it's at least 50 kilowatts direct and that the solar collectors are to provide electric power generation. But anything that's for a single residence dwelling. Now we do have some businesses that may use solar power. So that's where it's going to get a little,

What would we call the total?

That's what I'm talking about. I would probably say we have to define it down to a certain. Amount or quantity, like, not more than an acre.

You also have some on top of the. So, yeah, that's be careful. Classified, but we already have them up in the city already.

And so those things would require 50 kilowatts, if I can, whenever it was done, I think it equates to about an acre, generally speaking.

Clarity. Before we step out on that land.

So I'm gonna tell you.

Yeah, you're gonna have to,

50 kilowatts is about 80 to 125 panels which would be about the largest for any what we call like the high school or something like that would be about the most that you would have all right can we um It's what they consider the residential small commercial guideline. I make the most of it. We table it until we get back to it.

OK. All in favor?

Aye. I'm in favor. We table it to the next. Attorney General, we'll table it.

We wouldn't do it indefinitely.

Just in that case.

Yeah, and I'll research the prohibition side, and then research to ensure small, that was a residential small park.

So to try and keep it where we had just the high schools. We'll move to B to approve ordinance 26-42-88.

I have a point of information. Councilor Layton. I know the last meetings we talked about that the laws had changed regarding the sale of properties that Mrs. Smith talked about. So I hadn't seen anything in writing. So I'm wondering why we're trying to do this and we don't have .

Well, I can address the policy issue. Madam Pro Tem, you're correct. We are starting a process to review and update the ordinance. Mayor and I attended an LMA conference and spoke to the LMA's general counsel about that and she's willing to assist. I think they may have been on the agenda because I think when it was table, it wasn't tabled indefinitely. So you can't just like not, I guess, you know, Mr. Jones will speak to that. I guess it appeared because I was out. So I think it's an automatic thing. You just can't, you know, overrule the council if you didn't table it indefinitely. The rule is automatic. So that may have been the trigger. I'm not sure, but we are looking into doing that, you know, from a policy standpoint. ordinance before moving forward because this could impact it for the better or for the worse in regards to the city or the potential buyer. So that's just my point of view in regards that we are working into that, looking into that, and we're going to reach out and get assistance from general counsel. But I'm sure Mr. Jones is aware of the depth in being able to update our ordinances based on the full breadth of the new law incorporated for things like that. But that's just my point. You know, it's up to the council ultimately.

Councilor? I think Mr. Anderson did have that. We have the description of property here adjudicated, but we need some added...

I provided it to y'all last meeting. Was it last meeting or meeting before? I can't remember when, but I think they are.

Yeah, but if we're going to hold on. We're put back in the package.

And again, I got the direction from Mr. Doty. I wasn't present when it went out because I would have done the Doty group. And I apologize for that. I was out when that was put together. But it is in one of your packages.

I was just wondering, I think that the only thing kind of different than the old way, normally when you acquire a two-catered property, you get a normal one. Now, when you acquire a two-catered property, they have you to go for, they have you to pay to put up a shelf sale so you can acquire one to keep. So with these properties, Part of the test to address, I know, I know we can have it on there. Maybe because it comes by science. But also what we're doing right now is we are, once we sell these properties, we put them back in the tax world, which generate revenue for the city. So, what we're doing right now, and no, you're not going to sell the property, the same property we kind of complain about. Then what it's going to do, we're not receiving the money for it.

We're talking about a new law, right? When did that new law come into effect?

So how long have these properties

also it depends on when it was adjudicated so each property is different some of them adjudicated 2021. i'm just trying to give you i need to ask a lot of questions i'm not i know this part go ahead that's it i was trying i'm trying to help y'all or you want to explain you guys you guys should go to the company that i can help you out and they can chime in but you know

I'm just trying to find out if we have a new law since January, and this is July, and we've had these on the agenda for a couple of months now, why are we still at the beginning process of finding out what the new law is and why we can't get this process taken care of?

This process doesn't apply to those properties.

So the new law doesn't apply here? It does not. Oh. Well, that should fix that then, right?

It's really up to the preference. I mean, I would ask the question.

So this is not a law thing that we're talking about?

No. I mean, the posture of it is properly before the council. The question that was posed to me is what, from a policy standpoint, i'm not saying that you can't because um the prospective application to the sale could be beneficial to the value could be i don't know if it's adding winnings at all or could be more beneficial to the city i don't know so what i'm saying it just comes down to the council's preference but mr green is totally correct i think i think

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think also it benefits both parties because most of us all know that any time a property is, for the most part, you might get lucky. Any time a property is adjudicated, that means that property is growing up or there's something going on with the property. So once somebody buys that property, they take the responsibility of the city and they be the owner at this moment. And also, too, they'll be paying taxes. Property taxes are important. So, right now, right now, and you are not because I'm pretty sure if you. Pretty much every house that you can find about, I'm just saying, pretty much I'm going to set the property. Most of them are educated, right? So, with that being said, so with somebody doing that, you know, to take a property, your district and they're responsible because now to come there. Right now we don't want to be on our own so much percentage. The only reason they change a lot of put down. When you, it's a process. You go to three years, then you pay an attorney to put up a shelf sale. And then at that moment, it's a bid process. I'm not sure if you've ever been to a shelf sale. They have a win state. So now when you purchase that property on a shelf sale, now you have a warrant to deed. A warrant to deed, the difference between why it's divided because people like real estate, if you have no warrant to deed, you cannot leverage their property to get it, to borrow or against. But a warrant to deed, you can leverage their property with the bank. So that's why they changed the process.

so so my question my next question yes my next question is would would the emp consultant if they're the ones that handle this process would wouldn't they still be the ones that take care of all of that and set all of that up good question that's the question for your questions

Look, the reason I keep saying your language is we got somebody to take a minute.

Also a minute. Can you address that, Mr. Jones? If not, then. What is it? I'm saying that we have ENB consultants taking care of the adjudicated properties, right? Correct. So all of that you just described of going to the sheriff's Isn't that something that's also a part of what they do?

Correct. Currently, they're the glue that makes it happen. What they do is they ensure that all this is formed according to the law. Anything that would proceed underneath the new one is what we're working with them to ensure is done underneath the new law and the process going forward after this year. All those requirements are contract by contract done and established by the company that we hired to do that. We have the back end of the process, which is whenever they finally get to that point, then they notify us. We submit those for y'all to review in the ordinances that are placed before you for introduction and adoption.

Okay, so if that be the case, that part of it sounds good. And then I guess I was just informed that new law doesn't have anything to do with these properties. I heard what you said about it may or may not benefit. It seems to me, again, this came about in January. We're in July now, right? So that seems to be a chance that the people that are willing to buy the properties, that seems to be all there. And again, people are asking what's to hold them. If we don't have any reason to hold up these sales, then it seems like to me, we ought to be moving forward with it. Get that out, get that out of the way. So what EMP do,

without mp you have to do your deal with yourself so when you do that so they make it they they have all the legal process so so because a lot of times when someone acquires the property that the owner try to come back and um and even at the time they can sue but they legally am now the new way which y'all will find out, but you will have to do it yourself. At that moment of the third year, you have to pay an attorney. And then they'll have to find, because you can buy property just to have liens against it. So what people don't know, some people don't know, if you buy a property, if you don't do it with diligence, you then purchase that lien. Because I can sell you my property and then have a lien attached to it. So when you buy it, it's your lien. So what E&P do is cover you from entering into buying a property They might have a potential in them. So if you, I mean, I think it's great that you have somebody doing the work, but if you have the money to do it yourself, it seems to me, and I'm going to be blunt, it seems to me the new law may evolve for people like us to buy a 2K department. It shifts the risk. It's just the risk and the cost, you know? So like now, the lot next door, the lot next door, you know, you might even get that property, but how you have now, because now the new way, you can pay on that property for three years, and you get an attorney to put up a share sale. You can do all the work for three years, and I can come out bitching. And so you don't lose your money, but it's just the money.

It fast tracks the useful money. but it shifts the burden and the risk to the buyer.

And one of the other benefits that, you know, one of the reasons why, if you did decide to table it, is that the law gives you the power to adjust the price, because I think that's one of the barriers before, because you had to set a minimum price based on tax taxes and what happened And so, you know, whether recouping $70,000 for 30 years of back taxes, you know, you could get, you know, $4,500 for, cause that's what the regular tax is. Okay. You get that. And now it's back on the tax room. Is that a better benefit than holding out, waiting to get this $60,000? That's a question for the council to decide, but that's just one of the things that I saw. And there may be some others, but again, it doesn't apply. to that, but it potentially could help the value because y'all could look at it and say, you know what? We're gonna lower the price on this because that's too high because this is the practice we're gonna pick up in the future. But I'm just saying, it's just a matter of preference which one you do.

And it does relate back to some of the properties if you choose to do it, but that's not the only thing that goes backwards. Right. The only if you choose.

That's the only? My last follow-up. Again, E&P is taking care of this process, right? So any new laws that come into effect, wouldn't they also still be responsible for coordinating with clients, with the buyers?

Potentially. It also starts, there is an avenue for them to be involved, but it requires less involvement of somebody like that because there's less burden on us. That burden really gets shipped to the buyer. just go to the front end. And I'm sure EMP will have some business model that deals with the buyer and doing that process, but we won't be part of it.

So again, if the burden shifts to the buyer, and the buyer's going through EMP, then that seems to be kind of...

The buyer won't be coming through EMP to us. The buyer will just be coming to us. And then they'll be using EMP to have resources to quiet title and do things like that. So we won't have any dealings with the MP on that level.

I have a comment. I'm going to say for the record, when I agreed for us to have two attorneys, Mr. Jones, remember, I said, what can we do about this process? Can we bring this process back in-house? What did you tell me?

It's possible, but now it is with this law to bring it back in. So that's really what's going to help is it's going to cut down on the burden. You'll be able to bring it back in. You'll be able to move You'll be able to move properties for what the late value is. Yes. That's what we talked about.

That's not totally true. Because a lot of these, I'm sorry, a lot of these properties that you have to pay when you acquire a 2K property, you're not just paying city tax. You're paying parish tax. Now, Reekie and Devin can lower the city tax if they can't do nothing with parish tax. Yeah, you can't. Ain't nothing you can do about those. But don't pay that money. It's part of the unknowns with also also too with those two attorneys because I don't know they believe to speak for this so if someone acquired property now you're saying it's in-house and they've been really do their research against they sell a property to someone and they missed the point was it's a lien tied to it and The only piece of the process we get in now with the new law is we

The rest of it, you've got to go do yourself.

That's the other legal part that they would have to do. But that's not going to sit.

Once we sell it with the certificate, that's what EMP does right now.

They make sure when you have a piece of money, I would probably suggest you hire somebody like them if you buy the certificate because you're going to need it. You probably want that opinion up front. Generally speaking, if you're asking about general practice of title work, yes, I've done title work. You generally go up and down. It's called going up and down. You should go up and down in your max record and up and down in your mortgage record starting years. There is some... where you'd go farther than that. And there are some instances where you don't go that far, because the property's been abstracted a lot and been researched. But generally speaking, yes, you go up and down 30 years on conveyance.

Yeah, I'll call for the vote. Okay. We've been saying it's over.

Should I get a motion? I mean, we don't have a motion. I'm going to take a vote. You want to sit? I'm going to take a vote. I'm going to take a vote. I'm going to take a vote. that you made public.

I have a point of information as well. You were the policy band director. You were talking about budgeting policy. You just explained the policy procedure. So what did you say we recommended? What did you, just your recommendation, just to say?

Well, my recommendation is, again, from a policy standpoint, to make sure that every advantage is taken of based on the changes of the law. It doesn't impact what you can do tonight. That's just one point of view. I mean, again, it could benefit the buyer. It could benefit the city more from this transaction if y'all approve it. That's just from that perspective, but that's not the legal analysis.

that's just a policy sample not illegal right the reason i asked you that question because we if we you approve these and then you come back next month you're not going to have justification for not approving the other one so i'm saying before you even do anything you probably need to table and get some clarification because once you approve it next month you're not going to be able to if you approve this if you turn me down Next month, it's going to be some problems. I'm not listening to Mr. Smith. I'm listening to what Mr. Smith just said. So I'm just, I would keep calling for the vote. I'm just wanting, I'm just, this is just my objection. That's good.

I think you had a previous question, motion to vote on that.

That's the next question. Can we vote for all of them at the same time?

I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion if we vote on all of them at one time.

You can, you can, you can vote to Keeley to vote them at one time. It's about the comments we have.

Yeah. So you can make a motion to approve all of them. Second, we don't want to be approved. So he called the question. So he needs to debate. Now he's leaving the motion. He's approved table. Take some action. Mr. Greenman. I'm going to vote one at a time. I said one at a time.

How about you? I'm taking that one.

All in favor? Opposed?

Roll call, please.

Ms. Angela Tappan, Mr. Gay. Yes. This motion to approve all of them at the same time.

You're going to approve or you're going to table or you're going to?

It's not a motion to approve.

Motion to approve. Then you make a motion to vote on them at the same time. I made a motion to vote on them at the same time. You're going to table all of them at the same time. Oh, you made a motion to date. Okay.

We still need a motion. You bring it up in here.

So all of the payouts, you just made a motion to vote on all of them at the same time. But we haven't got a yes or no or take. Just making a vote to put them all in the same category.

So you just made a suggestion. You're either going to table them all, vote them yes or no. You just need a 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, all available.

All right. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. So, with the table.

So, and I just have a comment, I'm just concerned just things as the Smith and just the things we need to be aware of. I want more clarity before we move on this.

All right, go ahead. Oh, and you got to get through the sheet. Okay. Thank our moderator for joining, Reverend Jenny Green. Appreciate you for joining me. I want to acknowledge you. We're going to go to C, approve ordinance. Oh, yeah, we did go back to our event. Yeah. Yeah. Approve ordinance 24-4292. Thank you, Council Member Cody. Thank you. Or do you bring in any new LLC and franchise within City Mastery?

I move that we go ahead and approve this ordinance. Second? I second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Do I need to roll call on that? You need to roll call. Roll call please.

Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

It would be like, there may be. So, we are in those lights. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay, let me go to the approval arts 24 that 4293. going to amend session line two, fire prevention code. Mr. Chief. Good evening, Mayor, members of the council.

This amendment to the fire prevention code is, all it's doing is changing the actual code and book that we use to do our pending inspections. It's a requirement that Louisiana State Fire Marshal requires it to stay up there.

I recommend we approve it.

All the favor.

The roll call please. Ms. Angela Tappan, District 8. Yes. Mr. Henry Doty, District B. Yes. Mr. James Green, District C. Yes. Mr. Derrick Green, District D. Yes. And Mr. Howard Locke, District C. Yes.

Thank you. Appreciate it too. Good job. Number 10, not a business. Yeah, we're going to have to go to six. So planning zoning, business, any new or unfinished planning zoning matters? No, we have a matter coming up in August, which is the best of spring.

Yeah. That will come up in August. It's previously tabled, and those owners will be here, and we'll take care of that in August.

We have discussion items, items for discussion. No, we don't have anything now.

13A is our agenda modification, which is the settlement. approval to settle the claims related there. Yeah, I would have asked that we go to executive session on that.

I'll make that motion. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Is there a motion to re-enter the regular session?

I make a motion. Ms. Lamont make a motion? Just have a second. All in favor?

And then now back into the regular session on the agenda on item 13A, which is where we're seeking approval to settle the claim with Mr. Larry Kennedy with regards to the accident that occurred and the liability there again, and then the settlement amount. And to, I'm asking for y'all to approve the compromise between the city and Larry Kennedy so we can resolve that claim.

I'll make that motion.

I second. All in favor? Aye. And opposed? Abstain. All right. It is 14 in the introduction of ordinance. We don't have minutes on 15. We got 10 already here. 16. Can I ask for a motion to adjourn? I need to make one thing before we adjourn.

I'm on this agenda. I'm looking through this agenda. I'm here with the visitations and all that, and they're designing these and all this. We probably just, this agenda is made up for third grade. We don't need each one by until we get down to the committee.

Which one? The first one. The second. Oh, yeah. I had the phone there at the beginning.

Let me hang it on there. I might hang it on there. Can I get a motion to end this? Can I get a second? All in favor? Aye.