City Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order a roll call to determine a forum, please. Miss Tap, District A, here. Mr. Green, District B, here. Mr. James Green, District C, here. Mr. Derry Green, District B. Mr. Lock, District E.

Show, we have four present. Mr. Green, we have a four. Please stand for the convocation. Father God, we come here today. Thank you for your grace and your mercy. We come asking we humbly let us deal with city business, city business alone. Father, let it be best for anything. Let it be best for the city business to go and move this city forward. and I ask you to bless each and every one of us in this room of blessing. I ask in thy son Jesus name. Amen. Amen. To the flag of the stand with all. Before we go any further, can we have a minute of style of prayer for Arthur Hammond District E

also Fanny Gregs?

Thank you. do the general modifications. I would like to expand the agenda to discuss the solar panels. That goes under 15.

I have a motion. I need a second. I need a second. Second. Any discussion? So at this point we call is there any public comments regarding to the issue of whether it should or should not be added to the agenda solar discussion of the solar panels.

Whether it should be added to the agenda just whether it should be added or not. Oh no comments on that. So at this point it's right for vote. All in favor? Any opposed? 15 C discussion 15. public comments as they relate to the items on the agenda.

Did that include Good evening.

Good evening. I'm Rose 12 here. Uh I I was been talking to some neighbors uh from around the city and we're wondering why these panels is going up in our community and a lot of people are getting nervous about those panels uh because they been doing some research. some people doing some research on. So, I'm wondering if this council is going to discuss the legitimacy of those panels going up in our in our neighborhood. That's what I want to know. Is uh is it suffice that we always get something that others don't want get put in our community? and I'm one of the ones that is going to be advocate now since I can walk. I'm fix to be involved in a lot of stuff involved around the city. That's one of them. So I would love to hear the input of what you know you all want to do and recommend for our city to be a city not just to be a dumping ground. All right. Charles Bradford 132 South Washington Street. I would like to make a comment in concern solar panels as well. Uh if I recall I thought they had halt all work on the solar panel during our administration but I see that they are back and they're working. Uh I guess my question to the general I I would like

to ask the council and the mayor to uh put that know take action stop them but before they get them there they know how much money they spent. I think we you know we kind of cross that administration. That's all I got to say that I hope that we can put a stop to it. Let's enforce it. I guess that's the key question. Let's enforce the stop to the, you know, the work. I'm sure we voted to to to stop it, not to let it go. Thank you.

Okay. We got announcements and recognition by the mayor districts. Okay. Tony Miles. your mic. Ask Mr. Kenny for a mic. Continue. Yes, sir.

Tony, 61 Pearl Street, Mr. Mayor, Council, Councilman, I'm honored to stand before you. I just uh wanting to see if you have an update on the proposed memorial for Mr. Eng. It's not at the moment. It's not. We have to. We all have to get together. If you just want to do a memorial, just put something out there.

I mean, I I suggested making a city holiday. Make the birthday a city holiday and even changing the name of the airport to the Memorial Airport. Those are my two suggestions. Are those two in your proposal? Are they? Yes. Yes.

He just want to he want to update on it. We haven't given us come on down. You just make your presentation and then you want to address it when we get on down to it. If you want to agenda agenda Okay. Yeah. He's just making a comment. Yes, sir. I I'll move you up to come back up.

Uh um Okay. Yeah. Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Excuse me, sir. Okay. At the last meeting, I presented my proposal and I was just here tonight to see if I would have a different proposal. I think I think they're going to get this is public comments. They're going to get to It's an agenda item and they're going to move it up so they can get to it before anything for you. Okay. So they can discuss with you. Okay. Yes. You ain't going to be long.

Announcement recognition and district buy some time to the district in the district. I do. Um, we are pleased that Highland and Country Club is open. I know so many people are grateful because as we know they're celebrating homecoming, Bach Prize Homecoming this weekend. So, people are very happy. So, we just appreciate um the mayor making a move on this. We just thank you.

You're welcome. Um, also I would like to thank all the city workers for all of work they put out and they worked real hard for our governor coming in uh upgrade the municipal center around munis center the parks instead it was able to do their their daily jobs. I just like to tell the city workers thanks and I'd like to tell Miss Susan and her crew. We really as at as at the city mayor, we really and the council, we really appreciate y'all for everything y'all

and I'm Susan Plumbings and I'm at the B retail association and I just can't thank you enough, Mayor Moore, for all you did to help um get us ready for the governor visit. Um, you had quite a task list and you checked it off one by one just like you needed to do. And I wanted to um also thank Jesse and Sam and all the crews because they they deserve a round of applause um their extraordinary work and preparing for his visit. It was nothing nothing short of amazing to me. And every touch, every detail inside, outside, everything was tended to. And it reflected pride in our city. It reflected teamwork and it showed what working together really does. Um it um because of all their dedication, everything, it really shined a bright light on Bastram. And um I am so grateful that you are open to helping and and you just it just proves what working together can get done and we can bring bad back and keep it alive and surviving and uh not just surviving but thriving by working together. And I appreciate all of y'all being supportive of it. And Mayor Moore, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Hendricks. Um, I too want to just say thank you and they did everything that we asked. And um, I'm like Susan, I couldn't be more prouder of what got

done and what I really loved was to see that they were proud of what got done. So, uh, that meant a lot to all of us and I think that meant a lot to all of the people that came and got I had people and say, "This is the best I've ever seen this center work." So, when you had other people noticing, too, that made a good impression. So, again, I too want to thank him for all you did. It's great. Thank you. also [Music] like to thank too on behalf of the community rather everything was kept decent in order. I think we got a chance to exercise the freedom of speak and say, you know, America was built on and it was really no competition, no confusion. Everybody had a good time in America. We really had some time. It was great to be that show the American way, the freedom of speech. Well, I think we the people who organized in the community definitely got a chance to say something to the mayor. I mean to the governor. Thank you again.

Okay. I just want to say congratulations again to the committee that did the work over at the municipal center because if you go into the back, if you know how the back looked where washers and dryers when you went in the back, it's simply amazing. And it looked like a home, a living room. They just took nothing and turned it into something. It was just a a place back there with a wash and dryer. They just took the room. And I wish they could put pictures on Facebook and you would see the I told him they should have done a before and after picture. I guess

it the transformation was unbelievable. And like it says, it goes to show you can take a little and do a lot with a little. It just take a creative mind. That's what I want our leaders in Bast. Take what we have, be creative, and let's make Bastro shine. So again, thank you for all that you guys done. And I thank well please.

Good evening. Uh just piggy backing off the event for a second. Uh it was a nice event. Uh saw a lot of people. Uh it's always good when you can get a good crowd uh for for an event. Uh the chicken was real good. I don't know what kind of chicken the chicken on the menu was good. Uh I'll say this too. Um there there's been some cleanup efforts going around uh going around in the city as a whole and there have been some uh that I noticed in district B. Uh I'd like to thank the mayor and again all of the city workers that are taking part in that. I know it's not always an easy job and there's a lot going on and they are going to be pulled from left to right and you know front to back. Uh lastly, there was uh there was an issue up on West Madison uh with the general coming in and setting up uh setting up shop. It's not in my district, but it's in the city. And uh it looked like, you know, we're trying to get rid of light. So, we're not we're not we're not wanting people to come in and set up shop and add to what we add to what the problem already is. And what I saw it what I saw then we had a lot of community members get involved in that. And that's basically what it's going to h what it's going to take uh city council and the mayor and you know crew workers for the city they can do they can only do so much but you know if the citizens uh stand up and come together then issues like that can be solved a whole lot faster than you know just you know uh somebody trying to do it on their own. And basically that is just people coming together. Uh like Miss Clonics and uh Miss Carpenter said

it. I'm excuse me, Miss uh Miss Cindy. Uh it it it shows the pride in the city and that's what we want to keep focusing on, pride in the city and getting B back to a place where it can be called home again and be proud of that state. So again, just thanks for uh the cleaning up that's going on and hopefully it will continue. kind of got a little hit talking about the up personally thank the mayor and his crew. I think I called him that Sunday evening. Sunday evening about

and about Monday afternoon everything and leave code for le thank you Mr.

Oh you welcome anytime Mr. I'd like for Miss Marshall, city marshal Lisa Chaff, to come forward. Excuse Lisa. This award is a service award to present city marshal Lisa Chaffer in grateful appreciation for your service to the city of Bastra Marshall office city mayor city of bast Louisiana October the 9th 2025 we appreciate you

how many years I didn't put on that I didn't know really appreciate. Thank you. [Music] And I have another one service award presented to deputy. What is that? Dina Young and grateful appreciation for your service to the city city of Nashville marsh office. We appreciate you for your hard dedication, Miss.

All right, that was it. There are Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones, why you look at me like that? service award presented to Chief Deputy Kenny Jones and great appreciation for your service to the city of Bash Marshall. Mr. Okay. [Music] This is not

We just came from the parade. So, we're looking dusty and tired. I'll come back. Now, tomorrow Oh, okay. Got six. Consent approval of previous minutes. Regular minutes September 11th, 2025.

I make that motion. I have a second discussion. All in favor? IFO. Motion carries. Seven. Consideration of and action or report of committee appointed of the government body. A finance committee report. Yes. We as a finance committee review the u the reports for this month and I make a recommendation that we approve the finance report for this

month September. Yeah, that's a motion. Motion second. Any discussion? All in favor?

I motion car. B planning zoning committee report. [Music] So, at this at this time, uh, the city attorney, I've discussed, Miss Rogers, that the planning zoning committee is back in effect, and we have a meeting planned on the I believe the 20th, and we're going to come, I believe it's the 20th,

on the 20th, we're going to come down and talk before the meeting, discuss how the recommendation process goes and everything. But I've had at least three discussions with Miss Rogers regarding this over the past two weeks and I believe we're working forward to get that forward back to the recommendation and they're going to either recommend or not recommend and then it'll come to the council for final vote and that we don't have the board adjustments anymore. I think everybody even the members there were happy about that. So the members were not changed. It will be the same members. The membership is the same. It's just now they are a recommending body to this body with things that have to come here and now we know who the administrator is because they're confirmed in front of the council. Uh that administrator was confirmed in front of

So this all permits written permit and special.

So this is all the things that are not considered to be by right. my right is strictly conforming at this point means you have to strictly conform with the statute with the ordinances. There's no variations allowed. Anything that would typically go to the planning and zoning board where they had final authority at that now comes to them as a recommendation they recommend or not recommend and then that comes to the councils for final approval. So it should be a a buffer system to keep you from being bogged down with the normal day-to-day stuff. But anything that would need decision making authority has to come forward this board with the expertise of the members of the planning. It's only looking at it giving recommendation as to why or why not they issue a final report when it comes to

how about the denials will that automatically come to us? So denial at at the administrator level if it's denied the normal appeal process is is at that point it would go to planning and zoning to see if they recommend it or do not recommend and then from there it goes to the council. denials come to the council at some point with a recommend or not recommend from planning and zoning and they have a final report for their reasons and rationale for recommend or not recommend. point of information, attorney general. It was a two-part solution to you just you addressed the first part. The second part of it was uh appointed members to the board. We table that part of it for right now. Correct. Okay. I just wanted to get some clarification.

Correct. Right. It's not like it we that part of it was was tabled for now until we get until a later date, but the rest of it was implemented. So I just wanted you stated I just wanted for the record that that latter part of it was tainted

correct the there was two directives there was two things that were going on originally originally was a change to the way the administrative process happened and that the council did final the other wing of it was the membership how the membership was made up what it was comprised of that aspect was tabled the at this point the administration has been taken care of and there's still aspect of the membership that is currently tabled when we want to take care of that membership. When are we going to do the membership on that committee?

I would as far as membership goes there. The biggest issue with membership at this point is where do we get it from? Where do we get consent from? I think the most imperative is what is the consensus for how membership looks with board members with the city council here and getting us more to a planning stage on what membership looks like from the board standpoint. Then we'll roll forward with it being consistent with the laws as we're all aware we've gone through uh some more recent fights here issues in Morehouse Parish regarding comprising memberships. We want to be in compliance with what was learned during that time period too. That was one reason to step away from it was because we were going to have a judge a judicial decision on changing of memberships and where does the court stand with that and I believe we have those answers now. We just have to take those answers and plug them into the desires and wills of the council.

When do you say the next meeting will be? So, we need to do this before the next meeting. The next meeting is October the 20th. at this point they're just they're recommending

that's that's what I was going that's my my next point of information since it's really nothing pressing right now because they we just we train we transform that board into an advisory board instead of a found say so board so anything that goes on regardless of the membership is going to come before us we have the city council have the found say so now I think that was the sticking point last time because when they left them and left the other board that went to fourth judicial court. That was the that was our biggest thing that I think being a council member, you should have found say so of anything that comes into the city. And I think we addressed that part of it. Now the Larry part of it if we if council still want to address that part of it, you know, it's still, but it was not really nothing pressing since they just advisory board. But I think based on what we came to conclusion last time, everybody want to put a point from each district so it would be a representation of each district. But I didn't think that was a a major sticking point right now. I think that the crux of it was getting that we have the final say so as to what comes and goes on in the city. That's good.

Before I move to number eight, I would like a motion to suspend Robert order to take up a agenda item that's out of order. Which one? Uh 17A, Mr. Tony M. I would like to move him up to the next to another. Okay. I'm going to make a motion to screen rules of order and move up item 17 A to seven C to 7 C. I think we got to make a motion to suspend Robert's order before we do that's what I said. You can't do them both at the same time. You got to make a motion to suspend Robert's order first. So there's been a motion on the table. Is there a second? Second.

Any discussion? Offer vote. All favor. All in favor? I in a currently suspended at this time. You can take items out of order if you wish. Okay. All right. I'm going to make a motion to move Mr. Miles's item up to the next item to be discussed. Second. Any discussion? Call for a vote, please. All in favor? I in a 17 miles.

Yeah, go ahead. Miles Tony Miles 61 Street Indiana and I am here to uh see if they have an update on this proposal to make uh Mr. the Hind Cotton birthday, a city holiday, and to change the name of the airport to the Hind Cotton Memorial Airport as per the proposal put forth in the last meeting. We haven't came to a decision on that, Mr.

We will get to it. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you.

Hey, report. Uh, city officials. Hey, chief of police, you have anything? I don't have anything, but anybody have any questions? All right, B fire chief. He's out out of town taking care of some fire business before you move on. Police chief come up. No, no, no. I'm going to ask you.

Okay. Police chief, police department. Um when we do our finance report, we you working on you working on stuff with the sheriff's department. Y'all trying to work out the logistics and the details.

I Yeah, we're working on that because uh they are on the streets uh when our guys are not there and a lot goes on also especially the weekends. So, um, I feel like we need to pay pay them something. I know we can't pay the whole bill. Can't afford the whole bill, but being that the sheriff department are killing on our weight. Um, I think we need to go ahead and give them something. Um, just gave police officers a raise, so hopefully we can recruit. We got commercial uh going. Uh, I think we're going to be okay with the ones that in the academy now and we just let another one out on the streets. Um, Chief Reed just let another one on the streets. Uh, she's doing a great job. I had a meeting with her today. But we got to take care of business. I mean, um, the sheriff can put one police officer on the streets like he said he'll do and and and you know, I think the city needs him. We need to help him in some kind of way. Mayor, based on based on our budget and based on the budget that Mr. Ricky submitted to us, uh, I know that the chief is doing a excellent job over there with the department. When you look at these numbers, we got to make sure we stay within the numbers that that's budgeted and doing great. We want to make sure that me and Mr. talk. We want to make sure that you know you already talking you emphasized how we need to be moving about how we need to be going forward. So you just want to be mindful of the numbers because you know we budget for a certain thing and once you it comes to day-to-day

operations so we don't tell you how to spend the money once we a lot but the problem is when you reach zero you got to come back before the council. So, I think we I think the mayor had a conversation say they moving in a great direction. Like he just said, they hiring officers and we moving in a different direction. But don't wait till it's crunch time and give us numbers. You got to give us leeway so we can make some adjustments. We know it's going to take money and we going to be in a bind until we get the officers. But admonishment to everybody to the chief and I already talked to the mayor. Let's not wait till the last minute to bring it before the council because you're going to put pressure on all us. I think give us give us adequate amount of time to make some adjustments.

A fantastic job. So keep up the work. I guess I have a question. How many other municipalities in the house parish um is having a pay to share department? Okay.

See,

Mr. Rich. Yes, sir. Hey, what what again is the number of slotted positions uh at the police department now? Uh that's that's the question I think chief would have to be able to answer. Could you come up chief for a second? Sir, good evening again, Chief. Uh uh first question. What is the uh what is the number of slotted positions uh at the police department? Open slots.

No, no, no. Total slots right now 15. 15. And how many of those are filled right now? 12 of them in the field. 12. Yes. Okay. Um and you have you have uh some still in still in the academy, right? We have two in the academy. We have three that's uh going to start the hiring process in November in hopes of getting them into the academy that starts in January. Are those three included in that in that number of 12 or not?

No. No. I can't include the ones that aren't right. Right. Just just clear to say. Okay. So, uh those uh those numbers that that that 15 is that that just uh your patrol?

That's total. That's total. That's not patrol. That's that's total how many are working right now. So, you have four dispatchers. One of the dispatchers is in the academy in hopes of coming over to patrol when she gets through dispatch. So, she's in between patrol and dispatch. You have another person that's an officer that's in the academy and you have six officers that are working on the streets. You have myself, Captain Gibbons, and assistant chief is out on city. So that that's if you had all if everyone was working, you would have all 15.

How many? And we would we would uh we would need four officers on patrol for patrol to be how many how many days out of the week uh do you uh does the sheriff uh work during the night shift or anticipate maybe anticipate to work? The sheriff usually works Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night. Some Saturday night, some Sunday nights, but he always they always Tuesday and Thursday night schools for sure. Okay. That'll be from 6 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. That's correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Just to add that there also five part-time slots to supplement uh the patrol that's put in place. Say that again, please. There are five part-time slots to supplement the pro that was also put in. Are any of those in one of So we have four parts in the equation.

How many officers do we need to have have complete patrol, you need four more officers. And to have a complete uh detective division, we need at least two more officers. So four or two, you need we need six officers. Okay.

Okay. Chief, when you spoke with you earlier about those five slots, you said just working on getting them done. You got one. So when I had a conversation with you, say you was in the process and I had spoken with the mayor too. Y'all y'all was coming up with formula plan. Y'all was in the infantry stage getting it done. But nevertheless, you say you've been working on it and y'all pretty much going to hit those slots based on the conversation I had yesterday. Right, man? Am I right? Correct. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you.

See, city attorney. So, as we go to the updates, we have code enforcement. We've cited in excess of five dozen properties at this point with the code violations. We have gotten with the hearing officer and environmental court is up to date on the statute on the ordinances that we have and we have met with several uh we located some documents still with possible to look down the road of demolition and other processes. One of the things we have tonight is still we have a demolition CA on on the agenda that is a partnership to keep more house but I'll let them folk explain that when we get there. So, as far as that effort has gone, we are quickly up to speed and headed towards uh getting into triple digit citations of properties and looking to have a very very very full uh report once we're able to determine a response. One thing about environmental court is is that we do need a response from the property and if we don't receive a response from them then we just proceed with the ordinary way in which the city can perform the work and then tack a lean on the property without having to have them respond.

Yes, sir. He's out of the country. Yes, sir. He's not always going to be on the agenda. Yeah. Before I hired him. Yeah. Before I hired him, we we got that. Okay. Attorney General Jones reporting information with code enforcement officer. Are we going to be able to write citation without going to environmental court when it pertains to litter and different things? We going to be uh you going to be permitted to do that?

Correct. So you can do that. uh anything that is in the code enforcement act is also a criminal violation which can be wrote over to city court. That's good. So that's one thing that we did in there was is we made it a we made it a crime to commit any one of those. So you there's there's multiple avenues for it. That's why there was a affirmative duty placed upon anybody who is considered to be uh law enforcement or an employee of the city to report it is because that is now a crime. I'd say coming up on that those are now criminal offenses too. State state offense now too. Uh it is a there is a state offense which is blighted property. It's existed since 1982.

Didn't the governor just sign a proclamation that if you see someone u throwing ties, all you have to do is get the driver's license. Yes, he he issued a proclamation that the state was going to be enforcing that more heavily than what they had before. That process always existed. It's just kind of he he kind of voiced that yes, they're going to be more heavily involved in taking those cases. It's kind of like issuing a presidential executive order saying, "Yes, we're taking more actions in this arena."

Asked that question. because you know we we need a reform act with our code enforcement and last time we did it there was so many loopholes every time you do this nothing was done in four years so we'll eliminate with this new partner so we eliminated all the loopholes so there will be action correct there's every which way it can go we can either do it without your participation through the city's efforts or to place a lean we can do it through a more consensual method which is environmental court where they can have it's more of us Good. You can you can have somebody come back multiple times, give them deadlines to clean stuff up, or we can go the extreme method and place you into the actual criminal court in front of Judge Lester with City Attorney Pier.

So, we will be getting some reports, not just talk. So, we will be getting some action this time around. Yes, we we have a lot of action going right now. In fact, I was able to obtain from the clerk's office a uh account so that we could access free of charge the clerk's record so we could actually do the mortgage research to make sure that in some of those things you have to notify mortgage company. So, we've obtained that account on behalf of the city and have an official account that we're allowed to access that without have to pay anything.

Well, you city attorney, we got a new code enforcement. Oh god, we've been trying and trying for three or four years. If you keep slipping out of the anywhere you going to block them, you going to put it where they cannot get out of it because that is a bad bad household. There is no loophole that can exist if you have an address on record down at the tax assessor's office. Okay? There's no way to get out of it and there's no way to have an a municipal 911 number and purchase a piece of property without having an address at the tax assessor's office. I hope I see it on I hope I see it at the next meeting that the property is taken care of.

Yes. point of information. I know you said I know mayor said the code enforcement office would be at the next meeting. Anyway, we get a list of properties that you have already cited so we can know. Correct. So, I can get a list from him because I'm obtaining a list because there's another little project that we're working on that he and I are going to have to work closely together over the next probably two weeks to uh potentially bring a lot more action that will have to come forward council in order for us to do this. But uh the next two weeks of my life are dedicated to running down dilapidated life properties in the city of Bast and that is what I will be doing.

Okay, one more question and I know this may be not possible. What about him going to the academy? What is that possible? I believe he he already is a postcertified officer.

He may or may not be postcertified. He could go to post certification. It's just we had we'd have neutral time saying that you're going to have somebody while they're at the academy for and I don't want to take it out of the mouth, but I believe it's a substantial number of weeks they would be there. They just have to render pay to them and at the same time not have anybody doing the process accomplish. We have a list paperwork, right?

Correct. It's more the investigation than testifying to the things we have testify as a witness. But yes, ideally any city employee could perform that. It's just that's more administration question more than legally. You can always send the light to the

unfinished business. Thank you. None other finished business action or ordinance or resolution induced at the previous minute meeting. Uh a I want to table um after talking to our attorney. I want to table a resolution 2511. I'll make a motion to table 25-111. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? All right. B resolution 252114 from the legal history of this resolution. This is the resolution adopting operating budget. When we adopted the operating budget originally, this is the general uh operating budget resolution that was used uh initially. We part of that budget is a separate sewer fund. We adopted all the general budget but we did not adopted the the sewer budget. So this is a limited resolution to adopt the sewer fund budget. Okay.

Talking about the fin, but we need to have some more discussion on this property.

Correct. And Rick Smith with the office of the mayor. Uh during the finance meeting, we did have some discussion on regards to the administrative bar administrative cost, the uh the management fee that we uh the city pays to Viola for uh basically operating the sue on behalf of the city. Um that contract is currently being paid out general fund dollar which we've already uh approved and appropriated um that expenditure with the general fund budget that we passed several months ago. So, one of the things that we're looking into, uh, this is one of the discussions that mayor and I had day one, um, with regards to why the sewer use fund is not covering that administr what I call administrative cost, which is the management fee because it's directly tied to sewer. I mean, that's one of the uh major sewer expenses expenses that the city has is in its management of along with some of the uh infrastructure repairs. We if you notice the budget, there's $100,000 uh on line 27 uh call. That's that represents the matching portion of that $600,000 grant um that the city has has obtained that's going to go toward improving and upgrading the infrastructure of the silver park. So, um, that's something that I've, uh, had a conversation, uh, several conversation with attorney Jones, uh, conversation that, uh, he and I going to have with just to make sure because again, uh, you know, that was one of the questions that the mayor posed like, okay, this this is manager of the sewer. We got a sewer budget.

Why are we not paying the manager fee? I told, sir, I don't know. That's a good question. This is the first thing that jumped off at me when you start going through it because again we identified about $1.6 million of one time money in the general fund budget that's tied to some of most of that is tied to recurrent expenses. So here lies why drew my attention early on because right kind of fix that and essentially overnight um and give the city the mayor and city council flexibility to either reinvest that savings or put it in the general fund areas to build. But that's without that happening y'all don't have that latitude to make that decision. So that's something that we definitely going to look at sooner rather than later. Our original timeline was, you know, to to get that question answered when we started the new BL process, which probably begin around February or March, but uh M Pro 10 kind of put a fire on said why we can't get this done sooner or rather late and I didn't have an answer for it. So, M Pro Tim, uh, M. Jones and I going to get on that and have an answer for you hopefully by next week. If not, we've already submitted the inquiries to get that information.

Mr. Smith, go ahead. This uh J.

Okay. If we pass this resolution, we pass the resolution since it's the same, this isn't this is the physical year. We're the same physical year. Look, if this money comes out of general fund and you research and find out that it can be paid out of the sewer fund, could it be retroactive? Can we But again, you can amend the budget anytime. I mean, at this point, you know, the mayor set up the policy that we're going to review it every quarter. So, next month we will be making uh quarterly adjustments to the general fund budget, but we can make quarterly adjustments to the sewer budget, the street budget, um you know, throughout the whole year. We don't have to wait till the end of the quarter.

So, if we pass it then adjustments because again, you know, this budget is just a living

a living breathing document. It's just a a representation of you know proposed or uh right estimates on you know what money is going to be generate estimates of what things may cost because there's some things in this budget that for instance look at line 21 uh we uh budgeted $250,000 for sewer man we may not have that amount I mean you go to those that's why I provided y'all those that about your actuals. Uh, Mr. Jay Green, Mr. Dota, anytime you have a question about a particular line, it go back to that that document that I provided y'all because that's the main supporting document that we use to build the budgets moving forward. Just next year we add six year to it. Um, so it's going to be a continuation and we're going to look at those averages and dictate, you know, building the budget based on what those actuals look like. So at any time you have a question about historically the spending, just go back to those that that document that I provided you all and it has it for both uh all three uh budgets. make a motion. Excuse

question. Uh besides the $600,000 grant uh we got for the uh sewer uh improve the infrastructure with the sewer system. That $600,000 grant, right? Yes, sir. Okay. Are there are there any monies that are already in the sewer use fund that may be allocated or projected to be allocated for any any sewer use uh improvement project? Can we use the money some of that money that's already there for uh infrastructure projects improvements?

Yeah. Yes sir, you can. I mean this long as uh it's related to what can be expended in the sewer use. Yes, sir. Because you had to the projected balance u right now is about $1.1 million. I think he had walked out when he Oh, I'm sorry.

So, the fund balance has approximately around that. Let's say $11 million in the fund balance. That's counting the uh the uh almost $930,000 that's going to go into that fund toward the end of fiscal year because we're generating about $1.9 million in revenue out of the sewer use budget but only expending a little over a million dollars. So essentially, uh, you have $900,000 of current revenue being generated this fiscal year that you're not expending that's going into the fund balance.

Right. So with the with the sewer uh sewer use fund uh balance and street uh street balance um again I mean I'm not just saying just you know spend money just because we have some money because we do have money there available and my interest is there is a we do have a problem with flooding right so with the $600,000 that didn't take care of everything we needed to take care of right that's just a physical uh infrastructure for the management of the sewer. So it's it's not it's not included in any uh upgrades to any like drainage or sewer related.

Okay. Again my question thank you for that last word drainage. Is there can we use those monies that are that are in those balances because again if you have issues flooding then there's going to be issues of draining and then you have the street coming into play. So again, we do have money available. So if we have those monies available, then it seems like we ought to be coming up with some type of plan to, you know, kind of uh overhaul uh the flooding system or, you know, uh issues with the uh sewer system. and and the mayor has uh you know contingencies or plans to uh do just those things because there's some grant funding that's that's out there that we we just got to put a project to it and get the uh specifications done up because I think the mayor's been meeting with the the engineer uh trying to put together a proposal because the good thing about having a healthy fund balance is you look at this budget um we put just $100,000 in it that represents matching funds. So, we got $11 million in the general in that fund balance to where there's money to put matching funds. So, there's a grant out there that's $2 million and it's required 25% matching. We we we have it. So we don't we

we not going to hesitate to apply for those grants because we we in a fortunate position to have a healthy fund balance to where having that matching money is not a problem. So to answer your question, Mr. Dodie, I think from the mayor's perspective is let's get try to get grant money and use this for matching. But at the end of the day for acute needs and we don't have time or you know the man city council said we don't have time to go get a grant for a million dollars to fix this because it's an acute problem you'd appropriate you know you can appropriate that um and spend it on that project I think I push you have to check with the

check with the to make sure that we can use those Um that's just city, right? And uh again uh uh attorney Jones and I are looking at from the legal standpoint to get his opinion in regards to that and then get the article involved because again the auditor is going to audit the expenditures and um he probably can be quick response on whether or not we can use by looking at the actual uh statute um that created the sewer use fund because um it's just identifying the uh what it can be used on kind of like you know I won't say that word but kind of like the other

fungic like we discussed the sticking points when you gonna find out whether or not it could be used that's a stick point so we but when you get when you present it to us please present it to us and write Oh, we don't want word of mouth no more. Everything that we do is going to be concrete and solid. So once we find out cuz we got $1 million that like you say can be spent but we don't want to go be prepared for something and then we can't do it.

So I think I think we can expedite that process. So we'll be able to pro so Mr. Jones you weren't in here earlier than we got directed from M Pro. When Miss Hart was here, she we we we addressed this very issue and she was talking about flooding and all that and she said it falls on the sewer when she was here. She was like this sewer is a broad spectrum of things. So if any way possible, she was the she she was our special advisor whenever she came in with the other money and those those were some of the questions that we was asking. Right.

Right. We asked a question that she specifically said that yes, you are allowed to use the money that could have been. Yeah. Right. So I didn't realize we we had that much money just is it drawing interest? Uh I would have to look into it because uh we had a discussion about that um about a month or so ago. I'm not sure

cuz I I don't have so I'm not going to say but again that's something that the mayor and I have been discussing since day one is is getting a comprehensive uh drainage plan together. I think he has plans to speak to has plans to to discuss this with the uh police jury.

Um so that's ongoing. So um this coming in a unique position the city is by having this healthy fund balance and um last thing I'll say is with those two funds uh there probably can be some overlap in regards to um funding projects because again street and sewer although they're separate budgets I think there's opportunities for uh some some some I don't want to say collaboration but some some joint uh project that may be able to use both funds to fund that project.

Last week, Mr. M. Uh thank you for the comments. Appreciate it. Uh good insight. Um the the money that we have available now, right? That's not projected money. That's money we have available right now in the M roughly around that. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. I just don't know if we use it. And and the caveat to this is this. Some of it is not going anywhere using I have I have a different question.

The question is if that money if that money is sitting in an account then again it's been said that uh it may does it draw any interest and if it draws any interest is that interest going to be going in that account or will it be going into a different just just the interest on the money? And again, I'm asking simply because, you know, for clarity, for clarity sake, if we have that amount of money somewhere in the bank, it would seem like to me it would be drawing some interest and that we would be tracking that. Are we tracking? And we are to a certain degree. I just can't answer it totally because we if you look on the budget line four,

it does capture interest income. It's just I can't tell you exactly where it is, how much it draws, but this is just kind of like the historical average because I'm not sure if we have several accounts in one account. Uh but it is drawing interest because we appropriate so much every year. So right now it's $75,000 worth of interest in so that interest income about 71 175,000 right there. And I guess we need to kind of look at if it's not an interestbearing account, we need to probably move that money to another account.

And that's something we going to transition, you know, we have to see the clerk now. And that's one of the things that we're going to look at is bank accounts and kind of doing some um updates in regards to some of the antiquated things that we doing with that. Kind of modernizing things. But that's one of the things we're gonna look at where everything is, how many accounts we have, what's in them, what funds on 11 million, it should be a whole lot of interest, more than 175,

right? So again, I that's why I was hesitant to tell you, but it's in the budget. I just can't give a fullthroated uh answer to the question because we haven't dived down into we have a ton of Mr. Jones up. Do we still have 35 counties? I think probably close to them. So, we're going to look at it. Some of those are required, right? And I think those sewer ones are required. So, it's just a matter of itemizing those. Get in. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Smith, I know you got a lot on your plate, right?

And I was in the final. We We did it together. You was in there. And I just want y'all to remember he for the council sake he did say he was gonna itemize it out all the interest rates and all that. He just he gonna do it. He just we just shooting a bunch of questions and now I think he writ he's getting I just want Josh because I was in there with you did say you was going toize them out. No problem. New business. New resolution.

It's a 10 and 11. needs to be one of those just needs to be disre Okay. Okay. everything.

Yeah, we have a motion to session. We need to go back to 9. I discuss Where are you? All in favor. Hey, no. Hey, is it session? I'll make a motion. Second. Can we get a vote? All in favor?

All vote. Favor. I get a vote. Hold that.

Back in order. All right. Roll call. Miss Tap here. Mr. Dodie here. Mr. James Green here. Mr. Barry Green. Mr. Here. present. Mr. Dary is out

at this point. Uh we would be on 11B which is resolution 25 11:115 approving uh and authorizing the city attorney to enter into settlement with the Frank Ethman EL and that suit. I would ask that the board of alderman uh make a motion to approve entering into settlement in that matter. Motion second. Any discussion?

All in favor? And madame uh secretary, I would ask the record reflect that the mayor has not participated in the discussion of this matter or the vote of this matter because he has a familiar relationship with the plaintiffs who although he is a defendant in the suit which he was labeled as the mayor. He was not the mayor at the time. The previous administration was the mayor when this issue occurred. If I'd like the record to reflect that, please in the minutes that mayor would bring us to item 12 a 131 Elm Street zoning permit. Somebody need a [Music] 12.

12A is the and I will explain to Deon Jones, city attorney. This 12A is the 131 Elm Street that has been on since the June time when we had a moratorum and all actions were coming before the board. We previously placed on agenda a couple times. They indicated this time that they were actually going to be in attendance and so we elected to go ahead and just place this on the agenda so they could deal with it. This is a zoning permit for a I believe it is a church healing and delivery center. Can they? [Music]

Yes. And at this time I would ask that the I believe is healing center has representatives here they would address the board with their zoning request. Hello. My name is Ava Strefell, 1406 Alabama. I have a ministry. It's called Healing and Deliverance. Um,

okay. Healing and Deliverance Center, Hat Center on 131 where Chad Gibson, the barber shop where Lisa used to have a boutique and uh it's a ministry where we do deliverance healing. Also, we do feed. We have been feeding people. We just I cater like every twice a month even though he came by. Um and we feed the community. That's something we always need. We should have known he was he came by.

He gave a donation. He was too. But yeah, we um and we minister to a lot of young people. That's my that's my goal. um young men's, you know. Um that's probably why you see my hair color. Um I love to deal with young young men and stuff. So that's what we doing uh at the healing center. And we wanted to say they don't have a zoning um but we wanted to be zoned or something. She had told me we need the ministry.

So to give clarity to this, if you'll flip into the packets, there's actually a picture of this facility. It appears that for some time this consistently has been used as some type of either retail storefront or something like that. It is a zoning uh the actual zoning code for this is SRS6 which was residential typically but it appears that the historical use of this lot and building area has been for some type of office or retail establishment. So it looks like they have probably consistently been given a variance to be able to use it for that. It appears that the use for which they have stated intended is consistent with the historical use of that property which keeps it consistent with the overall origin goals of the planning and zoning.

Oh, so I don't see anything inconsistent although it is inconsistent with the zone for which it's in it is consistent with the historical use of that partial land property in that building. I have a question for if I can. So I know you said young men. Do you do anything for young women? Yeah, we do it all. But you know my goal is like but when we have um when we feed women do come. So I do teach classes also. What kind of classes? Who you your gifts your purpose and you know who you are in God you know try to teach them you know because sometimes people don't know their purpose here we just here. Right. Right.

So so when we feed we have a lot of even young even babies come. So we do get to get to minister to them. That's my thing. I love I love, you know, I love young people. So we do go minister. And our thing was to walk the streets and I I love to get us where we stay. We got a lot of young boys now. And I I met, you know, I want them to come in because they still have a chance, you know. I believe that, you know, no matter how they look, you know, they still have a chance. And the young girls, you know, to teach them how to be young ladies, you know. You know. Yes, sir. Uh, I'm sorry. Uh, what is your name again? April Stringfeller. A Stringfellow. Yes.

Um, do you have like what is your official title? I'm Apostle. Apostle. Yes, sir. Uh, do you have um I'm sure you have some people working with you. Yes. Uh, in the ministry. Yes. Uh, what what number of people do you have uh working with you? Well, we got now probably we just started here. So now here because I haven't met a lot of people. Uh so I think it's about four or five, right? Just doing. Yeah.

Okay. And uh again, you know, when you're dealing with dealing with uh ministry, uh there's a lot that goes on, you know, in that with that for that. um your focus uh from what I'm hearing is your focus is big big focus big picture is the community and at at at large right but your there's another focus on young men you say is there a age group uh or is it just you know just in general

just in general because if you look at it now they 10 n and eight and they ain't got no business right so yeah it's kind of age group. I take them all, you know, but you know, because I want because our young men now, and I'm just being honest, young men are just And and I ask that just just for clarity. And so when people ask about it Yeah. Uh are you planning on putting a a sign up or do you have one? Well, we got a sign up on the building, but I put one on side of the road. Yes, sir. Okay. because um you know if you're doing this then uh I'm assuming you want people to become familiar with this. So you know the signage and all that advertising.

Yes sir. That's going to be uh that's going to be needed as well. Uh I applaud you for your effort. Uh but it's going it's going to be tough. I know it can be tough. What you you've already been doing this? Yeah. I said that with the understanding that you were already doing it. Yes, sir. You had experience in it. Yes, sir. You know, with that title, it comes, you know, that's an experience type. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir.

But again, thank you. Thank you for doing that. I think that when that building was first open, they first built the building They built it as a commercial property. They built it as a book store when we was at international paper. So, it's always been used for retail or some in some form of fashion. So, that was the first original thing when it was built. It was built as a boot store. Yeah. So, if if it's been getting zoned for them many years, I don't see nothing wrong with I think that

Yeah. Exactly. And the issue is is that it's it's just a it's a modified use because it went from uh retail to office at that point once they do what they're doing because they're doing more in the office category. So the variance was granted to retail. It is now granted over to office. So it's just a modified vari modification of the variance that previously existed for that six seven different things. It's been a home health that should have been zoned differently. It was a home health before it was shot. Yeah. So that probably that went to that went to medical but said I'll make that motion.

A second. All in favor? I ma'am. You're good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for helping our community. You're welcome.

Uh as to the next agenda item, uh before we get to 13, I would ask if the council would make an agenda modification to expand it. We do have a resolution, a resolution that needs to come through a vote of the council. It's in regards to the DRRA funding and we need to have the official title of the person who is our head be the mayor. It's the last mayor at this point. We need to have that done. Uh they have a resolution that will provide us with it's just standard operating resolution. It says that he is the signatory for all DRA funding which what is DR funding? Uh, DRA is the North Delta Regional Authority. Regard Delta Regional Authority,

we need to get that 500. Yeah. So, we have we have about a $600,000 project with them and we we need to have the mayor be the signator. You don't you have to go further. So, I would just ask that the council uh make a motion to expand the agenda to approve the mayor as the signatory for uh DRA. Okay. May I make a motion that we expand the agendas in order to make the mayor the principal sign of the DR funding? Second. Uh any public comments with regards to should we expand the agenda to for that item? Hear none. Uh call for a vote. All in favor?

Any opposed? Let the record reflect that it carried unanimously. That is going to bring us uh 15 D on modifications which is DR Aro. I think we I think we should have voted to expand the J first and then did that. Which one? What we just did? We just

We didn't We didn't We just voted to expand the first and it's now item 15 D.

Yeah. Expanded I voted to expand I made a motion to expand the agenda to address the Item 13, discussion items. There are none. Seeing none to pass. There are no item 14, introduction of ordinances. Those category items are left on the agenda each time. So note if there are or not things that each one of those not to be removed because they're standard agenda item uh categories each time. That brings us to item 15, which is agenda modifications. 15A is resolution 25116 approved city ambassador apply for blighted property grant funds from the Louisiana community development clearance program. This was added on October the 6 after the first initial agenda went out. Any modifications to the agenda as I announced last time the previous time they will go underneath that category of agenda modifications so that you know where they're at after the first initial one gets sent out. uh for purpose this resolution is there's a program for blighted property. I believe the the mayor and myself uh and advisor mayor Mayo met with Robbie Waxman with regards to receiving funds. I believe he can come up. Do you want to explain that?

I believe Mayor Mayor Mayo can come up and explain that. Thank you, Jamie Mayo, advisor for the city of Bash. We met the other day u attorney Jones mentioned we met the other day with Mr. Robert Waxman and we talked with him about the issue of blight fighting blight here in the city of Bastra and there is a grant that is due on December the 15th in which we're trying to do everything that we can to get the grant which is approximately $750,000. And of course, Mr. Waxman, you may or may not be familiar with him. He's he's written several grants for the city of Bassford and so um there's a lot of information that has to be done gathered research to be able to get that uh talk about some specific projects in the city of Bast to be included cuz um those are things that he needs. So obviously he's very very experienced be able to uh hopefully secure that grant but in order to secure it uh one of the things that we have to make sure that you as a person need to vote on pursuing this.

He is not charging anything uh upfront. He does not get paid unless he secures the grant. And then once he secures the grant, there is a fee that we pay not only for him to write the grant, but also to administer the grant. How much is the fee that the fee? His fee would be $100,000 because he and that's not one time. It would be over three years because he has to in addition to writing the grant, he has to administer it as well. That that's including it also 100,000. Yes, that's everything. Yeah, that's everything. So, it would cost 650 basically. Well, it's coming from

it would come from local those local dollars. Um the his fee is not part of the actual uh grant program, but we would actually uh if we were able to receive the entire $750,000, we would get that amount. But of course, they could say these are federal dollars, they could say 600,000, they could say $500,000, but the the fee is aside from the actual So you still have three years to pay over?

Yeah. over about a three year, possibly a four-year period. Now, I also want to add that Mayor Moore in his visit with the governor of the day, that was one of the the items, one of the projects that he submitted to the governor. And I think the governor did say he's going to take care of that.

I got of course to give you the idea of scope of this work. This is approximately going to the proposed the thought process that was brought up by the mayor was identified. It's going to identify approximately where between 40 and 50 residential properties along with two commercial properties already been condemned at this point. Obviously it's two properties we're talking about which are very expensive properties very expensive to do. This grant would provide for would seek to provide for that funding and do anywhere from 40 to 50 properties more than likely. Another question for I believe believe Mr. J um sir M.

Yes sir. Stated that it probably would be 750 right that's the grant is a it's a clearance program again is federal dollars up to $750,000. So if we got 300,000, we still want 100,000. That is what he says in the resolution.

We have to understand when we apply the grant writer cannot be paid out of those funds, right? It has to be paid out. We have to remember we got $900,000 just sitting there right now. I will. Sure. So we don't we don't know yet if we can use money like that. So we have money available pay for a grand. We just can't pay them out of the grant. And the resolution says specifically local dollars that

what I was getting at even if it's 300,000 you pay 100,000 it's 200,000 you didn't ask but it's a win-win situation but I just wanted to clear up the air because you made a statement up to 750 just in case we don't get you know clarity is everything because people be anticipate 750 and then you get 350 they said well we gave 100,000 but we need some clarity we just want some clarity So, right. So, we just want to be clear. It could be up to 750. The mayor didn't tell me to say this, but the governor did say take care of me. All right.

Any other questions? Yes, we will need we will need to uh have we're looking for a motion to approve the resolution that would allow us to enter into this process to start the screen process. I make a motion that we approve resolution 251.

Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries all. This is going to bring us to 15B which is approve district E Mr. Howard Blocks uh proposed a cooperative endeavor agreement for keep house form to be reimbured for 50% of the cost demolished 2201 West Madison Avenue. This item was added on the Monday day on Tuesday. This is uh the CA I believe is in the packet with you. This CA is where uh this is kind of what we've always discussed is that to partner with an outside civic group to they were able to obtain permission from all the owners of the property, have the house demolished by Miss Hawkins who provided a service to the that at this point what we would do is we would approve reimbursing for the cost for it is is that they went in 50/50 with us with it to get that done. They administered making sure all the requirements legally were met by and we would provide payment to keep four house who would tender it to Miss Hawkins who performed the work for that job and I have spoken to Miss Hawkins. She has performed that work and taking care of that which I believe the payment is in the amount of $2,000.

Okay. I just want I have a just a guess kind of question. I want to just huh our part our our portion of it is $1,200. $600. Okay. I just want to protect the council because a lot of us know that former administration tried to get me locked up because she claimed that I did not um do the Capella test and all that. I want to make sure that we are protected from something like that. We are 100% protected. underneath the fella test there is a substantial interest that is inconsist that is consistent with the goals of this community of this

well mine was too so I I don't know where all the rest of that came from point of information I'm glad you said I had seen you handcuff I hope not I got point of information Mr. Jones that this is a very very serious matter

because I can recall that you For the record, you would just see the attorney during the last administration also. So, this very very particular thing that's come up now was a sticking point when you was the attorney under the previous administration. And this previous mayor sit right in the seat right there and said that Miss Tappen from district 8 entered into something herself because the dates didn't line up and you was sitting right there when the attorney said the work was done before the council approved. Am I correct so far, Miss T? Am I correct so far?

He's totally correct.

And everybody was on this council except Mr. Dodie was sitting here. So, not only that, she said it was unethical. The mayor went and filed a complaint because they said that Miss happened based on the dates she did it herself because the council hadn't voted on it. So why would we pay this? Hold up. The same person did the work. I'm talking about the same people that we talking about did the work versus same thing happened to council Bradford when they was doing in their district. So I got a problem with this double standard. So now it comes out the same person did the work. The place has been torn down when that fall in the same category as they tried to imply that Miss Tappet did the same thing. And I see you talking about it passed the test and all that, but when I read when I read her CA, it said the same thing. It passed the test. Now, we can't have it both ways. Now, if you pay retroactive a person that's done something, and I don't see no dates on here, and I think it was done on purpose because this business has already been torn down. Am I right?

I already announced that. Yes, it's Yeah, it's torn down. So what is the difference between when Councilman from Miss Miss Tappen when it was her turn and she was ostracized and nobody said anything when the previous mayor tried to insinuate that something was done unethical. So I'm I just want some some clarity. Are you asking me is my legal opinion the same for Miss Tapens as it is for this one here? Yes.

Yes. My legal opinion is the same is that it's legal. I authored the document. I put my bar license on the line every time I author a legal document. That legal document met the legal standard. It was done with the test whether the work was done before the work was done after. You can compensate somebody for the work that is performed underneath the CA. As long as it's consistent with the quell test. In both instances they were consistent. If you're asking me for the reason for the administration statements, I'm not the administration. I can't tell you why. I can tell you this much. I have seen nobody have an ethical complaint that has been founded. I can see nobody have been arrested or anything criminal that's happened. I haven't been questioned one single bit about the CEA with m that mist happened executed on behalf of use of the perunds. And I don't believe I'll be asked about the CA that's been executed or would be executed in this instance. my legal opinion from the get-go that has stood has gone through an audit that this is perfectly fine vessel to use a cooperative endeavor agreement for whether the work was performed before or after the villa is due. That is all that matters. We are compensating an agency for one half the cost of something they did that is furtherance of the goals of the city that is a pass of our property the money to those private organizations or nonpublic. There's nothing that changes my legal opinion. My legal opinion that was exists that night is my legal opinion exists today that says this is valid and you can do it.

Make it clear that wasn't your decision not to pay M the previous administration. Now I don't

if if you're there's there's three CAS. We're talking about two of them. talking about the current CA that has that Miss Hawkins performed the work. That CAD was between a the city and a individual who was the supervisor or the person who was to oversee that the work could be done. That was not between us and Miss Hawkins. The two Cas that are discussed, Miss Tapens CVA that she performed, that work was actually between us and Miss Hawkins. that was the contract. Uh my opinion stood that night that the work was performed. Whatever order the signatures were in after the vote occurred is absent reality of whether it's ethical or unethical. The action occurred, it was approved, it was entered into. Uh timing a signature to be late because it was done after the work doesn't look past the fact that the council had voted to approve that Ca enter into it. All parties have agreed to enter into it.

Yeah. But I'm I understand what you saying, but you you was the attorney when she called when there was all kind of delays in that payment based on the same scenario. I'm I'm saying this is the exact same scenario. And when she went to get paid, you remember we had I think we probably called special meeting or something because we was looking at the dates. They were saying, "Well, okay, she did it herself because there was no authorization from the city council." So therefore, they went to Facebook and pulled up all these pictures of it being done and we had a meeting and they came in and they said, "Well, we shouldn't be able to pay." And nothing was said about it. We shouldn't be able to pay because Miss Tappen entered into it herself. And then not only that, it was some documentation signed by Miss Hawkins stating that Miss Tappen authorized her before we authorized her. Now, am I right, Miss T?

That's that's right. But I think when it was presented to Miss Hawkins, she didn't really know what she was signing. After I talked to her, she did not realize that that's what the former administration had tricked her into signing. I I had I have no part or knowledge of how that occurred or what occurred. My opinion from day one and if you'll remember, I'll even disclose the discussions that I had with council members was from day one. The work was done and performed that it needed to be paid. I worked tirelessly with several members of the council and Miss Hawkins uh and actually got to know her through that process and to get her paid for the work that we had contracted to do.

And and did we vote that she would get paid? I'm ask. Yes. So, it's not so much on us. It was on the past administrator not issuing those funds because we I remember I Yeah, I can't I know you can't I don't issue checks. Y'all don't issue checks. It's only one authority

because it's not so much that the work was done and I'm thinking it had to do with anyway it wasn't paid by the past administrative uh mayor after we approved it all. So it's not with us with the path administrator. that that was that was an issue that to my knowledge was resolved within the first week of the current administration consistent with my legal opinion on the night that was passed. So for future references, yeah,

if something is being done that's a nuisance, a hazard and it's done again, we can come to the council and say it was a nuisance. So we can do a VA have it paid for.

Correct. If it's something that's consistent like this is is with the beautifification ordinances, it's somewhat third party or that individual goes out and does it and we didn't have to expend the work on it. You know, that saves us the time, energy, and effort having to gain like in this instance, they had to gain the releases from all the property owners on it. Yes, you can compensate for that because ideally to go down the other side, let's say that we took action underneath our ordinances, we would have to go out and find the property owners. we'd have to expend our funds then place a lean on the property. So yes, for doing that we through this CA are paying one half the cost of what it costs to demolish it without the time, energy or effort expended by any city uh official employee or or anybody to actually facilitate getting that all done.

Mr. Now before that building was torn down and our conversation several weeks ago didn't come to you. Yes. And as you can we do this. Yes. Mr. Lock called me on the Monday before that Thursday meeting. We had a short discussion about how can we do this and I want to do it properly so everybody gets paid. So we wouldn't go through this.

So we wouldn't go through this process. And then he showed up and came by my office approximately a week later. We got together. He had the contract from Keep Mor House Beautiful showing that they had the agreement of the property owners and that they were going to obligate themselves to pay that amount of money with the contract with Miss Hawkins. And at that point, we were able to execute all the necessary things to obtain the CA. Ideally, that's the best way I like to execute them because I had all the paperwork on hand. We sat there together and in about 15 minutes pumped it out. I said, "Does this work for you?" He said, "Yes, this works for me." I said, "Legally, it works for us." And we were done. Well, I I want to say this for the record. I It didn't make sense then when they did it to Miss Tapp and it didn't make sense when they did it to Mr. Brack. What I'm saying now, this is the way it should be done. And I just want to I don't want people to get fogged in their memory because everything is done on I went back and looked at the tape last night and what I'm getting at is we need to treat everybody the same way on this council because that was wrong the way Miss Tappen was treated and it was wrong the way Mr. Bradford was treated. And I stand by what I said because it's not right. I'm not against the CA. What I'm about is parents and what was done to them was wrong because this is the same situation just a different instance but it is the same situation. It is just a different auto person that submitted to CA.

Don't say no no no I'm not I'm not talking personally. Well administration last administration and you was well and you was the city attorney. what I'm what what what I'm what I'm getting at. Yes, it

so this what I'm saying. It didn't make any sense then and none of us up here and all of us voted for it. It's one of those it's one of those things that it it works it worked out so well in this instance because when you're given I gave legal advice the legal advice was followed just in both instances by both council persons who executed including Mr. Bradford who was the previous council person uh to his credit called me every time uh asked for the requirements and we executed it perfectly and the administration followed the legal advice. When you follow the advice of your advisors uh it can work out like this and work out great at this time. Do we have a vote? All in favor?

I need a motion.

I know what that means. The CA.

All in favor? I any opposed? Motion carries. Note the record that Mr. Dodie is absent from the meeting. So he is a distinction. This brings us to 15 C which is discussion of the solar panels which is a motion made by Miss Taffen. At this time the floor would open to Miss Taffen for five minutes on discussion of the solar panels. Just five minutes. Everybody gets five minutes. question about the solar panels. I know we issued a moratorum back in I thought that was only pertain to public comments.

Discussion discussion all this was only done all discussion items per your ordinance have have five minutes per council member. We'll change that and then it and then it goes that was not with the intended purpose. intended purpose was for um at the beginning of it because people was just being redundant and it was just taking up a bunch of time. It's the same it's the same with it's the same with action items as it is discussion items. It's five minutes per per person and then it goes across the board then it can be expanded past that time period.

Okay. Start over. Um and this is related to solar panels. We issued a moratorum back in March, April, I can't remember what month, but they are still actively working. If you drive behind Louisiana lane, they are actively working. So what is going on that they have not stopped? I know code enforcement has been out one time. I think one time couple of times they are disregarding everything that we put in place. So what is our next action?

So if you're So to break it down there, there's two projects. Are you discussing a project that's over here by lane lane which is the project where there's just a building they're working on. If you go out to the back of it, they're working correct. at this point they and I' I've had discussions with the fire chief talking about how yeah lane is the is the newest one that tested out the permit right

so the only thing that's been done at this point is is that there was a freestanding structure that existed there all they've done as of a week ago uh because I have been in discussion with code enforcement and the fire chief the only thing they've done is simply uh do alterations to that building and the inside and looks like from what I understand they've put some concrete in there. But what's Louisiana lane is that we're on the back side of Louisiana lane. So I guess you got to drive in there to see concrete blocks. Yeah. So making concrete blocks that's still working.

I've discussed it with the fire chief. I also discussed it with code enforcement. We've discussed with the state fire marshal in regards to anything. It's although they're performing what would be some kind of work, it's not work that falls within the the it's a free use of land. Anybody can put a concrete form up. They haven't erected a structure or anything like that at this point. So, they haven't gotten anything to fall into what we would call outside of what a individual is freely allowed to do with their land without needing a permit. Well, we know that's what they're working up to because they started out with concrete blocks here.

That is 100% correct. the moment they make a move towards heading towards something that can is something more than what you're freely allowed that any individual's friendly to do with their land. Uh that's the point at which it would trigger anything. Did they sign for receipt of the um letter that you sent them? Did you have somebody sign for it?

So they they are in receipt of the moratorum. They are very well aware of it. I've had discussions with the individual who is over that. The code enforcement has had discussions with them as has the fire chief had discussions with them over that. It's just at this point the activity that they're undertaking is not activity that would call into question or trigger anything underneath our zoning. It's just free use of the property. Uh once they get past the point to where they're installing anything any apparatus and equipment to it, anything like that, that's the point at which cost question uh outside free use of lanes of information. So if they're rent a solar panel that is outside the scope of free that is outside the scope that causes then that triggers into question about uh all the issues that we've had but we we've kept a very vigilant watch on it. I know that uh the code enforcement has been out there weekly to inspect it. That's how I know what the I have to refer to it as the one over here or the one on the other side because there is a building on the back of the structure. It does appear that they're forming up forms, but they're not erecting structures at this point. The erection of structures, apparatus, something like that, more than just use, which is just laying concrete is going to be the trigger for it. But yes, we do have active discussions about that almost.

That brings us anybody else. That brings us to 15D, which is the approval of the mayor to be the signatory for DRA funding. I make a motion that we approve the mayor to be the signatory for DR funding. I make a motion. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries. uh all in favor. This brings us to item 16, which is liquor licenses. I believe the chief of police has the list of liquor licenses. From here on out, there'll be liquor licenses down here on this portion of it. It may move up to a different spot. There is a list of liquor licenses. He can do that when he does.

Yeah, he can do that in his official report is where we'll move that to. I will I'll move that on the next agenda to official reports and liquor licenses and he can he can provide those to the council for approval. This will continue to exist until probably through January because renewals come up during this time period. I got uh we have 10 renewals special decor and spirits class B on premises 1923 North Washington since his packet 1630 East Madison class A retail dealer off premises house liquor 1851 North Washington class A retail dealer off premises owner. Supermark number two, 1920 North Washington Street. Class A offenses stop for you. Class Aren 1920 West. We have Walmart only. Circle Pay Store Incorporated 1514's medicine class 8 off premises US Tobacco Outlet class A retail dealer off premises 1416 East Madison Avenue Super 1 2211 East Madison class A offices we last one to stop and say 1405 South Washington and class A offices All these

you have one more chief on the next page. Tobacco Max. Oh, okay. Tobacco Max. Uh 1421 South Washington. Last page. I reviewed all these uh businesses and everything. They're in good standing. They're all good for renewal. All those renewals. Yes, sir. Tobacco. Tobacco Maxes. That's the only one that's not Wait a minute. Yeah, that's a new one. That's a new one. Didn't we do I thought we did tobacco mix the last

We already did that. we get 25. I I have a question before we vote on this. Just a question. When's the last time you looked at these rates? Are we comparable to Monroe? We can we can look at those because I'm going to also look at uh some things probably make process a little bit more efficient. renewals versus there are some things to make renewals a little bit more efficient to wait until council meeting if it's a renewable and uh so I also look at rates

might be a opportunity to put a little extra revenue too

most municipalities the maximum by state but I'm Sure that we have I'll make a motion that we accept all these as recommended. Any discussion? Second. James second. Any discussion? Hearing no discussion. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries license. That brings us to the request agenda which would be item 17 B and 17 A to take care of Marlin Johnson as

I have no idea. I'll just present I'm presented with speaker request [Music]

at this point. You have no idea what that was about. I have no idea. I actually had to take five minutes to discern what uh the wording was that's on it. I was able to discern that is I've asked several people what's in regards to I didn't know if it was program or something I was unaware of or something. So uh that's going to bring us to uh adjournment of this meeting which will bring us to the sales tax meeting. Motion to Yes. We need a motion to adjourn the council meeting.

May I make that motion? I second. All in favor? All right. I will. We now have the sales tax district number one meeting which is which was noticed for this. Uh we need a roll call, please. Miss T here. Mr. Dodie here. Mr. James here. Mr. Derry Green, Mr. Howard here will show that we have four present. Mr. Dary is absent. We do have

at this point in Louisiana public comments as it relates agenda on the item open meetings lost prior to the public has opportunity to address the board prior to us taking action on agenda item. Today's meeting members of the public will be given an opportunity to speak on any item before a vote is taken. You'll be afforded five minutes to make your comments. entire public comment period be limited 30 minutes unless an extension is granted. This is not a question and answer session where you can ask questions and demand answers of board members present or employees of the sales tax district. Item four is resolution 252102 uh BST137 which is a resolution adopting and operating and street projects for revenue and expenditures for the bachelor sales tax district number one for fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025 and June 30th 2026. As it relates to that, I believe the amendment that's your amendment. I believe the amendment that is before the council would be the budget that has been put together. To give you history, we tabled this one. We never actually voted this one down. This is now the first sales tax district meeting since that matter was tabled. That resolution is right before us with the the proposed amendment being profered by the budget policy attorney for the city attorney's office, Mr. Ricky Smith who is here for questions and comments related to those that amendment that we'd be asking that you make a motion to amend that resolution consistent with that amendment and approve the budget related there too so that we can have that in place and again Ricky Smith with office of the mayor uh members you look at the budget message that outlines the projects uh that the street sales tax district is funding lead the Highland U Country Club has been completed. Back bridge is still ongoing. Uh the stripping Liberty Mark marble and Camel I believe is is

finished. Yeah.

Uh the sidewalk to Madison uh to Dawson. That's a grant that we I think the mayor stumbled upon. Um, we weren't quite sure because it was in the previous administration's budget proposal, but again, we didn't have a lot of information at the time. The mayor did uncover that and that was added to the agenda coming to the budget uh and funding in full. It's about $375,000 for that project. And again, there's about $195,000 just put in routine maintenance uh for street drainage projects to kind of uh add to the question that you had earlier uh council in regards to funding available for that. Um and that total budget uh sales tax is generating about $1.4 million. Uh as you can see the expenditures and this uh particular budget is about 2.9. Uh a lot of that uh expenditures um were things that or items that were in the previous fiscal year. Uh so when again when uh projects or uh object categories that have funding for one fiscal year and they're not all expended, it goes into the fund balance. So you see the the amount uh that appears to be a deficit but technically it's not. It's deficit in the sense that it's not current uh revenue but it represents revenue that was uh received in prior uh fiscal year prior fiscal years. So that's in the total about $1.5 million of uh continuing spending from those projects. Did you say one of those projects was something do

that was a grant and we can uh I I didn't put it in the package but that's something I can supplement uh future package for next next uh it's a project it hadn't started the sidewalks from they haven't started going Okay. Okay. Going out to the gym. Right. And I can't remember I don't know if the mayor I don't know if you remember the award period um when it was originally awarded but the project it's been it's been it's been awarded

it's been awarded and it's been sitting there stag been stagn that's the problem that we have we have those projects that funded but we wait so long to get started. But it is why we just can't if we just can't keep going this administration will I can't speak I can't we end up paying more than what it's cost I think jump up and down which was right

then we double the program so we got the money available and it's approved let's go ahead and get started because all What is the price? Right. And that's again stumbled upon that my first time hearing Mr. Smith. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. You done, Mr. Clark? I'm done.

Listen, can you can you bring me up to speed on that again, please, so I can make sure uh I have a good understanding? Uh, I've been seeing this uh on the agenda uh for a little bit and I've been riding around, you know, the Doc Park area, you know, looking for some new sidewalks or, you know, whatever because people have been asking about it. Can you can you explicitly tell me exactly what is this project for? What is it going to do? And where is it going to do it? That I I can't tell you because I don't have it. Uh, from West Medicine West Medicine Road.

You're going down Dyson Street. Yes. Go down Dyson into the park to the front. Right. The previous week standing talking, like you said, I stumbled up on Yeah. 300,000. funded. It was it was it was it was all intertwined with the with the general fund when he started breaking it out. We seen the 300 something thousand and he was like, "We got to use this because we going to lose the grant, right?

We if we don't if we don't get it done, we're going to lose the grant and attorney Jones was here with all that. But I think it's going to be based on the little drawing that we seen. It's going to be from Datson Park to the uh to Madison. It's just going to be a side note. It's just going to be what council I will put that information in the packet. Uh I just didn't for whatever reason I just forgot to put it in there. U I didn't I didn't know if it was going to be a question on the Do you have an exact number on the amount of the grant right now? It's 357. 357. And when does it have to be used?

Again, I I don't have that. I don't want to guess, but I guarantee I wrote a note. That's going to be in your packet for next next time. Yeah, find that out first. I think the mayor's had conversation with the engineers about a lot of these projects. So that's something that what we've been concerned about and we've been talking to the engineer and again moving forward we're going to do a capital outlay budget as a supporting document that's going to have all projects

put together and it's going to be broken down by the funding you know the funding categories and the budgets. So you have again the support document five year annual I mean actual would be 60 and then you going to have a couple other things but along with the support documents you going to have capital out budget that's basically going to point out one time spending so we can keep track of what budgets they fall and what the actual projects are that's forthcoming so moving forward that way everybody knows what projects out there and then we'll keep track of, you know, when they completed, you know,

when it's supposed to be started. So, all those questions you ask and that's one of those things that falls into this category. I mean, I drive a vehicle that I don't think any of you can miss most days of the week. Okay. A little hard to miss

unless be a kid vehicle. Okay. My son vehicle, but if you notice, my vehicle's up here usually three days a week. that something hadn't existed before. Some of what it is is that as Mr. Lock noticed when he came to my office that day, we're moving from where we had to go through hand files and find files that were labeled. I will say that they were labeled very nicely, very organized. However, we had to hand go through files to find out where projects are at. It's taken two to three days a week on my end. Mr. Smith comes up here two to four to five days a week in the evening hours and does it a lot of times he and I coordinate together.

We have spent a lot of time finding things and finding what we could find. Some files you open, they're empty.

So understand that as the general fund budget was pulled apart by its parts by Mr. Smith was a very tedious work. I can say in nine years of full-time municipal work in 14 years experience municipal work from the day I started being an attorney. I hadn't seen that done in less than 60 days. Formed that in less than 60 days it's a communical effort that is just almost unheard of. Uh that said the process of once you figure out that you have money the next process is you have to go find the file to obtain right. Sometimes you find the file, sometimes you don't. So at that point, so then at that point you have to go down and find the specific program people. So then you have to be authorized to find the program people. So then you find out that the emails are going to an email that no longer exists that you don't have access to. Uh so the process of doing this is a lot more voluous than thought. Uh you know for what is supposed to be an adequate transition has been a very rough start. uh by transition if you mean locked and not found that's transition. So Mr. Smith, myself, the administration, even Mr. Green and every member up there has come up here and helped us along the way, but it was interesting point that yesterday was 100 days in.

In 100 days, this budget has been pulled apart. You now have averages. You have categories. You're moving to other places. We have projects that have been found. We have uh projects like uh that had set stagnant for three to four years. The reason is is because grant periods stay open. They stay open for three or four years, but we often did them on year three and a half

and the cost was two times the amount. Those are things that no longer exist. Those are systems that are put in place. I'll point out one comment that was made that was outside here that I'll bring inside of here. I was asked about the McFee Bridge project. I was CC on an email about it specifically by you, Mr. Dodie. And I will tell you one thing about it. I have this document right here that is from the engineer that says that two to three years ago this was closed due to deterioration that there the existing structure is two 10 by 100 tank carvers and the calculated size covers are done using existing plans. to give you an idea of what we're working against with informationwise. There's a folder that exists that had plans from three years ago. That's all we have.

So, what was the original question? The original question was is what is the status and do we have all the documents and structural things? No. So, so the next question is if we don't have uh what does Voker have on it? Do they have anything on it? I would assume they the uh they're the uh agency that's in charge of it.

Well, Ver works for us as an engineer. So, they produce documents for us that we keep copies of that we don't have at that point. Uh the thing that you have is that you have a file that doesn't have it in it. So, we're having to go back through it and go through it with the engineers. Something as simple as you think as that we're all waiting for the plans on Wednesday of this week when myself and the mayor and the clerk reached out to Vulkar about this. Yes, we sent you the preliminary plans for your review on September the 30th, 2025 for that project. those plans were sent you an email that no longer

is in use that we don't have access to. So it's little things like that that cause two week delays that in a 100 days it's pretty significant that we've got to the point to where we're at. Found sidewalk money. We now have the preliminary plans because we had to reach out and ask for it. things that would normally transition to go through when you don't know where it's at or if it exists, you can't find it. And that is horrible cuz the past administration put it out there that she made it easy, made it an easy transition. I don't see nothing that has occurred easy and smooth with this transition.

14 years, I've never spent three days a weekend at a mic. That's what I can say about that. 14 years started off with Moras Parish police jury to the hospital service district done even when they were $21 million in debt and had a physical administrator I never spent three days a week in a place trying to find documents that's where we're at but we're 100 days in we're in a much better spot where we're at we have a picture of what it looks like I just want to commend everybody's efforts for it that's my adage I've talked too long a lot of times Mr. job. Thank you. Thank you for all that. Appreciate it. Uh sometimes it does take the effort has to go above and beyond and

this should have been the case though.

Yeah, it it should have been but it is now. So we have to go we have to go with that 94. So again from from mid council at district B if I am requesting documentation and there is an issue with it then that's what I expect to be uh informed about. Hey, I cannot we cannot find these. We cannot locate it. Whatever the status is because again, if there is no reachback app about the status of those documents for a project, then that's where that's where issues arise and shouldn't have to arise because basically that's just a lack of communication. Again, any information I request, it is for the betterment of my district. it is for the information. uh uh so when people ask about uh a certain status I don't have to go well hey let me get the mayor on call or let me call city attorney that information uh will be already available and that's that's my primary goal in asking for information

understand one thing I see all emails that come through right

I generally respond to all sometimes I'm busy sometimes things get packed up I will say in the last two months I put a lot of my private practice on hold. Uh a private practice that had a pretty substantial load. That said, when I don't respond to an email, there's often times a reason. I point to a reason why I didn't respond to your email because we had an executive session regarding that. We had an executive session regarding it. We have to be careful about what we say about things that occurred in executive session that we talked about. And certain things I can't talk about. One of those reasons is I can't talk about something that's being investigated criminally. Whether it's to confirm, deny, or do whatever. A lot of times people call my office when I represent high-profile clients. They'll ask me, "Is that your client?" Simple question, simple answer. In fact, you can go to public record and see it most of the time.

I'm confused. So that you're not talking about the bridge now. You're talking about something else now. No, what I'm talking about is is that when I don't respond is because I can't respond. So the reason why your question asked for documents we had an executive discussion executive session discussion regarding those documents. I can't confirm, deny or do anything in furtherance to discussing that because the problem with that is is the executive session has a seal. Maybe you need to maybe you need to inform maybe you need to have a separate session with him and discuss to let him know certain things that you cannot ask because we know this. Yeah. So that's one that's one of those things.

Hold on a second. You said we had an executive session regarding the mech streets. We we had an executive discussion session two two council meetings ago that we had to go into the meeting regarding documents and what what procedure needed to go forward with those documents. What you were asking me for was was documents. We've already had an executive session regarding those documents and can't comment about specifics of those documents. So if that was the case again, why why couldn't that have been communicated? No, you can't do that. He's telling you there's nothing you can say about it.

Yeah, there's it's kind of like when you call and ask for if I represent this client in my private practice. I can neither confirm nor deny. I can just stay quiet. That's what that's what ethically I have to do. I know people say I know people say I talk too much but certain things you cannot send any correspondence about active investigation you cannot talk about okay so so so again so again I am still a little confused because you're talking about the MP street bridge right okay what was the executive session regarding the MAP street bridge again I'm I'm I'm still

executive session that was on the agenda that was noticed for regarding issues regarding missing documents. So, but how how does that how does that transpose into the MC street bridge itself? Because again, how is somebody supposed to know that that is part of the missing document? I'm not saying whether it is or it isn't. All I'm saying is is that you asked whether we had documents and provide them to you. Hey, we need to stop talking. Y'all start to talk about stuff in the executive session.

We got no Let me again point out the M the M Street Bridge was not part of the executive session. Now I can documents work so I can I can contact you later and and discuss that outside of here but sometimes that's why there's number so we call for a vote on the motion I make that motion I motion are we on the resolution approving the budgeting the budget pre- sales transition no more budget all All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries. It's approved. That brings us to adjournment. I'll make that motion. Second. All in favor. We are returned.